FFXII Fic: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 11 (Larsa/Penelo, Cast)
Finally, hallelujah and amen, I’m finished with this wretched chapter. It was endless, it was aggravating and I have bothered many, many fine folks in writing this; this was practically fic as written by committee! logistika_nyx, lady_venn, kilraaj, sarasa_cat, sheffiesharpe-- these are the principal people who kindly suffered my silly hang-wringing. And yet, the irony is that in the end, this chapter ended up completely shifting from what I think any of us expected which is... either delightful or maddening. Maybe both, really.
But in any case, I’m glad this speed-bump of a chapter is finally finished; annoying as it was to write (and I was while writing it!), it’s rather important to the series and, if nothing else, the fun can resume after this. And this is for adore184. Happy Valentines Day and (extremely belated) birthday, darling! ♥
As always, comments and criticism is love. I’ll (hopefully) be posting up the next chapter in a week or so and then probably shelving this series for a bit. (I want to go poke at Drace-fic some more. Never let it be said that I'm not one to kick a woman when she's down.) I figure the least I can do is write in a better cliff-hanger than this before I go. ;)
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 11
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, 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...
*
Penelo moved in auto-pilot at first, her body feeling just as mechanical to her as any of the airships that Vaan had ever wanted could be. She walked, she ran, she tumbled along-- and somehow, though she barely realized how, the ground beneath her feet gradually changed from cobble-stone to dirt, from brush to silt, until finally she was all but swaying at the yielding sand at her feet. She fought the entire way through, almost without knowing it, her axe migrating from her back to her hands and then back again without any apparent effort, striking down whatever moved before her without her needing to consciously realize what she was doing. And almost before she knew it, she found herself on a beach she had been too all too often before, miles away from where she had began and leagues away from where she wanted to be.
She was on a pretty stretch of beach along the Nebra river, she realized with a shuddering pulse at her throat. A beautiful stretch of beach bereft of anyone else, where there were too many memories lurking amidst the soft yellow sand and cool blue water and the palm leaves that swayed with the sea breeze.
Ulysse, she thought, and her numb fingers let go of the handle of the weapon in her hand, slowly but surely. Icari. Laerte. You used to take me here to train me to fight, to show me what to do if you couldn‘t come back from your wars, like you already knew what was coming. I used to walk here with all of you here, sand under my feet and hands tugging my hair and you never let me forget I was your little sister and I won’t, I can’t, I promise not to be…
For a minute, she thought she might still be successful, might still be able to imprint the memories she wanted over the ones she couldn’t stand anymore, the ones that only flooded her in the worst of her dreams. Counting to three and taking deep breaths, she closed her eyes and turned her mind away. Ulysse. Icari. Laerte. Ulysse, Icari, Laerte. Ulysse,-Icari-Laerte-- and if she just focused hard enough on them, recited their names faster--
Don't forget me either, something still whispered within her. Don’t forget who I was for you. Don't forget what I can still do to you. Don‘t think you can leave me behind for anything.
And she was sinking down without even knowing it, her legs feeling as limp as the sand beneath her, her knees like the reflection of knees within the blue waters, unused and unreal.
Don‘t, something insidious in her mind whispered. Don’t forget him, don’t rewrite the past, don’t think that just because he’s dead and gone, he can’t find ways of making you feel…
But she didn’t need any reminders of that, not from her mind or any other place. She already knew that the past had a way of digging into people, no matter how many barriers they put up between themselves and others, no matter how bright a face they could turn towards the world silently watching.
It was just as her father used to say. The past wasn’t dead. It wasn‘t even truly the past. It always found ways to slide into the present as well, if the way Larsa had looked at her right before she had run from him had meant anything.
Looking at the hope in Larsa’s eyes was just like seeing herself from just two years earlier. Fractured and ever the fool, thinking love was enough to make her happy.
She’d wanted someone once the way Larsa wanted her now, after all. She’d been young and small and straight-backed and stubborn, thinking that if only she held onto something long enough, argued for it hard enough, could only prove to be good enough, the person that she’d love would also just… just...
[You know why I have to do this. You know I can't stay here.]
Just topple into her arms eventually.
[But I'm sorry, Penelo, I really am.]
It had taken her years but she’d eventually learned already that if someone didn't love you, there was nothing you could do to make them change their mind. There was nothing else you could do to make them feel.
[I'm so goddamn sorry.]
But 12 was too young to learn that kind of lesson. Even she had been 14.
And she felt like a hunted animal crouching in the sand now, as though the very air around her were choking her with a thousand little indecisions materializing out of the desert wind, a thousand little ways the world around her was contracting and restricting.
Did Larsa feel this way sometimes? Did he turn also turn a false face towards the world out of sheer need? Even in the high sphere that he lived in, in that magical floating world where there was no need to worry about where you’d scrounge up your next meal or how you could scrape up extra gil from customers, was it possible to worry?
You still don’t understand the real reason for any of this, he had said, his voice tight and his eyes blurred. And had he been right when he had said told her such a thing?
What did she really know about him anyway? Fourth son of the Emperor of Archadia, spoiled and pampered prince who was clearly used to getting his way, conniving little aristocrat who thought that just because she was a peasant girl, she’d naturally topple over into his arms just because he beckoned with promises of wealth and a titling…
[I’m not proud-- I’m merely doing what I was always meant to here--]
No, no, she couldn’t let her anger get in the way here. She couldn‘t afford to make any more mistakes. He had said he was sorry and the least she could do was take that at face value-- and hope it wasn’t completely a lie. That was the only slender thread of hope she had in this god-awful Gordian knot of a situation here. That was the only thing that could lead her to save herself here.
That was probably the only thing that let her take a deep breath and try to think clearly. She had no hope of finding a way out of this if she couldn’t figure him out, understand his plans more, understand what he wanted her to do before she could-- she could--
God, she didn’t know what she could possibly do here. What could she even possibly hope to do? What could he be planning?
[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.]
All pretty words in a speech, of course-- until a person realized it meant leaving all the world they had ever known for a foreign place, a terrifying empire-- a strange, war-mongering land where the death of a father meant a battle for the throne and the madness of a brother meant a native war and where little boys who hadn‘t even grown into their voices could be set on the path to tyranny. And if she had loved Larsa the way he wanted her to love him, maybe she could have taken that risk of ruling that place anyway. Maybe she could have walked into this situation willingly, instead of being dragged along kicking and screaming. Maybe she could have come to understand what she was being asked to do, instead of being ambushed by in the dark by strange politics. Maybe--
Her mind stuttered over those last few words, skipping back quickly.
If she had loved him the way he wanted her to love him.
If she--
[I wasn’t trying to do that. I wanted to help you. I wanted to be good to you. I didn’t mean…]
--loved him--
[And if isn’t as though you ever thought to ask me not only if but why I love you.]
--the way he wanted her to love him--
[…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…]
--what would Larsa do then?
What could she?
...What would she do if only she could think like him, act like him, take advantage of others like him-- be ruthless and keep her own interests in mind, hoping he'd eventually see the wisdom of her ways?
If she could pretend to love Larsa, pretend to fall in love with him, or even just give him the hope of one day having her love him… what bargains could she make with him, just for that hope? How many ways could Dalmasca be helped before she could find a way to make him fall out of love with her, or just part from him peacefully?
If they were even married for just a year and engaged for even more before… would that be enough to secure Dalmasca the ties it needed with Archadia? Would that be enough for Ashe to find someone else to take her place-- someone prettier, maybe, with more royal blood and better manners and just-- just somebody that could interest Larsa more, eventually?
He’d get tired of her, of course-- he had to. Someone else had before and that more people would do so in the future. And when he grew up and started seeing more of the world-- and, more to the point, more of the girls in the world-- he’d have to start getting annoyed at getting married so early. No one could possibly ask them to have children while they were young-- god, she prayed no one would expect them to start having flippy haired heirs young-- and even his own advisors would probably start pointing him towards women more suited to rule by his side than the street rat that had been picked as a political compromise. Hell, knowing how kinky royals tended to be, he’d probably eventually run off to establish a viera harem or what have you, leaving her with just enough freedom to run off and become the first Empress-turned-lady-sky-pirate or whatever else she pleased.
After all, she knew she was cute in a girl-the-next-hovel-over sort of way… but frankly speaking, she didn’t have anything on your average eight foot tall Amazon bunny woman who could effortlessly wear armored lingerie to battles and who had legs that stretched roughly from Ambervale to Archades. She used to feel terribly bitter about it but hell-maybe being stumpy enough to blend in with the scenery in the village of the bunny ladies could finally work to her advantage here.
Not that she was about to lie to herself. She was going to hurt Larsa. She knew she was going to hurt him. She was done with deluding herself. She was going to be honest here.
She just... had to hope that someday, he’d find someone better, someone brighter, someone sweeter, someone nobler.
Someone who’d make him realize what a lucky escape she was really offering when she left him completely.
Still though. Still. It was still hard for her understand what on earth could have driven him to want her so much in the first place, what drove him to make the plans he had. She didn’t have any reason to doubt that a marriage between the future emperor of Archadia and a representative of Dalmasca would help an alliance between their countries-- but he seemed too eager for it to be merely-- or even just mostly-- a matter of passionless politics, a simple arrangement made between noble bodies for the greater sake of a country.
He had all but told her he had loved her. He had clearly fought for her already.
And all she could do was think of how lonely Larsa must be to want to do what he was trying to do. And all she could do was wonder what had driven him to do what he did so desperately, to try to keep a friend by forcing her to marry, to get so strangely attached to the first decent-looking damsel in distress he had met over-seas…
Did Larsa like the fact that she was being put under his debt here? That she had to remain with him, instead of leaving him whenever she pleased?
And if he did... God, she couldn’t imagine how cut off from ordinary affection Larsa must be.
[And if you think my life has been somehow charmed merely because I am the son of an emperor...]
His mother dead. His father dying. His brother going mad with power and increasingly prone to destroying whole kingdoms for… for Shemhazai only knew what, really. And his guardians, all of whom apparently thought he was much too young to venture on his own but somehow old enough to have the entire fate of his empire fall onto his thin shoulders as soon as his father’s life fell away quickly…
[But other than that, why no, I haven’t been touched by any family tragedies.]
And the way he touched her, as though the feel of skin against skin was foreign to him, as though just a simple hug was enough to completely take his breath away completely. As though it had been years since someone had so much as taken his hand in their own or stroked his hair or-- or-- or anything.
Life must be so completely strange in that high, towering world he lived in, Penelo realized, her heart sinking like a stone inside her breast, her knees once again trembling. So strange and so uncontrollable and so utterly, terribly cut off from everything he apparently wanted it to be.
[And it isn’t as though I face a life I do not wish to lead...]
But she could use that, she knew all too well. If she could bring herself to do it, she could use it all up completely.
It had been done to her before, after all. Twice, in fact, already.
She knew how it all went from here.
And just before she sealed her plan and her fate, she remembered one last thing Larsa had told her.
[You are not so very different than I, no matter what it is that you like to pretend to be…]
“I know,” she whispered softly, though she knew no one could possibly hear. “And I’m sorry, Larsa, I’m really, really sorry."
Her heart felt like a stone in her throat, like a cage at her breast, like a scale with all the weight of the world pressing upon it dearly.
"I don’t want to do this but I don’t know what else I can do. And I’m so goddamn sorry.”
*
She’d cried a bit more after that, feeling more like a heartless bitch than ever, feeling young and cheap and stupid. She still worked as she cried, of course-- if the Archadian occupation had taught her nothing else, at least it had taught her how to gather driftwood with salt in her eyes, how to whittle sharp sticks with a wobbling chin, how to slaughter and then clean whatever sharp-fanged fish she could find with a face already gone red and puffy. She’d long since learned that real life didn’t stop just for a minor break-down or even pause at the sound of someone's life collapsing. And she’d still been crying when she finally got down to the business of starting a fire spell on the finally dried wood she had gathered and started hysterically giggling when she realized that her blurry eyes were pretty damn counter-productive to the effort and this was how Larsa finally found her-- stuck half-way between laughter and tears, not quite sure what to feel.
He approached her solemnly from the front, rather than the side, the sound of his foot-steps rousing her from her fit though she didn‘t so much as move. “Hello,” he finally said when he grew close enough so that she could hear his every whisper “How are you currently doing?”
It took her a minute before she could speak properly. For a long time, all she could do was open her mouth and then close it quickly, lest she start the whole cycle of hysterical blubbering all over again, as though she really was a human hose-pipe half-given over to giggling. But finally, after wiping her face with the cracked back of her hands, she managed a reply.
"I don't know, Larsa," she softly croaked. "You think you could hazard a guess here?"
As far as witty rejoinders went, it wasn‘t the sort of thing that‘d trouble Balthier‘s sleep anytime soon. But Larsa actually laughed at that-- a shocked little gasp of laugh that made him seem precisely as old as he desperately didn’t want to be. And when she turned to look at him, she had to gasp too.
If she had thought she was a mess, it was only because she hadn’t compared herself to Larsa yet. She might have been blotchy and puffy and swollen in only places that didn’t particularly need any more swelling… but at least she didn’t look like her entire body had been seemingly been painted black and blue by a one-armed stroke victim given to hallucinations of artistic grandeur.
He was favoring his left leg, which meant the right was at least banged up quite well, and there were scrapes, cuts and bruises on him from forehead to fingertips. His face looked completely wind chapped, there were splotches of blood on the collar of his shirt, and the hem of his over-long shirt looked as though it had been gnawed on by something particularly nasty.
But somehow, all of that seemed to pale in comparison to the bruise still left on his cheek.
“Right then,” Larsa whispered, attempting a half-hearted smile. “I suppose I walked into that one, really.”
“After being walked on by what else?” she asked, shock making her voice run high. “A tumor-ridden, six-legged slaven? By the flaming rear of Belias, Larsa, what the hell happened here?”
He smiled self-consciously, one hand moving to clasp the back of his neck. “Do you mean before or after you were done with me?”
Suddenly, she couldn’t stand looking at him the way he was anymore-- with his bruises and his blood and his tired-looking bones, with his skinny legs looking as though they were minutes away from collapsing. And it didn’t help, of course, to know that she’d been the reason for all of that-- she and her complete stupidity.
She’d been the one to throw him around and spell him into immobility and send him on a wild goose chase in the desert, running into who only knows what sort of fiends, just to find her sorry rear sobbing like a ninny near a stump. She'd been the one who couldn't just say no to his offer in the first place, hoping she could spare him the pain she was going to give anyway. She'd been the one who had been completely ambushed by all the strange politics swirling around her-- and even if he was responsible for most of them, he was only 12 and he was painfully, almost terrifyingly lonely, and she must have done something to lead him on, to make him think he wanted... whatever it was that he thought she could be…
She’d hurt him before and unless he backed away now, she’d do it again thoroughly.
Only one thing left to do, she thought, resigned to the task. Though she supposed it was nice to know that being friends with the biggest twit in all of Ivalice would come in handy eventually.
“Come on then,” she said, her voice suddenly calmer than it had been in the last few hours. “I‘m not Vaan‘s best friend for no good reason. I can already tell that patching this up’s gonna take some elbow grease.”
*
It took her almost half an hour to clean Larsa up after that. Compared to some of the scrapes that certain other residents of Rabanastre tended to get into, Larsa’s injuries weren’t all that terrible-- his wounds were mostly superficial and between her natural talent at healing and his array of potions (spirited from god knows where and Penelo wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know either), his wounds were dealt with easily. The only real reason healing him this way had taken upwards of thirty minutes had been because she had wanted to take her time in patching him up while he had (for once) exercised actual tact and pretended not to notice her tears.
Given all the things she’d already put him through, she knew the least she could do was treat him gently. Though honestly, she wouldn't put it past the little schemer to deliberately stagger around looking as cute and helpless as a sad-eyed puppy that'd been kicked through a couple of air-ship windows to make her feel all the more guilty.
But if that was his evil plot, Penelo had to admit that it was working beautifully. And as it was, she couldn't even look at him, even after he'd been restored to more or less normal (if you could even call it normal) condition, without wincing and feeling about as low as Balthier's morals when faced with a bevy of willing ladies.
She'd hurt Larsa in just about every way possible over the last few hours. And short of a minor or major miracle-- him coming to his senses and dashing off to hold a raucous gay love affair with Kytes, for example-- she had no idea how she could keep from hurting him in the future either.
She regretted it all but she didn't know how to fix it. They'd have to talk-- they always talked, you probably couldn‘t shut Larsa up unless you gagged him, shoved a bangaa‘s muzzle on him and then topped it off with a spell of silence-- but she just didn't know what to say here.
They had to talk but she didn't know if she had anything worth saying.
So she settled for not saying anything. And when she slid her arms gently around Larsa’s thin shoulders to pull him closer to her on the narrow cleft of rock they had settled on, he didn’t say anything either. He stiffened and then sighed and leaned over to rest his head near her neck, sounding tired more than any other thing.
It was different, this way of holding, from the one they’d had before, and worlds away from the stunt he’d tried to pull on her earlier that day. There was no reason to fear, no reason to flinch, no reason to turn her face away.
There were just his arms draped awkwardly against her back, just his forehead resting shakily against her shoulder, just his shaking voice whispering her name against her ear as she gently stroked the fading bruise on his cheek. It was very nearly easy to push aside her hurt and her anger and her fear and her own injuries when he was like, when his bones felt fragile against her-- thin as those of birds, brittle as finely made glass-- even as his grip tightened against her neck, even as he shook his head as she told him that it was all right, she was fine, all would be well she wasn’t even mad here.
It was somehow so much less complicated than she thought it would be.
He was just a scared little boy and she was a barely older and equally frightened girl and she…
She wished it could all be this simple. She wished being with him could always feel this clean.
It took her a second to realize that he wasn’t babbling nonsense to her the way she was doing-- he was actually whispering coherent words against her ear. And when she actually stopped to listen, they were somehow both everything she did and didn’t expect them to be.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and retreated a little to see her face, to look at the way she sighed softly. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I deceived you. I’m sorry I turned everything in your life inside out and right side down without even asking…”
(You’re only breaking my life. He broke my heart. There‘s no real comparison.)
Forcing that strange thought away, Penelo interrupted gently. “It’s all right, Larsa. I mean, I’ve been thinking about the things you’ve been telling me about and I feel…”
“No,” Larsa said, and his voice was soft and low and his brother’s and not his brother’s and she told herself not to be scared. “Because, more than anything else, I want to make amends for all that's happened before. And I know I sound as though I apologize all too often and all too insincerely, as though behind the splendor lies nothing else. But I realize now that there are some apologies that are easy to give and some that are more difficult yet."
She didn't even realize her shoulders were shaking again until his hands touched them gently, almost reverently.
"This is the latter," he said, voice low. "These are some of the most difficult words I've ever gifted to anyone here. The words I spoke to you on our first day in Rabanastre, when we were speaking of the nethicite I had given… that apology was facile, flawless, easy. I hadn't harmed you then and you hadn't been angry-- not the way you are here, justifiably. Because I hurt you here and I hurt you badly and all I can say to justify that pain is that I did because I thought you would be glad of it. I just… I just wanted to render, Penelo, everything the world had denied you.”
He turned his face away. “And in attempting to do so, I treated you more as a pet than a person. I can't tell you how ashamed I am of myself here."
She turned her own face away, down to face his hands, now curled on his lap tentatively. Without the gloves, his hands looked as scabbed and raw as that of any peasantry. If you looked just at their hands, they would seem so similar, as though nothing really came in between.
"I didn't know I could do this to anyone before. I didn't know I could ape my empire's ideals so wonderfully." His mouth twisted into a fragile, lop-sided smile, the sort she might have come to love if only the world had been a little kinder. "But then, every moment I'm with you, I feel as though I learn something new. Even when that knowledge costs me bitterly."
She could say the same thing, really. And her voice was soft when she finally spoke. “I’m not sure you should learn everything I have to teach.”
“Such as?” he asked, and his voice was curiously raw. “What would I possibly spurn here?”
“Would you turn away an apology from me?” she quietly ask. “Would you think I was being insincere?”
He sighed, soft and unhappy. “I would not but I also admit I could not bring myself to feel deserving of one in the least.”
Despite herself, she almost laughed. “But if I gave you one, you’d take it any way, right?”
And when he finally-- slowly, hesitantly-- nodded, Penelo found her opening.
“Because Larsa, if there’s at least one thing I’ve figured out by howling around in this god-forsaken desert like a werewolf with a head-cold for the last couple of hours, it’s that I’m sorry too." He looked ready to speak at that; Penelo rushed on quickly. "And don't tell me it's okay that I hurt you because it's not. I'm older and I'm stronger and I could have hurt you badly. So I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry I slammed you into a wall. I’m sorry I spelled you into stopping at the end completely.”
Larsa winced at that one, as though he were reliving the moments. And, Penelo thought wryly, they hadn’t even gotten to the hard part here.
“I’m sorry I called you so many names. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were hurt because of this war too. I’m sorry for not realizing you had reasons for the things you were trying to do, even if your plans were scary. And manipulative. And conniving. And under-handed. And…”
“May we please by-pass that onslaught of adjectives?” Larsa interrupted hastily. “Really? May we? Please?”
She smiled weakly. “You might want to take that back after hearing what I have to say here.” And then she closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to look at his face when she talked next.
“And most of all,” she said softly, “I'm sorry for accidentally lying. I'm sorry for making you think I was somebody worth marrying. Because I keep going over and over and over again, thinking about what might have happened to make you think this marriage idea would be a good deal. And I know it would help Dalmasca-- god knows a lot of Rabanastrans would be happy if a local girl somehow ended up ruling a foreign country. But I just couldn’t understand why an Archadian would want a Dalmascan ruler until I realized…”
Across from her, Larsa was so white that the light brown freckles that had developed on his cheeks stood in stark relief.
She took one of his clammy hands into her own and squeezed very gently. “I led you on without even knowing it. I don’t know how and you don’t know how much I regret it but… Larsa, I get it now. Because when I was around your age, I was just like you too.”
Larsa stilled and his fingers slowly dropped from her hand; Penelo sighed almost breathlessly.
So strange, how their roles had reversed to easily. So strange, how she'd become used to him so quickly.
"His name was Reks and he was 17 years old when he died. And even though I tried as hard as I could, I could never make him love me either."
*
Author‘s Note: You got moral ambiguity in my Penelo! You got Penelo in my moral ambiguity! Penelo's taking something of a if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them stance at Solidor politics here. Do you feel that's good? Bad? Interesting? Uninteresting? Is her basic adorable sprite character from the game being too badly warped here? I wanted to toughen her up enough so that she isn't eaten in about, oh, 2.6 seconds by any given Archadian in the game but if that comes at the expense of making her a horribly unsympathetic bitch, do let me know. I'm not trying to unbalance the poor girl here-- just give her some complexity.
And the immensely wonderful akishira and immensely awesome logistka_nyx did me the honor of drawing/writing me fan-art and prequels to this series. They come highly, highly recommended right here. Thank you both so much once more! ♥
But in any case, I’m glad this speed-bump of a chapter is finally finished; annoying as it was to write (and I was while writing it!), it’s rather important to the series and, if nothing else, the fun can resume after this. And this is for adore184. Happy Valentines Day and (extremely belated) birthday, darling! ♥
As always, comments and criticism is love. I’ll (hopefully) be posting up the next chapter in a week or so and then probably shelving this series for a bit. (I want to go poke at Drace-fic some more. Never let it be said that I'm not one to kick a woman when she's down.) I figure the least I can do is write in a better cliff-hanger than this before I go. ;)
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 11
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, 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...
*
Penelo moved in auto-pilot at first, her body feeling just as mechanical to her as any of the airships that Vaan had ever wanted could be. She walked, she ran, she tumbled along-- and somehow, though she barely realized how, the ground beneath her feet gradually changed from cobble-stone to dirt, from brush to silt, until finally she was all but swaying at the yielding sand at her feet. She fought the entire way through, almost without knowing it, her axe migrating from her back to her hands and then back again without any apparent effort, striking down whatever moved before her without her needing to consciously realize what she was doing. And almost before she knew it, she found herself on a beach she had been too all too often before, miles away from where she had began and leagues away from where she wanted to be.
She was on a pretty stretch of beach along the Nebra river, she realized with a shuddering pulse at her throat. A beautiful stretch of beach bereft of anyone else, where there were too many memories lurking amidst the soft yellow sand and cool blue water and the palm leaves that swayed with the sea breeze.
Ulysse, she thought, and her numb fingers let go of the handle of the weapon in her hand, slowly but surely. Icari. Laerte. You used to take me here to train me to fight, to show me what to do if you couldn‘t come back from your wars, like you already knew what was coming. I used to walk here with all of you here, sand under my feet and hands tugging my hair and you never let me forget I was your little sister and I won’t, I can’t, I promise not to be…
For a minute, she thought she might still be successful, might still be able to imprint the memories she wanted over the ones she couldn’t stand anymore, the ones that only flooded her in the worst of her dreams. Counting to three and taking deep breaths, she closed her eyes and turned her mind away. Ulysse. Icari. Laerte. Ulysse, Icari, Laerte. Ulysse,-Icari-Laerte-- and if she just focused hard enough on them, recited their names faster--
Don't forget me either, something still whispered within her. Don’t forget who I was for you. Don't forget what I can still do to you. Don‘t think you can leave me behind for anything.
And she was sinking down without even knowing it, her legs feeling as limp as the sand beneath her, her knees like the reflection of knees within the blue waters, unused and unreal.
Don‘t, something insidious in her mind whispered. Don’t forget him, don’t rewrite the past, don’t think that just because he’s dead and gone, he can’t find ways of making you feel…
But she didn’t need any reminders of that, not from her mind or any other place. She already knew that the past had a way of digging into people, no matter how many barriers they put up between themselves and others, no matter how bright a face they could turn towards the world silently watching.
It was just as her father used to say. The past wasn’t dead. It wasn‘t even truly the past. It always found ways to slide into the present as well, if the way Larsa had looked at her right before she had run from him had meant anything.
Looking at the hope in Larsa’s eyes was just like seeing herself from just two years earlier. Fractured and ever the fool, thinking love was enough to make her happy.
She’d wanted someone once the way Larsa wanted her now, after all. She’d been young and small and straight-backed and stubborn, thinking that if only she held onto something long enough, argued for it hard enough, could only prove to be good enough, the person that she’d love would also just… just...
[You know why I have to do this. You know I can't stay here.]
Just topple into her arms eventually.
[But I'm sorry, Penelo, I really am.]
It had taken her years but she’d eventually learned already that if someone didn't love you, there was nothing you could do to make them change their mind. There was nothing else you could do to make them feel.
[I'm so goddamn sorry.]
But 12 was too young to learn that kind of lesson. Even she had been 14.
And she felt like a hunted animal crouching in the sand now, as though the very air around her were choking her with a thousand little indecisions materializing out of the desert wind, a thousand little ways the world around her was contracting and restricting.
Did Larsa feel this way sometimes? Did he turn also turn a false face towards the world out of sheer need? Even in the high sphere that he lived in, in that magical floating world where there was no need to worry about where you’d scrounge up your next meal or how you could scrape up extra gil from customers, was it possible to worry?
You still don’t understand the real reason for any of this, he had said, his voice tight and his eyes blurred. And had he been right when he had said told her such a thing?
What did she really know about him anyway? Fourth son of the Emperor of Archadia, spoiled and pampered prince who was clearly used to getting his way, conniving little aristocrat who thought that just because she was a peasant girl, she’d naturally topple over into his arms just because he beckoned with promises of wealth and a titling…
[I’m not proud-- I’m merely doing what I was always meant to here--]
No, no, she couldn’t let her anger get in the way here. She couldn‘t afford to make any more mistakes. He had said he was sorry and the least she could do was take that at face value-- and hope it wasn’t completely a lie. That was the only slender thread of hope she had in this god-awful Gordian knot of a situation here. That was the only thing that could lead her to save herself here.
That was probably the only thing that let her take a deep breath and try to think clearly. She had no hope of finding a way out of this if she couldn’t figure him out, understand his plans more, understand what he wanted her to do before she could-- she could--
God, she didn’t know what she could possibly do here. What could she even possibly hope to do? What could he be planning?
[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.]
All pretty words in a speech, of course-- until a person realized it meant leaving all the world they had ever known for a foreign place, a terrifying empire-- a strange, war-mongering land where the death of a father meant a battle for the throne and the madness of a brother meant a native war and where little boys who hadn‘t even grown into their voices could be set on the path to tyranny. And if she had loved Larsa the way he wanted her to love him, maybe she could have taken that risk of ruling that place anyway. Maybe she could have walked into this situation willingly, instead of being dragged along kicking and screaming. Maybe she could have come to understand what she was being asked to do, instead of being ambushed by in the dark by strange politics. Maybe--
Her mind stuttered over those last few words, skipping back quickly.
If she had loved him the way he wanted her to love him.
If she--
[I wasn’t trying to do that. I wanted to help you. I wanted to be good to you. I didn’t mean…]
--loved him--
[And if isn’t as though you ever thought to ask me not only if but why I love you.]
--the way he wanted her to love him--
[…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…]
--what would Larsa do then?
What could she?
...What would she do if only she could think like him, act like him, take advantage of others like him-- be ruthless and keep her own interests in mind, hoping he'd eventually see the wisdom of her ways?
If she could pretend to love Larsa, pretend to fall in love with him, or even just give him the hope of one day having her love him… what bargains could she make with him, just for that hope? How many ways could Dalmasca be helped before she could find a way to make him fall out of love with her, or just part from him peacefully?
If they were even married for just a year and engaged for even more before… would that be enough to secure Dalmasca the ties it needed with Archadia? Would that be enough for Ashe to find someone else to take her place-- someone prettier, maybe, with more royal blood and better manners and just-- just somebody that could interest Larsa more, eventually?
He’d get tired of her, of course-- he had to. Someone else had before and that more people would do so in the future. And when he grew up and started seeing more of the world-- and, more to the point, more of the girls in the world-- he’d have to start getting annoyed at getting married so early. No one could possibly ask them to have children while they were young-- god, she prayed no one would expect them to start having flippy haired heirs young-- and even his own advisors would probably start pointing him towards women more suited to rule by his side than the street rat that had been picked as a political compromise. Hell, knowing how kinky royals tended to be, he’d probably eventually run off to establish a viera harem or what have you, leaving her with just enough freedom to run off and become the first Empress-turned-lady-sky-pirate or whatever else she pleased.
After all, she knew she was cute in a girl-the-next-hovel-over sort of way… but frankly speaking, she didn’t have anything on your average eight foot tall Amazon bunny woman who could effortlessly wear armored lingerie to battles and who had legs that stretched roughly from Ambervale to Archades. She used to feel terribly bitter about it but hell-maybe being stumpy enough to blend in with the scenery in the village of the bunny ladies could finally work to her advantage here.
Not that she was about to lie to herself. She was going to hurt Larsa. She knew she was going to hurt him. She was done with deluding herself. She was going to be honest here.
She just... had to hope that someday, he’d find someone better, someone brighter, someone sweeter, someone nobler.
Someone who’d make him realize what a lucky escape she was really offering when she left him completely.
Still though. Still. It was still hard for her understand what on earth could have driven him to want her so much in the first place, what drove him to make the plans he had. She didn’t have any reason to doubt that a marriage between the future emperor of Archadia and a representative of Dalmasca would help an alliance between their countries-- but he seemed too eager for it to be merely-- or even just mostly-- a matter of passionless politics, a simple arrangement made between noble bodies for the greater sake of a country.
He had all but told her he had loved her. He had clearly fought for her already.
And all she could do was think of how lonely Larsa must be to want to do what he was trying to do. And all she could do was wonder what had driven him to do what he did so desperately, to try to keep a friend by forcing her to marry, to get so strangely attached to the first decent-looking damsel in distress he had met over-seas…
Did Larsa like the fact that she was being put under his debt here? That she had to remain with him, instead of leaving him whenever she pleased?
And if he did... God, she couldn’t imagine how cut off from ordinary affection Larsa must be.
[And if you think my life has been somehow charmed merely because I am the son of an emperor...]
His mother dead. His father dying. His brother going mad with power and increasingly prone to destroying whole kingdoms for… for Shemhazai only knew what, really. And his guardians, all of whom apparently thought he was much too young to venture on his own but somehow old enough to have the entire fate of his empire fall onto his thin shoulders as soon as his father’s life fell away quickly…
[But other than that, why no, I haven’t been touched by any family tragedies.]
And the way he touched her, as though the feel of skin against skin was foreign to him, as though just a simple hug was enough to completely take his breath away completely. As though it had been years since someone had so much as taken his hand in their own or stroked his hair or-- or-- or anything.
Life must be so completely strange in that high, towering world he lived in, Penelo realized, her heart sinking like a stone inside her breast, her knees once again trembling. So strange and so uncontrollable and so utterly, terribly cut off from everything he apparently wanted it to be.
[And it isn’t as though I face a life I do not wish to lead...]
But she could use that, she knew all too well. If she could bring herself to do it, she could use it all up completely.
It had been done to her before, after all. Twice, in fact, already.
She knew how it all went from here.
And just before she sealed her plan and her fate, she remembered one last thing Larsa had told her.
[You are not so very different than I, no matter what it is that you like to pretend to be…]
“I know,” she whispered softly, though she knew no one could possibly hear. “And I’m sorry, Larsa, I’m really, really sorry."
Her heart felt like a stone in her throat, like a cage at her breast, like a scale with all the weight of the world pressing upon it dearly.
"I don’t want to do this but I don’t know what else I can do. And I’m so goddamn sorry.”
*
She’d cried a bit more after that, feeling more like a heartless bitch than ever, feeling young and cheap and stupid. She still worked as she cried, of course-- if the Archadian occupation had taught her nothing else, at least it had taught her how to gather driftwood with salt in her eyes, how to whittle sharp sticks with a wobbling chin, how to slaughter and then clean whatever sharp-fanged fish she could find with a face already gone red and puffy. She’d long since learned that real life didn’t stop just for a minor break-down or even pause at the sound of someone's life collapsing. And she’d still been crying when she finally got down to the business of starting a fire spell on the finally dried wood she had gathered and started hysterically giggling when she realized that her blurry eyes were pretty damn counter-productive to the effort and this was how Larsa finally found her-- stuck half-way between laughter and tears, not quite sure what to feel.
He approached her solemnly from the front, rather than the side, the sound of his foot-steps rousing her from her fit though she didn‘t so much as move. “Hello,” he finally said when he grew close enough so that she could hear his every whisper “How are you currently doing?”
It took her a minute before she could speak properly. For a long time, all she could do was open her mouth and then close it quickly, lest she start the whole cycle of hysterical blubbering all over again, as though she really was a human hose-pipe half-given over to giggling. But finally, after wiping her face with the cracked back of her hands, she managed a reply.
"I don't know, Larsa," she softly croaked. "You think you could hazard a guess here?"
As far as witty rejoinders went, it wasn‘t the sort of thing that‘d trouble Balthier‘s sleep anytime soon. But Larsa actually laughed at that-- a shocked little gasp of laugh that made him seem precisely as old as he desperately didn’t want to be. And when she turned to look at him, she had to gasp too.
If she had thought she was a mess, it was only because she hadn’t compared herself to Larsa yet. She might have been blotchy and puffy and swollen in only places that didn’t particularly need any more swelling… but at least she didn’t look like her entire body had been seemingly been painted black and blue by a one-armed stroke victim given to hallucinations of artistic grandeur.
He was favoring his left leg, which meant the right was at least banged up quite well, and there were scrapes, cuts and bruises on him from forehead to fingertips. His face looked completely wind chapped, there were splotches of blood on the collar of his shirt, and the hem of his over-long shirt looked as though it had been gnawed on by something particularly nasty.
But somehow, all of that seemed to pale in comparison to the bruise still left on his cheek.
“Right then,” Larsa whispered, attempting a half-hearted smile. “I suppose I walked into that one, really.”
“After being walked on by what else?” she asked, shock making her voice run high. “A tumor-ridden, six-legged slaven? By the flaming rear of Belias, Larsa, what the hell happened here?”
He smiled self-consciously, one hand moving to clasp the back of his neck. “Do you mean before or after you were done with me?”
Suddenly, she couldn’t stand looking at him the way he was anymore-- with his bruises and his blood and his tired-looking bones, with his skinny legs looking as though they were minutes away from collapsing. And it didn’t help, of course, to know that she’d been the reason for all of that-- she and her complete stupidity.
She’d been the one to throw him around and spell him into immobility and send him on a wild goose chase in the desert, running into who only knows what sort of fiends, just to find her sorry rear sobbing like a ninny near a stump. She'd been the one who couldn't just say no to his offer in the first place, hoping she could spare him the pain she was going to give anyway. She'd been the one who had been completely ambushed by all the strange politics swirling around her-- and even if he was responsible for most of them, he was only 12 and he was painfully, almost terrifyingly lonely, and she must have done something to lead him on, to make him think he wanted... whatever it was that he thought she could be…
She’d hurt him before and unless he backed away now, she’d do it again thoroughly.
Only one thing left to do, she thought, resigned to the task. Though she supposed it was nice to know that being friends with the biggest twit in all of Ivalice would come in handy eventually.
“Come on then,” she said, her voice suddenly calmer than it had been in the last few hours. “I‘m not Vaan‘s best friend for no good reason. I can already tell that patching this up’s gonna take some elbow grease.”
*
It took her almost half an hour to clean Larsa up after that. Compared to some of the scrapes that certain other residents of Rabanastre tended to get into, Larsa’s injuries weren’t all that terrible-- his wounds were mostly superficial and between her natural talent at healing and his array of potions (spirited from god knows where and Penelo wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know either), his wounds were dealt with easily. The only real reason healing him this way had taken upwards of thirty minutes had been because she had wanted to take her time in patching him up while he had (for once) exercised actual tact and pretended not to notice her tears.
Given all the things she’d already put him through, she knew the least she could do was treat him gently. Though honestly, she wouldn't put it past the little schemer to deliberately stagger around looking as cute and helpless as a sad-eyed puppy that'd been kicked through a couple of air-ship windows to make her feel all the more guilty.
But if that was his evil plot, Penelo had to admit that it was working beautifully. And as it was, she couldn't even look at him, even after he'd been restored to more or less normal (if you could even call it normal) condition, without wincing and feeling about as low as Balthier's morals when faced with a bevy of willing ladies.
She'd hurt Larsa in just about every way possible over the last few hours. And short of a minor or major miracle-- him coming to his senses and dashing off to hold a raucous gay love affair with Kytes, for example-- she had no idea how she could keep from hurting him in the future either.
She regretted it all but she didn't know how to fix it. They'd have to talk-- they always talked, you probably couldn‘t shut Larsa up unless you gagged him, shoved a bangaa‘s muzzle on him and then topped it off with a spell of silence-- but she just didn't know what to say here.
They had to talk but she didn't know if she had anything worth saying.
So she settled for not saying anything. And when she slid her arms gently around Larsa’s thin shoulders to pull him closer to her on the narrow cleft of rock they had settled on, he didn’t say anything either. He stiffened and then sighed and leaned over to rest his head near her neck, sounding tired more than any other thing.
It was different, this way of holding, from the one they’d had before, and worlds away from the stunt he’d tried to pull on her earlier that day. There was no reason to fear, no reason to flinch, no reason to turn her face away.
There were just his arms draped awkwardly against her back, just his forehead resting shakily against her shoulder, just his shaking voice whispering her name against her ear as she gently stroked the fading bruise on his cheek. It was very nearly easy to push aside her hurt and her anger and her fear and her own injuries when he was like, when his bones felt fragile against her-- thin as those of birds, brittle as finely made glass-- even as his grip tightened against her neck, even as he shook his head as she told him that it was all right, she was fine, all would be well she wasn’t even mad here.
It was somehow so much less complicated than she thought it would be.
He was just a scared little boy and she was a barely older and equally frightened girl and she…
She wished it could all be this simple. She wished being with him could always feel this clean.
It took her a second to realize that he wasn’t babbling nonsense to her the way she was doing-- he was actually whispering coherent words against her ear. And when she actually stopped to listen, they were somehow both everything she did and didn’t expect them to be.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and retreated a little to see her face, to look at the way she sighed softly. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I deceived you. I’m sorry I turned everything in your life inside out and right side down without even asking…”
(You’re only breaking my life. He broke my heart. There‘s no real comparison.)
Forcing that strange thought away, Penelo interrupted gently. “It’s all right, Larsa. I mean, I’ve been thinking about the things you’ve been telling me about and I feel…”
“No,” Larsa said, and his voice was soft and low and his brother’s and not his brother’s and she told herself not to be scared. “Because, more than anything else, I want to make amends for all that's happened before. And I know I sound as though I apologize all too often and all too insincerely, as though behind the splendor lies nothing else. But I realize now that there are some apologies that are easy to give and some that are more difficult yet."
She didn't even realize her shoulders were shaking again until his hands touched them gently, almost reverently.
"This is the latter," he said, voice low. "These are some of the most difficult words I've ever gifted to anyone here. The words I spoke to you on our first day in Rabanastre, when we were speaking of the nethicite I had given… that apology was facile, flawless, easy. I hadn't harmed you then and you hadn't been angry-- not the way you are here, justifiably. Because I hurt you here and I hurt you badly and all I can say to justify that pain is that I did because I thought you would be glad of it. I just… I just wanted to render, Penelo, everything the world had denied you.”
He turned his face away. “And in attempting to do so, I treated you more as a pet than a person. I can't tell you how ashamed I am of myself here."
She turned her own face away, down to face his hands, now curled on his lap tentatively. Without the gloves, his hands looked as scabbed and raw as that of any peasantry. If you looked just at their hands, they would seem so similar, as though nothing really came in between.
"I didn't know I could do this to anyone before. I didn't know I could ape my empire's ideals so wonderfully." His mouth twisted into a fragile, lop-sided smile, the sort she might have come to love if only the world had been a little kinder. "But then, every moment I'm with you, I feel as though I learn something new. Even when that knowledge costs me bitterly."
She could say the same thing, really. And her voice was soft when she finally spoke. “I’m not sure you should learn everything I have to teach.”
“Such as?” he asked, and his voice was curiously raw. “What would I possibly spurn here?”
“Would you turn away an apology from me?” she quietly ask. “Would you think I was being insincere?”
He sighed, soft and unhappy. “I would not but I also admit I could not bring myself to feel deserving of one in the least.”
Despite herself, she almost laughed. “But if I gave you one, you’d take it any way, right?”
And when he finally-- slowly, hesitantly-- nodded, Penelo found her opening.
“Because Larsa, if there’s at least one thing I’ve figured out by howling around in this god-forsaken desert like a werewolf with a head-cold for the last couple of hours, it’s that I’m sorry too." He looked ready to speak at that; Penelo rushed on quickly. "And don't tell me it's okay that I hurt you because it's not. I'm older and I'm stronger and I could have hurt you badly. So I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry I slammed you into a wall. I’m sorry I spelled you into stopping at the end completely.”
Larsa winced at that one, as though he were reliving the moments. And, Penelo thought wryly, they hadn’t even gotten to the hard part here.
“I’m sorry I called you so many names. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were hurt because of this war too. I’m sorry for not realizing you had reasons for the things you were trying to do, even if your plans were scary. And manipulative. And conniving. And under-handed. And…”
“May we please by-pass that onslaught of adjectives?” Larsa interrupted hastily. “Really? May we? Please?”
She smiled weakly. “You might want to take that back after hearing what I have to say here.” And then she closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to look at his face when she talked next.
“And most of all,” she said softly, “I'm sorry for accidentally lying. I'm sorry for making you think I was somebody worth marrying. Because I keep going over and over and over again, thinking about what might have happened to make you think this marriage idea would be a good deal. And I know it would help Dalmasca-- god knows a lot of Rabanastrans would be happy if a local girl somehow ended up ruling a foreign country. But I just couldn’t understand why an Archadian would want a Dalmascan ruler until I realized…”
Across from her, Larsa was so white that the light brown freckles that had developed on his cheeks stood in stark relief.
She took one of his clammy hands into her own and squeezed very gently. “I led you on without even knowing it. I don’t know how and you don’t know how much I regret it but… Larsa, I get it now. Because when I was around your age, I was just like you too.”
Larsa stilled and his fingers slowly dropped from her hand; Penelo sighed almost breathlessly.
So strange, how their roles had reversed to easily. So strange, how she'd become used to him so quickly.
"His name was Reks and he was 17 years old when he died. And even though I tried as hard as I could, I could never make him love me either."
*
Author‘s Note: You got moral ambiguity in my Penelo! You got Penelo in my moral ambiguity! Penelo's taking something of a if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them stance at Solidor politics here. Do you feel that's good? Bad? Interesting? Uninteresting? Is her basic adorable sprite character from the game being too badly warped here? I wanted to toughen her up enough so that she isn't eaten in about, oh, 2.6 seconds by any given Archadian in the game but if that comes at the expense of making her a horribly unsympathetic bitch, do let me know. I'm not trying to unbalance the poor girl here-- just give her some complexity.
And the immensely wonderful akishira and immensely awesome logistka_nyx did me the honor of drawing/writing me fan-art and prequels to this series. They come highly, highly recommended right here. Thank you both so much once more! ♥