Title: Yggdrasil
Author: YukariYoukai
Pairing: Vaan/Balthier
Summary: In return for a flower, Vaan recieves the power to change the world. AU; Balthier/Vaan
Chapter: 4/?: "Bisson Rheum"
Notes: And just what the hell is Migelo ordering, anyway?
When Vaan was born, his mother died. This is all he remembers for the first few years of his life. Then, Reks arrives, light-dark hair and caring eyes. Soft, boyish features, lightly tanned by working in the desert sun. The next few years are filled with laughter, Philia and the sweet juice of stolen fruit. To be sure, these are the happiest years of his life, but he can remember none of it in clarity. When he tries, all he can retrieve are hazy, concentrated images like Reks' smile and the broken skin of a pomegranate. That is enough, for now.
There is a moment of sorrow, although Vaan knows not the reason. After this lapse in his memories, it is understood that he will never see Reks smile again. And he moves on.
Penelo takes up the majority of his memory after this, but now there are auxillary characters: Migelo, Kytes, the Seeq in Lowtown, the Bangaa who skulks in the bazaar. He isn't happy, but he isn't sad, and he's busy enough that he doesn't need to think about anything that happened before he met Penelo. If it is a blessing, he doesn't say, mostly because he doesn't want to think, anymore.
---
"Vaan!"
He is sleeping in a pile of straw that Migelo keeps in his storeroom. He doesn't care why it is there, only that it is there and that he can sleep on it without disturbance. Relatively.
"Vaan," Penelo tries, again. She spies him asleep on the hay and kicks him in the shin, hard.
"ACK! Geez, Penelo," he slurrs good naturedly, rousing at last.
"Vaan," the slim teen scolds. At 19, she is three years his senior, and she goes to all lengths to show it. "You were supposed to help me with the shop today."
"Right, I remember." He counters Penelo's snort with a sloppy smile. "I'm going right now!"
Penelo's shop, Vaan's forgotten task, is tucked between Yamoora's gambits and Montblanc's Hall. Vaan has become a fond friend of each of the three owners, as his day is usually divided between favors for all of them. As he picks straw out of his hair, a daunting task for anyone with eyes, he mentally maps out what was missing in the inventory when he last checked at yesterday's closing.
"And don't think you can get out of it by taking the long way around," Penelo continues, a discordant buzz in his ears. "This time, I'm walking you the the South Gate."
"Yeah, yeah," he replies, brushing her off in the tone of voice he knows she knows he knows she hates. Which is why he isn't too surprised when she whacks him upside the head.
"Sound a little more grateful, huh!" He directs a careless smile at her as they reach the massive dark green doors. He is grateful. Really, he is. Grateful that when he pretends he can't remember anything before he was twelve, she pretends to believe him. Grateful that she continually offers him the spare bed in her cramped apartment above the shop, even though they both know he's a street rat and that's all he'll ever be.
But he doesn't like to think about that, so he firmly steers his mind toward inventory, again. He's halfway down the tiled path to the Giza Plains when he remembers two things. One, he doesn't have any hi-potions on him and two, that the dirk he's carrying won't put a dent in Giza's beasts, especially not during the Rains. Vaan doubles back, opting to use the Moogling this time, because an irate Penelo is a violent Penelo.
He retrieves his Longsword from the Armory and grabs a satchel of hi-potion from Migelo before he feels it. Around his neck, securely wrapped in a monogrammed hankerchief, dangled a promise of security, snugly anchored against his clavicle by a thick necklace of flax. A small vibration starts from the soft spot just above the beginning of his pectorals, and spreads to the rest of his body. When it ends, he self-consciously rubs the back of his neck, hoping to pass off his actions to anyone looking as those of one suffering from a chilled passing breeze.
It is then he realizes he stands in the spot, the exact spot, where he met that girl. And that boy, who gave him… A pale hand doesn't quite stroke the worn, but whole, handkerchief. A grey splotch and a brown splotch, that's all he remembers, he reminds himself firmly. All he remembers.
---
Penelo's father worked for all of the years of her childhood. When she awoke, he was already at work, and when she slept, it was because she fell asleep waiting for him. Penelo has only seen her father a handful of times; the last time, he gave her the keys to the shop and kissed her on the forehead (wrinkled, work-worn fingers stroking her arms oh so gently.)
She was fifteen, then. Six months later, after the inexplicable grief of losing the one man she would have liked to known, she finds a malnourished twelve- year old selling Galbana Lilies on her way to her economy lessons from Migelo. Of course she takes him home. But Migelo doesn't teach fools, not even to pay off life debts: some yet unnamed part of her mind registered opportunity where the softer, more humanity-oriented part only saw need.
---
Being Alone is the only thing Penelo fears. She knows enough about business to make it amongst her silver-tongued, sharp- toothed competition, and she was raised in the streets long enough to know how to survive on nothing. But there is no lesson on how to best wander-lust. What she saw in her father's weary eyes is reflected in Vaan's own smoky orbs. It scares her on a level she refuses to acknowledge, but she does what she can to keep him, as long as she can. He is brother, father, son rolled into a thin, pale package and she holds onto him with as much tenacity as she dares.
She is old enough to recognize what chained her father to her was labour and obligation, and she is needy enough ---shameless enough--- to use it for her own purposes. It serves her well, for a few good years, but Vaan is not her father (brother, son) and his feet just won't stop itching no matter how hard Penelo works at making them numb.
He leaves her on a bright, hot day. It's the Rains in Giza, so be careful, she says, hair in a tousle, eyes not stinging, throat not tight. (just a normal day) Come back to me, she doesn't say as he turns away, bright bright bright as the sun in never-ending summer. Come back to me, she doesn't say as his old, wrinkled eyes close in relief, trusting her in Migelo's Lazarushian hands, his own warm, calloused hands leaving indelible scars of longing as they slip away from her slim arms.
Come back to me.
---
"Mm… Yes! The elegant spray of the… and the straight backbone presented by the… is this a… oh, oh my!! A work of art!" Migelo turned, merchant robes whispering to the hard floors, and declared: "You have done most well, Mistress Penelo."
The slender blonde offered a crisp smile. "It's to be expected. I did learn from the best, afterall."
"Inflation does not a masterpiece make. Mmm… yes."
"You're making me blush." Penelo murmured, looking carefully at the hem of his robes.
"I'm very… sorry. I can't help it when… I see something so beautiful."
"Well, take it home, already! To think I thought you a gentleman, making a girl like me pink."
"Mmm… Yes! Quite right!" And with another cry of 'masterpiece', Migelo had the feeble-looking orphan that had trailed him into the store carry the flower arrangement out. Such delicate wrists, Penelo noted, but she was seeing another face holding different flowers.
---
A moogle perched upon her counter one fine day, and everything changed.
It was a beautifully fine-furred creature, with dark eyes and twitching whiskers. Penelo held down her hand to prevent herself from scratching him behind the ears. They made idle chatter, because the shop was cooler than the outside and the flowers made it smell better. "And we picked up a hume called Vaan, kupo. He's really nice, po."
"Oh," said Penelo even though she couldn't breathe couldn't breathe couldn't breathe.
"He has hair most peculiar. Lighter than even yours, kupo."
"Is he here? With you now?"
"No, no, no. He's with the Construction Guild in the Highwaste. I just came from there, kupo."
"Yeah?" Was the shop actually getting hotter?
The moogle frowned thoughtfully. "But they might have moved on by now, kupo. Gone further upward."
A moogle perched on her counter one fine day, and everything changed.
Will he ever come back?
---
Vaan sneezed.
---
End Notes.
The chapter that wouldn't end. Gawd. Penelo just tapped me on the shoulder and started whispering in my ear. Go AWAY Penelo. It was really vexing. It was supposed to be angst, dammit. And the numerous pauses during Migelo's speech are his er… slurpy? Tendencies.