A/N: Blame my tweested little mind. Also, I must warn you; this may never be finished. Aaargh.
The song is the one I was listening to at the time of inspiration, and it has been running around in my head a looong time...Other inspiration was drawn from other Final Fantasies, Hilary McKay's books, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late and great Douglas Adams.
Oh and btw? I own none of this. I'm just a kid with a keyboard.
______________________
You stupid little Dreamer
Or, The wonderful story of Zidane and Dagger and six more
______________________
You know
What you know
They have
In common to you.
Nah
There's not
A lot I can do.
Dreamer
You stupid little dreamer
Now ya put ya head in ya hands 'oh no'...
-dreamer
______________________
Not too long ago, in a galaxy that's only as far away as your ability to dream can take you…on a tiny and rather unremarkable blue-green planet called Gaia…lived eight people of varying races, IQs, opinions, and passions. These eight people had almost nothing in common…almost nothing, in fact, except for two things.
One was that they all had the ability to Trance.
The other was that they were all completely and incurably insane.
They were, in fact, Zidane and Dagger and six more.
And this is the story of what happened after several thousand people were left hanging…of what happened a day after the questionably most memorable performance ever of 'I want to be your Canary'…of what happened when Zidane and Dagger and six more decided that there would never be a Final fantasy, for getting into and out of trouble was much too fun to give up, and anyway the words The End weren't anywhere in their personal dictionaries.
Now Read On…
* * *
A little after twelve, and a little before one, two dark figures crept down a staircase in Alexandria Castle. This can be explained by rewinding a little…
* * *
Queen Garnet was under stress.
__Why am I so unhappy? Everything is perfect. It's the happy ending I've waited for, for so long. And yet…this feels so wrong…I feel trapped. Everything is caging me…my clothes, my room…__
__No…these aren't my clothes. This isn't my room. These are the Queen's clothes, the Queen's room. They aren't mine. They never were.__
__I'm not even of royal blood. Everything has gone wrong, and I knew it the moment I put on that cursed crown.__
__Zidane…as soon as I saw you on the stage, I knew that it wasn't too late to put things right.__
Garnet got up from her seat; the window seat where, months before, she had fallen asleep and dreamed of a storm at sea. Zidane had been swept up by a wave of tearful reunions; he was probably still trying to tell Vivi apart from the black mage's 'sons'. He'd be gone for a few hours, or at least until Quina would stop hugging him and howling "I so happy!"
The skin in the centre of her forehead twinged.
__It's not too late.__
Garnet smiled to herself. She knew how to put things right. And so, she was sure, did Zidane.
* * *
A little after twelve, and a little before one, Garnet til Alexandros slid out of bed, fully dressed and clasping both her Priest's Racket and a small bag of supplies. She was wearing the same orange jumpsuit that she had worn all through her glorious terrible heartbreaking hearthealing adventure, the same red-and-white patterned cloak that she had escaped the castle once before in.
Something wasn't right. She realised what it was, and pulled the heavy royal pendant off her; once it had been a solid comfort, but now it felt like a hangman's noose. Soon someone else would be wearing it.
__And I hope it gives her more than it did me.__
__Queen Garnet is dead.__
__Long live Dagger!__
Zidane was waiting for her on the stairs, as she'd known he would be. Tail swishing in the moonlight, eyes the blue of the deepest seas.
Their eyes met. They both knew what they were doing.
"I can't stay here," they said in unison, then laughed and checked themselves. The last thing they wanted was discovery now.
Zidane broke the silence, smiling crookedly. "Well, my canary. It's time for the last act."
Dagger smiled back. "And may the curtain never fall."
* * *
A little after twelve and a little before one, two dark figures crept down a staircase in Alexandria Castle. They slid out of the castle like ghosts in the moonlight; the guards were the Pluto Knights Haagen and Laudo, and all and sundry knew that the Pluto Knights were a living example of military blundering; they untied the boat from where it was moored and glided across the star-strewn lake. When they reached the square, however, Zidane held up a hand for Dagger to stop.
"What is it?"
Zidane rummaged around in his pockets and came up with two things; a long stick of chalk and a metal cylinder about as long as his forearm. "I was thinking we should make our mark on this town." He broke the chalk into two and handed Dagger half.
Dagger, however, was more interested in the metal cylinder. It didn't look Gaian, but then it didn't look like anything they'd seen on Terra, either. It was closed at both ends, one end being flat, the other domed. She pressed a button on the domed end, and a pale stringy substance shot out of a slit she'd failed to notice and hit her on the chest.
Zidane cracked up laughing.
Dagger mock-scowled at him, then laughed and wiped herself off. "What is this stuff?"
Zidane shrugged. "I don't really know. I met Stiltzkin the moogle on the way here, and he gave it to me. He says it's called Silly String."
"Silly…string?" Dagger aimed the cylinder at the cobbles and held down the button, drawing a circle with the stringy gunk. "Moogles are strange, aren't they? I wonder where Stiltzkin got it from?"
Zidane shrugged again. "Eh, who cares? Let's paint the town."
A little after twelve and a little before one, two dark figures danced around Alexandria's market-place, giggling happily and 'decorating' the place with chalk and Silly String, before sneaking out through the gates and running away into the night.
* * *
While Garnet had been contemplating captivity by the window, Eiko Carol of Madain Sari and Lindblum had been giving one of Vivi's 'sons' a guided tour of the castle. His name was Sun Dance, he had been mistaken for his 'father' by I-don't-want-to-be-a-Prince Puck(who upon explanations had put two and two together and arrived at pi r squared), and he was quite possibly the strangest black mage ever to have been spun from the Mist.
"This is the door of the treasure room," Eiko announced proudly, stopping at a large, iron-bound oak door. "That's where they hide all the gold and jewels and money and stuff so burglars can't steal it."
Sun Dance surveyed it critically. "It doesn't look very strong. I bet I could blow it to bits if I used Fira."
"Burglars don't know Fira."
"Some of them might."
"How do you know they do?" Eiko argued.
"How do you know they *don't*?" Sun Dance replied.
"They just don't," Eiko said, getting confused.
"They do," Sun Dance insisted. "Some of them do."
Eiko wasn't at all sure where the conversation was going, but she persisted valiantly. "ANYWAY, the guard person would know if any burglars came, so they wouldn't be able to blow the door down even if they DID know Fira."
Sun Dance looked doubtfully at the snoozing Pluto Knight guarding the door. "He prob'ly wouldn't notice if someone blew up the whole *castle*."
The violet-haired summoner had to concede defeat. "Okay…okay. Wanna go play Burmecian jump rope with your brothers?"
"Okay," Sun Dance agreed, but his thoughts were on other things. Although normally nimble, he proved even more clumsy than his 'father' when they played Burmecian jump rope, and when it was his turn to hold the rope he forgot to swing it. Eventually Eiko snorted in disgust and she and the rest of the black mage children began to replay several of the adventures of the small and mismatched group that the Holy Summoner-child and the 'father' of the black mages had been a part of, taking it in turns to be Zidane and wear the rope tied around their waist as a tail. Somehow this progressed into the kitchen, and became a game of 'Let's all throw golden syrup and extra-thick molasses at each other while Quina Quen's out fussing over Zidane'.
When the under-chefs chased them out, they retreated to the guest bedrooms and had a pillow fight. Which, in conjunction with the syrup and molasses that covered them, had the effect of covering them all in feathers from head to toe. Then they all fell over laughing at each other and did chicken imitations.
In future years, Eiko would look back fondly upon that day and wonder how the hell they managed to evade capture for so long.
* * *
Now let us take a magic carpet ride to three a.m., when Eiko-completely unaware that her only living blood-relative in the whole wide world(though not the multiverse, as some strange things have happened there)had only a few hours previously run away with a teenaged lab experiment-woke up. This was a habit of Eiko's that she never managed to break-avoiding bedtimes like the plague and then getting up at some ungodly hour, disgustingly bright and chirpy. All who had ever had the misfortune to be torn from pleasant dreams back to reality by a small Holy Summoner bouncing on their stomachs wondered long and often how it was that Eiko seemed to get by on one hour of sleep a night, and sometimes not even that. The answer was never found, but it has been speculated that if it had, we would know a whole lot more about the nature of the universe. However, since the person doing the speculating was at the time under the influence of thirty-seven Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and was only one foot three inches tall(not counting his pompom)this viewpoint has never been widely publicised.
The person was very understanding about this and added to his hypothesis the addendum that 'there comes a point at which you begin to suspect that if there's ANY Supreme Truth at all it's that the Universe, in all it's limitless glory, is being run by a bunch of maniacs and anyway if anyone ever found out the Truth the Universe would immediately disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. This may have already happened, but there is a certain amount of uncertainty about it.' Strangely enough, *this* viewpoint *was* widely publicised, despite the fact that at the time it was propounded the person had added several Kupo Nuts to his tally of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters on the grounds that 'a pretty redhead in a neeeow dragony spaceship told me to'.
The reason for all this is uncertain, but it's probably to do with quantum.
But for whatever reason, at three a.m. Alexandrian standard time, Eiko Nanaki Carol was up and about and unaware of the absence of Dagger and Zidane. She had attempted to wake her 'parents' and failed; Cid had mumbled something about 'a clock? No, I don't wanna go there,gwok-gwok…' but shown no other signs of immediate awakening, and Hilda had simply given a most unladylike snore and rolled over onto her front. Disgusted, Eiko had left them to snooze.
__They've got no clue,__ she thought to herself. __If I'm going to adopt them they're going to have to be *trained*.__
Happily imagining this, Eiko wandered downstairs, moving through the castle like a small, violet-haired ghost. They would have to be taught the unnecessariness of baths, the necessariness of having all her moogles sleeping in the same room as her(and the same bed if at all possible), and, of course, the absolute rightness of everything she said.
__But first,__ she decided, shuddering, __I've GOT to stop Mother trying to make me wear skirts.__ When she had announced that they were going to Alexandria to see a performance of 'I Want To Be Your Canary', Hilda had produced a small, lavender-coloured, lace-bedecked, extremely impractical, very uncomfortable, flouncy and horrible dress. Eiko had resisted it with everything she had-screams, tears, tantrums, threats to summon Madeen-but in the end the only way she had been able to wear her grubby, tattered and beloved yellow and orange dungaree suit was by throwing the lavender-coloured dress out of the window to be trampled into the mud of the streets below. At least that had been her intention-it had actually drifted quite a way, borne by the crosswinds provided by the continual airship traffic, and snagged on the spire of the only-just-rebuilt church. As far as the youngest summoner currently in existence(although Eiko had known the 'facts of life' since she was three, and figured that with the way Zidane and Dagger were carrying on it was only a matter of time before she was second youngest)knew, it was still there, flapping in the breeze like some strange banner.
Dreamily, Eiko noticed the sticky rope that she and the Vivis had played with the previous day, lying in a corner. She picked it up and knotted it round her waist, thinking __Mother won't be easy to crack. I'd better go talk it over with my moogles…oh sugar, Mother made me leave them behind. I know! I'll talk to Mosh, the guardroom moogle!__ Satisfied, the Holy Summoner made her way, in her strange, swaying, hopskip gait, towards the guardroom.
Where, as fate and narrative imperative would have it, someone was waiting.
* * *
Sun Dance, upon seeing the treasure room door, had become extremely worried.
Whatever Eiko said, the door was not very strong. One good Fira would blow it down, and then where would Alexandria be? He couldn't bear to think of Queen Garnet, his father's good friend, losing all her gold and jewels and money and stuff to a greedy burglar. And the part about burglars not knowing Fira was rubbish. Why, *loads* of people knew Fira. He did, and his father did, and almost everyone in the Black Mage Village did, except the Genomes of course but then *they* had even *stronger* magic… And if almost everyone knew Fira, it stood to reason that almost all burglars would too.
What was needed was a burglar-trap, and with this in mind, he had created one.
The design was simple but brilliant. A tripwire was stretched across the guardroom door, which Sun Dance had the key to in his pocket. Upon entering the room, a burglar would fall over the tripwire and be pushed inside by Sun Dance, who would then lock the door(the key had itself been stolen from a snoozing Pluto Knight-more proof of the castle's lax security!). The burglar would be trapped in the guardroom, and Alexandria would be safe.
Of course, the trap would probably need testing. Just to make sure that it would work on a real burglar.
So, when Eiko came down the corridor, not noticing him hiding in the shadows, and began to enter the guardroom, he didn't even think twice.
* * *
Absorbed in her plans, Eiko didn't see the tripwire until it was too late. Something jumped at her from behind-she squeaked and fell over, clutching at her rope-tail-then there was the sound of the door shutting behind her, a click, and a triumphant exclamation;
"GOT YOU!"
* * *
Pocketing the key, Sun Dance smiled to himself. __My work here is done!__
Humming happily to himself, he scampered off to the kitchen, to see if there were any leftovers for him to scrounge or syrup to drink.
* * *
A good way outside the city, Zidane and Dagger were happily traversing the high plains, or to be more exact a forest on the high plains. They had fallen into the half-run, half-trot that came so easily to seasoned adventurers and ate up long miles like wildfire. It was just like the old days, traipsing across every continent, taking down monsters with magic and steel, all with that one indefatigable aim in sight…
"Erm, where are we going?" Dagger asked suddenly.
Zidane grinned. "Remember I said I met Stiltzkin the moogle on the way here?"
Dagger nodded, twirling her racket absently. "Uh-huh."
Zidane gave a great jaw-cracking yawn. "Well, I actually met him in Lindblum. And asked him for some help with this little adventure…after all, he's a traveller and I figured he'd sympathise. We worked out a few things…he's waiting on the other side of this forest with my inheritance."
"Your *what*?"
"That's the beauty of it." Zidane broke into a run. "No-one can say I stole it, because it's rightfully mine anyway."
"Huh?" Dagger panted, trying to keep up and feeling that she had been left behind somewhere.
Zidane didn't pause. "Look, if a guy dies without making a will who does all his stuff go to?"
"His eldest child," Dagger replied, wondering where Zidane was going with this and how on Gaia he could talk and run at the same time.
"And if he doesn't have a kid?" They were nearing the edge of the forest now; Zidane stepped up his pace a little.
"His nearest living relative. His brother or someone." Dagger was getting impatient.
Zidane stopped dead as they broke through the last few bushes out onto the open plain, staring at empty space. "Right. So, this guy dies and I'm the closest thing he has to a brother…"
Dagger made the connection just as her *koibito* yelled "Stiltzkin, lower the shields!"
The empty air Zidane had been staring at shivered. It rippled, like a pool of water when a stone is dropped in. A shadowy form became apparent-strange symbols and spidery writing danced across it's surface-and suddenly, a sleek violet, teal and indigo spaceship swam into view.
"The *Invincible*!" Dagger gasped.
"Stole it from Lindblum shipyards, me and Stiltzkin." Zidane grinned proudly up at the smooth bulk of the Terran ship. "It was *wasted* on them. They tell me that they've been trying to figure out what makes it work for *months* now and they haven't even come *close* to finding an answer!"
The ebony-haired summoner and ex-princess gazed up at the dark form. "That," she said solemnly, "has to be the biggest heist of your thieving career."
"Second biggest," Zidane reminded her, then kissed her.
* * *
Eiko Carol was under stress.
"Let me OUT!" she wailed, banging her fists against the door. "Lemme outa here! Rotten poop! I'll summon Madeen and then you'll be sorry!"
"Oh, be *quiet*, kupo," Mosh muttered, twisting around in his nest and trying to ignore the Holy Summoner's shrieks and threats.
Eiko glared daggers at the moogle. She took a deep breath. "LET ME OOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTT-TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Birds flying above Alexandria fell out of the sky.
Dogs fled the city, howling.
Small rodents died in the sewers.
Ghosts in the world beyond decided to haunt another castle.
Every man, woman and child in the city sat straight up in bed, demanding of the world in general "What WAS that?"
And every man, woman and child in the castle sat straight up in bed, exclaiming to the world in general "That's Eiko!".
* * *
Narrowly escaping the sonic blast of Eiko's tantrum, the *Invincible* blazed through the near-dawn sky, responding to the slightest thoughts of it's navigator.
Who happened to be pink, fuzzy, and one foot three inches tall, not counting his pompom.
Dagger gazed at the shimmering towers of Alexandria, a distant gleam on the horizon. For the first time since leaving the castle, she experienced a vague twinge of doubt.
"D'you think they'll be alright on their own, Zidane?"
The blue-eyed and certifiably crazy Genome shrugged, flicking his tail from side to side in a noncommittal fashion. "Eh, they'll be fine.
Some laws are stronger than mere physics; one such, for instance, dictates that a solitary wheel will always roll out of flaming wreckage.
Another dictates that whenever somebody says something like that, viz., Zidane Tribal's comment that his long-time friends, rivals and hangers-on would be able to take the unplanned disappearance of himself and Dagger sensibly and not let it cause too large a lump in the mashed potato of life, they will always turn out to be horribly, drastically, wrong.
Not surprisingly, all Pandemonium was breaking loose at the castle.
The song is the one I was listening to at the time of inspiration, and it has been running around in my head a looong time...Other inspiration was drawn from other Final Fantasies, Hilary McKay's books, the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late and great Douglas Adams.
Oh and btw? I own none of this. I'm just a kid with a keyboard.
______________________
You stupid little Dreamer
Or, The wonderful story of Zidane and Dagger and six more
______________________
You know
What you know
They have
In common to you.
Nah
There's not
A lot I can do.
Dreamer
You stupid little dreamer
Now ya put ya head in ya hands 'oh no'...
-dreamer
______________________
Not too long ago, in a galaxy that's only as far away as your ability to dream can take you…on a tiny and rather unremarkable blue-green planet called Gaia…lived eight people of varying races, IQs, opinions, and passions. These eight people had almost nothing in common…almost nothing, in fact, except for two things.
One was that they all had the ability to Trance.
The other was that they were all completely and incurably insane.
They were, in fact, Zidane and Dagger and six more.
And this is the story of what happened after several thousand people were left hanging…of what happened a day after the questionably most memorable performance ever of 'I want to be your Canary'…of what happened when Zidane and Dagger and six more decided that there would never be a Final fantasy, for getting into and out of trouble was much too fun to give up, and anyway the words The End weren't anywhere in their personal dictionaries.
Now Read On…
* * *
A little after twelve, and a little before one, two dark figures crept down a staircase in Alexandria Castle. This can be explained by rewinding a little…
* * *
Queen Garnet was under stress.
__Why am I so unhappy? Everything is perfect. It's the happy ending I've waited for, for so long. And yet…this feels so wrong…I feel trapped. Everything is caging me…my clothes, my room…__
__No…these aren't my clothes. This isn't my room. These are the Queen's clothes, the Queen's room. They aren't mine. They never were.__
__I'm not even of royal blood. Everything has gone wrong, and I knew it the moment I put on that cursed crown.__
__Zidane…as soon as I saw you on the stage, I knew that it wasn't too late to put things right.__
Garnet got up from her seat; the window seat where, months before, she had fallen asleep and dreamed of a storm at sea. Zidane had been swept up by a wave of tearful reunions; he was probably still trying to tell Vivi apart from the black mage's 'sons'. He'd be gone for a few hours, or at least until Quina would stop hugging him and howling "I so happy!"
The skin in the centre of her forehead twinged.
__It's not too late.__
Garnet smiled to herself. She knew how to put things right. And so, she was sure, did Zidane.
* * *
A little after twelve, and a little before one, Garnet til Alexandros slid out of bed, fully dressed and clasping both her Priest's Racket and a small bag of supplies. She was wearing the same orange jumpsuit that she had worn all through her glorious terrible heartbreaking hearthealing adventure, the same red-and-white patterned cloak that she had escaped the castle once before in.
Something wasn't right. She realised what it was, and pulled the heavy royal pendant off her; once it had been a solid comfort, but now it felt like a hangman's noose. Soon someone else would be wearing it.
__And I hope it gives her more than it did me.__
__Queen Garnet is dead.__
__Long live Dagger!__
Zidane was waiting for her on the stairs, as she'd known he would be. Tail swishing in the moonlight, eyes the blue of the deepest seas.
Their eyes met. They both knew what they were doing.
"I can't stay here," they said in unison, then laughed and checked themselves. The last thing they wanted was discovery now.
Zidane broke the silence, smiling crookedly. "Well, my canary. It's time for the last act."
Dagger smiled back. "And may the curtain never fall."
* * *
A little after twelve and a little before one, two dark figures crept down a staircase in Alexandria Castle. They slid out of the castle like ghosts in the moonlight; the guards were the Pluto Knights Haagen and Laudo, and all and sundry knew that the Pluto Knights were a living example of military blundering; they untied the boat from where it was moored and glided across the star-strewn lake. When they reached the square, however, Zidane held up a hand for Dagger to stop.
"What is it?"
Zidane rummaged around in his pockets and came up with two things; a long stick of chalk and a metal cylinder about as long as his forearm. "I was thinking we should make our mark on this town." He broke the chalk into two and handed Dagger half.
Dagger, however, was more interested in the metal cylinder. It didn't look Gaian, but then it didn't look like anything they'd seen on Terra, either. It was closed at both ends, one end being flat, the other domed. She pressed a button on the domed end, and a pale stringy substance shot out of a slit she'd failed to notice and hit her on the chest.
Zidane cracked up laughing.
Dagger mock-scowled at him, then laughed and wiped herself off. "What is this stuff?"
Zidane shrugged. "I don't really know. I met Stiltzkin the moogle on the way here, and he gave it to me. He says it's called Silly String."
"Silly…string?" Dagger aimed the cylinder at the cobbles and held down the button, drawing a circle with the stringy gunk. "Moogles are strange, aren't they? I wonder where Stiltzkin got it from?"
Zidane shrugged again. "Eh, who cares? Let's paint the town."
A little after twelve and a little before one, two dark figures danced around Alexandria's market-place, giggling happily and 'decorating' the place with chalk and Silly String, before sneaking out through the gates and running away into the night.
* * *
While Garnet had been contemplating captivity by the window, Eiko Carol of Madain Sari and Lindblum had been giving one of Vivi's 'sons' a guided tour of the castle. His name was Sun Dance, he had been mistaken for his 'father' by I-don't-want-to-be-a-Prince Puck(who upon explanations had put two and two together and arrived at pi r squared), and he was quite possibly the strangest black mage ever to have been spun from the Mist.
"This is the door of the treasure room," Eiko announced proudly, stopping at a large, iron-bound oak door. "That's where they hide all the gold and jewels and money and stuff so burglars can't steal it."
Sun Dance surveyed it critically. "It doesn't look very strong. I bet I could blow it to bits if I used Fira."
"Burglars don't know Fira."
"Some of them might."
"How do you know they do?" Eiko argued.
"How do you know they *don't*?" Sun Dance replied.
"They just don't," Eiko said, getting confused.
"They do," Sun Dance insisted. "Some of them do."
Eiko wasn't at all sure where the conversation was going, but she persisted valiantly. "ANYWAY, the guard person would know if any burglars came, so they wouldn't be able to blow the door down even if they DID know Fira."
Sun Dance looked doubtfully at the snoozing Pluto Knight guarding the door. "He prob'ly wouldn't notice if someone blew up the whole *castle*."
The violet-haired summoner had to concede defeat. "Okay…okay. Wanna go play Burmecian jump rope with your brothers?"
"Okay," Sun Dance agreed, but his thoughts were on other things. Although normally nimble, he proved even more clumsy than his 'father' when they played Burmecian jump rope, and when it was his turn to hold the rope he forgot to swing it. Eventually Eiko snorted in disgust and she and the rest of the black mage children began to replay several of the adventures of the small and mismatched group that the Holy Summoner-child and the 'father' of the black mages had been a part of, taking it in turns to be Zidane and wear the rope tied around their waist as a tail. Somehow this progressed into the kitchen, and became a game of 'Let's all throw golden syrup and extra-thick molasses at each other while Quina Quen's out fussing over Zidane'.
When the under-chefs chased them out, they retreated to the guest bedrooms and had a pillow fight. Which, in conjunction with the syrup and molasses that covered them, had the effect of covering them all in feathers from head to toe. Then they all fell over laughing at each other and did chicken imitations.
In future years, Eiko would look back fondly upon that day and wonder how the hell they managed to evade capture for so long.
* * *
Now let us take a magic carpet ride to three a.m., when Eiko-completely unaware that her only living blood-relative in the whole wide world(though not the multiverse, as some strange things have happened there)had only a few hours previously run away with a teenaged lab experiment-woke up. This was a habit of Eiko's that she never managed to break-avoiding bedtimes like the plague and then getting up at some ungodly hour, disgustingly bright and chirpy. All who had ever had the misfortune to be torn from pleasant dreams back to reality by a small Holy Summoner bouncing on their stomachs wondered long and often how it was that Eiko seemed to get by on one hour of sleep a night, and sometimes not even that. The answer was never found, but it has been speculated that if it had, we would know a whole lot more about the nature of the universe. However, since the person doing the speculating was at the time under the influence of thirty-seven Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and was only one foot three inches tall(not counting his pompom)this viewpoint has never been widely publicised.
The person was very understanding about this and added to his hypothesis the addendum that 'there comes a point at which you begin to suspect that if there's ANY Supreme Truth at all it's that the Universe, in all it's limitless glory, is being run by a bunch of maniacs and anyway if anyone ever found out the Truth the Universe would immediately disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. This may have already happened, but there is a certain amount of uncertainty about it.' Strangely enough, *this* viewpoint *was* widely publicised, despite the fact that at the time it was propounded the person had added several Kupo Nuts to his tally of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters on the grounds that 'a pretty redhead in a neeeow dragony spaceship told me to'.
The reason for all this is uncertain, but it's probably to do with quantum.
But for whatever reason, at three a.m. Alexandrian standard time, Eiko Nanaki Carol was up and about and unaware of the absence of Dagger and Zidane. She had attempted to wake her 'parents' and failed; Cid had mumbled something about 'a clock? No, I don't wanna go there,gwok-gwok…' but shown no other signs of immediate awakening, and Hilda had simply given a most unladylike snore and rolled over onto her front. Disgusted, Eiko had left them to snooze.
__They've got no clue,__ she thought to herself. __If I'm going to adopt them they're going to have to be *trained*.__
Happily imagining this, Eiko wandered downstairs, moving through the castle like a small, violet-haired ghost. They would have to be taught the unnecessariness of baths, the necessariness of having all her moogles sleeping in the same room as her(and the same bed if at all possible), and, of course, the absolute rightness of everything she said.
__But first,__ she decided, shuddering, __I've GOT to stop Mother trying to make me wear skirts.__ When she had announced that they were going to Alexandria to see a performance of 'I Want To Be Your Canary', Hilda had produced a small, lavender-coloured, lace-bedecked, extremely impractical, very uncomfortable, flouncy and horrible dress. Eiko had resisted it with everything she had-screams, tears, tantrums, threats to summon Madeen-but in the end the only way she had been able to wear her grubby, tattered and beloved yellow and orange dungaree suit was by throwing the lavender-coloured dress out of the window to be trampled into the mud of the streets below. At least that had been her intention-it had actually drifted quite a way, borne by the crosswinds provided by the continual airship traffic, and snagged on the spire of the only-just-rebuilt church. As far as the youngest summoner currently in existence(although Eiko had known the 'facts of life' since she was three, and figured that with the way Zidane and Dagger were carrying on it was only a matter of time before she was second youngest)knew, it was still there, flapping in the breeze like some strange banner.
Dreamily, Eiko noticed the sticky rope that she and the Vivis had played with the previous day, lying in a corner. She picked it up and knotted it round her waist, thinking __Mother won't be easy to crack. I'd better go talk it over with my moogles…oh sugar, Mother made me leave them behind. I know! I'll talk to Mosh, the guardroom moogle!__ Satisfied, the Holy Summoner made her way, in her strange, swaying, hopskip gait, towards the guardroom.
Where, as fate and narrative imperative would have it, someone was waiting.
* * *
Sun Dance, upon seeing the treasure room door, had become extremely worried.
Whatever Eiko said, the door was not very strong. One good Fira would blow it down, and then where would Alexandria be? He couldn't bear to think of Queen Garnet, his father's good friend, losing all her gold and jewels and money and stuff to a greedy burglar. And the part about burglars not knowing Fira was rubbish. Why, *loads* of people knew Fira. He did, and his father did, and almost everyone in the Black Mage Village did, except the Genomes of course but then *they* had even *stronger* magic… And if almost everyone knew Fira, it stood to reason that almost all burglars would too.
What was needed was a burglar-trap, and with this in mind, he had created one.
The design was simple but brilliant. A tripwire was stretched across the guardroom door, which Sun Dance had the key to in his pocket. Upon entering the room, a burglar would fall over the tripwire and be pushed inside by Sun Dance, who would then lock the door(the key had itself been stolen from a snoozing Pluto Knight-more proof of the castle's lax security!). The burglar would be trapped in the guardroom, and Alexandria would be safe.
Of course, the trap would probably need testing. Just to make sure that it would work on a real burglar.
So, when Eiko came down the corridor, not noticing him hiding in the shadows, and began to enter the guardroom, he didn't even think twice.
* * *
Absorbed in her plans, Eiko didn't see the tripwire until it was too late. Something jumped at her from behind-she squeaked and fell over, clutching at her rope-tail-then there was the sound of the door shutting behind her, a click, and a triumphant exclamation;
"GOT YOU!"
* * *
Pocketing the key, Sun Dance smiled to himself. __My work here is done!__
Humming happily to himself, he scampered off to the kitchen, to see if there were any leftovers for him to scrounge or syrup to drink.
* * *
A good way outside the city, Zidane and Dagger were happily traversing the high plains, or to be more exact a forest on the high plains. They had fallen into the half-run, half-trot that came so easily to seasoned adventurers and ate up long miles like wildfire. It was just like the old days, traipsing across every continent, taking down monsters with magic and steel, all with that one indefatigable aim in sight…
"Erm, where are we going?" Dagger asked suddenly.
Zidane grinned. "Remember I said I met Stiltzkin the moogle on the way here?"
Dagger nodded, twirling her racket absently. "Uh-huh."
Zidane gave a great jaw-cracking yawn. "Well, I actually met him in Lindblum. And asked him for some help with this little adventure…after all, he's a traveller and I figured he'd sympathise. We worked out a few things…he's waiting on the other side of this forest with my inheritance."
"Your *what*?"
"That's the beauty of it." Zidane broke into a run. "No-one can say I stole it, because it's rightfully mine anyway."
"Huh?" Dagger panted, trying to keep up and feeling that she had been left behind somewhere.
Zidane didn't pause. "Look, if a guy dies without making a will who does all his stuff go to?"
"His eldest child," Dagger replied, wondering where Zidane was going with this and how on Gaia he could talk and run at the same time.
"And if he doesn't have a kid?" They were nearing the edge of the forest now; Zidane stepped up his pace a little.
"His nearest living relative. His brother or someone." Dagger was getting impatient.
Zidane stopped dead as they broke through the last few bushes out onto the open plain, staring at empty space. "Right. So, this guy dies and I'm the closest thing he has to a brother…"
Dagger made the connection just as her *koibito* yelled "Stiltzkin, lower the shields!"
The empty air Zidane had been staring at shivered. It rippled, like a pool of water when a stone is dropped in. A shadowy form became apparent-strange symbols and spidery writing danced across it's surface-and suddenly, a sleek violet, teal and indigo spaceship swam into view.
"The *Invincible*!" Dagger gasped.
"Stole it from Lindblum shipyards, me and Stiltzkin." Zidane grinned proudly up at the smooth bulk of the Terran ship. "It was *wasted* on them. They tell me that they've been trying to figure out what makes it work for *months* now and they haven't even come *close* to finding an answer!"
The ebony-haired summoner and ex-princess gazed up at the dark form. "That," she said solemnly, "has to be the biggest heist of your thieving career."
"Second biggest," Zidane reminded her, then kissed her.
* * *
Eiko Carol was under stress.
"Let me OUT!" she wailed, banging her fists against the door. "Lemme outa here! Rotten poop! I'll summon Madeen and then you'll be sorry!"
"Oh, be *quiet*, kupo," Mosh muttered, twisting around in his nest and trying to ignore the Holy Summoner's shrieks and threats.
Eiko glared daggers at the moogle. She took a deep breath. "LET ME OOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTT-TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Birds flying above Alexandria fell out of the sky.
Dogs fled the city, howling.
Small rodents died in the sewers.
Ghosts in the world beyond decided to haunt another castle.
Every man, woman and child in the city sat straight up in bed, demanding of the world in general "What WAS that?"
And every man, woman and child in the castle sat straight up in bed, exclaiming to the world in general "That's Eiko!".
* * *
Narrowly escaping the sonic blast of Eiko's tantrum, the *Invincible* blazed through the near-dawn sky, responding to the slightest thoughts of it's navigator.
Who happened to be pink, fuzzy, and one foot three inches tall, not counting his pompom.
Dagger gazed at the shimmering towers of Alexandria, a distant gleam on the horizon. For the first time since leaving the castle, she experienced a vague twinge of doubt.
"D'you think they'll be alright on their own, Zidane?"
The blue-eyed and certifiably crazy Genome shrugged, flicking his tail from side to side in a noncommittal fashion. "Eh, they'll be fine.
Some laws are stronger than mere physics; one such, for instance, dictates that a solitary wheel will always roll out of flaming wreckage.
Another dictates that whenever somebody says something like that, viz., Zidane Tribal's comment that his long-time friends, rivals and hangers-on would be able to take the unplanned disappearance of himself and Dagger sensibly and not let it cause too large a lump in the mashed potato of life, they will always turn out to be horribly, drastically, wrong.
Not surprisingly, all Pandemonium was breaking loose at the castle.