Disclaimer : Final Fantasy XII rocks hard; but I don't won it in any kind. :(
Author's Note: This text maybe a little confusing. So, I'll put here a "guide" of sorts to tho people who reads this. When «she» appears in italic, I'm referring to Venat. When not, I'm referring to Ashe. Enjoy and Review plese!
"Their are fulfilled beyond your knowing. The Cryst is sundered. Age Of Stones Complete. From The Undying Ones the World is freed"
The end was coming. For too long it was wished. For too long it was delayed. No more. It will come, and for the last time The Undying will arise. The age of occult guidance is over. Man will take his fate on his own hands. A day that he longed for long time.
"You shall not tread this path alone. Come, together we go."
The final battle, the last chapter of a old book is about to be closed. A soul will be freed. Tyrants will dethroned. History begins anew. This are the last wishes of Venat, the Heretic, a misunderstood and the only one who hadn't been currupted by the shadow of Undying power. He alone had the courage o stand against Gerun. He alone had the strength to show the deceit of power.
But his story is more ancient. He is a God with a Human soul. He is fates guide, he's the one who will make the cycle repeat once more, like it should have been. This is his story...
Venat... Venat is not his name. In fact, «he» is not even a he. It's a she. Long time ago... in the age when Men was a child and wyrms served only the greatest of Gods, the true one, Anhanas the Holy; survivor of the thousand millennium war. He was the one who created the world from his worst and best foe and friend. The name «Ivalice» was just a way to make its inhabitants forget of the true nature of the soil that they stepped.
It was in the night of the battle in Nalbina that she saw her once forgotten fate repeat itself once again. She had convinced Cid and Vayne to take the Shards in their hands, to wage war against her brothers, the Ocurria but she didn't knew of this. The death of a prince, the fake suicide of a princess... it was too much to her mind. For millenniums she had ruled Ivalice, millenniums spent twisting fates, change the unchangeable humes. But this she never expected.
She too once lost her prince. In a battle much like this, held in the deep crags of green forest. It was a time of chaos in Ivalice. It's peoples waged killings and steadfast war against each others, sparing none in the process. Nu Mou, Humes, Baanga, Seeq... even the Viera, the most reclusive and probably the most loyal to the original God waged war not only against the trespassers of their woods, but also for the groups that formed within their society. Wyrms had escaped of control and their anger, contained by centuries of forced servitude by Ivalice's peoples was now unleashed upon the land. Some were so tainted that they used their powers to cause havoc and mayhem between the Man's Realm and the Underworld. This madness had even taken control of the holiest creature to the face of the land, Yiazmat who now too destroyed with his brothers. It was a time without hope. Anhanas saw little result in his vengeful strikes, and soon devised a plan that would change her fate forever.
Like Ashe, she had too begged the aid of kin. Like with the Marquis, she was not heeded. She knew it then, the fates were indeed destinated to cross the distant pass with the uncertain future. Like Anhanas did with her, she whispered to Ashe. A calling for the Dawn Shard, its place was Raithwall's Tomb. She had to possess it. Like her, Ashe heeded. Taking her five companions with her, she traveled to a place where the sea of sand never ended.
However, she was decided to change this.
With her country consumed by the hell flames of war, she escaped to her Aunt's kingdom. She remembers still her words. Nothing could be done. But, as she retired to her room, a silky voice sounded alone to her. Through the endless sea into the last shrine of the one God. She escaped her Aunt's Manor that night. With her, she took her body guard, a loyal knight. However, as they made their progress in the large streets of the Underground city, a thief they would encounter. Not a common thief, but one with a silver tongue and good taste, one that was only seduced by wealth and beauty. Both of them saw in each other the piece that lacking in each other's heart. Gerun was his name and his brother, a master of weapons, although silent, fought as well with his bare hands as with a sword or bow, his weapon of preference. Before leaving the city, two others would join their ranks. Two disgraced nobles, two young girls who didn't knew what to do next. Gerun went with her for the treasures at first, but sooner his feelings would step out.
Those nights and days passed on the sand sea, an endless parade of hours overloaded with grief and shear weight of a duty that Ashe didn't knew if she could handle were the same to her. Not in desert but in heavy snow, trapped within the castles of ice. Each day a new hell, both for her problem's but also because a love that couldn't ever exist. Gerun knew this as well. Finally, she could see the cradle of life. The temple of the One. Ashe instead saw a Tomb, a cradle of death.
But her sweet prince depicted was an image that both her and Ashe could not bear to witness. She remembered the first voice of the Great One, coming from a celestial Orb in the sky, taking the mask of her fallen love. But from her love there was naught left. Only a Promise of Power. And the void of Ignorance. Yet, upon return, to treason Vossler was headed. Not by the Empire, but by her. His pursuit for Dalmasca's independence would ruin her efforts. He had to go. And so, masked as Judge, she talked and offered him a bargain that would eventually cost his life. Ironically, it was also her best friend who changed sides, but she didn't remembered. Maybe she didn't want to.
Not Power neither Wisdom. Only another Promise of Peace and Forbidden Love. With Ashe, a possibility to see her kingdom Restored. However, she didn't thinked of her crescent love about the sky pirate that had just taken her beloveds wedding ring. Ashe didn't accepted it until their last night in Jahara, seeing him by the camp fire looking at her, an angel amidst the stars, looking back. He was her love. There was nothing more to it. She was this way too. In that same say she departed to the Great Vale were the Seer awaited, she saw him sitting by the sea side. She joined him and a first kiss was shared, illuminated by the golden sunset beyond the horizon. She had found true love. An immortal scar in an Undying heart.
One last trial, she thought while walking through the burning sands that leaded to the Moving Shrine of Lightning were the sign of Anhanas awaited. Trials passed, sacrifice committed, God Send destroyed, a Veiled God Dethroned. Sign obtained. Upon her return, she saw the madness. The five kings of the hume Overlord had desecrated the One's shrine itself. The Seer had been drained and tainted, and marked by Umbral Energies, to distant and shadowy place we was sent by Anhanas will itself. He demanded revenge. Gerun as well. It was here that they split for the first time in many days. The loyal night betrayed her, and return to his station in her Aunt's realm. Gerun's brother left the quest and went searching for an awnser for the horrible blood bath that hume kings had made. The two lady sisters went also, running from themselves and what they have witnessed. A bandit and a forsaken princess... was all. Anhanas demanded punishment in return for the ultimate power. They would go into the Western kingdoms were they were to smite the five kings and the rebelled prophet responsible for the mayhem. In exchange, the visage of Anhanas itself. Ashe is more lucky, she thought right after the Judge Bergan's demise.
From the scorching sands of the North, Gerun and her went to South-west. Green and fertile plains followed by a steppe and then a mountain region. The five kingdoms were there and their justice with them. Brave as always, they climb the skies, reaching the floating palace that would allow them to reach the metropolis below. There was when she noticed. The days of smiles and hands hands, the nights of fiery passion, hours that remained carved into eternity of space and time itself; the few hours when those two became one illuminated were over. She suspected that something foul had taken of Gerun. Ashe didn't. In fact, each step they walked towards Archadia make their love strong like the most solid of alloys. They loved each other, but duty standed on their way. A duty that crushed even the holiest of moments, either spent in the sands of the Phon Cost or in the green paths of the Salika Wood.
It had been done. Kings defeated, prophet destroyed. The face of Anhanas they were to see now. Floating into the creator's wonders, they saw their purpose. Six departed from the Underground city. Six would decide the future of the world now. Anhanas proposed to them nothing more than his own power. They would become gods. With his almighty power, Anhanas fetched their other disbanded companions. One last journey they would endure, to a lost continent in the middle of the never ending sea. She took more notice of Gerun's face. For the first time, she considered the power had taken over him. But no, she loved him to greatly, to strongly. They were no longer two, but one. Two sides of one coin. Unfortunately, she didn't want to face the truth. Because of this, she protected Cid, stopping the death sentence by Reddas. Cid was the father of Ashe's lover, and she began to realize that the future would be very different. Ashe would meet the other five Ocurrians... Gerun. There was much more to be done yet. She could not bear to see her twin soul suffer again such a loss. She couldn't.
Heretic. It was this way that Gerun referred to her. Heretic in wanting to original purpose to be fulfilled? Heretic because of the duty to make Man own again? If there was one Heretic was him, self proclaimed king of the false gods. The seal of fate was now reaching them, a threat drawing near. The Treaty-Blade had been given. Cryst's location was now known, and so she told Cid of her plan. Bahamut would fly the sky, but first they needed the mist to power it. "The Occurian Power used against themselves. How fiendishly delicious", Cid said after her revelation. However, her intention was far from that. Step by step, Ashe and the party closed in to the Pharos. She had once too stepped those steps. Long ago, when the city of Ridoranna was still bursting with life and people, and the cataract that now separated it from the rest of Ivalice was nothing but a child's dream. There was no tower in those days, only a crystalline lake of crystal. She remembers her last moments has hume, as she walked through the water until the central part of the lake were the magical orb of Anhanas lied. Revelation was again afforded. Anhanas's conscience would leave the Universe, and his power would dwell forever in Mist, that they would now control. Their job was simple. To become his successors, to vow for Ivalice, to bring order to its chaos and, when the time was rife, to give Man's fate to his hands again. She remembers as well the power that comed with that final choice. To become a God. Four of them said from the beginning that they would bend to her will. One didn't. Gerun said to take the power, to make justice for Ivalice. To bring order. His glowing eyes sought power, but she believed it not. She mistook it for lover's shine. He repeated.
"Take its power, and the world and it's fate will be ours to mold. Never again people will suffer what we did. We can do it right."
And so she said yes. Anahanas power was divided in six, each possessing one of them. They human form, forgotten. They would dwell in obscurity of time, supported by the power that they accepted, the body of Anhanas; mist condensed into a single mother crystal of what would become Nethicite, their future tool of oppression. So it began the rule of the Occult ones, Undying. A rift in Ridoranna was created, and the continent sank into the pits of the sea, leaving only a fragment of the city, a keeper to the tower that they wrought. Their seal was carved into Hell Wyrm's wings, Yiazmat's power obscured, the Espers created and cursed. Kings and Emperors dethroned by their will alone. So it was the power of an Undying. However, Gerun had lost its humanity and when Raithwall become Dynast King, and the Age Of Stones was to end, altogether with them and the Cryst; he refused to give up its power. The fate of Ivalice was their's alone to control and to decide. She, now without the sadness or love to cloud her mind realized. Gerun had died a long time ago and in his stead a babbling madman who wanted to control everything; a Tyrant. So she fled with Cid, a man of Science who searched for a cure to an incurable disease. She made of him an apprentice, to learn the ways of nethicite, the ways of Anhanas power. She was decided to make Man powerful enough to fulfill his creator's wishes. It was a duty that she had to hold to her last, like the princess she once were. And now, it all resumed to that night. Ashe had the blade in her hand, the Cryst was waiting. Cid and Gabranth encouraged Ashe to take Gerun's «offering» in her hand. If all went accord her plans...
"I'm no puppet for you to use!"
Ashe screamed before slicing Rasler's image, crushing Gerun's hopes. As fates greatest mysteries, she understood fully then. The madness that she caused to Cid, the power hunger that she awoke in Vayne, all that resulted in a blessing. Traumatized about his father's dependence, Balthier ran from him, to ever forsake the gift of power. Unlike Gerun aeon's ago, he did not want Ashe to take it. All worked in the ways she least expected, but the end result was the same. With the Cryst destroyed by Reddas bravery, incited by her manipulation and advice of Cid's natural curiosity about nethicite's power which resulted into the destruction of the city of Nabudis, and the creation of Reddas as Judge Zecht's new persona; the Undying were no longer Immortal. Their power and life source destroyed, they would vanish with time, their holy realm of Giruvegan would fall into decay. She too. Yet, there was one last effort that she would endure. Her hopes and purposes were fulfilled, whatever Vayne lived or died. But still, her twin soul needed freedom and after all they had lost, there was no way she would leave them to their own fates. She had still power, and would use it to change fate one last time.
"You shall not tread this path alone. Come, together we go."
Venat said before merging with Vayne, showing Ivalice the power of a dying Undying. The battle would soon follow, and so it's fate. Venat's hidden blessing was not in the fires of war that followed but in a sacrifice amidst them.
"Come back, Balthier! Come back! You mustn't die, Balthier!"
"Ah, Princess. Do you know what they say about the leading man? He never... dies."
"Please come back, Balthier... Balthier!"
Ashe cried to the communicator. Silence however, was her only awnser. Bahamut was falling and soon it crashed in the burning sands of the Westersand. With it died her love, only and true. In a moment she could remember all those days with him. His strong and comforting hand in Sochen Cave Palace, his face enlighted by Phon Coast's velvet sunset. Their kiss in the high tower in Archades. There was no tears or words to describe it...
It had been three months and when Ashe saw Vaan and Penelo running to her with a smile in their face and a letter in their hands, she tried to look surprised, while the long thought dead sky pirate Balthier tried to hid his laughter, that certainly would uncover his guise as the Princess's personal servant. In truth, Balthier contacted Ashe as soon he could. He once desired freedom and treasure, but now he only desired Ashe's sweet touch, her honeyed voice and her eyes. Greater treasure that her ring he had found indeed and nothing better that their cruel separation to understand that.
But, greater surprise yet was to the peoples of Archades, when they saw the Lost Prodigal Son Ffram Mid Bunansa return with the hand of none other than the future Queen of Dalmasca. In that shiny day, in the year of 708 Old Valendian, they completed each other. Vaan and Penelo couldn't believe it, even then. How did those two wholly different people found love in each other? Basch, or Judge Gabranth now more likely didn't questioned the blessing of love. "She deserves it. For too long she holded the weight of duty alone" He said to Larsa, while trying to size up Fran; who still captivated him, even after two years.
And in the moment that they shared the kiss that would unify them to eternity, another guest appeared. She could not be seen, she could not be heard. She smiles to her sister, who found the thing the she never had.
"Your fate is now yours to make. Change it with true power of Gods, love."