The Mishaps of the Chocobros

Campfire Blues

Gladiolus always was the outdoorsy, adventurous guy out of the four. A couple bugs and wilderness never bothered him to say the least. He would always be the one outside at all hours of the day, being active and just exploring what the world had to offer him. 

Iris, however, liked staying indoors as much as she possibly could, which didn't bother him as much as he thought it would, but he also wished that his sister would go camp with him sometimes. He always thought that she would make a great camper.

When he first took up the offer to go along with Prince Noctis to Altissia as the Royal Shield, he didn't really have a choice to back down even if he wanted to. Thank goodness that he wasn't going to however; it had been a while since he went out camping. 

It had been three weeks since they had left the Citadel. And he was beginning to grow ragged from all the camping they were going through every day.

He wouldn't mind if they stayed at every campsite for a couple days, instead of the several hours. He understood those stupid buckets of bolts from the Empire would seek them out if they stayed in one place for far too long.

Was it too much to ask to stay for a couple days in one place at a time? As much as he wished for a different answer, he knew the answer stayed the same. And he hated it.

One night he was especially short-tempered, and the three of them were subject to some kind of burning comment that was made by Gladiolus. Ignis had noticed that he wasn't exactly his ruggedly caring self the past week and he was starting to wonder what exactly was on his mind.

As the group finished eating dinner and began to wind down for bed in their tents, Gladio stay seated at the fire, staring at the crackling flames before being joined by Ignis on the right.

"Something the matter, Gladio?"

He grunted, his eyes fixated on the orange glow of the fire. "Hmm. Not really."

"You know, you've been kind of wound up these days, and you nearly made Prompto cry today with your comment. So something must be bothering you." Curse Iggy and his damn intuition skills.

Gladio shrugged, fighting against his urge to complain. In retrospect, with the overall situation and issues they were dealing with his complaint was minuscule, almost childlike in nature. 

"It's nothing major, Ignis." He replied, and he heard the level headed man sigh. Ignis knew this probably wasn't going to be very easy, but he was persistent. After all, he was trained in negotiations and persuasion as part of the royal staff.

"If it's bothering you to the point of lashing out at the rest of us, it must be something major to you at least, Gladio."

"Fine. Do you really want to know?"

"I mean I am asking."

"It's pretty stupid, I'm warning you."

"I think I can be the better judge of my perception, Gladio. And don't mind what I think of the matter. It's important to you, and you know I'm not like that. At least, not always."

"Huh, you could say that again."

"Now you're just stalling, what is it that you have to tell me?" He sighed, looking at the man next to him before saying, "Do you think we could, y'know, stay in our camps a little longer than several hours at a time? I think we could do some good just exploring the place and gathering stuff out here rather than waiting and hoping that our rations carry over."

Ignis sat silent, pondering over the thought. He knew what Gladio wanted, but he also had a good point. Maybe there could be some good ingredients out here that could be made into new recipes. His recipe book was starting to become a little monotone for his taste anyways.

"Hmm, I don't see why that is a silly request. It actually seems quite reasonable. You'd think the other two would mind?"

"I'd hope not, but they need some toughening up to do anyways." Ignis chuckled with a nod, silently agreeing with him. 

"I apologize for not taking your feelings into consideration."

"It ain't your fault, Iggy. I didn't really say anything about it to begin with."

Ignis smiled slightly to himself, getting up to stretch before turning to the swordsman and saying, "Well I suppose I have to go to bed, tomorrow is an early day as usual."

"Okay, I'll just sit out here and watch camp for a little while." He nodded before slipping into their shared tent for the night.

"Night, Iggy."

"Goodnight, Gladio. Don't stay up too late, Prompto will have to get up to keep watch of camp for a while after you."

"Roger that." He heard the grunt of a reply before the camp was once again silent, the fire still burning (although considerably less brightly than before). After feeding the fire with a little more wood and some twigs he found, he sat back down, reclining to watch the stars with a small smile.

Maybe complaining isn't so bad, as long as he got what he wanted. He looked forward to more of these moments by himself every once in a while.

And apologize to Prompto as soon as it was his turn to watch camp too, of course.