Alex seemed to agree that they had more important things to do than talk. That was a relief on one hand considering the course of their conversations, but the silence made Prompto itch. He couldn’t help but feel like he’d said something terribly, horribly wrong in a way that made his insides squirm. Maybe it was telling him that his Noctis wasn’t real? Prompto knew he’d get real mad about that, but then again, they were best buds and Alex was just…

Well, he didn’t know what Alex was to his Noctis. Wasn’t about to ask either.

After a long, long time, they finally reached the wall. Prompto stopped, leaning back to look up at it. ”Woh.” It was tall. Real tall, and the side of it didn’t look good for climbing. He wasn’t entirely sure that even Noctis could have warped up there. Warping meant his sword had to sink in something, after all, and he wasn’t seeing anything like that.

He looked over at Alex. He pulled out a whistle and blew it. It sounded to Prompto something like a chocobo whistle. But hadn’t Alex said his chocobo was outside the wall?

”So the weather,” Alex started. ”At least it’s not raining, right?”

”Uh…” Prompto tried to wrap his head around the tone shift. And the plan. And everything else. ”Yeah, sure thing. If you like a lot of freezing snow. And I mean freezing snow.” Prompto wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. He had his coat on which was good, but it was still cold. He didn’t have any good associations with the cold.

Not thinking about it.

There was a squawk and Prompto jerked upright, looking around for the source. ”A chocobo?” He knew that sound. He knew it real well, but they were on a roof pressed against a wall, and that didn’t make sense. Finally, his eyes landed on the air and he stumbled backwards in surprise.

There it was. Clear as day. A chocobo, fluttering down from the sky on stubby wings, its long legs dangling beneath it. His eyes went wide. ”No. Way.” The sight failed to compute. ”You weren’t kidding!” he said. ”That’s a flying chocobo! A flying chocobo!” He couldn’t help himself. Despite everything, he felt a delighted laugh burst out of his mouth.

A real, serious, totally not imaginary flying chocobo!

”Ah man! I want to ride it! Can I ride it?” He turned on Alex like an excitable kid, hands balled out in front of him and eyes gleaming. Alex gave the word, and Prompto let out another round of wooping laughter.

”Al-right!” He pumped his fist in the air and scrambled on, grinning. ”Provo, Rising Stones, wait outside the city. Got it.” He wasn’t sure he did, but he probably got it well enough. Well enough to ask people on the road, at least. Besides, there weren’t ever any unfriendly people on the road, right?

”Course I’ll feed him!” Prompto ruffled the feathers on the back of Ragnabawk’s head. ”Cause he’s a good boy. Isn't he?”

Ragnabawk was. He totally was.

”See ya!” Prompto waved as Alex started off. Once they were alone, Prompto patted the chocobos neck then came to an uncertain stop. ”So uh. Let’s fly now! What am I supposed to say? Er. Giddy-yup?”

As though on command (though probably not), Ragnabawk gave a great ’kweh!’, throwing out his wings and squawking to the sky. Then he took off. Prompto squealed and scrambled to grab hold of his neck. ”Oh man oh man oh man oh-!”

Then they were off the ground and the chocobo was struggling over the wall and Prompto saw the great space beneath them on the other side. ”Wow…”

The snowy horizon seemed to go on forever, spreading out to the mountains far in the distance. He watched it, eyes wide, as the beauty of the sight overtook him and he could only stare at it in awe. Then the moment passed and his heart picked up on adrenaline.

”Woo-hoo!” Prompto threw up a hand, laughing. ”This is awesome!”

The chocobo fluttered down, and took off doing the snowy road, its feet pressing lightly against the heavily packed snow. Prompto took the reigns as they made their escape, grinning all the while.

In the last few hours, he’d been mistaken for a terrorist, hunted down, dragged out a window, and he hadn’t understood a single second of it. But he’d also had the chance to ride a flying chocobo. So it wasn’t all bad, right?

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