The gentle touches to Prompto's back are greatly soothing- that is, until Noct's fingers brush over the second set of spines still budding on Prompto's lower back. They're sensitive as a damn tooth growing in, and the blond jolts bodily with a whiny huff.

"I took such good care of my spine! It's betraying me, is what it is! I-"

Before he can wind up again, Prompto takes a breath. He swears he can sense something in a distant corner of his mind that radiates approval after he does. Great, so he's turning into some kind of lizard monster and going nuts.

The Barusa comment is what finally breaks the ice and gets him to laugh, just as an important memory clicks for him. It was obscured by his initial panic. "Next we find out we got sucked into King's Knight, right? No, dude, now that I'm chill...That Charlie guy mentioned that some of us might go through changes. Something about dragons? I was super excited about the food and, yknow, wigged out by Ardyn, so I didn't pay as much attention as I shoulda. But that means I'm...Turning into a dragon?"

That feels absolutely unhinged to say aloud to Prompto, but what else would be causing something like this?

"You had a dream about one too right? Mine was all spiky and looked like metal. Big wings. If you saw one too, then..." he glances over his shoulder to squint at his boyfriend. "I wonder if it's related."