FFXII Fic: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 10 (Larsa/Penelo, Ashe, Vayne)
There are certain fics that you want to write. There are certain fics that you’d love to write. And then there are those certain special fics that you need to write, lest the fact that you haven’t finished them up-- even during the special hell that is finals week-- drive you absolutely insane.
This chapter of Knots was all of the above but especially the last. It didn’t matter how busy I am now-- this long-awaited chapter just leapt up in my mind and demanded it be written immediately. And in any case, this is for the wonderfully funny and insightful kilraaj, who really helped me a great deal with her discussion on the last chapter. I hope this distracts you as much as you need, dear heart. ♥
And as always… I know this time of the year is hellishly busy for us all but I’d really love, adore and cherish any reviews, comments and criticisms for this chapter. Every little discussion helps to motivate me for the next part of this, y’know? ;)
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 10
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo (...Somewhat), Ashe, Vayne, Cast
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Ashe asked Penelo to make a sacrifice for Dalmasca's sake, she had no idea that this was what her Queen had in mind...
---
From the last chapter:
His eyes were still shining when she threw her blankets aside to breach the single inch that their bodies were still separated by. His lips were still parting when Penelo brought herself closer. And his cheeks were flaming an even deeper shade of red when Penelo twisted her fingers into his shirt's coarse collar, pulling him close to her in a way only one other boy had ever been.
But as soon as she used her new-found leverage to lift Larsa off his feet and slam his entire body against the wall next to her bed, he didn't look quite so enchanted by what could come next. Fascinating, wasn’t it, how that worked?
"That depends," Penelo snarled, "on just how you plan to get lucky."
---
For a very long minute after her last words, all Penelo could do was clench her fingers against Larsa’s collar and take short, quick, shallow breaths, feeling completely unnerved at her own daring.
It had never been a secret, after all, that when she needed to be, she could turn violent easily. She’d known of how strong she could potentially be since the age of seven, when her brothers had taken her out on the plains of the Estersand and given Penelo her first weapon to take out her first ferocious little monster. Fighting and clawing, kicking and screaming-- she was more than capable of holding her own in the battle field when she needed to. Dalmasca wasn’t the sort of land to harbor many social niceties and even the most well bred woman around knew how to defend themselves, Ashe being a prime example.
But… but until now, she hadn’t known that she could do this to someone so much frailer than her, someone so young, even if he was so cunning. When she fought, she tended to fight against either unequivocally evil monsters or even worse terrors that were, to a man, almost always significantly bigger than she was. And Larsa just looked so small trapped beneath her, his still rounded face so shocked and still because of her actions, his ungloved hands clutching at the blankets beneath them both…
Oh god, she could hurt him so much right now. And she didn’t want to, not really. Not even if he deserved this and more.
But then Larsa took his own deep breath and began to speak and Penelo remembered just why she had thought it a dandy idea to assault the next ascending emperor of Archadia in the first place after all.
“Penelo,” Larsa whispered delicately beneath her grip, “are you doing this because you are already experiencing your ‘special time of the month’ and are in need of relief from the uterine cramping that you might be undergoing now?”
Despite her own past thoughts, she let out a sound like a tea kettle angered to the point of madness. And wincing visibly but looking far less scared than he really should, Larsa went smoothly. “Because if you are, I understand all too well. Even Drace becomes a little… unnerving when it visits her. Trust that if this is the case, I shan’t blame you in the least. I have studied human anatomy in some detail in preparation for this, you must realize. And just the pain from the shedding of the endometrium lining alone…
“Although,” he added after a minute, cheeks flushing again when Penelo’s death-grip on him didn’t relax in the least, “I really would appreciate it if you could release me. Although… I mean… although if you really wanted, I suppose perhaps we…”
That did the trick, as he had probably known it would. Shuddering, she let go of him and scrambled off her bed altogether, her skin already crawling. Knowing her luck, the runty little jerk probably thought she was overcome by passion or something equally disgusting. Ugh. She’d much rather go romp around with the overgrown lizard on the Westersand than think about doing that anytime within the next decade, if ever.
But unfortunately, if the bright, mellow voice floating through her room was any indication, she wasn’t going to be given a choice in the matter. “So if you have your flow after all, I suppose you wouldn‘t want to contend with any more vigorous activity for the next five days or so?”
He sounded, terrifyingly enough, more disappointed than anything else, as though he had honestly thought that his every square inch of pasty, under-developed flesh was enough to make her cheer at the thought of going dancing again. And on top of every other miserable minute she’d spent since she’d met him-- being knocked around by the judges of his empire, being jerked to and fro because of his schemes, having her life completely tossed upside down because of his absolutely insane ideas of how to go about wooing someone-- this served as the summon that finally broke the esper‘s back.
“No,” Penelo said, and could barely recognize the voice echoing in her ears. “No, I don’t. And don’t tell me you can’t figure out a reason why, more than anything else, I’d much rather strangle you than do any thing else.”
For a minute, there was only a shocked stillness behind her, a sudden suspension of noise, a sound like the wind whimpering. But in another, Larsa had darted before her, with that same surprising speed he had shown before, his eyes alight on her face.
“Penelo,” he said, and he sounded heartbreakingly young. “Forgive me for not understanding. Are you by any chance upset with me as of now?”
The question was so absurd that, for a minute, Penelo was afraid she might have started laughing. But that passed quickly and after she found she was still gasping half-heartedly for air instead, she found her voice again. “I don’t know, Larsa,” she said, her voice jerking despite herself. “I don’t think I know anything anymore. Why don’t you tell me what you think's going on?”
Larsa’s eyes narrowed, a delicate contracting of his lids that made Penelo’s jaw clench even more. “You are acting most indiscreetly, my lady. Grasping at me, looking at me that way, telling me these things and… and why are you acting this way? Is something the matter other than your cycle? I mean, I have never seen you…”
This stung. She didn‘t know why it did but it did. “Never seen me what?” she snapped, almost before she could control her speech. “Try not to have a break-down in front of a twelve year old twerp?”
And that seemed to have stung him, if the slight moue curling up his lips meant anything. “I meant I have never seen you acting so childishly before. I never even knew you had within you that capacity.”
Oh God. The twelve year old that wanted to marry her thought she was the one acting childishly. It felt almost like a farce but she didn't feel up to laughing much.
“Oh dear,” she cooed instead. “I’m sorry I disappointed you so much. But the world’s funny that way. There are all sorts of people who pretend to be something they’re not and then turn around and spin something else.”
He just blinked hard at her, looking warily at her. “I have no idea what you’re implying, Penelo.”
And if this hadn’t been happening to her, she could have laughed and laugh. “Not even in Jahara?” she said, her fingers already curling up.
Strangely, Larsa just flinched at that, as though she had reached out to strike him again, instead of keeping her hands folded around her back in an effort to hide the stupid way they trembled. But he spoke instead and when he spoke, it sounded as though he was trying to hide as well.
“I… I suppose I’ve might know of what you speak of. In Jahara, when the Lady Ashe and I were speaking of the future… In Jahara, we spoke of what could happen within the empire before I ascended and what… what another man might do to Rabanastre in the time to come--”
He spoke as though he thought this was something she should know about, as though she should truly care about it either. But she didn’t, she really didn’t-- not about his words, not about his worlds-- maybe not even about him anymore either.
“In Jahara,” she said, and her voice ran high at the name. “In Jahara, where you met Ashe and decided you wanted me enough to bribe her.”
“What?” Larsa interrupted, his own voice pitching up. “My lady, what could you mean--”
“In Jahara,“ she continued and her hands kept shaking. But she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop for anything in the world. “In Jahara, when you just swooped into my life and decided that you could use me. That because I was pretty and because I owed you, you could take whatever you wanted from me for your own Empire. In Jahara, where you met up with Ashe and bought me. Where you found you wanted to-- to--”
The shock on Larsa’s face that came afterwards left her perversely pleased. And if she had really had been a good person, a kind person-- hell, even a decent person, she could have stopped right there.
But she wanted to hurt him now, hurt him badly, dig into him and leave behind something that would make him scar the way she felt like she was already doing. And so she measured out her words and continued on.
“You really aren’t just a boy now, are you? It doesn’t matter how old you are, you think enough like a man to act like one already. And it doesn’t matter how much of a prince you think you’re being. In the end, you’re just like everyone else. You just want what all the other men in my life seem to want from me as well.”
“I can’t believe,” Larsa said at last, and his voice was a shaky, birdish thing. “I can’t believe you could ever truly see me as capable of doing such a caddish thing. I can't believe you could think my feelings so perverse and my affections as springing from so base a foundation.”
Funny how the urge to keep laughing kept coming and going. Funny enough for her sides to hurt. “Well, feel free to believe just that, darling. You broke it, you bought it, you own it, you got it. You wanted me and now I’m yours and yours alone.”
Seemingly despite himself, Larsa's cheeks pinked at that. But when he spoke, his voice still sounded hurt. “I don’t even know what set this off on you, Penelo. I thought you would be pleased by all the arrangements I made for you. But not to worry. In only two more days-- one even-- we’ll be heading towards Mount Bur Omisace. And once we are there, you shall see--”
He didn’t get it. He still didn’t get it. He just couldn’t see--
“Well, how the hell did you figure that one out?” she asked, and her voice was rising to something like a scream. “Was it when I told you I didn’t really think of you as husband material? Or where I told you I wanted more time to think this over? Or even when I told you that we were just friends?!”
"I took all that into consideration," he said quietly. "And after we are married, I will think of that even more."
His eyes were on her but his jaw was clenched and his hands were demurely folded and somehow, Penelo knew he still wasn’t looking at her clearly.
“What can I do to make it more clear, Larsa?” she asked one last time. “Strip off all my clothes and paint “I DON’T LIKE YOU THAT WAY” all over my tits? Is that the one part of me you‘re actually interested in seeing now?”
At least he was reacting now, reacting with something other than the aristocratic-calm-in-front-of-peasant-rebellion act that he seemed to have mastered already. “No,” he snapped, bottom lip already curling up. “None of that should be necessary to make your point. I don’t need to witness anything that… philistine from you now.”
“Then,” she said, and she was finally laughing in between her words. “Then you really should have thought some more about this ‘getting engaged to the gutter punk’ thing, Larsa. Because you’ll eventually be seeing a whole lot more of me soon!”
And now he sounded exasperated. “ I know that perfectly well, Penelo. That is why I wanted to marry you!”
“But," she continued, and she was still gasping and half-laughing, “ I’m somehow still supposed to think you were thinking with the head on top of your shoulders, not the smaller one down below?” (At least he had the decency to flinch at that.) “And that it didn’t mean anything at all when Ashe told me she couldn’t delay marrying me off because you wanted me so goddamn desperately--”
And his eyes snapped to hers at that and finally, finally, he was looking at her directly.
“Wait a moment,” he said, and he sounded so much like what Penelo had heard of his brother that it was almost eerie. “Pushing past your… your overacted hysterics, is that what you were doing when you met with Lady Ashe previously? Trying to delay our marriage-- if not negate it completely?”
“Seriously,” Penelo replied, and felt utterly dumbfounded again. “Is this honestly surprising you? Are you planning on being amazed the next time I point out that the sky is blue, the trees are pretty and you‘re still about six inches and sixty pounds from being someone I'd jump into bed with anytime soon?”
He flinched but wouldn’t stop going. “You wanted to do more than merely give us more time to enjoy ourselves in Rabanastre.”
And suddenly, the breath felt like it was being stolen from her lungs. “Because we’re having a barrel of goddamn laughs right now?”
“You were trying to manipulate Lady Ashe just as much as I was.” His voice sounded flat and drained of all color. Like his brother’s younger copy, aged before his time.
And she wasn’t nervous, she wasn’t, she couldn’t. “…And? So what if I was? You’re the one who started the whole thing!”
“And you…” Larsa almost looked as though he was about to start laughing. “You prolonged it further for your own benefits. Or tried to, anyway. You approached Lady Ashe on your own in order to try and enact your own schemes, didn’t you? You said you didn’t want me there in case there was an altercation but in reality…”
And she couldn’t be afraid of him; she felt much too angry. “Shut up, Larsa! Just… shut up. I don’t want to hear any more. I don't even want to talk to you right now!”
“You are just as manipulative as I am, Penelo,” he whispered, and suddenly his voice was almost too near her ears, so soft and so unnervingly close. “You would like to believe yourself something different, something so much more moral and so unsuited to the political life… but I don’t know that I believe that myself. You are not so very different than I, no matter what it is that you like to pretend to b--”
And he probably would have gone on to say more but the way the palm of her hand connected against his cheek-- hard enough to make him stagger, to send him sprawling upon her bed completely-- cut him off quite efficiently.
“Don’t you dare--” And her voice was a sprawling and uncontrolled thing. “Don’t ever say anything like that to me!”
And he was holding his hand against his cheek, looking hurt and scared and nervous and angry... he was just a child, just a boy, and he didn’t deserve this sort of thing, no matter what he did to those around him...
And she should apologize but she didn’t have the breath for it, the apology or the humility. She needed to keep speaking, to justify herself. She wasn't what he thought she was. She didn't fit into his world at all, no matter what he might think.
“I’m not you. I’m nothing like you! I wouldn’t have done anything that you did here! I wouldn’t have just strolled into someone's life and pretended I knew someone enough to decide to rearrange everything. I wouldn’t have changed their entire world on a whim. I would have asked them first. I’m not you and I’m not planning to be either!”
“Oh?” Larsa interrupted, and if he was a child, he didn’t sound like one then, no matter how pitiful a shape he made currently. “You wouldn’t have tried to influence someone’s life like I did? Just as you asked me first before you went to Lady Ashe to find a way to apparently dissolve our union before it had even begun?”
Her words caught in her throat at that; still holding his hand to his face but now rising, Larsa’s voice continued with her still caught completely.
“Just as--” And he looked so goddamn upset-- “You would now have me relinquish you without even giving me room to speak?”
She forced her voice low, forced her hands behind her back again in case they betrayed her once more. “I’m capable of making guess, Larsa. I’m not nearly as stupid as you think. You want me because… because we met in Bhujerba and you thought I was pretty and you knew Ashe would come to know me and you wanted peace for Archadia and you thought you could control me. It’s just a crush, Larsa. And you can’t do this in the mean-time. There are other girls you’ll like eventually and other ways to find peace than just--”
“You still--” And his face twisted up with something like anger. “You still don’t understand the real reason for any of this.”
Well, there went her attempt at calm. “Well, you never asked me about mine either!”
“I was thinking of the benefits that marrying me would hold for you!” he shouted. “No more having to scrape up a living. No more having to worry about making ends meet. No more having to ever bow down to anyone beneath you…”
Amazing, how his voice could go from sounding so upset to so conciliatory, even seductive, in just another second. Amazing-- but she wasn’t going to be fooled for a single second here.
“No more having to make any decisions for myself,” she replied grimly. “No more having to live my own life. No more having to see my own friends. No more learning to be an independent person or dreaming any of my own dreams.”
Larsa’s eyes narrowed. “I am doing my best to be kind to you, Penelo. Why must you make this such a difficult thing?”
“Do you...“ And her hands kept shaking, goddamnit, shaking. “…Do you really think just because you’re not torturing me or locking me up, you can’t possibly hurt me?”
There was a long silence after that, a long moment where Penelo could not trust herself to even open her eyes, lest she embarrass herself hideously. But when she looked up, Larsa's head was lowered and she could not see his face for his hair but the hands in his lap were shaking.
“I was...” Even his voice seemed to tremble. “I wasn’t trying to do that. I wanted to help you. I wanted to be good to you. I didn’t mean…”
And she closed her eyes again and let him explain. She wanted to know-- she needed to know-- what was going on here.
“All my life,” Larsa began, and his voice still sounded lost and weak. “All my life, this is what I was taught to do. If I found something I truly wanted, something my empire truly needed, I was meant to conquer it completely. This is what my family and my mother country would have me do-- would command me to. I am not the second-in-line to the throne of Archadia merely because I’m my father’s son, Penelo. I’m second because I know how to do what I’ve done now. I merely won here because I knew how to do it better than you.”
“Tell me you’re not proud,” she said, quietly, in the silence that came afterwards. “Tell me you’re at least not happy about what you’re doing to me.”
“I’m not proud,” he whispered, and she had to bite her lip to keep her eyes closed. She didn’t need to see him to understand his voice. “I’m merely doing what I was always meant to here.”
“Taking advantage of innocent people?”
“That’s half the definition of a political rule,” Larsa replied, and beyond the hurt on the surface of his voice, there was something darker and harder still.
She had to put her hands in front of her face, never mind the trembling. “That doesn’t meant it should be.”
“But it is,” he whispered. “It always has been. And if you think my life has been somehow charmed merely because I am the son of an emperor, you don’t know how very wrong you are. If you don’t think I haven’t suffered too...”
And now her hands were falling from her face and her eyes were snapping open and her voice was rising.
“Oh yeah, fat lot of suffering you must have done living in a palace all your life, Larsa! I’m sure you must have suffered a lot after foreign troops came and took over your city and killed off all your family. I’m sure it must have been really awful for you to live as an orphan in a conquered city, not sure if you could keep a roof over your head or take care of your friends or even get enough to eat. And the worst thing must have been even thinking of eventually standing on a street corner if you couldn‘t find any other work, hoping you’d be pretty enough and old enough for someone to use as a gil-girl-- or, even more, hoping you wouldn’t be! Oh, you probably suffered a great deal because of your own country.”
“I know I haven't!” Larsa shouted, and his voice sounded just as foreign as it ought to be. “I haven't suffered nearly as much as you. And I’m sorry for it all, I truly am. I am trying to make amends for all that now.”
“How?!” She shouted back. “By forcing me to marry you?”
And he was climbing back on his feet now, shaky though he had been, and Penelo was reminded once more that he wasn’t of her kind, he wasn’t of her sort-- he was an aristocrat, he was a blue-blood-- he was a prince of half the known world. He was the son of an emperor and the brother of a conqueror and if she hadn’t been feeling out of her element already, he was certainly demonstrating why she should.
“By incorporating the spilled blood of common Dalmasca into the Solidor family line,” he murmured, and his voice was sweet and throaty and taut. “By proving that the reign I will institute in the future will be a different one for us all. By showing the world that Archadia will no longer participate in such terrible atrocities, not for all the power imaginable. By proving that the two of us-- that we can create a better world, one where such conflicts will forever cease!”
She didn’t know how to respond to that; she didn’t even known if she was expected to do so.
And if the look on Larsa’s face meant anything as he came forward meant anything, perhaps she didn't want to either.
“By making the future a far better place than the past we will discard forever. The two of us, Penelo… we can change the world. We can change the future. We can recreate everything before us… if only you could give me the leave.”
She almost wished she could just backhand him again and have this over and done with. “I… I don’t…”
“It has to be of your choice,” he whispered, and somehow, without her realizing it, had claimed her hand once more. “Of you and you alone. The Lady Ashe would never consent to let her blood flow within the confines of a foreign power, to be potentially misused in the future. And of course I had to act on this in my own initiative. Even my own guardians would never give me leave to act in this manner, even to secure a throne.”
“ …Why?” She whispered, still lost. “Why wouldn’t they want you to find peace for us all?”
“Too many of them are still content to live in a past where Archadia holds reign over everything, unwilling to see that such a singular future will be our doom in the making. Did Lady Ashe tell you that I was acting as a free agent in this matter of arranging a marital tie and a treaty?”
Penelo bit her lip so hard it nearly bled. “She did. She told me a lot. Especially that you were the one planning everything all along.”
Larsa took a quick breath. “I was. You still appear angry.”
Her mouth twisted despite herself. “You don’t think I have the right to be, despite the way you‘ve been jerking me around on a wild goose chase? Trying to find someone to talk to so this whole thing could have gone away?”
He laughed in a hollow sort of way. “The only one who could possibly do that now is my brother, since even my father has taken to giving me leave to manage what I must. He knows I must garner some experience for what is to come.”
Despite herself, Penelo shuddered. “I don’t think I’m ready to have an audience with your brother anytime soon, Larsa.”
His voice softened. “No. No one truly can be. And I haven’t been trying to ‘jerk you around,’ Penelo-- merely establish my own independence. I’ve long since broken away from the desires of my guardians and family. If I were to follow their way, I wouldn’t even be helping Dalmasca find sovereignty again. If anything, I’d merely be delaying the war against Rozarria and allowing future carnage to reign freely.”
She took her hand back from him quietly, Larsa reluctantly letting her go. “Oh. I… oh. I… I guess I understand where you’re coming from.”
When he spoke next, his voice sounded angry, though she had to admit she didn’t know if it was more because of her words or the way she had withdrawn. “No, Penelo. I don’t think you do. Admit it-- you still think I suffer not in these circumstances, do you?”
But whatever it was, there was little else who could have said that would have made her angrier. “Well, I’m sorry you’re going through so much, Larsa. But it’s not like you lost anybody in this war!”
When his mouth jerked around like that, she knew enough to know she’d scored a hit. But when his eyes jerked back to her face, she also knew enough to be ashamed of herself.
“Oh, not yet, I haven’t. At least, I haven’t if you overlook the matter of my two eldest brothers who were slaughtered in wars before. Or my mother, who died mysteriously in her bed, hours after giving birth to me. Or my father, who shall likely keel over from his illness in the next few years, leaving his station for a potential civil war. Or my last lord brother, who my most ardent supporters wish to eliminate from the bloodline completely. But other than that, why no, I haven’t been touched by any family tragedies at all.”
If he had stopped there, it would have been enough to make Penelo blush, stutter, ask him to forgive her after all. But he continued on, his voice winding higher and slower, quicker and faster, as though trying to force understanding into her.
“And it isn’t as though I face a life I do not wish to lead either. It isn’t as though I shall soon be placed on a throne because of an accident of fate and, once there, be forced to marry some noble blooded woman who I know nothing of, want nothing to do with but who has nonetheless been plucked out of obscurity for me.”
Her lips parted at that but she couldn’t even think of what words to say, how to whisper she hadn’t even thought of that, of how-- how horrible--
“And it isn’t as though I ever saw any other alternatives to this cycle of royalty, to this endless and station of being a noble. It isn't as though I ever met another girl in my first real journey away from home... a girl who made me think that perhaps I didn’t have to resign myself completely to a life I didn’t want to live, to a fate I didn’t want to wield.”
And there was nothing to say, what could she say, except that he had to be wrong--
“And it isn’t as though I could possibly be old enough to love a woman in full... even if many believe me capable of ruling the greatest empire in the world.”
And her eyes closed and she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t act at all--
“And if isn’t as though you ever thought to ask me not only if but why I love you.”
And there was a silence in the space of a few dozen heart-beats, a silence uncontaminated by words. And in the silence she could hear Larsa rise and pause, his fingers fiddling first with the rough edges of his borrowed clothes before they reached out towards her. And now he was touching her again, in the soft, uncertain way he had played with her hair earlier even before she had awoke. He touched her with the care a blind man would have, like a child who had forgotten how to care for someone or who had never properly learned. He touched her as though she were something truly precious and she should turn away already--
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” he whispered, still shyly touching the unruly curls around her face, the soft curves of her cheeks. “I don't even care if you curse me or jeer me or eventually wish to leave me to myself. Merely… please don’t ask me to let go of either you or peace just yet. Don't force me give up on this hope of having you both.”
And then there was silence and the sound of his uncertain breath in that space, as though he was trembling and trying to stop himself and unable to help it either. And then his fingers lightly came up to frame his face and she could hear him go on the edges of his feet, his lips brushing against the tip of her nose…
“Please don't tell me this is forbidden. Please don't tell me that I’ve no hope--”
"Stop," Penelo whispered, and it wasn't a statement or a plea but a promise, one born of the magic in her veins, of the power upon her lips. And even before the spell took ahold of Larsa fully, she was turning and running, the force still at the tips of her fingers tingling but unable to contend with her hopes and fears.
---
Author‘s Note: So… does everyone feel this is enough of an explanation of Larsa‘s motivations? Does him wanting to get married right now to a girl he barely knows-- despite how clearly awful an idea it is-- make sense to you? Or should I perhaps think of penning a Larsa POV side-story? Please advise, dear readers!
This chapter of Knots was all of the above but especially the last. It didn’t matter how busy I am now-- this long-awaited chapter just leapt up in my mind and demanded it be written immediately. And in any case, this is for the wonderfully funny and insightful kilraaj, who really helped me a great deal with her discussion on the last chapter. I hope this distracts you as much as you need, dear heart. ♥
And as always… I know this time of the year is hellishly busy for us all but I’d really love, adore and cherish any reviews, comments and criticisms for this chapter. Every little discussion helps to motivate me for the next part of this, y’know? ;)
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 10
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo (...Somewhat), Ashe, Vayne, Cast
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Ashe asked Penelo to make a sacrifice for Dalmasca's sake, she had no idea that this was what her Queen had in mind...
---
From the last chapter:
His eyes were still shining when she threw her blankets aside to breach the single inch that their bodies were still separated by. His lips were still parting when Penelo brought herself closer. And his cheeks were flaming an even deeper shade of red when Penelo twisted her fingers into his shirt's coarse collar, pulling him close to her in a way only one other boy had ever been.
But as soon as she used her new-found leverage to lift Larsa off his feet and slam his entire body against the wall next to her bed, he didn't look quite so enchanted by what could come next. Fascinating, wasn’t it, how that worked?
"That depends," Penelo snarled, "on just how you plan to get lucky."
---
For a very long minute after her last words, all Penelo could do was clench her fingers against Larsa’s collar and take short, quick, shallow breaths, feeling completely unnerved at her own daring.
It had never been a secret, after all, that when she needed to be, she could turn violent easily. She’d known of how strong she could potentially be since the age of seven, when her brothers had taken her out on the plains of the Estersand and given Penelo her first weapon to take out her first ferocious little monster. Fighting and clawing, kicking and screaming-- she was more than capable of holding her own in the battle field when she needed to. Dalmasca wasn’t the sort of land to harbor many social niceties and even the most well bred woman around knew how to defend themselves, Ashe being a prime example.
But… but until now, she hadn’t known that she could do this to someone so much frailer than her, someone so young, even if he was so cunning. When she fought, she tended to fight against either unequivocally evil monsters or even worse terrors that were, to a man, almost always significantly bigger than she was. And Larsa just looked so small trapped beneath her, his still rounded face so shocked and still because of her actions, his ungloved hands clutching at the blankets beneath them both…
Oh god, she could hurt him so much right now. And she didn’t want to, not really. Not even if he deserved this and more.
But then Larsa took his own deep breath and began to speak and Penelo remembered just why she had thought it a dandy idea to assault the next ascending emperor of Archadia in the first place after all.
“Penelo,” Larsa whispered delicately beneath her grip, “are you doing this because you are already experiencing your ‘special time of the month’ and are in need of relief from the uterine cramping that you might be undergoing now?”
Despite her own past thoughts, she let out a sound like a tea kettle angered to the point of madness. And wincing visibly but looking far less scared than he really should, Larsa went smoothly. “Because if you are, I understand all too well. Even Drace becomes a little… unnerving when it visits her. Trust that if this is the case, I shan’t blame you in the least. I have studied human anatomy in some detail in preparation for this, you must realize. And just the pain from the shedding of the endometrium lining alone…
“Although,” he added after a minute, cheeks flushing again when Penelo’s death-grip on him didn’t relax in the least, “I really would appreciate it if you could release me. Although… I mean… although if you really wanted, I suppose perhaps we…”
That did the trick, as he had probably known it would. Shuddering, she let go of him and scrambled off her bed altogether, her skin already crawling. Knowing her luck, the runty little jerk probably thought she was overcome by passion or something equally disgusting. Ugh. She’d much rather go romp around with the overgrown lizard on the Westersand than think about doing that anytime within the next decade, if ever.
But unfortunately, if the bright, mellow voice floating through her room was any indication, she wasn’t going to be given a choice in the matter. “So if you have your flow after all, I suppose you wouldn‘t want to contend with any more vigorous activity for the next five days or so?”
He sounded, terrifyingly enough, more disappointed than anything else, as though he had honestly thought that his every square inch of pasty, under-developed flesh was enough to make her cheer at the thought of going dancing again. And on top of every other miserable minute she’d spent since she’d met him-- being knocked around by the judges of his empire, being jerked to and fro because of his schemes, having her life completely tossed upside down because of his absolutely insane ideas of how to go about wooing someone-- this served as the summon that finally broke the esper‘s back.
“No,” Penelo said, and could barely recognize the voice echoing in her ears. “No, I don’t. And don’t tell me you can’t figure out a reason why, more than anything else, I’d much rather strangle you than do any thing else.”
For a minute, there was only a shocked stillness behind her, a sudden suspension of noise, a sound like the wind whimpering. But in another, Larsa had darted before her, with that same surprising speed he had shown before, his eyes alight on her face.
“Penelo,” he said, and he sounded heartbreakingly young. “Forgive me for not understanding. Are you by any chance upset with me as of now?”
The question was so absurd that, for a minute, Penelo was afraid she might have started laughing. But that passed quickly and after she found she was still gasping half-heartedly for air instead, she found her voice again. “I don’t know, Larsa,” she said, her voice jerking despite herself. “I don’t think I know anything anymore. Why don’t you tell me what you think's going on?”
Larsa’s eyes narrowed, a delicate contracting of his lids that made Penelo’s jaw clench even more. “You are acting most indiscreetly, my lady. Grasping at me, looking at me that way, telling me these things and… and why are you acting this way? Is something the matter other than your cycle? I mean, I have never seen you…”
This stung. She didn‘t know why it did but it did. “Never seen me what?” she snapped, almost before she could control her speech. “Try not to have a break-down in front of a twelve year old twerp?”
And that seemed to have stung him, if the slight moue curling up his lips meant anything. “I meant I have never seen you acting so childishly before. I never even knew you had within you that capacity.”
Oh God. The twelve year old that wanted to marry her thought she was the one acting childishly. It felt almost like a farce but she didn't feel up to laughing much.
“Oh dear,” she cooed instead. “I’m sorry I disappointed you so much. But the world’s funny that way. There are all sorts of people who pretend to be something they’re not and then turn around and spin something else.”
He just blinked hard at her, looking warily at her. “I have no idea what you’re implying, Penelo.”
And if this hadn’t been happening to her, she could have laughed and laugh. “Not even in Jahara?” she said, her fingers already curling up.
Strangely, Larsa just flinched at that, as though she had reached out to strike him again, instead of keeping her hands folded around her back in an effort to hide the stupid way they trembled. But he spoke instead and when he spoke, it sounded as though he was trying to hide as well.
“I… I suppose I’ve might know of what you speak of. In Jahara, when the Lady Ashe and I were speaking of the future… In Jahara, we spoke of what could happen within the empire before I ascended and what… what another man might do to Rabanastre in the time to come--”
He spoke as though he thought this was something she should know about, as though she should truly care about it either. But she didn’t, she really didn’t-- not about his words, not about his worlds-- maybe not even about him anymore either.
“In Jahara,” she said, and her voice ran high at the name. “In Jahara, where you met Ashe and decided you wanted me enough to bribe her.”
“What?” Larsa interrupted, his own voice pitching up. “My lady, what could you mean--”
“In Jahara,“ she continued and her hands kept shaking. But she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop for anything in the world. “In Jahara, when you just swooped into my life and decided that you could use me. That because I was pretty and because I owed you, you could take whatever you wanted from me for your own Empire. In Jahara, where you met up with Ashe and bought me. Where you found you wanted to-- to--”
The shock on Larsa’s face that came afterwards left her perversely pleased. And if she had really had been a good person, a kind person-- hell, even a decent person, she could have stopped right there.
But she wanted to hurt him now, hurt him badly, dig into him and leave behind something that would make him scar the way she felt like she was already doing. And so she measured out her words and continued on.
“You really aren’t just a boy now, are you? It doesn’t matter how old you are, you think enough like a man to act like one already. And it doesn’t matter how much of a prince you think you’re being. In the end, you’re just like everyone else. You just want what all the other men in my life seem to want from me as well.”
“I can’t believe,” Larsa said at last, and his voice was a shaky, birdish thing. “I can’t believe you could ever truly see me as capable of doing such a caddish thing. I can't believe you could think my feelings so perverse and my affections as springing from so base a foundation.”
Funny how the urge to keep laughing kept coming and going. Funny enough for her sides to hurt. “Well, feel free to believe just that, darling. You broke it, you bought it, you own it, you got it. You wanted me and now I’m yours and yours alone.”
Seemingly despite himself, Larsa's cheeks pinked at that. But when he spoke, his voice still sounded hurt. “I don’t even know what set this off on you, Penelo. I thought you would be pleased by all the arrangements I made for you. But not to worry. In only two more days-- one even-- we’ll be heading towards Mount Bur Omisace. And once we are there, you shall see--”
He didn’t get it. He still didn’t get it. He just couldn’t see--
“Well, how the hell did you figure that one out?” she asked, and her voice was rising to something like a scream. “Was it when I told you I didn’t really think of you as husband material? Or where I told you I wanted more time to think this over? Or even when I told you that we were just friends?!”
"I took all that into consideration," he said quietly. "And after we are married, I will think of that even more."
His eyes were on her but his jaw was clenched and his hands were demurely folded and somehow, Penelo knew he still wasn’t looking at her clearly.
“What can I do to make it more clear, Larsa?” she asked one last time. “Strip off all my clothes and paint “I DON’T LIKE YOU THAT WAY” all over my tits? Is that the one part of me you‘re actually interested in seeing now?”
At least he was reacting now, reacting with something other than the aristocratic-calm-in-front-of-peasant-rebellion act that he seemed to have mastered already. “No,” he snapped, bottom lip already curling up. “None of that should be necessary to make your point. I don’t need to witness anything that… philistine from you now.”
“Then,” she said, and she was finally laughing in between her words. “Then you really should have thought some more about this ‘getting engaged to the gutter punk’ thing, Larsa. Because you’ll eventually be seeing a whole lot more of me soon!”
And now he sounded exasperated. “ I know that perfectly well, Penelo. That is why I wanted to marry you!”
“But," she continued, and she was still gasping and half-laughing, “ I’m somehow still supposed to think you were thinking with the head on top of your shoulders, not the smaller one down below?” (At least he had the decency to flinch at that.) “And that it didn’t mean anything at all when Ashe told me she couldn’t delay marrying me off because you wanted me so goddamn desperately--”
And his eyes snapped to hers at that and finally, finally, he was looking at her directly.
“Wait a moment,” he said, and he sounded so much like what Penelo had heard of his brother that it was almost eerie. “Pushing past your… your overacted hysterics, is that what you were doing when you met with Lady Ashe previously? Trying to delay our marriage-- if not negate it completely?”
“Seriously,” Penelo replied, and felt utterly dumbfounded again. “Is this honestly surprising you? Are you planning on being amazed the next time I point out that the sky is blue, the trees are pretty and you‘re still about six inches and sixty pounds from being someone I'd jump into bed with anytime soon?”
He flinched but wouldn’t stop going. “You wanted to do more than merely give us more time to enjoy ourselves in Rabanastre.”
And suddenly, the breath felt like it was being stolen from her lungs. “Because we’re having a barrel of goddamn laughs right now?”
“You were trying to manipulate Lady Ashe just as much as I was.” His voice sounded flat and drained of all color. Like his brother’s younger copy, aged before his time.
And she wasn’t nervous, she wasn’t, she couldn’t. “…And? So what if I was? You’re the one who started the whole thing!”
“And you…” Larsa almost looked as though he was about to start laughing. “You prolonged it further for your own benefits. Or tried to, anyway. You approached Lady Ashe on your own in order to try and enact your own schemes, didn’t you? You said you didn’t want me there in case there was an altercation but in reality…”
And she couldn’t be afraid of him; she felt much too angry. “Shut up, Larsa! Just… shut up. I don’t want to hear any more. I don't even want to talk to you right now!”
“You are just as manipulative as I am, Penelo,” he whispered, and suddenly his voice was almost too near her ears, so soft and so unnervingly close. “You would like to believe yourself something different, something so much more moral and so unsuited to the political life… but I don’t know that I believe that myself. You are not so very different than I, no matter what it is that you like to pretend to b--”
And he probably would have gone on to say more but the way the palm of her hand connected against his cheek-- hard enough to make him stagger, to send him sprawling upon her bed completely-- cut him off quite efficiently.
“Don’t you dare--” And her voice was a sprawling and uncontrolled thing. “Don’t ever say anything like that to me!”
And he was holding his hand against his cheek, looking hurt and scared and nervous and angry... he was just a child, just a boy, and he didn’t deserve this sort of thing, no matter what he did to those around him...
And she should apologize but she didn’t have the breath for it, the apology or the humility. She needed to keep speaking, to justify herself. She wasn't what he thought she was. She didn't fit into his world at all, no matter what he might think.
“I’m not you. I’m nothing like you! I wouldn’t have done anything that you did here! I wouldn’t have just strolled into someone's life and pretended I knew someone enough to decide to rearrange everything. I wouldn’t have changed their entire world on a whim. I would have asked them first. I’m not you and I’m not planning to be either!”
“Oh?” Larsa interrupted, and if he was a child, he didn’t sound like one then, no matter how pitiful a shape he made currently. “You wouldn’t have tried to influence someone’s life like I did? Just as you asked me first before you went to Lady Ashe to find a way to apparently dissolve our union before it had even begun?”
Her words caught in her throat at that; still holding his hand to his face but now rising, Larsa’s voice continued with her still caught completely.
“Just as--” And he looked so goddamn upset-- “You would now have me relinquish you without even giving me room to speak?”
She forced her voice low, forced her hands behind her back again in case they betrayed her once more. “I’m capable of making guess, Larsa. I’m not nearly as stupid as you think. You want me because… because we met in Bhujerba and you thought I was pretty and you knew Ashe would come to know me and you wanted peace for Archadia and you thought you could control me. It’s just a crush, Larsa. And you can’t do this in the mean-time. There are other girls you’ll like eventually and other ways to find peace than just--”
“You still--” And his face twisted up with something like anger. “You still don’t understand the real reason for any of this.”
Well, there went her attempt at calm. “Well, you never asked me about mine either!”
“I was thinking of the benefits that marrying me would hold for you!” he shouted. “No more having to scrape up a living. No more having to worry about making ends meet. No more having to ever bow down to anyone beneath you…”
Amazing, how his voice could go from sounding so upset to so conciliatory, even seductive, in just another second. Amazing-- but she wasn’t going to be fooled for a single second here.
“No more having to make any decisions for myself,” she replied grimly. “No more having to live my own life. No more having to see my own friends. No more learning to be an independent person or dreaming any of my own dreams.”
Larsa’s eyes narrowed. “I am doing my best to be kind to you, Penelo. Why must you make this such a difficult thing?”
“Do you...“ And her hands kept shaking, goddamnit, shaking. “…Do you really think just because you’re not torturing me or locking me up, you can’t possibly hurt me?”
There was a long silence after that, a long moment where Penelo could not trust herself to even open her eyes, lest she embarrass herself hideously. But when she looked up, Larsa's head was lowered and she could not see his face for his hair but the hands in his lap were shaking.
“I was...” Even his voice seemed to tremble. “I wasn’t trying to do that. I wanted to help you. I wanted to be good to you. I didn’t mean…”
And she closed her eyes again and let him explain. She wanted to know-- she needed to know-- what was going on here.
“All my life,” Larsa began, and his voice still sounded lost and weak. “All my life, this is what I was taught to do. If I found something I truly wanted, something my empire truly needed, I was meant to conquer it completely. This is what my family and my mother country would have me do-- would command me to. I am not the second-in-line to the throne of Archadia merely because I’m my father’s son, Penelo. I’m second because I know how to do what I’ve done now. I merely won here because I knew how to do it better than you.”
“Tell me you’re not proud,” she said, quietly, in the silence that came afterwards. “Tell me you’re at least not happy about what you’re doing to me.”
“I’m not proud,” he whispered, and she had to bite her lip to keep her eyes closed. She didn’t need to see him to understand his voice. “I’m merely doing what I was always meant to here.”
“Taking advantage of innocent people?”
“That’s half the definition of a political rule,” Larsa replied, and beyond the hurt on the surface of his voice, there was something darker and harder still.
She had to put her hands in front of her face, never mind the trembling. “That doesn’t meant it should be.”
“But it is,” he whispered. “It always has been. And if you think my life has been somehow charmed merely because I am the son of an emperor, you don’t know how very wrong you are. If you don’t think I haven’t suffered too...”
And now her hands were falling from her face and her eyes were snapping open and her voice was rising.
“Oh yeah, fat lot of suffering you must have done living in a palace all your life, Larsa! I’m sure you must have suffered a lot after foreign troops came and took over your city and killed off all your family. I’m sure it must have been really awful for you to live as an orphan in a conquered city, not sure if you could keep a roof over your head or take care of your friends or even get enough to eat. And the worst thing must have been even thinking of eventually standing on a street corner if you couldn‘t find any other work, hoping you’d be pretty enough and old enough for someone to use as a gil-girl-- or, even more, hoping you wouldn’t be! Oh, you probably suffered a great deal because of your own country.”
“I know I haven't!” Larsa shouted, and his voice sounded just as foreign as it ought to be. “I haven't suffered nearly as much as you. And I’m sorry for it all, I truly am. I am trying to make amends for all that now.”
“How?!” She shouted back. “By forcing me to marry you?”
And he was climbing back on his feet now, shaky though he had been, and Penelo was reminded once more that he wasn’t of her kind, he wasn’t of her sort-- he was an aristocrat, he was a blue-blood-- he was a prince of half the known world. He was the son of an emperor and the brother of a conqueror and if she hadn’t been feeling out of her element already, he was certainly demonstrating why she should.
“By incorporating the spilled blood of common Dalmasca into the Solidor family line,” he murmured, and his voice was sweet and throaty and taut. “By proving that the reign I will institute in the future will be a different one for us all. By showing the world that Archadia will no longer participate in such terrible atrocities, not for all the power imaginable. By proving that the two of us-- that we can create a better world, one where such conflicts will forever cease!”
She didn’t know how to respond to that; she didn’t even known if she was expected to do so.
And if the look on Larsa’s face meant anything as he came forward meant anything, perhaps she didn't want to either.
“By making the future a far better place than the past we will discard forever. The two of us, Penelo… we can change the world. We can change the future. We can recreate everything before us… if only you could give me the leave.”
She almost wished she could just backhand him again and have this over and done with. “I… I don’t…”
“It has to be of your choice,” he whispered, and somehow, without her realizing it, had claimed her hand once more. “Of you and you alone. The Lady Ashe would never consent to let her blood flow within the confines of a foreign power, to be potentially misused in the future. And of course I had to act on this in my own initiative. Even my own guardians would never give me leave to act in this manner, even to secure a throne.”
“ …Why?” She whispered, still lost. “Why wouldn’t they want you to find peace for us all?”
“Too many of them are still content to live in a past where Archadia holds reign over everything, unwilling to see that such a singular future will be our doom in the making. Did Lady Ashe tell you that I was acting as a free agent in this matter of arranging a marital tie and a treaty?”
Penelo bit her lip so hard it nearly bled. “She did. She told me a lot. Especially that you were the one planning everything all along.”
Larsa took a quick breath. “I was. You still appear angry.”
Her mouth twisted despite herself. “You don’t think I have the right to be, despite the way you‘ve been jerking me around on a wild goose chase? Trying to find someone to talk to so this whole thing could have gone away?”
He laughed in a hollow sort of way. “The only one who could possibly do that now is my brother, since even my father has taken to giving me leave to manage what I must. He knows I must garner some experience for what is to come.”
Despite herself, Penelo shuddered. “I don’t think I’m ready to have an audience with your brother anytime soon, Larsa.”
His voice softened. “No. No one truly can be. And I haven’t been trying to ‘jerk you around,’ Penelo-- merely establish my own independence. I’ve long since broken away from the desires of my guardians and family. If I were to follow their way, I wouldn’t even be helping Dalmasca find sovereignty again. If anything, I’d merely be delaying the war against Rozarria and allowing future carnage to reign freely.”
She took her hand back from him quietly, Larsa reluctantly letting her go. “Oh. I… oh. I… I guess I understand where you’re coming from.”
When he spoke next, his voice sounded angry, though she had to admit she didn’t know if it was more because of her words or the way she had withdrawn. “No, Penelo. I don’t think you do. Admit it-- you still think I suffer not in these circumstances, do you?”
But whatever it was, there was little else who could have said that would have made her angrier. “Well, I’m sorry you’re going through so much, Larsa. But it’s not like you lost anybody in this war!”
When his mouth jerked around like that, she knew enough to know she’d scored a hit. But when his eyes jerked back to her face, she also knew enough to be ashamed of herself.
“Oh, not yet, I haven’t. At least, I haven’t if you overlook the matter of my two eldest brothers who were slaughtered in wars before. Or my mother, who died mysteriously in her bed, hours after giving birth to me. Or my father, who shall likely keel over from his illness in the next few years, leaving his station for a potential civil war. Or my last lord brother, who my most ardent supporters wish to eliminate from the bloodline completely. But other than that, why no, I haven’t been touched by any family tragedies at all.”
If he had stopped there, it would have been enough to make Penelo blush, stutter, ask him to forgive her after all. But he continued on, his voice winding higher and slower, quicker and faster, as though trying to force understanding into her.
“And it isn’t as though I face a life I do not wish to lead either. It isn’t as though I shall soon be placed on a throne because of an accident of fate and, once there, be forced to marry some noble blooded woman who I know nothing of, want nothing to do with but who has nonetheless been plucked out of obscurity for me.”
Her lips parted at that but she couldn’t even think of what words to say, how to whisper she hadn’t even thought of that, of how-- how horrible--
“And it isn’t as though I ever saw any other alternatives to this cycle of royalty, to this endless and station of being a noble. It isn't as though I ever met another girl in my first real journey away from home... a girl who made me think that perhaps I didn’t have to resign myself completely to a life I didn’t want to live, to a fate I didn’t want to wield.”
And there was nothing to say, what could she say, except that he had to be wrong--
“And it isn’t as though I could possibly be old enough to love a woman in full... even if many believe me capable of ruling the greatest empire in the world.”
And her eyes closed and she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t act at all--
“And if isn’t as though you ever thought to ask me not only if but why I love you.”
And there was a silence in the space of a few dozen heart-beats, a silence uncontaminated by words. And in the silence she could hear Larsa rise and pause, his fingers fiddling first with the rough edges of his borrowed clothes before they reached out towards her. And now he was touching her again, in the soft, uncertain way he had played with her hair earlier even before she had awoke. He touched her with the care a blind man would have, like a child who had forgotten how to care for someone or who had never properly learned. He touched her as though she were something truly precious and she should turn away already--
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” he whispered, still shyly touching the unruly curls around her face, the soft curves of her cheeks. “I don't even care if you curse me or jeer me or eventually wish to leave me to myself. Merely… please don’t ask me to let go of either you or peace just yet. Don't force me give up on this hope of having you both.”
And then there was silence and the sound of his uncertain breath in that space, as though he was trembling and trying to stop himself and unable to help it either. And then his fingers lightly came up to frame his face and she could hear him go on the edges of his feet, his lips brushing against the tip of her nose…
“Please don't tell me this is forbidden. Please don't tell me that I’ve no hope--”
"Stop," Penelo whispered, and it wasn't a statement or a plea but a promise, one born of the magic in her veins, of the power upon her lips. And even before the spell took ahold of Larsa fully, she was turning and running, the force still at the tips of her fingers tingling but unable to contend with her hopes and fears.
---
Author‘s Note: So… does everyone feel this is enough of an explanation of Larsa‘s motivations? Does him wanting to get married right now to a girl he barely knows-- despite how clearly awful an idea it is-- make sense to you? Or should I perhaps think of penning a Larsa POV side-story? Please advise, dear readers!