Sorrrryy it took so long! I wish I could promise that updates will come faster but it's just not possible!

(Something random: it's always tickled me but I've never pointed it out… You know how in the game the character's heads turn to look at people in the room? Well, I noticed that Zidane only looks at pretty girls. He completely ignores men and older women. Obviously he looks at the main cast, but I just find it funny that he directs his attention at the girls, hee hee.)

Thank you again for the reviews and support, and I hope you enjoy this (short) chapter.

Chapter Eleven
Finding The Middle Ground

i.

"Utterly intolerable. Entirely unacceptable. Disrespect at a most grievous level."

Freya Crescent blanched at each scalding adjective in turn, one paw firmly on the partially closed door of her home while the other gripped its stony frame. She bowed her head, currently unprotected by her helm, and wisps of silver hair brushed against her muzzle.

"A thousand apologies," she said. "Truly, I… I cannot apologise enough for this injustice."

"If circumstances differed," the elderly Burmecian who ranted at her doorway proclaimed, "the consequences would be most grave, you understand."

"Of course."

"My outrage – and that of many Burmecians – is the only result of this transgression; this time I shall let such a disregard of law slip by unnoticed."

"You're most kind," Freya said, suggestively closing the door another inch. "It will not happen again, on my word as a Dragon Knight."

The elderly male looked as if he was about to continue, but Freya closed the door as hastily as politeness allowed, and his tirade was cut short.

Fur stirring uneasily, she lingered on the other side until his angry grunts became fading footsteps, until she heard nothing but the patter of a steady rainfall, and then she pressed her back to the door, eyes trailing to the ceiling as she silently uttered a prayer of thanks to Reiss.

Yet her pious relief lasted only a heartbeat. Her gaze dropped and raked a turbulent path across the room ahead, a neat kitchen with a cosy arrangement of pots, pans and herbs, opening out to a small dining area where a wooden table cradled a vase of native flowers.

Her gaze blazed across the kitchen and came to rest on a snake poking its head out the crack of a half open cupboard. She stormed over in a heartbeat and gave it a savage yank, whereupon the door blundered open and the furry snake brought with it Zidane Tribal.

"Yee-oucch!" he yelped as he fell backward onto the flagstone floor. "What was that for!?"

"Hiding from your crimes wont shield you from retribution, you wretched monkey!"

"I was hiding from you actually…"

"What were you thinking!?" she thundered. "This is a holy city and the punishment for theft is a one way trip to the gallows!"

"I couldn't help myself! It was right there in front of me and he wasn't paying any attention –"

"You paid an innocent Burmecian child to distract the stall owner for you!"

"And it was working too… How did he know?"

Freya flicked her ears pointedly.

"Oh."

"Oh indeed. What's the matter with you? The only reason you escaped reckoning was because of your name and my reputation!"

"Old habits die hard," Zidane joked with a grin, and for his efforts Freya slammed the cupboard door on his tail.

"YYAAAH – OOOWW!!"

"It's the least you deserve," she rebuked scathingly, then approached the stove. "Tea?"

Zidane sat up and cradled his bent tail, eyes watering as the pain sent tendrils of fire up his back. He croakily asked, "Again? Don't you drink anything else, woman?"

"Of course," she said, filling a kettle. "I drink water, and wine when the occasion demands it."

"Does the occasion demand it?"

"No. Tea will suit you nicely."

Zidane got unsteadily to his feet, grumbling and massaging the end of his tail, and stomped sulkily to the table and claimed a wooden seat.

For a moment, he relished the foreign sounds of Burmecia: the native's distant conversation, the constant bombardment of rain against a slate roof, the whistle of the kettle. His ears were keen and he had little to go on by sight anyway; the window in front of him was the barest of slithers, acknowledging a grey veil of light that turned the pretty flagstones into a dreary sort of craft. Yet there were some boons; only the slightest of chills penetrated its narrow works.

Zidane wrapped his throbbing tail around one leg chair and moodily inquired, "Have I outstayed my welcome?"

Freya didn't look up from pouring tea. "You outstayed your welcome the moment you arrived. What is your adversity to doors?"

"Thought you'd appreciate a more grandiose entrance."

"Through my bedroom window?"

"Hey, if I'd known it was Frately in bed instead of you I would've used the damn door!"

"You're lucky he didn't skewer you."

Zidane gingerly touched the scrape across his throat where his acquaintance with Frately's spear had become abruptly personal. "Hmph. I could totally take him."

"I'm sure he'd adhere to your request."

"With two hands tied behind my back!"

"Don't push your luck."

"Blindfolded!"

Freya briskly placed his tea on the table and braced herself against his mischief as she took the seat opposite him and wrapped calloused paws around the teacup, waiting for it to cool. She let a silence hang between them while she scrutinised his countenance closely and he refused to meet her eye.

"Well?" she prompted.

"What?"

"Why are you here?"

"I told ya: I'm visiting!"

She was stonily silent for a moment, then she acquiesced, "Very well then. How's Garnet?"

"That was a sneaky manoeuvre."

"Nonsense. I was merely inquiring the health of your significantly better half."

Zidane leaned forward, elbows propped on the table, and moodily sniffed his tea. "What's this?"

"Elderberry. Back on subject, please."

"She's fine."

"How does married life suit you?"

"Fine."

"…And the castle…?"

"Fine."

Freya sent him her most flinty look. "You really are quite the thorn in my side, aren't you?"

Zidane grinned wickedly. "As I said, old habits die hard."

"Indeed." She sipped her tea, eyes impossibly shrewd. "Very well. If you refuse to tell me the reasons behind your unexpected intrusion then I suppose I'll have to guess. Now, let's see. The possibility of you visiting on a purely social basis has been ruled out in my mind because of your sudden mood swings and unsubtle wont to avoid particular questions. Undoubtedly, there's something wrong, and judging by the particularities of your mood swings it has to do with Garnet."

"If you're trying to be funny –"
"But here's the predicament," Freya interrupted, holding up a claw. "Why would you have left in such bad humour? Despite your less-than-scrupulous nature I know your feelings are true and you would never do anything unjust toward Garnet. Heavens help you if you did, because I'd be the first with a blade at your throat."

"You're really annoying, you know that?"

"So I get the impression she's done something that's upset you. But what? Not the arranged marriage scenario, surely? You dealt with that yourself, as we all saw. Then the root of this argument must stem –"

Zidane slammed his hands on the table. "Fine fine! I'll bloody tell you if you just shut up!"

Freya grinned widely. "Oh, ruin my fun, wont you?"

The genome slouched into his chair, arms crossed. "She wont let me live in the castle 'cause it'll destroy who I am so I have to find a place to live and go travellin' in the meantime before she has a nervous breakdown. Happy now?"

"There, was that so hard? Now drink your tea before it gets cold. And you can't live here."

Zidane blanched despite himself. "I don't wanna live here. I just need a place to crash for a while."

"Absolutely not."

"Wwhhhyyy?"

"Well, I might have considered it if not for the fiasco with the stall owner this morning. Have you spoken to Baku?"

"Naw… He'll just beat me up again."

"Perhaps that's for the best, it might knock your brain back into place."

"Hmph."

Freya sipped her tea. "I can't tell you what to do, though I'll admit it's somewhat of a dilemma. In the end, it comes down to where your heart is."

"Where my heart is…?" Zidane repeated uncertainly. "Well I…"

"Can you see yourself dressed in the finery of noblemen, spending your days in leisure and being attended?"

"No…"

"Unfortunately, there's going to be sacrifices. You can't marry a queen and expect to continue leading the life of a vagrant. Garnet will never give up the throne, and you can never stop being you, so where is the middle ground?"

Zidane slumped further into the chair, expression miserable. "But I love her…"

Freya stood up and collected her empty teacup and his full one. "Sleep on it. Things always look brighter in the morning." She dumped the crockery in the sink and left him with his thoughts.

ii.

As to be expected, it was raining. It came down hard and heavy in fat bullets, like some obtrusive magic. Clouds blistered the heavens and the rain was an unpleasant brume across a landscape darkened by night. In the distance, thunder grumbled a muffled threat of worse things to come.

Irritated by his master's immobility, Choco shook his feathery mane and trilled. Droplets scattered in a miniature explosion, but their efforts made little difference to both bird and master, whom were drenched to their respective skins.

Zidane was unbothered by the rain. His clothes either clung unpleasantly or sagged in heavy clumps, and a pool of water had collected at the heels of his boots. Yet his mind was too clouded to be bothered by the literal clouds above. He spared a moment to reassuringly pat Choco's neck before urging him on across the wet grasslands surrounding Burmecia, onward on his ambiguous journey.

She'd wanted him to sleep on it, but he couldn't.

He didn't know where he was going. Revisiting the places of his past, he supposed. Places where he could think. Come to some kind of conclusion. He didn't want to be around Freya anymore; he didn't care to burden her already stressful life with his problems. Though seeing her had done a wonder of good. She had been right, afterall. His heart was in two places at once, torn between lifestyle and love, stubbornness and acceptance.

Having another person in his life, one that meant the world to him and whose decisions effected his own, made life-changing evaluations suddenly alarmingly difficult. He remembered his past predicaments, tethering on the edge of some radical dilemma, and how they could be solved with a simple yes or no, guided by impulsive instead of deep consideration. He remembered becoming a bandit, the simple answer to Baku's unspoken question, of leaving Tantalus to follow Garnet, of returning to Iifa to find his brother.

And this problem seemed so insignificant compared to those. To stay or to leave; to adhere to Garnet's request or to firmly claim his place at her side. Make her happy or make himself happy.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind tried to reconcile: he could go back to Tantalus, Boss would beat the shit clean out of him but he'd had worse (a brief flash of that hazy battle on the brink of pure obliteration, looking up at the stony, winged god of nothing and how, after fighting until the movements were robotic and razor-dangerous, he had spat blood for days after). Boss would let him rejoin. Blank would talk him into it, or Cinna… or Marcus. They had each other's backs; always had done. It would be like the good ol' days, except –

Except.

He could not live with himself if he left her again. He could not forget. Regret would be his lover, companion and destruction. Dagger would accept it, but her face and name would hound his every waking and sleeping breath. In the newspapers of Lindblum, in the historical and fairytale accounts already being scripted, in the implausible turrets of Lindblum castle, the juddering old ships that coughed through the city's sky, in the snow-capped peaks of every icy mountain, in the feathers of Choco and in every looking-glass he would undoubtedly try to avoid. As cliché as it sounded, he had fallen hard, and the memories would remain after he was long gone.

As Freya said, there had to be a middle ground. It was just a matter of finding it.

iii.

Regardless of his troubles, he found the trek invigorating. Or perhaps 'trek' wasn't the right word, as a whole continent passed beneath Choco's clawed feet in the space of a week, and sometimes a way beneath him, when the whim to fly took Zidane. Choco was fast and neither mountain nor lake could hinder the path of his adventure. Though 'adventure' was not the right word, either, as monsters were few and far between; Mage Masher remained sheathed at his side, and the lack of company left him bored at times. He encountered no one and stopped no where, tracing Alexandria's mountainous borders and remembering days when the Mist was so thick one sometimes had to links hands with fellow travellers lest one got lost. Just for some fleeting company, he even called on the moogles to help him set up camp using the old flute he still tunelessly manipulated (though he remembered entertaining the old entourage round campfires with it, driving the local moogles insane but making the kids and Dagger laugh, so it was kind of worth it).

Such isolation gave him a lot of time to think, but time doesn't necessarily provide fruitful conclusions, so when he came within range of Treno he decided to seek more vocal companionship, and steered Choco in its direction.

Treno was one of Zidane's all-time favourite cities, especially in his early teens, because the booze was cheap, the law was lax and there were more brothels than the city knew what to do with. Treno was split into a very perceptible divide: the devastatingly poor and the devastatingly rich. Tantalus went to Treno to score big time hits (and to score in general) as the various mansions choking Treno's upper reaches were hampered with riches, and the thieves were happy to ease this unfortunate taxation of wealth, then spend it on the grimy luxuries the city had to offer.

It was nightfall. A fitting time to arrive at the city of darkness (though its name was earned by the mountain's perpetual shadow that fell across its gothic turrets), which was a dark smear against a darker background. However, Zidane's keen eyes picked out little dots of flame at the city's main entrance, and he reined Choco toward them curiously. They were undoubtedly campfires, though why someone would camp directly outside a city was beyond him.

As the distance between Choco and the city lessened, it became evident that there was more than one fire lit around its entrance. A higgledy mess of tents were pitched on the plains outside, at least a hundred, Zidane estimated, and guarding the front gates were several platoons of Alexandrian soldiers. They lined the walls too, and judging by their number, Zidane guessed almost the entire force stationed at Treno were out, apparently guarding the city.

As he breached the encampment he was flocked by children and adults alike, drawn to the rare golden chocobo and its tailed owner. A low murmur rippled through the crowd and Zidane belatedly wondered if causing such a commotion was a good idea. He dismounted, but kept Choco close.

"Hey," Zidane addressed the closest man. "What's going on?"

The man in question looked tired and desperate. There was a hungry glint in his eye that unsettled Zidane, a kind of fraught desolation that lingered precariously on the edge of panic. Glancing round, he noted those surrounding shared a similar expression and Mage Masher became a comfortable presence at his side.

"What d'ya mean?" the man said. "Aren't ya here t' get in?"

"To Treno?" Zidane said. "Well, sure. Can't you get in?"

The man glanced at his fellows uneasily, then rounded a suspicious glare at the genome. "What hole d'ya crawl out of, son? 'Course we can't get in. No one can. They've sealed the entire city."

"What? Why?"

"Plague," the man replied shortly, and gestured toward the mountains. "We've been dumpin' the bodies yonder. Burnin' them during the day. Aint no one comin' in or outta Treno, but where are we meant to go? Villages infected, cities infected. The plague is dying out already, but we need medicine and food now."

Zidane blanched back despite himself. He had lived through a plague in Lindblum, ten years earlier. He had been young then and remembered few things: the stink of rotting corpses littering the streets and the beating Boss gave him for trying to sneak outside. They'd been stuck in for weeks, Boss using all his contacts to scrounge food and then some, and they had still nearly all starved anyway.

Uneasily, Zidane's gaze raked the crowd. The press of possible infection was suffocating, but he refused to shy away.

"I had no idea," he admitted. "I've been in Burmecia. How long has this been going on for?"

"A few weeks. It's spread through all the Alexandrian provinces."

Zidane cried out in dismay. "Alexandria!? What about the castle!?"

The man snorted. "Hmph. The town is sealed right off. We've been forsaken, left to die like rats. Can't rely on those bastard royals for anything. I'm not surprised there's been attacks on the place; I'd be there myself if I didn't have a family to take care of." He paused. "Y'know what I heard? There's some disturbance brewin' in the east. Sealing off Alexandria weren't such a good idea, eh? Our traitor queen is gonna be right sorry when this is through."

Zidane was too mortified to take the man's insults in bad humour. His mind had wandered to Dagger, handling the crisis alone, no doubt trapped in the castle, frightened and fretful. He had promised to stay by her side but when she needed him most he had left, and with that revelation it all suddenly fell into place, and he found his middle ground.

With a smooth jump he remounted Choco, who caught whiff of his master's disposition and squawked eagerly, raking the air with his claws. Zidane's pulse pumped wildly in his ears, heart constricting with guilt and fury. Briefly, his gaze swept the devastated civilians and returned to the man.

"Good luck," he said. "Don't worry, the queen will make sure you're all looked after once the worst has died down."

"Where you goin'?"

"Alexandria!" Zidane yelled, and before the man could raise objections Zidane tapped Choco lightly with his ankle and the great bird charged through the startled, dying crowd. He jumped clumsily, jumped again, and then left the plains completely, rising with the sound of awed gasps and beating wings into the dark night, like some celestial being returning to the heavens.