Sitting up, the first thing he did was to check upon the baby owl alongside him.
Similar to him she also laid flat on the surface, still but shivering. He picked her up in his arms, feeling the heavy soaked wings and cold body.
’Stupid critter. You can’t even swim, what were you thinking... haah.’
His heart felt heavy not only from his own failure but the burden of a life saving favour from a child.
Not to mention the said child’s father had one on him too. Sighing heavily once again, Noctis finally gave some thought to the situation.
Namely, that he was moving just fine and he could still see the moon from the corner of his eye.
Looking up, the shadow was nowhere to be seen, but he could see, in some distance, two glowing red lights, just as was visible below the water.
He reckoned his state has to do with it, although he didn’t feel like confirming by looking in the direction his shadow might be.
Holding the owl in his bosom for some time until he could feel her moving just a little bit, he started waking on the bridge once again as the light went further and further from his position.
He felt compelled to follow it through his instincts.
Not long after he felt another change in his surroundings, similar to last time, he was transported in a forest with a giant tree behind him and five paths in front.
In front of each path was a statue, all a bit different from each other, except for the golden bowl in their hands.
Without any instructions whatsoever and no sight of the red light in the distance, Noctis contemplated just bashing the statues to relieve himself of his anger.
In the end, however, feeling it ill-advised, Noctis scrapped it and, gritting his teeths, inspected the statues carefully.
In order, there was a knight holding the golden bowl with clenched jaws and a frown on his face, and his hands on the hilt of his sword, ready to be drawn at any second.
Another was a priestly old man with a serene expression, kneeling on the ground like accepting his fate as he placed the bowl close to his mouth.
A statue of a child, had the bowl grasped in both their hands, looking eagerly at it, as if it couldn’t wait to gulp it all down, on the middle path.
The second last, was that of a man seated in a luxurious chair with his bowl, intricately designed as he grasped it in his hand with arrogant expression.
And the last that of a monk, with the bowl in front of him as he looked at it with a neutral expression. Neither rejecting, nor accepting.
Thrown at him with zero instructions, he could only use his own logic to interpret the puzzle and move on one of the paths.
Just as he was deep in his thoughts, he felt the dreaded feeling of stiffness in his legs building little by little.
Alarmed, Noctis looked towards his back only to find his shadow missing, panicking him further as he was pressed to pick one of the paths.
’Fury, acceptance, naivete, arrogance and... what? What’s the last? Acceptance or the last for sure, but which... which?’
Debating intensely as the feeling crept in closer and closer, Noctis was forced to pick one in haste.
At last he chose the last path, the one of the monk’s, to walk upon.
As he started moving he saw from his side vision, the path of the arrogant king breaking apart and falling down into a black void almost instantly.
The knight followed second, the child the third and... and his own, the last, as Noctis fell down once again.
"You shun, not accept."
A deep voice resonated with him but he couldn’t process it as his body fell into a murky pool of water impacting his body head on, with numerous plants and flowers blooming out of the mud surrounding him.
Rather than pleasing him with their divine scent however, the flowers emanated a horrible stench, unlike their beautiful appearance, as he had to pinch his nose as the smell assaulted his senses, causing him a vomiting feeling and intense nausea.
Despite this, he had to move forward as the red light came into view, but very faintly like it was two mediums away from him.
He could still see the path of the priest still hanging up, like a bridge while he forced his way from the dense muddy water.
’Could not, fucking, hate this shit any more than this.’
Biting his lips he forced his body to move despite the fatigue and pain fearful of losing the light.
After grueling and annihilating all his olfactory senses he was finally allowed out of the murky water, albeit pretty much all his mortal senses out of service now.
’Any more than this, and I’ll-’
He hadn’t even finished his thought when he felt himself, once again, falling into a strange space, not long after walking upon the dense myriad of webs, focusing and tracking the red light among various spiders and objects moving in his field of vision.
With a clenched fist and jaws, Noctis didn’t know if he felt like killing or crying at the moment.
’Don’t let me find the creator of this cursed space.’
{Hmph, look at him cursing when he was the one who wanted my treasure. Serves you right.}
The golden doe sticks her tongue out towards Noctis.
The stag beside her was now worried about her getting angry at such blasphemy.
{Be at ease. I’m not one to be angered so easily.}
The doe said with a righteous expression as the stag gave her an intense side-eye with an eye-roll before focusing back down.
{You little! It was merely once, and for such an egregious offence you yourself would strangle them to death.}
The side-eye intensified as half-opened just the doe.
{Or twice. Or thrice... four? It’s all in the past anyway!}