FFXII Drabbles.

[midnightdiddle]

Spoilers, as always.


For aya_kun_rose.


Jules and the gentry of Archades.


The Boy from Akademy

Jules had never really liked the gentry of Archades. They were a stuffy lot, with stiff shirts and crisp gloves, forever fiddling with golden cufflinks. They'd always looked down on Jules, though why shouldn't they, with him being born in Old Archades, where all the families had too many mouths to feed and the thought of gold was enough to have mothers turn a blind eye when one child or another would disappear.

Jules, though, was smart, always had been. He could do numbers in his head that made the old men envious, had a mouth in him that made his mother slap him. He could swindle people, get them to let go of their last mouthful of food and last handful of coins, and he did it, too. Did it well and good, when he was a little boy, and when he was man, and all the years in between.

He talked his way out of the Old and into the New, found himself a place in the Akademy. He got himself shuffled from class to class as the professors tried to figure out where he was from, who was paying his fees, and then he eventually became a face in the back of the class, and a set of papers forgotten amongst all the stacks. And what, exactly, were the fees of one student when all the gentry were sending their sons and daughters to Akademy, heaped upon with necklaces and bracelets and rings crested with family motifs.

Jules blustered his way into the circle of boys, nicked off pocket change for his food and board, and grinned his way into parties. The students loved him, thought him daring and fun, and he thought they were dull and drab, little puppets dressed in silk. It was a relationship full of mutual benefits, and Jules played the gentry like a well-tuned harp.

A few of the boys were smarter than the others. Some of the boys were even smart enough to call Jules on his own game, and one or two watched Jules with sharp eyes. One of them even laughed in Jules' face, like Jules was some street urchin not worth a lick of dirt on his shoes.

"What?" Jules asked, bristling, hating everyone who was watching them.

"You're from Old Archades," the boy said, with a slow drawl and a smirk. "Not all of us are so stupid as you think us."

The Bunansa boy left before fall term ended, to work in the palace as some judge. Jules left the Akademy some weeks later, because it was easier to pick pockets on the streets, and it was even easier to pick rumors, twist them and sell them to the highest bidder. He put his ear to the ground, and listened, and was one of the first to hear that House Bunansa's youngest son had left Archades, snitching an old sky-ship as he went. Jules sat back, and waited, and listened as his web of informants grew bigger, swallowed up more and more of Archadia, Nabudis and Dalmasca, all the way through Rozarria.

When the rumors came that Fframran was coming back, heading up through the beach, then the Old Palace, Jules wandered down to Old Archades, fixing his cufflinks. This time, he'd be the one to laugh in Ffamran's face.





For mariagoner.


Vayne, Larsa, and the idea of love.


Comrades


"Your comrades," Vayne asked, "did you care much for them?" He turned a fruit over in his hands, caught at the peel with his fingernails, pulling at the skin.

"Not particularly," Larsa said after a moment, voice sounding small in the room. Vayne pulled a strip of skin from the fruit, let it fall to the floor, then pulled at another.

"Then I wonder," Vayne said, "why you've been most noticeably absent about the palace. You're angry at me, then?"

"Never angry with you, Brother." Larsa's feet nearly scuffed at the floor, and Vayne wondered how long before Larsa grew tall, grew to a man who could set his feet upon the ground, and no longer needed a brother.

"Then love? Perhaps for a Dalmascan girl? Or are you still mourning your lost Judge?" Vayne asked, dropping the last sliver of peel. He caught the edges of the fruit, pulled it apart carefully, then held out a slice towards Larsa. Larsa's fingers were little, plucking the slice from Vayne's hand.

"I care most for my family," Larsa said, ever dutiful, the perfect son and brother. "I would choose you over all others."

"Perhaps, but I fear your tongue deceives us all, Larsa." Vayne stood, held out the rest of the fruit towards Larsa, and turned away from Larsa's eyes. "Make yourself ready. We'll go searching for these companions you so love, you and I. Perhaps, at the end, we'll learn who you shall choose over all others."





Larsa, Penelo, and the idea of familial love. Set during Bur Omisace.


Family Love


"You can come with us," Penelo said, kneeling at his feet, clutching his hands between hers. Larsa stared down at her, wondered when he'd sat, and wondered why her eyes looked so cold and so sad, all at once. "We can take you anywhere, Dalmasca, the Estersand, Rozarria--"

"Did you," Larsa interrupted, "love my father?"

Penelo's eyes looked colder, and her mouth looked sadder, and Larsa wished he had never loosed his tongue.

"No," Penelo said after a moment. "I hated him. But not you, you're different."

"Am I?" Larsa asked. He frowned, kicked at the floor. Still to short to touch it, still too much a child, and the thought burned at him. "I loved my father. I love my brother. Is that wrong, Penelo?"

"No, but--" Penelo's fingers tightened about his, her face pale. "He'll kill you."

"I don't think so," Larsa said slowly, "but if he did, I wouldn't give much care. I'd think myself lucky, I think." He lifted her hands, kissed her fingertips, and smiled at her, feeling tired and cold. "You fight for your family, Penelo, and I shall fight for mine. Perhaps, in the end, we'll both have found something to keep us."