Prompt 1:
 he forest looms, uninviting and full of menace, an unwelcoming place for sure. Time to go explore! It isn't as though there's anywhere else to go, now that you've looked around the Town.
The trees whack at you with branches that have far too much mobility for normal trees, strange and mutated animals watch from the shadows and boughs, and there’s the constant, constant sense of being watched --
But eventually, nonetheless, you’ll come across a small house in the forest. It sticks out like a sore thumb, bright and colorful, which is probably the first warning that something is way off, and it’s...covered in candy. It’s a candy house! It looks delicious.
(It’s empty, too, not a single soul in it, without even furniture, but everything is otherwise edible and utterly delicious.)
But if you eat the candy? You’re going to have a terrible, overwhelming urge to do one of two things:
- Fight the first person you see
- Kiss the first person you see
Unfortunate.
Prompt 2:
he problem with a Town like this is that now that color is starting to return, bit by bit? You never really know when color’s going to come back -- or disappear. Maybe you’ve made a delightful, delicious sandwich from handmade bread and tomatoes and deer meat, all of which have color now… and then suddenly, when taking a bite, you get only the taste of ash and bread and tomato as the deer meat loses color.
Also, someone probably died for that color to fade away. Alarming!
Or maybe you’re walking along when suddenly your makeshift clothing is a hideous mix-match of colors; it had seemed fine when it was all grey and colorless!
Or perhaps, even worse, you’re walking out of a house when suddenly, the flowerbed in front of it has full color, bright and maybe a little blinding after so much monochrome. Damn those color mechanics.
Prompt 3:
he quest seems simple, on the Quest Post:
Quest 33:
Feed the Cockatrice.
Requirements: 2 of any color
Key word, of course, is seems. First, you have to find the cockatrice. Maybe grab someone to drag into the woods with you, since there needs to be at least two of you. Time to stomp through the woods in search of the elusive cockatrice.
Of course, once you find it, the quest...looks a bit harder. The monster hisses, ready to turn anyone who approaches to stone, as cockatrice tend to do. What do you even feed that thing? How will you get it to take it without getting stoned up? There are so many questions.
At least the stone will wear off...eventually… if you’re unlucky enough to get petrified.
Prompt 4:
 ut hey, you did it! You fed the cockatrice, it seemed satisfied, and now you can go fetch your reward from your home. It must be something amazing, with the work that you put in.
The only change in your home, though, is what looks like a...picture book. It's got a colorful cover (in your character's color shade), and has their name on the cover, so it definitely belongs to them.
And when they flip it open, it's clearly full of pictures scribbled in, as if drawn in scribbly crayon. Unlike the rest of the Town, this book is fully colorful, every shade of the rainbow in those crayon strokes... which depict, page by page, your character's worst moments in their life. Every single last horrific experience or tragic moment -- it's all there, in colorful, cute children's drawings.
Congratulations!
Extra:
Got something in mind? Want to play with the setting more? The sky's the limit, so feel free and make up your own prompts to play with!
Welcome to Awash's second Test Drive Meme! Please check out the FAQ and rules as you test your characters out. The setting is yours to play with, so be creative and have a good time with it!
Important dates to remember are May 1st, 9 PM EST, when Reserves will open, and May 7th, 9 PM EST when Applications will open. Keep an eye out for it! As a side note, TDM threads are not canon, so please feel free to assume established CR for the sake of the TDM if it will make threading or showing off your character's voice easier.
If you have any questions about the TDM, feel free to ask us here. If there are any other questions, you can catch us via PM, the FAQ or the contact page. Thank you for your interest in Awash! |
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no subject
[His voice is barely a croak now.]
No. Ardyn was there. He... h-he walked right past us. Like we didn't even matter. ...Why...
[Why would Ignis think Ardyn was gone? Didn't he say that one of the last things he saw was...]
I-Ignis?
no subject
All of a sudden, those stepping stones coalesce into a bridge of bright fire, lighting up the way to a conclusion he can't help but perceive, no matter how much he might wish he couldn't.]
You mean I didn't kill him.
[Your eyes! You got them fixed?]
I failed to kill him.
[He's certain, he's absolutely certain, that at the end of whatever confrontation they must have been escalating towards, only one of them would've walked away alive. And if he had won, then Ardyn would be dead.
It begs the question: would Ardyn have left him alive? Defeated, but alive?
The answer is all too easy to see here, too.
Of course he would've. Injured, defeated, failed, broken — and alive, to comprehend it.
You got them fixed?]
...Then that's it.
[Of course. It makes sense now. And thank goodness for years and years of learning how to school his emotions, how to set them aside and be cold and rational and emotionless in moments when he'd otherwise want to fall apart, because if this isn't one of them, then he hardly knows what is.]
You remember whatever it is he did to me, then.
no subject
[He remembers. He remembers freezing in the rain while Gladio watched Ravus leave, not knowing which of them to go to first. The labored sound of Ignis breathing. The terror Noct might not have been breathing at all. Prompto breathes in now himself, shuddering, and wipes the back of his hand across his face.]
I don't... Iggy, I don't know if he can be killed. Ardyn. I... I don't think he's human.
[He gulps and looks at Ignis, searching for the truth now to patch his limited understanding of what happened, there, in Altissia, in the rain, after Lady Lunafreya passed away, a dream unrealized.]
You fought him by yourself?
no subject
[Calm. Calm. Noct is all right. Noct is alive, because Prompto remembers him being alive. Prompto remembers finding them, and regardless of what might've happened to him, Noct is alive. He's alive.]
I must've fought him. I can't imagine an end to our confrontation that didn't involve a battle. And if you weren't there, and Noct was still out when you found us...
[He reaches up, removing his glasses so that he can pinch at the bridge of his nose, rub his eyes. A moment later, he seems to realize just what he's done, how his nervous habit has taken away the sharp clarity that his glasses afford him, and he quickly shoves them back on, as if horrified with himself for so carelessly taking the benefit of clear vision for granted.]
Barring a miracle, I would've had to have challenged him on my own. But — what do you mean, that he's not human? What have you see— have you witnessed?
no subject
[Prompto has to remind himself to breathe, or else he won't. He doesn't like this, doesn't like Ignis having to guess at this, not being sure.]
He's the last one. Aranea defected, she's helping get rid of the worst of the monsters the Empire created. The emperor, he's dead, too. Turned into a daemon. ...Ravus is dead. ['He was a man with hopes and dreams.' What else was there to say about him? Prompto's heart aches again for Lunafreya and her family.] And researcher Besithia. Niflheim... Niflheim's over. The whole country's overrun, they've got nothing left.
[But neither does Lucis. Not with Noct and the Crystal both lost to them. Prompto doesn't pick his chin back up.]
no subject
[Two of the four. That leaves him out, which gives rise to the ugly thought that perhaps he didn't attack because he's simply incapable of it (useless) after whatever happened to him (failure), or perhaps he isn't even there, wherever they are, to begin with.
Noct didn't attack him, by implication. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius — the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.
Why, then, didn't Noctis —]
Where is Noct.
[It surprises him, how tight his voice when he finally manages to get it out at all.
Ravus dead. The emperor dead. Aranea, bless her, making good on her threat to abandon the cause of her employers. But Noct —]
Why isn't he with us?
no subject
[He stops talking, tries to hold his breath, but after a long pause, it hitches anyway.]
I don't know. Ardyn t-tricked him, he went ahead to save us and it swallowed him up...
no subject
Noct is gone.
It's a revelation that has him so shaken, so beside himself, that for perhaps the very first time since they started down this conversational road, he seems to actually see Prompto, and the effect that this news is having on him. Thoughtless of him, and cruel, to fixate so much on his own plans, his own goals, that he'd all but forgotten that the source of this awful information has lived it, and is having his feelings torn apart by it, too.
He'd torn the truth out of him, hadn't he. And now look at him, how Prompto is suffering, from the ruthlessly efficient way he'd cut in after the truth.]
...Prompto.
[He's. He could've done this all a lot better, couldn't he.]
...Prompto, come here.
[He steps forward, not quite opening his arms, but with something in his body language that suggests a receptiveness to offering the sort of tangible comfort that Prompto in particular so often seems to seek out.]
I'm...I'm sorry. Come here.
no subject
That's as far as he goes either way, though. Despite Ignis's invitation, Prompto stays where he is and drops his gaze entirely, dragging the back of his hand over his eyes and wrapping his other arm around himself.]
No, I'm fine, I... I know you have to know, it's okay. Th-there's nothing to be sorry for. ...Not for you.
[He keeps his hand pressed to his eyes, but it's useless, the feelings keep leaking out anyway and why is he always like this? Even after everything he went through, what he resolved to do for them, he's still the weak spot of their party, he's still the one with whom the trap was baited.]
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's my fault, I got captured and I c-couldn't do anything--
[After a moment, he slides his hand down to cover his mouth instead, trying to stifle the little hiccuping sound he makes.]
no subject
[Well, that's more than enough incentive for Ignis to take matters into his own hands, then — quite literally, because if Prompto isn't going to cross the distance, then Ignis will, reaching to gently take hold of Prompto's shoulder for the sake of trying to reassure and steady him both.]
Prompto. Whatever it was that happened, it was not your fault.
[Well. Technically, in terms of pure logistics, it could very well have been his fault — there's no way to know. But he's seen guilt like this before, on Noct's face, too. They died for me, it was because of me, this is my fault — and it never is, not then and not now.]
Did...
[He hesitates, unsure if bringing this up will just provoke ugly memories, but ultimately deciding that it's worth the venture. Coeurls don't change their spots, after all, and if Ardyn was willing to use this on Ignis, it only stands to reason he might try it on Prompto, too.]
Did Ardyn make you think he was someone he wasn't? Make you...see him, as someone else?
no subject
...Not me.
[He's using both hands now to cover his face, fingers curled to palms, eyes completely hidden. It must hurt, how hard he's biting his lip.]
He made Noct. Think I was... That was before. Then he caught me on my way to m-meet back up with you guys, and locked me up in the dark. He kept teasing Noct, like... like it was a game...
[He could hear it a little, distant snippets of laughter he was too out of it to understand. 'Your princess is in another castle, try again'; how much of it sounded like that?]
I was so happy when you found me, how selfish is that, it was obviously a trap the whole time!
no subject
[Strange, how that seems to be such a recurring trend — when one of them gets separated from the rest, he's made vulnerable, he's preyed upon. Ardyn had tricked him with Gladio's appearance, long enough to get into position and take him prisoner. Ardyn had done something to separate Prompto from the rest, and captured him, locked me up in the dark.
...And if what Prompto is saying is accurate, then he'd simply left Prompto there for Noctis to find. Baited some trap with him, then tricked Noctis...
But tricked him into what? Being devoured by the crystal? What purpose could that possibly serve — and more importantly, how would something like that serve Ardyn?]
Prompto...
[Why don't you abandon that flotsam to a watery grave and come with me?
...
No. It wasn't when he'd used Gladio's image that Ardyn had tried to separate him from the group, was it? No...he'd offered to do it. Come with me.
So, then — if he had refused, and a battle had ensued, and Ardyn had left him for dead...
...had he then switched his attentions to capturing Prompto to bait his trap?
So, then. Whose "fault" is this, really...?]
Did you really think, if he'd taken you away from us, that we wouldn't do everything we could to come after you...?
no subject
I knew you would. I-in the end. I knew you'd all come for me, but...
[It's audible this time, his shivering, uneven breath. Prompto dashes the moisture furiously from his eyes before he presses them into his fists.]
It's not worth it. Me for Noct, what--what kind of exchange is that, I'd fight all the daemons in Niflheim down there by myself if it meant he'd be safe, with you guys--it's not fair, I don't care if he's the king, he's my best friend and he came all that way for me and, Ignis, I couldn't--!
[For all he's the baby, for all he doesn't have to comport himself with the dignity of the court, the centuries of history balanced on his shoulders, Prompto doesn't actually cry all that much. Now, he breaks, sobbing into the heels of his hands right there in the middle of the street, because the reason he's made himself hold up--the reason Prompto Argentum, as he is, exists--slipped right through his fingers. After everything he braved out there in the snow, in there in the dark, the place he resolved to go is gone. And he was powerless to protect it.]
no subject
I know. I know, I know.
[They're not just hollow reassurances. He understands precisely the anguish that Prompto is reeling from; it's the same horrified despair he'd just locked away within himself minutes before, the one that comes wrapped up in ribbons of failure failure failure.]
He will be safe. We'll find a way.
[Noct wants to change things. Save him, save Luna. Set things to rights. More and more, that's a future that Ignis wants to believe in, too.]
And you're back with us, now. Noct is here, I'm here. You're both safe here, believe me.
no subject
Noct is here.
[He repeats it, because that didn't sink in before. Noct is here, he hasn't even challenged Leviathan yet. Prompto lets himself sag a little more, trying to process the unbelievable relief of that. Noct is here.]
He's okay?
[Of course he is, Prompto knows that just from the fact Ignis is here, okay himself, with care to spare for him. It's impossible to conceive of a world where Ignis is okay and Noctis isn't.
Prompto just wants to hear him say it. When Ignis Scientia says something, it becomes more than fact; and if it isn't fact yet, he'll make it so.]