#the staff he carried for 2 seconds in the houzuki arc :')

[goodlucktai]

Prompt! Natsume being protective of/worried for/taking care of Tanuma; OR more of your ffxv au. Or both ;)

x

They’re setting up camp at a haven in Duscae when Satoru says, “Oh, look—it’s Nyanko-sensei.”

Kaname looks up quickly, and Tooru gasps in delight, as the fat cat-like creature waddles up the rune-carved stone.

It’s carrying the notebook in a sling on its back, and Kaname hurries to meet it as Atsushi mutters, “I still can’t believe you call a messenger that stupid name, Satoru.”

“We go way back!”

“Madara,” Kaname says, “how are you? How is—“

“He’s fine,” the creature grumbles irreverently. “You’d know if he wasn’t. Hurry up and read his letter, I didn’t come all this way for my health.”

While his friends clamor around the squat cat-like astral, Kaname flips through the pages of a notebook eagerly to find whatever new message is waiting for him. He’s familiar and comfortable with magic as a concept, but the notebook is something he’s secretly in awe of. It’s as thin and sleek as it’s always been, the number of pages unchanging, but somehow it contains every note they’ve ever written and they’ve never once run out of room.

Kaname takes a moment to brush his fingers over a letter he wrote when he was ten, his childish handwriting hopeful and earnest where it’s preserved beneath a pressed syllablossom.��

But Madara is waiting, dealing with Tooru and Satoru’s affections with ill grace, so Kaname hurries to the last marked page. 

He reads it hungrily, pauses, reads it through more carefully, and then reads it for a third time to make sure he’s read it right. 

“Um, Madara,” he says slowly. “This says Takashi officially denounced the prophecy and left Tenebrae? And he’s waiting for us at the Tomb of the Pious?”

His retinue goes deathly silent, the only sound the rustle of the wind in the grass and the chatter of busy evening insects. Madara says, “That’s because he is, brat.”

“And you just left him there?” Atsushi demands. “The Oracle is just– roaming around Lucis somewhere? Anything could happen!”

Probably the only god who wouldn’t react violently to being spoken to so flippantly, Madara rolls his eyes. 

“He’s got that oar of his and he’s not afraid to use it. And a few of my friends are keeping an eye on him, not that I asked them to. He’s not as helpless as his public image would like you to think.”

“But why has he done this?” Tooru asks, frowning. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted he made it away from an occupied state, but why now?”

“Because the Six finally told him the truth about the prophecy. The truth about what victory will cost,” the little god says. “And he told the Six where they could stick their prophecy, told his brother to pack a bag, and we left within the hour.”

The cat looks gleeful, but he’s the only one. Tooru covers her mouth, horrified, and Atsushi buries his face in his hands as if he doesn’t have the strength to keep his head up. 

Satoru whispers, “Sweet Shiva. We’re all cursed, aren’t we?”

Madara gives him a look that lacks the perpetual annoyance he has for the rest of them. “Why would you be cursed?”

“Don’t be like that, Nyanko-sensei! We’re in this together! If Takashi’s cursed, so are we!”

Kaname kneels, heart hammering. It’s taken him this long to wrap his mind around it, to catch up to the conversation. Takashi, his best friend, his fiance, the boy he promised his heart to whole years before the peace treaty was even a concept, is free. He’s here, in Lucis. He’s waiting for them.

“Where is he?” Kaname whispers. “Take me to him.”

“And what about your babysitters? And your car?” the cat asks dryly. 

“They’ll follow,” Kaname decides on the spot. In the corner of his eye, he sees Atsushi and Tooru gear up for an argument, and Satoru shut them down with two swift swats. “They’ll meet us– wherever. Just take me to him.”

The messenger eyes him up and down for a long moment. Then he makes a big show of rolling his eyes and tucking the notebook back into its sling on his back. 

“Show me your map.”

Madara points out an area of Cleigne, a hidden thicket where a royal tomb is waiting, two days’ drive if Atsushi bends the speed limit wherever he can get away with it. None of them are happy with Kaname’s decision to go ahead alone, but they know better than to put up more than a token fuss about it. He’s safer with Madara than he is with an army at his back. 

“You’ll see me soon,” Kaname says to his friends, loving them for the frustration and loyalty in their faces. “You’ll see us both. And we’ll walk together from then on.”

“Right,” Satoru says, lifting his fist to knock their forearms together. “Get going so we can get going. Sooner we leave the sooner we get there.” 

Madara transforms in a burst of heavy smoke, the runes of the Haven glowing a little brighter as he stands above them in his celestial body. 

“Hurry up, then,” he grumbles, his great voice rolling over them. Kaname climbs up without a second thought. He has time to wave once, and then Madara is leaping into the air and bearing them both away. 

They’re moving quickly, up and up, earth falling away and cloud-mist drenching Kaname’s shirt. He leans forward to shout, “Thank you, Ponta!”

“Don’t thank me, brat. He was hoping you’d come.” 

The admission warms Kaname from the inside-out, until he can hardly feel the cold air rushing past them on all sides. His fingers woven into the thick, downy fur send his thoughts back years and years, after the attack that almost cost him his legs, those stolen, weightless moments late at night when Takashi would help him onto the god’s back, so he could fly even when he couldn’t walk. 

“What was the rest of the prophecy?” he thinks to ask, distracted by thoughts of his love, of seeing him again after such a long time apart. Kaname’s heart is so light that he thinks, without this grip on Madara’s fur, he might float away. “What was the price?”

For a moment, Madara doesn’t answer. Then he says, “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a price we’re going to pay.”