Series: Final Fantasy IX
Category: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Zidane/Kuja
Warning: Shounen ai, angst, AU, OOCness on Kuja's part
Author's Note: Despite the fact that Kuja doesn't act in the way I wished him to, I'm really satisfied with this story. I was a little down when writing this, so it's sad.. this is also my only yaoi-fic where Zidane and Kuja are brothers, so yes it's incest. Watch your step.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX belongs to Squaresoft. Be glad for that.
Archive: Abstract Reasoning, Fanfiction.net.
Summary: An artist recalls to a memory of a stranger coming for a favor, in exchange of his story..

An Artist's Memory

Everyone knew that he was dead. That piece of information had been brought to common knowledge a long time ago, and there were enough witnesses to strengthen the fact.

Still, I was able to see and listen to him after six years of his fall.

He just came into my studio one day, closing the door carefully after him as if to seal my destiny. I just froze to my place, dropping all the paintings I had been holding in my lap as our eyes met. I will never forget his eyes.. Never once have I seen such a shade of blue, so dark and rich and pure, one of the kind you never see in ocean or in sky. Even when being stiff with fear, I couldn't help but admire those eyes.

He commanded me to do a portrait of him. Asked me, actually, since there was no ordering tone in his soft, low voice. I should probably had taken my mother's old rod, that single pathetic weapon of mine, and smacked him over the face to run and get some help, but instead I just nodded, taking everything I needed in my careful work and asked him to sit down. Even after all these years, I can't help but be surprised at the calmness I held within that day.

To my great surprise, he did exactly I had asked him to, smiling to me gratefully when taking a seat, then remained totally unmoving. He was almost like a china doll like that, with the glittering waterfall of his silvery-white hair flowing around his delicate head, framing perfectly his elegant-boned face, his pale, porcelain skin shining white in the caress of cold lights. His lips were in amazingly straight line, when considering the fact that he seemed like a person who was always smiling, or rather, smirking. Actually, his whole appearance seemed to bath in extreme sorrow and quilt, and even with my horrifying knowledge of human nature I could easily see that he was on a brink of bursting into tears right in front of me.

Then he started talking, so silently that I didn't hear a word he was saying first, but when I actually started listening to him I could hear all the pain and regret of his heart in his words as he spoke about all the sins he had committed, about the weight of sins he had to carry eternally within his soul because of all the agony he had caused to the world and to it's residents, because of all the things he hadn't prevented happening or left undestroyed. Sincerity marked his every word, darkened the tone of his voice. Probably made him scream in his heart in inner pain, too.

I just listened to him wordlessly in some lame version of compassion, but I could feel my heart almost stop beating when he told me about his greatest sin.. the destruction of his brother.

Hatred and jealousy had torn them apart, he said. And on the next time they had met, he had intended to kill him, to destroy the soul that had meant to be stronger than his. I was really confused when he told that.. since I still hadn't got over the fact that he actually had a brother. He had been sure that his brother's goal would have been to destroy him as well, until they had once ended up confronting each other face to face.

Mix-up of disgust and pity raped my soul at the second he told me that they had made love, lost themselves in a trap of forbidden passion when getting too close to each other. He had been taken with violence and love, crushed in embrace of desire that should never had existed between them. While wanting to vomit at the thought of incest that had finished the completion of his evil, I also wanted to rush to him and wipe away those tears that were finally streaming down his white cheeks, crystals of sadness.

Last of venom I held for him disappeared when he confessed that he hadn't been the only one who was showering in guilt, telling me the tale of his unfortunate partner. His brother had been struck by regret when realizing the true value of their sin, too, and had never been able to break free from his soul-deep regret. Not even when he had shared his terrible secret with his beloved one, confessed the happened to his friends. Doomed love had been his fate, and was his fall, as well. He had committed a suicide, seeing it as the only way for their reunion.

My sudden customer was crying uncontrollably on the moment he told that, and I cried with him, joined him in his pain. Hatred that the world felt for him seemed so useless, so vain now. Oh, how cruel the life can be. Damn destiny and its torturous games.

I finished the portrait with tears blurring my eyes, thus completing my best painting ever. He took a good look at it, managing to flash me the sweetest smile ever as an acceptance, then gave it back to me.

Wasn't it good enough? I asked him, with the hurt tone of abandoned lover.

It is absolutely beautiful, he replied me, staring me straight in the eyes. But I never wanted it for myself.

God, he looked so beautiful on that moment.

Then why did you ask for it? I shouted when he left for a door, moving as gracefully as an angel.

He turned to look at me, somewhat cunning expression of a beautiful stranger upon his face. Expression that I would never forget.

I wanted it to be the last memory of me, he said.

Then I could no longer see him.

I left his portrait on my table and rushed after him, not bothering about the fact that the night had fallen and the coldness bit into the bared parts of my skin. I didn't even have any idea about where I was going.. I just let the instinct lead me along the way of his invisible footprints.

I followed him all the way out of the town, to the mighty hills of Alexandria where he stood, his figure drowning into the blackest darkness. Wind blew hard and powerfully around us as he allowed himself to fall, leaving his miserable existence behind once and for all.

And his portrait indeed was the last memory he left of himself, last remark of his shaded tale. Of his brother's tale. Several years have passed from my meeting with Kuja, with the legendary reminder of unfair life.

It has been exactly twenty years since the death of the great hero, Zidane Tribal, too.

7. April 2001