Prompt Post Round Five
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ffxv_kinkmeme Welcome to Round Five 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)
If you'd like to advertise a fill, head on over to the fills post! This is, of course, entirely optional.
New Prompts are Closed for this round. Please wait until 11/13/2017 for Round Six.
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.
- No reposting of prompts from previous rounds, please.
- No Meme-Police. Only ffxv_kinknator and ffxv_kinkhelper and ffxv_kinkmod are allowed to mod the meme. If you spot a rules violation, don't comment in the thread, report it on the Ask a mod post.
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)
If you'd like to advertise a fill, head on over to the fills post! This is, of course, entirely optional.
New Prompts are Closed for this round. Please wait until 11/13/2017 for Round Six.
Fill: 7/7 Re: Trickster God!Ardyn/Prompto
Date: 2017-09-24 10:27 pm (UTC)“Hey,” he said.
Ardyn glanced his way, and the coin vanished. “Prompto.” He climbed down from the window with a broad, guileless smile, and leaned over him, taking his face in both hands. He kissed him slowly, sweetly, savoring the taste of him, and drew back. “Are you ready to begin?”
Prompto blinked. “Begin what?”
“Your apprenticeship, of course.” Ardyn sank onto the bed, and set his hat over Prompto’s bedraggled hair, twisting it to get the angle just right. “I would have preferred to start last night—for dramatic effect, you understand—but if we wait ‘til the winter solstice, we can be well and truly prepared.”
Prompto didn’t speak. The hat smelled like Ardyn, with undertones of that odd, old scent of smoke.
“Between the two of us,” Ardyn said, taking Prompto’s hands, “with your ability to walk among humans and gods alike, we can bring this town to it’s—“
“No.” Prompto pushed Ardyn’s hands away. “That’s not what… That’s not what last night was about, Ardyn.”
Ardyn’s face shifted, an unfamiliar expression of pain flickering in his eyes. “Ah. You still have lingering attachments. It’s astounding, Prompto, what a human being can handle before he breaks. What reason do you have to care?” He lifted Prompto’s chin, gazing into his eyes as though trying to find the answer there. “Your own father discarded you. Your guardians disowned you. Your peers rejected you, and I know you can hear what your neighbors whisper when you pass. They see you, Prompto, a man who can talk to gods, and treat you like a plague carrier.”
“A plague…” Prompto whispered, his voice soft.
“In my time,” Ardyn said, “they would send those infected with the plague into the woods to die. Did you know? It only bred more disease, of course, but try telling them that. And after they found help in their most desperate hour, they turned—“ he stopped, and took a slow breath. “In the centuries that I’ve watched this town, I’ve yet to find a single person worthy of saving it.”
“Wow,” Prompto said. “Thanks.”
Ardyn shrugged. “You aren’t one of them, my dear,” he said, and though there was fondness in his tone, Prompto wanted to shudder and inch away.
“I am, though,” Prompto said. “And they aren’t like that. There are plenty of good people here. You’re just… I don’t know. You’re stuck. You can’t find the good in anyone because you don’t want to, not because it isn’t there.”
The silence in the bedroom stretched out, long and heavy, with only Prompto’s breath to break the unnatural stillness.
“Very well,” Ardyn said. He sat up, his usually expressive face gone cold and blank. “Name one good person, Prompto. One person in this entire town who hasn’t acted out of their own self-interest. If you can do that, I will concede defeat.”
Prompto stared at the rumpled folds of Ardyn’s scarf, tucked so carefully around his neck. “I don’t know their name,” he said. Ardyn’s brows raised, and Prompto took off his hat, setting it back over Ardyn’s brow. “But I think I can show you where they are.”
The pine needles of the woods behind Prompto’s cottage covered the iron grass like a thick, padded blanket, muffling Prompto’s footfalls as he passed through the high rows of trees. Ardyn sighed when he stopped to leave a handful of puffy white crackers on the fox god’s shrine, but remained silent for much of the walk. He didn’t even part the grasses as he matched Prompto’s stride, and his gaze remained fixed on the high, bare branches of the pines above.
Prompto undid the top button of his wine-colored coat, and let out a long, warm breath that steamed in the chilly air. He glanced at Ardyn, who gave him an arch look in reply, and took another exaggerated breath.
“You know the story behind the witch in the bonfire?” he asked. Ardyn’s expression froze up again, and Prompto turned slightly. “He wasn’t really a witch. He was more like… I don’t know. Someone like me.”
“Really,” Ardyn said.
“Yeah.” Prompto kicked a clump of pine needles aside. “Last night, there were these spirits. They clued me in. I’m still kind of figuring out the rest.”
“And did the town take as kindly to him as they have to you?” Ardyn asked.
“That’s not the point, man.” Prompto smiled at Ardyn’s look of outrage, and pointed. “There. I knew this was the right direction.”
He stepped out of the grass and into the clearing the fox god had shown him years before. The pine needles had formed a sloping barrier around the circle, which was still stamped flat, and when Prompto turned to face Ardyn, he found that the god had stopped just at the edge. He looked more like a shadow than a man, his form flickering like a mirage in the street on a warm day.
“Here he is,” Prompto said. “The one good man in town.”
Something smooth and hard scraped against his neck. Prompto knew, with a thrill of gut-churning dread, that if he turned around now, he would see the dangling feet of the hanged man. He forced himself to focus on Ardyn.
“They said he cured a plague,” Prompto said. “Back then, people like him—like us, I guess—they were still being hunted down. It would’ve made sense if he just let the plague happen. But he stopped it anyways. And the witchfinder killed him, and the town called him a witch, and they burn him every year in the bonfire.”
Ardyn disappeared for an eyeblink, and Prompto felt the pressure of feet bumping against the back of his head. When Ardyn came back, his jacket was gone, his scarf was slung loose over his neck and chest, and his hands were a blistering shade of red.
“I’ve met him a few times,” Prompto said. Above him, a rope creaked. “He gave me a guitar when I got lost in the woods, and he danced with me last night. Sometimes, he likes to call himself Ardyn.”
“But if he told me his true name, I could win your wager right here.”
Minutes passed. A wind whirled around the clearing, idly stirring up pine needles and bending the iron grass at the god’s shins, before passing through the rows of pine trees with a sorrowful whistle. The rope continued to creak over Prompto’s head, and the shadow of the hanged man started to creep over his shoulder, hiding from the rising sun.
Ardyn stepped into the circle.
His clothes were no longer impeccable and spotless as Prompto had always known them. His shirt hung from his arms in ragged tatters, revealing the slicing lines of whip weals and purpling bruises. His palms were still red as blood, but Prompto could see now that they were burning, skin bubbling and charring as he came.
When he stopped before Prompto, the shadow of the hanged man disappeared from Prompto’s shoulder. He raised his hands to Prompto’s face, not quite touching him, leaned in close, and whispered his true name in Prompto’s ear.
-
Months passed before anyone thought to check on the old Besithia cottage. The men who’d gone to find the Argentum boy still wore the aprons from their job at the only café that hadn’t banned him, and when they opened the front gate, they saw that one of the windows was wide open, with snow tumbling in from the overburdened roof. Snow piled thick on the walkway to the front door, and the men had to dig it out before it could open onto the cold, dark living room.
The electricity was off, but they tried the lights anyways, walking through the dusty cottage with a silence reserved for shrines. They examined the small collection of books on the shelf, cringed at the rotting food in the fridge, and puzzled over a bound music box that, when prodded, shuddered and plunked dangerously.
There was a rustle of movement, and the younger of the two men motioned for the back door.
“Something’s out there,” he said.
He pushed dark bangs out of his eyes as he stepped into the brilliant, snow-covered back yard. His friend followed him, squinting into the empty expanse, and shrugged.
“An animal, maybe,” he said.
“A fox,” said the younger man.
“What?”
“It was a fox.” He pointed, but his companion only shook his head. “I could’ve sworn… Maybe I was seeing things.”
“Could’ve been,” his friend said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go. Wherever Prompto is, he sure as hell isn’t here.”
They turned from the lawn, stared into the darkness of the cottage, and walked around the side instead. The back door, which they’d left propped open against a snow drift, slowly clicked shut, and as they made their way back up the dirt road to town, the small, wavering shadow of a fox followed behind, trotting gaily at their heels.
-
And hundreds of miles away, in another town much warmer and brighter than the snowy fields of the one he left behind, Prompto Argentum tucked his three-and-a-quarter league boots in his travel bag and unslung the guitar from his back.
“I like this one,” he said. He sat on an old, crumbling wall overlooking a crater at the edge of town, where a few wind spirits were cackling in the high evergreens. “It has a nice feel to it, you know?”
“Maybe,” said Ardyn. He leaned against the wall and watched Prompto’s fingers slide over the guitar strings, picking out a melody he’d taught him on the road. The guitar didn’t sound so much like wailing anymore, now that Prompto knew what he was doing, but it didn’t sound much like a guitar, either. One or two people passing by in the street stopped to stare.
“Well, we don’t have to settle down yet,” Prompto whispered, as the onlookers started to inch closer. “It’s not like we’re running short on time.”
“No,” Ardyn said. A small girl jumped forward, a paper bill clenched in her hand, and glanced around. Ardyn set his hat upside down on the ground at Prompto’s feet, and Prompto rolled his eyes.
“Dude,” he breathed. “She can’t see it.”
The little girl darted in, dropped the bill in Ardyn’s hat, and ran back to her parents. She stared up at Ardyn and Prompto with wide, brown eyes, and Ardyn turned to Prompto with a slow smile.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Prompto said. “She’s not old enough to make a bet with a god.” He covered his voice with a riff that sounded like rain falling on a dulcimer, and the growing crowd applauded.
“Never fear.” Ardyn wrapped an arm around Prompto’s waist. “My gambling ways are behind me, my boy.” He kissed him on the temple, and his voice lowered, barely audible under the murmur of the crowd. “Now that you’re mine.”
Re: Fill: 7/7 Re: Trickster God!Ardyn/Prompto
Date: 2017-09-25 11:04 pm (UTC)Re: Fill: 7/7 Re: Trickster God!Ardyn/Prompto
Date: 2017-09-26 01:52 am (UTC)Re: Fill: 7/7 Re: Trickster God!Ardyn/Prompto
Date: 2017-09-28 01:54 pm (UTC)