"Yeah..." Prompto looked away again for a moment to build up his courage to go into the next part.
"And then....there's this." He reached across himself to push back one of the leather straps that he always wore with his gloves, then held out his wrist of Nina to see the neatly tattooed barcode there. "I always thought it was just, you know, something they did to people when they were born there, to keep track of of them, stuff like that. That always seemed to make sense to me, that seemed like the sort of thing they would do. I always wondered if it meant anything more than that, though. Did it, like, I don't know, designate me as a sort of soldier? If I hadn't been slipped out of the Empire, would I have been in their army? Would I already just some faceless cannon fodder dead in a field somewhere by now? I've heard that they do weird stuff to their soldiers, too, subject them to all sorts of experiements, so that they're barely even human anymore, but, you know, we're at war, you never really know if any of that's true or if it's just...scary stories you tell kids or kids tell themselves, trying to scare each other about the big bad evil Nifs..."
He couldn't look at it anymore. He drew his wrist back, shuffled the leather strap back in place to cover it again.
"But I know now. It is true. And...it's actually...it's actually a whole lot worse."
no subject
"And then....there's this." He reached across himself to push back one of the leather straps that he always wore with his gloves, then held out his wrist of Nina to see the neatly tattooed barcode there. "I always thought it was just, you know, something they did to people when they were born there, to keep track of of them, stuff like that. That always seemed to make sense to me, that seemed like the sort of thing they would do. I always wondered if it meant anything more than that, though. Did it, like, I don't know, designate me as a sort of soldier? If I hadn't been slipped out of the Empire, would I have been in their army? Would I already just some faceless cannon fodder dead in a field somewhere by now? I've heard that they do weird stuff to their soldiers, too, subject them to all sorts of experiements, so that they're barely even human anymore, but, you know, we're at war, you never really know if any of that's true or if it's just...scary stories you tell kids or kids tell themselves, trying to scare each other about the big bad evil Nifs..."
He couldn't look at it anymore. He drew his wrist back, shuffled the leather strap back in place to cover it again.
"But I know now. It is true. And...it's actually...it's actually a whole lot worse."