FFXII - Basch and Fran, Delta set.
Fandom: FFXII
Pairing: Fran and Basch
Theme Set: Delta
Rating: PG-13
Note: I'm pretty sure Basch and Fran never exchange a single significant word in the game - so writing this pair was an interesting challenge. These are in no particular order, but take place from the point where Basch steps out of the Barheim into Dalmasca, to the point where Ashe slaps him.
#01 - Air
He weeps for its sweetness, yet she scents only sand.
#02 - Apples
Be the ground sand or sediment, she takes his apple cores, seeds and flesh, to plant in a hollow scraped by her swift heel: everything should have some hope for rebirth.
#03 - Beginning
He presupposes her equanimity is simple ignorance of the melee, but is proven wrong: she fells his foe; she raises one arching brow in mild challenge; for the first time, he comprehends her competence.
#04 - Bugs
The flies to cluster across his sweat-slick shoulders, but he flicks his hair to deter them from his eyes: unlike the yelps, the wasted wit, the flailing curses from the others, she observes his action is effective.
#05 - Coffee
Somewhat perplexed, he declines politely: she concedes this is first time she has addressed him.
#06 - Dark
She joins his nightly vigil, and in striving to fathom her stillness he forgets his disquiet memories.
#07 - Despair
“You have sisters,” he states, and she replies: “Only as you once had a brother.”
#08 - Doors
Unexpectedly, the warped wood sticks on uneven flooring and he walks full into it: she is the only one who notices, and in his frustration he overlooks that this is the first door he has opened in more than two years.
#09 - Drink
He only wets his lips, and she monitors his first beer as it goes flat in want for his attention.
#10 - Duty
“For what else is there, but to become a part of something that is greater than my self --” but she will not listen: perhaps in her youth she would have found virtue in his sacrifices.
#11 - Earth
The color of his hair and skin match the bronze-yellow sand, and for a moment his place-belonging engenders in her a yearning for her old life: she is vaguely disappointed when he finishes his bathing ritual and dresses.
#12 - End
With no other diversion on the Strahl, he finds one loose end of the tangled rope and, over a day, clears the path to the other: she thanks him, and will say nothing of her already-purchased replacement.
#13 - Fall
Unlike Dalmasca or the Feywood, Landis had four seasons: his words are not adequate for the remembered red-gold glory of the third, thus he avoids description lest the thought of leafless trees disturb her.
#14 - Fire
He is patient with fuel, twigs, time, labor and a flint spark from a borrowed gun, yet on a chill, intolerant night she crafts flame from Mist and thought and finds pleasure in pre-empting his efforts -- she earns his rueful smile.
#15 - Flexible
She unconsciously tilts her head to avoid her ears brushing the bulkhead, and it surprises him: once he watched her kin wait a day until a doorway had been reconstructed with sufficient clearance.
#16 - Flying
As the Strahl lifts, he mentions old childhood dreams of flight, flying, and she hides her smile: she had the same.
#17 - Food
She sniffs everything then eats it regardless: in the wake of torturous hunger, he admires her restraint, however momentary.
#18 - Foot
“Twenty,” she states, while he is sure it is eighteen, so they mark the length of the fallen saurian from tip to tail to discover it lies at precisely nineteen feet.
#19 - Grave
“I will always hope it will be in Landis,” he replies, as she tends the aching wound that nearly claimed him, “and yours--“ but he stops when he remembers: of course, it will be in the Wood.
#20 - Green
He has forgotten the color, such is its rareness in dungeon, desert, or Dalmasca; thus when she describes the Feywood he cannot understand her abhorrence.
#21 - Head
Even without the proof of contact, he decides the liquid moonlight that crowns her has a greater parallel to feathers than hair.
#22 - Hollow
She thumps the steel hull with the affection one gives a steed; in his ears the sound rings hollow; it is the ringing heard inside a suit of armor; it is the ringing of a cell door.
#23 - Honor
“I have my own, and it is my own, not for another to demand, or lay claim to, to inveigle -“ but he will not listen: perhaps when his sacrifices bear fruit, he will acknowledge his desperate attraction to her words.
#24 - Hope
“Will you consider that she may have…?” but he interrupts, “I will not allow that to pass.”
#25 - Light
After a fight, when the wind and his swift-armed competence have whipped his hair into an electric aurora, and the light strikes it just so, to her eyes he wears a radiant halo.
#26 - Lost
At every halt, she points the way with an elegant claw, unwavering: he examines the sun, the time, the shadows, the breeze, and invariably concurs.
#27 - Metal
The stench, oiled, hot, sparking, heavier than a rusted armor suit, sets his teeth on edge like an electric storm: immersed in the bowels of the engine, it does not appear to afflict her.
#28 - New
“To see change, and newness; to see strangeness,” is her answer, but she knows that for one such as him, left craving what had been, it will never be reason enough.
#29 - Old
When he deduces her age, he suddenly understands his fear: his responsibilities will scarce be met before death claims him.
#30 - Peace
His stillness permits her to hear his heartbeat and she wonders if he hears hers: he is the first hume she has known with this capacity for calm.
#31 - Poison
The worst kind is power: she hopes he will avoid its malice.
#32 - Pretty
“Two years could weigh feather-light or mountain-heavy on a girl of her age,” he says, and she replies, with an unfamiliar tone in her voice: “I will note, she is…pretty.”
#33 - Rain
Droplets gather across her collarbones, eventually to fall into her décolletage: so does his gaze follow, before he realizes and looks away.
#34 - Regret
“Before the Empire…I thought perhaps a carpenter…?” he says, and, surprisingly, she finds delight in the thought of his strong wrists, his arms, making of nature a line, with the wood the color of his skin, the pine scent his own.
#35 - Roses
The thorny tangle is impenetrable, but nevertheless they allow the boy his struggle until, bloodied, he admits defeat and turns away: they both know that, at times, defeat must be understood before it is accepted.
#36 - Secret
He falls back, allows her to take the lead: it is a discreet way to admire her behind.
#37 - Snakes
They know this one is not poisonous as it lacks aggression, and as he dispatches it, she thinks it may have fared better to pretend some venom.
#38 - Snow
As the Strahl breaks through the cloud cover, its peaks and troughs alive with refracted sunlight, she says, “The first time I saw this, I thought it snow,” and he smiles: his first time, he thought the same.
#39 - Solid
She rather likes the feeling of his solidity flanking her, always two steps behind and just in her periphery: she trusts him with her back.
#40 - Spring
“Such a small piece of steel, on which to hinge the flight of an airship,” he says, and she replies, “Yet such is its nature, to store potential for all matter of exploits.”
#41 - Stable
“The Empire appears so,” he says, “but to shroud morality with law, to call order reason, to name discipline sanity, that is not stability,“ but she will not comment: by his reckoning his beloved Dalmasca is equally unsound.
#42 - Strange
She has become accepting of the strangeness of this world of humes, thus it startles her to know he welcomes her silences as if he were a lost sibling.
#43 - Summer
He pauses near her, with the hard breeze whipping her hair to lash his face, and even with the distractions of her proximity, her warmth, he notices she smells like a summer’s day.
#44 - Taboo
As she steps into the absence that had fleetingly been his presence, her surprise is not she craves this unembellished moment of shared space, but rather that she needs it as profoundly as breath.
#45 - Ugly
It costs her some effort to conceal the strangeness of her feet, be it with shoe, sheet or shadow, yet he cannot break his reserve to tell her: where form follows function, anyone would find beauty.
#46 - War
For as long as he persists in naming another’s path his own, he will offer his apologies freely, a valueless currency: she knows hume wars begin with such arrogance and end with such pacifiers.
#47 - Water
They turn to each other, and smile: each holds an extra cup for the other.
#48 - Welcome
Such a small thing, to move over a bare inch to allow him a more comfortable seat: the first time she does so, he cannot recall if he has ever done the same.
#49 - Winter
In her presence, he feels a childhood emotion remembered from the end of a long winter: he did not think the trees would leaf and blossom again, but he hoped.
#50 - Wood
She cannot see his face when he first gazes at his precious hume female, but she knows she has lost him: she can only marvel at her capacity for such losses.
Pairing: Fran and Basch
Theme Set: Delta
Rating: PG-13
Note: I'm pretty sure Basch and Fran never exchange a single significant word in the game - so writing this pair was an interesting challenge. These are in no particular order, but take place from the point where Basch steps out of the Barheim into Dalmasca, to the point where Ashe slaps him.
#01 - Air
He weeps for its sweetness, yet she scents only sand.
#02 - Apples
Be the ground sand or sediment, she takes his apple cores, seeds and flesh, to plant in a hollow scraped by her swift heel: everything should have some hope for rebirth.
#03 - Beginning
He presupposes her equanimity is simple ignorance of the melee, but is proven wrong: she fells his foe; she raises one arching brow in mild challenge; for the first time, he comprehends her competence.
#04 - Bugs
The flies to cluster across his sweat-slick shoulders, but he flicks his hair to deter them from his eyes: unlike the yelps, the wasted wit, the flailing curses from the others, she observes his action is effective.
#05 - Coffee
Somewhat perplexed, he declines politely: she concedes this is first time she has addressed him.
#06 - Dark
She joins his nightly vigil, and in striving to fathom her stillness he forgets his disquiet memories.
#07 - Despair
“You have sisters,” he states, and she replies: “Only as you once had a brother.”
#08 - Doors
Unexpectedly, the warped wood sticks on uneven flooring and he walks full into it: she is the only one who notices, and in his frustration he overlooks that this is the first door he has opened in more than two years.
#09 - Drink
He only wets his lips, and she monitors his first beer as it goes flat in want for his attention.
#10 - Duty
“For what else is there, but to become a part of something that is greater than my self --” but she will not listen: perhaps in her youth she would have found virtue in his sacrifices.
#11 - Earth
The color of his hair and skin match the bronze-yellow sand, and for a moment his place-belonging engenders in her a yearning for her old life: she is vaguely disappointed when he finishes his bathing ritual and dresses.
#12 - End
With no other diversion on the Strahl, he finds one loose end of the tangled rope and, over a day, clears the path to the other: she thanks him, and will say nothing of her already-purchased replacement.
#13 - Fall
Unlike Dalmasca or the Feywood, Landis had four seasons: his words are not adequate for the remembered red-gold glory of the third, thus he avoids description lest the thought of leafless trees disturb her.
#14 - Fire
He is patient with fuel, twigs, time, labor and a flint spark from a borrowed gun, yet on a chill, intolerant night she crafts flame from Mist and thought and finds pleasure in pre-empting his efforts -- she earns his rueful smile.
#15 - Flexible
She unconsciously tilts her head to avoid her ears brushing the bulkhead, and it surprises him: once he watched her kin wait a day until a doorway had been reconstructed with sufficient clearance.
#16 - Flying
As the Strahl lifts, he mentions old childhood dreams of flight, flying, and she hides her smile: she had the same.
#17 - Food
She sniffs everything then eats it regardless: in the wake of torturous hunger, he admires her restraint, however momentary.
#18 - Foot
“Twenty,” she states, while he is sure it is eighteen, so they mark the length of the fallen saurian from tip to tail to discover it lies at precisely nineteen feet.
#19 - Grave
“I will always hope it will be in Landis,” he replies, as she tends the aching wound that nearly claimed him, “and yours--“ but he stops when he remembers: of course, it will be in the Wood.
#20 - Green
He has forgotten the color, such is its rareness in dungeon, desert, or Dalmasca; thus when she describes the Feywood he cannot understand her abhorrence.
#21 - Head
Even without the proof of contact, he decides the liquid moonlight that crowns her has a greater parallel to feathers than hair.
#22 - Hollow
She thumps the steel hull with the affection one gives a steed; in his ears the sound rings hollow; it is the ringing heard inside a suit of armor; it is the ringing of a cell door.
#23 - Honor
“I have my own, and it is my own, not for another to demand, or lay claim to, to inveigle -“ but he will not listen: perhaps when his sacrifices bear fruit, he will acknowledge his desperate attraction to her words.
#24 - Hope
“Will you consider that she may have…?” but he interrupts, “I will not allow that to pass.”
#25 - Light
After a fight, when the wind and his swift-armed competence have whipped his hair into an electric aurora, and the light strikes it just so, to her eyes he wears a radiant halo.
#26 - Lost
At every halt, she points the way with an elegant claw, unwavering: he examines the sun, the time, the shadows, the breeze, and invariably concurs.
#27 - Metal
The stench, oiled, hot, sparking, heavier than a rusted armor suit, sets his teeth on edge like an electric storm: immersed in the bowels of the engine, it does not appear to afflict her.
#28 - New
“To see change, and newness; to see strangeness,” is her answer, but she knows that for one such as him, left craving what had been, it will never be reason enough.
#29 - Old
When he deduces her age, he suddenly understands his fear: his responsibilities will scarce be met before death claims him.
#30 - Peace
His stillness permits her to hear his heartbeat and she wonders if he hears hers: he is the first hume she has known with this capacity for calm.
#31 - Poison
The worst kind is power: she hopes he will avoid its malice.
#32 - Pretty
“Two years could weigh feather-light or mountain-heavy on a girl of her age,” he says, and she replies, with an unfamiliar tone in her voice: “I will note, she is…pretty.”
#33 - Rain
Droplets gather across her collarbones, eventually to fall into her décolletage: so does his gaze follow, before he realizes and looks away.
#34 - Regret
“Before the Empire…I thought perhaps a carpenter…?” he says, and, surprisingly, she finds delight in the thought of his strong wrists, his arms, making of nature a line, with the wood the color of his skin, the pine scent his own.
#35 - Roses
The thorny tangle is impenetrable, but nevertheless they allow the boy his struggle until, bloodied, he admits defeat and turns away: they both know that, at times, defeat must be understood before it is accepted.
#36 - Secret
He falls back, allows her to take the lead: it is a discreet way to admire her behind.
#37 - Snakes
They know this one is not poisonous as it lacks aggression, and as he dispatches it, she thinks it may have fared better to pretend some venom.
#38 - Snow
As the Strahl breaks through the cloud cover, its peaks and troughs alive with refracted sunlight, she says, “The first time I saw this, I thought it snow,” and he smiles: his first time, he thought the same.
#39 - Solid
She rather likes the feeling of his solidity flanking her, always two steps behind and just in her periphery: she trusts him with her back.
#40 - Spring
“Such a small piece of steel, on which to hinge the flight of an airship,” he says, and she replies, “Yet such is its nature, to store potential for all matter of exploits.”
#41 - Stable
“The Empire appears so,” he says, “but to shroud morality with law, to call order reason, to name discipline sanity, that is not stability,“ but she will not comment: by his reckoning his beloved Dalmasca is equally unsound.
#42 - Strange
She has become accepting of the strangeness of this world of humes, thus it startles her to know he welcomes her silences as if he were a lost sibling.
#43 - Summer
He pauses near her, with the hard breeze whipping her hair to lash his face, and even with the distractions of her proximity, her warmth, he notices she smells like a summer’s day.
#44 - Taboo
As she steps into the absence that had fleetingly been his presence, her surprise is not she craves this unembellished moment of shared space, but rather that she needs it as profoundly as breath.
#45 - Ugly
It costs her some effort to conceal the strangeness of her feet, be it with shoe, sheet or shadow, yet he cannot break his reserve to tell her: where form follows function, anyone would find beauty.
#46 - War
For as long as he persists in naming another’s path his own, he will offer his apologies freely, a valueless currency: she knows hume wars begin with such arrogance and end with such pacifiers.
#47 - Water
They turn to each other, and smile: each holds an extra cup for the other.
#48 - Welcome
Such a small thing, to move over a bare inch to allow him a more comfortable seat: the first time she does so, he cannot recall if he has ever done the same.
#49 - Winter
In her presence, he feels a childhood emotion remembered from the end of a long winter: he did not think the trees would leaf and blossom again, but he hoped.
#50 - Wood
She cannot see his face when he first gazes at his precious hume female, but she knows she has lost him: she can only marvel at her capacity for such losses.