Noctis POV
Walking down the steps of the palace towards the car that will take us to the city gates with my friends, I can't help but keep thinking back to this small presence I have been feeling since I we were in the throne room. I look towards my friends who are talking and see that none of them have felt the presence.
"Well princes will be princes." I hear Prompto say following behind me. "So much for royal protocol." Ignis says talking about how I left the throne room. "Not like you had to deliver a formal address." I sigh at Gladios remark as he stretches.
As were walking I hear someone call out for me from behind us. "Your highness!" Turning around I spot my father and Drautos the captain of the Kingsglaive walking down the stairs slowly. "What now." I say in exasperation and start walking back up to the halfway point of the stairs to see what my dad wanted to talk about.
"I fear I have left too much unsaid." He says as he raises his hand to stop me as I was walking over to him. "You place a great burden on those who would bear with you." "Your one to talk." I say with a small scoff as I walk ahead a few steps and stop and turn back to face him again.
Dad then turns towards my friends to speak to them. "I ask not that you guide my wayward son. Merely that you remain at his side." I roll my eyes while feeling a slight bit of embarrassment at his words. "Indeed, your grace" "We'll see the prince to Altissia if it's the last thing we see." "Yeah, what he said." My friends said.
"Hate to break this up, but Cor's got the motor running." After saying this I start to turn and walk back to rejoin my friends. "Drautos, he's in your hands." Waving my hand as walk away dad called out to me again. "And another thing." Hearing him I turn my head back to look at him. "Do mind your manners around your charming bride-to-be."
I turn back fully and take a couple steps back towards him and give a halfhearted bow to him. "You're Majesty, as well. Try to mind yours around our esteemed guests from Niflheim." dad sighs at my words. "You have no cause for concern." He responds and I quickly fire back. "Nor do you."
"Take heed. Once you set forth, you cannot turn back" I give a small laugh at dad's words. "Ha, you think I would?" Dad gets a slightly sad look. "I need only know that you are ready to leave home behind." "Don't know about you, but I'm ready as I'll every be." I say as I turn to leave.
"Take care on the long road." I stop and turn back again as I hear dad walk towards me and comes to a stop beside me and switches his cane from his left hand to his right. "Wheresoever you should go, the line of Lucis goes with you." Raising his hand up and placing his hand on my shoulder he looks me in the eyes and tells me something that I feel will stay with me forever.
"Walk tall, my son."
3 hours later
Just perfect, the Regalia broke down, in the middle of nowhere, and to make things worse it's getting late and there are maybe only a few hours of sunlight left. I feel a hand pat my shoulder and turn to see Gladio. "Come on Noct, we are losing daylight and I don't think anyone outside the crown city is going to lend us a ride, were going to have to push the car the last couple miles."
Getting up I move to the left side of the car as Prompto gets on the cars right and Gladio gets ready at the back. "Ready, PUSH!" Gladio yells out as we start to push, after a few minutes of pushing I decide to lighten the mood by joking with Gladio. "Hey Gladio." I call out.
"What?" I hear him respond, and I can hear the strain in his voice. "Can you do me a favor." I choke out as my throat feels dry and scratchy like sandpaper. "Push the car yourself."
"What! Push the car all by myself." I can feel the exasperation in his voice. "You won't even notice if we just let go." I laugh as I hear Prompto join in on the joking. "Prompto don't you dare." Me and Prompto laugh at the joke.
"Hey Ignis lets switch." I call out to Ignis who is behind the wheel keeping the car straight while we push it. "Nah uh we switched back there." Gladio calls out. "And it's my turn Noct." Prompto quickly adds in. "His turn." Ignis responds in his always calm voice.
After a while of pushing the car down the road we finally reached Hammerhead. "Finally." I say as the exhaustion hits and I sit down and rest against the Regalia. Hearing the sound of the car door I look over see Ignis getting out. "I see your doing pretty good, you think you can go find the guy we were told about?" I ask as I keep taking deep breaths and regaining my strength.
Ignis gives a nod and heads towards the garage to look for the mechanic so we can get the Regalia fixed and hit the road. "Hey Prompto." I call out to him seeing as he is laying out flat on the parking lot. "Yeah Noct." he responds sounding like he hasn't had water in days. "You want to head over to the shop over there and look for some water or something."
He all but jumps to his feet at the word 'water'. "I thought you would never ask, be back in a moment. Hey, Gladio you want something?" Gladio hearing the question stands up and looks at Prompto. "Yeah, get me a water and some energy drinks." He says before leaning back over the trunk of the car.
A few minutes later Ignis comes back over saying it will be a few minutes till the mechanic can come check on the Regalia, at the same time Prompto comes back and starts handing out the drinks even an iced tea to Ignis.
"Hey there, y'all kept a girl waitin'! Now which ones the prince." Hearing a female voice, we turn and see a lady wearing white colored tight cowgirl boots with long black stocking going up to her mid-thigh, cropped short shorts with a thick leather belt hanging loosely around her waist, weighed down by her small tool bag, and a bright yellow leather cropped mechanic jacket partly zipped up on the bottom showing a large amount of cleavage hidden beneath a pink bra, and resting on her blonde hair sat a Hammerhead mechanics hat.
(I would put a pic, but I don't know if web novel would take it down)
She sees me stand up from on the other side of the car. "Aha! Hello, your highness. Congrats on the wedding." She says with a smile as she looks at me. "Not hitched just yet." I say as she puts her hands on her hips as she starts looking over the Regalia. "Lady Lunafreya's grooms-to-be, right here in Hammerhead." She says to herself in slight aw.
"Sorry for the delay." Ignis apologizes for our few hour delay. "You'd best save your apologies for pawpaw." She responds as Gladio steps forward. "So that would make you?" He asks her. "Cindy. Cid's grease-monkey granddaughter." The now named Cindy says as she turns back around to us then we all hear a gruff cranky voice from the side coming towards us.
"Roll 'er in while I'm still young! didn't your daddy tell ya? She's a classic not some beat up old clunker." The old man who I can assume is Cid walks along the car and stops in front of me turning his head up to look me in the eyes. "Prince Noctis." "Uh, yeah" I respond to his statement.
"'Prince' Like they took you old man and kicked the dignity out of him." He says as tilts his head down in a look of disappointment and shakes his head walking around to the front of the car. "What?" I say confused on what he means by that.
"You got a long way to go son, and that slack jaw's gettin' you nowhere fast." He says as he stops and lays his hand on the hoof of the car, his face takes on the look of a man remembering a past from long ago. "She's gonna take a while. Y'all get her in and run along." Cid says while walking back towards the garage.
Cindy takes a few steps to follow him but stops and sighs then turns back to face us. "Well, y'all heard pawpaw, let's get her in." It takes a couple minutes to push the Regalia into the workshop, but we manage it, as we walk away from the garage Ignis speaks up. "Seeing the time of day my best guess is that the repairs will be done by tomorrow at the earliest."
Hearing this Prompto sighs in a dramatic fashion. "Aw man, we have to wait." I give a little chuckle at Prompto's theatrics. "Well let's go rent out the trailer and wait for tomorrow then." I said patting Prompto on the shoulder. Hearing me Ignis speaks up "About that Noct, with the expenditure for the repairs I am afraid to say that we don't have the funds to get sleeping accommodations."
Hearing that we are basically broke I can't help but to sigh. "Hah, well let's go see if we can talk down the price or do some work to get some money to stay the night in a shelter." Ignis nods hearing my suggestion and walks with me as we see Cindy exit the garage.
"Prince Noctis, do ya need something." Cindy says when she notices me and Ignis coming up to her. "Hey Cindy, me and the gang kind of ran into an issue on funds cause of the repairs, is there a chance we can get a loan and pay you back?" Cindy gives a small chuckle hearing my question. "Oh, so this is what pawpaw meant when he said he was gonna 'Teach them boys a lesson'."
'Huh of course he's doing this to mess with us.' I think as I continue listening. "Well, I can lend you some money but in return you got to help take care of some varmints that have been giving us some trouble." She says handing me a few bills that don't look familiar. "Don't tell paw-paw bout this." Saying this she turns and walks away.
I turn to Ignis as ask him about the money I was handed. "Hey Ignis, this doesn't look like money that's used in the crown city, do people outside the capital use different currency?" Ignis takes one of the bills and examines it for a few seconds before handing it back and explaining. "Yes, I was informed about the currency before we left."
"Sigh, well no point wasting more daylight let's take care of these 'varmints' before sundown don't want to be stuck outside during the night." Ignis gives a nod of confirmation as we head back to Prompto and Gladio. "Okay guys we got some money to get a place to stay but first we got to kill some wild animals that have been causing some issues."
Gladio, hearing we have to go hunting gives a sigh "Come on let's get this over with, I want to take a rest after pushing the Regalia for the last couple hours." Prompto gives a small whine of protest to having to do work before we can get comfortable but nevertheless gets up and follows as we head into the baron plains across the road from hammerhead.
******Chapter End******
Hello everyone sorry I didnt post this sooner but stuff IRL had taken my attention from the story. I planned for the second chapter to be longer and cover the whole first story chapter of FF15 but as I was thinking that would make the chapter maybe 15 or more thousand words long and that's a bit much for my first story.
Now right after posting this chapter I will begin working on the next chapter but that might take a small amount of time due to me joining a D&D group and planning to make my own D&D campaign. I hope to post the next chapter near the end of July.
If you have any questions ask them here -->
see you all next time and any grammar corrections are welcome.