“MARKS AND SCARS”
(Prompt by @prowlingthunder)
In a moment everything was fear. Prompto forgot what he’d been talking about, and who he was talking to when he felt that oh-so-casual brush of fingertips hook under the strip of cloth wrapped around his right wrist. His brain and nerves fizzed white-hot electric, and that was all.
It took him another moment, after that, of looking at the expression on Nyx’s face to realize what had happened, and what’d he’d done. The Kingsglaive had come to sit next to him, on his right side, and struck up a conversation about the photos he’d taken earlier. The blond had grown accustomed to his little touches over the months-- the bump of his knee against his own, the brush of his shoulder, the powerful arm wrapping around his shoulders or waist to pull him into his side-- but Nyx’s fingers tugging idly at the cloth around his wrist had been jarring. He’d blanked and recoiled, moving his arm safely away in a violently abrupt movement.
Now Nyx’s expression was a half-hearted smile, somewhere between an apology and wounded.
“I…” Prompto stammered, not knowing what to say.
“Nah,” The Kingsglaive shrugged and lurched to his feet, “my bad.”
Ariel was looking over, clearly sensing something amiss, but Nyx waved her off and headed toward where Cor was checking the edge on his sword. They heard him offer a quick spar in his usual casual, unbothered way.
Prompto was still looking at his boots when Ariel sat down in the spot Nyx had been, “I didn’t…”
“I understand,” She said gently, “We… have the luxury of hiding what makes us… different… from others.”
It was then that Prompto realized that Nyx had touched him with his left hand-- his scarred hand. Nyx had sat on his right side, exposing his left side, which bore the ravages of the Ring of Lucii. Nyx never seemed terribly self-conscious about anything, ever, but Prompto and the others could tell it bothered him how people stared and whispered about the big, gnarly scars…
“That’s not…! I didn’t… it wasn’t about that!” “I know. He knows too, in his head. But he thinks about it all the time. Like you do. Like I do.”
“You do?” The blond stared at her, unable to fathom how anybody could think any part of her wasn’t anything less than wonderful and beautiful and amazing…
“... Nyx’s scars prove what he’s willing to do… how much he’s willing to give. You weren’t here when we met, he and I, but he was dying.”
“You saved him. He told me you saved him.”
Her dark eyes were on her hands clasped together, and it worried him how she didn’t respond to what he’d said, “... You are afraid your… marking… defines what you are. That the sum of your worth is there written on your arm. Part of you knows it isn’t true, but other parts of you find good evidence everywhere you look that confirm it, over and over again…”
“... Y-you know…” Horror washed over Prompto like a wave of ice. “Cor told us. You’ve had it since you were a baby. He’s known that long where you came from. He’s known that long the reason why he ought to mistrust you, Prompto… but did he ever?”
“H-he kn-- Why didn’t he ever--?!”
“Because it didn’t matter. It wasn’t important.”
It was too simple. Too warm. Prompto wouldn’t go so far as to accuse her of lying, but he rejected it all the same as something hard clattered down his throat and lodged between his collarbones, “Yes it was.” She didn’t reply, so he said, “... A-anyway… I was asking about you…”
“... Like you, I’ve been different since the beginning.” She said quietly, “...Nobody noticed until I was around six or seven though. People would get hurt. I would cause damage. What I can do… is dangerous. I must always be very careful. I can’t treat it like a weapon that I can put away, disarm, or unload. It is always just there, threatening to lash out and cause harm. That frightens people. My nature is the scar I hide away. You were made to be one thing, and you are making yourself another. I… am trying to do the same thing.”
“... You didn’t ask for this…”
“Cor did.”
“What?”
“He’s like us… his scars are on the inside. Except he asked for them. He worked hard, sacrificed and bled for them. Now he has them, and everyone looks at him different. He looks at himself different… and sometimes he doesn’t like what he sees.” “But… e-everybody thinks he’s great--”
“Everybody is afraid of him.”
Searching for his voice, for the words to deny it, Prompto could only say, “B-but…”
“But,” She agreed, “worst of all… like you, and me, and like Nyx… he wonders if he hasn’t really changed at all. That those who loved him saw in him that he hadn’t changed enough to be trusted with the truth. That he was still that reckless young soldier, and would make decisions through the heat of his blood instead of the wisdom of experience. What if everything he’s been through… hasn’t changed anything?”
She was looking at him now, dark eyes warm, a soft smile on her lips, “We’re all the same, Prompto. We’re all broken by this world, by our expectations, by the expectations of others. But we’re here, together.”
Her hand reached up and caressed the side of his face, “We’re together, and we’re enough. That’s why we’re together: so we can remind each other that we’re enough.”
It was… really nice. So nice to think about. Prompto wanted it to be true in a very real way with all his heart, but…
But he wasn’t convinced. He knew Cor and Nyx probably weren’t either.
Still, it was really, really nice. So he smiled at her.
Then, after Cor had finished trouncing the Kingsglaive one more time, he made sure to go and help him up by offering his left hand, making Nyx’s natural reaction to reach with his own left hand. His scarred hand.
“... I’m sorry,” The blond said, “Maybe one day I’ll be as brave and tough as you are.”
With a light laugh, a grin spreading across both the scarred and unmarked sides of his face, the Gahladian answered, “Sure, Prom. Just don’t almost kill yourself trying to prove it.”
“That’s your schtick,” Cor grumbled, checking the edge of his sword again.
“Look who’s talking, Mr. ‘Immortal’.”
Cor didn’t have a smart retort, and Prompto couldn’t be sure, but he thought the Marshal had withdrawn a little. Maybe Ariel was right-- maybe they all had their little wounds, marks, and scars that they drew boundaries around and worried over.
Maybe they could learn to be more okay with themselves by being okay together...