Dias
Fenrir
Final Fantasy Tactics (ps1) fic taking place after the events of the game. Some more information can be found http://serebiiforums.com/showthread.php?t=127324.
Title inspired by a prototype product name by Wizards of the Coast.
PG-13 for now.
The night sky was cloaked in billowing smoke spawned from the fires below. Flames danced a sweeping bolero within the castle’s walls, their guttural roars all but drowning out the yells. A line of mayhem had been cut through the village, where night watchmen lay dead and the earth bore deep scars that still gasped curls of steam. The terror that had rolled through the hamlet did not waste any time, however, putting an end to only those who stood in its path. The keep had been the target.
The portcullis, built solidly of heavy iron, was warped and bent askew, tossed aside like a broken weapon a the castle’s main gate, which opened into a scene no less tragic. The bodies of castle guards - knights caped in red - were bespattered about the hall, afflicted with partially-cauterized gashes and other wounds from which blood ran slick. The courtyard just ahead was now an inferno, burning away and choking the air with smolder. Frantic shouts echoed throughout the keep, heavily masked by the clamor of steel and the howl of the conflagration.
Two figures swept down a corridor, both mounted on chocobos, one red and one black. Upon the red creature was a lithe figure draped in a black cloak slashed with silver crescents. The second, perched upon the black bird, wore himself openly, wrapped in leather armor and charcoal gray dressings. His brown hair was slightly damp from the heat, and beads of perspiration rolled down his chiseled, aged face. Behind them was nothing but fallen soldiers and deep inflictions upon the stone.
They were not alone for long, for the alarum that the two had produced reached all corners of the castle. Another group of knights, clad in gold-tinted armor and sporting their uniform red cloaks emblazoned with the realm’s standard, burst from a side corridor. Swords and shields at the offensive ready, the three were prepared to fight - and die - to protect.
The pair of riders slowed, but did not stop, and the enrobed figure pressed his knees into the sides of his chocobo. The beast flapped its wings once and its eyes rolled slightly back before a cluster of flames leapt from an open beak. The attack split into several small fireballs and ravaged the front most oncoming soldier. His shield resisted one, and his armor withstood another, but those he did not block found him in more vulnerable places. Two soldiers remained.
Slightly surprised by this group’s tenacity, the rider turned to his more open compatriot, and gave him a slight nod.
The leather-bound man raised a long shaft of metal, on the closer end of which was a lever. He pointed it directly at the soldiers, who now where merely ten feet away, and squeezed the trigger. A sibilant crack filled the air as jagged tongues of lightning raced out of the metal tube. They cut through armor and flesh alike, tearing gashes into the protected bodies, and pushing out the other side. The bolts crashed into the floor and sliced injuries into the masonry.
The two were again alone.
They spurred their mounts on again, more quickly now, and avoided unwanted interception. They had only one target, and he would be, as they knew, held in the barracks. Their prey would surely have heard of their coming, and would be, as the king was known to do, held up in the antechamber of the barracks, which was said to be a prime position for defense.
They came upon the final hallway, an expanse of stone and sconces which ended at a large door. No quarry met them here in the hall, and they knew that he for whom they came, and his most elite of knights, would be behind that door, prepared and anxious.
The two were on the door in moments, and they, at long last, pulled their great birds to a stop. The cloaked figure shifted slightly and an arm rose, a hand bound in a bracer at its end. The door shook slightly, but then returned to its dormant state, only to stir to life again. This second time, it began to vibrate more noticeably, until the air was alive with a great creaking as the barrier bent dented in several places. It tore free of its frame and hung, unsupported, for a mere second before it lead the way into the room. The massive projectile slammed and scattered knights like tossed dice.
They entered the room, and the concealed rider’s cowled head swept across the area. A deep, annoyed exhalation escaped from under the hood. He brought up his hand again, two fingers outstretched, and flicked them downwards. His companion complied, pushing his mount a few steps forward and bringing up again his devastating weapon.
Arcs of lightning were serpents as they bit into the dazed soldiers. Those who had gotten to their feet found themselves on the ground again as the magic cut them. At the far end of the room, however, one mad had stood, and he bore the mark of a general. The large, bearded man cast helpless looks at his troops before gritting his teeth and raising a shield between himself and that death shaft.
No bolts came for his flesh, however; only the red chocobo and its rider. The other intruder made short work of the surviving shoulders and advanced also.
The bracer-clad hand came out again and in an instant the general found himself several feet ahead of his previous position, his throat fit snuggly into the outstretched hand. He struggled to speak, to defy, but no words could climb out.
“Tell me… where is your king, Delita Hyral,” came the voice of the hidden man.
“K-king Delita…” the general started, finding it difficult to push the sentence though his closing windpipe. “K-king Delita d-died just yesterday.”
“Did he? Well… this certainly makes my job easier,” the one in the cloak mused. He dropped the general to the floor, and turned his mount around, making to leave. The general, through all of his coughing, was swelled with relief as he believed himself spared. His assailant was halfway to the door, nearly gone!
The black chocobo took one step forward, and a cackling, white-hot serpent ate his heart.
Some many miles away in another land, a young king leapt up from his bedding, wide-eyed and sweating profusely.
Ramza Beoulve strode down the empty, silent halls of Igros Castle, an azure cloak pulled tightly around him as a shield against the morning cold. Crisp autumn breezes rolled in through the cut windows, casting upon the keep a somber, chilling disposition. This demeanor, though, had clung to the castle and over the past few years had buried into the cracks, pulsing yet unstirred. The emptiness of the place, crippled further by the echo of unfavorable memories, was something that no cold could match.
It had been six years since Ramza’s permanent return to Igros. Six years since the transpiring of events that shook the foundation of all of Ivalice and the lives of many. Ramza had begun his life in the castle twenty-some years ago, and so many occurrences had ravaged him within the familiar walls. It was here that his beloved father had met the end of his life, unknowingly by the manipulative hand of the eldest son in the family. Here also was where Ramza had been forced to kill his oldest brother, and where his dearest friend had been thrust onto a path from which he could not return.
Ramza almost did not return after the horrors of the Lion War and the catastrophic happenings behind the scenes. Those memories still haunted is every step, his every thought. The war had been a windstorm, and the past six years had been the painfully slow fall from it to the ground. Things were still changing in he lands of Ivalice - results of those actions of Ramza and his dear and loyal companions. The church was undergoing radical reformation, and the politics of the realm were still proclaiming their identities. War did that. So did the uncovering of an entire religion based on lies and corruption.
Ramza sighed to the frigid stone as he reminisced. His thoughts drifted through those blackened days and the realizations that the past short few years of his life had been the only ones untainted by war. He had been born into the last lengths of the Fifty Years War, and just as it had ended, the Lion War began as Ramza came of age. He had battled in it, under the flag of the Hotuken, a force led by his own family - or, more accurately, his two brothers, Dycedarg and Zalbag. He fought blindly and without question against an enemy regarded as faceless, though hesitation and the pinch of morality always stirred deep within him.
The Beoulve family, though, was one of renown and nobility, and Ramza also wished to fill the shoes of his position. A desire made even more defined by the fact that he was only half a Beoulve, sharing a father with his two brothers but oftentimes looked down upon. He had had in ironclad relationship with his father, but after his death, Dycedarg took up the role as head of the family. Dycedarg was a man firmly set in his ways - the ways of nobility and of superiority.
It wasn’t long before Ramza had stumbled into something unfathomable. There were puppet masters behind the war, exploiting the fact that there was controversy over the rightful heir of the deceased king and an age-old church legend. A legend that was far from being just a story, and one that was a manifestation of deceit.
Deceit which rested behind the very door Ramza was standing before.
The young Beoulve traveled this corridor every morning to this door. A simple wooden thing, unassuming and lackluster, it starkly contrasted the horrors it contained - twelve stones that had the power to possess and feed on the evil of man and so much more.
Ramza sighed again (which was a most common occurrence over the past six years) and stepped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. A small chamber stood before him, furnished with nothing but a circular pedestal in the center and the Beoulve coat of arms behind it on the wall. Upon the face of the dais, set around its perimeter, were the twelve stones. They all looked like roughly cut gemstones of various colors, and each was emblazoned with a symbol of the zodiac.
It was this collection of stones that enforced the lie of the Church of Glabados. The religion taught that its founder, St. Ajora Glabados, was a child, or member, of God. It was said that he, as a boy (over twelve-hundred years ago), prophesized that death would emanate from a well in his village, and surely enough, the water was tainted with evil and brought plague to whoever drank it. From then on, he was called the miracle child - one of God. When the time came where Ajora saw twenty winters pass, the legend of the Zodiac Braves seeped into the story.
The Zodiac Brave Legend spoke of twelve holy stones with special powers. Whenever the world was overcome by evil or in dire need of help, the stones would surface along with twelve braves to carry them, and together they would overcome the darkness and restore peace to the lands. The braves and stones would then disappear again.
And so the church rolled the Zodiac Brave story into the story of St. Ajora. Teachings described a king of Limberry who conjured an evil spirit to grant him power. St. Ajora then led the Zodiac Braves against the king and the demon and prevailed. Afterwards, the old Yudora Empire saw a threat in the young Glabados, falsely charged him, and executed him. Upon his death, it was said that he became me a member of God. It was said that his disciple, Germonik, betrayed him to the empire.
What actually happened was quite different, with only the people involved being the only consistency. Ajora lived his life as petty spy, and the Yudora Empire, suspicious of his activities, sent Germonik as an informant to keep a sharp eye on him. Germonik kept a record of Ajora’s activities, the Germonik Scriptures, which had fallen into Ramza’s hands over six years ago, and gave him all the power he needed to expose the church’s deception.
Ajora was hardly the divine or saintly being Glabados preached. He was a Zodiac Brave, yes - in fact, he was their leader. But the church skewed too the truth of the Zodiac. The Zodiac Braves were not knights destined to destroy evil. They were evil. Demons existing on the material plane within their respective stones. They could seed themselves in mortals to carry on activities in the world, with their main goal to resurrect Ajora.
Evil. The irony was painful.
Ramza approached the pedestal and knelt down before it, his mind immediately assaulted by an eclectic mix of feelings and memories. He was used to this, though, for every day he was plagued, haunted, by these relics. He had battled some of them in the past, for they were the force behind the war and the source of all the manipulation of the time. They had caused more than political turmoil.
“Father, brothers,” he said aloud, his voice bland and soft and empty. His calm, somewhat dead, blue eyes rose to the coat of arms. “Another day rises, another day I remember all of the horrible things. I do not know where your spirits walk, for I am uncertain there is a heaven - a paradise that would take you and make all of eternity peaceful. I have known only chaos, and I have seen only Earth and Hell, and I cannot say which is worse. I have fought Hell, I have been there, but there is rarely a time I could say that here is much better.
“I kneel here, before these stones - holy they are called, though we all know they are anything but - and curse them for all they have been responsible for. Dycedarg, wicked Capricorn forced its way into your hands and possessed you, turning you against us all. It made you act against your fathers, your siblings; forced my sword, my hand, to cut you down. The stones took you all, in one form or another, yet here I am before them again.” He ended his prayer then, the same one he uttered every morning, albeit with slight alterations. He stood up, hesitating, unsure if he wanted to leave yet. He opened his mouth to speak again, and it took him a moment to do so.
“I… dreamt again,” he stated. “That same dream that has been upon my sleep for weeks. I know not its purpose. I see Balk in these dreams, but Balk is dead, as I have told you. I killed him at Murond Death City, but I know it his him who walks beside the cloaked one. I suppose it is just the ghosts of war haunting my dreams..”
“Balk is dead,” Ramza repeated, as if trying to convince himself. Shaking his head, he took up his sword that sat next to the pedestal and held it before him. It was a unique weapon, with a silvery-white blade and a pommel hued in copper, red, and black. Ragnarok, it was called, and the young king supposed it a fitting name, having torn it from the chest of a demon.
“Cursed stones, I only wish I could destroy you,” Ramza muttered, sinking the blade into the slot in the center of the pedestal.
After returning to his bedchambers and changing into his usual attire - a long-sleeved tunic, today dark blue, with the Beoulve ensign stitched into the back, simple brown leggings, and hide boots - Ramza took to walking the vacant halls of the castle, reflecting on its emptiness. Very few people made home in this place now, and though he did care deeply for the ones who remained, he was always one who preferred to be among those he counted as friends.
During the war, Ramza had accumulated a group of loyal compatriots who raised their swords with him against the tyranny of corruption and manipulation. Some had started out as enemies, blinded by the lies, but the fates had brought them onto Ramza’s side. After the war, after that final battle, they all went their separate ways.
Rafa and Malak, the twins with unique magical gifts, went east to establish an academy and orphanage. There was Agrias, among Ramza’s most cherished friends, who was off serving in the reformation of the church in Orbonne Monastery and beyond. The reunited fiancés, Reis and Beowulf, had married, and though they did make home at Igros, they were rarely present. Young and wily engineer, Mustadio, returned to Goug Machine City with his father to invent and tinker and build. Orlandu, a man whom Ramza came to regard as a second father, had left for Limberry and Zeltennia to oversee and aid in political reconstruction. Olan, Orlandu’s son-in-law, was also part of the church reformation. In fact, it had been he who formally presented the church’s lies and brought about the current era of religious, political, and social rebuilding.
And then there was Delita. He had been Ramza’s best friend, more like a brother, for so long, until the enemy took his sister from this very castle after failing to assassinate Dycedarg. Ramza and Delita went to rescue her, but in the end, she was killed. When Fort Zeakden fell around them, Delita was caught within, and Ramza had believed that he lost him as well. Months later, he encountered Delita again. He was alive, and had been swept into the manipulation of the war. Over the next year, Ramza could never figure out which side Delita was on - who or what he was fighting for.
And now, they were lost to each other.
Ramza drifted back to reality, seeing that he had absent-mindedly wandered into the dining hall. His head was so full of thoughts this day, more than it had been for some time, and he pondered why. He attributed it to the recurring dream of his, for it had been increasingly more vivid. The young Beoulve could find no meaning in it, though.
The dining hall was expectantly cold and drafty, even with the fire was roaring in the hearth in the west wall. It was soundless as well, except for the occasional ruffle of parchment as Ramza’s sister, Alma, flipped a page in her book. He stopped to regard her for a moment, sitting in her favorite red dress and reading with a mug of something warm in front of her. She was so engrossed in her texts that she hadn’t noticed her brother’s arrival, which was ever so typical of her.
Ramza was closer to Alma than anyone else. Closer to her than he was with his father, or even Delita. The siblings were full ones, sharing both the same mother and father, obvious by their looks. Both had the same soft facial features, light blonde hair, and calm blue eyes. During their younger years they had given each other much support in this regard, often shadowed by their full-blooded brothers. He loved his sister dearly, and trusted her more than he did himself. She was his grounding force and his moral support, and his most cherished.
During the war, she was kidnapped by the Zodiac demons - the Lucavi, their order was called - as she had reacted with the power within the holy stone Virgo. She was the host body for Ajora and the demon Altima that they had been searching for. Ramza had literally gone to Hell and back in order to save her. His success had most seriously kept him sane, for if he had lost her, after losing his father, brothers, and best friend, he would have lost himself.
Ramza approached the table, and Alma was still oblivious to his presence. She had always been a studious girl; as a noble daughter, she had access to the academic academies and attended school when she was younger.
“Must be quite a good book,” Ramza mused as he moved into a chair.
“Oh! Good morning, Ramza,” said a startled Alma, her eyes jumping from the page. “Yes, it is. Olan recommended it to me and it is quite riveting.”
“Astronomy, no doubt,” Ramza replied with a smirk, knowing well his friend’s love of the starry skies above. Alma nodded enthusiastically and put her eyes back onto the text, eager to take in more information. Though she was younger than Ramza, he knew she had always been much smarter than him.
“What do you have planned for the day, brother?” she asked, eyes still scanning the parchment. She flipped the page and continued. Ramza sighed and looked up to the vaulted ceiling, searching for an honest answer.
“I don’t know… perhaps take a ride down into the village. Perhaps the couriers have received a letter from Malak or Orlandu or someone,” Ramza pondered. Really, his life had become rather boring. When the war ended and Olan brought forth the reinstated Germonik scriptures, the lands of Ivalice were split up into kingdoms again, as they had been so long ago, to prevent another catastrophe like the Lion War.
Where seven kingdoms had become one, one had now turned to four. Ramza was effortlessly made king of the east most kingdom, Gallione. To the populace it was a simple decision; the Beoulves had been a noble family dating back to the days where Gallione was originally its own kingdom, and of course, Ramza was considered a hero of Ivalice.
But Ramza was not one for kingship. Alma teased him often that he was “not a kingly king.” He had never been that embracing of his nobility to begin with, and was even less so with his new title. Ironically, it was mainly just a title. Each kingdom was now with a small senate that dealt with most of the governing responsibilities, though the monarchs did hold a lot of power if they chose to exercise it.
Ramza, however, missed the days of adventure. His days as a cadet, a truth-seeker, even a heretic - protecting the unprotected and stubbornly defending justice. Though those times were horrible, he could never deny he preferred his role in the world then.
“I don’t know another king who spends so much time among his faithful subjects” Alma teased, knowing that Ramza did not think of the people of Gallione his subjects in the slightest, or that he was any better than any of them. King was something that others saw Ramza as, not at all congruent with his self image. He had also been given the rank of Heavenly Knight by the new church officials, a title his father had held, but he took it with a grain of salt. He wasn’t sure if he wanted anything to do with the church anymore.
“This place is so empty,” Ramza muttered, not sure of what else to say. He put his chin in his palm and rested his arm on the table.
“It’s not so bad,” Alma replied. “There’s you and me, Meliadoul, Reis and Beowulf when they aren’t off treasure hunting and thrill seeking. I always told them they could get the same feeling from reading a good book, but-”
“No you can’t,” Ramza interrupted, his tone perhaps a bit more harsh than he intended. Alma cleared her throat and returned to her reading. “I’m sorry… this life, it is just not mine.”
“It is yours, because you are living it. You chose this path, remember. Life can’t be all sword fighting and gallivanting about, you know. It would not hurt you to pick up a book once in a while. Or at least do something besides sulk around the corridors and loathe those wretched stones.” Ramza was taken aback by Alma’s sharpened straightforwardness. He honestly couldn’t recall a time she had ever been so blunt with him.
“I am sorry, brother, but it is true. You need to let it go - the war, the stones, everything. Until you do, you will never be happy. I have watched you for so long, just an empty shell of the man you once were. You used to be filled with such spirit, such passion, such drive. I admired you back then, but, quite honestly, I have found myself losing respect for you. You have been enwreathed in hate and despair for far too long.
I know the evil of those stones even more than you. I felt the presence of one within me, and it was terrible, more terrible than anything. But I have moved on from the fact that they destroyed so much - our family. I have moved on Ramza, and I suggest you do the same.” Snapping her book shut, Alma rose to her feet and hurried out of the room.
Ramza sat, speechless, his head swimming. The articulate, contrived nature of his sister’s tirade was beyond even what one as intelligent as her could improvise on the whim considering the subject matter. She must have had that berating in her head for years, ready to pull out at the right time. But he wondered, what exactly had made it the right time?
He wasn’t even angry at her. He knew she spoke the truth, and that had cut more deeply than any word could. She had struck him mortally with her judgment. The knowledge that Alma, his beloved sister whom he cared for more than anyone in the world, had lost respect for him, was more than he could handle at the moment.
Minutes later, Ramza was again proceeding down a chilled corridor, this time much more hastily. Equipped now with a heavy hide jerkin, he was armored to brave the late autumn gusts on his way to the village. His mind was alight with clashing feelings, and he hoped that the ride there would help to clear his thoughts.
He was approaching the main entryway when an obstacle appeared in his path, forcing him to stop abruptly. The other denizen of Igros Castle, Meliadoul Tingel, stood before him now, having emerged from a side corridor. Ramza took a moment to notice her apparel. Clad in a casual gown, she looked somewhat out of her element. Ramza never knew her as one to wear what could be considered “women’s attire.” He was more accustomed to seeing her in armor, and of course her archetypical full-length emerald green hooded robe. Still, she was a vision of loveliness, wit her long sienna hair and dark, courageous eyes.
There had always been unspoken feelings between Ramza and Meliadoul. Ironically, they had started as enemies; Meliadoul had accused Ramza of murdering her brother Izlude, when really it was their father, Vormav, the leader of Lucavi under Ajora. She joined Ramza on his campaign, and they had unknowingly began having feelings for each other than. With everything occurring, however, whatever was between them did not take priority. Meliadoul had wanted to pursue something with Ramza, even moving into Igros castle (though, also, she really did have no place else to go), but he had not been in the right state of mind or being to be involved in any such thing. At least that was what Alma told her.
“Good morning Ramza,” she began. “I-”
“I’m sorry, I cannot speak right now,” Ramza muttered sharply as he pushed past her and ultimately through the large double doors.
“You never can,” Meliadoul whispered after him.
Meliadoul found Alma in her bedchambers sometime thereafter, and joined her in discussion. Alma had explained the definite reason behind Ramza’s sudden leave and unpleasant attitude.
“You finally told him, then, after all of these years of keeping it jailed within,” Meliadoul stated. “’Tis no wonder he was wrought with such… I know not. Does the man even feel anymore?”
“He is dead inside, I would think. All of those events, long ago as they were, have not left him. They haunt his steps. I have heard him, sometimes, at night, plagued with unrest,” Alma explained. “He has not let go of all that Lucavi took from him.”
“It is odd that I do not remember him being so ravaged during those times, during the battles. Even while people, friend and foe, died all around and beyond.”
“I can only suspect that it was his duty that shielded him against such feelings,” Alma deduced. “Ramza was always so stubbornly devoted to justice. Protecting the weak and challenging tyranny and making known the truth. But once he had done so, once Lucavi had been defeated, his shield fell, and everything that had actually happened sunk in.”
“You know,” Meliadoul muttered, somewhat gravely. “Ramza… he probably wonders why you chose to speak out now. He knows you well enough to know that the speech was not a whim. Did you tell him? Did you mention your dreams?”
“I did not,” Alma replied hastily. “I thought about it, but I could not bring myself to expose that weakness. The contents of my dreams are most impossible. They are… just dreams.”
“You know as well as I that they must be something more. One does not normally have such a vivid dream again and again,” Meliadoul warned. “I think it would be best that you confide in your brother about them.” Alma stood up and walked across the room to her window, and gazed warily across the hills.
“I fear that if my dreams are more than dreams, we shall find out very soon.”
In the mountains east of Igros castle, a man concealed in a black and silver cloak sat atop a red chocobo, gaze entranced into the distance. He was joined soundlessly by his compatriot riding a similar beast with black plumage.
“Long have I waited to close my fingers around them,” came the voice of the cloaked figure. Igros was a beast’s fang spearing the sky on the horizon. “Long have I waited to execute my revenge.”
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As I said before, chapter one was primarily a chapter of background and history. Feedback is appreciated as always, especially on the flow of background. I think I may have clogged up the flow of the story with all of the past events, but I also feel it was a necessary evil. Future chapters though will have much less background in the way it was done here and will just appear as highlights that will mesh much better with the flow of the present. I'm not even sure how pleased I am with the way this one turned out and it may very well be rewritten, or at least amended, in the future.
Any typos or anything that are caught, feel free to point them out.
Title inspired by a prototype product name by Wizards of the Coast.
PG-13 for now.
+Codex Anathema+
Prologue: Of Choking Skies and Dying Kings
The night sky was cloaked in billowing smoke spawned from the fires below. Flames danced a sweeping bolero within the castle’s walls, their guttural roars all but drowning out the yells. A line of mayhem had been cut through the village, where night watchmen lay dead and the earth bore deep scars that still gasped curls of steam. The terror that had rolled through the hamlet did not waste any time, however, putting an end to only those who stood in its path. The keep had been the target.
The portcullis, built solidly of heavy iron, was warped and bent askew, tossed aside like a broken weapon a the castle’s main gate, which opened into a scene no less tragic. The bodies of castle guards - knights caped in red - were bespattered about the hall, afflicted with partially-cauterized gashes and other wounds from which blood ran slick. The courtyard just ahead was now an inferno, burning away and choking the air with smolder. Frantic shouts echoed throughout the keep, heavily masked by the clamor of steel and the howl of the conflagration.
Two figures swept down a corridor, both mounted on chocobos, one red and one black. Upon the red creature was a lithe figure draped in a black cloak slashed with silver crescents. The second, perched upon the black bird, wore himself openly, wrapped in leather armor and charcoal gray dressings. His brown hair was slightly damp from the heat, and beads of perspiration rolled down his chiseled, aged face. Behind them was nothing but fallen soldiers and deep inflictions upon the stone.
They were not alone for long, for the alarum that the two had produced reached all corners of the castle. Another group of knights, clad in gold-tinted armor and sporting their uniform red cloaks emblazoned with the realm’s standard, burst from a side corridor. Swords and shields at the offensive ready, the three were prepared to fight - and die - to protect.
The pair of riders slowed, but did not stop, and the enrobed figure pressed his knees into the sides of his chocobo. The beast flapped its wings once and its eyes rolled slightly back before a cluster of flames leapt from an open beak. The attack split into several small fireballs and ravaged the front most oncoming soldier. His shield resisted one, and his armor withstood another, but those he did not block found him in more vulnerable places. Two soldiers remained.
Slightly surprised by this group’s tenacity, the rider turned to his more open compatriot, and gave him a slight nod.
The leather-bound man raised a long shaft of metal, on the closer end of which was a lever. He pointed it directly at the soldiers, who now where merely ten feet away, and squeezed the trigger. A sibilant crack filled the air as jagged tongues of lightning raced out of the metal tube. They cut through armor and flesh alike, tearing gashes into the protected bodies, and pushing out the other side. The bolts crashed into the floor and sliced injuries into the masonry.
The two were again alone.
They spurred their mounts on again, more quickly now, and avoided unwanted interception. They had only one target, and he would be, as they knew, held in the barracks. Their prey would surely have heard of their coming, and would be, as the king was known to do, held up in the antechamber of the barracks, which was said to be a prime position for defense.
They came upon the final hallway, an expanse of stone and sconces which ended at a large door. No quarry met them here in the hall, and they knew that he for whom they came, and his most elite of knights, would be behind that door, prepared and anxious.
The two were on the door in moments, and they, at long last, pulled their great birds to a stop. The cloaked figure shifted slightly and an arm rose, a hand bound in a bracer at its end. The door shook slightly, but then returned to its dormant state, only to stir to life again. This second time, it began to vibrate more noticeably, until the air was alive with a great creaking as the barrier bent dented in several places. It tore free of its frame and hung, unsupported, for a mere second before it lead the way into the room. The massive projectile slammed and scattered knights like tossed dice.
They entered the room, and the concealed rider’s cowled head swept across the area. A deep, annoyed exhalation escaped from under the hood. He brought up his hand again, two fingers outstretched, and flicked them downwards. His companion complied, pushing his mount a few steps forward and bringing up again his devastating weapon.
Arcs of lightning were serpents as they bit into the dazed soldiers. Those who had gotten to their feet found themselves on the ground again as the magic cut them. At the far end of the room, however, one mad had stood, and he bore the mark of a general. The large, bearded man cast helpless looks at his troops before gritting his teeth and raising a shield between himself and that death shaft.
No bolts came for his flesh, however; only the red chocobo and its rider. The other intruder made short work of the surviving shoulders and advanced also.
The bracer-clad hand came out again and in an instant the general found himself several feet ahead of his previous position, his throat fit snuggly into the outstretched hand. He struggled to speak, to defy, but no words could climb out.
“Tell me… where is your king, Delita Hyral,” came the voice of the hidden man.
“K-king Delita…” the general started, finding it difficult to push the sentence though his closing windpipe. “K-king Delita d-died just yesterday.”
“Did he? Well… this certainly makes my job easier,” the one in the cloak mused. He dropped the general to the floor, and turned his mount around, making to leave. The general, through all of his coughing, was swelled with relief as he believed himself spared. His assailant was halfway to the door, nearly gone!
The black chocobo took one step forward, and a cackling, white-hot serpent ate his heart.
Some many miles away in another land, a young king leapt up from his bedding, wide-eyed and sweating profusely.
Chapter One: Curses of the Past
Ramza Beoulve strode down the empty, silent halls of Igros Castle, an azure cloak pulled tightly around him as a shield against the morning cold. Crisp autumn breezes rolled in through the cut windows, casting upon the keep a somber, chilling disposition. This demeanor, though, had clung to the castle and over the past few years had buried into the cracks, pulsing yet unstirred. The emptiness of the place, crippled further by the echo of unfavorable memories, was something that no cold could match.
It had been six years since Ramza’s permanent return to Igros. Six years since the transpiring of events that shook the foundation of all of Ivalice and the lives of many. Ramza had begun his life in the castle twenty-some years ago, and so many occurrences had ravaged him within the familiar walls. It was here that his beloved father had met the end of his life, unknowingly by the manipulative hand of the eldest son in the family. Here also was where Ramza had been forced to kill his oldest brother, and where his dearest friend had been thrust onto a path from which he could not return.
Ramza almost did not return after the horrors of the Lion War and the catastrophic happenings behind the scenes. Those memories still haunted is every step, his every thought. The war had been a windstorm, and the past six years had been the painfully slow fall from it to the ground. Things were still changing in he lands of Ivalice - results of those actions of Ramza and his dear and loyal companions. The church was undergoing radical reformation, and the politics of the realm were still proclaiming their identities. War did that. So did the uncovering of an entire religion based on lies and corruption.
Ramza sighed to the frigid stone as he reminisced. His thoughts drifted through those blackened days and the realizations that the past short few years of his life had been the only ones untainted by war. He had been born into the last lengths of the Fifty Years War, and just as it had ended, the Lion War began as Ramza came of age. He had battled in it, under the flag of the Hotuken, a force led by his own family - or, more accurately, his two brothers, Dycedarg and Zalbag. He fought blindly and without question against an enemy regarded as faceless, though hesitation and the pinch of morality always stirred deep within him.
The Beoulve family, though, was one of renown and nobility, and Ramza also wished to fill the shoes of his position. A desire made even more defined by the fact that he was only half a Beoulve, sharing a father with his two brothers but oftentimes looked down upon. He had had in ironclad relationship with his father, but after his death, Dycedarg took up the role as head of the family. Dycedarg was a man firmly set in his ways - the ways of nobility and of superiority.
It wasn’t long before Ramza had stumbled into something unfathomable. There were puppet masters behind the war, exploiting the fact that there was controversy over the rightful heir of the deceased king and an age-old church legend. A legend that was far from being just a story, and one that was a manifestation of deceit.
Deceit which rested behind the very door Ramza was standing before.
The young Beoulve traveled this corridor every morning to this door. A simple wooden thing, unassuming and lackluster, it starkly contrasted the horrors it contained - twelve stones that had the power to possess and feed on the evil of man and so much more.
Ramza sighed again (which was a most common occurrence over the past six years) and stepped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. A small chamber stood before him, furnished with nothing but a circular pedestal in the center and the Beoulve coat of arms behind it on the wall. Upon the face of the dais, set around its perimeter, were the twelve stones. They all looked like roughly cut gemstones of various colors, and each was emblazoned with a symbol of the zodiac.
It was this collection of stones that enforced the lie of the Church of Glabados. The religion taught that its founder, St. Ajora Glabados, was a child, or member, of God. It was said that he, as a boy (over twelve-hundred years ago), prophesized that death would emanate from a well in his village, and surely enough, the water was tainted with evil and brought plague to whoever drank it. From then on, he was called the miracle child - one of God. When the time came where Ajora saw twenty winters pass, the legend of the Zodiac Braves seeped into the story.
The Zodiac Brave Legend spoke of twelve holy stones with special powers. Whenever the world was overcome by evil or in dire need of help, the stones would surface along with twelve braves to carry them, and together they would overcome the darkness and restore peace to the lands. The braves and stones would then disappear again.
And so the church rolled the Zodiac Brave story into the story of St. Ajora. Teachings described a king of Limberry who conjured an evil spirit to grant him power. St. Ajora then led the Zodiac Braves against the king and the demon and prevailed. Afterwards, the old Yudora Empire saw a threat in the young Glabados, falsely charged him, and executed him. Upon his death, it was said that he became me a member of God. It was said that his disciple, Germonik, betrayed him to the empire.
What actually happened was quite different, with only the people involved being the only consistency. Ajora lived his life as petty spy, and the Yudora Empire, suspicious of his activities, sent Germonik as an informant to keep a sharp eye on him. Germonik kept a record of Ajora’s activities, the Germonik Scriptures, which had fallen into Ramza’s hands over six years ago, and gave him all the power he needed to expose the church’s deception.
Ajora was hardly the divine or saintly being Glabados preached. He was a Zodiac Brave, yes - in fact, he was their leader. But the church skewed too the truth of the Zodiac. The Zodiac Braves were not knights destined to destroy evil. They were evil. Demons existing on the material plane within their respective stones. They could seed themselves in mortals to carry on activities in the world, with their main goal to resurrect Ajora.
Evil. The irony was painful.
Ramza approached the pedestal and knelt down before it, his mind immediately assaulted by an eclectic mix of feelings and memories. He was used to this, though, for every day he was plagued, haunted, by these relics. He had battled some of them in the past, for they were the force behind the war and the source of all the manipulation of the time. They had caused more than political turmoil.
“Father, brothers,” he said aloud, his voice bland and soft and empty. His calm, somewhat dead, blue eyes rose to the coat of arms. “Another day rises, another day I remember all of the horrible things. I do not know where your spirits walk, for I am uncertain there is a heaven - a paradise that would take you and make all of eternity peaceful. I have known only chaos, and I have seen only Earth and Hell, and I cannot say which is worse. I have fought Hell, I have been there, but there is rarely a time I could say that here is much better.
“I kneel here, before these stones - holy they are called, though we all know they are anything but - and curse them for all they have been responsible for. Dycedarg, wicked Capricorn forced its way into your hands and possessed you, turning you against us all. It made you act against your fathers, your siblings; forced my sword, my hand, to cut you down. The stones took you all, in one form or another, yet here I am before them again.” He ended his prayer then, the same one he uttered every morning, albeit with slight alterations. He stood up, hesitating, unsure if he wanted to leave yet. He opened his mouth to speak again, and it took him a moment to do so.
“I… dreamt again,” he stated. “That same dream that has been upon my sleep for weeks. I know not its purpose. I see Balk in these dreams, but Balk is dead, as I have told you. I killed him at Murond Death City, but I know it his him who walks beside the cloaked one. I suppose it is just the ghosts of war haunting my dreams..”
“Balk is dead,” Ramza repeated, as if trying to convince himself. Shaking his head, he took up his sword that sat next to the pedestal and held it before him. It was a unique weapon, with a silvery-white blade and a pommel hued in copper, red, and black. Ragnarok, it was called, and the young king supposed it a fitting name, having torn it from the chest of a demon.
“Cursed stones, I only wish I could destroy you,” Ramza muttered, sinking the blade into the slot in the center of the pedestal.
After returning to his bedchambers and changing into his usual attire - a long-sleeved tunic, today dark blue, with the Beoulve ensign stitched into the back, simple brown leggings, and hide boots - Ramza took to walking the vacant halls of the castle, reflecting on its emptiness. Very few people made home in this place now, and though he did care deeply for the ones who remained, he was always one who preferred to be among those he counted as friends.
During the war, Ramza had accumulated a group of loyal compatriots who raised their swords with him against the tyranny of corruption and manipulation. Some had started out as enemies, blinded by the lies, but the fates had brought them onto Ramza’s side. After the war, after that final battle, they all went their separate ways.
Rafa and Malak, the twins with unique magical gifts, went east to establish an academy and orphanage. There was Agrias, among Ramza’s most cherished friends, who was off serving in the reformation of the church in Orbonne Monastery and beyond. The reunited fiancés, Reis and Beowulf, had married, and though they did make home at Igros, they were rarely present. Young and wily engineer, Mustadio, returned to Goug Machine City with his father to invent and tinker and build. Orlandu, a man whom Ramza came to regard as a second father, had left for Limberry and Zeltennia to oversee and aid in political reconstruction. Olan, Orlandu’s son-in-law, was also part of the church reformation. In fact, it had been he who formally presented the church’s lies and brought about the current era of religious, political, and social rebuilding.
And then there was Delita. He had been Ramza’s best friend, more like a brother, for so long, until the enemy took his sister from this very castle after failing to assassinate Dycedarg. Ramza and Delita went to rescue her, but in the end, she was killed. When Fort Zeakden fell around them, Delita was caught within, and Ramza had believed that he lost him as well. Months later, he encountered Delita again. He was alive, and had been swept into the manipulation of the war. Over the next year, Ramza could never figure out which side Delita was on - who or what he was fighting for.
And now, they were lost to each other.
Ramza drifted back to reality, seeing that he had absent-mindedly wandered into the dining hall. His head was so full of thoughts this day, more than it had been for some time, and he pondered why. He attributed it to the recurring dream of his, for it had been increasingly more vivid. The young Beoulve could find no meaning in it, though.
The dining hall was expectantly cold and drafty, even with the fire was roaring in the hearth in the west wall. It was soundless as well, except for the occasional ruffle of parchment as Ramza’s sister, Alma, flipped a page in her book. He stopped to regard her for a moment, sitting in her favorite red dress and reading with a mug of something warm in front of her. She was so engrossed in her texts that she hadn’t noticed her brother’s arrival, which was ever so typical of her.
Ramza was closer to Alma than anyone else. Closer to her than he was with his father, or even Delita. The siblings were full ones, sharing both the same mother and father, obvious by their looks. Both had the same soft facial features, light blonde hair, and calm blue eyes. During their younger years they had given each other much support in this regard, often shadowed by their full-blooded brothers. He loved his sister dearly, and trusted her more than he did himself. She was his grounding force and his moral support, and his most cherished.
During the war, she was kidnapped by the Zodiac demons - the Lucavi, their order was called - as she had reacted with the power within the holy stone Virgo. She was the host body for Ajora and the demon Altima that they had been searching for. Ramza had literally gone to Hell and back in order to save her. His success had most seriously kept him sane, for if he had lost her, after losing his father, brothers, and best friend, he would have lost himself.
Ramza approached the table, and Alma was still oblivious to his presence. She had always been a studious girl; as a noble daughter, she had access to the academic academies and attended school when she was younger.
“Must be quite a good book,” Ramza mused as he moved into a chair.
“Oh! Good morning, Ramza,” said a startled Alma, her eyes jumping from the page. “Yes, it is. Olan recommended it to me and it is quite riveting.”
“Astronomy, no doubt,” Ramza replied with a smirk, knowing well his friend’s love of the starry skies above. Alma nodded enthusiastically and put her eyes back onto the text, eager to take in more information. Though she was younger than Ramza, he knew she had always been much smarter than him.
“What do you have planned for the day, brother?” she asked, eyes still scanning the parchment. She flipped the page and continued. Ramza sighed and looked up to the vaulted ceiling, searching for an honest answer.
“I don’t know… perhaps take a ride down into the village. Perhaps the couriers have received a letter from Malak or Orlandu or someone,” Ramza pondered. Really, his life had become rather boring. When the war ended and Olan brought forth the reinstated Germonik scriptures, the lands of Ivalice were split up into kingdoms again, as they had been so long ago, to prevent another catastrophe like the Lion War.
Where seven kingdoms had become one, one had now turned to four. Ramza was effortlessly made king of the east most kingdom, Gallione. To the populace it was a simple decision; the Beoulves had been a noble family dating back to the days where Gallione was originally its own kingdom, and of course, Ramza was considered a hero of Ivalice.
But Ramza was not one for kingship. Alma teased him often that he was “not a kingly king.” He had never been that embracing of his nobility to begin with, and was even less so with his new title. Ironically, it was mainly just a title. Each kingdom was now with a small senate that dealt with most of the governing responsibilities, though the monarchs did hold a lot of power if they chose to exercise it.
Ramza, however, missed the days of adventure. His days as a cadet, a truth-seeker, even a heretic - protecting the unprotected and stubbornly defending justice. Though those times were horrible, he could never deny he preferred his role in the world then.
“I don’t know another king who spends so much time among his faithful subjects” Alma teased, knowing that Ramza did not think of the people of Gallione his subjects in the slightest, or that he was any better than any of them. King was something that others saw Ramza as, not at all congruent with his self image. He had also been given the rank of Heavenly Knight by the new church officials, a title his father had held, but he took it with a grain of salt. He wasn’t sure if he wanted anything to do with the church anymore.
“This place is so empty,” Ramza muttered, not sure of what else to say. He put his chin in his palm and rested his arm on the table.
“It’s not so bad,” Alma replied. “There’s you and me, Meliadoul, Reis and Beowulf when they aren’t off treasure hunting and thrill seeking. I always told them they could get the same feeling from reading a good book, but-”
“No you can’t,” Ramza interrupted, his tone perhaps a bit more harsh than he intended. Alma cleared her throat and returned to her reading. “I’m sorry… this life, it is just not mine.”
“It is yours, because you are living it. You chose this path, remember. Life can’t be all sword fighting and gallivanting about, you know. It would not hurt you to pick up a book once in a while. Or at least do something besides sulk around the corridors and loathe those wretched stones.” Ramza was taken aback by Alma’s sharpened straightforwardness. He honestly couldn’t recall a time she had ever been so blunt with him.
“I am sorry, brother, but it is true. You need to let it go - the war, the stones, everything. Until you do, you will never be happy. I have watched you for so long, just an empty shell of the man you once were. You used to be filled with such spirit, such passion, such drive. I admired you back then, but, quite honestly, I have found myself losing respect for you. You have been enwreathed in hate and despair for far too long.
I know the evil of those stones even more than you. I felt the presence of one within me, and it was terrible, more terrible than anything. But I have moved on from the fact that they destroyed so much - our family. I have moved on Ramza, and I suggest you do the same.” Snapping her book shut, Alma rose to her feet and hurried out of the room.
Ramza sat, speechless, his head swimming. The articulate, contrived nature of his sister’s tirade was beyond even what one as intelligent as her could improvise on the whim considering the subject matter. She must have had that berating in her head for years, ready to pull out at the right time. But he wondered, what exactly had made it the right time?
He wasn’t even angry at her. He knew she spoke the truth, and that had cut more deeply than any word could. She had struck him mortally with her judgment. The knowledge that Alma, his beloved sister whom he cared for more than anyone in the world, had lost respect for him, was more than he could handle at the moment.
Minutes later, Ramza was again proceeding down a chilled corridor, this time much more hastily. Equipped now with a heavy hide jerkin, he was armored to brave the late autumn gusts on his way to the village. His mind was alight with clashing feelings, and he hoped that the ride there would help to clear his thoughts.
He was approaching the main entryway when an obstacle appeared in his path, forcing him to stop abruptly. The other denizen of Igros Castle, Meliadoul Tingel, stood before him now, having emerged from a side corridor. Ramza took a moment to notice her apparel. Clad in a casual gown, she looked somewhat out of her element. Ramza never knew her as one to wear what could be considered “women’s attire.” He was more accustomed to seeing her in armor, and of course her archetypical full-length emerald green hooded robe. Still, she was a vision of loveliness, wit her long sienna hair and dark, courageous eyes.
There had always been unspoken feelings between Ramza and Meliadoul. Ironically, they had started as enemies; Meliadoul had accused Ramza of murdering her brother Izlude, when really it was their father, Vormav, the leader of Lucavi under Ajora. She joined Ramza on his campaign, and they had unknowingly began having feelings for each other than. With everything occurring, however, whatever was between them did not take priority. Meliadoul had wanted to pursue something with Ramza, even moving into Igros castle (though, also, she really did have no place else to go), but he had not been in the right state of mind or being to be involved in any such thing. At least that was what Alma told her.
“Good morning Ramza,” she began. “I-”
“I’m sorry, I cannot speak right now,” Ramza muttered sharply as he pushed past her and ultimately through the large double doors.
“You never can,” Meliadoul whispered after him.
Meliadoul found Alma in her bedchambers sometime thereafter, and joined her in discussion. Alma had explained the definite reason behind Ramza’s sudden leave and unpleasant attitude.
“You finally told him, then, after all of these years of keeping it jailed within,” Meliadoul stated. “’Tis no wonder he was wrought with such… I know not. Does the man even feel anymore?”
“He is dead inside, I would think. All of those events, long ago as they were, have not left him. They haunt his steps. I have heard him, sometimes, at night, plagued with unrest,” Alma explained. “He has not let go of all that Lucavi took from him.”
“It is odd that I do not remember him being so ravaged during those times, during the battles. Even while people, friend and foe, died all around and beyond.”
“I can only suspect that it was his duty that shielded him against such feelings,” Alma deduced. “Ramza was always so stubbornly devoted to justice. Protecting the weak and challenging tyranny and making known the truth. But once he had done so, once Lucavi had been defeated, his shield fell, and everything that had actually happened sunk in.”
“You know,” Meliadoul muttered, somewhat gravely. “Ramza… he probably wonders why you chose to speak out now. He knows you well enough to know that the speech was not a whim. Did you tell him? Did you mention your dreams?”
“I did not,” Alma replied hastily. “I thought about it, but I could not bring myself to expose that weakness. The contents of my dreams are most impossible. They are… just dreams.”
“You know as well as I that they must be something more. One does not normally have such a vivid dream again and again,” Meliadoul warned. “I think it would be best that you confide in your brother about them.” Alma stood up and walked across the room to her window, and gazed warily across the hills.
“I fear that if my dreams are more than dreams, we shall find out very soon.”
In the mountains east of Igros castle, a man concealed in a black and silver cloak sat atop a red chocobo, gaze entranced into the distance. He was joined soundlessly by his compatriot riding a similar beast with black plumage.
“Long have I waited to close my fingers around them,” came the voice of the cloaked figure. Igros was a beast’s fang spearing the sky on the horizon. “Long have I waited to execute my revenge.”
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As I said before, chapter one was primarily a chapter of background and history. Feedback is appreciated as always, especially on the flow of background. I think I may have clogged up the flow of the story with all of the past events, but I also feel it was a necessary evil. Future chapters though will have much less background in the way it was done here and will just appear as highlights that will mesh much better with the flow of the present. I'm not even sure how pleased I am with the way this one turned out and it may very well be rewritten, or at least amended, in the future.
Any typos or anything that are caught, feel free to point them out.
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