I was thinking about those Quickenings... Seriously, where does all that power come from?

Then I thought about this. Here it is.

Basch never tells anyone, but when he channels all of his mist into his quickenings, Demons come and whisper in his ears.

Not the metaphorical demons, either. Dark voices, crumbling under reality and as coarse as steel wool, are chanting in his ears as he directs the anti-dark into two globes, or temporarily shatters space, or directs flaming blades through his opponents.

He can't understand them, he doesn't want to. They love the use of his contamination, corrupting the bodies of those he strikes is their butter and bread, so they form the quickenings.

But in the dead of night, when it's his turn to stand watch over the company as they sleep, he holds the souls of demons in his hand, and grins at the night sky.

Power, it seems, has a way of granting vindication. Revenge that he doesn't want to take consumes his mind.

--

Vaan likes to think that every time he generates an explosion, it's fueled by the burning passion that lies within him. Every time the Pyroclasm sets off another flare, it's his will to make the world right that forces the flames to rise ever further.

He thinks that when he raises his hand, the red spiral responds to the call in his heart.

Nobody tells him that he looks a lot like the commander ordering the first Magicite bomb to be dropped in the Second Kiltias war. Not many people make the connection, but Balthier is somewhat skittish whenever he's alone in the same room as the boy.

The Wind from his second quickening is like the currents of air of the city below the bomb going off above it. The tornado, ripping everything apart before…

The Pyroclasm, a burning maelstrom that rips the world asunder, almost silently. It looks like you were staring out the eyes of a young boy, wondering why his mother was gibbering with terror before a sudden void washed over him.

Vaan shivers in the night on his watch, fighting the strange feeling that once; he was an innocent whose entire universe suddenly went white. Memories that aren't his plague his dreams.

--

Fran knows what fuels her Quickenings. Truth be told, it somewhat comforts her that she isn't as distant from the wood as she once thought.

The Feral Strike and Whip Kick attacks are simple to figure out. The rage, the suffering she had to endure from her self-inflicted ostracizion all comes from the little places in the forest home, hating her as she grew outside her bounds.

So when she asks her sister if the wood hates, and her sister replies, Fran sees the real answer in her eyes.

She leaves the wood with certainly stamped hard on her chest, she could barely breathe from the pressure.

Her final technique, though, is one that her blood runs with. The pure chill of the arrogance of her race can shatter. Those shards can slay, each one another Viera just like her who thought the outside wasn't strong enough to resist Viera pride.

Fran knows she'll join them, one day. It's a small price for a long life.

In the night, she tries to make her peace with the wood, and fails miserably. A solace she can never have is what taints her every move.

--

Ashe's techniques are not as pure as she hopes they are.

The fire and lightning belongs not to the holy church in the strictest sense of the word, and it certainly doesn't belong to the earth-aligned Royal Family. Rather, it was forged by the sorrowful ghosts of those who died in the Rebellion's interrogation room, a room she personally supervised.

Her first technique is not a cleansing, but a torture, a cruel mimicry of the holes burned into the feet of those who would defy the church. It did not tolerate treachery, sin, or other misdeed. It purged the spirit of the recipient through pain. Firey lances arose from the ground and quickly widened the wound, the sound of the screams carrying into the land of the dead.

Her second is significant in that it is not subtle. Rather, it represents the many blows used to 'tenderize' somebody before they were interrogated. It was brutal, crude and not deserving of a princess; but it was a necessary evil.

Her final technique brings innovation to the rebel inquisition. At her suggestion, Imperial soldiers would be electrocuted to within seconds of their death, often cooking in their metal armour. The stink of charred human flesh made her wonder just what she was willing to sacrifice in order to bring her country back.

When she watches over her new companions, Ashe wonders if they ever had to forfeit their humanity for their ideals. A purity that she's lost is what she yearns for.

--

Balthier's quickenings are probably the ones least fretted over. He understands that he has nothing to do with the spirits he channels, and that he had nothing to do with the natural disasters that obliterated their former lives.

From the Fires of War to the Floods of the wide Ocean to the treacherous stars themselves, Balthier felt little regret in harnessing the raw hatred those ghosts felt for the world that had spurned them.

He could feel the flames lick at his skin, his ears ringing to the dying screams of children. The pounding in his skull as he felt how it was to drown was nothing new.

But when he looked to the skies and felt his heart clench when he thought a star seemed to be growing larger by the day, Balthier felt regret. He had let fear enter his soul in his need to fend off his opponents.

At night, Balthier twitched as he watched the fire, and cursed fate in all it's forms. A wanderlust that he thought he had is suddenly gone.

--

Penelo is, as well as a fine dancer, a dangerously good actor.

It is from those skills that she convinces the dead children who wander the earth to rise up and protect their 'mother'. She raises a portion of her opponent's energy out of their body in Intercession, and the children arc towards it, screaming for the blood of those who would harm her.

For her second, she strips them of their outer shells and flings them at the foe, their final cries as ghosts are ones of betrayal. It breaks Penelo's spirit little by little as the battles drag on, and the guilt slowly overwhelms her.

For the third, she calls to the children to stop time and spend the eternity playing games with mother.

They do, and she tricks them, shattering the world they created, what they thought could be a heaven.

Penelo lies awake, sometimes, wondering who made a living out of breaking the hopes of children.

In the night, as she watches the horizon, she glances at Vaan and prays that he never asks for children, either adopted or (And she hoped that it one day might be the case) by her womb. A guilt she doesn't deserve now haunts her nightmares.

--

Each one of the party looks at the night sky, holding secrets.

Each believing they were alone in their suffering.

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