Final Fantasy XII (Larsa/Penelo)
Title: Heads Together
Author/Artist: Tenshi Kain
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Uh...intensity and sugar!
Word Count: 1,788
Summary: Larsa has not yet recovered from a fever, and it comes back again.
Prompt: Final Fantasy XII, Larsa/Penelo: Harem girl - undercover in Rozarria
Basch had warned him not to come to the Ambervale still weak from the fever. Whatever his standing was in Al-Cid's eyes, no doubt Larsa had looked quite the fool before their shaded field, fighting for full height as he'd stepped away from the hot ramp of the Kjata and into the sweltering arms of Rozarrian summer. He had refused to cancel the feast simply on that account, though Larsa reflected it might have been easier on all of them to simply postpone it. It was strength, he supposed, that base imperial need to seem powerful even at his weakest. It was like something Vayne would do, and Larsa deflated now to realize it. He still wasn't thinking well. He hadn't thought well since the fever hit.
And now this. This, here, now, her.
The silver globes adorning Penelo's hip skirt jingled as she shut the door behind them, and her voice lowered to a hush over the tones. "Before you ask, I'm not really..."
"I know." Larsa felt like smiling, but had neither the will nor the energy. The battle for a straight stance had taxed him all through the evening's festivities- and he was taller than her now. Somehow that forced him to try harder. "I knew the second I saw you in the hall. That does not lessen the surprise. You're here to save someone." He found he had will enough to cock a brow. "Or steal something."
She "mm"-ed her assent, a sound he realized he had almost forgotten. Larsa turned back to her, very slowly, and only the cool air rippling from the chests of ice magicite littered about his bedchambers kept the sweat down. The sight of her bare flesh pulled the breath from his lungs. So much of her was the same that he couldn't imagine how she had remained undetected. Her golden braids hung unchanged past the glistening string of the choker on her nape, her arms still toned from years of hefting swords and rods, her hips still suppled by dance, her skin...
Larsa put his eyes back on her nape, swallowing. He was boiling. Standing was unbearable.
Now Penelo turned to him, and he was surprised to see her eyes mounted pink cheeks. "It was Kytes. He's a friend of ours...you know that treasure Vaan made off with, last year?"
"The Statuette of Lylis." Larsa remembered the uproar that had followed that, loud enough to shake the crags of Paramina and wake Fafnir- no, wait, Reddas killed Fafnir, that's right, damn this fever- and smiled, his first in weeks. "I heard Vaan had since returned it. I often wondered who convinced him to."
"I even got an apology to the Gran Kiltias out of him." Penelo grinned, her teeth like pearls to complement the silver. “Yeah. But, of course, everyone was on the victory high, and Kytes wanted to impress him." She folded her arms over her sternum, and the globes hanging full inches below her navel clinked one-by-one. "Of course, he had to pick Tizona. That kid..."
Tizona was the sword of the Emperor, absent only from his waist on occasions like tonight's feast, and any hand questing for it might as well have stuck itself down a Saurian's throat. Larsa made a sound, just barely recognizable as a laugh, and it seemed more like letting smoke out. "He was captured, then."
"And I would have found him by now if I didn't have to spend half the time dodging Al-Cid." Her smile was tinier, but just as honest. "He's being held somewhere in the palace. We didn't want to attract attention, so not all of us came. It was just me and Rikken in the city. But a few weeks ago, we found out where he was, and..." She clasped her elbows, arms tugging up. "Well, you know."
Larsa had only needed one glance to know, but Penelo stepped forward, as if he needed her in a spotlight. He nodded, eyes still locked with hers, somehow aware of his tunic soaking against the small of his back, and the robe clinging closer to it. Closer. "Yes, to get closer, you had to..." He blinked, some idle drowsiness tapping him and then letting him go. It was the fever, trying to come back already. He shook his head, eyelids lingering as they shut on the next blink. "Penelo, I'm sorry, could we sit? The wine, surely." He'd barely had a sip.
Penelo was with him in an instant, and he felt her fingers on his upper arm. She squinted. "You've been sick," she realized, much quicker than he'd wanted her to. "You shouldn't be here."
But I'm glad I am. Larsa sat with her on the edge of the bed, and even the warmest blanket was a cool cushion beneath him. He could not hold back a sigh, and wished he knew why he was so ashamed of faltering like this. Penelo certainly wouldn't be. In fact, she hadn't been. He thought back to a hot night in the Estersand, just after it all started, some wyrmhunt Ashe had accepted, where Penelo had taken ill, and he'd sat near her cot until she fell asleep, trying to cheer her with some anecdote about how a cockatrice had rolled down a dune and plowed into Basch earlier that same day, and then they found out the creature was a Nekhbet of all things, wide awake and squawking and angry until its head found the upraised tip of Basch's poleyn and the impact knocked it out cold, and that was how Balthier'd picked up his new pointy hat, and Penelo had laughed and laughed until the coughs gave up. Larsa remembered her whispering "good night" to him a while later, turning over in her cot with a smile.
It found its way from the memory to his face, and Larsa was glad to show it to her. "Al-Cid having refused his latest engagement, I didn't exactly come here to rescue a friend," he said, "but I do have to be here. If more treaties weren't enough, there's the matter of Kytes, now." He kept the smile up, wondering why she now gazed at the full length of his hair. A thought occurred to him, but did not anger him. But he kept the smile, because he wanted her to show her something that could never have come from his brother.
Her smile said his was not needed. "You don't have to turn a blind eye to him, it was a stupid thing to do...but I know we can save him." Penelo swiveled to face him on the bead and smoothed out her skirt. "If we put our heads together."
She realized what she'd said at the same moment he did. Somewhere in him, Basch might have found another fated jest in this; Larsa only found sweat. The two of them looked away. Larsa felt an awkward silence masking itself in their contemplation, and wondered what she was thinking. That had happened quite frequently, as of late. He felt his stomach bubble quietly, that one sip of wine trapped in his chest. It was not sitting well, spread too thin, felt like the Ring Wyrm's fire on him all over again.
"Ah, where are my manners?" he said suddenly, unfastening his robe. "You are so lightly clad."
"Huh?" Penelo regarded him oddly- deservedly, he groaned inside- as he curled the Rozarrian cloth around her shoulders. "Larsa, it's...not like you've never seen me wearing less..."
The words just flew out and his fingers were caught in the hem. "I haven't seen you in half a year."
"...No, you haven't," she said, her eyes pinching sadly. "That's what's really been bothering you? You were worried about me?"
Six months. Larsa swayed to think of it, masked it by shifting on the covers, refused to let his back slant or curve. Almost immediately he closed his eyes and puffed with pain and heat and fatigue, realizing his back would not tolerate it anymore. Six months of the remembered and the unsaid gnawing his heart while the posture crushed his back in an iron embrace, waiting for her to write, looking for her parchment on every talon of every bird that landed on every sill of every window in the Imperial Palace. Six months of Basch never knowing what to say. Six months of plunging into pen and paper and practice and politics like an ichthian into water, only to find her everywhere when he came back to the surface. Six months of heartsore sighs and inwardly-directed reprimands and self-assurances that nothing had ended, that she was fine, that he'd see her again soon. Soon. Six months of "soon."
The Emperor of Archadia hung his head and shut his eyes. 'Worried'?
"Do you've any idea," he murmured, "how many times I almost...nothing in the pubs, nothing on the streets. When I'd managed to get ahold of Vaan two months past, I almost...or when I wrote Her Maj...when I wrote Ashe, I almost..."
"If you tried as hard as you're trying to finish those sentences, I'm surprised you didn't find me." She tried to giggle, and despite himself, he smiled again. Neither lasted long, but at least they tried. Penelo dug her palms into her lap. "I should have written someone, besides Vaan. No..." She reached over, touched his hand. "I should have written you, most of all."
Larsa had thought about that touch for six months, as well. He had never quite decided how he was going to respond to it, if it ever came. Six months to think about all the ways he could respond to her touch.
Instead, his fingers just closed around hers, and squeezed.
"Perhaps I needed a knock on the head," Larsa said, chuckling. "His Honor is simply too kind to give me it."
Penelo leaned over and gave him a soft, jingling rap on the back of the head with the heel of her palm. He let himself sway and mouth "poing." They laughed together, enough that he felt something within him temper again, and despite the room's chill, it was just like being back on the Estersand, years ago. Only now her hand was there, combing through his hair, and his palm pressed hotly and firmly into hers. No, not quite like the Estersand, anymore.
Their clasped hands whitened together. She put her head on his shoulder, the robe slipping off of hers. It was not just the fatigue that led him to lean over, and rest his atop her crown.
"Half a year, for you to break this fever," Larsa whispered, smiling, incredulous.
Penelo ran her palm down his tired, tired back. "Feels like just a day," she said, and kissed his neck.
Author/Artist: Tenshi Kain
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Uh...intensity and sugar!
Word Count: 1,788
Summary: Larsa has not yet recovered from a fever, and it comes back again.
Prompt: Final Fantasy XII, Larsa/Penelo: Harem girl - undercover in Rozarria
Basch had warned him not to come to the Ambervale still weak from the fever. Whatever his standing was in Al-Cid's eyes, no doubt Larsa had looked quite the fool before their shaded field, fighting for full height as he'd stepped away from the hot ramp of the Kjata and into the sweltering arms of Rozarrian summer. He had refused to cancel the feast simply on that account, though Larsa reflected it might have been easier on all of them to simply postpone it. It was strength, he supposed, that base imperial need to seem powerful even at his weakest. It was like something Vayne would do, and Larsa deflated now to realize it. He still wasn't thinking well. He hadn't thought well since the fever hit.
And now this. This, here, now, her.
The silver globes adorning Penelo's hip skirt jingled as she shut the door behind them, and her voice lowered to a hush over the tones. "Before you ask, I'm not really..."
"I know." Larsa felt like smiling, but had neither the will nor the energy. The battle for a straight stance had taxed him all through the evening's festivities- and he was taller than her now. Somehow that forced him to try harder. "I knew the second I saw you in the hall. That does not lessen the surprise. You're here to save someone." He found he had will enough to cock a brow. "Or steal something."
She "mm"-ed her assent, a sound he realized he had almost forgotten. Larsa turned back to her, very slowly, and only the cool air rippling from the chests of ice magicite littered about his bedchambers kept the sweat down. The sight of her bare flesh pulled the breath from his lungs. So much of her was the same that he couldn't imagine how she had remained undetected. Her golden braids hung unchanged past the glistening string of the choker on her nape, her arms still toned from years of hefting swords and rods, her hips still suppled by dance, her skin...
Larsa put his eyes back on her nape, swallowing. He was boiling. Standing was unbearable.
Now Penelo turned to him, and he was surprised to see her eyes mounted pink cheeks. "It was Kytes. He's a friend of ours...you know that treasure Vaan made off with, last year?"
"The Statuette of Lylis." Larsa remembered the uproar that had followed that, loud enough to shake the crags of Paramina and wake Fafnir- no, wait, Reddas killed Fafnir, that's right, damn this fever- and smiled, his first in weeks. "I heard Vaan had since returned it. I often wondered who convinced him to."
"I even got an apology to the Gran Kiltias out of him." Penelo grinned, her teeth like pearls to complement the silver. “Yeah. But, of course, everyone was on the victory high, and Kytes wanted to impress him." She folded her arms over her sternum, and the globes hanging full inches below her navel clinked one-by-one. "Of course, he had to pick Tizona. That kid..."
Tizona was the sword of the Emperor, absent only from his waist on occasions like tonight's feast, and any hand questing for it might as well have stuck itself down a Saurian's throat. Larsa made a sound, just barely recognizable as a laugh, and it seemed more like letting smoke out. "He was captured, then."
"And I would have found him by now if I didn't have to spend half the time dodging Al-Cid." Her smile was tinier, but just as honest. "He's being held somewhere in the palace. We didn't want to attract attention, so not all of us came. It was just me and Rikken in the city. But a few weeks ago, we found out where he was, and..." She clasped her elbows, arms tugging up. "Well, you know."
Larsa had only needed one glance to know, but Penelo stepped forward, as if he needed her in a spotlight. He nodded, eyes still locked with hers, somehow aware of his tunic soaking against the small of his back, and the robe clinging closer to it. Closer. "Yes, to get closer, you had to..." He blinked, some idle drowsiness tapping him and then letting him go. It was the fever, trying to come back already. He shook his head, eyelids lingering as they shut on the next blink. "Penelo, I'm sorry, could we sit? The wine, surely." He'd barely had a sip.
Penelo was with him in an instant, and he felt her fingers on his upper arm. She squinted. "You've been sick," she realized, much quicker than he'd wanted her to. "You shouldn't be here."
But I'm glad I am. Larsa sat with her on the edge of the bed, and even the warmest blanket was a cool cushion beneath him. He could not hold back a sigh, and wished he knew why he was so ashamed of faltering like this. Penelo certainly wouldn't be. In fact, she hadn't been. He thought back to a hot night in the Estersand, just after it all started, some wyrmhunt Ashe had accepted, where Penelo had taken ill, and he'd sat near her cot until she fell asleep, trying to cheer her with some anecdote about how a cockatrice had rolled down a dune and plowed into Basch earlier that same day, and then they found out the creature was a Nekhbet of all things, wide awake and squawking and angry until its head found the upraised tip of Basch's poleyn and the impact knocked it out cold, and that was how Balthier'd picked up his new pointy hat, and Penelo had laughed and laughed until the coughs gave up. Larsa remembered her whispering "good night" to him a while later, turning over in her cot with a smile.
It found its way from the memory to his face, and Larsa was glad to show it to her. "Al-Cid having refused his latest engagement, I didn't exactly come here to rescue a friend," he said, "but I do have to be here. If more treaties weren't enough, there's the matter of Kytes, now." He kept the smile up, wondering why she now gazed at the full length of his hair. A thought occurred to him, but did not anger him. But he kept the smile, because he wanted her to show her something that could never have come from his brother.
Her smile said his was not needed. "You don't have to turn a blind eye to him, it was a stupid thing to do...but I know we can save him." Penelo swiveled to face him on the bead and smoothed out her skirt. "If we put our heads together."
She realized what she'd said at the same moment he did. Somewhere in him, Basch might have found another fated jest in this; Larsa only found sweat. The two of them looked away. Larsa felt an awkward silence masking itself in their contemplation, and wondered what she was thinking. That had happened quite frequently, as of late. He felt his stomach bubble quietly, that one sip of wine trapped in his chest. It was not sitting well, spread too thin, felt like the Ring Wyrm's fire on him all over again.
"Ah, where are my manners?" he said suddenly, unfastening his robe. "You are so lightly clad."
"Huh?" Penelo regarded him oddly- deservedly, he groaned inside- as he curled the Rozarrian cloth around her shoulders. "Larsa, it's...not like you've never seen me wearing less..."
The words just flew out and his fingers were caught in the hem. "I haven't seen you in half a year."
"...No, you haven't," she said, her eyes pinching sadly. "That's what's really been bothering you? You were worried about me?"
Six months. Larsa swayed to think of it, masked it by shifting on the covers, refused to let his back slant or curve. Almost immediately he closed his eyes and puffed with pain and heat and fatigue, realizing his back would not tolerate it anymore. Six months of the remembered and the unsaid gnawing his heart while the posture crushed his back in an iron embrace, waiting for her to write, looking for her parchment on every talon of every bird that landed on every sill of every window in the Imperial Palace. Six months of Basch never knowing what to say. Six months of plunging into pen and paper and practice and politics like an ichthian into water, only to find her everywhere when he came back to the surface. Six months of heartsore sighs and inwardly-directed reprimands and self-assurances that nothing had ended, that she was fine, that he'd see her again soon. Soon. Six months of "soon."
The Emperor of Archadia hung his head and shut his eyes. 'Worried'?
"Do you've any idea," he murmured, "how many times I almost...nothing in the pubs, nothing on the streets. When I'd managed to get ahold of Vaan two months past, I almost...or when I wrote Her Maj...when I wrote Ashe, I almost..."
"If you tried as hard as you're trying to finish those sentences, I'm surprised you didn't find me." She tried to giggle, and despite himself, he smiled again. Neither lasted long, but at least they tried. Penelo dug her palms into her lap. "I should have written someone, besides Vaan. No..." She reached over, touched his hand. "I should have written you, most of all."
Larsa had thought about that touch for six months, as well. He had never quite decided how he was going to respond to it, if it ever came. Six months to think about all the ways he could respond to her touch.
Instead, his fingers just closed around hers, and squeezed.
"Perhaps I needed a knock on the head," Larsa said, chuckling. "His Honor is simply too kind to give me it."
Penelo leaned over and gave him a soft, jingling rap on the back of the head with the heel of her palm. He let himself sway and mouth "poing." They laughed together, enough that he felt something within him temper again, and despite the room's chill, it was just like being back on the Estersand, years ago. Only now her hand was there, combing through his hair, and his palm pressed hotly and firmly into hers. No, not quite like the Estersand, anymore.
Their clasped hands whitened together. She put her head on his shoulder, the robe slipping off of hers. It was not just the fatigue that led him to lean over, and rest his atop her crown.
"Half a year, for you to break this fever," Larsa whispered, smiling, incredulous.
Penelo ran her palm down his tired, tired back. "Feels like just a day," she said, and kissed his neck.