[Prompto, you do realize you're asking this of the guy who apparently missed over ten years of signals from Gladio, right?]
It's hard to describe what triggered those thoughts, honestly. You know how Noctis is and you know I've known him since we were both children. He had to learn early on that there were things he didn't let the world see, things he couldn't let the world see. Those emotions, worries and fears he increasingly started to keep from everyone, including Gladio and me. [A sad look crosses his face, then.]
I wondered sometimes if those close to the king felt the way I did watching the Noct I knew vanish under the weight of the prince he had to be, then he met you and Noctis the teenager--Noctis the friend I had grown up with--suddenly started to appear again. Only a person close to him in a very special way could have done that. Gladio and I couldn't, after all. We were too closely tied to the world that was slowly smothering him.
no subject
It's hard to describe what triggered those thoughts, honestly. You know how Noctis is and you know I've known him since we were both children. He had to learn early on that there were things he didn't let the world see, things he couldn't let the world see. Those emotions, worries and fears he increasingly started to keep from everyone, including Gladio and me.
[A sad look crosses his face, then.]
I wondered sometimes if those close to the king felt the way I did watching the Noct I knew vanish under the weight of the prince he had to be, then he met you and Noctis the teenager--Noctis the friend I had grown up with--suddenly started to appear again. Only a person close to him in a very special way could have done that. Gladio and I couldn't, after all. We were too closely tied to the world that was slowly smothering him.