#ronfar

The Destiny rumbles across the land headed north, towards the shrine of the Blue Dragon that's supposed to be hidden behind the great falls. There's hope among them that they'll reach it before dark, but as the sun dips further and further towards the horizon, it dwindles. It's just as well, perhaps, as they were all exhausted in their own way from the tournament. A good night's rest before once again leaping into the jaws of unknown dangers was certainly preferable.

Still, though a consensus on the matter hadn't been cemented yet, Ronfar goes about his chosen duty of making sure everyone was still in some sort of fighting shape. The cleric had his own bumps and bruises from throwing hands in the ring those few hours ago, but they're little things and he could tend them later while he nursed a beer in the galley. Hiro is worse off, but not by much. He's young and agile, had been able to miss most of the harm hurled his way by the cultists, but his nose is still bleeding in spite of little Ruby's attempt to fill his nasal cavity with a handkerchief. He tries to offer assistance, but the fun-sized, winged cat assures him that everything is fine. Ronfar gives a friendly warning to mind punching the poor kid in the brain and continues with his rounds.

Lucia and Lemina seem fine enough, they didn't get into the ring and part of him is grateful for that. Though another part of him feels the need to step in as the mage tried to explain the concept of gambling to Lucia. After all, he was the expert. He decides to leave them be, though, let them have their fun.

Ronfar descends below deck to find Jean, a weighty but tolerable anxiety settling in his stomach as the shadows below envelope him. He should have gone to her first, any other priest worth more than himself -which is, let's face it, all of them- would have made Jean their priority after the beating she took and walked away from. But this...no, she had needed the space and they all had known it without her having to say a word.

Carefully he navigates the nearly too small passages through the ship, working with casual purpose towards the barracks. It takes him a moment to remember which door he needs, knocking on the wrong one the first time he tries. The second time his easy knock is answered and he lets himself in.

"Hey-whoa, hey, should I go?" he laughs sheepishly, because there she is, sitting on the floor with her back braced on the frame of a bunk in just her underclothes, that beautiful brown skin all but bare.

"No, no," she smiles and chuckles, "come on in. It's not like I'm naked."

Ronfar nods and rubs the back of his neck, stabilizing himself with a quick breath as he steps completely inside. A couple strides lets him cross the room, lets him plop down on the bunk across from her. For a moment he just watches, curious and evaluating. Her dark emerald hair is down, the first time he's ever seen it in such a way, and drapes over one shoulder. In her hands, the knuckles busted and bloody beneath the bracing wrappings, she cradles the Blue Dragon's crest. Her thumbs trace the intricate carvings like her rich amber eyes, seemingly lost in the designs. Her legs are stretched out and crossed, her knees and shins scraped and bruised. His eyes trace her form from top to bottom, spotting more little wounds like the shiner beneath her right eye and the darkened spots around her ribs and upper arms.

"You know, the beds are more comfortable."

"I like the vibrations." though they could barely hear the engines in here, the rumble of the ship in motion is tangible. "Feels good, kind of soothing. Guess that's why I love music so much."

"Could be. Guess it's fine if it doesn't hurt." he just nods, accepting. "You want a little more time, or can I have a look at you now?"

"Sure." Jean sets the crest aside, dropping it atop the neatly folded stack of her clothes. There's noticeable surprise on her face when Ronfar grabs up one of her feet.

"You should have taken these bandages off by now." He scolds gently, barely a reprimand. "All this dried blood, might reopen something."

"It's fine, nothing I can't handle." she winks at him.

"After that, I'd believe it. Hell, you could go toe-to-toe with Althena herself and I'd still bet money on you." May the goddess forgive his blasphemy. But as far as sacrilege goes, that was -by far- his tamest offense. The way Jean buzzes her lips in dismissal makes him laugh.

"Brown-nosing doesn't suit you, priest." she lounges back, wincing at the tug of the wrappings releasing a wound, her hands going behind her head.

"Good thing that's not my angle, then, huh?" he grins at her. "In all seriousness, we all thought you were a badass before, but after seeing you hand that old bastard his ass, there's no question."

Jean had fought so hard, not to say she isn't always giving her all in battle, but the final match of the tournament saw her in rare form. Which, when Ronfar considered it, was probably for the best. If Jean hadn't given every last ounce of strength and resolve, Lunn would have surely killed her. A part of the defrocked priest wishes he had half as much determination.

With the wrappings undone and coiled on the floor, Ronfar takes scale of the injuries. The bruising is bad, the swelling too, bad enough to make his brow knit with concern. He chances to touch the top of her foot with his thumb, pressing gently and getting a feel of the bones underneath. "You're foot's broken."

"Oh yeah? Huh. I had a feeling."

"You sure? Because you were walking awful easy earlier."

"Probably just the adrenaline rush." she dismisses with a wave of one hand. "Again, I've been through worse."

And he knows, to a point, but this still surprises him. In the end he'll not say more about it, just shrugging as he shakes his head and begins a quiet cycle of prayers. There's a faintly green shimmer to his hand as he rubs the purple lump that steadily shrinks and disappears. What few impacts blisters had mottled her skin resolved as well, leaving behind a couple splotches of dried blood that he wipes away.

"The other isn't so bad." she says, raising her other foot up and wiggling the toes. "The blood on this one isn't mine." she adds with a touch of smugness.

He pushes it away. "Gimme your hands then."

"I'm not moving, you'll have to come down here."

"Fine." he rolls his eyes playfully, grunting as he rises from his seat just enough to move forward and put his bottom on the floor beside her, the two still facing each other. Ronfar opens his hands to her, expectant, and she seems a little reluctant to respond. In a way he understands; Jean did a lot to keep this side of herself hidden, she wanted to bury it so deep so badly, but today she had to strip it bare for everyone to see. And now she has to face that reality face to face, just as she faced Ronfar's scrutiny now. Though she knows he would never chastise her or think less of her for it, being under someone's eyes after all that...violence isn't the most comfortable thing.

That, and her hands look terrible. Her usually lithe and precise fingers are thick with swelling and redness, almost every knuckle split and bleeding. The wrappings covering her palms are scorched almost black from all the raw energy she gave and took, the skin there raw looking in the same way a burn does.

"It's not as bad as it looks."

"Jean,"

"It isn't," she insists. "My hands are just...they were always a problem anyway." and as she says this she can't look him in the eye. "Don't worry so much."

"Someone should." he counters gently. "Look...I know talking about this is hard for you, I get it, I got skeletons in my closet too." he swallows, watching her tense up like she wants to jerk away. "I can see these just fine," he gestures to her hands in his, "but how are you? Really?"

Jean looks up at him for all of a second before dropping her eyes again and pulling her hands back to tuck against her stomach. Her entire form folds inward, retreating. Her brow is low and heavy as she starts to unwind the wrappings on her own, flinching at the little pains that come with it. When she's free of them she straightens, sitting up and crossing her legs and letting her hands rest in the vacant space between her thighs. Finally, after what feels like forever, she speaks.

"I'm not okay." the words are tight like a drum, sounding almost painful. But Ronfar gets it, admissions are hard.

Ronfar just nods with a little hum, gently chancing to take one of her hands with his and hold it. He begins the prayers again, comforted by the verdant shimmer that lessens the swelling and closes the cuts, and he repeats the task with the other. Her knuckles are still thick, like those on the hands of shipbuilders in the town he grew up in. Bone built up and hardened by countless impacts. These are certainly not a dancer's hands, and no one knows that more than Jean.

Though his work is mostly finished, Ronfar keeps her hands in his, thinking maybe comfort was more applicable than healing at the moment. "You want to talk about it?"

"What's to talk about?" her tone is hard now, serious.

"I don't know, you tell me. Sometimes just getting it out of your head helps." and he realizes he really should practice what he preaches instead of chasing down his own thoughts with alcohol so much. "It's Lunn, isn't it?"

"Of course it is." she answers sharply. "Kind of why I wanted to hide for a while." now her tone is soft again, as if the previous words were like twisting the cork out of a bottle. It needed to be forced.

"That's what we figured. It's understandable. So what about him?"

One verdant brow lifts, her eyes sliding to him. "You want the list?"

"I'll take what you give, how ever much or little it is."

Jean frowns, straightening up to lean against the bunk again and pulling her hands back to her stomach. Her head tips back and she takes a breath, her eyes closing. She's weighing the words, not because there are a lot of them -she knows what she wants to say- but there are raw, volatile emotions tightly attached to them. Her own feelings are what she's wary of, just like that bastard had taught her.

"I could've killed him." she says quickly, as if any slower would mean the words would be trapped. "I could've...I would've gotten away with it too. No one could have stopped me." she chuffs cynically, "some of those people were even cheering me on. And I wanted to."

Ronfar lets his sympathy show, which is rare.

"...And part of me regrets not doing it." her head drops, her chin to her chest, and another breath. "But I thought letting him live was better."

"Maybe you thought putting him down would make you too much like him?"

Her brow knits, eyes still closed. "Maybe...something like that. Maybe not so much...I wasn't afraid of becoming like him, but becoming what he had tried so hard to turn me into." She had suffered under his teachings for years, relentlessly beaten and abused, so that she could carry on the Shadow Dragon's work and commit to cold blooded murder. But she endured it all, fought back, and won her freedom. "I...it was the one thing he could never get me to do. Kill. And...I knew he would have found satisfaction in it, even if it meant his life."

"Can't let him have that, now can we?" Ronfar tries to sound encouraging, but the sour look she gives him makes him realize his encouragement voice and his sarcastic voice sound too much alike. "Still, you served him some justice today. You put his face in the dirt, busted up the cult...you probably saved a lot of kids, Jean. That's something, isn't it?"

"Did I really? What makes you think Lunn will keep his word? He still has his pride, and that alone can give a man like him a lot of power. Nothing is stopping him from starting over."

"Except maybe you. He knows now, he knows he's not the meanest dog in the yard anymore, and that can take a lot of power from a man like him."

"But he won't be alone. You don't know what it was like, Ronfar." Now she looks at him squarely, eyes severely set. "I watched a man make his insides his outsides, and all Lunn had to do was snap his fingers. I don't doubt there are still loyal members that would follow him at the drop of a hat, and they'll carry on his work whether the cult is functioning or not. I might have made a bigger mess!"

Ronfar can feel the energy in the room bristling.

"What if," she pants a little, feels her heart racing and tries to force it down. Breathe in, breathe out. "What if I just made room for something worse?"

"Then we'll take care of it." Ronfar nods once. "I mean...you could always expose him. I doubt the good people of Meribia would take too well to hearing about their governor kidnapping kids."

Jean hunches forward now, propping her elbows on her knees and letting her face rest in her hands. Her ribs expand and contract quickly but fully, they're breaths meant to stabilize. It lets Ronfar see more of her scars, stripes and stars of long healed flesh that she had once kept well hidden beneath a dancer's dress.

"Can I work on the rest of you while you're getting your head together?" he asks carefully. To be honest, part of him worries she'll reflexively smack him if he tries to touch her without her knowing. When she just nods he accepts her answers, mentally prepping one of the longer prayers as he puts both hands on her. One settles against her ribs, the other at her shoulder, and the green glow that blossoms spreads throughout her torso. The litany resolves and the air settles, leaving the faintest rumble of the ship the only noticeable sound for the moment.

Jean shifts a little, uncovering her face and folding her hands together, propping her chin there. Her eyes have reddened a little and her brow is still heavy. "I'm not...you know I'm not like him, right?"

"Of course I do." Ronfar puts his hands behind him and leans back. "Now, just like all of us, when I first met the man I thought you two were a lot alike." he hates the way she cringes at that. "You both seemed passionate about what you do, and I admire that in people. But then -for lack of a better phrase- the mask came off."

Jean chuckles sadly, both loving and hating his choice of words.

"I don't know if the words of a functioning alcoholic mean anything to you,"

"They matter, because I'm not too far from that description myself." she smirks at him, still bleary eyed.

"Fair enough." he had seen her drink, and it was certainly something. She drank to escape things just like he did, but in a different way. "But now, looking back on everything, there never really was any likeness between you. Lunn's type are a dime a doze, but thank the goddess they don't usually get as far as he did. But you,"

Jean looks up at him, anxious but hopeful in a way.

"Sometimes you're so full of light and life that it's humbling." then his face stretches and his eyes widen a little. "Other times it's terrifying, but in a good way." He had hoped she'd laugh a little, but is satisfied with the small grin. "I think what you really want me to say, though, is that you're not a bad person. And you're not, Jean, really. I mean that, and you've got one of the biggest hearts of anyone I've ever met."

Her face tightens. "Then why do I feel like this? Why would I ever want to hurt someone like that?"

"Because it's Lunn, and because that monster would have deserved it." he answers quickly, certainly. "He was building an empire on the backs of broken children, willingly, and only chose to stop because his pride wouldn't let him break his word. Now, I know I'm the last person who should say who lives and dies, but I'll be damned if he doesn't deserve to have his neck snapped."

Her expression turns to shock in an instant. She had never known Ronfar to be a violent person, a sleaze, sure, but nothing like this.

"I know you've got a lot of feelings about how you handled all that, but you should know that I'm in absolute awe of you for sparing his life. Yet, by the same token, I wouldn't have thought less of you if you hadn't."

When the dismay fades it devolves into a certain...self-disgust, perhaps. "You...you really don't think it would've made me as bad as him?"

Ronfar hunches forward again, feeling that maybe being closer to her would help her believe his words more fully. "The way I see it, sometimes good people have to do things we believe are bad to make the world a better place. That doesn't stop them from being good, does it?"

"...I don't know."

"Well, I don't think it does, and to be honest with you, considering all the harm he's done, most folks would agree."

"But I'm...I've never..." the words stumble out before she's really ready, she doesn't have them all together so she stops herself and tries to recover. "I've never had a desire to kill someone until that moment, and I hate how easy it would have been to do it."

"And that's something else that sets the two of you apart; you care. Even if it's for your own sake, you still care about the things you do." he's quiet a moment, thinking when she has no reaction. "Maybe more than anything you just really wanted some justice."

"Pfft, lot of good it would do me." she scoffs.

"Wouldn't it? He ruined your life, made your childhood hell, why not do the same and make evens out of it?"

"Killing him wouldn't change any of that." It wouldn't restore her memory of her parents or where she's from, wouldn't give her back the years she lost. She can't even rightly remember just how old she is, all because of that man. Nothing would make any of that right ever again.

"But it might have made you feel better." Because he thought she deserved at least that much. Some closure. Solace of some sort.

Finally she takes a breath, tipping her head back and exhaling like she's exhausted. "Guess I'll never know. At this point I'll settle for never having to see him again."

"Would you, really?"

The looks she gives him is resigned, hopeless. "It's the best I can hope for."

Sympathy pulls his brows again and he moves, turning so he can sit next to her and prop against the bunk like she does. They're just shy of shoulder-to-shoulder. Ronfar has run out of things to say, feeling like he's played the devil's advocate enough, did everything he could to avoid saying the wrong thing -which is a great labor on his part. Now all he can think to do is be present, let her weigh all of this without leaving her alone with it but staying out of her way.

Jean is surprised at how it doesn't rub her raw that he's here, because a part of her knows it should. She doesn't like being seen vulnerable, at least not like this, and no one gets it. No one on this ship can really relate with her over this so...but this is okay somehow. Okay enough that when she feels her heart breaking she allows it, doesn't shove it down or try to cover it up like always. A sob shakes out of her and the tears finally -finally- drag themselves free to fall down her still bruised cheeks. When she covers her face again in a reflexive attempt to hide, Ronfar stretches an arm across her back and pulls her in. She lets him and will be grateful that she had later.

He holds her tighter still when the crying surges, the purge in full force now as she tucks to his chest and her ribs heave. "It's all right, whatever it takes." he assures her softly. "I've got you." The pain he feels in the way she shakes and cries vibrates through his bones, and for the first time in a long time he feels like praying to Althena. Really pray. Then again, he can't help but wonder; Althena was said to be all-knowing and merciful, but why would she come to Jean's aid now when she couldn't be bothered to when she was a helpless child? There's that blasphemy again.

Ronfar keeps her close even after the bloodletting ends, thinking she needs the support and given no evidence to the contrary. When Jean does finally pull away she quietly asks to be helped up as she feels boneless and weak now that all the adrenaline and pain had subsided. He does his best since his legs have long since fallen asleep, half stumbling and laughing at himself when he braces on the bed to get upright. He moves her clothes and the crest aside, stable as Jean pulls up on his hand to stand as well. She plops onto the bed with a puff of an exhale, rubbing her face with both hands.

"I just...gimme an hour and I'll be good to go." she rasps, trying to get the blanket pulled aside.

"Don't worry about it. I'll talk to Hiro, convince him to put off the shrine until tomorrow."

"I can do it," she insists, "I just need a nap."

"You're getting proper sleep tonight, dancing queen, and I'll suffer no arguments. The others will understand." he finds a little comfort in her relenting chuckle and the shake of her head as he helps her pull the covers up. "I'll come and check in on you later, and if you feel up to it we'll get a drink together. What do you say?"

"Let me sleep on it." and they share a little laugh before Ronfar puts out the lamp on his way out the door. "Hey,"

He pauses, brows up in expectation.

"Thanks. Don't know if all that helped but...I appreciate the effort anyway."

"Don't mention it. We're in this together, after all." he smirks and inches his shoulders, modest. "See you later."

-----

Author's Note: It's actually been almost twenty years since I last wrote for the Lunar fandom, and this is the first Lunar: Eternal Blue fic I've ever written. It's something, really. Still, had it floating around my head for a while thought it would be fun.

L:EBC had a serious narrative issue -from my perspective anyway- regarding Jean and Lunn's story. One being that there wasn't a lot of attention given to Jean's trauma, it's long term effects and how she learned to cope, especially after being thrown head first into new dealings with the Shadow Dragon Cult during the story.

The second was -I believe- a real narrative failure in that Lunn has a redeeming story, when as a character he does nothing to earn it. He shows zero remorse for the harm he caused, only remorse in that he couldn't see his ideology regarding power was flawed before it had negative consequences for him. That and he shows no intention of making amends in any way except to just stay out of the heroes' way. It's really discouraging to me.