Prompto Argentum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hashtag_chocobro) wrote2022-06-24 09:13 am
hashtag_chocobro) wrote2022-06-24 09:13 am
The Wilderness of Niflheim; Eos. ????? Morning, ??/?? ET [06/24 FT].
Prompto awoke the next morning to the sound of barking in the distance, something oddly familiar about it, and, needless to say, it caught his attention. The night had been a rough one, his sleep fitful and distressed as Aranea's questions marched through his brain relentlessly.
What did he want? What was he after?
But he knew what he wanted. He wanted to be done with this. He wanted to save Lucis, save the Crystal. He wanted to march back into Insomnia, with Ignis, with Gladio, with Noctis, get the city back, restore it and rebuild it. He wanted to get the portals running again, he wanted to go back Fandom, back to Liz, to hold her in his arms and promise that he'd never, ever leave her, ever again. He wanted everything he wanted before all of this started, that happy family he'd never had growing up. To just...be somewhere, to belong somewheere. To belong. That's all he'd ever wanted.
But how could he possibly....?
Even if they did manage to get the Crystal, even if they did manage to take Insomnia back, even if he did manage to get back to Fandom…would Liz even want him anymore? It had been so long already. She probably thought he'd forgotten about her, and moved on. Just like Yang had. Or maybe she'd already forgotten about him, and moved on. Just like Yang had. She was probably happier without him anyway, just like Yang was. Just like Noctis and Ignis and Gladio were, too. And then he'd just come swinging back around, and just make everything worse again….
The barking continued, harsh and insistent, and, despite himself, Prompto found it catching his attention again. Curious, and without much else to do, besides, he climbed aboard the snowmobile and kicked it into gear, and started to ride toward the sound of the barking. He rode for a little while, with a few turns to reorient himself, until, finally, he saw a dark shape lying in the snow ahead.
When he slowed the snowmobile and climbed off to get closer, though, he saw it wasn't the dog he feared it had been, but instead, a magitek soldier. Still and lifeless, he laid sprawled out in the snow, vacant eyes staring up at the sky. Prompto took a few cautious steps, just in case it wasn't as dead as it appeared to be, and, when it seemed like it was safe, he found himself sitting down in front of the soldier, tucking his legs under himself and just staring over at the corpse intently.
He lowered his head and closed his eyes, as if to say some sort of last words for his fallen brother, and when he opened his eyes again, something had changed. Something was different, he could feel it in the air, which felt heavier, darker than it had been before. And, most of all, the soldier was gone, and he was sitting there by himself.
All alone again.
Except for slow, steady footprints approaching him from behind. Prompto turned, scrambling quickly to his feet, and to his surprise, there was Noctis, walking with slow but determined steps toward him. Reaching out a hand. Summoning one of his magical swords into existence and wielding it once more against him with dark intent.
Prompto slowly started walking backwards away from Noctis, his mouth moving in the vain attempt to form words, but he just couldn't get them out. His tongue was paralyzed by the fierce intensity radiating off of Noctis in that moment. In lieu of words, he reached out a hand to make his appeal to him, but when he saw it, his hand looked….different. Armored. Clad in the sleek, dagger-fingered glaive of a magitek trooper. Startled, Prompto brought his transformed hand to his chest, and felt magitek armor there. He looked at his other hand. Magitek. He stood there now as an MT, just like he should have been, if not for his fateful escape from the facility, twenty years ago….
"This'll be quick," Noctis promised, and, with a shout, he warped forward for Prompto.
And as much as Prompto almost wanted to just let him finally end it, he found himself running, dodging out of the way and attempting to escape, the clanking of his new form echoing loudly in his skull. He ran, as Noctis kept warping closer and closer, until, finally, exhausted, he stopped and turned around.
He was alone again.
He looked down at his hands, gloved again with the warm gloves, his jacket the same as it had been before. Back to himself again.
And there was the barking. Prompto turned in time to see a flash of white racing by, and he did recognize that barking. He recognized that dog!
"Tiny!" he breathed out, making a mad dash after her. No, not Tiny. That was the name he'd given her, so many years ago, after he'd found her injured in an alley back in Insomnia and nursed her back to health, before he knew her true identity as one of Lady Lunafreya's own pets, Pryna. A Messenger of the Oracle, but if the Oracle was dead, didn't that mean that Pryna should be as well? He didn't care, tears filling his eyes as he chased after her, trying to call her name. Remembering back when he told Liz the story about how his taking care of that dog lead to him meeting Noctis, how it changed his entire life, and one of the things he was most excited for about the wedding was getting to see Pryna again.
Do you think she'd remember me? he recalled asking Liz, and she'd said something to to the effect of how could she not?
But he followed her in hot pursuit across the snow.
She finally lead him to an open field, littered with fallen magitek soldiers. An uncomfortable feeling settled over Prompto, twisting in his gut, but it was nothing compared ot what he felt when a clanking sound alerted him to the fact that not all these bodies were corpses. One of the soldiers was moving, desperately trying to pull himself up. Staring directly at Prompto with his vacant, lifeless eyes and reaching out one of those clawed, gauntleted hands for him…
But then Prompto blinked, and in that split second, it was no longer the MT reaching for him, but himself, face desperate and lost and full of pain and hurt and reached out for him, desperate…
Prompto closed his eyes tight, shook his head, shaking away the vision, and when he opened them again, it was the MT again. Those glowing eyes. That stoic green face. Reaching,,,reaching...hoping? With a shaky hand and dread like a ten ton weight in his stomach, Prompto slowly lifted his gun to aim at the MT, the fog of his breath surrounding him. His head shook too, as he closed his eyes and had to turn away---but no! In that moment, he found a well of resolve, tapped into it, and when he opened his eyes, he trained them on the magitek trooper, he held out his gun with a suddenly steady aim, and he pulled the trigger.
With the burst of the bullet, the magitek soldier fell back down, motionless once more, into the snow, and just beyond him, there sat a little boy. Blonde hair, awkward in the bulk of his large body, cowering with his hands held tight against his ears against the ringing sound of the shot.
It was him.
It was Prompto, as a boy, and he hurried over to his younger self, his inner child, and knelt down beside him. Reached out and placed a hand lightly against his back.
He was taken, then, back to Insomnia, sitting on the steps of the Citadel as that chubby, nervous, self-doubting young boy. Long blue feathers of sylleblossom petals drifted in the wind as he lifted his head toward the sky, and when he lowered his eyes again, there was Pryna, standing before him, with a letter in her mouth. A familiar green scarf around her paw….the one that had been injured when he found her. The one that had allowed Lunafreya to trace the tended wound back to him. He reached out his hand and Pryna obediently placed the letter inside.
"All I ask," Lunafreya had written, "is that you continue to support Noctis, and that you remain ever at his side."
How did she expect someone like me to support him?
But there was more there, than the letter. There were photographs.
Am I good enough?
Noctis, Gladio, Ignis and Prompto, posing in front of the garage at the Hammerhead with the Regalia, finally all fixed up and ready to roll.
Does he want me around?
Everyone squeezed into a selfie, his own beaming face taking up most of the frame with Noct and Gladio and Ignis reluctantly smiling with him in front of the sign at Wiz Chocobo Post.
Is that really what Noct and everyone else want? For me to be with them?
Everyone gathered at the dock at Cape Caem, just before setting off for Altissia. Iris. Talcott. Cor. Monica. Cid.
"Wait," said Prompto, smiling softly at the memories as he lowered the pictures. "But what about me? What do I want?"
As younger Prompto stood up from the steps, he found himself back into his current self.
"It took me a while," he said, "but I finally found my answer. I know what I want."
He turned, and found his camera sitting here, his good old trusty Lokton, which had been with him through years, collecting all the memories, all the joys and sadnesses, and he turned to look up at the Citadel towering over him and with a smile, and started to race up the steps toward it.
"It's time."
In the next moment, Prompto was back to sitting there, in the snow, but there was no Pryna, there were no magitek corpses or Noctis with his sword. It was just him...and his camera in his hand. And a new resolve, a new determination, a new goal.
Or rather, a very needed reminder of an old one. He knew what he wanted, and he promised he'd try, no matter what. And he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of it. Not anymore.
[[ because what existential crisis doesn't need a nice mystical dog-fueled fever dream of reconciliation, you guys, am I right? Obviously lifted from Episode Prompto, with the usual little fandom-flair here and there. Only two parts today! NFB, NFI, OOC, blah blah blah]]
What did he want? What was he after?
But he knew what he wanted. He wanted to be done with this. He wanted to save Lucis, save the Crystal. He wanted to march back into Insomnia, with Ignis, with Gladio, with Noctis, get the city back, restore it and rebuild it. He wanted to get the portals running again, he wanted to go back Fandom, back to Liz, to hold her in his arms and promise that he'd never, ever leave her, ever again. He wanted everything he wanted before all of this started, that happy family he'd never had growing up. To just...be somewhere, to belong somewheere. To belong. That's all he'd ever wanted.
But how could he possibly....?
Even if they did manage to get the Crystal, even if they did manage to take Insomnia back, even if he did manage to get back to Fandom…would Liz even want him anymore? It had been so long already. She probably thought he'd forgotten about her, and moved on. Just like Yang had. Or maybe she'd already forgotten about him, and moved on. Just like Yang had. She was probably happier without him anyway, just like Yang was. Just like Noctis and Ignis and Gladio were, too. And then he'd just come swinging back around, and just make everything worse again….
The barking continued, harsh and insistent, and, despite himself, Prompto found it catching his attention again. Curious, and without much else to do, besides, he climbed aboard the snowmobile and kicked it into gear, and started to ride toward the sound of the barking. He rode for a little while, with a few turns to reorient himself, until, finally, he saw a dark shape lying in the snow ahead.
When he slowed the snowmobile and climbed off to get closer, though, he saw it wasn't the dog he feared it had been, but instead, a magitek soldier. Still and lifeless, he laid sprawled out in the snow, vacant eyes staring up at the sky. Prompto took a few cautious steps, just in case it wasn't as dead as it appeared to be, and, when it seemed like it was safe, he found himself sitting down in front of the soldier, tucking his legs under himself and just staring over at the corpse intently.
He lowered his head and closed his eyes, as if to say some sort of last words for his fallen brother, and when he opened his eyes again, something had changed. Something was different, he could feel it in the air, which felt heavier, darker than it had been before. And, most of all, the soldier was gone, and he was sitting there by himself.
All alone again.
Except for slow, steady footprints approaching him from behind. Prompto turned, scrambling quickly to his feet, and to his surprise, there was Noctis, walking with slow but determined steps toward him. Reaching out a hand. Summoning one of his magical swords into existence and wielding it once more against him with dark intent.
Prompto slowly started walking backwards away from Noctis, his mouth moving in the vain attempt to form words, but he just couldn't get them out. His tongue was paralyzed by the fierce intensity radiating off of Noctis in that moment. In lieu of words, he reached out a hand to make his appeal to him, but when he saw it, his hand looked….different. Armored. Clad in the sleek, dagger-fingered glaive of a magitek trooper. Startled, Prompto brought his transformed hand to his chest, and felt magitek armor there. He looked at his other hand. Magitek. He stood there now as an MT, just like he should have been, if not for his fateful escape from the facility, twenty years ago….
"This'll be quick," Noctis promised, and, with a shout, he warped forward for Prompto.
And as much as Prompto almost wanted to just let him finally end it, he found himself running, dodging out of the way and attempting to escape, the clanking of his new form echoing loudly in his skull. He ran, as Noctis kept warping closer and closer, until, finally, exhausted, he stopped and turned around.
He was alone again.
He looked down at his hands, gloved again with the warm gloves, his jacket the same as it had been before. Back to himself again.
And there was the barking. Prompto turned in time to see a flash of white racing by, and he did recognize that barking. He recognized that dog!
"Tiny!" he breathed out, making a mad dash after her. No, not Tiny. That was the name he'd given her, so many years ago, after he'd found her injured in an alley back in Insomnia and nursed her back to health, before he knew her true identity as one of Lady Lunafreya's own pets, Pryna. A Messenger of the Oracle, but if the Oracle was dead, didn't that mean that Pryna should be as well? He didn't care, tears filling his eyes as he chased after her, trying to call her name. Remembering back when he told Liz the story about how his taking care of that dog lead to him meeting Noctis, how it changed his entire life, and one of the things he was most excited for about the wedding was getting to see Pryna again.
Do you think she'd remember me? he recalled asking Liz, and she'd said something to to the effect of how could she not?
But he followed her in hot pursuit across the snow.
She finally lead him to an open field, littered with fallen magitek soldiers. An uncomfortable feeling settled over Prompto, twisting in his gut, but it was nothing compared ot what he felt when a clanking sound alerted him to the fact that not all these bodies were corpses. One of the soldiers was moving, desperately trying to pull himself up. Staring directly at Prompto with his vacant, lifeless eyes and reaching out one of those clawed, gauntleted hands for him…
But then Prompto blinked, and in that split second, it was no longer the MT reaching for him, but himself, face desperate and lost and full of pain and hurt and reached out for him, desperate…
Prompto closed his eyes tight, shook his head, shaking away the vision, and when he opened them again, it was the MT again. Those glowing eyes. That stoic green face. Reaching,,,reaching...hoping? With a shaky hand and dread like a ten ton weight in his stomach, Prompto slowly lifted his gun to aim at the MT, the fog of his breath surrounding him. His head shook too, as he closed his eyes and had to turn away---but no! In that moment, he found a well of resolve, tapped into it, and when he opened his eyes, he trained them on the magitek trooper, he held out his gun with a suddenly steady aim, and he pulled the trigger.
With the burst of the bullet, the magitek soldier fell back down, motionless once more, into the snow, and just beyond him, there sat a little boy. Blonde hair, awkward in the bulk of his large body, cowering with his hands held tight against his ears against the ringing sound of the shot.
It was him.
It was Prompto, as a boy, and he hurried over to his younger self, his inner child, and knelt down beside him. Reached out and placed a hand lightly against his back.
He was taken, then, back to Insomnia, sitting on the steps of the Citadel as that chubby, nervous, self-doubting young boy. Long blue feathers of sylleblossom petals drifted in the wind as he lifted his head toward the sky, and when he lowered his eyes again, there was Pryna, standing before him, with a letter in her mouth. A familiar green scarf around her paw….the one that had been injured when he found her. The one that had allowed Lunafreya to trace the tended wound back to him. He reached out his hand and Pryna obediently placed the letter inside.
"All I ask," Lunafreya had written, "is that you continue to support Noctis, and that you remain ever at his side."
How did she expect someone like me to support him?
But there was more there, than the letter. There were photographs.
Am I good enough?
Noctis, Gladio, Ignis and Prompto, posing in front of the garage at the Hammerhead with the Regalia, finally all fixed up and ready to roll.
Does he want me around?
Everyone squeezed into a selfie, his own beaming face taking up most of the frame with Noct and Gladio and Ignis reluctantly smiling with him in front of the sign at Wiz Chocobo Post.
Is that really what Noct and everyone else want? For me to be with them?
Everyone gathered at the dock at Cape Caem, just before setting off for Altissia. Iris. Talcott. Cor. Monica. Cid.
"Wait," said Prompto, smiling softly at the memories as he lowered the pictures. "But what about me? What do I want?"
As younger Prompto stood up from the steps, he found himself back into his current self.
"It took me a while," he said, "but I finally found my answer. I know what I want."
He turned, and found his camera sitting here, his good old trusty Lokton, which had been with him through years, collecting all the memories, all the joys and sadnesses, and he turned to look up at the Citadel towering over him and with a smile, and started to race up the steps toward it.
"It's time."
In the next moment, Prompto was back to sitting there, in the snow, but there was no Pryna, there were no magitek corpses or Noctis with his sword. It was just him...and his camera in his hand. And a new resolve, a new determination, a new goal.
Or rather, a very needed reminder of an old one. He knew what he wanted, and he promised he'd try, no matter what. And he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of it. Not anymore.
[[ because what existential crisis doesn't need a nice mystical dog-fueled fever dream of reconciliation, you guys, am I right? Obviously lifted from Episode Prompto, with the usual little fandom-flair here and there. Only two parts today! NFB, NFI, OOC, blah blah blah]]