Zidane had no trouble admitting it: he was more than a little infatuated with Dagger. He was hoping his persistent advances would make that obvious, though even up until now, months after the "kidnapping" began, she regarded him at the best times with mutual trust and the worst with mild annoyance. It was really hard to tell if he was getting anywhere at all with the princess, especially in such war-torn circumstances as they faced now.
Still, there were some moments... There were times when their bond was something stronger than friends or teammates, but not quite... the next thing. There were times when he could have her in his arms and it felt like they were the only two people in the whole world, though neither knew how to say so without breaking the spell. The connection was often as fleeting as it was difficult to articulate.
Nonetheless, she was more frank with him these days, and wasn't afraid to speak her concerns: over her kingdom, her friends, her eidolons, her concealed past and her precipitous future. He could listen to her talk all day; he loved her kind, open mind and gentle voice. He loved everything about her.
But was he in...? And did she...?
A mockingbird chirped shrilly a few feet from his head, jarring his reverie. It flitted between the spidery branches, inspected him with a cocked fish-eye and then dived back into the bright afternoon sky. Zidane rolled his shoulders, stretched his legs and leaned back into the crook of his treetop perch, shrugging off the unsettling emotions.
Oh well. He wasn't here today to analyze the next Queen of Alexandria's feelings for him. That could be saved for later.
Shamelessly enough, today he was here to analyze her body.
He cracked a bawdy grin just thinking about it. Her Highness had a fantastic figure, somehow petite and shapely at once, with an amazing posterior and perfectly framed breasts, not too big or too small (there was nothing wrong with big bouncy boobs on any occasion, but there was an even greater aesthetic beauty to breasts that fit just right.)
Although thinking back, the very first thing that attracted him to Princess Garnet (which he would never admit in any manly setting) was her pretty, heart-shaped face and full, round eyes, their dark fire more captivating than the gemstone itself. Not that there was much else for eye-candy at the time; the rest of the princess was shrouded in a white mage's robe and hood. Her greater assets he was privileged to later, in stages--some things more than skin-deep--and the more he saw, the more enamored of her he became. She was a woman of layers, to be studied one piece at a time, like a priceless artefact. This made her very special, he understood--nothing like the other girls he had encountered before. That was what he liked most about her, really. In that light, he had to reconsider his approach. If Dagger was no ordinary girl, his ordinary girl-catching tricks weren't going to work.
Perhaps he was missing something.
Short of borrowing one of Blank's "love potions," he was at a loss. He didn't know how to turn her favor for sure, and Zidane wouldn't dare force her into anything she wasn't ready for--he would rather die, honestly. He couldn't help his lascivious nature, though, and there was nothing in his moral contract that prohibited him from getting a free show.
After all... what she didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right?
His tree overlooked the bank of a wide, lazy stream, and beyond were plains that sloped like a tired, old sea into the hazy horizon. Above was a boundless cerulean dome, unblemished by a single cloud, and crickets and oglops made sport in the suntanned grasses while the wind took a holiday. It was a blessing to find a place like this, an oasis in a desert of Mist, so the troupe gladly stopped here for lunch.
The lady-folk elected to take a bath while the others prepared a meal, and that was when Zidane took his cue. He announced he was going to patrol for monsters and briskly took off before anyone could question his motives. With a thief's speed and stealth he cut a circuitous course to the stream, discovered a perfect eavesdropping tree and nested in it. He estimated a ten-minute hike from the campsite, if the girls took the leisurely path, and that left plenty of time to erase his tracks and secure the bough with the best view of the water and most cover from foliage. Now all that was left to do was wait while the sun played golden, silent notes on the tree's leafy keys.
He distractedly watched an ant get lost on one of the little green spades. It had to have been longer than ten minutes by now. Where were they? Dagger had explicitly mentioned the river, and this spot was the best break in the rock-strewn path between the shore and the camp. It wouldn't make sense to go any other way. He spun a peek around the backside of the trunk, sharp eyes scouring the trail. Not a--oh wait, someone was coming! He saw the high grass bow to someone's passage and slipped back into hiding.
A minute later the visitor arrived, in flagrant red coat and distressingly by herself. She padded up to the rim of the stream, bare toes sinking in the mud, and examined its clean, languid flow. Out past the tree's dappled umbrella, pebbles glistened in copper tones in the shallow heart of the riverbed.
He waited and listened, but when the approach of more was not forthcoming, Zidane pursed his brow, nonplussed. '...Freya? Where's everyone else? What happened to Dagger?'
Not about to notice him, much less answer, Freya went about her business, laying a towel over a dry rock and her helmet next to it. Her coat of arms was next, followed by raincoat, stockings, blouse and breeches. As she undressed below, the Genome grew anxious. What now? He didn't want to stick around if he wasn't going to see Dagger, but he couldn't jump down and get away without the dragon knight catching him. Any sudden movement was going to betray him, so unless he wanted to explain what he was doing up there, he had no choice but to sit tight and wait for Freya to leave.
'Ah, geez.' He rolled his eyes skyward. It couldn't be Dagger, alone and intimate by the water. No, this had to be his luck. His tail twitched with a rogue thought.
So... should he watch, anyway?
He was already going to hell for this; he might as well. Besides, he was curious. He never had a solid grasp of Freya's figure--in his mind, that is. She'd certainly never permit his hands there, though that was irrelevant because he honestly wasn't interested, and any jokes he made to the contrary were simply that (he had a reputation to maintain, after all!)
The least he'd ever seen her wearing was a bouffant sleeping garment, the cut of which left way too much to the imagination. Freya was too practical to parade her shape like Dagger in her snug orange overalls, and Zidane could respect the sentiment, even if he didn't relate to it. She wasn't here to look nice; she was here to kick some ass. That's what knights were for, and every piece of her attire was geared towards protection and battle, hardly an inch left vulnerable. The only piece that wasn't had been rudely taken away, and Zidane felt especially sorry for it. That ribbon was a nice little touch, in retrospect; it showed there was more to her character than the business of being a dragon knight.
Seeing her character naked would fill in a blank page of his mental scrapbook, that's for sure, but that didn't make it a good idea. Despite certain... compromising situations they'd been in before, it was just too weird to picture the dragon knight in any context outside of comrade and friend.
Curiosity, however, was a drug too potent to resist. The lady knight shucked off her knickers last, daintily kicking them to the side, and then stepped into the water.
Zidane's mouth went suddenly and alarmingly dry.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting--probably something a lot more like... well, like a mouse. Mice were stocky, amorphous bundles of fur, wholesomely unappealing. It was a ridiculous image, considering he knew better. He had seen the Cleyran dancers in their skimpy silks and bells, their builds undeniably feminine, but there was some short circuit in his brain that prevented him from making the connection to Freya.
His intrigued gaze rode up her bony, elongated ankles, past the knotted meat of her calves and into the cusp of her thighs, precisely where she stopped being a rat and started being a woman. Short slate hairs did nothing to blur the supple curve of her buttocks, and hips subtly gave in to lean backside and well-rounded shoulders, which her hair settled over in sleek, snowy spines. She continued in slow, fluid strides to the center of the stream, water lapping enticingly around her waist and her finicky tail curled high out of the way.
Freya dipped face-first into the stream and then gracefully pulled back up, diamond drops scattering before her like Shiva's halo. She cringed with a tiny sneeze and then plunged again, acquiring a taste for the water's crisp temperature. There wasn't much room to sink, so for a while she paddled idly in the soothing current, long muzzle and ears held up in the air. Her tail wagged behind like a snake, hypnotically slicing through dips and ripples. She didn't turn up a single splash, as naturally poised in the water as she was on the ground or in the air.
Zidane blinked, that simple, involuntary motion startling him. He hadn't remembered to breathe. Air returned to him in a quiet rush, and he shook his swimming head. What was he just thinking about? He didn't want to see Freya in the buff, right, because, because...
His thought was mercilessly snuffed out when she stood and faced his direction, wet hair flung behind her in a silvery cascade. He went completely numb, jaw hanging open--a nudge one way or the other would have tipped him flat out of the tree, like a capsizing boat.
That the lady had breasts didn't surprise him; Zidane knew that already. It was a biological fact: female Burmecians had boobs. He even had an inkling of how big they were supposed to be, though that didn't prepare him for the way they balanced pertly on her slender rack, pale fur underscoring her plumy, rich dark nipples with soft, luxurious frost. She began to wade back to shore, and he avidly noted that they even swayed like regular breasts, yet were as fuzzy and exotic as winter fruit.
Zidane swallowed his cotton tongue and tightened his tail around the branch beneath him, grappling for composure. "Down boy..." he coached himself in a coarse whisper. "This isn't even the right fare. Do not hit this target--I repeat, do not hit." The faux military jargon unwound him a bit, keeping him grounded to the tree. Amazingly, he had enough presence of mind not to look any further south, lest he lose his grip for good.
Freya scrubbed herself thoroughly with the towel, banishing any lingering filth, and then reclaimed her wardrobe. She hummed an easygoing tune as she dressed, taking her lackadaisical time, and this alone was fascinating. Who would have thought a cold bath could lighten the solemn dragon knight's heart?
Once she donned the helmet she transformed back to normal, all prim and proper again, and Freya shook her damp heels at the stream and walked away. Just before passing his tree she stopped and spoke, staring levelly at the distant camp even as her voice lifted into the canopy.
"If you're looking for Dagger..." There was a dreadful pause, and the boy's eyes bulged and hair bristled as he waited on the patronizing ring in Freya's voice to confirm his fears.
"She and Eiko found a hot spring on the way here and decided to bathe there instead. It was just a little too caloric for my tastes." Not sparing a glance back, she took her leave of him, strolling away with a wry chuckle. "Sorry to disappoint you, monkey boy."
A smart retort failing him, he nervelessly watched her disappear into the brush, stranded in his own discomfited musings. He wasn't--he couldn't--Burmecians were not his type, really. Well, maybe if--but--no, not Freya. No way. If anyone else had pulled that over him, he would be humiliated, and the gods forbid Dagger find out! He would never recover from that.
But, since it was Freya... he didn't know what to think. All he knew was the ruffled fur at the base of his tail and the heat thrumming under his shirt like a rash, and when words at last surfaced he surprised himself, stammering to the leaves and birds.
"N...Not at all."