ffxv_kinkmeme | Prompt Post

Welcome to Round Two of the FFXV Kink Meme!

CLOSED for prompts | OPEN for fills

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Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun!

(You can also check out our Pinboard for Filled or Unfilled prompts)

UPDATE 3/2/2017: Per the Rules thread: Do not hijack prompts. If someone posts a prompt for one pairing, don't comment to say "I want to see this for [other kink]" - post your own prompt for the other kink). To that end, if you are unclear on a prompter's kinks/DNWs, please feel free to ask about them. If you ask about kinks/DNWs or to clarify a prompt, you are in no way obligated to fill it.

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ROUND TWO IS NOW CLOSED FOR PROMPTS!

Go ahead and keep on filling away, we will open up round three for prompts at 0000 EST, Saturday April 22, 2017.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

Same filler as the microfill! I gave in and started writing this after all. I snuck in the headcanon that Prompto's Insomnian parents were journalists, which would explain their frequent absences.
***************************************

The first time Prompto sees a daemon, he’s sitting between his mother and father on the couch. His mother has her dark hair tied up in a bun, and she’s smiling with her eyes, all crinkled up at the edges, as she rubs Prompto’s back.

“There’s Mommy,” his father says, pointing to the television. And there she is, her hair down and swept about her face, gesturing to a gutted-out building. She’s talking quickly, but Prompto’s been following her and his father’s TV appearances since before he can remember, and he’s pretty sure she’s talking about the war again. She’s always talking about war, these days.

“Here it comes, Prom,” his mother says. “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here with you.”

Prompto draws his knees up to his chest. On the screen, his mother turns, gestures to the camera. The camera zooms past her, and focuses on a spot in the distance, where a massive, spider-like creature bursts from the trees and whips around, its white-hot gaze questing in the dark. From the waist up, the daemon looks like a woman, but their skin is slick and greenish-white, and the mouth that opens to hiss at the camera is thick with fangs.

Prompto screams.

And then his father is there, right in front of him, a red-brown hand pressing his lucky charm into Prompto’s fingers. Prompto clings to it, breathes, hears the clack of stone and the groan of wire. A string of stone-backed mirrors, seven in all, the only possession Prompto brought with him when he was adopted at the age of three. He doesn’t know why it’s important, but when he watches it twirl slowly from its place over his bedroom window, reflecting light onto his walls, he feels safe.

“I said he was too young for it, Marius,” his mother says. “After the nightmares he used to have…”

“I know, darling, I know.” Prompto’s dad holds a hand to his cheek. “How are you doing, sunshine?”

Prompto takes a breath. Another. Holds tight to the smallest mirror in the chain. “I’m okay,” he says. “I’m okay. I wanna watch it again.”

His parents look at each other in concern, but Prompto is adamant. His parents risk their lives every time they go out on the job to seek out the truth and bring it back to Insomnia. If he’s going to follow in their footsteps one day, he can’t be afraid.

He watches the video again, and when he lets go of his charm at last, there’s an imprint of a one-winged woman on his palm, a perfect match to the engraving on the stone.

***

“Move it or lose it, Prom! We’re wasting daylight!”

“Let me get this shot!” Prompto shouts. He’s standing on the top of a hill overlooking the Disc of Cauthess, camera in hand, fiddling with the filters as he tries to catch just the right angle of the sun glancing through the shards of the Meteor. He has to get this one right, for his own sake.

Twelve years ago, his father had come back from assignment at the Disc, bearing a photo his cameraman had taken of the archaeological dig that he was covering. A tomb had been unearthed, bearing signs that it had been placed there at the time of the destruction of Solheim thousands of years ago, and Prompto’s father had pointed to the seven spheres that were carved into the coffin in the photo.

“Covered in mirrors,” he’d said. “Just like your bedroom!”

Prompto had rolled his eyes, but it was true. He was always collecting old mirrors and stained glass from antique stores and pawn shops, stringing them up along the walls and windows to catch the light. His mother used to joke that she needed sunglasses just to come in and wake him up in time for school.

Now, Prompto ducks down an inch and takes a shot on his camera. Almost perfect. Not up to a professional journalist’s standards—As if he’ll ever be able to follow that dream, with everything going on—but it’s good enough to make the guys ooh and aah when he shows them at camp later. He tucks his camera in his fanny pack and scrambles down the hill, where Noct, Ignis, and Gladio are waiting.

“Hope it was worth it,” Noct says. Prompto grins at him and dodges the playful swipe at his ear. “We’re heading back to Lestallum. Iris says Talcott has news of some sort of… thing… in a waterfall. I don’t know, the call dropped.”

“Wow,” Prompto says. “Sounds real specific!” He jogs ahead and lifts out his camera to take a picture of Ignis’ exhausted look of resignation, and nearly trips over himself as he runs backwards through the grass. Gladio takes his arm to steady him.

“Really, Prompto, I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive this long,” he says. Prompto winks.

“I’m naturally lucky,” he tells him, and darts out of his hold to make a run for the Regalia. To his left, the sun blazing through the Meteor sends out rays of warm orange light streaming over the fields, and Prompto can almost see it in his mind’s eye: A fiery ball of light and glassy stone, streaking the sky black as the Archaeon braces themselves beneath it, arms uplifted as though in supplication. What a picture that would have made. Prompto shakes his head at himself and jumps up onto the street. Of course Astrals aren’t around anymore, if they were even real in the first place. They’re just stories, pictures he used to draw when he was little, made-up fairytales he parroted that made his mother giggle and his father sigh.

Still, Prompto can’t help but think, Wouldn’t it be something if it were true?

From: (Anonymous)

Thank you so much! This is absolutely wonderful! I love the idea of Prompto's parents being journalists - that's such a nice touch!

From: (Anonymous)

This is so interesting, I loooove you're writing and I'm excited to see where this goes!!! :D

From: (Anonymous)

From the deep, the Archaean calls
Yet on deaf ears, the god's tongue falls
The King made to kneel, in pain he crawls...

"That's not how it goes."

Prompto doesn't mean to say it, but the words come tumbling from his lips all the same, stopping the strange, auburn-haired man in his tracks. It's odd, really. Prompto is usually a bit anxious and uncertain when confronted with new people, let alone people who go around throwing commemorative coins at people for no apparent reason, but there's something about this man that's almost... Comforting. Secure. The way it felt when he'd look up at the picture of the king that his father tacked onto the kitchen wall. He isn't sure he trusts it, though--The man's voice is so smug, so smooth, that it clashes with the picture that he makes in Prompto's mind's eye.

The man turns to him now, brows raised.

"Oh?"

"The rhyme," Prompto says. "It's wrong. There wasn't a king. Sometime about..." He frowns. "Water. Titan and Leviathan making a tomb for Eos. I don't remember the words, though."

"Prompto," Ignis says, quietly. "There is very little evidence that Eos--the goddess, I mean--even existed. There are no nursery rhymes in my knowledge that imply that the Astrals were--"

"No, no," the man interrupts, walking right towards Prompto. "This is interesting." He slips his hands in the pockets of his wide jacket, and leans forward. When he speaks, his voice is low and musical.

"By Bahamut's hand the goddess lies still
Her blood the rivers, Her flesh the earth
The sun falls, the fire turns to the dark."

"That didn't even rhyme," Noct says, but Prompto is running the words through his mind, over his tongue. They feel right. Why do they feel right?

"They... did rhyme," he says. "They should. But it's like they're in the wrong order."

"Or the wrong language," says the stranger, and his wink is somehow far too personal. Prompto steps back, behind Gladio, and feels the warmth of his friend's hand resting securely on his shoulder. The stranger laughs.

"Oh, I do have high hopes for your little crew," he says. "Allow me to extend an offer of assistance..."

---

"Allow me."

Prompto is standing precariously on the top of one of the plastic chairs out by the caravan, tying up his mirror charms on the awning. It's a habit that the others don't fault him for--They all have their little rituals, small rules to follow that makes the loss of home sting less. And this is hardly as distracting as Gladio's tendency to wake up at five in the morning to go for a run.

But when the stranger--Ardyn, he claims to be--reaches up to tie the chain securely, Prompto just feels hollow and off.

"Thanks," he mumbles.

"Odd little trinket," Ardyn says. The others have all gone to bed, leaving Prompto to take first watch, but the light in the caravan window is a comforting reminder of their nearness. "Do you know, I may have seen this before."

"Really."

"Indeed." Ardyn flips the highest mirror. "Oh look, dear old mother. Mother-goddess," he explains, smiling down at Prompto's look of confusion. "The one you spoke of. These mirrors, they say, used to hang in the window of every home in Solheim. Tiny shrines to the goddess who was brought low. This one looks almost authentic."

Prompto jumps down from the chair. "Could be. Mom and Dad went... go to a lot of archaeological digs, for work. They found me near one of them, when I was little."

"Found?" Ardyn releases the mirror, which spins slowly, reflecting his and Prompto's face in turns. "You aren't from Lucis?"

"Adopted," Prompto says. It's such an old subject that he almost expects the question, now--and anyways, his parents had wanted him badly enough to go through years of nationalization certification on his behalf. How many parents were willing to do that? "I was a war orphan, I think. Somewhere near here."

"Very matter-of-fact," Ardyn says. "And found near a ruin? Very romantic."

Prompto huffs. "Right, sure." He sits properly and pulls out his camera, skimming through the day's photos. Ardyn, thankfully, seems to have lost interest in Prompto's romantic origins, and has turned back to the charm, lightly brushing it with his fingers. There's a blessed silence for all of five minutes, before the smooth, deep voice calls out again.

"You must be quite thrilled to be about to meet the Titan in the flesh," he says. Prompto shrugs.

"Still not sure if he's even down there." Ignis, Noct, and Gladio swear up and down that it's true, but Prompto's memory of the Astrals--all the fairytales that got him in trouble at school for make believe and disturbing the class--is tied into stories and nursery rhymes. Nothing substantial. And if the Titan were real, he's pretty sure his mom at least would have already jumped at the chance of running a story on him. It's the kind of reckless, dangerous job she likes.

"A skeptic!" There's a chuckle in Ardyn's voice. "A rare breed indeed, in this age. But I assure you, the Titan is there. I look forward to hearing your views after your little excursion tomorrow."

And then he looks directly at Prompto, through him, and says something very strange indeed.

"I wonder what he'll think of you?"

From: (Anonymous)

I absolutely adore this! Your writing is so good!

From: (Anonymous)

Thank you! I'm so pleased you like it so far!

From: (Anonymous)

*loves you*

This is great. I love it so much, can barely wait for more.

From: (Anonymous)

wow, this is so good! i really love what you have so far, and your writing is fantastic! i'm so intrigued by this!

From: (Anonymous)

Prompto rests his arms on edge of the console of Ardyn Izunia's private airship, staring down at the crumbling wreckage of the Disc of Cauthess. The night sky is streaked with a dull orange as the fires of the Meteor reflect against low-lying clouds, and Prompto can still hear the crack and boom of collapsing stone.

He coughs, and feels grit roll down his throat.

"Quite a welcome," Ardyn says. No one speaks. Noct is bandaging his arm next to Ignis, and Gladio is watching Ardyn like a hawk, his hand outstretched as it always is before he summons his weapon. Only Prompto has bothered to come close.

"Did you do something to the Titan?" He asks, so low that his voice is drowned out by the roar of the ship's engines. Ardyn seems to get his meaning, however, and the older man shifts to Prompto's side, making Gladio nearly rise from his seat with a growl of warning. Prompto frantically flaps a hand at his friend, and winces. He feels like his skin is one massive bruise.

"I did nothing to your king's new ally, I assure you," Ardyn says. He ducks his head close to Prompto's, and smiles as though sharing a private joke. "Why? Did your meeting with the estimable Astral not go as planned?"

"He tried to kill me," Prompto hisses, and coughs again. At first, the Astral had been focused on Noct alone, but when Prompto and Ignis joined the fray, it was as though Titan had switched gears. Suddenly Prompto was being crushed under the dome of a giant palm, knocked off ledges, thrown to his knees under the mind-numbing tremor of the Astral's scream. Ignis had to run in with a phoenix down and a whole lot of prayer, and Prompto still feels like his bones are shaking with the echo of it all.

"Truly? I wonder why." Ardyn tugs at the cuffs of his sleeves and stares out at the dark fields of Duscae.

"How is it I feel like you know?" Prompto asks. Ardyn's smile doesn't so much as twitch.

Ardyn turns from him and strides into the center of the ship, where a row of powered-down MTs are suspended by wires from the roof. Prompto's been trying to avoid looking at them the entire time, but now Ardyn runs a hand over one of the MT's armored legs, and it twitches like a puppet severed from its strings.

"Remarkable thing, modern technology, is it not?" Ardyn says, in a voice that carries throughout the ship. "The Empire seeks to bring itself to new glory, so it uses an old system upon which to model itself. A new Solheim, the Emperor calls it." He shrugs. "Not quite the same, of course. It's a fragile mockery at best. Even these MTs are based on old records dredged up from ancient texts. Their predecessors... The true MTs, oh, they were a thing of beauty."

He turns to Prompto when he says this, and Prompto finds himself shrinking against the console.

"But that would be pure speculation," Ignis interrupts. "The destruction of Solheim was nearly complete--No one can say for certain what their magitech soldiers were like."

"Of course!" Ardyn beams at him as one would upon a star pupil. "But they say that the Magitech people of that time were almost as human as you or I. They were simply... enhanced. Sharper. Adaptable. Harder to kill. The efficiency of a machine with the soul of a human. It was bred into their genes, you see. If such a creation were still alive," he knocks on the MT's knee again, "they could command these weak copies by virtue of their blood alone. But then... as you say, my dear boy, it's all speculation."

"I guess being the chancellor of Niflheim gives you access to this kind of info," Gladio says darkly. Ardyn smirks.

"How suspicious you are!" He laughs at Gladio's scowl of disapproval, and walks off to the pilot's seat.

Prompto stares at the dangling MT soldiers for a long while, watching their feet sway, lifeless, with the movement of the ship.

From: (Anonymous)

god this is so interesting....... I love it

From: (Anonymous)

Between the Regalia going missing, impossible divine messengers hanging out at chocobo ranches, and nonstop runs through mud-slick fields, Prompto keeps hoping that he'll be too busy to think about what the chancellor said after their fight with the Archaean. But the thoughts creep in edgewise all the same, like rain pooling into his boots, a constant presence he can't shake off.

"You're a quick study, I'll give you that," Cor the Immortal had told him, when Prompto was training under the Crownsguard. The drills and exercises came so easily to him that it felt like breathing, and Prompto had blushed and ducked his head, saving the compliment to mull over in private. He even left a note on the fridge for his parents: Cor Leonis said I'm okay!

Adaptable, Ardyn had said.

And now, there's the time on the way to the first mark of Ramuh, when Prompto slips on a patch of mud and goes careening into a pack of voretooth. One of them has him on his back, its claws digging into his skin, and Prompto shoots it in the neck as Gladio charges through with his broadsword. Later, as he cracks a potion over Prompto's chest, Ignis exclaims over how well Prompto takes to curatives.

"A wound like this would take at least an elixir to heal on the rest of us," Ignis tells him. "We must have built up an immunity."

"Yeah," Prompto says, tugging down his shirt.

Harder to kill, whispers Ardyn's voice, low and insidious.

Prompto takes out four MT swordsmen within five seconds, earning a whoop of victory from Gladio.

Sharper.

Prompto rubs the barcode over his wrist, the one he's had since before his parents took him in. We don't know where it came from, Prom, his father said, when Prompto was old enough to ask, but it's nothing to be ashamed of.

The lines of the tattoo slide under the pads of his fingers, and he presses down on the bone beneath.

Enhanced.

No. It doesn't mean anything. It never meant anything. Ardyn is just trying to get in his head. So the Titan went a little screwy during the covenant? The guy spent the last who knows how many centuries holding up a giant flaming rock. Anyone would snap after that. It doesn't matter that the Archaean didn't go after Ignis or Gladio. It's just chance, that's all. Prompto's ever increasing wealth of bad luck.

They follow the last strike of lightning into a dry cave, and Prompto can hear movement behind the stone walls. None of the others notice: Maybe they're too busy bickering over which path to take or where to camp for the night, but Prompto's hearing has always been a little keener than the rest. He stops at a gap in the wall and peers down into the depths.

"Hey, guys?" he asks.

Then there's a cry, a furious, wailing shout, and Prompto is dragged into the dark.

Whatever has flung him through the hole slithers off (A face, Prompto sees a face, a woman with dark hair and beads that clack in a way that draws a sharp ache in his chest) and Prompto falls down a bumpy slope of rock, screaming and yelping and hissing as he's thrown gracelessly to a lump of... He rolls to his hands and knees, squinting down at a pile of musty, mostly rotten clothes.

Shit.

He stands, wincing at the pain of too many bruises to count, and looks around. The beam of his travel light is still going strong, and it slides over planes of rock that seem a little too smooth and straight to be natural. Prompto hobbles towards them, and looks down.

The rock beneath him is about waist-high, shaped like a perfect square, and there's a slick, black rectangle in the center. Like a tablet, maybe, or a phone. Prompto taps it with his finger, and the hollow sound echoes throughout the chamber.

He shifts, and the stone beeps. When he looks down, he sees a red line of light running along the black rectangle. It passes Prompto's wrist and beeps again. Slowly, almost completely sure that this is the worst idea he's ever had in his life, Prompto pulls down his wristband and exposes his tattoo in full.

The rectangle lights up red. So does the square. So does a map of criss-crossing lines on the floor, and most of the wall before him, which is cracked with blackness where bits of stone has fallen away. Prompto approaches the wall, and raises a trembling hand to its surface.

The wall screeches back, revealing a small dark opening, before something in the mechanism jams and the whole cave goes dark again.

"Right," Prompto whispers. He places both hands on the wall, which is warm to the touch, and climbs through.

The room within is reinforced with steel beams that hold up the cave roof, and there are long, coiling wires that hang along the walls, leading to glass cases about ten feet high. There are five of those cases, all of them with steel boxes at the bottom, each box outfitted with another black glass screen like the one Prompto had activated beyond the door.

Prompto stops at one of the cases and looks up. The glass is cloudy with dust, and he reaches up to smear some of it off.

He bites down on his knuckles to stifle a shout.

A skeleton lies on the floor of the case, skull leaning against a crack in the glass. Prompto would look away, should look away, but there's something off about the bones, something that catches the light. He forces himself to look closer, and can see a cord of hair-thin wires encasing the bones, shimmering with a light that reminds him distressingly of Noct's ancestral magic. Prompto looks to the other cases, and clenches his fingers.

Four of the cases are occupied. The fifth, in the center, has been lifted from its hinges, the glass pulled back like a curved door to reveal empty space within. Prompto leans on the metal box at the base, and taps at the screen. Nothing happens.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he whispers, and holds his wrist to the screen. It crackles and hisses, and a blurry image breaks through a web of red-lined fractures. There's a woman there, with long dark hair tied down by beads that clatter as she moves. She's wearing a strange suit of some sort, all in black.

She speaks in a language Prompto can't understand, quick and high, with the occasional click or roll of the tongue. Prompto groans and touches the screen gently. "Can't things go right just once?" he asks.

Regional dialect detected, a cold, mechanical voice says, tinny and faint from the speakers of the box. Translating. Translat. Ating. ing. ing. We are in the dark. The plague has taken... the country of the sun. We have been. been. been. Magically enhanced. Immune. May be immune. Two hundred at most. When the king comes we will. Error. Translating. The child runs the risk of. The child. child.

Prompto turns from the face of the woman on the screen, and stares up at the open case.

Behind him, he can hear the slow, heavy slither of scales on stone.

From: (Anonymous)

Omg this is so gooooood

From: (Anonymous)

holy shit i didn't expect this.. and that cliffhanger!!!!! can't wait for the next part!!

From: (Anonymous)

Prompto has never run so fast in his life.

He is aware, through the haze of terror that wraps itself around the shriek of the daemon at his back, that he's always had this strength behind his legs, this coiled power locked away while his younger self tottered through learning the right form and pace to guide it. Even when he runs with Gladio, he can feel it there, tense and heavy in his limbs, the dormant knowledge that he could go faster. Farther.

He wishes he'd figured it out before now. Maybe then he'd have some practice.

Instead, Prompto is barreling into walls, smacking into boulders, tripping around stalagmites as the daemon's wretched ululation reverberates in the ruins behind him. He finds a ledge and vaults over it--His muscles are screaming with the strain, but he pushes himself past the pain and comes out the other side still breathing, scrambling onto the ledge and running for an open cave flooded with light.

"Prompto!"

He nearly cries with relief at the sound of Noct's voice, but of course it isn't over, because a pool of blackness is spreading out before him and a hand thrusts up through the stone.

More daemons. Perfect.

By the time Prompto finally catches up with the others, he is done. He is so far beyond done that he's ready to explore the new and uncharted territories of Nope, I'm Out, just to the West of Hell No and Fuck This. And they still haven't found the tomb, yet.

"My baby!"

"Oh, hells," Prompto groans, as the daemon from his future nightmares drops to the ground before the tomb, turning her massive head towards Prompto.

"She's back," he says, and Noct summons his sword.

"What have you done with my baby?" She moans, and Prompto recoils as she slips into the trilling, clicking language he heard in the ruin.

"I don't know where the hell your baby is, lady," Noct says.

"I think I do," Prompto whispers, under his breath. He holds his wrist so hard that it stings, and all he can see is the open case, the woman on the screen, the red lights that shone at his touch.

He had been found near a ruin: A child wandering the caves with a tattoo on his wrist and a memory of nursery rhymes that don't match up with the world that is. A boy with a lucky charm that hasn't been used since the destruction of Solheim. A boy who picks up weapons training like he's born to it.

The daemon bares her teeth in a horrible grimace, and strikes.

"Prompto?" Ignis asks, when the body of the great naga dissolves into formless ooze on the stone. "Are you sure you are well?"

"What?" Prompto looks up, forces a smile. "Yeah, Iggy. Just never, ever want to go anywhere near a snake again."

Ignis touches his cheek with a gloved hand, brushing a thumb under his eye. "You're crying," he says.

"Well, watching Noct get poofed into a frog was the most hilarious thing I've seen all day." Prompto backs away from Ignis' look of concern. "Come on, before we lose the others."

"Indeed," Ignis says, softly, but Prompto can feel his gaze at his back all the way into the tomb and out of the caves, still and thoughtful and far too knowing.

When they emerge into the sunlight, the Empire is waiting for them.

Prompto takes a hard, long look at the empty aircraft on the slope, the lines and lines of MT soldiers marching through the damp grass towards them, the vicious gleam of their blades and the hollows of their guns. He's exhausted, he's overwhelmed, and all he wants to do is sit the guys down and tell them everything, let them figure it out while he sleeps for the next twenty years and hopes it all just goes away.

The soldiers continue their steady march towards the cave entrance.

Prompto Argentum is the son of war journalists. He knows what famous last stands look like, and he knows how pointless most of them can be. He was raised to think logically, to rely on his own strengths and recognize his limitations. He was raised to value survival.

Right now, he doesn't care.

He strides towards the lines of MTs, remembering the words Ardyn had spoken after the trial of the Archaean. If it's true, if Prompto is what he fears to be, then it'll work. If it isn't true, it won't matter.

"Turn around," he shouts, as though admonishing a misbehaving puppy. "Go home!"

The MTs don't stop, but they do lurch and shudder, falling out of step in a rippling wave as their bodies fight against what looks like an invisible string yanking them back. Prompto raises his voice.

"Turn around!"

To his frank astonishment, a number of the soldiers do.

None of them have fired. They stand and shake and convulse in a loose arc around Prompto, and when he steps towards them, they fall back like a retreating tide.

"What the ever loving hell," Gladio says, and the spell breaks.

The fight is over far too quickly, and when it's done, none of Prompto's friends can look him in the eye.

"Prom," Noct says, in a tentative voice. "Think you can explain what that was?"

"I don't know," Prompto says. "I'll try, but..." He rubs his wrist again, and looks out at the distant hills of Duscae. "I think there's someone who can explain it better."

There's no getting around it. Prompto knows, no matter how hard he and the others try to sort this out themselves, there's only one man who holds anything close to a complete answer.

Somehow, he will have to find his way to Ardyn Izunia.

From: (Anonymous)

Op here - this is amazing! I love this so so much!

From: (Anonymous)

ardyn u better watch out

From: (Anonymous)

OMG THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I NEED MOOORE!!!! i am going to keep a tab open with this request just because of your amazing fic author anon!!!

From: (Anonymous)

This is SO AMAZING! Solheim! Prompto is such a unique idea and the story is really well written. Looking forward to seeing how Ardyn is tied into everything: personally my headcanon had him way after Solheim but that's not knocking your story. You should totally consider posting it on A03 or Fanfiction for a wider audience.

From: (Anonymous)

A!A here! Thank you! Life got in the way of the next part, but I'm working on it now. I also usually consider Ardyn to be after Solheim, but in this case I might mess with the lore a little bit.

From: (Anonymous)

Ignis' first thought, after Prompto has finished telling the most roundabout, confusing story of his life, is that they need to go back to the cave and examine the room of cases themselves. The problem with that is, the only way Prompto will go back is if someone literally drags him there by the hair, and anyways, he doesn't remember how or where the cave was. No one likes the idea of the new King of Lucis getting lost in an ancient ruin somewhere, and Gladio votes that they pick up the Regalia before they try to track down their oh-so-helpful chancellor.

"I mean, not that it matters," Noct says, as Prompto paces on the other side of the fire. "You're still Prompto."

"Right," Prompto says, twisting his hand over his tattoo. "Except I'm a Prompto who... what? Can talk to MTs? Might not even be from here? From this time? Maybe?"

Noct has nothing to say to that, which is almost worse.

Ignis suggests they test Prompto's theory on the way to the new Imperial garrison that has set down near Lestallum. They try simple commands: Stop. Stay. Turn. Drop your weapons. The MTs that fall from carriers overhead respond with varying degrees of success: It's easier if Prompto is close to them, and he starts to push through his fear of their lurching, shuddering bodies to walk among them like a shark through a school of fish, making a small empty space around him wherever he goes.

Fighting is easier this way, but Prompto finds himself shying away from his friends afterwards--and none of them seem very eager to close the distance.

The MTs at the Imperial garrison are too powerful for Prompto to influence, spurred by the red light that emanates from the garrison's center. Noct destroys half the base with a flash of violet magic and the intervention of Ramuh--Prompto, who doesn't want a repeat of the fight with the Titan, hides in a shed while the MTs in the open are consumed by the Astral's lightning. It's only just dying down when he emerges, to find Noct, sweating and wild-eyed, warily avoiding the others.

Right. He knows how that feels. Prompto walks through the wreckage towards his friend, and claps a hand on his back. Noct smiles at him, faint and uncertain, and he smiles back.

"Look at us," Prompto says. "A pair of freaks."

"We've always been like that, Prom," he says, and shoves Prompto with his shoulder.

Noct has his arm around Prompto as they walk to the Regalia, and it's nice, it's almost normal, which of course means that some bastard is bound at any minute to fuck it up. This comes in the form of Ravus Nox Fleuret, professional buzzkill and terror on legs, who nearly takes out Gladio with one move and has a sword to Noct's neck in a flash. Prompto's eyeing his magitech arm, wondering if he can influence that the way he does an MT soldier, when he hears a familiar low chuckle, and Ardyn Izunia strolls into view.

He barely gets the chance to speak.

Prompto is on the chancellor in a flash--The chancellor ducks from his first blow, but Prompto knows how fast he can be, now, and he's up with a second before Ardyn can recover, and they both go down, landing hard on the asphalt of the garrison. Ardyn's ridiculous scarf is in one of Prompto's fists, the others are shouting, he can hear Ravus' rapid footsteps behind him, but all Prompto can see if Ardyn's smug, knowing grin, his hands raised to block Prompto's next strike.

"Perhaps," Ardyn says, "We should all... take a moment for sense to reassert itself."

Prompto feels a shift in the air, a coldness in his bones, and he turns to see Ravus, not two feet away, frozen in the act of drawing back his sword. His hair is stilled in an unmoving wind about his shoulders. Behind him, Noct is running forward, about to phase into a warp. Gladio has his hands tight on his sword. Ignis' dagger is already flying through the air, hovering a few feet from Ravus' side.

"There," Ardyn says. "That's better."

Prompto swallows thickly. "What did you..."

"Not how I would have done this," Ardyn admits, "but you forced my hand." He smiles at Prompto, as though they're sharing a private, intimate secret, and carefully pries his fist apart. "Was there something you wished to say, dear one? Or would you prefer to behave like one of your mindless, unsophisticated namesakes?"

"What am I?" Prompto asks. "What... what are you?"

"I told you what I was at the start, my dear," Ardyn says. "I am, as always, a man of no consequence. But you? Oh, you are something special."

"Quit... quit fucking around and just..."

"Shh." Ardyn pushes Prompto off of him and stands, disrupting dust particles that catch the trapped light of dawn. "I'll do better than just tell you what you are, Prompto." He raises a hand, and a cloudy red mist forms about it.

"I'll show you."

Prompto staggers as wind slams into him, heavy as a hammer: His shoes skid on the concrete, and he knocks into Ravus, who wobbles on his feet. When Prompto dares to look up again, he reaches out to the statue of a man for support.

The garrison is gone. Prompto is standing on a wide, clean street made of stone, shimmering under the light of a mid-day sun. There are high buildings on either side of him, alive with wildly carved woodwork in the shape of creatures he's never even seen before, dripping with flowers and shining bits of crystal. There's light everywhere, in fact: windchimes made of glass hang from shop awnings, some second floor buildings are made almost entirely of wall-length windows, crystal globes hang from lines strung up over the street like festival lanterns. And everywhere, at every window, door, and roof, are seven-mirrored lucky charms like Prompto's, flashing and spinning in a gentle breeze.

"Behold," says Ardyn, standing in the middle of the street with his arms outstretched. "Solheim, at the end of the world."

From: (Anonymous)

the suspance is killing me O_O

From: (Anonymous)

I'm loving them and so looking forward for more.

From: (Anonymous)

OP here - I am loving this so much! I really like the gradual reveal that Ardyn is more than he seems & also howhe has his theatrical side. Thank you! I can't wait for the next part!

From: (Anonymous)

Thank you all for your patience! Had to get over a serious writer's block, but the plot is now picking up!

--------

Ardyn Izunia stands exultant in the center of the spectral capital of Solheim, hands upraised like he is the central figure of one of the paintings in the Citadel gallery. Prompto holds onto the frozen form of Ravus and turns round. His friends are behind him, trapped in a glitch in time, but they are already starting to fade as Ardyn's illusion solidifies around him. When the charms that hang over the doorways down the street bend and flap, Prompto braces himself for a wind that never comes. When flower petals whirl in low drifts over his feet, he takes a breath and smells oil and smoke, not perfume. He looks back to Ardyn.

"Historians do try their best, bless them," Ardyn says. He waves a hand, and Prompto cries out as a massive, translucent golden figure rises from the earth behind the chancellor. She is a woman, her thick hair curling about her naked form like fire, and when she stands upright, she raises her hands in an imitation of Ardyn's dramatic gesture, and the charms all clack and clatter, whipping about in s frenzy as she disappears into the light of the sun.

"The hell," Prompto gasps.

"Dear old mother-goddess," Ardyn says. "Solheim was a haven of art, of learning, of technology... of the gods. The goddess of the sun would rise from the center of Solheim every morning so long as the gods' favor held. Of course..." his smile softens as though touching on a fond memory, "She was betrayed. They say it was our own hubris that killed her." He twists his hand before the illusion of the sun, and the sky goes black, lit only by a blood-red moon. "Those of us who saw her fall? We know better."

Prompto hears a chorus of unearthly shrieking, sees bouts of fire light up distant rooftops, lifts his arms to defend himself as streams of black and purple flakes drift into the sky. Ardyn twists his hand again, and the sunlit street of Solheim returns.

"I..." Prompto lowers his arms. "I used to be afraid of daemons, when I was little. Because the way they screamed, they sounded like..."

They sounded like that. Ardyn watches Prompto, one brow raised.

"Yes," he says. "It was a terrible time. But out of that maelstrom of suffering came a ray of light. The chosen king, blessed by the fallen goddess herself. A healer. A gift to the survivors of Solheim, the new citizens of Lucis."

The air is suddenly full of flowers. Prompto blinks through them and sees a crowd of people on either side of the street, faces featureless but bodies leaning out with frantic enthusiasm. There's another crowd approaching from a distance: A rider stands at the front atop a black chocobo. He smiles. It's genuine, and a little anxious, and he runs a hand through his silky mauve hair and waves at the cheering crowd.

He isn't much older than Prompto.

"I know him," Prompto says.

"Yes, quite the resemblance."

"No, I know him." Prompto pushes past Ardyn, and walks right up to the younger version of the chancellor. The man pulls his chocobo to a halt and looks down at him.

It takes Prompto a moment to notice that he's fallen to his knees.

"Must be in your programming," Ardyn says, with interest. He walks up behind Prompto, who struggles to rise, and lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. "It's true that the MTs in that time were unflaggingly loyal. The astrals despised them: They only ever fought on orders of the king, and the king was only allowed to live free so long as he behaved. A shame, really."

Prompto swallows hard. He stares into the eyes of the young man above him, and wrenches his shoulder out of Ardyn's grip. Slowly, as though fighting his way through the earth itself, he stands.

He felt something like this the first time he met Ardyn. He turns to him now, sees an echo of the young king in his face, and some of that feeling rises in Prompto's mind.

"What happened to you?" he asks. "What... What happened to me?"

"Too much to tell," Ardyn says. "Needless to say, some accounts of Solheim, and what came after, had to be carefully doctored to, ah, preserve the truth. The MTs were hunted down, the king fell, and the Astrals found a new set of lackeys upon whom they may impose their divine will."

"You're handling this remarkably well, my dear," Ardyn adds, and for a fleeting second, Prompto can see the eyes of the king in Ardyn's face. Then it is gone, and his gaze is glassy and vague as always.

"It's been a long fucking week," Prompto admits. Ardyn laughs. This is wrong. He shouldn't be laughing with the chancellor of Niflheim. Who might also be the king of Solheim. Or Lucis. Or light--Prompto isn't sure of anything anymore. But when Ardyn faces him fully and raises a hand in a strange, closed-off salute, Prompto can feel gears in his mind that he never knew existed until now. He falls to his knees a second time, and the smile Ardyn gives him is nothing like that of the old king in the illusion.

"How did you fall?" Prompto asks.

Ardyn sighs, the illusion wavers, and he shows him.

When time unfolds, Prompto is straddling Ardyn's waist again, but his hands aren't raised to strike. Ravus sheathes his sword and turns in time to avoid Ignis' dagger, which clatters uselessly on the concrete. Everyone stares at Prompto, whose head is bowed, gazing down on a smiling Ardyn Izunia. Ardyn speaks, but his voice is too low for any of the others to hear.

Prompto's hands are shaking.

They're still shaking when Gladio drags him off of Ardyn. He graduates to a full-body shudder, and his boots scrape on the pavement as he's pulled into his friends' arms.

Ardyn stands, and says something to Ravus, who is looking from Prompto to Noctis with open concern. Prompto stumbles into the passenger seat of the Regalia and fumbles with his camera. It drops to the floor of the car.

"Prompto," Ignis says. "Your camera. Prompto?"

Prompto doesn't move. In the end, Ignis retrieves the camera for him, and gently pushes Prompto into his seat.

"The hell did he say to you, Prom?" Noct asks. "Specs, let's go before he changes his mind."

Prompto draws a knee up and leans against the door. The others sneak him wary looks as they roll their way out of the fortress, but Prompto's mind remains in the streets of Solheim, in the dizzying silence left behind after the tale of Ardyn Lucis Caelum's fall from grace.

Ardyn had gripped Prompto's wrist, fingers curling around the barcode that lay hidden behind his wristbands, and his voice had cracked in a way that made Prompto feel a twist of sickness in the pit of his stomach.

"It's been so long," Ardyn had said. "So long since I've seen one of my own."

And that was when Prompto understood. All those times Ardyn had stared at him, watched him, leaned in to curl fingers under his chin or smile knowingly behind the others' backs: Prompto finally knew the name behind the darkness that flashed behind Ardyn's eyes then, sliding in and out of view like the fin of an ancient creature.

Hunger.

From: (Anonymous)

Op here -
This is so worth the wait! You've got Ardyn's character nailed down so well & the way you're writing his and Prompto's interactions is really fascinating.
Thank you so much!

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(Anonymous) - Fill: Before the World Was Made 1/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim

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