FFXII Fic: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 12 (Larsa/Penelo, Reks, Cast)
This is probably going to be the last chapter of this series for a bit, if only to preserve what's left of my sanity. Hopefully, this won't be the end of the series-- if only because I am sort of ridiculously excited about the new and exciting hijinx that could come about because of new additions to the cast-- but we'll see. Graduate school is currently consuming my soul so I might not even be able to get to work on this series again for... quite a long time, possibly.
And in any case, this particular chapter is for the wonderful and ever-supportive artemischan (Happy birthday, lovely! I still need to mail you my present!) and was beta'd by the flat-out amazing moontear. (If you haven't already read her new series, Trust and Temptation, you are missing out on a wonderful and suspenseful read.) Everything half-way decent about this chapter can be traced to her and the many other wonderful people I've bugged about the climactic, er, clinch at the end of this chapter. Thanks for putting up with my insanity. ♥
And as always, reviews, comments and questions are very much loved. I'm going on hiatus with this but hearing what people think about this series really does help a great deal in motivating me to get off my lazy rear and start brain-storming!
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 12
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Reks, Vaan, A Few Surprise Guests
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...
Warning: Embarrassingly awkward pre-teen mating attempts, possibly?
*
Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, there had lived a boy and a girl and a city and a world that would crumble to ash eventually.
Both the boy and girl had, of course, known long ahead of time of the fate that would engulf all they loved quickly. The city in which they lived was one that was surrounded by strange deserts, by covetous invaders, by foreign empires that desired its treasures dearly. And the kingdom that they lived in and loved was too small to guard itself forever, no matter how many other lands pledged their support or offered princes up for ties and treaties.
Even the blind among them had sight enough to understand that something disastrous was approaching.
Everything would change, the boy and girl both knew well. Nothing could be preserved indefinitely.
Yet there were some in that kingdom who were as the girl was, who shunned strife and mischief and preferred to preserve what could be preserved, to hold fast to permanency. She was of the sort that would forever dig her heels into the earth and say, Don't stray, don't drift, don‘t lose your way. Keep coming back to me.
But there were others in the land whose hearts sang of war, who tempted the boy away. He was of the sort that could never lose his ambition to fly, never avert his eyes from the stars, who could lose sight of the ground at his feet as his thoughts carried him away. He could never look at the world around him without thinking, So small, so strange, so little, so stifling. Surely there must be more than simply what's here?
And once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, a girl held her hand out to a boy and asked him to stay with her indefinitely.
"I could be enough," she said, "for whatever it is that you need. I could give you anything that you please. Stay with me and I‘ll leave with you soon. You don‘t need to die to avenge your family."
And then she had pressed herself to him once more, her hair shining as garlands of gold and her arms winding about his neck like rare flowers and her lips pressing against his with the sweetness of cherries. And there in her arms had been Reks; Reks, who had taught her how to wield a bow; Reks, who had first kissed her as she had swung toward him upon a rope; Reks, who had let her weep against him as the last of her brothers broke; Reks, who had laughed at even the silliest of her jokes and inspired the worst of her teenage poetry.
Reks, who had died at the age of seventeen; Reks, who was forgetting her already.
"Forgive me," he had finally said, pushing her away. "For never being able to love you properly."
And then he had smiled for the last time in all his life and turned away completely.
***
She spoke about Reks for the first time then, for the first time in two years.
She hadn't spoken of him even to Vaan after his death; somehow, close as they were or at least had been, they had known that Reks was a sort of chasm for the both of them, something that neither could breach. She had been too hurt and he had been too angry and somehow, two whole years had skidded by without Reks’ name slipping past their lips easily.
She had tried, once, just the once, after news of Reks’ death had reached them slowly. She had put her hands on Vaan’s trembling shoulders and began to say something about-- she couldn’t even remember what words she had chosen, what she had thought would be enough to cut off the hurt, what she had thought would help them heal. Something about-- he knew the risks when he went to war and at least he doesn’t have to suffer anymore and maybe it’s better this way--
“No,” Vaan had simply said in response. “Don’t try to make this seem any better. It’s never going to be easy.”
And somehow, even as the tears had sprung to her eyes, Penelo had understood completely.
But she spoke of Reks to Larsa now, bravely and calmly and honestly. She spoke of his brother and his friends and his home in Rabanastre, where his footprints still seemed to echo endlessly. She spoke of his family’s end and how it had changed him slowly. She spoke of those long, endless days before the war, when everyone in Rabanastre had wandered about with the haunted eyes of ghosts and wondered what would happen to them all eventually.
She spoke of Reks’ decision to walk away from all of them, to fight for his parents in the military.
She spoke of trying to make him stay and what it felt like when he had left her entirely.
And though they were things that she simply couldn’t say,
(the feel of Reks’ mouth on hers, his fingers snagging at her twisting wrists, the warmth of his body covering her completely)
She could still tell the broad outlines of their story. She could still recall how, when it came down to it, she and Vaan and all of Rabanastre hadn't been enough in the light of his parents' memory.
It was just like the story of Ashe and her prince, only turned common and humble and cheap. Sometimes, it seemed as though the only thing she knew how to do with her life was to act out scenes that better people had already gone through before, substituting mediocrity for virtuosity.
And when she finally wound back to the way things stood now-- and here we come full circle, with me in his place and you where I was standing-- all Larsa could do was look and look and look at her, as though the meaning of all that she had said still remained hopelessly muddy.
"Why are you telling me this?" he finally asked, voice quiet, almost meek. And even within the silence that came right after, she could hear all other questions he wanted to as: Did you mean to show me more of the evils of my empire? To demonstrate just why you could never love me? Or simply to show me the man you loved, to explain more of why I could never fit his measure completely?
No, that hadn't been it. She had just wanted to warn him away, show him what could happen if he loved someone who didn’t love him, show him what had happened already.
She should have known it’d be useless. Reks had warned her and she hadn't listened and the cycle was already starting again here.
"I told you about Reks," Penelo finally said, "to let you know about the risks that you’re taking."
And she should have known that he’d be stubborn but somehow, it still surprised her: the look in his eyes as he straightened himself up, as he smoothed out his hair with the palms of his hand, as he then lifted his chin to look her square in the face--
"So you would have me believe that merely because you had your heart broken, the same fate will find me?” His smile had a sharper edge that ever. “How wonderfully optimistic of you, Penelo. You must be the life of every party."
And if that was how he wanted to have it-- and now it was her turn to straighten up and smooth out her loose hair and stare back at him calmly. She might go down in the end, as she seemed to always do with him-- but at least, she’d go down fighting.
I can play it that way too, Larsa. Just you watch me here.
“Well, I suppose I am known for having a good time,” she simpered sweetly. “And there’s a difference between being optimistic and being pants-on-head moronic, Larsa. And since Rabanastre‘s already got a village idiot in Vaan..."
For a half-second, the hard, biting smile on Larsa’s face seemed to soften, turned almost genuine, make him seem more like the boy he truly was than the politician he was trying to be. But then his eyes narrowed and he asked, “But what if I refuse to live without you, Penelo? What if I refuse to settle for reenacting the past you fear so desperately?”
So young, Penelo thought, and curled her arms against her body. Just as she’d been with Reks, really.
"You'd be surprised what you could live with, if you needed to," she answered softly.
"And you would be surprised," Larsa said in return (and his voice was the voice he had had when she had first met him, young and ambitious and fierce) "--what a man of my house can accomplish despite all given boundaries.”
And then his fingers were clenching and tightening around her shoulders, him leaning in all too close, until all that she could see was his large, strange eyes-- so piercing and so gray within the thin oval of his face.
“You can’t really believe I would force you to do anything you wouldn’t want to,” he said, his voice suddenly almost pleading. "Did you really think I could ever be heartless enough to demand that you-- that you give yourself up if you didn't truly want to-- that I would even wish for you to--"
“I…” she began, only to realize that she didn’t know how to quite end that sentence. “I… maybe not… really…”
"Your trust in me warms all the cockles of my heart," Larsa said, taking a deep breath and clearly trying to master himself here. "But I don't. I would never do anything of that nature. I had honestly thought you would leap at the chance to be empress. I truly did believe..."
He drew back a little; his shoulders were trembling slightly.
"I thought you knew me better than that," Larsa said softly. "I thought you trusted me."
"Larsa," she began. "I didn't mean..."
"Did you really assume," he went on, "that I meant only to treat you as a possession after we were married? Do you really expect that I would not be able to care for and protect and even love you properly? That I and all my family were so removed from humanity?"
"No," she snapped. "No, you're not being realistic here. You keep throwing around the word love around willy nilly--"
"Only," he snapped back, "because it is appropriate to the context."
"--Willy nilly," she doggedly continued on, "when you can't possibly mean it. I mean, God. First of all, you're only twelve years old and--"
"As were you when you first realized you loved this Reks," Larsa said, his tone measured and his eyes slightly hooded. "Or do you mean to tell me that that was merely an infatuation as well?"
It would have hurt less if he had just ran her through with his sword right here.
"...I didn't finish," Penelo finally said, when she could bring herself to speak. "Larsa, you're only twelve and you've only known me for... what? A month, tops? And we've spent all of-- I don't know-- ten days together? I knew Reks and Vaan and all his family almost before I could talk. I knew who he was before I fell in love with him. And in your case, I've heard that people could fall in love at first sight but..."
"Well then," Larsa interrupted triumphantly. "There you have it. I didn't exactly fall in love with you at first sight either!"
Penelo had to pause. "...Oh, really?"
And now was a fine time for Larsa to stop and look deathly embarrassed. "To be absolutely fair, you did look a bit unhygienic right after your escape from captivity and the mines. Your clothes were positively stained, your face was rather grubby and the condition of your hair alone…”
Penelo paused once again, more ominously this time. "Oh. Really."
Larsa blushed, ducked his head down and continued on tenaciously. "But your true beauty did shine through the circumstances after a suitable interlude within the Bhujerban baths! And in any case, we did have a chance to spend an entire week together after your rescue. I had to know more about you before I succumbed to your incredibly alluring… personality!"
“Oh yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re really convincing me here.” And she could only sigh at the fact that he was somehow smart enough to go about rescuing whole countries with the power of puffy sleeves and yet still stupid enough not to understand why all his plans where she was concerned were completely and utterly crazy. "The point is that only lunatics decide to get married after only knowing someone for a month. And Larsa, how can you love me if you barely spent time with me?"
But that only made Larsa square his shoulders and look even more stubborn. “I know far more about you than I would about any other woman that could potentially marry me. Do you have any idea how lucky we are to have garnered the time we have here?” And then, before she could even process that, he went on. “And in any case, if you truly do believe I don’t know a single relevant fact about you, do feel free to test me. I look forward to refuting charges as ridiculous as these.”
If she hadn’t been so annoyed at his high-and-mighty way of speaking here, she might have asked him exactly what he meant by them being lucky. But instead, indignation drowning out her normal excess of common sense, she just narrowed her eyes. “Fine. What’s my last name?”
And in return, Larsa blinked and then slowly began to smile that slightly dangerous smile of his, the one that could have belonged to an esper about to embark on a hume feast. "Majus," he sweetly said. “I‘ve been notified by reliable sources that it actually is of some repute within mage societies.”
Penelo just snorted. "Oh, that was just a warm-up and don't even try to flatter me. Try this instead. What's my middle name?"
"Athenie," Larsa all but purred sweetly. "After your mother, who named you for her own mother in turn. The name goes back centuries."
She had to blink at that but-- well, that was still common knowledge, wasn't it? Hell, he could get it from nearly everyone who knew her, really.
This was… nothing to worry about. Nothing at all, honestly.
"What's my favorite color?" Penelo warily asked, testing the waters slowly.
"Pink," he replied instantly. "Which is rather odd, since you don't seem to wear any usually. But you did happen to have a rather large number of undergarments of that hue--"
He stopped as soon as her death-glare hit him and his voice was meek when he spoke again. "Forgive me, Penelo, but you did have me do your laundry. It was hard not to... er... well... notice a few interesting tendencies.”
Not for the first time, Penelo wondered whether death wouldn’t actually be a plausible option here. "Well, I didn't think you'd pick up on that, for the love of baby cacti. And I can't afford too much pink in my wardrobe anymore-- the dye's been more than a little pricey lately. And what’s my favorite food? "
"What a pity," Larsa said with admirably well-executed gravity. "Did you know that Archades is renowned all throughout the continent for its shopping districts and skilled dress makers? And incidentally, cactus-flavored ices have been all the rage for the palace desert chefs since Dalmascan culinary fashions began making inroads in the empire’s kitchens."
She had to perk up at that. "Hey, really? That's funny, that's also my favorite..." And then she had to pause to take in Larsa's sly grin, which was near insufferable when it came at her expense. "Tricky, Solidor, very tricky. But are you tricky enough to know when my birthday's coming?"
His grin widened in a way that would do a bangaa proud. "But of course. And it's precisely four months, two weeks and... two days, I believe, from this exact date. You will be turning seventeen… which means that for over three months, we shall only be three years apart in age."
The angelic glow that came over Larsa’s face at those words was disturbing in an almost visceral way.
"And moving on," she muttered, "to something that's at least a little less likely to give me bad dreams... what's my favorite spot in Rabanastre?" They hadn't even gone to visit this time around, which ought to stump him rather handily.
She should had known better, however, than to underestimate the power of crazy eyes. And, teeth gleaming in the desert sun, Larsa answered beaming. "The chocobo stalls near the outside gates. You find the chicks absolutely adorable and tend to stop by to see them nearly every day."
All right, now this was creepy. She knew he was telekenetic simply from watching him take on winged beasts in the Ozmone Plains. If he turned out to be telepathic on top of that, she was ready to turn on her heels and start running.
But not before asking another question. "And when’s the last time I went on a date, anyway?"
“Ah,” Larsa replied, and his angelic beam only increased exponentially. “That was when we were eating lunch together at the base of the fountain in Rabanastre the other day.”
Penelo could only stare at him blankly in response.
“Well,” he shrugged, “I consider it to be one. There was only one person who paid for two meals, even if it wasn’t the male of our party.”
Sighing, Penelo slipped a hand onto her forehead to massage out the tension head-ache she already knew was coming. “One last question. Larsa, are you sure you’re not actually fifteen years old but faking being a couple years younger just to… I dunno… escape from anyone who’d kill you dead if you were old enough to inherit your kingdom already?”
He all but physically recoiled at that. “Good God, I hope not. That might mean I might stay at my present height permanently..”
“Whatever you say,” she muttered, and then, dark suspicions already forming, moved on swiftly. “And you can’t expect me to believe you got all that information from just spending a couple of days in Rabanastre with me! You’re good but you couldn’t have possibly known what my favorite place was when we never even went to visit it. Who spilled the chocobo droppings on me? Was it Ashe? No, had to be someone who actually knows me-- was it Migelo?! Oooooh, I should have known he’d sell me out for any pretty boy who can sell a couple of potions, you can’t trust a merchant with these things…”
Far from looking shifty-eyed, however, Larsa looked decidedly intrigued. “Does that mean you consider me… pretty?”
Not for the first time, Penelo rather wished she could be struck mute eternally.
Meanwhile, the aura of smug superiority that had been hovering around Larsa since he had started thinking about aging was now threatening to grow large enough to attract small bodies to its gravitational field. “Not that I could possibly blame you for doing so, of course. My father was considered quite the specimen in his prime and my brother has had his share of admirers over the years. I can’t blame you for being attracted to me.”
Not for the first time, Penelo wondered if anyone would be too put out if she gutted him, scooped all his innards out to sell to the bangaa black market and stuffed whatever was left of him inside a rusty sewer main.
“But in any case,” Larsa carried on, blissfully unaware of her homicidal intentions, “it wasn’t Migelo, kind though he was to me. Those scales really can hide a kind soul. I actually had to glean my info from the brain of another young associate. He told me to call him my rampaging chocobo of illicit chance… but I believe he generally goes by Kytes.”
It was odd how the hume brain occasionally stopped functioning properly in the wake of news that could shut it down completely.
“…Kytes,” Penelo slowly said. “Kiiites. Ki-hiiites. Your age. About your height. Light haired, wears a vest and blue shorts and works in the Sundries?”
Larsa nodded demurely, as though there was nothing in the world wrong with the scenario he was painting there. “That would be the one, yes. And let me inform you, Penelo-- his information cost all my charms to extract readily.”
“Buh… buh… buh…” She couldn’t even talk properly here. “But I thought he liked little girls, not little boys! Oh, poor Filo’s going to have her heart broken when she finds out differently!”
And when Larsa smiled that sweetly, Penelo knew more than well enough to fear.
“He does, but that possibility may come about anyway.” Oh God, it was so disturbing when Larsa’s teeth twinkled that way. “He actually took me to be a fair and virtuous maiden from the moment he met me, and when he turned out to be such a valuable source of information…” Sweet Lord, those batted eyelashes of his were going to kill her sooner or later. “I decided to let the situation play out in that way.”
Black was white. The sea was the sky. Nothing in all the rest of the world wanted to make sense anymore.
"You-- you-- you seduced poor innocent little Kytes just so you--"
Larsa shrugged demurely. “Seduce is much too strong a word, Penelo. And as a matter of fact, I probably did him quite the favor. He probably learned more about dealing with women in an hour with me than he did in his past twelve years.”
“Oh god,” Penelo groaned. “Please, please, please don't give me any details here. I know kids grow up fast nowadays but that's just scary.”
The smile Larsa granted her somehow managed to be both sad and smug. “Yes, rather, I suppose it can be. But sometimes we don't have a choice to act differently.”
She cast her own eyes down at that. She knew that all too well herself.
“But in any case,” Larsa said, his hand coming to tug at her wrist, “has all that been enough to prove that I truly know the real you, not whatever apparition you believe I’ve been looking forward to? Will you give my suit of marriage some real consideration here?”
He was expecting her to give in now, Penelo very well knew. He was expecting her to just sigh and concede to all his points and swoon into his arms immediately. And truth be told, she couldn’t really blame him. He was almost frighteningly clever and it wasn‘t hard to believe that most of the people in his life knew well enough to just give into what he wanted quickly. And truth be told, though it hurt her ego to admit it, it wasn’t as though she had been all that formidable of an obstacle so far. They’d already fallen into the nasty pattern of her arguing against his insane plans for a short while before giving in completely.
But then, in a way, most of her life had been spent giving in to the desires of others around her. It had happened with Reks. It had happened with Ashe. It was probably going to happen again, right now and right here.
Maybe it was time to stop struggling against the tide and find a way to make it turn in her favor.
Even if it did mean turning into the very thing she was trying to escape here.
“I think I deserve one last question,” Penelo said calmly. “Because answering all those others that I gave you only proves that you were smart enough to find information about me. It doesn’t prove that you know who I really am… or who I want to be.”
And when she saw that strange, lucid light spring into Larsa’s eyes-- that same light that always came when she defied him and his plans, the one that only proved that he’d struggle harder and faster against whatever challenges came his way-- she knew that she had him hooked completely.
“Can you tell me,” she asked softly, “why I was so upset this morning? Do you know why I was so angry when I came back from Ashe? Do you…”
His eyes were so, so, so very wide right now-- the color of the sky after the dawn had come, pale but slowly darkening.
“Do you know why I ran away? Do you know why you hurt me so badly?”
And then, very carefully, as though something would shatter if he took a false step, Larsa rose from the low stone perch he had been sitting on and crossed three inches to where she was still resting. Then, just as carefully, Larsa bent over-- slowly, very slowly, deliberately giving her more than enough time to push him away if she wanted to-- and drew one of her hands up to kiss her knuckles gently.
“Because I was a fool,” he whispered, and his breath stirred against her fingers, “who should have known mere power couldn‘t tempt you currently. Because I wanted to conquer you and hold you fast, just as my empire had done to your city. Because I am a coward when it comes to love, a coward who doesn't want to give you the chance to leave without learning more of me.”
His hands were like free-flying birds as they gripped hers.
“Because I love you much too much,” he finally said, “to let you slip past me.”
“Then walk with me,” Penelo softly replied. “so we can settle everything here.”
***
She felt oddly calm as she took her hand in his own and they ambled the few short yards left between the desert proper and the beach. And even as the call of the sea-gulls and the smell of the salty sea grew stronger and stronger, Penelo felt more and more as though she were slipping off into a far away dream. In a way, strange as it might seem, it was all working out as she had imagined it would as she had wandered the desert before Larsa had found her, as she had traced her own history.
She’d done her best to keep the past from repeating itself, from making her into Reks and Larsa into herself and rewinding itself, over and over and over. She had hoped that if she could just tell Larsa about Reks, just show him what could happen if he persisted on wanting her, he’d recognize the consequences, understand all her warnings, realize that trying to love someone who didn’t love you would always be a lost cause.
But Larsa just wouldn’t listen. Larsa wouldn’t give up on her any more than she had given up on Reks. For all their differences-- gender, age, class, nationality-- he was too much like her where this was concerned.
Except she had never had the power to compel Reks to marry her, of course. Reks had never had to serve as a human bribe for her. That was the true difference here.
And when they stood in the banks of the Nebra together, Penelo realized that her only real advantage over Larsa was the fact that she knew how this story would play out from the start.
The only thing she could do this time around was minimize the hurt that was coming.
“Larsa,” she said softly, almost sadly, and his palm was damp in her own. “Larsa, are you sure you want to marry me? Is there anything I could do to make you change your mind?”
“No,” he replied, and he sounded more hopeful than he had ever been before. “No, I can‘t think of a single thing.”
“Oh,” she said, and had to smile, tired though it might be. “I had a funny feeling that that was just what you were going to say.”
And then she took a deep breath, turned to look at his bright face, drew both hands into her own and struck a bargain with the devil at last.
“Larsa,” she said, and her voice was as soft as she could make it. “Larsa, strange though it is to admit it, I think you‘ve been right all this time about me. I know I’ve fought you every step of the way but maybe it would be best for me to come with you to Archades, to serve as your empress, to serve as a tie for our countries. You and me, we want the same things, we feel what we feel and we should say what we meant. We’ve fought too much over the last few days-- but this should be simpler, Larsa. It should be easy and clean.”
And despite everything else she was feeling now-- guilt, uncertainty, terror, grief-- at least she knew that she’d never forgot the look that came over her soon-to-be-husband’s face when she got down on one knee to propose to him properly.
“So Larsa, I guess all I want to say is…”
(and her voice was trembling and her knees were wavering and her back was aching and her stomach was fluttering and her heart felt like it might crack in half and oh god, this was insane)
“…will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
The look on his face that came after could have outshone even the sun’s incandescent beauty.
“I--” he began to say, stuttered, stopped, flushed, began laughing. “I-- I didn‘t-- I couldn‘t have-- I didn‘t realize you wanted… I mean…” It almost hurt to see the incredulous joy that was all over his face, lighting him from within, bringing him down to his knees. “I, I didn’t realize you were so eager to--” And then he was looking her full in the face, eyes bright and cheeks flushing and she wanted to look away but she couldn’t-- she needed to see what she was doing.
“I can’t,” she said, and she was already stuttering stupidly. “I can’t promise you the rest of my life, Larsa, not now, not here. But-- but we could try, at least for a year or two, to make this work, to be married, to bring Archadia and Dalmasca together, to do our best for peace--”
(Right before I leave you, of course. I won't sacrifice all my life, here.)
“Yes,” he said, “Yes--” Still beaming, taking her hands again in his own, interlacing his fingers with hers, not caring in the least that her hands were clammy, that they were kneeling now in wet, silting sand, not knowing the least about what she was planning. “Yes, yes, we’ll try and-- and I’ll find a way to make you happy, Penelo, and we’ll bring peace together eventually-- I the hero of Archades and you the heroine of your country and-- and you’ll be an empress soon and you will have everything you could desire, you will want for nothing--”
“I,” she began, and could not finish properly. He just looked so excited when all this time, she’d been lying--
And then, before she could do anything else, he grabbed her by the shoulders, thrust forward to kiss her-- and all other thoughts she might have had melted away instantly.
Larsa kissed her as though he wanted to peck her to death, madly, deeply and passionately. Given how clumsy and ridiculously eager he had alway been about touching her, Penelo had long suspected that he'd be a novice to anything to with human contact. But this-- this went above and beyond any previous assumptions of ineptness she had made about him previously. Because for some reason, Larsa seemed to think that the only way he could properly show how much he loved her was by shoving his incredibly bony sternum into her already aching form and pinching his lips into a quasi-beak that he then thrust into various unsuspecting bits of her anatomy. Eyelids, cheeks, chin, nose, lips-- nothing above Penelo's neckline was spared as the astonishing force of devastation that was her new intended's make-out technique swept across her body.
It was probably the worst thing Penelo's face had ever had to endure-- including that one time that she had accidentally face-planted into an angry bunch of sentient warrior cacti-- and all she really wanted to do now was shove Larsa off and scramble away and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing and had he learned to kiss from a damn chocobo corral and if he thought that just because they were now engaged she was now going to be his floozy--
But anything she could have done in response fell away immediately. Because whatever else she had been expecting when she had finally jerked her mouth away from Larsa's, it hadn't been what she was looking at now.
"Uncle Basch?" Penelo found herself asking numbly. “And Balthier? What are you two doing here?”
And how much, a very large and very panicked part of Penelo wanted to ask, did you two already see?!
***
Author's Note: And now the kind people on my f-list know why I wanted to have Larsa tastefully lunge at and snog Penelo in the end. It wouldn't be nearly as dramatic if Basch and Balthier had just stumbled onto Larsa and Penelo calmly talking. ;)
Credit to where credit's due: that paragraph about Reks near the bottom of the first section was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' moving essay "Beatrice's Last Smile," which can be found in "Selected Non-Fictions," edited by Eliot Weinberger. And that's your daily dose of pretension for the day!
And also... does anyone have any good ideas for what Basch can be used for? Oddly enough, though I hardly ever write Balthier, I can think of a thousand and one ways he can needle Larsa, flirt with Penelo and give some much needed advice about surviving Archades. (And Vayne Solidor. Pray for Penelo, people. She will need it dearly.) But though I love Basch, I can't quite figure out how to use him here, though I want to write him very badly. Any suggestions...?
And in any case, this particular chapter is for the wonderful and ever-supportive artemischan (Happy birthday, lovely! I still need to mail you my present!) and was beta'd by the flat-out amazing moontear. (If you haven't already read her new series, Trust and Temptation, you are missing out on a wonderful and suspenseful read.) Everything half-way decent about this chapter can be traced to her and the many other wonderful people I've bugged about the climactic, er, clinch at the end of this chapter. Thanks for putting up with my insanity. ♥
And as always, reviews, comments and questions are very much loved. I'm going on hiatus with this but hearing what people think about this series really does help a great deal in motivating me to get off my lazy rear and start brain-storming!
Title: Knots, Ties and Tides, Chapter 12
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: Knots, Ties and Tides
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Reks, Vaan, A Few Surprise Guests
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...
Warning: Embarrassingly awkward pre-teen mating attempts, possibly?
*
Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, there had lived a boy and a girl and a city and a world that would crumble to ash eventually.
Both the boy and girl had, of course, known long ahead of time of the fate that would engulf all they loved quickly. The city in which they lived was one that was surrounded by strange deserts, by covetous invaders, by foreign empires that desired its treasures dearly. And the kingdom that they lived in and loved was too small to guard itself forever, no matter how many other lands pledged their support or offered princes up for ties and treaties.
Even the blind among them had sight enough to understand that something disastrous was approaching.
Everything would change, the boy and girl both knew well. Nothing could be preserved indefinitely.
Yet there were some in that kingdom who were as the girl was, who shunned strife and mischief and preferred to preserve what could be preserved, to hold fast to permanency. She was of the sort that would forever dig her heels into the earth and say, Don't stray, don't drift, don‘t lose your way. Keep coming back to me.
But there were others in the land whose hearts sang of war, who tempted the boy away. He was of the sort that could never lose his ambition to fly, never avert his eyes from the stars, who could lose sight of the ground at his feet as his thoughts carried him away. He could never look at the world around him without thinking, So small, so strange, so little, so stifling. Surely there must be more than simply what's here?
And once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, a girl held her hand out to a boy and asked him to stay with her indefinitely.
"I could be enough," she said, "for whatever it is that you need. I could give you anything that you please. Stay with me and I‘ll leave with you soon. You don‘t need to die to avenge your family."
And then she had pressed herself to him once more, her hair shining as garlands of gold and her arms winding about his neck like rare flowers and her lips pressing against his with the sweetness of cherries. And there in her arms had been Reks; Reks, who had taught her how to wield a bow; Reks, who had first kissed her as she had swung toward him upon a rope; Reks, who had let her weep against him as the last of her brothers broke; Reks, who had laughed at even the silliest of her jokes and inspired the worst of her teenage poetry.
Reks, who had died at the age of seventeen; Reks, who was forgetting her already.
"Forgive me," he had finally said, pushing her away. "For never being able to love you properly."
And then he had smiled for the last time in all his life and turned away completely.
***
She spoke about Reks for the first time then, for the first time in two years.
She hadn't spoken of him even to Vaan after his death; somehow, close as they were or at least had been, they had known that Reks was a sort of chasm for the both of them, something that neither could breach. She had been too hurt and he had been too angry and somehow, two whole years had skidded by without Reks’ name slipping past their lips easily.
She had tried, once, just the once, after news of Reks’ death had reached them slowly. She had put her hands on Vaan’s trembling shoulders and began to say something about-- she couldn’t even remember what words she had chosen, what she had thought would be enough to cut off the hurt, what she had thought would help them heal. Something about-- he knew the risks when he went to war and at least he doesn’t have to suffer anymore and maybe it’s better this way--
“No,” Vaan had simply said in response. “Don’t try to make this seem any better. It’s never going to be easy.”
And somehow, even as the tears had sprung to her eyes, Penelo had understood completely.
But she spoke of Reks to Larsa now, bravely and calmly and honestly. She spoke of his brother and his friends and his home in Rabanastre, where his footprints still seemed to echo endlessly. She spoke of his family’s end and how it had changed him slowly. She spoke of those long, endless days before the war, when everyone in Rabanastre had wandered about with the haunted eyes of ghosts and wondered what would happen to them all eventually.
She spoke of Reks’ decision to walk away from all of them, to fight for his parents in the military.
She spoke of trying to make him stay and what it felt like when he had left her entirely.
And though they were things that she simply couldn’t say,
(the feel of Reks’ mouth on hers, his fingers snagging at her twisting wrists, the warmth of his body covering her completely)
She could still tell the broad outlines of their story. She could still recall how, when it came down to it, she and Vaan and all of Rabanastre hadn't been enough in the light of his parents' memory.
It was just like the story of Ashe and her prince, only turned common and humble and cheap. Sometimes, it seemed as though the only thing she knew how to do with her life was to act out scenes that better people had already gone through before, substituting mediocrity for virtuosity.
And when she finally wound back to the way things stood now-- and here we come full circle, with me in his place and you where I was standing-- all Larsa could do was look and look and look at her, as though the meaning of all that she had said still remained hopelessly muddy.
"Why are you telling me this?" he finally asked, voice quiet, almost meek. And even within the silence that came right after, she could hear all other questions he wanted to as: Did you mean to show me more of the evils of my empire? To demonstrate just why you could never love me? Or simply to show me the man you loved, to explain more of why I could never fit his measure completely?
No, that hadn't been it. She had just wanted to warn him away, show him what could happen if he loved someone who didn’t love him, show him what had happened already.
She should have known it’d be useless. Reks had warned her and she hadn't listened and the cycle was already starting again here.
"I told you about Reks," Penelo finally said, "to let you know about the risks that you’re taking."
And she should have known that he’d be stubborn but somehow, it still surprised her: the look in his eyes as he straightened himself up, as he smoothed out his hair with the palms of his hand, as he then lifted his chin to look her square in the face--
"So you would have me believe that merely because you had your heart broken, the same fate will find me?” His smile had a sharper edge that ever. “How wonderfully optimistic of you, Penelo. You must be the life of every party."
And if that was how he wanted to have it-- and now it was her turn to straighten up and smooth out her loose hair and stare back at him calmly. She might go down in the end, as she seemed to always do with him-- but at least, she’d go down fighting.
I can play it that way too, Larsa. Just you watch me here.
“Well, I suppose I am known for having a good time,” she simpered sweetly. “And there’s a difference between being optimistic and being pants-on-head moronic, Larsa. And since Rabanastre‘s already got a village idiot in Vaan..."
For a half-second, the hard, biting smile on Larsa’s face seemed to soften, turned almost genuine, make him seem more like the boy he truly was than the politician he was trying to be. But then his eyes narrowed and he asked, “But what if I refuse to live without you, Penelo? What if I refuse to settle for reenacting the past you fear so desperately?”
So young, Penelo thought, and curled her arms against her body. Just as she’d been with Reks, really.
"You'd be surprised what you could live with, if you needed to," she answered softly.
"And you would be surprised," Larsa said in return (and his voice was the voice he had had when she had first met him, young and ambitious and fierce) "--what a man of my house can accomplish despite all given boundaries.”
And then his fingers were clenching and tightening around her shoulders, him leaning in all too close, until all that she could see was his large, strange eyes-- so piercing and so gray within the thin oval of his face.
“You can’t really believe I would force you to do anything you wouldn’t want to,” he said, his voice suddenly almost pleading. "Did you really think I could ever be heartless enough to demand that you-- that you give yourself up if you didn't truly want to-- that I would even wish for you to--"
“I…” she began, only to realize that she didn’t know how to quite end that sentence. “I… maybe not… really…”
"Your trust in me warms all the cockles of my heart," Larsa said, taking a deep breath and clearly trying to master himself here. "But I don't. I would never do anything of that nature. I had honestly thought you would leap at the chance to be empress. I truly did believe..."
He drew back a little; his shoulders were trembling slightly.
"I thought you knew me better than that," Larsa said softly. "I thought you trusted me."
"Larsa," she began. "I didn't mean..."
"Did you really assume," he went on, "that I meant only to treat you as a possession after we were married? Do you really expect that I would not be able to care for and protect and even love you properly? That I and all my family were so removed from humanity?"
"No," she snapped. "No, you're not being realistic here. You keep throwing around the word love around willy nilly--"
"Only," he snapped back, "because it is appropriate to the context."
"--Willy nilly," she doggedly continued on, "when you can't possibly mean it. I mean, God. First of all, you're only twelve years old and--"
"As were you when you first realized you loved this Reks," Larsa said, his tone measured and his eyes slightly hooded. "Or do you mean to tell me that that was merely an infatuation as well?"
It would have hurt less if he had just ran her through with his sword right here.
"...I didn't finish," Penelo finally said, when she could bring herself to speak. "Larsa, you're only twelve and you've only known me for... what? A month, tops? And we've spent all of-- I don't know-- ten days together? I knew Reks and Vaan and all his family almost before I could talk. I knew who he was before I fell in love with him. And in your case, I've heard that people could fall in love at first sight but..."
"Well then," Larsa interrupted triumphantly. "There you have it. I didn't exactly fall in love with you at first sight either!"
Penelo had to pause. "...Oh, really?"
And now was a fine time for Larsa to stop and look deathly embarrassed. "To be absolutely fair, you did look a bit unhygienic right after your escape from captivity and the mines. Your clothes were positively stained, your face was rather grubby and the condition of your hair alone…”
Penelo paused once again, more ominously this time. "Oh. Really."
Larsa blushed, ducked his head down and continued on tenaciously. "But your true beauty did shine through the circumstances after a suitable interlude within the Bhujerban baths! And in any case, we did have a chance to spend an entire week together after your rescue. I had to know more about you before I succumbed to your incredibly alluring… personality!"
“Oh yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re really convincing me here.” And she could only sigh at the fact that he was somehow smart enough to go about rescuing whole countries with the power of puffy sleeves and yet still stupid enough not to understand why all his plans where she was concerned were completely and utterly crazy. "The point is that only lunatics decide to get married after only knowing someone for a month. And Larsa, how can you love me if you barely spent time with me?"
But that only made Larsa square his shoulders and look even more stubborn. “I know far more about you than I would about any other woman that could potentially marry me. Do you have any idea how lucky we are to have garnered the time we have here?” And then, before she could even process that, he went on. “And in any case, if you truly do believe I don’t know a single relevant fact about you, do feel free to test me. I look forward to refuting charges as ridiculous as these.”
If she hadn’t been so annoyed at his high-and-mighty way of speaking here, she might have asked him exactly what he meant by them being lucky. But instead, indignation drowning out her normal excess of common sense, she just narrowed her eyes. “Fine. What’s my last name?”
And in return, Larsa blinked and then slowly began to smile that slightly dangerous smile of his, the one that could have belonged to an esper about to embark on a hume feast. "Majus," he sweetly said. “I‘ve been notified by reliable sources that it actually is of some repute within mage societies.”
Penelo just snorted. "Oh, that was just a warm-up and don't even try to flatter me. Try this instead. What's my middle name?"
"Athenie," Larsa all but purred sweetly. "After your mother, who named you for her own mother in turn. The name goes back centuries."
She had to blink at that but-- well, that was still common knowledge, wasn't it? Hell, he could get it from nearly everyone who knew her, really.
This was… nothing to worry about. Nothing at all, honestly.
"What's my favorite color?" Penelo warily asked, testing the waters slowly.
"Pink," he replied instantly. "Which is rather odd, since you don't seem to wear any usually. But you did happen to have a rather large number of undergarments of that hue--"
He stopped as soon as her death-glare hit him and his voice was meek when he spoke again. "Forgive me, Penelo, but you did have me do your laundry. It was hard not to... er... well... notice a few interesting tendencies.”
Not for the first time, Penelo wondered whether death wouldn’t actually be a plausible option here. "Well, I didn't think you'd pick up on that, for the love of baby cacti. And I can't afford too much pink in my wardrobe anymore-- the dye's been more than a little pricey lately. And what’s my favorite food? "
"What a pity," Larsa said with admirably well-executed gravity. "Did you know that Archades is renowned all throughout the continent for its shopping districts and skilled dress makers? And incidentally, cactus-flavored ices have been all the rage for the palace desert chefs since Dalmascan culinary fashions began making inroads in the empire’s kitchens."
She had to perk up at that. "Hey, really? That's funny, that's also my favorite..." And then she had to pause to take in Larsa's sly grin, which was near insufferable when it came at her expense. "Tricky, Solidor, very tricky. But are you tricky enough to know when my birthday's coming?"
His grin widened in a way that would do a bangaa proud. "But of course. And it's precisely four months, two weeks and... two days, I believe, from this exact date. You will be turning seventeen… which means that for over three months, we shall only be three years apart in age."
The angelic glow that came over Larsa’s face at those words was disturbing in an almost visceral way.
"And moving on," she muttered, "to something that's at least a little less likely to give me bad dreams... what's my favorite spot in Rabanastre?" They hadn't even gone to visit this time around, which ought to stump him rather handily.
She should had known better, however, than to underestimate the power of crazy eyes. And, teeth gleaming in the desert sun, Larsa answered beaming. "The chocobo stalls near the outside gates. You find the chicks absolutely adorable and tend to stop by to see them nearly every day."
All right, now this was creepy. She knew he was telekenetic simply from watching him take on winged beasts in the Ozmone Plains. If he turned out to be telepathic on top of that, she was ready to turn on her heels and start running.
But not before asking another question. "And when’s the last time I went on a date, anyway?"
“Ah,” Larsa replied, and his angelic beam only increased exponentially. “That was when we were eating lunch together at the base of the fountain in Rabanastre the other day.”
Penelo could only stare at him blankly in response.
“Well,” he shrugged, “I consider it to be one. There was only one person who paid for two meals, even if it wasn’t the male of our party.”
Sighing, Penelo slipped a hand onto her forehead to massage out the tension head-ache she already knew was coming. “One last question. Larsa, are you sure you’re not actually fifteen years old but faking being a couple years younger just to… I dunno… escape from anyone who’d kill you dead if you were old enough to inherit your kingdom already?”
He all but physically recoiled at that. “Good God, I hope not. That might mean I might stay at my present height permanently..”
“Whatever you say,” she muttered, and then, dark suspicions already forming, moved on swiftly. “And you can’t expect me to believe you got all that information from just spending a couple of days in Rabanastre with me! You’re good but you couldn’t have possibly known what my favorite place was when we never even went to visit it. Who spilled the chocobo droppings on me? Was it Ashe? No, had to be someone who actually knows me-- was it Migelo?! Oooooh, I should have known he’d sell me out for any pretty boy who can sell a couple of potions, you can’t trust a merchant with these things…”
Far from looking shifty-eyed, however, Larsa looked decidedly intrigued. “Does that mean you consider me… pretty?”
Not for the first time, Penelo rather wished she could be struck mute eternally.
Meanwhile, the aura of smug superiority that had been hovering around Larsa since he had started thinking about aging was now threatening to grow large enough to attract small bodies to its gravitational field. “Not that I could possibly blame you for doing so, of course. My father was considered quite the specimen in his prime and my brother has had his share of admirers over the years. I can’t blame you for being attracted to me.”
Not for the first time, Penelo wondered if anyone would be too put out if she gutted him, scooped all his innards out to sell to the bangaa black market and stuffed whatever was left of him inside a rusty sewer main.
“But in any case,” Larsa carried on, blissfully unaware of her homicidal intentions, “it wasn’t Migelo, kind though he was to me. Those scales really can hide a kind soul. I actually had to glean my info from the brain of another young associate. He told me to call him my rampaging chocobo of illicit chance… but I believe he generally goes by Kytes.”
It was odd how the hume brain occasionally stopped functioning properly in the wake of news that could shut it down completely.
“…Kytes,” Penelo slowly said. “Kiiites. Ki-hiiites. Your age. About your height. Light haired, wears a vest and blue shorts and works in the Sundries?”
Larsa nodded demurely, as though there was nothing in the world wrong with the scenario he was painting there. “That would be the one, yes. And let me inform you, Penelo-- his information cost all my charms to extract readily.”
“Buh… buh… buh…” She couldn’t even talk properly here. “But I thought he liked little girls, not little boys! Oh, poor Filo’s going to have her heart broken when she finds out differently!”
And when Larsa smiled that sweetly, Penelo knew more than well enough to fear.
“He does, but that possibility may come about anyway.” Oh God, it was so disturbing when Larsa’s teeth twinkled that way. “He actually took me to be a fair and virtuous maiden from the moment he met me, and when he turned out to be such a valuable source of information…” Sweet Lord, those batted eyelashes of his were going to kill her sooner or later. “I decided to let the situation play out in that way.”
Black was white. The sea was the sky. Nothing in all the rest of the world wanted to make sense anymore.
"You-- you-- you seduced poor innocent little Kytes just so you--"
Larsa shrugged demurely. “Seduce is much too strong a word, Penelo. And as a matter of fact, I probably did him quite the favor. He probably learned more about dealing with women in an hour with me than he did in his past twelve years.”
“Oh god,” Penelo groaned. “Please, please, please don't give me any details here. I know kids grow up fast nowadays but that's just scary.”
The smile Larsa granted her somehow managed to be both sad and smug. “Yes, rather, I suppose it can be. But sometimes we don't have a choice to act differently.”
She cast her own eyes down at that. She knew that all too well herself.
“But in any case,” Larsa said, his hand coming to tug at her wrist, “has all that been enough to prove that I truly know the real you, not whatever apparition you believe I’ve been looking forward to? Will you give my suit of marriage some real consideration here?”
He was expecting her to give in now, Penelo very well knew. He was expecting her to just sigh and concede to all his points and swoon into his arms immediately. And truth be told, she couldn’t really blame him. He was almost frighteningly clever and it wasn‘t hard to believe that most of the people in his life knew well enough to just give into what he wanted quickly. And truth be told, though it hurt her ego to admit it, it wasn’t as though she had been all that formidable of an obstacle so far. They’d already fallen into the nasty pattern of her arguing against his insane plans for a short while before giving in completely.
But then, in a way, most of her life had been spent giving in to the desires of others around her. It had happened with Reks. It had happened with Ashe. It was probably going to happen again, right now and right here.
Maybe it was time to stop struggling against the tide and find a way to make it turn in her favor.
Even if it did mean turning into the very thing she was trying to escape here.
“I think I deserve one last question,” Penelo said calmly. “Because answering all those others that I gave you only proves that you were smart enough to find information about me. It doesn’t prove that you know who I really am… or who I want to be.”
And when she saw that strange, lucid light spring into Larsa’s eyes-- that same light that always came when she defied him and his plans, the one that only proved that he’d struggle harder and faster against whatever challenges came his way-- she knew that she had him hooked completely.
“Can you tell me,” she asked softly, “why I was so upset this morning? Do you know why I was so angry when I came back from Ashe? Do you…”
His eyes were so, so, so very wide right now-- the color of the sky after the dawn had come, pale but slowly darkening.
“Do you know why I ran away? Do you know why you hurt me so badly?”
And then, very carefully, as though something would shatter if he took a false step, Larsa rose from the low stone perch he had been sitting on and crossed three inches to where she was still resting. Then, just as carefully, Larsa bent over-- slowly, very slowly, deliberately giving her more than enough time to push him away if she wanted to-- and drew one of her hands up to kiss her knuckles gently.
“Because I was a fool,” he whispered, and his breath stirred against her fingers, “who should have known mere power couldn‘t tempt you currently. Because I wanted to conquer you and hold you fast, just as my empire had done to your city. Because I am a coward when it comes to love, a coward who doesn't want to give you the chance to leave without learning more of me.”
His hands were like free-flying birds as they gripped hers.
“Because I love you much too much,” he finally said, “to let you slip past me.”
“Then walk with me,” Penelo softly replied. “so we can settle everything here.”
***
She felt oddly calm as she took her hand in his own and they ambled the few short yards left between the desert proper and the beach. And even as the call of the sea-gulls and the smell of the salty sea grew stronger and stronger, Penelo felt more and more as though she were slipping off into a far away dream. In a way, strange as it might seem, it was all working out as she had imagined it would as she had wandered the desert before Larsa had found her, as she had traced her own history.
She’d done her best to keep the past from repeating itself, from making her into Reks and Larsa into herself and rewinding itself, over and over and over. She had hoped that if she could just tell Larsa about Reks, just show him what could happen if he persisted on wanting her, he’d recognize the consequences, understand all her warnings, realize that trying to love someone who didn’t love you would always be a lost cause.
But Larsa just wouldn’t listen. Larsa wouldn’t give up on her any more than she had given up on Reks. For all their differences-- gender, age, class, nationality-- he was too much like her where this was concerned.
Except she had never had the power to compel Reks to marry her, of course. Reks had never had to serve as a human bribe for her. That was the true difference here.
And when they stood in the banks of the Nebra together, Penelo realized that her only real advantage over Larsa was the fact that she knew how this story would play out from the start.
The only thing she could do this time around was minimize the hurt that was coming.
“Larsa,” she said softly, almost sadly, and his palm was damp in her own. “Larsa, are you sure you want to marry me? Is there anything I could do to make you change your mind?”
“No,” he replied, and he sounded more hopeful than he had ever been before. “No, I can‘t think of a single thing.”
“Oh,” she said, and had to smile, tired though it might be. “I had a funny feeling that that was just what you were going to say.”
And then she took a deep breath, turned to look at his bright face, drew both hands into her own and struck a bargain with the devil at last.
“Larsa,” she said, and her voice was as soft as she could make it. “Larsa, strange though it is to admit it, I think you‘ve been right all this time about me. I know I’ve fought you every step of the way but maybe it would be best for me to come with you to Archades, to serve as your empress, to serve as a tie for our countries. You and me, we want the same things, we feel what we feel and we should say what we meant. We’ve fought too much over the last few days-- but this should be simpler, Larsa. It should be easy and clean.”
And despite everything else she was feeling now-- guilt, uncertainty, terror, grief-- at least she knew that she’d never forgot the look that came over her soon-to-be-husband’s face when she got down on one knee to propose to him properly.
“So Larsa, I guess all I want to say is…”
(and her voice was trembling and her knees were wavering and her back was aching and her stomach was fluttering and her heart felt like it might crack in half and oh god, this was insane)
“…will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
The look on his face that came after could have outshone even the sun’s incandescent beauty.
“I--” he began to say, stuttered, stopped, flushed, began laughing. “I-- I didn‘t-- I couldn‘t have-- I didn‘t realize you wanted… I mean…” It almost hurt to see the incredulous joy that was all over his face, lighting him from within, bringing him down to his knees. “I, I didn’t realize you were so eager to--” And then he was looking her full in the face, eyes bright and cheeks flushing and she wanted to look away but she couldn’t-- she needed to see what she was doing.
“I can’t,” she said, and she was already stuttering stupidly. “I can’t promise you the rest of my life, Larsa, not now, not here. But-- but we could try, at least for a year or two, to make this work, to be married, to bring Archadia and Dalmasca together, to do our best for peace--”
(Right before I leave you, of course. I won't sacrifice all my life, here.)
“Yes,” he said, “Yes--” Still beaming, taking her hands again in his own, interlacing his fingers with hers, not caring in the least that her hands were clammy, that they were kneeling now in wet, silting sand, not knowing the least about what she was planning. “Yes, yes, we’ll try and-- and I’ll find a way to make you happy, Penelo, and we’ll bring peace together eventually-- I the hero of Archades and you the heroine of your country and-- and you’ll be an empress soon and you will have everything you could desire, you will want for nothing--”
“I,” she began, and could not finish properly. He just looked so excited when all this time, she’d been lying--
And then, before she could do anything else, he grabbed her by the shoulders, thrust forward to kiss her-- and all other thoughts she might have had melted away instantly.
Larsa kissed her as though he wanted to peck her to death, madly, deeply and passionately. Given how clumsy and ridiculously eager he had alway been about touching her, Penelo had long suspected that he'd be a novice to anything to with human contact. But this-- this went above and beyond any previous assumptions of ineptness she had made about him previously. Because for some reason, Larsa seemed to think that the only way he could properly show how much he loved her was by shoving his incredibly bony sternum into her already aching form and pinching his lips into a quasi-beak that he then thrust into various unsuspecting bits of her anatomy. Eyelids, cheeks, chin, nose, lips-- nothing above Penelo's neckline was spared as the astonishing force of devastation that was her new intended's make-out technique swept across her body.
It was probably the worst thing Penelo's face had ever had to endure-- including that one time that she had accidentally face-planted into an angry bunch of sentient warrior cacti-- and all she really wanted to do now was shove Larsa off and scramble away and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing and had he learned to kiss from a damn chocobo corral and if he thought that just because they were now engaged she was now going to be his floozy--
But anything she could have done in response fell away immediately. Because whatever else she had been expecting when she had finally jerked her mouth away from Larsa's, it hadn't been what she was looking at now.
"Uncle Basch?" Penelo found herself asking numbly. “And Balthier? What are you two doing here?”
And how much, a very large and very panicked part of Penelo wanted to ask, did you two already see?!
***
Author's Note: And now the kind people on my f-list know why I wanted to have Larsa tastefully lunge at and snog Penelo in the end. It wouldn't be nearly as dramatic if Basch and Balthier had just stumbled onto Larsa and Penelo calmly talking. ;)
Credit to where credit's due: that paragraph about Reks near the bottom of the first section was inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' moving essay "Beatrice's Last Smile," which can be found in "Selected Non-Fictions," edited by Eliot Weinberger. And that's your daily dose of pretension for the day!
And also... does anyone have any good ideas for what Basch can be used for? Oddly enough, though I hardly ever write Balthier, I can think of a thousand and one ways he can needle Larsa, flirt with Penelo and give some much needed advice about surviving Archades. (And Vayne Solidor. Pray for Penelo, people. She will need it dearly.) But though I love Basch, I can't quite figure out how to use him here, though I want to write him very badly. Any suggestions...?