I blame Sheffiesharpe and Mithrigil for this and you shall see why afterwards!
Comments, corrections and criticism are, as always, completely welcome and loved! (Tenses are my secret weakness and I beg people to flog me severely if they find any improper use of them.) And after all, a little encouragement never fails to add a bit of inspiration...
Title: Every Language
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Characters/Pairings: Basch/Vossler, Ashe, Larsa/Penelo, Vaan, Balthier, Fran
Warnings: Character Death, Slightly AU, Takes place after canon ends
Rating: PG
Summary: Even an age full of princesses and stones must eventually meet its end. Basch reflects, looks back, reminisces and lets fate carry him away.
Strangely enough, of all those who had survived and fought through the events of almost fifty years past, it is Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca who is the first of their band to leave the world.
It is not a very surprising death-- the Queen of Dalmasca has been frail for a very long time and news of her eldest son's end had weakened her even further. For all of her vitality as a young woman, she is been the first of their number to grow old before her time and to grow weaker and weaker as successive and often unsuccessful pregnancies had taken their toll. She is not (Basch is fiercely proud to know) the sort of woman who let others pity the life fate had dealt her. But the years have taught her patience and to yield to what could not be fought, and she must have known of her condition for years now. It is her final gift to her kingdom to let go of it before such could hurt it more.
Her eldest daughter, who had taken over after Ashe had renounced her throne, confides her mother's condition to both Basch and Vossler before hand. It is not in Imogen's way to rend at her hair and nails at the first sign of tragedy; such is part of the reason why she has always been Vossler's favorite of Ashe's litter. But the new Queen's hands are shaking and her face veiled with her hair when she tells the last of her mother's most loyal knights of what is to come.
It is at that point that Basch first realizes that the life he had lived, the era he had helped to uphold as long as he had lived, was finally drawing to a close.
Vossler must have known as well, for all of his stubbornness. His oldest friend simply and pointedly asks after what was being done for the Queen Mother, what remedies were being used, what hunts the two of them could still go on for her health and honor. The two of them, these two decrepit knights, must appear as complete fools to the new Queen. At almost ninety apiece, they are both far from the glorious heroes they had once been. But Imogen has all of the gentleness her own grand-father had once held; she simply takes both of their spotted hands in hers and tells them all would be well.
Vossler keeps up a good front afterwards, grumbling about the lack of respect in the highest offices of Ivalice these days, swearing that if their first liege could see the impertinence of it all, he'd have a fit. If Basch had not known him for so long, he might have thought the actual news Queen Imogen had given him did not much matter.
But when they retire to their bed that night, they hold hands in the darkness. And Vossler's rough, aged kisses taste of salt, a flavor that Basch knew meant that not all of his premonitions will prove false.
At Ashe's death bed, there are still papers of the state. She manages a grin when Basch enquires as to why. "Do you suppose that Dalmasca has stopped its inner workings, even for one such as myself?"
The crows-feet around her eyes wrinkle and she is beautiful, more beautiful than at either of her weddings, either at the first in Rabanstre or the second that was held in Rozarria almost four and a half decades ago. Vossler's compliment about such makes her smile and turn bold.
"Will both of my knights," she asks, and her lips pucker up in mischief as they haven't since the first time their kingdom fell. "Will both of my knights grant me one last honor and give me what I have always been driven to wonder of…?"
There is no refusing the request of a dying woman. They would not have refused her anyhow. So they kiss her, one right after another, and her lips are as sweet as the spring time, as potent as Basch's sorrow.
She laughs afterwards and holds their hands once more, telling them that she has been waiting for this moment since she was all of fifteen years old.
At the funeral, Vossler is emphatic about not appearing the sorrow-stricken fool. "There is not," he tells Basch over their breakfast table, "much reason to do so. Her Majesty would be ashamed to have her honor guard wail over a life lived so fully and so well."
They go through all the motions at the event properly, even though Basch cannot speak but for fear of disgracing himself. When Queen Imogen asks for speakers at the wake afterwards, Vossler volunteers his services. "Do not look at me in that manner," he tells Basch afterwards. "I did my best to let even those who did not have the luck to know her understand her. I will not have others disgrace her with the image of a graven and sanctified queen when we two knew her as so much more."
Anyone who did not know or love Vossler as well as Basch did might have been fooled. But if this is Vossler's way of honoring the one woman he has ever loved, Basch will go along.
Vossler's mouth tastes of salt again the night after. Basch understands all too well.
It is, strangely enough, Penelo who dies second. Even as the courier from the royal family in Archades stands before him patiently, Basch cannot reconcile it all.
To him, to a very large part of him, it did not matter how old she had grown or how high she had ascended in the world or how many heirs she had given the Archadian empire. To him, she is still that laughing young dancer from the streets of Rabanastre, shining yellow hair bound in pig-tails. She is still the youngest of those who join them on her travels, except for her eventual husband, and she is still the first one who comes running to their party's aid when white magic is needed to heal. She is still Penelo and she will still call him Uncle Basch when he comes to visit her and tease him about getting married to Vossler someday and promise that she'll even lend him her wedding veil-- if her daughters ever return it to her, of course.
For all that has happened since they had first met, she is still just a girl.
He is about to ask if there is some mistake when Vossler raises his hands to Basch's shoulder and clamps down gently. The weight of it all can't be denied.
Vossler tells the courier that they will be there in a matter of days. The courier smiles wanly and turns against them, to walk in the bold sun-light up ahead. His heel glimmers for a moment as he goes and even in the light of day, Basch still cannot believe it's real.
There was no warning, as with Ashe, but the news had to be true.
Basch doesn't know quite what to do anymore.
Archades is swathed in black cloth when they go. The citizens of Old Archades, in particular, mourn her and have taken to hanging up heart-felt, if unevenly made, banners of the girl Basch still cannot believe is gone up on their city walls. Basch walks through the streets and can trace Penelo's mouth at one intersection, Penelo's eyes on the corner of another street, Penelo's bright hair at the junction of a boulevard.
"Damn stupid," Vossler grumbles under his breath as he follows, and Basch wonders if he is jealous for Ashe's sake as well.
For all of its grief, however, Archades is as efficient as ever and two personages with histories as glorious as theirs are whisked off to the palace before they can see much more. Larsa-- except this cannot be Larsa, he cannot be so pale and so hunched and so withered-- stands up at the sight of them but does not speak.
By his side, his eldest son greets them, escorts them to their room, invites themselves to partake in the hospitality of the greatest empire in Ivalice.
"The funeral will be soon," he informs them gravely. "Please be prepared for what is to come."
How impossible a task, Basch thinks later. How impossible.
That night, Vossler is kind and runs his fingers through Basch's white hair. If Basch's lips are wet, Vossler says nothing at all.
There is an open viewing afterwards. Penelo looks more like a bride ready for a rest than what she really is. Only Ashe had been more beautiful laid out in her casket.
Larsa sits with his children and his grand-children and is silent throughout all the orations, all the adorations, all the platitudes given by others who had barely known her, or who felt that only speaking about generalities would do her justice.
There is none like Vossler to speak for Larsa, Basch's brother having died years ago, and Vaan is near incoherant with grief over the loss. Basch is desperately sorry enough to stand up despite his fear of failure. When he reaches the podium, his voice is dry enough to crack. He continues anyhow.
"Penelo," he begins, and it is neither platitude nor adoration but simple affection that he offers. "For as long as I've known her, Penelo was the sort of girl-- the sort of woman-- who never failed to help others. She was…"
Afterwards, Larsa finally speaks in order to thank him for his kindness, hands shaking though his eyes are still desperately dry. It does not surprise Basch to learn of his death months afterwards. It barely seemed a living man in front of him at that point either.
Though Basch mourns, he does not attend the funeral. Vossler falls ill and Basch remains by his sick bed the entire time, wondering, hoping, praying for a miracle if one could even reach men as old as their sort.
Vossler does not die of sickness, however. Two years afterwards, though, Vaan lies in his death bed and laughs in the face of something they all know will reclaim the Dread Pirate Ratsbane at last.
"At least I outlasted Balthier, right?" he croaks, and the name sends a trill of pain through Basch's aching lungs. Balthier, who had died saving all of Rabanastre from the last of Vayne's mechanizations. Fran, who had been at his side to the last, never leaving even though it had likely been an injury of his that had held her back. "He would have been such a bitch if I'd gone before him."
Basch cannot speak; he is not sure what would drown him out if he tried.
Vaan's face changes when he views Basch and his mouth trembles into a slightly bloody smile. "Don't worry, old man. I'm not afraid or anything like that. I knew for a long time that this end was coming to me. So don't get some sort of weird survivor complex or anything, alright? Y'have to do good by me, remember? I was there at Penelo's funeral and nobody else'll probably be willing to warn the world about what a jackass I was."
They bury the best damn sky pirate in the world a scant few months later. Basch does as asked, as ever. This time, he has time to prepare and a person to honor in the way he knows how. When the time comes, he is ready with a speech he barely has to choke through, one that glorifies Vaan as much as he needed to be, as the King of Thieves and the example of everything a paragon of piracy ought to be, as a loyal friend and a remarkable companion and a man who had once helped save the world.
Vaan's family applauds and hoots and cries all throughout the entire speech so it, ironically enough, is far worse than the one Basch gave for Penelo. He knows they mean well, however, and lets them tug at his aged body this way and that afterwards, only to learn that their hands are as rough and loving and larcenous as Vaan's ever was.
It was good to know that some things will never change after all.
Vossler had never liked Vaan, had never thought him much more than a common gutter churl who had used his innate criminal tendencies to claw his way to the top of a lawless heap of fools. But he attends the funeral and is a comforting shoulder against Basch the entire time.
"It was a good thing that you did," Vossler murmurs afterwards. "Who knew someone could speak so eloquently about a person so often insufferable?"
"I learned from the best," Basch answers.
Ironically enough, of all those who had lived and fought through the events of almost fifty years past, it seemed fated for the two of them to endure to the last.
It is only a matter of who shall go now-- Basch or Vossler.
The time comes for Basch soon enough. The healers tell him meaningless words about his lungs and his tired old body, about how miraculous it was that he had even held out at such an old age.
It is only the look on Vossler's face when they give him the news as well that stops Basch from being grateful.
For three days and three nights, Vossler avoids Basch and allows the healers to do to him as they would. It is only when they finally decamp after giving strict instructions to Vossler to keep him as comfortable as possible till the inevitable occurred that he breaks down and sees him again.
It made Basch, who had never doubted him from the first, ache for him all the more.
"Shall I then be the last?" Vossler asks, when he finally can, and his voice holds all the pain that the twilight deepening about them will not allow his face to express. "Am I fated to be the only one of our band of brothers that is left behind after all? Will you leave, now, and allow me to be the only testament left to what we all endured?"
In the darkness, Basch reaches out, feels for a glove, finds a human hand. "Not if you stay with me, friend. There is, perhaps, room enough for another in this bed yet, if you would consent to come."
Vossler's ensuing kisses taste like the ocean, like sorrow, like camaraderie and friendship and warmth and companionship, like all that Basch had ever loved of his friend in all the world. "I found my way in years ago, old fool. And just because I lived with you doesn't mean I have to die with you as well."
Basch's mouth curves around a smile he knows will be his last; that it is pressed against Vossler's wrinkles makes it all the sweeter to the end. "Won't you?"
And Vossler's final kiss in the darkness is answer enough to all that he has ever asked for.
Author's Note: Sheffiesharpe deserves much of the credit for this piece, since it was her excellent story, Making His Peace With It, that made me interested in snarky ol' Vossler and gave me the idea of an AU in which Vossler and Gabranth lives and Basch stays in Dalmasca as Captain once more. Of course, I killed Balthier and Fran off to balance out that fact so I might be a bit crueler than she is...
Mithrigil can be fingered as the one who first spurred me onto the idea of Basch and Vossler being paired together in the last entry I made for Livejournal. She's also responsible for the Dread Pirate Ratsbane and any hints of Vossler/Ashe/Basch that may have seeped through. I hope you're satisfied with their tri-part kisses! ;)
And one last attribution.
"We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence." -Joseph Roux