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The Oracle's canine companions Pryna and Umbra—female and male, respectively—serve as delivery dogs, relaying messages between Lunafreya and Noctis. Although they manifest themselves as a pair of white and black pups, they are in actuality Messengers boasting mystical powers of their own.
Loading screen description in Final Fantasy XV
Pryna is a white spitz-type dog that belongs to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret in Final Fantasy XV. Pryna appears as a puppy in Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV. In the short film Omen, Noctis Lucis Caelum chases Pryna through various dreamscapes. She also appears in Final Fantasy XV: Episode Prompto.
Pryna and Umbra—a black male dog—are Messengers of the Astrals to the Oracle.
Profile
Pryna is a white dog with blue eyes with subtle gray markings around her eyes. As a puppy during the events of Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV, she was more cream-colored. She has a green bandage around her right front paw. Pryna and Umbra both use the same basic dog model in Final Fantasy XV, but Pryna's bandage is on the other leg, and she doesn't have the bushy gray hair above her eyes like Umbra does. Pryna doesn't have the strap across her back because she doesn't carry the Lovers' Notebook.
The dogs are characterized somewhat differently in Brotherhood than in the rest of the Final Fantasy XV Universe. In the former, they appear more like real animals, whereas in the Omen and in Final Fantasy XV their appearances are frequently accompanied by mystical phenomena. Whereas Umbra is associated with a corporeal presence, delivering physical messages between Noctis and Luna and literally transporting the player to return to past areas of the game, Pryna is associated with dreams and visions. Throughout her appearances in Omen and DLC episodes, she delivers psychic messages and even visions of the future. In this sense, Pryna and Umbra could be likened to yin and yang from Chinese philosophy, where yin is the negative/passive/female principle associated with the moon, shaded orientation, and hidden and sinister and overcast things. Yin is represented by the color black, but the light/dark dualism is represented as inverted in Final Fantasy XV, also seen with the colors of the Crystal, Lucis, Tenebrae and the Niflheim Empire. The yin and yang symbolism extends to Lunafreya and Noctis, Pryna being the dog more associated with the former, whereas Umbra is most often seen interacting with Noctis.
Story
In Brotherhood Final Fantasy XV Lunafreya sends Pryna to see Noctis, but she injures her leg. She is discovered by Prompto Argentum, who nicknames her "Tiny" and covers her wound with a bandage that has his name on it. Pryna leaves Prompto one night and returns to Lunafreya, who is overjoyed to see her. She learns about Prompto by inspecting the bandage on Pryna's leg and writes the boy a letter to thank him for taking care of her puppy.
Years later, Pryna and Umbra greet Lunafreya after she escapes Insomnia. Later, Prompto notes that only Umbra is making deliveries to them, wondering where Pryna is. Gladiolus Amicitia speculates Pryna is traveling with her owner, and Prompto is wistful as he misses the dog. Pryna is with Lunafreya when Ravus Nox Fleuret visits her in Altissia.
Luna dies during Leviathan's Revelation. When Noctis's friend Ignis Scientia reaches the Altar of the Tidemother where Luna's body is, he runs into Pryna who topples to the ground. Recognizing it as Lunafreya's dog, Ignis approaches her, and witnesses a vision of the future where Noctis fulfills the prophecy of the True King by sacrificing his own life.
When Noctis visits Tenebrae, Lunafreya's homeland, he learns Pryna died when Lunafreya did, possibly of heartbreak of having lost her owner. Umbra is said to be sad for having lost both his owner and his companion.
In Episode Prompto, Prompto recalls Pryna bringing him a letter from Luna asking him to support Noctis and be his friend. When he wanders the snowfields alone, Pryna appears to him and leads him to a field of fallen magitek troopers where Prompto must symbolically comfort the child of himself that embodies his fears and insecurities. Whether this is the actual dog or a figment of Prompto's imagination is ambiguous.
Gallery
Etymology and symbolism
Pryna is Welsh and means the verb "purchase". However, seeing how the names in Final Fantasy XV tend to derive from Latin, the true etymology may be pruina, Latin for rime and hoarfrost, befitting her white fur.
Umbra and Pryna may allude to Geri and Freki from Norse mythology, two wolves that accompany the god Odin that are sometimes depicted as being light and dark-colored.
Pryna's counterpart is Umbra, whose name means "shadow". Though Pryna's name doesn't mean "light", she could be seen as representing it for her white color.
When Lunafreya dies Pryna is said to have died alongside her, while Umbra stays in the mortal world. This could allude to light disappearing from the world and leaving only shadow, as without Lunafreya Starscourge will overwhelm Eos. The dogs could also be seen as also embodying the yin and yang duality from Chinese philosophy, Pryna and her more otherworldly presence representing yin. When the sun rises, Umbra is the only dog seen greeting the breaking dawn.
Trivia
- In a flashback in Final Fantasy XV young Noctis and Luna talk while Pryna and Umbra lie on the floor nearby. The dogs appear full grown, even if they are puppies in Brotherhood that is chronologically later.
- A winged Gentiana and what appear to be winged Umbra and Pryna appear on an illustration on a Cosmogony book the young Noctis had in Tenebrae. A Cosmogony book the player can read in Taelpar Rest Area reveals that instead of appearing in the mortal world physically, the gods sent loyal servants to convey their divine will to the Oracle. These servants are known as Messengers.
- In the Omen trailer, Pryna leads Noctis across on a journey, although it is later revealed that this was a demonic dog posing as Pryna.
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