By Firia

FF4 (c) Square.

Perspective is a funny thing. Everyone sees the world differently from everyone else. Today, for some people, this was a day of blissfully happy celebration. But not for her, though. And as for me? I guess "ambivalent" would be a good word to describe me. You see, today the whole kingdom of Baron is celebrating the wedding of Cecil and Rosa, the King and now Queen of Baron.

Cecil and Rosa are my friends, so of course I'm happy for them. They're the storybook couple. The knight who eventually became a king, and his beautiful damsel in distress. Of course, Rosa was a White Magician, and not completely helpless, but let's face it, she's spent a large chunk of time being a hostage by some foe or another of Cecil's. But I digress.

So I'm happy for them, as I've already said. But then I look at that pitiful, helpless look on her face when she thinks no one is looking at her, and I don't know what to think. By "her" I mean Rydia, by the way. Of course, considering the fact that I've been hopelessly in love with her for years, I should be deliriously happy today. Now Cecil is no longer my competition. But I never claimed to be all that smart, and just seeing Rydia upset (though valiantly trying to hide it) makes me feel like shit.

Until today, I had been a part of a rather strange love triangle. Or rectangle, if you figure Cain into all this. First, there's me, who loves Rydia. Then, we have my darling Rydia, who loves Cecil who loves Rosa, who loves him back, plus Cain who never could figure out for sure if he was in love with Rosa or Cecil or both. Either way, he just gave up and left on a quest to become a better Dragon Knight. Or so he said. The most frustrating thing for me has been that Cecil and Rosa are completely oblivious to the rest of us. You have no idea how frustrating it is trying to compete with someone who has no idea they're in a competition. At first, I simply thought Rydia just didn't like me. No problem there, lots of people don't, but when I realized she was holding a torch for him, I knew things would be infinitely more difficult. No matter the fact that he never knew what she felt, or would reciprocate even if he did know, the point is that she'd never even give me a sideways glance as long as she had any small hope that she'd somehow pull Cecil away from Rosa.

And so, I wonder why I'm not literally jumping for joy, instead of sulking in a corner watching Rydia get plastered a few tables away from me. It's a damn good thing for her that I'm keeping an eye on her. She's liable to start an alcohol-induced scene that would put an irreparable rift between her and her precious Cecil. Well, there she goes, starting to get up and drunkenly wobble her way to the bride and groom on the dance floor. In less than three seconds, I rush over to her, catching her before she trips on the hem of her bridesmaid dress.

"Whaddya want?" She mutters and glares at me. Realizing that this will probably be the only time I'll ever get a chance to hold her, I decide not to waste the opportunity. I lead her out to the dance floor. She's too drunk to resist much, so she simply leans against me and mutters curses. If she were sober, I know she'd probably cast a spell on me to turn me into a frog or something, but fortunately, drunken sorceresses are harmless ones.

"I don' wanna dance with you." She mutters at the end of a long tirade about my rudeness, arrogance, and anything else she can find wrong with me. I didn't really listen to her, and she was slurring her words too much for me to understand much anyway. I just lead her around the dance floor, moving in time with the slow waltz. Of course, I'm careful to keep her as far away from Cecil and Rosa as possible.

"Your hair looks a lot longer." I comment, attempting a conversation gambit.

"It's been a year since you've seen me." She responds, all the while watching Cecil out of the corner of her eye. I maneuver her so that she's no longer facing him and continue on.

"Yeah, but it's so long, to have grown in only a year." She snorts and glares at me.

"For the millionth time, time moves faster in the Land of Summoning Monsters, you stupid, arrogant asshole." She's so charming isn't she? And to think that if she was sober, she would've thought of something even more insulting to say. But when we bicker, that's the only time I ever have her complete attention, so I take what I can get.

"Keep going back there, and before you know it, you'll be an old lady and the rest of us will still be young." I remark, trying to keep amusement out of my voice. She's so easy to bait. "Maybe I'll start calling you "grandma" to get you used to it, since that's what everyone will be calling you soon."

"Fuck you, you stupid prick. I'm not in the mood to deal with you tonight. Besides, who cares if I get old? The faster my life goes by, the better. It's not like he would care one way or the other what age I was... He wouldn't even notice if I never came back to the human world..." Her voice started out almost yelling, but soon died down to a hoarse whisper. I was stunned by this little outburst, though I don't know why. Maybe because I never thought she knew that I was aware of her crush on Cecil. Then she started crying. Fuck. What can you do when they start with the tears? She's a strong person, and I knew she'd rather die than let anyone see her tears, so I quickly formulated a plan of action. I "accidentally" stepped on her foot, which got me a swift punch in the cheek. She's got good reflexes for being smashed. Shrugging it off I picked her up and bolted towards the balcony, grinning sheepishly and saying "I gotta check and see if her foot's OK." To Cid, who happened to see the whole thing. He nodded and went back to conversing with the boys from the Red Wings.

"Why the hell did you do that, you bastard!?" Rydia growled as I set her the railing of the balcony. With the curtain closing behind me, the small balcony allowed for some privacy. Too bad she'd hate me even more if I tried anything.

"It was an accident." I lie, completely straight-faced as I examine her foot. I always was a good liar. I focus all my attention on that tiny high-heel shoed foot until I hear a few sniffles. I look up to see tears beginning to pool again in her large green eyes.

"Don't look at me." She snaps and wipes her eyes. She kicks me with her good foot and nearly falls off the railing. Completely on instinct, I reach out, snatch her from plummeting to her death and pull her into a forced embrace. Suprisingly, she doesn't struggle, even after the embrace last longer than it should have.

"What's wrong with you? You always... act like this..." She murmurs and, much to my pleasant surprise relaxes into the embrace.

I return it with a question of my own:

"Why do you love Cecil?"

After all, old habits are hard to break, and we've fought like cats and dogs since the day we met. Of course I always threw some flirting in there, but I don't know if she ever noticed or cared.

"That's a stupid question. Because he's... Cecil. God, why are you such a moron?" She mutters. Like I said, she's charming isn't she? But I guess it was a stupid question. After all, I can't really say why I love her. She's rude, violent, sarcastic... at least with me. With anyone else, she's the sweetest girl I've ever met. Apparently, the silence began to bother her, because she started singing softly. She's got a beautiful voice, though she adamantly denies it. I've only heard her sing a few precious times. It's a melody I don't recognize. I close my eyes and listen, just being content in the fact that she's letting me get away with this. Probably because of the alcohol, I reason. She should get drunk more often.

"Tonight a cool rain falls,

That soothes sadness that burns like a flame."

Funny, I never even noticed that it had been raining. It had been unbearably hot today, so now that I thought of it, the chilling rain felt good. I tilted my head and let the rain splatter on my face as she continued her song.

"We love someone, we hate someone,

That pain stings to the bottom of our hearts.

What we believed in, we do not regret.

Someday it's all going to wither away,

This is the promise of fate.

I miss your kiss. We have parted,

I wish the two of us could be together again.

Even painful memories one day become fond.

Why are we born? Why do we live?

The rain erases everything.

Nothing gets passed on,

And love comes to an end."

She stops singing. I think about her song. The words had been so... like her. I wondered if she wrote the song herself.

"Rydia, let me replace him."

As soon as I say that, her head snaps up and she peers at me with suspicious emerald eyes. She doesn't seem angry... truthfully, I can't really read her expression.

"Why would you want to do that? We hate each other." She says evenly.

"Do we?" I reply without missing a beat.

"Yes." She says, with that strange flat voice.

"I don't think so. I know you don't hate me." I counter.

"How would you know what I feel?" Still in that calm voice. It's starting to annoy me.

"Because I know everything about you. You're in love with me; you were just too sidetracked with your crush on Cecil to notice." I know that will earn me a slap. Before I can blink, her hand is raised and closing in. I usually just let her smack me. After all, it doesn't really hurt and I usually said something that deserved it, but tonight I grab her wrist, effectively blocking her. Her eyes flash with anger, and before she can start to cast that damn frog spell on me, I push my lips onto hers.

Since she spent most of her life living in the Land of Summoning Monsters, she's had little in the way of human interaction. Basically, what I'm saying is that she doesn't know what to do. Considering the fact that she's not resisting, I decide to deepen the kiss, since she wouldn't know how to even if she wanted to. She's a fast learner; I'll give her that. She's already kissing back, using what I just taught her. It could be that she sees Cecil, and not me, but at this moment, I don't really care.

She breaks the kiss and pushes me away. What a tease. She looks questioningly at me and says,

"How do you know what I feel? I don't even know. I just feel... weird with you."

"Like how you feel with Cecil." I reply, trying not to sound smug.

"It's somehow different..." She has a suspicious look again. Why she's never really trusted me, I don't know. "You annoy the hell out of me." She finishes. I can't help but laugh. Any other girls I've ever known all but threw themselves at me. Rydia doesn't have a romantic bone in her body. Still, she was reacting favorably to the whole situation. I pulled her back into my arms and said nothing for awhile. But I never could stay quiet for long.

"I was serious when I said I want to replace Cecil. All this time... I've watched you try so hard to get him to notice you. I've been the same with you. No matter what I said, you always saw him. He... doesn't even deserve you. So let him go. Stop hiding in the Land of Summoning Monsters and come live with me in Eblan."

She didn't respond. I took it as a sign that she was thinking it over. Then without realizing it, I said it. Those overrated three words that have given me hell for the past 3 years.

"I love you."

She didn't say anything. I thought that maybe that scared her off. Shit. I can't ever keep my mouth shut.

"Rydia..?"

No response.

"Don't be mad. I'm serious about what I said."

Still silent. And breathing evenly. It finally dawned on me. I pulled her back and peered at her face.

She had passed out.

And so that was the end of that. I took her to her room and put her in her bed. I had half a mind to lay down beside her, but she is awfully violent at times and who knows how much she'd remember of our conversation in the morning? So I opted to go back to the ballroom and then proceeded to get even more smashed than her. At some point, I wandered back up to her room and passed out next to her. And as for how well she took it the next morning...

As an apology for giving me a black eye, she's going on a date with me tomorrow night.

The End

***********

I downloaded a ROM of Final Fantasy 4, and it got me in a mood to write. The first RPG I ever played was the English-language Final Fantasy 2, and to this day, it's my favorite game. I always loved Rydia and Edge (or Edward as I think he's called in the original version; I haven't gotten that far on the ROM yet.) And always wanted to write a fanfiction about them. Anyway, comments are greatly appreciated. So feel free to email me at enishigirl@aol.com if you want. The song, by the way, that Rydia sings is actually the ending theme song of the anime WeiB Kreuz.