[ Dog jokes and scrapbooking and comparing the terrible intricacies of old grief: there are worse ways to idle away an afternoon, especially one spent in another's company. She's spent many much worse, but it's growing all the more apparent that he's lofted her up on a pedestal: somewhere high and inaccessible, unable to be reached through wholly conventional means.
To that end, Luna doesn't interrupt him, falling silent to listen. Warmth coalesces in her hands where she's rubbed them together, generating friction and tangible heat, and the gentle slope of her smile doesn't deviate, though it does tip towards the end. Something a little more sad, doleful by a dismal percentage. She blinks down at her hands, which knot and unknot with a certain gracelessness unbefitting of any Oracle, then glances up at him again, eyelashes lowered, painting hazy shadows over her cheeks. ]
Thank you for telling me. Admitting something so personal would take anyone much courage. I would understand if you didn't wish to continue further.
[ For a second, Luna wavers, her fingers still intertwined together in her lap, then she extricates one hand, laying her palm over one of his own hands. Thirty seconds, perhaps less β just enough for him to feel the pressure of it over his knuckles in sympathy, before she's rescinded her palm. ]
You must have been lonely during that time. The path that lies ahead of us all can be a difficult one to surmount at times, especially when taken alone. [ A pause, then: ] ... My letter. Do you remember me telling you that Noctis was in a situation very similar to your own? Before we'd met, he was busy with the duties held to him as a prince, and hadn't had the time to make friends, much less acquaint himself with those outside of his immediate staff. But the day he befriended you, he sent Umbra to me β with a picture of the two of you. I'd known that he was happy, then, because he'd never once sent me anything like that before. A picture of him with a friend unrelated to his title. Someone he treasured very much. Truthfully, I'd wanted to meet you, too. Someone who treated everyone he met so kindly.
[ Luna's gaze is clear, for the lack of any deceptions. ]
I'm grateful you took care of him so well, and that I could help you reach out to him. I'm sure you're one of the reasons that he's able to smile as widely as he does now. [ And her own face softens by a very, very marginal degree. ] So I hope you don't feel so badly over it. I'd sent the letter, but the one who became friends with him was you, Prompto. You made that choice yourself.
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And perhaps that's where the dissonance lies: that Prompto sees her as some divinity or saint or martyr to her cause when she's little more than a woman coddling that mortal fissure-break in her heart, like a knife that she has yet to succumb to, living on just a little longer to stave off what cruel fate Noctis has lying in wait for him. If she could, she would take his burden with her to carry, all the way to the Astrals, to whatever end will rise up to meet her β and she'd take Prompto's consecrated despair as well, although it would be nice β nicer than anything, to speak with him just as she is. Not as the Oracle or Noctis's once-fianceΓ© or even the princess of Tenebrae, but as Lunafreya alone β here, in these hours remaining to her alone, to live as she's wanted to.
To that end, Luna doesn't interrupt him, falling silent to listen. Warmth coalesces in her hands where she's rubbed them together, generating friction and tangible heat, and the gentle slope of her smile doesn't deviate, though it does tip towards the end. Something a little more sad, doleful by a dismal percentage. She blinks down at her hands, which knot and unknot with a certain gracelessness unbefitting of any Oracle, then glances up at him again, eyelashes lowered, painting hazy shadows over her cheeks. ]
Thank you for telling me. Admitting something so personal would take anyone much courage. I would understand if you didn't wish to continue further.
[ For a second, Luna wavers, her fingers still intertwined together in her lap, then she extricates one hand, laying her palm over one of his own hands. Thirty seconds, perhaps less β just enough for him to feel the pressure of it over his knuckles in sympathy, before she's rescinded her palm. ]
You must have been lonely during that time. The path that lies ahead of us all can be a difficult one to surmount at times, especially when taken alone. [ A pause, then: ] ... My letter. Do you remember me telling you that Noctis was in a situation very similar to your own? Before we'd met, he was busy with the duties held to him as a prince, and hadn't had the time to make friends, much less acquaint himself with those outside of his immediate staff. But the day he befriended you, he sent Umbra to me β with a picture of the two of you. I'd known that he was happy, then, because he'd never once sent me anything like that before. A picture of him with a friend unrelated to his title. Someone he treasured very much. Truthfully, I'd wanted to meet you, too. Someone who treated everyone he met so kindly.
[ Luna's gaze is clear, for the lack of any deceptions. ]
I'm grateful you took care of him so well, and that I could help you reach out to him. I'm sure you're one of the reasons that he's able to smile as widely as he does now. [ And her own face softens by a very, very marginal degree. ] So I hope you don't feel so badly over it. I'd sent the letter, but the one who became friends with him was you, Prompto. You made that choice yourself.