Disclaimer: I don't own Dissidia.

I really like Golbez, even though I've yet to sit down and really get into FFIV. Maybe in the next few weeks, sometime. I don't like how he beats me up in Dissidia, but that's kind of my fault for just chucking magic around and not really putting any thought into the battles. Please enjoy!

Chapter Three: Moonlight Sonata

Zidane. What an onerous name, but what a delightfully adorable imbecile. Why did you save me?

Like I said before, possibility is a wonderful thing to entertain. The imagination is almost as fantastic of a construction as a nightmare, for distracting from the real. But is this world real?

I can taste the cold on the wind. I can feel pain in it. But this world that Chaos left behind cannot possibly be real, not like mine. It is a fragment world, composed of beautiful, blade-sharp shards of the worlds we all abandoned.

"I like this one. It reminds me of home," I say to no one in particular, satire biting my tongue. And it does: the shard I am standing on was another world's moon.

"It was mine," I hear someone say behind me.

"Yours, Golbez?" I respond, without turning around to acknowledge him. Why waste the energy, when I don't have much to spare in the first place?

"Someone told me something about you, little bird," he drones, clanking up to me. I don't remember who started the bird jokes, but I suppose they could be worse. I know that, behind my back, their sneering whispers are certainly less innocent than the occasional quip about my hair. Not that I don't have an equally scathing opinion of each of them.

I don't want to be here right now. I want to sleep.

Sloth is one of the most beautifully indulgent sins, almost as delightful as lust. Don't get me wrong: I spend as much time doing nothing as I ever did, but the fact that my deteriorating condition necessitates rest takes all the fun out of luxuriously lounging about.

It's really not fair. Gluttony is, after all, barred from me. I suppose drinking in excess would have the same eventual rewards as sloth, but the last thing an Angel of Death needs to do is lose his sense of judgment.

Am I greedy, prideful? Perhaps. I can't think of any particular incident, but I don't doubt it. I'm certainly greedy for anything that resembles an ordinary life, but I wonder if that's closer to wrath. Indignant wrath, directed towards Garland for cursing me as such.

In fact, I'm entirely certain that I'm irrevocably guilty of every sin that I can possibly trespass onto, except for envy.

"I've heard that the one who would fight you is your younger brother," Golbez says.

"That's right," I smile slowly, hate crystallizing in my eyes. "Perfect little Zidane…"

Golbez clears his throat. "I'm sorry?"

And my blood freezes. Had I said that out loud? "I would prefer if you called me Kuja, if that's convenient for you," I say then, turning away. I take a few steps to separate us.

"Kuja. I do apologize, and I mean it. It's not very respectful, or professional."

Some feral part of me resists the urge to growl under my breath. Does he think I can't tell when I'm being made fun of?

"What's it to you, anyways," I demand. "Who wants me dead? So what if it's my younger brother? What does that have to do with anything that you and your grand plans could possibly care about?"

"It's just that Cecil—" he begins. I don't have time for him. I don't care.

And then I see. I linger on this side of the edge, so that someone looking up would only see the sheen of starlight against the stone. Because that someone would recognize me.

A heavy hand settles on my shoulder as I watch my brother run off into the distance with his friend in tow. Didn't I get rid of Golbez already?

"Is what Jecht says true?"

I sigh. "What is it that Jecht says," I ask blankly. My voice communicates apathy that I typically reserve for close friends.

"Well, one could say that you're Garland's canary."

I could choke. I really could. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. So I compose myself instead. "In my world, being someone's 'canary' refers to someone's true love. I pray to everything that might be conceived of as a god that we don't share that interpretation."

"That's strange," he says, and shakes his head. "I suppose I would have to come from your world, but I don't see how such a connection could have been made. Because… aren't canaries the birds that are sacrificed?"

"I don't follow…"

"Their keepers raise them so that they can be brought down in cages into the mines, so that at the first scent of poisonous gasses, the canary will die as a sign for the miners to leave the area."

"I'm not Garland's pet, if that's what you're trying to say," I tell him as calmly as I am able.

"Of course not. Why else the cage?"

I have no response to that. And I tell him so.

"You're a brave one then, singing even as you're perfectly aware of the bars. That way, he won't know how much you hate him."

Then I laugh. "Oh, he knows how much I hate him." And then I stop, and I realize that the conversation I'm having is the one conversation I told myself that I would never have. A few words of feigned sympathy, and I'm…

Well, I'm singing like a bird. How pitiful.

"Why are you here, Golbez," I suddenly demand, turning on him. He can't meet my eyes without looking down at me, so I don't bother to meet his. Instead, I look past him, taking in the shell of dust around us.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you 'don't know'?" I retort, my voice cool as it sifts through his pathetic response. And then I see that his answer is correct, but for a different question.

"You see, I died fulfilling Cosmos' will. I don't know why I'm here, when I'm as loyal to her as my," he pauses, and shakes his head, "as Cecil."

"Maybe Chaos just likes you more," I smirk. I know better than to fall for his tricks.

And then he appears.

He comes from nowhere, carrying himself like the emperor he once was. He does not acknowledge me immediately, of course not. But he strides between us and nods solemnly in Golbez's direction.

"Golbez, good day to you. How are you faring?"

Realizing that my eyes might be seen as pleading, I pull my gaze away from Golbez and diffuse the tension between my shoulders. Honestly, I don't know where it even came from.

"As well as any other day," Golbez responds. "What might I do for you, Emperor?"

The Emperor smiles apologetically. "I'm terribly sorry to inconvenience you. Am I interrupting something?"

Yes, you are, I glare. It's not the truth, but since when does that matter?

"Nothing that can't be interrupted," Golbez shakes his head. I should have been nicer to Golbez, because then he wouldn't be ignoring me now. "What is the matter?"

"Nothing's wrong. I simply seek private audience with this one—"

"—no."

"I beg pardon?" the Emperor asks, his face mockingly innocent as he looks to me. He offends my senses.

"No," I simply say again, and turn my back without as much as a goodbye. I suddenly feel cold; I need to go someplace warmer. I ignore their voices as I leave this fragmented moon world behind.