Enchanted [Final Fantasy XV]

❥ chapter IX

A/N:

This is, as of yet, the last (complete) chapter I've written.

Also, thank you very much, my dear readers, for all the votes and comments you've left despite this story being unfinished! I deeply appreciate it ♥

━━━━━━━━━━♥━━♡━━♥━━━━━━━━━━

"What time is it?"

Cindy's muffled voice pulled you out of your languid thoughts, and you blinked, momentarily disoriented. "Huh?" You looked up from your smartphone, only to look back down at it to check the time. "It's twenty past one o'clock."

A bit more than two hours ago, Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis, and Prompto had set out on their hunt and you had made your way over to Hammerhead's garage.

Hardly had you reached the hangar-like building, holding your old, haphazardly folded clothes in your arms, did a young, blonde woman come out and approach you. She greeted you with a sunny smile and a cordial handshake after she had tugged off one of her gloves that were stained with motor oil and sludge, introducing herself as Cindy Aurum, the head mechanic of this service station.

The two of you hit it off at once. Over the course of the next few hours, you kept her company inside the airy garage while she was expertly working on a sleek car—which you assumed was the Regalia Ignis and Prompto had mentioned—whose once shiny black paint was now dulled by a coat of dust.

It became clear pretty quickly that Cindy thought that you were a close and dear friend of the Chocobros and part of Noctis's royal retinue, both of which was only partially true. Telling her the whole truth, however, was out of the question. Hence, you opted to play along—though you did point out that you were "just an old friend" of the guys, nothing more.

She went on to let you in on a few rather interesting, if not to say juicy details of what had happened while you had been unconscious earlier. From what she had seen, each of the four young men had been worried sick about you.

According to Cindy, once they had reached Hammerhead by pushing the broken-down car, Gladiolus had carried you (bridal style) to the caravan, which Ignis had locked himself in with you shortly afterwards to take care of you without being disturbed by the others. During that time, Noctis had paced ceaselessly in front of the caravan, and Prompto had been, quote, a real bundle o' nerves, unquote.

Cindy also promised to wash and iron your dirty clothing later. But upon learning that you only had those warm clothes with you and nothing else, she adamantly insisted that, first off, you kept the outfit you were currently wearing, and, secondly, she would rummage her wardrobe for more old clothes of hers you could wear.

You tried to refuse her exceptionally generous offer, politely at first, then just as insistently as her. She wouldn't take no for an answer, though, and you weren't about to let her do you such a huge favour, and not repay it in any way. Thus, you offered to buy her lunch at the very least ... when you remembered that you didn't have any money whatsoever. You didn't even have your wallet on you. (Even if you had, you couldn't have used the money from your world here in Eos anyway.)

Alas, Cindy was still totally down with your idea of eating lunch together. And since you were practically broke, she gave you some gil—this world's currency—which you grudgingly accepted and used to buy two servings of freshly prepared to-go chili con carne at Takka's Pit Stop, the service station's own diner located next to the caravan.

Your clash of stubbornness ended with you swearing between two mouthfuls of delicious chili con carne that you would make it up to her someday. After the two of you had finished eating, you proceeded to do what you had been doing up until this very moment: idly chatting with Cindy about this and that while tapping away on your smartphone, seated on a crate beneath the garage's big ceiling fan.

"That late already? I better check on the boys, then." Cindy stopped tinkering with the Regalia's engine, neatly put away her tools, and removed her dirty gloves. "Got 'nother favour to ask 'em before they get back."

You pocketed your phone at the same time as she pulled her bright yellow one out of the back pocket of her hot pants. "Another hunt?"

"Yep. Hey, it's Cindy," she greeted whoever of the Chocobros she had called—probably Noctis, seeing as he was the group's leader. "How goes the huntin'?" Her lips curled into a smile when she heard the answer. "That's great 'cause I got one more hunt for y'all—only this time, it's for a person."

You didn't hear what she said after that. Out of nowhere, an icy chill shot down your spine, permeating your body up to the very tips of your fingers and leaving behind a tingling feeling in your chest. 'I have to help them.' That single, overpowering thought filled your entire mind. You didn't know why or with what you had to help the Chocobros; you just knew that if you didn't reach them in time, something bad would happen.

In a trice, you sprung to your feet and raced outside, paying no attention to Cindy who interrupted her phone conversation to call after you. You frantically looked around the large, paved area of the service station, searching for a means to get to Noctis, Gladiolus, Ignis, and Prompto fast, but found nothing of use or interest. Nada. Zilch.

Granted, considering that this was a service station and all, there were a lot of cars. But you couldn't just go break into one and steal it. Besides, none of them looked like they were very fast—nor suited for off-road driving, which was the quickest way to reach the Three Valleys where you intuitively knew the Chocobros were. (Though you didn't know how you knew that. You just did, somehow.) Damnit, you had to hurry up and help them!

You were so wrapped up in your fretful thoughts, standing rooted to the spot and staring into nothingness with a deep frown etched onto your face, that you almost didn't notice two things happening in quick succession.

First, the Sphere Grid-inspired tattoo sleeve on your right arm began to light up. The topmost node tattooed on the top of your shoulder was the first to glow, the soft light quickly working its way along the straight and curved lines of black ink towards the lowest node tattooed right on the back of your hand.

Then, in a whirlwind of sparkling light particles that poured out from the lowermost node until your tattoo wasn't shining anymore, accompanied by a creeping sensation on your back, a black-feathered chocobo appeared before you. Shaking its long neck and flapping its big wings, it pawed the ground with its claws. Its distinctive cry, "Kweh!" finally jolted you out of your stunned daze.

Utterly taken aback, you staggered backwards. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, you stared at the chocobo, then at your tattoo sleeve, then back at the chocobo. "What the hell?" you whispered to yourself.

What on earth had just happened? Had you just—in all seriousness—somehow unconsciously summoned a chocobo from your tattoo? And if that wasn't baffling enough already, it wasn't an ordinary chocobo, either. It was wearing armor the same colour as its feathers on most of its body, even on its claws, the metal plates glinting in the sunlight, and there was a saddle on its back and reins hanging from the headpiece.

To top it all, this chocobo looked strangely familiar to you, as if you had seen it before. And now that you thought about it, wasn't that—? You shook your head. It didn't matter, not right now. There were more pressing matters at hand, and you would not waste any more precious time questioning whatever had transpired before your very eyes.

And so, without further ado, you got on the back of the chocobo, which crouched down a little as though to make it easier for you. "Giddy-up!" you called, tightly grabbing the reins and nudging the chocobo's flanks with your legs.

The very instant the chocobo started to run, you were immensely glad that A) you had had a horse phase when you had been younger, and taken horse riding lessons for a couple of years; B) the basics of riding were still firmly ingrained in your memory; and C) riding a chocobo wasn't too different from riding a horse—though it certainly was a lot faster and rougher too, so much so that you instinctively hunched over and clung to the reins for dear life.