Updated as of February 28, 2007

Dedication: This story was inspired by and is dedicated to Guardian-381 and his story War. Though I doubt you'll find my attempt as deep or well-written as the above selection, I hope that you enjoy it and that I achieve the goals this author has in his own writing. To this person, I'll offer the following message:

I hope I'm passing on that pearl of wisdom you wanted me to have, or at least that I've managed to put it there. If I did, the thanks go to you. -Kyle

The Seeds of Treason

I

Cold.

The first thing I noticed about the air that night was how very cold it was, how silent the Earth seemed to be, as if whatever nature left alive around me was afraid of something. The darkness of the sky, the darkness of my soul… they seemed to fit together somehow. I didn't really understand why. If I'd had to guess, I might have commented on the weather.

Strange how easily the mind can invent a paradox like that one.

But I didn't really have time for paradoxes, it seemed. I was a General. I didn't have time for such luxuries as thought or contemplation. My life was routine, the bleak monotone of the day to day that kept soldiers in line and silenced every question. I existed to serve my Empire. My orders were my law.

Thought was a privilege afforded to very few Imperial servants.

Sometimes it seemed unfair that the only time I could sit and think was when I couldn't sleep, when I left my dismal bedchamber and stood on the battlements of the Imperial palace, watching the moon, the sky. Sometimes I'd become obsessed with the stars. I'd try and decide which one was the brightest, which one was the most familiar. Any distraction was a good distraction.

I felt now that I needed one more than ever. Ever since I'd returned from Maranda, my heart felt as if it had been cut in two. There was that part of me that would serve the Emperor without a second thought. Then there was that other half that started to wonder why. Why is everyone suddenly a threat to us? Why does conquest suddenly seem more important than leadership? Why must there be so much death and destruction?

And, most importantly, when would it stop?

I looked around myself. The moonlight made the city look so very different. There was no such thing as hustle and bustle in the middle of the night, no armoured soldiers walking the streets. You could almost find it peaceful. I always did find it interesting how one can never really see what's going on beneath the surface of the pond until the fish start swimming.

I looked beyond the homes, to the fortified walls that surrounded the Imperial capital. I amended my previous thought. There were armoured soldiers, after all. They were out there on the night guard shift, defending the enormous city from harm… even though there were precious few threats left.

I then noticed the road along which my thoughts were taking me, and I shook my head fiercely. I'd been having those thoughts more and more frequently ever since I'd returned from Maranda, and for someone in my position, thoughts along traitorous lines were dangerous.

I looked out to the horizon, startled to see the beginnings of sunlight traveling across the sky. Had I really been out here that long? It felt like only a few minutes. It's funny how time can fly when you're not paying attention to it. I turned to head back into the palace and to my chambers, only to see the stocky form of General Leo Christophe walking toward me.

"Good morning, Celes," he said brightly. "You're up early."

I nodded, but didn't make eye contact. "I couldn't sleep. Thought I'd come out for some air."

He grinned his confident grin. "I guess that makes sense. You needed to be up early anyway, right?"

This time I did make eye contact, my own expression becoming curious. "What do you mean?"

"Your briefing. Don't tell me you forgot."

My eyes darted around for a few seconds before I remembered. I'd been called upon the previous day for a mission briefing at sunrise concerning the Doma operation. Frantically, I glanced again at the horizon. "Oh, no," I groaned. "His Excellency will be expecting me any moment now!" I hurried into the palace, tossing a quick "thank you" over my shoulder.

Even though I was in a hurry, I found it difficult to tear my eyes from the tapestries, paintings and banners that hung from the walls of the Imperial palace. Elegant patterns; portraits of the Emperor himself; the looming rose insignia of the Empire. They were all so familiar, and yet they always seemed new to me every time I passed by them.

I wasn't in any position to take in the details at the moment, though. I nearly ran around corners, down long corridors, letting myself be guided by instinct alone. By the time the sun had appeared over the distant horizon, I was already opening the door to the room in which I was to be briefed.

To my surprise, it was not Emperor Gestahl I saw waiting for me. It was his henchman, Kefka Palazzo.

He was easily the most bizarre man of his rank I'd ever seen, and his appearance never ceased to strike me whenever I was accosted by it. His skin was as pale as chalk, and the makeup he wore made him look like more of a circus clown than an Imperial executive. However, the exterior façade of an entertainer didn't hide the cold malevolence below. I sometimes wished I outranked him the same way General Leo did.

His grim expression remained unchanged as I approached the small table. "You're late, General," he said icily.

I bowed my head despite myself. "I'm sorry, Kefka."

He said nothing, merely gesturing toward the empty chair across from him. Feeling like a trained dog, I obediently sat down, aware that my face was steadily turning red. I often felt like this during my interactions with Kefka. It is very unnerving for one's face to be the colour of a tomato when in the company of one whose complexion resembles that of a ghost.

Kefka swept his equally chalky hands across the map that lay before us. He had marked the north-eastern kingdom of Doma with a large, blue 'X.' There was another marker, a red one, just east of the first, but I couldn't fathom what it was for.

"If you hadn't already guessed," he said, "the blue 'X' is where you'll be going in a week's time. No Magitek for this one, just men and whatever wits you can gather. This red marker here…" He paused, and then grinned toothily at me. "Do you know what it's for, General?"

There'd been a part of me that had known he'd ask that question, and I was forced to resignedly shake my head.

Kefka was still grinning. "Tell me – you should know this, considering your combat experience – when you plan on striking a target that happens to be very, very far away, what must you do?"

Oh. That. "You need a base of operations," I said, "a staging point."

The grin slowly shrunk to a mere smug expression. "Correct." His attention returned to the map. "You'll be moving from the eastern side of this bridge to the gates of Doma in a frontal attack, and I'll have a little surprised planned myself for..."

I couldn't contain my astonishment. "A frontal attack? Without Magitek? Doma is extremely well defended. Challenging them head-on is suicide!"

Kefka looked up briefly, only to roll his eyes and look back at the paper. "Another thing any good general should know is to remain in the camp and let the commanders take care of the battle."

It took me a few moments to understand him. "With all due respect, I wasn't talking about myself, sir. Every soldier in that unit could be killed. I don't see the point of throwing their lives away like that."

He didn't even look up this time. "They're just soldiers. There's plenty more where they came from. Besides," he added with a fiendish chuckle, "we're not done yet."

His fingers moved across the map, almost as if he were savouring its texture. "As I was saying, your men will attack the castle from the south and attempt to break down the barricades. Your job, General, is to do a fair amount of damage, but leave the castle walls intact."

The true goal of his strategy was about as clear to me as mud. "Sir? What good will that do? We'll be annihilated within minutes."

"Oh, hush up and have faith, my dear," he replied. "I'll be accompanying you on your raid. You need only to lull them into a false sense of security, and they won't even leave the castle."

My frown deepened. That sense of security wouldn't be false. If I understood correctly, he was telling me to force my enemy to barricade themselves inside the castle, and if they did, it would be much more difficult to achieve an Imperial victory.

Kefka was watching me now. "I'm sure you're perfectly bewildered by now."

I could do nothing but nod.

His face contorted into a grin, one I could only describe as evil. "This is where my little surprise comes in, General. All I need is to be certain that the scum inside that castle won't be going anywhere." He looked back to the table.

I was left just as confused as I had been. I couldn't imagine what Kefka had in mind, but there was something in my gut that didn't like it.

After a few moments, he looked back to me as if he were surprised I hadn't left, and then rolled his eyes. "You're dismissed, General Celes."

My mind still reeling, I stood, saluted, and left the small room. I walked back along the corridors much more slowly than I had before, but this time I had much more to think about. I'd been given some odd instructions on other occasions in the service of the Empire – my mission to Maranda had included several – but this one just about trumped the rest. What was he planning? What was I getting into? And… I shook my head. Why oh why did he want me to lose?

At least, it seemed that way. A frontal assault without the help of our Magitek knights was quite literally a suicide mission, and my orders couldn't possibly have been more tame: go and cause some trouble. Some trouble. Don't knock down the walls, don't attempt to break through. Just go and cause some trouble. He must have had something up his sleeve… his little surprise…

But what could he possibly do without access to the castle?

As I walked once again past the portraits on the walls, the tapestries, the many clones of the Imperial banner, I knew there was only one man that I could ask.

I found General Leo back on the battlements, watching as the city came to life. Vector was a busy place during the day, and its citizenry obeyed without question. I was having trouble deciding whether their compliance was a product of absolute faith in their Emperor, or of terrible fear. The very fact that either was possible – even plausible – was depressing.

Leo heard my approach and turned to face me. "So?" he said. "Are you ready for your mission?"

"If you're asking whether I have my orders, then yes," I replied, and then hesitated a moment before continuing. "In our line of work," I began, "is it necessary only to follow the orders we are given, or must we also understand why they are given to us?"

It felt strange asking that question of a superior officer, but the older general had always been more of a friend to me than anything else. Still, the look he gave me after I stopped speaking was less reassuring than I'd hoped for. He waited a few moments before he spoke again.

"Sometimes," he finally said, "we have to trust that our Emperor knows what is best for our nation… our world. Sometimes we must have faith that his directive will lead us to a greater good."

"I know, but I'm not concerned about the Emperor's directive. My orders came from…" I broke off.

My companion finished the sentence for me. "Kefka…?"

I nodded yes.

"That's strange," he said contemplatively. "Kefka has been in charge of briefings before, of course, but never any about such an important mission. What did he tell you?"

I briefly described our encounter. His frown deepened with every new detail presented. It was reassuring in some ways. It felt as though, for once in my long career in the service of the Empire, that there was someone who really understood the various conflicting thoughts that were plaguing my mind like some sort of disease.

"I really never realized how… uncaring… he is," I said as I finished. "I mentioned that I was worried about our soldiers, and all he said was that they were easy to replace."

"I've always felt strange around Kefka," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I wouldn't doubt he's much more unusual than we could ever hope to estimate. But I see why you're concerned about your orders. It makes me wonder what he's up to."

"Whatever it is, it makes me very nervous," I said, pacing. "I am faithful to our Emperor, you know that. But lately there have been times that have forced me to wonder what we're fighting for. Now I'm very worried about what I'm helping Kefka to do, and I've started wondering if it's all—"

I stopped dead in mid-sentence, and my pacing halted just as abruptly. It had taken me a few moments to realize what I was saying, and to whom I was saying it. I was speaking to a commanding officer, and I'd almost said out loud that I was considering treason.

As I'd feared, he picked up on this. "One evil citizen does not an evil Empire make," he said. "Our Emperor may work in mysterious ways, but we must be faithful that he fights for the greater good."

Strangely, he sounded as much as if he were trying to convince himself of this rather than me. I said nothing.

"Kefka, however, may be the evil citizen I'm talking about," he continued. "We have no way of knowing what he may be planning for Doma…"

"Why can't you do anything about it? You outrank him. Isn't there anything you can do to change this? Or, if not, at least to find out the truth?"

His face was grim. "I can try to speak with the Emperor, but beyond that there is little I can do without undermining his authority. He chose Kefka for this mission for a reason, and I can't work underneath him without at least knowing what that reason was."

I sighed, turning toward the city and leaning heavily on the wall before me. It was a while before I spoke again. "I'm afraid, Leo. I'm afraid of what's coming. All this business with the uprising in Doma, and the discovery of this new Esper to the north… I'm seeing a disturbing pattern beginning to emerge, and I don't like it."

"Not to worry," said Leo. "That new Esper is being taken care of as we speak, remember? The newest Magitek Knight was sent to deal with it."

I remembered. "Her name was Terra, wasn't it?"

Leo, who had joined me near the edge of the battlements, nodded. "We should be hearing from Vicks and Wedge soon enough. I doubt they'll have many problems."

There was a piece of that puzzle that was disturbing me. "Isn't Narshe neutral? Why are we sending our forces to the domain of a potential ally?"

"It's too dangerous to let lie," he replied. "The Emperor is calling it a 'precautionary measure'. It's dangerous for any realm besides our own to be in possession of an Esper and its power. If Narshe was to side with the Returners and exploit that power, we could have a real uprising on our hands."

"I understand that, but Magitek? Narshe is such a small city. We hardly need to use such extreme force to meet such little resistance. Why aren't we putting it to better use against Doma?"

He paused. "I'll say again that we must sometimes have faith in our Emperor's motives. The citizens of Narshe may not pose a significant threat, but the Esper itself is an unstable factor that needs to be neutralized and controlled."

I didn't see how a being encased in a block of ice could be considered an unstable factor, but I let it lie.

Leo, meanwhile, turned away. "I'll go now to try and speak to the Emperor. I'll let you know if anything happens."

He disappeared into the palace, and I was promptly left alone, standing on the tall balcony and staring out at the sky once more. No more stars to ponder. All that remained was the sun, slowly rising higher and higher into the cloudy sky, soon to be shrouded behind the thick, grey expanses. The air was still cold… I shivered as I stood, a cool breeze washing over me.

I thought again about Kefka and Doma, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't understand what he was trying to do. But there was a part of me that didn't want to, because something in my gut was telling me that if I found out…

I shuddered, unable to fathom how things could get any worse.

The rest of my day passed without word from the older general. I settled into my daily routine, my meal, my training… everything passed by in a blur that day. All I could think about was Kefka, and what Leo may have been saying to the Emperor. I kept wondering if anything would happen, but I couldn't know whether it would be for the better or for the worse.

So I tried to occupy myself, focusing on my day's regime. But there were far too many thoughts flying through my head to really focus, and I found myself just going through the motions, dreading every passing minute that took me closer to the end of the day. I knew the end of the day would bring me another step closer to the following week, and I'd have to go to Doma… whether I wanted to or not.

I inevitably found myself at the end of my training and finishing the remains of my dinner. No matter how often I wished I could change the sequence of twenty-four hours, it never seemed to work that way. One would think, with all of my magical capabilities, I'd be able to do something about the rotten space-time continuum, but so far nothing had emerged.

However, instead of holing myself up in my dismal chambers, I found myself walking back to the battlements to watch the slow descent of the sun back into the horizon. I had finished my dinner several hours earlier, I realized with some astonishment, and wondered how so much time could pass without my knowledge. The sky was already dark again, but the clouds were thick and impenetrable… I could no longer see the stars. All that was granted to me was the dim outline of a moon in the shroud, barely enough light to see the outline of a familiar man standing at the other end of the balcony.

"General…?" I said tentatively.

He turned his head toward me, his blonde line of hair being tossed a little in the calm breeze. His facial expression – I could tell even without the clear moonlight – was grim. He was leaning heavily on the short wall that overlooked the city, but he didn't really seem to be paying attention to anything he observed down there. I had never seen him in this manner before. He looked… defeated.

I cleared my throat. "Did you… were you able to speak with the Emperor?"

"Yes."

That was all he said. I didn't like the sound of it. "Well? What did he say?"

"Kefka is to remain in charge of the Doma operation… the Emperor has blind faith in him."

"What… what does that mean?"

He turned around, resting his behind on the wall and looking up at the clouded sky. "I presented our concerns and I offered to take over command of the assault on Doma. He told me I'd done so much for our cause in the last few weeks that I deserved some time to settle down, and that he had complete confidence in Kefka… so much so that he'd left the entire operation in his hands."

My eyes widened slightly. "That's why he was in charge of the briefing…?"

Leo nodded. "There isn't anything else I can do."

"You can still talk to Kefka, can't you? It's not too late…"

"No," he said. "I'd still be undermining the Emperor's authority. Besides, I already asked if I could speak to Kefka. He said there had been problems with the Esper up north, and Kefka's gone now to retrieve that girl, Terra. He'll be going directly from Figaro to our camp near Doma."

I narrowed my eyes. "'Retrieve'? She needs to be retrieved? Has she been captured?" Leo said nothing, shifting uncomfortably, and I shook my head, turning away from him. "So, those rumours were true about that so-called Slave Crown?"

"Nobody was supposed to know about that," he said, walking towards me. "Even I wasn't. The Emperor made me swear to tell nobody."

"It doesn't matter how many people know about it," I retorted. "It's wrong, it's evil, and you know it. And you knew… The whole time, you knew and you did nothing."

Momentarily forgetting he was my commanding officer, I rounded on him. "You know, I heard those rumours but I didn't believe them, because I thought for sure that if you knew the Empire had done such a hideous thing, you'd have told me."

He surprised me by raising both hands in surrender. "I know! Please, just calm down for a moment."

I bristled. "So, now that Slave Crown is gone and you're missing the only magic user you had in this flock besides me. Is that basically right?"

His expression hardened. "Celes, don't associate me with this. I had no say whatsoever in the way Terra was treated. If I'd spoken up…"

He stopped, closing his eyes and calming himself down. After a moment, he reopened them and spoke again. "This is all out of my hands, and out of yours, Celes. We can't do anything for Terra but hope that Kefka doesn't find her. Meanwhile, I haven't finished telling you about the situation we're in right now… or at least, the one I think we're in."

"Situation?" I turned back to him, my anger subsiding as I wondered what he meant. "I thought we'd already established that nothing can be done about it. The Emperor wants Kefka to take care of it… I don't see many ways out."

He shook his head. "There's still the missing piece of the puzzle that we'd been trying to understand, and I believe I know what it is."

"You mean Kefka's plans? How he can attack without access to the castle?"

Leo nodded. "I think we've made a very serious mistake in our thinking. All this time we'd assumed that Kefka had no way to get into Doma. But there is one part that we've overlooked: the river."

I thought about that for a moment, and then I felt the colour drain from my face as I began to understand. "That river… it's Doma's only source of water. That means…"

"If something happens to that water supply," Leo finished, "everyone in the castle will be wiped out. That's what Kefka's planning."

I slumped against the wall, dazed. "How… how can he even think of…?"

"I don't know, and I suspect that if I try to tell the Emperor, he won't believe me."

"I…" I was very seldom left speechless, but this time I found absolutely nothing to say within my soul. My heart was literally being torn in two, between my Empire and my sense or morality… Could wiping out all those people be justifiable? How could this be right? One atrocity after another… that was my world lately within the Empire. I couldn't stand it. Why did so many people have to die?

Leo crossed to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "I will get to the bottom of this, Celes. I will do everything I can to stop it. Please, just…" He stopped, seeming unsure of what to say.

I brushed my hair away from my face and nodded. "I… I think I'll go to my chambers now." Silently, I turned my back on my older colleague, whose face remained deeply creased with concern, doubt, fear… I didn't have any room left for those things. All I felt was anger.

A crimson seed.

That night, I lay awake in my bed, my mind ablaze.

I thought about my life. Everything I had known, fought for, believed, had all been for the Empire, and in service of my Emperor. Everything I knew to be true since the day I was born. How, over the course of a few days, could an entire lifetime of belief be thrown into disarray so badly? How was this fair?

I thought about my childhood that night. I thought about the regime I'd been placed into from my youngest days. Infused artificially with magic powers, the powers of an Esper… I realized that I didn't really know anything about where my powers had come from. All I knew was that from day one I'd been placed into a special program to train me to use my power effectively… and to hold me back.

I realized that now. To hold me back. I'd never been permitted to use spells more powerful than the basic ones I'd had at my command for years. My skills had plenty of room to grow and develop, and yet they never had. I'd never been allowed. Why?

I knew why, I realized. If I were to develop my powers… I'd be a risk. I shuddered. General Celes Chere, loyal citizen of the Empire, a risk… a danger to herself and the society around her. What would have happened if she'd reached her full potential? Would they have killed her? Or – I shuddered again – would they have put a Slave Crown on her, just as they'd done to Terra?

I realized I'd never spoken with Terra. I realized I'd never known her, never understood her. She could use magic, just as I could, and yet I was just now coming to the understanding that I'd never reached out to her, never really tried to find another soul that could really understand me, the soul that was in such conflict now.

When I thought about it, I realized that nobody had spoken to her. Nobody knew her. Nobody ever talked about her to me. Where were her friends? Where was her life? I knew now. The Slave Crown had swallowed them all, eliminating the possibility that she could have a world or a life of her own besides that of the Empire and what they expected of her.

That's what would have happened to me.

I was sure of it. Terra was far more powerful than I. She'd wiped out a platoon of soldiers in seconds. But why? She was in the service of the Empire. Why had she done it?

I began to think of even deeper, darker possibilities. I began to scour the dark side of the noble Empire I thought I trusted. I knew now that she hadn't enlisted. She'd been forced. The use of a Slave Crown was proof enough of that. But was this deeper? Was there more to it that I hadn't even thought of? What if she'd been here all along, living her entire life under the influence of the Slave Crown? A whole life, wasted…

I understood what happened. She broke free. When she killed all those soldiers… she'd broken free. She'd had her own mind to herself, once again, and she'd tried to escape. We had all been told… I couldn't even remember what they'd told us. None of us really cared. To the enlisted men of the Empire, it was just another rumour.

The atrocity I'd been so astonished by earlier – the use of the Slave Crown in any context – had in a matter of seconds been augmented to a full feeling of rage. And now, Kefka was going to poison an entire kingdom of people. Innocent or not, everyone in that castle would die.

And I, General Celes, would be the hand that opened the floodgates.

I felt tears sting my eyes, furious with myself. How could it be that I never once asked myself why? Why was there so much destruction, death, violence, and deceit around me if I fought for an Empire that was just and good? Why was the world living in such fear of a realm that served to protect them? Why did we fight so hard against those who couldn't fight back?

For eighteen years I'd served the Empire, and for all that time I'd thought my mind was totally clear, and that my goal in life was certain. But no, I decided, it wasn't that simple. Everything I'd trusted, everything I'd thought would come through for me… nothing had happened. I was living my life in a pit of lies, darkness… and evil. But that was all going to change.

I would be a murderess no longer.