Seven years ago, on the Festival of the Hunt, the morning skies above Lindblum were overcast.
Freya stood on a dew-damp roof in the bustling business district, arms crossed and staring with a faintly curled lip at one of the large clocks nestled into the brick facade. The mechanical whirl of its gears and the ticking of its second hand was loud, a persistent buzz that followed her in her dreams.
"These Lindblumers," she said with undisguised contempt, eyes flicking to the next building over, where another such clock resided, "are very preoccupied with time." She could count with two hands the number of clocks she could see from her vantage point alone.
Seven years ago, Freya was seventeen, accompanying Fratley to participate in the Festival of the Hunt for the first time as an official Dragon Knight, or a Dragoon as was more colloquially used. The color of the stitches on her coat of arms had not yet faded, and so too the chip on her shoulder. That would not fade for years to come.
Beside her, Fratley stirred from his crouch on the roof edge. His long brimmed hat lifted as he glanced at her from his contemplation of the streets below. His icy blue eyes were piercing, seeing what she did not say and probably what she did not even know herself.
He did not respond to her words; he often did not when she was in such a prickly mood. Fratley was twenty-five going on ancient and had been a Dragoon for over a decade to her one, rarely disturbed by the buffeted winds of circumstance and certainly not her temper. Instead, his gaze turned to the silhouette of buildings carving lines into the distant Aerbs mountains with their snow-capped tops.
"There is a storm coming," he murmured, and Freya came away from the clock to stand beside him, placing the end of her spear on the roof edge. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. There was an electric tingle to the air, a bite in her lungs that felt familiar in this noisy city of brick and steel. She opened her eyes, smiling slightly at the sky.
"It might rain today," she said wistfully. "I hope it does."
"Perhaps," Fratley said, shifting his lance from one shoulder to another. His gaze drifted back down to the streets, scanning the crowds for the warriors among them. He was always on the hunt for a potential challenger, a hush in him not unlike the predator's bright gaze. "Though rains make poor fighting conditions for most people."
"Not for us," she said shortly, and she saw a flicker of a rare smile in him. And oh, the rush that sent through her, as strong as a burst of adrenaline in the midst of a battle, heady and sweet. She shifted to cover her reaction, coughing into a hand.
Fratley looked up at her then, expression stern. "That is not a cold, I hope."
Freya felt a flush in the back of her neck. She had found over her travels with him that Fratley was something of a worried nurse maid when it came to her health. She tried to remember it was sweet, but mostly it annoyed her-which only amused him. "Of course not. It's just the foul, smoggy air stuck in my throat. Lindblum is full of it." She sniffed. "A little rain would do this city good."
Amusement colored his eyes. He opened an arm silently, and with a thrill she went to him, settling down on the edge of the roof as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her into his body. The soft fur of his jacket smelled of the road, and she gave herself a moment to breathe him in, tucked under the curve of his jaw where he could not see her girlish impulse.
"I hope it does not rain," he said after a moment. "Good weather makes a fair fight."
She rolled her eyes at that, pulling back just enough to look up at him. "Fratley, it hardly matters. Stare all you want into the crowd, but you know as well as I do that no one here is even on the same level as you."
Fratley did not say anything, which only confirmed he knew she was right. His fingers curled in her hair, a gentle and familiar touch, and yet his eyes remained fixed somewhere in the crowd. The look in his face troubled her. Far away, as if he was already contemplating the next bend in the road before they had even turned the first corner. She felt that familiar fear stir within her every time they left Burmecian lands to travel-that there would come a time where at the end of the road, she would turn back towards home and he would not turn with her.
"What are you hoping to find?" She ventured at last. The conversation was a well-worn topic, but sometimes it was important to ask again what he was searching for. Even if only to confirm to herself it had not yet changed. "What will you do when you find someone with whom to challenge yourself? Will you be satisfied?"
As he always did, Fratley contemplated her words seriously. This time, to her relief, the words were still the same tenor as the times before.
"I do not chase what I think I am missing," he said softly, his arm tightening around her as he tucked her head under his chin. His heartbeat was solid and steady in her ear. "I chase what I want to become."
Even the delight and warmth of his embrace could not shake the familiar stir of resentment that bloomed in Freya's gut, even tinged as it was with shame. The differences in their circumstances were never more apparent than in these moments, and Freya resisted the urge to draw away from him, if only to avoid cause in him to hesitate speaking his mind, of which he already so seldom did. She wanted him to confide in her, even if what he said struck no chord within her and probably never would.
Fratley Iron-Tail, youngest Dragoon to ever be knighted at the tender age of thirteen, had been born into a noble line of royalty-serving Dragon Knights whose history dated back to the founding of the Burmecian Dynasty. Freya, on the other hand, had been an orphan ward of his house from a village under his domain too close to the borders to be properly protected by regular patrols. Crescent, the common last name among orphans she had taken upon herself first like a scar, and later like a shield, marked her as a bastard without family and similarly defined the struggle of her existence.
The fight for survival, Freya could understand. She had clawed her way from the mud hovels to stables to practice halls to decadent ballrooms, all the while feeling the eyes of others measuring her and finding her wanting. There was no bar of worth within herself that she had made of her own volition, just the expectations of others that she must constantly, always overcome.
But what did Fratley know of such a trial? He, cultivated like a rare bloom in a glass greenhouse, who was the best and brightest of many generations before and likely ones to come. He did not wilt under the turbulence of the outside world, but rather met it and thrived in it. He did not meet expectations, he defined them. His path as a Dragon Knight remained uncharted, one determined solely by what he endured, by what he dared, and its end may very well be the glass ceiling to which others could only aspire to.
And yet still, to hear him talk of what he wanted to become and not what he already was, felt like a luxury to Freya. One she would never tell him, not that he did not already probably know. He had always respected her path and she would his, even if in moments of weakness she sometimes wished they could walk the same path, or barring that even ones remotely near to each other, an approximate side by side.
As if sensing the dark turn of her thoughts, she felt the press of Fratley's mouth against her temple. "I do believe you are right, Freya," he said in her ear, a thumb stroking along her neck bringing her consciousness back to him immediately, and she shivered at the tingles it started there. "That it will rain after all."
The rains did come, swift and sudden for an hour's time, only to be later broken by a mocking bright sun. And when, within ten minutes of the start of the Hunt, Freya slipped off a rain-slick roof due to poor judgement in footing and tumbled four stories down into a cart, knocking herself unconscious, Fratley did not laugh at her or rebuke her for her arrogance. Nor did he coddle her bruised ego when he went on to cinch the title of Master of the Hunt by a landslide. But later that night, he did weather the brushfire of her indignant anger, and then the storm of her bitter self-recrimination, so much harsher than anything he could say. And then, he kissed away her tears, and undressed her under the moonlight of their shared bedroom and made love to her in gentle silence.
When she looked up into his eyes within the cradle of his arms, there was no judgement, no expectation; just the reflection of herself naked and the tenderness he reserved for her alone. A tenderness that had been her only rock in this turbulent, unforgiving world, born when they had locked eyes as children in the remains of her destroyed village, him a lord's son and her a suddenly motherless welp. When he had held out his hand for her in sympathy to take and never let go.
Seven years ago, on the Festival of the Hunt, Lindblum was overcast, Fratley was restless, and Freya was in love.
In the present, Freya was breathing hard and quietly steaming.
Trick Sparrows were annoying pests at the best of times, but in packs they were an absolute menace. Vermin and carrion though they might be, to underestimate their cruelly taloned feet and sharp skull-like beaks could result in the gouging through of an eye or a soft underbelly.
Freya had immediately jumped to the roof tops upon exiting the station, and to her immediate displeasure, half the bird pack followed her.
She took off, racing along steel girders, bouncing along rooftops circling the open area where the majority of the fighting was taking place, all the while the pack of Trick Sparrows harried her. She picked them off one by one. Skewering one on a descent to a low roof. Knocking another into a chimney with a crunch. When she dropped into an alley the buzzards screeched, swirling above the gaps of the roofs before whirling away.
Freya turned in the alleyway to find herself face to face with a dire wolf Fang, eyes glowing demon red in the darkness, blood dripping from its jowls. Freya grimaced at the tight walls around her, readying her spear.
It lunged and she ducked, dodging behind it and racing for the open entrance. It chased her through the corridor, boxes and crates tumbling and splintering under the force of their passing, and she was almost at the end when the creature suddenly lunged and she was forced to whip around, spear guarding her throat against a newly fashioned necklace of wolf's teeth.
Freya and the wolf tumbled out of the alley into the street, her fending off the wolf's howling bite with the length of her spear. A flip backward on to her feet put distance between her and it, and then she darted forward in a run, throwing her spear in a screech of muscle along her back. The lance sailed ahead of her pattering feet, spearing heavily through the chest of the Fang, it's eyes rolling up white, it's body beginning to tip, and she wrenched her spear out of its body before it hit the ground without breaking her stride, glancing quickly around.
Most of the participants around her were pitifully unprepared. Falling into huddled groups to protect their backs from the beasts, which while in theory was fine but in practice resulted in drawing the attention of too many demon-red eyes. The wolfish Fangs stalked in ever tightening circles, licking their salivating chops, and the birds above screeched and struck like tornadoes touching down on the ground, sending people and beast alike scattering in their wake.
They had to thin the herds or this siege would not end. Until this situation passed, no one in the industrial district would be able to focus on the hunt.
A well-timed twirl of her lance drove the metal rod into the neck of a diving trick sparrow with a sickening crack, causing the creature to fall lifeless to her feet and the several other birds that targeted her to veer wildly away in a flurry of feathers and screeches. Freya used their momentary distraction to survey the other participants within range, contemplating her options.
Of the handful of warriors with some talent, Freya dismissed the man with the heavy-axe barreling down the street outright. He was at his most useful doing what so clearly pleased him, wildly swinging his axe at the teeming monsters and drawing their attention. The red mage from the train, on the other hand, seemed a fairly competent tactician, casting fireballs at choice points along the street to prevent being routed by the cunning Mu hovering near the outskirts, looking to pick off and drag away unwary targets.
They were separated by a furious battle between participants, Lindblum guards and a pack of fangs, steel and claw, shouting and snarls, but that was of little consequence. A temporary gap broke between the bodies and she took it in a running leap, powerful legs ramming into the back of a snarling Fang and using it as a jumping board to launch herself into a wall run off one building and land in a controlled crouch on the edge of a fountain next to the red mage, who jumped at her sudden entrance.
"You crazy Burmecians," she snapped, "I could have scorched you."
Freya kept to herself the immediate retort that the red-mage would have tried and failed; what she needed was cooperation, not antagonism.
"There are too many people congregated here," Freya said swiftly. "It would be better to retreat and regroup."
The red mage's expression turned serious as she nodded, eyes returning ahead as she scanned the field. "The station?"
Freya nodded. "The Mu will leave off if they are forced to compete with the Fangs. And a second group could circle back around the other side and attack the Fangs from behind. A pronged attack may cause them to scatter."
"A solid strategy. I can round up the greenhorns," the red mage grunted, hair lifting in a rippling wave as three fireballs the impressive size of large dinner plates winked into existence and began to chase a yipping pack of Mu back into the shadows. She was quite good for a magic user. "But what of the birds?"
Freya smiled grimly. "The birds are not the only ones that can take to the skies. Leave them to me."
The red mage's grin turned ghastly. "Then bring on the rain of their bodies, Burmecian. I do enjoy a good shower."
Freya snorted-humans always made such silly puns-and then swiftly jumped to the top of the fountain and balanced there carefully, dodging wayward talon and wing. She brandished her spear, which in her hands began to glow a faint green. Her hair fluttered from the wind bleeding off of it. "Reis," she breathed, feeling the icy prickle of blood pumping swift and fast in her veins, brought to fervor with spell.
Most Burmecians did not have magic, and what little they did was a jealously guarded secret tied deeply to their famous gods. The ice prince Mateus the Corrupt, Emmerololth of the rain, or Fratley's own patron, the earthen beast Hashmal, the Bringer of Order. Reis the Hunter, on the other hand was a minor god, worshiped mainly by the Burmecian villages deep in the forested mountains, far from the glistening capital city of rain with its tall ,imperious walls. Freya's patron saint, one of the few Burmecian gods depicted with a feminine form, was known for her skill with a bow and the pair of wild hunting hounds at her heels. She was swift as a storm and as ruthless as a wolf, capricious and ephemeral. There had not been a Burmecian Dragoon for one thousand years who could call upon her winds, and yet like so many other things about Freya, this patronage stoked alienation rather than awe.
It did not matter. While Fratley at the height of his strength could rend the earth asunder with his strikes, Freya could jump higher and clearer than the very birds of the air, as she would do so now. Let the strength of her steel serve to teach what her words could not.
A whiplash of air rippled over the surface of the fountain water as Freya tapped into the faith of Reis, spooling threads of heat in her feet and legs, and jumped into Dragon Dive. She shot as if from a canon in a brilliant flash upward, winds buffeting bird and beast. She was as air, weightless, as she easily ascended to the heights of Lindblum clock towers and low hanging airships, the distant mountains curving faintly along the horizon.
A twirl of her lance in one hand, a half-breathless laugh in the cold air, and Freya turned her blade towards the heart of the largest flock of trick sparrows below, some fifty beasts.
And then gravity took hold once more, the green glow fading from her skin, and she plummeted.
To jump a Dragon Dive was to knock on death's door, as her old gruff instructor used to say. What carried one up was power, but what brought one down was belief. Many a Burmecian had broken themselves on the jump, and at shorter heights than this, unable to handle that singular moment where magic's reach stretched taut against the pull of the earth and one faced the gravity of their actions alone.
It was collectively thought even among Burmecians that those who jumped had either a death wish or a hell of a lot of faith in the gods. Freya didn't think she had much of either, but in a Jump there was no time to think, only to feel and be free.
With a wordless scream and a flash of blinding white light, her fury turning the spell to the shape of swirling, writhing dragons, Freya pierced through the flock in an explosion of magic, feather and snapping bone. The birds screamed. She only had a brief moment to nurture her vicious satisfaction before she was forced to inevitably return to the more important and non-trivial matter of landing without breaking her legs.
Her lancer spell had dissipated some of her deathly momentum, transferring it from her to the struggling beasts shooting like skipping stones across cobbled streets, but transference would have worked more completely on a single target as opposed to so many small ones. As a result, she dropped from inside the flock at a more normal, though still terrifying speed and the tops of Lindblum buildings rushed at her nearly before she was ready. She skidded first on a steepled roof with grit teeth and a shriek of clenched muscle, the heels of her leather soles burning white hot from friction and her lance driving a furrow in the shingles behind her. She sailed off the edge of the roof, barely managing to kick off one wall and then another, and then she landed solidly on top of a wooden wagon with a grunt.
Unfortunately, while she landed on her feet, the wagon did not care for her stunt. It capsized in an instant, a clean break along the bed as if she'd cleaved it with a large blade, and Freya fell with an embarrassing shout into an ungraceful heap, wind knocking out of her as she landed flat on her back.
If Fratley were around, she would have hid her face in shame. Wagons and carts, pox to them all. At least she was still conscious this time.
She heard footsteps approach and even though she was still out of breath she flailed her arms up into a sitting position, squinting up at the sunlight perfectly placed to blind her from that angle.
"Shit, Freya," a familiar voice said and she blinked the spots clear to see Zidane-she groaned inwardly, of course it was him-picking his way over the remains of the cart carrying a two-bladed butterfly sword over his shoulders. His blue eyes were bright in the shadows cast by the nearby roofs. She was half contemplating fleeing down the street out of embarrassment, when he secured the blade to his back with a casual twirl and held out a hand to her. His next words fizzled her brain, "That was sexy as hell."
Freya's heart was beating fit to burst but she still found it in her somehow to blush, coughing out an out of breath, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," Zidane said lowly, eyes glittering, and again her brain stopped working, unsure of how to proceed. When she didn't take his hand, he shook his head and reached down to grab her elbow to hull her up. She acquiesced without resistance, standing shakily to her feet. "Never thought it'd be so hot watching someone mop up a bunch of birds," he mused, "but you always were something special."
Freya stared at him at a loss for words, her scalp still prickling with adrenaline. Zidane eventually took pity on her and patted her shoulder with a grin too self-satisfied for her liking, then leaned down to pick up her lance and hand it to her. She took it gingerly, then shook herself and did a once over. Miraculously, she had broken no bones, though the wood of the wagon had gouged ugly scratches in her leather guards.
"What is..." she stopped, then blinked at him. "Why are you here? I thought you were in the Theater District."
Zidane's eyebrows raised into his hairline and he pointed at a flag staff above their heads waving an orange flag instead of the blue industrial one. "We are in the Theater District, sweetheart."
Right. Freya dusted at her coat to shake off the fine splinters and wood-chips. Her jump must have carried her farther than she'd anticipated. Ignoring his amusement, she looked around at the street which seemed far less busy than the one she'd come from. "They started the hunt way before time and the monsters were already running amok when we left the station. Was it the same for you?"
Zidane nodded, cracking his neck. "Our street car was forced to emergency stop when a pack of Mu started racing down the tracks. We've been mopping up the beasts ever since, though it's finally calmed down some. I was just starting to wrap up here when I saw your little-" his eyes glittered again, "-performance."
Freya ignored that too, choosing to scoff instead. "This is highly irregular," she said crossly, stepping finally out of the remains of the wagon and forcing Zidane to back up. "There were still people out on the streets when it started. And exactly how can they keep track of score with all this mess?"
"Oh, they're keeping track. As a matter of fact..." Zidane pointed up with a finger and on cue, a magically amplified bell sounded in the air. After a few seconds, a sonorous voice announced over the air waves, "And with a jump of 52 points, Freya Crescent is in the lead! Can you believe it folks, that's 52 1-pointers she felled in a single swoop!"
Freya's jaw fell open, appalled. In the cacophony of fighting in the industrial district, she hadn't noticed the announcements. Zidane shook his head. "Never underestimate the people's love of entertainment."
Freya rubbed at her face furiously. "Humans," she grunted.
"Not just humans," Zidane said, then motioned her to follow him back towards the square. "It's Lindblumers. They all go mad about the festivities, even at the cost of innocents getting hurt."
Though his voice was casual, there was a coolness in his eyes as he spoke that Freya took careful note of as they passed by the now deserted theater hall. It looked like Zidane had truly been the last one to leave the area. Likely the other hunters had gone off to chase bigger and better game. She wondered at his reasons until they were halfway to the station when a window opened on a second story of a nearby building and an old man leaned out, waving his arm enthusiastically.
"Thanks again, son!" he yelled. "I thought I was a goner. I'm rooting for you!"
Zidane waved an arm back but kept walking, his expression unchanged. Freya blinked at the old man, then hurried to catch up to the thief as he ascended the station stairs and thrust open the doors.
"Zidane, wait a moment," she called and then almost barreled into him when he stopped abruptly and turned around. He jerked his thumb over at a nervous looking conductor standing next to a pair of stony faced guards.
"I'm heading to the Business District. I hear they've got hit the worst over there and so there should be plenty of points to be made." His smile turned sly. "Wanna come with? I could use the company."
He was deflecting and she had no idea as to why. After a moment's hesitation, she took the bait. "I suppose," she said slowly as he turned and headed towards the train, her following him. "Although is that such a good idea for you?" Her voice turned dry. "I am in the lead, apparently."
He shrugged, patting his chest. "I'm not worried. You may have a jump height advantage, but I'm very fast." They stepped on to the train with a nod from the conductor as he scurried onboard. After directing the man to head to the Business District, Zidane unhooked his butterfly sword and then threw himself into a seat, legs spread casually and arms over the seat backs, blade resting on his thighs.
Freya stayed standing as the door snicked closed behind her, and then the rumble of the car began to move again, this time at a more reasonable speed than before.
They stood in silence, Zidane's gaze fixed firmly out the window, Freya's staring stubbornly at his profile. "Are you all right?" she ventured at last.
Zidane glanced at her finally, eyes half-lidded, and for the life of her she did not have a clue as to what was going on in his brain. He was a blank slate wiped clean of fingerprints. At first she thought he would say nothing, just resume his vacant stare out the window. But then he breathed out a deep sigh, face flattening.
"I hate this tournament," he said finally, and she blinked at the scorn in his tone. She wondered suddenly if it had been there all along, if she'd only just listened closely. "All these idiots come from all over to try to test their skills for what, the bragging rights to call themselves the best? And against what, an artificial test concocted by some psycho up in the castle wanting to up the ante over the last?" He shook his head slowly, then slouched in his chair. "It gets crazier every year and nobody objects. They just eat it up, all of them."
Freya didn't know what to say. It was not that she didn't agree with the sentiment, having herself been alarmed when she'd seen stragglers still out in the streets. But at his words she'd thought of Fratley and words failed her, eyes lowering to the floor.
After a moment, Zidane shifted to prop his elbows on his knees. He was looking at her, but now she was avoiding his gaze. "I don't mean you, Freya," he said softly. "I know you aren't like that."
She let out a long hiss of a breath. "There is no need to coddle me, Zidane. I hear your point and I take your censure." She looked out the window, and then admitted, "I do not enjoy the tournament either. Sure, to be called Master Hunter would be pleasing to me, but it does not aid me in my search anymore than my erstwhile title of Dragoon can."
Zidane ran a thumb over the blade in his lap, eyes lowered under a fan of lashes. "Then why do you keep coming back every year?" he said lightly, and yet she was not fooled. He must know what he was asking, but then he had given her one of his truths. It was only fair to return the favor.
Freya glanced up at the ceiling, a grim smile on her mouth as she contemplated his question. Why? Why do anything in this god forsaken world? There was only ever one reason why.
"Because I can't help myself," she said, meeting his eyes. An icy blue similar to Fratley's, though in reality nothing like his at all. Like comparing sundown to sunset, or the deepest ocean to the far reaches of the sky. They were not better or worse, just different. "Because this was the last place in the world I remember being happy, and even a shadow is better than nothing at all."
Zidane winced, head lowering. Freya glanced at the conductor, who looked like he was contemplating throwing himself out a window at the atmosphere. Then she moved to the seat next to Zidane, waiting patiently for him to move his blade, and then sat down with a thump.
"You better hope I win our bet," Freya said, propping her chin in her hand. Zidane glanced at her, curious. "Imagine what kind of scintillating conversations we'll have on our date, otherwise."
Zidane blinked, and then barked a laugh, his mouth crooking lopsided at the corner. "You amaze me, Freya," he said, and the honest admiration made her shift uncomfortably. "I'm quite looking forward to our date, actually. Besides, you should know better by now. I can carry a conversation just fine on my own." He winked. "You can be the eye-candy."