Fic idea! Time-travel AU, only no one goes back in time. Just Prompto's camera, all photos included, winding up at the feet of your character of choice before all the shit goes down. (Or maybe in an AU verse.) (Also, I hope you're doing ok and staying safe! Like, in general, but specifically with the epidemic going around and all.)

Hi, yes I’m fine! I hope you are fine and safe as well!

Ohhhh. Ohhh angsty. Oh I’m not … I’m not sure what to DO with this. Ohhhh. What I may have an idea buckle up.

Winds up at Cor’s feet. Cor kinda is just- ???? and ignores it for like- a year (Noctis is 3 at the time so he has time) but then Noctis is 4 and Regis is depressed over something and Cor remembers the camera that keeps winding up in his apartment no matter how many times he gets rid of it (Umbra is getting tired of making the delivery again and again LOOK AT THE PHOTOS STUPID HUMAN) and for whatever reason decides to finally look at the little collection of memory cards that came with it to distract himself from Regis being a Problem.

It’s photos. Photos of four young men, two of whom are so close to Regis and Clarus when they were young it makes Cor’s heart stop. Except … it’s not them. They look different, and the other two are not Weskham or Cor or Cid. One looks like a Scientia, the other is … a mystery.

He feels a bit bad waiting so long to look, surely someone wants their camera back, but he’s also alarmed because ROYAL DOUBLE??? So he looks through more of them.

It’s a story told in film. A road trip. Heartbreaks and triumphs all captured on card after card of memory. He sees the Regalia, and a Cid who looks so much older than he is now, he sees HIMSELF, older and grim, grief in the lines of his eyes and anger in his set of his shoulders and feels …. something.

Unease.

Then he finds the videos.

They are short things, on their own separate memory card to save space no doubt, but each one is vibrant and alive.

Each one has NAMES.

Noct. Iggy. Gladio. Prom. Mostly nicknames, silly conversations, fishing adventures, even one or two shakily recorded hunts. It’s a life not yet lived because Cor is not an IDIOT. Noct. Gladio.

Noctis. Gladiolus.

These are the children of his friends.

He wants to think it’s a prank.

He can’t.

He wants to think he’s going crazy.

He can’t.

The pictures get more and more serious. The lighting gets lower and lower until-

There’s a picture. Of the Crystal, but not in its chamber. It’s chained up somewhere else, somewhere unknown and the camera is blurry like the person taking it is shaking. The photo is named “why did it take him”.

After that. Noctis disappears from the pictures.

The dates between photos get longer.

All of the photos are at night.

No. Not at night.

In darkness.

Daemons roam in the background of almost every shot no matter the timestamp, Lestallum is a mess of people and tents and rubble as walls of cars are built and lights beat back the monsters outside. The three remaining people get older, leaner, thinner. The Scientia is blind now, and the few pictures of Cor show a weight to his back that screams grim despair and stubborn tenacity.

There is, finally, another picture of Noctis. He is older, he looks about thirty, and there is something ancient and sad in his eyes even as he smiles for the camera.

There are pictures of Insomnia then. Insomnia in darkness and fire and monsters, of the Citadel the only place in tact, an ominous red shield of magic around it that makes Cor’s skin crawl just looking at the photo.

There’s another picture. Of the four of them together in some dingy campsite, underground (the subway system if Cor is not mistaken), tired and dirty but together.

They look sad.

There is a picture, finally, of light. Timestamped ten YEARS after the last photo where the sun is visible. It is rising over the rubble, making it seem beautiful even in destruction. The photo is blurry again. Like the blond cameraman, Prompto, was shaking again.

There are no more pictures.

The photo is named “i don’t want the sun. i want him back”.

Cor sits in the silence of his apartment and feels like his heart is being torn open. Like he has just witnessed a story not meant to be told.

It’s stupid to believe pictures and video recordings without proof, especially on something this impossible.

Cor thinks on the few videos that take place during the ten year dark period, mostly the blond man rambling mindlessly to the camera about things Cor never wants to think about, crying softly as he whispers things like “Noct. Noct when are you coming home. I can’t do this much longer, man. I can’t-. I’m supposed to keep everyone smiling but I hardly see Gladio anymore and Iggy hasn’t said a word in days-.”

Cor backs up all the photos and videos three times, then encrypts all the copies and stashes them in different places. The originals he puts in his armiger along with the battered camera.

He doesn’t know how the camera exists, of if he’s losing his mind. He doesn’t think he cares.

What he sees in the photos- it’s not happening. He won’t let it.

Somewhere in the depths of magic and space and time, the chains of prophecy groan and start to shatter.

After all, the prophecy isn’t the only two thousand year old terror Cor has faced down in his lifetime. And this time?

This time Cor will win.