[It’s funny how things change. Once upon a time, he had been frozen solid and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces by Shiva herself, all for the sake of quieting his exchange with Noctis. He had felt nothing then, not a tinge of pain, not a single nerve going numb under the fatal subzero temperatures. The Glacian’s freeze was nothing to him.

Now, the icy wind numbs his lips, his cheeks. Now, his skin raises with goose pimples beneath his many-layered garb, specifically tailored for the winter. (And in shades of black, naturally, like any self-respecting and/or self-deprecating Lucis Caelum would wear.) With the Starscourge destroyed, the cold is cold again, and his back tightens with a shiver that threatens to clamber up it, but he keeps purposefully flippant as he follows X’rhun.]

Cover my eyes?

[Snow shuffles underfoot. He “accidentally” kicks a mound in the other’s direction before they reach the porch.]

How ominous! If you’re going to be duplicitous or mysterious or both, don’t pretend to be cordial, too, by allowing me the pleasure of ignorance until the last moment.

[He’s obviously just picking on X’rhun, because Ardyn lifts up a hand to cover his eyes a second later.]