Recommended reading: ...um.
I was gonna suggest a very fine one-shot that I was reminded of while writing this, but as it happens I haven't the slightest clue of author or title. So I wasn't able to find it--good job, myumemory. Basically, it's Freya and Amarant having a nice little chat outdoors, except he's hiding in the grass or under a rock or something the whole time and Freya can't tell where his voice is coming from. See, now I sound crazy. It could be ancient or it could be fetus-old, knowing my powers of recall, but if I'm not hallucinating and this fic exists, I hope someone else remembers it for me--I've been itching to read it again.
edit: It's "Parlor Tricks" by Wallwalker, and I had such a tough time finding it because it's on FicWad. Heh, whooops. Go read it anyway!
Gaia's two moons sailed across opposing horizons, polarizing the world red and blue. The mountains blushed like coals, the fields shimmered like the sea, and legions of stars lay between, their numbers diluted on the battlefield of the two worlds. On the surface, humanity slept through the peaceful dark, oblivious.
It was Freya's turn at the night watch, and she tended it alone while the others slumbered. Though their four tents had room for seven and one more, Amarant, as usual, made himself the odd man out. Freya wondered if the brutish bounty hunter ever slept, or if he was a moon-cursed demon that roamed the hills after dark and fed on the dreams of the innocent, just like in children's fables. Wherever he lost himself, he always turned up in the morning, so it was fair not to ask any questions--no one really wanted to know.
She prodded the dying campfire with a stick, turning over the last log and roiling the hot ashes like a mound of seething ants. The firewood crackled for a mesmerizing while before Freya sighed and meandered around the camp, keeping alert so long as she kept on her feet.
Pacing did nothing to slake her wandering mind, however, and it wasn't long before thoughts of her duty towards her sleeping comrades segued into thoughts of her duty towards her people and homeland. As a dragon knight, what should she be doing now? What could she be doing better? She recalled standing at the gates of Burmecia not terribly long ago and asking herself, 'What can I do for my kingdom?' as if the answer could resolve her purpose and give her life meaning.
She only found ruins. Perhaps she had taken the wrong path. Perhaps that was all she and Fratley had in common: a few too many wrong turns. Even the nourishing hope of finding her other half, a dream she had quested after for five years, had been torched and stamped into cinders the moment he turned his back and said he was sorry. Now, all she had left--the only reason to move on--was to redeem herself to a fallen kingdom and a forgetful partner. All she had left were these people under her watch, one for all and all for one on their mission to defeat Kuja, and whether they would march together into absolution or damnation mattered not. She would defend them with her life, because they were her life.
She sniffed at such mawkish consolation. How clinging and desperate she had become! Perhaps she was always that way, and the trait only lay naked and pathetic in her mind once all her futile longings had been stripped away. This, she reminded herself, was why she hated being left alone with her thoughts. They made her feel weak, almost sick.
Still, she would give anything to know what he was thinking, since it was apparently never of her...
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Freya's shoulders bunched into knots, every fiber from head to tail cringing at the intrusive voice. She leveled her composure in the next breath and turned in a circle, realizing she had been pacing off a tangent, away from the camp and into a wide clearing. The tall grass swamped her legs, ticking and humming with crickets. Standing in her trodden path was Zidane, stooped slightly forward with his hands clasped behind his back and his tail arched over his head, like a housecat prying into a pie on the windowsill.
"It's you," Freya muttered irritably, though she wasn't sure why. It was as if the gods summoned him to distract her.
Undaunted by her weary tone, he straightened and threw his arms out amicably. "Ta-dah, it's me. I was looking for you!"
"Were you, now?"
"Yeah. I was thinking you might wanna switch out--get some shut-eye, you know? You've been out here a while."
"I'm quite fine," she insisted, perhaps too curtly for her own good. "You can go back to sleep."
"You sure?" He swung an open look around the muted countryside before taking a step closer. "Well, since I've got you alone, I've been meaning to ask..."
His cautious approach dawned on her, and she imagined the question before it arrived. He was probably stumped over a certain incident at the river earlier that day, but Freya wasn't inclined to explain herself, much less account for his bad behavior. She had expected the boy's humiliation to fill in the blanks without her, but Freya should have known better--Zidane was unacquainted with shame. He only had enough tact not to bring it up in front of the rest of the party, lest he incriminate himself.
"Ah, gee, where to begin...?" He shuffled his feet and scratched his head, affecting bashfulness. Freya would not be gulled, though she was too involved in his petty problem to brush him away, now. "Listen, about what happened this afternoon--"
Freya clipped his anxiety before it took flight. "Don't worry, I have no intention of telling Dagger or the others."
He blinked, taken aback. His blank alarm then shifted into uneasy acknowledgement. "Oh. Well yeah, that's good, thanks. But, uh..."
What else? She had hoped that gesture would pacify him, but apparently something more had driven him from his tent, and if Freya judged him correctly, he wouldn't tire until his curiosity was satisfied. "What? Spit it out."
"It's just... why? I'm really confused; you usually don't let me get away with stuff like this. What's the catch?"
She shook her head, exasperated. "Why does there have to be a catch? I'm not your mother; I can't keep up with all the rotten fruits of your horrible upbringing. Why should I try to get you into trouble when you do a fair enough job of it on your own?"
He glanced aside, absorbing the scolding with a sour wince. "Gee, thanks." Though it was in his best interest to walk away, he stalled in the following silence, consternation skittering over his features. His fingers twitched and his tail corkscrewed behind his ankles, and after an unbecoming bout of thought he pursued his original query. "I just mean, you know, I saw you, and you know you, uh... didn't seem very upset about it..."
Freya's frown deepened, tugging on her brow. She had no solution for his benighted guilt, or for the vexing froth at the brim of her stomach. The air was suddenly stagnant and oppressive, and a restless ache nipped at her calves, spurring her to run and jump far away. She didn't know where she was going, though, or what she was running from--was she really annoyed with Zidane, or tired of herself? Freya turned away, seeking a different light, though the red moon's embrace was hardly more comforting than the blue's. She hated this feeling, this stifling night, this urge to fly to the nearest moon and hunker in a crater until the world blows away, these awful not-questions with no answers--she hated this monkey standing where she wanted to see a strapping dragon knight, a rock to hold on to amidst the rapids--and now more than ever she hated her selfish whimsy.
Reason clashed with loathing, the vile mixture bubbling up her throat, and words were scalding her tongue before she knew what she was talking about. "Why should I be? You should be apologizing to Dagger for even attempting that perverted little stunt, not me. Besides, I think having to watch me bathe instead was punishment enough."
Zidane started, notably disarmed, and asked guilelessly, "What do you mean by that?"
Freya scowled. Did he have to ask? Was he really so dense? "I shouldn't have to explain. I know how unseemly Burmecians appear to other races."
It was funnier at the time, she had to admit. She wanted to ruin his little game, and while she was buying time for Dagger to finish her bath and move along, Freya figured it wouldn't hurt to put on a show. She had her modesty, of course, but she didn't harbor any delusions about her appearance, either. Her travels abroad granted a rash impression of her own kind, reviled as "nasty rat people" by foul mouths in taverns across the globe. It was safe to assume, then, that if anything could rattle Zidane's uncouth libido, it would be a wet, naked rat lady.
What she didn't count on was the hurt crease to the boy's brow as he objected, "Wait, are you saying I think Burmecians are ugly? Or you? You've got me all wrong! I thought you knew me better than that, Freya."
"I just caught you trying to spy on the next queen of Alexandria in the bath. What did I miss?"
"Ouch. Okay yeah, I'm a sleaze, but I'm not that shallow, and I definitely don't think you're an eyesore. Couldn't be further from the truth, honestly."
Freya bristled. What was he saying? Was this another game? Was this some glib appeal to her buried vanity, to win her pardon? What in the world did he want at this point, anyway? "Don't toy with me."
He recoiled from her vitriol, palms outstretched in surrender. "I'm not! Geez, I've never seen a chick get so worked up over almost getting a compliment."
She had something snappish aimed at the boy, but it stuck to the roof of her mouth when she saw his expression fall, cat-like eyes keen and staid in the lurid dark. "...No one's ever told you that before, have they?"
"Told me what?" she replied rigidly, discomposed by the perceptive drop in his tone.
"That you're beautiful."
He said it with such blunt, quiet sincerity that it stopped Freya in her tracks. The night paused awkwardly, crickets and frogs quarreling in the stultified breeze.
Zidane read her delay as a negative. "That's a 'no,' huh? Not even your boyfriend?"
There he went, calling Sir Fratley her "boyfriend" again. The term never sat well with Freya, as if such a thing were beneath a dragon knight's station--too ordinary, too common. "Our relationship was too... complex for such shallow flattery," she said kindly, surprising herself with her own voice.
"You've got to be kidding me. Every guy tells his girl she looks hot once in a while."
"Not all guys have to be wench-farmers like you, you know! Sir Fratley was a gentleman," she corrected him. How could she possibly explain the concept of chivalry to such a freewheeling scoundrel? A quaint example surfaced in her mind, like one of so many drab, oily paintings left to soak and rot in the halls of Burmecia Palace. "We weren't... it was different. We were partners. We trained together every day in the castle courtyard, after the other soldiers had cleared the grounds. It was our special time. He was always firm and encouraging, and he was always strong for me. He lauded my skills, even though his techniques put mine to shame."
The boy cocked a strange, bemused smirk and threaded his thumbs through the loops of his belt, playing with imaginary pockets. "Just your skills? You've got other assets, y'know. I saw them myself. They're jiggly."
Furious heat rose to her cheeks, and she had to check herself against drawing her lance. "Zidane!!"
"What??"
"If you really want it, I will punish you," Freya menaced, hoping the grave boom in her tone would enforce the threat.
He frantically waved the notion away, even as his face split with a teasing grin. "No no no, that's okay!" He cupped his chin with a belated thought. "Hey, how did you know I was up there, any--"
"I could smell you." She touched her sloping rodent nose. "You can't put anything past this, I'm afraid."
The dirty blonde pouted. "Hey! You trying to say I stink?"
She tipped her muzzle and said airily, "A bath certainly wouldn't kill you, that's for sure."
Zidane tittered and idly flexed his arms, the snub rolling off his shoulders--he rarely seemed to take insult to anything. "Maybe I should have joined you, then!"
Nor could he take anything seriously. "Hrmph! I can't believe you."
"Aww, well..." Zidane mellowed, sidling closer until he stood in Freya's crimson shadow. On closer inspection he didn't really smell terrible, just like fresh dirt, old denim, chocobo musk and... cookies, for some reason. The red and blue twilight played violet tricks in his pale hair and clear eyes, and when he spoke again it sounded too warm and straight for the cool, wiry boy.
"Listen, if he's never going to tell you, I will. I think you're gorgeous. You can take it from me; I'm like a babe connoisseur. And if anyone ever says any different I'll personally go and punch 'em in the face, because there's no way they could be any more wrong. It's the truth, and it's practically killing me that you don't believe it yourself."
Freya's breath froze, crystallizing a precious supply of blood to her head. She knew better--she wanted to know better--she wanted to say she knew better. It was just more of Zidane's blithe chatter. He was always tossing out encouraging words to keep up the group's morale. It didn't matter if what he said was true or not, and it didn't matter that the boy always spoke before he thought, even if the consequences were unfortunate. It didn't matter if she believed him or not, because she was a dragon knight and dragon knights weren't supposed to care about such things, what the world thought of Burmecians be damned, and old flames be damned, and wicked, vain men be damned, and herself be damned if she...
...realized she actually did care, perhaps a little.
She hated trying to think around Zidane.
Freya could have said any of those things, but when the night songs simmered down and they were left staring at one another, all that came forth was a very faint and desultory, "You should be getting back to your tent. The hour is late."
Zidane shrank a bit, gaze falling to the wayside. "Oh... okay." He nearly looked as if he had been struck, and she heard him swallow thickly before testing his volume again. "Yeah, sure. I guess I'll see you in the morning." He then picked up his light-hearted bearings and ambled away, tail dragging through the grass like a roving weed.
He didn't look back, and she didn't say goodnight. She couldn't say anything. She wondered how an observation on something so trivial as her looks could stupefy her so thoroughly that she lost her manners. Only once she was alone with her usual, sober thoughts was the reason manifest: no one had ever told her before, after all.
She told herself it didn't matter, even if she really cared.
The dragon knight patrolled the tranquil field, studying the heavens, nursing her lance and meditating on her duties, just as she was before the interruption. Any silly, indulgent musings were quickly dismissed, though long after her watch concluded and it was time to rest, Freya never rid herself of that peculiar, ticklish sensation in the pit of her belly.
She didn't sleep much that night.