Navigation and Leadership

Disclaimer: all known and recognisable characters, names, and places belong to Square Enix

I can't navigate and you aren't leading but it's alright because we don't have anywhere to go anyway. We never have and, you know, I hope that we never will. That way it's just us as it's always been.

You first decided you wanted to be a 'sky pirate' twelve days after Reks finally died, though I always thought that your brother never really survived Nalbina; he was walking dead the whole time. It was a relief when he finally did fade away completely, but I suppose not so much for you.

You see, although I'll never tell you, I think Reks took something from you when he finally departed.

I think you stopped living when he did. He died but your life just froze in place; you had your hatred, and yes, it really was hate of the Empire that filled you, but it was as if you simply stopped being here with me.

Your eyes were always searching for something, and I don't care what you say, it wasn't the sky you wanted.

You were somewhere else entirely; not the sky, because I don't beleive you ever wanted to be all the way up there at all. Yet you were somewhere even further away. All hunched up inside your head. For months after Reks disappeared you couldn't even look at a Galbana Lily.

So, because it wasn't fair that you should fade and leave me here, in a home that wasn't mine anymore and a city filled with the clanking metal of the monsters who took so much away from me, I used to tease you and chase you and fret over you.

Selfish of me, I know, it's not like you ever wanted me to do it. I never really thought you needed my help either, I was just afraid one day you'd disappear for good.

So then, even though I did my best to dissuade you (and I know all I was doing was pushing you further away – but what else could I do?) you somehow ended up meeting real sky pirates and our Princess and dead knights and suddenly I'm swept up in your whirlwind too.

There's something I've thought about telling you over and over again about that whole adventure.

We shouldn't have been there Vaan.

We really had no place in that story; it was all too big and grand and complicated for people like us. People like us don't get to have stories and we don't get to have our names written down into history (even if we are only footnotes) but obviously you never bothered to listen to that.

It's funny you never listen but I keep talking; so tell me who is the real fool, huh?

I told you in Bhujerba when it all started that you wouldn't be leaving me behind; it was selfish again, I guess, but it was just the truth.

I didn't want to be there, I was tired of war and didn't want to die like my brothers, but if I couldn't drag you back to the home that wasn't home and the lives that weren't, then I wasn't going to let you get away either.

Still, I guess I should tell you something else (it's not like you'll listen anyhow), you came alive again somewhere along the way; you were yourself once more and you finally let Reks go.

I still teased and scolded you, and we were both mostly ignored, but it was alright because I never wanted you to lead and you never know where you're going anyway.

Then the Pirate lets you have his airship, and I think that it was probably some kind of joke, too complicated and bitter for me to understand, but suddenly the story is done and home looks like home again (though it will take a while for me to feel it) and for no really good reason it all seems too small and safe for either of us.

You can barely fly an airship and I can't read a map, but it doesn't matter because we still have no place to go. We never have and, you know, I truly do hope that we never will. That's just the way it is for us, I guess.

I'll still tease you when you think big and talk bigger and I'll scold you when you forget that Ivalice is too large and too cold a place to let little people like us roam free, but I think that's alright because you never listen anyway.

I hope you never do, listen I mean, because I think if I wasn't your navigator trying to plot a course for a home we don't have, and if you weren't a pilot with no sense of direction, we wouldn't be happy at all.

We are happy, aren't we? I mean sometimes I wish you'd actually look at me when I'm talking to you and I know you wish I'd just shut up now and then, but that's alright, isn't it, because it's just us.

It's us and I can't navigate and you can barely fly but that's not the point.

You and me, Vaan, that's the point.

So let's go; we have nothing to keep us here.