whichcraft: mankind invented houses for a reason, okay (NATURE ♚ wow thanks i hate it)
Summer "The Witch" Moran ([personal profile] whichcraft) wrote2018-05-14 09:18 pm
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[Art by [personal profile] photoshooter!]

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
photoshooter: (CODED 📷 Open book with missing pages)

RECLAIMS PROMPTO CITY

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-21 08:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[While the magic warmth and protection of a bona fide Ignis HugTM persists, Prompto finally puts his big boy pants on and stops waiting for Summer to sign back into the forum.

Only once he's crossed the border out of town and into the woods does he stop to trace his fingers uncertainly over the old familiar bracelet remaining on his left wrist, where even now it still looks a little weird not to have the other. He leaves for the dark because Summer's all hiding and secrets, and it occurs to him he isn't even sure it'll work if he doesn't use her real name.

Prompto's pretty sure he knows what it is, or at least the first part. But when he looks up from his arm and sees the forbidding, end-of-autumn branches scratching out the sky above his head, he decides not to expose her like that to the trees.

Still touching the leather, breathing out wispy clouds in the crisp air, he says:]


I want to see you. Aestas?
photoshooter: (REGRET 📷 Should've stayed home today...)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-21 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, phew, you're in town.

[Tension Prompto didn't even know he carried unwinds in a whoosh, and then he tucks his chin in, embarrassed by it. He still feels... weird. Complicated, after all. But it's good to see her, and he already feels better than he did, waiting in his room at the computer.

He rubs his knuckle under his nose and drops his gaze, kicking idly at the hardening forest floor.]


I-I thought you might've gone into the woods or something. Wasn't really looking forward to trying to find you in there.

[Prompto turns, but hesitates and turns again.]

Uhh, is it okay if I walk away from the... window thing? Will it follow me? If I head back into town, I mean?

[Where it's safer. Where she is.]
photoshooter: (HEE 📷 A bunny smile)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-22 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
...Only thing it's missing is an uplink to King's Knight.

[The answering smile is faint and a little crooked, but the wave he waves to the window isn't unfriendly.]

You're at your house? With that Clark guy?

[He sets back off, gratefully turning his back on the woods.]
photoshooter: (BACKLIGHT 📷 Rise and shine)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-22 02:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Uh, yeah? Yeah. I guess?

[Prompto looks entirely baffled for a second--two whole emotions--and then realization clears his expression up.]

Oh. Yeah, I--

[He reaches up and tugs at a lock of his hair. Silver's gone; he's back to gold.]

I'm back.
photoshooter: (BEAT 📷 You worried about me?)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-22 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I'd hope so. I'm pasty enough without going literally film noir, you know?

[The pitch of his question goes a little too high, and after a second, he sighs as he trots along. Overcompensating isn't gonna work to make anyone feel better.]

You okay yourself, Ace? I was worried.

[Were you worried about me?

Of course I was.
]
photoshooter: (SAD 📷 Sad Prompto in snow)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-22 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
What? No, I didn't go anywhere. Mostly I just stayed home.

[There wasn't a lot of reason to go out, when he didn't really care about anything. Or have any interests. No reason to stay, either, but inertia is a property of matter, even when color isn't.]

I'm... sorry for worrying you. I was fine. I--I'm more worried you might've been beating yourself up about it, 'cause... I mean. I guess I wasn't fine-fine, I mean, probably it was pretty weird...
photoshooter: (EXHALE 📷 Are my best friends.)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-24 09:13 pm (UTC)(link)
...I know.

[He drops his gaze away from the window. Even if that might not be where she's watching him from, meeting her gaze when she looks like that, all downcast with her makeup off, it's not something he can do and trot along and talk at the same time. Not and acknowledge the truth of what she did to him.]

Guess it was a little too fairy-tale, huh? Turning to one quest to fix the other. But I'm not--I don't think it was a bad idea. Just maybe not the best.

[Prompto knows something about not meaning to be awful, but things just kind of coming out that way, anyway.]

A-and, I don't feel terrible. So I don't think you should have to, either.
photoshooter: (SAD PUPPY 📷 Old Yeller dies...?)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-25 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
[The breath he takes isn't the sharp kind from stinging, unexpected pain. It's audible like that, but a milli-beat longer, deeper, deliberate, like when you see the needle and turn away but still feel it enter--surprised not by the hurt itself, but how much.]

...Aestas.

[Prompto knew, from everything she said then and the picture he's formed of her over the last few months, that Summer stole his color from him because she honestly thought it would help, and if she thought it would help, that could only be because it had helped her in the past. To survive, on her own. In the end, the only one she could rely on to come through for her was Summer herself. That made sense, Prompto figured that much on his own.

What he didn't know was what exactly she'd had to come through, to get to this answer. Figuring out how to make it stop, when she learned how to kill--a person, not a creature.

That's what she said, isn't it? It's like you wish it could just...stop. Just for a little while.

That's how you cope when no one comes for you. That's how you cope when you have to, when no one's there to save you if you can't.]


And after? It doesn't... It didn't go away, did it? [He slows for a second, looks around, makes a turn; as he does, he presses the heel of his hand hard against his heart. No. It doesn't go away.] What do you need then?
Edited 2018-11-25 03:00 (UTC)
photoshooter: (RUN 📷 Run boy run)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-25 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
[Summer's strength gives out, and when it does, the murky unease, the week's worth of unresolved, compacted hurt Prompto's been pushing through crick-cracks and shatters open, lets everything else burst through.]

It's okay. [Untrue, but he says it. He feels it.] I'm okay. It--I'm not fucked up now.

[What he is is complicated to feel and impossible to explain, a disorienting, sloshy mix of guilt, still, and relief, and anticipation and betrayal and something overwarm that's sunk claws in him--not yet painful, but deep and impossible to ignore.

What he is tugs him towards her, yanks him across the cobblestones.]


I'm coming, A. I'm bringing you home. If--

[No. None of that. Big breath, Quicksilver, you heard what she said, and here she is, breaking for you.]

--That's what you want, right? That's what you need. Come--come home now. It's safe. We'll figure it out, we're not--I won't leave you behind.
photoshooter: (UP 📷 You think aliens have furries?)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-26 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
[She's crying. He swallows.]

Almost there, girl.

[And he is, and he's fast, and he's there, peering up each staircase until he finds the one she's on. Like they're an inverse of Cinderella on the steps of the palace, Prompto stares up at Summer, breathing just a little hard, his shoes neither glass nor lost, neither of them dressed to dance. Instead of running away, he reaches up to her--not in princely invitation, but with both hands, like a child. Or like she's the child.]

Come on. ...I can carry you.

[Not like a princess, but piggyback, like they did on their way back from the last castle.]
photoshooter: (INHALE 📷 You guys...)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-11-29 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
[He shakes his head, steps forward, and opens his mouth again, but for some reason, watching her as her voice--contracts, sort of, the sounds scrunching together to match how she's sitting, all curled up--somehow, that glues his own words together in his throat, a huge lump he can't hack up.

Of course she's not too heavy. The first thing she did was float the both of them up, lighter than air. She's a bird soul, she's firelight, she's so skinny even Prompto worries about her, a little. They're all the sorts of things he's wished he could make himself. Useful. Admirable. Light.

(The prince grunted when he hauled him up out of the dirt, used both hands and said without thinking, "Heavy--!")

As he looks at her, his hands still held up and out, the only thing Prompto manages to get out past his past is this. The truth under it all. What he always needed to hear.

It doesn't matter if she's heavy or not.]


I want to.

[I want you.]
photoshooter: (SAVE ME 📷 Call my name and--)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-12-01 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
[Where Prompto guides her is the rest of the way to his chest, so he can wrap his arms around her and just hold her. So they can fit together again. That much hasn't changed. That's still the same. He breathes out, like a sparking wire's finally taped over once more. For now, they're safe.]

Yeah. A little later. I, I promised Iggy I'd help make dinner. [After a pause, Prompto shifts his hold so he can take more of Summer's weight against him. At the same time, he reaches up to smooth his hand down her hair. His eyes are closed, but he knows beneath his fingers, it's a dull, autumn brown. Homey. Like home. He inhales again, long and shaky like air is something new to him, and expels it with another promise.] We're going to make enough for all of us.

[What he's saying should be obvious. Breathing's starting to come more naturally now as he strokes Summer's hair. They're going back home.]

It's--I don't know if you'd have it where you're from. It's like, bird meat and egg mixed up over rice. It's good, I promise. Way tastier than I just made it sound.

[She's littler than him. Not tiny or anything, but just smaller enough that Prompto notices, every time. He rests his nose in her hair, then, light as a petal, touches his lips to the top of her head.]

Just come home now, where it's warm. When you're ready.
photoshooter: (DENY 📷 Pull the trigger Piglet)

[personal profile] photoshooter 2018-12-02 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
[It's okay bubbles out of him, helpless counterpoint--not because it is okay, but because the only way Prompto can imagine going on right now is to make it okay, for Summer. Everything she did is still done. They'll have to talk about it. Even he knows that.

But right now, she's crying in his arms. For him, even. And there's something he has to say, to make sure Summer knows before they go anywhere else, physically or conversationally. She has to know it the second he does, and that's right. Now.]


I love you, too.

[It's the second-absolute-worst time to say it, he realizes. But the first-worst time was when she did, after taking his color and leaving him unable to respond on any level, so fair's fair. It makes it a lot less fairy-tale, in any case.

Prompto holds Summer tight both to steady her and to keep himself grounded, drive the both of them solidly down into this moment. This is the realest he's ever been. They'll ever be.

Saying it to Ignis was different. That was stating a fact that's been true for years, and getting to tease him, too, a little bit. This--telling Summer--is making a decision. Realizing that fact, putting it into action. Prompto's placing his bruised heart in her hands with all the vulnerability she bared by stepping, slight thing that she is, into his arms. Like a light, feathered thing with hollow bones. That's all either of them is, sometimes.

He feels tall and protective and small all at once, holding her here on the stairs. Something inside him is shaking.

Maybe it's the friendless little boy he saw in the mirror.]


I want to say that now. So. S-so much.
Edited (Wait I can make that better) 2018-12-02 03:13 (UTC)

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[personal profile] photoshooter - 2018-12-02 19:01 (UTC) - Expand