"...how did you know he needed to be moved?" Gladio's voice is a rough echo in the hallway, his eyes piercing as they stare at Ignis with intense focus. He could find everything down unusually, he'd been the one who kept going on their path even when the three of them had lost Noctis originally, but even his strength couldn't hold everything out of his voice now. Had he screamed? Cried? It was hard to say; they had all been screaming during that final battle.

Inside the throne room, Prompto just fell to his knees beside Noctis' corpse, covered by a banner Gladio had ripped down from the wall. Slowly, he reached out and pulled it back, showing a face slack in death, holding none of the horror of those last moments. So pale, in the throne room filled with light from the new day, it still almost looked like maybe he would wake up. That handsome face that Prompto had wanted to befriend, love, from the first moment they met, but when his fingertips touched Noctis' cheek, it was too cold already.

The image blurred as the tears started to come.