Note: All characters, places, ect. belong to SquareEnix.

This owned at least one of my kidneys for a bit there. I have no excuse for this pairing. The story takes place during the space of time after Zidane is left at the Iifa Tree at the end of the game up to the very end with his return.

Violated Peach
By Zero9grl

She bought his aftershave, because she missed the scent of him. And then one day she threw it across the room when she was mad. She was mad and hurt and simply raving furious because he promised and he lied and he was never coming back. She never could get the smell of him out of her carpet after that.

Lying on the carpet, her hair fanning out around her like ebony silk, is how Amarant found her at the end of summer. Eyes closed, simply breathing, breathing in the smell of him. Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar.

He watched her—watched her pine, watched her pout, watched her be human and mortal and weak. He waited for her to break. But she didn't. Slowly her eyes opened from her dreams and she smiled, smiled at him, still in a daze from her thoughts of her absent beau. When she smiled with her eyes half closed, yearning, calling, the edges of her delicate mouth trembling ever so slightly, he turned away, looked around her feminine, pink room.

"You decorate like you're five," he grunted, staring at a pillow framed with lace and embroidered with a picture of a toy bear. It was sickening; he didn't know what made him want to vomit more, the room or her, lying like a love struck fool on the carpet because it smelled like him. The place drowned in desperation.

"Hello Amarant," she said and she was beautiful and fragile and all the things he hated. "Hello Amarant," she said, as if he drove away the shadows of her life. He studied her wardrobe, the door ajar, giving peeks of frills and ribbons and fine cloth; it was like looking through her underwear, the way the bits of dresses suggested things that could and could not be there through the crack.

He grunted and leaned against the doorframe. He did this because there was something foreign and perverse about this room, something that violated him by its very existence. She stood and smoothed the wrinkles from her dress, a regal queen with lint decorating her white gown. Not that anyone would admit to lint existing in the royal chambers. At least it was monarchial lint.

"Are you going to stay for dinner?" Garnet asked and it was Garnet the Queen of Alexandria, highest of the high, benign saint of summoners, who asked, and not common Dagger, simple and naïve. Common Dagger was still lying on the floor, dreaming of men who fed her illusive mights and maybes, tormented her with what ifs and could bes, caressed her with musts and wills. Common Dagger would not be attending dinner this evening.

He grunted again and moved aside as she swept past him in whirl of perfume and dignity, brushing the wrinkles and carpet fuzz from her dress. "…should have known your room would be pink," he muttered loudly.

She laughed a sound like wings in flight and the feet of mice that tapered into a soft silence. "It's peach," she told him, ducking her head and closing the door slowly behind them. Peach like her skin.

"…Peaches aren't pink, you blind?" he answered, following her towards the dining room. He shouldn't have come. Shouldn't have read the invitation, shouldn't have gone to look for her, shouldn't have come at all. He only came for the free food.

"Peach roses are," she murmured and it was funny, because she was weak and fragile and he could break her by touching her, but she was contradicting him right to his face. It wasn't so funny. He wondered what she'd been up to in that room of hers all alone. He wondered why he was even curious.

"…" His silence said it all; his dislike, his disagreement, his entire stance in the pointless argument. And then she looked at him, her delicate lips parted to ask a question spilling in summer rain from her eyes. "Do you think he's coming back?" she asked.

And he walked away. Walked away from the one question that meant the world to her. Let someone else tear her apart with reality, with life, with just everything. He was too old to deal with children's tears. So he walked away, took a different corridor, left her standing there with no answer. She should have never asked.

She and Amarant never were more than vague comrades—she thinks that's because he is the Devil's older brother.

Standing on the walls of Lindblum, wandering in memories of thoughtful silence with blooming roses on her cheeks and chapped lips is how he found her in the middle of fall. She was surprisingly alone, distant eyes watching the Festival of the Hunt in the obstacle course of the capital below. She had probably been invited; he vaguely remembered hearing something about her as the guest of honor. He was there to make money on the betting and after Hunt fights. She'd never do anything like that, being naturally too good and pining.

He stood next to her, watching her, watching her be distant in the past, wander in her thoughts; he watched her dry up brittle in the wind. She still didn't break. He wondered if he touched her wind strewn hair that she might just turn to ash and flit away.

He tapped the parapet, an erratic tempo of fingers on stone that ironically irritated him, and she slowly turned to look at him with wide eyes that peered up through her dusty lashes. She smiled a dream smile and sustained it by gently biting her colored lower lip. "Hi Amarant," she said and her voice was low and lost. "How are you?" She asked and she was small, tiny, crushable.

He grunted and leaned against the wall, gazing down towards the frenzy of monsters and hunters below. She didn't say how she was. There was silence and that was all there should be. "It's a pointless gesture," she said of it all as cheers reached their ears, thousand of eyes upon eyes held captive by ancient tradition. All pointless. "…Bitter?" He asked and he shouldn't have said it, but he did, because he was him and aggravating and cutting and all the not nice things that made her shine, glow like amber stars.

"…A little cold," She murmured, wrapping her arms around herself. He didn't offer to divest someone of their coat for her. She didn't expect him to. The wind raced, teasing, taunting, and her hair was black ribbon that danced and spun and enticed with countless depths. "…thought you'd know better by now," He muttered, inclining his head slightly towards her flimsy dress of satin and embroidery.

"You're not much better," She replied, gesturing at his clothes, stopping just shy of touching his bare arm. "Don't need nothing," he answered easily enough. He wasn't like her, all weak and fragile and susceptible to all sorts of things. She'd probably get sick or something from this and there'd be a big fuss and… Her breath rose in soft clouds of steam and she looked cold, cold and ice and beautiful.

And then she talked, opened her mouth and spit out vile words. Vile for they were sweet and proper; he thought of it as obsessed for his peace of mind. "I thought maybe he'd be here," she said, gazing down at the Hunt, eyes scanning the little ants wandering the streets and fighting the action figure monsters. "I thought maybe he'd be participating," she continued and that was all he could stand to hear before the words burrowed under his skin and stung like desert scorpions and Cactuar needles.

He turned to leave and almost hesitantly her small, fragile fingers plied his shirt. A glance back found fall leaves soaring from her eyes before the breeze. He grabbed her fingers like wilted petals and crushed them in his grip. And yet still she was whole, no cracks or gaping wounds. So he touched her peach cheek. And then he left, jumped off the wall and fell away into the frenzy below. He despised the way she talked.

That he is the elder there is no doubt; she sometimes thinks he must have been there before Gaia was even born.

Making snow angels on Alexandria Castle's frozen moat, all flushed and slowly turning blue with disheveled clothes and a bright pink nose is how he found her in the beginning of winter. Powder snow fell and turned her forest green gown white as her eyes stared blankly up at the dim sky, arms and legs moving rhythmically; sweep out, sweep in, out, in, all repetitive and dull, no thought, no amusement, just out and in and repeat, repeat, repeat. She might have turned into a doll like those black mages since the last time he saw her, but he supposed she was thinking. Her eyes were wide and empty, all glaze and no twitch or blink to mark intelligence.

He leaned over, stared back, and it was a contest, a contest of wandering minds. Her dainty mouth formed a perfect O and gave birth to small clouds that dissipated in the open air. "Mm, Amarant," she said and he didn't know how she even found he was there, her eyes still large and glassy, her motions not so much as slowing. "Is it a nice day?" She asked and it seemed a random question, a pointless one at that for she could see as much herself.

Still… "…No," he answered and it was a frivolous response; he never answered stupid questions. "…Crazy yet?" He wondered and again he didn't know why he was even curious. He didn't care about her, didn't care about her sanity, didn't care about anything at all, not one single thing. Still, "…Crazy yet?" He asked and it was a question from him to her, an actual piece of instigated conversation.

"Not yet," She told him offhandedly and she was beautiful; ice and cold and blue in ways that Shiva could never be and she was sickening to behold.

"Want to make snow angels with me?" She asked and she said "with me", was talking to him, meant it seriously. He grunted and flopped down next to her. He didn't make snow angels. "…What a kid," he muttered and she heard and she laughed, a thin laugh like wind through lake reeds and the rattle of dried leaves.

"I am sixteen and some months," she said and her snow angel had puny, little wings that would never be useful for anything, definitely not flying. "How old are you?" She asked and it was another stupid question.

He grunted and she laughed again, all girly and silly in the most annoying ways on him. "I think you are ancient," she told him and he was, "I think you were here when Gaia was a little ball of Nothing and when it became Something was when you first became agitated and you've been so ever since. I think you watched all the trees grow and all the clouds pass by and all the animals die." He was ancient and old and his age was not a figurable number, yet he was not past the prime of adulthood and still, he was older than the planet.

"You think too much," he growled and she babbled on. "I think he is sixteen and some months too," She continued, "Closer to seventeen than I, though it is hard to tell for sure how long he was on Terra all that time. I think he is sixteen and many months and soon he will be seventeen."

He stood and her snow angel halted, its pathetic wings finally stilled, as she looked up at him and up and up and reached a hand towards him. River ice slid from the corners of her eyes and he gazed down at her, her with her fragile, useless little angel that would never fly, never go to Paradise and never see the sun because as soon as she rose it would be smothered quietly in snow and no one would hear its last moments. He stooped and let her sable hair run through his fingers like the water frozen below his feet would not for another two months yet to come. Then he walked far off and didn't look back, not once. He was irritated by her feeble snow angels.

Before oceans spread or skies wept or life breathed, there was Amarant Coral, alone, silent, and always, always, always, forever and eternity coupled with perpetuity, agitated.

Running in the fields of Dali, raven hair streaming out behind and she was not grace or poetry in motion when she ran, was how he found her in the beginning of spring. He supposed she was there to inspect the village and make certain the underground factory was shut down. He was merely passing through and yet now he wasn't. Because she was running, running, running through the fields of Dali and maybe she'd finally cracked, would rip her clothes off and run screaming into the nearby woods. Despite the implications the thought did not arouse.

She saw him, turned, waved, was ridiculous satin white satin among budding green. And then she fell, was gone, swallowed by too tall spring grass that whispered in the wind. He could leave her there, maybe with a sprained ankle, a knock to the head, passed out; he doubted anything larger than an oglop would nibble on her stringy self that was too small and too gangly like some prepubescent boy. Then there'd be a fuss and implications, people talking at him, why didn't he do this, why not do that, what was going through his thick head. It saved time to make sure she wasn't fatally injured. If he set a quick pace, it was because he was in a hurry and it was on his way; so many places to go, to see, to be.

He figured he was near where she'd fallen when a body tripped him and there she was, velvet pollen dancing from her eyes, down her cheeks and through her hair as she laughed, hoarse and thinly. "I think I am going to die," she said and she guffawed, a rough, common sound from her pretty, slender neck. "Everyone dies sometime," she chuckled and he was sprawled in the thick grass next to her.

"I will die alone," she moaned and this was the peasant Queen of Alexandria. "Without him," she hissed in a tide of pain that annoyed him because she did not break, shatter into little, irretrievable pieces ground like fine sand as he would have thought, but remained like a shadow to dress in her own misery, braid it in her hair and dangle it from her ears like jewels.

She said she was going to die and he was going to die some day too and her forsaken lover might already be dead and she was still there, right there, alive and breathing and aching with revolting emotions to bear the tale like scars on her peach skin. Her damnable peach skin that hid veins and flesh, muscles and bone and so much scarlet blood that was also true blue. If she had a heart anymore, it was a pool of salt water to sting her wounds and he wondered what it would taste like going down his throat, swallowing all that misery. He despised himself for being even so much as curious.

"…What a kid," he mumbled and she quieted as the bugs hummed melodies of new growth and swore at birds who tried to eat them. "Everyone dies," he grumbled and she was a six year old little girl who he could step on and crush, yet she was sixteen and some months and not so naïve as when she was merely sixteen and no months.

"Bastard…" she muttered and it wasn't to him, but to somewhere out in the sky where maybe someone else who lied and pretended and gave false promises even as he loved and stole her heart with his thieving hands might lie. She couldn't know, might never, and she maybe wondered what it would be like not to care. She probably wished she could slap her absent beau, only if she could she'd melt into his arms instead. And maybe faint in delirium.

"I miss him," she began and Amarant didn't want to hear this, listen to her sorrows, like little nails that pinched everywhere, pulling this way and that, hesitant, yet sharp all the same. He stood and there were bugs crawling through his clothes like brash explorers. She grabbed his arm, struggling to her own feet. "Amarant!" She pleaded, wanting an answer to that question all that time ago back in Alexandria, back in summer, back in the past that neither of them could forget. The question was dark clouds and hidden lightning embroidered across her dress. She was lost, perfect, emotion, beautiful; all the things he couldn't stand.

She pulled on his arm and he gripped her delicate hand, agitated that she would try to cajole an answer out of him, her when she was so fragile and the Queen of Fools who could not divine the truth with her own senses. Her hand was soft and slim, peach and cream and small fingers with perfect nails. He pressed the valley of her palm to his granite mouth. And then he stalked away because she was irritating with her childish demands and tempers. She remained with no answer.

She thinks...

Sitting in an empty throne room, hair trailing over her peach skin like obsidian spider web as vacant eyes roamed imaginary distances is how he found her at the beginning of summer. She was quiet as he entered. No hello, no how are you, no talk of time passed since their last meeting. Only silence. He wanted to regret being there, wanted to regret having taken that first step into the Alexandrian throne room that was lit orange-gold by fading sunlight and long reaching shadows. He wanted to know what regret felt like coating his skin, but he didn't feel it, not one bit. Instead he approached her, steps upon steps upon steps and it had almost been a year since he had last been in Alexandria.

"Do you think he's coming back?" She asked and it was a shriek, a roar, a scream, a broken cry, petals falling from her hazel eyes. He grabbed her, grabbed as he'd been dreaming in his mind so long, he grabbed her and shoved her back into her hard, cold throne where she had been sitting, listless, lifeless, for hours going into hours, and kissed her roughly, strongly, harshly, violently.

He kissed her and the summer rain turned to steam. He kissed her and the fall leaves burst into flames. He kissed her and the river ice smashed to pieces. He kissed her and the velvet pollen was mere dust. He kissed her, grabbed her, yanked her close and down his throat, tasted her misery, turned her inside out and ran his hands everywhere; he kissed her hard and fast and drowning all around. All the petals falling from her haunting, killing, wondrous hazel eyes soared away.

No more tears, no more crying, no more sobbing; she returned his violence with a ferocity of her own and suddenly it was a battle, a challenge. Her slim, weak hands grabbed his face and they were inconceivably strong, the nails latching onto his skin pinching and tight, drawing his blood. He crushed her against her hollow, empty throne, her bones creaking with protest and still he didn't stop, didn't relent, just kept pressing and pressing and the idle, carved decorations were going to be pressed into her back for eternity, but he didn't care, no one cared. Her face was turning blue from lack of air and still she didn't pull away, didn't break, didn't crumble into nothing.

Where were all his pretty principals, his promises on never touching another man's girl? He didn't know, gone out the window with his common sense because he was kissing the Queen of Alexandria in the very throne room she gave holy order from and she was letting him slide his hand up her thigh and anyone might see at all. He was kissing the fabled hero's woman and he wasn't going to stop and she had gone insane because he was touching her and she didn't pull away, didn't say, "What the hell are you doing Amarant? When he gets back he's going to kick your ass for molesting me and my dog of a knight is going to put a bounty worth a small kingdom on your head if he doesn't get you himself," and all things she could do to make him leave, make him wander off and never come back, she didn't do.

All these months she'd been waiting, waiting, waiting for her man to come back and he couldn't figure it out at all. Not one bit.

Loyalty and love and passion and undying devotion; he couldn't understand, couldn't comprehend it, but she had, was, it. Chastity was sticking its tongue in his mouth and trying to suck his soul out through his gums and Chastity tasted like peaches bursting between his teeth. And her hands were in his hair, pulling, twining, tugging, ripping him apart even as he ate her alive and he was blackness and she was blackness and he'd never known, but now he did. And she consumed him whole.

Throughout the summer he kissed her until the past fell away to burn in flames and turn to ash that became part of a million specks of sand on some distant beach that no one had ever even heard of. She was surprisingly dark and alive and whole and ugly and twisted and so much more than beautiful. There was a certain savagery when her lips clashed with his, feather down against unforgiving steel. They didn't talk; no more questions, no more empty chatter. He would grab her and bring their mouths together in a bruising way as his hands traveled her body and she found endless diversions in his flaming red hair, pulling and twirling and tugging till he thought he might be bald.

It didn't really make any sense. She was the Queen of Alexandria which meant look, but never ever touch. He found himself killing this Queen whenever he laid eyes upon her. He murdered her swiftly and efficiently as he was known for. His thick arm would become attached to her waist as he pressed her against a wall, a table, a statue and a commoner who didn't care about propriety came to life, letting him stick his tongue in her mouth in a most unbecoming manner.

He wanted to say he wasn't taking advantage of her in her yearning for her absent lover. He wanted to say he wasn't manipulating her longing little heart. When he told her to stop once, just once, and she informed him, primly, politely, that he'd best shut up and get on with things, he felt glad that he could say those things. Because he found he was not in control of this treason they were committing together and he couldn't fathom how it even occurred, time and time again.

He didn't care about anyone, anything, nothing at all. She cared about everything. They didn't mix. She'd cry over a flower he'd squish and he'd spit on it and she'd tell him he was a horrible brute or something like that would happen. And then she'd be joined to him at the lips, hands sliding under his tunic and he was sure he hadn't consented to that at all. She didn't care, not one bit.

"Do you love me?" She asked once and he was startled by the question. "No," he growled automatically. "You never hold back," she murmured and it was true because he wouldn't lie, wouldn't tell her pretty things she might want to hear, would say the truth cutting and simple like his sharp, serrated throwing weapons. He never gave her false promises. He never gave her promises. He never even gave her expectations. She could understand that.

Throughout the summer he visited her, he visited her and he kissed her and he touched her and he made her alive. No one saw, no one knew, and that was how they preferred it. That made it right.

Far off on the royal balcony, ready to watch a play with ornaments like stars in her backdrop of heavens' hair is how he found her at the end of summer. He sat in the lower audience and watched too.

He watched it all end and he told himself it was just a fling, just a summer fling. They both had reputations to uphold, or he did anyways. She was so far gone in love struck foolishness he could have set her costly dress on fire and she wouldn't have noticed a thing. Idiot.

Later he grabbed her in an empty corridor and shoved her up against the wall, smothered her lips with his, threatening to devour her with a kiss. He groped her intimately to complete the picture before pulling away. "You kiss like you're twelve," he told her. And then she blinked and he was gone.

She and Amarant never were more than vague comrades—she thinks that's because he is the Devil's older brother.

That he is the elder there is no doubt; she sometimes thinks he must have been there before Gaia was even born.

Before oceans spread or skies wept or life breathed, there was Amarant Coral, alone, silent, and always, always, always, forever and eternity coupled with perpetuity, agitated.

She thinks he tastes like infinity.

Next time they met he agreed peach might be a tiny bit of a color, maybe.