[This is a FFXII/Persona 3 genfic, rated PG-13 to R for violence, language, themes, occultism, rampant death, and so forth. The FFXII portion of the tale includes themes and items from Tactics and Tactics Advance, whereas the influence of Persona 3 extends itself mostly to general plot structure.

Final Fantasy XII

Memento Mori: A Tale of the Zodiac Braves

By MDS

There was a great war between countries; a war between families; a war between free will and fate. This war, whom some call The War of the Cryst or War of the Occurians (if they know more of the tale than they ought), or more generally The Archadian/Dalmascan Conflict, ended with a kind of troubled, infant peace between countries. Dalmasca's new Queen welcomed a treaty with the youthful Archadian Emperor, and to the west, Rozarria's great war-machine settled into its slumber once more.

Events continued as they do for man and moogle; life goes on, the merchants haggle, and the pirates still ply the skies. Little note was made of the floating lands that were uncovered, save by those that made profit from it one way or another. And so it was, with one thing and another, time passed.

Prologue – Ten Years Away From A War

He stood on the observation deck, slender hands resting lightly on the rail. His many rings, blue and gold and brilliant red – and one thick signet upon a thumb – tapped a lazy, absent-minded tattoo upon the burnished wrought bronze. Dark eyes with the barest of lines at their corners watched the production conveyers below; ears lightly laden with cuffs and coils caught snippets of bellowed conversation between Bangaa workmen and Moogle engineers; the aristocratic nose captured varying oils and polishing unguents. His body observed. His mind was elsewhere, much to the dismay of the Viera who stood close with arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

Fran uttered a brief sigh and shifted her weight from one silver-heeled foot to another. This minor activity did nothing to shake the Hume man, her friend and partner, her attil vrodhir, from his reverie. Her impatience grew too thick for her to bear after the tenth repetition of some minor jingle coming from his rings, and she finally broke the silence. "The Judge is here for his six-month inspection." She took no small amount of satisfaction from the brief jerk of surprise at the interruption. "All is in readiness for him. Except yourself, of course."

Balthier turned, a puzzled look on his face, and she gestured impatiently at him. "You are always sloppy at your work. What would be thought of you in Balfonheim were they to see you as such? The shirt askew, the cuffs shot, the spectacles upon their chain. At least your trousers resist insult. When the scholar plays, the pirate pays, vrodhir."

"Scholar or pirate, one or the other? I claim both for myself, and have for years. Balfonheim must accept what I am, just as Archadia's court must," he replied in a dry tone. "And of course, agil astaris, I care not for their opinion."

"I do not see the last reflected in your clothing bills," she retorted, just as dry. "That is an expensive linen on your back, bearing an expensive glossair oil. It will be just as expensive to get it out."

"A lack of care for others does not mean I lack care for myself." He tugged his shirt into discipline, curling a lip at the dark oil that marred an arm. Grasping to his left, he found his heavy black coat and pulled it on, his fingers bumping over its embroidered whorls of gold at its edges and sleeves. The elegant item covered all trace of stains neatly, leaving him looking as courtly and finished as ever, as his friends expected of him. Besides, there would be a chill in the office, as much from a stray, as yet unfound draft, as there would be from Judge Gabranth as he played at his role. And played well, to be sure. Ten times or more the game had been played.

Oh well, he thought to himself, pulling a thin gold chain over his head and slipping both it and the attached pair of spectacles into a hidden pocket inside the coat. The script is easy and brief and in a day or so I will buy Basch a beer and the matter is forgot for another half-year. Except that this day felt different than the other ones. Restlessness burned in him, and his mind still felt distracted.

Without a word, for words were not needed between them, he walked away from the deck and down a set of corridors to his secure office, Fran trailing noiselessly behind him.

-----

The steel-gloved hand clasped the portfolio as Balthier wordlessly handed it over. In defiance of protocol, the Judge's helmet rested on the desk and it was Basch's own lightly scarred face that smiled humorlessly at the presentation. "Did you want the rundown on the rumors I'm to check over or not?" he rumbled in what was, for Basch, amiable tones.

"Don't bother, I received a report last week." Balthier smiled thinly at Basch's unveiled irritation. The rumors were the usual filed reports of hauntings or dire experiments, rubbish put forth by those still troubled by the site's reactivation. He'd taken Jules' information, looked it over, and tossed it aside, unconcerned.

The Judge Magister started, jolted into immediate grumpiness by the revelation. "I should not know that you have advance notice of inspections."

"I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. The emperor knows, the pirates know, the engineers know. We're all so knowledgeable here," came the lilting, arrogant reply. Basch grunted irritably in response. "It doesn't matter, Draklor is as clean these days as the thoughts of the Light of Kiltia, if you believe the dogma." Balthier's tone implied that he did not. "You and the Emperor both know that if I'm going to play a dangerous game, it won't be here."

Basch sighed. The pirate-lord was always a handful, but never before at inspection time. A dull headache began to throb behind his eyes. First it had been the abrupt, distracted greeting, a wild change from the cheerful obnoxiousness that usually met the Judge Magister, and now he was gamboling with words. Not to mention that the inspection list was larger than usual and involved the newest airship construction bays. Those alone would take an extra two hours. However, the man had a point. Seven years since he had claimed inheritance as the prodigal Bunansa, at Emperor Larsa Solidor's delighted acceptance, five as the director of a re-imagined, civilian-focused Draklor Laboratory, and not a single piece of paperwork out of alignment or fleck of contraband to be found.

Usually that meant somebody was getting away with murder somewhere, but the controversial lord funneled his antics towards other ends. Balfonheim had a favored house among the Archadian Council, which was always good for a few pirate laughs. Meanwhile, the youngblood nobility had a devil-may-care figurehead to rally behind, much to an Emperor's glee. Not to mention that there was seldom a dinner party where something, from silverware to family heirloom, didn't go missing. Most items turned back up unharmed when the family squalled, a bit of 'practise,' as the Lord Bunansa would explain it when called upon, but a few did not speak up. Frequently, it was a signal that something else was going on and Basch had managed a few spectacular arrests due to the subtle hints.

The Emperor would but smile and wave away all complaints directed at his favorite nobleman, save for a few fobbed off in other ways. It was an efficient method to shake up the old guard and rebuild Archades to better ends, as Larsa frequently explained to Basch. Basch appreciated the constant reminders; between that knowledge and the occasional informant sent to the Judges, it kept him from strangling Balthier as he untangled yet another conflict between the houses.

Balthier cleared his throat as Basch returned his attention to matters at hand. His own reverie had gone on longer than he meant, and he flipped impatiently through the document in his hand. As expected, all inventories, accounting, and personnel looked in order. The Nu Mou examiners Larsa had employed for such business matters would look over the papers in their own exacting way, but would almost certainly find nothing out of place.

Basch sighed and set the portfolio down next to his helmet, taking that up instead. "I suppose, then, we'll just get the inspection over and done with." An absent nod was his reply. "I'll start in the new bays, then go backward through the list. Shake it up a bit, for my own sanity." He began to pull the helmet down onto his head, Balthier's noise of assent filtered into a distant mumble for a moment, until the helm was placed as it ought and the interior acoustics allowed sound to echo crisply into his ears again. Manufacted, shatterproof glass lined the inside of the helmet along the eyelines, and their reflections caused a kind of fish-eyed monitor, a way of enhancing a Judge's field of vision, though it stopped short of being able to see directly behind. Some clever designer had pulled off the potentially unwieldy armor of a Judge well. Dimly, Basch recalled that the pirate-lord before him knew of those tricks as well, and so any advantage would be of limited usefulness in a battle.

Why he suddenly thought of combat against Balthier, he didn't know and didn't dwell on. It was his way to accept anything as a possible threat, though the other man's unusual discomfort today put him on edge. Abruptly, he chose to tackle it head on. "Does something trouble you today, pirate?"

Dark eyes flicked towards his helmeted face, and a shrug formed his initial reply. "Nothing I can put a name on. Perhaps it's merely the coming of winter that discomfits me. Or a passing whiff of boredom." It rang untrue, but Basch knew the man seldom lied out of maliciousness. Likelier the cause escaped Balthier himself and so he grasped for easy possibles.

Basch grunted and took up the portfolio again, the matter cast aside. "Let's go, then."

-----

Six hours and the pacing of countless anonymous, metal-sheeted corridors later, and the pirate-lord Balthier Bunansa was finally able to sink tiredly into his office's chair once more. Like his choice in clothing, his furniture too was bought for both stylish elegance and extreme comfort. The chair, which he privately called 'The Womb,' was the well-crafted room's biggest extravagance. He didn't know how it was made, if it involved ritual sacrifice or what; he would go to war to keep the chair and its sinkable softness, firm support, and perfect height. He'd fallen asleep in it more nights than he could count. That night might have been another, if he were not so concerned with other matters.

Judge Magister Gabranth had left just moments prior, all issues squared away, all parts of the Lab certified legal and documented, and a promise made to share a drink in a few nights when the forms were all sorted out. Balthier liked Basch, he was a good reminder of what Judges ought to be, when not power-hungry fools lapping at the heels of emperors, or, if he were to be honest, wide-eyed children thrust where they ought not to be by another's machinations.

The memory pulled Balthier's face into a moue of disgust and he looked up at the old display of weaponry his father had installed into the office with a flash of resurgent anger. It faded as he puffed a sigh – let the past be the past, then, and dwell no more on it.

Ah, but future always came to be the past, and the past lay markers for the future, and what then? Was that what was troubling?

He drummed his fingers on the ornately carved desk, calculating together his thoughts. Fran passed by the open door and he flicked his gaze toward her, looking but not seeing. She would be leaving for the night, to do what he no longer knew. As a price paid for this new type of life he'd made, he still had a close friend, a partner, an astaris, but not as much time to enjoy those bonds. Not with her, nor with many others, unless the youngblood nobles and the hens and hornets of the old guard counted. Which he did not, save for one or two.

Prices were market-fair, he thought. And I bear merchandise for the longer haul. I knew what I wrought, and knew the endpoint. Can a single man change fate, if he knows the fate well enough?

And if that fate is changed, what else comes about of it?

He had no answer for himself. And though he knew he ought not go and scry, he felt as if he might be less troubled if the memories were made afresh.

Balthier rose from his chair and strode out, seeking his landbound home, a far cry from his Strahl, but owning passages more secure than his father's old Laboratory lairs.

-----

Nobles held homes high in Archades' levels, using private airships to go back and forth. Balthier's ancestral home was little different, although his also bore access to an easy path that led to his beloved airship. It was small, considering that he left most of it closed off since it went unused – a kitchen, a dining room, a handful of studies and library rooms that saw considerable traffic by him even in youth, and four bedrooms, including his own. Were he to open up the rest, the home would double or more. He didn't care. Extravagance only went so far, sensibility rode the rest. After half a decade, he still slept better aboard the Strahl, and frequently did so.

One library was a little different than the others. It was much smaller, for one, and that helped a pirate once called Ffamran claim it as his own at a precocious young age. Oddly designed, for another. Ostensibly, this was to keep stable the cabinets of curiosities – little Moogle carvings and scraps of Viera artifacts on display in lovely wood cases. Worthless, save for the sentiment involved. He'd collected them starting at the age of ten, fancying himself some great scholar of the older races. He'd had better luck with collecting the various Nu Mou texts that rested on the bookshelves, for they had humored him in ways that brightened an inquisitive mind. The rest were books of folklore and legends and great pirate deeds.

There was a pattern here in this childhood sanctuary, surely. A kind of schematic for what builds the man that comes. But like childhood often bears darker secrets, so too did his little library. The secret cubbies had been his delight, bearing not much at first finding than old trinkets of past Bunansa follies – a forged accountancy here, a set of love letters to someone decidedly not a Bunansa's wife there, things of little interest to a young Ffamran. It was the finding that had thrilled him, the discovery of what had been forgotten. There, too, lay a piece of pattern, but now the pattern entombed something else.

Years ago, he had found a cache of auracite at Glabados and, while the ensuing adventure had made a better person and better pirate of Vaan, there had been another secret about it, hadn't there?

He had told no one in full of the odd 'hallucination,' though Fran had hints of it. She'd had to, following along in his mad quest after their return from the floating continent. A moment's blink for them, a year or more of bleak war for him. Aspects of it had shook him to his core; creatures familiar to him, espers at beck and call in his now were actually then horrors seeking to manipulate Humekind like Occurians themselves had done once. Magic weakened, races evaporated, technology broken and scattered. The airship graveyards had torn at his heart, and his sky pirate self would give anything to see such a future betrayed and cast aside. All that, and the sickening knowledge that had turned his gut every day – he should not have been there. The return had been a relief, a year rewound and time put back in its place.

There were, he knew, only a handful of general outcomes available to a sky pirate's life. There were very few truly old sky pirates, the life needed more than a little vitality. One could give up and go away when weary of the life, hoping to become a farmer or something just as dull and evade justice. One could die in glory, at the peak of their career – and he damned near had, aboard that hellish Bahamut – or one could retire in rich faux-respectability, their freedom bought by their legend and, if lucky, one final major heist.

Balthier was a war hero, a noble of the Bunansas, who had been there when the last bullet had been shot into the skull of Archadian tyranny. He had seen the discovery of new races, new powers, and new stones. He was the last notorious pirate known by name on the streets of Balfonheim. In time, Vaan and Penelo might challenge his legacy, but history already knew him well enough. Marquis Ondore had ensured that much, with his constant scribbling on the past. Culturally, that was a hell of a heist already. Sky pirate hero makes good, returns to hometown to be the people's champion. Legally, he was virtually untouchable.

But if the knowledge of this heist got out, there'd be hell to pay. Sooner or later, that bill was going to come due. He had begun to worry it was coming due sooner than he'd wished. Something was going to unleash. The only question was, what?

He trailed his fingers along a piece of misshapen wall that supported a case of wooden carvings. A series of indentations were pressed in a certain order, and a sliver of wall pushed in. Balthier gripped the new hole with a few careful fingertips, lifted, and pushed. A greater piece of wall slipped aside noiselessly, the joints and cuts of the wood cared for by years of gentle polishing.

He beheld the contents of the secret compartment with the wariness of a put-upon priest who might know surely that there are Gods, but knows just as surely that they are seldom the friends of mortal man. Thirteen distinct glimmers shone back at him, carved stones gathered at much cost and trouble. The sight did nothing to assuage his restlessness, as he had hoped they might. Instead, the sight of them troubled him further, the sense that something was coming growing stronger. Thirteen stones that had brought forth countless wars and countless conflicts lay before him. Stones that were just as dangerous to fate as the Occurians themselves had been – and he had his doubts that their final word on the world had been uttered.

The Zodiac Stones.

He shut the compartment with a scowl and stalked off for a drink.