( CLOSED ) if i smile with my teeth

[paladads]

WHO: takashi shirogane & ignis scientia
WHERE: n/a
WHEN: early june
WHAT: prompto vanishes; shiro grieves with ignis
WARNINGS: n/a

[ He searches Ruga and Bluo as swiftly as he can while being thorough, checking every room, basement, and attic for the missing bright speck that is Prompto. Shiro doesn't let on to Ignis that he's worried but he damn well is; people vanishing is one thing but he's more scared to find Prompto's body somewhere. Whether it's a blessing or not that he doesn't is up for debate as he heads to the well, his concern for the sweet blonde shifting to Ignis as he waits for his friend to arrive.

Honestly, Shiro has no idea what to do or say. If Keith disappeared then Shiro would be inconsolable, so he has no draft for a less than unwanted There, There. He decides to stay with Ignis as long as the man needs company, that being all Shiro has to offer with his search of Chroma coming up with nothing. ]

Comments

[unfatalist]

[While Shiro is checking Ruga and Bluo, Ignis corrals Aurorean and heads out fast for Flavo, which is also where he presumes the most definitive proof of Prompto's potential disappearance will be found. He'd maintained a house out there, in some capacity — a retreat of some kind, the house he'd been assigned as a Yellow upon his arrival, even though he'd ultimately spent most of his time with the others in Bluo. If the house was assigned to him, then it ought to be colored by him. And if the house winds up lacking color...

...Well.

Well, then.

They'd agreed to meet up in an hour, near the well that always seems to form the focal point of their lives in this strange colorless town, and by the time he arrives on Aurorean, Shiro is already there, looking about as somber as he's certain he does himself.]

Shiro.

[paladads]

Ignis.

[ Rising to meet Aurorean with a pat to the beak, he looks past the chocobo to its rider, sympathy held in a frown. It ... doesn't look promising for either of their searches, then. ]

Any luck?

[unfatalist]

Yes and no, I'm afraid.

[No, that's not optimistic at all, is it? He swings himself down off of his mount, absently burying one hand in the feathers near his chocobo's neck to help keep it at his side.

Well, and to give him something to do with his hands. That's important, too.]

I found his house in Flavo — the one he was assigned when he arrived here. He was a yellow, you may recall.

[He doesn't even realize that he's already using past tense verbs. Bloody hell.]

It's gray again. The house.

[paladads]

[ Colour is such an integral binding force of the strange town that Shiro, not an expert by any means, still knows that it bodes ill for Prompto's assigned housing to have faded back into its decrepit hue. He steps forward to lay a hand on Ignis's shoulder, gentling his tone. ]

Do you want to keep searching or would you prefer to go home? We can do either. Whatever you want.

[ Shiro will search the woods all night by the glow of his arm if Ignis needs to go that far. ]

[unfatalist]

...You know, I —

[He stops short a beat — unlike him, to falter, especially when it comes to finding something to say.]

I'm torn, truly. Part of me...knows full well that the writing's on the wall, so to speak. But the other, the part that still wants to scour every inch of this bloody place in search of him...

[He turns his face away, eyes going to the soft downy yellow of Aurorean's feathers. Yellow, like Prompto's hair. He'd loved the chocobos more than any of them, hadn't he...]

I don't know if it's out of denial, or out of guilt.

[paladads]

[ Shiro's heart goes out to him. If any of the Paladins had simply vanished ... ]

Tell you what, we'll search the woods as much as we can before nightfall. How about that? We can always start again in the morning if you still want to.

[unfatalist]

He wouldn't have —

[He stops short again. This time, when he resumes, his voice is much softer.]

...Yes. Let's search the woods, we...may as well be thorough.

[paladads]

[ Prompto wouldn't stay out in the woods at night, no. Shiro can guess as much. He was a gentle soul that liked warmth and laughter instead of the dark, but this is for Ignis now. Cathartic searching. ]

Alright. You hop up on Chicken Little and don't go too fast, I'll keep pace.

[unfatalist]

You're going to run alongside a chocobo? Now that I would care to see.

[He says, swinging himself up onto Aurorean again, and determinedly doesn't think about Prompto falling off trains, Prompto alone in the Astrals-forsaken wilderness somewhere, Prompto taken to Zegnautus Keep as bait because Ardyn didn't take Ignis, because it had to be one of them but he was too much trouble himself, and if it had been him it wouldn't have been Prompto, it wouldn't have been Prompto —]

Head out through Flavo, then?

[paladads]

Tell it to walk, not run.

[ Dry and amused, enough to match Ignis's idle humour that floats above the miasma of anxiety surrounding the situation. ]

Through Flavo works for me. We can double-check it.

[unfatalist]

I'm not certain the word is even in Aurorean's vocabulary.

[Though a mild trot, perhaps, is not altogether out of the question, and he nudges his heels against his chocobo's sides at the same time he adds tension to the reins, guiding Aurorean forward at a pace slow enough for Shiro to keep up with, if he goes briskly.]

You — spoke to him sometimes, didn't you? Just the two of you. Did he ever confide in you the...things that had happened to him, between what he remembered and what I do?