oddsandends | 38th ♫ | No time like the present! Let's set out on a quest!

[Look, this is, like, barely an AU for him.

Prompto Argentum, 20, is a perfectly average young townsperson who vastly prefers the trappings of civilization to any dangerous adventuring available to him. While, when necessary, he proves himself a capable gunman, he'd much rather run around doing odd jobs for people who need a quick pair of legs and a helpful disposition.

In lieu of photography, he keeps a meticulous and enthusiastic journal of everything going on in his life, his friends' lives, and the town's. He's also something of an amateur illustrator. Very early some mornings, when there's enough light to see but not too may people out and about, Prompto may actually be found near the edges of town or even outside the city limits, sketching the plants, ruins, and wildlife he sees out there. The one thing out there in the wilds that always gets his attention is talk of animals he's never seen before.

He doesn't talk much about his parents, and they don't seem to have much of a presence around town, either.]

Edited 2017-09-24 16:40 (UTC)

[Rumor has it that the strange boy that appears in the window of the long-abandoned clocktower in the Old City in that pale hour before dawn is a ghost or a witch's familiar. He's the stuff of schoolyard dares and campfire stories.

Rumor also has it he guards a cursed treasure, but far fewer people believe that one.

What is true, though, is that if you approach the clocktower from the right angle at the right time--just shy of a quarter after four in the morning--you might see a slender shape in the window below the clock's face. Or hear a low murmur like distant speech.]

[Diora di'Marano--soon to be Diora en'Leonne, given her rapidly approaching wedding date--should hardly be worthy of note. She's the daughter of the second son of a lesser noble family. They hold some land and do some trade, but they're no great shakes.

But her father, that second son, happens also to be a studied mage. And Diora? She's widely known as one of the most beautiful women around, famed for her looks, poise, and voice.

She's only sixteen.

Still, that's old enough in some ~~bad~~ circles to wed, and her engagement to a much wealthier house--someone in line for the throne, no less, if not directly--is the talk of the town. Apart from a few public appearances for, well, appearances, Diora's largely been kept inside, away from prying eyes and gossip, so as to keep her image pristine. The courts are fickle, after all, and Diora's family can't afford even the possibility of a rumor that could cast a shadow over her marriage.

Tonight, however, is a festival, and the whole town is in costume, reveling. There, sitting on the edge of a fountain, is a young woman in cloak and mask. There's a small harp in her lap and an upturned hat on the ground, and she is singing a song of loss and love as she plays.

It's the most beautiful voice you've ever heard. Magical, even.]

[A child in a white and gold dress slowly peeks out from behind a tree. Shyly, she hums along with the music.]

Wow...

[The masked woman inclines her head when she hears the child humming, but doesn't otherwise acknowledge her until she finishes her verse. Then, without stopping, she moves into a simpler song. A lullaby.]

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry. Go to sleep, my little baby. When you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses...

[Perhaps that's a tune the child will know better?]

[ There's a cute little workshop just on the outskirts of town -- or if we're shooting for accuracy, there's a cute little workshop sat in the middle of the huge herb garden just on the outskirts of town. It's hard to miss, especially since if you're in need of any kind of potions, medicines or magical items you'll get pointed to the alchemist who lives here.

She runs the atelier by herself, though she has her little sister running around to lend an extra pair of hands when needed. For the most part, she takes on requests for the townsfolk and supplies some of the stores in town with balms and potions.

She's a fairly well-known face around town even outside of her alchemy work, especially for any aspiring adventurers. She'll occasionally stop off at the guild and leave requests for people to accompany her when she goes out gathering alchemy materials. It's not like she can hold a sword and a basket, come on guys. ]

[It's a familiar story, to someone as timeless and unending as Death — the beautiful girl, the wedding politics, the apprehensions and fears of any hint of scandal that might tarnish the impending nuptials before they arrive. Oh, he remembers how this story goes. He remembers it all too well.

(He remembers it because his first kiss was the same way — beautiful, learned, graceful and poised, and they sold her hand for wealth and advancement, traded her to a man three times her age, and she'd smiled and she'd swayed and she'd never let on, until the night before her wedding when she'd made herself Rappaccini's daughter instead of her father's, and kissed Death instead of her intended.)

So maybe he's just sensitive to stories like this, then. In an eternity of millions and billions of deaths, it's only natural that a few should stand out, like the brightest stars shining in the firmament.

Maybe that's why he comes to pay a visit to the most beautiful woman in the world, just sixteen years old, set to marry a man who might someday be a king — because sometimes history repeats itself, and it'd be a bitter draft to bear, to watch Francesca's tragedy play out on the stage of history all over again.

It's nice that it's a carnival. Everyone is wearing masks; everyone expects the supernatural, subscribes to the merriment of the intrigue and the unknown. It means that he can join the crowd in his black cloak and feathered raven's mask, and so long as he avoids touching anyone carelessly, it shouldn't be a problem.]

A sad song, for such a beautiful voice. Is your heart already so full of sorrow even at your tender years, milady?

[She tilts her head slightly, fingers still playing over the harp strings as if a stranger's conversation is simply another part of the song. In a way, he doesn't seem a stranger; it's a festival night, and no one is themselves, someone named and distinct. Masked, people become desires: joy, longing, fear.

Everything she fears waits for her on the other side of the night, when the masks come off again and she must once again be perfect. Be Diora. Be caught by her name.]

'Tender years?' [She plucks another string of notes from the harp, a gently falling arpeggio followed by her voice..] To assume anything of a stranger on a night of masks, one must be perceptive. Or hopeful.

[If she might be honest with herself, song is all she wants to hear tonight: note, and note, and note. If she could, she'd play until her fingers bled. Music is simple. Music doesn't change. The harp does nothing until given voice, and the voice she gives it is her own.

Little enough will be, soon.]

I might be as old as the song I play, might I not? I could say as much, tonight of all nights.

Few things in the world are as old as songs. The melodies change, sometimes. The reasons for singing them often don't.

[He's hovering, he knows, but he has no option to sit and wouldn't accept an invitation to even if it were offered. It's interesting, besides; there's clearly a power in her voice, and he can taste the flavor of its magic. It makes for a curious experience. If she asked him to return a lost love to her with that voice, he'd find himself tempted to agree, even while knowing all the while that her wish would be beyond even his power to grant.

He bends, idly depositing a pair of coins in her hat, then rises up again to face her.]

If I offer you a boon, will you sing a different song for me?

[The coins' clinking surprises her. While, yes, a few revelers have tossed her some change with laughter and good cheer, she hasn't had anyone tip her so seriously. It's not as if she needs it; the hat is there as a joke more than anything else. Her fingers keep moving, up the strings this time, lingering among the higher notes. Color her intrigued.]

I might, should I know the tune.

[And she knows many, many tunes, for her tender years.]

I believe you needn't offer a boon as well as your coin. Is it not the custom to fulfill a patron's request?

[Just before sunrise, the heavy clack of horse hooves begins a slow and curious rhythm, growing louder as the travelling knight and her mare approach the old city. It's so quiet otherwise, she notes, her only accompaniment the intermittent rattling of branches and leaves. In the morning everything seems so empty, and she ought to be alone-- but Arturia can feel some one or some thing around her.

She stops her horse with a gentle 'whoa' and, giving the mare's mane a loving stroke, turns her own eyes up to the tower. A pat on the horse's neck and the blue-closked knight dismounts, gloved hand resting on the door to the clock tower's stairs, tattered and broken. Poking her head in, Arturia muses--]

I don't suppose you're up there, are you?

[It's always two coins, with him. Always just two: one for each eye.]

Your song is worth more than that trifle, to me.

[And he smiles, beneath his mask — a surprisingly sweet, friendly expression.]

I'd like to hear a song of life. Not of love, not of heartache. One that sings of the things that make life worth living.

[At first, nothing.

Then, a perhaps surprisingly young voice answers,]

I guess that depends on who this 'you' is you're currently addressing. I mean, that's pretty general, you know. There's a lot of people in this world who respond to 'you.' At the outside, I'd guess--and I'm just gonna lowball this here--maybe roughly all. All the people. In the world.

[Nothing moves there at the bottom of the clocktower, but the presence seems closer all the same.]

[speaking of doing odd jobs for people, there's a little section of town that's a bit spookier than others-- a bit of a witch's domain. The girls that live there have a bit of a reputation, but they still need help sometimes! And luckily for Prompto, it would seem that the little witch that has bwen giving him errands lately has been given some sort of allowance to pay him with, or else she might just try to get him to do it for a smile.

Today she's not asking him to go *run* an errand, however, so much as escort. When she catches up to him on the streets of town today she immediately grabs his arm to get his attention and joins him in whatever direction he's been going.]

Hey! I've been looking for you!

Ah-!

[Grasping the wood panels, Arturia nearly falls forward. She wasn't expecting an answer. A pause and then, after she's managed her way through the decaying wood, Arturtia lowers the hood of her cape and looks toward the stairs.]

I was told a crow resides here.

[Even if Diora's fingers don't pause, the woman herself does. It's... a strange request, and not one she knows how to answer immediately.]

...Many would say that love and heartache are exactly those things.

[Her face, her voice give nothing away. But even as she speaks, her playing hands shift them both into another key as easy as breathing. As soon as she begins, she knows that this is a more personal question than she realized; she could have answered with something trite, some ode to birdsong and sunlight.

But instead, she sings at first of a storm. A night. And a girl.

In another universe, this song might have been written about something terrible. But for Diora, whose voice rises clear and aching on the high notes and falls, light as a sigh, on the ah la la la de day--somehow, this song is about life. About yearning.]

That's a pretty much bizarre thing to tell someone.

[Whoever's speaking, he's staying out of sight. He might be above.]

'And over here, in this thing that maybe used to serve a logical function but now we just keep for atmosphere, there's some brainless feathery asshole.' The locals've got to get some better attractions in town if that's worth noting.

Edited 2017-09-24 20:28 (UTC)

[It's the sort of song that Life would like, he thinks idly as he listens, and it wins his immediate approval because of it. She never favors the songs people write that try to sweeten what she is; she rails against the notion, complaining that it's no different than judging a book by its cover, or taking anything else at face value. Life is cruel, life is long, life is sweet and bitter in equal measure; life is full and rich and comprised of so much more than sweet memories and crystallized moments in time, so different from death with its plain and simple finality.

He listens patiently, hanging on every note, and when she's finally finished, he nods, reaching up quietly to remove his mask and pull it away from his face.

Beneath it are a young man's features — a straight nose, soft black eyes, aristocratically pale flesh, white teeth behind lips naturally inclined to turn up in a smile. It's far better than a skull face, to be sure. Far better than whatever conception of death each individual person carries in their heart, as well. But he's not on the clock, right now, and here on a personal jaunt, so for now he can look any way that he wants.]

That was beautiful, milady. Well worth any boon I could possibly grant, and more.

[Her fingers still for just a moment on the strings, mutely surprised that the man should remove his mask. Diora, on her part, leaves hers where it is; she wants to be free, tonight, and the only freedom she will ever know is not to be who she is.

But, though she's never seen him before, he still feels like an old acquaintance--someone she's known distantly all her life. A neighbor, perhaps, or a servant's child. But she knows he is none of those things.

(Diora's mother died in childbirth. Her death still haunts their home, hanging over her father. Shadowing his sister's steps. A ghost named Alora stands between them like a wall in the dark, impenetrable, but reliable, something they know will always be there.)

Diora finally returns his smile, gracious and perfect, and dips her head modestly.]

It is only song. It cost me nothing but a moment to give it, and the moment itself has been boon enough. I came out tonight to sing.

[She doesn't often have the opportunity. Not when her father fears the backlash should others discover the power of her voice. Marrying into the Leonne family, she'll have even fewer chances, she knows. She smiles a little more, lowering her chin.]

Though I do find myself curious what boon you would offer a stranger in the night, milord.

A friendly sword, perhaps, is the likeliest answer. But I admit I've never been much of a commonplace person.

[He takes a half-step to the side, sweeping out his arm in an elegant gesture, putting on a touch of a show; it's enough to move his cloak away from his side, revealing a distinct lack of a sheath and sword belt about his waist.]

So, then: perhaps an answer that no one else could offer you — assuming you had the right question to ask.

[Why. He gets that question a lot, and sometimes it's meant for him, and sometimes it's meant for Life, but it's never as rhetorical as it should be. Why, why, and sometimes the only answer there is is simply, "because."]

Or perhaps an ending, to something you wish would end. I have a great deal of influence over endings, though less so with what precedes them.

[Ah, this must be the place! Marion had heard from some other girl recently that her big sister runs the local atelier. Marion's own research as a self-professed 'great witch' has turned up absolutely zero, so she's getting a bit desperate. It's not as if alchemy is really pure magic, anyway! She can see if this clearly inferior brand of magical study maybe might... have an easier solution to her problem than her own obviously superior spellcraft.

She also knows saying that is likely to get her nowhere. Since she looks around the same age as this Yuuri's little sister, she figures she'll have a better chance if she acts sweet and polite.]

Ah, good afternoon, Miss Yuuri!

[She has a bright, cheerful smile and is doing her very best sweet and innocent voice. Even the slight stumble over her words as she approaches the young woman and exchanges pleasant greetings is calculated.]

I don't know if you'll have what I'm looking for right now, but I need a potion. [She lets her smile falter just a little, hoping that showing a little uncertainty will garner more sympathy.] I have money...

[Specifying that both sounds like something an innocent child would say, and hopefully assures Yuuri that she doesn't expect her to work for free.]

[Melody isn't that young, and she blushes and steps back.]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bother you.

[Talkative.

Something about that seems both very strange and... Correct and fitting. Arturia takes a cautious step up the first stair, aware her strange combination of magical armor and magician's cape will make her presence audible.]

The information wasn't so eagerly offered. You weren't easy to find... If you are who I'm searching for.

[Yes, above--there's a faint rustle, as of feathers.]

You're... looking for a crow.

[It's a question said like a careful statement.]

[She hesitates only a moment, listening. A few more paces.]

I'm looking for something long lost.

[Vague, but she doesn't sound like she's trying to be cryptic so much as she just sounds like a flowery person, and yet Arturia still sounds sure of herself.]

...and I do believe it comes in the form of a crow, yes.

38th ♫ | No time like the present! Let's set out on a quest!

Prompto Argentum | Final Fantasy XV

Dave Strider | Homestuck

Diora di'Marano | The Sun Sword Saga

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Yuuri Wakasa | School-Live!

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Is it dusty in here or is it just me

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Greases the creaky wagon wheels

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