Intent (FFXII, Vayne/Penelo, Larsa/Penelo)
I finally start posting Christmas/Yule/wintergifts!
...in January.
Bad Puel.
To give you some idea of how insane mariagoner's gift's gotten, though: this is part one, I do believe. Part two will likely be posted tomorrow, in which the whole fic takes a rather dark turn to Darkville. Anyway. Maria asked for Penelo/Larsa/Vayne. And she shall have it in abundance. (Last section also borrows liberally from this.)
Intent. FFXII, Vayne/Penelo, Penelo/Larsa. ~4,000 words, not quite worksafe towards the end. Larsa takes Penelo back to Archades with him after the events at Bhujerba. Vayne takes notice. Penelo must learn to do the same.
Penelo’s first thought upon seeing Archades for the first time is that it’s big. Really big.
Sure, Rabanastre isn’t exactly a small city, but it’s not so self-conscious about how big it is. Everything about Archades, though-the way all the buildings are stacked high enough to touch the clouds, the way the city’s laid out like a wheel with the Imperial residence at its hub, the way it sprawls across the plains, spilling out into the uplands and steppes bordering it-it’s all designed to make you stand there and gape for a little while. Which Penelo can’t help but do, though she tries not to be too obvious about it or anything, not with all the soldiers watching.
They don’t have a Moogling to make getting around in Archades easier, Larsa explains. (Penelo gets the impression that they don’t have too many moogles in Archades at all, not compared to Rabanastre or even Nalbina.)
“Archadians use cabs to access different levels of the city,” he says.
“How much does that cost?”
He considers. “A million gil without chops.”
This time, she does gape.
“You needn’t worry about that,” Larsa assures her. “I’ll make sure you have a sandalwood chop. That should give you access to even the neighborhoods reserved for the gentry. And I’m sure Father will elevate you to the gentry if I request it,” he continues, resting his hand on hers. “He can grant you the titles and lands he stripped from House Richese as punishment for their treason. You would have a sizable yearly income-and if you required else, I would see that you had it.”
Penelo feels a little dizzy. She doesn’t think it’s the height. “Um,” she says. “That’s-” She guesses it’s a lot more than what she earned running errands for Migelo. “That’s really nice, Larsa.”
He puts his hand back in his lap and smiles at her, and he really does look like a twelve-year-old kid now, kind of like how Vaan looked when he was Larsa’s age and he was bouncing on the edge of his seat waiting for a candy from Penelo’s parents. He’s just so happy. So she gives him her best thousand-gil smile and asks him questions about everything she sees zooming beneath her. He points out the markets (“the Imperial residence purchases most of its foodstuffs in Molberry; the merchants there sell the finest Kerwon grain”), the theatre (“I can take you there one evening, if you’d like-they don’t perform many comedies in Dalmasca, do they?”), the Akademies judicial and thaumaturgical (“we’ve found it best to keep the mages and the magisters separate, for the sake of all concerned”).
She remembers walking down the red strip leading up to the palace doors and reminding herself not to look at the city below. She remembers Larsa bringing her before his father-his father the Emperor, which still gives her a weird fluttery feeling in her stomach-and she thinks she said the sort of thing you’re supposed to say to emperors. He didn’t have her carted off to a dungeon, so she guesses she didn’t do too badly.
She wonders how they dance in Archades. You probably have to wear lots of clothes to do it, billowing skirts and dainty shoes, and you probably need to partner up with someone else. She wonders if they’ll ask her to dance, if Larsa ever drags her off to a ball or a fete or whatever they call it here and they expect her to glide across the floor while he twirls her around or something like that. She’s actually looking forward to that part. Dancing’s probably more straightforward than anything else in Archades.
Mostly, though, she wants to sleep. Her bed’s gigantic; she could probably go swimming in the slippery sheets if she wanted to. And the whole thing’s stacked high with pillows: beaded pillows, tiny circular pillows, long fluffy pillows, more pillows than she’d ever need. She picks one that looks comfortable, rests her head on it, and shuts her eyes.
***
“A Dalmascan,” Vayne says.
Larsa nods. He’s removed his gloves; he crumples them now into a ball, twisting them around. “I found her in Bhujerba, while I was conducting my investigation of the Lhusu Mines.”
“And you thought it advisable to leave Ghis behind?”
“Yes,” Larsa says, his chin held high. “I had no desire to see a contingent of soldiers watching my every step. I wouldn’t have discovered nearly as much had they accompanied me,” he adds; the light filtering through Vayne’s chambers accents the Solidor sharpness of his features.
“I know,” Vayne says, holding up his hand. “Just as I know you exercised proper caution while traveling in Bhujerba, knowing-as I am sure you do-that the city is not entirely friendly to us.”
“Yes, brother.” Larsa’s nod is smaller this time. “I found her fleeing from the Lhusu Mines-”
Vayne drums his nails on the stack of papers by his side. “What was a Dalmascan maiden doing in the Lhusu Mines?” On a day when they had been closed for inspection, no less. This whole business strikes him as terribly convenient-but convenient for whom? That is where he must direct his future investigations.
“She’d been abducted,” Larsa explains.
“Abducted.” Vayne arches an eyebrow. “I see.”
“By bounty hunters-”
“There’s a bounty on her head?” That bodes-ill.
“No,” he says. “They used her to bait a trap for the bounty they were hunting.”
“I see,” he repeats.
“I asked her to accompany me back to Archades, and she consented.”
“Readily?”
“No.” Larsa frowns. “It took some persuasion, but I assured her that no harm would come to her old companions in her absence.”
“Her criminal associates, you mean.”
“Archadia need not give the back of her hand to the states under her care.” The color rushes to Larsa’s cheeks. “Surely she can extend her hand in friendship. Such a gesture would only add to her greatness, for she can afford to show mercy even to those who would slight her.”
“And when her back is turned, their daggers will strike,” Vayne says. “With Rozarria bristling at our borders, we can ill afford to be crippled by such.”
“There are those in Rozarria who want peace.”
“And there are those who do not, and those men control the armies.” Perhaps he has let Larsa dream of peace for too long-but no, Larsa must have his dreams. Larsa will see peace in his lifetime, yes, peace during his long and prosperous rule. Vayne will see to it. But peace carries its blood-price, its cost in iron and fire and blight, and such a price is Vayne’s to pay.
“As to Penelo’s associates-”
Vayne notices he gives her no title when he speaks of her. A sand peasant. The story grows even better.
“Were they to be captured and executed, it would only inflame the resistance further; surely their activities would draw Rozarria’s attention, and surely Rozarria would enter the conflict as Dalmasca’s champion if the resistance-”
“Insurgence.”
“If the resistance,” he repeats, “cried out loudly enough.”
“Indeed,” Vayne says, and then falls silent.
Larsa studies him, reads what is written in the brevity of his speech, in the way his fingers curl around the handle of his chair, in the faint upward turn of his mouth that Vayne has never quite been able to suppress. “You are prepared for such an eventuality,” he breathes, and even as Larsa’s brow furrows and his jaw tightens, Vayne gives silent praise for his brother’s skill at perception. It is almost uncanny; certainly some at court think Larsa unnatural for it, and Vayne keeps these men and women far from any positions of trust and power.
“Indeed you have planned for it,” Larsa continues. “Haven’t you? If Rozarria’s forces should be lured out and concentrate their might in Dalmasca…” and then Larsa falls silent. “Nabudis,” he says. “You would do this again, would you not.”
“I would do what I must for my Empire.”
“It was not a question,” says Larsa. He hunches his shoulders up around his ears and departs, looking more like a twelve-year-old child in that moment than he had over the course of their interview.
***
“So do they want to send me home?” Penelo asks.
“You are welcome here for as long as you wish to stay,” Larsa says.
“Thanks.” She picks at a loose thread on her dress. She hasn’t worn a proper dress in two years, not since the festival celebrating Princess Ashe’s wedding. She has to remember to keep her legs together when she sits.
“Have you found your stay pleasant so far?” Larsa asks her. “I had thought to show you the library this afternoon, if-”He pauses. “Forgive me, but you can read, can’t you?”
“Of course I can read,” she says, yanking the hem of her dress down. “My mother taught me how. I’m better at it than Vaan is.”
“Of course,” Larsa says, but Penelo really kind of wants to get up and start walking around now. It’s weird; ever since she arrived in Archadia, she hasn’t really been doing anything. Larsa’s been taking her on tours across the skies, showing off all the corners of the palace for her, but even though Archades is supposed to be the hub of this vast sprawling empire, most of the nobles she’s met just sit around and talk a lot. They don’t even use the training yard, and it’s a really nice training yard, too. She doesn’t know how they can sit still for so long. At least Larsa’s different. She guesses that’s why he ran off when he visited Bhujerba.
“I mean,” she says. She tugs a pin out of her braids. “I’m licensed to use magicks. You have to be able to read scrolls to learn magicks. And I’m not great with swords yet, but I can beat Rickert in a dagger fight, and he used to serve with the king’s guard. And-”
She realizes Larsa’s standing next to her. “Sorry,” she says. “I was just-”
“I understand. Forgive me,” he says. “I find little interest in a life of nothing but leisure, and I should have realized it would hold no appeal for you.”
“Well, it’s nice to relax once in a while,” she says. “I guess I’m just used to chasing Vaan around and running things back and forth and being on my feet all the time. But I wasn’t doing anything really important before,” she adds. “Not like-not like what your family does.”
“We could not do what we do if we did not have people like you to support us.” Larsa reaches for her hand.
“You’re really sweet, Larsa,” she says, and he actually kind of turns a little pink.
“Do you still want to see the library?” he asks. “If you’re interested in magicks, we maintain an archive of all licensed and approved spells.”
“Really?” she says. “Anyone can look at those?” That kind of flies in the face of all her assumptions about how things work in Archades
“Well, not precisely,” Larsa says. “But we certainly can.”
“Okay.”
Larsa keeps holding her hand as they walk up the giant stone steps leading to the library. House Solidor’s crest-she’s learned to recognize it by now-is carved into the doors and inlaid with what looks an awful lot like gold leaf. It’s not squat like the buildings in Rabanastre are, but it’s tall, tall and shining reddish-gold in the afternoon sun. Through the narrow windows, she glimpses students maneuvering around books piled dangerously high.
“Wow,” she says. She feels really, really small. But at least she’s still bigger than Larsa. She giggles.
“What’s funny?” he asks her.
“When you stand in front of the building like that, you look even shorter than you usually do,” she says, trying to keep a straight face.
He looks a little like a chocobo with its feathers all askew for a few seconds, and then he laughs, too.
***
Vayne has missed the companionship of books; he had little time to read while he was Consul in Rabanastre, though he kept Of the Formation of Ivalice by the divine philosopher Merlose by his bedside.
Now, though-he breathes in the scent of yellowing parchment, of dust and old leather and pine, lets it suffuse his senses until he is sure that he is home again, back among his favorite teachers. He rests his hand on his favorite reading desk, the one on whose corner he bruised his temple when he was nine and hiding from his eldest brother.
There are fewer students at the royal library today, fewer young heads bowed by the strain of research and buried behind thick stacks of papers. It is just as well. He seeks, has always sought, the library for its solitude, and he would not prefer an audience for his current research. He supposes he could enjoin Doctor Cid to undertake these studies for him, but he would know more about the power with whom they have formed such a fruitful partnership.
He will want the very oldest tomes of magic, tucked away in the library’s darkest corners where few prying eyes will care to look. As Vayne walks there, however, he is interrupted.
“-really?” The voice is young and female; Vayne detects a Dalmascan accent.
“Yes.” The second voice is easier for him to place. Larsa’s speech is unmistakable for aught else. Vayne slips into the stacks behind them and watches through a gap in the books: Larsa sits cross-legged, his fingers tracing arcane symbols on a cracked old scroll. Opposite him is a girl some years older, fair-haired and slightly darker of skin; she chews on her bottom lip as she holds another scroll up to the light. “It still feels like I’m missing something-oh!” She releases the scroll and lets it flutter to the ground. Lights pulse through her veins, darting beneath her skin and wreathing her face in a white glow. Larsa watches her. Vayne watches Larsa. “I got it. I think I misread one of the lines. You Archadians write things really weirdly.”
“Well, you’ve mastered it, at any rate,” his brother replies. “And our script is elegant, devised by the old Valendians in-”
The girl-Penelo, for it can be no other-snatches the scroll from Larsa’s hand. “Still looks like a bunch of scribbles,” she says.
“I hadn’t finished mastering that yet,” Larsa says. “Give it back.”
She stands up and dangles it above his head. “You probably can’t read it very well either.”
“Of course I can.”
“Then why haven’t you mastered it?”
“It’s a more complex spell,” Larsa argues, making a vain attempt at snatching the scroll away. “It requires more diligent study.”
“Even Fussbudget could have mastered it by now, and we all thought his mother dropped him on his head when he was little,” Penelo says. “You know, I think Fussbudget’s your age.”
“Perhaps you would prefer his companionship, then.” Larsa leaps up and seizes her wrist, tugging it down; she twists her arm around, trying to break free, but Vayne sees Larsa has learned his lessons well enough and bars her from doing so, finally extracting the scroll from her grasp.
“Hey!” she cries, but her protests give way to laughter soon enough.
“I am certain I can gain the mastery of it,” he says, brandishing it before he sits down to resume his study.
“I know you can,” she says. “I was just teasing.”
“I’m aware,” he tells her, smiling. “You mustn’t think me entirely unaware of such things.”
He seems enough at ease with her, though Vayne cannot say why. She is-perhaps common is the best word for her, in both senses of the word; her manner cannot be called refined, but Larsa might find such frankness refreshing. He cannot fault his brother for it. He enjoys rhetoric but not obfuscation, and the Senate and their associates have elevated the latter to an art form.
The matter certainly requires further attention. Others must be aware of the type of girl that could prove enticing to Larsa, others who do not have his brother’s best interests at heart. Even her honesty could be artifice, he reflects.
“So.” Penelo laces her fingers together behind her back. “If you actually finish up with that sometime soon, what do you want to do?”
“I thought we could pay a visit to Gabranth and Drace,” he says. “They ought to be in their quarters. Their magisterial duties take them outside of the city at time, but-Penelo.”
She draws away from him, running her finger along a shelf’s edge. “Right,” she says softly. “I forgot. They work for your family.”
“Penelo,” he says again, and Vayne concedes that the move, if planned, was extraordinarily well-timed.
“It’s okay,” she says, rearranging her features into a smile. “Really, it is. They were just doing their jobs, right?”
“I did not mean to distress you.”
“Larsa, I’m fine. Really. I’m not-” She pauses, gathering herself together. “I’m not like Vaan. I know there has to be more to life than sitting around and hating the Empire. I know there are good people there. I know it in my head, anyway. You’re a good person,” she tells Larsa; her smile seems better-crafted to Vayne this time. “And I know there are more people like you in Archades.”
“Gabranth and Drace are two such people, I assure you,” Larsa says.
“Then I’ll meet them.” Penelo looks down at her dress and sighs. “Do I have to change clothes again? I feel so sorry for whoever gets stuck with doing the washing in this place.”
“I doubt they’ll insist upon it.” Larsa offers his hand to her-the chivalric tradition is strong with him, stronger than is typical with House Solidor, perhaps. Penelo accepts it. Vayne sinks deeper into the shadows as the two of them leave.
***
Gabranth and Drace weren’t, as it turned out, in their quarters, which Penelo was honestly fine with, because she thinks she needs to sort through a few things before she sits down and chats with anyone in the Imperial army. They-well, Sherral was always nice to her and gave her a few gil more than he needed to when she ran an errand for him, but some of the other soldiers thought a blow to the head was the best way to clear out any Dalmascan kids underfoot.
She sits in front of her mirror and plays around with her hair. (The mirror is her favorite thing about the room. It’s bordered with white carvings of Galbana lilies, and it’s a real mirror, not just a piece of metal polished and polished again.) There’s some kind of big state dinner tonight, apparently, one Larsa can’t skip out on, so he asked her to accompany him. Penelo frowns, toying with her braid. Should she let her hair down, or should she put it up in lots of little braids? Maybe braided loops would look nice. She thinks she saw a few women in Archades wearing their hair like that.
There’s a soft knock at her door. “Come in,” she says.
Vayne Solidor sweeps into her room and looks straight at her. Penelo feels her heart jump up into her throat and stay there for a few seconds. She hopes her mouth isn’t hanging open or anything stupid like that. She sits up a little straighter, though. “Oh,” she says. “Hello.” Should she leap up to curtsey? She curtsies pretty well, but that’s a Dalmascan curtsey, maybe they do it different in Archadia-
“Please,” Vayne says. He holds up a gloved hand. Penelo sees where Larsa gets the habit from. “Don’t get up on my account. You are Penelo, yes?”
“Yeah-yes,” she corrects herself. “Yes. I’m Penelo.”
“My brother speaks highly of you.” He closes the door behind him.
“Oh.” She clears her throat. “Thanks.”
“Thank him, not me.” He steps closer to her; she can see him in the mirror, standing over her shoulder. Her head’s pressing into his chest just a little, and she’s probably-no, she’s definitely getting pinker, she can see it in her reflection. “I would see if what he reports is true.”
“What did he say about me?” She wishes her voice sounded stronger, less whispery. But Vayne’s-he fills up the reflection in the mirror and it seems like he fills up the rest of the room, too. There’s just something about him, something she kind of noticed at the consul speech, something that presses against her heart and dries out her mouth and makes her skin start to quiver. But she can’t do anything stupid. She can’t.
“He said you were a maiden of uncommon virtue. Intelligent. A light heart and a lighter tongue.” His hand traces the line of her jaw until it settles under her chin, then tips her chin back until the line of her neck lies exposed in the mirror. “And beautiful as the rarest of Archadian sunsets.”
“That was, ah…” Think, she scolds herself. “That was nice of him.”
“Indeed,” Vayne murmurs. He leans in close, so that his lips almost touch her ear. “And should he discover that you are otherwise, you will wish you had never set foot in Archadia.”
“I’m…” she starts to say, but she trails off when he crosses in front of her and braces his hands on the armrest and leans in close and-and his lips press against hers and he’s kissing her, his hands are on her shoulders now and his mouth is soft and his tongue is warm and she didn’t expect this to happen and she really can’t let this go on and she has to say something now before. Before his hand slides down to cup her breast and she feels her body start to shiver, start to stand at attention. Before his fingers start to work her braids loose, before he runs them up and down the back of her neck just light enough to tickle. Before his hand at her breast gets a little harder, a little more insistent, and he’s squeezing her nipple now, and she-she can’t decide if she should gasp or scream, try to get someone to come running. But the guards won’t believe her, they’ll believe him, and all she can think of doing is shaking her head really hard and pressing her lips together once her head’s stopped swimming because this is a bad idea, this is a really bad idea.
He pulls away, though. She’s still shivering, for a lot of reasons.
“Do I make myself clear?” he asks her. There’s something burning behind his eyes, something blue and hard and bright.
“I wouldn’t,” she finally says. “I’d never-I’m not a spy. I wouldn’t hurt Larsa. He’s my friend.” He might want to be something more, maybe, but he’s just a kid now, he doesn’t know what that means. It’s just something cute. Something fun. “I just like spending time with him, I swear. That’s all there is to it.”
“I would like to believe you,” he says quietly. “I want to see Larsa happy, and he certainly is happy now.”
“I’ll keep him happy. I want him to be happy, too.” She’s babbling. She takes a deep breath, the deepest breath she can possibly take. “I promise.”
“We shall see.” He walks away from her, finally. She looks at herself in the mirror. She’s paler than she’d like to be, except in the spots where her blush hasn’t completely faded away, and her hair is out of place, but she’s still okay, mostly. She half-wants to ask him why he kissed her like that, but she’s not sure she wants to know the answer.
“I will see you at dinner tonight,” he says, and then he’s gone.
But she knows he’s still watching.
...in January.
Bad Puel.
To give you some idea of how insane mariagoner's gift's gotten, though: this is part one, I do believe. Part two will likely be posted tomorrow, in which the whole fic takes a rather dark turn to Darkville. Anyway. Maria asked for Penelo/Larsa/Vayne. And she shall have it in abundance. (Last section also borrows liberally from this.)
Intent. FFXII, Vayne/Penelo, Penelo/Larsa. ~4,000 words, not quite worksafe towards the end. Larsa takes Penelo back to Archades with him after the events at Bhujerba. Vayne takes notice. Penelo must learn to do the same.
Penelo’s first thought upon seeing Archades for the first time is that it’s big. Really big.
Sure, Rabanastre isn’t exactly a small city, but it’s not so self-conscious about how big it is. Everything about Archades, though-the way all the buildings are stacked high enough to touch the clouds, the way the city’s laid out like a wheel with the Imperial residence at its hub, the way it sprawls across the plains, spilling out into the uplands and steppes bordering it-it’s all designed to make you stand there and gape for a little while. Which Penelo can’t help but do, though she tries not to be too obvious about it or anything, not with all the soldiers watching.
They don’t have a Moogling to make getting around in Archades easier, Larsa explains. (Penelo gets the impression that they don’t have too many moogles in Archades at all, not compared to Rabanastre or even Nalbina.)
“Archadians use cabs to access different levels of the city,” he says.
“How much does that cost?”
He considers. “A million gil without chops.”
This time, she does gape.
“You needn’t worry about that,” Larsa assures her. “I’ll make sure you have a sandalwood chop. That should give you access to even the neighborhoods reserved for the gentry. And I’m sure Father will elevate you to the gentry if I request it,” he continues, resting his hand on hers. “He can grant you the titles and lands he stripped from House Richese as punishment for their treason. You would have a sizable yearly income-and if you required else, I would see that you had it.”
Penelo feels a little dizzy. She doesn’t think it’s the height. “Um,” she says. “That’s-” She guesses it’s a lot more than what she earned running errands for Migelo. “That’s really nice, Larsa.”
He puts his hand back in his lap and smiles at her, and he really does look like a twelve-year-old kid now, kind of like how Vaan looked when he was Larsa’s age and he was bouncing on the edge of his seat waiting for a candy from Penelo’s parents. He’s just so happy. So she gives him her best thousand-gil smile and asks him questions about everything she sees zooming beneath her. He points out the markets (“the Imperial residence purchases most of its foodstuffs in Molberry; the merchants there sell the finest Kerwon grain”), the theatre (“I can take you there one evening, if you’d like-they don’t perform many comedies in Dalmasca, do they?”), the Akademies judicial and thaumaturgical (“we’ve found it best to keep the mages and the magisters separate, for the sake of all concerned”).
She remembers walking down the red strip leading up to the palace doors and reminding herself not to look at the city below. She remembers Larsa bringing her before his father-his father the Emperor, which still gives her a weird fluttery feeling in her stomach-and she thinks she said the sort of thing you’re supposed to say to emperors. He didn’t have her carted off to a dungeon, so she guesses she didn’t do too badly.
She wonders how they dance in Archades. You probably have to wear lots of clothes to do it, billowing skirts and dainty shoes, and you probably need to partner up with someone else. She wonders if they’ll ask her to dance, if Larsa ever drags her off to a ball or a fete or whatever they call it here and they expect her to glide across the floor while he twirls her around or something like that. She’s actually looking forward to that part. Dancing’s probably more straightforward than anything else in Archades.
Mostly, though, she wants to sleep. Her bed’s gigantic; she could probably go swimming in the slippery sheets if she wanted to. And the whole thing’s stacked high with pillows: beaded pillows, tiny circular pillows, long fluffy pillows, more pillows than she’d ever need. She picks one that looks comfortable, rests her head on it, and shuts her eyes.
***
“A Dalmascan,” Vayne says.
Larsa nods. He’s removed his gloves; he crumples them now into a ball, twisting them around. “I found her in Bhujerba, while I was conducting my investigation of the Lhusu Mines.”
“And you thought it advisable to leave Ghis behind?”
“Yes,” Larsa says, his chin held high. “I had no desire to see a contingent of soldiers watching my every step. I wouldn’t have discovered nearly as much had they accompanied me,” he adds; the light filtering through Vayne’s chambers accents the Solidor sharpness of his features.
“I know,” Vayne says, holding up his hand. “Just as I know you exercised proper caution while traveling in Bhujerba, knowing-as I am sure you do-that the city is not entirely friendly to us.”
“Yes, brother.” Larsa’s nod is smaller this time. “I found her fleeing from the Lhusu Mines-”
Vayne drums his nails on the stack of papers by his side. “What was a Dalmascan maiden doing in the Lhusu Mines?” On a day when they had been closed for inspection, no less. This whole business strikes him as terribly convenient-but convenient for whom? That is where he must direct his future investigations.
“She’d been abducted,” Larsa explains.
“Abducted.” Vayne arches an eyebrow. “I see.”
“By bounty hunters-”
“There’s a bounty on her head?” That bodes-ill.
“No,” he says. “They used her to bait a trap for the bounty they were hunting.”
“I see,” he repeats.
“I asked her to accompany me back to Archades, and she consented.”
“Readily?”
“No.” Larsa frowns. “It took some persuasion, but I assured her that no harm would come to her old companions in her absence.”
“Her criminal associates, you mean.”
“Archadia need not give the back of her hand to the states under her care.” The color rushes to Larsa’s cheeks. “Surely she can extend her hand in friendship. Such a gesture would only add to her greatness, for she can afford to show mercy even to those who would slight her.”
“And when her back is turned, their daggers will strike,” Vayne says. “With Rozarria bristling at our borders, we can ill afford to be crippled by such.”
“There are those in Rozarria who want peace.”
“And there are those who do not, and those men control the armies.” Perhaps he has let Larsa dream of peace for too long-but no, Larsa must have his dreams. Larsa will see peace in his lifetime, yes, peace during his long and prosperous rule. Vayne will see to it. But peace carries its blood-price, its cost in iron and fire and blight, and such a price is Vayne’s to pay.
“As to Penelo’s associates-”
Vayne notices he gives her no title when he speaks of her. A sand peasant. The story grows even better.
“Were they to be captured and executed, it would only inflame the resistance further; surely their activities would draw Rozarria’s attention, and surely Rozarria would enter the conflict as Dalmasca’s champion if the resistance-”
“Insurgence.”
“If the resistance,” he repeats, “cried out loudly enough.”
“Indeed,” Vayne says, and then falls silent.
Larsa studies him, reads what is written in the brevity of his speech, in the way his fingers curl around the handle of his chair, in the faint upward turn of his mouth that Vayne has never quite been able to suppress. “You are prepared for such an eventuality,” he breathes, and even as Larsa’s brow furrows and his jaw tightens, Vayne gives silent praise for his brother’s skill at perception. It is almost uncanny; certainly some at court think Larsa unnatural for it, and Vayne keeps these men and women far from any positions of trust and power.
“Indeed you have planned for it,” Larsa continues. “Haven’t you? If Rozarria’s forces should be lured out and concentrate their might in Dalmasca…” and then Larsa falls silent. “Nabudis,” he says. “You would do this again, would you not.”
“I would do what I must for my Empire.”
“It was not a question,” says Larsa. He hunches his shoulders up around his ears and departs, looking more like a twelve-year-old child in that moment than he had over the course of their interview.
***
“So do they want to send me home?” Penelo asks.
“You are welcome here for as long as you wish to stay,” Larsa says.
“Thanks.” She picks at a loose thread on her dress. She hasn’t worn a proper dress in two years, not since the festival celebrating Princess Ashe’s wedding. She has to remember to keep her legs together when she sits.
“Have you found your stay pleasant so far?” Larsa asks her. “I had thought to show you the library this afternoon, if-”He pauses. “Forgive me, but you can read, can’t you?”
“Of course I can read,” she says, yanking the hem of her dress down. “My mother taught me how. I’m better at it than Vaan is.”
“Of course,” Larsa says, but Penelo really kind of wants to get up and start walking around now. It’s weird; ever since she arrived in Archadia, she hasn’t really been doing anything. Larsa’s been taking her on tours across the skies, showing off all the corners of the palace for her, but even though Archades is supposed to be the hub of this vast sprawling empire, most of the nobles she’s met just sit around and talk a lot. They don’t even use the training yard, and it’s a really nice training yard, too. She doesn’t know how they can sit still for so long. At least Larsa’s different. She guesses that’s why he ran off when he visited Bhujerba.
“I mean,” she says. She tugs a pin out of her braids. “I’m licensed to use magicks. You have to be able to read scrolls to learn magicks. And I’m not great with swords yet, but I can beat Rickert in a dagger fight, and he used to serve with the king’s guard. And-”
She realizes Larsa’s standing next to her. “Sorry,” she says. “I was just-”
“I understand. Forgive me,” he says. “I find little interest in a life of nothing but leisure, and I should have realized it would hold no appeal for you.”
“Well, it’s nice to relax once in a while,” she says. “I guess I’m just used to chasing Vaan around and running things back and forth and being on my feet all the time. But I wasn’t doing anything really important before,” she adds. “Not like-not like what your family does.”
“We could not do what we do if we did not have people like you to support us.” Larsa reaches for her hand.
“You’re really sweet, Larsa,” she says, and he actually kind of turns a little pink.
“Do you still want to see the library?” he asks. “If you’re interested in magicks, we maintain an archive of all licensed and approved spells.”
“Really?” she says. “Anyone can look at those?” That kind of flies in the face of all her assumptions about how things work in Archades
“Well, not precisely,” Larsa says. “But we certainly can.”
“Okay.”
Larsa keeps holding her hand as they walk up the giant stone steps leading to the library. House Solidor’s crest-she’s learned to recognize it by now-is carved into the doors and inlaid with what looks an awful lot like gold leaf. It’s not squat like the buildings in Rabanastre are, but it’s tall, tall and shining reddish-gold in the afternoon sun. Through the narrow windows, she glimpses students maneuvering around books piled dangerously high.
“Wow,” she says. She feels really, really small. But at least she’s still bigger than Larsa. She giggles.
“What’s funny?” he asks her.
“When you stand in front of the building like that, you look even shorter than you usually do,” she says, trying to keep a straight face.
He looks a little like a chocobo with its feathers all askew for a few seconds, and then he laughs, too.
***
Vayne has missed the companionship of books; he had little time to read while he was Consul in Rabanastre, though he kept Of the Formation of Ivalice by the divine philosopher Merlose by his bedside.
Now, though-he breathes in the scent of yellowing parchment, of dust and old leather and pine, lets it suffuse his senses until he is sure that he is home again, back among his favorite teachers. He rests his hand on his favorite reading desk, the one on whose corner he bruised his temple when he was nine and hiding from his eldest brother.
There are fewer students at the royal library today, fewer young heads bowed by the strain of research and buried behind thick stacks of papers. It is just as well. He seeks, has always sought, the library for its solitude, and he would not prefer an audience for his current research. He supposes he could enjoin Doctor Cid to undertake these studies for him, but he would know more about the power with whom they have formed such a fruitful partnership.
He will want the very oldest tomes of magic, tucked away in the library’s darkest corners where few prying eyes will care to look. As Vayne walks there, however, he is interrupted.
“-really?” The voice is young and female; Vayne detects a Dalmascan accent.
“Yes.” The second voice is easier for him to place. Larsa’s speech is unmistakable for aught else. Vayne slips into the stacks behind them and watches through a gap in the books: Larsa sits cross-legged, his fingers tracing arcane symbols on a cracked old scroll. Opposite him is a girl some years older, fair-haired and slightly darker of skin; she chews on her bottom lip as she holds another scroll up to the light. “It still feels like I’m missing something-oh!” She releases the scroll and lets it flutter to the ground. Lights pulse through her veins, darting beneath her skin and wreathing her face in a white glow. Larsa watches her. Vayne watches Larsa. “I got it. I think I misread one of the lines. You Archadians write things really weirdly.”
“Well, you’ve mastered it, at any rate,” his brother replies. “And our script is elegant, devised by the old Valendians in-”
The girl-Penelo, for it can be no other-snatches the scroll from Larsa’s hand. “Still looks like a bunch of scribbles,” she says.
“I hadn’t finished mastering that yet,” Larsa says. “Give it back.”
She stands up and dangles it above his head. “You probably can’t read it very well either.”
“Of course I can.”
“Then why haven’t you mastered it?”
“It’s a more complex spell,” Larsa argues, making a vain attempt at snatching the scroll away. “It requires more diligent study.”
“Even Fussbudget could have mastered it by now, and we all thought his mother dropped him on his head when he was little,” Penelo says. “You know, I think Fussbudget’s your age.”
“Perhaps you would prefer his companionship, then.” Larsa leaps up and seizes her wrist, tugging it down; she twists her arm around, trying to break free, but Vayne sees Larsa has learned his lessons well enough and bars her from doing so, finally extracting the scroll from her grasp.
“Hey!” she cries, but her protests give way to laughter soon enough.
“I am certain I can gain the mastery of it,” he says, brandishing it before he sits down to resume his study.
“I know you can,” she says. “I was just teasing.”
“I’m aware,” he tells her, smiling. “You mustn’t think me entirely unaware of such things.”
He seems enough at ease with her, though Vayne cannot say why. She is-perhaps common is the best word for her, in both senses of the word; her manner cannot be called refined, but Larsa might find such frankness refreshing. He cannot fault his brother for it. He enjoys rhetoric but not obfuscation, and the Senate and their associates have elevated the latter to an art form.
The matter certainly requires further attention. Others must be aware of the type of girl that could prove enticing to Larsa, others who do not have his brother’s best interests at heart. Even her honesty could be artifice, he reflects.
“So.” Penelo laces her fingers together behind her back. “If you actually finish up with that sometime soon, what do you want to do?”
“I thought we could pay a visit to Gabranth and Drace,” he says. “They ought to be in their quarters. Their magisterial duties take them outside of the city at time, but-Penelo.”
She draws away from him, running her finger along a shelf’s edge. “Right,” she says softly. “I forgot. They work for your family.”
“Penelo,” he says again, and Vayne concedes that the move, if planned, was extraordinarily well-timed.
“It’s okay,” she says, rearranging her features into a smile. “Really, it is. They were just doing their jobs, right?”
“I did not mean to distress you.”
“Larsa, I’m fine. Really. I’m not-” She pauses, gathering herself together. “I’m not like Vaan. I know there has to be more to life than sitting around and hating the Empire. I know there are good people there. I know it in my head, anyway. You’re a good person,” she tells Larsa; her smile seems better-crafted to Vayne this time. “And I know there are more people like you in Archades.”
“Gabranth and Drace are two such people, I assure you,” Larsa says.
“Then I’ll meet them.” Penelo looks down at her dress and sighs. “Do I have to change clothes again? I feel so sorry for whoever gets stuck with doing the washing in this place.”
“I doubt they’ll insist upon it.” Larsa offers his hand to her-the chivalric tradition is strong with him, stronger than is typical with House Solidor, perhaps. Penelo accepts it. Vayne sinks deeper into the shadows as the two of them leave.
***
Gabranth and Drace weren’t, as it turned out, in their quarters, which Penelo was honestly fine with, because she thinks she needs to sort through a few things before she sits down and chats with anyone in the Imperial army. They-well, Sherral was always nice to her and gave her a few gil more than he needed to when she ran an errand for him, but some of the other soldiers thought a blow to the head was the best way to clear out any Dalmascan kids underfoot.
She sits in front of her mirror and plays around with her hair. (The mirror is her favorite thing about the room. It’s bordered with white carvings of Galbana lilies, and it’s a real mirror, not just a piece of metal polished and polished again.) There’s some kind of big state dinner tonight, apparently, one Larsa can’t skip out on, so he asked her to accompany him. Penelo frowns, toying with her braid. Should she let her hair down, or should she put it up in lots of little braids? Maybe braided loops would look nice. She thinks she saw a few women in Archades wearing their hair like that.
There’s a soft knock at her door. “Come in,” she says.
Vayne Solidor sweeps into her room and looks straight at her. Penelo feels her heart jump up into her throat and stay there for a few seconds. She hopes her mouth isn’t hanging open or anything stupid like that. She sits up a little straighter, though. “Oh,” she says. “Hello.” Should she leap up to curtsey? She curtsies pretty well, but that’s a Dalmascan curtsey, maybe they do it different in Archadia-
“Please,” Vayne says. He holds up a gloved hand. Penelo sees where Larsa gets the habit from. “Don’t get up on my account. You are Penelo, yes?”
“Yeah-yes,” she corrects herself. “Yes. I’m Penelo.”
“My brother speaks highly of you.” He closes the door behind him.
“Oh.” She clears her throat. “Thanks.”
“Thank him, not me.” He steps closer to her; she can see him in the mirror, standing over her shoulder. Her head’s pressing into his chest just a little, and she’s probably-no, she’s definitely getting pinker, she can see it in her reflection. “I would see if what he reports is true.”
“What did he say about me?” She wishes her voice sounded stronger, less whispery. But Vayne’s-he fills up the reflection in the mirror and it seems like he fills up the rest of the room, too. There’s just something about him, something she kind of noticed at the consul speech, something that presses against her heart and dries out her mouth and makes her skin start to quiver. But she can’t do anything stupid. She can’t.
“He said you were a maiden of uncommon virtue. Intelligent. A light heart and a lighter tongue.” His hand traces the line of her jaw until it settles under her chin, then tips her chin back until the line of her neck lies exposed in the mirror. “And beautiful as the rarest of Archadian sunsets.”
“That was, ah…” Think, she scolds herself. “That was nice of him.”
“Indeed,” Vayne murmurs. He leans in close, so that his lips almost touch her ear. “And should he discover that you are otherwise, you will wish you had never set foot in Archadia.”
“I’m…” she starts to say, but she trails off when he crosses in front of her and braces his hands on the armrest and leans in close and-and his lips press against hers and he’s kissing her, his hands are on her shoulders now and his mouth is soft and his tongue is warm and she didn’t expect this to happen and she really can’t let this go on and she has to say something now before. Before his hand slides down to cup her breast and she feels her body start to shiver, start to stand at attention. Before his fingers start to work her braids loose, before he runs them up and down the back of her neck just light enough to tickle. Before his hand at her breast gets a little harder, a little more insistent, and he’s squeezing her nipple now, and she-she can’t decide if she should gasp or scream, try to get someone to come running. But the guards won’t believe her, they’ll believe him, and all she can think of doing is shaking her head really hard and pressing her lips together once her head’s stopped swimming because this is a bad idea, this is a really bad idea.
He pulls away, though. She’s still shivering, for a lot of reasons.
“Do I make myself clear?” he asks her. There’s something burning behind his eyes, something blue and hard and bright.
“I wouldn’t,” she finally says. “I’d never-I’m not a spy. I wouldn’t hurt Larsa. He’s my friend.” He might want to be something more, maybe, but he’s just a kid now, he doesn’t know what that means. It’s just something cute. Something fun. “I just like spending time with him, I swear. That’s all there is to it.”
“I would like to believe you,” he says quietly. “I want to see Larsa happy, and he certainly is happy now.”
“I’ll keep him happy. I want him to be happy, too.” She’s babbling. She takes a deep breath, the deepest breath she can possibly take. “I promise.”
“We shall see.” He walks away from her, finally. She looks at herself in the mirror. She’s paler than she’d like to be, except in the spots where her blush hasn’t completely faded away, and her hair is out of place, but she’s still okay, mostly. She half-wants to ask him why he kissed her like that, but she’s not sure she wants to know the answer.
“I will see you at dinner tonight,” he says, and then he’s gone.
But she knows he’s still watching.