FicWad

Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. I make it up as I go along. Final Fantasy IX is spiffy, isn't it?

Author's Note: For my dear Tami because she asked for it. Blame her and then, if you want to read -good- Final Fantasy fanfiction, go and read her work (Spiderflower).

*

I love him. I love him. I love him. The mantra echoes through my empty head, rattles through my narrow ribcage, presses against my temples like a rocking hammerhead. I love him. I have always loved him. I will always love him.

I repeat the words in time to the beating of my heart, willing the fierce, simple necessity of one to infuse the other. The element of honesty is gone, though, and it has begun to taste like ashes in my mouth. Still I persist and think them again and again. Because if I do not love him, then why did I wander for him? Or did I love him once - yes, I did and I remember the bittersweet tang of it all and I needed to find him more than myself - and then misplace it all when he forgot me?

Love and duty are not supposed to change. They should serve as constants in this world. They saved the world, after all.

I love him. I love him. I love him.

As if thinking and saying and walking through this sweet farce could make it all true once more.

*

In the end, it was Fratley who broke the dishonorable silence. Haltingly, he had admitted to unease and false shows. He could not rememeber what she had meant to him, only that she was important. He did not think he would ever remember. He was sorry. He felt great respect for her, yes, and affection but he did not love her. He had hoped that either the feelings would return or grow anew. It had been a long year of waiting, he said quietly, his voice tainted with the gentle, deliberate kindness it always aquired when he was talking to her. As if she were the one who had been sick and lost.

She supressed a sharp comment about the length of years. There was no point in being spiteful towards him.

He continued in his slow, careful drone. Explanations, thought processes, details, a nearly shameful need to share the logic behind what he had decided. As she sat there, her face schooled in the non-expression every dragoon learns early in their career, he took her through the long-night mind-rambles that had led to him leaving her. How he would lie beside her in bed and search himself for what he knew he should feel. How he would watch her move quietly around their shared home and try to feel something other than affection and gratitude tinged with loss. He was so very, very careful, she thought wryly. Obviously, he believed that she would become hysterical any minute now. Nowhere was this more clear in the way he kept gently touching her forearm and shoulder, claws on fabric, nothing too intimate but a gesture that seemed to whisper "you're still here, my once love, and none of this is your fault."

The reality of the situation, though, was far more laughable. She sat, watching him, listening to him, and nearly choked to death on relief and guilt. The laughter bubbled up her throat and she closed her hands tightly until she felt her claws prick her palms. It was unreal, a nightmare worse than the ones she woke up from when she had still been searching for him. It was far worse because this is what she wanted.

There was perverse shame in Fratley apologizing for wanting to end their relationship. Worse shame in finding that she was editorializing almost every word from his mouth. With an internal wince, a sharpening of her conscience, she stopped the thoughts. She had once loved the man in front of her; she had once planned to spend her life at his side. As much as that no longer appealed to her, the echoes of what she had once wanted rang hollow in her mind. She did not want him. He did not want her. She should have been the first to say so. It was needlessly cruel to force the empty-minded to make the choice.

It was dishonorable of her and that was something she could no longer live with and still breathe freely. She did not hate him. Yet. She never wanted that day to arrive. It would be worse than the long years where she was forgotten. Tainted memory burned the mind far deeper than the ghosts of the past.

They would part and she could remember it all as it was. The past year would be a bad dream.

Freya raised her head and offered a smile that made her former lover's eyes go wide and his tongue flutter to a stop. "I see," she murmured. "I understand." Then she stood and cut a courtly bow. The motion felt right for all its oddness. "Thank you, Fratley. Thank you for being honest and true and a far better dragoon than I. You truly understand honor. I wish you the best of luck." The smile lingered on her mouth and the other Burmecian shifted uncomfortably; something in his clogged mind stirred and attempted interpretation only to come up with the stunning fact that she meant every word of it and she was not about to crumple, begging, before him. The look on his face conveyed the sudden data failure of his mind and Freya bit back a bitter laugh as she reached out to take his hand. The weight of the decision was lifted from her shoulders and she could afford generosity. "I will move my things tonight," she added gently. As a weak sort of protest rose to his lips, she smiled again. "To the guest room. You needn't worry that you're pitching me out on the street, Fratley."

"But..."

"I think I will travel. It has been too long since I've seen the outside of Burmecia. I am an old wanderer, a soldier, Fratley. I don't take root very well, it seems." She squeezed his hand and, for the first time in months, it did not feel as if she were squeezing her own heart. Yet it was hard to keep her voice soft and the words weighed for his pride. "Don't look so miserable, my old love. We tried our best but things changed. We aren't the same anymore."

Freya pulled herself up short and released his hand, drawing herself straight and tall, and once more the strange smile was given to him. "Thank you again. I will go and see to my things."

It took every ounce of her training to not sprint to the task and, for that, the guilt strangled her again.

Fratley stood and watched her go, head tilted to one side, tail beating an uneven tattoo on the floor. "Oh, Freya," he sighed. "I am sorry."

*

Despite being a hero and being a favorite of the king, Freya discovered that she had very few possessions spread throughout the house. Few possessions that she felt the need to pack, that is. There were so many things that meant nothing to her, that symbolized nothing. Her weapon - just another limb and part of her. Her worn bedroll - still smelling of campfires and desert air. The assortment of bags to hang from her belt - neat and tidy, preserved in perfection from the old travels. Her old coat - patched and tired and far less appropriate for a hero than her newer, finer coat. She would take them all. She had to travel light, after all. It was a long way to... Wherever she was going.

Freya paused over her bags and stared off into space. Where was she going? Lindblum? Treno? Alexandria? She sank to perch on the edge of the bed and worried the hem of her tunic. If she was brutally honest, the real question was not where to go so much as who to see. She did not doubt Fratley's honor and knew that he would be forever delicate about their parting. She wouldn't be running into pitying looks and whispers. Chances rested on her side that no one would know unless they asked.

Was she ready to be asked? Probably not. Would she be asked? Of course. If she went to Alexandria.

Standing, the dragoon half-laughed and once more set to packing her meager possessions. The list in her head was adapted to carrying rations for a few weeks and plenty of tea bags. Fussy, she checked the wrappings around her precious teapot. She had a distance to walk.

She would go to Alexandria to see the Queen.

She smiled faintly and reached for her coat and helmet. How childish it sounded, really. A faint hum escaped her, a tuneless sound with a bouncing rhythm. Going to town to see the Queen, what will you do there, what will you see... Shrugging into her coat, Freya adjusted it with an inborn precision, smoothing lapels and straightening the hang of the panels. The old cloth felt sweet and familiar and she caught herself smiling again. It was amazing what making a decision could do for your temper, she thought.

Pike to her shoulder, helmet firmly set in place, Freya started towards the door and the road. She hesitated on the threshhold, though. Silently, she brought her tail around her, tip wiggling at her sudden turn of thoughts. She stared at the ragged strip of yellow cloth wound about it. Fratley. The past. Memories.

With a faint sigh, she set down her things and deftly picked out the knot.

If she was going to make a fresh start, she must do it properly.

Freya Crescent walked out the door with her things, starting on the long road to Alexandria. A tattered strip of sunshine yellow lay across the doorstep.