The Park; Late Saturday Morning [04/11].

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto....may have gone a little hard on his run that morning. He usually didn't even run on Saturdays, he liked to take it as a day off, but, well...it was one of the few things that let him get away from his own thoughts for a while. It was pretty cool and all that he'd been voted one of the prom kings last night (he appreciated Sidon's handwavey offer to abdicate from his half of the crown since he got to be King of the Zora, even if, you know, it didn't really work like that), but honestly? It just made him think about last year, and how Yang had been prom queen, and how that week had been for them, and how that morning...

...there were definitely no adorable little blonde girls waking him up and asking for Cup Noodle^TM breakfasts this year. Which was...not surprising, of course, but that still didn't stop it from being....sad.

He just felt sad and he didn't want to feel sad, so he went for a particularly hard run so that he could feel more exhausted than sad, and by the time he made his second round toward the park, he finally decided to take a break, dropping onto a bench, throwing back his head, and tried to catch his breath. And then just kind of melted a little and settled in to watch the ducks.

It must be nice to be a duck, he thought. A lot less complicated, anyway.

[[ oh, what? No convenient park post yet? Let's change that! Open park is open for all your parkly needs! ]]

Comments

[smol_beans]

Yeah, so the wee ones had not even found Mom yet. They'd get there, they would!

But they'd gotten distracted.

"UUUUUUUUUUUUNCLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMPTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Prompo, hope your reflexes were ready for the flying hug coming your way.

With a slightly older girl following behind, looking so done with this, and also amused at the same time.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto might have excellent flying-sister-hugs-at-prom reflexes, but his random-kiddos-after-an-exausting run reflexes were not up to par even a little.

"Whoa!" he said, as he suddenly had a very smol bean clinging to him and nearly knocking him over, but he recovered easily enough. After a few blinks of putting things together, there wasn't a big mystery as to who's kid this was. If the 'uncle' part hadn't given it away, that greeting more than made up with it.

"Oh, uh, heeeeeeey.....there....little.....guy...."

And...girl? Maybe? They definitely looked related. And....familiar, but not in a Nina-way, which was why he was feeling just a bit thrown off of more than just his balance right then.

[smol_beans]

"Solis, he doesn't know who we are yet," Aurora complained, even as she came to stand next to them. "Remember? Everyone's little."

[smol_beans]

"Don't care!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Solis insisted, clinging like a limpet. "Hi hi hi, Uncle Prompto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm Solis and that's Rory and we love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

That cleared everything up!

[hashtag_chocobro]

Sure did!

Actually, Prompto was starting to catch on to some idea, but that was...

There was something very, very, very familiar in that little girl's complaining tone, and he thought he knew what it was, but then that would possibly mean...

He could have been wrong about the Nina-ness, but that clinging and that sheer abuse of punctuation....

...which meant....

....

"Awww," he said, partly because he needed to stall for a little time and partly because he actually meant it. "It's nice to, uh, meet you guys, since, like, it sound like you're pretty up-to-date on the whole 'you guys are from the future for me' thing, right?"

[smol_beans]

"Obviously," Aurora said, even as she heaved a sigh. "And it's Aurora, not Rory. Don't listen to him, Uncle Prompto."

That was a losing battle and she knew it. Aurora was going to keep fighting it.

"Anyway, like, it doesn't matter if you don't know us."

Except it did? But that was dumb.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Oh, but the child-like growth that Prompto had apparently aquired begged to differ, Princess.

Prompto quirked a brow at her. "It doesn't?" he asked. "I don't know about that. You little dudes are on my turf now, you know."

[smol_beans]

And that growth was going nowhere!

Solis giggled. "She's always in a bad mood," he said, rolling his eyes. "Or acting like she's in one and if you ask about it she's always like--"

[smol_beans]

"You wouldn't understand!" Aurora protested. "You're not the heir!"

[hashtag_chocobro]

Yeah. That one was definitely Noctis's.

Now to test the other half of this equation.

Prompto gave a soft chuckle at that.

"Heavy is the crown," he teased lightly, with maybe a faint grin for himself that he was kind of a king now, too, baffling and silly as that was, "right? I feel like I've definitely heard that one before. You guys're probably looking for your mom, right?"

[smol_beans]

"Yes," Aurora said, then added, a bit belatedly. "And we've got Mom's permission to be here!"

They had no one else's but they had Mom's.

[smol_beans]

"Do you know where Mom is???????????????????????" Solis asked, finally abandoning his hold on Uncle Prompto long enough to scramble off the bench (and his uncle) only to try and tug him off of it too.

"We need to go find her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She'll be really surprised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto had to snort at that...and was very easily pulled off the bench, because he was a total softie, and these kids probably knew that, and they would definitely have his number if their mom was who he figured it was.

"You can say that again," he said. "She's probably in her rooms, over there," he pointed to show them, "in the dorms. We can probably go check on her there...orrrrr..." He figured dragging it out might make it more enticing, "I could probably text her to meet me somewhere and you guys can really surprise her because she won't be expecting you two to be here, either."

Like, yeah, he was pretty sure something like this wouldn't have blipped on even Nina's radar.

[smol_beans]

She was rattled enough by Anya's existence! These were even more farfetched!

Aurora was taking her chance, now, to steal a quick hug.

Shut up.

"Where would we go?"

[hashtag_chocobro]

Well, that was just about one of the cutest things ever, and it was very difficult for Prompto to not just melt at the weird little brooding spawn of his best friend and his sister trying to swipe a hug. And of course he had to give her a little squeeze back and then reach over to ruffle the other one's hair a little bit.

"I have it on good authority," Prompto offered, "that your mother, in her youth," which he had to snicker at, because these conversations were so weird, and, also, he realized that he still had not confirmed who their mother was, but come on, "had a weak spot for milkshakes. You guys like milkshakes, right?"

He was going to have to serious consider disowning his uncle-ship if that was the case.

[smol_beans]

"MANGO PAPAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Solis shrieked with glee. "LET'S GO GET MILKSHAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He was possibly a little confused about the difference between smoothies and milkshakes.

It was a little tragic.

[smol_beans]

"Vanilla's alright," Aurora said, like she didn't really want a milkshake.

Even though they were delicious.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Yeah, Mango Papaya over there was getting a little bit of a look, but, then again, these kids probably grew up around some of Ignis's attempts to make 'kid-friendly' food, so he could totally see it.

...he really wanted to see Ignis trying to appeal to a kid's palette, although, really, you could argue that Noctis's wasn't all different now.

Okay, 'vanilla's alright' was getitng a look too, but Prompto laughed, and shook his head. "Alright, then," he said. "It's decided. I'll shoot your mom a text and then it's off to Chilly Boulder!"

Prompto pointed dramatically in that direction, turned sharply on his heel, and began to march forward with exaggeration. "Follow me, your highnesses!"