fandomtownies | Furnado Animal Shelter; Wednesday [09/20].

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Furnado Animal Shelter; Wednesday [09/20].

Well, looks like it was Prompto's first time in a very long time behind the counter at Furnado Animal Shelter! And though the temptation to just dive right into the puppy pen was high, he knew he was here on a managerial capacity now, and definitely wanted to take the position seriously. There were orders to make, files to update, a few check-ins with the vet about how things had gone during the week and the general health and happiness of the animals...

...That lasted for about an hour. Then, he reasoned, it was his first day back, he should just get the puppy pile out of his system, as a treat, get it out of the way, and then he could focus.

That last....for much longer.

But it was important bonding time with the new pups! And obviously if anything important came up, he'd be right on it, but for now...

Ohhh, he missed this. He missed all these good boys, and was a little astonished that it had taken having to run the place to get him back in here to do this on a more consistent level again.

Furnado is open!

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It wasn't until after noon that the purple form of one Liliana Vess could be spotted heading to her shop. Unlike some people who thought that because the sun was awake and therefore they should be as well, Lili didn't bother rising until the crack of noon without a very good reason.

Engaging with commerce was not a good enough reason.

But after opening up her store and poking around for a bit, she decided to do the neighborly thing and check in on Prompto. See how he was settling in. Make sure he was doing okay. Get out of doing inventory. Something like that.

"Hello the shop," she called again. It was a thing now. Look, Prompto. You had a thing!

Awwww! Prompto loved a thing!

Which meant the pile of puppies over at the puppy pen by the big store window was offering out a cheerful, "Hello the customer!"

And then Prompto emerged from it as he very carefully moved the puppy that was taking up the most room on his chest so that he could sit up from the pile. "Give me one second, I've been swarmed."

"Mmm, you are very outnumbered," Liliana noted gravely. "I don't believe I can offer you much assistance, either. I will tell stories of your bravery in the face of such an onslaught, do you fail to free yourself from the puppy menace."

"Tell my wife I said ~~hello~~ I love her," Prompto opined dramatically, a hand now to his chest as he fell back into the pile as if to accept his fate. Or, well, rather, he tried, but a husky had moved into the space where Prompto's back had previously been, so he ended up just sort of leaning back on top of the husky. But, a few moments later, in a series of shifts and rolls and movements that was probably difficult to track by even the most expert observer, Prompto had managed to extract himself from the puppies and popped up to his feet with a bounce. He hastily (ineffectually) brushed off some of the dog hair from his shirt and pants before heading over to hop over the gate (opening it was for suckers) and meet The Customer with a grin.

"Hey, Liliana. Run through all that cat food already? Or did you cat suddenly just decide he didn't like that brand after all?"

Not that he had any experience with that, RAIN.

You still had some puppy fur on your chin, Prompto. Might wanna get that.

"As much as Josu likes to insist he is close to perishing whenever he can see the bottom of his dish, he does, in fact, still have plenty of food remaining," Liliana said wryly. "No, I simply came over to see you were settling in all right. And obviously it was good I did, as you were in dire puppy straits and who knows when you might have emerged did I not come by." Her purple eyes gleamed with amusement.

Um, that was supposed to be there, and it looked cool, thank you.

"It's true," said Prompto, able to pull off serious and grave himself for about two seconds after he nodded in agreement with Liliana's concerns. "It was definitely getting pretty hairy in there, thank goodness you've come along! I could have been suffering for the entire day, and no one would any the wiser!"

But then he had to chuckle, almost a little wistfully again, because honestly, that sounded amazing.

"But, yeah, no , things are good. Not a lot's changed here over the years."

Well, it helped that it hadn't really been that many years here, even if it had been a lot more years for Prompto.

"Things going alright next door in your shop?"

She'd give you that it was supposed to be there, anyway.

"Sadly, I feel it is a nigh-certainty that once I retreat to my shop, you'll once more be drawn into the fray and I will no longer be able to help," Lili said with a soft shake of her head. "It'll be up to you to win yourself free."

A crooked grin and then she took the seat from the other day, making pspspspsps noises to lure one of the wandering kittens over. "Things are fine at the shop. I just set out a display of never-miss throwing knives to tempt passersby."

As if to avoid tempting fate, Prompto drifted over, as well, away from the call of the puppy pen, and to the counter, deftly stepping over the couple of cats unable to resist a good pspspspsps. He then easily and expertly pulled himself up onto the counter to have a seat, feet dangling, shoulders hunches slightly, comfortably.

"Never-miss, huh?" he said. "I know a guy who'd say that sounds like cheating, but mostly, I think I'd just feel bad for whoever's around when you go to show off how effective they are. What makes 'em never-miss?"

"Magic," she said, waggling her eyebrows playfully. "When you equip them, they adjust themselves to your grip: their length, weight, hefty, and balance shift until they're perfect for you. You can fight with them normally if you want and they'll act as regular knives, but if you need to, you can throw them and trigger the last bit of magic to make sure they'll hit whatever you need then to. They don't do much damage and they'll be useless afterwards, but if you absolutely need to make sure you hit something, they're perfect. But if you have faith in your own skill, you can never use their never-miss ability, in which case, you just have a set of sharp knives perfectly shaped for your hands."

Prompto's head nodded as he considered that. "So, sort of a whole 'save it for the big boss battle' kind of thing, huh?" he mused. "Or maybe not, if they won't do much damage there, but when you've really got to make that critical blow..."

He looked over at Liliana and tilted his head a little thoughtfully.

"Not really my style, though," he admitted. "I'm more of a firearms type of guy, so if you get any interesting ones of those, I am so there. No, no...." He shook his head a little bit, and this was probably where the cracks in his ability to sound completely casual about it were probably starting to show, "not for me, but you know who would be interested in something like that? Ignis. Knives are definitely more his kind of thing." Then he gave a little chuckle. "I'm tempted to tell him about 'em, but I'd be worried he would think I was trying to say something about his marksmanship."

"Oh?" A smile flitted over her face. "Perhaps when we next run into each other, I should mention them, then."

Not that she had any idea when that would be, mind. Or where. Perhaps she should send her steward over with a card, asking when was an acceptable time and place to call? Hmm.

How in blazes did people here go about seeing one another? Was it all just happy accidents, bumping into one another until you were interested enough to start making specific plans?

...If yes, that raised some questions. Her smile went a little wistful, then faded away entirely as a new thought struck. Questions her pride wasn't going to allow her explore too thoroughly in public, thank you.

"But yes, they definitely won't take down something large unless it's already on its last legs, but there are a number of reasons it might be vital to take out something very small instead. Or sometimes even just an injury will count. Something exploitable - the notch in the rind that allows you to peel the fruit."

And then she raised her eyebrows at him. "You're a pyromancer?"

"Maybe," Prompto offered, grin going a little crooked, "I can figure out a way to bring it up tomorrow that won't damage his poor, precious ego..."

It was literally going to be the first thing out of his mouth as soon as they hit the cobblestones. Or, at the very least, he felt he could oh-so-casually mention it when their morning jog looped them around past Liliana's shop.

"But pyromancer?" No." Prompto shook his head. "Not me; that's my wife. I'm just a gunslinger."

And, to prove it, he did take a second to reach down a this hip and pull out one of his pistols (because, hello, he lived on this island, of course he was going to be packing), twirling it a little theatrically in his hand before showing it off, with a bit of a faint, distant smile.

"Fastest draw this side of the Cygillan Sea," he said, with a little bit of a drawl and a twang that was definitely not in his normal speech patterns, before giving it another twirl and tucking it safely away again.

"If you'd like," she said, in response to him trying to find a way to mention it. She was, of course, being very cool about it. Up to him and all that. "Pass along my greetings as well, perhaps? If it's convenient, I mean. Otherwise, you needn't worry." Not even a big deal here, Prompto. It's like whatever.

In fact, Liliana looked like she regretted even saying that much. Fortunately, there were other aspects of the conversation for her to focus on. "Oooh! Your wife is a pyromancer?" she asked, latching onto that tidbit with zeal wholly related to being interested in this woman she had never met before in her life. "That's interesting! I've known several. They're known to make things...exciting."

As their usual response to any problem is 'what if we added more fire to it?' Not great for subtle, but sometimes that wasn't what you needed.

"I don't know what that thing was that you just showed me," she added. "A weapon, I'm assuming? But if you'd like, I can definitely be very impressed over it."

Edited 2023-09-20 17:43 (UTC)

"Oh, yeah, sure," Prompto assured Liliana, but in a way that was doing nothing to keep his amused smirk down. "Only if it comes up. Totally NBD.

"And, well," the smirk changed into something a little softer, a little more admiring and fond, "she's pretty lowkey about it." Your powers having killed your entire family when you were younger could definitely do that to a person! "But her name's Liz, if you ever get the chance to run into her. She's great, but, obviously, I'm a little biased. And we're kind of wondering if our daughter will inherit any of her powers or not, but so far, thankfully, we haven't had any sudden late night baby fire emergencies to worry about, so..."

He took a moment to knock his fist on the wood of the counter.

"I take it you don't have guns where you're from, then? It is a pretty nice one. You can definitely be impressed by it."

Yup. Liliana was definitely regretting saying that much. Dammit, if only she still had her shop zombies, she could summon it to come to fetch her back to the store. But she didn't and leaving now would be a surrender, which obviously she was not going to do.

Blast, she didn't even have an emotional support cup of tea to ~~hide behind~~ sip from at completely random, totally-not-fraught moments.

"That is, without a doubt, the nicest and most impressive...gun?...I've ever seen," Liliana said immediately, without missing a beat. She dimpled at him, because even internal consternation couldn't stop her from being sassy. "I've never seen its equal, nor can I think of anyone with more...firearming?...prowess than you, Prompto."

Even though he was expecting it and he knew Liliana was just joking around and everything, Prompto couldn't help a bashful sort of chuckle, his cheeks going a little extra pink as he basked a little in the clearly well-earned praised. "Aww, shucks," he said, "you're only saying that because....yeah, you really have never seen a gun before, have you? And it'd be shooting prowess. Between my pistols and my camera, I'm shooting things all over the place."

Well, one significantly more than the other, but still.

And, hey, at least talking about what Prompto was packing got the topic off of Liliana showing Ignis her goods, right?

Listen, they could talk about showing Ignis her goods all day. She'd make jokes that would make Prompto blush. He seemed like he blushed fairly easily anyway. But...saying hello? Passing along her greetings? Had she said that? The horrors.

No, thank you. Liliana Vess didn't fall all over herself because of a man. Especially with neither word nor sign he was doing the same for her.

"Never even once," she told him cheerfully. "I still don't entirely know how it even works. Like...some sort of wand, perhaps?" Knives made far more sense. Sharp, precise, elegant...

Wait, no! Dammit, Lili. Pull yourself together.

"So you shoot a gun, which makes you a gunslinger, and you're a fast draw, which I'm guessing has much to do with 'draw' as in archery? Not draw as in a pen. But I'm still not sure what firearms are, except that it is Liz who is the pyromancer."

Look at her! Learning all these things and not even thinking about anybody else at all!

"Well, firearms are guns," Prompto offered, pulling the gun out again for a better visual reference, with a double-check on the safety before explaining further. "There are different ways they shoot these days, but they get their name from the fact that the bullet inside is propelled forward through an act of propulsion..."

Did you want a thoroughly detailed explanation about how a gun works, Liliana? Because you were getting a thoroughly detailed explanation about how a gun worked.

He was a dad now. He'd earned that excessive hobbyist info dump lecture right, dammit.

Look, Liliana was the same way about necromancy. This just meant that Prompto had signed up for a necro TED talk at some point!

"Fascinating," she murmured. "So...you don't need to be terribly strong, just good hand-eye coordination. Hmmm. I have knives, but I'm not particularly combat-skilled, I'm just trained."

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Furnado Animal Shelter; Wednesday [09/20].

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