--------- THE FIRST REUNION || (ft. @00060204)
The reaction the Prince’s face held when he awoke upon Hiraeth soil must have been a glamorous one. His final thoughts of his home world were of Ardyn’s voice in his head, testing and teasing at his mind to see how easily he would break. Just as Noctis felt as though he was getting somewhere, he was once again shown that he was at the mercy of his environment, powerless to control what happened around him. With a sinking feeling he was knocked from the platform he stood on, sent plummeting down to the depths of Zegnautus Keep. As if some divine intervention had struck him once again, Noctis found himself standing in the hall of a magical school called Hiraeth, mind reeling from the events he had just witnessed.
Guilt was a difficult thing to deal with. Noctis had plenty, although he had resolved himself to move forward rather than continuously looking back. With his father gone and the world encased in darkness, he had no other choice but to wield the light as his blade and carve a path to a better future: for everyone. His friends, his people... that was the duty of a king, and a lesson he had taken some time in learning. It was almost comical that as soon as he learned of his place in the world, he was removed from Eos entirely and brought here. To learn more, strangely enough.
At first, he had been angry and frustrated. His worries about his friends and the world he’d unintentionally left behind were a constant assault on his focus, wondering if this was all part of some illusion Ardyn had him trapped in. But the letter in his hand had felt real, the people around him too unique to be part of some trick. Noctis had accepted that he was somewhere entirely familiar, and the only way to figure out what happened to him, was to play along. That was what led him to his classes, although they were unlike the subjects he was taught back home. Hiraeth seemed to be a school where one learned how to fight: which was both beneficial and detrimental, in Noctis’s opinion.
He liked school. The real kind of school, with books and teachers too busy to notice you sleeping in the back corner of the classroom. Noctis had graduated among the best in his class, because books and papers were things that came easily to him. When it came to combat, he was skilled - but also not very motivated. He wanted to learn, but the strain in his chest when he ran for too long or went through a long fight was not preferable to the young prince.
Arriving at his last class on his first day, Noctis had been dreading “magical combat” for some time. He wondered what it would be like, if it would resemble his training with Gladio. If so, he hoped the teacher and other students weren’t as brutal as his long-time friend. Just like magic however, when Noctis entered the classroom five minutes before class was to start, a familiar tuft of blond hair caught his attention and suddenly a swell of emotions filled his chest. Relief, sorrow, guilt... only to name a few, where was blossomed in Noctis and he wasted no time in stepped towards his friend.
“Prompto...?!” He couldn’t help the way his voice cracked, face resembling that of someone whom was seeing a loved one that he thought dead. The last time he had seen Prompto was when he was chasing after an illusion of his friend in Zegnautus Keep... and prior, when he’d pushed the other off a moving train on accident. Noctis couldn’t even begin to express himself in that moment, frozen in place and wondering if this was really his best friend he was seeing, or just another trick.
