A.N.: Well, what do you know, I now have a backstory for this fic. Only... it's much darker than the story itself. I'm thinking of writing it anyway, only I might have to put it on a separate file. Any idea for titles?

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How do you run from one of the greatest strategists his piece of the world has ever seen?

She had to use all her tricks, and still he seemed to anticipate her every move. She tried to leave the city the very day she ran from the Castle, and found out all the exits had been blocked. She wound up scaling the wall at a particularly difficult point of access, and still had to deal with guards anyway - granted, she took them by surprise, but it almost seemed like too much trouble to have bothered. She then tried to go to a nice quiet town where there would be less guards to bother her, and found out one of the King's Men was already there on the lookout, and word in small quiet towns travels fast. (Well, the last bit she'd known all too well already.)

All the roads were being searched and inspected, and that included the rivers. It was next to impossible to get a tame chocobo without the proper papers, and it was harder still to get into a big city where she'd be able to discreetly restock, and all the while her supplies were steadily running out. She hadn't prepared herself for a—a siege, she'd been thinking to travel light and fast.

She ended up going into the wilderness where it was harder to find people and there was food to eat.

She often cursed him for being such a prideful man. She'd just been the messenger of bad news she hadn't even come close to delivering – who'd have thought he'd be so damn serious about catching her? And there was, of course, a small voice in her head that told her: none of this would be happening if you hadn't slept with him, but this little voice was not hard at all to silence, and she didn't even have to argue with it or come up with justifications. The truth was simply that she couldn't bring herself to regret a single moment of that night.

It was a pity that she'd probably never see him again. But she wouldn't let herself be caught.


Shall we tell his side of the story?

He learnt more about her with each move she made. He learnt more about her with each passing day regardless of whether she made a move or not, because he'd used his pull and called in some favors and the best spies and information gatherers of the country were now focusing on the girl who went into the Castle looking to kill its King and fell into its General's bed instead.

That's the first thing he made sure to find out: what was she after? And no matter how many times he told himself that the answer made a difference, he was not sure how much of a difference it actually made. He knew he should be worried when finding out she was after the King did nothing but make him wonder why he seemed to be so attracted to crazy people.

(So much for hoping she was a lady of the night, more used to poisons than blades. But then, he'd known that wasn't her case from the moment he took her into his arms and felt her compact body against his.)

Usually a single assassin wouldn't merit so much attention: she hadn't been a traitor, she hadn't managed to complete her mission, he didn't need her to tell him who had sent her (although he very much doubted she'd know that the whole attempt had been ultimately orchestrated by the Prince Rufus, not that this piece of information would be making its way to the King – the man could probably figure it out on his own, anyway).

He knew the general opinion was that he was chasing her because she had managed to escape him: the most common theory seemed to be that she'd stolen something off his room and managed to thus incur his wrath. (But she did incur his wrath. Nobody knocks him out and gets away with it, Miss Cloud. And for someone who stayed so long at the ball she was turning out to be rather good at running; when he caught up he was going to chain her to the bed—dungeons. He was going to chain her to the dungeons.)

There was, of course, the matter of what he'd really do when he got her. The truth was he didn't quite know. There were those in the Castle who knew her true profession, and besides he knew now that she regularly practiced male arts and crossdressed. His having anything to do with her would be enough of a scandal without adding in the fact that he was currently using army resources to find her. Unfortunately, he found himself caring very little, and he rather fancied that she would care even less.


He'd had a smirk buried in his voice but a serious face as he'd asked, "So, is the lady here on business or pleasure?"

She'd raised an eyebrow and smirked back, making no effort to hide it. "I'll thank you to drop the 'lady'. And aren't we girls so often here on both accounts?" Then, after a moment, her smirk softening into a smile: "I was here on business."

He made no effort to stop himself from smiling back. "I can't help but notice the past tense."

She kept smiling at him, feeling glad to be there.