Author: Cyhirae

Note: Yay, finally an update! Took a bit to get inspiration going again after holidays and other 'fun' events. So enjoy~! And for the record- this one kind of caught me from out of left field...Sometimes, stories just write themselves, what can I say?

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The Trial of the Mountain

The passage to Ordeals is a tedious journey, even before we set foot on the mountain. Palom, for one, has made the trail somewhat longer, insisting we avoid a particular part of the forest at its base. When he finally gives his reasons when we stop for a brief repast of bread and water, I find little enough to argue with about it, however.

"That Dragoon, Kain...he never did go back to Baron. He's around here still; I don't know where exactly he lives, but he's usually been seen around the north-western edge of the woods and shows up in Mysidia sometimes when he needs some supplies. I kinda doubt he'd be too happy to see you."

Truer words were never spoke. I, for one, would not be happy to see him again, either. Even if it were at Zemus' behest, it had still been my power that had unearthed and chained him with things he had left to fade. Resentment, anger, jealousy- I had made those an inescapable set of bonds, and perhaps they still held him now. I certainly had only wanted to see Zemus again simply so I could destroy him with my own hands. I can only imagine the Dragoon feeling the same.

Particularly if those bonds have lingered in some form. It is the only reason I can think that he would remain here in this remote place for years. If there were anything in this region that could kill me and would have the drive to do so past all reason- he was certainly the prime candidate.

"Then I will bow to your rare wisdom; now we need to be going. The peak will not come down to greet us." I ignore the sour look the little dig rewards me with; he's been learning in the journey, at least. Attempts at come backs have become more rare- perhaps he's finally realized I am nothing like my brother; I have absolutely no problem with returning a taunt with another, nastier taunt.

Perhaps I should write a letter of apology to Mysidia. He is bound to return with sharper fangs after this.

At last the forest gives way to the mountain; perhaps the tallest on this little blue and green gem. The peak is cloud capped, hidden from our sight...and from the base, the trail I can see only reaches so far before it is lost amid a tumble of rocks, boulders and jagged bluffs. Peculiarly enough, however, nothing is crawling forth to strike at us. That should not be too surprising, I suppose...with Scarmiglione weakened, the undead have likely tapered off all over the world.

Still, something ominous hangs in the air; not the unnatural cold of the undead but a feeling of foreboding. The moment I set my foot to the trail, there is an urging for me to simply turn about and leave; nothing exists here for me. Before me, Palom looks back at the hesitance, then gives a sudden little smirk.

"Oh riight...this is your first time up here, isn't it?" He looks almost insufferably smug as I continue to linger at the base, a barrier of some sort I can neither see nor properly sense keeping me back. "It's a testing ground; Cecil had to climb it too, you know."

"Of course I know." I level a look fully intended to wither the brat into submission as I finally push forward onto the trail. "I am the one who sent that failure, Scarmiglione, off to deal with you."

"Oh yeah." He blinks a moment, then turns to look up at the mountain with a peculiar little frown of his own. "Well, the mountain doesn't let just anyone ascend it if they haven't already been tested. If you really need to get up here, why don't you just ask Cecil-"

"You could have mentioned all of that before we set out." Well, no use; I'm hardly going to back off now and especially not to ask Cecil to try to do this instead. He could barely sit up in his own bed; did Palom honestly think he could muster the strength to climb this nearly nonexistent trail? He sets off ahead of me with an imperious, put upon little sigh, then proceeds to play 'tour guide' on the way, pointing out various things.

"This is where the fire barrier used to be; it hasn't reappeared since I got rid of it!" and "Right over here is where we first got ambushed by some monsters; I almost got knocked off the ledge by one of those birds!" among other little remembrances fill the silence of the mountain; something I'm finding myself more grateful for than annoyed by. For every step further is one grown heavier- concentrating on his idle chatter is something, at least, to keep my mind attuned to the world outside.

For the one within is steadily trying to impose itself on what I am seeing and feeling. The mountain trail is seeking to become darker, colder...an enclosed, frigid place of endless doors of ridiculous height and width, lit only by the tiniest of faintly glowing crystals set along at intervals. I try to blink it away furiously, trying to settle my mind to the rambling of the mage...but soon his voice begins to come as little more than an echo in that endless corridor, and the weight bearing me down makes itself known when I look to my hands.

The dark armor I had worn as Golbez encases me once more, as it had when I had first arrived in this hall upon the Lunarian Moon. I know what this is; a memory of my time upon the Moon. An odd choice, however...this is not from when we went to face Zemus; nor is it the dream in which I had received my orders from that monster, trapped in the Moon's heart.

This is from the first time I left the dream the Lunarians reside in as their ship wanders the void, helpless and frustrated at my inability to speak so easily as they do; when their pity and suspicion had become too much for that younger me. I had fled the few places in the ship that were set to sustain life, however minimally; I hadn't wanted to be found by anyone for a time.

I had wandered, as I do now, feeling the terrible cold of the void pressing in on me as the air grew stale and thin; the armor is bitterly cold against me, even through the clothing meant to keep the metal's touch at bay. I was lost, then and now, and watching as the night dark armor truly became a night scape as little white stars of frost began to spread.

It was not the horrible, soul-cleaving cold of those dreams...but it was one I knew could be fatal, even so. And the air was becoming foul, unbreathable. I stumble about for some time, trying to reclaim the path I had taken to get here only to find it all looks the same. It is all dark, coated in frost and promising no hope of finding my way back. My voice has all but frozen in my throat with each gasp of foul, frigid air...my attempts to summon forth a spell to send myself back along my path, back to safety, fail as lips tremble and mangle the words that barely have any sound.

Fear propels me to move faster; to find the way and keep moving lest I simply freeze to death. And that is when I see it, as I did then: a break in the monotony of the doors and walls: a window, of sorts. One spanning this massive hall from floor to ceiling, showing the stars that pass by as the ship silently moves through the void...and most importantly, in the distance, showing that little blue and green world I had been born on.

A world I desperately wanted to return to, having found nothing here to hold on to. I watch as it shrinks slowly but steadily in the distance, the gauntlets of my armor freezing against the glass. I pull myself away, leaving them behind as I dash to one door after the next, seeking the one that will lead me outside to see that sight unfogged, as if that would somehow place me closer to it....

"Golbez!"

I have to find the way out; I can't stay in this place any longer. One door after the other refuses me passage as I run, uncaring of the paling of my hands under frost's touch. I have to get out of this dead, silent place; I want to see the world clearly as we leave, if I would never see it again otherwise. That is when I see it; a single green light amid all the pale red ones of doors that will not answer. I make my way for it, ignoring the voice calling after me...oddly mixed though it is. Sometimes old, sometimes young....

"Golbez! Theodore- whatever! Stop!"

The door opens as I approach, darkness waiting beyond. Some voice beyond those yelling to me whispers that this is not how it went; I had been stopped before I had opened that door then. There is no one to stop me now, however, as I plunge for that door...and pain greets me suddenly, exploding across my chest and side as something barrels into me from beyond that door. I fall beneath it, letting out a voiceless cry as what little air I have left is pressed out of me by the weight....

And suddenly there are stars above me, flickering and faint high above a layer of cloud. True cloud, not the false ones carved or painted by a Lunarian wishing for something other than cold metal and crystal. I lay upon my back on wind-cooled stone rather than void-frozen metal and stare up at the face of the one who knocked me back from what I now see was a ledge; a high one. In the midst of that vision, I must have run far up the path and straight for this...a drop which few could have survived.

One of those few is staring down at me now, spear tip pressed against my throat. Kain Highwind, captain of the Dragoons and once-servant of mine when I wore that armor and the name pinned to it. A thin, warm trickle along my neck warns me to lie still- the spear has already settled on its aim and it would take only a thrust from Kain to send it through.

Down on the path, I can hear that voice again- Palom, my waking mind can recall easily enough. He barrels around a corner, breathless and gasping...then draws up short at the sight of the Dragoon pinning me to the ground, hands rising up as if he were the one so threatened, the idiot.

"Ah, hey- Kain! Haha...imagine running into you up here...I thought for sure you were probably asleep right about now..." So that's why the little idiot insisted we climb the mountain near the end of the day. Honestly..."You mind? Theodore and I were just-"

"Theodore?" The Dragoon's deep voice rises as little more than a snarl as that speartip digs in; the threat is plain enough. If I even attempt to whisper a spell, that spear will finish what he's already warned me he wants to do. "I hardly see a 'Theodore' here. I do see someone who never should have set foot on this world again." If I weren't pinned, I would probably be laughing at the hypocrisy here on some levels. Kain had encouraged Cecil to speak to me before we left...though I suppose it was more for his friend's sake than anything to do with me at all.

Any loyalty I had ever had to claim from him, after all, had come with a chain's hold.

"Look, I know you don't like the guy and have plenty of reasons not to-" Whatever fate sent Palom here as my diplomat when dealing with Kain, I curse you to hell. The tip digs a bit deeper; much more and he won't need to press in to do real damage. I will be breathing through the hole he is going to leave in my throat. "Alright, bad choice of words; but this is important! He has to get up the mountain; he knows something about what's been going on with Cecil!"

The pressure on the spear slackens somewhat at those words; Kain looking first to myself then to Palom with a deepening scowl beneath that dragon's helm.

"Then when he was running....he was under a Trial?" There's an odd bitterness to the words, then the spear is jerked away as Palom nods quickly. He hurries over to me as Kain steps away, spear pointing to the earth now. He stares down at us both in some silence; then he turns on his heel to simply walk away, leaving a baffled Palom to watch as he goes.

He would not be so baffled, I think, if he could hear what I do as the Dragoon walks away, as suddenly as he had arrived.

So only that man's sons have any right to redemption? It sets its trial on him the moment he arrives, and yet it has refused me from the onset! The bitterness, the defeat and anger in those thoughts is enough to twist my stomach as I try to staunch the steady, thin run of red from the wound he left. All the more so for the familiarity of the feelings contained therein.

It hadn't been so different the day I had left my then-nameless brother to die after robbing me of my mother. The villagers had taken my father from me, and now this brother I had once looked so forward to seeing had taken my mother in exchange. I had hated him; it had been an unfair trade; an unfair situation in all ways. I had hated him, that he lived when they had died.

"I really thought we'd avoid him...but damn, am I glad that he was being reasonable! I thought for sure he was going to skewer you!" The relief in Palom's voice is near comical, shaking me out of my thoughts as he breathes a deep sigh. "Guess he still cares about Cecil, even if he won't just give up and go home. It's not like everyone gets to have a trial, you know, and-"

"Palom; be quiet." I get myself to my feet again uneasily; the Dragoon has since vanished down the mountain, having little need for the trail as we do...but a sudden, niggling suspicion is rising up. Had that truly been a trial? It had certainly been nightmarish, but it had been little better than a vision designed to send me to my death. And if the purpose had been for me to defeat what had nearly been my death then....

The ending of that memory should have been awakening in Fuso Ya's care; I had collapsed before reaching that door and surely condemning myself to death. That is when he had begun allowing more parts of the ship to be capable of supporting life, knowing I was often restless and knew little of the place. Nothing had changed in that vision from the dream, beyond the door opening.

"Perhaps not all trials are as easily recognized- or concluded- as simply facing up to one's actions, Palom." He had told me of what Cecil's trial had entailed as we traveled; a few times, in fact. A fitting enough trial for one trying to simply shed an ill fitting shell, perhaps...but I could see how it would do little for the likes of the Dragoon. "Come on; if this mountain truly has a Trial for me, I intend to be well rested for it."

I leave the baffled looking mage behind somewhat as I continue on seek the shelter he had spoken of as being somewhere along the path...It had not been that horrible dream nor, I suspect, a trial meant for me; but it had been exhausting all the same and no little unsettling. This whole ordeal of dreams and unanswered questions had given me an escape from remembering the longing and despair that had sent me here; only to find it would be no different, for all those events had been years ago.

On the Moon or here, on this planet, I was still Golbez to all others; Theodore was merely a name to hide behind when I didn't want to invite ridicule. Rubicante had been right in his question: who was I? What did I even think I could accomplish when the adored hero of this world, my own brother, could do nothing with all of his friends to aid him?

Those questions circle themselves in my mind as I silently lay out my bedroll, ignoring the mage's attempts to ask me about what I had seen or how Kain had found me. I simply close my eyes and pretend sleep as they continue to spin about in my mind, digging deeper with every moment. But it matters little, doesn't it? I only needed one question answered here and it had nothing to do with me.

The others...would simply have to wait.

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To Be Continued in: Ancient Legends, Personal Truths