photoshooter | Awash IC Inbox

...I wasn't permitted to go to Tenebrae, when the king took Noct to Fenestala Manor and he first met her. I was ten years old and I had to stay home; they told me "do everything just as you would otherwise, as though Noct were still here", and at the time I thought that was meant as a comfort to me, but later I realized it was likely to disguise the fact that they'd left at all.

[Even now, he remembers how he'd hated being separated from Noct, thinking he was in trouble, having no way to help him. "Carry on as though he were still here"; if Noct dies to return the dawn, it's going to feel like that every day for the rest of his life.]

I can't imagine anyone who knows Noct even the slightest bit not wanting him to be happy.

[He falls quiet a minute, turning away just enough to stare out over the cobblestone street without really seeing it at all.]

There was no one to save her from her own destiny. Perhaps that's why she hopes Noct might yet be spared from his.

[He has to turn away with a hand over his mouth, his other arm curled around his chest.

Lady Lunafreya.

When Prompto collects himself, when he swallows down the lump in his throat, he manages to croak out:]

Then we have to. Don't we? Can't nay-say the Oracle. That'd be... like. [His shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath in, plants the weight of it down heavy on both feet.] So disrespectful. Can't turn down a request from a princess, right?

Certainly not.

[He gives Prompto his space, lets him process what he needs to process. Six knows they all do.]

But I've yet to work out how we're to save him, to begin with. The most I can think of as yet is to not allow him to return to Insomnia, but...

...No. That isn't fair. And Noct'll do what he thinks he has to, anyway.

[He manages to loosen himself up enough to hold his arm instead of his chest, staring at the ground and then staring at the backs of his closed eyelids.]

We didn't even... when I'm from, we weren't even thinking about going back to Lucis yet. And if the Crystal gets him, then--then I think it's over. Because we can't touch the Crystal, there's nothing we can do to protect him once that happens.

[Leave me behind in Gralea. Don't take the bait, I'm not worth it. Prompto gulps, rocking slightly on his feet, and shakes his head.]

We gotta do something before that. We gotta... we gotta figure out some other way to fix everything, one that won't--won't take him.

...What exactly does the Crystal do to him? You've said that before, that it "gets" him, but I'm not...

[He lets the thought trail off, letting it go free for a moment as something else occurs to him — the faintest hint of some of those thoughts warring in Prompto's mind, the implication of that soft gulp. And maybe, on some level, it's because in this he and Prompto are two of a kind, looking to the sacrifices they can make themselves as their go-to solutions, and tolerating ones that involve others only afterward.]

It sounds as though, from the events you remember, I chose not to take the chancellor's offer to go with him. I suppose that might be a way of effecting some sort of change...

What? No. No no no, go with Ardyn? No.

[The last no shudders as he does, tightening his arms again and shrinking down into his boots. The thought of Ignis strung up on that cross--Prompto squeezes his eyes tightly shut and sucks in a sharp breath, shakes his head jerkily.]

No.

[He can't let that happen to Ignis. That can't happen to Ignis, that utter, unfathomable powerlessness. He was nobody; once Ardyn had his fun with him at the facility, he lost interest, he only needed him to bait the trap. He could do so much worse to Ignis or Gladio. He could hurt Ignis so much more than he already did.

Prompto shivers and tries to think his way free of those dark bars.]

Wh...what if Noct's been right all along? What if we c-can help him save Lady Lunafreya? That'd change everything, right?

[Would it? It's a question he's contemplated in passing, but with an eye toward the emotional benefits it would produce for Noct, not on the greater ramifications it might have as a whole. So, then. What if Lunafreya weren't to perish at the altar, where he and Ravus found her?

Her allegiance was to Noctis. Could her influence have turned Ravus to join them, properly?

If he saves her, perhaps he'll be awake by the time he and Ravus reach the altar. If Ravus doesn't attack, they can flee the altar sooner — perhaps before Ardyn and his MTs can even arrive. And if they can manage to regroup with Prompto and Gladio, then Ardyn would have no one to deceive them with.

If Ardyn never catches up to them, he'll have no opportunity to blind him.

And Prompto said he had gotten knocked off the train on the way to Tenebrae —]

...Why were we going to Tenebrae, Prompto? When we were on the train, as you said. Do you recall our purpose?

Why...?

[It takes Prompto a second to pull free of Zegnautus Keep and reorient himself once more. Not that it helps much. Every question on this line leads back to Gralea.

No, he's fine.]

The train goes through there. To get to Gralea. We had to get the Crystal back, and that's where they were keeping it. Noct was supposed to use its magic to make things better...

[He closes eyes and shakes his head more sharply, like he has to physically jostle his memory back further. The twilight before darkest midnight.]

Gladio didn't want to stop in Tenebrae at all. But I think Noct wanted to say good-bye to her. To Lady Lunafreya.

So that would change things, as well. With Lunafreya still alive, there'd be no need for the travel to Tenebrae. Which might mean no opportunity for the chancellor to step in and deceive Noct on the train.

[He lets out a slow breath.]

So. Perhaps it could change everything. There's still the chance that Noct can change what's to happen — and yet I worry about telling him as much.

Huh? Why?

[Prompto frowns, confused.]

Isn't it better for him to know there's a shot?

Because it means making him bear the burden of all of our futures, again.

[He folds his arm over his knee, his focus slowly starting to drift again.]

That's not a justification for not telling him, mind. It's still likely for the best that we do. But...still, I worry for him.

But...

[Prompto watches Ignis, his own attention fixed, his frown lightening not at all.]

Wouldn't we be helping him?

[Even if both of them are already past the point where they could save Lunafreya. Even if they can't go back with Noct...]

Wouldn't it help if we could all just... talk about it? Together? Like when we were busting bases, or. Any of that?

[He looks down, like the words to express what he means properly will be there at his feet. They're not. He's never had the vocabulary for this, and he came to the concept late. So late. But never too late.]

Wouldn't it help to talk?

...In a matter like this, Prompto, it's your intuition I'd trust, not mine.

[The repetition, the insistence get him to glance up, and it's apparent from the expression on his face that for once, he's not the one with the answers.]

Will it help? Do you think he'd allow us to be a part of it? Or would he insist on doing it alone, to try to protect us in some capacity?

[If Ignis doesn't have answers, the question he asks still sounds like it has one. Like it's rhetorical. They've all known him for years; the last time Prompto heard his voice before coming here, he'd run ahead just to protect them.]

...I think he'd try.

[If he doesn't acknowledge that, then he's being willfully blind, and he can't do that in front of Ignis, not anymore.]

But we swore an oath. And I think... I think... I think, really, it's what he wants, too. He doesn't want to do it all alone. And I think... I think he needs us.

[I'm going to make the world a better place.

You with me?]

And if he takes our help, that's what'll make him a real king. If he accepts what he needs, not... not just what he needs to do. Or else he's just running away. Like I did, after we were separated.

[He breathes in, then out.] That's what I think.

...He feels responsible. For Insomnia, for what awaits him in Altissia. For you. For me.

[He's quiet a minute, and then his voice goes lower; what's coming isn't something that he finds easy to say, but sometimes being a good advisor means saying the things that aren't easy, and that no one else wants to.]

The Marshal, however righteous his intentions, did a number on him in that respect, I think.

[It's not the sort of thing one unhears, after all. It doesn't just go away. Perhaps it never will.]

...I hate the thought of him having to go somewhere I can't follow, you know.

I know.

[It feels a lot like his own need, desperate and young. 'All I ask is that you remain ever at his side.'

Prompto lifts his hand, wavers, and then puts it on Ignis's arm.]

Don't let him. I won't, either. [He remembers something and says:] We're not his bodyguards. We're his brothers.

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