fandomtownies | Furnado Animal Shelter; Sunday [09/17].

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Furnado Animal Shelter; Sunday [09/17].

Sidon had been absent quite consistently these past few weeks...maybe even these past few months, really...because things were getting worrisomely more intense back home, around the Calamity, around Zora's Domain, around Vah Ruta. And naturally, it was his princely duty to be there for his people, especially if things were finally ramping up to the crisis that had been having over their heads for the past one hundred years. The monsters were relentless, the blood moons more frequent, the evil ichor swirling around the castle more vibrant and spreading than ever. Was it finally time for Calamity Ganon to make his final strike to destroy Hyrule entirely, once and for all?

Needless to say, these distractions had definitely lead him to be neglecting Furnado quite a bit lately. And while he could not feel bad about being where he needed to be, there was a part of him that realized that his duties were swaying him hard in another direction, and he had to give Hyrule the absolutely most of his attention.

Which was why he came back to the island today to get in touch with Prompto and had for him a proposal: the two of them went way back, further than most, when one considered their varying time disparity, but no matter how much time had passed, there would always be a firm place in their hearts for the animal shelter, where so much of their friendships had grown over their time as students here. He knew Prompto himself had a lot on his plate these days, with supporting his family and everything, but he also knew that the animals at Furnado were always a part of that family, too. So he could think of no other person better for the job of keeping an eye on the place while he was gone than him.

And Prompto was also uniquely able to truly understand what it was like to have a complete apocalyptic destruction of your home hanging over your shoulders, as well.

So there was barely any hesitation from Prompto to agree and promise to do Sidon and Zack proud. Granted, he wasn't really sure this was wise, but, well, Noctra was growing more and more her own capable person by the day, and he was sure he could find somewhere to slide the business of the place into his schedule, especially with the help of the vet.

He did have one condition to his acceptance, though: that should Sidon find that he needed help, he wouldn't hesitate to ask for it.

And that was a promise that Sidon was more than happy to make, clapping a hand on Prompto's shoulders (without even knocking him forward too much, even!) with a laugh and an agreement, and then he went to show him all the finer details involved in running the shelter as opposed to just working there.

Furnado is open!

[[ and this will very likely be Sidon's last post for a while, as I finally nudge him toward going through canon, huzzah! ]]

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Normally, fetching more food for Josu would be the kind of chore that Liliana left for her steward, but she wanted ~~to avoid thinking about certain dreams~~ to make sure that he was getting the best possible care and so here she was. She simply couldn't leave such an important choice to an underling.

Rather than entering in her usual arrogant stride, heeled boots clacking on the ground beneath her, today Liliana was wearing soft shoes, her gait a bit hesitant and uneven. "Hello the shop," she called as she entered, wondering if there was a place to sit and briefly rest within-- and if she could play off doing so without it being noticable that that was what she was doing.

Edited 2023-09-17 17:31 (UTC)

Liliana actually had excellent timing in coming in, because Prompto was starting to feel himself go a little cross-eyed at some of the more technical sides of running an animal shelter that he never had to deal with back when he was working here as a student, and he was just about get into a question about how well typing actually worked out for Sidon with his claws and everything when the door opened and someone came in and the world was spared that conversation.

...for Now.

Because Prompto looked up from the counter and couldn't help himself with responding, cheerfully, "Hello the potential customer!"

Which got a bold, approving laugh out of the big man himself, although, really, it did not take much to make Sidon laugh, but Prompto was going to take that W all the same. He grinned a little proudly, and then, after a small nod from Sidon as if to point out that this was going to be his gig now, he might as well go for it and dust off those old shelter skills.

"If you need any help with anything," he added, "just let us know!"

If it was something on a high shelf, though, he was definitely going to defer to Sidon, and, actually, now that he thought about it, he made a mental note to check on the ladder situation around here these days.

To Liliana's credit, she did not dramatically demand a chair to sit it, though to her anti-credit, it was before pride was literally going to come before a fall for this one. She was, however, glancing around to see if she could spot one, since it was that or remain standing.

What? Was she going to sit on the floor??!? Perish the thought.

...Unless there were kittens, but that was an entirely different set of circumstances.

"Just here for some supplies for my cat," she said breezily. "Hello, Sidon, darling. Hello... person I don't know." He looked slightly familiar, which meant she'd likely seen him in passing, but that could be said of three-quarters of the town, especially after the party. Though she didn't think she'd seen him there, she didn't have an immediate opinion about his taste in clothing.

Well, as luck would have it, there were both chairs and kittens, the former of which were mostly set up near the counter in a sort of waiting area for the vet's office, and the latter of which tended to just sort of roam around the store at everyone's moddable discretion like they owned the place. Which, if you asked them, they did.

One such kitten was also perched on Sidon's shoulder, intending to potentially make a meal out of the large Zora, and was nearly dislodged from an unfortunate height when Sidon, jogging through the fog of his memory to recall the familiar face, and opened up his arms excitedly in greeting.

"Ahhh, yes! Hello! Liliana, wasn't it? It's been a...how do they say it, Prompto? Hot minute? How have you been? Lovely to see you again, how is you cat?"

"And I'm Prompto," Prompto offered, with a notch of his hand in the air in a wave and a somewhat wry grin because there was no way he was going to even begin to compete for attention with this guy around.

He did have a very commanding presence, didn't he?

Liliana made her ~~slightly less than usual~~ regal way to a chair and sat--to better facilitate conversation, of course, and for no other reasons. "Josu is delightful, as always," she assured Sidon. "Turning a year old soon and so I've decided to oversee the change in his diet from kitten food to adult." Liliana, nobody needed an excuse for why you were buying cat food, pls chill. "And I was... unexpectedly called away from the island for several months, but I have every reason to believe that business has concluded."

And then she was turning to Prompto to reply to him, too, not because she wanted to elide right over whatever 'business' had taken her off-island for five months, but because she was a real... people...person. And stuff. Honest. "I'm Liliana," she said. She would have offered a hand, but that would have meant getting up and she wasn't going to do that, so a favorable smile would have to do. "My shop is directly next door, so we're something of neighbors, hello."

There was a nod of understanding from Sidon, perhaps just a bit more grim than his usual disposition would have had it been, if only because the weight of his own business calling him away was very topical and much more pressing on his shoulders than the kitten still trying to figure out why its food was so big and currently not edible that currently resided there.

And he might have said something about it, too, but Prompto's attention had been caught. "Liliana?" he asked. When Sidon had said it a moment ago, he didn't think much of it, but now that it was being repeated to him, he was trying to remember why it sounded so famili--

--ohhhh.

He squinted a little as he considered her and tried to match her up to Gladio's description, which had been....well, it had been incredibly vague, but you know, hey, the woman in the chair did tick all the generic person, dark hair, big on purple boxes.

And so now he had to grin, a sort of knowing, crooked smirk. "Well, then," he said, "it is very nice to meet you, Liliana. I'm actually as of today sort of taking over the duties here at the shelter for Sidon while he takes care of some stuff back home, so I guess, as neighbors," yeah, definitely because of that!, "we might be seeing each other a lot!"

Beefslab's descriptive prowess was unmatched.

Liliana didn't understand the reason behind the smirk or the sudden interest, and preened a little, assuming it was for the same reason men usually smiled at her. Which even she wasn't so arrogant to think that it was so much about her as the nature of men in general. "Indeed," she said. "I sell mystical artifacts from around the Multiverse, myself. Do let me know if there's anything you're looking for."

"Can't say I'm really in the market for any mutiversinal mystical artifacts at the moment," Prompto had to admit, although now he almost sort of wished he was, because that sounded...honestly kind of fascinating? "But I'll definitely let you know if I think of something."

Was he going to be spending all night trying to think of magical mystical artifacts to see if Liliana had something like that now? Absolutely. Which was fine, because between the baby and the nightmares, he still didn't get much sleep these days, anyway!

Besides, in that moment, he was far more interested in Liliana herself, that grin slipping back onto his face as he leaned forward on the counter a little, chin cradled in his hand propped up hand as he filled in all those gaps in her description that Gladio had oh-so-helpfully left out.

"So," he said, "have you been in the mystical artifacts from around the Multiverse business for long?"

"Sales?" Liliana wrinkled her nose. "Hardly. But collecting...?" She mused. "I suppose I've picked up my fair share over--" the last two hundred years "--time, but mostly because I found them pretty or fascinating and just had to have it." Unconsciously, she touched the golden headpiece she wore constantly and smirked to herself. "Rarely anything just because it was a mystical artifact." Her hand twitched down to the Chain Veil she wore at her hip, but that impulse, she managed to control. "So...keepsakes, adornments, the odd bauble or two. Knickknacks and souvenirs from my travels, I suppose you could say." She chuckled softly into her hand.

And while she was happy to talk about herself all day, she did know that conversation was supposed to be a two-way street. "And you? Been in the pet fostering business long?"

Hand still cradled in his palm, Prompto shrugged a little. "Guess that depends on how you look at it," he said. "It's been a while, but the big guy and me," he moved his hand finally to better gesture between himself and Sidon, as if the description needed specification on which giant nine-foot-tall person in the room he was referring to, "used to work here together back when we were younger."

He might have said teenagers, but Sidon had been in his seventies back then.

"I'm mostly in the photography business now," he added. "My wife and I run the Photo Hut over on the other side of town, and I do a lot of freelance stuff, too, so if you need a good photographer..."

He hitched a finger gun, complete with sound effect, Liliana's way.

"I'm your guy."

"He does truly remarkable work, too!" Sidon submitted, never one to let a good opportunity to praise his friends pass him by! "Magnificent, really! I've seen him take shots that somehow boggle the very idea of a possibility!"

Not even Prompto really knew how he could manage to take non-selfie pictures with himself actually in them, but somehow...

"It does seem much less intensive than sitting for a portrait," Liliana admitted. "And I don't have one of those little black boxes that people use to take pictures of themselves, either."

Just what Liliana Vess needed: an Instagram.

"Did you go to school here as well?" He'd just mentioned a wife, sure, but he did kinda have a baby face here, even with the beard.

Hey! She actually called it a beard! That was way more than what most people were willing to give it!

"A camera?" asked Prompto, which he would feel said a lot about his maturity these days, that he went to that first instead of what followed. "Oh, or a phone? I mean, I guess most people don't bother with cameras these days, which is good for the freelance business, but a little less so for the store side of things...

"And yeah," he grinned a little proudly at that, "just a couple of years ago if you go by this place's calendar. Class of...2020?" He turned to Sidon to confirm, and he nodded. "2020. So, three years ago, but both of us kind of got wrapped up in one of those time disparity things? Have you heard about those? Where someone'll go home or to a different place and more or less time passes there than it does here, so when you get back, things are a little wonky? I had a ten year jump forward in the matter of a few months, Big Guy over here," he gestured, helpfully again, "had thirty."

"Although," Sidon interjected lightly, "we Zora live significantly longer than most other beings do, so thirty years wasn't quite the significant difference for me as it would have been for, say, a human such as Prompto, so I'd say that makes us about even."

Lili was in the mood to be kind today. You're welcome Prompto. Prompto's beard.

"Ten years?" she repeated. "...You don't happen to be from Eos, do you?" No offense, Sidon, she was sure your thirty year sojourn was very interesting and all, but she had a vested interest in Eos.

Ten years of eternal night and wandering demons. And she'd missed it.

It was fine. Sidon's thirty years was actually remarkably uneventful, especially compared to how other people's time disparities went, and was almost entirely just an attempt to make as much sense out of a nonsensical timeline as one possibly could.

Like you do.

And Prompto knew he would do a terrible job at keeping a broad grin back in response to Liliana's question, so he was not even going to try.

He was, however, apparently going to feign surprise at this question, which he was absolutely not even remotely pulling off. Especially not with that faint snicker.

"I do happen to be from Eos!" he remarked. "Oh, have you heard of it?"

Wherever from, Liliana, pray tell!

Ha! Joke's on you, Prompto. At first, that poor pretense of surprise and that snicker had her narrowing her eyes, but then she put two and two together and realized what was happening. Then she was fighting off her own grin to reply, "I have heard of it, interestingly enough! I met a gentleman from that very same place just a few days ago! Might you know him?"

She batted her lashes at him and added, "His name is Gladio."

Look, she and Ignis had actually done a lot more talking the night she'd stayed over than anything else, but tragic backstories hadn't actually been conducive to the overall mood and had thereby been skipped.

Tragic backstories could be a bit of a mood killer.

"You know, I--" Prompto, who was quite often the perfect placesetting for a joke, it was true, started to respond before his brain caught up with his ears and told him that what he was expecting Liliana to say had not, in fact, been what Liliana had said, and he stopped, blinked, and frowned slightly. His head tilted and he began to try again, but only made it to opening his mouth and taking in a breath for words before he stopped again.

Well, obviously, she'd met Gladio, too, because how else would Gladio have told him about all the (vague) details? But the whole point of all those details had been because she and Ignis...

Prompto's face was doing quite the job of broadcasting all the various threads of thought he was trying to figure out to pull just then, before just deciding to go with a faint snort and a wry, "I don't know if gentleman's the word I'd use," pretty rich, Argentum, coming from a commoner, "but I know Gladio..."

His look turned a little suspicious on Liliana as he ventured, as if sort of testing the water, "And his roommate. Ignis?"

You did this to you, Prompto.

"Oh yes, I've met him, too," she agreed, doing a remarkable job of keeping it together, save for how deep her dimples were getting in an effort to keep her smile off her face.

Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, usually did, so...

But at least Prompto was not so bad at this that he couldn't keep the yeah, I'm sure you have that immediately sprung up in his brain out of his mouth.

Instead, he just gave a little "Uh-huh" that teetered somewhere between confused and curious as he tried to figure out exactly what that expression entailed. "Good. He's a good guy, Ignis. Gladio? He's alright. But we used to work together. I mean, we still do, sometimes, but not, like, in the same way that we used to. It's..." He waved his hand dismissively, almost starting to wish he'd never brought it up, especially when either of them would probably be much better at explaining it to Liliana than he could, "...kind of complicated, but all three of us, we go way back."

"Yes, Gladio did mention all the fighting during the Long Night. He sounded so very brave..."

Honestly, she would have liked to keep winding him up, but she couldn't hold it in anymore. Honestly, this laughter was probably exactly what she needed too, especially after...breaking her favorite teacup. Yes. Just that one thing.

It honestly took her nearly a full minute before she could get her laughter under control, still low and rich, though it's possible Prompto wouldn't appreciate it as much as his friend. "You were fishing, darling. Can't blame me if I decided to tug the line a bit." She leaned back, looking at him with playful violet eyes. "Now are you trying to learn about me? Or talk Ignis up? I'm here for either, darling. Ask away, I'm an open book."

She was a liar was what she was.

Edited 2023-09-17 20:44 (UTC)

Yeah, there were....several things about that reaction that left Prompto in a deeper state of confusion than he was presently, although, it should be noted, not so much Sidon, who seemed to chuckle a little to himself as well and clap his hand on Prompto's shoulder.

"You'll both have to excuse me for a moment!" he announced, throwing a toothy grin and a wink Liliana's way before that hand on Prompto's shoulder patted it reassuringly. "I believe the vet may need my assistance with something in her office. Liliana, as always, it's been a pleasure to see you again, and if I don't get a chance to see you before you're finished here, please know that I hope you have a spectacular day, and may my own trip back home again not take another thirty years before we can catch up again!"

With that, and another hearty laugh, he left to go see about helping the vet and leaving them to not have a giant red sharkman-shaped fly on the wall to their conversation, although, really, he was an NPC, it would have been right in line with his character...

Meanwhile, Prompto's face had gone a bit red through all of that, the color always making the freckles scattered across his face even more prominent, giving Liliana an almost sheepish smile that probably did nothing to help diminish the boyishness of that baby face she'd so kindly noticed. "Yeah, well," he said, "fishing never really was my skill. But, yeah, Gladio was telling me that things seemed to have been going, uhh...well, between you two, after the Three Minute Dates..."

He was so tempted to add a thank gods in there, but, really, he'd already probably done enough damage here already without going and dredging up how desperate he and Gladio were to pull Ignis out of his persistent post-Goose moping.

"So, uh, both, I guess?"

The grin gained maybe a slight bit of confidence again. "Anything I should know to warn him about, maybe?"

While he tried to figure out if it was in his place to maybe warn her about a thing or two about Ignis. If even getting that deep into it was even necessary...

"It was lovely seeing you again as well, Sidon," Liliana said, still wearing the delighted grin at Prompto's expression(s). She held her hands out, willing to take the kitten that was probably now sulking at Sidon's general inedibility. You know, out of desire to be helpful or whatever. "I do hope you return from your venture successfully and am sure you're leaving the shop in excellent hands."

Which left her bringing her glance back to the sheepish Prompto. "Whatever 'things' entail, I suppose they do happen to be going well," she agreed, though with a touch of reserve that could be expected from someone ~~terrified of acknowledging feelings and vulnerabilities~~ ~~with a string of tragic relationships behind her~~ who would be the hard-mode NPC to romance in the video game she deserved to have. "I've already warned him I'm greedy, selfish, and spoiled," she added thoughtfully. "He seemed to appreciate those traits."

Surely he didn't need warnings about the demons who owned her soul, the dragon she was in debt to, the last boyfriend she'd betrayed, the magical artifact on her hip that sometimes whispered to her in the dark of the night, whatever the hell the Raven Man was, her own tragic backstory that was over two hundred years in the making...

"I'm also a necromancer, and while I personally thing that's a benefit, not everyone has my sense of taste." More fools they. "I also loathe angels."

Edited 2023-09-17 21:42 (UTC)

Liliana. Liliana. Sidon smelled like food. He looked like he could be food. And yet, he was not food. It was truly an offense greater than anything else this poor kitten had ever known, and now this indignant kitten was, indeed, being passed over to you before Sidon completely made his exit.

Prompto considered this information with his confused look slipping back, because none of those traits really sounded like things Ignis would appreciate. Spoiled, he figured, Ignis would be at least used to dealing with, and he could see how any other person might be easily charmed by Liliana's beauty, but obviously that wasn't going to exactly going to be high on Ignis' priority list. As for the necromancy?

There was a bit of an uncomfortable shifting, but that was everything to do with Prompto's own general feelings around that sort of thing than any consideration of what Ignis' might have been.

"That's, uh, working with the dead, and things like that, right?" he asked, just in the off chance that he'd gotten the word mixed up. "And what's so wrong with angels?"

She was also very fun. And encouraged him to be greedy, which probably helped a little bit. And just think, Prompto, those were the traits she was willing to cop to!

...Literally everybody else in her canon was rooting for you to tell your boy to run. Hello, Liliana would probably tell him to a few times as well. And would question his mental faculties if he didn't for some reason.

"Oh yes," she said, watching his squirming closely. "I'm a ghoulcaller by trade, but I'm well-versed in almost all the necromantic arts." Her lip curled. "I'm not a Stitcher, I have self-respect."

Their work lacked artistry or craft and was honestly an embarrassment to the good name of necromancy.

Her eyes narrowed at his latter question and she had to look down to the poor, deeply indignant kitten in her lap before she could paste on the proper airy smile and say, "Well, for one thing, they're terribly judgmental, small-minded, and self-righteous for creatures invented by Serra because she had an overfondness for pigeons."

They knew what they did.

"I'm not sure what a Stitcher is," Prompto admitted, trying his very best to not swallow too obviously at that, "but I think I'm okay with that."

And as for the other part? Even Prompto could tell that it was a pretty sore subject for Liliana, so he just sort of smiled apologetically for asking, even though, technically speaking, she's the one who brought it up.

"I don't really know that much about them," he shrugged a little. "I know around here, angels and daemons kind of go hand in hand, and while I know a lot about daemons..." There was a pause there, and swallowing became a little harder again, "...the closest thing we have to what I've heard about angels are probably the Messengers."

Because we were working off the English translation with this one.

"And there's Angelgard, which was the sacred isle said to be the gathering place of the gods, but...." He shook his head a little. "That's more Gladio's thing than it is mine. All that stuff just goes right over my head."

Even when they were actively interacting with and fighting the gods, there was always a part of Prompto that was very much feeling waaaay out of his league.

....to be fair, Prompto felt way out of his league in most things, though.

Edited 2023-09-17 22:22 (UTC)

Liliana was all for fighting gods, though. At least actual gods. Those were rarer than most people thought; most of the beings known as gods were actually just pre-Mending planeswalkers ~~in her corner of the Multiverse anyway~~. Hell, she'd been a goddess on several planes. It had been fun for awhile, but she'd eventually gotten bored and wandered off.

At least she hadn't been in the habit of creating planes just to be worshipped. Looking at you, Nicol Bolas.

She looked at him, noting all those little swallows, and understood far better than she wanted to admit where such things came from. "Demons," she said quietly, "are not the province of necromancers." She was also unclear about the difference between daemons and demons, but she hadn't really gotten a rundown on them. "Demons are evil creatures, cruel and vicious and delighting in their power. Necromancers and demons exist independent of one another."

Sure, Liliana currently had some stuff going on with demons, but that was a her thing, not a necromancer thing.

"My home plane of Dominaria had a problem with demons for a very long time." She shrugged. "Still might, I just haven't been back home to know."

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