He Loves Me Not

Rating: T
Warnings: Semi-violence, character deaths, unrequited affection, one-sided Zora/Cort, spoilers for the Floating Castle part of the game, and I guess references to other spoilers.
Disclaimer: Despite asking Santa Claus for rights to Legaia, I don't have them, nor any ownership of the game.
A/N: I felt like writing angsty obsessive Zora, and this pretty much followed from there. Lu was supposed to be closer to how I wrote her in Destruction Again, but it didn't fit with the mood, so she isn't. Which makes it Not Go Together. Thanks to Noa Castle from Gaia Online for getting me the script to the Floating Castle fight scene.

Looking in the mirror, Zora thought it again and again: she definitely preferred how she used to be.

Her skin had changed. It used to look natural, and now she looked on the verge of inhuman. If Cort had anything resembling a normal taste in women, he surely wouldn't like her this way. And the wings! The wings were pretty at first glance, she had to admit. But pretty hardly made up for the shock she felt every time she saw them in her reflection, or that when she was excited, they could knock over things on shelves, or that they made her look even less like a regular woman. She'd mostly learned to control them, and it wasn't that she didn't appreciate the Mist for all it meant to Cort, because she did. But she used to consider herself quite beautiful, and now it was getting harder to tell herself that nothing's wrong, honey, you're as much of a looker as you were the day you met him. She knew it would happen eventually, of course. It was a fact of life, and one she'd come to accept, that beauty was transient. But she'd prepared herself to lose her beauty by getting older (with all hope, gracefully), not with strange skin colors and wings poking out of her back. Were Zora now and Zora then even the same woman?

None of this was normal. It wasn't human. She'd given up guessing whether she was really Zora anymore, deciding that she felt Cort was important now, and she could remember feeling that Cort was important back then, which made who she currently was close enough to Zora that it didn't really matter. But she felt different. It was different being inside a body merged with Seru and Mist than being a normal human.

Aging happened to everyone. Cort couldn't have faulted her for aging, since it would happen to him, too. Aging was human. Wings were not.

She remembered walking with him through Conkram so long ago. He'd tell her about the Mist project, and she'd listen, but really, she'd be gazing at him, thinking, dear Tieg, he loves me, he loves me, how could this be any better. And he'd explain everything to her, telling her just what she needed to do and how, and it was just her and him (even when everyone else was there, too), and despite everything else, she was happy.

She was human back then.

But really, any problem is better than the problem you have. She'd never have accepted aging if it was ever going to happen to her, if it was a real risk instead of some far-off reminder of humanity. If the Mist never happened, if she still had a normal human body, she'd lament every line in her skin, worrying herself to death if she had that "fading" look about her. It didn't matter if she liked the wings or not, or if she liked to fly, because a woman who looked like that wasn't something a normal man would like.

She had to admit Cort wasn't exactly a normal man, but that didn't mean he wouldn't prefer beautiful women to women who… used to be beautiful. But it wasn't as if she wasn't still a woman. It wasn't as if she still couldn't do the things she used to. It wasn't as if she wasn't helpful anymore.

And there were the flowers on the vanity. He brought her the flowers, didn't he? This must mean he loved her. He had to have loved her. These were Cort's flowers after all, right?

No, they were Lu's flowers, Zora remembered. And they were only there because Zora was being ridiculous, and Lu knew it.

"Lu?"

"What is it, Lady Zora?" replied the girl in a cold, businesslike manner. Zora knew Lu was just a bodyguard, much less a bodyguard who didn't particularly like Zora very much. Such a person could die at any time, no matter how unexpected or unceremonious. Zora didn't especially care about Lu either, but there was a chance that Lu would die today, or tomorrow, or sometime soon. The Delilases had the mission to Nivora Ravine in a few days, after all, and there really was no guarantee they'd make it. Chances were pretty much even. And Lu was, after all, the only other person around who she could possibly ask about Cort.

"There's something I've been wondering," said Zora. "Perhaps you could lend me your opinion?" She wouldn't ask Gi or Che—they worked for her, true, but she wouldn't let them think she was weak. If she already had to be ugly and inhuman, there was no way she'd be obsessive and weak, too. She certainly wouldn't ask Jette—that would be like begging to let Cort know she doubted his word. He'd never said he loved her, but he'd called her valuable. That was similar enough, wasn't it?

"My opinion?" asked Lu, in the tone of voice that made it obvious Lu found the situation sketchy. "I'm only a commoner, Lady. There's nothing I could think of that you wouldn't already know." Was there a hint of derision in her voice? It couldn't be. After all, this was only Lu, who knew she'd lose her job if she was ever rude to Zora. Since she was the only other woman around, and maybe she would understand, Lu was the only one Zora could ask. And Lu had to let her ask and Lu had to give an answer, just as much as Zora had to know what the answer was.

"It's something difficult for me to see on my own," said Zora, still rather coolly despite the importance of the matter. "Any other perspective would be of use." Lu sighed a little bit.

"Ask away."

"Do you believe that…" Zora cut off, and then rapidly started again, because if she didn't ask now, she never would, "that Cort… cares for me?"

She'd sounded much more desperate than she'd wanted to, given Lu the wrong impression of her (although the correct one). She needed to be the boss, to be in control, to keep her little world and never let them think she was a silly little girl who cared more about Cort than about their mission.

Lu stared. She didn't say anything, nor did Zora. The tension in the air was obvious, and Zora wished she'd never brought it up at all.

As hard as it was for Zora to believe, there were people in worse situations than her. There were things worse than wondering if he returns her feelings. What about the betrayed Sorens, the frozen, Seru-possessed citizens of Buma? What about the young couple torn apart because of these events? Yes, there were people worse off than Zora, and she'd put them in those situations. There were people getting older, waiting for the clock to wind down, and hoping that before it does, their frozen, Seru-possessed loved ones in Buma might be saved enough to see them again. Hoping their children, husbands, wives, lovers, friends would still recognize them after ten years' time. Once you think of it that way, Zora didn't have it so bad. This was getting older, and it was worse. At least Zora wouldn't get older.

That was probably the reason Zora didn't think of it that way.

"You want to know if he's in love with you, like he says he is?" Lu asked.

"That's…that's right. I didn't expect you to be so blunt."

"There's something I learned, growing up in the village." Zora should have realized something was up when Lu was grinning like that. "It's just a children's game, but I can't think of anything else. I don't know much about love. You take a flower, pull the petals until only one's left, and you go, 'he loves me', 'he loves me not', as you pull them off." She demonstrated, making plucking motions as she explained. "Once you get to the last one, whatever you'd say there is, well, what it is. If it's 'he loves me', then he loves you. If it's 'he loves me not', then—"

"You're not to discuss that possibility," Zora quickly said, cutting Lu off.

"I'll go get the flowers then. We'll see what happens." And Zora sat there, waiting on her throne, while Lu got the flowers. The room was cold, she was worried about Cort, and Lu could just as easily run to her brothers and laugh at poor old Zora's crazy obsession, as she could go and get the damn flowers and return like she was supposed to. So Zora waited, and she waited, and she waited, and in much longer than Zora would have liked, Lu showed up again. She'd brought a vase of flowers.

"Take one," said Lu, "any one of them, it doesn't matter." Zora pulled out a rather thin-stemmed one, with its petals ugly and clumped together. She held it lightly.

"Now, pull the petals off, like I said," instructed Lu. Zora took a petal in her fingers, and pulled.

"He loves me," she said.

She ripped off another one. Lu smirked.

"He loves me not."

There weren't many petals left; definitely less than ten. Zora would have looked closer, but Lu was standing right there, waiting for her to continue, and she wasn't paying Lu to stand around and watch this, so she set to work on the next petal.

"He loves me."

Rip.

"He loves me not." There was a petal missing on the flower's side that Zora couldn't remember pulling, but she needed to seem in charge, she couldn't ask Lu about it, she had to keep pulling.

Rip.

"He loves me."

Rip.

"He loves me not."

Rip.

"He loves me." There were only three petals left after she pulled this one, and she wasn't as good with figures and numbers as Cort was, but she could tell what the result was going to be. She hesitated.

"What's the matter, Lady Zora?" asked Lu, her voice only a few shades of fake deference away from contempt. "Don't you want to know?"

"This is silly," said Zora. She tried to sound strong, but only ended up sounding shaky and loud. "Prince Cort's feelings for me won't change based on… something like this."

"If you say so," Lu replied. "May I have your leave to prepare for the coming mission?"

"Certainly," Zora said, just catching her breath, and Lu left.

Zora never did find out whether Lu told her brothers about the flowers. In a couple of days, all three of them were gone and dead, Koru with them. Zora didn't care. It didn't matter to her. They'd failed their mission, so they deserved it.

A plant was just a plant. It didn't matter. Cort still loved her, he really, truly did. Except… maybe he didn't. She brought the flowers into her room, onto her vanity. Some of them had petals already torn away. It didn't matter. She wouldn't touch them. They were only flowers and they couldn't tell her anything, but they brightened the room just a little.

Perhaps Zora believed that the Delilases deserved their deaths, having failed their mission, but when it happened to her, she never saw it coming. There were blood and feathers everywhere, and something felt broken. Everything hurt. But the Mist Generator… she had to get to the Mist Generator, she couldn't fail Cort now, and then it was all a blur of trying to stand and falling down again once she was halfway up. The pain made her dizzy, and the blur shifted. She was pulling herself along on her hands and knees, getting to the Mist Generator any way she could. She couldn't think of it as crawling, not because she wouldn't stoop so low, but because it was just moving now, her mind unable to give it a name.

It wouldn't matter, but she was already dying.

And then Songi was there, and she couldn't hear exactly what he was telling her, but she knew what he meant, she knew she was going to die and the part of her that understood this already hoped he'd get it fucking over with before the rest of her caught up, and it hurt and

"But… Cort loved me… he said he loved me…"

then it hit her just as the pain gets suddenly worse, and then it's done. She's gone from here. She's in the Naoru Valley, or beyond the stars, or maybe just nowhere at all.

And looking back into her mirror, Zora nearly cried. He didn't love her, he didn't, she'd changed too much and maybe he'd loved her at one point but how could he love someone so different from that? Someone who might be a different person altogether? No, he did, he did, he couldn't tell her the things he told her and not love her. It was one or the other, he loved her or he didn't, but she simply had to know.

The flowers were still on her vanity. It was stupid, but there wasn't another way. Those kids and their Ra-Seru had somehow broken in—they weren't just "those kids", not anymore, but to admit that would make her afraid. The Seru would take care of them, of course. But if they didn't? She needed to be quick about this. She closed her eyes, grabbed a flower, and started ripping its petals away.

"He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he…"

She opened her eyes, looked down at the flower, and saw she was on the last petal.

He loves you not, Zora.

No. She wouldn't accept this. She tore and twisted the flower in her hands. She threw it to the ground, and crushed it under her shoe. The whole thing was a silly game, nothing but a silly game. Cort loved her, he really and truly loved her. Lu was wrong, silly, dead Lu, who thought that she could hurt Zora by telling her that Cort didn't love her. Stupid, angry Lu. Cort loved Zora, and he always loved her, and always would. No matter what the flowers said, no matter what her worries said, no matter what Lu or Gi or Che or Jette or any of them did, Cort would still love Zora always and forever.

She felt a sense of calm. Those kids had gotten farther into the castle than Zora would have thought. She'd meet them, destroy them, get them away from her and Cort and they'd be safe and sound and he'd want her even more. She could do anything. She was loved.