Fic: "Pirate Boy," Final Fantasy XII (Ashe/Drace)
Title: Pirate Boy Author: Sister Coyote Rating: Worksafe Warnings: Spoilers, AU Prompt: Final Fantasy XII, Ashe/Drace: cross-dressing - the thrill of being another
There were many things about her capture that had been surprising -- surprising and infuriating, surprising and despair-inducing, though her captor had been kind and had not threatened her unduly or put the fear of outrage in her mind -- but the first thing that truly shocked her was when her captor came to her in the small hours of the night, in silence, and with oil and a key unlocked the bindings on her hands, the chains on her feet. Ashe stared at her in mute confusion, rubbing her ankles, her wrists.
"My emperor is dead," Drace said, without preamble. "Without honor in the death. I would not readily hand you to his successor, who is also without honor, to forward his own goals and aims."
"I am free?" Ashe asked, trying to grasp the thought.
"If you like," Drace said, grimacing, "and yet not free, for I do not think the rest of my company will see it thus. I would recommend you stay by my side, for now, until we find safe harbor; I know the ways of these better than you. On your own you would be captured readily and delivered to Lord Vayne."
Ashe did not care for the choices available to her, and yet she could see no wisdom in trying to navigate the Archadian encampment alone. "Very well," she said.
***
Free of the encampment, still, they were deep within Archadian territory. "It is a dangerous thing," Drace said. "Archadia has surely by now set out the alarm to find us both. We must move cautiously -- there will most like be checkpoints and soldiers watching for us, and to make matters worse the military has many who know my face, and you are also not wholly unknown."
Ashe's heart swooped. She swallowed. "What shall we do?"
"They seek two women," Drace said, "but they shall not find two women. And so we will go safely to Balfonheim, where, unless I miss my guess, I have an ally even yet now. Perhaps especially yet now."
***
Ashe was not sure she was comfortable with Drace's idea. She worried mainly about her features, which were too delicate to plausibly belong to an adult man, though perhaps she could pass as a boy. But when she voiced her concerns, Drace shook her head.
"It is not your face that will give you away, not truly," she said, "nor even your voice. Your disguise will be made or broken by the way you stand, the way you walk, the way you sit; it will be made or broken by the way you make eye contact, or choose not to, the way you hold your hands, the manner of your speech, not the tone of your voice. With that, and the right boots, you could pass no matter how fair of face or light of voice you might be."
"And how will I change the way I move and speak?"
"It can be learned." Drace looked at her levelly. "I will teach you."
***
"How did you learn this yourself?" Ashe asked, trying to walk as Drace showed her, not succeeding entirely.
Drace smiled a little. "When I was newly a Magister, I did not wish all who saw me to know immediately that I was the woman-Judge, lest they form their thoughts on that and not my actions. But something betrayed me at every step. It was Zecht who told me how I was betraying my own secret, and it was Zecht who helped me learn to overcome it. He taught me also to drink ale as a man would, and whiskey."
Ashe wanted nearly to laugh, despite the desperation of their situation. "And will you teach me that?"
Drace's eyes glinted. "Perhaps."
***
Drace was wholly convincing in the heavy jerkin, ruffled shirt, and breeches of a pirate. Though she was still visibly different from an ordinary man if you knew where to look -- the bones of her face, the proportion of hip and waist and ribcage -- none who saw her swagger or heard her speak a sentence would have thought to look, or to question.
Ashe knew she was not nearly so convincing, though she concealed her breasts behind the bindings of a leather vest and tied back her hair in a man's short tail, but Drace assured her: "You may not move quite like a man yet, but you move like a boy pretending to be a man, and in Balfonheim that will serve. Especially if you speak brasher than you feel, and conceal your awe less well than you think."
"I believe I can do that."
Drace's look was strange, soft. "I believe you can, indeed, Ashelia."
***
They traveled to Balfonheim with little trouble indeed, and perhaps Drace was right; even bandits left them more alone, and though she and Drace were perfectly capable of handling banditry, still it was good to have a reprieve. They reached Balfonheim, even on foot, with surprising speed.
"You have an ally here?"
"Mm," Drace said. "Unless I miss my guess. I have arranged a meeting with him, to see if he is who I believe him to be, in his rooms above one of the taverns in the town."
"Then we will -- "
"We cannot go in together," Drace said. Ashe's stomach tightened and she forced herself to breathe, to feel no fear. "Often it is the case that two together are less convincing than one alone. They might mark a similarity in the structure of our faces or tenor of our voices, and then all be lost."
"So how...?"
"You will go in alone, and purchase a drink, which you will consume. Beer would be best, and drink it in long swallows, not small sips. I will follow some time later and make as if to seduce you. We can then go upstairs together without comment."
Ashe managed to keep her voice devoid of surprise when she said, "To seduce me?"
"It is not an uncommon thing, here, and you make a very pretty boy. It will arouse no comment." Drace spoke these facts baldly and blandly, as though they were of little interest. "Respond as you would to a man who interested you. If you can manage it without lapsing into caricature, respond as though you have had rather more to drink than is actually the case."
"I shall do my best," Ashe said.
***
The Two-Tailed Serpent was not a good bar; it was a seedy place, full of men and bangaa and seeq, and it reeked of stale beer and sweat and even less savory odors. She took a seat at the bar, near the bartender, and ordered a pint of Landisser wheat beer.
"What's your name, boy?" the bartender asked.
"Lan," Ashe said.
"Lan, let me give you a piece of advice." The bartender slid the beer her way. "Keep an eye on that pretty ass of yours. There's more than a few in here who would be glad to get a piece of it, if you take my meaning."
Ashe nearly nodded, but then she remembered Drace's words -- brasher than you feel -- and so said with a great deal of false swagger, "I can take care of myself, old man."
The bartender shrugged. "This ain't a safe town, but suit yourself."
In due time, the door opened, and she forced herself not to look round to see who it was. She heard the distinctive sound of boots on the floorboards, and then the squeak of a stool dragging out, and then Drace's voice in her ear: "Pretty boy," she said, her voice strange and entirely new, "are you new to these parts?"
Bravado, Ashe thought; brashness that you don't feel: "Of course not. I know my way around."
"Oh, do you?" Drace leaned in close, so that Ashe could feel the warmth of her body, her skin, the smell of her hair and the leather of her trousers and, oh --
"Yes," she said, "I'm not an innocent."
"Indeed," Drace said, all amusement, all confidence. "I am glad to hear it. I don't like to have to break my boys in." Ashe shuddered. Drace put a hand on her shoulder, fingertips light, down the leather vest and over her arm to the delicate inner skin of her elbow. She jumped and shivered and was shocked by the way that small movement sent heat deep into her.
She could feel Drace's breath hot against her skin, and nearly jumped when Drace whispered, not a sweet nothing, but, "Perhaps five more minutes of this, and then I daresay we can go upstairs."
Ashe opened her mouth to agree, but Drace's teeth sank into her earlobe and instead she made a noise with no words in it at all. She turned her head a little and met Drace's mouth with her own. What surprised her the most was the way Drace's kiss was not different than Rasler's: if Drace's mouth was softer it was not by much, and if anything she was more aggressive, more forthright, pressing her tongue into Ashe's mouth and cupping the back of Ashe's head for more, more -- her hand trailing down Ashe's arm, sending fire in its wake, to stroke the top of her knee and then curling up the inside of her thigh until Ashe made a soft undignified noise into the kiss.
Drace broke the kiss and moved to bite her earlobe, her throat, and said, no-nonsense in a way that made Ashe embarrassed by her own reaction: "Now."
Ashe shuddered.
Drace got to her feet and pulled Ashe to hers, and said to the bartender, "A room, if you please. I don't think I want to wait." Her voice was so thick with self-satisfaction and lust that Ashe shivered again, again.
"Up the stairs, door on your right," the bartender said, blandly.
***
They went up the stairs, but to the left door rather than the right, and into a room where a man waited -- a dark-skinned man, flamboyant in jewelry and colors, who said, "Yes? I warn you, I do not take lightly those who waste my time."
"Do you not recognize me?" Drace asked. "Has the student outstripped the master?"
Reddas turned swift to look at her; his eyebrows climbed slowly, and then he laughed, full-bellied and powerful. "I should be ashamed, and yet I am pleased. -- Unless you have come with the intent of returning me to Archadia, in which case I will warn you: you have a battle on your hands indeed, and I will not stay my blade even for an old friend."
"No," Drace said with a grimace; "I daresay my reason for flight is different than yours, and yet -- "
"And?"
"I was sent to track down the princess of Dalmasca, in hiding; I succeeded in my mission, but while I was absent, Lord Vayne slew his father and took control of the senate, with -- "
"Gabranth at his side," Reddas said. "Yes. I knew he would be called to pay his debt to Solidor in an ill fashion, and yet I had hoped...."
"Honor compels me to stand against him, and yet I cannot lead Ashelia into the lion's den -- "
"Indeed," said Reddas, and they fell quickly to talking.
***
Afterward, Drace smiled a little and said, "The room has been put on our tab, whether we will use it or no; so we may as well do so."
"Indeed," Ashe said, her voice thick.
"Do not fear for your honor," Drace said, her voice wry, "I would not force you in truth."
"I know that," Ashe said, and though she was deeply aware of her own disguise and Drace's, she pushed Drace against the wall, and kissed her, as aggressive as Drace had kissed her: and Drace did not back away, but returned the kiss.