Come Home

Author's Note:

Larsa and Penelo's relationship is just so sad. They keep fighting for themselves but they'd never come through. It's the reality of the situation. So my role is to tell their story, their sad, sad story. I don't know why I love character deaths. I just can't stop killing everyone.

Acknowledgements:

Ryan, until then, come home please.

Drew, will it be, I don't know.

Anthony, brother and love, until his own end.

The petty letters of greedy senators and politicians…

Emperor Larsa threw them at the fire without looking up to see their subtly insinuating words burn against the crackling parchment. A thin line of translucent smoke billowed up, and Larsa turned his head away from the singed papers.

It was not like Larsa to carelessly throw papers, even though he knew that the letters were turn-coated, he always gave them a skim of a glance. But perhaps today, he felt worse than usual.

Larsa Solidor had seen seven years pass by sitting down on the same desk, signing the seemingly same papers, seeing the same politicians, stopping the same war. Perhaps he was tired, tired of all the same things rushing past him in a ragged blur as he sat sighing on the same chair. Maybe he was missing his old friends, his friends that shed light on his clouded childhood as a deceiving politician.

He did miss his friends, all his old friends that were away on the skies or one of them sitting on a desk like him, or one of them just outside his door, and maybe one of them that he didn't know where she was.

Larsa had been tracking her around the whole face of Ivalice, and he had found it rather difficult, as she had always flown so fast before he could catch up with her. Then one day it all disappeared. He had lost her and now he was simply waiting for any sign, word, of where she could be.

Larsa's fingers were trembling from the long tedious hours of work, so the emperor sighed, straightened in his tall chair and closed his eyes.

So typical of her to run away from him, he knew that the moment she had found out that he was tracking her, she flew faster than before. And Larsa had always wondered why, but then again, he could not ask her so easily, could he?

Larsa was not the type to sigh to himself as if he was living his last day, he was very much introverted. Not even showing emotions to himself even when he was alone.

He picked up the papers littered on the desktop and slid them under in one of the many drawers below. He wiped the quill on a spare piece of paper and screwed the ink bottle cap back on.

As Larsa Ferrinas Solidor tidied up his rather chaotic desk, he uncovered a small envelope under all the papers and documents and treaties and proposals.

Larsa frowned at the inconspicuous and unassuming envelope. He never missed any inch of paper and never had he seen this one right now.

Still bewildered, Larsa stacked the other papers to the edge of his desk and picked up the letter. He flipped it, and saw his name without a title scrawled on the back.

Odd, Larsa thought, who would send him a letter and not put any of the words 'emperor' or 'his Excellency'. And then the emperor opened it and realized who would send him such.

Larsa,

If you've found this that means that I've run away farther than usual. Sorry about that.

I slipped this into your desk last night; your window was left open. Sorry again about the intrusion. You should close your window because someone might jump and kill you. I guess I have a lot to apologize for, but still, Larsa. I'm in deeper danger than I know.

I only avoid you because I don't want you to get hurt, too. These guys who are after me have really mad motives for money and more money. If they found out that you were associated with me, they'd go after you. Please understand.

I'm not going to hesitate in leaving anymore because these people won't hesitate in ripping out my tongue if they catch me.

Vaan isn't with me.

I'm sorry I missed your birthday, and I really wish I could stay now and see you for myself, but I just can't. I'm sorry and I really, really miss you.

Yellow

Larsa read the hurried scribbles again and again and then he realized that it was Penelo herself who wrote it. The name below gave her away.

He stared at the letter, and then looked behind him to see his balcony window sealed shut, the curtains caught in between, they had been closed from the outside.

Penelo was in danger, and now she said that the best he could do to help was stay away from her. Larsa shook his head and stood up, pocketing the letter.

He left his study room, the fire still burning with the petty letters of greedy senators and politicians.

He walked slowly over the carpeted floor of the study room and twisted the door open and stepped out into the drafty corridors where an unknown Judge stood. Larsa nodded at him and started walking to the main Palace complex, to his room, to his bed.

The walk lasted forever, as he stepped silently with the noisy armor from the Judge across the stoned corridors that lined up with expenses of décor and other useless things of adornment. Larsa had long ago been disgusted at the waste of money on trifles like vases and tapestries.

At least he had reached his bedroom. Now Larsa stepped inside and closed the tall double doors, careful not to let any noise come out of the creaking hinges.

The lights were not lit.

Larsa stepped deeper into the dim room, feeling the walls for the magick-induced switch that would channel mist into the chandelier that hung above his wide bed.

And Larsa had found it; he had flicked it on and squinted against the sudden light.

His room was grand in every way he knew, but he knew not the difference since he had grown in rooms if not as grand as the one he was in now. The fireplace with no fire sat gracefully to the left of the wide and bare bed. Swathed in glorious yellow light, the room was brilliantly lit and the wide walls and the towering ceiling made Larsa a slight agoraphobic ever since birth.

The windowless room was a tactical maneuver ever since the 3rd Solidor emperor had been assassinated with an airship raid. As the walls were covered only in draperies that shone with embossed splendor, the bookshelves that elegantly housed the many books Larsa kept and the tables that bore nothing on their tabletops.

Still, as Larsa stood and stared at the room he had done nothing in but slept, it seemed dull and colorless.

Larsa was dressed in his most comfortable set of clothes in a minute, and he was sitting on his bed barefoot without a word out of his lips. He was young, very young, but it seemed as if his life had been so long due to the many burdens he had faced.

Larsa's eyes were glazing into nothingness as his usual fit of insomnia came through, and he knew he'd sit there for probably more than three hours before he could yawn.

Then the emperor heard a slight tap on the balcony that was sealed as usual. Larsa leaned to his side, trying to see through the blurred glass that could be standing outside on his own balcony.

Larsa got up, and walked over to the balcony, knowing no intruder could scale a wall with any hedges into the balcony. And only one person had met him through here before.

He looked through the glass.

There was no one standing on the balcony, no angel of mercy, no answer from Galtea. Yet, Larsa saw the single letter sitting in the middle of the balcony floor.

Larsa slid the door open and picked up the letter and stepped back in, barely getting drizzled on by the mild rain. Larsa stared at the letter as he went back to sit down on the bed.

The same name on the back, Larsa slit it open with his fingers and pulled the paper out. He stared with horror at the blood drops staining the paper.

Larsa,

I threw this from the ship. And probably now I'm a hundred miles away, I'm sorry I don't have a chance to see you personally.

I might not be able to see you ever again, actually. I've been hit pretty badly and I'm bleeding out, but I needed to make you know that I was going. Hope you can still read this.

I don't miss you, I love you. And really, I wish I could stop and jump down the balcony there and run into you and bleed all over you. But they'd come in and shoot you and I don't want to bring you in my own mess.

I'll be waiting for you on the other side.

Penelo

Larsa closed his eyes as the screaming of the words that he was reading bore into him, he shook his head. Penelo couldn't be dying; she couldn't be flying for her life miles away from him. But how could words lie?

Tired, exhausted, dying, desperate for something else, Larsa lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes. He curled to his side, one hand under the pillow and one hand twisted in front of him.

Maybe he would wake up tomorrow from this awful dream he was having.

His breathing slowed and slowed and then stopped.

----

Miles away, in the skies of the outer Archadia, one ship pursued the other. As the silver ship dodged the firing canons of the one on her tail, it looped and dived desperately trying to avoid the line of fire.

Inside the ship, the pilot clutched her blood-soaked hand around the wound on her stomach harder as she steered the ship single-handedly. Penelo seethed in frustration as the other wing snagged on one of the speeding canon fire and the ship reeled in damage.

The alarm blared, and Penelo fumbled for the radio near the dashboard. It slipped however and dangled by the cord out of reach. She slid her blood-soaked hand out of her wounds and grunted in pain as the blood flowed out.

She held both hands on the wheel as she spun the ship in a full loop around, arriving at the back of the pursuer and launching her own deadly canons. The pursuer turned sharply to the left, avoiding the fire and lunging straight towards her with its deadly prongs shining in the moonlight.

Penelo had pulled harshly on the wheel, lifting the ship with a lurch higher into the air as the prongs of the other ship skimmed through the bottom of her own ship, another alarm blared. He ship was falling apart.

She seethed again as more blood spilled from her, as if the prongs had cut her and not her ship, she grabbed the dangling radio and screamed into it.

"Vaan! Balthier! I'm not going to make it!" Her shouts buzzed in static as the receiving ships probably rushing ten miles away from her sped faster to aid her. Penelo heard Vaan's reply. "Hang in there, Pen! We're coming!"

Penelo was about to reply when something in sight from her windshield made her drop the radio in horror.

The pursuer was rushing towards her front, its prongs gleaming in the moonlight. Penelo did not have enough fuel to dodge, nor the will.

She sighed as her hands dropped from the wheel, the blood from her wounds slipping out once again. She looked up, and with a last reply to the receiver.

"Vaan, say 'hi' to Larsa for me, will you?" She said as the enemy's ship drew closer and closer. Vaan's voice buzzed with static as he shouted back. "You'll do that yourself if you die!"

"What?"

Penelo asked but the ship's prongs had pierced into the windshield and the crackle and snap of breaking metal and glass as the prongs impaled through her ship and killed her in a few seconds before she could understand what Vaan had said. The sharp shrieking of tearing metal screeched and the static of Vaan's voice was lost and Penelo's life was lost as well.

----

Lord Larsa's grave was empty.

Vaan knew that much when he had went to the emperor's funeral. Ashe could not have done anything, neither could Basch. They did not know what was going on when Penelo's airship crash happened; they didn't know that Larsa's assassination was planned. That the Judge that escorted him to his room had snuck in and skewered him alive, they didn't know.

Penelo didn't have the chance to know either. Vaan had received Basch's urgent radio call telling him that Larsa was dead.

So as Vaan crouched near the empty grave of Larsa Ferrinas Solidor, he had never felt as sad as he did now. Vaan did not know what to say as Ashe came and helped him up, and when Basch shook his head at the emperor's grave.

Later that day, Vaan sat on the gardens of the Rabanastran Palace, staring at the grave where Larsa was really buried and where Penelo's body lay next to him.

Ashe rubbed his shoulder comfortingly as they sat on the bench staring at the two graves in front of them.

"Hi, Larsa." Vaan's voice came and Ashe drew her eyebrows together. Vaan continued. "Penelo asked me to say 'hi' to you before she died."

Ashe shook her head. "I think Penelo would be able to do that herself." Vaan looked at her and shook his head, as they sat alone staring at the graves.

"Penelo's still looking for him."

THE END