Title: Pirate of Pebbles
Author: unwinding fantasy (formerly Aqua Phoenix1)
Disclaimer: Don't own Final Fantasy XII. What a shame.
Rating: K

-- "Tell me a story." --

Once upon a time there lived a man whose hands were soft and eyes were bright. He had a deep voice, threaded with gentle amusement, a velveteen voice especially good for humming sleep-songs. His laughter set the whole world to quaking -- slumbering mountains awakened to tread along the farthest shores of Ivalice at the sound -- and his son laughed with him. Together their wild noises kept thunderclouds at bay. A quick hug and, head buried in the folds of the great man's jacket, the boy caught hints of marjoram leaves and gunpowder, the smell of science, a promise of home. Tell me a story, he'd say and the man would spin out a world of buccaneers and crossed swords and x-marked spots, the kind Ffamran liked best.

The list of things the man did well went like this: identifying stick figures correctly; chasing his squealing son down metallic corridors, pretending to be Diabolos; mixing stuff up in test tubes and letting the boy watch it fizz or change colour or grow warm. Or explode. He was also very good at saying bad words when that happened. Rubbing soot-stained glasses, grumbling at his dirtied shirtsleeves, a giggle would suddenly remind him he had an audience. He couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or exasperated and in the end he'd settle on a flourish and a mock bow. Encore! the boy would demand, eyes shining with mirth.

The boy drew (badly). In the pictures -- mother-son-father, all holding hands beneath a smiling yellow sun -- the man had broom-hair, sometimes three shades too dark, too light, occasionally blue. It didn't matter that (logically) the boy got it wrong. He could never be wrong in his father's eyes. Besides, when it came to drawing the man was even worse.

The man gathered chocobo feathers, sky jewels, smooth-and-shiny riverstones. Thirsty for buried treasure, the boy accepted it all, swore to guard it with his life. The man didn't meet his magicite quota. His superiors frowned at him, told him to work harder. He didn't care.

He took his son through metal mazes, pointed out sparkling crystals sprouting from ceiling, wall, floor. He took his son down, down, down into the belly of an airship where things went buzz and clang and put-put-put. He didn't mind when the boy dashed up-deck, stood with his arms outspread as swift winds whirled past, pretending he could fly. Fool of a pirate, he teased, mussing his son's hair, grinning like he's a young boy himself and the world's his play-toy. Imagining the small headshake his wife would give him when he reported their antics.

The pebbles were more important than the magicite back then.

The boy watched his father wither, fading into a white-washed background as he waited a lifetime for the woman to recover. Antiseptic, soup gone cold, stale urine -- that was what he reeked of now, all trace of natural scent gone. But the gunpowder remained. If anything, it grew more pungent.

They both waited for the woman to live and she didn't and the two of them cried for days. The man grew cold. An endothermic reaction, the boy thought, wondering if his father would be proud.

When the boy offers the blue and gold bespeckled stone, his favourite stone, to the gravesite, his father tells him it won't bring her back.

When the boy cuts himself training again, his father tells him to work harder. Swords are such dirty weapons.

When the boy enters the laboratory, dark armour gleaming in the twilight and eventually announces, I did it, his father nods, smiles, says Aye to Venat.

The boy watches and silently weeps.

At the last the man's eyes are too bright, his vision not so clear. He looks the same (but older), talks the same (but louder), acts the same (but different). A marionette, though he knows it not, and every step is orchestrated to ridicule this man who wants to carve his own destiny. Twisted by spectres, his laughter has a bitter edge, a keenly honed blade eager to slice the boy's aspirations and desires and love to tatters. It doesn't matter that he's destroying the last remnants of her. He figures he couldn't heal but at least he can destroy. Obliterate and create anew.

The boy runs and runs and runs and realises he's made a fine circle.

The pebbles, he keeps. The feathers too. But you can't bottle the melodies that sent you to slumberland, the acrid taste of a failed experiment, the warmth of a smile. Not only can't he change the past, he can't seem to hold onto it either.

Only Balthier knows how the story ends.

End Notes:
- So I made Balthier's mother die of illness of... some form. I'm not sure if there's official info regarding her so I picked out a decidely angsty fate.
- The tenses killed me in this. I still don't think I got it quite down pat. x.x