A/N: I do not own Tales of Vesperia (And also, I haven't finished the game so this may not be consistent with the ending.)
The clang of metallic footsteps was no cause for alarm in the nostalgic cobble-stoned streets of Vesperion, yet people stopped, staring and whispering to their friends, as a young blonde man strode briskly down the side of the street, flanked by a slight brunette boy and a fierce-looking redheaded female, intimidating even for the city standards. Their pace quickened as they neared the city center, a wordless consent passing among them.
"Commandant," the woman started, but was cut off by their third companion with a quick, curt shake of the head. The group was subject to even more stares, this time laced with hostility, as they passed a rather large group of guild members, identified by their bright, sparkling pendants, brooches, and everything in between, twisted into a strange cross-like pattern.
"Er... Flynn," she corrected herself as a dozen virulent pairs of eyes were suddenly trained on her, a dozen sets of hands inching hungrily towards their weapons. Her own hand flew to the sword strapped onto her waist as a particularly unsettling young girl carefully examined the blade of her gold-guarded epee, her bone straight smokey blue side ponytail swinging sharply from side to side as she slid off the wooden crate she had been seated on.
"Commandant, eh?" She purred, undertones of venom coursing through her words. Men twice her size split to let her pass, the beige cotton of her mid-thigh length dress fluttering behind her. There was a significant slit on the left side, reaching from the hem to her hips, revealing a glimpse of jet black shorts, a plain knife strapped onto her thigh. The neck of the dress was formed by a long piece of fabric, gathered at her shoulders before falling into two strips that flew behind her as she walked.
"Should we apprehend them, Rosella?" A nearby man asked, fingering his charcoal black scythe with grizzled attachment.
"No," the girl held up her hand without turning. "They haven't done anything. Yet."Her voice sent shivers up the young commandant's spine as she clicked her epee back into its holder on her left hip. "What is your business here, Commandant?"
It took a few seconds for Flynn to realize she was addressing him. "I need to speak to your leader, Yuri Lowell," he said, straining to keep his voice from wavering.
Silence immediately fell over the guild members as they cast nervous glances at each other, awaiting their leader's decision. Flynn could feel both Sodia and Witcher tense beside him as whispers began to fill the street. The girl, for she could be barely older than fourteen, conferred briefly with a tall man before sending him running down the street and nodding to the trio.
"Very well," she said after a long pause. "Follow me." The girl spun on her heel, padding off down the crowded street. As she turned to change streets, she cupped her hand like a megaphone, letting out a holler louder than any would believe possible from the slight girl. "You coming or not?" She yelled, making it seem like she was still standing just a few deadly feet away from the blonde.
"D-do we follow, sir?" Witcher stammered from his left, clutching his dusty book like a lifeline, his bony knuckles rapidly turning a ghostly white as more and more guild members appeared on the scene, drawn by the ruckus of the shout.
Flynn let out a long sigh, blowing his blonde bangs off his face. "I suppose we don't have much of a choice, do we?" Sodia and Witcher quickly fell in step after him as they rejoined the girl, who meandered idly on Flynn's right, much to Sodia's annoyance.
"You know, Miss Rosella, usually we take out the trash," a man hollered from the shadows of a building, smoldering cigar in hand. The girl turned her venomous gaze quickly, unclipping her sword and advancing on the man.
"These people are Brave Vesperia's guests. I suggest you rescind that last statement or hand over that crest right now," she hissed, sword pointing at his chest.
"S-so sorry, Rosella! So very, very sorry!" The man stammered, dropping his forgotten cigar onto the dusty ground.
"For your sake, I hope you are," she replaced her thin sword before returning to the commandant's group. A glittering crest winked from the fist of her hand.
"Sorry 'bout that," she said with a bright smile before starting to walk without warning.
"Um, are you always," Flynn hesitated. He was standing on foreign soil, no need to push his luck. "...so quick to draw your sword on guild members?"
She tossed him a sideways glance before shrugging. "Yeah, I suppose. We don't accept many members, so we have real tight quality controls, you know?"
"I wish," Flynn thought bitterly as he remembered passing knights in the hallway he had never heard of or seen before in his life.
"Only the real good fighters get in," Rosella continued, unaware of her subject's inner distractions. "But we still have to weed out the sleaze balls after that. It's easy to be on your best behavior for a month. Then you get see their real character."
"Ah, I see," Flynn smiled, feigning interest. Judging by the looks Sodia and Witcher were exchanging, he didn't have a career in acting ahead of him.
"Am I boring you?" The girl turned to him as she walked. "Well excuse me, madam, but you asked." She tossed her short side bangs out of her eyes as Sodia let out a choked noise behind her.
"I apologize," Flynn replied evenly. "Never attack in anger. Never attack in anger," his knightly mind chanted to him. "Come closer and say that!" the more flamboyant part of his mind yelled at him. Ignoring the latter of the two personalities, Flynn smiled placidly at the girl. "I had no intent of offending you."
Rosella just stared at him, her eyes flashing both confusion and disgust. "Fucking knights," she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for all of them to hear. She quickened her pace, forcing Flynn, and in turn Sodia and Witcher, to do the same. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, not to mention grab the aforementioned knife and cut you right back.
"We're here," Rosella stated airily, as if oblivious to the tension skulking around the scene, as they stopped in front of a large marble building, the Brave Vesperia crest engraved larger than life onto its huge wooden doors. "The library, Brave Vesperia Headquarters, emergency civilian relief center, and city monster shelter, all wrapped up in one," she added, walking up to the doors.
With a light heave, the oaken doors swung open, Rosella striding in without hesitation, giving Flynn and his subordinates no choice but to follow. A crisp, book-like smell pleasantly filled his nostrils as the blond commandant entered the center, taking in a sharp breath as he saw the place that unfurled before him. An enormous room, perhaps the size of the field where he often took his knights to practice, stood mightily before him, scholars and guild members weaving in and out through oak bookshelves that dwarfed them to the size of ants. He walked forward, putting his hands on the railing that separated the balcony he was standing on from the library, a word of awe traced upon his lips.
"Like what you see, huh? Me, too!" Flynn spun around as a deep voice filled his ears. There stood Yuri Lowell, childhood best friend of Flynn Scifo and unofficial boss of Brave Vesperia.
"Y-yuri!" He managed to stammer out. Who knew why, but his heart was beating rather fast for his liking. The commandant liked to think he wasn't an easy person to surprise, but apparently so, as Yuri had demonstrated with ease. The guild master looked not a day older than the last time Flynn had seen him, his hair now tied up in a high ponytail. Even his vanity and masculinity combined were no match for the powerful dry heat in Vesperion.
"You bring 'em here, Rosy?" Yuri asked the girl, leaning casually against the railing. "Good girl."
"I'm not a dog, Yuri," Rosella replied, rolling her eyes. "Urine," she muttered under her breath, adding a little chuckle.
"I see you've met Rosy," Yuri pressed on, ignoring the girl. "She might be young, but she's a team leader. As much as you might be inclined to think otherwise." This provoked a loud protest from the girl, rebounded by a much calmer rebuttal from Yuri.
"I feel like someone just socked me," Flynn thought wryly as he was promptly forgotten, the scene reminiscent of when their childhood bouts had gotten just a little out of control. Only now he was the observer, the third wheel. The two continued their friendly banter for a spell, voices flying higher and higher.
"Urine! Urine! Urine!" The girl was now screaming at the top of her lungs, the nickname bouncing off the cavernous library walls.
"Miss Rosella?" A librarian crept up, adjusting his glasses nervously. "You're disrupting the flow of the library..."
The girl looked at him, seemingly dumbstruck for a moment, before letting out a light giggle.
"Oops," she whispered, smiling brightly. "Sorry 'bout that."
The librarian smiled gently and patted her shoulder with a fond "It's alright," before hobbling back off through the maze of bookshelves.
"Good going, Rosy," the guild master grumbled quietly as he pushed himself off the elaborate marble balcony railing.
"Hey, like you've never gotten that," the younger girl replied, rolling her eyes. "Let's get to the meeting room before that one old hag comes to see what the fuss is."
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The young commandant felt a sudden urge to remove his shoes as he stepped onto the plush scarlet carpeting in the decidedly small room Brave Vesperia called their base, most of the scant space taken up by an imposing marble table proudly standing in the middle of the room. A large window overlooked most of the coastal city, the pane opened to let in a crisp sea breeze. Light filled the room easily, illuminating every nook and cranny with a sharp, friendly light.
Time seemed to stop as Flynn stood in the doorway of the room, unwilling to step in and ruin the sheer perfectness of the atmosphere. His two guides lithely padded around him, completing the picture-perfect view like two Rhygbaro standing confidently over the plains.
"Your friend's a little easily impressed," Rosella whispered to her "boss" loudly, snapping Flynn sharply back into reality. Her violet eyes ever so slightly widened as she realized the rest of the room's occupants could hear her easily, but she quickly covered her surprise with a self-assured flip of her deep blue hair.
The blond commandant nervously cleared his throat, the pointed noise bouncing aimlessly off the white marble walls. His footfalls were muted as he practically waded through the thick carpet, letting out a slight grunt as he pulled out a heavy marble chair. As he sat down, with Sodia and Witcher standing dutifully behind him, he couldn't ignore the bemused gazes of both Yuri, who was seated across from -- no flung across the chair on the other side of the table, and the apparently high-ranking member of Brave Vesperia, who was leaning rather haphazardly on the back of the marble seat, a smirk painted on her face as she stared at Sodia and Witcher.
"So, Flynn the Great has finally come to visit our humble abode," Yuri chuckled, emphasizing the rather insulting nickname.
A sigh huffed out from his chest. "Yuri," Flynn averted his eyes from the relaxed posture of his friend, carefully maintaining his own ramrod straight position. "Don't call me that..." He said, feeling his mouth drop into a frown.
The girl briefly leaned down, her mouth moving quickly next to Yuri's ear. He couldn't be too sure, but Flynn heard the words blondie, depressed, and barbie fell from her lips somewhere during their brief whispered exchange.
"So, then, Flynn," Yuri pulled himself up straight, palms pressed flat against the white marble table. "You didn't come here to just chat." It was a statement, not a question. "Spit it out. What's up?"
If Flynn was feeling offended that Yuri didn't even entertain the remote possibility that he might have come over just to see his friend, the commandant's sense of duty quickly took over as he cleared his throat for the second time.
"You're right, for once," he cracked a weak smile across the table. "I do have a problem with Brave Vesperia." He was straining to keep his tone light, but his voice was darkening with every syllable. "Your men--" A cough. "Your people are attacking knights that stray to close to Vesperion. This cannot continue. I must ask for immediate action." By the end of his brief spiel, his tone was darker than Yuri's hair.
"I'm sorry, are you saying you were attacked when you were coming here?" Flynn looked up, surprised, as Rosella suddenly piped up, taking a step closer to the table. He could almost hear Sodia thinking about the improperness of the action from her position on his right.
"No, but I've been receiving reports that knights have been attacked on or near Brave Vesperia territory."
"And what were said knights doing on our territory?"
Flynn's frown deepened as he stared at the girl. "You know that imperial people are allowed on guild land, and vice versa. It's in the friendship treaty."
She let out a long tsk. "No, what I meant was what were the knights doing while on our territory?"
"O-oh, uhm, well," Flynn glanced behind himself at Sodia, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, the only movement in her otherwise stone still visage. He sighed. "I'm afraid I do not know."
Flynn glanced, now, at his friend, who seemed to be miles away from the meeting room, perhaps flying through the brisk sky or swimming through the salty ocean. If it were old times, he would've given him a smack. "If it were old times, we'd be on the same side of the table," he thought bitterly.
The dark haired man then turned to Rosella, offering her a lazy smile and a nod. She returned the grin before drawing a small leather bound book from a drawer under the table.
"Well, permit me to enlighten you, commandant," she lightly threw the small tome to Yuri, who leafed casually through the brittle pages before clearing his throat.
"This is a report from guild member Marta Lualdi," he stated, one arm tucked over the back of his chair, the other carelessly holding the book open. "We found some no good knights harassing civilians in the South Quarters today. Emil was so amazing, the way he stood up to those knights! I love him I love him I love him! Anyway, we gave them a beating they won't soon forget!" And with a sarcastically girly giggle, Yuri closed the book with a thump.
Why was his heart beating so fast right now? Why did he feel so angry when Yuri said those three little words, albeit repeated three times?
"Hey, Barbie, we're back here down on Earth," an adolescent voice cut sharply into his mind. Man, Yuri had rubbed off on that girl.
"B-barbie?" Flynn heard a female voice splutter from behind him. He shot a discreet glance back just in time to see his second-in-command's hands turn completely white.
"At ease, Sodia," he muttered, quiet enough to stop the sound from reaching the other end of the table.
"B-but, Commandant, she called you..." Sodia hesitated, unwilling to continue. "Barbie," she puckered slightly as she said the name, like she had eaten a particularly sour candy.
"At ease, Sodia," he repeated, this time firmly, and shot her a deadly warning glance. Now not only were her hands white, but her face was drained to a lovely matching hue. With a sigh, the young commandant faced once again his rather vocal opponents.
"And how do we know that report is completely accurate?" Flynn asked, running an armored hand through his blond hair.
"You're questioning the veraciousness of our guild members?" Yuri raised a dark eyebrow, sliding the book back to its resting place under the table.
"Okay, heart, don't fail me now," Flynn gritted his teeth as he drew a harsh breath. "Well, I mean no offense, Yuri, but--"
"Hey, will you look at the sun. It's getting pretty late," Yuri noted with a flick of his hair. He motioned to Rosella, bouncing her hand up and down over his. "Rosy, will you show our guests their rooms?"
A sigh. "I suppose," she bent down, laying a quick peck on his cheek, before crossing the room in a few swift strides.
"Commandant," she nodded to Flynn curtly. "Please follow me." with a turn of the heel and a swish of smokey blue hair, she was off. Jerking his head quickly towards his two companions, Flynn followed her rather brisk pace down the well lit hallway, the windows revealing the rather dizzying height the headquarters stood above Vesperion. After following the girl through a twisting maze of hallways and doors, she turned the knob on a rather extravagant door. Pushing it open, Flynn had to admit his breath hitched, just a tiny bit.
The main room was spacious and airy, a short brown carpet with a deep blue flowering design filling the space. A window across from the main door, covering the entirety of the wall, admitted a peachy flow of light into the room. Four smaller doors stood confidently on the remaining two walls, shadows falling off them like ravens dive bombing the earthy floor. A dazzlingly life-like forest was painted onto the walls, replete with filtered light hitting the earthen ground and curly fungi giving off a strangely comforting glow. Crossing the room hastily, Rosella pulled a slim silver key out of her knife belt, slipping it into the keyhole of one of the doors, pulling it open with a gentle tug.
"Wow..." Witcher breathed as he peeked a head inside one of the rooms. In an instant he was gone, the door closing with a click behind him.
"He's such a kid," Sodia sighed as she remained by his side, shifting her weight awkwardly from side to side as their guide opened two more of the doors with a soft click. Flynn was ushered, or as someone of a crasser nature might say, pushed, into the room, he urgently motioned to the young girl as soon as Sodia was out of sight. She came in warily, like a panther approaching a rather suspicious meal.
"Yes?" The suspicion was coming off her voice in peals.
"Well," Flynn bit his lip and forced his mouth into cooperation. "Are you and Yuri... romantically involved?"
The question hung sharply in the earthy room, this one modeled like a grassy, rolling plain. Even the carpet was a mock-up of the tall grass that brushed the painted horizon. A herd of Rhygbaro gazed warily over the plain, their painted eyes so sentient it almost seemed as if they were waiting for the answer as much as he was.
Clear violet eyes pierced cloudy sapphire pools as she regarded him evenly. Too evenly.
"Are Yuri and I romantically involved," she repeated, her gaze unwavering. "Tell me, Commandant, do you have any sisters?"
"W-well, no, but Lady Estellise is almost like a sister," Flynn blinked and glanced down, unable to keep up with the intensity of her gaze. "But what does that have to do with the nature of yours and Yuri's relationship?"
"And, Commandant," she continued, seemingly ignoring him, "are you planning on having an affair with this Estellise character any time soon?"
Roses are overrated. The next time you want something red for your hun on Valentine's Day, try a bundle of Flynns after he hears something like that.
"N-no! Of course not!" His voice was rising above appropriate indoor levels, yet there was nothing he could do about it. The scandal alone of something like that happening was too much to think about.
"Hey, you really have a knack for answering your own questions!" Rosella finally broke off the unofficial staring match, flashing him a bright smile. "Although I'm not sure if my voice would of cracked like that."
"M-my voice did not crack!" He wasn't a juvenile teenage boy, for goodness sakes.
"Course not, Commandant," she shot him a sarcastically patronizing look, taking a few steps towards the white door before pausing, deceivingly delicate hand floating above the doorknob. "Do you have any other obscenely ridiculous questions to ask me?"
"Well..." It wasn't obscenely ridiculous -- after all, she had given him a kiss on the cheek... but then again that wasn't an uncommon thing for families to do. Not that he knew. "Is Yuri... romantically involved with anyone?"
Her smile darkened almost imperceptibly. "Well..."
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A/N: Well, the first chapter of my Vesperia fanfic done... and I'm not even finished with the game. Please, stop looking at me like that. And also, please review! Reviews make my world go round.
To anyone who's read My Watermelon Candy, I'm sorry, but it might be a while before I start posting the sequel. I'm not feeling very Bleach-motivated for now...