A/N: Final Fantasy IX and its characters are property of Square-Enix. This is a random, somewhat pointless drabble I wrote while reminicising about my favourite game one day. Because Zidane and Dagger is the loveliest couple of all time and that cute little nest in Gizamaluke's Grottoes (such an intriguing place) deserves some mention. I tend to become x-button trigger-happy whenever I enter that area; hearing kawaii little moogle squeaks from all around tickles me silly (:
final fantasy ix
s t r a w - s c e n t
Zidane awakens to a haven of chirping moogles and thick-straw engulfment and the rumbling of grand-dragon's breathing from the perilous outside. Dagger's quietly-radiant face is hovering near his and it breaks into a smile; "Hey, handsome."
A laugh. "Why so mushy suddenly, o-princess?"
"Because one of us is going away soon and I don't know when I can see you again," she responds simply. Zidane tucks his arms behind his head and takes in the peaceful-musky, strong scent of the moogles' hay. And then they are treated to a rare scene of Papa and Mama Moogle smacking a kid-moogle's backside for ripping the queen's ribbon off her tunic in her sleep. Dagger speaks again; her voice slices through the sliver of warm sunlight, cuts through the thick blanket of contentedness.
"Zidane, will we ever be able to stay together, and marry, and have kids; two, or three, or four?"
"I don't know. Maybe not."
"Why not?"
"Because you're Queen and you belong to Alexandria, and I am Zidane and I belong here, and there, and Everywhere."
"But, Zidane…" there is a pause, "but, Zidane, you belong to me, too."
She has her back turned to him and one of the kid-moogles has reached up a tiny paw somberly to pat her cheek, and so Zidane knows that she is crying. He wants to reach out to her too and having to retract his arm is harder than taking on the voracious grand-dragon lying just outside of the moogles' idyll.
But they are no longer children who can frivolously and recklessly exchange marriage vows in a dwarf's rite, they are longer children who can be excused for falling in love at all;
...and so Zidane leaves. Again.
fin