[VIDEO] 📷 UN: quicksilver80

[photoshooter]

Look!

[Without further preamble, Prompto holds his phone camera back to show what he's got cradled in the crook of his other arm: an egg that looks bigger than a chicken itself, so he for sure didn't get it from inside the station.]

It's a chocobo egg! Chocobo, I just know it! And I did the trick with the shell and the light and there's a baby inside, it's alive!

[He sets the phone down standing up and hugs the egg carefully and happily to his chest, grinning fit to split his face.]

I'm gonna be the best. Chocomom. Ever! I gotta introduce them to the girls downstairs, catch me there if you wanna say hi to baby in person!

[And for those who prefer more action-based interaction, Prompto will, in fact, be in the floor 2 chicken room, his egg held protectively in his lap with an arm always around it while he feeds and chatters to the chickens.

He's also taped a note to the chicken room door:]

ADOPT A CHICKEN!

Chickens are cute and don't grow very big, unlike basilisks and cockatrices. We lay the eggs you eat for breakfast and cook with! So please don't think about cooking us! We love you! Give us names and love us, too!

♩ є(･Θ･｡)э ♩ ⋋(◍’◊’◍)⋌ ♩ є(･Θ･｡)э ♩ ⋋(◍’◊’◍)⋌ ♩ є(･Θ･｡)э ♩ ⋋(◍’◊’◍)⋌ ♩ є(･Θ･｡)э ♩ ⋋(◍’◊’◍)⋌ ♩ є(･Θ･｡)э ♩

Comments

[photoshooter]

I don't think "ancestors" typically get fussy nagging rights. Pretty sure they're just supposed to be all quietly judgmental from a distance.

[founderinglight]

Well, yes, but most people's ancestors are dead.

[He is very much not.]

[photoshooter]

Aren't you kind of? Or, like, you were.

[founderinglight]

...Deader than me.

[Extremely, 100% dead.]

[photoshooter]

I guess that's true. I think most people I knew before Noct don't even have ancestors, we all just lose track after a few greats like everyone else.

[founderinglight]

That is more typical, yes. In all honesty, the amount of genetics we have in common at over a hundred generations is ridiculously small - Noctis is likely more related to any of the three of you than he is to me, uncanny and potentially Astrals-ordained resemblance aside.

[Yes, even you, Nif kid.]

[photoshooter]

What? How can that be? You're his actual ancestor, I'm not even a... I'm not from Lucis, originally.

[founderinglight]

I'm perfectly aware.

[Native Lucians tend towards the dark-haired, after all. Ignis is unusual, Prompto's blond unheard of, in modern Insomnia.]

But assuming no repeats, you break a thousand direct ancestors at ten generations, and it doubles every time from there. And the royal line tends towards only children and terminating branches - I only know of six other families that can claim me as an ancestor offhand. There's probably a few I've lost track of, but that's still a startlingly small number.

[photoshooter]

...

Yeah, I didn't understand any of that.

[He is but a simple clone! A simple clone who's fidgeting a little now, at how obviously he's not a native Lucian.]

[founderinglight]

Short version: Mathematically, practically all modern people have more genetically in common with each other than than would with me. Even as different as your heritage is, you probably have a common ancestor with Noctis before thirty generations.

[photoshooter]

Oh. ...Genetics are weird.

[Prompto Argentum, PhD.]

[founderinglight]

Genetics are terrifying and one of the few things that can drive me to drinking.

[Complete agreement.]

[photoshooter]

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. I wasn't even good at regular science in school, let alone this stuff. ...Not that I was good at anything in school.

[founderinglight]

Traditional academic performance is hardly the whole of your knowledge or value. Don't be so concerned over it.

[photoshooter]

I'm not. I graduated, like, a thousand years ago, way more concerning stuff's popped up since then.

[founderinglight]

Then why do you say things like that about yourself?

[photoshooter]

[Prompto blinks, then, and sits back a bit, rubbing his arm.]

I... dunno? I mean, it's true. Ask Noct, he's seen my grades.

[founderinglight]

Truth or not isn't what concerns me. It's the way you think about it.

[photoshooter]

Uh. ...Whhhhhy?

[You're not his real grandpa, Zuzu.]

[founderinglight]

[Your real grandpa is a skeleton buried somewhere around Gralea, probably.]

Because you deserve better than to be looked down on by anyone, and that includes yourself.

[photoshooter]

[Or a daemon! Don't forget the high probability that Everyone Is Daemons.]

I...

[Fidget. He glances away, hands on the egg as he bounces his knees once, rocks in place. Finally, he nods.]

Right. Um, obviously, because no one does. I'm really not getting on my case about school anymore, though? I graduated, that's enough for me.

[founderinglight]

If it comes up like that, it's something that still weighs on you.

[photoshooter]

It's fiiine, seriously.

[Look, sometimes a kid develops a complex about not being good enough to keep people around because it's the only way his brain can imagine anything controllable about the loneliness of his existence, like if he could just be better his parents would finally start existing on the visible plane again. IT'S F I N E.]

How'd we even get on this topic? Weren't we talking about eggs?

[founderinglight]

It worries me.

[For once, he doesn't entirely let Prompto deflect, glancing off into the distance.

Be glad your adoptive parents aren't around, Prompto, otherwise they would have the Founder King coming to them personally to yell at.]

[photoshooter]

[Well, they're probably actually dead, too. Or daemons. Since Everything Is Daemons (to the tune of "Everything Is Awesome").]

R...really. It's not a problem anymore.

[As if one revelation and the resulting assurance, no matter how earthshaking and important it was, can undo twenty years of this kind of thinking.]

I know I'm worth stuff now. So it's fine. Okay?