Prompto stared at the door of the house, unsure what to do. It wasn't intruding since no one lived there. And it also wasn't intruding since it was technically his home, but...

Flashback.

"Marshal... Have you heard anything from my mother? She's not answering her phone and I just got this message from her and it sounds like... Like she was saying goodbye... Is.. Is she okay? Where is she?" Prompto asked as they made their way to Keykatrich. Cor stopped in his tracks. Everyone stopped and looked at him.

"May I hear the voice message?" He asked. Prompto handed his phone to Cor and Cor listened to the message in silence. Slowly, his eyes closed.

"Oh, Dawn, you fool..." He sighed heavily. He returned Prompto's phone to him.

"I was unsure at first, but that message confirms what I feared." Cor said. Prompto stared at the Marshal, his heart sinking slowly to his gut. Cor sighed heavily and reached in to his pocket.

"She told me to give this to you, should she not survive. I'm sorry, Prompto." Cor said, handing a tattered, tan ribbon to Prompto. Prompto felt his heart break.

"No..." He whispered shakily. He felt Noctis wrap his arms around him.

"I'm so sorry, Prom." Noctis said. Prompto's legs gave out as he fell to his knees in hysteric sobs, holding tight to his mother's ribbon.

Flashback ends.

"That was ten years ago... She's been gone ten years..." Prompto sighed. He took a deep breath and pushed in to the house. He was immediately overwhelmed with childhood memories. His mother first leaving him as she left for a mission. When she first came home. His first camera. His first work out. The first time his mother offered to train him. The first time she said she was proud of him. The first time she broke a promise....

Sighing, Prompto grabbed his phone and pressed play on the message he had saved.

"Hey, kiddo. I hope things are going well for you. I just wanted to call to say I love you, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was never there. I'm sorry I didn't take care of you like I should have. I'm sorry for everything. Every missed award, every missed school carnival, every missed birthday, every broken promise. I'm sorry. You deserved better than that. And... Sorry, Chocoboy... I'm breaking one last promise. I won't be here when you come back. I hope everything will be okay for you in the future. Listen to Ignis. Don't provoke Gladiolus. Show Noctis how much you love him at every chance you're given. Don't fight with Alice. Keep working on your photography. You take beautiful pictures. I love you, Prompto. With all of my heart. You are everything to me. You're my whole world and I want you to know that. Stay strong, my son. I love you, baby boy." Dawn's exhausted panting and choked up voice filled his ears again.

Prompto closed his eyes and let the tears roll one more time. He touched the tattered ribbon on his wrist. The last thing his mother gave him. He could still see it tied in her auburn hair. Holding back all but the bangs that framed the left side of her face. Her thick glasses resting on her nose over her jade green eyes. He could even still see the freckles that dotted her face and arms.

He wiped his eyes and moved deeper in to the house, looking for anything he'd want to take with him. Once he and Noctis married, the house and everything in it would be sold. He wanted to have something of his mother's other than her ribbon to remember her by. Every picture that hung on the walls, even those that had fallen to the floor and sat on tables went in to the box Prompto carried under his arm. He stopped when he saw a specific picture.

One when he was a baby. He didn't know who took it. But It was of him and his mother. He was just a baby at the time. Maybe two years old. His baby form slept soundly on his mother's chest and she was sound asleep on the couch. Looking at the picture, you'd assume that the future the two had wasn't the one that would belong to them. You'd imagine a dotting mother and her baby boy, spending every moment together. Her embarrassing him in front of his friends in high school. Her making corny jokes in the kitchen as she made dinner while he groaned about them over his homework. Her holding him tight as he cried in to her shoulder over his first heartbreak. Her right there in the front row, cheering him on at every track meet, every soccer game, every basketball game.

But instead, She was hardly seen. Prompto sitting alone in the Crow's Nest on his birthday. Him missing a pass in basketball because he was so busy searching the crowds for her. Him crying in to his pillow silently while on the phone with Noctis after his first break up.

Sure, in high school he got a lot of hallway cred because of her. "No. Way. Your mom is the Mercy? Trusted scout of the King? The woman that ran through Niflheim alone, carrying an injured prisoner on her back?" They'd ask. Prompto would only nod, but when questioned on what she was like, he couldn't answer. How could he answer a question he always asked himself?

Yet... He still loved her. Even with the broken promises, missed games, missed awards... Dawn was still his mom. Even with everything she missed, she made up for it. When he wanted to lose weight, she encouraged him and even trained with him. When he'd had nightmares as a child, she'd hold him and sing songs to him to lull him in to a peaceful sleep. She'd bring back trinkets for him from her missions outside the city. Took him chocobo riding when he turned sixteen, even if she wasn't there for his actual birthday. In every picture he'd take of her, she'd smile for him. She'd praise every picture, even if it wasn't spectacular. She'd encourage his talent and interests. She'd listen to him talk about school, girls, games, Noctis, everything.

And even in her final moments, He was in her thoughts. She had felt guilt over missing so much. She had felt guilt over so much.

"Damn it." He cursed, dropping the picture in the box and wiping the constant flow of tears from his eyes. His body shook and he hiccuped out a sob.

"Why..?" His voice shook like his body. "Damn it, why?! Why did you always just listen? Why didn't you tell me anything? Why didn't you tell me anything about you that I can tell my kids? Why? Why were you always gone? Why? Why? Why?!" He sobbed, dropping the box and falling to his knees to sob again.

Maybe he felt guilty now. He hadn't given his mother much thought the ten years he waited for Noctis to return. He hadn't thought much of her after she had died. But... He still had her ribbon tied tightly to his wrist, rarely taking it off, panicking if he couldn't find it, getting mad if anyone touched it.

Finally calming himself, he stood again, grabbing the box and moving on to the next room, gathering every picture of him and his mother he could find. He pushed in to a room he rarely entered. His mother's office.

He looked for pictures, but his eye was caught by something else. A journal sitting on the desk. Untouched by the elements. As if the gods themselves had protected it. And engraved on the journal's leather cover with what he figured was his mother's pocket knife, it said "Dear Prompto."

Prompto set the box of pictures down and sat in his mother's old chair. He picked up the journal and began to read.

"Dear Prompto, If you're reading this, then that means the worst I've always feared has happened. I've died and didn't get to tell you this myself. It's something I never wanted to think about, but realizing the hazards of my job and the realization I could leave the most precious thing in my world alone with never truly knowing his mother. So I decided to write this, so that you can say you knew who your mother was.

Sorry, had to step away for a moment. You just tried to climb the counters for something and fell and dropped a pan on your head. My poor baby. You cried yourself to sleep. You're sleeping in your bed now. You probably have a concussion. But, this isn't the book of a mother that worries too much, it's about a woman and how she became who she was."

"Ha-ha... I remember that..." He laughed. He had been three at the time. He had left one of his toys on the counter at lunch and he wanted it back. Dawn was in her office, he didn't know what she was doing, given he was three. So he tried to get his toy back. He had grabbed the handle of the pan, lost his footing and fell, dropping the pan on his head in the process. The second he started crying, Dawn had him in her arms, shushing him and kissing his head, rocking him and singing to him until he had fallen asleep. When he woke up, she had been sitting on his bed with him, just watching him.

Prompto wiped the tear from his eye and continued reading.

"This story starts before I was born, but when Niflheim and Lucis were deep in war. My father, Brook Argentum, was selected to join the army and fight in the war. He kissed my mother, Artimis Caramella, and promised her he'd come back.

He never did.

Instead, a soldier appeared at the door of my mother's home - the home you grew up in- and delivered the news that my father had been killed by a Niflheim soldier, protecting a child, during war time.

When I was born, I suppose I looked too much like my father. Too much to the point that Artimis couldn't bare to look at me. She raised me until I was five, then she gave me the key to the house, sent me to school and when I came home, she was gone. She still paid the bills on the house so I could live here, but I didn't see her again..."