#pelnoct

He’d just wanted a little peace. He’d just wanted to be out from under that pulsing, purple glare of the Crystal that held his crown up like a guillotine over his head. He’d just wanted to sit down, drink some coffee, draw a little, maybe write, and forget about the magic running through his veins that was destined to poison him one day like it had done to his father before him.

Yet, all this time, he’d been sitting across from one of the products of that magic. The reminder had been right next to him. And it made him rethink everything.

He thought he’d been crushing on a stranger. He thought that he’d been feeling comforted enough by the growing familiarity of The Grind to allow himself the smallest, safest of fantasies each afternoon. Now, he wondered whether or not he’d been drawn to Pelna by casual curiosity alone or if it had been by the supernatural magnetism of his shared birthright that caught his attention.

The thought made his stomach flip upside-down. It all just had to be pre-ordained, didn’t it? He wasn’t allowed to have anything happen by chance.

He felt like he was going to be sick. Or cry. Or punch something. Maybe a mix of all three. He needed to get out of there.

“Thanks for the help. I’ll sing your praises to Drautos when I see him.”

He was rushing out of the arcade before his teeth closed down on the last word, his molars clacking down hard to keep himself from cursing at whatever Astral or Lucii or unknowable celestial jerk that thought it was funny to toy with him like this.

“Noct – Your Highness – wait!”

That just made him want to walk faster. It felt like getting slapped upside the back of his head. Your Highness. That’s what he was supposed to be. That’s what people were supposed to call him. That was proper and they were all about “proper” around the Citadel. Your Highness, gods, if that didn’t make him feel like he was the lowest.

Pelna swerved into his lane, hands up, palms out, placating him like every migrant supplicant that ever came before the throne to kiss his feet. He’d wondered about those hands. He’d marveled at the precision with which he put pencil to paper, gliding along the straight edge of a ruler to chart out his curious designs. Designs for the Kingsglaive, he was realizing now, only familiar once he put the character into context. All those diagrams, all that focus, all that deftness in his fingers was trained from a life of killing, not coffee-making. Gods, how had he been so stupid?

“I’m not on duty!” Pelna said, hurrying into every word. “I’m off when I’m at Agni’s, I promise that I’m not… I’m not your detail or anything like that, if that’s what you’re thinking. This is just a really unfortunate coincidence, I swear! Or… fortunate coincidence, depending on how you see it, I guess. I-I saw it that way…”

He pulled himself up not quite short enough, his hands darting back to his chest. They wound together in nervous circuits, palms slipping over knuckles, fingers squeezing in and out of fists. His mouth was set in a thin line, and Noctis could see the indent of his tongue pressed against the inside of his mouth to remind him to keep it shut.

Noctis bit his lip when he was nervous like that – when he was afraid of what to say. He didn’t even notice when he did it sometimes, just wondered why the corner of his lip tasted metallic when he pressed his tongue to it.

Pelna seemed so earnest, so honest. He wanted to believe him… But it was such a big city. What were the chances that he’d walked into the one café owned by the aunt of a man sworn to serve and protect him and his father? What was the likelihood without some unseen design at work? Especially with his luck? It couldn’t have been a coincidence, no matter how badly he’d like to let himself think it could have been. Fate had never been that kind to him.

“I don’t usually end up on guard duty,” Pelna said, looking down at his fingers as they wound formless shapes around each other. “I, um… I honestly didn’t even know what you looked like. You’re never on TV, and most of the work I do is way behind the scenes stuff. Gadgets and things. Stuff like that.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Pelna glanced up from his twisting fingers and Noctis had to glance down. He hadn’t meant to respond. He hadn’t wanted to allow himself the hope that maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought. Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe chance meetings really did exist for him. Maybe he could manage this if they did.

“You work on them at the Grind,” he murmured, feeling his face heat up for admitting how nosy he’d been about watching Pelna from afar. “I’ve seen some of your diagrams. Looks complicated.”

Pelna shrugged and glanced back down at his hands. Neither of them looked at the other for a long time. They just stood there on the curb of the arcade, the noontime dregs of pedestrian traffic skirting around them. It was Pelna that broke the silence again, unable to stand the weight of it.

“Can I walk you back to your car?”

Noctis opened his mouth, then closed it again. He met Pelna’s eyes – brown, he’d noticed that early on; brown and soft as earthen soil. They were warm and imploring, as hurt as Noctis felt by the revelation of their identities. He wanted to trust them. But he needed to trust himself if he ever wanted to do that.

“No.” He could barely hear the word whisper past his lips. “I can make it fine on my own.”

“Oh, okay… I didn’t meant to sound like…”

“A glaive? I know. I appreciate it. And this.” – He indicated his wallet with a hoarse laugh – “Here I was thinking how great it was to have met a guy nice enough to help a total stranger.” Should have known better.

“Would have done it anyway. Glaive or no Glaive.”

It was getting harder to stand by his “No.” Noctis bit his lip. Started tasting metal. He ducked his head before he stepped close enough to warm himself by Pelna’s hearth-fire eyes. The sidewalk was cold beneath his feet as he walked away.

---

Pelna never thought that he could feel so miserable while sipping on his `anake’s coffees.

He had come in early the next morning – it was a Sunday, the one day where the whole city – royal staff included – got to slow down for just a heartbeat. It didn’t stop – it never stopped, never slept – but it rested – as much as Insomnia could call it rest. If he wasn’t tasked with tweaking the security system at Citadel Control, Pelna often delegated his services to the Grind for the weekend.

He knew that Noctis wouldn’t be there. If not because he was never a regular on the weekends, then because Pelna had steered him away. It served him right, he supposed, thinking that he’d stumbled upon some sort of cinema café’s muse in his aunt’s own humble coffeehouse. Learning that he was the Prince of Lucis felt far less like a fairytale than it sounded if he were ever to say it out loud.

“Pel, child. When I said be generous on the whipped cream, I didn’t mean for you to build a snowman out of it.”

Pelna startled back to the present as Aunt Agni coaxed the nozzle for the whipped cream dispenser from his heavy hand, laying on thick mounds of it in the macchiato order as he stared and sighed in forlorn throes of romantic insignificance at the espresso machine.

“Aahh, sorry! I’ll take this one.”

“Take it with you to your seat.” She patted him on the back, the subtle force of island thunder in her palm. “I’ll call you if the rush starts up.”

“No you won’t.”

She grinned, a big, ivory smile, bright against dark skin. She lived for the rush. She would take on the whole lunch crowd, single-handedly, if she was left alone behind the counter. This was half of the reason why she had to have a staff around. He was afraid that one day he might not be able to find her under the manic grappling and roiling bodies clamoring for that mid-afternoon caffeine-boost.

Pelna took his defective macchiato to his favorite table and set up his laptop so the screen would obscure the empty space across from him. He’s never here on Sundays, Pelna reminded himself. Nothing out of the ordinary… Maybe he’ll be here tomorrow.

He knew it was ridiculous to expect the Crown Prince of Lucis to reprise his role as an anonymous purveyor of gourmet coffees now that his identity was no longer a secret. Especially with a Kingsglaive setting up shop right next to him.

Even if he did come back to settle down in his favorite nook next to Pelna, what did he expect would happen? Did he think that there was any hope that they could just pick up where they’d promised with that little wager yesterday? How could he possibly expect that it could? They couldn’t go on a date! There were rules, weren’t there?

…He couldn’t recall a specific one from the handbook, but he was pretty sure that fraternizing with the heir to the throne might be deserving of some sort of penalty. It had to be a workplace violation of some sort. He needed to abandon that idea, right away.

It’s fine. There’s other fish in the sea… but none that taste like Agni’s fish tacos… Noct’s favorite order, paired with a nice iced tea and maybe a bag of potato chips from the rotating stand next to the cashier.

Pelna sighed into the mound of whipped cream, breath deflating the fluffy white peaks. Not even the sweetness of the steamed milk could sugar his sullen sighs.

“You’ve, um… got a little on your lip.”

Pelna blinked at the whipped cream, balancing perilously atop the hot coffee in his hand. When he remembered that Agni’s recipes weren’t quite so magical as to give sentience to sweeteners, he glanced up. Maybe the magic was in summoning the Prince back to his stead.

He nearly stood up before he thought better of it, and remembered what Noctis had said. He quickly wiped off whatever white, mustachioed nonsense was accessorizing his lips. He was relieved to find a tentative smile amusing itself upon the Prince’s lips. Pelna would gladly ridicule himself with eating accidents if it meant the return of that shy little smile.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” he admitted.

Noctis shrugged, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “Didn’t have anything to do. Got hungry. No one makes hazelnut lattes like this place does.”

“Two sugars, right?”

“…Right.”

His smile was slow, but fond, careful of letting himself fall back into their unsaid companionship. Pelna couldn’t blame him. Much as he wanted to pretend like their positions didn’t matter, wanted to go back to being strangers to enjoy each other’s company the way they’d been doing, he knew that they couldn’t. Hard to ignore the catoblepas in the room.

Noctis shuffled where he stood, bumping the toe of his boot against the linoleum, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck, shifting his weight from one foot to the next; a big nervous net of physical ticks discomfited by the silence between them. He bit his lip, brow furrowed deep in thought, and he aimed his gaze at the little table between them. It was easier to talk to.

“I still owe you. For your help. I promised you twenty bucks, right? For lunch?”

Pelna opened his mouth to decline. Him? Being treated to lunch by His Majesty’s own son? No, he should insist against any such thing. It was his privilege to help the Crown Prince in his time of need, he shouldn’t be given special treatment for it…

But there was something about the way Noctis stilled after the offer, how intent his eyes were on the inanimate objects between them, which poked and prodded for Pelna not to say anything of the sort. There was a test here, to see just how much had changed between them with the titles thrown in. Noctis was bracing himself for the rejection. He expected a servile response. Pelna remembered the look on his face when he’d called him “Your Highness” the day before.

Pelna took a deep breath, knowing, somewhere in the back of his head, that he must be breaching some sort of protocol for this.

“A bet’s a bet. Got to honor it.”

Noctis chanced a glance up at him, just to make sure he’d heard him say it. Pelna pushed for a smile. That, in turn, helped Noctis smile, too. That was sweet enough to lift Pelna’s spirits.

“I didn’t think you had a sweet tooth,” Noctis said, lifting a brow at the creamy confection sinking into Pelna’s cup.

“Hah! This is proof of why I’m better off behind the counter than the kitchen.” Pelna flushed a little at that. Noctis didn’t need to know that he couldn’t make a macchiato because he was distracted with thoughts of him. He stood up to head for the counter. “Let me go place an order…”

Now, while Pelna was largely considered to be an invaluable member of the Kingsglaive for his technical acumen, as well as for his lethality in close-quarters combat, the sharpness of his eye for the details of hands-on machinery repair and the physical dismantling of the Crown’s enemies did not always translate to his feet. He often joked that it was a birth defect, always tripping over himself, well before he’d been accepted into the Kingsglaive, and never trained out of it. Which was fine, it didn’t affect the quality of his work – when he was locked in, he was locked in – but when he hung up the uniform in his closet for the weekend and set those boots that straightened his gait aside, he was tripping over his shoe laces like high school all over again.

He was a little too exuberant. A little too excited to get back into the routine. Too happy to have things going relatively back to normal – give or take having a little bit more work to do for getting used to some areas.

It klutzed him up. Tripping over probably nothing to catch himself in the most incriminating position a Kingsglaive could probably catch himself in: wrapped around the waist of the Crown Prince, Noct’s arms braced against his chest to break his fall, Pelna’s face collapsed perilously close to the column of his throat.

If his face wasn’t fuming before, the Rock of Ravatogh was erupting in his cheeks now. He flittered a glance up at Noctis to find his skin a matching shade of scarlet and, by the Six, his eyes were so, startlingly blue. As smooth and cerulean as the sea glass he and his auntie used to rake through the beaches for when he was a kid. Both of their breaths came hot and short, and Pelna was suddenly very self-conscious about the pepper and onion omelet he’d finished about an hour ago.

Pelna cleared his throat and straightened up, snapping to attention as if Captain Drautos himself had jingled through the café doors to arrest him for fondling the Prince of Lucis.

“I, uh, swear I’m a professional,” he laughed, a little more hysterical than he meant to. “Sorry. Accident.”

For some reason, that made Noctis smile, a broad swathe of relief. As if the coincidence of the action meant the world to him. As if it absolved some hidden doubt that Pelna, for the life of him, could not figure out no matter how hard he tried to unravel it.

“Accidents happen,” Noctis said in some silent affirmation to himself that drained all the tension from his shoulders.

He wasn’t exactly sure when he stopped being a character. It might have just been from the consistency of his presence at the café, or it could have been how he was quickly becoming Aunt Agni’s “most valued customer,” or it might have been after that time Pelna had looked up to stare at nothing until his eyes focused enough to concentrate back on his diagram and he’d discovered the man’s eyes were blue as they stared right back at him.

He’d caught more than a few accidental glances like that. As much as he’d caught the color of his eyes, the stranger caught more of Pelna’s curiosity. He was one of the few customers that Pelna had seen evolve over the course of his coming there. Most regulars came for a singular purpose and they stuck to it.

The first time he saw his blue-eyed table-neighbor had been behind a laptop screen, headphones designed like cat ears crowning his hair as he tapped minute commands across his keyboard for the character in his game to obey. Gradually, the laptop started to close earlier each day, until it rarely opened at all.

He didn’t listen to music when he worked. He started leaving his headphones at home and he brought more paper than servers to play on. Sometimes he brought plain little pocket notebooks, other times composition books, and sometimes small sketchbooks. He worked in time with the rhythm of the café, occasionally nodding along to the soft bossa nova tunes playing over the speakers. Nice and neutral music, without lyrics, but lively enough to get a few toes tapping.

Regulars had always been an odd phenomena for Pelna. He didn’t speak to a single one yet, he started to feel like they were old friends if they sat around long enough. He wasn’t a people watcher by habit, but it was hard not to notice the little things about the people he occupied the same space with. He stayed mostly absorbed in his own work, blasting up his own music because he needed something more energetic to keep his eyes open, but when he occasioned a glance up to wait for his brain to cool down, he picked up the little ticks of his fellow patrons.

His neighbor, for example, pulled his sleeves all the way over his palms, even if they got in the way of what he was holding. He would wind his fingers immediately around his coffee cup when it was served to him, and when he leaned his face against the heel of his palm, his lips would part almost as if unconsciously to breathe plumes of air against his fingertips. No matter the temperature, his hands were always cold.

He had a sweet tooth. If Pelna didn’t overhear his order, he could recognize the signature aroma of his auntie’s concoctions as they traveled between tables. He only ever had one cup of anything, but he could often order more than one helping of food – he liked the house fish taco the best. He said goodbye to Aunt Agni every day that she wasn’t busy out of sight in the kitchens. He always had his wallet prepared before he’d even placed his order at the counter.

That was how Pelna knew something was wrong – aside from the obvious tells of frantic pocket-patting.

Pelna didn’t even realize how… troubling his extensive knowledge of the man’s order might have sounded when he swooped in with the best of intentions to rescue him. Or how mortifying the mention might be that he was Aunt Agni’s favorite customer, thereby lending to the idea that he was a regular topic of discussion behind the counter. The man didn’t appear overly bothered by any of it, only getting flustered when Pelna told him that his name was pretty. (He didn’t even know what he was thinking with that. He excused it by telling himself that he only said it because it was true – he was raised to be honest, after all.)

Noctis. It was a pretty name… for a pretty boy. Pelna had the tact to at least not say that out loud. It was hard not to feel a little bit smitten with him after all the time they’d spent in silent proximity with each other… Or with the view of him bent across the center console in front of him.

“You sure it couldn’t have fallen out on the sidewalk?” Pelna asked, forcing his gaze to stay level with the roof of the car while Noctis squirmed around inside.

“I can’t even consider that right now!”

Noctis was on his knees in the passenger seat, fishing across to the driver’s seat and into the back seats and as far under any of the seats as he could reach. Pelna stood within the open door, careful to keep both of their coffees from spilling – and doubly careful not to let his gaze stray to the cute butt facing him from out the side door.

He’d nearly turned and run the other way when he saw the car. It had been Pelna’s first suggestion to use as a starting point for finding the lost wallet. Noctis had immediately looked hopeful, muttering that “Six know it has enough space for losing stuff.” Pelna had just assumed an indication of size meant that he drove an SUV, or something equally large and perfectly normal, not a freaking luxury cruise on wheels.

It was a work of art. It had no business being on the road, where it would be nicked and dented and sprayed with dirt and ogled by the undeserving peons of society such as himself. And it raised so many new questions about Noctis than he’d ever expected to have. Pelna thought he’d had him figured out. He thought that he knew him, gods, what an idiot! As if they weren’t complete strangers pretending not to be creepy in a coffee shop.

Too many movies, Pel, he scolded himself, scuttling back as Noctis shimmied out of the car. He huffed in annoyance and exhaustion once he was on his own two feet again, brushing a hand through the bangs of his hair.

“Not here,” he growled, pressing the heel of his palm to the bridge of his nose, looking like he was feeling the onset of a migraine.

Pelna didn’t know what to say. He had plenty more ideas of where they could look, but he was afraid they were bordering on a little too personal. They could check his home, maybe he hadn’t left with it this morning. They could retrace to any stops he’d made before the café, but Pelna felt like all of that was inviting himself too deeply into Noctis’s routine. A bit presumptuous of a stranger. And nothing was reminding him of the fact that they were just that – strangers – than the imposing curl of the car against the sidewalk.

“It was a gift,” Noctis muttered when he noticed the evasive glances Pelna was giving the vehicle.

He suddenly looked very self-conscious about it, locking up the car and plucking his coffee from Pelna’s grasp to give himself something else to do besides talk about it.

“It’s a, um, very nice gift,” Pelna laughed, hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt about standing next to the thing. He quickly changed the subject. “If it’s not in there, then we’ll just retrace your steps! Where was your last spot before this?”

Noctis scrunched his brow, and for a second, Pelna feared his helpfulness was bordering on intrusiveness. But Noctis merely thought on it for a moment before shrugging and saying, “I guess it could be at the arcade. I dropped in there for a second this morning, but I didn’t use it for anything.”

“It’s worth double-checking, just in case.”

Noctis indulged him with a smile, but he didn’t look very optimistic. The fragility of his hope made Pelna’s stomach clench with guilt, as if he’d reached into the man’s back pocket and stolen his wallet himself. It was a matter of chivalry, a matter of debt – at least on behalf of the patronage Noctis showed his aunt – it was a matter of honor, damnit, he needed to find this wallet, almost as badly as Noctis himself needed to.

“You coming?”

Noctis had started a few steps down the sidewalk, a hand pressed into the pocket of his jacket and his latte hovering near his lips, inquisitive blue eyes searching expectantly for Pelna’s continued assistance.

“Yeah, of course!”

Pelna downed the rest of his coffee and tossed the empty cup into the nearest trash bin. He was glad that he could still be of use to Noctis. Besides, he really was good at this. Reconnaissance was a pivotal part of his job description. Part of him wanted to assure Noctis that he was more than qualified to search out hidden items, but a bigger part of him didn’t want to intimidate him by mentioning he was a member of the most elite, magical, and lethal fighting force of Lucis.

“You know, it’d probably be quicker and easier to just cancel my credit card and get everything replaced,” Noctis said to fill the quiet between them as they walked. “It’d only take a second.”

“Who the heck is looking out for your identity?” Pelna laughed. “In my experience, it takes forever and a panic attack to get these things replaced.”

Noctis smiled, but didn’t elaborate, pointedly looking forward lest his eyes betray some secret Pelna wasn’t supposed to know. If anyone had friends that could afford a car that snazzy to give as a gift, he shouldn’t be surprised that he had everything else figured out and secured for him. He wasn’t sure if he felt confused or flattered that a well-off young man such as Noctis preferred Aunt Agni’s moderately priced coffee to the more high-end establishments he could certainly afford further uptown.

The arcade was a few short blocks from the Grind, a shocking blast of color and sound by comparison to the muted atmosphere of the café. Another small business, accessible to the minimum wage earners of the city, and not a place Pelna would associate with someone who drove a custom-made Audi to get coffee. But when he put the car out of his mind and he remembered the anonymous humility to Noctis’s little corner table next to his, Pelna thought that this was just the kind of place he would come to.

Noctis asked the kid behind the counter about lost and found while Pelna scanned the room. It was a large space, divided only by the placement of the machines. There were angry, gaping maws of behemoths swallowing screens armed with plastic guns, there were light-up stages of flashing arrows and hyper-fast pop music, there were tall, leather chairs looming over painted wheels, and there was a snack bar all along the right-hand corner, plastered with brightly-colored signs for hot pretzels and meaty sandwiches and seasoned chips drenched in molten-gold cheese.

The whole place smelled like really bad BO and burnt grease, and it was a discordant mess of robotic noise, but it looked like fun. There were games from all different eras, spaces for kids and teens and adults alike. The kid running the prize counter couldn’t have been more than sixteen, face pock-marked with red welts and eyes glazed in general disinterest.

He provided plastic crates from below the counter, piled with all of the miscellaneous objects left behind. There were more than a few wallets thrown into the mix. They slid down to the end of the counter to work through the mess.

“What do you want to bet that half of these are empty?” Noctis asked with a scowl as he picked up the first candidate. It wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t his.

“Twenty bucks says more of them are full,” Pelna responded on immediate impulse. The Kingsglaive was practically a self-run casino with all the wagers they made between them.

Noctis sent him a skeptical look, the edges of his mouth fighting not to smile. Pelna nudged an elbow into his arm, tempting him to let those corners turn up. “Come on, twenty bucks. That’s just enough for coffee and a sandwich you can pay me back with for finding your identity.”

He’d meant it innocently enough, but the slow blink of Noctis’s eyes made him rethink his words. He didn’t have to dwell on the panic for very long. Noctis smiled, as sweet and smooth as Aunt Agni’s slowest roast.

“You’re on. If we don’t find it, you’re going to have to pay again, anyway.”

Pelna smiled to seal the deal. They resumed their search, each making a tally of how many wallets were full and how many were empty. Noctis would dangle whatever empties he found with a smug smirk. Pelna would snort and roll his eyes and deliberately set a full one on his pile in retaliation.

Considering how dire the circumstances were, Pelna was enjoying this. As far as excuses for working up the nerve to talk to him went, he was sorry that it took a misplaced identity to inspire him into heroism. But he’d take it. Especially since Noctis seemed to reciprocate the feeling, the petrified grimace of alarm on his face having long since softened. He was resigned to losing whatever sum had been in his wallet, but Pelna was still determined that he would find it. If the amount of wallets that hadn’t been dumped out into a thief’s pocket were any indication on his side, there was hope that there were enough good Samaritans that might have picked up his without cashing in on the contents.

His optimism paid off.

He opened a simple, black leather passcase and his face nearly split in two when he recognized Noctis’s face grinning tentatively from the driver’s license. He stopped short of jumping up and cheering, mouth caught agape in soundless victory as his gaze roved over the name. His full name.

Oh.

That Noctis.

“I can’t believe you found it!”

Noctis’s voice lifted on bubbles of laughter, dropping the stranger’s wallet in his hand to snatch his own back. His eyes were as big and round as swimming pools, overflowing with relief as he rifled through his wallet to ensure that everything was there. He beamed up at Pelna.

“Coffee and a sandwich cannot thank you enough.”

“No thanks needed, Your Highness.”

The formality brought Noctis’s smile to a screeching halt. His brow furrowed into a deep crevice, frowning in confusion. He glanced between Pelna and his wallet, then his face smoothed down into disappointed realization. It made Pelna’s throat feel tight.

“Oh. Right. Crown Prince, yeah. Awkward, I get it.”

“What’s more awkward is that I kind of asked you out when I’m… well.”

Pelna fished his own wallet from his pocket, flipping it open to his Kingsglaive ID. Noctis took the slick card on display delicately between his fingers, as if it might hurt him. He studied it for a long moment before shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath in through his nose.

The place was quiet, cozy, and charismatic. The wholebuilding had its own personality; from the gray-washed walls outside, with thedriftwood sign, to the slick, granite counter-tops indoors with thewrought-iron lamps hanging overhead. “Kinda seaside chic,” the owner had also explainedto him – a dark-skinned, white-toothed woman with arms as lean and taut withrefined muscle as a coeurl’s back haunches. She was an islander from furtherEast that moved to Insomnia before the Wall was pulled back. The Grind had beenher own kingdom, tucked under the nose of her sovereign for more than twodecades. Noctis almost felt guilty that he’d never heard of the place untilrecently.

A fierce and funny proprietor. Always working behind thecounter, even though she had more than enough young people under her employ tonever have to come in for a day of labor for the rest of her life. She’d builtthe café from the ground up, grew it into a self-sustaining machine that hardlyneeded any oversight. And yet, she was always the first face a customer sawwhen they chanced a curious foot inside, arms spread wide like the branches ofa tree for patrons to perch comfortably along, dark hair knotted up in avibrant wrap from a culture Noctis was dying to ask about.

But he’d never seen the woman sit down long enough to talkabout it. Even on lunch breaks, she was still behind the counter, in thekitchen, wiping down tables, and sweeping her employees off to their breakswith an adamant shake of her head when they insisted on staying to help.

Some days, Noctis wondered if the place was even real. Hewondered if the owner was perhaps an exiled sea witch that peddled coffee tocommoners until she gathered enough power to vanish the shop and cultivate theenergy from her faithful disciples (customers) to reclaim some faraway thronewhere she would raise a barista army to seize the world with gourmet lattes andespresso.

…It was also an inspiring space for stunted creativity.

After the first month – after he’d revisited the street-siderefuge of coffee beans and sweet cream for the free wi-fi to plug in and playhis favorite single-player RPGs that got neglected for the co-op shootersPrompto was always itching to occupy the TV with – Noctis started to findnotebooks sneaking their way into his bag.

Some of the psychology majors that he was sure clustered in the far corners of theGrind might have told him that it was a habit he was mimicking from the otherregular that sat one table down from him. The same man that he saw every daysince first claiming his favorite seat by the back window, who always came latein the day with an armful of spiral books and bags under his eyes. But neverforgot to step behind the counter to give the owner a kiss on the cheek androtate around her busy body, darting from machine to machine to fill cups andhave conversations in another language.

Her son or her nephew or some member of the family, Noctisguessed. They had the same coloring, the same unburdened grin that was bestadapted from close association. They teased with an ease that he didn’t need tosearch Moogle Translate to understand. (She was his aunt, he learned, afterdeciphering the spelling for one of the more frequent phrases that bouncedbetween them.)

Noctis started drawing again when he came to the Grind. Hedoodled the constellations he remembered being enchanted with as a child.Little, self-constructed connect-the-dots at the bottom of pages meant for mathhomework. He even started writing,something he’d never taken an interest in before. He would write lists of wordsin the margins; things that described the smell of the café, the tone of thelight, the gestures of its people.

Eventually, the lists strung together into verses, connectionscreating themselves out of his distracted thoughts. One day, he blinked at theink filling two pages of a notebook and realized that he’d lost a whole hour oftime just from watching and recording the mannerisms of the strangerneighboring his table. Nothing poetic, just paragraphs of meandering curiosityand discovery.

The man listened to Lady Yuna – an Eastern indie-folk singer.Noctis knew because the man played her as loud as a heavy metal band throughhis headphones. He wasn’t sure if his neighbor knew that everyone within threefeet of him could hear his music, but Noctis didn’t mind it enough to tell him.Or was brave enough to initiate even the most mundane form of conversation withhim.

He knew that the man could order up to three cups of thestrongest Galahdian roast and still look just as tired as the moment he draggedhimself through the front doors. Noctis also knew that he liked a lot of cream,but not a lot of sugar.

He knew that he was a technician or an engineer of some sort.Noctis couldn’t resist a passing glance at his open sketchbooks when he wasalready set up at his table and Noctis was arriving at his. He glimpsedstraight lines from plastic rulers and neatly written numbers at the corners ofprotracted angles. Once, he caught the ends of a very detailed diagram of adevice he couldn’t guess the nature of without standing by his table andstaring at it for hours.

Noctis wrote about him the most on those surprising dayswhere he realized that he kind of liked writing,of all things. He would try to describe the details of his table-neighbor’sface, noting things he never did before. He wasn’t sure if that was part of themagic of the coffee goddess’s charms over the place, but he saw things inpeople that he would have been too nervous to look for before.

He noticed how deep the man’s eyes were set beneath hisbrow. He noticed the broadness of his nose and the long creases around hismouth from the smiles he made at his aunt. He noticed that his eyes were thesame dark brown as his favorite roast on the rare days where Noctis’s bloodpressure spiked when the man glanced up to his hasty glances down, hurrying toscratch at the growing prose on his page.

Some days he wrote, some days he sketched. Or tried to. Hewould try to draw the man’s face from his notes in an effort to keep himself fromstaring, but when he glanced up for comparisons, the figment on his page couldnever seem to capture the live model correctly. They were caricatures at best,his despondent efforts morphing into a completely different character when hecould tell it would never be the one he was trying to recreate.

It was all part of the routine. Noctis would visit everyday, if he could, but he settled for once or twice a week, during days where hedesperately wanted to be alone andget lost in an environment where no one called him “Your Highness,” “My Lord,”or “Prince.” He was content to be nameless and know no one else’s name. Noteven the name of his favorite subject.

Until one unremarkable day when his wallet went inexplicablymissing. He stood in line and reached into his back pocket for the wallet,preferring to be prepared well before he placed his order. The anxiety ofholding up the line that he usually warded off by being ready was abruptlyreplaced with sheer panic as he felt that his pocket was empty. He patted itagain, then the other, then the front pockets, then his jacket pockets, and musthave looked every bit like the mental patient he knew very well that he alreadywas.

“May I take your order?”

His stomach dropped as the customer in front of him slippedout of line and the barista behind the counter looked to him next. One of thenewer boys, manning the counter while the boss drilled the latest chef in thekitchen. Something in Noctis seized up. His routine was broken, his identitymight have been stolen if he wasn’t clumsy enough to have lost it – which wasthe more likely and mortifying conclusion. A messy mental tirade ofself-recrimination kept him from replying, frozen where he stood in the lanesof worst-case scenarios. The barista waited expectantly, pen poised over hisnotepad and eyes accusing Noctis of holding up the line.

Noctis opened and closed his mouth, but couldn’t makehimself say anything. He cast his eyes about the floor in the futile hope thatmaybe it had fallen out of his pocket nearby. Go find it, you idiot, a harsher version of his voice growled inhis head.

“He’ll have a hazelnut latte. It’s two sugars, right? Yeah,two sugars, thanks.”

Noctis snapped back into himself and onto the light whisperof fingers against the small of his back. At the stranger that had become asfamiliar as a friend curling towards the counter from behind him. The baristajotted down the order, tacked on the stranger’s order as well, then scurried towork to fill them.

“My treat, okay?” the stranger said, smiling at him.

Which made Noctis forget why his heart was racing so fast.He’d only ever watched that smile from far away, turned towards people thatdeserved it more than he did.

“I… uh…” Noctis said, dumbly, cringing at how useless hisvoice was.

“Wallet ran away from you?” the man teased. “Lemme pay forthese and maybe I can help you track it down?”

All Noctis could do to respond to that bright smile andwide, helpful stare was give an absent nod. He felt like his head was onstrings, jerked by a celestial tormentor that had determined he was the fool inthis production.

The stranger traded cash for coffee and ushered Noctis outof line, passing the drink into his shaking hand and saying, “Help with thenerves a little bit, right?”

He added a shaky laugh of his own to the light humor, whichmade Noctis wonder if he was just as nervous as he was. Selfishly, he foundthat comforting, curling his hands around the Styrofoam cup to steady them andtaking a bracing sip.

“Did I remember your order right?” the man asked.

“Y-Yeah, thanks,” Noctis finally managed to say, feeling hisface warm – flattered that he knew his favorite and assured that perhaps hisveiled attentions on the man may have been returned. “You didn’t have to dothat. I’ll pay you back…”

“Aw, please, no! Least I could do for my `anake’s favoritecustomer.”

It was the word Noctis had singled out as meaning “aunt” andhelped him understand their familiarity with each other. Noctis smiled in spiteof his panic, the easy atmosphere about the man that helped him settle everyday helping to clear his head.

“I’m Pelna, by the way.”

Noctis paused, looking at his pearly smile that had caughthis attention in the first place, and was often the star of his daily musings.In all the months he’d been coming to the Grind, he’d enjoyed the anonymity themost… and yet. He found he likedknowing his table-neighbor’s name more. And liked telling him his own, too.

“I’m Noctis.”

Pelna’s lips softened around his teeth, the coffee-dark huesof his eyes brightening. Noctis buried his face in his coffee cup after hespoke next – because he liked the sound of his name in his voice, as well.

“Noctis. Pretty name.”

He caught himself as Noctis blushed into his drink,mimicking the action himself. He gave a sigh of caffeinated contentment, shookhis head, and looked determinedly at the shop doors.