[Final Fantasy Tactics] To the Ends of the Earth

[runiclore]

To the Ends of the Earth
By: Amber Michelle
Prompt: snarl
Character(s): Ovelia and Agrias
Words: 689

For: reynardfox (original request post is here)



......................................................


Ovelia watched a star twinkle just above the sharp tops of the pines, their edges still in shadow and darker than the evening sky where they weren't dyed brown and orange by the light of their campfire. Her hair tugged, her scalp twinged, and she heard Agrias mutter something under her breath and a click when her knight put the comb down on a rock. Like a bloody fisherman's knot, she said, and Ovelia wove her fingers together over her knee.

They'd left the falls soaking wet, and Ovelia did not have a change of clothes. Her hair had dried somewhat as they rode south, flicked by the wind and the chocobo's tail, but it was still cold to the touch and matted like the pelt of a mangy dog, only the braids over her ears relatively smooth and undamaged. She wore Lavian's clothes while her dress and underlayers hung from a tree to dry. The heavy shirt was proof against the dampness of her hair, but loose enough the sleeves fluttered around her arms when there was a breeze. The comb Agrias used was her own, carved from some kind of bone - horn perhaps, by the swirls discoloring the white - and the tines were carved close together, nearly useless for the job they put it to.

"He could have kept you out of the water," Agrias said. There was a snap, and she murmured an apology.

"It wasn't his fault." Ovelia wondered if her mother would be appalled, should she return with her hair cut to her chin. It wouldn't be the first time she'd considered cutting it off. "That sellsword grabbed me, and I overcompensated when I pulled away."

Agrias did not reply, but laid a handful of hair over Ovelia's shoulder. The nick nick of the comb resumed. The fire snapped. They could have been alone among these trees; she heard voices if she concentrated, and the clank of armor, pans, rocks, several meters to her left. Other campfires glimmered between the trees when she looked.

She couldn't remember the last time she had enjoyed real solitude without the proximity of others to intrude upon her silence; the chants of the monks, the strikes of a hatchet on wood, the hiss of knives being sharpened or steam rattling the top of a black iron pot nearly half her height. Ramza and his party were not here to share her camp, Agrias said, but to protect it, and though Ovelia preferred the privacy they allowed her for the task of making herself presentable, she wondered if they would consent to share her fire even if she offered.

Agrias draped another ream of hair over Ovelia's shoulder, and the princess gathered it between her hands and smoothed it down between her breasts, twirling the ends around her fingers. "Thank you for coming after me, Agrias." It might have been fine after all if they had not - if this Delita person could be trusted. His acquaintance with Ramza said something for his credentials, though if one could judge merely by association, she supposed both would be as untrustworthy as that dark knight. Agrias might be suspect, for that matter, for serving the queen.

"There's no need for that, highness," Agrias said. Her comb caught on a snarl and she released the rest of Ovelia's hair to pick at it with the tines. "I will follow you to the ends of the earth-- even if you command otherwise."

Ovelia smiled at the line of trees beyond the fire. "I would never ask you to abandon your responsibilities." She watched a branch crumble into ash and sparks within the light of their campfire. If only she could command such loyalty without her position to demand it for her. "But I will thank you anyway - for combing my hair, which must be a task above and beyond the call of duty."

Agrias could have smiled; her voice warmed. "I'll not argue with that."

"Agrias!"

Her knight laughed, and it seemed the night's breezes weren't so cold after all.


.

Comments

[reynardfox.livejournal.com]

Lovely, as ever. Of course, I didn't really expect otherwise. :D

Thank you~

[(Anonymous)]

Its been ages since you wrote something knew when are you going to write something

chelle