ON YOUR WINGS

chapter fourteen: small surprises

It's so unfair.

There are a dozen other thoughts she could have thought. A hundred. But this is the only one she can focus on: This. Is. So. Unfair. Because there is Vaan standing right in front of her, arms outstretched, knowing, just knowing that she is going to run into them, because he's come to get her early, because he wants to see her, just when she's given up on him. And it's so unfair.

It's unfair because there her feet are just throwing her toward him. There a smile is breaking out across her face like she's not furious that he left her in suspense in the first place. There's his hand wagging one of her pigtails like he goddamn well owns it.

There she is with her heart only just slightly still broken.

Larsa was, if possible, more surprised than Penelo at Vaan's return if for no other reason that it had happened so early in the morning and so utterly without his knowledge.

Of course he'd left standing orders that, should the young sky pirate turn up he should be let in and escorted to wherever Penelo happened to be; however he had neither expected the boy (because boy he thought him in spite of their ages) to appear early nor to arrive during breakfast. Penelo, who had been on his arm just seconds before broke away to run to her... her... Larsa would not even allow himself to think what Vaan was to her. Her eyes had widened in shock when she'd first seen him—and something else had crossed her face. Something that left Larsa hopeful though he wasn't stupid. A smile had broken out and then there she'd gone running.

It was enough to make Larsa frown only just slightly and only just for a second. But over Penelo's shoulder Vaan saw—offered an apologetic, a barely smug smile. Because of course, Larsa thought, he knew. Why else, after all, would he be back? Whatever he was to Penelo he wasn't ready to let her go just yet.

And that thought was frustrating. It was maddening. It was just...

Unfair.

Penelo wanted to yell at him. She really did. But she didn't quite know what for. For not coming with her to Archades, for bothering to come back early, it all seemed ridiculous and so she stayed silent. Vaan was talking over a mouth full of sausage about how the operation in Rozarria had been going. "I couldn't leave," he said for Penelo's benefit, "until I was sure Balthier and Fran were going to be able to finish ok, you know?"

His eyes told her that he'd wanted to come back sooner. He honestly had. And she felt her anger evaporating leaving nothing but a small lingering residue. That sense that if she'd done to him what he'd done to her—just gone off and left even though they'd had plans, when they were in the middle of an important discussion about their future—he wouldn't be so readily forgiving. He would've stomped off and skulked. There's no way he would've just run up and hugged her or smiled while she talked about her adventures without him. He would've rolled his eyes at every sentence and said something like "Pen, I don't know why you even went in the first place. It's stupid can we just stop talking about it?"

And yet there she was asking how Fran and Balthier were, encouraging him to tell her details while Larsa smiled politely. Asked polite, pertinent questions. Was the perfect picture of perfect politeness.

The past few days could have made it an awkward situation, had Penelo and Larsa allowed it to be. But neither of them was willing to. Penelo, for her part, tried her best to concentrate on Vaan without ignoring Larsa entirely and Larsa—well, Larsa was always graceful in a way that Penelo could never even hope to imitate. If he wanted to seem unbothered by something he would. Though really, Penelo had no right to say whether he might be bothered or not, because really all he'd said was that he'd always be her friend and that Vaan wasn't the only man in her life and, really what did that-

She noticed her thoughts were wandering from the conversation and snapped them back forcefully. Vaan was in the middle of some stupid anecdote about how he'd almost gotten killed. Penelo knew she had an ally across the table and she shot Larsa a look that spoke volumes about what Vaan was saying. The young emperor readily returned it and she was surprised a little when her heart jumped at the sight of his wry, but complicit smile. Vaan's hand was on Penelo's arm in an instant as he emphasized a particularly death defying stunt he'd pulled off and Penelo realized that normally her first instinct wouldn't be to share pointed glances with Larsa across the table, it would be to chastise Vaan for getting himself into so much trouble.

So that's what she did then. And even though her heart was in it, she couldn't help but feel like maybe it didn't know so much what it wanted any more.

Larsa, for his part, was as placid as someone in his situation could be expected to be and then some. He noted small things about the conversation, like that Penelo hadn't gotten to say anything about learning ballet or meeting Trish and Margarethe or seeing her old friend Alma. She must have wanted to, but she let Vaan talk over her—not quite so patiently. Every so often she'd shoot Larsa a look that he could easily interpret and respond too. Vaan wasn't blind to these exchanges either and he would always find some way to touch Penelo or otherwise redirect her attention back to himself. It was a small competition that Penelo could only have been oblivious to because she chose to be.

It didn't bother Larsa. It had never bothered him before and he was not about to let it start bothering him now.

Still, when the time came for him to show Vaan his room, Larsa made sure it was very far away from Penelo's. He was pleasantly surprised that when Vaan tried to sneak across the palace into his partners room, his guards reported that the girl had rebuffed his advances and sent him straight back.

"Are you being serious right now, Penelo?" Vaan's whispering echoed across the hallways and Penelo blushed, hoping nobody could hear him.

"It just doesn't feel right; I mean this isn't even our house," Penelo replied quietly. She'd cracked the door just open enough to see him a little and talk to him, not open enough for him to shove his way through if he'd wanted to.

"So what, we can't do anything because it's Larsa's house?" he asked, voice sounding a little off as he said Larsa.

Penelo didn't even want to think about what that meant. "We're guests, Vaan."

"You're a guest," Vaan corrected. "I'm an... an interruption."

"You're being stupid," Penelo replied without missing a beat. "We're both Larsa's friends. Go to bed."

She shut the door on him before he could respond. Because he was being stupid. Like what did he even mean, "You're a guest"-they'd both been invited. Rooms had been set up for the both of them from the beginning and Vaan could have been there from the very beginning if he was so worried about Larsa. He was the one who chose-

And Penelo found herself getting angry with him all over again. But it was an anger with no outlet because telling him she was upset would accomplish exactly zero might make him run off with someone else even, who knew at this point? They still hadn't talked about it.

She noticed, a little, how jealous he was acting she was a little surprised that, in spite of herself, she felt a little glad.

THANK YOU! To everyone still reading this. I know it's super super super late.