Freya again, and Amarant as usual. I'm cleaning out the old un-finished fics on my computer, and I found this.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or placenames that appear in this fic: they are the property of Square-Enix and I am taking no financial gain from this work of fiction.
And this same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying. - Robert Herrick
What do you do after the end, when all things fall into place and the fairytale becomes a passable reality? What do you do after the end, when perfection begins to tear? What do you do when you begin to realise that you cannot go back to what you once were?
Deceptively simple questions, yet she stood without an answer. Over and over, the questions had churned in her mind, and try as she might she could not find a sensible way out of her current situation. It seemed as if there were walls all around her, and she was beating herself bloody trying to get out. Now, in the pouring rain, all seemed hopeless, and she turned her face to the listless clouds above in search of an answer.
Perhaps the time on the road had tired her out, wearing her mind's defenses down – otherwise she would not be thinking of this particular topic. It would still be safely tucked away in some dark corner of her mind, not to be taken out again until the world had ended – when she could return to a city of no people.
"You stand out here any longer, rat, you're going to start smelling like mildew," a rough voice told her, and she turned her face from the silent sky.
"Rain is nothing new," she answered, more bitterly than she had expected.
"Never said you didn't smell like mildew now, did I?" he shot back, stepping out of the shelter of the tree and into the pouring rain.
The cold rain soaked him through quickly, turning his crimson hair even darker, and she had a feeling that he was staring at her from behind those unruly curls. It was a quiet stare, one that did not ask any questions and demanded no answers but a reason to why she was standing in the rain when she could very well be home and dry. He was good at asking questions without opening his mouth, was Amarant. In all the time she had known the enigmatic bounty hunter, she had come, to some extent, to understand him.
She will never be able to say that she knows the darker corners of his mind, will never claim that she understands every little thing he does, but she knows enough and does not ask questions. For now, that is enough.
"How courteous of you," she said, picking up the dropped thread of conversation. "I do not smell of mildew, Coral. I bathe regularly."
"Doesn't really help when you never dry out, does it?" he contradicted – perhaps, she thought, for the sheer pleasure of contradiction. "Living in that waterlogged city of yours, things are bound to be pretty damn damp."
He was right – an unnerving habit of his. It was damp, and it did smell of mildew most of the time, and with so few of them scraping a living in the ruins, the smell and the damp would be even more noticeable. Hiding in holes like the rats they resembled, the people of Burmecia would dream of happier times, when life was easy.
They had danced, like leaves on the wind, and they had been happy. Laughter echoed through her mind even now.
"Ridiculous," the voice of Amarant broke her out of the memories, and she realised that she was unconsciously mimicking the steps of the age-old Burmecian dance.
She stopped, knowing that she should not even have begun – yet another thing for him to mock. It seemed a pastime for him – to mock her for her real or imagined faults – and he took great delight in it, in his personally sadistic and stonefaced way. There was nothing in this world that could faze Amarant Coral, and if there was, she was not sure she wished to see it.
That was the last thing he said for a while, choosing merely to stand there beside her silently. It was a comfortable sort of silence, a breathing room in between the constant struggle, and she accepted it without a word. She was not about to explain herself, and if he wanted to know, he would ask – this pseudo-friendship was good like that: there was no dishonesty, just truths better kept unspoken – and she appreciated his silent acceptance.
If only...
No. The problems were many enough without her adding to them. This was not the time, nor the place, and Amarant Coral was not the man, nor would he ever be. The time had been another life, the place had been half a world away, and the man had been a knight. Amarant was not a knight – knights were honourable, truthful, noble and just -
...and amnesiacs...
and he was anything but. He was a bounty hunter – perhaps truthful in his own way, and from what Zidane and others had told her, fair to a point as well – and he had the characteristics required: ruthless when need be, single-minded and deadly. Noble, he was not. He never lost, and would not accept to do so either.
She on the other hand, had lost too much. Three years on, and she did not even have the end of a tail to reminisce over. The memories were fading at the edges, and she was the only one who still had them. Like a fragile flower, the petals had scattered for the wind and the driving rain, and she was left with a broken stem. There would be no more tomorrows for her to put her hope in; she had lived for a memory that had been broken.
"Self-pity never looks good on anyone," Amarant said, and once again, he was right – that much she could admit.