Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Square-Enix. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.
Northern Downpour
It was never hatred. Not purely. Just a lot of wasted time and effort and blood, all put out in vain. A jealousy? Perhaps. A quietened envy of a brother who, at the end of their Landis, managed to get out first, managed to escape without having to care for a woman already bitter and dying.
He had loved their mother, who had given everything to protect and care for them. A bit of a hard woman, yes, but a mother just the same.
Perhaps that was what had kept him going all this time, that subtle little thought that made him feel as though he'd been left behind. That Basch had gone on to have what he could not.
Only then, home in her Archades, had their mother been laid to rest.
And so, a free man, he'd gone after Basch, followed his brother's footsteps in the sand, chased his shadow until the night hid it well and away. Until the day his efforts had paid off, bringing them together again, one with a pure allegiance to a new nation, the other with naught but a solid disdain and a length of steel to serve.
It had made him empty in the end, that grudge, clouding his heart from his own mind.
Left alone he should have been, but having only just found one another again, Basch just wouldn't let him go. Not without feeling the warmths of home once more.