A Knight's Name & Frozen Time

[breyzyyin.livejournal.com]

I'm posting my last two extremely last minute Fic Prompt Party stories in one post. They're both from the same game and I kind of connected them together loosely, so I just figured it would be best to post them together instead of flooding the comm like I have been sorry about that!. :D

Username: Yin (of breyzyyin)
Class: White Mage
Fandom: Final Fantasy III
Title: A Knight's Name
Notes: A fic written for the Fic Prompt Party over at ff_minigames. The prompt was "FFIII: Princess Sara and Ingus first meeting" from hilian.
Summary: Ingus is reflecting on one of his earliest memories as a child where a young boy with no memory is brought to Sasune Castle after a mysterious event. There, he meets a princess around his age and gains a name (as well as takes the first steps towards his eventual decision to become a knight).
Characters/Pairings: Pairing is Ingus x Sara. Main character focus is on Ingus, Sara Altney, and King Sasune...though Refia plays a small part in the "present" part of the fic, as do two other FFIII characters indirectly.
Word count: 2,129
Rating/warnings: G.

----Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy III or any of those games' characters, they are the rightful property of Square-Enix. This is just a short fic I wrote for fun! :) Please don’t sue me you wouldn’t get much anyways, lolz.----

The door to the bedchamber he’d been placed in upon his arrival at the castle opened gingerly, as if the person on the other side of the door was afraid that he might not be in the mood for visitors currently or was still resting. His eyes trailed the door curiously from his spot by the one small window in the room, wondering if it was a helpful servant or one of the castle’s White Mages again checking in on how he was doing.

Instead, the tall and regal figure of King Sasune stood in the open doorway, surveying the room until his eyes alighted on him. He smiled affectionately, a trait the youngster almost found hard to associate with a monarch due to the faint memories he had of them as authority figures in legends.

"Ah! You’re finally awake, I see...and you’re looking much more fit now too."

The boy stood up from his seat, walking a few paces forward and nervously dipping his head down low in a bobbing gesture he hoped would pass for a bow: he’d never had to do one before as he could recall, so how was he to know?

"Y...yes, sir. All thanks to you, Your Highness."

It had been the King and his scouts who had found him collapsed in a field just outside of the castle’s walls. They’d been investigating an unusual noise that had been heard not only in the castle but elsewhere throughout the kingdom as reports came sweeping in from even the most remote of villages on the phenomenon very quickly after it occurred: it had sounded as if the entire sky had come crashing down, some panicked messengers claimed. Instead of finding the source of the noise, they had stumbled upon a small child with various cuts and bruises on his person and no idea of who he was or where he’d come from.

Afraid due to his wounds and worried that he might have been suffering from some sort of shock, the kind-hearted king (a title most of the citizenry would lay upon him without a second thought) had the child put on his Chocobo mount and taken to the castle to be cared for. The boy even vaguely recalled the man checking in concernedly with his caregivers from time-to-time as he swam in and out of consciousness during his recovery period.

To say he didn’t feel indebted to this powerful stranger for his actions would be a grave understatement. Even at that young an age, he realized how fortunate he had been.

The king waved away his words with a dismissive shake of his hand, stepping into the small room dedicated to quiet recovery in the castle. The warm smile on his face seemed to deepen even more, "You’re very polite even at your age. That shows quite a lot of maturity, lad." He told him sincerely, "Think nothing of it, however. I only did what any person would do if they found someone needing help. I would only hope someone else would extent the same courtesy to a child of my own if they’d gotten lost somewhere."

The boy nodded his head in quiet understanding of his words, though his posture still remained rather pin-straight in the king’s presence.

Shaking his head in amusement, the monarch let his smile stay for a few seconds longer before his expression became more serious, "Now, lad...do you still not remember anything at all? Where you came from or who your parents might be?"

The boy frowned and shook his head. Beyond faint and fuzzy recollections of rather useless things such as stories or blurry images of unrecognizable faces smiling down at him warmly, his clearest memory was still of standing stupidly in that field when King Sasune had found him. The fact that it was only that clear memory he could recall upset him greatly, though for some reason he didn’t really want to show his distress in front of his savior.

The king, however, was rather good at reading people...and he noticed the youth’s expression even as he was battling to keep it measured (and, to be sure, he was actually doing a rather good job of it for his young age!). He gave the boy a sympathetic smile and a quick pat on the head as he had done in the past for his own child when she was troubled by something and trying very hard to hide it, "Don’t dwell on it too much, lad. It will either come back or it won’t!"

"..." the boy’s head was still lowered in a somewhat downcast fashion.

"If your parents are out there, then they are probably worried sick about you and will be searching all over. Soldiers will be able to point them here in that case. And if your memory does return before then, we’ll be able to figure out which village you live in and we’ll be able to take steps to have you safely home before you know it." He bowed at this next part, surprising the child.

"...And if your memory never does return or events unfold in different ways, I can promise you this as ruler of this land: you can always count on Castle Sasune to offer you shelter. It would be horrible of me as king to throw out a young subject in desperate need, after all."

"..." This time, the boy was staring at him in complete awe. He would never imagine a king to be bowing to him, of all people—and to make that solemn of an oath either. Somehow, it brought to mind images of the knights who had dutifully followed King Sasune when he had found him in the field or the people he’d met recently in the castle: it was no wonder they spoke so fondly of him and were so loyal.

King Sasune smiled at him again and rubbed his head in a friendly manner before standing upright again, "You have a responsible look about you, lad. I have a feeling you’ll go far in life—whether you choose to stay here or your home is found."

"T-thank you, Your Highness!" Ingus bowed again this time: awkwardly still, but with a bit more precision than his last attempt, "...For everything!"

The king was about to say something again when a blond head of hair poked its way from behind his robes: the girl, who appeared to be around the boy’s age, smiled at him warmly.

Noticing that the youth was looking at the revealed newcomer in startled surprise, the king stepped away to the side, "My daughter, Sara." He said in way of introduction, his smile softening even more when falling on her (ah, she already very much resembled her mother!), "She’s been pestering me to meet you since you came here. There aren’t too many children around her age at the castle."

"You and Father seemed to be having a serious talk, so I didn’t want to intrude. Sorry if I scared you."

The boy shook his head, still staring at the girl with wide eyes. He hadn’t ever talked to a girl before (well, not any that he could remember, at any rate), and knowing that she was the king’s daughter made him a bit more nervous considering his renewed awe of the man. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say.

Sara tilted her head to the side and regarded him curiously, then smiled. She had a similar smile to her father’s, though there was something even more open about the expression on her. It was pretty. An odd thing, as he’d never associated that with a mere upturning of the mouth before on anyone: he decided right away that the expression suited her. For the first time since coming there, he could feel his own mouth turning upwards too...though there was still a nervous quality to it for him.

As he was in the process of bowing once again, the princess took him by surprise by striding over and loosely gripping his hand. She gave his limp appendage a quick shake--to which the king, watching them, couldn’t help but grin. He’d noticed his daughter watching the knights greeting one another in the corridor in a similar fashion and knew she’d assumed that was the way friends were supposed to greet one another...it would be awhile before she would start having to learn proper etiquette for her political position. She turned around to face her father after a moment.

"What you said earlier...does this mean Ingus gets to stay, Father?"

"That depends on what happens and what he decides, Sara."

"...Who?" The boy looked understandably confused.

King Sasune offered a weak smile to him in apology, "Sorry, lad...Sara thought it would be rude to not call you by a name when you first came here, so she began calling you Ingus when she asked about you. I told her not to call you that when she met you on account of your memory loss, but I suppose she forgot in her excitement."

Sara’s face reddened as she realized her mistake at her father’s words, her hand automatically dropping his. The firmness and warmth of her grip being lost so suddenly to the boy was surprisingly a little disappointing.

"...Sorry about that." She mumbled under her breath in embarrassment, not looking him in the face, "It was the name of a knight in a legend I read once. I thought it was a neat name."

"Oh." Now that she mentioned it, the name DID sound somewhat familiar to him in a way. Truthfully, he didn’t mind it.

"...I think it’s pretty neat too." He told her.

Sara glanced up at him skeptically to see if he was lying or not. The boy offered a weak smile to her in return.

"I’ll be Ingus as long as I stay here." He said, "Besides, being named after a knight isn’t such a bad idea in a castle."

The girl was positively beaming at this point, "Come on then, Ingus! I want to show you around!"

Grabbing his hand in the carefree way only children seem truly capable of, the young princess of Sasune Castle ran past her father (who at this point was watching the two children with a very amused expression on his face) with Ingus in tow...the boy smiling as well, all of his worries momentarily forgotten in the chaotic frenzy of two children at play.

*****
"Ingus?"

He blinked, surprised to see his fellow Warrior of Light and traveling companion, Refia, looking at him oddly.

"You were staring at them with an odd look on your face." She motioned with her hands to the two figures standing on the other side of the small island they’d found themselves on when first stepping foot on the Surface World: Luneth and Aria--a Water Maiden they’d only just met. The two had been hitting it off rather well, their mannerisms having a rather playful quality to them despite the seriousness of the situation they found themselves in.

"Sorry. I guess I was just thinking about things." He said under his breath, tearing his gaze away to look out at the frozen and still landscape they were surrounded by.

"Uh-huh." The look on Refia’s face made it pretty obvious she knew EXACTLY what he’d been thinking about. Instead of openly admitting it, she settled for standing next to him and saying, "After this whole Surface World situation gets fixed...let’s go back to the Floating Continent for awhile."

Ingus said nothing in response, waiting to see where she was going.

Refia had a contemplative look on her face, "I’ve been thinking...I want to check up on Salina again just to make sure she’s doing okay, and it would be nice to talk to my dad too. I know Arc and Luneth probably want to see their mom and village as well." She turned her head slightly to fix him with a stare that confirmed she’d figured out his train of thought earlier, "And I think it would be good for you to check up with everyone at Sasune Castle too. It might be nice for you and Princess Sara to be able to catch up on things, right?"

Ingus bowed his head slightly, trying to stifle the smile that was threatening to play across his face at her comment and the memory of how he’d come to have his name that was still playing in the back of his mind in a pleasant fashion. Even when they were separate due to their unique duties, it seemed as if he and Sara were always connected somehow. It wasn’t a concept he had any issue with, truthfully.

"...That would be quite nice, actually."


Username: Yin (of breyzyyin)
Class: White Mage
Fandom: Final Fantasy III
Title: Frozen Time
Notes: A fic written for the Fic Prompt Party over at ff_minigames. The prompt was "FF3; Aria/Luneth; first meeting" from haryan. Since the party technically meets Aria during the course of the game, I altered the prompt a little bit so that it was just shortly after the group's first meeting with her and instead had it focus on Luneth and Aria's first private conversation with one another. I hope that's okay! ♥
Summary: Luneth thinks back on his first conversation with the Water Maiden Aria.
Characters/Pairings: Implied pairing is Luneth x Aria (I...sort of left that open-ended on purpose so that you could see it being a pairing or not if you'd like, similar to the approach that I thought the DS remake of FFIII took with their relationship). Main character focus is on Luneth and Aria Bennett...though Arc plays a small part in the "present" part of the fic, and three other FFIII characters are indirectly featured in the plot at times.
Word count: 1,712
Rating/warnings: G.

----Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy III or any of those games' characters, they are the rightful property of Square-Enix. This is just a short fic I wrote for fun! :) Please don’t sue me you wouldn’t get much anyways, lolz.----

The island was littered with the wreckage of countless ships: their skeletal remains casting unchanging shadows on a world where time no longer continued to tread forward. The air was dark and still, everything silent. Tattered banners hung from masts still, caught in a frozen wind that held them forcibly in place as if the fabric had lost its elasticity. He could even make out birds in the sky that were in the process of flapping their wings—hanging there as if they were puppets dangling from very still string.

To say that the time frozen Surface World wasn’t creepy would be a lie. Luneth, a boy who was used to movement and action...shuddered involuntarily at the sheer scope of a world completely devoid of anything that would make it seem remotely alive. Truthfully, just running into the old man and the Water Maiden earlier had been a blessing of sorts due to just seeing someone, ANYONE, who didn’t fit this stillness.

Behind him...he could hear the old man talking to his adopted brother, Arc, about pretty much any topic he could think of. The old man seemed just as grateful to have other living company as Luneth felt upon seeing someone still continuing to exist here, and simply wanted to spend a lot of time filling the void of silence he’d been enduring for quite some time (as even Aria had been unconscious when they’d arrived due to her efforts in keeping the two of them from falling into the time freeze). Arc, always a polite and respectful person, seemed to understand that need and was listening to him talk...interjecting a sentence or two into the conversation when he could. He had watched them for a few moments, smiling fondly at how patient his brother was: a trait that he sometimes (okay, quite frequently!) lacked.

Refia and Ingus were both in their own quiet thoughts: Ingus was usually always a bit more quiet, so that really wasn’t anything new—not to mention that he was a bit more somber and alert simply due to the situation they were in and his training as a knight, and the atmosphere had a subduing effect on Refia as well...she seemed a bit more contemplative, and Luneth decided it was probably best to leave her to her thoughts since he didn’t want her to get mad at him for intruding on anything personal.

The Water Maiden was on the far side of the island, standing next to the skeletal remains of a rather large ship. She was gazing out at the bleak landscape ahead of her with a serious expression on her face, a determined but saddened one. As he watched, she lowered her head slightly.

Not sure if she wanted company, but not really wanting to keep standing there in complete silence himself...Luneth decided to simply approach her.

"...You okay?"

The girl looked up again at the sound of his voice breaking the stillness and spun around to face him. She seemed unsure of how to answer his question, and glanced at the ground nervously.

He rubbed the back of his head and frowned, "Sorry...that was a dumb question. I’m not sure I could have seen this happen and be okay." He said, motioning to the landscape around them.

"It...wasn’t a dumb question." She surprised him by how emphatically she said that in response, "You were concerned and that was very thoughtful." Surprising him even further, she bowed politely, "Thank you very much."

He couldn’t help but smile slightly. In a way, her mannerisms almost reminded him of Arc: someone who had an introverted but polite and friendly disposition. Since it didn’t seem as if she was shunning his company, he moved closer to where she was standing and joined her in surveying the area.

"You don’t have to be so formal, you know." He told her plainly, "We might be the Warriors of Light, but we’re still just normal people."

"...I know. I usually talk to most people like this though." She bowed her head somewhat, "Even the Steward and my fellow sisters."

"Oh, so the old man was a Steward at the Water Temple?" he glanced over at the elderly man again. Somehow, he couldn’t quite place the fussing man they’d met before as being such.

"...Unofficially." She smiled slightly, "He came to the Water Temple and wanted to assist with the upkeep there. He was kind to everyone, so no one had the heart to turn him away even though only the sisters were supposed to live there. When the attack happened, he tried to protect everyone, but..."

She trailed off and gestured with her hands. The meaning hanging in the air at her silence was pretty apparent. She looked at the ground with a downcast gaze.

"...I’m sorry." Luneth shifted on his feet uncomfortably, unsure of what else he could say to that.

"The other sisters saved us." Her voice was quiet, but surprisingly firm as she spoke again, "They insisted that I go through the exit once it became apparent that the attack was going to be fatal...because it was important that someone with the ability to restore the Water Crystal survived. They saved the Steward by ordering him to accompany me."

She frowned, "I didn’t want to leave. But I...understood why it was necessary. Seeing the four of you reconfirmed that for me in a way."

Luneth nodded, his own mood a bit more somber than normal now, "We’ll get the Water Crystal restored. And we’ll defeat Xande too."

"I’m positive you will." Aria smiled slightly, even though there were still unshed tears in her eyes from her previous recollections, "And when time is restored here...I’m sure you’ll like it here a lot, Luneth. It’s a much more livelier place!"

He blushed somewhat in embarrassment, not realizing that she had picked up on why he’d needed to have a conversation with someone to begin with, "Really?"

She nodded, "There’s a town near the Water Temple that is full of rather nice people. Quite a few of them are real characters."

As she recalled that, her smile opened a bit more and didn’t have a sad tinge to it. Luneth watched it happen, and couldn’t help but grin himself in response.

"...Did you see a lot of the world then? Before this?" he asked, wanting to keep the more pleasant conversation going in order to get both of their minds’ off of the more serious tasks lying ahead and the sad memories Aria was trying to deal with. Also, a part of him was just curious now.

She shook her head, "Not really. Girls with high magic ability are chosen from the neighboring villages to become Water Maidens, and once training begins you stay rather close to the Water Temple. I visited that one village on occasion at times, but that was about it. Still, I always heard stories from visitors about other places."

Aria turned to stare at him, a curious look now lighting up her eyes, "Have you seen a lot of places on the Floating Continent?" she asked.

Luneth nodded, grinning, "Oh...tons! I could tell you loads of stories about there!"

The Water Maiden seemed pleased by this, turning to gaze out on the world stretching out before them once more. Not minding the silence so much now as the conversation was lingering pleasantly on his ears still, Luneth joined her in doing so...imagining what the world would look like once they had restored time to it.

"...Luneth?"

Aria’s voice was quiet, her eyes never leaving the landscape.

"Hmm?"

"After time is restored, would you mind...telling me some of those stories?" her cheeks reddened slightly, as if she were embarrassed to even be asking such a question, "I’d like to hear about what the Floating Continent is like."

"Sure." Luneth smiled and rubbed his head nervously. Oddly enough, he felt his own face growing hot too, "Why don’t I show you sometime too? After the world is saved and no one’s threatening the Crystals, I mean. It would be nice if you could see the world you and your sisters worked so hard to save, don’t you think?"

She opened her mouth to say something, paused, changed her mind, and opened it again, "Let’s. It would be a nice tribute, I think." This time, she did let a few tears fall down...though the shy smile that she fixed at Luneth was a genuinely happy and touched one, "Thank you."

*****

"Please...save this world!"

Luneth sat upright in bed, unconsciously wiping the wetness at his eyes with his sleeves before even being aware that he’d been crying in his sleep again.

The group had stayed the night at an inn in order to rest up for their travels. The four of them were sharing a room. Judging by the blackness surrounding him, it was still rather late at night or very early in the morning.

"...Luneth?"

In the bed next to him, Arc was sleepily rubbing at his eyes. He seemed a bit more awake the second he realized that his brother was sitting up again, a look of concern flashing in his features even in the darkness.

"Are you all right?"

Not wanting to upset the other boy, or to wake up either Ingus or Refia who were still asleep in their beds, he gave an encouraging smile, "I’m fine, Arc. Just got something in my eye."

"..." Arc looked doubtful, but he wasn’t someone who would press another person if they didn’t want to talk about something. Knowing that Luneth already knew that he could tell him anything later on if he felt like it, he turned over on his side and closed his eyes again, "Okay then, good night."

He sat there for a few seconds before calling out, "Arc?"

"...Yes?"

"We’re going to save the world, right? By stopping Xande?"

Ah, so THIS was what was on Luneth’s mind. Arc knew that the events at the Water Temple still haunted his brother’s thoughts even if he didn’t want to admit it.

"Of course. You know that better than anyone." he told him encouragingly.

Luneth smiled again, "Yeah. We’ll stop Xande and make this world a place that’s worth seeing."

"...We’ll see it together."