FFXII Fic: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 3 (Penelo, Ashe, Larsa, Larsa/Penelo)
Still for She Who Bakes The Best Brownies of All Time, midnightdiddle, if only because she’s being increasingly instrumental to helping me figure out the general shape of this fic. All hail her evil genius! ♥ Also much love goes to aorin107, cygna_hime and threewalls, who really helped me with the politics of this fic from the last few comments they left me.
Comments, corrections and criticism are, as always, completely welcome and loved. After all, a little encouragement never fails to add a bit of inspiration... which always makes the writing process go faster!
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 3
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Penelo, Ashe, Larsa, Larsa/Penelo (Somewhat)
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 slept for quite a few hours in the aftermath of her last conversation with Ashe, mind whirling, body aching and common decency all but howling at the possible future Ashe had presented her with. But even there she found no real rest-- even there, her dreams were full of odd and twisted boundaries that she could not pass, strangled ties that kept her from leaving, and ugly, rusted lines that held her down whenever she tried. And though she could remember almost nothing when she woke up afterwards, the sensation of being pulled down and kept from the sky left her sweaty and trembling when she finally woke up again.
And when she did, the viera healer still tending her told her that the rest of Ashe’s party had long since left her behind.
She had been ready to panic just then, ready to assume that Ashe had finally come to her senses and realized that she was completely unsuited for all of these grand plans and for marrying into the noble House of Archadia for god’s sake and just left her behind to not deal with the inevitable teen-girl temper tantrums.
(Though considering Ashe was only nineteen herself and had by far the fouler temper, who would have thrown them was questionable. Possibly they‘d just end up having some sort of vicious catfight that the rest of the crowd could bring supportive banners for, or something.)
She had been ready to panic, to storm off, to go head to Mount Bur Damntheplace all by her lonesome self, just to demand to know what was going on now. Because as strange as it might have seemed, as awful as it was to be included in plans she had never wanted to be included in, it was even worse to be disregarded, thrown away, left behind.
But right about the time she had started stuffing her bare feet back into her boots and cursing at Vaan for letting them do this to her, a viera interrupted her to let her know that the party had temporarily left for the Henne mines to retrieve Fran’s sister (Fran had a sister?!), leaving her behind to recuperate.
“We would not,” the viera healer told her quietly, “ordinarily have sheltered a hume within our borders. However, seeing as how your condition is still somewhat fragile and how your party has left to retrieve one of our own, we have decided to care for you for the time being. It would better for all of us if you could simply stay in the place you are in already.”
Apparently, the viera weren’t completely heartless, rabbit-vixen qualities aside. Thanking her, Penelo stood up nonetheless, waving aside the inevitable spell of dizziness, though not the helping arm around her shoulders, when both came.
“You’re probably right,” she told the healer-- Raya-- quietly. “But right now, more than anything, I need a quiet, open place to think. Would you mind helping me find it? Please?”
And when the viera gravely nodded back at her, Penelo felt the tension building up in her chest ease for the first time in what felt like ages.
---
Eruyt Village, the village of the viera, turned out to be as lovely and forbidding as the creatures that populated it were themselves. And yet, for all of the frosty looks and sideways glances granted to Penelo as she and the still-kind healer made their slow way to an unpopulated sideways edge of the village, Penelo could easily see the allure of the place. Even the coldness of most of the inhabitants couldn’t erase the quiet splendor of the expansive and beautiful streets, of the graceful and arching bridges, of the lush and vivid greenery and the delicate ironwork of the lattices scattered all over. This was indeed a place that was suited for quiet thought, though Penelo could understand why staying in it for too long could send its people out in the wider world in droves.
(And seeing how quite a few of them ended up apparently gallivanting around with sexy sky pirates in pants tight enough to let you see whether they hung naturally to the left or the right, Penelo didn't exactly blame them either.)
But right now, the peace and silence of Eruyt Village was just what she needed. And when Raya left after Penelo reassured her that she would be fine for the time being, she leaned back against one of the strong screens left around the village and sighed.
She had no idea what she was going to do now and no real idea how to go about deciding what to do either.
Penelo supposed part of it was just that she had never before thought she’d ever be caught in a wave of weirdness as wild as the one engulfing her right now. She had always hoped to get married in the future, that was true-- but she had always thought of it as the distant future and her plans had never involved any prepubescent boys either, on account of her not being a complete creep and all.
Hell, even being part of nobility (and that was only marginally less believable than the creepy child bride groom Ashe was trying to pawn off on her now) had always been a future Penelo had never dreamt of. She had always figured that, well, if Vaan somehow managed to pull a miracle from his nethers and become a sky pirate, she’d probably end up his partner, name herself the Dread Pirate Sugar Thighs and get ready to spend much of her late teens and early twenties surgically extracting his arse out of trouble via an atlas whenever he inevitably blundered into it yet again. That was the way their friendship had worked so far and it seemed as good a way to spend her time as any.
And if not (and for most of their lives, it pretty much was a not), she’d likely live in Rabanstre for most of her life, maybe traveling once in a while if she could. She’d have to keep working as a shop girl and dancer for quite a while but she’d hopefully eventually get the chance to earn a living doing something where her hips didn't have to lie all the time. She could eventually go into business, like her parents had, or maybe go back to school. She could train to be a healer and use her innate magical skills for the better, for doing something other than patching Vaan back up after he tried to attack the giant dinosaur in the Westersand with nothing more than a song in his heart, a blade in his hand and sand permanently lodged inside his skull.
It was something that would have done her parents proud, after all.
She had always planned to get married too, maybe in her twenties or thirties, to someone like her father or her brothers. Someone kind and sweet and funny, mature and responsible and level-headed-- and it’d be nice if he was sexy and rich and had a rear she could bounce solid gold bullions off of as well but she didn’t even need that much.
Penelo had never thought she might eventually come to be pressured into marriage with possibly the most massively whip-lash-inducing little boy she had known for only a span of a week, for the sake of making an Emperor with the god-awful ugliest winged wangdoodle in all of Ivalice give back Dalmasca's freedom.
But then again, she’d never really thought of one day becoming part of a small band of fallen royalty, would-be king-killers, dashing sky pirates and plucky street orphans that needed to unravel the mysteries of a madman and restore a princess to her rightful throne before time ran out or said princess lost her mind and inevitably murdered them.
Maybe it was time to adjust her expectations about what her life would be like, once and for all.
But still, Ashe was asking a lot of her. If Penelo agreed to this crazy plan, she’d also have to agree to so many other changes. She’d have to learn to somehow become a noblewoman, after two years living in the slums of Rabanstre, occasionally (and literally) dancing for her supper. She’d have to somehow serve as a representative for Dalmasca in a place that had been to war with it for two years and likely had no lost love for it either. She’d have to relocate to another kingdom entirely, to a foreign empire that she knew enough only to be frightened by.
And strangest of all, she’d have to agree to marry Larsa… and she didn’t know whether he was at all ready for these same changes either.
Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, fourth son of the Emperor and apparent heir to the Archadian Empire... He had lived the same sort of life Ashe had, the sort that made these sort of crazy arrangements make sense-- but that didn’t mean he really wanted to go through with this himself. Hell, for all she knew, the poor kid might just be saying yes to these schemes to avoid letting the people who had pressured him into this idea down. She needed to talk to him to see-- to see if he was really willing to go through with this, and what he expected of her, and what kind of life they might have to live together.
Because, no matter what her would-be queen had to say, Penelo would never force a child to marry her for the sake of some flimsy version of peace that might never even hold thanks to his crazed and badly-coiffed older brother.
(And frankly speaking, Penelo already had her doubts about how quickly the issue of that man was going to be finished up.)
Larsa was just so young and probably so impressionable and no matter how… in control he had seemed earlier, he likely had no more idea of what to expect from all of this than she did. He just seemed so… innocent wasn’t quite the word, he was too smart for that, but inexperienced would work and no doubt someone else had pushed him into making this mad decision to get engaged or whatever to her.
What sort of ordinary twelve year old boy ran around thinking about getting himself a wife, after all? What could he even hope to do with her?
Admittedly, Penelo knew that Larsa was very, well, different from most of the other children his age. Kytes and Filo in Lowtown, for example, had never gallivanted about the country, trying to restore peace on the strength of their own belief that the power of puffy sleeves might solve damn near everything. There was something pretty admirable, if not a little scary, about the way Larsa had of taking matters into his own hands, no matter how young those hands might be. But no matter how mature he was for his age, he wasn’t ready to be married any more than Penelo was ready to dress in drag and do the hula.
No, more than anything, she needed to talk to him directly, to find out what he wanted to do, what he was capable of doing. And as she stood up slowly, ignoring her still-sore body to do that, she thought she had the first inklings of what to do to find out.
---
Ashe’s party arrived back to Eruyt a few hours later with a young and rather dazed-looking viera in their party. Penelo stood aside quietly near the entrance to the village and watched as Fran and the leader of the viera-- another sister Jote, apparently, since no one in their party could possibly hope to function without a minimum of two family tragedies-- spoke quietly to Fran apparently having deserted “the green way” of their people, with only the occasional rude interruption provided by-- who else?-- Vaan.
It was only after all the party seemed ready to leave in a huff over the collective chilliness of the viera (though really, having had time with them, Penelo didn’t think even the worst of their grumpy-amazon-rabbit-women bits were that bad), that Penelo made her move. Striding out to the rest of her friends, Penelo smiled warmly at all of them as she made her entrance once more, determined not to show any hint of weakness. “Did anyone miss me?” she asked them with a smile as she shouldered her pack once more and readied herself for travel. “Because you had better. It was pretty rude to just go off on another quest without taking me along!”
Curiously enough, out of all of the group, it was Larsa who seemed most agitated at seeing her again. “Penelo!” he cried, and his voice higher than she had ever heard it before, which was really saying something considering puberty seemed to have barely made any in-roads into his voice box. “Penelo, it is good to see you well and unharmed once more. But really, when we have the time, I must get the chance to talk to you about-- about a few subjects. But the manufactured nethicite that I gave you before, you must still have it. I need you to--”
“I know,” she interrupted brightly, determined to have her say. “I know, we really should sit down and talk sometime. And considering how many plans there are up in the air at this point, I honestly think that now's a good a time as any.” And then, turning to their leader, Penelo favored her with a slightly forced grin. “Anyway, Ashe, considering what we were, well, we were talking about earlier, I think Larsa has the right idea. Do you mind if he and I could just… take a little break from the adventuring for a bit? Spend a little bit of time with each other, just to figure something out?”
Somewhere, someone made a small noise at the back of their throat at the idea. Penelo didn’t look around to see who, not when Ashe was regarding her calmly over the hilt of her blade, almost daring her subject to back down. “You do realize that we need to make haste for Mount Bur-Omisace quite soon, yes? And that we shall need the both of you to be there for the events planned as well?”
Oh, so that was the real name of the place. Penelo kept her gaze calm and her voice steady. Showing weakness in the wild was always fatal. “Yes, yes I do. But I also know that getting us both there and making us do what you need us to might take a bit of time. And… I’d like to take that time talking to Larsa. See what he wants to do. What he's willing to do. Whether he understands what, well, what all of these plans will mean for the both of us.”
Ashe sighed softly but did not look too frustrated, thank the higher powers. “You don’t believe he wants to see these… plans enacted as much as I do?”
It was surprisingly hard to keep her eyes from narrowing just then. “I think he wants peace, Ashe. That doesn’t mean he’s prepared to do what we might need to do to get it, no matter what he‘s saying right now.”
Ashe’s lips curled up in a tight smile. “And you wish to persuade-- or dissuade-- him from those preparations?”
Damn. Beyond the towering cliffs of crazy, Ashe’s mind was as sharp as ever. Penelo shook her head quickly. “No, no, nothing like that. I just want to make sure he’s ready for... what might come.”
A certain gleam lit up Ashe’s eyes. “His blood is… nearly as blue as my own. I have no real doubts that he shall know precisely what to do, just as I did.”
If this came down to a catfight anytime soon, Penelo was going to make sure to rip quite a few hairs right out of Ashe’s skull before Ashe inevitably murdered her. “Look, I know you had five years on him when your… well, you know, when yours occurred. Going through that step at seventeen and going through it at twelve is completely different!”
Her would-be-liege inhaled slowly and deeply and rather terrifyingly. “And how would you know? You haven’t even assessed how ready he is. He seems far more eager than you are to… conjugate at this point.”
Terrifying enough, that seemed true. Penelo cursed the unseemly fates that saddled her with the most seemingly nuptial minded twelve year old in the world.
“That’s just why,” she finally muttered, “I asked to talk to him. To see if he really is. And if he is and if he's still willing to go through with it, I'll even..." It was surprisingly hard to force these words out, knowing how they might bind her in the future, but what choice did Penelo really have? What else could she do when all of Dalmasca could be counting on her to go through with this crazy affair in the future?
Penelo stepped forward, dragging herself inch by inch until her mouth was bare centimeters from Ashe’s ears, until her voice softened into a whisper only Fran‘s ears might be able to hear. "If he is and if you still need me to when we go to Mount Bur-Omisace... I’ll even say yes. To everything you want me to.”
There. That was it. Those were all her cards face up on the negotiating table. And she wasn’t lying either-- if he was prepared, and if their respective nations needed her to, she’d do whatever Ashe needed her to. She’d become a noble woman under Ashe’s service, she’d get engaged to Larsa as a way of demonstrating the good faith between their nations, she’d even marry him in a few years, whenever that good faith resulted into a free Dalmasca. She’d do it, even if it was nothing she had ever wanted, if Larsa was willing to go through it as well.
Hopefully, though… hopefully he’d turn her down, after realizing everything this meant. Maybe, just maybe, if she could actually get him to realize how much this would change his life, how hard getting married so young would be for the both of them…
Hopefully, maybe. But she needed to actually talk to him first, without any outside influences. And that was what she was hoping to do now.
“How long would you need?” Ashe asked her, voice cool and eyes considering, quietly interrupting her thoughts.
“A day,” Penelo answered quickly, almost not believing Ashe might let her do this. “Just a day. Everyone else could spend their time resting or shopping or doing hunts or-- or anything, really. Just hold off on going to Mount Bur-Omisace until tomorrow evening and come and collect me and Larsa at the entrance of this village then. There’s a teleportation crystal here and we’ve got plenty of stones already from clan hunts. It’ll be easy to meet back here.”
For a minute, all Penelo could do was hold her breath and hope Ashe took the bait after all. But after a long moment where she could practically feel the eyes of the rest of the party boring into her back, Ashe nodded slowly. “One day. And only one day. And I would much appreciate receiving a final answer from you on the morrow.”
Penelo straightened at the challenge. “Don’t worry, Ashe. A day is all I’ll need. And I promise, I’ll give you your answer soon.” And then, turning to the very quiet and very thoughtful boy that stood to the back of her, she offered him as brilliant smile a smile as she could muster. “So how about it, Larsa? Do you mind spending a couple of hours with me in Rabanastre? I’m sure we can find a lot of fun things to do and, well, even more things to talk about.”
And when Larsa slowly nodded, Penelo was grateful to see that at least this much was going to work out.
---
Author’s Note: Aargh, transition chapters, argh. These ones are, by far, the most annoying things to write in a narrative with actual, multiple chapters. And this chapter was pretty much all transition and gathering things in for the relationships and alliances that still need to be formed. But still, I hope you can bear with me because next chapter, things will actually get interesting once more, what with Penelo’s burning (and possibly futile) desire to shake some sense into her would-be-child-bride…
Also, I feel as though now would be an ideal time to let you know that Penelo pretty much fit’s the definition of the classic unreliable narrator. There are so many things that she sees more as she wants to see them than as they really are. Snaps to anyone who managed to catch any pretty lies she might have told herself this time around. ;)
Comments, corrections and criticism are, as always, completely welcome and loved. After all, a little encouragement never fails to add a bit of inspiration... which always makes the writing process go faster!
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 3
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Penelo, Ashe, Larsa, Larsa/Penelo (Somewhat)
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 slept for quite a few hours in the aftermath of her last conversation with Ashe, mind whirling, body aching and common decency all but howling at the possible future Ashe had presented her with. But even there she found no real rest-- even there, her dreams were full of odd and twisted boundaries that she could not pass, strangled ties that kept her from leaving, and ugly, rusted lines that held her down whenever she tried. And though she could remember almost nothing when she woke up afterwards, the sensation of being pulled down and kept from the sky left her sweaty and trembling when she finally woke up again.
And when she did, the viera healer still tending her told her that the rest of Ashe’s party had long since left her behind.
She had been ready to panic just then, ready to assume that Ashe had finally come to her senses and realized that she was completely unsuited for all of these grand plans and for marrying into the noble House of Archadia for god’s sake and just left her behind to not deal with the inevitable teen-girl temper tantrums.
(Though considering Ashe was only nineteen herself and had by far the fouler temper, who would have thrown them was questionable. Possibly they‘d just end up having some sort of vicious catfight that the rest of the crowd could bring supportive banners for, or something.)
She had been ready to panic, to storm off, to go head to Mount Bur Damntheplace all by her lonesome self, just to demand to know what was going on now. Because as strange as it might have seemed, as awful as it was to be included in plans she had never wanted to be included in, it was even worse to be disregarded, thrown away, left behind.
But right about the time she had started stuffing her bare feet back into her boots and cursing at Vaan for letting them do this to her, a viera interrupted her to let her know that the party had temporarily left for the Henne mines to retrieve Fran’s sister (Fran had a sister?!), leaving her behind to recuperate.
“We would not,” the viera healer told her quietly, “ordinarily have sheltered a hume within our borders. However, seeing as how your condition is still somewhat fragile and how your party has left to retrieve one of our own, we have decided to care for you for the time being. It would better for all of us if you could simply stay in the place you are in already.”
Apparently, the viera weren’t completely heartless, rabbit-vixen qualities aside. Thanking her, Penelo stood up nonetheless, waving aside the inevitable spell of dizziness, though not the helping arm around her shoulders, when both came.
“You’re probably right,” she told the healer-- Raya-- quietly. “But right now, more than anything, I need a quiet, open place to think. Would you mind helping me find it? Please?”
And when the viera gravely nodded back at her, Penelo felt the tension building up in her chest ease for the first time in what felt like ages.
---
Eruyt Village, the village of the viera, turned out to be as lovely and forbidding as the creatures that populated it were themselves. And yet, for all of the frosty looks and sideways glances granted to Penelo as she and the still-kind healer made their slow way to an unpopulated sideways edge of the village, Penelo could easily see the allure of the place. Even the coldness of most of the inhabitants couldn’t erase the quiet splendor of the expansive and beautiful streets, of the graceful and arching bridges, of the lush and vivid greenery and the delicate ironwork of the lattices scattered all over. This was indeed a place that was suited for quiet thought, though Penelo could understand why staying in it for too long could send its people out in the wider world in droves.
(And seeing how quite a few of them ended up apparently gallivanting around with sexy sky pirates in pants tight enough to let you see whether they hung naturally to the left or the right, Penelo didn't exactly blame them either.)
But right now, the peace and silence of Eruyt Village was just what she needed. And when Raya left after Penelo reassured her that she would be fine for the time being, she leaned back against one of the strong screens left around the village and sighed.
She had no idea what she was going to do now and no real idea how to go about deciding what to do either.
Penelo supposed part of it was just that she had never before thought she’d ever be caught in a wave of weirdness as wild as the one engulfing her right now. She had always hoped to get married in the future, that was true-- but she had always thought of it as the distant future and her plans had never involved any prepubescent boys either, on account of her not being a complete creep and all.
Hell, even being part of nobility (and that was only marginally less believable than the creepy child bride groom Ashe was trying to pawn off on her now) had always been a future Penelo had never dreamt of. She had always figured that, well, if Vaan somehow managed to pull a miracle from his nethers and become a sky pirate, she’d probably end up his partner, name herself the Dread Pirate Sugar Thighs and get ready to spend much of her late teens and early twenties surgically extracting his arse out of trouble via an atlas whenever he inevitably blundered into it yet again. That was the way their friendship had worked so far and it seemed as good a way to spend her time as any.
And if not (and for most of their lives, it pretty much was a not), she’d likely live in Rabanstre for most of her life, maybe traveling once in a while if she could. She’d have to keep working as a shop girl and dancer for quite a while but she’d hopefully eventually get the chance to earn a living doing something where her hips didn't have to lie all the time. She could eventually go into business, like her parents had, or maybe go back to school. She could train to be a healer and use her innate magical skills for the better, for doing something other than patching Vaan back up after he tried to attack the giant dinosaur in the Westersand with nothing more than a song in his heart, a blade in his hand and sand permanently lodged inside his skull.
It was something that would have done her parents proud, after all.
She had always planned to get married too, maybe in her twenties or thirties, to someone like her father or her brothers. Someone kind and sweet and funny, mature and responsible and level-headed-- and it’d be nice if he was sexy and rich and had a rear she could bounce solid gold bullions off of as well but she didn’t even need that much.
Penelo had never thought she might eventually come to be pressured into marriage with possibly the most massively whip-lash-inducing little boy she had known for only a span of a week, for the sake of making an Emperor with the god-awful ugliest winged wangdoodle in all of Ivalice give back Dalmasca's freedom.
But then again, she’d never really thought of one day becoming part of a small band of fallen royalty, would-be king-killers, dashing sky pirates and plucky street orphans that needed to unravel the mysteries of a madman and restore a princess to her rightful throne before time ran out or said princess lost her mind and inevitably murdered them.
Maybe it was time to adjust her expectations about what her life would be like, once and for all.
But still, Ashe was asking a lot of her. If Penelo agreed to this crazy plan, she’d also have to agree to so many other changes. She’d have to learn to somehow become a noblewoman, after two years living in the slums of Rabanstre, occasionally (and literally) dancing for her supper. She’d have to somehow serve as a representative for Dalmasca in a place that had been to war with it for two years and likely had no lost love for it either. She’d have to relocate to another kingdom entirely, to a foreign empire that she knew enough only to be frightened by.
And strangest of all, she’d have to agree to marry Larsa… and she didn’t know whether he was at all ready for these same changes either.
Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, fourth son of the Emperor and apparent heir to the Archadian Empire... He had lived the same sort of life Ashe had, the sort that made these sort of crazy arrangements make sense-- but that didn’t mean he really wanted to go through with this himself. Hell, for all she knew, the poor kid might just be saying yes to these schemes to avoid letting the people who had pressured him into this idea down. She needed to talk to him to see-- to see if he was really willing to go through with this, and what he expected of her, and what kind of life they might have to live together.
Because, no matter what her would-be queen had to say, Penelo would never force a child to marry her for the sake of some flimsy version of peace that might never even hold thanks to his crazed and badly-coiffed older brother.
(And frankly speaking, Penelo already had her doubts about how quickly the issue of that man was going to be finished up.)
Larsa was just so young and probably so impressionable and no matter how… in control he had seemed earlier, he likely had no more idea of what to expect from all of this than she did. He just seemed so… innocent wasn’t quite the word, he was too smart for that, but inexperienced would work and no doubt someone else had pushed him into making this mad decision to get engaged or whatever to her.
What sort of ordinary twelve year old boy ran around thinking about getting himself a wife, after all? What could he even hope to do with her?
Admittedly, Penelo knew that Larsa was very, well, different from most of the other children his age. Kytes and Filo in Lowtown, for example, had never gallivanted about the country, trying to restore peace on the strength of their own belief that the power of puffy sleeves might solve damn near everything. There was something pretty admirable, if not a little scary, about the way Larsa had of taking matters into his own hands, no matter how young those hands might be. But no matter how mature he was for his age, he wasn’t ready to be married any more than Penelo was ready to dress in drag and do the hula.
No, more than anything, she needed to talk to him directly, to find out what he wanted to do, what he was capable of doing. And as she stood up slowly, ignoring her still-sore body to do that, she thought she had the first inklings of what to do to find out.
---
Ashe’s party arrived back to Eruyt a few hours later with a young and rather dazed-looking viera in their party. Penelo stood aside quietly near the entrance to the village and watched as Fran and the leader of the viera-- another sister Jote, apparently, since no one in their party could possibly hope to function without a minimum of two family tragedies-- spoke quietly to Fran apparently having deserted “the green way” of their people, with only the occasional rude interruption provided by-- who else?-- Vaan.
It was only after all the party seemed ready to leave in a huff over the collective chilliness of the viera (though really, having had time with them, Penelo didn’t think even the worst of their grumpy-amazon-rabbit-women bits were that bad), that Penelo made her move. Striding out to the rest of her friends, Penelo smiled warmly at all of them as she made her entrance once more, determined not to show any hint of weakness. “Did anyone miss me?” she asked them with a smile as she shouldered her pack once more and readied herself for travel. “Because you had better. It was pretty rude to just go off on another quest without taking me along!”
Curiously enough, out of all of the group, it was Larsa who seemed most agitated at seeing her again. “Penelo!” he cried, and his voice higher than she had ever heard it before, which was really saying something considering puberty seemed to have barely made any in-roads into his voice box. “Penelo, it is good to see you well and unharmed once more. But really, when we have the time, I must get the chance to talk to you about-- about a few subjects. But the manufactured nethicite that I gave you before, you must still have it. I need you to--”
“I know,” she interrupted brightly, determined to have her say. “I know, we really should sit down and talk sometime. And considering how many plans there are up in the air at this point, I honestly think that now's a good a time as any.” And then, turning to their leader, Penelo favored her with a slightly forced grin. “Anyway, Ashe, considering what we were, well, we were talking about earlier, I think Larsa has the right idea. Do you mind if he and I could just… take a little break from the adventuring for a bit? Spend a little bit of time with each other, just to figure something out?”
Somewhere, someone made a small noise at the back of their throat at the idea. Penelo didn’t look around to see who, not when Ashe was regarding her calmly over the hilt of her blade, almost daring her subject to back down. “You do realize that we need to make haste for Mount Bur-Omisace quite soon, yes? And that we shall need the both of you to be there for the events planned as well?”
Oh, so that was the real name of the place. Penelo kept her gaze calm and her voice steady. Showing weakness in the wild was always fatal. “Yes, yes I do. But I also know that getting us both there and making us do what you need us to might take a bit of time. And… I’d like to take that time talking to Larsa. See what he wants to do. What he's willing to do. Whether he understands what, well, what all of these plans will mean for the both of us.”
Ashe sighed softly but did not look too frustrated, thank the higher powers. “You don’t believe he wants to see these… plans enacted as much as I do?”
It was surprisingly hard to keep her eyes from narrowing just then. “I think he wants peace, Ashe. That doesn’t mean he’s prepared to do what we might need to do to get it, no matter what he‘s saying right now.”
Ashe’s lips curled up in a tight smile. “And you wish to persuade-- or dissuade-- him from those preparations?”
Damn. Beyond the towering cliffs of crazy, Ashe’s mind was as sharp as ever. Penelo shook her head quickly. “No, no, nothing like that. I just want to make sure he’s ready for... what might come.”
A certain gleam lit up Ashe’s eyes. “His blood is… nearly as blue as my own. I have no real doubts that he shall know precisely what to do, just as I did.”
If this came down to a catfight anytime soon, Penelo was going to make sure to rip quite a few hairs right out of Ashe’s skull before Ashe inevitably murdered her. “Look, I know you had five years on him when your… well, you know, when yours occurred. Going through that step at seventeen and going through it at twelve is completely different!”
Her would-be-liege inhaled slowly and deeply and rather terrifyingly. “And how would you know? You haven’t even assessed how ready he is. He seems far more eager than you are to… conjugate at this point.”
Terrifying enough, that seemed true. Penelo cursed the unseemly fates that saddled her with the most seemingly nuptial minded twelve year old in the world.
“That’s just why,” she finally muttered, “I asked to talk to him. To see if he really is. And if he is and if he's still willing to go through with it, I'll even..." It was surprisingly hard to force these words out, knowing how they might bind her in the future, but what choice did Penelo really have? What else could she do when all of Dalmasca could be counting on her to go through with this crazy affair in the future?
Penelo stepped forward, dragging herself inch by inch until her mouth was bare centimeters from Ashe’s ears, until her voice softened into a whisper only Fran‘s ears might be able to hear. "If he is and if you still need me to when we go to Mount Bur-Omisace... I’ll even say yes. To everything you want me to.”
There. That was it. Those were all her cards face up on the negotiating table. And she wasn’t lying either-- if he was prepared, and if their respective nations needed her to, she’d do whatever Ashe needed her to. She’d become a noble woman under Ashe’s service, she’d get engaged to Larsa as a way of demonstrating the good faith between their nations, she’d even marry him in a few years, whenever that good faith resulted into a free Dalmasca. She’d do it, even if it was nothing she had ever wanted, if Larsa was willing to go through it as well.
Hopefully, though… hopefully he’d turn her down, after realizing everything this meant. Maybe, just maybe, if she could actually get him to realize how much this would change his life, how hard getting married so young would be for the both of them…
Hopefully, maybe. But she needed to actually talk to him first, without any outside influences. And that was what she was hoping to do now.
“How long would you need?” Ashe asked her, voice cool and eyes considering, quietly interrupting her thoughts.
“A day,” Penelo answered quickly, almost not believing Ashe might let her do this. “Just a day. Everyone else could spend their time resting or shopping or doing hunts or-- or anything, really. Just hold off on going to Mount Bur-Omisace until tomorrow evening and come and collect me and Larsa at the entrance of this village then. There’s a teleportation crystal here and we’ve got plenty of stones already from clan hunts. It’ll be easy to meet back here.”
For a minute, all Penelo could do was hold her breath and hope Ashe took the bait after all. But after a long moment where she could practically feel the eyes of the rest of the party boring into her back, Ashe nodded slowly. “One day. And only one day. And I would much appreciate receiving a final answer from you on the morrow.”
Penelo straightened at the challenge. “Don’t worry, Ashe. A day is all I’ll need. And I promise, I’ll give you your answer soon.” And then, turning to the very quiet and very thoughtful boy that stood to the back of her, she offered him as brilliant smile a smile as she could muster. “So how about it, Larsa? Do you mind spending a couple of hours with me in Rabanastre? I’m sure we can find a lot of fun things to do and, well, even more things to talk about.”
And when Larsa slowly nodded, Penelo was grateful to see that at least this much was going to work out.
---
Author’s Note: Aargh, transition chapters, argh. These ones are, by far, the most annoying things to write in a narrative with actual, multiple chapters. And this chapter was pretty much all transition and gathering things in for the relationships and alliances that still need to be formed. But still, I hope you can bear with me because next chapter, things will actually get interesting once more, what with Penelo’s burning (and possibly futile) desire to shake some sense into her would-be-child-bride…
Also, I feel as though now would be an ideal time to let you know that Penelo pretty much fit’s the definition of the classic unreliable narrator. There are so many things that she sees more as she wants to see them than as they really are. Snaps to anyone who managed to catch any pretty lies she might have told herself this time around. ;)