Disclaimer: Characters are copywrited to Square, or Square-Enix, or however you want to put it since that merger. At least, I hope these are their characters and not some OOC perversion of them.
Notes: This has been rattling around in my head for years, since my realization that Hardin was responsible for the sigils Ashley has to dispel throughout the game. It didn't hit me how I could tie it together into an actual story until shortly before Valentine's Day...
Bouquet
When I was young, my family's estate had a garden, and therefore employed a gardener. The man was elderly, and kind to a boy curious about the world. He taught me the names of flowers, what they needed to grow, and what the blossoms meant when a man gave them to his lady.
My parents were divided on the issue. A boy of my status, my father told me, should not be digging in the dirt with servants. My mother murmured with a small smile that perhaps my father should have known more about flowers himself.
In the end, that small, informal portion of my education proved as useless as the rest as my family and their estate dwindled; I had more important things to tend to than a garden. Now I kneel in the dirt, watching another mentor score the cleared earth of a courtyard for an entirely different lesson.
"For a sigil to hold, the link must be strong," Sydney tells me, sketching the same symbols over and over on the ground with the point of a single claw. "The more identical the key to the pattern on the original enchantment, the stronger the link - and yet a common pattern would be simple to discern. Thus, one doing the enchanting should use meaningful, familiar patterns when possible, yet they must be complex. As you can see," he gestures with his hand, sending small grains of earth scattering over the etchings, "I prefer to use Kildean runes for mine. You, however, would be unlikely to find it as comfortable as I."
He speaks truth; my grasp of the ancient language is minimal, and my glyphs still like a child's handwriting. I nod, considering emblems and coats-of-arms memorized during my time in the military. Perhaps it would be inappropriate, and perhaps too predictable if an enemy managed to find the key to one sigil.
"Think on it, Hardin," he says, rising with his usual unexpected grace to stand over me with a secretive smile. "Tomorrow, we put the lesson into practice - you shall lock a few doors with sigils of your own design, and I shall test the strength of your enchantments."
I nod and rise as well. I hardly expected him to comment upon the significance of tomorrow, if in fact he even recalls what tomorrow means to the majority of Valendia's population. If he does, he has no reason to acknowledge it. Not him.
We go our separate ways for the evening, and I take time in the library before retiring to the room we share. I have no right to celebrate such holidays myself, having turned my back on that world, but I cannot help but remember, having them ingrained in me as I grew to manhood.
I suppose I have no right to celebrate a lover's holiday regardless, when he does not permit me to speak of him as such. Gods, I can hardly think of him as such without him giving me one of his knowing, warning looks. The prophet and high priest of the Dark, the gods' hand, is not to be thought of as a romantic conquest, or a target for such aspirations.
Not that I have ever managed to conquer him, romantically or otherwise, and I still know not what I am to do for tomorrow's assignment. A stack of blank parchments rests before me on the table, ready to receive the half of the enchantment that will turn them into a magic key of sorts, but the ink on my quill has gone dry long before I've managed to find something that would be suitably familiar but complex.
Outside the city and throughout Valendia, young men are no doubt readying for tomorrow's festivities - acquiring small gifts and flowers to give to their beloved ones. Purchases for one who would be grateful for such shows of affection rather than ignoring them. Regardless of his feigned indifference, I know better...
And it is then that it occurs to me that two of my dilemmas may be solved at once.
The next day, I stand in the darkness of a long-abandoned building in what used to be a poor part of town, watching as he inspects my work. He walks the length of a long hallway with doors down either side, each door locked with a different sigil of my own design. He nods with impersonal approval, and the metal of his boots clicks on the stone floor as he returns. Stopping before me, he holds out his hand into a shaft of light from a back window. "An impressive first attempt, Hardin. Now, the keys, if you will."
The scraps of parchment are arranged in the order of the doors as I place them in his palm. No question that he knows - for he is more knowledgeable than I - precisely what each flower, drawn in the center of the required magic circle, means in the language of lovers, but he says not a word as he examines each parchment in turn.
A sunflower, for pride. An orchid, for beauty. Beneath oleander's warning of caution lies lavender for devotion. Azalea speaks of fragile passion, which gives way to the tuberose, symbol of dangerous pleasure.
And finally, a single rose in full bloom.
The parchments turn to dust one by one as he dispels the sigil upon each door without comment, but the look in his eyes tells me he understands. It tells me as well that we will not speak of it, no matter how many bouquets I offer him.