FFXII Fic: Movements and Premonitions (Larsa/Penelo, Cast)
I will do my best to finish with The Uses of Enchantment by the end of the summer, oh yes I will. Consider this a statement of intent as far as that goal is concerned. ;)
In any case, this set of drabbles-- some of which are old and some of which are new-- is for mad_rex overall. Because he’s a sweet-heart and since he pinned the blame for much of a recent set on me, I thought I ought to return the favor. ♥ And in any case, comments and corrections are completely welcome and loved! I’m entering into the home-stretch of the series here and nothing but nothing could cheer me up more than knowing that someone out there is still reading…
Title: Movements and Premonitions
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: The Uses of Enchantment
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Cast
Rating: Ranges from PG - R
Summary: Ten short scenes from a lifetime together. Because even when you get your happy ending, there always hitches and detours along the way.
I. The One Where Larsa Manages to Surprise Penelo Yet Again
At almost 14, the top of Larsa's head doesn't quite hit Penelo's hair, though he's grown at least an inch since the last time she visited him. Still, giggling, she lets him put his arms around her at the Lady Ashe's-- no, make that Queen Ashelia's-- coronation. She lets him put his arms around her and awkwardly maneuver her about the ball room and struggle not to trample on her delicate feet with spindly legs he can't control very well as of yet.
"You're doing good for your age, y'know," she reassures him afterwards, mouth curving into a smile she tries her best to hide beneath her ridiculous fan. "I mean, when Vaan was 14, he used to be so much more of an absolute bumberklut--"
But whatever she's about to say is eclipsed by the swift lunge he makes at her, by her soft cry smothered out underneath his sudden and wholly unexpected kiss. And when she's finally recovered enough to speak, all she can see his back as he rushes away, stammering about improprieties and injustice and how he‘s so very sorry and until she forgives him, he‘ll never do it again..
If he had stayed just a little longer, she'd have told him that he was doing better than Vaan with the kissing-at-13 thing as well. But instead, she runs her fingertips across her lips and flushes and wonders what on earth that precisely meant.
*
II. The One Where Poor Basch is Tormented Most Cruelly
The Official List of Warning Sigils and Instructions for the Emperor Solidor's Love Madness Is as Follows:
Blue: Threat level low. His Majesty is actually meeting with Lady Penelo and shows little sign of doing more than sighing with bliss at her general direction. Leave the situation as is until further notice.
Green: Threat level guarded. His Majesty is in the aftermath of Lady Penelo's presence and shows some signs of emotional distress. Allow his assistants to schedule another meeting with her as soon as they can.
Yellow: Threat level elevated. His Majesty has just seen Lady Penelo leave on another adventure and is unsure of when she will return. Allow the Honorable Judge Magister Zargabaath to regale him of tales of when his own father managed to win the hand of his lady mother in order to soothe him.
Orange: Threat level high. His Majesty has just learned that Lady Penelo is planning to "swing by" Archades on her way elsewhere and may be succumbing to another attack of Solidor Psychopathological Distress as he plans. Get out of his way and let him do as he pleases, no matter what crises might occur under the circumstances. Remember to establish absolutely no eye contact with the man!
Red: Threat level severe! His Majesty has just learned of a new romantic prospect in Lady Penelo's love life and/or has just had another nightmare of her running off with her current partner, her current partner's former mentor, her current green grocer, her current launderer, her current shoe salesman or any other creature of reasonably hume proportions who might have passed her path in the past 24 hours. For the love of god call Judge Magister Gabranth-- and only Judge Magister Gabranth-- in to handle the situation. Repeat: for the love of god…
*
III. The One Where Penelo Feels Terrible About Wanting to Rob a Cradle Till It Has Nothing Left
There was probably a word for women like her, for women who found themselves bizarrely attracted to people four years younger when they had just hit twenty themselves. And that word was probably deranged. As well as creepy, bizarre, terrifying and mad beyond the point of any possible redemption.
It was not that she wanted to fit into any of those categories, mind. In fact, she'd verbally bitch slapped her sorry excuse for a cerebral cortex many, many times for making her feel the way she did right now. God knows she'd gone out of her way to keep her involvement with said person who was four years younger than herself as sedate and friendly as possible, up to and including enlisting the increasingly bemused Vaan and the increasingly woe-begotten Basch's help as escorts and chaperones. And she truly did know how... bizarre it was to be attracted to attracted to someone she had known since he had been all of twelve, to have day-dreams about someone she had once seen run around in tights and cherry-red heels, to want to kiss someone who she had first met before his voice had even deepened fully.
Really, it shouldn't even matter how nicely Larsa seemed to be growing, or how solicitous he was whenever she visited, or how amazingly mature he seemed next to almost all of the other men who seemed to flock around her. (Vaan, especially, was of no help here.) Not being attracted to the sixteen year old Emperor of Archadia should have been easy enough here. After all, was she or wasn't she a woman of the world? Did she or didn't she experience her own share of wild and exotic adventures? Had she or hadn't she entertained her fair share of lovers most willing and able in her bed over the years?
Really, in the face of all that, what in the world could a mere teenager-- blue blooded or not-- offer her here?
But he wasn't going to be a teenager forever... and even as Larsa leaned forward to take her hand in his startlingly smooth one and enquire as to when she would come visit his throne next, Penelo had to fight down the urge to tremble like a little giza rabbit caught in the crosshairs of a werewolf.
For some reason, she had a feeling that even if she could will her feelings away, Larsa wasn’t about to let her end this so easily.
*
IV. The One Where An Emperor Finally Kisses a Lady Sky Pirate Silly
Holding onto his coin, Larsa smiles as the even brighter Penny besides him jubilantly throws her own contribution into the fountain, trying to angle her hand just so it hit the very top of the heap.
"Not that I mind, of course," he says, even as his treacherous cheeks flush at the sight of her leaning, "but why are we doing this again, precisely?"
Penelo settles for rolling her eyes at him good-naturedly and bumping her hips against his, as if to force in understanding. Grinning even wider, Larsa somehow finds himself genially bumping back, his body curving against hers so gladly, so easily. "Because it's a custom, Lar-- Lamont. Didn't Uncle Basch ever tell you about this sort of thing? We throw coins in at the fountain of Rabanastre to make wishes that are guaranteed to come true. So throw another penny in and ask for anything you please--"
And in another moment, his copper piece is sailing through the air, and in yet another, Penelo is in his arms, gasping into his mouth as he kisses her good and hard in front of anyone who wants to stand still long enough to gawk at this finally happening. "Wish granted," he tells her just after, and the laugh that rings in his ears soon enough could justify sending a thousand more coins flying.
*
V. The One Where She Doesn’t Understand Why He Sees What He Sees in Her Truly
"You're only mine because I hooked you young," she tells him, fingers already tugging at his ridiculously complicated belt. "Obviously, you fell prey to my charms at far too innocent of an age to resist... which is why you spent all those years cultivating your manly purity for me, rather than running out and sexing all the women you could get your hands on in Archades."
"Maybe," he tells her agreeably, helping her tug the last of his clothes off with a sigh of honest pleasure. "But somehow, I don't happen to regret that fact very much. Do you?"
Even with her face pressed against his bare abdomen, Penelo somehow manages a grin.
*
VI. The One Where Larsa Gives a Lesson in Diplomacy
With a sigh of honest dismay, Penelo wrung her hands again and looked over her outfit. She had never been the prudish sort-- certainly the barely thigh-length blue and yellow corset and pink-and-grey costume she had run around in as a younger woman had proven that much to nearly everybody. But even she, with her jaded dancer's eyes, faltered a little at what she was being asked to wear right now.
Bright red, low cut, flowing softly into a nearly see-through skirt that was immodest enough to give Fran herself stage fright-- this outfit would probably send Ashe into a killing spree if any diplomat representing the Kingdom of Dalmasca wound their way to the high courts of Ivalice sewn into such a thing. And Penelo didn't even want to think of what the court gossips in Archades would say if they caught her strolling about in the emperor's arm looking like some sort of tricked-up lady-of-the-night with other means of establishing diplomatic relations entirely.
So all she could do was turn with a sigh and face the person who had given the dress-- the scandalous, scarlet woman dress-- and wonder what he had been thinking.
"Are you sure this is really appropriate for my first court appearance, Larsa?"
“As a matter of fact,” her lover said softly, “it might not be. If anything, that dress leaves rather too much to the imagination in ways that don’t quite please me…”
And from the look the Emperor shot her from beneath his long lashes right after, Penelo had the feeling that the next hour or so she spent with him might dispose of clothing entirely.
*
VII. The One Where Penelo is Pregnant and Fretting
Penelo's stomach still looked very flat as of now. Indeed, there was nothing, as of yet, about her appearance that could allow any to know that she was now carrying the future of Archadia within her still slender body. But Larsa still could not stop running his hands over her waist, measuring her out with his fingers, trying to grasp exactly the miracle that she had told him would be forthcoming.
"I still worry," she said softly, as he pressed his cheek to her bare abdomen, "that our baby will turn out too much like me. I can't imagine a miniature version of the Dread Pirate Sugar Thighs being a very good successor of any sort, can you?"
"Penelo," he said, and to his surprise found he was laughing. "That’s just the sort of future I spend my nights hoping for most ardently."
*
VIII. The One Where Their First Child is Looked at Carefully
All her pictures of them were faded, hopelessly faded, worn by the dust of time and the wear and tear of being lugged around so many continents by so many air-ships that had been so often shot in years past. And yet, tracing their phantom faces with one trembling finger, she could still make out all the hallmarks of her own features within their markers-- the snubbed noses, the wide smiles, the sweet, rounded cheeks.
"Do you suppose," she asks her husband, "she'll look more like my family or yours when she grows up?"
Looking up from where he was playing with their daughter, Larsa grinned. "She couldn't do any better than to come out like your family in terms of sheer features, my dear."
Despite herself, she had to ask. “Do you mean that honestly?"
It looked as though Larsa was keeping himself from chuckling only through the barest of margins. "Considering that you yourself are one of the lovelier creatures in Ivalice, how could I not be sincere?"
Penelo made a small moue of discontent. "You just don't want her to get the Solidor nose and cheekbones, Larsa. Isn't that about it?"
And he, who had so often viewed his own family through faded portraits that had not half the charm of her family's belongings, just laughed. "Well, true, there's also that much. But can I help it if the lack of inbreeding in your line fashioned better looking people of your family?"
*
IX. The One Where Larsa Lays Down the Law For a Dear Friend
"It's not," the Emperor began pleasantly enough, "that I don't trust someone like you to... initiate my own children into the mysteries of life, as you initiated me. It's just that my wife didn't exactly react well to the idea of teaching my children about their sexuality via the Rozarrian methods of witnessing the act of intercourse themselves. And I do believe you'd find her to be quite a formidable obstacle from here-on in."
And then, craning his head to catch sight of the Empress of Archadia glowering at him with a pair of toddlers at one side and a squadron of judges at the other, Al-Cid decided that sometimes discretion was the better part of valor. Even if-- and this was a sincere pity-- it meant that future generations of Solidors would never learn how to properly woo a lad or lass in the way their current ancestor had done so deftly.
*
X. The One Where They Celebrate Their First Grandchild and Penelo Gets Tipsy
“So far there’s just one,” Penelo said brightly. “But if I know the kids-- and I should, considering the fact that I spent over three days total in labor with all of them-- they’ll produce quite a few more shortly. And after our babies have babies, their babies will have babies, and then their babies will eventually get around to the baby making! Just think, Larsa, just think-- soon enough, we’ll be up to our ears in cute, adorable, impeccably coiffed descendents of every shade and shape! Of course, some of them might inherit your crazy eyes but still, can‘t you just imagine it? A world of Solidors without end and Solidors full of means, every baby multiplying and slowly bringing to the land more and more Solidority…”
Smiling, Larsa decided that now was as good a time to start pouring more cognac into his wife‘s cup as ever. Penelo always did have a fascinating way with words that she never remembered afterwards whenever she had a bit too much to drink.
In any case, this set of drabbles-- some of which are old and some of which are new-- is for mad_rex overall. Because he’s a sweet-heart and since he pinned the blame for much of a recent set on me, I thought I ought to return the favor. ♥ And in any case, comments and corrections are completely welcome and loved! I’m entering into the home-stretch of the series here and nothing but nothing could cheer me up more than knowing that someone out there is still reading…
Title: Movements and Premonitions
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Series: The Uses of Enchantment
Characters/Pairings: Larsa/Penelo, Cast
Rating: Ranges from PG - R
Summary: Ten short scenes from a lifetime together. Because even when you get your happy ending, there always hitches and detours along the way.
I. The One Where Larsa Manages to Surprise Penelo Yet Again
At almost 14, the top of Larsa's head doesn't quite hit Penelo's hair, though he's grown at least an inch since the last time she visited him. Still, giggling, she lets him put his arms around her at the Lady Ashe's-- no, make that Queen Ashelia's-- coronation. She lets him put his arms around her and awkwardly maneuver her about the ball room and struggle not to trample on her delicate feet with spindly legs he can't control very well as of yet.
"You're doing good for your age, y'know," she reassures him afterwards, mouth curving into a smile she tries her best to hide beneath her ridiculous fan. "I mean, when Vaan was 14, he used to be so much more of an absolute bumberklut--"
But whatever she's about to say is eclipsed by the swift lunge he makes at her, by her soft cry smothered out underneath his sudden and wholly unexpected kiss. And when she's finally recovered enough to speak, all she can see his back as he rushes away, stammering about improprieties and injustice and how he‘s so very sorry and until she forgives him, he‘ll never do it again..
If he had stayed just a little longer, she'd have told him that he was doing better than Vaan with the kissing-at-13 thing as well. But instead, she runs her fingertips across her lips and flushes and wonders what on earth that precisely meant.
*
II. The One Where Poor Basch is Tormented Most Cruelly
The Official List of Warning Sigils and Instructions for the Emperor Solidor's Love Madness Is as Follows:
Blue: Threat level low. His Majesty is actually meeting with Lady Penelo and shows little sign of doing more than sighing with bliss at her general direction. Leave the situation as is until further notice.
Green: Threat level guarded. His Majesty is in the aftermath of Lady Penelo's presence and shows some signs of emotional distress. Allow his assistants to schedule another meeting with her as soon as they can.
Yellow: Threat level elevated. His Majesty has just seen Lady Penelo leave on another adventure and is unsure of when she will return. Allow the Honorable Judge Magister Zargabaath to regale him of tales of when his own father managed to win the hand of his lady mother in order to soothe him.
Orange: Threat level high. His Majesty has just learned that Lady Penelo is planning to "swing by" Archades on her way elsewhere and may be succumbing to another attack of Solidor Psychopathological Distress as he plans. Get out of his way and let him do as he pleases, no matter what crises might occur under the circumstances. Remember to establish absolutely no eye contact with the man!
Red: Threat level severe! His Majesty has just learned of a new romantic prospect in Lady Penelo's love life and/or has just had another nightmare of her running off with her current partner, her current partner's former mentor, her current green grocer, her current launderer, her current shoe salesman or any other creature of reasonably hume proportions who might have passed her path in the past 24 hours. For the love of god call Judge Magister Gabranth-- and only Judge Magister Gabranth-- in to handle the situation. Repeat: for the love of god…
*
III. The One Where Penelo Feels Terrible About Wanting to Rob a Cradle Till It Has Nothing Left
There was probably a word for women like her, for women who found themselves bizarrely attracted to people four years younger when they had just hit twenty themselves. And that word was probably deranged. As well as creepy, bizarre, terrifying and mad beyond the point of any possible redemption.
It was not that she wanted to fit into any of those categories, mind. In fact, she'd verbally bitch slapped her sorry excuse for a cerebral cortex many, many times for making her feel the way she did right now. God knows she'd gone out of her way to keep her involvement with said person who was four years younger than herself as sedate and friendly as possible, up to and including enlisting the increasingly bemused Vaan and the increasingly woe-begotten Basch's help as escorts and chaperones. And she truly did know how... bizarre it was to be attracted to attracted to someone she had known since he had been all of twelve, to have day-dreams about someone she had once seen run around in tights and cherry-red heels, to want to kiss someone who she had first met before his voice had even deepened fully.
Really, it shouldn't even matter how nicely Larsa seemed to be growing, or how solicitous he was whenever she visited, or how amazingly mature he seemed next to almost all of the other men who seemed to flock around her. (Vaan, especially, was of no help here.) Not being attracted to the sixteen year old Emperor of Archadia should have been easy enough here. After all, was she or wasn't she a woman of the world? Did she or didn't she experience her own share of wild and exotic adventures? Had she or hadn't she entertained her fair share of lovers most willing and able in her bed over the years?
Really, in the face of all that, what in the world could a mere teenager-- blue blooded or not-- offer her here?
But he wasn't going to be a teenager forever... and even as Larsa leaned forward to take her hand in his startlingly smooth one and enquire as to when she would come visit his throne next, Penelo had to fight down the urge to tremble like a little giza rabbit caught in the crosshairs of a werewolf.
For some reason, she had a feeling that even if she could will her feelings away, Larsa wasn’t about to let her end this so easily.
*
IV. The One Where An Emperor Finally Kisses a Lady Sky Pirate Silly
Holding onto his coin, Larsa smiles as the even brighter Penny besides him jubilantly throws her own contribution into the fountain, trying to angle her hand just so it hit the very top of the heap.
"Not that I mind, of course," he says, even as his treacherous cheeks flush at the sight of her leaning, "but why are we doing this again, precisely?"
Penelo settles for rolling her eyes at him good-naturedly and bumping her hips against his, as if to force in understanding. Grinning even wider, Larsa somehow finds himself genially bumping back, his body curving against hers so gladly, so easily. "Because it's a custom, Lar-- Lamont. Didn't Uncle Basch ever tell you about this sort of thing? We throw coins in at the fountain of Rabanastre to make wishes that are guaranteed to come true. So throw another penny in and ask for anything you please--"
And in another moment, his copper piece is sailing through the air, and in yet another, Penelo is in his arms, gasping into his mouth as he kisses her good and hard in front of anyone who wants to stand still long enough to gawk at this finally happening. "Wish granted," he tells her just after, and the laugh that rings in his ears soon enough could justify sending a thousand more coins flying.
*
V. The One Where She Doesn’t Understand Why He Sees What He Sees in Her Truly
"You're only mine because I hooked you young," she tells him, fingers already tugging at his ridiculously complicated belt. "Obviously, you fell prey to my charms at far too innocent of an age to resist... which is why you spent all those years cultivating your manly purity for me, rather than running out and sexing all the women you could get your hands on in Archades."
"Maybe," he tells her agreeably, helping her tug the last of his clothes off with a sigh of honest pleasure. "But somehow, I don't happen to regret that fact very much. Do you?"
Even with her face pressed against his bare abdomen, Penelo somehow manages a grin.
*
VI. The One Where Larsa Gives a Lesson in Diplomacy
With a sigh of honest dismay, Penelo wrung her hands again and looked over her outfit. She had never been the prudish sort-- certainly the barely thigh-length blue and yellow corset and pink-and-grey costume she had run around in as a younger woman had proven that much to nearly everybody. But even she, with her jaded dancer's eyes, faltered a little at what she was being asked to wear right now.
Bright red, low cut, flowing softly into a nearly see-through skirt that was immodest enough to give Fran herself stage fright-- this outfit would probably send Ashe into a killing spree if any diplomat representing the Kingdom of Dalmasca wound their way to the high courts of Ivalice sewn into such a thing. And Penelo didn't even want to think of what the court gossips in Archades would say if they caught her strolling about in the emperor's arm looking like some sort of tricked-up lady-of-the-night with other means of establishing diplomatic relations entirely.
So all she could do was turn with a sigh and face the person who had given the dress-- the scandalous, scarlet woman dress-- and wonder what he had been thinking.
"Are you sure this is really appropriate for my first court appearance, Larsa?"
“As a matter of fact,” her lover said softly, “it might not be. If anything, that dress leaves rather too much to the imagination in ways that don’t quite please me…”
And from the look the Emperor shot her from beneath his long lashes right after, Penelo had the feeling that the next hour or so she spent with him might dispose of clothing entirely.
*
VII. The One Where Penelo is Pregnant and Fretting
Penelo's stomach still looked very flat as of now. Indeed, there was nothing, as of yet, about her appearance that could allow any to know that she was now carrying the future of Archadia within her still slender body. But Larsa still could not stop running his hands over her waist, measuring her out with his fingers, trying to grasp exactly the miracle that she had told him would be forthcoming.
"I still worry," she said softly, as he pressed his cheek to her bare abdomen, "that our baby will turn out too much like me. I can't imagine a miniature version of the Dread Pirate Sugar Thighs being a very good successor of any sort, can you?"
"Penelo," he said, and to his surprise found he was laughing. "That’s just the sort of future I spend my nights hoping for most ardently."
*
VIII. The One Where Their First Child is Looked at Carefully
All her pictures of them were faded, hopelessly faded, worn by the dust of time and the wear and tear of being lugged around so many continents by so many air-ships that had been so often shot in years past. And yet, tracing their phantom faces with one trembling finger, she could still make out all the hallmarks of her own features within their markers-- the snubbed noses, the wide smiles, the sweet, rounded cheeks.
"Do you suppose," she asks her husband, "she'll look more like my family or yours when she grows up?"
Looking up from where he was playing with their daughter, Larsa grinned. "She couldn't do any better than to come out like your family in terms of sheer features, my dear."
Despite herself, she had to ask. “Do you mean that honestly?"
It looked as though Larsa was keeping himself from chuckling only through the barest of margins. "Considering that you yourself are one of the lovelier creatures in Ivalice, how could I not be sincere?"
Penelo made a small moue of discontent. "You just don't want her to get the Solidor nose and cheekbones, Larsa. Isn't that about it?"
And he, who had so often viewed his own family through faded portraits that had not half the charm of her family's belongings, just laughed. "Well, true, there's also that much. But can I help it if the lack of inbreeding in your line fashioned better looking people of your family?"
*
IX. The One Where Larsa Lays Down the Law For a Dear Friend
"It's not," the Emperor began pleasantly enough, "that I don't trust someone like you to... initiate my own children into the mysteries of life, as you initiated me. It's just that my wife didn't exactly react well to the idea of teaching my children about their sexuality via the Rozarrian methods of witnessing the act of intercourse themselves. And I do believe you'd find her to be quite a formidable obstacle from here-on in."
And then, craning his head to catch sight of the Empress of Archadia glowering at him with a pair of toddlers at one side and a squadron of judges at the other, Al-Cid decided that sometimes discretion was the better part of valor. Even if-- and this was a sincere pity-- it meant that future generations of Solidors would never learn how to properly woo a lad or lass in the way their current ancestor had done so deftly.
*
X. The One Where They Celebrate Their First Grandchild and Penelo Gets Tipsy
“So far there’s just one,” Penelo said brightly. “But if I know the kids-- and I should, considering the fact that I spent over three days total in labor with all of them-- they’ll produce quite a few more shortly. And after our babies have babies, their babies will have babies, and then their babies will eventually get around to the baby making! Just think, Larsa, just think-- soon enough, we’ll be up to our ears in cute, adorable, impeccably coiffed descendents of every shade and shape! Of course, some of them might inherit your crazy eyes but still, can‘t you just imagine it? A world of Solidors without end and Solidors full of means, every baby multiplying and slowly bringing to the land more and more Solidority…”
Smiling, Larsa decided that now was as good a time to start pouring more cognac into his wife‘s cup as ever. Penelo always did have a fascinating way with words that she never remembered afterwards whenever she had a bit too much to drink.