Although life gives us challenges,

We  never stop trying to conquer those trials of life without failure

AVALON WAS STARING AT THE WORLD AS IT WENT BY, she was enjoying the breeze that the car was giving. Gladio was reading his book, Prompto was looking through his pictures, Noctis was driving and Ignis was talking to him. Avalon quite enjoyed everyone's presence as they had their own uniqueness to them.

Smiling to herself, she took out her phone looking at the picture on her lock screen, seeing her and Prompto, he wanted to take a selfie with both of them. She was holding the corners of her mouth silly like, her eyes were crossed and her tongue was hanging out sideways. Prompto was making a silly face as well. He had his eyes crossed, making a huge smile with a little bit of his tongue of his hanging out.

Avalon giggled at the memory of him, and then unlocked her phone seeing everyone in the picture. Prompto was nice enough to take the picture once more, Avalon then closed her phone looking up seeing they were in a tunnel. It felt like it was getting hotter as they near Lestallum. Avalon groans a little bit, knowing she hated the heat. She heard everyone glamorizing Lestallum when they pulled in.

After Noctis parked the car, everyone piled out, and Avalon looked around. It's been awhile since they've been around some sort of city. When they began approaching the thoroughfare, Avalon looks around.

"She's at the Leville, let's go." Gladio informs everyone after looking at his phone. They all nod and began walking towards the Leville, before they reached it they all felt the ground shake and Noctis groans.

"You okay?" Ignis asks worriedly, touching the princes' shoulder.

Noctis nods. "Yeah, my head just started throbbing."

Avalon frowns, digging in her bag trying to find something to help him. He touches her shoulder making her look up at him. He lightly smiles at her, she frowns but understands that if he needs something he will ask her. Avalon puts her little bag up and continues walking towards the Leville.

It was at night when everyone settled in, Iris was an interesting character. Avalon could tell she was in love with the prince, but - she, Iris, knew he was in love with Lunafreya. Avalon felt bad for her but she knew Iris would find someone for her. Especially with Gladio as her brother.

Besides the point, Avalon excused herself to go to bed early as she was exhausted. The nightmares have been keeping her up and she thinks Prompto noticed. She shook it off though; Avalon lay in the bedroom she and Iris were going to share, after getting into comfortable pair of pajamas Iris was letting her borrow while her clothes went through the wash and dryer. Avalon noticed how dirty her clothes were, then she looked down at her body noticing how dirty she was as well.

After sitting down in bed her hair covered her back and surrounded her arms. She heard Iris come in and watch her.

"Want me to do your hair?"

Startled, Avalon jumped and saw Iris next to her with a hair brush and hair tie. Avalon smiles and nods.

"Sure, I want to cut my hair sometimes and then I realize it takes forever for my hair to grow out." Avalon joked as Iris chuckles brushing Avalon's hair gently. "Must be nice to have short hair sometimes."

"Not all the time, you should see my hair when I wake up in the morning, it's so frizzy." Iris states to Avalon and they both laugh when Iris began braiding her hair. "Takes me forever to style it."

Avalon smiles a little bit, feeling Iris continue braiding her hair. "I'm really surprised that you can braid my hair."

"I used to do it a lot with Gladdy's hair when it was growing." Iris giggles. "He was so irritated when I always did it, but - he still allowed me when I asked."

"He must really love you in order to do that." Avalon smiles her way feeling Iris done with her hair. "He always seems so tough, doesn't let his soft side show."

Iris smiles a little bit. "He has one, he rarely just shows it to anyone." Iris told her as Avalon turns to her leaning against her leg. "He is Noctis's shield, after all."

Avalon nods with a quick chuckle leaning down laying her head on Iris's leg. Iris smiles touching Avalon's head gently, rubbing it. They continued talking through the night, Avalon was really enjoying a female's presence since she was always surrounded by men. Don't get her wrong, she loves the men with her heart and would die for them in a heartbeat, but she misses having a female.

They fell asleep just talking about random things, Avalon finally felt she could sleep for a little longer than four in the morning.

~

The next morning, Avalon woke up around five-thirty and she yawns quietly seeing Iris on her own bed sleeping. Avalon smiles getting out of bed stretching her arms and back feeling her shoulder blades pop. Sighing, the young woman walks into their bathroom to take a quick pee break, and get dressed in her clothes that lay on the sink.

After going potty, she wiped and flushed the toilet and undressed from her pajamas. She folded them neatly on the sink while she grabbed her white midriff tank top putting it on, her shorts on afterwards, then leaving the thin shirt off, putting it on her small bag with her potions. She put on her socks and weave double layer leather combat boots, Avalon finished off the look with tying the bandanna around her head making a bow on her head. Sighing feeling better about her clothes being cleaned. Avalon kept her braid in so she didn't want to comb it, she got out of the bathroom and walked out of the room and down to the lobby of the hotel they were staying at.

Avalon walked out into Lestallum and began roaming around, since it was cool right now, she decided to go to the shops and browse around for some potion mixtures. Avalon smiles, adjusting her bag gently and continues walking. When she got to the market, she smiles at everything. She began looking around to find some good ingredients.

~

As she continues walking, she begins to lose track of time. Avalon looks at the sun seeing it almost set, she gasps and then runs back to the Leville. Seeing everyone gone, she blinks and looks at Iris.

"Where'd they go?"

"They went on a mission for a sword at the nearby waterfall." Iris explains. "They would've went to go get you, but I told them to not worry about it and to give you a break. They were surprisingly okay with it." Iris smiles at her. "They know how hard you work."

Avalon smiles nodding to her, "Thank you, Iris. Much appreciated." Avalon looks at all of them. "How long have they been gone?"

"Around three hours, hopefully they'll be back soon." Talcott, the young boy, answered. "I'm so happy I could help Prince Noctis."

Avalon chuckles, touching his head. "I'm really sure he absolutely appreciates it just as much." Talcott grins her way.

"Did you get what you needed?" questioned the dark haired young woman looking at the young warrior who nodded at her. "What are you going to make."

"Potions and elixirs." Avalon answered to her. "It helps everyone on our journey, although I'm sure you're aware of that."

Iris giggles and nods.

~

Avalon welcomes the men back after seeing them. They nod grabbing a potion from her hand and drinking them. Noctis then drops the potion grabbing his head. Avalon and the gang were worried seeing him in pain.

"Not again..." Noctis groans trying to regain his composure.

Iris walks up to him, touching his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Gladio walks up to them touching his sisters shoulder, then Noctis's shoulder looking at his sister. "He's gonna be okay. I think we should check out this Disc."

Avalon nods. "It could explain a lot with his headaches." Avalon agrees.

"It could provide a glean in Noctis's condition. Let's go." Ignis adds with a small nod. The gang nods, walking out to the outlook. As they near the outlook, Avalon sees a familiar figure in the distance. Avalon could feel her heart pounding against her chest and she instinctively grabs Prompto's hand and held it tightly. Prompto doesn't think anything of it, but holds it in assurance that's he's there.

"What a coincidence." The familiar voice ran through her ears.

Gladio scoffs as they all stop near the outlook. "I'm not sure it is." Gladio responds almost annoyed, rolling his eyes.

The man begins walking towards them. "Aren't nursery rhymes curious things?" Everyone is silent when he says that, unknown on what to say. "Like this one: From the deep, the Archaean calls, yet on deaf ears the gods' tongue falls. The King made to kneel, he crawls."

Prompto keeps a hold of Avalon's hand and steps forward. "How do we keep him on his feet?"

The man smirks walking by them. "You only need to heed the call." The man answered, keeping his back to them. "Visit the Archaean and hear his plea." He then turns glancing at everyone, when his glance landed on Avalon, she shudders and goes closer to her childhood friend. "I can take you."

Gladio glances at Ignis who shrugs looking at Noctis who stares at the man and they all huddle close together.

"Are we in?" Avalon asks, finally speaking.

Noctis sighs, putting his head down. "I don't know."

Prompto lets go of Avalon's hand and raises his hands. "We take a ride..."

"...And watch our backs."

"Sounds like a plan." Both Gladio and Ignis agree, Noctis glances at everyone and nods himself liking the plan.

"Let's do it."

The man smiles at everyone and they all begin walking towards the Regalia. "I'm not one for ceremony, but such an occasion calls for an introduction." The man spoke, Avalon sighs rolling her eyes but Gladio elbows her gently sensing how irritated she was. Avalon stares at him and frowns. "Please call me 'Ardyn'." They all follow Arydn to his car. "My car pales next to your Regalia, but she's never let me down."

"I'm surprised she hasn't either." Avalon whispers to herself, keeping her distance from Ardyn. She hated being around him and she didn't know why.

"We take two vehicles- a convoy of sorts, shall we?" Ardyn continues as they all stop near the cars. "Allow me the honor of assigning your driver..." He looks straight at Noctis when he says this. "I choose you."

Noctis nods. "Fine by me,"

Ardyn continues his smile. "You drive your car, and I'll drive mine." Ardyn explains to him. "With that decided, let's head off."

They headed to the car and one by one, they were piling in. Ardyn saw this and frowns opening his door.

"Do you want one person to sit in my car with me?" questioned Ardyn glancing at Avalon while he said that.

Avalon turned a glance to Noctis, hoping he'll deny the offer. "No, we'll be fine. Thank you though." Noctis answered him letting out a deep breath.

Ardyn frowns, "if you're sure. Let's be off then."

~

A/N: Alright, long chapter done, ugh! I'm gonna try to get two updates out of this, in the game, there are two EXTREMELY short chapters, so I'm going to combine them into one so it'll be longer.

Please bare with me when I do so, so there's no confusion. If I have too, I'll do a sidequest to make them longer.

Anyways; I'm sure you're going to notice something different, yes- Avalon didn't go with Noctis and them to the tomb, she was too busy buying ingredients for Potions and such as explained. I wanted it like that so she didn't have to do EVERYTHING with the guys.

Now, onto the next segment.