And It Must Flourish
a k a n t h a e - h i m e
Authoress' Note & Disclaimer: A small, random response to SilverLocke960's fic called My Choice. It's one of my favorite XII fics so far and I'm completely unashamed to say that this is all I have to offer as thanks for giving me that little piece of almost-chocolate-but-better heaven.
(Just a piece on Vaan and his first experience with guns. Totally random, unedited - because I'm too lazy to call up my beta on weekends, although Meii would probably eat me if I tried not to because we all know how much she loves fic - and written in a style that I hope is similar to the one in My Choice. If not, oh, well. Too bad.)
Also, the ages may be off. I forgot how old Kytes and Filo were.
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He was only two inches taller than the first gun he saw. Trying to lift it had been a quest unto itself. Thieving it would have been out of the question were it not for Vaan's trusty band of sidekicks, friends through parents and painted wooden toys and pranks. Kytes was six, Vaan twice that. Filo was slightly younger than Kytes, proving her worth not by fighting off Seeq merchants, but by being the ultimate distraction. (No one liked seeing a little girl cry.)
His manner of persuasion in the deal was customary: though Vaan had never really taken more than a little step towards his goal back in the day, he was constantly reminding his band of little hoodlums, himself included, that it was just a stepping stone to something better. Back then, Filo and Kytes had both been almost his height. Vaan, in short, was a midget, and Penelo was taller than he was. But he seemed taller because of his charisma. They overlooked his height problems in favor of his speeches...plain, simple, and to the point.
(When Vaan began to grow again, he soon outsized Penelo, who began to wear her mother's big boots outside to play in order to keep up with him. They proved handy when warding off lechers, since they were both heavy and big enough to cover her thighs like suspenders. They also succeeded in raising her several inches so that she was oncemore taller than Vaan...that is, unless they had to take off their shoes to go swimming in Lowtown, where the water was surprisingly fresh. Penelo had never learned much more than how to tread water, something evidently in her favor because Filo delighted in dunking both Vaan - when he could reach - and Filo into the dirtiest spots.)
The thievery, according to Vaan, was but a small step towards "becoming sky pirates and kicking Imperial ass."
Reks fwapped him on the back of his knees later when Vaan recounted how it had all begun, clapping his hands over Penelo's ears so she wouldn't hear such talk. Vaan still had the scars when he met Balthier.
(There had always been tension between Archadia and Rozzaria. It was only ever the crown's fault that Dalmasca happened to be sandwiched inbetween.)
But when it began, there was nothing Reks, the big brother to everyone and much taller than Vaan ever was, even in death, could do. Vaan snuck off after curfew - the Reks-imposed sort of curfew - right when the street crowds were dissipating. It was with no amount of sublety that he kicked an Imperial in the shins, let Kytes trip another, and pushed over a cart of rotten-looking vegetables on the pair's companions - guards for one of the Archadian nobles who looked as though they hadn't had much of a ruckus that night.
Not yet, at least. Laughing and dashing away, Vaan kept them in check only by slowing down every once in a while and pelting them with gil stolen from their own purses.
When they finally caught him, he looked half-dead, much more skinny and worthy of the title street kid than he'd been five minutes prior. And with a shower of tears worthy of what gods of misery and misfortune there were, he launched into a childish tirade on how his father was a bully who made his children attack Imperials because he thought they were scum. (The story had been Filo's idea. It was the only reason Vaan knew the word, 'blasphemous.' People had a habit of saying that when he recounted the same story.) He also mentioned that his father was Rozzarian through Vaan's 'grandmother' and that Vaan's sister had been sold to a Rozzarian noble called Al-Cid.
(Vaan would later reflect on this with a hint of irony when talking with Penelo in the Stilshrine, upon which she would berate him even more, as all sisters did. He wouldn't pay much attention either.)
The Imperials arrested the weapons vendor to whom Vaan had been referring. They were too stupid to notice that the Seeq was...well, a Seeq, and that Vaan, Filo, and Kytes (who had run off in another direction, coming home only after he'd skewered a few rats as apologies for being so incompetent - another word Vaan learned from Filo, whose mother was a scribe) were all Humes. They were too lazy to drag his merchandise along with them.
Vaan tottered home with the gun dragging behind him in the dirt. The next day, however, when he woke up with the gun jabbing his side annoyingly, he felt so guilty for the merchant (who had been released promptly after he pointed out his race and Vaan's differed) that he left gil on his doorstep to compensate every day for the next week. He over-counted the gun's price by twenty gil and ended up having to do some of Reks' chores that week for stealing money from underneath his older brother's mattress. Vaan justified his theft by saying that it was for a good cause, assuming that it would go to the Seeq's family.
He had no family. And the gun turned out to be useless. After finding out he'd need gunpowder and shot to make it work, Ratsbane gave up on learning how to use it and left that on the Seeq's doorstep as well, refraining from asking for a refund with what restraint he had. But the Seeq had fled south to Mt. Bur-Omisace, simply packing up his things one night and leaving before daybreak. A Lowtown-dwelling Hume had taken the house for himself. He was an elderly man who only wanted to live in peace, so the appearance of the gun disturbed him quite a bit. When he chucked it out the window in disgust, Vaan filled the twin barrels of the musket with locust shells and dead spiders and chucked the thing back in the window.
Penelo scolded him later for being so naive.