A.N.: Do you know this is the THIRD time I have posted this damn fic? I wrote it MONTHS ago... HUGE apologies to Phoenix-Feather, who requested it after solving The Diary Of ??? - yes, as most of you surmised it was indeed Sir Fratley stuck up the hill getting his feet wet. Thanks for all the reviews, people.

This (my Layers Of Harmony Arc) was always meant to be a Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern thing - the revenge of the spear-holder, you might say - but Phoenix asked for Dagger. I spent a little while biro-chewing over it, not sure how to do a big story-role person, worked out a few ideas...then had them all fly straight out of my head the minute I set pen to paper. You see, I realised something important.

Princess Garnet is a complete schiz.

Enjoy...

The Diary Of Dagger
Dali Inn

Is that…I?

It is, of course. I have cast my die now. It seems odd, but I believed until this moment that I knew what I had done, and why, and only now that I set that strange word to paper do I see its full meaning.

I am not called Garnet any more.

So simple, t'would appear. At the advice of a seasoned adventurer, the young princess assumes an alias to conceal herself as she travels, some code-word to be shed like a chrysalis once she reaches safety. But it's not like that at all.

I feel almost ashamed; I have been planning this journey for many months and to be so unsettled by a simple word of address is the response of a naïve child. I believed I was prepared, and now I fear that I am not. Garnet Til Alexandros, noble lady of adventure, set to take on the world -

I am Dagger.

My name is Dagger. I am Garnet Til Alexandros. I - my - mother -

It is as if I am wearing in a new pair of shoes, only inside my mind. I feel the unfamiliar name pinching at my soul and chafing at the skin of my identity, whilst still I sense the comforting folds of Garnet smooth at my heels, kind, soft, tearing at my growth and letting in the rain…

I asked Beatrix once how it was that a woman could become a warrior - I needed to know, I had to discover every stratagem before making my journey, I had to be the perfect adventuress - and she pursed her lips, pushed her hair behind one ear, took my hand, warm in her cold grip, and she gave me the eerie one-eyed stare that hides as much as it reveals and she whispered - "Child. She first must know herself," and I thought "yes, that is well, Garnet Til Alexandros knows herself." Garnet Til -

- Garnet Til Alexandros is dead.

I might cry, if it wasn't so happy. The princess I ran away from is no more; she was slain by the wayside by a long-tailed thief, torn to shreds by a Dagger…and he wielded it with a smile.

Not a cruel smirk or a demon's delight in destruction; he crafted and taught and nurtured; he thinks he has created something good…

I'm free. I am not a princess now. I have no duty and no position and no destiny, no confining castle, no retinue, no guards and no maids and no crown -

- and no mother -

There is blood on my lips.

It's too hard. I could handle it when I was Garnet. Garnet knew that her mother was good and honourable but sadly in a state of distress of late, and that only she could save the queen, by going to Lindblum, and all would be well provided Garnet succeeded in her quest.

What should Dagger do?

I don't have to believe it any more. Why, I could suppose the Queen to be a depraved, bloodthirsty tyrant and Alexandria a rotten empire, and the quest to be futile and the end do be nigh, what is it to me? I am Dagger the Vagabond, a wandering white-mage who knows no land and no loyalty -

I'm stranded.

Garnet was…safe. She had her defenders, both inner and outer; the stony paladin standing vigil on one side, and on the other…lies. The precious little lies a girl needs to keep herself content. Everything is well. The world is good. The people love the princess. My mother is kind and just. I am in control -

- who am I? -

Perhaps Garnet was overconfident, or optimistic, or foolish.

Dagger is exposed. She has no knight, but an unwanted shadow that clings to her shoulders, clutching tighter and bellowing louder the closer she walks to the sun. She doesn't believe, only hopes. The future is obscure to her, not a clear, far-reaching path -

- but I can see the past -

Why?

I came here to find an answer, to solve a quandary. I want to save my mother and no-one else can, that is why she is here - I! I am here! I - I ran away…

I lift my hair by the loose ribbon at the ends, and I raise it to my face, shaking. I can't do this. I don't know who I am. What am I doing? I shift my fingers, letting the soft locks slide across my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth, warm and dark as sorrow… Do I do this in order to comfort Garnet? Why does Garnet need comfort? Or do I attempt to hide Dagger…?

What does Dagger have to hide?

It's not just a word any more. I couldn't see it until now…it's a brand, burning through body and soul both, a signature on the blood and bones and long sleek tresses that says to all with eyes and ears that Garnet Til Alexandros Owns You. You would suppose that the second brand would hurt less than the first - but who ever had two names before I? Who else had a name thrust upon them unprepared by a golden-sheened rogue with a velvet swagger and a voice like the light of Isil Caran -

- footsteps.

This behaviour is unbecoming! I compose myself, straightening my sleeves, arranging my hair - oh, but my face, it will betray me unless I can - unless -

A few strands settle across each cheek as the door thuds open.

I don't really need to look, do I? Good, because I barely can. How many men in the whole of Gaia can make the opening of a door sound like an act of revolution? He sees me and grins, and I cannot decipher the expression; it lies somewhere between the look a cat might give a canary and that of an artist gazing at his half-drawn masterpiece. Do I…want that?

No -

Yes -

"Did you wait long?"

My back stiffens. It matters not what I do or do not want, or feel, I have my -

- Garnet's -

- quest to be on with, and this gentleman is my comrade in arms. I cannot tell him how weak I am.

"I asked Vivi to head back. He should be here soon." He tilts his head at me, appraising me, as if he estimates my value of treasure

- Garnet -

or my capacity of danger

- Dagger -

"How do you like this village? Pretty different from the castle, I bet!"

The village. I can consider the village. I don't have to think about him, or me, or Mother - "Yes. The kids are very energetic, and there are so many things to see." Like the windmill. I'd never been inside a windmill before; I had no idea that they were so noisy, or so complicated. I'd never really thought about their purpose, only seen them in the distance, never been given an opportunity to investigate. "I've never walked around so freely before in my life," I whisper.

He settles on a bed, eyeing me again, but thoughtfully this time. His tail curls and uncurls slowly, and it seems like he is trying to capture something in the air which continually escapes his grasp. "But," I stammer, reaching away from his dusty glamour before he can transfix me wholly, "where are all the adults?"

"Yeah," he drawls, brow folding in two. He's still thinking, still solving problems and finding answers, still questing , not locked up in his mind trying to find which of the broken keys fits the rusted lock - "I used to see them tending the farm next to the village."

Little freckles draw together, rising and falling on his cheeks and sliding into his eyes, adding to the miasma of colour already there, blue and green and gold… I hadn't noticed until now how weird they are, how shockingly bright they shine from his smooth, drab exterior. A smirk slips back into them, and self-consciousness returns to me like a weight around my neck. I pull my hair closer around my face and babble "But that farm is tiny!", as if it matters, anything to distract him, us, me, I have to keep him out of my eyes…

"Yeah." He flexes his back, sending ripples along his bare shoulders, shifting the gilded skin into and out of the sunlight. "There's something strange going on. We'll leave once Vivi gets back."

Vivi. How is it that he appears so strange to my sight yet of all my companions my understanding of him is the clearest? He is like me, a traveller on the road looking for a destiny. Already I can care for him, comfort the little light that glows beneath his dark mantle…why? I have never felt such a thing before, this urge to touch and to support someone. His odd robes and smoky features wrap a heart as gentle as breeze and a youth as fresh as spring roses. None of Zidane's slyness or Steiner's petty grasping - "But what about Steiner?" I exclaim. I need to know. I cannot go on unless I have my knight -

- shadow -

- defender -

- stalker -

My fingers rake across the eiderdown with a muffled scritch.

He shrugs, infuriatingly slowly. "I have a good plan for crossing South Gate. It's gonna be easy. They're not looking for the rest of us, so we'll just hide you. Forget about Rusty. Leave everything to me!"

And he flips back, graceful as a slinking serpent, fiery eyes slitted and deadly. He looks at me for a second and a tremor shakes through me, from my eyes to my mind then right down my back and zinging down both legs to my toes then reflecting, arcing back, settling across my thighs in a tangled spiderweb of fire and ice -

The wall of my hair shifts, and my own gaze strikes his. Clarity comes for the first time in hours, a cold burning in my soul. It says one thing alone to me…

The princess is dead.
Long live the vagabond.

He blinks and I sag back into the headboard. Who am I, again?

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