Chapter Text
In Full Bloom
1: In The Cell, In The Desert
Prompto Argentum had a long and vivid memory, even back to his earliest years. His first memory was of cold, bitter cold on his toes and chest, with no warmth or relief. He could still recall dark hallways and locked doors, and the constant draft on his stocking feet. The servants in their white uniforms who always looked the other way when he walked by, the man who he knew to be his father, always at the back of his cold library with its overstuffed shelves of gray books. There was a woman. Prompto recalled calling her “Mother,” but then, he so rarely ever saw her.
Then, one day, the library was locked shut, and soon the whole house, and then he was being carried off in a rattling bird-drawn carriage, and after that, across the sea. The cold became a distant memory, replaced by yellow skies and brown earth, and then the white building he would spend much of his future in.
He’d been too small to understand it at the time. He’d come to understand by now.
Prompto had spent much of the last eight years in his cell, and he’d had plenty of time to learn and think. His only company were the servants who came to bring his clothes and food, a governess who taught him to read and count, and the books. He’d found the family tree among the books, and between reading over the fresh and aged letters and lines of ink, and listening to the gossip of the servants, he discerned just what his situation was.
His father had been a scientist of some sort in a country far from where he lived now, who had lived into his old age without marriage. However, one of his maids, with whom he’d apparently spent some leisure time, suddenly fell pregnant, and Prompto was born of their affair. His birth mother died shortly after he was born, disease claiming her when she was vulnerable in childbed, and Prompto’s father quickly married a woman of some minor nobility with the intention of ensuring he had a mother to care for him. He then returned to his research, harboring little interest in his progeny. The woman he married brought her household and, similarly disinterested in Prompto, set them about raising him. However, as his father was already elderly when Prompto was born, either age or some illness given advantage thereby claimed his life. Prompto’s stepmother shortly returned to her home country to remarry there, and thus Prompto was taken to the villa house in Galahd.
It was hotter than the country of his birth, but there was still no comfort or warmth. Neither Prompto’s stepmother nor his new stepfather wanted him, but the servants were under explicit instructions to keep Prompto fed and healthy, and most importantly, far away from them. Prompto heard whispers that there was some great inheritance tied to him, but he had to be an adult to inherit. Prompto wasn’t certain what he would do with any money or land given to him. He wasn’t interested in it, just like nobody was truly interested in him.
His memory was good, but he strained to forget what few things he had heard his parents say about him.
He drifted between his nursery, his day room, and the washroom given to him aimlessly each day. He wanted for nothing -- he never hungered, there were always clean clothes left for him. The library in his nursery was stocked with books, and his books were his best company, as he had none other. Prompto was left alone for much of the time when his governess wasn’t there, the servants in their white robes and dresses making themselves scarce after leaving his food at his table or changing the linens, and he filled those long, empty hours by reading. He devoured every book, obsessing over the paintings of faraway places, of lush forests and winding rivers, of people riding beautiful yellow birds taller than horses and families swimming in the sea. He read about adventures to distant lands, and wished he could see them for himself.
His step-parents, there was more to their world than what he had. He sometimes heard their parties, their guests coming and going, voices he didn’t recognize talking and laughing. He could hear the servant posted at his door breathing, ensuring he couldn’t creep out to explore. When they had first come to this house, Prompto had once banged on the door to try to find out what was going on, who was there, what was going on, but his curiosity was left unsatisfied. He had stopped being curious after a few years. Their world wasn’t meant for him; he had his own.
He sometimes dreamed of crawling out of the window in his bedroom and running as far as his legs could carry him in hopes of finding something else, something more, something like the beautiful places or wonderful people in his books, but there was nothing there. Whenever he looked out the window, all he saw was a great expanse of dry earth and yellow skies, for as far as his eyes could see.
Perhaps there were other places, beyond the sea, beyond the carriage. He knew he’d been there, but all he could remember was the cold.
The desert, the walls of his cell, the cold: that was all there was, perhaps. So he would take it, and fill it with books, and dream of places that couldn’t be real.
He was reading his books late one night after the sky had turned from yellow to pitch, when in the distance, he heard the tolling of the great church bells in town. It was not an unfamiliar noise -- they tolled each hour, and many times on celebration days. He was never sure what there was to celebrate.
This time, they kept ringing and ringing.
Prompto heard people rushing around outside of his room, noises, sometimes shouting. He knocked in hopes that someone out there might at least tell him what was going on, but there was no response.
So, he returned to his books. He flipped pages, gazing at etchings of faraway places and wondering if such things did exist, as the bells kept ringing and ringing outside.
In the morning, the bells were still echoing over the skies, and the servants didn’t come to bring him breakfast. The governess didn’t come, either. Prompto was starting to lose track of time, and it was making his heart pound as the hours ticked by. Lunch never arrived, and Prompto had stopped hearing footbeats past his door. He couldn’t focus on his books anymore, the etchings and paintings all a blur as he flipped the pages. He felt like he was being held underwater, or that he’d held his breath for too long. Finally, he put the book aside and returned to the door, straining his ears to catch even a little noise.
There was no sound; the hallway was completely silent beyond the wall, as if his very room had been plunged so deep into the ocean that nothing could be heard anymore, or that the very world was holding his breath.
He banged on the door. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
There was no answer. Prompto’s heart quickened again, his legs turning to jelly and his insides beginning to shiver from the force of his pulse. He knocked again. “Hello? Anybody? Anyone at all?”
He kept pounding his hand on the door, over and over, ‘til his palm began to bruise and ache. He called out for someone until his voice went raspy and weak. Tears began to stream down his face at some point, running down his cheeks and dripping on his shirt, until he ran out of tears to cry. He had no idea how long he stood there, wondering if there was anything left beyond that door or if he had somehow become the last person on the entire planet.
Prompto called and cried until he ran out of strength and collapsed against the door.
The next thing he knew, the distant bells had stopped, and he heard voices speaking nearby:
“... they all just left when the Master and Missus died, did they?”
“I hear tell it was the Scourge. Nasty thing, that.” The voices were gruff and disabused, and when Prompto opened his eyes, he could tell they were just beyond the door. “I hear it hit one of these fancy houses, then the next, then the next. They all visit with each other, and it jumps from man to man so easily. The servants here all likely knew it too, so they got away before they could catch it.” The speaker let out a weary sigh. “Let’s just keep to our task. There’s enough of this place to inventory, we just need to sort out what it all is, sell the lot, pay any debts, and let the higher-ups find their next-of-kin.”
Prompto stood slowly, trying to sort out what was being said. The Master and Missus “died?” Everyone simply… left? Before Prompto could put it all together, the handle on his door creaked, and someone outside said:
“What do you reckon’s in here?”
The door opened, and Prompto tumbled back, landing on his hands with a grunt. When he lifted his eyes, he saw two men in the black uniforms of the local soldiers wearing thick fabric masks over their faces, one heavy-set and one narrow and tall, standing over him, each of them clearly just as surprised to see him as he was them. The heavy-set man gasped, then got on his knees.
“A boy?” He held his hand out to Prompto, and Prompto jerked back, unsure of just what that hand might do.
“I didn’t know the Argentums had a son,” the tall one said, jaw slack. Prompto crawled back on his hands, his palm slipping when it landed on the books beside his bed. He glanced to the books, then swiftly shuffled through them until he found the family tree in the stack. He opened to the page where he appeared and shoved it towards the heavy-set soldier, then pointed at his name. The soldier looked down, frowning, then said aloud:
“Mrs. Argentum’s stepson, adopted from her first marriage.” He turned to his partner. “I guess we’ve found their next-of-kin.” Then, he faced Prompto again. “I’m awfully sorry your parents are gone, little man.”
Prompto exhaled all at once. It was true. They were gone, and he’d been the only one left.
The soldiers packed his clothes and books into bags, and sent him outside to wait for more men to come. Prompto sat in the sand, surrounded by all of his worldly possessions, and listening to the soldiers in black chattering around him. He soon came to understand his situation:
His parents had died of a disease. The servants all left the house so they wouldn’t catch it, forgetting him there. He would inherit their fortunes once he was old enough, but until then, he would be sent to an orphanage until they found any family willing and able to take him in.
All Prompto could do was hope that he wouldn’t be alone there.
The orphanage in Galahd was close to the church in town. There were other children there, children whose parents had died in a war or of diseases, or just plain bad luck, and they all ran around the yard at play, laughing and yelling. However, none of them were interested in Prompto, and Prompto didn’t know just what to say to any of them. Every time he opened his mouth, nothing would come out, and anyone he tried to reach out to ran from him before he could compose himself.
Instead, he heard them talk about him:
“He’s so quiet!”
“His face and clothes are funny!”
“How weird. Always buried in those books.”
Prompto wore only the clothes he had -- the same plain black pants and white shirt he always had -- and all he knew to do to occupy his mind was to read. He didn’t understand why it made him so odd, why they rejected him for nothing else but what he was, but it wasn’t anything new. The view outside of the dormitory was nearly the same as it had been in his parents’ home, all sand and yellow sky, but now he had to eat in the large dining hall surrounded by children who wouldn’t talk to him and adults who were more interested in the chatty children, feeling all the more alone despite all the new people surrounding him. So, he sat alone wherever he could find quiet, so he wouldn’t as keenly feel the bubble of silence that seemed to surround him, and read his picture books.
Would someone come to take him away? The soldiers who had left him in the orphanage said that the governor would try to find other family members who would raise him, but each day that passed without them coming back for him made him fear that it simply wouldn’t happen. He also feared, simultaneously, that such a new home would be no different than the one in which he’d been abandoned.
Every day he wondered if he would leave this place for a new home, and every day he wished that if there was somewhere else he could go, it would be beautiful, like the places in his books.
Then, the day came.
It was one like so many others. Prompto had curled up in the emptied schoolroom in the orphanage, alone while all the other children had gone outside to play, flipping through a book with watercolor paintings of flowers. There was a shadow at the door, then two shadows looming over him. Prompto dared look over the edge of the book to see one of the orphanage nurses waiting for him with her hands folded, accompanied by a gruff-looking man dressed in black pants, a black chambray shirt and black and silver brocade vest, and black riding boots, with cropped brown hair, a trimmed beard, and a proud, serious face. Prompto swallowed thickly, as the nurse cleared her throat.
“Prompto?” She sounded unsure, so Prompto nodded. “Prompto Argentum, this man has come to take you.”
Prompto turned towards the man, cocking his head as he wondered: was this man family? He looked nothing like Prompto, nor anything like his stepmother or her husband. The man, seeming to know what he was thinking, crossed his arms and looked down his nose at Prompto.
“My name is Cor Leonis. I’m here on behalf of your mother’s brother-in-law. Or, stepmother’s brother-in-law, if I understand the situation correctly.” He shifted his weight back, gaze shifting away from Prompto. “Your step-uncle, Master Regis Lucis Caelum, has agreed to take you in. I’ll be taking you to the mainland and his home on the moors of Cavaugh.”
“Isn’t that wonderful?” The nurse smiled at Prompto. “You’ll have a family again.”
Prompto almost wanted to tell them he’d never had a family before. However, he was too overcome with curiosity that he might have a chance to gain one to really speak. Instead, he jumped to his feet, still hugging his book to his chest, then rushed to the door. Whatever he would see in this new place would at least be something different, he hoped.
Something worth remembering.