Subito

When Vaan offered for Penelo to leave Rabanastre behind and become the navigator of his pirate ship, Penelo was only too happy to oblige. Years ago, she was left only with the tombstone of her older brother and the memories he had left so tainted with tragedy, and the bitter taste in her mouth of regret. She should have been a better sister. She should have been a better person. Should should should…

When the soldiers left, she was placed within a mismatched family of those that had lost their own, and in the mind of a child, she had a desperate need to make them hers. She needed family. And Vaan was all she had. Vaan was hers.

There was no home for her without him; there was no concept of home without him being close to her, because he was home. Ever since the day so far in the past, when his parents had died of that terrible, sweeping plague, when his childhood was essentially shattered, he had relied upon her, and upon Reks. Reks, who she loved as though he was her own brother, whom Vaan practically hero-worshiped… died in the war. He was an impersonal sacrifice, needed by Damalsca to win the war, merely another boundary between the enemy and themselves. Not thought of as human.

She lost the will to dance, her passion being wasted on such an apathetic world.

And now every turn upon the musty road through the marketplace of the city, she could see memories almost forgotten in the cobwebs of her mind, and they seem so real that she has to avert her eyes to not cry.

This was not home.

This was not home.

Penelo left without a glance back, because those orphans were never hers, and because her heart couldn't stop hurting. It'd probably never fully heal, but maybe if memories of a life that couldashouldawoulda stopped jabbing at it, it would be less painful to stay alive.

Penelo knew that sky-pirating was not her destiny. Caught up in a war that hadn't ever been hers to fight, a war that caused her only misery, she became one hundred percent positive of that. Suddenly, in this new quest of heroic deeds, the desire for justice, and ultimately victory, Penelo was required to kill and face death every day. In some ways, it reminded her of the raid in Rabanastre. In some ways, it was much, much worse.

And the members of her party, all seasoned, hardened warriors, watched her as if she needed protecting. Vaan was the only one who didn't treat her like baggage. But Penelo knew that in her heart of hearts that if she could survive the raid, if she could survive the slimy, dirty feel of a man's hands on her body and his rancid breath on her face, than this was nothing to her.

So in the next battle, she unhesitatingly destroyed a Ffamfrit with her Holy Gambit, completely solo, and didn't pay attention to Balthier's impressed look, nor Ashe's concerned look, nor Basch's kind look, nor Fran's blank look, and not even Vaan's understanding look as she passed the corpse, and continued onwards.

That night, she mourned its needless death and sent a prayer to the Yarhi world.

So much longer after that—was it weeks? months? years?—Penelo watched as Ashe was crowned Queen on Damalsca from the crowds surrounding the castle.

And as so often humans are prone to do, she remembered. She remembered all the times she was required to heal Ashe during the journey when she had fallen, all the times she had scavenged materials to make Ashe's bombs work, all the times she had gone hungry because she gave Ashe her own food, and it left a cynical edge to her mind. Ashe couldn't rule.

No one else could either.

Penelo turned away, determined to never look back.

Life continued on for Vaan and Penelo the sky pirates in a fairly regulated way. For Penelo, time seemed to be slowing down, and only getting slower. She wondered if, by some horrible curse, she was to live forever.

Vaan followed his desires through, happy though he was scavenging off the profits and livelihoods of others, and Penelo stayed happy enough on the surface to fool him. She tried to dance with the same spirit and fearlessness she used to when she was young and had a whole family, a whole life in front of her, not merely a patchwork quilt of replicas, but found that her heart had no more passion for such a thing. She stopped, acerbic with disappointment, wondering when shegot her turn to succeed.

And sometimes, in the dead of night, Penelo dared to dream.

Though it had been a relatively simple task in theory, with hindsight, it was painfully clear that this mission was not actually so easy to complete. Walking through the Paramina Rift probably hadn't helped her focus, either.

Something about walking through that snow-covered valley made her feel like she was intruding upon a sacred place, where she was completely, utterly unclean. Penelo felt almost like the dead resented her disruption of their rest, could almost taste their turmoil in the air and in the ground. Nevertheless, she always sent up a prayer for happiness for those departed, kept her steps even and brisk, and let her mind take autopilot.

Which is why she probably didn't react as quickly as she should've been able to when the monsters of the Rift attacked. Eight against one armed with nothing but a staff made for very unpromising odds, and the bloodlust in their eyes made it clear that there would be no escape.

They attacked immediately.

She defended.

And though she eventually conquered, she paid a heavy price.

So Penelo laid on her back in the aftermath, upon the cold hard ice of the ground, a long gash splitting her already scarred abdomen and blood weeping steadily to paint the snow pink, and wondered why people never learned until after they'd already failed.

In hindsight, she shouldn't have taken this road. In hindsight, she shouldn't have told Vaan she was capable of a mission alone. In hindsight, she shouldn't have become a sky pirate. In hindsight, she should have tried harder to save her brother's life. In hindsight, she should have never existed.

Because she looked at the stone faces of this world, and not even in Vaan had she found a place to belong. Fighting wasn't her life, fighting only ripped little parts of her up every single time. She'd die if she was left to this fate.

She wondered why no one noticed her slowly vanishing from this world.

Two years after the final battle after they had restored Ashe to the throne, Penelo and Vaan were still pirating. And nineteen-year-old Penelo knew what 17-year-old Penelo did not; freedom comes at a price. When she had escaped for Rabanastre so long ago, she had gained freedom. She was paying the heavy price of it now, and was desperately trying to keep Vaan from paying to the same collector.

Occasionally, they'd see Balthier and Fran—after all; they were in the same profession—to teach Vaan about sky pirating. Even though he denied it, Balthier had indeed taken Vaan as his apprentice. Vaan, of course, was always exuberant about this.

For Penelo, it created the bitter taste of the couldashouldawoulda life she'd tried so hard for so long to forget.

"Fran, why do you think that people struggle so hard to finish things? Once things are finished, it only leaves you memories, and the empty aftermath," Penelo had said once to Fran, looking at the viera with tired eyes. Old eyes.

And Fran had looked at her with those same old eyes, answering, "Humes need reassurance that their life was not artless."

Because people need to know that they weren't useless.

Penelo had laughed a hollow, sad laugh at this. "People don't learn until they fail."

And they never would.

A/N: I don't know why, but lately I've had a lot of Penelo angst idea's going on in my head. She and Haruno Sakura are so alike that maybe my mind is making a parallel between them... Anyways, this seems way too short to me. I'm posting it anyway.