Notes: The character I'm introducing into the events on Ivalice might rightly be described as a Mary Sue. I am aware of this, though I have gone out of my way to minimize the annoyance factor. She's a character I've had for a lot of years, so she's got literally decades of history behind her. Most of it isn't going to be necessary so I'll try to keep the backstory to important and pertinant details. I have, in the past, successfully managed to write a Mary Sue that was also incredibly entertaining, just ask the readers on the Scroll of Colors discussion forum for Elfquest ( about HalfElven (coming soon to this environment, as soon as I get the files figured out) . As I mentioned in the scene I posted last week, I haven't finished the game yet, but this story seems to be developing alongside my understanding of the game, so it should work out well.
Let me know what you think, I live for reader response.
A Traveler in a Strange World
by Mrs. Grizzley
Larsa found the entrance. The dark haired hume boy was barely eleven years of age, and strangely caught between being very boyish and being mature beyond his years. He was the youngest son of the Emperor of the Archadian Empire, raised since infancy for leadership and political intrigue, not to mention martial valor.
This particular afternoon Larsa was out for a picnic with his elder, and only surviving, brother – Vayne. Like Larsa, Vayne was dark haired, but he was grown almost to adulthood and was breathtakingly handsome, whereas Larsa was merely adorable. There had been two brothers older still, but Vayne had seen to their deaths for treason.
In any event, it was during some supervised exploring that Larsa found the hidden doorway that led to a tunnel that opened into a huge cavern that was flooded with natural sunlight and filled to the ceiling with plants and trees and flowing brooks.
Upon seeing this paradisiacal glory Larsa, who was still a child, ran forward in excitement, escaping his brother's grasp and that of their guardsmen. With a laugh of delight, he took off running through the trees.
And ran right into her.
A girl, maybe three years older than Larsa – perhaps fourteen years of age – dressed in a strange garment that molded itself to her body from elbows to knees in rich blue and green. She had bright, golden blonde hair and a streak of white flowing through it. Wing-shaped earrings dangled from her ears and at her throat sat a necklace of a bird-in-flight. But most astonishing were her eyes – exactly the color of molten gold. She carried no visible weapon and seemed as surprised by Larsa as Larsa was by her.
Then the guardsmen came upon them and Vayne in the lead.
The girl looked up at Vayne and her eyes widened in surprise, and perhaps something else as she grabbed Larsa's wrist and pulled him around behind her, placing herself between Larsa and his brother. "You can't have him. I won't let you hurt him." There was a moment of stunned silence. "I swear it. If you try to hurt him I'll kill you."
The guardsmen didn't know what to say or to do – they all looked at Vayne, who struggled to restrain a smile that seemed to want to spread across his face. He bowed, instead, to the girl. "My lady," he said, using his most charming manner, "I assure you, I mean the lad no harm. I am his brother."
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "That's not very reassuring. My experience with brothers is about like my experience with fathers – not altogether positive."
Larsa quickly stepped back around her and took both her hands in his. She looked at him and smiled, almost involuntarily. "His words are true." Larsa told her, "I swear this to you. Let us prove ourselves." Her expression softened further. Larsa took that as proof that his words were working and decided to change the subject. "Do you live here?" The distraction seemed to work and soon the girl was giving them all the grand tour, accompanied by the guardsmen, naturally.
She showed them where she slept, the trees she climbed for fruit, and the places where she dug for roots. She showed them her swinging vines and her swimming pond.
"How long have you been here?" Vayne asked.
She shrugged, still wary of him. "I am not sure. A long time. I lost track."
"What is your name?" Larsa wanted to know.
She sighed. "I can't remember, Little One. There hasn't been anyone to call me by one."
"Not a one? You are all alone here?"
"Until now, Little One."
The sun had started to sink in the sky outside the cavern and the light within to darken into evening. "Larsa," Vayne called, "it is time to depart."
Larsa looked back at his brother. "But we can't leave her here all alone again. It would not be right."
"Have you asked her about it? You are speaking of taking her from her home."
Larsa turned pleading eyes onto the girl. "Please come to our home with us. You can be my sister and I can show you the world beyond this cavern. There are so many things I want to show you."
The girl looked stunned. "Your sister . . ."
Vayne quirked an eyebrow at the offer of adoption. He had a few suspicions about this girl – having her so close would provide ample opportunity for observation.
Larsa continued. "I know that you said that you had not had much in the way of luck with brothers, but luck can change." He paused for a moment, "and I don't have any other sisters."
She smiled at him, softly. "I don't believe I've had a little brother like you before." He smiled, hopeful, at her. She took a deep breath. "I would need a name. If I were to be your sister."
Larsa crowed joyously.
Later, in private audience with the Emperor, Vayne spoke with their father as he had promised Larsa that he would. "Larsa wishes your personal approval of this adoption."
"And your thoughts?"
"Her first act was to place herself between Larsa and a perceived threat. I am impressed both by her instincts and by her endurance of long isolation. Larsa wants her for a sister and you have no other daughters. At the least, we know where her loyalties lie. If you wished, you could say that it is Larsa who is doing the adopting, with your blessing."
The Emperor thought a moment. "Very well. I would meet this girl my sons wish for me to call Daughter."
The girl was ushered into audience with the Emperor by guardsmen who then left her to stand outside the doors. The Emperor sat on his throne behind a table and beckoned her forward. "Come here, young lady."
She stepped forward. "Yes, sir?"
He frowned slightly. "I am no mere knight."
She flushed. "I am aware of that, your – excellency? eminence? dominance?" She appeared to be searching for a word that would not be found. "I am untutored in the proper forms of address, your Imperial Majesty."
A corner of his mouth quirked in what might have been a smile. "So I am given to understand. My youngest son wishes for me to grant you the title Imperial Daughter."
She flushed a deeper red. "That would be a great honor." He could almost see the change in her thinking as his word choice registered. Did this girl carry her thoughts on her face? "Youngest? But that term implies at least three . . . I thought there was only Vayne and Larsa." She looked up at the Emperor and turned the exact red of his robes. "Begging your pardon, Emperor."
Again, his mouth formed what might have been the ghost of a smile. "You have been away from other humes a long time."
She nodded. "But I have always been apt to try to eat my feet with ill-considered speech. I am not practiced in discretion or politesse. I am blunt and on occasion rude. I just thought that you would rather know my faults at the outset."
"You show remarkable self awareness."
"I am all that I appear to be – I just do not appear to be all that I am." She looked strangely uncomfortable, as if she were spilling secrets and regretted it.
"Explain yourself." His tone was commanding, and would not be refused.
She sighed. "I am everything you see. I am rude, and crude, and utterly barbaric. I am the foolish barbarian child who speaks the truth because I can and because I am not supposed to know any better. I adore Larsa, your younger son. I would do anything to protect him . . . and under other circumstances, my resources would be enormous. As a result of my confinement in the cavern, though, I am left with only myself. If you take me into your household, name me Daughter and grant me position, then I will be grateful for your uncommon generosity and you will gain the benefit of a tame barbarian in your court to speak what others will not so that you may judge response. I doubt that you will lose in this." She paused, and then continued. "But I have a past, and secrets that I hide, and should that past, or those secrets become threatened, or a threat, I will do what I must to protect Larsa even to the surrendering of my life." She looked up to meet the Emperor's gaze. "But I swear, should that come about, I will tell you all, or at the least all that you would understand."
The Emperor nodded solemnly. "Very well," he said, accepting her sworn oath, "Daughter."
Larsa and his recently adopted sister stood looking at a large, illuminated map of Ivalice, their world. The young prince had spent several delightful weeks introducing his sister to the Imperial City, Archades, and all the wonders it held.
This day, though, they studied maps. "So this is what you named me after." There was a note of wonder in her voice.
He nodded. "Isn't she pretty?" He pointed to a large area on the map. "This is us, the Archadian Empire, to the north and east. This," he pointed to another large portion of the map, "is the Rozarrian Empire, to the south and west. They are not our friends."
Ivalice nodded. "Competing superpowers rarely are. And right in the middle . . ."
"Are the kingdoms of Nabradia and Dalmasca."
"An unenviable position, that, being the only buffer between two unfriendly Empires. Have they allied to each other?"
"They are sisters, their royalty descended from the sons of the Dynast-King."
"So it's an old alliance, or an old enmity, knowing some families. Which is it for them?"
"Old alliance. One which may flower anew. Dalmasca's royal daughter and Nabradia's royal son are of similar age."
Ivalice sighed, sounding ages old for a moment. "Alliance marriages are difficult. Loveless ones, even more so."
They were silent for a moment. Larsa broke the silence with a shrug. "There is talk of bringing both countries under our guidance in any event."
"That would be stupid." Ivalice was harshly blunt.
Larsa blinked in surprise. "Why?"
"They are the only buffer you have. If you absorb them, then Rozarria has to move to defend her borders. The Empire doesn't want to share a border with an unfriendly, competitive superpower."
"You are truly insightful." Vayne stepped into the room from a shadowed doorway. He smiled as Ivalice stepped between him and Larsa. "One might question how a girl of your tender years and long isolation came by such wisdom, but no matter. The Empire may not want a shared border, but she might not have a choice. If Archadia does not gather Dalmasca and Nabradia, then Rozarria will."
After Vayne left, the conversation drifted from geo-political explanations to the governmental arrangements of the Empire – having both Emperor and Senate.
Larsa found Ivalice in her room, some months – almost a year in fact – later, packing a bag as quickly at she could gather her few important things. "What are you doing?"
"I'm running away, what does it look like I'm doing?" There was a note of hysteria to her voice. She threw a garment into her bag.
"Running away? Why?" Larsa was stunned.
Ivalice sat down abruptly. "Long explanation or short one, Little Brother? Doctor Cid has started looking at me lately and if I don't leave, tonight, I won't be able to escape him and I won't be any man's experiment ever again." She burst into tears and Larsa awkwardly sat down beside her, trying to offer comfort.
"What happened?"
She took a deep breath. "I'm a Traveler, or, I'm supposed to be one. I've got powers, telekinetic, telepathic, Illusion-skills, teleportation and so on, but they've been sealed so I can't use them and I don't know why. This isn't the first time I've been in child guise, I suppose if you placed all my lifetimes end to end I would be older than the Empire itself, nor the first time I didn't know the world when I entered it, but the last time this happened, the last time I found myself in a world I didn't know, things went bad. Very bad." Her body started shuddering in remembered pain.
"Tell me, Sister." He sounded bigger than he felt.
"I entered the world because I was running from grief. I had gone mad, and recovered from it, but the scars lingered, and still do. I wanted to be someone new for a change. I could, as a Traveler, cause myself to take shape in a woman's quickened womb and be literally born as a sibling to her child. I found a woman who was going to conceive. She was a good woman, in love with a good man, her guardsman as a matter of fact, and I thought it would be pleasant to be their child. I entered her body to await conception and watched helpless as they fought – something about the death of his father – and she ran to another man for a time. My brother and I were born to the wrong father." She took a deep breath, gathering courage.
"I was unprepared because I didn't know the world, and I wasn't talking with my one information source. I call her The Mother even though she's not one and we aren't really getting along right now. In any event, I was unprepared to defend my brother when we became yet another experiment to the scientists our mother worked for.
"An interloper came into the womb we shared, and tried to change us. I still had my power, enough to protect myself, but my brother was defenseless. I went dormant within our womb as my brother developed and was ultimately born and stolen by our scientist father.
"I was born years later. Mother had become entombed in a crystal and when I was born I transported myself, aged to a crawling tot, to a distant field where my brother trained. He found me and took me in, and then discovered that I was his full sister. He'd been told that his mother died at his birth.
"I tried . . . oh how I tried to keep him from becoming a monster. I knew that it was going to happen, but because I wasn't talking to The Mother, I didn't know where or when. It's ironic really, the more I didn't speak with my Mother, the more he listened to his. I thought for a while that it was my fault, that my choosing him had infected him with my madness." She sighed. "It would have happened anyway, but I didn't know that, then.
"When it finally happened, he abandoned me to our natural father, a scientist to whom all living beings were simply experiments to be manipulated. I was forced to help him with his experiments, until I helped two men escape and then joined the one's quest to hunt down and destroy my brother."
She clenched her fists on her knees. "I would have followed him into the depths of Hell itself, if only he had come back for me." She made herself relax her hands and tears fell down her face. "Never again. I saw Hojo's eyes in Cid's face, watching me, measuring me. As I am now, limited and shackled, unless I run now I won't be able to escape. And I can't protect you if I'm a scientist's playpretty."
"I can protect you, Sister. Vayne can protect you."
"No. You'll understand, someday, but I've got to run so they can't use you against me." She looked at him, a fond expression on her face. "I would do anything to protect you."
"Where will you go?"
She sighed. "Nabradia or Dalmasca, don't know which, yet. You can't tell anyone, though, not even Vayne."
"Not even Vayne?" The very idea seemed incredible, disturbing.
Larsa idealized his older brother. Ivalice felt her heart squeeze at the thought. She had loved her Nii-sama that same way. "No," she said, dissembling slightly about her concerns, "he would try to bring me back here. You know he would."
Larsa nodded reluctantly. "But the invasion. You will be walking into a war zone."
"Better a war zone than the Imperial Palace with Doctor Cid on the loose." She grinned, forcing the expression to relieve Larsa's worries. "If I hurry I might be there for the wedding."
Larsa sighed. "How can I help?"
The next morning Larsa woke to the sounds of quiet confusion in the Palace. By midmorning no less than a dozen guards had asked him if he had seen his sister. By noon he was called in to see his father.
The Emperor sat at his desk and looked at Larsa, who looked back at him, unafraid. "Yes, Father?"
"Your sister is nowhere to be found and as she dotes upon you so obviously it is thought that you might know where she is."
"She is gone, Father." Larsa couldn't keep the catch of restrained tears out of his voice. "She left last night."
The Emperor was silent for a long moment. "Why did she leave?"
"She was in fear for her life and freedom, Father. She left me a letter that I was to give to you," he pulled a sealed envelope from his vest and placed it on the desk, pushing it softly to the Emperor.
He took the letter and quietly opened it. For a time there was only the sound of rustling paper as he read. Then he set it down and covered his eyes wearily. "Did your sister tell you the cause of her fear?"
"Some, Father. She said that no one could protect her. She also named one with ready access to the Palace and hinted that I would also be threatened unless she fled." He almost sounded angry, not at his sister, but that he would be helpless to defend someone in need of such defense.
"Very well. We have much to discuss if we are to maintain the fiction that she is still here."
… For the Senate, tell them what you will, though I would rather that you not tell them that I am dead. I do not intend to stay away forever, and I sincerely wish to return one day. For the Judges, instruct them that unless I make myself known to them, they are to ignore me. For Vayne, I wish him told nothing, if possible. I do not trust him in the least.
I fear one day that I may have no choice but to destroy him to protect Larsa. He seems too much like my Nii-sama for my comfort. I do not wish the guilt that burdens me on my Nii-chan.
Thank you so much for all your generosity towards a foundling such as me. You cannot know how much it means to me. Please forgive me, and know that I still hold to my oath. This I do to protect Larsa, who should one day be Emperor after you.
As much as I regret the necessity, I have spoken with The Mother, and she assures me that Larsa and I will meet again one day, but she offers few assurances beyond that. . .
Your dutiful Daughter, Ivalice Goldeneyes Solidor