The Magician's Trick

When it first began, when all this started, I didn't believe in it… magic that is. There are reasons for this, of course, there are always reasons. When I was younger, about twelve, a magician came to our castle to entertain me and my brother.

He entered into the main hall with flash and flair, pulling coins, and other various trinkets, out of the air, out of hats, even out of Sabin's ears! I was, in a word, amazed, and the first thing I did when the act was finished was ask the magician how.

How did he do it? What was his secret? What method did he use? I still remember his young face breaking into a grin as he swung his arms out in a grand gesture and exclaimed,

"Why, magic of course!" Everyone laughed and clapped and he bowed grandly, but I was not laughing nor clapping. He had told me nothing.

Magic… it is in a way a strange word; a word with many meanings, a superstitious word, and a word that later on in my life would be whispered behind closed doors, and always with fear. But at that time, to me, it was something that needed to be understood.

I hounded my mother about it, but she only smiled and said the same thing the magician had said. Unsatisfied, I asked her again and again, and finally she said to me a little crossly,

"Edgar, why can't you just enjoy something without having to analyze every bit of it. You don't see Sabin in here worrying his little head over some magician's act" She left the room mumbling, "Just like his father..."

And it was true.

I was a lot like my father, and my father like me, because when my mother complained to him about my incessant inquires he finally did what I'd been asking everyone to do.

The next day the magician arrived again and entered a small room, with a table. My father sat with me as the magician laid down all his tools, and began teaching me how he did all the things he had done earlier. When he was finished all I could think to say was.

"Is that all?" The magician nodded weakly and after I had practiced a bit, he left.

I became rather good at the magicians tricks. I still use them today in the court when things get boring. I was able to use it that night when Sabin and I flipped a coin for our freedom as well, but aside from these minor commodities I could see no real value in "magic"

The only other time I thought about magic as something other than cheap parlor tricks was when my mother died a few years later. I kept wishing that I could open a closet door and somehow, magically, she would come out alive and well again. At night I would hear Sabin cry, and I would look pleadingly at the hallway, hoping against hope that mother would come in and make him stop. When she didn't, I became angry at myself for thinking she would come. I was angry, because there was nothing I could do. Nothing could bring her back. Not even magic… especially not magic.

The death of my mother was the beginning of the end for my father; it was also the time the Empire started sending emissaries to Figaro seeking an alliance. My father dealt with them reluctantly, and made no great pains to hide his contempt. I suppose that's why the Empire justified killing him, subtly, of course. At the time I was devastated, but thinking back on it now, it wasn't such a crime, my father was dying anyways.

After my father's death and Sabin's departure I focused myself entirely on my kingdom. Figaro was reduced to a puppet state, or so I had the Empire believe, it was the only way to keep their heads turned. I supported a rebellion and developed Figaro's technology. Figaro was the only thing that mattered to me, and I sacrificed everything for it, but not out of love. Out of duty perhaps, or a feeling of responsibility for others, but I didn't believe in love.

Like magic, love was hollow, an empty word. Something that you could throw out to people and know that they would take it in without question. I "loved" countless women, but it didn't mean anything. As far as I was concerned, love had died with my parents…

I didn't start believing in magic until I met her. I didn't like her. It wasn't her particularly, it was what she represented. Tales of her name and magic were constantly being whispered in my ear, and I couldn't help but be reminded of the magician when she entered into my hall in her flaming red outfit and oddly colored hair. I almost handed her over to Kefka that day, and I regret ever having that thought, but she threatened everything I had worked for, and all in the name of "magic."

During the escape on the chocobo's, when she attacked that soldier with flames that came out of her hands, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut, but even then I didn't believe. When she changed and reacted to the Esper, even then I had my reserves.
I didn't truly believe in magic until I experienced it. When I held that small stone in my hand and felt its warmth and the strange sensation. When I made the flames come from my own hands, only then did I believe.

I thought differently of her after that. She reminded me a lot of myself, struggling in a stream of riddles for the reason, for the answers. She found them, most of them at least, and through her I found some of my own.

I watched her one night, in Mobliz, as a child began to cry. From the hallway she entered into the room and held him until he stopped crying. After the child had fallen back to sleep I watched her leave the room and cry herself. It was as if she had taken all his tears away from him. That night she made me believe again in something else, and I wanted to take that belief and make it real…

I already believed… but I still…

I wanted to experience it.