One Thousand And One Ivalician Knights
One: Orbonne Monastery (Just give us the Princess, or that beautiful face of yours will be scarred forever!)
Lezales is probably imagining that the Nanten cloak feels different from his normal one. The only real difference, the essential difference, is the color of the crest. The color of the lion.
Now his thoughts feel like they're swimming in treacle, a string of mental profanities gradually squeezing through in an orderly line, while his body feels frozen underwater by the holy knight's attack. He wonders if he will suffocate before they get around to finishing him off. Then, as his frozen-open eyes tell him that will not be the case, Lezales wishes he could die wearing his own cloak.
Two: Dorter Trade City (I said I don't know!)
"Damn, the Hokuten."
He sits in the muddying street, stares at Wiegraf's departing form, thinks Sonow you worry about your own hide. But no time to bemoan that. The others are rushing out now, and he stands. It's only kids. They can take some kids on their own, right?
No, he finds out, no they can't.
He should act a proper Knight of Death, he thinks as the cadets bind his hands behind him. Be stoic, dignified, defiant. Why the hell not? What's left for him before he swings but to be like Wiegraf wants at the last?
Three: Sand Rat Cellar (Hey, did you hear? The Hokuten are moving.)
Wiegraf disappears into the cellarpart of Sand Rat Cellar, and they look at one another. If he strains, he thinks he can hear the fighting start beneath their feet. Somebody shrugs as if to say that well, we tried. Out of our hands now.
"If we get a ransom for the Marquis," he says knowing what a big if that is, "like Gustav planned…"
As he babbles on, someone screams "Oh God!" and points out a window. No glass in the window, nothing to give pause to the arrow that takes the screamer in the shoulder.
The Hokuten move.
Four: Lenalia Plateau (Forget it. We might as well surrender…)
As she watches Miluda falling askew on the rocks, her own sword falls from her hand and her knees go slack. I did say we should've, she thinks as she gathers the presence of mind to raise her arms above her head; she is not sure if she ought to be sorry for this. She might even have gone with Gustav if he wasn't, well, Gustav.
The Hokuten boys seem to have recovered and now they shout that they just want to get to Fort Zeakden. Clear out, go away. She gladly obliges them before realizing she's forgotten her sword.
Five: Fort Zeakden (There are about fifty of them. I've been informed one of them resembles Wiegraf!)
In the moment before General Zalbag's response he sees through the snow to the fort walkway. There's one of the Death Corps sitting with his legs sprawled, seemingly in shock, and what looks like a small girl in bright purple, crumpled prone.
Then Zalbag acknowledges him and passes off command to the Limberry cadet. As they head for the pass, he glances back and catches sight of another squad of cadets. One is on his knees and his hair is dark as the hair of the girl on the walkway.
He's got more to think about than that, right now.
Six Zirekile Falls (We came to help the Princess! Why would we want to kill her?)
Another lot runs up, with Gafgarion among them. The princess and her bodyguard yell for one another. Next thing he knows he's yelling at Gafgarion, giving the game away or else tossing it over the falls. Then Gafgarion kindly explains to his gaping, erstwhile comrades just why they'd want to kill her.
"Even princesses can die for getting in the way," he hears as he engages with a wide-eyed boy. "That's what royal blood is about!"
The boy scampers away and flings a spell at him, blotting his sight; blinded, the last thing he hears is the bodyguard's outraged reply.
Seven: Lionel Castle and Bariaus Valley (Saving St. Ajora is the will of the high priest. The gate will open for he who would save the high priest. Open the gate!)
He watches them enter. Then, when he's chasing down Agrias Oaks, he wonders how it came to this. It's not for him to question the Cardinal, he knows, and it's a flaw of his that he does it even silently, but he does his job and he does it well.
Then he's half-slipping in the wet grass toward the sound of the whistle. He knows the geography and just as he can't stop questioning the Cardinal, he can't stop thinking about St. Ajora's disciple, gone to ground in this valley. Of course the princess is not as special as that.
Eight: Riovanes Castle (H… help… M… monster…)
He falls to his knees as the castle doors swing in, then knees his way forward, meaning to scream to the others, but it strangles in his throat when he sees there are bodies outside as well. He falls all the way then, still just inside the castle walls, and moans what he would have screamed as he reaches out for the hand of someone he's got no reason to expect will help him at all.
The hand that eventually takes his is small and cool to the touch. He begs Ramza Beoulve help me, save me until he passes out.
Nine: Riovanes Castle Redux (R… run… it's… dangerous…)
Going into one of the cells had sounded like a good plan. They were out of the way, hard to get out of – stood to reason that they were hard to get in, right?
He realizes his mistake the moment the girl kneels beside him. He was going to ask her to lock the door, but of course they don't lock from inside. They make convenient gift boxes for the creatures rampaging upstairs.
… but for this one, now. But for this one.
He tries to tell her about her chance. To his last breath he wonders if she understands.
Ten: Bethla Garrison
"… Please," says someone else, voice trembling. "Obey the orders." And now's the confrontation bit, and he feels sick. Why can't Count Orlandu just admit it, he wonders, confess and get it over with? Maybe then he'd stop shaking so bad.
He keeps his mouth shut and stands by the door watching his (former!) commander watch Prince Goltana as he's warily prodded along by the other knights, until they manage to prod him into the hall. Before he heads out to join them, he looks back at Prince Goltana as well. He's not sure what he expects to find there.
Eleven: The Hokuten Camp (I'm fine… just my head… hurts)
"Pull yourself together!" General Zalbag's saying, which means he doesn't have to pull himself together, and that's good. There are already enough people coughing, enough people sprawled unconscious or may as well be. She joins these people even as she tries to assure him.
She drifts up out of the black to hear him calling for a chemist. She tries to stand; with that failed, she tries to crawl. She's still trying when he rushes past again. She stares up, thinking she sees a bloody dagger in his hand, but later she decides it must have been her fever dreams.
Twelve: Igros Castle (Dycedarg)
He takes it all in even as he shouts, and wishes he hadn't. "Zalbag's insane!" Dycedarg shouts back, and that explains it all, doesn't it? "Capture him!" Yes. Capture him. Fix him. Set it all right and back where it ought to be. Even when the other knights rush in, Zalbag doesn't shift his sword or take his eyes off his brother.
Then young Ramza appears. Before he can figure that out, Dycedarg turns into something and admits to patricide. Then Zalbag disappears like he's been carried off by a celestial convoy. At this point, he questions his ownsanity.
Thirteen: Zeltennia Castle (Highness! Are you safe?)
As they turn and drop to their knees, Hyral orders them out. They obey after some befuddled stammering, which he leaves entirely to the other man to voice.
"Aaaww," the others tease him after. "Courtly love. Figure you're competition for Hyral, ah?" He stays quiet.
Queen Ovelia was kneeling when they managed to force the door. She was kneeling level with Olan Durai's bloodied form, and she didn't look half as scared as he'd imagined she would be during the frantic seconds out in the hall.
She'll make a great queen, he thought then, though he couldn't have said why.
Now the story can be told…