izunia lucis callout

[founderinglight]

you will pry twinzunia from my cold dead hands let's do this

Comments

[founderinglight]

[Yeah well IZUNIA HAS NO IDEA ABOUT THAT, PROMPTO. Well okay he sort of knows that you had a thing and Noctis had a feeling about it, but.]

I'm afraid 'equal parts comforting and horrifying' is the only kind of comfort I get these days. Perhaps it's rubbed off?

[photoshooter]

[Prompto looks around the empty city.]

Uh, who comforts you, though? Ah, that came out kind of bad. I just meant, like. It seems pretty lonely here, is all.

[founderinglight]

That is one of several contributing factors, yes.

[He hasn't... actually gotten comfort from another person since Gilgamesh left. Not for the things that really matter.]

[photoshooter]

Oh.

[Prompto fidgets a little, wringing his hands.]

Well, if it helps, it didn't sound like you meant to be horrifying. It just came out that way.

[founderinglight]

I do not make a habit of being intentionally horrifying.

[Well, not since he was a teenager, anyway.]

May I ask...?

[photoshooter]

[He looks away, shifting his legs to put the soles of his boots together and bounce his knees like a butterfly, hands braced on his feet.]

...How much do you know about what Ardyn did?

[founderinglight]

My knowledge after my death is limited to the experiences of those wearing the ring. So - mostly Insomnia, some of Altissa, and what he did to Noctis in Gralea.

[Pretty much nothing to do with Prompto himself.]

Some of it I can guess, as there's no one else who could have revitalized magitek for Niflheim in the first place - much less built Ravus Nox Fleuret an arm like that. Prosthetics were one of his specialties.

[photoshooter]

[Prompto bites his lip, pressing down on his feet to keep his hands still.]

I mean... I dunno. There was someone. Someone who could've helped him, anyway. With some stuff.

[Let's be real, Verstael would've probably LOVED to help stick an ugly arm on Ravus.]

Do you know anything about, um. The Magitek Troopers?

[founderinglight]

...Beyond that they were Niflheim's half-daemon army, no, not particularly.

[Well, and that Ravus found them intensely creepy.]

[photoshooter]

...Right. Well. Ardyn helped make those, too.

[It's beyond weird to be explaining this to someone who looks and sounds so much like Ardyn he might as well be talking to the man himself. After a while, Prompto gets his words in order.]

They look like robots. We thought they were for a long time, just robots powered by magitek. And they are, kind of. But the magitek... it comes from. From turning people into daemons and harvesting them. They did that to their own people. I... I don't know if there's anyone left alive in Niflheim.

[Gralea had been a dark, black husk, like the shiny shell of a dead beetle. He shudders to remember it. He hates bugs.]

But that's only part of it. It was one thing to power them, but they still needed another part to... make them work. But every time they tried putting a person in there, their ego died. So...

[How many times will he have to come to terms with this? Will he ever, really? Will he someday be able to think about this without wanting to throw up or cry or disappear?]

So they used babies instead. So they wouldn't even have an ego to kill. They created clones so they could just make millions of soldiers and injected them with the Scourge before they even knew they were alive, and that's what an MT is. A shell piloted by those daemonified clones, running on the harvested lives of Niflheim.

[founderinglight]

[Izunia is silent for a long time, until Prompto finishes. Then he exhales, loudly, slowly, putting a hand to his face almost as though to block it out.

He can't tell, from the words, if it was Ardyn's idea or not. But it could have been, his brother's genius with lives and magitek twisted into one horrific whole by the Scourge.

It could have been, and that's enough to hurt.]

I see. I think I can fill in the gaps.

[Prompto, found again by Noctis and company in Gralea - changed, somehow, and using the barcode in his wrist to unlock doors that only members of the facility should have been able to open.]

You realize the irony, I hope? Identical twins are natural clones- it's the existence of people like Ardyn and I who spawned that sort of technology in the first place.

[Another piece of evidence for his brother's dark genius at the helm, actually. Izunia carefully puts that thought somewhere where he doesn't have to look at it right now.]

But if Ardyn and I are not the same person - [And oh, the irony! Oh, let him be run through on his own words already!] - then neither are you one of the soldiers who destroyed your home.

[photoshooter]

...I know. But still, if... if there is a Prompto who's already there, I'm not gonna, like. Replace him. That'd be pretty messed up.

[The irony JUST KEEPS HAPPENING.]

[founderinglight]

[OH GOD DOESN'T IT. Like some kind of endless looped gif of stairs.

Don't flinch, Izunia.]

You won't know one way or the other until you get there. Don't harm yourself worrying over it.

[photoshooter]

[Don't harm himself worrying? It's like Izunia doesn't even know him. Which, fair. He doesn't. Prompto starts picking at his boots, thoughtful.]

Would you go back? If you could. Even if it's all messed up.

[founderinglight]

If I had the chance to change my own actions - absolutely. Without the faintest hesitation.

Otherwise... What would be the point?

[He tosses the pen he's still holding lightly, flipping it in his grip.]

I have no desire to relive those experiences, and save for Ardyn, all I loved is but memories. Do not let my face fool you - I've lived a full life, even if it is one with more regrets than I can bear.

[photoshooter]

I meant... well, yeah, that too. I get that.

[If Prompto could change things... actually, maybe he wouldn't. No, he definitely wouldn't. Wasn't that what he wrote to Noct in a letter that will never be sent? It hurt, it sucked, but he can't regret those things he experienced at his best friend's side.

All the same, yeah, maybe he wouldn't mind some things with Ardyn, particularly, going down differently. But anyway.]

I meant more, would you go back now. Knowing that it's all different and so much went on without you, but it's still... your home. But no one's waiting for you.

[founderinglight]

If you're looking for advice, mine isn't going to do you much good.

[Izunia shrugs a little, almost melancholy about it.]

As I said, I had a full life. It wouldn't be nearly the same for me, who raised two children and met my infant grandson before I passed, as it would be for you. You're what, twenty? Twenty-one? There's a lot of life you haven't lived yet.

[photoshooter]

Twenty.

[Distantly, he thinks it's a little nice to be pegged as older than he is, for once. Not assumed to be a high schooler.]

I just... if there isn't a place for me, I-I don't think I'd want to know. Ugh, no, that's stupid. That's stupid, right? Gah, why do I keep having the same problems over and over again?

[founderinglight]

Then you'll find a new place. You have plenty of time for it.

[He's an adult, sure, but barely. Twenty is plenty young enough to start over.]

[photoshooter]

...Guess so.

[Never see the guys again? Never see Noct? Ouch.]

Nothing's ever easy, huh?

[founderinglight]

Not if you overthink it.

[It's... almost a gentle scolding, especially when coupled with the fact that Izunia throws his pen, with a practiced hand, to hit Prompto in the shoulder before it vanishes back to his Armiger.]

[photoshooter]

Hey!

[And that's such a--such a stupid Noct thing to do that Prompto's throwing his glove right back at him without even thinking about it.

Yeah. That's right. He just threw a biker glove at the Founder King's face. Suck it, Lucis Caelum.]

[founderinglight]

[Izunia catches it with a blink and then just... stares at it in his hand for a moment before tossing it back. Then he laughs a little.]

Have a little faith. You are loved. Everything else will work itself out.

[photoshooter]

...

[Prompto clears his throat and busies himself with putting his glove back on, because that's not a totally obvious ploy for a moment to think that over, of course.]

I am, aren't I? Guess I'll take your word for the rest, Grandpa.

[founderinglight]

[It's okay, Izunia needs a moment to recover, himself, from being called Grandpa.]

...If you are ever in doubt, don't be afraid to ask. Consider that the obligatory advice to keep you from making my mistakes.