Author's Note: These scenes were written as part of a timed challenge between The Mad Poet and myself, and have been arranged mostly in chronological order, taking place before, during, and after the game. This is unbeta'd, and may be a little confusing as it incorporates some of our headcanons about Airyglyph (of which we have many feels). Maybe one day I will end up writing the ridiculously long fic that explains everything. Until then, please enjoy.
50 sentences: Beta Set
Fandom: StarOcean: Till the End of Time
Characters: Arzei Bohnleid and Albel Nox
#07 - Waste/Wasteland
They said the people of Airyglyph were descended from the wolves that guarded Apris's wives, but they had walked out of paradise and only the barren mountains would take them now.
#21 - Quiet
Winter in Airyglyph is quiet but not peaceful, because everyone is dying slowly; or perhaps, it is peaceful but not quiet, because while the dead are all silent, the rest keep crying out for it to end.
#22 - Quirks
Arzei is the epitome of all things Glyphian, except that he thinks in circles and plots like an Aquarian.
#26 - Jump
"You can make it, I promise," Arzei tells him, and holds his hand out into the open space between them and laughing, all smiles, "Don't you trust me?"
#06 - Whimsy
There are no whims, no guesses, no wild stabs in the dark-there is only the plan.
#24 - Quarrel
They fought once, and it made Albel so sick afterwards that he thought he might die from shame.
#46 - Horizon
Arzei expands his knowledge and experience with travel and study, with runeology and mechanics, with learning his enemies ways and exploiting their weaknesses, but Albel never needs to, because he knows that the sun rises because Arzei does not want his people to live in the dark.
#34 - Serenade
She does not sing, but Arzei hangs on her every word like it is some kind of siren call, and is too distracted by his affections to remember what she has said exactly.
#28 - Jousting
The Lightning Brigade has an annual jousting tournament that they attended as young men after Arzei returned from studying in Aquaria; Vox would always bet against the future king and lost, and Albel always told him he was an idiot for thinking he could win.
#39 - Share
When Arzei comes down the Dragon Road from his Ascension and is declared king, it is with a jolt that Albel realizes he doesn't want to share him with the rest of Airyglyph.
#19 - Balcony
They sit out on a castle balcony overlooking the sheer drop off the cliffs to the ocean far below, contemplating the prices they are willing to pay for their kingdom's resurrected glory.
#27 - Jester
There is no laughter when Arzei takes the throne and gives up the name of Bohnleid; not even the court jester can think of a way to joke about the bodies that had piled up along the way.
#15 - Breathing
For weeks after the failed initiation, Arzei watches him sleep, counting his breaths, as if Albel would not dare die while he was looking.
#12 - Blessing
"I have a plan," he whispers it like a prayer, and even though Albel has never believed in any god, he believes that he can do anything Arzei needs him to do.
#23 - Question
He does not question Arzei's assumptions or infallibility, he only asks, "When must we start?"
#38 - Sojourn
He feels like everything is temporary after his father dies, like he is waiting for Arzei to change his mind so that he can end the pain of living with Glou Nox's death on his conscious.
#29 - Jewel
Arzei talks about Elena like she is the most precious of his treasures, and Albel wishes he had never met her so that he could hate her, even just a little.
#20 - Bane
Dragons had always been his greatest fear, which is why he becomes one to terrorize the king's enemies.
#02 - Waltz
It is a complicated dance, this mess of politics, but at least there are only three steps that he needs to know for his part of the war: fear, pain, and death.
#40 - Solitary
It is all smoke and mirrors and lies and vicious propaganda which leads him to become known as 'The Wicked,' and maintaining that lie leaves him lonely and drowning in Aquarian blood.
#43 - Nuance
Albel is not good with cultural nuance, with subtlety and delicacies, so he just glares and sneers and snarls at the other noblemen in the room; Arzei tells him later that it was wise to keep up the act, and Albel has neither the heart nor the articulation to correct him.
#13 - Bias
If there was anyone that Albel wished Arzei would dislike as much as he did, it was Captain Vox.
#16 - Breaking
His body cracks beneath the weight of his gauntlet-arm, his soul buckles under the weight of the nightmare image he has hidden himself in, and the only thing that keeps him standing is the knowledge that Arzei will finally let him break when the war is over.
#37 - Soliloquy
Sometimes Arzei will explain the intricacies of his plans, forcing Albel to remind him that he is the only one who can follow those threads so he might as well be speaking to himself.
#05 - Worry
Arzei worries about nothing, because he has planned for all the possible contingencies, and so Albel does not worry either, because his king is never wrong.
#42 - Neutral
There is no such thing as neutrality when watching their people wither under imposed starvation; they have no choice but to arm themselves with brutal violence and pray for a quick war.
#45 - Natural
They play up Albel's Aquarian features and heritage when he joins the Black Brigade, because Arzei says that the demon that wears their own face will terrify them more than any Glyphian monster.
#08 - Whiskey and rum
They celebrate their empty victories with alcohol and boisterous laughter before he takes over the Iron Brigade; after, they do not celebrate at all.
#33 - Stupidity
His soldiers do not have to be smart to follow him into Hell for the glory of Airyglyph.
#36 - Sordid
It is not a love affair in letters that he passes back and forth over enemy lines, and while Albel does not read them, he watches Arzei scour every response with anguish as though a lover spurned.
#25 - Quitting
Some days, early on in the campaign, he wants to quit, wants to rip the gauntlet off and show the world that he is a cripple and a man and not this monster he has agreed to become.
#31 - Smirk
They both have a smirk: Arzei's is clever and knowing, like he is withholding secrets, and Albel's is cruel and twisted, because he only ever uses it before the kill.
#49 - Victory
The greatest victory comes from taking the border towns before the Aquarians can set fire to their crops; the soldiers all fight harder and rest easier knowing that their families will eat the spoils and survive the winter.
#30 - Just
His hands are red with innocent blood that he can't wipe clean even when he threatens to rub the skin off, and Vox cannot be near a cooking fire without gagging, but it is enough, Albel thinks, if Arzei can escape this war as a just king.
#04 - Wonder
They used to be amazed by magic as children, but now that it is more than fairy lights and parlor tricks, now that it is raining icy death and cooking soldiers in their iron armor, that sense of wonder has turned to dread.
#11 - Birthday
He sends the Queen of Aquaria the heads of her informants as though they are presents that he has painstakingly wrapped just in time.
#44 - Near
The war must end soon, either because he has bled Aquaria dry or because the Black Brigade will collapse under the weight of its own logistical needs.
#47 - Valiant
They think that he is brave because he fights without armor, that he is audacious when he leads the charge into the Aquarian foot soldiers and slices through the heart of their spellcasters, but it is not courage which makes him defy death: he gets back up after falling because Arzei has asked him to.
#48 - Virtuous
The King of Airyglyph will go down in history as a righteous man, as a king who reformed their military and led a brave assault against their oppressors; Albel will keep his image pure and good by becoming a darker shadow for him to be compared against.
#17 - Belief
It is only the king's belief in him that keeps Albel fighting.
#09 - War
It is not a war, he thinks, but the struggling death throes of a starving nation.
#32 - Sorrow
When the plan falls apart under the Vendeeni invasion, it leaves him with a terrible numbness, but the image of his king hollowed out from the loss as he surrenders to the Holy Queen Mother is infinitely worse.
#01 - Walking
Arzei asks him to become a monster, and Albel does; he asks him to accompany the strange off-worlders, and Albel hurtles through time and space into places beyond reality; Arzei asks him to walk the Dragon Road once more, and it is the only time that Albel trembles.
#14 - Burning
The dragonfire had taken them all by surprise, no one quite expecting that somehow even dragons would be so disgusted with him that he would be deemed unfit for consumption, so when he returns up the mountain years later he burns the Dragon Road.
#35 - Sarcasm
It is not ironic when he mocks them, it is not the masking of another emotion when he spits his contempt in their faces; the only one he reserves sarcasm for is the king.
#41 - Nowhere
Arzei could have told him that they needed to go to Greton or the moon before he was satisfied with the kingdom's expansion; Albel looks over the grey nothing that is the Fourth Dimension and thinks that he would paint this, too, red with gore if needed.
#18 - Balloon
The park in the Fourth Dimension has balloons and candy and frivolous things and fools, and it all makes Albel miss the hot misery of Airyglyph's war and his king's praise.
#10 - Weddings
Albel's formal attire is in the Aquarian style with bright colors and long skirts and hanging sleeves-the only thing he hates more than wearing it is watching Arzei trade his happiness for a peace agreement.
#03 - Wishes
He could do anything the king asked, could raze cities and decimates armies single-handedly if Arzei so much as suggested that it was necessary; but there is a haunted look in the king's eyes that the spilled enemy blood will not wash away, and Albel finds himself wishing that he was capable of more than this.
#50 - Defeat
"It is over, Albel," the king says, and his voice is wracked with loss and regret, "Airyglyph has fallen."