FFXII Fic: But That Was In Another Country (Vayne/Drace, Gabranth)
Say, didn’t I just swear that I wouldn’t be putting up fic for quite a while...?
In any case, you know how fickle we psychology folk are. And here’s a short, five-drabble long exploration of just how an actual relationship between Vayne and Drace could play out that I’m using as a dress-rehearsal for a longer fic (tentatively titled “Judge Drace’s Last Repose”) I’m saving up for later. Questions, comments and discussion is, as always, much encouraged. I’m just kinda flailing into the ether while trying to do something radically different with these two characters and feedback would be much loved.
Title: But That Was In Another Country
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Characters/Pairings: Vayne/Drace, Gabranth
Rating: R
Summary: And besides, the wench is dead. Five short drabbles exploring a very hypothetical relationship between two very unlikely people.
Warnings: Contains slightly risqué sex talk. And character death-- but since this is about Drace and Vayne, that's probably a given.
*
1. Attraction
“Dear Sweet Holy Savior of an Esper,” Drace yelped at the first sight of her, armored hands clenching in something far too close to embarrassment. “You’re not really-- I mean, there is no possibility that you could be--”
But despite her own blinkered disbelief, all the girl before her did was look blank and remain disturbingly half-dressed. And in all fairness, Drace’s reaction really wasn‘t her fault-- if anything, Drace should have already realized that turning into a judge meant to directly serve the Imperial House proper would serve her with a new series of challenges to survey, vault and occasionally topple past.
But even still, she hadn't realized that managing half-dressed little girls that Solidors a sundry had likely tumbled as a lark was included in her list of duties. Which probably was just as well-- she likely would have had for more compensation still if she had known exactly what proclivities her new charges held.
“My God, girl, put your shirt back on. You've no business being in the royal harem so soon. Do you even menstruate yet?”
In the bare few seconds after she had spoken, she had expected tears or a tantrum as compensation. Hours later, after she would learn of what she accused the youngest son of the Emperor of Archadia of being, she'd be haunted by thoughts of being clapped off in chains to the dankest possible dungeon to which her paltry family name could descend. And in the end, she knew she had been more than lucky to have nothing more done to her besides having rather ribald stories of her inability to tell men apart from women circulate through the barracks.
(...Yet again).
But from their first meeting on, Drace had the dubious pleasure of learning that if there was one thing that Vayne Solidor was capable of, it was the feat of continually surprising those who stumbled onto his various plots.
And for the rest of her life, she would never stop marveling at the fact that his first reaction had been to laugh.
*
2. Romance
“But that was in another country,” Vayne smoothly explained, his mouth tilting in a way that never ceased to make her marvel. “And besides, the wench is dead.”
Somehow, despite herself, she found herself surprised into a grin and almost more impressed than she cared to admit. “An interesting attempt at wooing, my lord. But do you really think that merely explain away the lesser women in your life as sweetly as possible would be enough to muster up my interest?”
He tilted back in his chair, all gangly teenage limbs and still growing nose, characteristic Solidor languor not quite perfected though it already showed signs of being polished in the time to come, of growing more absorbing yet.
“I don’t see why not, my kind Judge Magister. Wielding a silver tongue hasn’t failed most of the other men of my line, after all.”
She had to laugh herself at this point, if only at the thought of some of the previous tongues that have wagged for or in her direction. "And yet, it hasn't helped any of them garner what you actually believe to be possible."
"Well then," he replied, and his smile looked very nearly beautific. "I suppose it shall all come down to whether I can muster up any other appreciable assets."
*
3. Passion
He asked her about it, years after their first meeting, his hands roughly clasping the back of her neck. "Precisely how long did it take you to realize that I was less a girl hired to entertain my noble house than a member with it?"
"Shamefully long," she replied, and languidly traced an unarmored toe against his equally bare calf. "It's just as well that I seem to be more of a school marm for your brother than spy for the Fifth Division."
And he traced his fingers along her body, watching her lashes flutter as his fingers lowered down to her ankle, to hook, snatch, snag. "Then perhaps you could do with another demonstration of how my anatomy is finally mature enough to be fully differentiated from that of the gentler sex?"
She narrowed her eyes just a little at the designation, if only to balance out the flush on her face that came from the calluses pressed against her flesh. "You don’t need to pretend towards superior age and wisdom, Vayne-- I don't exactly believe you've left your springtime of youth as of yet."
"Still, I am old enough, though," he murmured, and with infernal cleverness, traced his mouth along her inner thigh. "At least, enough to engage in this."
She arched an eyebrow up at him-- quite a trick when with his fingers playing along a rather treacherously slippery path. And it was a very good thing her features were mobile enough to do the talking for her-- she didn't know if her tongue was capable of flapping about when his own did the same so very well.
"Try to approach it from this angle," he suggested smugly once he finally resurfaced. "At least I'm finally wise enough to understand what that remark about menstruation actually meant."
*
4. Intimacy
She had thought she had known before all the guises that evil could enter as.
She’d been a soldier since she had been nineteen and had clawed her way up the ranks of the judges soon after that. She had faced her share of murderers and madmen and monsters and been wounded herself in the attempts. She had spent her years in the Akademy learning of what do in the face of violence and depravity, until she was capable only of flinching at what would make other humes wretch.
But until now, she hadn’t known that evil could wear so human a face, could be both caring and complicit, could be so gentle in the flesh.
“Look at me,” he was saying now. “Look deeply. You’ll find I am no different a man than who I was in the years that we‘ve already spent, in the years since the incidents happened.”
She had not spoken falsely when she had called herself sometimes ridiculously unobservant. And it really was just as well that she was more a scholar than a spy, more inclined to use a library than a magnifying glass.
In the end, it had taken almost four years for her to riddle out the fate of the first of the Solidor brothers, two of which had been spent in their murderer’s bed.
Evil wasn’t always absolute, she realized dully. But it could be irredeemable. Just enough to realize that the past was a country she was exiled from, one to which she could never go back.
"If I have sinned," he whispered-- not desperately, simply intently, he did not believe he could lose her, not really-- "It was out of duty and it was only for my country. It was only in regard to the past."
Not absolute, she knew, but still irredeemable.
"I did what I did for the sake of Archadia, Drace. I was justified in every act."
And irretrievable for all that.
*
5. Commitment
And when the time comes to finish it, it's somehow fitting that it is he who both orders and instigates it, his personal touch somehow suffusing every little detail of her end.
“We had a life together,” he says right after, his voice hollowed of
(because of? no, never that)
regret. “Even if you hate me. Even if you left me. Even you must give me that.”
"No," she whispered, knowing he meant it with the utmost sincerity, even as his noose had tightened about her neck. "Don't delude yourself. We never shared anything more than the dubious pleasure of a few years in bed. And for that--"
She pauses, groping for words, groping for what could hurt him the most, if he hasn't already devolved beyond affection.
"For that, my lord, please believe. For that, I am glad."
And his eyes never lifts from her even as Gabranth approaches, her newer lover the actor and her older one the director, precise and beautiful instruments in the tableau of her death.
*
Author's Note: A couple of assumptions I’m making about this version of Drace and Vayne:
1) If Penelo is spectacularly lucky, Drace is just the sort of woman she’ll grow up to be. If Larsa is spectacularly unlucky, Vayne is just the sort of man he’ll grow up to be.
Therefore, I can’t help but think that Vayne/Drace is more-or-less like Larsa/Penelo, only with more homicidal inclinations attached and a very dark ending involved. Any thoughts?
2) Monsters like Vayne are made, not born. And sometimes the slide from man to monster is so gradual that even the people who love them can’t quite pin-point just when it occurs.
3) As gleefully enjoyable as it is to write a Vayne that seems to operate more-or-less solely on the joy he receives from manipulating and mind-fucking history and those around him, writing him as someone with enough humanity to actually be loving and enough moral cruelty to drive away all he loves eventually is an even more interesting tight-rope to walk.
Hopefully that’s also interesting to read…?
In any case, you know how fickle we psychology folk are. And here’s a short, five-drabble long exploration of just how an actual relationship between Vayne and Drace could play out that I’m using as a dress-rehearsal for a longer fic (tentatively titled “Judge Drace’s Last Repose”) I’m saving up for later. Questions, comments and discussion is, as always, much encouraged. I’m just kinda flailing into the ether while trying to do something radically different with these two characters and feedback would be much loved.
Title: But That Was In Another Country
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Characters/Pairings: Vayne/Drace, Gabranth
Rating: R
Summary: And besides, the wench is dead. Five short drabbles exploring a very hypothetical relationship between two very unlikely people.
Warnings: Contains slightly risqué sex talk. And character death-- but since this is about Drace and Vayne, that's probably a given.
*
1. Attraction
“Dear Sweet Holy Savior of an Esper,” Drace yelped at the first sight of her, armored hands clenching in something far too close to embarrassment. “You’re not really-- I mean, there is no possibility that you could be--”
But despite her own blinkered disbelief, all the girl before her did was look blank and remain disturbingly half-dressed. And in all fairness, Drace’s reaction really wasn‘t her fault-- if anything, Drace should have already realized that turning into a judge meant to directly serve the Imperial House proper would serve her with a new series of challenges to survey, vault and occasionally topple past.
But even still, she hadn't realized that managing half-dressed little girls that Solidors a sundry had likely tumbled as a lark was included in her list of duties. Which probably was just as well-- she likely would have had for more compensation still if she had known exactly what proclivities her new charges held.
“My God, girl, put your shirt back on. You've no business being in the royal harem so soon. Do you even menstruate yet?”
In the bare few seconds after she had spoken, she had expected tears or a tantrum as compensation. Hours later, after she would learn of what she accused the youngest son of the Emperor of Archadia of being, she'd be haunted by thoughts of being clapped off in chains to the dankest possible dungeon to which her paltry family name could descend. And in the end, she knew she had been more than lucky to have nothing more done to her besides having rather ribald stories of her inability to tell men apart from women circulate through the barracks.
(...Yet again).
But from their first meeting on, Drace had the dubious pleasure of learning that if there was one thing that Vayne Solidor was capable of, it was the feat of continually surprising those who stumbled onto his various plots.
And for the rest of her life, she would never stop marveling at the fact that his first reaction had been to laugh.
*
2. Romance
“But that was in another country,” Vayne smoothly explained, his mouth tilting in a way that never ceased to make her marvel. “And besides, the wench is dead.”
Somehow, despite herself, she found herself surprised into a grin and almost more impressed than she cared to admit. “An interesting attempt at wooing, my lord. But do you really think that merely explain away the lesser women in your life as sweetly as possible would be enough to muster up my interest?”
He tilted back in his chair, all gangly teenage limbs and still growing nose, characteristic Solidor languor not quite perfected though it already showed signs of being polished in the time to come, of growing more absorbing yet.
“I don’t see why not, my kind Judge Magister. Wielding a silver tongue hasn’t failed most of the other men of my line, after all.”
She had to laugh herself at this point, if only at the thought of some of the previous tongues that have wagged for or in her direction. "And yet, it hasn't helped any of them garner what you actually believe to be possible."
"Well then," he replied, and his smile looked very nearly beautific. "I suppose it shall all come down to whether I can muster up any other appreciable assets."
*
3. Passion
He asked her about it, years after their first meeting, his hands roughly clasping the back of her neck. "Precisely how long did it take you to realize that I was less a girl hired to entertain my noble house than a member with it?"
"Shamefully long," she replied, and languidly traced an unarmored toe against his equally bare calf. "It's just as well that I seem to be more of a school marm for your brother than spy for the Fifth Division."
And he traced his fingers along her body, watching her lashes flutter as his fingers lowered down to her ankle, to hook, snatch, snag. "Then perhaps you could do with another demonstration of how my anatomy is finally mature enough to be fully differentiated from that of the gentler sex?"
She narrowed her eyes just a little at the designation, if only to balance out the flush on her face that came from the calluses pressed against her flesh. "You don’t need to pretend towards superior age and wisdom, Vayne-- I don't exactly believe you've left your springtime of youth as of yet."
"Still, I am old enough, though," he murmured, and with infernal cleverness, traced his mouth along her inner thigh. "At least, enough to engage in this."
She arched an eyebrow up at him-- quite a trick when with his fingers playing along a rather treacherously slippery path. And it was a very good thing her features were mobile enough to do the talking for her-- she didn't know if her tongue was capable of flapping about when his own did the same so very well.
"Try to approach it from this angle," he suggested smugly once he finally resurfaced. "At least I'm finally wise enough to understand what that remark about menstruation actually meant."
*
4. Intimacy
She had thought she had known before all the guises that evil could enter as.
She’d been a soldier since she had been nineteen and had clawed her way up the ranks of the judges soon after that. She had faced her share of murderers and madmen and monsters and been wounded herself in the attempts. She had spent her years in the Akademy learning of what do in the face of violence and depravity, until she was capable only of flinching at what would make other humes wretch.
But until now, she hadn’t known that evil could wear so human a face, could be both caring and complicit, could be so gentle in the flesh.
“Look at me,” he was saying now. “Look deeply. You’ll find I am no different a man than who I was in the years that we‘ve already spent, in the years since the incidents happened.”
She had not spoken falsely when she had called herself sometimes ridiculously unobservant. And it really was just as well that she was more a scholar than a spy, more inclined to use a library than a magnifying glass.
In the end, it had taken almost four years for her to riddle out the fate of the first of the Solidor brothers, two of which had been spent in their murderer’s bed.
Evil wasn’t always absolute, she realized dully. But it could be irredeemable. Just enough to realize that the past was a country she was exiled from, one to which she could never go back.
"If I have sinned," he whispered-- not desperately, simply intently, he did not believe he could lose her, not really-- "It was out of duty and it was only for my country. It was only in regard to the past."
Not absolute, she knew, but still irredeemable.
"I did what I did for the sake of Archadia, Drace. I was justified in every act."
And irretrievable for all that.
*
5. Commitment
And when the time comes to finish it, it's somehow fitting that it is he who both orders and instigates it, his personal touch somehow suffusing every little detail of her end.
“We had a life together,” he says right after, his voice hollowed of
(because of? no, never that)
regret. “Even if you hate me. Even if you left me. Even you must give me that.”
"No," she whispered, knowing he meant it with the utmost sincerity, even as his noose had tightened about her neck. "Don't delude yourself. We never shared anything more than the dubious pleasure of a few years in bed. And for that--"
She pauses, groping for words, groping for what could hurt him the most, if he hasn't already devolved beyond affection.
"For that, my lord, please believe. For that, I am glad."
And his eyes never lifts from her even as Gabranth approaches, her newer lover the actor and her older one the director, precise and beautiful instruments in the tableau of her death.
*
Author's Note: A couple of assumptions I’m making about this version of Drace and Vayne:
1) If Penelo is spectacularly lucky, Drace is just the sort of woman she’ll grow up to be. If Larsa is spectacularly unlucky, Vayne is just the sort of man he’ll grow up to be.
Therefore, I can’t help but think that Vayne/Drace is more-or-less like Larsa/Penelo, only with more homicidal inclinations attached and a very dark ending involved. Any thoughts?
2) Monsters like Vayne are made, not born. And sometimes the slide from man to monster is so gradual that even the people who love them can’t quite pin-point just when it occurs.
3) As gleefully enjoyable as it is to write a Vayne that seems to operate more-or-less solely on the joy he receives from manipulating and mind-fucking history and those around him, writing him as someone with enough humanity to actually be loving and enough moral cruelty to drive away all he loves eventually is an even more interesting tight-rope to walk.
Hopefully that’s also interesting to read…?