Tales of Graces Lessons

I ...can't believe I am uploading this after having this story resting on my harddrive for almost two years now. Not only because it's been so long since I have written this story initially but also because it's my first story to upload in English ever. Although I have been writing fanfiction in German for more than ten years now and, basically, do write since I learned to assemble letters to words, I have been writing English fanfiction only for a few years now. I always have been hesitant to upload my English works to public. Since I think of my German writing style as quite refined, I always felt my English one is lacking a particular something. Plus, I don't have a beta who speaks English as mother tongue, I beta almost everything myself. So yeah, for a perfectionist like me I had some serious issues with sending my English stuff to anyone else but my friends... But now I finally made up my mind since my love for a certain Tales of pairing is still strong and haven't wavered a single day.

HuPasu...

Never had me a Tales of canon pairing hit so hard since Kranna. I didn't know how to deal with all those wonderful feels those two perfect babies gave me and so I decided to put some into words.

I took great inspiration in pengiechan's HuPasu fiction on this website because I really really loved her uptake on the characters and how she expanded the Graces world. So yes, the story is also somewhat a tribute to her wonderful stories. What also took me so long uploading is the fact that the beginning of the story was written at work and I somehow lost the document and couldn't bring myself to recreate it after writing the rest of the story. OTL

I'm still not quite satisfied with the new beginning, but it should do it.

After my lengthy and wordy introduction, I hope you enjoy the following piece and it is to your liking 3

Critique of any kind is welcome, but I like the constructive one the best.

(Edit: DocManger sort of ate my formatting, I will try to fix this ASAP)

XxxxxxX

The cold wind is piercing Hubert's heated face like needles made of pure ice and is throwing his coattails fiercely around his legs. But he doesn't really feel it nor does he really care.

He is standing at the top of the mountains towering high up to the sky beneath Fendel, the entrance to the Amarcian Enclave hidden under a layer of snow to his feet.

He has come here so many times before and his heart is pounding wildly, like so many times before as well, but this time is different.

Because this time, a decision has to be made that either will make him the happiest man on Ephenia or - and that is what he fears - smash that fragile thing in his chest into tiny pieces. All attempts to calm himself fail miserably. Although Hubert had noticed how Pascals feelings towards him had changed all so slowly but definitly over the course of the last months, he feels that they still need time to grow.

He wanted to be with Pascal, yes, more than anything in this world but she has been so close to break his heart this one ...

"Hey Hu, what ya doin' out here?"

The young man freezes at the sound of the female voice behind or rather would have if the blizzard wouldn't have made his limbs numb already. His train of thought becomes loose and crashes with something the he is sure was his heart because it stops beating in the very same second.

The strong winds carry away the sound of her steps but Hubert can feel her coming closer.

Then the Amarcian flings herself against him and quickly snuggles closer, rubbing her head against his shoulder like a cat would do to their owner returning home from work.

"Le~et me guess... you wanna visit me, right?" she exclaimes cheerfully.

Stuttering like an old engine, Hubert's heart starts working again.

The warmth from Pascal's body seeps into his frozen skin, making him realize just how long he had actually stood here.

Hubert shudders and the technican now seems to notice that something is not quite right.

"Man, how long have you been here? You are frozen solid. Like a giant Hu-sicle."

A shock of white and red hair appears in front of his eyes - finally - and the amber that locks with his blue is scolding him silently.

"Come in", she says and grabs him by the wrist before pulling him onto the platform.

As the lieutenant stumbles forward, he can't help but to notice how much more affectionate she had become in the past weeks, hugging and cuddling him to an extend she had only shown for Sophie so far.

Then light surrounds and transports them to the heart of Fendel Mountain.

As the bright glow fades, they stand at the entrance of the hidden high-tech city. The cold winds that had thrown themselves so fiercely against him won't reach him here, yet the air still is biting cold against his face.

Although, he muses, this might also come because at this very moment, his whole body feels more aflame than ever, burning with the fire of a thousand suns at the inside. For a second he wonders that he hasn't died through hyperthermia already and his brain hasn't been boiled by the heat of his own blood yet. Though, he wasn't so sure about the last one.

Pascal guides him over the bridges that sprawl elegantly between the single platforms and Hubert is thankful for that. Not because he isn't able find the way to her home - he could do that blind by now - but because his body seems to have stopped acting on its own and is only able to follow.

"Home, sweet home~" Pascal chirps delightfully as she opens the door. The usual chaos greets them when they step in, a chaos the bluenette long has given up wanting to clean. Several failed attempts have led him to the conclusion that it belonged to Pascal just as the rest of her personality and he had learned to accept that.

"You can sit...uhm..." Pascals amber eyes scan that what looks like a big pile of junk but actually are her belongings. "...there." she decides, pointing to a metallic construction that pretty much appears to be some kind of old turbine but at the same time obviously makes a decent chair in the Amarcian's eyes.

Hubert sleep-walks to the place Pascal has shown him, mind absent and with his tounge still tied to his throat. As he sits down, Pascal starts to fiddle with some kind of machine. Hubert knows this one, it's one of the Amarcian's own inventions. However, he doesn't know how it works, just what it does - the last time he asked for more details the technican had presented him such extended explanation with so many of her Pascal-isms that his mind literally had been bananas afterwards.

It doesn't take long until Pascal presses something warm and steamy in his hands, a hot chocolate that this little machine somehow had produced. The distinct smell of peppermint is raising from his cup, an flavour Pascal always adds to his chocolate since he once had remarked that he likes it best this way. And she holds her own to far away as that Hubert could actually notice it, but he knows that he would find the aroma of cinnamon in Pascals drink.

"Here you are", she says with a radiant smile - that kind of smile that Hubert's heart always brings frightenly close to a cardiac arrest.

"Th-thank you", he stutters.

"Oh, hey, so you actually still can speak! I kinda was afraid that some kind of super-evil wiz had robbed your voice and we..."

"D-Don't be silly", he interrupts her, slowly regainig the ability to speak. "Fantasy creatures like voice-robbing wizards do not exist in this world."

"Have you ever seen one?" she asks back.

"Of course not." he replies and adjusts his glasses.

"Ha! So you can't say for sure that they don't exist!" she exclaimes, raising he index finger in the same way a teacher would when he tells his students that they are wrong.

Her logic escapes him, as it does often, and thus he can't beat it, neither. He sighs and lets the chance for a counter-argument go by. Silence settles between the two, but not for long.

"So, Hu, why are you here?"

Their usual bantering had helped him to calm down a bit, but with Pascal's words the memory why he had come all the way up here in the first place returns with all its force. He tenses, holding the cup between his hands so tight that his knuckles shine white against his skin.

"I..." he begins and then falls silent again.

"You...?" Pascal repeats, shifting closer.

"I..." he starts anew, but again his voice fails him.

Pascal scrunches her nose and frowns. "Is this some kind of a game or somethin'?"

Then, all of a sudden, her face lightens up and she jumps to her feet. "Oh, oh, I know! This is this thingy where you start a sentence and the other one has to guess what you mean, right? Wait, lemme give it a try! You ...have been send on a super secret mission and while you were in Fendel you thought 'Hey, why not visit good, ol' Pascal why I'm at it?' Or..."she places a finger on her lips and seems to be lost in thought for a moment, then she flashes Hubert a smile filled with excitement "...wait, I've got something even better! The prez wants you to kidnap me because he wants me to work for Stratha!"

Hubert can only wonder where she gets all those weird ideas as he blinks at her in suprise. Little later an almost sad, tiny smile creeps up the corners of his mouth. As crazy as Pascal's guesses are, he wishes that he could trade one of them for reality.

"Not quite."

"Not...quite? Wait, wait, fu~ull stop. You mean I'm not that wrong? How quite-ish am I? Quite as in..."

"You weren't too wrong about certain parts" he interrupts her, knowing she would go on endlessly like that if he let her.

"Pascal", he says and stares at the chocolate resting between his palms. This is when he finally decides to take a sip. Although he doesn't taste much, the smooth texture of the hot liquid is balm for his dry and sore throat and when he lifts up the cup from his lips, the words seem to flow a little bit lighter.

"It's indeed because of President Parandine that I'm here, but it is..." Huberts swallows down the lump his throat, yet finding the right words is still so difficult. "...complicated" he concludes.

"He is searching for a suitable man to marry his daughter to and although I declined his offer the first time he asked, he seems to think that I'm still a good ...option."

"But you're in love with someone else, huh?"

Her remark renders him speechless and leaves him gaping at her. Pascal is the last of all people he expects to make comments about romance.

"H-how...?" he asks with a cracking voice.

"Oh, come on, Hu. You're making such a heavy frown that I expect your face to split into two with a THWAP like every second. Everyone can see that something's not right."

"But...how...?!"

The Amarcian winks at him. "I'm observant."

"I-is that so?" he says, trying to reclaim composure.

"Like totally! All these inventions I make don't come from nothing, you know? As a technican you must look things through and see how they work", she explains in a matter-of-fact voice.

"I don't see what this has to do with me or my feelings for someone" he counters, still caught between awe and mortification that Pascal so easily has spelled out what he has been trying so hard to tell her. He pushes up his glasses and watches her, part of him afraid of the answer she might could give him, part of him clinging to the futile hope that this conversation might could lead to the words he wanted to hear for so long.

"A lot! Y'know, you're always so freakingly uptight when it comes to your feelings. If it was about work or a mission or something, you would have been all annoyed but wouldn't have let it show. If it was about how Asbel did his work or how he raised Sophie, you also would have been annoyed but complained because you cared, right? A~and... beside the fact that I just noticed what an old grump you are 'cause you're annoyed about pretty much everything..." Hubert shouts a protest here, but it doesn't seem to bother Pascal that much "...a~anyway, you're nothing like that today. And since you almost absolutly and most definitely never talk 'bout love-stuff and things it must be the reason why you're acting that weird."

She points her gloved finger at him and he wants to tell her that she doesn't make any sense but he can't because she does and pretty much so.

He lowers his gaze, cheeks painted in a pale hue of pink, and stares into his chocolate. He doesn't know what to say or even what to feel.

If Pascal has seen so easily through him to this point, does she also know what lies beyond that? Who the someone else is he's in love with? The color on his face turns into a nice shade of red at that thought, but then there is this fright again, that, if she knows, not acting is her answer, that she chooses friendship. Or is she waiting on him to take action?

"So, if you don't love the prez' daughter, why don't you go and ask the girl you're really in love with to marry you? That would solve your problem faster than you can say banana."

This time, Hubert thinks his head is going to explode under the sudden increase of blood pressure as he hears Pascal speak like that. Or that he will die of heart failure within the next minutes because his heart is stammering so hard against his chest that it feels like it is breaking his ribs with every beat more and more .

It takes a little time before he is able to answer.

"I told you already, it is ...not that easy."

A frustrated sound escapes his throat and he makes a gesture. "I don't even know if she loves me, too."

"Why don't you go and ask her then?"

Hubert stares at her, mortified, but she keeps going on. "Seriously, Hu, I dunno what's your problem. Either she says yes or no."

She makes it sound so easy, but the young man knows it is anything but that.

A fearful tremor runs through his whole body at the idea of simply telling her, his lips are starting to resemble Fodra's wastelands but nonetheless he makes an effort to speak.

"But I..."

Pascal pulls a face and interrupts him.

"Ah~, enough now with all that but-ing!" The mild annoyance in her voice fades quickly and is replaced by the usual eagerness. "Know what? If you have such a hard time telling, I gonna practice with you."

"Pa-Pascal!" he chokes, counting down the seconds his heart and head will burst simultaniously.

"No, no, I'm like totally serious. Without help you never-ever will get a word out so Pascal here will do the job."

If he wouldn't feel so much like crying, Hubert probably would have started laughing about the irony of the whole situation.

It's almost painfully tragic to see how she manages to nail one of his major problems down to the point but fails to recognize the very source of all of his struggles.

He tries to argue because what she intends to do most likely will kill him for good - he doesn't know just how much more his heart can take - but again, Pascal is the faster one.

"Nu-uh", she says with the smallest of pouts and a raised index finger, "co~omplety wrong start. First of all you have to take her hand."

She takes a step closer and sits down on the broken turbine, next to Hubert.

"Now, take my hand."

Hesitantly, the young man reaches out to the fingers Pascal is waving in front of his face. Hubert is still not quite sure what to think of all this, but before he finds himself paralyzied again by his own anxiety, he decides to progress forward and closes his palms around Pascals hands.

Though gloved, Hubert can feel the warmth of her skin through the elastic fabric and the strength that this delicate fingers hide. These hands are by no means that of an ordinary woman. These hands have been shaped by the work on heavy machines and sensitive gears, by fights against devilish monsters and humans alike. These are the hands of the woman he loves and he...

"Ephenia to Hubert. Ephenia to Hubert. Beep! Anybody listening?"

The young man literally jumps on his seat and jerks his head in Pascals direction. His cheeks flush as he realizes that he had zoned out completly and not been listening to her.

"I'm sorry, I ..." he apologizes but Pascal makes a reassuring gesture with her free hand.

"No worries. You are listening now, right? Ok, the next step to make a girl to forget all about bananas because of you is..." Hubert frowns here, thinking that Pascal needs a little adjustment on her definiton of romance "...to look her deep in the eyes and whisper "I love you" with an aaa~all husky voice."

Hubert feels the heat on in his face increase significantly when the serious expression on the Amarcian's face suddenly fades and she shrugs.

"At least that's what the book says I lent from Fourier."

"Pascal, you ..." Hubert groans and fights the urge to facepalm.

He feels the hope in his chest sink down again like a heavy stone, scolding himself silently that he had allowed it to build up in the first place. How could he be so stupid to think that...

"So... shall we try?"

Pascal's words turn the dying flame into a bristling firework. "I mean, my sis understands a lot more about romance and that stuff than I do so I think we should give it a shot."

Hubert wants someone to pinch him because against all logic he is pretty sure he just died or at least slid of in some weird kind of daydream where...

Pascal shuffles closer and stares intensely at him. And very much so, Hubert notices above his fast-beating heart, because with her lips pressed together tightly and her pale eyebrows almost meeting over the back of her nose she looks like she is in pain and far from anything romantic.

Hubert clears his throat.

"I think you are trying a bit... too hard", he comments on her expression.

The hard lines on her face soften. "Really? I thought I was doing pretty well."

Hubert swallows again, feeling the lump in his throat growing which makes it hard to speak.

He wishes she finally would release him from this embarrasing situation and at the same time doesn't want her to stop because simply holding her hand feels just TOO right.

"I-I may lack the ...practical experience ... but... but... there are certain things you just know."

He congratulates himself for the most refined answer he has ever given during the last years. NOT. He curses his inability to speak in front of her about such sorts of things and doubts she will ever get his point - yet, in a strange way, she seems to understand.

"Geez, guess I still gotta long way to go", she sighs, then her amber eyes fix on Hubert again.

"Ok, deal: You help me along with the romantic stuff and I will solve that shyness-problem of yours in no time!" she seems so excited and happy that he can hardly do anything else than agree and finds himself nodding slowly at her words. He would do everything to keep that dazzling smile upon her face, even with his heart on the line, to watch that joyfull expression that brought light into a life that now seems grey and dull when he looks back at it.

A shiver runs down his spine as Pascal leans even closer and is now only a few inches away from him.

The smile doesn't leave her lips, but it changes. It turns into a kind of quiet, happy smile and seems almost affectionate.

The second Hubert sees it he knows, this is the last thing he wants to see when he dies.

Which probably is going to be very soon if he doesn't do something about the insufficient oxygen-supply of his brain and heart, a more sarcastic part of him notes, but he prefers to ignore it.

"Is this better?" she wants to know. Hubert can't turn his eyes away from her and only on a more insistent "Hu?" he breaths a "Perfect...". And means it.

Pascals face lits up and something very feline mixes into her smile, so that she reminds him of a cat who has just found a big cream-bowl.

"Good. Then it's my turn now. I will make it extra-easy for you, Hu. Just speak after me."

There is the sudden urge to run and hide, but even if Hubert would have wanted to, his body would have failed him. He doesn't fear monsters anymore, isn't scared anymore to use his wits in political and physical battles alike and has learned to act and think rationally in hopeless situations. But in front of the woman he loves this all means nothing, he feels defensless like a newborn child. Paralyzed.

"I ..." she starts and "I ..." he repeats.

"...love..." she continues and this is where his tongue starts to stumble.

"...l-lo-lo..."

He tries to pull himself together. He has said it to her once, he can do it again, and the wording this time is much simpler, although no words could ever express how much he feels for her nor what she does mean to him.

"...loveyou,Pascal." he blurts out as one whole word. He didn't mean to add her name to the confession, but it had come just along with those other words he had kept to himself for so long and as he realizes it, his aquamarine eyes break away from Pascal and the skin on his cheeks is close to blister from the intense heat. The silence that falls between them is deafening and just when Hubert thinks he can't bear it anymore, Pascal raises her voice.

"I love you, too, Hu."

The words take some seconds to sink in, but when they do he pulls his eyes so fast away from the ground that his neck almost snaps at the sudden movement.

He stares at Pascal's face, the rosy blush on it and a smile that somehow combines joy and nervousness.

"I have been waiting for MONTHS for you to say it, you know. You are harder to crack than a Rockaggong's shell, you know?"

He keeps staring at her, speechless. Inside his chest a happiness wells up that he hadn't known like that before, yet he is still to afraid to let go of it, to scared that he is only dreaming.

"A~and, I'm all new to this so it could become all weird and stuff, but I think the next thingy we should do is ..."

Although her cheeks are as burning red as his right now, she grins and she is still grinning victoriously as she leans forward and closes the last distance between their lips.

This is the moment Hubert forgets about everything. About his worries, about his own fears and even about the part that wanted to argue with Pascal that Rockagongs actually have fur.

This feels right and this feels real and far too good to be just a dream. The innocent touch of her lips carries the taste of chocolate with cinnamon, bananas and freedom, and her smile is so contagious that he finds himself grinning in their kiss, too.

And as their lips break apart at last and his aquamarine meets with her sparkling amber, he knows:

He finally found home.


End file.

Tales of Graces, Humor, Romance