You know you can't quit until it's won

[photoshooter]

Who: Prompto Argentum and open!
Where: i. Bluohaus, ii. variously around Chroma, iii. heading into the forest, iv. Flavo
When: First half of June
What: Punishments, presents, positivity, and pquests!
Warnings: Illusory animal injury, will warn for FFXV spoilers and additional warning-worthy content in threads as necessary.

i. Bluohaus, beginning of punishment week

[It's a new day. The house is full, no one is missing, friends and lovers have been reunited, and a distressed wail breaks the quiet of the morning.]

Oh no!

[Some more dismayed noises and a couple stumbles later, the door to the Eos boys' room slams open. A bedheaded, barefoot, blatantly distressed Prompto stands in the threshold with a chicken-sized, confused and sleepily cheeping baby bird in his arms.]

Ignis! I need all our potions, stat!

ii. Out and about Chroma, punishment week

[Now aware that his favorite not-really-housepets are not, in fact, bleeding and dying everywhere, Prompto's just trying to go about some chores and further familiarize himself with the city to get his mind off it. It's hard, though, when he keeps flinching and closing his eyes whenever he sees an animal.

Oooooor maybe he'll just whimper, cover his face, and press his forehead against a wall. That's fine and normal, right?]

iii. Edge of town, post-punishment, ShEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP

[And now, for something completely different.

After advertising his availability as a yellow for the invisisheep quest, Prompto can be found between the town and the forest, gathering dust up into little cloth bundles and disappearing them into some space unseen.]

Too bad Gladio isn't here. I bet he knows how to track a sheep from its, uh. Tracks.

iv. Flavo

[It's a new day. The house is--well, as empty or full as it should be, you know your living situation better than I do. Friends and lovers are doing what friends and lovers do, no animals appear to be under undue stress, and there's no reason for any wailing to cut through the morning peace--]

Oh no! Aw, crap!

[A window in an abandoned Flavo cottage slams open. Prompto leans out of it, coughing and waving smoke out through it, then reaches down, deposits his fluffy chocobo baby carefully outside, and withdraws to take care of whatever's burning in there.]

Don't worry, baby, I got it! Just wait out there for Daddy Prompto to put out the bad fire, okay?

[So, that's happening. The little thing kwehs high and loud as single father Prompto tries to save his bacon.]

Comments

( i ), obviously

[unfatalist]

[It's a credit to the absolute Mom-ocity of Ignis Scientia that he's literally drawn a potion out of the armiger before it's even occurred to him why he's being called or what the urgency is. Granted, he was probably getting some Actual Sleep For Once™ that has now been disturbed in favor of...whatever the problem is, but who needs sleep when there is, apparently, a problem worthy of screaming bloody murder over.

Blearily, he scrubs at his eyes with the hand that isn't holding the potion, propping himself up and squinting through his blurry still-half-asleep vision at...

...Okay, you know what, Prompto is up there in his list of Top Three Favorite People and yes, it is an admittedly very cute chocobo, but for gods' sake, he was sleeping. For once.]

...Is that a chocobo?

[photoshooter]

Yeah! But Iggy, it's hurt!

[Prompto powerslides on his knees to Ignis's side, the baffled chick cradled oh-so-gently in his arms. It's still kwehing in its itty baby voice, but it doesn't actually seem, you know. Injured.]

We gotta help it...!

[unfatalist]

[Yeah, that is...not at all the face of a chocobo in dire need of immediate medical attention. Hmm.]

Prompto...

[Count to ten, Iggy, find your Patient Voice™.]

Potions are a far rarer commodity here than they are at home, as I'm sure you're aware. We shouldn't be hasty with their use.

[He peers at the chick, rubbing sleep out of his eyes again.]

Would you mind elaborating for me on why exactly your little friend requires such...assistance?

[photoshooter]

[Prompto shifts back like he's been slapped, then slowly, carefully offers the baby over to Ignis for inspection. Maybe he doesn't see it because he doesn't have his glasses on yet.]

Ignis, it's dying. And Spot and Aurorean, they're in bad shape, too, but this one's so little, I--

[All those tiny, fragile broken bones, the half-closed eyes, that round, feathered chest struggling weakly and erratically for breath--Prompto's a gunner, his hands stay steady, but his voice comes out as wobbly and gummed-up as if Insomnia were falling before his very eyes.]

Iggy... Please?

[unfatalist]

Prompto, it's clearly —

[Except that then he stops short, caught by the painstakingly delicate way that Prompto hands the chick over, the despair in his face. He's all but begging in the way that he's trying to rationalize this idea of his — this one's so little — and there's something about it that's so earnest and desperate and compelling that it makes Ignis stop and reassess the situation a second time.

And what he comes up with is this: Prompto is many things, but a liar he isn't. He's also not deliberately wasteful, however careless he might be at times.

The principle of Ifrit's Razor, he reminds himself, states that the simplest solution to any given problem is usually the best. Prompto is insisting that something untrue is true. What is the simplest solution to the question of his reason for doing it?

Because he genuinely believes that what's untrue is true.

It makes him frown, gazing down at the chick in his hands. Is it really so clearly anything? Maybe there's a way to find out.]

...Tell me what's wrong with it. How it's injured.

[ "Iggy!"
"— Gladio!"
"Well, well, what have we here?" ]

[photoshooter]

[Put your glasses on and help it already!

That's what Prompto wants to say and maybe grab him by the shirtfront and shake him, but Ignis does this thing when he figures something out a hundred years before everyone else and it changes his voice, makes you pay attention. Tears are still pricking Prompto's eyes and it hurts, like dull pain and sorrow's scored a line inside him from the backs of his eyes down his throat to his heart, to look at that baby chocobo cradled in Ignis's hands and do nothing but talk. To describe how it's hurt when it's tearing Prompto up that he can't help.

After Fociaugh Hollow, though, Prompto doesn't argue with that tone of voice. He takes a shuddering breath and lifts a hand to point.]

Here, it's... its wing is broken, up at the shoulder. And I think s-some of its ribs are crushed, too. The way it's--it's barely breathing, and... I don't know, Iggy, it's hard to see through all the blood, and I swear every time it blinks its eyes look fainter...

[He has to break off, looking away and covering his mouth. Scratch what was said earlier; he wasn't this distraught even when Insomnia did fall.]

[unfatalist]

[So that's it, then. That's a description far too specific to be something he's making up on the fly, and it's affecting him far too much to be falsified. Whatever it is that's happened, Prompto looks at this bird and sees a baby animal on the verge of death, when in fact it's...

Surreptitiously, he gives the chick a little nudge, eliciting a little kweh out of it that sounds more indignant than anything else.]

All right. I understand, you've convinced me.

[He regards the little bird a minute, who probably stares right back at him, and then carefully sets it down in the midst of the blankets on his bed.]

But I'm going to need your help. Give me your hands.

[photoshooter]

[Oh, yeah, it stares right back. What is up with this rudeness, it was trying to sleep. And now it's hungry. Y'all better have some good greens to make up for this treatment.]

Huh? O-okay...

[He wipes his brow quickly against his bandanna and then offers his hands to Ignis, who always knows how to fix things.]

[unfatalist]

[Carefully, he takes one of Prompto's hands, turning it palm-up before gently guiding his thumb to rub against the pads of his fingertips.]

Close your eyes. Are your fingers wet, or dry?

[photoshooter]

Wha? Ignis--

[But, oh. The weirdness hits him about the same time as his protest does, and, though his eyes are still closed, he tips his head down, rubbing his fingers together more purposefully. Without prompting, he checks his other fingers, too.]

But how did--? [Eyes open to ask the question, he catches sight of the little chocobo again and full-body flinches, whimpers, and closes his eyes again.] What's going on?

[unfatalist]

You said it's covered in blood. But you carried it in here, and handed it to me, and your fingers are dry.

[Emboldened slightly, he takes Prompto's hand again and guides it to the chick's wing, lightly patting his fingers down the mass of feathers, following the line of the unbroken bone.]

Its feathers are dry, as well. Feel them?

[photoshooter]

But--

[But Ignis is right, and even as Prompto jerks a little when he realizes he's touching the injured chick--the chick he thought was injured--he knows Ignis is right. It shakes itself and squawks, annoyed with all the touching, and that's not something a bleeding, dying bird would do, either.]

But... but I saw... How did you know it's okay?

[unfatalist]

Because I don't see it.

[He tries not to wince, inwardly, as the explanation leaves his mouth. Funny how these days, he notices every single time he uses the verb see, and how it always sounds so ironic when it falls from his lips.]

It doesn't look injured in the slightest, to me. It's just a healthy...ah, somewhat irritable, chocobo chick. To my eyes, at least.

[He hesitates.]

And you said that Spot and Aurorean were the same way?

[photoshooter]

[Despite the chocobo's frustration, Prompto keeps petting and petting it, like he needs the confirmation it's really okay repeated a thousand times before he can believe it.]

Yeah. Yeah, they were--I thought something must have attacked them. But, if the chick's okay, then they must be, too?

[It should be a statement, but hope makes a question out of many things.]

[unfatalist]

It would stand to reason. Do you want me to go check on them?

[Which would involve, you know, getting up and actually accepting that he's just plain awake and never getting back to sleep this morning — and for Prompto, he is absolutely willing to make that sacrifice.]

I'll go right now. Or we can go together, and you can touch them, if you need to.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto's silent for a while. Without speaking, he slides his free hand down to the chick's chest to feel the steady rhythm of its breathing. His petting finally slows, though it doesn't quite stop. The chick sinks into its puffed feathers and seems resigned to it, possibly sleepy once more.

Eventually, he breathes out.]

I--I can go. It's okay.

[He rubs his fingers together once more, as if really, really checking, and even dares crack open one eye to peek at them. They don't look bloody, either. Braver, he starts to lift his gaze to the chick itself once more, but aborts the motion as quickly as it starts, shaking his head with his eyes squeezed shut.]

Sorry for waking you up for nothing, Iggy. I-I'm sure Spot and Rorie are fine, if it's just me.

[unfatalist]

It was hardly for nothing.

[Though he does take that as his cue to put the potion away, back in the armiger where it belongs with a shatter of blue-white light.]

For one thing, you've still not told me where your little friend came from. Don't tell me we've had someone lay an egg that I wasn't aware of.

[photoshooter]

Ummm, no, I would've noticed that.

[The terror-spike of adrenaline ebbs away and Prompto ends up kneeling next to Ignis's bed so he can keep blindly petting the baby.]

I made a wish, I guess? And then it was waiting for me when I went to check on the chocobos. But they were all... I still don't understand why they look like this to me.

[unfatalist]

Oh, with those coins? I've seen people with those.

[Hmmmm.]

I wonder. Perhaps the wish-granter is a fickle thing, and gave you what you wanted, along with a penalty of sorts.

[photoshooter]

...You don't think it's permanent, do you?

[unfatalist]

Thus far, nothing has been. The furniture eventually ceased, as did the shadows, as did whatever force had us split up just recently. I have to believe that this, too, will pass.

[Hopefully.]

It's simply a matter of time.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto nods, holding onto that. After a moment, though, he asks:]

Theeee furniture?

[unfatalist]

Early on. The first quest of ours, I believe, was to clean up the town — and if we didn't, the furniture would yell condemnations at us.

[He pauses, gaze going faraway for the briefest of moments.]

It knew our secrets. The sort of things each of us wouldn't want overheard by anyone else.

[photoshooter]

...Oh.

[That one lands deep inside Prompto like a drop of water in a still pool, sending ripples out to his edges. The sorts of things we wouldn't want anyone else to know.

Something about Ignis keeps him from laughing it off, blustering too brightly about how it's a good thing none of them have any secrets, spending so much time in close quarters. Or maybe it's something about Prompto, now, after Zegnautus Keep. After telling them.]

I'm. Glad I missed that. ...You guys got through it okay, right?

[unfatalist]

...It's never easy to have one's insecurities exposed. Even in the presence of people who would never dream of holding them against you.

[He fiddles idly with the blankets, watching the chocobo chick a minute, then shifts and moves it a little so that the sight of it is partially obscured behind the positioning of his legs — a slight little correction designed to help make it just marginally less visible to a stray glance.]

Noct seemed to contend with his own well enough, which...only suggests that he's thought about them on his own often enough that hearing them again like that didn't do much to affect him. He seemed more upset by the ones that targeted me, than himself.