Disclaimer: This story is a revamp of in-game events with a twist. Due to the nature of this plot, some of the dialogue is directly translated or inspired from dialogue in the game and is not mine. Nothing is mine but my love for this game.

The Hunt

Freya didn't know what compelled her to sign up for the Festival of the Hunt every year.

It certainly wasn't fond memories, as she distinctly remembered being knocked out within the first ten minutes of her very first hunt. The next two years, she had lost horribly to Fratley, not having caught on then that two or three dire wolves weren't worth a quarter of a Zagnol's hide. The next four times, she had lost because Fratley wasn't there and she'd kept running down empty alleyways thinking he was. The tournament itself had lost the edge of excitement many years ago and had become another dreadful chore, another rote she would endure during the passing of the season.

She had thought about signing up last minute this year because she hoped Fratley would come this time (this time, always this time in her thoughts, never this time in reality), but that's not what ended up happening. This time she had been half way drunk last night when some lunker at Bobo's had questioned her capabilities. Stupidly, she had signed the paper before wiping the floor with his face. And the counters. And the floor again, when he bloodied it up. Now if she didn't win the tournament, Bobo would indenture her for imperiling his business in the act of defending her honor. As it was, he was her "sponsor" and she'd have to say some crappy "I get my beer at Bobo's!" line when she accepted the cup. It didn't help that his wife had taken a shining to that sparkler they were touting as one of the awards.

So here she was sitting at a bar in the middle of Lindblum staring darkly into a glass of water and wondering how her life had gotten here. It didn't bode well for Burmecia if one of her Dragoons could be pinned by a death stare from a portly man with tomato sauce in his mustache on the other side of the bar.

Molly, his new serving girl, brushed Freya's coat tails as she flitted by. She was wearing an atrocious dress with large ruffled fabric at the shoulders and a long green skirt designed to trip a girl. It was for some island inspired theme Bobo had concocted to get more customers through the door. When Freya caught Bobo staring at her pointedly, she shuddered and returned to her water. She had to win the tournament.

Then she sighed.

Truth be told, she had hauntedthe Doom Pub for many years. Bobo had seen the worst in her—and more of the worst of her, actually. That fact he was threatening only to make her work as a serving girl was probably more that she deserved, because he knew what happened when she got one too many Fireballs in her. He still served them to her, though, even knowing it would lead to trouble, because he had some inkling or instinct as to why she kept showing up the nineteenth day of the first month every year. She felt shame, some days, that she was so transparent in her pain. But most days she didn't care that she was flashing old scars, if only for the comfort that some things never changed; the same greeting, the same banter, the same drink and glass to drown herself in.

Well, she'd gotten an early start yesterday. She'd have to suffice with cold sobriety this time around.

Freya looked down at the chilled water in her hands. The glass—her glass—was an old style, patterned in geometric shapes and had the cloudy quality of stained glass. It reminded her of the ruined basilicas that spotted the Cleyran desert, ancient stone structures that had once been a place of Burmecian worship before a religious divide a thousand years ago had kicked up the sand storm that now protected Yggdrassil, or Cleyra as it was now known. She had spent many years wrapped in desert linen and finding shelter in those abandoned halls, picking her way across floors littered with colored glass like painted rainbows. There was quiet presence in those halls, tamed by the sand storms that blew continually through, like memories and regrets present but buried beneath piles of sand. Sometimes, she would catch herself dreaming of happier times, and the glass would always glitter and fade around her like a prolonged wink.

When Fratley had first left, she had turned to the deserts first because he had loved the ruins even as he despised their emptiness, the remainder of a history eroding and forgotten. She, who loved the dewy fields of the plains, the little streams, the sound of running water on stone, spent horrible nights listening to the piercing wind behind broken walls and wondering what mystique, if any, Fratley sensed here. What wonder lay anywhere beyond the Burmecian borders, a microcosm of its own with swamps, fields, mountains and trees. Nothing could replace the pitter-patter of rain as her lullaby, but she listened and tried to understand. Eventually she did. As she always had.

As children, Fratley had always been one step ahead of her. He'd learned to walk first, her crawling after him, face full of baby distress. He'd left for academy as she struggled through the primary education he had flown through, and had become a squire when she had finally, begrudgingly been accepted as a page. As a child, she didn't remember a time where she hadn't been chasing him. When she would want to sit quietly under a tree trunk and listen to the gurgles of the water, he would poke and tease her until she chased him in the fields, wanting to ring his tail around his neck. He was always too quick. The four-year age gap between them had been so vast.

When they became knights, things began to change. Nights by candlelight studying scrolls, shoulders a breath apart, knees occasionally bumping, his hand tucking her hair behind her ear. Those months were the best of her life, as the lance finally began to feel like an extension of her, as the histories they studied came alive when she stood under this tree or that roof and knew whose blood had been shed for duty. Duty. She came to love that word, how it ordered her life and gave direction where there had only been wandering. And in those days, Fratley was beside her, entwined with her, never far from her touch.

She didn't know then that what she saw as paradise must have felt like a cage to Fratley. She didn't see, or perhaps refused to see, his solitary profile as he looked out a window to the world beyond their borders, and the pain in his shoulders when she would call for him to come away.

She should have known it had been too good to be true. Nothing in her life had ever been easy.

And now she was chasing him again.

Lips thinning, Freya took a sip of her water and slammed the glass on the bar. Bobo flicked his eyes to her but she stared resolutely behind the bar, at the poster dangling on the wall with her name like chicken scratch at the bottom.

So, the Hunt. Signing that paper had been stupid.

There was a grunt as someone slumped into the barstool beside her. A machinist, from the smell of oil and the grease on his hands and face. Freya didn't look up, even when he glanced at her and snorted at the water in her hands.

"Special day?" he asked wryly, flagging Bobo for a beer. Or three.

If by "special" he meant the day half her soul walked away, never to return? "Very," she said quietly.

He grunted, taking the hint at her tone, and turned away from her to enjoy his beers. Her fists clenched slightly against the glass.

She didn't need some random bastard living it up in the Doom Pub judging what she did and why she did it. She slanted a glare at her neighbor. This guy probably lived in his parent's basement and worked at some construction site two blocks from his house. He'd probably never been out of the city for more than a month, had never weathered the desert or hiked up the northern mountains or faced near death at the hands of any number of creatures. He didn't know what it meant at sixteen to have the only person who had ever believed in her disappear and leave her to fend for herself against teachers and classmates who'd only abused her…

Only then did she notice the guy was awkwardly hunched over his beers as far from her as possible.

Rei's tit, she needed a beer too. There was a reason she made an effort to be drunk today. And if she couldn't get one here she was going to find the next nearest pub, purchase a keg, and dunk her head in it. It didn't matter if Bobo was now giving her pitying looks. She raised her glass to her lips, suddenly wishing the scent of sand.

The bar door opened with a loud clatter. "Yo Pops, I'll have the stupid special."

Freya paused mid swallow. That sounded familiar. She turned slightly to the door.

A teen strode in, adolescent swagger on full blast. Knee-worn trousers and a threadbare vest told her he worked and slept in his clothes; the pair of nice looking daggers perched on his hip spoke of travelling. That arrogant smile on his baby face and the way he whistled at the server girl made her just want to punch him in the face. But it was the twitching furry tail that twined like a serpent behind him that made her return to her drink, lips pursed, and forget all about her plans to drown in a sea of alcohol.

Well, well. He was still alive, was he?

He looked different. Part of her expected to turn around and see that scrawny thirteen year old boasting about his latest catch on the streets of Treno and inevitably getting the tar beat out of him for it. She remembered how she'd passed him on the bridge, thinking he was just another unlucky kid sucked into the underbelly of the streets, always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then he'd come sauntering into the same café sporting a black eye like a badge, hounding the waitress with the most obnoxious pick up lines imaginable. She'd felt like it was her divine duty to knock further sense into him and be blessed forevermore by all womankind.

Much like she did right now, actually.

"–you've never seen Lindblum from above? It's pretty mind blowing. I'd bet you'd like that," Zidane was saying, trying to cajole Molly closer with that crooked grin. Unfortunately, it seemed like time had made it far more effective.

Freya set her cup down, disgusted. "Hey, monkey-tail. I'm pretty sure your mother just rolled in her grave with that one."

Zidane looked up. Those icy blue eyes met hers and for the tiniest of seconds her breath caught in her throat. Well damn. It looked like he'd finally grown into all that overly excessive charm.

Then those eyes looked her up and down and she just wanted to punch him again. He smirked. "Monkey-tail? I'm pretty sure you've got a tail too, sweetheart."

Freya surveyed her cup. "Sweetheart? Hmm. I'm going to finish this drink here, then I'm going to kick your ass, sweetheart."

From the other side of the bar, Bobo slapped down his hand towel. "Zidane!" he barked. "Stop disturbing the customers."

Zidane waved a hand, smiling. "No worries, pops." Waitress forgotten, he sauntered over to the remaining open seat to Freya's left and swung into it. He reclined in it like a throne, those icy hooded eyes flicking over her. He was grinning like a fool. It was all she could do to keep sipping her water and not roll her eyes.

"Been awhile, Zidane," she said instead. Because it really had been if he'd turned into…this.

Zidane scratched his head. "Uh yeah, it has…uhh…"

She stared at him. He put a finger to his head in an exaggerated thinking pose.

"Martha?" At her glare, he waved his hands. "No? No, of course not. Sorry, you're…Helga, right?"

"Wrong," she deadpanned.

He playfully hit his head. "Silly me. It's Rachel. It is, right? I just didn't recognize you, is all. You're kinda…uh…different."

She was reaching for the nearby butter knife when he laughed and intercepted her hand. "Chill out, Freya!" His palms were callused. She didn't remember that, or the way the sound of her name made her feel suddenly warm.

"You're a loser," she told him.

"True enough." He wrapped both his hands around hers, grinning and leaned forward with a conspiratorially wink. "But I'd never forget you." He rubbed her knuckle with his thumb, causing an odd sensation to flit up her arm. When she moved to jab him with an elbow he let go, holding both hands up in surrender, still smiling infuriatingly.

She really didn't remember this. She also didn't remember what it was like to be flirted with. Or what it felt like to enjoy it.

As she stared at him, Zidane stretched, yawning and turned to the barkeep. "Hey Pops. Where's my special? I ordered it years ago."

Bobo whistled. Everyone at the bar lifted their glasses and Bobo slid a soup dish from the far end of the bar. It stopped with perfect precision in front of Zidane. He looked at it, frowning. "Hey! Where's the—" He caught the bread thrown at his face.

"You're the best!" he called, grinning. Bobo muttered and went back to wiping glasses. Molly tittered and Zidane threw her another flirtatious wink. Freya shook her head.

"I guess you haven't changed that much…" she said, returning to her glass.

Zidane snorted around a mouthful of soup. "No way. I'm a changed man. For one, I don't get beat up so much anymore."

"Well that's a relief," Freya replied. "It won't be much fun beating you up if were still a crybaby."

Zidane pointed his spoon at her. "Still on that? Come on, you know I was joking." His eyes flashed. "I'm sure we can settle this in a more…pleasant way."

Freya ignored those eyes…and that mouth, which was still corny as hell but slightly more enticing then before. He was sixteen, for Rei's sake. She fixated on the tournament poster. "Speaking of a beating…hey," she nudged him, "You gonna be in that?" She nodded her head towards it.

Zidane squinted his eyes. "Oh that? Nah. Too much of a hassle."

"Lazy and a loser," she said, shaking her head.

"Hey now," he said, "I'm a busy man. Things to do, places to see, people to save." The way he mumbled that last part made her pause.

She eyed him. "Another journey?"

"Yeah. I'm looking forward to a real bed; was getting sick of sleeping on the ground." He scratched his head. He looked thoughtful. "Though its not so bad this time. I've got friends with me." He took another mouthful of soup.

"I see." Sounded nice. Freya looked at the poster again. "Well, I'll be in it."

"Yeah?" Zidane swallowed. "You're in it like every year though, aren't you? Which reminds me…did you ever find that boyfriend of yours?"

Freya stilled. "…No."

Zidane scratched his head again. He had the decency to look sheepish. "I see…well, I'm sure you'll find him someday."

Freya said nothing. They sat in silence for a long while, him eating his soup and her drinking her water. Eventually, he asked, "How's Burmecia?"

She rubbed the top of her glass with a finger. "Wouldn't know." What they both heard: There is nothing there for me anymore.

"Oh." He grimaced, and then sighed. "Sometimes I don't know what to say to you, Freya."

That surprised her. It…stung. She looked down, wondering when she'd got so soft. "Wow. You've become a real charmer, monkey brains."

He seemed to realize his mistake. He slouched over the table, trying to look up at her through her bangs. His eyes flicked between hers. "Sorry. That didn't come out right." He sounded apologetic.

She avoided his gaze. "It's fine." It probably stung because it was kind of true.

"I didn't mean it as an insult to you." Those eyeballs were invasive! "You're awesome. I only meant that I always bring up the wrong stuff. I'd rather make you laugh."

Okay. Was this an apology? Cause he really needed to stop. "I get it," she deadpanned. She wracked her brain for something to derail him. "Tell me a joke, then."

"A joke?" He sat up, stroking his chin. "Okay. Here's a great one. What kind of pick-up line does a Burmecian like?"

"You know what? Never mind. I don't want to hear it."

"The cheesy kind." he nudged, grinning. "Cheesy. Get it?"

She shook her head. "That was…no."

"You're smiling," he pointed out.

"Because I am amused at your idiocy."

"Suuuure. As long as you keep smiling."

She rolled her eyes. "Zidane, please. This…flirting thing doesn't work on me. I'll always remember you as that kid who tried to schmooze a kiss out of a shop keeper's daughter and got shot with an arrow in the b—."

He clapped a hand over her mouth, face beat red. "Ehehe…what are you talking about?" He flashed a smile at a nearby patron.

She moved to kick him but he jumped off his stool, tail dancing.

"Do that again and I will stab you," she threatened.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, shrugging her off. He slid back on the stool and resumed eating his bread. "Just so you know, there's been a lot of changes since then. I am loads better with the ladies now."

"I sincerely doubt that." This conversation was mind-boggling. Suddenly, she was very tired.

Zidane slapped his bread on the table. "Don't believe me? Fine. Prepare yourself, cause now I have to prove it to you. There was this one time I was on this fishing boat off the coast—

Freya thumped her forehead against the bar. "Telling me a story does not prove anything," she said wearily. "And frankly, I really should be going." There was keg with her name on it somewhere…

Zidane patted her back. "Ahh, where is your sense of imagination? Clearly, you are far too sober. Hey Pops, give the lady a drink, would ya?"

Yeah right. He wouldn't-

Clink. She felt cold glass against her hand. She looked up to see Zidane grinning down at her. "You've been wanting one, right? I remember." He wiggled a bottle at her. His eyes were bluer than any of those desert skies. "Stay with me. I promise I won't bore you."

Freya stared at him, feeling an odd flush up her neck. She didn't know what to say to that or what to think of it. Or even if she should think of it.

But she stayed.