THE THRONE ROOM, CORNERIA, WORLD B.
DAY 03, CYCLE 14
BENJAMIN
"King Stephanus, please." Benjamin urged again. Kaze had insisted they leave, and Benjamin was certain that that line of thinking was correct, but he wanted very much to help. Everything he'd seen up until now had told him that was necessary. With all this fighting, sometimes people lost track of what mattered most: people. Whether or not this King and the real King in the real world were one in the same he couldn't say.
That revelation was yet to come. "Boy," the King responded, "If you were told to choose, between believing that your family was still alive and abandoning that hope, which would you choose?"
"I would choose the truth, my lord." Benjamin said, not at all as sure of his words as he sounded. "I would want to know."
"I already know, and I'm afraid of admitting anything more."
"Because admission has made you believe you are responsible for what has happened here?"
"Because admission has made me realize I am responsible."
"Then what do you propose to do about it?"
"There is nothing to be done, boy."
"Isn't there? It seems to me you've got two choices: Let go and move on, or wallow here in guilt forever."
"Move on where, boy?"
"Home, my lord. Home to your family. They're waiting for you. Can you keep your lovely wife waiting any longer?"
"They're waiting for me?"
Benjamin turned the King's attention to the relief of his wife behind the throne. "Yes, my Lord. Can't you see her? Her arms are wide open for you, welcoming you home. King Stephanus, Lord of Corneria! You've been sleeping, my liege. Isn't it time you woke up to that beautiful wife of yours?"
"Jayne," the King whispered, reaching out for her. As he did, his hand began to fade away. He turned as his face vanished and mouthed, "Thank you, my boy" between tears. And then, at last, King Stephanus of Corneria was Sent, his spirit departing its prison.
"See?" Benjamin said, turning triumphantly to Kaze, "And you thought it was a bad thing!"
Just then the walls began to shake, and the floor pitched. The castle was crumbling. Relieved at last of her King, Corneria was now tearing herself down for lack of her Sovereign. The last remnants of the once proud kingdom could not sustain themselves without him.
"You were saying?" Kaze snorted as they ran for the exit.
"I know, I know!" Benjamin groaned over the terrible din of stones shrieking as they ground one another to dust.
They fled the collapsing castle with all haste. Ceilings caved in behind them, walls extended their hands in an effort to restrain, and the floor imploded behind their heels. Every step mattered, and any could cost their lives.
Benjamin tripped. His toe caught on a rock, and he stumbled forward. Crashing into Kaze, he tumbled forward and downward. But Kaze's balance was better than Benjamin's, and he rolled with the fall, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and hurtling out the front gate. The castle toppled as they panted and gasped for breath.
"Whoooo!" Benjamin exclaimed. "What a rush!"
The metal encasing Kaze's arm opened to reveal a gun, pointed squarely at Benjamin's face. "Talk," he demanded.
"I'm talking, I'm talking! What do you want to hear?"
"You could start by explaining some things, I think. Like who The Scholar is and how you know him."
"Hooo boy," Benjamin stammered. "That's gonna be hard."
"Do it anyway."
"How? I mean, what if I told you you were a Chocobo?"
"What?"
"Would you believe me? No, it'd sound crazy, right? Right. But what if you were a Chocobo and just didn't know it? It'd be really hard to explain it to you as long as you didn't want to really know the answer."
"I do want to know the answer."
"You're not ready to believe you're a Chocobo yet."
"Wark, wark, kid. Talk."
"Oh man, you're serious, aren't you? How can I explain this to you in a way that won't make you want to blow my head off?"
"You could start by giving me some answers."
"Yeah but how will you know if I'm not lying?"
"I won't know if you don't say anything at all. How do you know the Scholar?"
"I don't actually know the Scholar."
"You sure as hell acted like you did just a little while ago."
"But the fact remains that I've never actually met the guy before today."
"Then why'd you act the way you did today?"
"He just creeps me out, you know?"
"I don't. And I'm not buying such a pathetic little explanation."
"I ain't sellin'." Benjamin retorted.
"You sure are. You threatened him and he backed down. That guy knew my own damn thoughts, and you threatened him. Who is he? How do you know him? Who the hell are you?"
"Me? I'm one of the good guys, duh. He's one of the bad guys."
"And how do you know this?"
"You're really not gonna let it go, are you?"
"No."
"What if I told you you were asleep until recently, and that The Scholar is one of the ones who tried to wake you up?"
"And?"
"And he tried to wake you up in the worst way he could, so that you'd be deprived of hope, and he alone would be the sole dispenser of hope. Then he could do whatever he damn well pleased."
"Is that supposed to mean anything?"
"What?"
"What a vague threat. "Anything he damn well pleased,"? Pathetic. You're going to have to do better than that."
"At this point, you can't be sure I'm not lying to you at all. I could tell you about a world of dreams disguised as an afterlife, of a game of Gods in which we've all been caught up by mistake, of love both false and true, of friends who've died, of horrible, unspeakable pain and suffering the likes of which would make the source of your petty, brooding angst embarrassing and laughable in comparison, and of angels and demons and reports and secret wars and destroyers and builders and flowers and flames and it would all come off as lies to you at this point."
"What?"
"You're so ready to disbelieve, aren't you, Kaze? So ready to give up on us all because you can't trust us, and you're so ready to distrust us because you can't trust yourself! Wake up, man! Look around you! You're in a dead world, pressed into the service of would-be-Gods, on the run from horrible crystalline monsters, and you've just fled the collapsing castle of the ghost or echo or spirit of a man imprisoned against his will in this hell-hole and do you stop and think to yourself that maybe, just maybe something really big and ominous is going on around you and that something really precious and unspeakable is at stake here? Do you?! No, you don't.
"You think about yourself, and your problems, and your pain, and you ignore the pain of others around you! Do you still want to leave?" Benjamin shouted, batting Kaze's gun out of his face and drawing his sword as he got to his feet. "Then go. Just go. I can't do all of this again. I can't suffer all of this a second time. I just can't."
Kaze stared in surprise for a moment, then raised his gun again. After a moments consideration, he lowered it and began to walk away, uttering only one word in response. "Again?"
Benjamin realized he'd played his hand too soon, and sank to his knees as Kaze began to fade in the distance. He had not intended this. They needed to stick together, to be a team, and he'd let his own pain and feelings project onto Kaze and drive him away. And worst of all was that he'd foolishly clued Kaze in to more than he needed to know.
"Kaze, wait-!" Benjamin called, though he knew it was too late. His mood blackened from there. He really was not interested in doing this all again. It had cost him everything last time, and he didn't have the energy to devote to all of this anymore.
That was the real reason he'd been so devoted to trying to Send King Stephanus. Benjamin was tired. The others were all resting now, but not him. He didn't get to have a break. No, instead he got to have his heart broken and his back stabbed. It hurt too much to remember, but unlike the others, he couldn't shut the memories out anymore.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could still remember it. He could remember the crumbling city, the golden tendrils, the sound of her increasingly mad laughter, the way her hair had turned white, the sound of it begging her for mercy just before she killed. The way even her lap felt cold in the end. And how his hand had struck . . .
No. No more. Not now, not again, not ever again.
Kaze had walked back in the direction of camp. That's where Aya would be, complaining about the Manikin. And Y'shtola, Brandt and Layle, so clueless and full of hope. And Ramza . . .
Benjamin turned in the exact opposite direction and started walking. He just couldn't do it again.
