The Rose General
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy IX or any of the characters there within, they are property of SquareSoft.
It was her place of refuge, the queen's rose garden. Hidden within the kempt green hedgerows of roses in various states of bloom, Beatrix found solace from even her darkest thoughts.
A gentle spring breeze wafted through Beatrix's white leather coat and chestnut curls, the floral fragrance a bouquet of fresh dew and rich earth and the woman bowed her head, willing her thoughts away.
The scent banished her thoughts, but did nothing to dull her pain.
Beatrix's hand reached up to her cheek, her fingertips brushing the rough gauze beneath the silver patch that covered her right eye. Or what remained of her right eye. The patch of gauze was warm to the touch. Drenched with fresh blood no doubt, Beatrix thought remotely, blood as crimson as the dotted roses around her. Each blossom a bloodied testament to the eye that had been taken from her in that merciless confrontation.
And the battle replayed yet again in Beatrix's mind.
General Magdalene VII, offspring of the immortalized General Magdalene who fought in the Ninth Lindblum War with only nine other soldiers and won, headed the Alexandria military.
Alexandria's soldiers held General Magdalene in high esteem, but perhaps none admired the woman more deeply than Beatrix. An accomplished soldier, Magdalene's grace with the sword was matched only by her wit and humor. When Beatrix showed great promise with the sword, Magdalene parted the foot soldiers sparring against the lieutenant and challenged Beatrix right then on the training grounds. She still remembered the almost predatory focus in the older woman's gaze, as hard as her steel strike; each swing met with a block and parry. Her agile steps and assured movements which spoke of years on the battlefield in a time before Lindblum and Alexandria negotiated peace. The other soldiers looked on as the two women sparred for what seemed decades of glancing blows and ringing steel. Beatrix lost the match, but gained a mentor who groomed her through the ranks and into a formidable opponent none could defeat. Beatrix of Alexandria.
It was with some surprise when Queen Brahne summoned the general with word of a surprise attack. A host of Lindblum insurgents embittered over the centuries of war between their cities marched on Alexandria. Brahne ordered the general to meet their enemies at the edge of the Evil Forest with as many arms and soldiers she required to quash the rebellion hoard.
An easy smile pressed General Magdalene's lips when she said Colonel Beatrix should be the only arm she required and the latter felt a surge of pride that swelled her chest but remained carefully hidden from her features.
Naturally, diplomacy met tact, and the general chose nine soldiers to spearhead the mission and they soon stood poised at its edge for their enemies' approach.
The Evil Forest comprising the southern swamps of Alexandria's territory often took care of itself and any unwary traveler foolish enough to walk its muddy banks. Goblins, fangs, spider plants, and all matter of evil creature took residence in the creeping vines and strong odor of swamp gases veiled in the Mist. But perhaps the most deadly of all were the lumbering Prison Cages who consumed their victims and gradually devoured them in an acid bath of digestive juices.
General Magdalene was a fierce woman on the precipice of battle, but not a tense one. And when she ordered her soldiers to spread out, it was with a measure of tautness that Beatrix had never heard before.
"Grayson, stand guard to the northwest, Bray, southeast. Eyes open, ears sharp. Have antidotes at the ready for your fellows. Move! Beatrix, with me." The soldiers snapped to salute and hurried to their assigned postings.
"Is something the matter, general?" Beatrix asked, studying the woman's face. None but she would deign to ask after the general's shrouded trepidation, but then none could read Magdalene so well.
"Nothing good has ever come from the Evil Forest." General Magdalene stared distantly into the dark depths beyond. A wry, tired smile twisted the corner of her lips. "Call it a soldier's sense or woman's intuition, but I've a discomfited settle of this place. It's irrational, of course, but a soldier who ignores her instincts is a target laid to rest. Colonel, whatever comes out of these woods, we will stop it from reaching Alexandria."
"With all due respect, ma'am, we will not fail." Beatrix unsheathed her sword and Magdalene's wry smile returned.
"Well said."
And then utter chaos erupted.
The Lindblum soldiers poured out of Evil Forest chased by an armada of beasts. Steel met steel as the armies collided. Beatrix thrust her sword Save the Queen into the mouth of a spider plant, slammed the butt into the head of a charging Lindblum, and sliced a goblin in half in quick succession. A practiced Stock Break felled the semi-circle of combatants at her back. When one spider plant dodged a Lindblum soldier to bite at Beatrix's leg, she whetted Save the Queen with their lifeblood and withdrew a moment. The beasts were being controlled by the insurgents. If she found the mage directing them, the beasts may lose interest and retreat. Beatrix sliced the arm of a sprinting Lindblum, shrieking and sword held high over his head, and kicked him to the wayside to peer around him.
There!
The mage with the wooden staff operating from the tree line.
Beatrix made for him when Grayson cried out in pain. She ran for the injured Alexandrian and barreled into the soldier about to behead the lieutenant. Two more hacking swings and a second and third soldier fell.
"On your feet!" Beatrix hauled the bleeding girl up.
"Thank you, colonel." Grayson wheezed. Beatrix rounded back for the plant mage only to discover Magdalene had dispatched him. The general met her gaze and nodded, acknowledging the colonel's bid in that single glance. Beatrix smiled back, beaten to the chase, when the smile slipped from her face.
"General!"
A prison plant had slithered up behind Magdalene and wrapped its two tentacles around the surprised woman. Beatrix launched for the lecherous plant as it devoured her commander. The foreign sound of Magdalene's screams reached her ears as the general was drenched in acid. The Lindblum insurgents spied the plant its screaming prisoner and, emboldened by the prize capture, redoubled their efforts to take the Alexandrian forces.
They regrouped around the prison plant with all eagerness. Should they all die that day, they would have Magdalene and her wicked bloodline among their victories.
The Lindblums became a new enemy defending their prize.
They became more annoyance than challenge when four soldiers came at her at once, but Beatrix swung Save the Queen with all her might to cut a path to the prison cage. The increasing pitch of Magdalene's desperate cries made Beatrix clumsy. The last two soldiers, colonels like herself, held their ground much longer than the rest and met her cut for thrust.
"Beatrix!"
She looked up.
General Magdalene's cheeks were flayed open, nose unnaturally crooked, her forehead split and bubbling from the digestive juices as the disgusting cage nourished itself. Horror froze Beatrix in her steps. Her immortal general.
A sharp, blinding pain cut upward through Beatrix right cheek and eye and she staggered back as hot blood streamed down her face and neck. The colonel who caught her unawares leered after his successful strike. His lusty approval set fire to Beatrix's heart and she lunged forward. His body fell separately from his head and she thrust Save the Queen's bloodied tip into the heart of the second colonel. She wasted no time hacking the whipping tentacles and stiff cartilage of the prison cage, startled only when her hands met air once or twice.
Beatrix caught the moaning general under the arms and dragged her from the still expiring cage. Acid residue burned her clothes and skin as Magdalene swatted her hands away. Throat too swollen to speak, the general held up one quaking hand and Beatrix understood. Magdalene slipped into unconsciousness.
Beatrix barked at the able-bodied Alexandrians to craft a makeshift gurney of fallen tree limbs and the soldiers went about their task unhindered as the last of the Lindblums fled and remaining forest fiends slunk back into the unholy mires from whence they came.
The journey home seemed thrice as long until at last they reached the gates and nurses swarmed the injured.
Beatrix followed them to the infirmary, relieved of immediate command and gradually made aware of the stabbing agony of her right eye. An eye she still could not see out of.
The apothecary poured eye drops into the numbed side of Beatrix's face and she stared at the rafters unable to even feel any movement from her right eye.
"It's lost, isn't it?" Her voice sounded far away. The apothecary and nurse's silent exchange was answer enough. A sudden exhaustion swept through the colonel and she shut her good eye. One-hundred soldiers for the price of half her sight. Would she be dismissed as disabled and no longer a ranking officer in Alexandria's army? What would become of her? And what of the general?
The apothecary dressed her wound as best he could as a nurse wrapped Beatrix's head in gauze as blackness claimed the soldier.
Beatrix awoke on the stiff infirmary bed and painfully sat up. Head pounding, she massaged the puffed, tender right cheek and studied the blood that came away on her fingertips. Her boots touched the floor and she paused when the room darkened and gradually brightened again. An anxious nurse flitted to her side.
"You should rest, colonel."
"The general?" The grated voice surprised Beatrix and she cleared her throat. "Where is she?"
"You should rest," the nurse repeated, a hand on Beatrix's shoulder gently pressed her back but she firmly pushed the arm away.
"Where is she?"
"She's…she's in a bad way, colonel."
"Where?" Impatience colored Beatrix's tone and the nurse sighed.
"A fresh bandage, then I'll take you to her."
The nurse replaced the blood-soaked bandage and wrapped a fresh one over Beatrix's aching eye, snatching her arm when Beatrix's leg caught the edge of the bed. Quartered off on the far side of the infirmary lay the general.
Beatrix opened her eye and found herself back in the rose garden, but the grisly afterimage of the disfigured woman remained, accentuated by the red-blotch roses.
She remembered taking Magdalene's burnt and boil-covered hand when she offered it and knelt beside her broken superior. Through split, blood-dried lips, Magdalene spoke the words that still resonated to every fiber of Beatrix's being.
Beatrix, you have always been the rose of my garden of warriors. My thorned beauty, who always trained hardest, pushed farthest, understood military strategy and political discretion as only a certain caliber of soldier may. Take no fault of this conflict and learn from my arrogance. Trust your instincts and keep Steiner in his place. May you always fight with conviction and live with integrity. My rose…and my right hand…it has been an honor to mentor and serve with you. Fare ever well.
A single tear stole down Beatrix's cheek.
She had summoned the nurses who ferried her from the infirmary. The last she had heard was Magdalene still lingered in agony on her bed, kept from death's cold fingers by curaga spell.
Since then, Beatrix had been ordered an audience and full report of the conflict for Queen Brahne, commanded the soldiers to keep up their training despite the disorder of their worry and confusion, and arranged the cleanup of the encounter aftermath.
Beatrix slipped away from the curious noses and hand-flapping nurses at her earliest opportunity to disappear into the gardens.
Her thoughts haunted her even as she tried to forget them. Guilt ate at her conscience. What if she had killed the mage? What if she had gotten to Magdalene faster? What if they never engaged Lindblum to begin with? The forest might have done away with them itself. Her eye ached in time with her pounding head and Beatrix jackknifed from sorrow to hatred to despondency.
The possible outcomes mattered not when the blood is spilt and deeds done. Emotions had no place in war, nor uncertain fealty to a queen transformed by loss. A soldier could not look back, only forward. With a single eye if circumstances warranted it.
She numbly wiped the wet trail from her face in time to hear a heavy tread behind her.
Beatrix turned and immediately snapped to attention as Queen Brahne appeared before her, waving fan in hand and expression stony. Beatrix saluted.
"I thought I might find you here."
"Highness. How may I be of service?"
"Walk with me, Colonel Beatrix."
The woman's heart sank. She fell in step beside her queen; a woman she had sworn her sword and life to protect from all of Alexandria's enemies. A woman who had endured twice over the deaths of those dearest to her.
"How do you fare?"
"I am well, Highness," Beatrix answered automatically. Brahne turned to look over her soldier, the bandage over her eye, and Beatrix dropped her gaze, caught.
"Magdalene spoke to your hardiness, Beatrix. I doubt it not." Brahne's once easy smiles no longer reached her eyes as if joy had abandoned her to her deep grief. It was upon that grief her dissenters preyed. Strange folk like the platinum-haired Kuja, Brahne's effeminate and soft-spoken weapons advisor, who whispered dark tidings in the queen's ear. How he gathered his knowledge remained a mystery to Beatrix, for no mortal man could possibly know the things he knew. It was Kuja who spoke of Lindblum's attack and from his lips the queen issued the order of defense. Beatrix realized the queen was still speaking. "…exandria thanks you for your sacrifice, but I fear I must ask more of you, colonel."
The queen paused in the thickest section of the hedgerows where the roses grew full. Beatrix stopped before her unable to keep a feeling of dread at bay. Brahne's heavyset face seemed to droop even more under the weight of her secrets.
"The general has passed."
Beatrix straightened and accidentally brushed the hedgerow behind her. She felt the sharp prick of an unruly thorn. Even the roses would taste her blood. The rite and seal of the cruel fates. Beatrix had known this to be inevitable, but this did little to quell the sadness that reared its ugly head. Magdalene had passed. Bright, boisterous, fierce Magdalene of the proud line of Magdalenes had passed. Her swollen face ached when it creased with emotion. Brahne continued while Beatrix mastered herself.
"She was a fine officer. Passionate and brilliant, a fighter to the very end. She would have made General Magdalene the First proud. And now, Colonel Beatrix, her second in command, your sword."
Beatrix retrieved the Save the Queen from her sheath, still red with Lindblum blood. She felt no shame when the queen grimaced taking the hilt of the grimy weapon; more than Lindblum soldiers had been forfeit that day along the edge of the Evil Forest. She and Save the Queen had come away sullied and bearing new scars. Scars that would never heal. Somewhere deep in the colonel, she wished Queen Brahne would acknowledge the more brutal consequences of her actions.
"Kneel."
Beatrix went down on one knee, a fist over her heart and head bowed.
"Colonel Beatrix, you who have served Alexandria since your induction into the army fourteen years past, fought and won in the Dali Conflict, and protected our city at great personal loss. I commend your honor on the battlefield, duty in the face of peril, and fealty to our nation. In General Magdalene VII's passing, I extend the title of general and all the duties and responsibilities the station entails to you. Do you accept this honor?"
Beatrix paused only a moment to treat a reverence to the fallen Magdalene; her commander, her mentor, her friend.
"I do."
The sword edge rested on her left shoulder.
"And do you swear to uphold the statutes impressed upon the army of Alexandria as ranking general?"
The sword edge rested on her right shoulder.
"I do."
"Do you swear to protect and honor your queen's wishes to the extent of your life?"
The right eye stung as it attempted to swivel in time with the left eye as Beatrix looked up.
"I am yours to command."
"Then rise, General Beatrix, as the new commanding officer of the army of Alexandria."
Beatrix stood, feeling the weight of the title on her shoulders as she took the sword back from Brahne. They stared at one another a long moment in varied degrees of heartache. Queen Brahne did Beatrix a kindness and inclined her head, taking her leave without another word. Beatrix could be alone with her thoughts which had strangely gone quiet.
The sun setting at her back, she turned and searched for the rose that pricked her. Save the Queen severed it from the hedge and the general carried the red bloom to the water's edge. The surface danced in the brilliant pink and oranges cast over the sky. She raised the rose to her lips and kissed the soft, scented petals.
My rose…and my right hand…
Beatrix let the rose slip through her fingers and delicately splash the water. It floated onward in refined silence.
"Fare ever well."
Author's Note: I started this story years ago. I came back and remembered how awesome Beatrix is and finished the story, finally. I had to do some research into the FFIX timeline and then get creative with a conflict of my own invention to grant Beatrix both her title and her famous scar. Creative license. Apparently there was a General Magdalene a few centuries before the game start, who really won the Ninth Lindblum War with only nine soldiers. Now, I would normally have put Beatrix under that illustrious bloodline in any other story, but for this, I gave her someone to aspire to instead. And I sincerely hope I did a decent job of pulling that off. I get the feeling Beatrix has grappled with her duties as a soldier and her feelings at multiple intervals if her soliloquy on the Red Rose is any indication. Beatrix is challenging because she's a character with depth, wit, and perception (and she's plain, old-fashioned kickass), and I love to write from that kind of mind. It's incredibly rewarding if done right, and so frustrating if written wrong.
There was a definite rose theme going on, especially where Beatrix was concerned and I wanted to explore that. Was there some deeper meaning to the rose? What could it symbolize? This is what I came up with.
There's a reason for every story and I can selfishly attribute this to a real time need. Superimposing? Me? Perish the thought! But there is something about ascending to the rank of someone you deeply admire. Our Beatrix still grows up cocky with due cause, but she can think critically too-I tried to make that transition as seamless as possible. Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think!
Beatrix, you're still amazing after all these years...
Blackfire 18