genessia | Action

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Who: Prompto Argentum and OPEN
Where: Genessia/Attleton
What: A very early run. Or is it late night? Hard to say.
When: November 25th
Warnings: ~~Probably not. Will update if necessary.~~ Nevermind this got dark. Warnings for Episode Prompto and Chapter 13 of FFXV.

The thing Prompto appreciated most was the safety in the night. Certainly, it wasn't perfect, but there were no daemons around, so when he awoke at some godawful hour, he decided that if he was going to run when he did finally get up anyway, at some other insane hour just later in the morning, he may as well cut out the trying to sleep, tossing and turning and shifting around uncomfortably until the sun was starting to peek over the horizon.

Why bother waiting? It was quite possible that if he expended some more energy he would be able to get some more sleep when he came back. That seemed relatively logical, so he got out of bed, pulled on his clothes. It was kind of cold out and he found himself wondering what had happened to his winter clothes.

He hesitates, shifts his weight and reaches into the armiger. He was in luck, at least, a very small favour that it was there, but he wasn't going to worry about it. It still smelled of gunpowder which made him wrinkle his nose as he zipped it up. It definitely needed to be washed, but that could wait until his run was over.

Prompto made his way outside, stretched a few times and started to run, towards Attleton. He'd probably run through Genessia, Attleton and come back, hopefully a good long run to clear his mind.

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Takumi had already figured out that much, but even with time stopped? The present situation he'd left was complicated enough. There were plenty of rivals in the shadows who wanted him dead. There was the entire Republic army to worry about. There were secrets to uncover and then protect. He could be back at home, while time was standing completely still, running around the galaxy trying to get everything done - and it might still take him years.

But he didn't let on, and chuckled, sheepishly. "At least there's that. I hope you're right."

And it confirmed that whatever thoughts kept Prompto running now - it wasn't concern for his friends.

He tried a different tackle to fish with, a little. With a little chagrin, "Don't know if I'd want anybody I know coming here, or not. I mean, friends might be nice, but they might not want to be taken from their beds into a strange world, you know?"

Continued with a frown, "And, well. If time wasn't stopped at home? I'd want some, er, not-friendly people dropped into this place, get them out of my world, but."

"Yeah, I guess." He ran his fingers through his hair, another sense that his nerves were running high, but they usually were. He wasn't expecting to run into anyone at this hour of the day, honestly.

"I think my friends would handle it fine. Besides. Noct is already here and he's...well what we do this for." It could be hard to imagine that kind of loyalty, perhaps.

Prompto scoffed softly. "No, this world wouldn't deserve that." He added, under his breath. "Some people should just fall off a cliff."

Perhaps. Takumi had been getting used to inspiring that kind of loyalty. It was a heady thing. But slow to cultivate, and required trust on their part, and patience on his. Mentally, he made a note about Prompto and Noctis' relationship.

He looked a bit bashful when he admitted, "Yeah, they'd handle it fine. I just don't think they'd be happy about it."

"Oh, I hadn't thought about that," he lied. Frowned. "Because as dangerous they are on my world, most people here are so friendly and ... and unsuspecting ... that they'd ..."

Takumi let himself trail off, allowing Prompto to imagine as he would.

"Is a cliff really good enough for some of them, though?" he asked, laughing nervously. "Benefit to traveling in space, is that you've got airlocks."

"I don't know how happy they'd be or not. I'm not sure that's really a question for them." He was pulled into the fray, they were born into their roles. They thrived in them and where Noctis went, they would follow. It was Prompto who came willingly.

"Do more harm here than they ever could before." That seemed like a likely outcome at least.

"Not really." He admitted. "But it would be satisfying."

"Because they're also Crownsguards?" It was a pretty easy guess to make. Well. Takumi made another mental note - but he cared about whether or not his friends, allies, soldiers, or servants were pulled here against their will. If any of them did arrive, he'd work on making them as comfortable as possible.

It was the least he could do, in return for their loyalty, after all.

"But at least just harming few people, instead of a whole galaxy." Takumi then frowned, looked quite unhappy at that, as logical as it was. "Not that anybody here deserves to deal with them, I don't think."

That he knew of, anyway. If he found out there were some undesirables here, he wanted to figure it out, and maybe set them against each other. Efficiency.

Takumi was tempted to suggest more satisfying methods of execution, and reminded himself gently of his current audience.

Still. "That's because you've never - well, you guys might not have space travel where you're from?"

"With some of these guys - murderers, rapists, torturers, slavers - if they just vanished off the side of the cliff, that might be too quick."

He let a bit of his personal pain enter into his voice, so it sounded more like a bitter memory - and less like a bloodthirsty Sith seeking revenge.

"They are, yeah, but they were always meant to me. I'm just a Crownsguard because Noct asked me to." He smiled sheepishly. "They're from noble houses and everything."

Prompto shook his head. "I don't think this place is much bigger than Lucis, and harming these residents instead of ours at home when we have the chance to stop him would be...cruel."

Oh, that was kind of mean of him, but he was having a hard time feeling too charitable towards Ardyn Izunia at the moment.

"N-No, we don't have that." He shook his head.

"...All the same, it's a nice thought." He huffed lightly, glancing away. "It w-wouldn't kill him anyway."

"That makes sense. It must be a pretty big honor, then, that he'd ask you to be a part," Takumi observed, thoughtfully.

He nodded, "It would be. Especially considering how nice everyone's been so far. Maybe I just wish they were in a place where they can't bother anyone at all."

Then, frowned. They had a chance to stop him, the stranger claimed, but the vacuum of space wouldn't kill him?

You're supposed to be frightened by this idea, he reminds himself, and looks sufficiently spooked by mention of an immortal, for Prompto's sake.

"What, he can breathe in space?" Takumi swallowed nervously. "Or. Well. Maybe I don't want to know. But if he can't be killed, how are you going to stop him?"

Edited 2017-11-28 23:23 (UTC)

"A huge honour, I had to say yes." Prompto grinned and shrugged helplessly. It was hard to say no to Noctis. He had a way about him.

"That's probably more ideal, but seems unlikely." He sighed softly with a shrug.

"I don't know if he can breathe in space, it's never come up." Prompto looked unsure. "Something to do with Noctis, I think. It's hard to say. I don't know, but he survived a lot of things that should've killed him."

He huffed and glanced away. It was enough to make him mad and he didn't want to be angry.

Takumi shifted the books in his arms again, maintained an appropriate expression of worry with a touch of fear. "Hopefully he doesn't come here, then."

And then, with a grimace, "If he does show up? Is there a name I should look out for, so I know to steer clear?"

It'd be a name of a possible ally - but more likely a probable enemy. The guy didn't seem like a violent or vengeful type, so anybody he'd want to chuck off a cliff was probably bad news. And, while Takumi had worked with a lot of people he'd prefer to throw into the vacuum of space - here he had the luxury of no Imperial oversight, and felt he could be a lot choosier about who he worked with.

'No assholes' seemed like a good rule of thumb.

"No." Prompto shivered a little. "D-Definitely not." It would honestly be his worst nightmare, and the further he was from the man, the better.

"I...there isn't much point, if he's n-not here." He frowned, no he doesn't even want to think about the man.

He really wasn't the vengeful type, and there was a lot he could forgive, but some things just couldn't be forgiven. The sooner the man was destroyed, the better, in his opinion, he just didn't have the power to do it.

He wasn't very strong.

"S-Sorry, I think we got off topic."

Whoever this guy was - it was bad enough that Prompto didn't even want to mention the name aloud. Didn't want to consider the realistic, if very unlikely, possibility that he could arrive here, too. Changed the subject as soon as possible.

"I suppose," Takumi said, looking concerned, but dropping the subject. Internally, he made another mental note. This mystery person was seriously bad news.

Then, he ducked his head, as if embarrassed. "Sorry. Guess my curiosity got away from me a bit."

"I guess I didn't even get your name - I'm really sorry. Very rude of me. I just started talking, and ... now I'm doing it again. I'm Takumi Terasu. It's nice meeting you."

"It's fine, it's okay, really." Prompto babbled a bit, speaking a little quicker. He was going to cling to the subject change like a drowning man and a life preserver.

"It's Prompto Argentum." He offered a nervous little smile. "N-Nice to meet you."

He visibly looked unnerved from the conversation and he was pacing a little, although he wasn't aware of it. He probably should tell Takumi about Ardyn, at least, avoiding him but he honestly didn't think the man would target anyone else as long as he and Noctis were around.

There wasn't any reason to think that the unnamed boogeyman was the reason Prompto was kept awake and running, but. It wasn't much of a stretch, either, to think something related to him, or events he caused in Noctis' kingdom, were worrying the other man.

Now, there was genuine concern on Takumi's face. It was always a risk when poking around, but he honestly didn't mean to agitate anybody, or bring up bad memories. His brow furrowed.

"Hey, I'm sorry for bringing it up," he said, genuinely. "I just got too curious. Again. It's really a problem. I should stick to reading these books."

He inclined his head down the street, where he knew there were one of those old diners that he walked past, every day. "Let me buy you a cup of tea, and we can talk about literally anything else. You said you don't have spaceflight, right? I could talk about that. It's really the best thing in the world."

"It's fine, really." He rubbed his hands on his pants even if they were in gloves, it was another signal that his nerves were getting away from him. "S-Sorry, I have a hard time talking to people, in the best of times."

Prompto flushed, sometimes he really wished he could just shut his anxiety down full stop. It would be incredibly nice for a change not to be constantly worried. He had breaks with his friends, but he'd been away from them and his previous tendencies to want to seclude himself were barreling into him full force, he was just stubbornly trying to fight it.

"Tea sounds good." He said agreeably and let Takumi lead the way. "Yes...tell me about s-spaceflight!"

"Well, the first thing you have to remember is that space is big. Mind-blowingly big. Even after spending a few years traveling, flying, I still can't wrap my head around just how huge it is. It's not possible. But, you begin to get the sense the first time you go off-world - even if you're just a passenger - because once you leave atmosphere, if you look outside at the planet you just left -"

Takumi will go on for a while, waxing poetic about looking down at the world you just left - viewing the vastness of space - the exhilaration of freedom when you travel from star system to star system - the thrill of being thrown against your restraints during high-speed maneuvers.

And, of course, the mixture of fear and excitement during a jump into hyperspace.

He pauses his babbling only to open the door for Prompto - and to order drinks of tea from the waitress. Eventually, to illustrate his point, he uses a couple of salt and pepper shakers and some sugar packets on a table, to represent different ships and planets in flight.

It's clear he's not an engineer, or a scientist. Prompto isn't getting technical explanations or physics lessons. He is, however, being told how spaceflight feels from Takumi's perspective.

Takumi did a good job of distracting him with his string of enthusiasm and by the time he was seated and had tea in his hands he was a lot calmer, and the worst of what he'd been thinking and feeling was passing. That was good, he honestly needed to get a handle on things if he was going to be expanding his horizons so much.

"I can't even imagine it." He gushed easily. "I've seen movies and stuff with space in them and I never thought..." Prompto smiled. "It must be bigger than I can imagine. That's just normal where you come from?"

It was probably seeming like he was quiet, but he was really just enjoying the story.

Fortunately for Prompto, Takumi really didn't mind babbling on about space. It didn't matter that his audience was pretty quiet, either. His earlier distress had been obvious, and seeing him visibly calm like this did a lot to set Takumi's own mind at ease.

In the end, even after all he'd done, he'd only ever wanted to help. Same goes with even a simple interaction like this. If talking like a star-struck idiot about spaceflight helped, then that's what he'd do.

"It is, yeah. For a lot of people, anyway," Takumi answered. "A lot of other people never go off-world, I guess. They don't have the opportunity, or the money, or maybe even the desire to. Force knows that most planets are pretty big all on their own."

"But there are lots of people, on the other hand, who'd spend almost their whole lives travelling between planets. Maybe they're merchants, smugglers, or pirates. Maybe they're military, born into it, then enlist in the family's footsteps. Maybe they work on a space station, or they're engineers on a ship. Or maybe they're just politicians and they travel between worlds."

He made a large, expressive motion with his hands. "Nobody's really alone, either way - you're part of something bigger. Even your government - most are allied with either the Empire or Republic, or they're under the thumb of some multi-system criminal cartel run by the Hutts, or something."

"It's impossible to see it all, but. Just trying to, it's amazing."

"Before we left Insomnia, I'd never really left the city." Prompto confessed. At least, not at any point when he'd had memories of the trip. "So the world seems really big to me as it is."

He smiled and sipped his tea.

"Well if your Empire is like ours, we're not allied." Prompto murmured. "It's a long, b-boring story." He was downplaying it as though it were ancient history and not something that happened recently.

Takumi nodded, sipped his own tea. "I think that's even true of lots of people, too. I certainly hardly ever travelled at all before I was twenty, so. When you think about all of that - the whole galaxy is really enormous.

Ancient history was fascinating to Takumi, but he was less inclined to talk much about the Empire he served. Not quite yet. He smiled, only saying, "Well, maybe at some point you'd tell it to me. When we've got a lot of time on our hands."

And when Prompto was more willing.

Prompto tilted his head curiously. "How old are you?"

He shrugged helplessly at the thought. "I don't know why we didn't travel." Prompto spoke the words a little listlessly like he did, but that fell under things he didn't want to talk about for some reason or another.

"Yeah, I guess so, I mean I did okay in history." He laughed lightly. "I graduated high school and everything!"

"Twenty-three," Takumi answered willingly. He knew people tended to think he was younger, especially outside of the mask and robes.

Another quiet, mental note was made. Maybe his movements were also restricted, when he was growing up? Hah, 'restricted' - he doubted Prompto had been in anything quite similar to his situation.

Now, have a returned, curious head-tilt. "High-school? We've got schools where I'm from, academies and technical institutions, military or civilian, very certainly, but none described quite like that."

"I was just w-wondering how long you'd been doing this, that's all." Prompto smiled kindly, he was just curious.

"In Insomnia, you attended a primary school, a middle school and a high school based on how old you were." He explained easily. "It was fine, it was basically the same idea everywhere, you go, you learn things and are supposed to socialize and stuff." He sipped his tea.

"You get to do specialized things later, if you go to university."

Laughing a little sheepishly, Takumi acknowledged, "Yeah, three years as a free man isn't really that long, I guess. I've been trying to do as much as I can, take in everything that I can, in that time. But there's just so much, you know?"

Takumi nodded. "That sounds about right, there's just different words for it. Most kids go through that, learning things and socializing, get the chance to do something more specialized to learn job skills. Different words are used."

For a moment, he hesitates, but. He'd already admitted things somewhat, hadn't he? And it wasn't like Takumi planned to keep this part secret. It was just usually better for an emotional bargaining chip.

Oh well. Tidbits of honesty to encourage honestly, he'd look at it that way.

"I, uh. Kind of wish, sometimes, that I would've been able to go, experience that kind of thing, growing up."

Prompto nodded a little bit, looking thoughtful. He wasn't sure if he wanted to press him for details either, it wasn't exactly the kind of conversation it sounded like they wanted to have.

"You didn't go to school?" He asked softly, tilting his head, but he looked like he wasn't too sure he should be asking.

"I.." He pondered for a moment what he should say, what he would be comfortable saying.

"Uh, no." Takumi frowned, let himself look as uncertain as he felt.

He had to give a little, to get anything back. That was always the trick, wasn't it? Since Takumi waited until people helped him willingly, instead of just taking things from people. So, he gave little bits of himself, figuratively - or literally, when it came to the ghosts and his blood.

So, he swallowed, pulled down his turtleneck a little, revealed the tattoo. A little faded after three years - there was no re-inking anymore, of course - but it was a dark brand, and would probably never completely fade.

"I was born a slave, and wasn't free until I was twenty. I ... didn't really experience a normal sort of childhood." He laughed a bit awkwardly, pulled the turtleneck up again. "Well. Lots of slaves in the galaxy, so from that perspective, it was a normal childhood, wasn't it?"

"Everything comes down to perspective."

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