Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) do belong to me.
I originally started working on this when Silkscreen Requiem just refused to be written, and soon I found myself typing out eight chapters of this over a period of three days. Please enjoy and review!
Break My Fall
"Kuja! No, don't you dare close your eyes one me—"
Zidane's gaze fell and he pulled his bleeding brother close. This couldn't be happening. Zidane had figured that it would all work out; that as long as he tried, then he could save his brother.
"Please," he said to no one, "I wish—I wish that this had never happened. I wish that we could have switched places. That he had been the one to live in Gaia, and me on Terra; that way, I could save him. We're not that different, right? I wish that I could have—"
And then he choked on his words. What felt like a blunted spear had pierced through his midsection. His arms went slack and he dropped Kuja; his eyes fled immediately to the last shaft of light filtering through the tumultuous branches. It filled his gaze, and…
Chapter One: Apocalyptic Dreams
Late morning sunlight filtered through the windows into the halls of Alexandria Castle, setting it afire like a shimmering cathedral. But inside, it was a little too quiet and still for such an exciting day; not only was it the final night of the Alexandrian Theatre Festival, it was also Princess Garnet's sixteenth birthday. So Queen Brahne took her conversation to the outside terrace.
"I Want to Be Your Canary is the final performance of the night? I remember that you told me it was your favorite. That it reminded me of your late husband, the king…?"
"Yes," Queen Brahne sighed. "I can't tell you how much of a comfort you've been in these past two weeks. It seems like I've known you for so much longer."
"You can't expect everyone to understand. Your husband's vision could easily be misinterpreted."
"Before he died, he said to me that he wished that the entire world be united under hope and light such as that which ruled Alexandria," Queen Brahne reminisced as she gazed out over the town below the castle. "I just didn't have any idea how to possibly fulfill his dying wish until you suggested that I do it myself. And with your tip about the summons, it's almost as if it were meant for me to do this. She was sent to me, after all."
"Princess Garnet? Yes. Your husband—you really loved him, didn't you? It wasn't just one of those arranged royal marriages. I can tell just by looking at the princess… it doesn't matter that she wasn't the one you gave birth to. She's beautiful on the inside as well as the outside, and it proves that the love you shared with your husband was beautiful, too. I think it's quite something that you want to preserve your husband's legacy like this. I mean, what good's a crypt or mausoleum, really, when you can build his dream instead?"
"Just one question for you," Queen Brahne said as she turned her back on her kingdom and faced her conversation partner. "Eidolons are all well and good for large attacks, but what am I to do about foot soldiers? Not that my Alexandrian soldiers aren't capable, but I don't know how General Beatrix will take this. She does overthink things sometimes. Perhaps I should replace her with someone whose loyalty is unquestioned, like Captain Steiner."
"An excellent idea, your Majesty. It's not General Beatrix's fault, but anyone who is apt to misunderstand you should have no place in your husband's dream. And you're absolutely right—you need soldiers on the ground that can't possibly be defeated. If you would give me but the smallest bit of time, I'm sure I'll find something for you."
"Do I have your word?" Queen Brahne asked.
"Of course. I'll get my hands on what you're looking for, or my name's not Zidane Tribal."
"Stupid, fat elephant woman," Zidane muttered under his breath as he walked himself down the stairs. The queen trusted him so much that he went without a guard escort even though he was, technically, just a player from Lindblum participating in the festival. But that just proved to Zidane how idiotic they all were.
What was he supposed to do about her request for foot soldiers? The summons were one thing, they were already sleeping inside Princess Garnet's body, waiting for tonight when she would come of age and they would stir, just begging to be plucked and used for his—pardon, her mother's—purposes.
He guessed it would have to be something magical, something that would dazzle the elephant woman. But magic wasn't exactly his thing—he didn't come here under the guise of a merchant of death, after all.
He stopped walking so loudly when he heard voices float down from the staircase on the upper floor. Looking up, Zidane shrunk against the banister and listened just in case it was something interesting instead of the usual court melodrama.
"You are completely hopeless."
That was General Beatrix.
"I—I am not! Beatrix, it's not my job to know where her Highness is at all times; I'm her tutor, not her governess. Why don't you yell at Captain Steiner instead?"
And that was… well, Zidane just smirked at the notes of fraught panic he heard in his voice.
"I'm not yelling at you!" General Beatrix insisted, her voice notably louder than necessary. Then she seemed to realize this, and she sighed heavily. "There's much for the princess to do today, what with it being her birthday, and she was to immediately come downstairs after her white magic lesson with you."
"You don't have to sound so accusative. When I went to her suite, she was still abed. She'd mentioned to me that she'd been having that nightmare lately—the one with the storm—so I thought that it would do her well to get an extra hour of sleep instead of exhaust herself over white magic on her birthday. If she disappeared after that, it's hardly my doing. Have you checked her usual haunts yet?"
"No, you were my first thought," General Beatrix admitted, and it came out oddly as she said it. After a moment's hesitation, the conversation continued.
"Well, that's charming enough. I would offer my help, but I think that you'd believe I was just in the way. Go speak to your soldiers. Make them do their job, and let me get back to mine."
One pair of footsteps walked off, but General Beatrix remained. "You wouldn't be 'in the way'," she sighed to herself. "I guess I should have said that to his face, then. He must hate me…"
How adorable, Zidane mused. But he had better things to do than listen to General Beatrix's dysfunctional flirting. If the princess had run off, then maybe he could run into her and they could have a nice conversation. Maybe she liked I Want to Be Your Canary too. Personally, he thought the play was so sappy that it made him sick every time he heard someone quote from it.
As he left through the castle doors, he caught sight of a strange kid running past him on the manicured lawn, chasing after a butterfly. The kid wore an oversized straw hat that looked as if it had been ripped apart by Mist-spawned beasts and sewn back together in several places, and an ill-fitting blue waistcoat over what appeared to be striped pajama bottoms. Since there weren't any guards chasing after this out-of-place boy, Zidane had to assume that he actually belonged here on the castle grounds. That didn't make sense, so Zidane followed. If the kid got suspicious, Zidane could always ask where the kid had found the hat.
But the kid was oblivious, or at least found the butterfly infinitely more interesting than the blond-haired player walking casually behind him. A gentle wind picked up along the lawn and carried the both of them through a well-trimmed arbor to the dock.
Zidane smiled to himself as he saw the princess. He might not have outstanding magic, but he sure had luck. He wouldn't have recognized her in that huge white robe she wore; the wind had pushed the hood back. She sat on the dock with her feet dangling over the water and she stared meditatively into the pendant she wore around her neck.
But when the strange kid ran over, the almost hurt look on her face forgot itself and looked up just in time to see the butterfly flutter away from the kid and take to the sky. She laughed.
"Vivi, it's all right. What would you have done with it if you had caught it, anyways? Butterflies don't make very fun pets," she reassured him.
"It was going to be a birthday present…"
"You don't need to give me a birthday present. The fact that you're here is enough," she said, and that's when she looked up.
"I've seen you before," Princess Garnet said cautiously as she stood up.
Zidane gave a little bow, and then wondered what would be the best way to change the subject. "I don't blame you for coming out here. I bet you get way too much attention on your birthday. They're making quite a fuss looking for you up at the castle, by the way."
Princess Garnet shrugged, and seemed to drop her guard a little. "It's not really the attention. Everyone is quite understanding. I just didn't want to have to sit through lessons on my birthday. Not that white magic isn't interesting, it's just that—well, never mind," she cut herself off with a blush.
But from what he'd heard, she had been given the day off. So there was more to that sentiment than just sitting through the spells and etching them into memory.
"Interesting lessons can't pull you through every day," Zidane commented, and nodded towards the dock. "You don't mind if I sit down, do you? I think the lake's pretty peaceful to look at. If I had a place like this, I'd come out here all the time."
The princess sat down with some space between Zidane and herself, and Vivi squished in between the two. Zidane noticed the strangest thing about Vivi—he didn't seem to be made of flesh and bones, but instead of some magical matter. Dark magical matter. He sensed black magic, and some Mist, and even what felt like a soul. Strange.
And just when Zidane opened his mouth to not-so-innocently ask about that pendant she wore around her neck, the air between them and above Vivi erupted into a puff of fire.
"Sorry!" Vivi squeaked. "But that was good, wasn't it, Garnet?"
"You're getting pretty good at this black magic stuff," the princess told him. "A little more practice controlling your magic, and soon you'll be setting Steiner's knights on fire. Just a little bit on fire," she clarified as Vivi's eyes widened in terror.
"Black magic?" Zidane asked in confusion. "Vivi, how old are you? I'm Zidane, by the way. Pleasure to meet the both of you, sorry for not introducing myself earlier."
"Nice to meet you," Vivi replied. "I'm going to be six tonight, just like Garnet's going to be sixteen."
Zidane whistled. "Wow, six and already you've got some black magic under control? I don't believe that. I've only known one other person in my life who could cast black magic well when he was six. Where are you from?"
"Here," Vivi answered easily.
"Vivi's one of a kind," Princess Garnet clarified. "When I was about ten, a student from the university arrived at court. My mother set him right up with Doctor Tot and soon enough he was buried in stacks and stacks of books. But that meant he spent a lot of time in the library, and that meant that I always knew where to find him when I wanted to bother someone."
"You were a terrible child, weren't you?" Zidane asked in mock innocence.
"I was not!" Princess Garnet insisted, and it wasn't until she saw the sideways grin on Zidane's face that she knew he had only been joking. "He's my white magic tutor now. His name is Kuja. I used to pull his hair because I thought it was silver thread," she admitted. "And his tail. But do you want to hear the story or not?"
White magic? Zidane thought. Brother, please. Talk about selling yourself short.
"Sorry," Zidane said sheepishly, shrinking a little into his shoulders. But inside, he tried to keep himself from dying of laughter. "I do. Go on. Please?"
Princess Garnet gave him a long, sideways look, and then cleared her throat. "Since he wasn't old like Doctor Tot, I thought he had been sent by my mother to be a playmate. Anyways, I bothered him so much when he was studying that one day he went into his room with a bunch of strange scraps of fabric. Odds and ends that he must have begged off a court seamstress, I guess."
"And one week later he called me into one of the reading galleries upstairs and introduced me to this little person-like creature sleeping there in his arms, dressed in the same scraps of fabric I had seen him carrying. I remember our conversation exactly," she said.
"He placed the sleeping creature in one of the chairs and made me sit down. The first thing he told me was, 'this is Vivi. He is not one of your dolls.'"
" 'But he looks like one,' I said to him, and he answered, 'that doesn't matter. He is just as much of a person as anyone else.' But I had seen him with the fabric scraps, and I told him that I saw him making Vivi, and I said that Vivi couldn't be a person because people are born, not made.'"
Zidane didn't remark on that.
"And anyways, he insisted that Vivi had been born, just 'differently', as he put it. That convinced me when I was ten, so then I asked him if that made him Vivi's father. He paused for a long time before saying 'yes', and then I asked him who Vivi's mother was. And when he didn't answer, he looked down to the lower level and of course there was General Beatrix walking along."
"So I asked him very loudly, 'is General Beatrix his mommy?' You should have seen his face! Vivi woke up right then, which is rather good timing, now that I think about it."
Zidane chuckled. "No, I was right. You were definitely a troublesome child."
And then Zidane had an idea. Vivi didn't have much Mist inside of him; that's probably why he was so small and completely ill-suited to what he had in mind for Queen Brahne's request. But if knew the recipe and made a few changes, like a full-sized body and a lot more Mist, then something like Vivi would be very nice, indeed. Every ruler in this world dreamt of a mage army.
