The Mishaps of the Chocobros

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"Ignis-- no wait, Prompto!" The crown prince struggled as a big Garula who was particularly unruly enough to cause trouble around Liede nearly threw him off balance as it charged towards the party.

"Wha-- who? Where?" Said man quipped, slightly confused yet blasted his weapon at the beast, cheering when the beast finally fell dead after what seemed like hours of pursuing it. Even Gladio, who prided himself of being the hardiest of the four, looked exhausted as he hoisted himself up with a pained grunt. "Well, I guess that's over. Time to get the gil."

"Indeed, let's hurry to the headquarters before dark. It would do us some good to stay there for the night too." Ignis suggested as he finished gathering the materials they needed from the beast.

Noctis yawned as he stretched his arms over his head to work out the stiffness from his back. Handling large broadswords in battle was fun in the moment, but afterwards the heaviness of the swords combined with the stress of his muscles always made him more stiff and sore than he would've liked. Gladio always suggested to stretch out his limbs every day after he woke up, but who really has time for that?

The four of them hastened to the car, Ignis taking the wheel as usual with Noctis falling asleep in the backseat within five minutes of them setting off towards hunters HQ.

Prompto rested his head upon his crossed arms on his car door, baby blues looking up at dimming light of the sky with worry. It was only five in the evening yet it was already getting this dark. "Wow, the dark is really starting to creep up on us."

"Yes, the Starscourge has begun to take its toll unfortunately. For now at least Lady Lunafreya has been combating the Starscourge, but Eos will succumb to it sooner or later." Ignis replied, his brows furrowed as he concentrated on driving. Prompto sighed, looking back at the prince and his best friend.

Sometimes he worried for him. He may be a carefree person, but he definitely was not dumb; he knew the duty that befell his friend after the King died. The four of them were trying to get to Altissia as quickly as they could in order to continue with the wedding, but that was the least of Noctis's worries.

Every time the wedding was mentioned by anyone, he wouldn't react the way he knew he was supposed to. Prompto understood to some degree that Noctis wasn't exactly the happiest one in this situation even though he felt like he should have been.

Yet Prompto still teased him about it, even going as far as teasing him about Luna, telling him that any man would be lucky to marry her, to which he replied with a grunt.

Noctis was no stranger to obligations, and this marriage was yet another one on his list.

They all wanted to feel some sort of normalcy in this abnormal situation, so they all treated it as a bachelor road trip of sorts, rather than the political trip that it really was. But now that Regis was dead and Niflheim finally got its hands on the Crown City... there weren't really any more obligations for the Prince to fulfill.

Yet he still went on, still went ahead to complete what he sought out to do to begin with.

"Hey blondie, you okay up there? You look lost." Gladio thumped the back of his headrest to startle him out of his thoughts. Blinking around he realized they were in the hunter's headquarters now, and he immediately jumped out of the car.

Noctis grinned at his best friend with a challenge of King's Knight, and who would he be to say no?

This may be abnormal to most, but at least there were some things that didn't change, and those were the parts that he cherished the most.