Title: Memories on the Page
Fandom: Final Fantasy XV
Rating: G
Length: 1, 070 words
Content notes: n/a
Author notes: Spoilers up through the end of Final Fantasy XV
Summary: Prompto returns home, remembering what he left behind.

It was strange how normal it felt, unlocking the door to his home. Stepping through the entrance, almost taken aback by just how much the same it all was.

He'd wondered, of course. From the moment they'd heard about the Imperial attack against Insomnia, he'd wondered; where did they attack? What's happened to the city? Will there be anything left to go back to? Even at the time, Prompto had known that his worries, as deeply as they gripped him, paled in comparison to the others he traveled alongside - the news reports spoke of the attack in the same breath as the death of King Regis. Gladiolus and Ignis both had relatives living and working in and around the citadel, and the likelihood of their survival seemed--...

(And so Prompto had wondered about his house in silence. It was where he'd grown up, but it was still just a house, after all.)

They'd gone back, eventually. Fighting daemon hoards, reunited with Noctis, going up against Ardyn... daemons roamed the streets, but it wasn't until approaching the citadel that ruined dropships lay alongside the rubble of toppled buildings. The attack had been concentrated, and the center of the city had taken the worst of it. That wasn't to say that the further suburbs hadn't escaped unscathed, and the absence of human presence within the city had contributed to its squalor, but not everything lay destroyed. As the dawn broke over Insomnia, the thought occurred that there could yet be a city left to rebuild.

The future stretched endlessly into the bright new horizon, and Prompto didn't know what to do with any of it. Nobody really did; it was enough to adjust your eyes to the new-found light, let alone to a silence that meant peace rather than terror. You could walk whichever road you liked, without fear of attack. You could walk outside at night without fear of attack. After so long spent on-edge (almost without realizing it), Prompto wasn't sure that he knew how to adjust back to the relative peace that his childhood self had practically taken for granted; as such, he returned to his household.

More than anything, Prompto noticed the fine layer of dust that seemed spread over everything. Of course, he thought. It's been more than a decade since anybody came in here. Maybe that was something that could be done - something small and domestic, something to distract him from the aching void of the world is safe, but Noct-- that still stung through each breath and heartbeat.

It was the same. It was the same. Towels folded ten years previous still lay stacked in the bathroom. He'd drawn the curtains to his bedroom, before he'd left for the journey - he pulled them open to look over the same scenery as he always remembered. The clothes in his wardrobe, the books on his shelf, those photographs he'd pinned to that board - even without having thought of them in so long, looking at each one of them reminded him of the times that he'd taken them, where he'd been, and when. He sat on the bed, hearing the mattress creak beneath him, thinking about how many nights he'd spent sleeping in that bed, how many nights since had passed without the regularity of any bed in particular... maybe it'll be good to sleep here again.

Looking over his shelves and looking through his drawers, Prompto came across something that gave him pause. A tin box, left in place, unopened for as long as he'd been away. He simply stared at it for a few long moments, knowing what it was and knowing what was inside but finding himself reluctant, for those moments, to open it and confirm his thoughts - and fears. He lifted the box from the drawer and took it to his bed, sitting down as he worked the lid open; there was a single envelope inside. Again, he barely dared touch it; it had managed to survive, here, for all this time, and that fact almost seemed amazing. So much had changed, and yet that one small thing remained the same. Hesitantly, he brought out the papers from within, drawing them to his face by habit; whatever scent had once permeated those pages had long since dissipated, but Prompto remembered it well nonetheless. He took a shaking breath as he read the words that had etched themselves into his memory, that had brought him so much courage so long ago.

In a way, it felt to Prompto as if that letter had been the beginning of everything. To receive a letter penned by Lunafreya Nox Fleuret herself--... from there, he had resolved to approach Noctis. From that, grew a friendship. And beyond that--

It could all have been so different. Prompto had thought that a lot, in various forms, across the years. If he hadn't come across Pryna that day, what would have changed? If he had continued to keep himself to himself, if he had never approached Noctis, if he had remained in the city for all that time... (and this suburb had survived the attack, but that felt like a mere fluke. You could have lived and died in Insomnia, and then what?)

It was surreal, now, to look at those words written flawlessly on the page, and to know what had happened subsequently. Prompto had aided Pryna - but Pryna was no more. Lunafreya expressed her gratitude - but she had long since passed from the world. She spoke of his friendship with Noctis, and--

Prompto replaced the paper within the envelope and then the envelope itself back to the tin, closing it neatly. Falling back against the bed, he closed his eyes tightly; there was no escaping it. The smallest reminders of everything-- lay everywhere, flooding his mind, leaving him at a loss and unsure as how to proceed. The promise that lay in that letter haunted him still; compared to all else it was barely anything, but there had always been that part of him that had wished to meet with Lady Lunafreya, to speak of that time, to thank her--... and again, that seemed like barely anything in comparison to what had been lost. Yet still he held the tin to his chest as he thought on it (and on everything else), closing his eyes to block out the light.