This was going to be a one-shot, but once it crept up to over 10,000 words, I decided to split it into two.
Unlike Just Another Sellsword, this one can't really be read without having also read my 'Camp-Fire Vignettes'. As the title suggests, it's about tying up some loose ends – the generics from Chapter 1, in this case (though it does have Agrias, Mustadio, Lavian etc. in it too).
This takes place a few days before the opening of Chapter 3 of the game. Our team are having a few of days of R&R in Dorter before heading off to Lesalia, where Ramza will be seeking out Zalbaag.
No real spoilers for the vignettes, as yet unseen, from Chapter 2 of the game (except Ladd and Lavian are a couple now – and if you didn't realise that I was practically jumping up and down and shouting out that that was going to happen, you really weren't paying attention).
Loose Ends – Hildy and Ophellia
Boar's Head, Dorter, Mid-Morning
Ramza had assumed he'd be able to wear his old blue tunic for this visit - the tunic which had had the Beoulve colours sewn down the front. He'd unpicked those a year and a half before, and last night he'd begun to sew them back on – he'd need something of the sort to wear when he went to see Zalbaag, anyway. He'd made a complete dog's breakfast of the sewing, so he unpicked it again and decided to go and ask the ladies if one of them could help. As far as he knew, they were in the small public sitting room at the back of the inn. He found them there, the three of them the only occupants.
It was Agrias who put down her book and took the tunic, needle and thread from him. Seeing his surprised face she had asked.
"What? Just because I can't cook, means I have no domestic skills?" They should probably lay off teasing her about her unique ability to burn anything except for water, he thought; she was getting increasingly touchy about it and a touchy Agrias was not good for anyone's peace of mind.
He sat down to wait for her to finish, idly picking up the book she had been reading and leafing through it. He'd read it before and so had she, probably; she devoured any book she got her hands on.
She got about a third of the way through the sewing, having surprised him with her speed and proficiency, when she suddenly held up the tunic in front of her, looking at it critically.
"Are you sure this will fit? It doesn't look nearly wide enough to me." She said glancing between it and Ramza's broad shoulders.
"Try it on, before I waste more of my time on this." She ordered.
"Here?" He said incredulously.
"I doubt you've anything we haven't seen before." Agrias said, then laid one hand over her heart and raised the other as if making a vow. "For myself, I solemnly promise that, however great the temptation, I won't jump on you in a lustful frenzy, just because you have a few manly hairs on your chest... assuming, that is, that you do have any." She added drily. "Ladd's been going shirtless when he's training as a monk with you and we've somehow managed to restrain ourselves – well, apart from Lavian, occasionally, and she's allowed, after all."
Ramza sighed and began to unbuckle his breastplate. The tunic had been quite confining across the shoulders, the one time he'd worn it since leaving Eagrose, he recalled. He gave Agrias a hard look before he pulled the padded jerkin he had been wearing underneath the armour, over his head. Lavian wolf-whistled, as his muscular chest emerged, while Alicia stayed quiet – perhaps the opposite of the reactions he might have expected, had he thought about it. He also wouldn't have expected the blush that had spread across the silent Alicia's clearly embarrassed face.
He almost snatched the tunic from Agrias and yanked it over his head. There was a ripping noise as he quickly pulled it down. Dismayed, he looked down at the way the arm had half-torn itself away from the left shoulder hole and the rip in the material over his right bicep. Ramza realised that, although it had been tailor-made for him, that that had been over two years ago, ready for him to enter the final year of the Military Akademy. At the time, he had been a skinny sixteen year old but he'd spent more than half the time, in between, fighting, so no wonder he'd bulked up!
He pulled it back off and held it up in front of him, looking with consternation and disgruntlement at the damage.
"Ramza, do put the pretty muscles away, or Alicia's face may actually combust." Agrias said, her tone, if possible, even more sarcastic than before. He gave her a fulminating look and caught sight of Alicia doing the same and then he quickly pulled his jerkin back on and picked up his breastplate.
"I didn't want to spend the money that we've made through running errands or off the monster bounties on fripperies."
"Putting clothes on your back isn't 'fripperies', Ramza. That's why you let the three of us have money for new dresses, remember? Besides, you'll need to be well-dressed when you go to see your brother, won't you? Or were you planning on wearing this torn-up tunic? Dorter's a trading hub and it's famous for its tailors; go down to Haagen Street and find one." Agrias said.
"Take Ladd with you." Lavian added. "He was still asleep when I got up but he should have be awake by now. I think he's probably only sulking in bed this morning because, when we got back from the job for the Bacchus Winery, last night, I said I was too exhausted to kiss his new scar better."
Ladd had said at supper that his only serious injury had been a single deep stab wound which had been Cured easily enough. In an aside to Ramza and Mustadio, he'd mentioned something along the lines of 'when I saw that knife coming for me, too fast to block, I was certain, for an instant, that I was about to be castrated! I don't know if that Lucavi scared me as much as the thought of that! It only missed by about an inch!' So Ramza flushed scarlet at the implications of what Lavian had just said.
He saw Lavian's lips twitch and wondered if she had just said it to make him blush. He began to speculate, darkly, about whether female Lionsguards were trained to be sadistic towards any man who was in charge – Alicia didn't seem to have succumbed yet, but it might just be a matter of time! Lavian and Agrias did seem to take great delight in making him uncomfortable – he knew it was just their unfortunate sense of humour, but it really did bother him, sometimes.
"His good clothes are starting to look decidedly disreputable too, and you said we had a decent amount of money in the coffers, for once. You need at least two new doublets, he needs at least one." She went on. Ramza tugged his forelock in mock-subservient compliance and left, wondering why, if he was the one supposed to be in charge, he usually felt like the women bullied him into doing whatever he was told to.
So, nothing loath to ultimately delay seeing Zalbaag again, he postponed his surprise visit to Hildegarde and went shopping instead, taking Ladd and Mustadio along with him – Mustadio had even less than Ramza did in the 'dressy' clothing line. The tailor said that, since the designs were simple, their new clothes would be ready for fitting and finishing first thing the following morning. That was a speed which amazed Ramza, who had grown up in Eagrose, a market town with only a single tailor, who would make you wait up to a fortnight for new clothes. In a town with a street full of them, he supposed they would have to give better service.
Around twenty-four hours after he had originally planned to, he stood on Hildegarde's front door-step waiting for the officious butler he had briefly become acquainted with about eight months before, to decide if, this time, he would be allowed to visit Hildegarde.
"Beoulve?" The tone was disbelieving. Ramza decided that since he had no patience for the butler's attitude that there was a simple way to deal with it - he would lay his heritage on thick, so he stared down his nose at the man and said:
"That's correct – Lord Ramza Beoulve, of the Eagrose Beoulves. Youngest son of Lord Barbaneth Beoulve, Earl of Eagrose, Viscount Garrington and Baron Beoulve and his second wife, Lady Merissa. Half-brother to Lord Dycedarg, current holder of those titles. Miss Merriton and I were at school together and I have actually stayed at this house before, hence I assume you are relatively new here."
This time the butler merely bowed respectfully and motioned for him to enter. Even hating his eldest brother, he had to admit that pretending to be as arrogant as Dycedarg was an efficient way of dealing with obnoxious servants.
He was shown into a small sitting room that he hadn't been in before, which was at the back of the house, overlooking the gardens. Hildegarde was sitting at a small desk and had turned in her seat when he was announced. She looked frozen in place as he entered the room. The butler bowed himself out and pulled the door to, after him. Ramza automatically went and pulled it back open a few inches, as was the accepted way to maintain some of the proprieties when a young woman and man were alone together.
"You really should speak to that butler of yours." Ramza said in a falsely hearty voice. "The man is unbelievably officious." He trailed off, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm so sorry Hildy." He said, his voice barely more than a whisper. She stood, walked stiffly over to him, then pulled him into a brief hug.
"You idiot!" She said as she let him go. "Why didn't you wait for a couple of minutes when you called a few months ago, rather than just leave a card? A calling card after more than a year of wondering what the hell had happened to you! We ran out out of the house to try and catch you, that night, but you'd gone!"
"The officious butler said you weren't in." Ramza said, quite surprised that he'd been hugged and not hit. He'd been so convinced that that was about to happen that he'd cast Protect on himself as he knocked on the front door. He'd wanted his nose to remain unbroken!
"The 'officious butler' is already skating on very thin ice with me. Which reminds me..." She walked over and pulled a bell-cord that hung near her desk. "Ramza, what happened to you? You disappeared, fourteen months later you leave me a calling card one night, now another eight months on, you turn up, looking very... well... very different, and all you say is I'm sorry and waffle on about the butler!" She shook her head. A maid knocked and entered the room and Hildy ordered tea for both of them.
"I'm sorry, Hildy, I ruined everything. Juli dead and the rest of you expelled... your lives... You all had such plans..." There was a long pause, Ramza staring at the floor. He suddenly looked up. "Oh! Delita's alive, did you know?"
"What?" She looked completely nonplussed.
"I haven't really had much chance to speak to him, but he defected to the Southern Sky, sort-of, though I think his real masters are a corrupt element within the Church, and he's kidnapped Princess Ovelia twice in the last few months."
"Ramza?... I don't think you're well..." Hildegarde's voice turned very gentle. "Delita and Tietra died at Fort Ziekden, so he... his ghost hasn't been running around kidnapping princesses... Why don't you sit down?... Oh!... Is this?... Ramza, have you been drinking?" Her voice became sharper and she sniffed at him, presumably for the smell of alcohol. He gave a rueful head-shake.
"No Hildy, one thing you can always be certain of, these days, is that I haven't had a drink!" She frowned at that, but her tone when she spoke was back to gentle and very careful.
"Then... I really don't think you're well... not quite right." She repeated. He easily picked up on the fact that she meant 'not quite right in the head'.
As a tray of tea and various tasty-looking accompaniments arrived, he watched the concerned, almost fearful expression on her face. Ramza couldn't help but grin, though he immediately tried to turn that into a reassuring smile.
"It's not a ghost, or my imagination, it really is Delita, alive and well. He says he was trapped, not too badly injured, in a space under the rubble and somehow worked out how to use Judgement Blade to smash the masonry. So, you see, he was... is a Holy Knight, as it turned out.
"And he's only kidnapped one princess, it's just he's done it twice, the second time after we rescued her and took her to Lionel for safekeeping – only it wasn't very safe, what with the Cardinal turning out to be possessed... Now, do you want to hear the whole story, or would you rather continue to sit there for the next few minutes looking at me like you're pitying the poor delusional boy? I promise I'm as sane as you are, which may or may not be reassuring, of course!" His smile turned insolent for a moment.
Hildegarde gave him a perplexed look, but then sat down on the settle near her desk and folded her arms giving him a challenging look.
"Go on then, convince me you aren't a lunatic, because you keep sounding just like one!"
After about five minutes she interjected.
"A bouncer? You?" He nodded. "And you were living in Dorter for ten months and you never thought to just pop round for a quick visit and let us know you were alive? You could even have just sent a note!"
"I didn't know that you'd care if I was alive or not. I abandoned you, just like I abandoned Delita under that giant pile of rubble." His face became intensely troubled. She just shook her head and gestured for him to continue.
He went on talking but was interrupted again after only a minute or two by another incredulous interjection.
"A sell-sword? You?"
"Mmm-hmm. Are you going to listen or just keep saying that every time I tell you something?"
"Yes, I'm listening."
Three-quarters of an hour later she finally spoke again.
"You know you had almost convinced me of your sanity. But one of the Lucavi? You and only five others fought a Lucavi and won. So, in reality, you are the ones who killed the Cardinal? I heard..." He cut her off.
"I've also heard what's being said. It isn't true – you have to believe me! Look, why don't I collect you this evening and you can come for dinner at the inn and meet the others. Ask them for their version of things."
"Actually, I was going to ask you to join us for dinner. Sam's due back sometime this afternoon.
"Sam? Samantha? Due back? She's staying here? I was hoping you knew about the others."
"Sam lives here now." Hildy said, looking uncomfortable.
"She does? How come?" Ramza was completely confused. Sam and Hildy had been good friends, but for Sam to be living here? Hildy made that sound like a permanent arrangement, too.
"Did you hear any of the rumours that were put about at the Akademy about our rescue mission? You know after..."
Ramza blushed crimson.
"Yes, those ones! The irony is that my mother might be happier if they were true. Covering up a less-than-chaste daughter would have been easier on her nerves, in some ways, than one who refuses to marry any man to give her lots of fat grandchildren. You knew I like girls?" Ramza looked nonplussed for a moment, then blushed again.
"As in, the way I like girls?" He asked, for clarification.
"Honestly, I was never sure about you; you're so damned reserved all the time. If it hadn't been for the fact that he would flirt with anything in a skirt, and then him and Juli, I might have thought both of you... I mean, you and Delita... being as close as you were... were, you know, together." Ramza opened his mouth, then shut it again, not sure exactly what to say to that. Hildy gave a short laugh. "From that horrified look on your face, at the mere suggestion of you and Delita, then yes, I like girls the way you like girls."
"I didn't know... so you and Sam...? Oh!" So he had been totally wrong about Sam liking him like that.
"Gods, no! Surely you weren't so oblivious that you didn't realise Sam had a crush on you, back then?" Ramza blushed.
"I thought, she might... but I was never sure. So, explain about Sam living here now."
"Yes. The reason I mentioned those rumours is that... you know how close Sam's family estates are to Gariland?" Ramza nodded, Sam's home was on the coast, only about ten or twelve miles south-east of that city.
"Well, so, when those rumours started at the Akademy, they didn't spread all that far. Just far enough, though, to reach Sam's parents' ears and the ears of all their friends and neighbours. We'd all been sent home, in disgrace, after being expelled from the Akademy, so..." Ramza winced visibly at that, and Hildegarde broke off her story. "You didn't force us, Ramza, we went with you willingly. Don't blame yourself for something you didn't do."
"I should never have even asked you to come along."
"Maybe, maybe not, but it's all water under the bridge, now. None of us blamed you." Hildy said, and sounded like she meant it.
"Sam's father had already decided that the best thing to do with her was to marry her off quickly, even before he heard about the rumours, and so he'd been casting around all his acquaintances, looking for a potential husband for her.
"I gather no-one seemed likely to be interested, not once the gossip began, then an old friend of her grandfather's whose only son had fairly recently diedchildless, made an offer for her. She was still sixteen and he was about to turn sixty, for the gods' sake! But you, of all people, with your background, know how this works; he had no heir and she was young and as likely as anyone to be able to provide him with one.
"She refused, but her parents insisted. So she packed up her things, dressed up in her old black mage's outfit and walked to Dorter. After all the marching we'd done, her home to Dorter's not so far, really, is it? She came here and asked me for a job. She thought her father might follow her here to try to take her away, but instead her family disowned her. So she lives here now.
"I was working for my Papa, back then, helping to run the security for our trading caravans. With the way that his business has expanded it was always the plan that I would do that eventually, but I was supposed to have a couple of years in the army, or perhaps the Lionsguards, first, to gain some experience.
"Papa's semi-retired now; he bought a small estate about eight miles out of Dorter - Mama's loving being the Lady of the Manor, as you can probably imagine - but he still oversees the important business here, though he has a manager for the day-to-day stuff. Jonathas, my brother, took over all of the out of town stuff; he's currently staying in Warjilis, since the branch-office there has been having some difficulties. And I run my own business out of this house too – caravan security for far more than just my father's business now." Ramza frowned, questioningly, he knew nothing about merchants, caravans or anything connected.
She explained that small traders, unlike her father, couldn't afford to employ full-time caravan guards, so they had been making do with what they could get on a temporary basis, to prevent their small wagon trains being raided too often, but with civil unrest and banditry in Ivalice on the increase, she offered a security service to all business running in and out of Dorter. The traders simply had to wait until there were enough wagons going or coming to the same place for a full-sized team of caravan guards to be warranted and then all of the wagons travelled together, under the protection of one of her well-trained, well-equipped squads. Her teams still operated as security for her family's caravans too, of course.
The idea seemed very logical, and typical of the no-nonsense Hildegarde, but Ramza was still impressed that she had come up and implemented the idea when, it seemed, no-one else had even thought of it.
"So Sam works for me, mostly here in Dorter, helping with the accounts and training new guards in the use of Chemist's items, but she's been out with an actual caravan, this last couple of weeks, and is due back today. She's going to be so excited to see you, Ramza, she was always so very fond of you." Ramza thought about it for a moment.
"All right, I'll come to dinner, but I wish you would come and meet the others. Five minutes with Lady Agrias and I don't think you'd doubt me. The woman's so blasted direct that she could convince anyone of anything."
"'Lady' Agrias? Just who have you been collecting in your little band of pseudo-mercenaries?"
"Oh, didn't I say? She's a Holy Knight and was the Captain of Princess Ovelia's Guard – that was before Delita kidnapped her, of course. We have the two other ex-Lionsguards, the Ladys Lavian and Alicia. After seeing and fighting what we have, they're determined, like me, to do whatever we can to stop this whole mess." He heard Hildy sigh.
"You know, if you'd told me that before, I'd have had a lot more faith in the idea the your story was true and that you weren't delusional."
"Oh..." Was all Ramza said, for a moment. "So you don't think I'm lying any more?" He added with a grin.
"I never thought you were a liar, Ramza. You're... you. Which means you're either telling the truth or you think you are. I am less inclined to think you're a lunatic now, though... or no more than you ever have been, at least!"
He pulled a face at her. It was so good to be chatting with Hildy again, and throwing the occasional insult back and forth. His face straightened and became somber.
"I'm sorry, I lost a lot of what was best about being friends with you four girls when I was trying to be the perfect Cadet Captain, didn't I? I think... I hope I'm much better at understanding that my friends are far more important than trivialities like that, this time around. They all insist I have to be in charge of the team, but I'd rather not, to be honest. So I only give the orders I have to and, if it's a choice, I always try to put friendship first, as long as I can do that safely.
"Well, we all have to grow up sometime. Understanding that people are far more important that a position or a rank is a big part of that, I suppose."
"When did you get so sensible?" Ramza asked.
"I'm a girl, we're always sensible." She gave him a smug smile.
"Oh, of course; it must be my stupid male brain that stopped me from realising that!" Ramza said sarcastically. He was quiet for a moment.
"So, Hildy, you're okay and Sam's okay?" He asked awkwardly. She nodded.
"What about Ophellia?" Hildy gave a deep, doleful sigh. For just a moment, he felt as if someone had punched him hard in the chest, and his breath caught in his throat. Something was wrong with Ophellia and it was all his fault.
"She's all right, Ramza, don't look so panicked! She's married and we just got a letter, a week ago, announcing her first pregnancy. She's fine."
"Did she want to be married?" He asked quietly, twisting his hands together in a wringing motion.
"No, but it's not like it would have been for Sam. He is older, but he's only in his thirties, not his sixties and Ophellia says he's very good to her. She isn't unhappy, Ramza, so you can stop blaming yourself for something which is far from being a tragedy."
"She may not be unhappy, but is she glad to be married?"
"She wasn't, at first, but I can let you see her latest letter, if you want. She seems genuinely pleased and excited to be having a baby. Her husband's wealthy, titled and it sounds as if he'd do almost anything for her. Her life's pretty decent. As far as I know, she's fairly content with things, now... Are you happy all the time?" Ramza shook his head. "No, me neither. I don't think life gives that to anyone, but all four of us are okay, our lives aren't completely ruined - albeit yours sounds incredibly eventful and a bit strange - and you aren't really to blame for anything that went wrong."
Hildy was bending over her desk rummaging in the drawers pulling the occasional piece of paper out. She handed Ramza a fair-sized stack of letters.
"Here, I'll order a fresh pot of tea and you can sit there and judge for yourself if you think Ophellia's all right or not, while I get on with some work. I think that's all of her letters. You'll probably want to sort them into date order, though." He did that, and by the time she had poured him a new cup of tea, he was into the second letter.
… my Father's starting to come around a little - at least, he's less stiff when he speaks to me...
Her fourth letter was the first one that mentioned marriage. It was also the first one to be addressed to both Sam and Hildy.
… so brave of you, Sam, but I haven't the same courage, I'm afraid. Father has apparently spoken to our neighbour, Lord Kenrick Fitzreeve, Viscount Covenham, about my marrying him, and although he's twice my age, and I really don't want to, father's keen on the idea and I don't think I have the guts to do what you did. Besides, I don't suppose your family are really prepared to house all of your friends who run away from arranged marriages, are they, Hildy?...
Plans had become a lot firmer before even the next letter had been sent, a month later.
…I tried to insist that I should at least be allowed to meet Lord Covenham before the betrothal went ahead, but to no avail. He and father signed the papers that make if official and it wasn't until a week later that there was a 'celebratory' dinner, where we were actually introduced. I wasn't really in much of a mood for celebrating, but now that I've met him, at least my worst fears weren't realised. He's not some bent-backed old man, nor is he ugly, fat, smelly or anything else that would be unpleasant, physically. He's not handsome or dashing, or anything I always dreamt of, but he has a gentle manner and a kind smile. Other than that, he's unremarkable – average height, build, pretty much average everything...
The next one:
...I'm really sorry, I had assumed you'd both be invited to the wedding, but Papa's still annoyed about the expulsion, it seems, so no friends from the Akademy...
By the eighth letter Ophellia had been married:
… It's strange really to think that I'm a married woman - for goodness sake, I still have days when I wish I was a little girl again. Ricky is everything I had thought him, kind, gentle and really nice. 'Nice' is the problem, I suppose, since 'nice' isn't really what I wanted in a husband. No, that's wrong. Of course I wanted my husband to be nice to me, but I suppose I just wanted something else as well. Something more exciting, I suppose. The wedding night was symbolic of the rest of the relationship. I'd heard it might be painful...
Ramza laid the letter down in his lap, blushing.
"Hildy, I'm reading the first letter after Ophellia's married and she's just started to mention the wedding night, are you sure I should be reading this?"
Hildy finished what she was writing, and voice held a certain exasperation when she answered.
"Ramza, it's Ophellia, so you can't honestly believe she's changed so much that you're about to read a blow by blow account. She only talks about anything sexual in very general terms. If you can't bear it, I'll précis, I believe the word she uses for the wedding night is 'forgettable' and she calls the physical side of the marriage 'disappointing', more than once. That's about as graphic as she gets." She looked at Ramza and could see he still looked uncomfortable.
"Honestly! If you're going to be squeamish, like this, I'll just tell you the gist of it. Over the next few letters, while she doesn't say anything more explicit, it's pretty obvious she's frustrated because she was hoping for more from marriage, and she's honest about the fact that she doesn't really love Ricky, mostly because he's a bit boring, but she repeatedly says that he is kind and thoughtful in most ways, so she thinks that marriage could be a lot worse.
"So why don't you just skip on to the letter that came last week, where she told us about the baby. I don't think there's anything to offend your maidenly sensibilities, in that one." Ramza wondered vaguely what it was about him that seemed to bring out this attitude in all the women around him. Knowing he was a bit of a prude, they were determined to do what they could to embarrass him at every turn. Hildy was becoming nearly as bad as Lavian and Agrias.
He did skip to that one. Ophellia sounded pleased and excited about the baby, just as Hildy had said. Morning sickness was vile but Ricky was extremely happy about the baby and was being 'a real dear' - extra nice and kind, Ramza assumed - and she did sound pretty content. He allowed the letter to drop into his lap.
"There was a time when I assumed that if I were to get married, one day, it would be arranged – it's what my family do." He said in a faraway voice. "I really hope that if I had, she'd have been a bit less... lukewarm, than Ophellia about it."
"If it had been you, Ophellia, at least, would have been a lot more than lukewarm." Hildy said with a smirk. "Though as to whether she'd have still been describing your wedding night as 'forgettable', I have no clue, and I suspect from your reactions today, neither do you. I wasn't wrong about 'maidenly sensibilities' was I?"
"Shut up, Hildy! Why do all the women I know take a sadistic pleasure in trying to make me squirm?" He asked, blushing.
"It's your fault for making yourself such an easy target." She said, grinning. He gave her a hard look.
"Come on, silly, don't look like that, I'm only teasing... Ramza, please don't be offended, but since you're coming back for dinner, I'm going to be really rude and ask you to leave for now. I have some clients arriving for a meeting in an hour, and since Sam won't be back for some time and I need to prepare for this meeting..." She let her voice trail off. He stood up and, making an exaggeratedly elaborate bow, excused himself. He and Hildy had been far too good friends, in the past, for him to take offence at her asking him to leave and return later when he'd already spent a couple of hours with her.
He smiled sunnily at the obnoxious butler, as he left, while he considered that being good friends with Hildy didn't seem to be something he should have been using the past tense about. Sam had always been the more forgiving of the two, so she would be even more likely to want to remain good friends. He was really looking forward to spending the evening with the two of them.
Author's Note:
I never really realised how crappy this site's spell-check is before - seriously, it seems to think that bicep, combust and sunnily aren't real words!
It seems popular, within the fandom, to portray Ramza as a skinny waif of a boy, which works, in my head, only for Chapter 1 of the game. At this point in the story, although Ramza's middlingly proficient in magick, across the board (I had him as one sort of mage or another for nearly the whole of Chapter 2, after all), he's has also spent a lot of time practising as a squire, knight, archer, monk etc. etc. so he will have muscles! Probably enough to do a miniature Hulk-shirt-rip like that.
OK, so I guess I've retconned Ramza's relationship with the girls, just a little. Well, I have and I haven't, since I tried to imply that we never saw their friendship at its best, because it suffered while they were part of his squad. I know I was never satisfied that I'd shown anything like enough friendship between him, them and Delita in the first series of vignettes to justify them being happy to throw away their futures and possibly their lives on the attempt to get Tietra back. If the relationship was only what I'd showed, they should have turned him down flat when he asked them to go against orders.