Disclaimer: Characters belong to Squaresoft and not me.
In keeping with my long tradition of writing things no one will read, here's a Cara story.
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Grace
Katharine Frost
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Lenna had laughed and laughed about it, the night before when she had shown the sixteen-year-old girl how to plait her hair properly. There would be no more haphazard ponytails, only ladylike braids and coifs, and Cara was beginning to understand why Faris had run off to pirate again.
Don't you know, Lenna had said. When you're Queen, you can have whatever you want.
The crowning had gone as she had expected, all ritual and ceremony. The Chancellor had leaned over her shoulder. I trust that you will handle yourself with the utmost grace. We've waited for this for a long time. Meaning that she would not run off alone to her room, to speak with the Moogle and her Hiryuu. And she knew the Chancellor was lying; no middle-aged man would anxiously await the day a little girl took his place, even if that place had always been temporary and the little girl had saved the world.
In the history of Bal there had been seven kings and two queens who had ended up with daggers in their backs or poison in their morning tea. She wondered what her fate would be.
They were all dancing now, the potentially evil Chancellor and others; she smiled at her own uncharitable assessment of the man, and then squelched the smile as soon as she could. No good for places such as these; she needed to keep her face blank, malleable, writ only with queenly imperious beauty. Occasionally Lenna looked up at her – Lenna herself had been made a queen and fancied herself able to understand – but nobody came by. Cara's hand clenched around her ridiculous, ornate sceptre.
Oh, by the name of her grandfather, how she wanted to be out riding. She had never been a particular fan of dancing, and though she would have had no trouble finding a partner, she did not want one; she preferred to sit and stare at her people. Would she rule them into the ground? Grandpa, when you are going to come help me? I can't, I can't, I was never even a good princess.
Then Galuf was out of her mind because there was Butz; he'd come after all, looking tired and sorry but handsome all the same. The music stopped and the people of Bal stepped aside to let this remarkable hero come through; you were more of a hero, apparently, if you were already a grown-up when the heroism happened, and also if you were a man, it was easier for people to accept if you were a man.
The moment out-of-time ended; the music struck up again. Butz was beside her, ruffling her hair, adult to child. She bit her lip, so subtly that no one could see it. It bled, but only a little. "Hey, kid," Butz said. "Getting tall."
She pasted on a smile. "All the better to beat you up, then," she said, and it was a child's threat, the verbal equivalent of her futilely beating her fists against his chest, and she flicked her tongue over her lower lip, mopping up the droplet of blood, and still gripping the detestable sceptre.
"So are you going to dance with me?"
There was polite applause as he led her out on the floor, and of course the people shuffled aside to watch them; she was their queen even if most of them thought she was a wild girl. His hands were warm, earthy, clasped behind her waist, and she thought of how he had fought with them, savage and skilled; hers were small and feathery, their roughness magically gone with two years of soft life, grasping his shoulders. She was barely moving on her own, she let him guide her and pull her around the glorious floor.
Oh, and she remembered the few days after leaving Tycoon, when they had travelled together, playfully pushing him on the steps, an amiable mock fight, and nights by campfire where he had assumed she was thinking of little-girl things and she had studied every nuance of his face, wondering where he had gotten that miniature nick of a scar or what foul encounter had caused his nose to crook the way it did.
"May I cut in?"
Mid, there, with his scholarly cap of yellow hair and his blue robes and bright inquisitive eyes, only there wasn't only scientific curiosity in his eyes this time; this time there was also shyness and wariness and a filmy sort of look she could not quite describe. She knew he wanted her, of course, wanted to talk to her and kiss her and receive letter after letter – he probably sent her three times as many as she sent him – but she would not give him what he wanted even though she was not quite sure why.
Butz gave an indulgent smile. "I would never keep a man from his lady." And he relinquished her and she was in the arms of Mid, only he would never be so bold as to wrap her up and capsize her. Instead his hands rested shakily on her waist, not meeting at the back, and hers lay flat on his shoulders. An observer would have mistaken this for adolescent nervousness.
"Cute," she heard Cid comment from behind them. He was standing beside Butz, looking smug and proud of his grandson. "Careful, Mid! You're dancing with a queen! Step on her foot, and it's off with your head!"
"I won't, Cara," Mid said, his face flushed.
She didn't say anything back, only looked down and concentrated on her footwork, letting her soft-shoed feet follow his along fearlessly. His feet wouldn't crush her. Butz's might have. And through peripheral vision she could see Butz smiling, and it was an oh-how-dear smile, and he was looking at two children dancing. Not a young engineer and a young queen, but two kids, play-acting.
She could see herself married to Mid. The Chancellor would like it; she would not be surprised if he attempted to arrange it. Bal was sorely in need of scholars interested in technology; they had long fell behind Surgate. They were backwater Bal to detractors, and perhaps a little behind schedule to friends, and then there was the image of what their children would look like, bright and fair-haired, bookish, with very little mind to go out and explore. Not a trace of brown hair on them, she knew. She could see herself married to Mid; she knew it was the likely sort of thing to happen.
"You dance very gracefully," Mid whispered. She wondered why he whispered – to shield the compliment? "You have excellent control."
"You have to learn that," she answered, "when you're a queen." And she thought, vaguely, horribly, that Lenna had been wrong.
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END