Author's Note: This is a little thing I've been working on inbetween working on a slightly bigger fic that I promised people over at livejournal :) Hope you enjoy it, please review even if you don't, because it helps me get better :) Thanks!
Disclaimer: It's a very sad situation but I don't own Balthier or Fran, or any aspect of Final Fantasy XII.
It is not love. It cannot be love.
That is what I will tell myself every morning, when I wake by his side and look across at his slumbering form, my eyes travelling across the sharply defined features of his face; the contours of his body.
That is what I will tell myself in the heat of battle, when I find myself fascinated by his energy; his adrenaline; the way his gun will never miss; the way he dispatches each enemy with still enough time to make a sarcastic comment or joke.
It is what I will tell myself when we soar through the sapphire skies of Ivalice, free and alive; when he will turn to me and smile, and I will wonder, just for a moment, if he truly is a Hume; his ethereal beauty leaving me spellbound.
It is not love. It is not love. It is not love.
Sometimes it bears repeating, lest I forget and take myself for a being that is permitted the feeling. I know he would make that mistake. He has whispered the words to me many times, in the dark of the night, and I have known them to be truthful. When I do not reply, it does not concern him; he simply says that he will wait. He has the optimism of a Hume, at least. It is an optimism I should not allow him, but he will hear none of it and persists in his confidence.
I cannot love.
It is only recently I have been able to define the term; a product of my association with the Humes. For the Viera, love does not exist. I have come to appreciate that this is difficult for a Hume to understand; it is hard for them to envisage a life without love; just as hard as it is for a Viera to understand a life with it. Viera are a race more familiar with respect and admiration. From my earliest days, I was taught to respect my fellow Viera and admire them. Not to love them.
But since then I have been amongst the Humes and seen for myself what love is. I have seen children left orphaned when their parents were killed in the war; I have seen women lose husbands; I have seen friends separated forever. Love is wonderful but terrible; it is beautiful but tainted with horror; it can give you everything one moment and take away all that you have in the next. I now can understand why my people choose not to acknowledge it, and yet I believe they are poorer still without it.
But it does not mean that I love.
Does it?
I am no longer sure. The fickle creature that is love; is it worth the risk? Is it worth the pain; the struggling; the effort, just to feel its wonder? When I look at the orphaned children; the widowed women; the divided friends, I think it is not.
When I look at him I feel in my heart that it might be.
He is a Hume and I am Viera kind. I will outlive him—he will grow old, wither and die. The luck and skill he is so famous for is certain to run out before long—without the benefit of senses as heightened as mine, he can only try his fortune for so long. All this is true. And yet… it no longer seems to matter. Now, my heart cries when he is not with me; my soul is a hollow, empty shell; my ears strain to hear his eloquent, beautiful speech. I am no longer a true Viera, merely Viera kind. It is how I am defined, but my true being is that of a Hume, and I am becoming less and less myself. I am no longer Fran unless my name is paired with his; I am no Viera warrior unless I am his Viera warrior. I am becoming his, and though I should, though my mind fights and argues with my heart, warning it not to be so reckless; I no longer care.
And so I turn to him, and he looks into my eyes with that endless patience and understanding that a Hume of such a young age should not have. He waits, and I pause, gathering the strength to say the words I have been fighting not to say for what seems like so long now, though it has only been 6 years. I am breathing quickly, my heart racing and my hands shaking, but he waits; a gentle smile on his face. I cannot seem to look at him, and when I try to form the words they catch in my throat; not from doubt but from the swell of unfamiliar emotion I am suddenly feeling for him. I manage to raise my head and meet his eyes, taking a deep breath and trying a second time.
But before the words can leave my lips, he places his finger on them gently, quieting me. He rests his forehead against mine, taking me into his arms and cradling me so very tenderly against him. With his fingers still on my lips, he closes his eyes and says simply, "Me too."
And I know for certain that I have finally learnt to love.