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He doesn’t know quite how it happens, but somehow he is the first to set foot on the altar. He’s breathing hard, the shell-like armor of MTs strewn behind him, punctured and dented, miasma leaking from the holes and cracks into the sodden air. He doesn’t know if Ignis survived the bridge collapse, or where Gladio ended up after they were set upon by magitek armor and trained coerls.
What he does know is that this is bad. Noct isn’t moving, and the Oracle- Lunafreya, isn’t either. And that guy is there. Of fucking course. Creepy-ass Chancellor What’s-his-nuts, an already bloodied dagger in one hand, the other-
Reaching for Noctis. For his friend, his brother, the one he swore to protect, the one who means something to him he’s never put into words and not sure if he ever could.
“Oh, what good is a world that only ever lets you down? Why not end it all right here…”
The dagger is raised.
The gunshot pierces through Ardyn’s hat, knocking it to the ground. Prompto blinks, he isn’t sure how he could have missed, but since Ardyn isn’t dead, it’s the only explanation. Still, there’s no time to think about it as Ardyn rounds on him, and for a moment, the chancellor’s eyes seem blacker than a starless night, a shimmer on his cheeks like tears of pitch. The man is an abyss, far deeper and greater than his physical presence, and Prompto stares into the void in uncomprehending horror. Then he blinks again, and the chancellor is back to normal, as if the smirk on his face never shifted. Drawing closer.
A ring lies on the altar, where it has fallen from Noctis’ hand and rolled away, slipping into a crack between the stones. Prompto snatches it up as he scurries backward, and the metal stings like ice and razors in his hand. He knows what it is before he opens his hand to look, Bahamut stares back at him from the blackened silver, hands clasped around a pale stone. He wants to throw it into the ocean and never look back.
Instead, he raises it to his finger. That gets Ardyn’s attention, and as terrifying as that thought is, at least he’s ignoring Noct.
"I wouldn’t do that if I were you," says the chancellor coolly, but there’s a note in his voice, a trace of something old and deep and indescribable that makes up Prompto’s mind for him.
Yeah, he thinks, there’s a lot of things you probably wouldn’t do. That the others probably wouldn’t do. But they’re them, and I’m just me, and right now, this is all I’ve got going for me.
And with a breath that his lungs suck in of their own accord, he forces the ring on to his finger.
It hurts. There’s nothing to describe the agony, fire eating through him from the inside out, every nerve split and splintered by power his body was never meant to contain. His own screams are distant, across the veil of pain in a realm of awareness he’s barely connected to. A blue deeper than the ocean, brighter than the flames, beyond anything that can exist in the living word, fills his vision, and he hears voices above him and inside him, reverberating through his shuddering body.
...unworthy and yet…
...our foe stands before thee…
...the price to be paid…
...to save the king...
And then he’s back on the wet, grey stone, clawing at his neck, retching thick and dark blood. The fire burns deepest in his throat, now the center of the radiating agony. His screams have stopped, choked by the burning collar of thorns tightening around his neck. He stands.
Ardyn flickers like a trick of the light, and then he is there , towering over Prompto with an expression of pure malice.
"So they have shown you their favor."
Prompto silently thumbs away a drop of the gore running from the corner of his mouth. Silver shimmers on his fingertips, mingled with blood. He coughs and says nothing, but raises his eyes to meet Ardyn’s.
And they duel. The world is moving in slow motion, the magic feeding into his senses until everything is brighter and more vivid and realer than it ever has been, or ever will be again. Blue light runs through everything, feeds through everything, connects everything. His bullets fly surrounded by pale flames, spinning in impossible trajectories, seeking the target that he guides them toward. And Ardyn is still a void, a mass of darkness, a black hole eating at the edges of everything. The light is swallowed up by his form, more darkness surges from an endless well to take its place. It’s like digging in quicksand. Finally, the chancellor breaks away.
"I think that’s enough for one day, don’t you?" He’s gone as suddenly as he appeared.
Prompto staggers to where Noct lies, motionless and pale. Hey buddy , form the words on his lips, but nothing comes out except damp air.
Noct…
The exhaustion hits him like a wave pulling him under. He doesn’t have the energy for any more words, but Ardyn’s gone. Noct is here. He’s breathing. That’s enough, enough for Prompto to sigh and allow the shadows buzzing at the edge of his vision to take him.
It’s days before Noctis awakens, abruptly jerking upright in his bed. As Prompto approaches, his eyes move to the wreath of scars around his neck.
"You’re hurt," are the first words he says.
Prompto nods in a silent admission. He wants to add, "It’s fine," but he literally can’t, and so, it isn’t fine at all. He sits down on the bed next to Noctis and gives him a look, a forced smile and a thumbs up. Noctis returns neither.
"Where’s Luna?" is the next thing that he says, and Prompto can’t keep the smile up anymore. Noct’s eyes shimmer with fear.
"I… I dreamed about her. She told me… She told me that…"
His voice cracks and he takes several heaving breaths before he speaks again.
"...she- she’s not dead… is she?”
And Prompto can’t. He can’t...
“Gods, tell me! I need to know."
Prompto looks at the floor and Noct lets out a sound like nothing he’s heard from his friend before, somewhere between a sob and a scream. He’s shaking with grief and fury, hands clenched white and twisted in the bedsheets. Prompto wraps his arms around Noct’s shoulders and pulls him close, but the tension in his body doesn’t subside one bit. He doesn’t rest against Prompto, nor return the hug, but his tears quickly soak through the shoulder of Prompto's jacket. Finally he falls into a grim silence that Prompto can do nothing to break.
"Let me be alone."
His voice doesn't come back.
It's not that he's surprised, but he has to admit he was hoping that it would. He prefers to hold on to optimism if he can. Now he has to find that spark of hope somewhere else, in the idea that this situation can be adjusted to, just like the loss of Insomnia, and their life on the road. He still grins and waves when he walks into a room, and the others wave back, but smile less often. Conversations are stalled before they begin. There's nothing he can do to drag out of the others the idle chat that he craves so much, an acknowledgement that he's there, that he's still the same Prompto. He tells himself that it's understandable that they're sad, that they don't have the energy to talk, that it's selfish of him to want them to cater to him with talk of nonsense.
He tells himself it's not that they all suddenly hate him. Even if their expressions freeze when he walks into the room. Even if the silences hanging between them grow more and more uncomfortable as the days drag by. He wonders if he has anything to offer the group besides being the jokester, and if he'll be nothing but a burden from now on. Perhaps his journey should end here, in Altissia.
He writes that idea on the notepad that he shows to Noct.
“What? You’re… not serious, are you? I'm not sure I can handle any more goodbyes right now.” Noctis’ voice creaks.
ha ha just kidding, he writes back.
should have seen the look on your face.
“Not funny.” Noctis grimaces.
i didn't mean it.
hard to joke like this.
He pauses to turn the page.
ever by your side, right?
“Yeah.” He slaps Prompto on the shoulder, then his gaze returns to the floor.
It's not the same.
“Your bravery is commendable, but...” Ignis’ gaze is piercing, “I find I lack words for your utter foolishness.”
He grabs the notebook. Scrawls furiously across an entire page.
you would have
done the same
for Noct
The royal advisor’s eyes soften only slightly.
“Perhaps.”
Eventually, they move on.
As shattered as he is, Noctis still has a destiny to fulfill, and Ignis and Gladio are determined that he see it through. And Prompto is along for the ride.
At least the scenery outside the window is there to soothe him. He daydreams about shots he'd like to take, but the reflection from the windows and the motion of the train make it a frustrating endeavor to actually take more than a few. This time, he can't call out to Ignis and ask to go back to the photo op he’s just spotted. The train only goes where the rails take it.
He shows the photos he did take to Noct, who grunts in vague acknowledgement. He almost gets left behind when he jumps off the train to get a landscape shot from the station. He eats too many pastries from the dining cart and is left feeling sticky and vaguely hollow.
Ignis and Gladio sit across the aisle, facing each other. They're deep in some conversation about planning and strategies, more political and military and geographical information than Prompto could understand, even if he were able to join the conversation. Perhaps Ignis feels his eyes on them, because he turns to meet Prompto’s gaze, his expression difficult to read. Was it pity, or irritation? Prompto isn't sure which one would be worse.
The way people treat him is barely less somber than a funeral. Everyone seems accustomed to assuming silence means you want silence. The train rolls on, shuddering down the tracks in a constant rhythm. Each moment is interminable.
When he emerges from the sleeping car the next morning, Noctis is there with something up on the screen of his phone. He taps it and then makes an odd, fumbling gesture with both hands. Prompto doesn't recognize this game.
“Hi,” he waves stiffly, and Prompto waves back.
Noctis makes another series of clumsy gestures, and this time says the words along with them.
“I've. got. your. back.”
He holds out his phone to show the sign language manual.
Prompto takes it with shaking hands, and tears drip onto the screen.
It's that afternoon when Noctis corners him and shouts that it's all his fault. He holds his hands up in a gesture of confusion and surrender. In return, he's slammed into the wall, a fist twisted around the collar of his jacket. His insides freeze. Noct must have realized what he’s done. He tries to explain, but the words come out in a hiss of air before he remembers that isn’t an option. But what good are his excuses, anyway?
“Don't you have anything to say for yourself?” Noctis rages. His blade appears in a shimmering burst of crystal. Prompto runs.
They stand on the roof of the moving train, weapons pointed at each other, and Prompto is horrified by how well Ardyn mimics his expression of fear, the way he still silently mouths the words that die in his throat. Now he knows it, there’s some kind of illusion going on here, some shadowed trickery, and he won’t let Ardyn take Noct away from him. He’s steadying his arm to pull the trigger, hoping a bullet in the heart will kill this monster, when Noctis warp-strikes into him.
He can’t even scream as he falls.
The snow falls silently, but it crunches under his feet with each step. Every time one of his feet sinks through the surface, it seems to drain the strength from him. He used to complain of the desert heat, but now he’s not sure if he’s ever felt warm before in his life. He tells himself each crunch, each new footprint in the snow is a win, a cry to the frozen land that he was here. That he didn’t give up.
He must have succumbed at some point, because he awakes in what looks like a military facility. Oh, and look who else is here.
He wonders which god he offended so gravely as to deserve all of this.
Ardyn returns his guns to him. They both know there’s nothing he can do without the ring, that he achieved nothing when he did have it.
There’s an irony in the fact that Ardyn is talking to Prompto more than anyone else has since Altissia. And in the fact that Prompto would do about anything to make him stop.
He occupies himself with reading the scattered reports left around the facility. Listening to the tapes. Trying to figure out what happened here. What the apprehension gnawing at the back of his brain is.
The figures in the test tubes look just like him, except for the crisscrossed ring of scars around the throat.
Would he have anything to say to his father, if he could?
He decides not to think about it as he pulls the trigger.
“Thought you were the chatty one,” says Aranea as they sit by the campfire.
He pulls down the neck of his coat to show his scars, and she takes in a hiss of air.
“That looks nasty. It’s a cruel world, isn’t it?”
He nods.
“Still, you can’t just lie down and die. They’re waiting for you, you know? Not everyone has people waiting for them. Don’t you dare waste that.”
He must be staring at her pathetically, because she rounds on him.
“And don’t go thinking that they’re not going to want you back because of some bullshit like where you were born. Did you hold it against me? Didn’t we all fight side by side in the end? I’ve done things I’m not proud of, but… There’s so much darkness in the world. It’s getting darker by the minute. And if we don’t all put this petty shit aside… Niflheim, Lucis… every-fucking-thing… We’re not gonna make it.”
She stands and dusts the snowflakes from her clothing.
“I want to think I can believe in you. Don’t let me down, kiddo.”
He wakes again to a tearing pain through both shoulders, struggling until he realizes the futility of it. He doesn’t know how long he panics for, but eventually he tires, and dimly evaluates the situation. His arms are bound, and he doesn’t have the strength to break free. Metal is clamped around, clamped into his abdomen. He can strain to lift himself with his broken shoulders, or he can allow the metal prongs to pierce further beneath his skin. His legs are bound too, in a way that carefully avoids giving him any support to push off. Breathing is an immense agony and effort, and so he focuses like he were trudging through the snow again, one step at a time, in, out. If he thinks about anything but the very next breath, he might well give up. The task ahead seems insurmountable. But one more breath. He can do that, he thinks. Maybe.
So very many one-more-breaths later, someone approaches the door. It opens to reveal, again, the Niflheim chancellor, dashing all hopes. In a blink, the man is so close that Prompto can feel his breath on his cheek and neck. There’s a glint of silver, as Ardyn holds the dagger up just far enough for him to glimpse it, and shiver.
“This might hurt just a little,” crooned Ardyn, “If it’s too much for you, all you have to do is say the word. ”
They’re here. Despite the pain, he cranes forward, trying to see. A hitching sound escapes his throat somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He’s calling out to them, forgetting he has no voice, and the only sound is the creaking of metal.
The restraints are finally loosened, and he falls to the ground, the cold air and sudden movement on his injuries merely replacing the dull agonies with sharper ones. He turns to Noct and their eyes meet, but his breath rasps in his throat as he tries to force out the words he so desperately wants to say.
Tell me I matter. Tell me I’m real. Tell me-