Ahem.
Hi, guys. It's been almost a full year since my last update…
I have no excuse. College turned my life upside down and inside out, and I've barely had time to breathe. And then the writer in me got broked, and well… Yeah. That's all I've got to say for myself. However, with the release of Episode Ardyn (and a SUPER awesome review from QuestRunner), I have become inspired to write more about this gang of losers! Hope you enjoy!
Oh yeah! As promised: My visual rhetoric essay went really well! Yay…
…
Day 5—Part 2.
"Don't think that you're getting out of a punishment just because you're holding the kid now, Four Eyes," Aranea warned, standing in rather threatening proximity to Ignis in the waist-high water, arms crossed and eyes smoldering with unexacted revenge.
"Honestly, using a baby as a meat-shield is low, especially for the king's royal…" She paused, putting a finger to her lips in mock-thought.
"What are you again? Pretty Boy's maid or something?"
"I am Noct's advisor, first and foremost," Ignis answered, not deigning to look at the Dragoon as he preoccupied himself with making sure the squirming child in his arms didn't put any lake water in her mouth or put herself into the lake water. Stella was horribly slippery, and Ignis made a mental note that "baby plus sunscreen equaled wet soap bar."
"Additionally," the chamberlain said, continuing to address Aranea, "I hardly think anyone, myself least of all, would be so deplorable as to use a six month old as a buffer between themselves and danger."
"Keep telling yourself that, freakin' sadist," the woman muttered darkly.
Ignis sighed and looked up from the princess long enough to reply, "I believe I already apologized for my behavior earlier, Aranea, and even had I not, need I remind you that I only did such a thing to you in the first place to… return the favor, as it were. If you are angry, then I suggest you examine your own actions first and realize that if you hadn't contrived to push me into the water, then I wouldn't have had the need to frighten you as I did."
Aranea bristled, and she threw her arms down toward her sides in a rather childish gesture of irritation, made all the more comical by the fact that her limbs disappeared under the water at the elbow, so the expression lost most of its potency.
"There's a big difference between a silly prank and making me believe you'd died for about five minutes!" she opposed.
"And as I said," Ignis emphasized in a smooth rejoinder, "I already apologized. I realize that it was immature of me to respond in such a manner, and I am sorry that I caused you undue worry."
Aranea huffed, little flecks of lake water flying off her lips as she exhaled, but she said nothing further, which from the Dragoon was as clear an indication of her forgiveness as Ignis was going to get.
They lapsed into silence, the awkward kind that only stretches out after a particularly clumsy apology. Mercifully, Stella, who had apparently gotten bored of trying to ingest almost-certainly contaminated water, spared them both from the tension by reaching up quite suddenly—faster than Ignis could react—and snatched the glasses from the retainer's face. Painfully. With a snap of her surprisingly agile baby wrist, the spectacles came free, the end of the earpiece section of the frame whipping inward as she tugged, coming around just in time to shove harshly into Ignis' eye, surprising and wounding him enough to nearly make him lose his grip on the already-slippery body of Noctis' only child. He caught her as she began to slide rapidly toward the lake, his injured eye squinted shut as it started to water profusely. He straightened, and Stella looked up at him a moment, shock at her near-fall appearing on her chubby face before she burst out in happy cackles.
Then she threw Ignis' glasses into the water with a happy "bah!" and clapped her hands joyously like she'd just won the lottery.
Chagrined but hardly surprised at this point in his babysitting tenure, Ignis stared down at the princess out of his one good eye while Stella laughed at his sinking glasses and imitated sad, bubbling sounds as they dipped beneath the surface.
A heartbeat of silence followed before Ignis, blinking away tears from his skewered eye while his spectacles floated to their liquid grave under the gray-green water, said evenly, "I do hope you're pleased with yourself, Highness."
Stella smiled angelically, dimpling her cheeks and regarding Ignis in a way that said yes, she most certainly was pleased with herself.
Aranea laughed, the moment of awkwardness forgotten as she courteously dived beneath the shallow spot of water and retrieved the glasses, flicking the drops off of them as best she could before leaning forward to slide them back onto the chamberlain's face.
"That better?" she asked with a grin.
"The view is a bit mistier than I should like," Ignis replied, "but I'll manage. Thank you, Aranea."
"Serves you right, though," she added, laughing a bit at his tightly-closed eye and disgruntled expression behind his dripping spectacles.
"As flattering as it is to be a source of such great amusement to you both," Ignis replied with a coolness that he didn't feel, "I believe that this discussion should end here, if you please."
As if to reinforce his statement, Prompto approached at that moment, severing the conversation as he waded comically fast through the waist-high water, waving and calling out to Ignis with his signature, sunny smile.
"Yo, Iggy!" he hollered, "come over here a sec! I need you!"
Aranea raised an eyebrow and looked to the retainer, holding out her arms for Stella.
"Well, better give me the trouble-maker; it looks like one of your kids needs you."
Ignis matched her caustic expression with a raised eyebrow of his own, but otherwise ignored the mother-hen joke and wordlessly handed the slippery princess off to the Dragoon before turning to Prompto, who had slogged his way over to the trio during the interaction.
"What is is, Prompto?" Ignis asked, resisting the urge to cross his arms over his chest self-consciously now that Stella's weight was gone. Astrals, it felt so wrong to be free of her squirming body, almost like he hadn't anything on. When had he gotten so used to her presence?
He shook the thought off as Prompto came to a stop before him, wondering what it was the younger man could possibly want—
"I need you to be my butt," the blond stated sternly.
Wait. What?
"Pardon me? Your… what?" Ignis had to ask, completely caught off-guard by the bold and completely unexpected—unprecedented—request. Beside him, Aranea snorted indelicately, covering her face with her free hand.
"Well, you weigh more than me, so…" Prompto trailed off with a shrug, but the explanation did nothing to help Ignis fathom the situation any better.
Aranea only snorted again, this one sounding almost painful to restrain.
"Prompto, I'm afraid I have no idea what you are implying," Ignis said.
Prompto shook his head, as if in denial of Ignis' obliviousness, and grabbed the chamberlain's shoulders to face him squarely.
"Iggy. I know this is hard, but that's just the way things go. Gladio's taken, so you have to be the butt. Please? For me?"
Ignis pushed the blond's hands off his shoulders, pointedly ignoring the increasingly loud chuckles from Aranea as he cast an irritated look on his younger friend. Six bless the boy, but Prompto could be a mind-numbing number of steps ahead sometimes. It wasn't like the gunner was stupid or insane by any stretch of the imagination, but was often so far advanced in his thoughts that Ignis and the others had to bring him back constantly and remind him that no one could possibly keep up with his ideas.
"I can't be a butt-less Chocobo, Iggy. I need you!" Prompto continued pleadingly, his large blue eyes fixing the advisor with a puppy-dog look that would have been compelling had Ignis had any inkling of an idea what this whole matter was about.
"Iris is a head already, and I can't compete with her when Gladio's her butt, so if you could just—"
Prompto cut off abruptly, jerking his head back in surprise as Ignis snapped his fingers sharply under the blond's nose, silencing his rambling for a crucial second so he could interject.
"Prompto!" he cut in smoothly, his voice calm, but sharp as a knife as he attempted to bring his flighty friend back down to earth.
"You'll have to slow down, I'm afraid. What exactly are the three of you doing over there, and what do you need me for?"
Prompto opened his mouth, closed it, then asked sheepishly as he turned a faint shade of red, "I… I did it again, didn't I?"
Astrals, he's become self-aware! Ignis realized with some surprise, but he made sure none of it showed on his face as he nodded empathetically.
The blond offered an embarrassed smile.
"Sorry, Iggy," he said, and the chamberlain waved the apology away. As long as Prompto realized his oversight, it was enough.
"It's not a problem," he assured the younger man, "but I wouldn't mind an explanation."
"Oh. Yeah, sure. We were just going to have a Chocobo Fight, actually, but we need another person."
Ah. Splendid. Was that all?
Ignis couldn't help the look of disapproval that came over his face at the mention of the rambunctious game. He wouldn't say he had a particular problem with that particular popular lake activity, just that he had always thought it too dangerous to be much fun. He'd played before, of course, but he was always so concerned with the potential for broken necks, bruises, or drowning that he could hardly focus on the competition aspect. Gladio, and by extension Iris, enjoyed Chocobo fighting immensely, but… well, they were Amicitias. Games like that were practically written into their genetic coding.
"And you didn't think to ask Aranea instead?" Ignis questioned, looking for a graceful way out of the situation. "I believe we both know that she would be a much greater asset to you in this situation than I."
Prompto shrugged, seeming a bit uncomfortable with the suggestion.
"Yeah, I know," he replied, "but I suck at being on the bottom, and… well…"
He leaned in with a swift glance at the Dragoon, who seemed to be pointedly ignoring their exchange as she entertained Stella by pretending to sneeze into the water, an act that seemed to amuse the princess immensely.
"She'd have to on my shoulders, Iggy," Prompto whispered to the advisor. "And like, hello? I'm married! That would be majorly weird for both of us."
Ah. That… That was a valid point.
"I suppose I see how that might be a problem," Ignis conceded, though he hated where that admission put him.
"And I also suppose that would mean I'm the only available participant for your game?"
Prompto grinned, slapping him on the back good-naturedly.
"Come on, Specs! Don't be so gloomy! It'll be fun!"
Astrals preserve him, how was he supposed to turn down a face like that? Prompto was just so bloody excited, it would have been nearly inhumane to reject the offer. With a heavy sigh, Ignis slid his glasses off his face and handed them to Aranea, beseeching her to take care of them and for the love of all the gods, not to let Stella have them. Then, Prompto was dragging him into the deeper water away from the docks, where Iris and Gladio waited, the young woman stacked on top of her brother's shoulders, creating a truly imposing tower of pure Amicitia.
"Alright!" Gladio rumbled when they arrived, his amber eyes alight with a very dangerous fire, "let's get the slaughter started!"
Iris cheered in agreement, Prompto fist-pumped, but Ignis could only wonder at how hard it would be to rescue someone with a broken spine from drowning in the lake.
…
It took a few wet, painful moments for Ignis to situate Prompto properly on his shoulders so that he wasn't unbalanced. Ignis grimaced as he straightened up, dripping, from the water, and Prompto's weight settled fully on his shoulders. Though he certainly weighed less than the advisor, the blond's 135 pounds didn't exactly sit comfortably on Ignis, and was only worsened by the fact that Prompto was incredibly bony. Ignis found it hard to believe that Prompto had ever been overweight, despite the blond's assurances that he had been "a real meat-ball" in his middle school days.
Before him, Gladio and Iris waited patiently, balanced easily like they were a single unit. Ignis would never admit it, but the duo was truly imposing, standing like a rock amid the shallow waves and rising above the advisor and Prompto with grim but burning expressions. Ignis didn't think he'd ever felt those six inches that separated him and Gladio more than he did in that moment. Frightening, admittedly, but he'd committed to this now. He'd be damned if he let the powerful siblings beat him now.
"Okay!" Prompto chirped from somewhere above him, shifting a final time on Ignis' shoulders to get comfortable, "we're good to go! Prepare to get crushed!"
Ignis could only wish to share his friend's levels of optimism. He did certainly plan on winning, but he wasn't naive enough to think for even a moment that the Amicitias' defeat would be "crushing."
The advisor's thoughts were supported whole-heartedly by Iris, who just grinned at Prompto from Gladio's shoulders and cracked her knuckles threateningly.
"Bring it on, Choco-Butt!" she laughed.
"Yeah," Gladio agreed, his eyes fixed on Ignis in a challenge. "You both better give it your all! No holding back!"
"It insults me that you would think I'd do otherwise," Ignis replied calmly, trying to keep the pain out of his voice as Prompto's bony backside dug into his trapezius. Gods, he was going to come out of this with some heavy bruising, wasn't he? Not to mention the havoc Prompto's weight was sure to wreck on his spine…
"Go!" Gladio yelled suddenly, and Ignis had to abandon all thoughts of health concerns as the Shield rushed in—alarmingly fast for someone wading though water with a woman on his shoulders—and slammed into he and Prompto with the force of a charging Garula.
Ignis grunted in surprise, straining suddenly as Gladio stepped in, forcing the advisor backward with his sheer weight. Ignis' feet slid back on the silt and lake slime that had settled beneath the water, and he quickly stepped back to keep his balance. Above him, Prompto yelped as Iris tried to force him off Ignis' shoulders, and by the way the blond suddenly wobbled on top of him, Ignis could only assume that her attempts were quickly becoming successfully.
A tactical retreat was in order.
Ignis backed away, letting the natural buoyancy of the water carry most of his weight as he moved away from the imposing form of the mutant, two-headed Amicitia tank in front of him. Prompto gave a little yelp at the action, his body lurching forward with the abruptness of the advisor's retreat, forcing him to throw his arms around Ignis' head lest he fell. To his credit, the blond was careful to keep his arms out of Ignis' eyes, so the chamberlain didn't utter a word of protest as he waited for the younger man to regain his balance and move his hands.
"Ramuh's sparking beard!" Prompto exclaimed with a pant when he had settled back on his perch. "What are those two made of!?"
"Muscle," Gladio replied over the intervening space.
"And a steady diet of six inch steak slabs," Iris finished, flicking her wet hair out of her eyes.
Ignis raised a skeptical eyebrow at them both, hardly cowed by their eating and exercise habits. The Amicitias were strong, yes, but they relied much too heavily on that fact. That first initial rush had told Ignis much about their attack style—not that he'd needed it. He knew Gladio well enough to be familiar with all the Shield's battle tactics, and he had guessed from the start that the large man would begin the competition with an overwhelming display of sheer brutality. That was his way: subdue the enemy as quickly as possible; tire them out before the fight even really began. But that strategy left a hole in the Amicitias' defenses. They were like a pair of charging Dualhorns—powerful, but straightforward, letting momentum drive their opponents to their knees.
Ignis could exploit that.
He hardly thought about how ridiculous it was to be strategizing so thoroughly in a game of Chocobo Fight—this was war, after all—and with the beginnings of an idea stirring in his mind, he tilted his head to look up at Prompto out of the corner of his eye.
"Prompto," he said in a whisper, confident that Gladio and Iris were too far away to hear him, "I believe I have a plan to stop them."
"Well, spill it!" the gunner replied in a low tone. "Because as much as it hurts to admit, I don't think I can handle Iris head-on. Her arms are like iron!"
"Precisely," Ignis agreed. "Which is why we need to fight them the same way we used to take down Iron Giants."
"Screaming 'oh gods, no' while spamming a gun trigger?" Prompto guessed, to which Ignis shook his head.
"Evasion," he corrected, eyeing the Amicitias cautiously as they began to stalk in. They were obviously impatient to get on with the fight and prevent the two of them from strategizing. Time was up.
"Just follow my lead, and when I give the signal, use the water to blind Iris. Got it?"
Ignis saw the blond nod out of his periphery, then turned back to their opponents just in time to watch them begin another of their terrifying charges.
Here it comes.
"Brace," Ignis ordered his young friend, "but keep a firm hold on me."
Prompto brought his arms up like he intended to catch the approaching Iris, but Ignis felt his legs lock uncomfortably tight around his torso. He hadn't meant that tight, but he could hardly complain as Gladio came in, almost on top of them…
Now!
As the Shield came in, Ignis fell out of his braced position, letting his muscles relax, and sidestepped the big man cleanly, just enough so that Gladio stumbled past on his right. In the same moment, the advisor hooked Gladio's leg with his foot, unbalancing him and, in turn, Iris.
"Prompto!" he yelled, giving the signal to his blond friend, who wasted no time in scooping up a large, cupped handful of murky lake water, spattering it directly in Iris' face as she wobbled by on her brother's shoulders.
The young woman coughed and spluttered, bringing her hands up to wipe her eyes in the same second that Ignis slammedhis body harshly into Gladio's side, furthering the blow to his balance. Iris made an incoherent sound of consternation as she began to tip off her perch, and Prompto didn't give her the chance to recover. With a flourishing shove, the gunner pushed her sideways off of Gladio and into the water with a mighty splash!
The entire sequence had taken mere seconds, too fast for Gladio, weighed down by the water and his sister, to react. If this had been a real battle, Ignis knew, the Shield wouldn't have been nearly so easy to overcome—he'd watched Gladio in combat too often to deny that. But neither could he deny the satisfied smirk that rose to his face as he watched Iris rise, disgruntled, from the water while Gladio cursed like a Lestallum Hunter in a bar, regaining his balance.
"Woohoo!" Prompto whooped, throwing his arms up and easing his deathly leg-grip on Ignis, "we won! We actually won! You're a genius, Iggy!"
"A very sore genius, perhaps," Ignis corrected, starting to feel the effect of Prompto's weight now that the adrenaline was dying. "I would appreciate a respite now, if it's all the same to you."
"Oh…" Prompto said, his arms lowering slowly, some of his thunder stolen, "sure thing. I'll just… get down then."
"Splendid," Ignis replied, standing still so Prompto could slip off…
Except that he didn't.
Ignis craned his neck to look back at his heavy friend.
"Perhaps you might expedite your descent, Prompto," he suggested with strained patience. "This isn't entirely comfortable."
"I'm trying, Iggy! I just… how do I do that?"
"You don't know!?" Ignis asked, a bit indignantly. "Couldn't you just lean off backwards?"
"No. I'll get. A. Snoot-full!"
"A what?" Why was it that the beginning and end of this game was marked by confusing conversations?
"A snoot-full, Igs. You know? Water up my nose? Not cool. I don't know what's been using this water as a waste dump, but I can tell you that I don't want any of it in my sinuses."
Ignis gave vent to a long-suffering sigh, beginning to crouch down so Prompto could get down without a risk to his nose, but Gladio interrupted him, wading up to them with a jovial smile. He certainly seemed to have recovered from his defeat.
That was… rather quick.
"Don't sweat it, Iggy, I'll do it," he said, reaching up like he was about to carry Prompto to safety.
The chamberlain paused, surprised but nonetheless pleased by the offer.
"Thank you, Glad—" he began, but cut off as the Shield abruptly shoved Prompto off into the water with one arm.
"And now we're even," he stated smugly as Prompto popped up from the waves, blowing water out his nose and coughing.
"… I think I may have swallowed a minnow…" the blond croaked, rubbing his throat with a sickened grimace.
Ignis, rolling his aching shoulders in the aftermath of Prompto's weighty presence, had trouble conjuring any compassion for him.
Ah, it feels so good to get that chapter done! It's been hanging over my head for over 10 months! It's not nearly as funny as I would have liked, but this sucker just needed to get on out there, so that's that. Done and dusted. Next chapter should be more fun. I have plans. And hopefully it won't be so long in coming as this one.
'Til next time: Bon voyage, me old crème crackers!