Knots, Ties and Tides, The Lost Chapters, Part 1 (Larsa/Penelo, Cast)
Knots is dead. Long live Knots. But at the very least, I thought I might as well give an explanation for how it all winds up.
Essentially, I'm sorry to finally have to throw in the towel as far as the Knots, Ties and Tides series is concerned, due to a combination of a lack of time and interest in continuing to write it. And frankly, though I still love the damn thing like a mother might love a deformed child, I honestly think Knots, Ties and Tides was essentially a failure as a piece of fiction. The plot was at least quite unique and the characters were ridiculously fun to write and hopefully to read-- but my pacing for the story was completely off. I spent around 80,000 words to set up the first pivotal event of the story-- Penelo and Larsa heading to Mt. Bur Omisace-- and after 13 chapters, still haven't managed to get them there. Frankly, I think writing any more would have tired both myself and the readers out, so I've decided to wrap up the series once and for all.
But for all that, I know there are a few kind souls out there who want to know how it ends, and for their sake, I wanted to use this time to run down the major events that take place between the end of chapter 13 and the final defeat of Vayne Solidor on the Bahamut. I know this is a little bit of a cheat to do it all in two compress chapters-- but I promise to do this as entertainingly as a summary format will allow me, with bits and pieces of actual scenes sprinkled into the text. And at the least, it would allow me to wrap up the series with an actual epilogue that will catch up with everyone in the series a good ten years after it closes with Vayne's defeat. I'm looking forward to that and I hope you are too. ;)
For those of you who might have gotten a little lost with the series, it might be helpful to read Knots, Ties and Tides in Fifteen Minutes, Part 1, Knots in Fifteen, Part 2 and Chapter 13 to get up to speed.
And so without further ado...
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, The Lost Chapters, Part 1
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Basch, Balthier, Vaan, Reks, Ashe, Gran Kilias, Vayne
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...
Note: Spans the time between the end of Chapter 13 of the series to the end of the game.
***
1. Picking up from chapter 13, Larsa and Penelo are escorted to Rabanastre by Basch and Balthier, both of whom have certain clashing... agendas as to why they took the mission to bring the children to Mount Bur Omisace in the first place. Larsa, meanwhile, takes his sweet time loitering in the desert to look for the creature that previously roughed him up and had reduced him to having only half the neck ruffles he had began the journey with-- only to take an even sweeter time when he confronts it again with Basch, Balthier and Penelo as backup.
***
Snippet:
Penelo looked up warily from the giant desert turkey Larsa had spent the last few minutes poking holes into with his rapier while looking positively bloodthirsty "Gods, Larsa, that's just creepy! Aren't you supposed to be a prince of peace or something?"
He simply looked up, smiled serenely, and wiped a speck of feather off his once-more-inflating sleeves. "I don't believe I am under any obligation to act as such to evil poultry."
***
2. Eventually, they arrive in Rabanastre and Penelo shows them to where they will stay in her hovel sweet hovel, still fluttering happily over having the Basch fon Ronsenberg staying in her residence, whilst Balthier thinks of quips to later taunt him relentlessly with. ("My, my, my good man. Someone clearly took the 'oh captain, my captain' part of the Dalmascan oath seriously.") Eventually, after an uneventful and rather depressing evening spent packing, Basch quietly informs her that he wishes to speak to her after the others in their party fall asleep-- which naturally sends Penelo off on a tizzy, given that he's the first attractive male with fully articulated testicles to express interest in her in years.
3. Unfortunately for Penelo, Basch is more surprised and puzzled by her attempts to dress up in her somewhat-droopy dancer's outfit and sneak out for a midnight rendezvous with him at one of the sidewalk cafes of Rabanastre, though he gallantly offers her his chest-obscuring tea-cozy to cover her scandalously exposed midriff with. (She declines, incidentally.) And she in turn, is surprised by the real reason he invited here here-- to talk about how hard her life would be if she went ahead with this plan, with Basch assuming she feels far more ready for it than she really is. Since he doesn't know that she has actually fought tooth and nail to slip out of this arrangement, he assumed that she would be just as hasty in accepting being empress as she had been in following Ashe's entourage weeks earlier. And given the time he has spent in training both Vaan and Penelo to get them up to speed, he's well aware of the often hasty and impulsive way she makes decisions when she feels as though she might be left behind by those she loves. He doesn't want her to ruin her life with a rushed decision she makes when she's too young to know the consequences it will have on her. In a way, Basch sees her as being the embodiment of what he had been as a 17-year-old soldier who had left his home-- a child who had been too young to realize the cruelty of the world and yet, all too eager to embrace it.
4. However, Penelo surprises him by telling him of the true story of how she ended up in her current predicament, absent Larsa's verbal flourishes and outright propaganda (as seen in Chapter 13). And when Basch hears of how reluctant she is to become Larsa's bride and how much she dreads going to Archadia, he tells her that if she would like... he would be willing to deflower her (or whatever few petals of virtue she has left) and make her unsuitable for a royal bride, should she have no other way to escape. Though touched and far more eager for his touch than she ever was for Larsa's, after thinking about his offer, Penelo has to turn him down. She's already been deforested by Reks-- and Larsa shrugged that off easily enough. And even if she took him up on the offer, she reminds Basch that Dalmasca would still lose its finest hope for a bloodless peace after two years of occupation. And though neither of them broach the subject, Penelo knows that he would very quickly regret doing what he did, both for personal reasons (she wasn't blind to the silent but potent grief Basch displayed after Vossler's death and knows she inspires nothing like that in him) and for the sake of Dalmasca. And Penelo finally acknowledges the final reason that she will go through with this wedding.
***
Snippet:
"After all," she whispered, and the palm he had placed in the middle of their table felt so warm when she covered it with her own. "You've suffered more than almost anyone else I know. And you've seen what we've all gone through in these last few years. Do you really think that trying to save me from a little boy is worth giving up any hope for helping all that heal?"
"When it is the life of a young girl at stake," he murmured-- and his eyes were sacrosanct and sad as he gazed down at her-- "it should be. Would you have me enrich my own life by impoverishing yours? Do you believe I could easily stand making a child bear the weight of my burden?"
And she laughed and touched the corner of his eye with her free hand, feeling far older than she had ever been. "Well, unless you magically become a pretty girl, I'm afraid I might have to at this one alone, Uncle. I mean, especially since Larsa seems more into my type than big, burly men."
"More's the pity," he replied, and the corner of his mouth wavered into a slow, proud curve, torn between grimace and laugh. "Given the chance, I might have made a fine empress-- though I am sure you could easily best me at such."
"I'll probably wear those big, fancy, ball gowns better," she agreed, though her fingers wavered as they traversed the well worn path down his scar to his sunken cheek, knowing what he was really trying to say. "I'll wear them well and I'll wear them proudly-- though you and everybody else better come and see me when I do. And-- when the time comes, you'll be there for me-- for the both of us-- right? I mean, since I won't have my family to be with me and-- and I guess I always thought of you as a sort of-- I mean-- you and Vaan and Fran and Balthier and even Ashe--"
"I will," he said, and his hands were gentle as he cupped her face and curved it for the first-- and only-- kiss he would ever give her, fluttering gently against the line where her skin met hair. "I will be with you as a friend for as long as I can, Penelo. Whatever else the world may do to you, I-- and Vaan, and Fran and Balthier, and even our Lady Ashe-- will be there. For as long as we possibly can."
***
Afterwards, Penelo and Basch retire again to their quarters, with Penelo spending much of the night tossing and turning in her cot, wondering what the hell might happen to her next.
5. The next day is spent finalizing plans for her leaving, with Penelo taking the time to say one last goodbye to her father-figure Migelo and her friends, while fielding some highly disturbing inquiries from Filo about the hot, flippy-haired lesbian who was new in town and from Kytes about where his little Larlita had been. However, a snag comes up when the party is about to use the teleport gate crystal in Rabanastre to instantly go to the village of the viera. Somehow, Balthier ended up being the only member of the party who had the particular stons to activate the crystals... and he very accidentally manages to take only Penelo to the location-- leaving a highly irate Larsa and worried Basch to hike the rest of the way there.
6. As Penelo soon finds out to her dismay, however, said accident was no accident at all... and Balthier has more than a few choice words to tell her about her marrying into House Solidor, however much she might have struggled against it. In fact, he tells her straight away that she's being a ridiculous idiot to think about marrying into the Solidor family, whatever Larsa might have promised her to get into his figurative (and future) bed. Vayne Solidor is not the sort to be controlled until death itself gets a grip on him-- and he's already had a great deal of practice in evading that particular fate as of yet, despite Balthier's previous best attempts. With almost brutal honesty, he predicts that if she marries into the Solidor line even a moment before Vayne is cold in the ground, she'll be dead in less than a year. And though Penelo is furious enough by what she believes is his attempts to demean her and make her appear weak, she's also terrified by how Balthier edges closer and closer to losing control as he goes on and on about what Vayne could do to break her down until she had nothing left.
***
Snippet:
"He enjoys your sort, Penelo," Balthier nearly spat, the corners of his mouth turning up as a mad dog's might as he did so. "Pretty and rebellious and naive and easily molded and you couldn't find a finer tool to place in his hands if you died trying to. You've spent the entirety of your short, hopeless life letting other people push you from place to place, deciding on who you are and what you'll do and who you'll do it with. And if you don't believe he'll take one look into your prim little face and know how to use you--"
"How dare you," she interrupted in a near serpentine hiss, feeling her fingers curl into fists as she watched him go on, a nervous and terrible heat building up within her palms, already singeing the tender skin here. "How dare you say those things to me! How dare you think I'll let that happen to me, that I'm stupid enough to listen to a word he might say! How dare you think that he can--"
And then Balthier's handsome face twisted into the ugliest expressions she had ever seen on it-- one strange and uncertain and bathetic enough to make the growing heat snuff out of her hands as though they had been pressed against glass.
She'd never seen that look on him before, though she had seen it reflected back at her often enough in her mirrored glass. And though it wasn't alien-- wasn't unrecognizable-- wasn't even necessarily unexpected--
She simply supposed she had never thought he could be mortal enough to feel it.
To her, Basch had always seemed, somehow, to be beyond a pain so elemental. And it terrified her now, to see him show it.
"He's done it before," Balthier finally said, when his throat seemed to unclench enough to let him whisper it. "And when he sees the girl who stole his brother from him, he'll make sure to do it again."
***
Needless to say, on top of all of her other worries, Penelo has to refocus back to the problem of Vayne Soldior and how successful Larsa's plan of "isolating" him in the future might be, given that Larsa would probably refuse to kill him unless something truly drastic occurred. She had merely thought she might be facing a long, miserable life if she married Larsa-- she had no idea it might be cut short in the bargain.
7. After another incredibly uncomfortable day spent in the company of a Balthier who seems to have lost his taste for words at long last, Penelo is unspeakably happy to actually see Basch and Larsa again, though she's also extremely stunned to see that Larsa has somehow taken to wearing his own chest-obscuring tea-cozy, though it remains uncertain as to whether he did so because he had been so impressed by how pleasantly normal Basch was or because he had mistakenly thought it to be the secret of Basch's female-attracting success. After a short struggle, Penelo finally takes the tea cozy away from Larsa and the entire party heads out to Mount Bur Omisace, with Basch and Balthier falling back to speak among themselves and allowing Penelo and Larsa privacy.
8. Penelo attempts to speak to Larsa about her new concerns about his brother murdering her as soon as the wedding veil slips off of her hair. However, though he's boyishly happy to see her again and hovers over her to make sure Balthier hasn't somehow harmed her helpless little self, his normal devotion to her crumbles more than a little in the face of her attempting to speak of his brother. Though he's clearly attempting to avoid being slapped head-first into a bank of ice by an irate fiancée, he's also very clear that his brother is just as dear to him as Penelo herself is. (If not, honestly, more so.) He's not blind enough to have missed that his brother has long been in decline of his sanity-- after all, he already realizes that if it proves "necessary", Vayne would gladly allow the tragedy that had happened to Nabudis to happen to Rabanastre or Ambervale. However, Larsa still desperately loves and clings to the apparently more fair, kind, and loving older brother Vayne had been in the past and seeks to simply... bottle his brother up when he goes into power, until Vayne becomes better. In fact, one of the reasons that Larsa wants to be married so much is to shore up his family-- to have a reason to keep his brother alive (since being married would make him more 'adult' and hopefully give his supporters a reason not to kill the rival heir, Vayne) and to grant his sickly, dying father the strength to hold on to life in hopes of having grand-children around him.
***
Snippet:
"I was hoping we could name our first son Gramis and our next Vayne," Larsa said, and his brown freckles stood in stark relief within his shuddering cheeks, against the flurry of snowflakes swirling past him in the air. "And my father and my brother-- they will love our children, I know they will love our children, as greatly and tenderly as they have loved me. How ever else they may be m-monstrous, they can at least accomplish that much."
She didn't know what to say so she said nothing at all, her fingers coming to rest with a tremble on her breast. The beat of her heart could not be any more furious than his eyes had been just a moment previous, when he had seen that she had wanted his brother... vanished.
They were monsters, of a sort, these men. But they would love her likely love her children, should they be Larsa's as well.
She didn't know what to even think of that.
"We shall all be a family again," he reassured her, as though it had been something for which she had asked. "And my father will live and my brother will live and nobody need ever die in our world. Nobody need ever be killed or hurt. We can make them all endure yet."
***
Needless to say, Penelo has yet another difficult thought to dwell on and even more reason to realize why the marriage would be necessary beyond reasons of personal (un)attraction. And with even more knowledge of how desperately lonely and painful Larsa's life has been, and why he was driven to arrange a wedding to a very average peasant girl in the first place, Penelo can draw yet more parallels between her own need to feel accepted and to belong to a family and Larsa's need to shore up his pathetically fragmenting clan. And with that in mind, Penelo finally holds her hand out to Larsa and tells him that no matter what happens, she will be with him as a friend.
***
Snippet:
"Come on then," she said, and her fingers slipped into his gloved hands with startling ease, as though finally doing so meant nothing at all, as though it had not come only after days of struggle and turmoil, after understand why everything had upended. "We've got a world to save, haven't we? And a few thousand years of tradition to overthrow just before we do that that?"
And when he finally took her hand and began the long walk up to the shining monastery in the sky that had been laying in wait for them for weeks, the shadow he cast on the snow behind him mingled with hers at last.
***
Then they walk into Mount Bur Omisace and the beginning of the end.
9. The party finally enters Mount Bur Omisace and pair up again with their companions, with Basch coming to stand again at an actually nervous Ashe's side, Balthier loping forward to take comfort in Fran's calming presence and Vaan and Penelo left to look awkwardly at each other as Larsa walks off to see to the Gran Kiltias.
***
Snippet:
"So," Vaan began, startled, looked achingly uncomfortable, then coughed. "I guess you're-- kinda sorta-- into... well... into little boys now, huh?"
If it had a will beyond its reign on her face, Penelo's answering glare might well have killed him then and there.
"I mean," he amended hastily, throwing his hands up in the air, "I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing, you know! As long as you just... I dunno... look and not, um, touch. Even if even looking is kinda... well..."
"I am not," she finally clarified through teeth gritted enough to snap through bangaa skin, "into little boys. In fact, it's just the opposite. They all seem rather crazily into me. And I'm not doing this because I want power or wealth or because I have some sort of fatal attraction towards jail bait that's even younger than I am, Vaan! I'm doing this only because--"
Whatever else she might have had to say, however, was interrupted by Vaan's arm thrown around her, as he pulled her into a hug that would have broken the ribs of a more fragile woman and caused her own to creak now.
And by the time she managed to squirm out of it-- though she took an embarrassingly long time to do it, not that she actually wanted or even needed it, since it wasn't as though she was a damsel in distress again or even been away for long-- all she could see was Vaan's face afterwards, smiling and shaking and contorting into the strangest of shapes, though it had always been as familiar to her as her own.
"If Larsa ever hurts you," he said solemnly, "we'll take him down together. Does that sound good enough?"
And though there was so much Vaan didn't know and so much he couldn't know and so much Larsa had already done to inadvertently hurt her...
Still, Penelo found herself smiling and on the verge of the strangest sort of tears when she nodded back to him, feeling as though, even after leaving Rabanastre, she still had a bit of home.
"Hell yes," she said, and his shoulder, when he came to stand beside her, was reassuringly firm against her own. "After all, nobody's better than a Rabanastran in a street rumble. No Archadian could ever compare to us."
"Yeah," he grunted in what he must have assumed was an intimidating fashion, feeling so much like what she had left behind, standing strong beside her. "Although... gotta say, I'm not sure how heroic it would be if we challenged him to a fist fight, considering there are two of us. And he's like half our size. And he looks like he could snap in half if we just took one good staff and..."
"Vaan?" she interrupted lightly.
"Yeah?" he murmured, voice going all funny and tender.
"I'm really gonna miss telling you to shut the hell up. So just for me... for one last time... please, please, please, please just do it."
"Heh," he cackled. "Why the hell not? Though I hope you know that I'm expecting a lot of compensation from having to now think about the wedding night between you and Emperor Badtouch--"
Even as a child, Penelo had always known that Vaan would lead an interesting life. It was a real pity that it had ended so suddenly, and without any warning whatsoever.
***
10. Shortly afterwards, Larsa returns to escort the Gran Kiltias Anastasis to his throne, only to have the scenery chewed from right under his dramatic under-bite by Al Cid making his usual dramatic entrance. Al Cid allows the Gran Kilitas to make his usual prophetic speeches about the future of peace being embodied by the people here and then listens to Larsa explain his plans to undertake a marriage between himself and the future Lady Penelo of Dalmasca (currently the member in the Lady Ashe's party most likely to die of absolute humiliation) in order to suture together the fissures created between Dalmascan freedom and Archadian imperialism.
11. However, before Larsa can formally petition the Gran Kiltias to declare he and Penelo to be engaged in a marriage that he is sure his father will endorse, Al Cid finally bursts out with his news: that the Emperor Gramis was poisoned, that members of the senate were judged guilty, and that Vayne Solidor had taken advantage of the series of events to consolidate complete control over Archadia, declaring martial rule and a cessation of the writ of habeas corpus that would allow him to decide the fate of every man, woman and creature within the realm. Though Al Cid does not say it, Penelo quickly puts together how much power Vayne wields now with warnings from both Balthier and Larsa on how ruthless Vayne can be. She then realizes Vayne likely killed Gramis himself, to become the next emperor. And when she turns to look at Larsa's startled, bone white, eminently still face, she realizes that he must believe as much, confirming the fact in her mind.
12. Soon after the Gran Kiltias informs them that, in light of this all, he cannot grant any of their party any more help and that his own death will come shortly at the hands of the Archadians that have come to fetch Larsa back. At this reminder, Larsa (still white and silent and on his last legs from learning of how all his hopes and schemes have collapsed utterly with his brother's betrayal and his father's death) turns and flees to the sanctuary of a private room. Few others seem to notice him, concerned as they are with figuring out what to do next and whether or how to deal with the Archadians when they finally arrive. Therefore, Penelo turns and runs to look for Larsa herself, having to frantically search and interrogate what seems to be half of the personnel in the building before she finds him in the humble bedroom of an unknown discipline of Bur Omisace.
13. She finds him huddled on top of the straw bed, looking very small and very isolated and shockingly vulnerable, far more so than he has ever ever appeared to her before. It takes her some time, however, to summon the courage to go to him and even do so much as to put her hands around his shoulders, sure she is intruding into something private that she has no right to look into. But when he doesn't pull away, Penelo makes a fumbling attempt to speak and to let him know she has some idea as to what he might be going through with his father's death.
***
Snippet:
"I'm sorry," she began, the words running over to trip themselves across the clumsy mass of her tongue, spilling hastily down her insensible lips, to reach small, pierced ears that seemed unable to hear her. "I'm really sorry this happened, Larsa-- I know your father meant so much to you. I know you loved him a lot. I-- when my parents died, I-- I just fell to pieces, even though I still had my broth-- I still had people in my life, like I know you have people in your life. Friends and fam-- those judges of yours. They'll be with you but I won't lie-- it'll still be hard. Losing anyone you love is hard, and it hurts. And no matter what people say or do to try and help you, it'll hurt for a long time afterwards. And-- and it's normal for it to feel that way. It doesn't mean you're broken. You won't die of this. You'll heal afterwards. It won't get better for a long time. It won't even feel better for even longer. But you can get through this. You'll get through this. I'll do anything I can to help."
He said nothing, though his shoulders did not shift from her hands. He would still not gaze at her.
***
14. With Larsa refusing to speak or even look at her, Penelo finally finds herself unable to stay in a confined room with him out of a combination of guilt and her own feelings of inadequacy. Finally, pushed to her limits and nearly in tears herself, she heads blindly out of the room, deciding that at the least, she can find a few creature comforts-- such as a blanket or some water or anything that might help Larsa-- to assuage his grief where she's proven inadequate. And it's only when she's halfway down the hall that she realizes that this could be the chance she had been waiting for. She could finally use this time-- with Archadia in chaos, with Larsa too apparently shattered to speak up for himself, with all hopes for Dalmascan peace apparently dashed-- to break the agreement to marry Larsa.
And what frightens her the most is not even that she can think that way-- she's come very far from the more politically innocent girl she had been even a week before-- but that she can feel so hopelessly tempted by the notion... and be so selfish in the midst of another's pain, as hopes for peace shatter with a man's death and nearly everyone scurrying around in the palace before her sentenced to suffer war and death.
15. And with that thought in mind-- colliding with her fear of Larsa being killed as soon as he's sent back to Archadia, intersecting with her budding empathy for his shock and recent loss, catalyzed by her own mixed feelings of tenderness and compassion and guilt and friendship towards him, mixing with her growing fear of what might happen to him if he survives Vayne but grows up feeling abandoned by the world and thus inspired to caused the same hurt his brother does-- Penelo turns back, walks into Larsa's room, takes him into her arms firmly and makes her decision.
***
Snippet
"I will come with you to Archadia," she whispered, against the salt of his cheek, against the silk of his hair, arms twined firmly around his thin form, fingers settling atop his bird-strong heart. "I will come with you to Archadia if you want me to. I won't abandon you now."
And the way he buried his salt-slick face against her throat so easily, so trustingly, so unknowingly of what she had been thinking previously... of how she had pictured him dead or gone or simply wrong...
He was still wordless, still trusting, still innocent, still yearning. She had never seen him this silent before, this silent or this vulnerable or this ready for her protection, not merely her affection or love.
"Hush," she soothed, and her arms went around him as though she wanted nothing more than to hold him, to buoy him up against what could come. "Hush. I'm with you now and I won't leave so easily. I'll be there, even if you should stand in front of armies."
And though she said it not, she thinks: I'll be there, even if you should fall to them. There if you should fall with your brother's knife at your back-- or with his ideals are trapped in your heart.
***
16. And soon after, the party leaves her to visit the Stilshrine of Miriam-- though not without a fight, with Basch worrying about her impulsiveness again, Vaan worrying about her sanity and Balthier cautioning her once more about Vayne's usual means of control (not through merely fear or power but also through love). Only Fran and Ashe among the party seem willing to let Penelo go-- Fran because she believes in Penelo as a warrior and Ashe because she sees the tactical advantage of having someone "on the inside" who could possibly rendezvous with the party later with information on Vayne's tactics or plans. By firmly putting her foot down and also revealing her newfound goal of keeping Larsa from either being killed messily or becoming as warped as his brother, Penelo finally manages to get most in Ashe's entourage to agree to allowing her to go to Archadia as Larsa's "captive," just as he had been theirs.
Finally, the party leaves, with Ashe giving Penelo a respectful nod, Balthier hissing one last word of caution, Fran handing her magecraft to study as she is away, Basch giving her one last warning about keeping her temper, and Vaan hugging her with ridiculous strength once more and promising to come back to kick her ass if she gets herself killed in the meantime.
Soon after, the Archadians come to escort Lord Larsa and Plus One back to Archadia. And Penelo does her best to mentally prepare to meet Vayne Solidor.
Thanks to Balthier, she believes she knows enough about him and his tactics to evade being either seduced or destroyed by him or his followers.
She doesn't know yet that she's unbelievably wrong.
***
Author's Note: So, is my fledgling attempt to finish the series while taking the laziest route out possible a good idea? A bad idea? Should I give up now? Do you still want to see what goes on to the end of the game time line? And if anyone is interest in seeing a scene or two from the good half-dozen or so chapters I've glossed over now be written, let me know and I'll see if the muse strikes. ;)
And thanks again goes to all the lovely people who have taken the time to read and review this series, especially Moontear and Jennamajarie, who did a fab job looking this over. Thank you, my dear hearts! ♥
Essentially, I'm sorry to finally have to throw in the towel as far as the Knots, Ties and Tides series is concerned, due to a combination of a lack of time and interest in continuing to write it. And frankly, though I still love the damn thing like a mother might love a deformed child, I honestly think Knots, Ties and Tides was essentially a failure as a piece of fiction. The plot was at least quite unique and the characters were ridiculously fun to write and hopefully to read-- but my pacing for the story was completely off. I spent around 80,000 words to set up the first pivotal event of the story-- Penelo and Larsa heading to Mt. Bur Omisace-- and after 13 chapters, still haven't managed to get them there. Frankly, I think writing any more would have tired both myself and the readers out, so I've decided to wrap up the series once and for all.
But for all that, I know there are a few kind souls out there who want to know how it ends, and for their sake, I wanted to use this time to run down the major events that take place between the end of chapter 13 and the final defeat of Vayne Solidor on the Bahamut. I know this is a little bit of a cheat to do it all in two compress chapters-- but I promise to do this as entertainingly as a summary format will allow me, with bits and pieces of actual scenes sprinkled into the text. And at the least, it would allow me to wrap up the series with an actual epilogue that will catch up with everyone in the series a good ten years after it closes with Vayne's defeat. I'm looking forward to that and I hope you are too. ;)
For those of you who might have gotten a little lost with the series, it might be helpful to read Knots, Ties and Tides in Fifteen Minutes, Part 1, Knots in Fifteen, Part 2 and Chapter 13 to get up to speed.
And so without further ado...
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, The Lost Chapters, Part 1
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Basch, Balthier, Vaan, Reks, Ashe, Gran Kilias, Vayne
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...
Note: Spans the time between the end of Chapter 13 of the series to the end of the game.
***
1. Picking up from chapter 13, Larsa and Penelo are escorted to Rabanastre by Basch and Balthier, both of whom have certain clashing... agendas as to why they took the mission to bring the children to Mount Bur Omisace in the first place. Larsa, meanwhile, takes his sweet time loitering in the desert to look for the creature that previously roughed him up and had reduced him to having only half the neck ruffles he had began the journey with-- only to take an even sweeter time when he confronts it again with Basch, Balthier and Penelo as backup.
***
Snippet:
Penelo looked up warily from the giant desert turkey Larsa had spent the last few minutes poking holes into with his rapier while looking positively bloodthirsty "Gods, Larsa, that's just creepy! Aren't you supposed to be a prince of peace or something?"
He simply looked up, smiled serenely, and wiped a speck of feather off his once-more-inflating sleeves. "I don't believe I am under any obligation to act as such to evil poultry."
***
2. Eventually, they arrive in Rabanastre and Penelo shows them to where they will stay in her hovel sweet hovel, still fluttering happily over having the Basch fon Ronsenberg staying in her residence, whilst Balthier thinks of quips to later taunt him relentlessly with. ("My, my, my good man. Someone clearly took the 'oh captain, my captain' part of the Dalmascan oath seriously.") Eventually, after an uneventful and rather depressing evening spent packing, Basch quietly informs her that he wishes to speak to her after the others in their party fall asleep-- which naturally sends Penelo off on a tizzy, given that he's the first attractive male with fully articulated testicles to express interest in her in years.
3. Unfortunately for Penelo, Basch is more surprised and puzzled by her attempts to dress up in her somewhat-droopy dancer's outfit and sneak out for a midnight rendezvous with him at one of the sidewalk cafes of Rabanastre, though he gallantly offers her his chest-obscuring tea-cozy to cover her scandalously exposed midriff with. (She declines, incidentally.) And she in turn, is surprised by the real reason he invited here here-- to talk about how hard her life would be if she went ahead with this plan, with Basch assuming she feels far more ready for it than she really is. Since he doesn't know that she has actually fought tooth and nail to slip out of this arrangement, he assumed that she would be just as hasty in accepting being empress as she had been in following Ashe's entourage weeks earlier. And given the time he has spent in training both Vaan and Penelo to get them up to speed, he's well aware of the often hasty and impulsive way she makes decisions when she feels as though she might be left behind by those she loves. He doesn't want her to ruin her life with a rushed decision she makes when she's too young to know the consequences it will have on her. In a way, Basch sees her as being the embodiment of what he had been as a 17-year-old soldier who had left his home-- a child who had been too young to realize the cruelty of the world and yet, all too eager to embrace it.
4. However, Penelo surprises him by telling him of the true story of how she ended up in her current predicament, absent Larsa's verbal flourishes and outright propaganda (as seen in Chapter 13). And when Basch hears of how reluctant she is to become Larsa's bride and how much she dreads going to Archadia, he tells her that if she would like... he would be willing to deflower her (or whatever few petals of virtue she has left) and make her unsuitable for a royal bride, should she have no other way to escape. Though touched and far more eager for his touch than she ever was for Larsa's, after thinking about his offer, Penelo has to turn him down. She's already been deforested by Reks-- and Larsa shrugged that off easily enough. And even if she took him up on the offer, she reminds Basch that Dalmasca would still lose its finest hope for a bloodless peace after two years of occupation. And though neither of them broach the subject, Penelo knows that he would very quickly regret doing what he did, both for personal reasons (she wasn't blind to the silent but potent grief Basch displayed after Vossler's death and knows she inspires nothing like that in him) and for the sake of Dalmasca. And Penelo finally acknowledges the final reason that she will go through with this wedding.
***
Snippet:
"After all," she whispered, and the palm he had placed in the middle of their table felt so warm when she covered it with her own. "You've suffered more than almost anyone else I know. And you've seen what we've all gone through in these last few years. Do you really think that trying to save me from a little boy is worth giving up any hope for helping all that heal?"
"When it is the life of a young girl at stake," he murmured-- and his eyes were sacrosanct and sad as he gazed down at her-- "it should be. Would you have me enrich my own life by impoverishing yours? Do you believe I could easily stand making a child bear the weight of my burden?"
And she laughed and touched the corner of his eye with her free hand, feeling far older than she had ever been. "Well, unless you magically become a pretty girl, I'm afraid I might have to at this one alone, Uncle. I mean, especially since Larsa seems more into my type than big, burly men."
"More's the pity," he replied, and the corner of his mouth wavered into a slow, proud curve, torn between grimace and laugh. "Given the chance, I might have made a fine empress-- though I am sure you could easily best me at such."
"I'll probably wear those big, fancy, ball gowns better," she agreed, though her fingers wavered as they traversed the well worn path down his scar to his sunken cheek, knowing what he was really trying to say. "I'll wear them well and I'll wear them proudly-- though you and everybody else better come and see me when I do. And-- when the time comes, you'll be there for me-- for the both of us-- right? I mean, since I won't have my family to be with me and-- and I guess I always thought of you as a sort of-- I mean-- you and Vaan and Fran and Balthier and even Ashe--"
"I will," he said, and his hands were gentle as he cupped her face and curved it for the first-- and only-- kiss he would ever give her, fluttering gently against the line where her skin met hair. "I will be with you as a friend for as long as I can, Penelo. Whatever else the world may do to you, I-- and Vaan, and Fran and Balthier, and even our Lady Ashe-- will be there. For as long as we possibly can."
***
Afterwards, Penelo and Basch retire again to their quarters, with Penelo spending much of the night tossing and turning in her cot, wondering what the hell might happen to her next.
5. The next day is spent finalizing plans for her leaving, with Penelo taking the time to say one last goodbye to her father-figure Migelo and her friends, while fielding some highly disturbing inquiries from Filo about the hot, flippy-haired lesbian who was new in town and from Kytes about where his little Larlita had been. However, a snag comes up when the party is about to use the teleport gate crystal in Rabanastre to instantly go to the village of the viera. Somehow, Balthier ended up being the only member of the party who had the particular stons to activate the crystals... and he very accidentally manages to take only Penelo to the location-- leaving a highly irate Larsa and worried Basch to hike the rest of the way there.
6. As Penelo soon finds out to her dismay, however, said accident was no accident at all... and Balthier has more than a few choice words to tell her about her marrying into House Solidor, however much she might have struggled against it. In fact, he tells her straight away that she's being a ridiculous idiot to think about marrying into the Solidor family, whatever Larsa might have promised her to get into his figurative (and future) bed. Vayne Solidor is not the sort to be controlled until death itself gets a grip on him-- and he's already had a great deal of practice in evading that particular fate as of yet, despite Balthier's previous best attempts. With almost brutal honesty, he predicts that if she marries into the Solidor line even a moment before Vayne is cold in the ground, she'll be dead in less than a year. And though Penelo is furious enough by what she believes is his attempts to demean her and make her appear weak, she's also terrified by how Balthier edges closer and closer to losing control as he goes on and on about what Vayne could do to break her down until she had nothing left.
***
Snippet:
"He enjoys your sort, Penelo," Balthier nearly spat, the corners of his mouth turning up as a mad dog's might as he did so. "Pretty and rebellious and naive and easily molded and you couldn't find a finer tool to place in his hands if you died trying to. You've spent the entirety of your short, hopeless life letting other people push you from place to place, deciding on who you are and what you'll do and who you'll do it with. And if you don't believe he'll take one look into your prim little face and know how to use you--"
"How dare you," she interrupted in a near serpentine hiss, feeling her fingers curl into fists as she watched him go on, a nervous and terrible heat building up within her palms, already singeing the tender skin here. "How dare you say those things to me! How dare you think I'll let that happen to me, that I'm stupid enough to listen to a word he might say! How dare you think that he can--"
And then Balthier's handsome face twisted into the ugliest expressions she had ever seen on it-- one strange and uncertain and bathetic enough to make the growing heat snuff out of her hands as though they had been pressed against glass.
She'd never seen that look on him before, though she had seen it reflected back at her often enough in her mirrored glass. And though it wasn't alien-- wasn't unrecognizable-- wasn't even necessarily unexpected--
She simply supposed she had never thought he could be mortal enough to feel it.
To her, Basch had always seemed, somehow, to be beyond a pain so elemental. And it terrified her now, to see him show it.
"He's done it before," Balthier finally said, when his throat seemed to unclench enough to let him whisper it. "And when he sees the girl who stole his brother from him, he'll make sure to do it again."
***
Needless to say, on top of all of her other worries, Penelo has to refocus back to the problem of Vayne Soldior and how successful Larsa's plan of "isolating" him in the future might be, given that Larsa would probably refuse to kill him unless something truly drastic occurred. She had merely thought she might be facing a long, miserable life if she married Larsa-- she had no idea it might be cut short in the bargain.
7. After another incredibly uncomfortable day spent in the company of a Balthier who seems to have lost his taste for words at long last, Penelo is unspeakably happy to actually see Basch and Larsa again, though she's also extremely stunned to see that Larsa has somehow taken to wearing his own chest-obscuring tea-cozy, though it remains uncertain as to whether he did so because he had been so impressed by how pleasantly normal Basch was or because he had mistakenly thought it to be the secret of Basch's female-attracting success. After a short struggle, Penelo finally takes the tea cozy away from Larsa and the entire party heads out to Mount Bur Omisace, with Basch and Balthier falling back to speak among themselves and allowing Penelo and Larsa privacy.
8. Penelo attempts to speak to Larsa about her new concerns about his brother murdering her as soon as the wedding veil slips off of her hair. However, though he's boyishly happy to see her again and hovers over her to make sure Balthier hasn't somehow harmed her helpless little self, his normal devotion to her crumbles more than a little in the face of her attempting to speak of his brother. Though he's clearly attempting to avoid being slapped head-first into a bank of ice by an irate fiancée, he's also very clear that his brother is just as dear to him as Penelo herself is. (If not, honestly, more so.) He's not blind enough to have missed that his brother has long been in decline of his sanity-- after all, he already realizes that if it proves "necessary", Vayne would gladly allow the tragedy that had happened to Nabudis to happen to Rabanastre or Ambervale. However, Larsa still desperately loves and clings to the apparently more fair, kind, and loving older brother Vayne had been in the past and seeks to simply... bottle his brother up when he goes into power, until Vayne becomes better. In fact, one of the reasons that Larsa wants to be married so much is to shore up his family-- to have a reason to keep his brother alive (since being married would make him more 'adult' and hopefully give his supporters a reason not to kill the rival heir, Vayne) and to grant his sickly, dying father the strength to hold on to life in hopes of having grand-children around him.
***
Snippet:
"I was hoping we could name our first son Gramis and our next Vayne," Larsa said, and his brown freckles stood in stark relief within his shuddering cheeks, against the flurry of snowflakes swirling past him in the air. "And my father and my brother-- they will love our children, I know they will love our children, as greatly and tenderly as they have loved me. How ever else they may be m-monstrous, they can at least accomplish that much."
She didn't know what to say so she said nothing at all, her fingers coming to rest with a tremble on her breast. The beat of her heart could not be any more furious than his eyes had been just a moment previous, when he had seen that she had wanted his brother... vanished.
They were monsters, of a sort, these men. But they would love her likely love her children, should they be Larsa's as well.
She didn't know what to even think of that.
"We shall all be a family again," he reassured her, as though it had been something for which she had asked. "And my father will live and my brother will live and nobody need ever die in our world. Nobody need ever be killed or hurt. We can make them all endure yet."
***
Needless to say, Penelo has yet another difficult thought to dwell on and even more reason to realize why the marriage would be necessary beyond reasons of personal (un)attraction. And with even more knowledge of how desperately lonely and painful Larsa's life has been, and why he was driven to arrange a wedding to a very average peasant girl in the first place, Penelo can draw yet more parallels between her own need to feel accepted and to belong to a family and Larsa's need to shore up his pathetically fragmenting clan. And with that in mind, Penelo finally holds her hand out to Larsa and tells him that no matter what happens, she will be with him as a friend.
***
Snippet:
"Come on then," she said, and her fingers slipped into his gloved hands with startling ease, as though finally doing so meant nothing at all, as though it had not come only after days of struggle and turmoil, after understand why everything had upended. "We've got a world to save, haven't we? And a few thousand years of tradition to overthrow just before we do that that?"
And when he finally took her hand and began the long walk up to the shining monastery in the sky that had been laying in wait for them for weeks, the shadow he cast on the snow behind him mingled with hers at last.
***
Then they walk into Mount Bur Omisace and the beginning of the end.
9. The party finally enters Mount Bur Omisace and pair up again with their companions, with Basch coming to stand again at an actually nervous Ashe's side, Balthier loping forward to take comfort in Fran's calming presence and Vaan and Penelo left to look awkwardly at each other as Larsa walks off to see to the Gran Kiltias.
***
Snippet:
"So," Vaan began, startled, looked achingly uncomfortable, then coughed. "I guess you're-- kinda sorta-- into... well... into little boys now, huh?"
If it had a will beyond its reign on her face, Penelo's answering glare might well have killed him then and there.
"I mean," he amended hastily, throwing his hands up in the air, "I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing, you know! As long as you just... I dunno... look and not, um, touch. Even if even looking is kinda... well..."
"I am not," she finally clarified through teeth gritted enough to snap through bangaa skin, "into little boys. In fact, it's just the opposite. They all seem rather crazily into me. And I'm not doing this because I want power or wealth or because I have some sort of fatal attraction towards jail bait that's even younger than I am, Vaan! I'm doing this only because--"
Whatever else she might have had to say, however, was interrupted by Vaan's arm thrown around her, as he pulled her into a hug that would have broken the ribs of a more fragile woman and caused her own to creak now.
And by the time she managed to squirm out of it-- though she took an embarrassingly long time to do it, not that she actually wanted or even needed it, since it wasn't as though she was a damsel in distress again or even been away for long-- all she could see was Vaan's face afterwards, smiling and shaking and contorting into the strangest of shapes, though it had always been as familiar to her as her own.
"If Larsa ever hurts you," he said solemnly, "we'll take him down together. Does that sound good enough?"
And though there was so much Vaan didn't know and so much he couldn't know and so much Larsa had already done to inadvertently hurt her...
Still, Penelo found herself smiling and on the verge of the strangest sort of tears when she nodded back to him, feeling as though, even after leaving Rabanastre, she still had a bit of home.
"Hell yes," she said, and his shoulder, when he came to stand beside her, was reassuringly firm against her own. "After all, nobody's better than a Rabanastran in a street rumble. No Archadian could ever compare to us."
"Yeah," he grunted in what he must have assumed was an intimidating fashion, feeling so much like what she had left behind, standing strong beside her. "Although... gotta say, I'm not sure how heroic it would be if we challenged him to a fist fight, considering there are two of us. And he's like half our size. And he looks like he could snap in half if we just took one good staff and..."
"Vaan?" she interrupted lightly.
"Yeah?" he murmured, voice going all funny and tender.
"I'm really gonna miss telling you to shut the hell up. So just for me... for one last time... please, please, please, please just do it."
"Heh," he cackled. "Why the hell not? Though I hope you know that I'm expecting a lot of compensation from having to now think about the wedding night between you and Emperor Badtouch--"
Even as a child, Penelo had always known that Vaan would lead an interesting life. It was a real pity that it had ended so suddenly, and without any warning whatsoever.
***
10. Shortly afterwards, Larsa returns to escort the Gran Kiltias Anastasis to his throne, only to have the scenery chewed from right under his dramatic under-bite by Al Cid making his usual dramatic entrance. Al Cid allows the Gran Kilitas to make his usual prophetic speeches about the future of peace being embodied by the people here and then listens to Larsa explain his plans to undertake a marriage between himself and the future Lady Penelo of Dalmasca (currently the member in the Lady Ashe's party most likely to die of absolute humiliation) in order to suture together the fissures created between Dalmascan freedom and Archadian imperialism.
11. However, before Larsa can formally petition the Gran Kiltias to declare he and Penelo to be engaged in a marriage that he is sure his father will endorse, Al Cid finally bursts out with his news: that the Emperor Gramis was poisoned, that members of the senate were judged guilty, and that Vayne Solidor had taken advantage of the series of events to consolidate complete control over Archadia, declaring martial rule and a cessation of the writ of habeas corpus that would allow him to decide the fate of every man, woman and creature within the realm. Though Al Cid does not say it, Penelo quickly puts together how much power Vayne wields now with warnings from both Balthier and Larsa on how ruthless Vayne can be. She then realizes Vayne likely killed Gramis himself, to become the next emperor. And when she turns to look at Larsa's startled, bone white, eminently still face, she realizes that he must believe as much, confirming the fact in her mind.
12. Soon after the Gran Kiltias informs them that, in light of this all, he cannot grant any of their party any more help and that his own death will come shortly at the hands of the Archadians that have come to fetch Larsa back. At this reminder, Larsa (still white and silent and on his last legs from learning of how all his hopes and schemes have collapsed utterly with his brother's betrayal and his father's death) turns and flees to the sanctuary of a private room. Few others seem to notice him, concerned as they are with figuring out what to do next and whether or how to deal with the Archadians when they finally arrive. Therefore, Penelo turns and runs to look for Larsa herself, having to frantically search and interrogate what seems to be half of the personnel in the building before she finds him in the humble bedroom of an unknown discipline of Bur Omisace.
13. She finds him huddled on top of the straw bed, looking very small and very isolated and shockingly vulnerable, far more so than he has ever ever appeared to her before. It takes her some time, however, to summon the courage to go to him and even do so much as to put her hands around his shoulders, sure she is intruding into something private that she has no right to look into. But when he doesn't pull away, Penelo makes a fumbling attempt to speak and to let him know she has some idea as to what he might be going through with his father's death.
***
Snippet:
"I'm sorry," she began, the words running over to trip themselves across the clumsy mass of her tongue, spilling hastily down her insensible lips, to reach small, pierced ears that seemed unable to hear her. "I'm really sorry this happened, Larsa-- I know your father meant so much to you. I know you loved him a lot. I-- when my parents died, I-- I just fell to pieces, even though I still had my broth-- I still had people in my life, like I know you have people in your life. Friends and fam-- those judges of yours. They'll be with you but I won't lie-- it'll still be hard. Losing anyone you love is hard, and it hurts. And no matter what people say or do to try and help you, it'll hurt for a long time afterwards. And-- and it's normal for it to feel that way. It doesn't mean you're broken. You won't die of this. You'll heal afterwards. It won't get better for a long time. It won't even feel better for even longer. But you can get through this. You'll get through this. I'll do anything I can to help."
He said nothing, though his shoulders did not shift from her hands. He would still not gaze at her.
***
14. With Larsa refusing to speak or even look at her, Penelo finally finds herself unable to stay in a confined room with him out of a combination of guilt and her own feelings of inadequacy. Finally, pushed to her limits and nearly in tears herself, she heads blindly out of the room, deciding that at the least, she can find a few creature comforts-- such as a blanket or some water or anything that might help Larsa-- to assuage his grief where she's proven inadequate. And it's only when she's halfway down the hall that she realizes that this could be the chance she had been waiting for. She could finally use this time-- with Archadia in chaos, with Larsa too apparently shattered to speak up for himself, with all hopes for Dalmascan peace apparently dashed-- to break the agreement to marry Larsa.
And what frightens her the most is not even that she can think that way-- she's come very far from the more politically innocent girl she had been even a week before-- but that she can feel so hopelessly tempted by the notion... and be so selfish in the midst of another's pain, as hopes for peace shatter with a man's death and nearly everyone scurrying around in the palace before her sentenced to suffer war and death.
15. And with that thought in mind-- colliding with her fear of Larsa being killed as soon as he's sent back to Archadia, intersecting with her budding empathy for his shock and recent loss, catalyzed by her own mixed feelings of tenderness and compassion and guilt and friendship towards him, mixing with her growing fear of what might happen to him if he survives Vayne but grows up feeling abandoned by the world and thus inspired to caused the same hurt his brother does-- Penelo turns back, walks into Larsa's room, takes him into her arms firmly and makes her decision.
***
Snippet
"I will come with you to Archadia," she whispered, against the salt of his cheek, against the silk of his hair, arms twined firmly around his thin form, fingers settling atop his bird-strong heart. "I will come with you to Archadia if you want me to. I won't abandon you now."
And the way he buried his salt-slick face against her throat so easily, so trustingly, so unknowingly of what she had been thinking previously... of how she had pictured him dead or gone or simply wrong...
He was still wordless, still trusting, still innocent, still yearning. She had never seen him this silent before, this silent or this vulnerable or this ready for her protection, not merely her affection or love.
"Hush," she soothed, and her arms went around him as though she wanted nothing more than to hold him, to buoy him up against what could come. "Hush. I'm with you now and I won't leave so easily. I'll be there, even if you should stand in front of armies."
And though she said it not, she thinks: I'll be there, even if you should fall to them. There if you should fall with your brother's knife at your back-- or with his ideals are trapped in your heart.
***
16. And soon after, the party leaves her to visit the Stilshrine of Miriam-- though not without a fight, with Basch worrying about her impulsiveness again, Vaan worrying about her sanity and Balthier cautioning her once more about Vayne's usual means of control (not through merely fear or power but also through love). Only Fran and Ashe among the party seem willing to let Penelo go-- Fran because she believes in Penelo as a warrior and Ashe because she sees the tactical advantage of having someone "on the inside" who could possibly rendezvous with the party later with information on Vayne's tactics or plans. By firmly putting her foot down and also revealing her newfound goal of keeping Larsa from either being killed messily or becoming as warped as his brother, Penelo finally manages to get most in Ashe's entourage to agree to allowing her to go to Archadia as Larsa's "captive," just as he had been theirs.
Finally, the party leaves, with Ashe giving Penelo a respectful nod, Balthier hissing one last word of caution, Fran handing her magecraft to study as she is away, Basch giving her one last warning about keeping her temper, and Vaan hugging her with ridiculous strength once more and promising to come back to kick her ass if she gets herself killed in the meantime.
Soon after, the Archadians come to escort Lord Larsa and Plus One back to Archadia. And Penelo does her best to mentally prepare to meet Vayne Solidor.
Thanks to Balthier, she believes she knows enough about him and his tactics to evade being either seduced or destroyed by him or his followers.
She doesn't know yet that she's unbelievably wrong.
***
Author's Note: So, is my fledgling attempt to finish the series while taking the laziest route out possible a good idea? A bad idea? Should I give up now? Do you still want to see what goes on to the end of the game time line? And if anyone is interest in seeing a scene or two from the good half-dozen or so chapters I've glossed over now be written, let me know and I'll see if the muse strikes. ;)
And thanks again goes to all the lovely people who have taken the time to read and review this series, especially Moontear and Jennamajarie, who did a fab job looking this over. Thank you, my dear hearts! ♥