FFXII Fic: On Death and Dying (Larsa/Penelo, Cast)
Hallelujah! Today is a red letter day-- I finally have my internet completely restored at home, I finally finished this story and I finally have a chance to catch-up with my f-list! It's so strange how even the smallest things can occasionally fill us with glee, eh?
In any case... here's the second-to-last installment of The Uses of Enchantment. Writing this killed me a little... which is only fair since I kill a little within it as well. I have no idea if it's any good but I'm just glad I managed to finish it as is. And I hope you shall be as well.
And as always, comments and corrections and criticism are completely welcome and loved! I'm not sure I'll ever write much fanfiction after the end of this series so it'll be lovely to hear from everyone one last time.
Title: On Death and Dying
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: The Uses of Enchantment
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Cast
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Even the hardiest flowers eventually fade. Penelo, Larsa, and facing a final end in sight.
*
I first met my future wife in the year 706 Old Valendian, five months before I turned thirteen years old.
To those who don't know of me, to those who have never learned anything of my story, such a fact might mean absolutely nothing at all. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finally gets girl after years of wooing and sacrificing a large portion of misappropriated imperial territory to her liege-- it all sounds quite a bit like the oldest story in the book. The only possible deviation from the average love story could be my comparative youthfulness, which unfortunately has been the source of much amusement and bafflement over the course of our lives. But to an ignorant observer, even that might not make such a difference. After all, young boys do fall in love with lovely older women all the time.
In fact, how old I was and when I fell in love only matters if you realize that I did so when I was twelve years old, that I tumbled so in the year before I become an emperor, and that this all happened while all the world changed because a thousand different acts and a thousand different deeds came together to make the year we first laid eyes upon each other memorable for hundreds of years to come.
But if I were to actually pen our story down for the pages of history, such precision in dating would mean nothing. Thinking of the two of us, it only makes sense to start with the words once upon a time.'
It was, after all, the way my own wife would insist on always starting what she would insist on calling what she knew was the strange, exciting, amazing and often most absurd fairy tale that somehow made up her life.
[From the Memoirs of Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, Fifth Ruler of the Archadian Empire.]
*
“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Penelo who was in love with all the world itself.”
“Oh really? Just why?”
“I just started the story and you’re already starting to question me? Larsa, I love you and all, but you’re just about the worst bibliographer ever.”
“Lies, foul lies. I’m merely trying to establish the veracity of the story we’re attempting to record today.”
“Hmm, I guess that’s fair enough. All right. What do you want to ‘establish the veracity of’ anyway?”
“You make me sound so stodgy whenever you repeat my words, Penelo. But sincerely, I was about to ask about the last part of your sentence. Because I know that there’s always a once upon a time and I’m even vaguely acquainted--”
“Hmm, I should hope so!”
“--With a rather interesting woman named Penelo who, I suppose, might have been a girl once."
"Once. Maybe. But of course you don't know for sure."
"I might have an inkling towards that direction. But even if I did, I didn’t know that she could count the world itself as one of her lovers.”
“…Jealous already?”
“No. Never. I'm merely trying to size up my competition for your heart, hands and altogether more alluring parts once more.”
“I think it's one you've already won rather decisively now!"
"After how many deals I had to sit through with the Lady Ashe? I think it a prize well won!"
"Oh, Larsa. You and your crazy never stop mid-way. And in any case, this girl, this girl named Penelo--”
“--This girl who lived once upon a time?”
“Yup. And so you see, this girl... this girl named Penelo... well, I guess you could say that she's always been in love with a lot of things.”
“And certain persons as well, her husband might well hope.”
“Yeah, and certain persons as well... like this one lunatic boy that she inexplicably married, possibly because his brand of crazy made her go a bit round the bend after a while herself.”
“Ah, I had wondered. But besides that very besotted and no doubt beguiling boy, who-- or what-- else did she love?”
“Lots of things, I guess. Lots and lots and lots. The place she grew up in and the people she grew up with and her mother and her father and her best friend and her brothers. And the people she met and the warriors who taught her how to fight and this one boy that never, ever seemed to want to let go, no matter how silly or unsophisticated she seemed when she was by his side.“
“But most of all, as you said before, she loved life.”
“Yeah, she did. She really did. Once upon a time.“
“...Did anything occur to change her mind? She seems a little uncertain now.“
“Huh. Well, death happened, I guess. Or maybe just life itself, passing her by. Because every thing's changing now, for this girl that used to be called just Penelo once upon a life, before she had all these other titles to hand herself by. Honorable Marquise this and Dread Pirate that and Grand Empress of yada yada yada, you know all the titles better than I ever will anytime.”
“But you haven’t answered my question, Penelo. What really changed? What made you fall out of your first love affair?”
“Nothing much, Larsa. Just the fact that it's finally, finally going to make me leave you behind.”
*
Oddly enough, my wife always predicted far ahead of time that she’d be the first to die.
This was odd, of course, because it confounded what most others had predicted about our lives. Little prince, child emperor, sickly from birth, the youngest and slightest of four borthers-- it almost made all too much sense that of the two of us, I’d be the first to pass from the world’s sight. And recall, I’ve been half prepared for my death since my earliest years, even before I ascended to my current throne. Being a scion within the sometimes treacherous bosom of Archadia tends to harden even the very young early on in life.
But my wife always maintained a rather baffling believe in my vitality. She constantly swore that if the course of paperwork I’ve taken on practically since my infancy didn’t kill me, mere treachery and old age would have to take a while. If anything, she said, being unused to the stresses of a political life would probably topple her off into the great ballroom in the sky far before I was ready to leave.
And as it was, she was right, though I don’t suppose even she knew that cancer was at last to rob her of her remaining years towards the end. But even despite the pain she endured throughout her last days, my wife still took some giddy joy from being correct about our lives once more. I can still remember the day she had our children throw her a Have A Happy Death Day celebration… and the look on her face when our eldest son, Parnel, made a gift of a tombstone he had engraved with our ‘unofficial’ family motto of ‘No patricide, no matricide, no regicide, no genocide.’
She almost went to her grave prematurely by laughing at the sight.
*
“You know, Larsa, I’ve been wondering. What in the world made you get up one day and suddenly decide to write?”
“Hmm, interesting. Interesting. What a most interesting question.”
“…You don’t really know either?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t say that’s the case. Rather, we can say it’s a course of action I’ve been embarking on for most of my life but only reached properly right now.”
“Um? Say what?”
“Well, think of it this way, Penelo. What have I spent the majority of my life as an emperor doing?"
"Heh. Besides chasing, catching and then toppling me over in the most interesting spots you could find?"
"Well, I see that more as what I've spend the majority of my life as your liege and lover doing. An emperor is more lover of all the world's strange duplicities, is he not?"
"Sadly, I think you're all too right. And whenever you don't chase me, you're all but chained to your desks and paperwork. Have I finally got it now?"
"Most excellently, my lady wife. And from filling out paperwork, it doesn't seem all too much a stretch to start writing properly, does it?"
"Well, you write already. You've penned some amazing love letters in your time."
"...Well, I don't mean to brag but..."
"--Look at you, you're already preening!"
"But I suppose I have, haven't I?"
"Exactly, Larsa. So why the urge to start writing my-- or rather, our, since you snuck your way into it every chance you got-- life story anyway?"
"Because I owe the world nothing less than full recognition of just who you are and why they ought to mourn when you are no longer within it."
"...But won't they do that already? Empress and all that? I swear, Larsa, I'm all set to haunt you if I don't get some extremely pompous funeral rites."
"I swear, I'll be sure to deplete the treasury for ages to come for you. But I want to do more than put you in the history texts or in the society pages for a time, you know."
"Then what do you want, Larsa? What would you like to do?"
"I want nothing less than to make you forever memorable, Penelo. I want a part of you to live in the minds of future generations so nothing of you will ever fade, no part of you really die."
*
My wife had always been a little dubious of my plans to memorialize her within my inevitable memoirs during her last few months, when I unveiled them. She always accused me of sentimentalizing her far too much and of magnifying all her glories and diminishing all her flaws, which she thought would make for a very uninteresting biography for future readers.
In which case, I’d merely like to reassure her, wherever she is:
Penelo. Wherever you are, know that though no one could render a chronicle of you boring, all the rest that you spoke out was, sadly enough, just right.
*
"You know what the trouble with you is, Larsa? You never try and look on a bad situation's bright side."
"...I am really, lady wife, looking forward to seeing how you might try and justify that in this situation's light."
"Good lord, Larsa, there's no need to get snippy about me trying to cheer you up."
"I am not being snippy. Merely realistic about your chances of actually assuaging me in any way about your impending demise."
"And I'm not actually stupid about the things that go through your mind. No matter how much quality time I've spent with Vaan since we were both about five."
"Even if-- and this is, by the by, a very big if-- I thought you were being foolish here, I wouldn't attribute it to Vaan. I would have thought you would long since have become immune to the dulling powers of his presence and mind."
"Pretty much, right? I mean, I've lived with since I was twelve years old... if my I.Q. slid down every time I saw him, I probably would have been bouncing off some padded walls right now."
"To be fair, even Vaan hasn't descended quite that far down."
"Nope. Even if the poor viera in his life actually did wish he was locked up sometimes. But in any case... I mean, yeah, Larsa, I know that life isn't exactly going to be all sunshine and flowers for us anytime soon. I mean, yeah, I will be dead probably in a couple of weeks and the kids will get all whiney and you probably will mope around after that for a while."
"...Which is just why I'm straining to see what could be this situation's up-side."
"But! Larsa, think of it this way. You've been overdue for a mid-life crisis for at least two decades now, you old coot, and now you can get started on that imperial harem you've always wanted!"
"...!"
"Secretly!"
"..."
"Very secretly!"
"..."
"Somewhere deep down inside!"
"Yes, Penelo. Very much so. Somewhere very, very, very deep down inside."
"Oh, c'mon, I haven't been in booty shaking shape for ages and ages on end and some part of you must be missing that. And just think of it this way, Larsa. If you go strategically insane from being exposed to Vaan soon afterwards and throw in a few snarky blonds in for the bargain, you might never even realize I‘ve even left your life."
"...That isn't-- God, Penelo, that isn‘t the most consoling thing you can say as of now."
"...I know, Larsa. I'm sorry. I know. But that's all that we've got left for the present time."
*
My wife was always a great optimist, very nearly to an aggravating degree at times. But as she always maintained, hope lives as long as the person who can hope does so as well. And… well, who knew? Possibly hope could be outlived and handed down to others as well. If it was at all possible, she always said, that was just what she wanted to do with her death.
And she did. She truly did. If nothing else, she could be said to do everything with her inimitable sense of style.
*
"Sometimes, Larsa, sometimes, I just have to wonder whether the kids are really all right."
"Hmmm?"
"I mean, sure, one half of each of them comes straight from me but... well, one half of them comes from you as well. It's really a miracle they don't all have your crazy eyes."
"Hmmm. To be fair, though, I think the children all did turn out, as you like to put it, all right."
"That's true. And that's kind of a miracle too, considering the fact that they were all exposed to Vaan during their formative years. Vaan and Zargabaath and even Uncle Basch. It's a wonder they're not all mad masochists with an insatiable lust for bunny ladies and a tendency to wander around sans pants sometimes."
"...Did we ever get an explanation as to why Judge Zargabaath used to do such?"
"Something about having to serve within Uncle Basch's... cave? For a red alert? With a Basch signal? Or something like that. Do you know anything more about it?"
"...Nothing whatsoever, my lady wife. I'm sure it's of no importance at all. Though I still blame Vaan for Ramza's current plight, I hope you realize."
"Oh, honey, that wasn't Vaan's fault. Ramza always had the wanderlust in him to begin with. If anything, it was mine."
"But regardless, our son's conduct irks. He never calls, he never writes, he doesn't even keep in touch with the very people who gave him life..."
"Well, Larsa, rebuilding a continent does take time. And I never figured you for being such a mother goose either."
"...Is that a terrible defect?"
"Nah, you're adorable when you fuss, you cranky old galoot. And speaking of the kids that do keep in touch... I really do have to wonder if maybe some of them did get your crazy, crazy mind. Did you know, Ovelia's already began yammering about sending a delegation of medics from Rozarria? Ever since we sent her over there, she can't stop raving about how much she's revolutionized their health care system and how she's going to come down soon and demonstrate it by giving me better care than I get already."
"Oh, the ingratitude of it all. What empire sent her through her schooling in the first place? And yes, I do know. Feeble or not, lady wife, I am still the Emperor of Archadia."
"Heh. With that godawful butterfly helmet on your head, there's no way I could forget it either. And... she's really not giving up on my life just yet, is she?"
"No, decidedly not. She is, after all, my child."
"It explains a lot about her devotion to lost causes, Larsa. And anyway, unless someone was clever enough to dress up as you and sneak into my bed a couple of decades ago, I can't really see how it could be otherwise."
"No doubt. And speaking of games of dress up..."
"Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Larsa, you're not going to try and slip on that old tunic you used to wear when you still up to my eyebrows, are you? Because I have to say, you could have still fit into it in your twenties but you've got a bit of a gut now. It was kind of cute, in an incredibly perverted way, before but it just... no. It just doesn't work now."
"Oh dear. So we're not to indulge in our customary bouts of roleplaying then?"
"Not when I can barely even crane my head to look at you, you incurable pervert. Save that for your harem, please. That's what they'll be paid for, after all."
"Unthinkable, lady wife! And I don't care how many braided dancers you place within it either-- there are some things that belong to just you and I."
*
Here is an abbreviated list of ten actions I can no longer carry out without first thinking of my wife.
1) Looking at the faces of my children.
2) Braiding my grand daughters' hair.
3) Placing my crown upon my head.
4) Consuming a pastry for breakfast.
5) Drawing my own signature across a document.
6) Drinking a glass of wine.
7) Waking in the morning.
8) Going to bed.
9) Glimpsing fair hair.
10) Looking at the sky.
And no harem girl in the world, despite what my wife thought, could possibly replace that. No matter what outrageous plans were put into place for my so-called 'enjoyment' throughout the last years of my life.
*
"By the way, Uncle Basch sends his regards."
"Hmm, really, does he? After the trouble he went through all throughout his tenure in Archades, I'm surprised he even wrote to the either of us."
"Oh no, Larsa, don't even try to pin that one on me, please!"
"Well, you were what much of the trouble was about..."
"But I was mere the poor, put-on obsesse. You were the crazy, maniac obsessive. You're the one to principally blame for poor Uncle Basch's troubles!"
"Hmm, I rather was, wasn't I? It's probably a good thing that man has the temperament of an earth-bound angel and never tried to kick me to death. Unlike a certain lovely lady sky pirate..."
"Heeeeeey, it was only with my bare feet. And you were very possibly stalking me at the time. There's no woman jury in the world that would convict me for that one."
"No, to be fair, probably not. In any case, what did Gabranth have to say?"
"Oh, just the usual. He's really sorry I'm about to pass on to the big palace building in the sky soon, he hopes I can pass on a few beat downs to his brother when I get there-- which I'll be glad to do, by the way, please don't make that face, you know the original Gabranth more than deserves it-- and that he's doing well, the chocobos are all healthy and our grand kids love New Landis. Uncle even thinks that weensy Larsa's probably going to be a fine diplomat when he grows up."
"Ah, it's good to know some things pass on through the generations."
"The silver tongue's a constant for the Solidors, no doubt! He's also an early bloomer from what I hear. Only thirteen and he's already got his eye on some cute little orphan girl from Ladisler stock."
"Good man! He took my advice after all, though I would truly expect nothing less from my name-sake."
"Heh, me neither. Which is why it's annoying to hear that my name-sake is still in post-production."
"Well, Parnel did just marry two months ago. Give him and his wife some time. They can't work miracles quite so quickly. Even we took three years to produce our first heir, didn't we?"
"That's true. But we had time then. By the time Baby Penelo pops out into the world to raise some hell, I probably won't be around to see it. Which is terrible because frankly, I could probably give her some damn good pointers. Especially when it came to dealing with bangaa bounty hunters and the even stranger rescue afterwards."
"I. I. Penelo. Please. You just can't--"
"Can't tell her about the bounty bangaa hunters? They didn't actually do anything to me, Larsa. Just cheated me on a lot of game of cards and made some bad jokes about lap dances. Bloody scaled perverts, I'm glad we got rid of the whole lot."
"I mean that you can't be so pessimistic, Penelo. You can't just give up hope on your... your medical condition now."
"I'm not, Larsa. I'm just trying to be realistic. I'm just..."
"--Giving up on treatment. Giving up on any time the doctors could have brought you. Giving up on your medication. Giving up on the--"
"Just wait a minute! Why do you think I'm--"
"Giving up on everything we've ever built together. Giving up on me. Giving up on your whole life."
"Is this what the past week has been all about? Why you keep sulking and sending doctor after doctor after doctor at me?"
"And is the way you've avoided or sent them away because you don't love me any more, Penelo? Is it because your tired of dealing with me and the empire, day after day, night after night?"
"...It's not that. It's not fair for you even to say that."
"Oh really? Then why the hell do you keep approaching your disease as though there's nothing to be done about it?"
"Because there isn't! It's like I told you months back-- I'm dying, Larsa! I'm sixty two years old and I'm dying! I have something inside of me and it's killing me, it's just killing me, and I only have a little more time! And I don't... I don't want to spend it all going from doctor after doctor, trying to buy myself a few more days when I know it'll all be agony for me."
"Penelo... I didn't know-- that doesn't mean--"
"It does mean that, Larsa, and you can't run away from the truth either. I have something inside myself that's eventually going to kill me. And if I do what you want me to and keep on taking those medicines, I'll just keep hurting and hurting and hurting and it'll never stop until I die, until I want to die, until I lose everything. And I love you and I know you love me and you'll miss me but you can't ask me to do that, Larsa. Because if you do, I'll give in and that'll be the end of me."
"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I never knew..."
"I know. I'm sorry too. I don't want to leave you, Larsa. I didn't want it to end this way either."
"I... I just... I can't just..."
"Shhhh. It's okay. Shhh, I get it. I'm still right here. I'm still with you now. I'll be with you till the end, however it comes. And don't worry about pretending not to. I've seen you looking much worse before, remember?"
"I... yes, you have, haven't you? Even worse than here?"
"God, don't get all worried now. I still remember the face you made when you first cut poor Connie's umbilical cord. You looked even worse than I did and I was the one who had gone through 26 hours of labor. Remember that little detail in the long run of things?"
"All too well, unfortunately. But then, I suppose it was my fault for not realizing that child birth would bring so much... viscera. And blood. And sheer, overwhelming terror."
"Heh. Well, I have to admit it was pretty funny to watch you faint right after you did it. And if nothing else, at least you managed to cushion the baby's fall. And I still love the fact you tried, even if you never tried to repeat the experience with any of our other three. But you did know that already, didn't you, Larsa?"
"Yes, after all these years. Yes. Though I still wonder... just how did I persuaded you into feeling this way about me, given how many saner men you attracted?"
"Come to think of it, I don't quite know why. But somehow, despite it all, I've never regretted that fact either."
*
Love is not a solution; love is a question.
Answering it takes all your life.
*
"Just so you know, I've started working on a list of all the reasons why you should be glad I'm about to soon ascend in the great, big battlefield up in the sky."
"...I. Penelo. I. Please. Please, for the sake of my sanity, repeat that. So I can be certainly I haven't already lost my mind in the wake of what's to come."
"Oh, Larsa, that boat started chugging a long way back. But why not? I've started working on..."
"Meaning you made it off the top of your head halfway through your morning martini."
"I have to enjoy the simple pleasures of life while I still can! A list of all..."
"Which means you haven't even written it down yet, have you now?"
"I am much too delicate to be strained with mere paperwork any longer! The reasons why…”
“I can already sense trouble heading towards me.”
“I've been trouble since the moment I entered your life, sweetheart. You should be glad..."
"I tremble already."
"I'm about to soon expire!"
"You needn't sound so needlessly cheery of the fact, Penelo. I‘m starting to think you might even be glad of the chance to be rid of me. Am I correct?"
"If I could, I'd pack you in my bags and take you with me no matter where I went. Unfortunately, I think this journey is a solo flight."
"...Right."
"And in any case, just look at it this way, Larsa. Where I'm going, I'll be meeting a couple of good people already there. Want me to give Balthier, Drace and your father your regards?"
"My lady, if you would. I do miss their company at times. And let me take a wild guess about your list. Does the eventual imperial harem ranks at number 1?"
"Ooooooh. You are good, you sneaky little bastard."
"Thank you. Nearly four decades together and you still make me blush every time."
"Heh, I can tell. That fair skin of yours is good for something. And although I'm all set to start recruiting for it, Parnel already looks like he's about to keel over every time I so much as mention it."
"Well, he is my heir as well as my son. He's set to inherit the harem as well as my crown as soon as I go myself... which doesn't seem to please his rather tempestuous bride."
"Hmm, you think?"
"Well, they do say that men do choose women that resemble their mothers in some way. And though she is a Margrace, she does have something of your spirit... if not your waist line."
"Oh, hush you, she’s a perfectly nice girl. And besides, Parnel seems to like them plump. But in any case, predictably enough, the harem is reason number one."
"Though in my advanced age, I really doubt I'll receive so much use out of it."
"Bah, you'll figure something out, Larsa. You always have. But still, there's plenty of other reasons to cheer up once I'm dead!"
"...Such as? I'm almost morbidly curious in spite of myself."
"Such as number 2. When I'm gone, you shan't have to worry about the upper class twits annoying you about me any more. No more petitions to knock me off the throne, no more scheming from any of their daughters to seduce you into handing them their crown-- the harem will take care of that much, thank god, I trust my fellow dancing girls-- and no more worrying about them somehow overthrowing you to install, I don't know, your half witted cousin-in-law for a quote-unquote proper blood line. And best of all, no more having to worry about the clean up bill after they burn me in effigy, though I'll be most put out if they don't it one last time."
"...Really? Good lord, Penelo, why?"
"Nostalgia, I guess. And really, it's a sign that they really do like me. In the funny way that tells you that I'd-as-soon-as-look-at-you-as-burn-you-alive."
"Well, I suppose if you care enough to loathe someone, it's nice to keep up with it till the end."
"Precisely! But moving onto number 3: I'll finally stop annoying you with all my strange habits."
"...But I'm rather charmed by them, even if they annoy me. They've been cultivated through an entire lifetime."
"Lies, sweet lies. You can't tell me that a part of you won't be glad when I finally stop throwing pastries at your head anymore for breakfast or stealing all the blankets when we sleep or opening up all your correspondence from Al-Cid so he doesn't give you any more ideas."
"He cottoned onto that a while back, you know. Now he's started harassing Judge Alcazabar into hiding his filthy memos until said Judge can hand it to me on the sly."
"Huh. So I guess trying to terrorize him into butting him out via the judges really did backfire, like Ashe had always told me it would. But anyway… here's number 4 and the best of the whole score."
"Oh, that rhymed."
"And you said I never use foresight! But anyway, Larsa, now you don’t have to worry about me embarrassing you in front of foreign nations anymore.”
“You were never embarrassing, Penelo. You were always charmingly… eccentric. In a way that was charming. To those who wanted to be charmed and not... alarmed by the very, er. Very charming inconsistencies in your behavior that appeared at times.”
“Now you’re reaching. And what about that one time I accidentally seduced the crown prince of that one continent, wassisface, without even knowing it?”
“…Well, it shall make for an interesting chapter in your inevitable biography, no doubt.”
“Which you’re still supposed to be writing, Larsa. Are you anywhere near close to finishing it, by the way?”
“I confess, not at all. Until this story ends-- and I finally realize what I shall and shan't miss of you-- I don’t really know what to write.”
*
Paradoxically, one of my deepest regrets and one of my most profound consolations is that I never did manage to fully finish this memoir until after my wife had passed on.
Naturally, I do very much regret not being able to show Penelo the work I created for her, in tribute to her, and the rivers of ink I spilled in an attempt to properly memorialize her life. I've no doubt, for instance, that she'd make for a very fine editor in shaping her own story... even if I still cringe to think of just how she'd react to all the portions in it where I rhapsodize over her beauty or her grace or her wit or her face or even the simple, tender, radiant, light-hearted (you see already how difficult it is to recapture her?) quality of her most sincere smile. But there is still so much of her that I fear I've missed, despite my best attempts at tracing down and pinning all the relevant (and yet, who amI to decide just what constitutes relevant?) facts of her life.
And yet, my wife being who she was, it might be just as well that she never had the chance to glimpse the complete volume just before it immortalized her properly. She might never let the fountains of adjectives I tend to lavish on her stand on their own otherwise.
*
"Hey, did you know that Vaan swang by a few days back?"
"Did he now?"
"Heeey, you're supposed to be the emperor of this whole joint. Shouldn't you already know that?"
"In between the anguish, it might have slipped my mind. So how was he?"
"Cranky, like usual, and going on all the time. Blah blah blah, I can't believe you're dying, blah blah blah, you're as bossy as ever, blah blah blah, don't crack oral sex jokes on your death bed. God, who even knew Vaan was prudish like that?"
"Well, despite his life-long love affair with Erypt village, we had a few clues. For instance, and most principally, he never did take us up on that threesome offer."
"Which is, I hope you realize by now, a good thing as well. What you were thinking when you made it to him seriously...?"
“To be fair, Penelo, I was having a rather difficult time accommodating to our love life and he seemed to offer a most ready solution. And why, precisely, do you suppose his being intimate with us would be so disastrous?”
“Oh Larsa. My poor, sweet, innocent little Larsa. That's because whatever Vaan tried to teach you, I’d probably have to un-teach you the very next night."
"Truly? And to think he spent so much time bragging to me about his experience and prowess. Was it mere bluffing or did he really believe his own bravado?"
"No idea. In fact, I really don't want to know either. And I don’t know what sort of crazy lies he was spinning at you when he tried to give you sex advice, of all things, when we were just starting out, but he sure as hell wasn’t an expert. All you needed to do was look at the droopy ears of all his lady friends the day after to figure that.”
“To be fair to him though, he did at least give me one idea of how to handle you. Even if it was possibly one of which he had no real insight.”
"...Do I want to know what that one idea was?"
"The idea that you had not merely beauty and brains but also a fetish for chains."
"...Right. But as... interesting as those experiences were, Larsa, it's still a good thing we never actually had a threesome together. For one thing, if I know you, and lord help me but I know you, I know you'd never be able to see Vaan touching me without going all foamy at the mouth and wondering if I was having too good a time."
"Well, that was what drove me to deal with some of those previous suitors of yours in the way I had..."
"...Do I want to know?"
"Not if you wish to preserve your peace of mind, my lady wife."
"...Right. And anyway, Larsa, if you didn't want Vaan to get all cozy with me, the only solution was to let him get all cozy with you. And if he went at you the way he attacks his poor viera, he’d probably have destroyed your derrière by the morning after.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
“Oh yes. He’d have invaded your anus, raided your rumpus, ravaged your rectum, blasted through your buttocks, all but torn apart your tender tushie...”
“...If I promise never to tease you again about donning my old tunic, will you promise to cease with the possible ways he could have ravished me in time already gone by?”
"Throw in a promise to stop moping for the next few days and I'll agree. I’m an ill old woman, after all, Larsa. I don't want to go to my grave worrying about what'll happen to you after I leave.”
“You truly are a creature of great cunning and ambition, aren't you? No wonder you ended up being such an impressive ruler for this empire!"
*
One of the most commonly held misconceptions about my marriage that has always baffled me is the idea that I chose, for one reason or another, a very foolish woman to be my wife.
This was, in fact, one idea that my wife sought to warn me of ahead of time. 'They'll think you chose a bimbo, Larsa,' I remember her telling me patiently. 'I think it's probably easier for most people to think that than to think that maybe you really have found the love of your life. And as long as I've been alive, there's been plenty of people who've taken one look at me and decided that all I do is all spread my legs for any powerful man that I can find.'
'And pray tell, just what' I had asked her in turn, 'shall we have to do to dissipate such scurrilous lies?'
And that was just when she smiled-- her beautiful, ridiculous, absolutely and stunningly devious smile.
'Who said anything about letting them now differently, Larsa? Don't we both have a lot that we can gain from that thought?'
In fact, despite all the negative stereotypes that proliferate about blonds and Dalmascans and especially Dalmascan blonds, my wife was often a far shrewder woman than almost anyone would have liked.
*
"The kids are worried about you. You do know that, right?"
"The children always worry. As we age and as they grow older, it's the natural rearrangement that occurs in life."
"That's a cheat and you know it. The kids really are worried and I think they're right to be worried. Larsa, you're just... Larsa. You know I love you, right? I've always loved you, even when you running around in your little green booties and trying to rearrange whole empires."
"Well, if nothing else, it's gratifying to know I've been so irresistible all this time."
"I guess for your humongous ego, it should be! But... Larsa, really. You know I do, don't you?"
"...Yes. I do. Always. For almost all the course of our lives."
"And they love you too. And they're worried and I think they're right to worry."
"No. No, they shouldn't be. I haven't served as the emperor of our kingdom for upwards of thirty years without already glimpsing a solution to the pain we're already going through."
"Larsa, I... I don't know what you mean. But you know I have to leave everyone even if I don't want to. You know that's final, don't you?"
"I do. But that's just why I want to leave with you, Penelo. I don't want you to leave me behind in the last flight you take in the world."
"...What? No, no, no, Larsa, that's not--”
"It is possible, Penelo. Very possible. You were right when you told me that it wouldn't be fair for me to force you to live a terrible and painful half-life when it came your time to pass on. And similarly, I should have a right to expire when it becomes too painful for me to move on. And after you die..."
"But still you can’t just-- you don't seriously mean that--"
“I do, Penelo. And just try and stop me from doing such if you believe you can.“
“I…”
"Try if you'd like, Penelo. I don't think you can move me."
"...Please, Larsa..."
"Try."
*
In real life, unlike in the primitive cinemas of our times, there are no fade to blacks. There are no definite end points. There are no happily ever afters that exists beyond the span of time. But there are farewells that we must say and there are people that we love and every time we love them as best as we can, we carve out our own epilogues and goodbyes.
*
“Do you ever wonder, Larsa, about what it means to write the story of your own life?"
"Strange you should say that, Penelo. As the pages of your biography slowly bring themselves forth, I keep going back to that question again. Time after time after time."
“Hmmm. Sometimes though, I really have to wonder if it’s even a good thing that you’re writing my story. You know you’ve got kind of a bent for heaping the little hearts and flowers on me, right?”
“Psshaw, nonsense. I shall do my lady wife justice in every way possible, leaving no stone unturned in an effort to showcase her virtue…”
“And probably erase all my vices!”
“…What ever leads you to that conclusion?”
“Oh, Larsa. Don’t even deny it. I know if you could, you’d idealize everything around you to the skies.”
“Maybe. But I was never able to do it with anything or anyone but you after I became emperor. Doesn’t that excuse my tendency to do so some?”
"A little. And I guess that makes sense. At least if you’re used to a pair of beautifully crazy eyes.”
“But then, let me ask. How would you start the story of your own life, Penelo?”
“Well, you’ve always been the one to love fairy tales, Larsa. What do you suppose?”
“I suppose you’re right, Penelo. There’s nothing that could be better than ‘Once upon a time.’”
“And so we'd always have to begin my story with once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Penelo who had a very interesting and very unsettling and very exciting sort of life!”
"Though one following it might well ask... whatever happened to that little girl named Penelo?"
"She's right here with you, talking and crying and thinking of her end. Trying to hold your hand with a smile."
"And whatever happened to that crazy little boy who met her when he was merely twelve and fell in love at first sight?"
"He's right here too, looking at me as though I‘m all he wants to see. Looking and probably planning out something incredibly foolish out."
"And what do you think he's planning?"
"To die with me. To give up on everything just because he's worried about what'll happen to him once I leave. Because he loves me and doesn't want to be lonely and he thinks there‘s no being happy without his bride."
"And do you think it's an understandable fear?"
"It is. I know it is. Because he's been through losing what he loves too many times already.”
"And don't you think it's fair to spare him that yet again, with the best of what he loves, during the darkest of his twilight years?"
"…And here’s where I break, Larsa. Because I‘ll deny you here. Because it's not fair of you to give in and let yourself die now because you‘re too afraid to on without me. Because it’s not fair for you to think more of yourself than of your children and the world that still needs you here.”
"Penelo... Penelo, I..."
“Because it’s not fair for you to make me responsible for your end when you’ve still got so many years left in your life!”
“That isn’t… that’s not what I intend to do, that’s not what will…”
“Maybe it’s not what you want, Larsa. But you’re still planning on dying right after I die and you-- I can’t believe how selfish you’re being. How selfish and how unthinking.“
“…Of all the adjectives you could have hurled at me. Selfish? Unthinking? When have I ever been as such?“
“I mean, I mean… Larsa, I know you’ve thought about this already. You’re the smartest person I know-- of course you’ve already thought this out. Don’t think I don’t know about the pills and potions you’ve been storing up over these last few weeks for just now.”
“…Your eyes really have always been a little too canny, haven't they, my lady wife?”
“They have. And I know, Larsa. I understand why. I don’t really want to leave either.”
“I know that, Penelo. That’s why I want to ensure that you have company to… to... to whatever shore it is that you next find.”
“But don’t you see, Larsa? I want to have what you have and enjoy it fully. I mean... if I could, I wouldn’t shorten whatever years I had left, no matter how terrible the things that went on in them were.”
“Penelo…”
“No. Don’t… don’t misunderstand me. I’m not unhappy now. I’m not… I understand, what’s happening to me. I’m all right with dying. I’ve already made my peace. But I don’t understand how it is that you can still have so many years left-- for the kids, for the babies, for the work, for just living… and be ready to throw it all away like it’s nothing.”
“I’m not. I know how lucky I am. I know I should be happy. But you-- you-- Penelo, you were so much a part of what made it so and if you leave--”
"Yeah. I know. I will leave. But you've too much left to do, Larsa, to just give it all up for me.”
“Explain, please.”
“You've got too many people who still depend on you, too many places and nations and names. You've got the kids and you've got the grand-babies and you've got so much you've spent all your life building, so many different ways of ensuring peace. You don't think that's worth holding on for, really?"
"Not if you're not here with me. Not if you're not holding my hand or opening my eyes or helping me back up upon my feet. I love you, Penelo, madly and wretched. I've loved you since I was thirteen and nothing has changed all through those years."
“I figured, Larsa. I really did. You were always too stubborn to change your mind midway through anything.”
"And you too interesting to give me a reason otherwise. I love you, Penelo. I always will. It’s all but engraved into me.”
"But you don't have to do this, Larsa. I know it hurts but you've already been through this. You've been through it already and you've been happy before and after and that's why--"
"And that's why I don't want to suffer through it all again!"
"...You haven't yelled at me in years."
"No, I'm sorry. I haven't. That was uncalled for. I... pray, forgiveness, Penelo. Please. Even if I can't..."
“You can try.”
“But I can’t.“
“But you can try.”
“But I love you. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want you to leave me. I just… I…”
“It happened before. It can happen again. You have baby Penelo to look forward to, right?”
“And she’ll be beautiful but she shan’t need me. She has grandparents enough on her other side and one doddering fool who shall compare her constantly to the original shall mean absolutely nothing.”
“You’re an idiot if you think that. But then, what about the work? What about the story of my life and yours?”
“I would embellish it much too much if I wrote it, as you’ve already pointed out.”
“I know. Probably. But come on, there are worse things than being flattered by your husband in front of the entire world. And nobody better to write our lives either.”
“But I shan’t do you justice. I wouldn’t capture you fully. I couldn’t make you live in the minds of others as I wanted to, to immortalize you completely.”
“Try, Larsa, just like you said. Could you at least hold on to the years you have while you’re trying to do all of those things?”
“I don’t know if it’s enough. I can’t promise you anything.”
“You don’t have to. But I have faith it will be. After all, you’re only fifty eight years old and, if you don’t mind me saying, still kinda foxy. In a graying, slightly paunchy sort of way. You’ve got plenty more years full of councils to manipulate and grandbabies to bring up and biographies to write and harems to plow through until everyone involved is sore and smiling. You know that, don‘t you? Look at you, you really do!”
“I don’t-- oh god, Penelo, nobody make me happy in the way you do. Or sad in just the same way either.”
“I know. You married me because of that, right?”
“I did. I do. And I don’t regret it at all. In the end, Penelo, what would you ask of me?”
“For you to live. For you to be happy. For you to try and go on without me.”
“I haven’t done so in forty years.”
“You’ll do all right, I know. You and the harem’ll be fine.”
“And if I promise to at least try to do just that, to not give up so ingloriously once you‘re gone…”
“…To finally have your happy ending!”
“To finally have my happy ending… just how will you reward me, lady wife?”
“Shhhh. Come closer. Keep laughing. And remember to close your eyes.”
*
But for all the time I've spent ruminating of the end of this work, the truth is that the story of her life-- and mine-- shall have no such thing.
Real love stories never do because real lovers never completely die.
*
“So shall we run through the story of my life one more time?”
“Of course. Always. For as long and as often as you desire.”
"So. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Penelo who was in love with life…”
“And the world at large…”
“And one especially strange-- don’t snicker, Larsa, you know it’s the truth-- little boy who was always determined to be at her side.”
“And though she eluded him for many years…”
“And though he hunted her down for many others!”
“She could never live her life for long without him near her.”
“And vice versa!”
“All too right.”
“For one day, she realized that…”
“No matter where she went.”
“No matter how far she traveled.”
“No matter who she was with.”
“No matter what she told herself.”
“In the end, no matter where they’d been or what they‘d done or what they were destined to sin together, their hands had always been meant to hold each other."
"And when she finally goes..."
"...She'll go smiling because he‘s been holding her hand. For all the years of her life."
*
In the end, Penelo was a woman brave and fair. She truly knew what it meant to fly.
In any case... here's the second-to-last installment of The Uses of Enchantment. Writing this killed me a little... which is only fair since I kill a little within it as well. I have no idea if it's any good but I'm just glad I managed to finish it as is. And I hope you shall be as well.
And as always, comments and corrections and criticism are completely welcome and loved! I'm not sure I'll ever write much fanfiction after the end of this series so it'll be lovely to hear from everyone one last time.
Title: On Death and Dying
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: The Uses of Enchantment
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Cast
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Even the hardiest flowers eventually fade. Penelo, Larsa, and facing a final end in sight.
*
I first met my future wife in the year 706 Old Valendian, five months before I turned thirteen years old.
To those who don't know of me, to those who have never learned anything of my story, such a fact might mean absolutely nothing at all. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finally gets girl after years of wooing and sacrificing a large portion of misappropriated imperial territory to her liege-- it all sounds quite a bit like the oldest story in the book. The only possible deviation from the average love story could be my comparative youthfulness, which unfortunately has been the source of much amusement and bafflement over the course of our lives. But to an ignorant observer, even that might not make such a difference. After all, young boys do fall in love with lovely older women all the time.
In fact, how old I was and when I fell in love only matters if you realize that I did so when I was twelve years old, that I tumbled so in the year before I become an emperor, and that this all happened while all the world changed because a thousand different acts and a thousand different deeds came together to make the year we first laid eyes upon each other memorable for hundreds of years to come.
But if I were to actually pen our story down for the pages of history, such precision in dating would mean nothing. Thinking of the two of us, it only makes sense to start with the words once upon a time.'
It was, after all, the way my own wife would insist on always starting what she would insist on calling what she knew was the strange, exciting, amazing and often most absurd fairy tale that somehow made up her life.
[From the Memoirs of Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, Fifth Ruler of the Archadian Empire.]
*
“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Penelo who was in love with all the world itself.”
“Oh really? Just why?”
“I just started the story and you’re already starting to question me? Larsa, I love you and all, but you’re just about the worst bibliographer ever.”
“Lies, foul lies. I’m merely trying to establish the veracity of the story we’re attempting to record today.”
“Hmm, I guess that’s fair enough. All right. What do you want to ‘establish the veracity of’ anyway?”
“You make me sound so stodgy whenever you repeat my words, Penelo. But sincerely, I was about to ask about the last part of your sentence. Because I know that there’s always a once upon a time and I’m even vaguely acquainted--”
“Hmm, I should hope so!”
“--With a rather interesting woman named Penelo who, I suppose, might have been a girl once."
"Once. Maybe. But of course you don't know for sure."
"I might have an inkling towards that direction. But even if I did, I didn’t know that she could count the world itself as one of her lovers.”
“…Jealous already?”
“No. Never. I'm merely trying to size up my competition for your heart, hands and altogether more alluring parts once more.”
“I think it's one you've already won rather decisively now!"
"After how many deals I had to sit through with the Lady Ashe? I think it a prize well won!"
"Oh, Larsa. You and your crazy never stop mid-way. And in any case, this girl, this girl named Penelo--”
“--This girl who lived once upon a time?”
“Yup. And so you see, this girl... this girl named Penelo... well, I guess you could say that she's always been in love with a lot of things.”
“And certain persons as well, her husband might well hope.”
“Yeah, and certain persons as well... like this one lunatic boy that she inexplicably married, possibly because his brand of crazy made her go a bit round the bend after a while herself.”
“Ah, I had wondered. But besides that very besotted and no doubt beguiling boy, who-- or what-- else did she love?”
“Lots of things, I guess. Lots and lots and lots. The place she grew up in and the people she grew up with and her mother and her father and her best friend and her brothers. And the people she met and the warriors who taught her how to fight and this one boy that never, ever seemed to want to let go, no matter how silly or unsophisticated she seemed when she was by his side.“
“But most of all, as you said before, she loved life.”
“Yeah, she did. She really did. Once upon a time.“
“...Did anything occur to change her mind? She seems a little uncertain now.“
“Huh. Well, death happened, I guess. Or maybe just life itself, passing her by. Because every thing's changing now, for this girl that used to be called just Penelo once upon a life, before she had all these other titles to hand herself by. Honorable Marquise this and Dread Pirate that and Grand Empress of yada yada yada, you know all the titles better than I ever will anytime.”
“But you haven’t answered my question, Penelo. What really changed? What made you fall out of your first love affair?”
“Nothing much, Larsa. Just the fact that it's finally, finally going to make me leave you behind.”
*
Oddly enough, my wife always predicted far ahead of time that she’d be the first to die.
This was odd, of course, because it confounded what most others had predicted about our lives. Little prince, child emperor, sickly from birth, the youngest and slightest of four borthers-- it almost made all too much sense that of the two of us, I’d be the first to pass from the world’s sight. And recall, I’ve been half prepared for my death since my earliest years, even before I ascended to my current throne. Being a scion within the sometimes treacherous bosom of Archadia tends to harden even the very young early on in life.
But my wife always maintained a rather baffling believe in my vitality. She constantly swore that if the course of paperwork I’ve taken on practically since my infancy didn’t kill me, mere treachery and old age would have to take a while. If anything, she said, being unused to the stresses of a political life would probably topple her off into the great ballroom in the sky far before I was ready to leave.
And as it was, she was right, though I don’t suppose even she knew that cancer was at last to rob her of her remaining years towards the end. But even despite the pain she endured throughout her last days, my wife still took some giddy joy from being correct about our lives once more. I can still remember the day she had our children throw her a Have A Happy Death Day celebration… and the look on her face when our eldest son, Parnel, made a gift of a tombstone he had engraved with our ‘unofficial’ family motto of ‘No patricide, no matricide, no regicide, no genocide.’
She almost went to her grave prematurely by laughing at the sight.
*
“You know, Larsa, I’ve been wondering. What in the world made you get up one day and suddenly decide to write?”
“Hmm, interesting. Interesting. What a most interesting question.”
“…You don’t really know either?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t say that’s the case. Rather, we can say it’s a course of action I’ve been embarking on for most of my life but only reached properly right now.”
“Um? Say what?”
“Well, think of it this way, Penelo. What have I spent the majority of my life as an emperor doing?"
"Heh. Besides chasing, catching and then toppling me over in the most interesting spots you could find?"
"Well, I see that more as what I've spend the majority of my life as your liege and lover doing. An emperor is more lover of all the world's strange duplicities, is he not?"
"Sadly, I think you're all too right. And whenever you don't chase me, you're all but chained to your desks and paperwork. Have I finally got it now?"
"Most excellently, my lady wife. And from filling out paperwork, it doesn't seem all too much a stretch to start writing properly, does it?"
"Well, you write already. You've penned some amazing love letters in your time."
"...Well, I don't mean to brag but..."
"--Look at you, you're already preening!"
"But I suppose I have, haven't I?"
"Exactly, Larsa. So why the urge to start writing my-- or rather, our, since you snuck your way into it every chance you got-- life story anyway?"
"Because I owe the world nothing less than full recognition of just who you are and why they ought to mourn when you are no longer within it."
"...But won't they do that already? Empress and all that? I swear, Larsa, I'm all set to haunt you if I don't get some extremely pompous funeral rites."
"I swear, I'll be sure to deplete the treasury for ages to come for you. But I want to do more than put you in the history texts or in the society pages for a time, you know."
"Then what do you want, Larsa? What would you like to do?"
"I want nothing less than to make you forever memorable, Penelo. I want a part of you to live in the minds of future generations so nothing of you will ever fade, no part of you really die."
*
My wife had always been a little dubious of my plans to memorialize her within my inevitable memoirs during her last few months, when I unveiled them. She always accused me of sentimentalizing her far too much and of magnifying all her glories and diminishing all her flaws, which she thought would make for a very uninteresting biography for future readers.
In which case, I’d merely like to reassure her, wherever she is:
Penelo. Wherever you are, know that though no one could render a chronicle of you boring, all the rest that you spoke out was, sadly enough, just right.
*
"You know what the trouble with you is, Larsa? You never try and look on a bad situation's bright side."
"...I am really, lady wife, looking forward to seeing how you might try and justify that in this situation's light."
"Good lord, Larsa, there's no need to get snippy about me trying to cheer you up."
"I am not being snippy. Merely realistic about your chances of actually assuaging me in any way about your impending demise."
"And I'm not actually stupid about the things that go through your mind. No matter how much quality time I've spent with Vaan since we were both about five."
"Even if-- and this is, by the by, a very big if-- I thought you were being foolish here, I wouldn't attribute it to Vaan. I would have thought you would long since have become immune to the dulling powers of his presence and mind."
"Pretty much, right? I mean, I've lived with since I was twelve years old... if my I.Q. slid down every time I saw him, I probably would have been bouncing off some padded walls right now."
"To be fair, even Vaan hasn't descended quite that far down."
"Nope. Even if the poor viera in his life actually did wish he was locked up sometimes. But in any case... I mean, yeah, Larsa, I know that life isn't exactly going to be all sunshine and flowers for us anytime soon. I mean, yeah, I will be dead probably in a couple of weeks and the kids will get all whiney and you probably will mope around after that for a while."
"...Which is just why I'm straining to see what could be this situation's up-side."
"But! Larsa, think of it this way. You've been overdue for a mid-life crisis for at least two decades now, you old coot, and now you can get started on that imperial harem you've always wanted!"
"...!"
"Secretly!"
"..."
"Very secretly!"
"..."
"Somewhere deep down inside!"
"Yes, Penelo. Very much so. Somewhere very, very, very deep down inside."
"Oh, c'mon, I haven't been in booty shaking shape for ages and ages on end and some part of you must be missing that. And just think of it this way, Larsa. If you go strategically insane from being exposed to Vaan soon afterwards and throw in a few snarky blonds in for the bargain, you might never even realize I‘ve even left your life."
"...That isn't-- God, Penelo, that isn‘t the most consoling thing you can say as of now."
"...I know, Larsa. I'm sorry. I know. But that's all that we've got left for the present time."
*
My wife was always a great optimist, very nearly to an aggravating degree at times. But as she always maintained, hope lives as long as the person who can hope does so as well. And… well, who knew? Possibly hope could be outlived and handed down to others as well. If it was at all possible, she always said, that was just what she wanted to do with her death.
And she did. She truly did. If nothing else, she could be said to do everything with her inimitable sense of style.
*
"Sometimes, Larsa, sometimes, I just have to wonder whether the kids are really all right."
"Hmmm?"
"I mean, sure, one half of each of them comes straight from me but... well, one half of them comes from you as well. It's really a miracle they don't all have your crazy eyes."
"Hmmm. To be fair, though, I think the children all did turn out, as you like to put it, all right."
"That's true. And that's kind of a miracle too, considering the fact that they were all exposed to Vaan during their formative years. Vaan and Zargabaath and even Uncle Basch. It's a wonder they're not all mad masochists with an insatiable lust for bunny ladies and a tendency to wander around sans pants sometimes."
"...Did we ever get an explanation as to why Judge Zargabaath used to do such?"
"Something about having to serve within Uncle Basch's... cave? For a red alert? With a Basch signal? Or something like that. Do you know anything more about it?"
"...Nothing whatsoever, my lady wife. I'm sure it's of no importance at all. Though I still blame Vaan for Ramza's current plight, I hope you realize."
"Oh, honey, that wasn't Vaan's fault. Ramza always had the wanderlust in him to begin with. If anything, it was mine."
"But regardless, our son's conduct irks. He never calls, he never writes, he doesn't even keep in touch with the very people who gave him life..."
"Well, Larsa, rebuilding a continent does take time. And I never figured you for being such a mother goose either."
"...Is that a terrible defect?"
"Nah, you're adorable when you fuss, you cranky old galoot. And speaking of the kids that do keep in touch... I really do have to wonder if maybe some of them did get your crazy, crazy mind. Did you know, Ovelia's already began yammering about sending a delegation of medics from Rozarria? Ever since we sent her over there, she can't stop raving about how much she's revolutionized their health care system and how she's going to come down soon and demonstrate it by giving me better care than I get already."
"Oh, the ingratitude of it all. What empire sent her through her schooling in the first place? And yes, I do know. Feeble or not, lady wife, I am still the Emperor of Archadia."
"Heh. With that godawful butterfly helmet on your head, there's no way I could forget it either. And... she's really not giving up on my life just yet, is she?"
"No, decidedly not. She is, after all, my child."
"It explains a lot about her devotion to lost causes, Larsa. And anyway, unless someone was clever enough to dress up as you and sneak into my bed a couple of decades ago, I can't really see how it could be otherwise."
"No doubt. And speaking of games of dress up..."
"Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Larsa, you're not going to try and slip on that old tunic you used to wear when you still up to my eyebrows, are you? Because I have to say, you could have still fit into it in your twenties but you've got a bit of a gut now. It was kind of cute, in an incredibly perverted way, before but it just... no. It just doesn't work now."
"Oh dear. So we're not to indulge in our customary bouts of roleplaying then?"
"Not when I can barely even crane my head to look at you, you incurable pervert. Save that for your harem, please. That's what they'll be paid for, after all."
"Unthinkable, lady wife! And I don't care how many braided dancers you place within it either-- there are some things that belong to just you and I."
*
Here is an abbreviated list of ten actions I can no longer carry out without first thinking of my wife.
1) Looking at the faces of my children.
2) Braiding my grand daughters' hair.
3) Placing my crown upon my head.
4) Consuming a pastry for breakfast.
5) Drawing my own signature across a document.
6) Drinking a glass of wine.
7) Waking in the morning.
8) Going to bed.
9) Glimpsing fair hair.
10) Looking at the sky.
And no harem girl in the world, despite what my wife thought, could possibly replace that. No matter what outrageous plans were put into place for my so-called 'enjoyment' throughout the last years of my life.
*
"By the way, Uncle Basch sends his regards."
"Hmm, really, does he? After the trouble he went through all throughout his tenure in Archades, I'm surprised he even wrote to the either of us."
"Oh no, Larsa, don't even try to pin that one on me, please!"
"Well, you were what much of the trouble was about..."
"But I was mere the poor, put-on obsesse. You were the crazy, maniac obsessive. You're the one to principally blame for poor Uncle Basch's troubles!"
"Hmm, I rather was, wasn't I? It's probably a good thing that man has the temperament of an earth-bound angel and never tried to kick me to death. Unlike a certain lovely lady sky pirate..."
"Heeeeeey, it was only with my bare feet. And you were very possibly stalking me at the time. There's no woman jury in the world that would convict me for that one."
"No, to be fair, probably not. In any case, what did Gabranth have to say?"
"Oh, just the usual. He's really sorry I'm about to pass on to the big palace building in the sky soon, he hopes I can pass on a few beat downs to his brother when I get there-- which I'll be glad to do, by the way, please don't make that face, you know the original Gabranth more than deserves it-- and that he's doing well, the chocobos are all healthy and our grand kids love New Landis. Uncle even thinks that weensy Larsa's probably going to be a fine diplomat when he grows up."
"Ah, it's good to know some things pass on through the generations."
"The silver tongue's a constant for the Solidors, no doubt! He's also an early bloomer from what I hear. Only thirteen and he's already got his eye on some cute little orphan girl from Ladisler stock."
"Good man! He took my advice after all, though I would truly expect nothing less from my name-sake."
"Heh, me neither. Which is why it's annoying to hear that my name-sake is still in post-production."
"Well, Parnel did just marry two months ago. Give him and his wife some time. They can't work miracles quite so quickly. Even we took three years to produce our first heir, didn't we?"
"That's true. But we had time then. By the time Baby Penelo pops out into the world to raise some hell, I probably won't be around to see it. Which is terrible because frankly, I could probably give her some damn good pointers. Especially when it came to dealing with bangaa bounty hunters and the even stranger rescue afterwards."
"I. I. Penelo. Please. You just can't--"
"Can't tell her about the bounty bangaa hunters? They didn't actually do anything to me, Larsa. Just cheated me on a lot of game of cards and made some bad jokes about lap dances. Bloody scaled perverts, I'm glad we got rid of the whole lot."
"I mean that you can't be so pessimistic, Penelo. You can't just give up hope on your... your medical condition now."
"I'm not, Larsa. I'm just trying to be realistic. I'm just..."
"--Giving up on treatment. Giving up on any time the doctors could have brought you. Giving up on your medication. Giving up on the--"
"Just wait a minute! Why do you think I'm--"
"Giving up on everything we've ever built together. Giving up on me. Giving up on your whole life."
"Is this what the past week has been all about? Why you keep sulking and sending doctor after doctor after doctor at me?"
"And is the way you've avoided or sent them away because you don't love me any more, Penelo? Is it because your tired of dealing with me and the empire, day after day, night after night?"
"...It's not that. It's not fair for you even to say that."
"Oh really? Then why the hell do you keep approaching your disease as though there's nothing to be done about it?"
"Because there isn't! It's like I told you months back-- I'm dying, Larsa! I'm sixty two years old and I'm dying! I have something inside of me and it's killing me, it's just killing me, and I only have a little more time! And I don't... I don't want to spend it all going from doctor after doctor, trying to buy myself a few more days when I know it'll all be agony for me."
"Penelo... I didn't know-- that doesn't mean--"
"It does mean that, Larsa, and you can't run away from the truth either. I have something inside myself that's eventually going to kill me. And if I do what you want me to and keep on taking those medicines, I'll just keep hurting and hurting and hurting and it'll never stop until I die, until I want to die, until I lose everything. And I love you and I know you love me and you'll miss me but you can't ask me to do that, Larsa. Because if you do, I'll give in and that'll be the end of me."
"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I never knew..."
"I know. I'm sorry too. I don't want to leave you, Larsa. I didn't want it to end this way either."
"I... I just... I can't just..."
"Shhhh. It's okay. Shhh, I get it. I'm still right here. I'm still with you now. I'll be with you till the end, however it comes. And don't worry about pretending not to. I've seen you looking much worse before, remember?"
"I... yes, you have, haven't you? Even worse than here?"
"God, don't get all worried now. I still remember the face you made when you first cut poor Connie's umbilical cord. You looked even worse than I did and I was the one who had gone through 26 hours of labor. Remember that little detail in the long run of things?"
"All too well, unfortunately. But then, I suppose it was my fault for not realizing that child birth would bring so much... viscera. And blood. And sheer, overwhelming terror."
"Heh. Well, I have to admit it was pretty funny to watch you faint right after you did it. And if nothing else, at least you managed to cushion the baby's fall. And I still love the fact you tried, even if you never tried to repeat the experience with any of our other three. But you did know that already, didn't you, Larsa?"
"Yes, after all these years. Yes. Though I still wonder... just how did I persuaded you into feeling this way about me, given how many saner men you attracted?"
"Come to think of it, I don't quite know why. But somehow, despite it all, I've never regretted that fact either."
*
Love is not a solution; love is a question.
Answering it takes all your life.
*
"Just so you know, I've started working on a list of all the reasons why you should be glad I'm about to soon ascend in the great, big battlefield up in the sky."
"...I. Penelo. I. Please. Please, for the sake of my sanity, repeat that. So I can be certainly I haven't already lost my mind in the wake of what's to come."
"Oh, Larsa, that boat started chugging a long way back. But why not? I've started working on..."
"Meaning you made it off the top of your head halfway through your morning martini."
"I have to enjoy the simple pleasures of life while I still can! A list of all..."
"Which means you haven't even written it down yet, have you now?"
"I am much too delicate to be strained with mere paperwork any longer! The reasons why…”
“I can already sense trouble heading towards me.”
“I've been trouble since the moment I entered your life, sweetheart. You should be glad..."
"I tremble already."
"I'm about to soon expire!"
"You needn't sound so needlessly cheery of the fact, Penelo. I‘m starting to think you might even be glad of the chance to be rid of me. Am I correct?"
"If I could, I'd pack you in my bags and take you with me no matter where I went. Unfortunately, I think this journey is a solo flight."
"...Right."
"And in any case, just look at it this way, Larsa. Where I'm going, I'll be meeting a couple of good people already there. Want me to give Balthier, Drace and your father your regards?"
"My lady, if you would. I do miss their company at times. And let me take a wild guess about your list. Does the eventual imperial harem ranks at number 1?"
"Ooooooh. You are good, you sneaky little bastard."
"Thank you. Nearly four decades together and you still make me blush every time."
"Heh, I can tell. That fair skin of yours is good for something. And although I'm all set to start recruiting for it, Parnel already looks like he's about to keel over every time I so much as mention it."
"Well, he is my heir as well as my son. He's set to inherit the harem as well as my crown as soon as I go myself... which doesn't seem to please his rather tempestuous bride."
"Hmm, you think?"
"Well, they do say that men do choose women that resemble their mothers in some way. And though she is a Margrace, she does have something of your spirit... if not your waist line."
"Oh, hush you, she’s a perfectly nice girl. And besides, Parnel seems to like them plump. But in any case, predictably enough, the harem is reason number one."
"Though in my advanced age, I really doubt I'll receive so much use out of it."
"Bah, you'll figure something out, Larsa. You always have. But still, there's plenty of other reasons to cheer up once I'm dead!"
"...Such as? I'm almost morbidly curious in spite of myself."
"Such as number 2. When I'm gone, you shan't have to worry about the upper class twits annoying you about me any more. No more petitions to knock me off the throne, no more scheming from any of their daughters to seduce you into handing them their crown-- the harem will take care of that much, thank god, I trust my fellow dancing girls-- and no more worrying about them somehow overthrowing you to install, I don't know, your half witted cousin-in-law for a quote-unquote proper blood line. And best of all, no more having to worry about the clean up bill after they burn me in effigy, though I'll be most put out if they don't it one last time."
"...Really? Good lord, Penelo, why?"
"Nostalgia, I guess. And really, it's a sign that they really do like me. In the funny way that tells you that I'd-as-soon-as-look-at-you-as-burn-you-alive."
"Well, I suppose if you care enough to loathe someone, it's nice to keep up with it till the end."
"Precisely! But moving onto number 3: I'll finally stop annoying you with all my strange habits."
"...But I'm rather charmed by them, even if they annoy me. They've been cultivated through an entire lifetime."
"Lies, sweet lies. You can't tell me that a part of you won't be glad when I finally stop throwing pastries at your head anymore for breakfast or stealing all the blankets when we sleep or opening up all your correspondence from Al-Cid so he doesn't give you any more ideas."
"He cottoned onto that a while back, you know. Now he's started harassing Judge Alcazabar into hiding his filthy memos until said Judge can hand it to me on the sly."
"Huh. So I guess trying to terrorize him into butting him out via the judges really did backfire, like Ashe had always told me it would. But anyway… here's number 4 and the best of the whole score."
"Oh, that rhymed."
"And you said I never use foresight! But anyway, Larsa, now you don’t have to worry about me embarrassing you in front of foreign nations anymore.”
“You were never embarrassing, Penelo. You were always charmingly… eccentric. In a way that was charming. To those who wanted to be charmed and not... alarmed by the very, er. Very charming inconsistencies in your behavior that appeared at times.”
“Now you’re reaching. And what about that one time I accidentally seduced the crown prince of that one continent, wassisface, without even knowing it?”
“…Well, it shall make for an interesting chapter in your inevitable biography, no doubt.”
“Which you’re still supposed to be writing, Larsa. Are you anywhere near close to finishing it, by the way?”
“I confess, not at all. Until this story ends-- and I finally realize what I shall and shan't miss of you-- I don’t really know what to write.”
*
Paradoxically, one of my deepest regrets and one of my most profound consolations is that I never did manage to fully finish this memoir until after my wife had passed on.
Naturally, I do very much regret not being able to show Penelo the work I created for her, in tribute to her, and the rivers of ink I spilled in an attempt to properly memorialize her life. I've no doubt, for instance, that she'd make for a very fine editor in shaping her own story... even if I still cringe to think of just how she'd react to all the portions in it where I rhapsodize over her beauty or her grace or her wit or her face or even the simple, tender, radiant, light-hearted (you see already how difficult it is to recapture her?) quality of her most sincere smile. But there is still so much of her that I fear I've missed, despite my best attempts at tracing down and pinning all the relevant (and yet, who amI to decide just what constitutes relevant?) facts of her life.
And yet, my wife being who she was, it might be just as well that she never had the chance to glimpse the complete volume just before it immortalized her properly. She might never let the fountains of adjectives I tend to lavish on her stand on their own otherwise.
*
"Hey, did you know that Vaan swang by a few days back?"
"Did he now?"
"Heeey, you're supposed to be the emperor of this whole joint. Shouldn't you already know that?"
"In between the anguish, it might have slipped my mind. So how was he?"
"Cranky, like usual, and going on all the time. Blah blah blah, I can't believe you're dying, blah blah blah, you're as bossy as ever, blah blah blah, don't crack oral sex jokes on your death bed. God, who even knew Vaan was prudish like that?"
"Well, despite his life-long love affair with Erypt village, we had a few clues. For instance, and most principally, he never did take us up on that threesome offer."
"Which is, I hope you realize by now, a good thing as well. What you were thinking when you made it to him seriously...?"
“To be fair, Penelo, I was having a rather difficult time accommodating to our love life and he seemed to offer a most ready solution. And why, precisely, do you suppose his being intimate with us would be so disastrous?”
“Oh Larsa. My poor, sweet, innocent little Larsa. That's because whatever Vaan tried to teach you, I’d probably have to un-teach you the very next night."
"Truly? And to think he spent so much time bragging to me about his experience and prowess. Was it mere bluffing or did he really believe his own bravado?"
"No idea. In fact, I really don't want to know either. And I don’t know what sort of crazy lies he was spinning at you when he tried to give you sex advice, of all things, when we were just starting out, but he sure as hell wasn’t an expert. All you needed to do was look at the droopy ears of all his lady friends the day after to figure that.”
“To be fair to him though, he did at least give me one idea of how to handle you. Even if it was possibly one of which he had no real insight.”
"...Do I want to know what that one idea was?"
"The idea that you had not merely beauty and brains but also a fetish for chains."
"...Right. But as... interesting as those experiences were, Larsa, it's still a good thing we never actually had a threesome together. For one thing, if I know you, and lord help me but I know you, I know you'd never be able to see Vaan touching me without going all foamy at the mouth and wondering if I was having too good a time."
"Well, that was what drove me to deal with some of those previous suitors of yours in the way I had..."
"...Do I want to know?"
"Not if you wish to preserve your peace of mind, my lady wife."
"...Right. And anyway, Larsa, if you didn't want Vaan to get all cozy with me, the only solution was to let him get all cozy with you. And if he went at you the way he attacks his poor viera, he’d probably have destroyed your derrière by the morning after.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
“Oh yes. He’d have invaded your anus, raided your rumpus, ravaged your rectum, blasted through your buttocks, all but torn apart your tender tushie...”
“...If I promise never to tease you again about donning my old tunic, will you promise to cease with the possible ways he could have ravished me in time already gone by?”
"Throw in a promise to stop moping for the next few days and I'll agree. I’m an ill old woman, after all, Larsa. I don't want to go to my grave worrying about what'll happen to you after I leave.”
“You truly are a creature of great cunning and ambition, aren't you? No wonder you ended up being such an impressive ruler for this empire!"
*
One of the most commonly held misconceptions about my marriage that has always baffled me is the idea that I chose, for one reason or another, a very foolish woman to be my wife.
This was, in fact, one idea that my wife sought to warn me of ahead of time. 'They'll think you chose a bimbo, Larsa,' I remember her telling me patiently. 'I think it's probably easier for most people to think that than to think that maybe you really have found the love of your life. And as long as I've been alive, there's been plenty of people who've taken one look at me and decided that all I do is all spread my legs for any powerful man that I can find.'
'And pray tell, just what' I had asked her in turn, 'shall we have to do to dissipate such scurrilous lies?'
And that was just when she smiled-- her beautiful, ridiculous, absolutely and stunningly devious smile.
'Who said anything about letting them now differently, Larsa? Don't we both have a lot that we can gain from that thought?'
In fact, despite all the negative stereotypes that proliferate about blonds and Dalmascans and especially Dalmascan blonds, my wife was often a far shrewder woman than almost anyone would have liked.
*
"The kids are worried about you. You do know that, right?"
"The children always worry. As we age and as they grow older, it's the natural rearrangement that occurs in life."
"That's a cheat and you know it. The kids really are worried and I think they're right to be worried. Larsa, you're just... Larsa. You know I love you, right? I've always loved you, even when you running around in your little green booties and trying to rearrange whole empires."
"Well, if nothing else, it's gratifying to know I've been so irresistible all this time."
"I guess for your humongous ego, it should be! But... Larsa, really. You know I do, don't you?"
"...Yes. I do. Always. For almost all the course of our lives."
"And they love you too. And they're worried and I think they're right to worry."
"No. No, they shouldn't be. I haven't served as the emperor of our kingdom for upwards of thirty years without already glimpsing a solution to the pain we're already going through."
"Larsa, I... I don't know what you mean. But you know I have to leave everyone even if I don't want to. You know that's final, don't you?"
"I do. But that's just why I want to leave with you, Penelo. I don't want you to leave me behind in the last flight you take in the world."
"...What? No, no, no, Larsa, that's not--”
"It is possible, Penelo. Very possible. You were right when you told me that it wouldn't be fair for me to force you to live a terrible and painful half-life when it came your time to pass on. And similarly, I should have a right to expire when it becomes too painful for me to move on. And after you die..."
"But still you can’t just-- you don't seriously mean that--"
“I do, Penelo. And just try and stop me from doing such if you believe you can.“
“I…”
"Try if you'd like, Penelo. I don't think you can move me."
"...Please, Larsa..."
"Try."
*
In real life, unlike in the primitive cinemas of our times, there are no fade to blacks. There are no definite end points. There are no happily ever afters that exists beyond the span of time. But there are farewells that we must say and there are people that we love and every time we love them as best as we can, we carve out our own epilogues and goodbyes.
*
“Do you ever wonder, Larsa, about what it means to write the story of your own life?"
"Strange you should say that, Penelo. As the pages of your biography slowly bring themselves forth, I keep going back to that question again. Time after time after time."
“Hmmm. Sometimes though, I really have to wonder if it’s even a good thing that you’re writing my story. You know you’ve got kind of a bent for heaping the little hearts and flowers on me, right?”
“Psshaw, nonsense. I shall do my lady wife justice in every way possible, leaving no stone unturned in an effort to showcase her virtue…”
“And probably erase all my vices!”
“…What ever leads you to that conclusion?”
“Oh, Larsa. Don’t even deny it. I know if you could, you’d idealize everything around you to the skies.”
“Maybe. But I was never able to do it with anything or anyone but you after I became emperor. Doesn’t that excuse my tendency to do so some?”
"A little. And I guess that makes sense. At least if you’re used to a pair of beautifully crazy eyes.”
“But then, let me ask. How would you start the story of your own life, Penelo?”
“Well, you’ve always been the one to love fairy tales, Larsa. What do you suppose?”
“I suppose you’re right, Penelo. There’s nothing that could be better than ‘Once upon a time.’”
“And so we'd always have to begin my story with once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Penelo who had a very interesting and very unsettling and very exciting sort of life!”
"Though one following it might well ask... whatever happened to that little girl named Penelo?"
"She's right here with you, talking and crying and thinking of her end. Trying to hold your hand with a smile."
"And whatever happened to that crazy little boy who met her when he was merely twelve and fell in love at first sight?"
"He's right here too, looking at me as though I‘m all he wants to see. Looking and probably planning out something incredibly foolish out."
"And what do you think he's planning?"
"To die with me. To give up on everything just because he's worried about what'll happen to him once I leave. Because he loves me and doesn't want to be lonely and he thinks there‘s no being happy without his bride."
"And do you think it's an understandable fear?"
"It is. I know it is. Because he's been through losing what he loves too many times already.”
"And don't you think it's fair to spare him that yet again, with the best of what he loves, during the darkest of his twilight years?"
"…And here’s where I break, Larsa. Because I‘ll deny you here. Because it's not fair of you to give in and let yourself die now because you‘re too afraid to on without me. Because it’s not fair for you to think more of yourself than of your children and the world that still needs you here.”
"Penelo... Penelo, I..."
“Because it’s not fair for you to make me responsible for your end when you’ve still got so many years left in your life!”
“That isn’t… that’s not what I intend to do, that’s not what will…”
“Maybe it’s not what you want, Larsa. But you’re still planning on dying right after I die and you-- I can’t believe how selfish you’re being. How selfish and how unthinking.“
“…Of all the adjectives you could have hurled at me. Selfish? Unthinking? When have I ever been as such?“
“I mean, I mean… Larsa, I know you’ve thought about this already. You’re the smartest person I know-- of course you’ve already thought this out. Don’t think I don’t know about the pills and potions you’ve been storing up over these last few weeks for just now.”
“…Your eyes really have always been a little too canny, haven't they, my lady wife?”
“They have. And I know, Larsa. I understand why. I don’t really want to leave either.”
“I know that, Penelo. That’s why I want to ensure that you have company to… to... to whatever shore it is that you next find.”
“But don’t you see, Larsa? I want to have what you have and enjoy it fully. I mean... if I could, I wouldn’t shorten whatever years I had left, no matter how terrible the things that went on in them were.”
“Penelo…”
“No. Don’t… don’t misunderstand me. I’m not unhappy now. I’m not… I understand, what’s happening to me. I’m all right with dying. I’ve already made my peace. But I don’t understand how it is that you can still have so many years left-- for the kids, for the babies, for the work, for just living… and be ready to throw it all away like it’s nothing.”
“I’m not. I know how lucky I am. I know I should be happy. But you-- you-- Penelo, you were so much a part of what made it so and if you leave--”
"Yeah. I know. I will leave. But you've too much left to do, Larsa, to just give it all up for me.”
“Explain, please.”
“You've got too many people who still depend on you, too many places and nations and names. You've got the kids and you've got the grand-babies and you've got so much you've spent all your life building, so many different ways of ensuring peace. You don't think that's worth holding on for, really?"
"Not if you're not here with me. Not if you're not holding my hand or opening my eyes or helping me back up upon my feet. I love you, Penelo, madly and wretched. I've loved you since I was thirteen and nothing has changed all through those years."
“I figured, Larsa. I really did. You were always too stubborn to change your mind midway through anything.”
"And you too interesting to give me a reason otherwise. I love you, Penelo. I always will. It’s all but engraved into me.”
"But you don't have to do this, Larsa. I know it hurts but you've already been through this. You've been through it already and you've been happy before and after and that's why--"
"And that's why I don't want to suffer through it all again!"
"...You haven't yelled at me in years."
"No, I'm sorry. I haven't. That was uncalled for. I... pray, forgiveness, Penelo. Please. Even if I can't..."
“You can try.”
“But I can’t.“
“But you can try.”
“But I love you. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want you to leave me. I just… I…”
“It happened before. It can happen again. You have baby Penelo to look forward to, right?”
“And she’ll be beautiful but she shan’t need me. She has grandparents enough on her other side and one doddering fool who shall compare her constantly to the original shall mean absolutely nothing.”
“You’re an idiot if you think that. But then, what about the work? What about the story of my life and yours?”
“I would embellish it much too much if I wrote it, as you’ve already pointed out.”
“I know. Probably. But come on, there are worse things than being flattered by your husband in front of the entire world. And nobody better to write our lives either.”
“But I shan’t do you justice. I wouldn’t capture you fully. I couldn’t make you live in the minds of others as I wanted to, to immortalize you completely.”
“Try, Larsa, just like you said. Could you at least hold on to the years you have while you’re trying to do all of those things?”
“I don’t know if it’s enough. I can’t promise you anything.”
“You don’t have to. But I have faith it will be. After all, you’re only fifty eight years old and, if you don’t mind me saying, still kinda foxy. In a graying, slightly paunchy sort of way. You’ve got plenty more years full of councils to manipulate and grandbabies to bring up and biographies to write and harems to plow through until everyone involved is sore and smiling. You know that, don‘t you? Look at you, you really do!”
“I don’t-- oh god, Penelo, nobody make me happy in the way you do. Or sad in just the same way either.”
“I know. You married me because of that, right?”
“I did. I do. And I don’t regret it at all. In the end, Penelo, what would you ask of me?”
“For you to live. For you to be happy. For you to try and go on without me.”
“I haven’t done so in forty years.”
“You’ll do all right, I know. You and the harem’ll be fine.”
“And if I promise to at least try to do just that, to not give up so ingloriously once you‘re gone…”
“…To finally have your happy ending!”
“To finally have my happy ending… just how will you reward me, lady wife?”
“Shhhh. Come closer. Keep laughing. And remember to close your eyes.”
*
But for all the time I've spent ruminating of the end of this work, the truth is that the story of her life-- and mine-- shall have no such thing.
Real love stories never do because real lovers never completely die.
*
“So shall we run through the story of my life one more time?”
“Of course. Always. For as long and as often as you desire.”
"So. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Penelo who was in love with life…”
“And the world at large…”
“And one especially strange-- don’t snicker, Larsa, you know it’s the truth-- little boy who was always determined to be at her side.”
“And though she eluded him for many years…”
“And though he hunted her down for many others!”
“She could never live her life for long without him near her.”
“And vice versa!”
“All too right.”
“For one day, she realized that…”
“No matter where she went.”
“No matter how far she traveled.”
“No matter who she was with.”
“No matter what she told herself.”
“In the end, no matter where they’d been or what they‘d done or what they were destined to sin together, their hands had always been meant to hold each other."
"And when she finally goes..."
"...She'll go smiling because he‘s been holding her hand. For all the years of her life."
*
In the end, Penelo was a woman brave and fair. She truly knew what it meant to fly.