Prompt Post
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ffxv_kinkmeme Welcome to Round Two of the FFXV Kink Meme!
CLOSED for prompts | OPEN for fills
Please have a look at the extended rules here.
The important rules in short:
Please direct any questions or report any problems to the Ask a mod post.
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.
Additionally: Do not repost prompts from the previous round in their entirety. By this we mean copying and pasting prompts without any changes. If you see a similar prompt to a prior prompt, that is not a repost. Obviously prompts that are reposted per the above rule do not count either. (After all, they will be similar but not the same.)
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.
CLOSED for prompts | OPEN for fills
Please have a look at the extended rules here.
The important rules in short:
- Post anonymously.
- Negative comments on other people's prompts (kink-shaming, pairing-bashing etc.) and personal attacks of any kind will not be tolerated.
- Don't be an asshole.
- One prompt per comment. Warnings for common triggers and squicks are encouraged, but not required.
- Prompts should follow the format: Character/character, prompt.
- Keep prompts to a reasonable length; prompts should not be detailed story outlines.
- Fills should have the word "Fill:" at the start of the subject line.
- Otherwise please avoid changing the subject line.
Please direct any questions or report any problems to the Ask a mod post.
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.
Additionally: Do not repost prompts from the previous round in their entirety. By this we mean copying and pasting prompts without any changes. If you see a similar prompt to a prior prompt, that is not a repost. Obviously prompts that are reposted per the above rule do not count either. (After all, they will be similar but not the same.)
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.
Fill: Before the World Was Made 5/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-11 12:28 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 5/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-11 03:37 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 5/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-13 07:36 am (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 5/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-17 02:27 am (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 5/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-22 08:52 am (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 5/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-22 11:41 am (UTC)Fill: Before the World Was Made 6/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-22 12:42 pm (UTC)"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."
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 6/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-04-22 08:05 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 6/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-02 01:24 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 6/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-16 10:31 pm (UTC)Fill: Before the World Was Made 7/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-18 06:49 am (UTC)--------
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.
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 7/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-18 08:28 pm (UTC)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!
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 7/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-19 01:20 am (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 7/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-18 10:02 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 7/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-19 01:20 am (UTC)Thank you! I'll polish it up and do that...
AO3 LINK Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 7/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-19 01:22 am (UTC)The link is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10941471
Fill: Before the World Was Made 8/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-24 03:17 am (UTC)“What’s up, sunshine?” Gladio asks, in that soft, quiet voice of his that he reserves for Iris and near-death situations.
“There’s something you guys need to know about Ardyn,” Prompto says.
Five minutes later, Ignis pulls the car into a rest-stop parking space. He carefully turns off the ignition. His gloves squeak as he unbuckles his seat belt. Then he slowly, deliberately, rests his forehead on the top of the wheel and closes his eyes.
Gladio sinks into his seat. He’s staring up at the clear sky, absently chewing on his tongue.
Noct has his face in his hands.
“And, uh.” Prompto looks from one of his stricken friends to the other, and fiddles with his gloves. “Uh, then his friend, who wasn’t his friend, but was, um. Your ancestor, Noct? He said that, uh, that Ardyn was the Accursed, and he—“
“Oh my god,” Noct murmurs.
“The chancellor lost his mind,” Gladio says. “That’s nice.”
“No, you don’t get it,” Prompto says. “He stopped time. He can make illusions. He has magic, and he looked just like the old king—“
“One revelation at a fucking time, Prom,” Noct says. “I’m still trying to deal with you being an MT puppet-master, okay?”
Ignis’ head slips, and the horn on the Regalia blares out into the woods, startling all of them into a wide-eyed panic. “Perhaps,” Ignis says, shakily adjusting his gloves. “Perhaps we should… put Altissia on hold, and… see if these rumors are true.”
“Yeah?” Gladio’s eyes have to hurt by now, he’s been staring at the sun for so long. “How do we do that?”
“There are books,” Ignis says, and Noct groans faintly. “Murals in some of the ruins we’ve passed. The hunters have a collection of oddities they’ve picked up over the years, and I believe if what Prompto says is true, surely there will be evidence left behind.”
“Sorry, guys,” Prompto says.
“I’ll write to Luna, I guess,” Noct says, detaching himself from the seat. “Tell her someone roped me into studying.”
“Gods forbid you crack open a book,” Gladio mutters.
The four of them head to the Hunter HQ close to Caem, where an elderly woman with a thin shawl and a look of deep suspicion shows them her “library.” Noct has to step outside so as not to scream: Books lie in untidy heaps throughout the room, yellowed and musty and smelling vaguely of mold and cigarette smoke. Prompto’s pretty sure he sees movement in one of the bigger piles, and quietly resolves himself to send Gladio after that one.
By morning, they’ve found half a map, a poem, and the limits of Noct’s patience. Noct creates a bed out of the cast-off books from Ignis, Prompto, and Gladio’s weary search, and lies out on it as though it were one of the massive feather mattresses in the Citadel’s residential wing. Gladio rolls his eyes and keeps going.
Noct is awake by the time Ignis has found something of worth: A chronicle of one of the first kings of Lucis, the Accursed. He reads it aloud, halting now and then to do a quick translation of ancient Lucian, and stops at the king’s name.
“Arren Lucis Caelum,” he says, and everyone looks to Prompto warily. “There’s an end-note. Sometimes known as Arran, Adden, Arden… Ardyn.”
In the shocked silence that follows, Noct rises and lifts a foot to kick at a pile of books. Gladio makes a low, warning noise deep in his throat, and Noct steps away.
“Won’t Luna know?” Gladio asks. “She’s supposed to be an expert on the prophecy.”
“If she knew, she’d tell me,” Noct says. There is a long, pregnant pause, and he grits out, harsh and pained, “She’d tell me.”
Ignis carefully closes the book. “Noct.”
“No, I…” Noct makes for the door. “I’m calling Gentiana. She’s her messenger. Sure, I can’t understand half of what she says most of the time, but she’s an in-between for the gods, right? She basically raised Luna after she became Oracle. There’s no reason for her to lie to me.”
Prompto looks at the book in Ignis’ hands. “I think we’ve all been lied to, Noct,” he says, slowly. “By everyone. Since Ardyn—“
“I don’t care.” Noct barks it out too quickly, and his hands tug at his hair. “I don’t care what he was. He’s still a fucking creep. And you’re still Prompto, and I’m still…”
Chosen. He doesn’t say it, but the word hangs in the air, heavy and stifling. Ardyn was chosen, too, Prompto realizes. And the Astrals got it wrong. What if… what if they messed up again? What if this time, it’s Noct who has to pay the price for their mistakes?
Prompto’s parents were practical, logic-driven people. They didn’t put their faith in gods, and Prompto supposes this is why he finds himself thinking, even while Noct struggles not to, that maybe the Astrals don’t know what they’re doing.
He makes the mistake of saying it aloud. Noct glares at him, a look full of betrayal and fear, and swings the door open.
“Shit,” Gladio hisses, and gets to his feet.
They follow Noct into the woods for a good fifty yards before he even acknowledges their presence. Then he rounds on them, digs his hands into his pockets, and calls for Gentiana.
And calls again. And again. His voice echoes under the thick canopy of the trees around them, and there is no sound in the sparse underbrush save for his own voice calling after him. Prompto stares into the green distance, and shivers in a cool wind from the slope behind him. He turns to face it, and finds himself face-to-face with the Oracle’s dark-haired messenger, Gentiana.
“Holy hell,” Prompto shouts, and reaches for Ignis as he scrambles backwards.
“You have asked for a cessation of the covenant, King of the Stone,” Gentiana says, in her whispery voice. Her head tilts, and her silky black hair pools over one shoulder. “The Oracle demands an answer.”
“Yeah?” Noct says. He steps forward. “So do I. What do you know about the Accursed? About the prophecy?”
Gentiana’s lips part for a moment, then close, and her voice rings in Prompto’s mind.
“All will be made clear to you at the proper time.”
“Well, that time’s now,” Noct says. “Why was Ardyn chosen? Why is he still around? What else…” He takes an unsteady breath, and holds it.
“What else aren’t you telling him?” Prompto asks for him. Gentiana turns to him, and a shudder of revulsion runs down his spine, an unnamed wrongness that coils in his gut and refuses to let go.
When Gentiana first appeared to them just a few days ago, her eyes were closed.
She opens them now, and smiles.
“A servant of the Fallen King,” she says, and the stiffness in her movements is gone. She sways as she walks, and her form shifts, twists, breaks apart like one of Ardyn’s illusions until she’s a slim blue shape that Prompto remembers from the storybooks his father used to read to him.
Shiva the gentle. his father had said, tracing the circlet over the pencil-drawing of the goddess. Shiva the kind. Strange. Ice never struck me as being very gentle.
In the flesh, her smile is soft and welcoming. Her hands extend towards Prompto as she approaches, and only the sudden chill in the air warns him in time. He falls back, and Shiva laughs, high and tinkling.
“Hey,” Noct says, and he succeeds at looking just shy of intimidating. “Cut it out.”
“That is my objective, Oh King of the Stone,” Shiva says. She ducks around Ignis, who has placed himself between her and Prompto, and her fingers come within an inch of Prompto’s nose. He feels a sheen of ice crackle over his skin, and yelps. “The magitech of his time are pernicious weeds. They must not take root. He will draw you from your chosen path.”
“So?” Noct asks. “What if the chosen path is wrong?”
It would be better if Shiva were to frown. It would be better for her to scowl in anger, or clench her fists, or scream. But instead, that smile remains on her lips, that crinkle at the corner of her eyes, and she drifts to Prompto with a playful air.
Prompto summons his gun, and her smile widens. She darts forward and grips Prompto’s hands in both of hers. The chill in her body starts to lace through him, cracking his skin, and Prompto struggles to break free.
“The King of the Stone must accept his calling,” she says. “Just as you must go the way of your master.”
“I don’t…” Prompto sucks in air so cold that it stings going down. “Have a master.”
“He’s in your mind,” Shiva says. “His mark is on you, profane as the mark of the goddess on him.”
Prompto can hear shouting through the wind and frost that swirls around Shiva’s body. “The goddess?” he asks. “Eos?”
“There is an echo of her in you,” Shiva whispers. “Through him. I can taste it.” She is too close. Her lips are over his, and Prompto can barely breathe, it feels as though his lungs have frozen solid, it feels—
There is a hiss of a flask breaking, and fire blooms at Shiva’s back.
“I said, get the fuck off!” Noct shouts, and Prompto can’t even comment on how ridiculous it is, watching his best friend since high school stare down a goddess like he has a chance.
Except… He kind of does, doesn’t he? Shiva’s smile falters as Noct prepares another flask, Ignis’ blades erupt with sagefire, and Gladio hefts his massive broadsword. Prompto’s hands are fused together in a block of ice, but he can finally breathe again, so he’s laughing even as he falls to the grass in exhaustion. Shiva glances his way, and the humor is gone from her eyes at last.
“You will bring the world to ruin,” she says, and disappears with a pulse of magic that sends the others to their knees.
“Yeah?” Prompto calls out. “Fuck you, too, lady!”
“Well, then,” Ignis says, as Noct rushes over with a fire spell to free Prompto’s hands. Gladio gives Ignis a look, but he ignores him. “That is what I would call a chilly reception.”
-----
Did I just end this chapter with a pun? Did I really?
Yes.
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 8/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-05-24 03:22 am (UTC)(and XD I love the pun)
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 8/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-12-18 03:51 am (UTC)Please tell me this is stored somewhere where I can more easily hunt it down and re-read?!?!?!? This is fantastic, and an amazing slowly unraveling AU that I just... yes... yes good. I am not good at flowery discriptions so just... understand my joyful screaming in my head! :D :D :D :D
Re: Fill: Before the World Was Made 8/? Re: Prompto has ties to Solheim
Date: 2017-12-21 02:11 am (UTC)