[I want to go home, she remembers thinking night after night, when she'd slept in caves and on sand and atop cots made of hay, when the six of them had been swept away from everything they'd once known and there was no telling when if ever they were ever going to see it again. I want to go home, she remembers repeating as she'd bit down on her sleeve and sobbed after another day of getting nowhere and another new set of horrors burned into her memory. She'd told herself it would be worth it, everything she did and had done, once she made it home. She'd figure it out, once she was home. She'd make her peace once she was home.
Then she'd been scarred, defeated. Then she'd been traded away to the wizard in exchange for the life she'd fought so hard to preserve, and watched as Nick and the others had returned to the one place she'd been trying to get to all along. Watched as they got the one thing she'd wanted. Watched them earn the thing the wizard had specifically denied her, expressly to taunt and to hurt.
Nick never came back. No one ever came back. And then it was more living, more enduring. With the wizard she couldn't even cry at night, lest he overhear and gain the satisfaction that his pressure was making her crack at last.
But now, somehow, she's stumbled into this. Hands that seek out hers. Arms that gather her in, a nose that brushes the top of her head and lips that press kisses against her hair. A voice that tells her to come home, and that it's okay if she can't make it alone; he'll carry her there.
Just come home, Prompto says, and it's like something jars loose that had been lodged inside her before — an ugly, wretched sob of her own that she crushes against his chest to try to stifle the sound of it.
Home.
He'll take her home.
It's okay. They can figure it out. They'll figure it out when they're home.
Because when Prompto holds out his hands, home isn't that distant faraway star that it had always been in Nevermorrow, that impossible dream to chase. Home isn't the relief at the end of a neverending endurance run, not the inspiration and justification for whatever needs to be done to get there.
Home is right here, already here, and he'll take her to it whether she's able to get there on her own or not.
But for a little while yet, she just cries against his shirt, and babbles I'm sorry until the words don't even sound like words anymore, and lets the world shrink down to nothing but the arms around her and the warm breath in her hair and the catharsis that comes from weeping and knowing that there's still gentle affection waiting on the other side for her when it's done.]
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Then she'd been scarred, defeated. Then she'd been traded away to the wizard in exchange for the life she'd fought so hard to preserve, and watched as Nick and the others had returned to the one place she'd been trying to get to all along. Watched as they got the one thing she'd wanted. Watched them earn the thing the wizard had specifically denied her, expressly to taunt and to hurt.
Nick never came back. No one ever came back. And then it was more living, more enduring. With the wizard she couldn't even cry at night, lest he overhear and gain the satisfaction that his pressure was making her crack at last.
But now, somehow, she's stumbled into this. Hands that seek out hers. Arms that gather her in, a nose that brushes the top of her head and lips that press kisses against her hair. A voice that tells her to come home, and that it's okay if she can't make it alone; he'll carry her there.
Just come home, Prompto says, and it's like something jars loose that had been lodged inside her before — an ugly, wretched sob of her own that she crushes against his chest to try to stifle the sound of it.
Home.
He'll take her home.
It's okay. They can figure it out. They'll figure it out when they're home.
Because when Prompto holds out his hands, home isn't that distant faraway star that it had always been in Nevermorrow, that impossible dream to chase. Home isn't the relief at the end of a neverending endurance run, not the inspiration and justification for whatever needs to be done to get there.
Home is right here, already here, and he'll take her to it whether she's able to get there on her own or not.
But for a little while yet, she just cries against his shirt, and babbles I'm sorry until the words don't even sound like words anymore, and lets the world shrink down to nothing but the arms around her and the warm breath in her hair and the catharsis that comes from weeping and knowing that there's still gentle affection waiting on the other side for her when it's done.]