Chapter Text
Dead inside, Zenos thought. Was that how he looked to others, with his perpetual boredom?
And then he realized it. Not dead; tired.
You were tired beyond belief, a blade dulled – not broken.
Zenos considered you from across the room, aware you could strike out at any second. But with the mental exhaustion he could see in your face, it was unlikely you’d move first. You were watching, waiting, as patiently as you always had. Biding your time until your enemy struck first. This complacency, the willingness to follow after others had made the first move - was this how your allies had convinced you to fight in this war that was plainly not your own?
An idea came to mind, but he was quick to brush it away as worthless. Insulting, even.
For a moment he met your eyes - hollow but hard, filled with resolve... but not passion. The notion was not entirely absurd. A hunter had to know his prey, and a hunter for sport had no interest in a wounded beast, be it a physical injury, or a wound that sapped the strength of your spirit. You were not weak for your condition – you could perhaps even defeat him – but the resignation in your face made him…
He had no words to describe it, but Zenos disliked the feeling. It would not be right to fight you. Not here. Not like this. The idea he had dismissed grew more palatable.
To take you away from here, to kindle your fighting spirit back from the brink, temper his strength with yours, and sharpen your will against his own, until it was razor sharp once more. Until you would no longer hesitate, in moments like this.
The two of you could spar, and grow stronger in equal measure like a pair of matched blades. Greater and greater heights would you both go to, until the heavens themselves were below your dominion. Only then, when you looked at him with fire in your eyes, with a real passion behind your blows… Then you would be able to fight the battle worth his life.
Until then – Zenos would not dare to die without battling you at the very peak of your powers. And neither would he suffer you to grow weaker as he prepared himself, wearing yourself away in battles you had no wish to fight, but no will to refuse.
Decided, the Crown Prince made his offer.
“I will leave, and take the Empire with me,” Zenos said, reaching out a gloved hand, setting forth his bait.
Your eyes lingered on the tips of his gauntlet – pointed, like claws.
In that single sentence he’d invalidated your comrade’s every struggle. Their desperate desire for freedom, for liberation, for victory. All for naught; Zenos had simply told you without prompting that he would take his Legion and go. How very worthless it was now, the blood they’d shed to get to this point…
To say nothing of the blood Zenos had shed from his own men. The stunt at that tower had somehow not surprised you, knowing the man as you did. Even from the scant few encounters, you’d known Zenos would not hesitate to take the lives of his own people for an advantage. Friend and foe were just words to him; you suspected in his mind it was more like, prey and hunter, or useful and worthless. Death was death, no matter who, no matter why.
And now it was true of all the Ala Mhigans who'd died to get you here, their deaths losing all purpose and meaning with just a single sentence from the Viceroy they died fighting. For whatever reason, Zenos was willing to leave anyways.
“Why?” You asked, speaking the word but not meaning it. You couldn’t bring yourself to care about the answer.
It won’t change anything, Fray hissed, just do your job and kill him already like they told you to. Slave.
Fray’s tone had lost its bite ages ago. Even your darkside had grown tired of it all, and even more tired of trying to convince you to leave. Only insults to you seemed to truly rouse Fray's anger these days.
“Because you will come with me.” Suddenly, the outstretched hand made sense. Without thinking, you took a step forward.
His lips upturned in a slight, gentle smile; a barely discernible quirk of his lips that nonetheless gave you pause. The expression was beautiful on him. Deadly.
You remembered the brutal violence Zenos had fought with, and the calculated counterplay he’d endured in turn from you. Perhaps at first Zenos hadn’t been challenged by you, but your power had skyrocketed, and soon you’d overcome that difference.
Like you had with everything else. Everyone else. Soon you’d surpass him, too. The feeling of having a rival… of being unable to fulfill the demands everyone made of you, of having an excuse, for once, of having things be different. Someone different.
You had enjoyed it while it lasted.
Go with him. Fray said, and you knew why. Fray had never wanted to do this in the first place, fight and end wars for everyone else’s sake. Fray did not want - you did not want to kill the only man you had ever felt a camaraderie with. Even if he was your enemy.
An enemy - and for a time, one we could not defeat. Fray said with a rare tone of satisfaction. Now we have caught up to him, perhaps. But Zenos is more than the others. He has power like us, he understands.
In your heart of hearts, you cannot help but agree. Seize at the excuse - at any excuse to avoid killing Zenos, avoid fighting him. Stay the reckoning for just one more day...
This was insane. Alphinaud, Lyse, everyone would be shocked to see you even consider this idea.
What do we care? Fray said, thoroughly unconcerned with the prospect of their disdain. We want to go with him. You want to go with him.
Fray… was right. As your darkside usually was. Considering you were one and the same, it shouldn't be too much a surprise that
But, you’d come to fight Zenos. That was your duty – to free Ala Mhigo, as you had Doma. Hadn’t the people of that nation been grateful – and hadn’t the looks on their faces, the brightness, the smiles, hadn’t that been good enough a reward? Didn’t you want that happiness for Ala Mhigo as well?
“I came here,” you said, raising your eyes to meet his own, “To kill you.”
Zenos gazed back at you, his pleased, expectant expression unchanging, his hand still reaching for yours. “You are my one and only equal."
it wasn't a surprise to hear, somehow. Warriors like you were rare, singular, even.
Or so you had thought. Zenos, too, must have thought so, before meeting you - no, before you had risen to his challenge.
"I would accept no other." His tone is commanding, indifferent. But his smile... "Come with me.”
Something pulled at you in your chest. Tugged at your heartstrings. That smile.
A smile better suits a hero, he had said. Zenos was no one’s hero. His lips were more quirked upwards, the expression on him was anything but warm, anything but welcoming. And yet… the phrase came to mind somehow, the more your once-enemy looked at you like that.
And then you knew you wanted. Doma, Ala Mhigo, the whole of Eorzea – you’d done enough. If you could get Zenos to leave, right here, right now, it didn’t matter how you did it.
You’d saved Eorzea from primals and the Legion, you’d liberated Doma from occupation – if you could get him to leave Ala Mhigo, that would be the end of it, you owed them nothing more.
You never owed them anything, Fray whispered, and you were tired of ignoring the voice - your own voice. It was strange how Zenos had granted your darkside the strength to speak up and harry you once more. You told yourself that you had wanted to save everyone you’d helped, and that was true...
But had it been worth the hardship, risking your life time and time again as though it was nothing? You didn’t want to say no.
But Fray and you had agreed. This time, it wasn’t worth the sacrifice. You… you really didn’t think you’d ever meet another, just as Zenos had never before met one who was his equal. This was your only chance.
You took a step forwards, and then another, your momentum grew with each step, but Zenos did not falter. His smile only widened. You took his proffered hand in yours and Zenos clasped his fingers around your wrist, pulling you forwards with confidence, away from the Hall of the Griffin.
Away from your confrontation, the friends who’d fought to get you here – But they won’t fight alongside you, said Fray – and the lands you’d given your all to protect, for years. Zenos led you away and you followed his insistent lead as diligently as you had obeyed your erstwhile allies.
By the time you and Zenos got to the airship, your grip on his hand had become a clutch like iron.
He was still smiling.