Chapter 12: To Oversleep Per Chance to Dream?
Some people emailed me asking about the whole "… what do you mean, they came back from death?" thing. I have a whole guide about it on the old forum, a link directly to it is in my profile here, look for: Necon Guide Link.
On with the fic!
"How is the armor coming?" Garnet asked. At Beatrix's request, she had ordered the finest blacksmiths and craftsmen to come to Alexandria Palace and aid them.
"Good!" Ruby stated.
Beatrix nodded her agreement.
"Things are going much quicker than we expected. With this new Terran technology, what would have taken us months to do will only take days!" Beatrix exclaimed. "You see, these books did not just teach us how to make the armor; it taught us how to make machines to make the armor."
"Is there any chance at all that we will have something by the time the World Rulers get here?"
"We've got over sixty trained blacksmiths working daily on this! We might be done tomorrow!" Ruby shouted
"Tomorrow?" Princess Garnet gasped.
"That's a little extreme." Beatrix corrected, shooting Ruby a glance. "I can guarantee it done before the Powers come, but we can't say an exact time. We mustn't work these people to death. I offered them the amount of Gil per hour you told me I could and they are free to leave whenever they want and come back whenever they choose."
"But, surprise, surprise, ain't anybody leavin…" Ruby giggled, her accent coming back.
"Well for that price I had hoped to get this done as soon as possible." Garnet smiled. She looked around the two women, and at the pieces of metal that had, apparently, already been completed.
"Black?"
"Trust me, Princess!" Ruby winked and then rushed off to assist one of the engravers with a design.
"Black?" Princess Garnet stated again.
"It's a strange metal, the machines produced it. Though from the testing we have done the mechanics assure me it will cool into a foggy gray once it is finished."
"It can't be black." Garnet stated, remembering Garland's armor.
"I understand, Princess, but Ms. Ruby took over design, I am simply here to make sure it turns into a workable suit of armor and not a costume. She says she knows Zidane and knows what he would want."
"He would want black?"
Beatrix could only shrug at this. "It'll cool down," she said with a bow.
"… Tell Ruby I want a sample of all materials being used." Garnet said, a hint of worry in her voice.
Beatrix, again, bowed and Princess Garnet walked back to her room quietly, trying her best to drive out images of Garland from her mind. Trying to remember that no matter what this Terran armor looked like, the monster that was Garland was dead... and Zidane would never, ever resemble him.
Zidane fought against such actions. He said it himself, he would never complete Garland's plan... It will be fine.
Zidane hadn't gone to bed until half an hour before he was supposed to be awake, so he was in too deep a sleep to hear Steiner pounding on the doors.
"THREE DAYS! THREE DAYS! GET UP! GET UP! GET UP!"
He was dreaming.
"Kuja! Can you hear me I'm coming to get you!"
"You still have time... Forget about me and go."
"Just shut up and stay where you are!"
"... I don't understand you."
"Okay, here goes nothing," Zidane ignored his brother and started his decent into the vines. The Iifa Tree's roots flew around frantically. Zidane sprinted to the tree, avoiding them as they tried to smash into him. Another set of green roots flew toward him, colliding with the other ones. He hitched a ride on a root, standing tall and proud on it as it flew toward the tree. It smashed into a wall of rock, which Zidane jumped onto and ran as fast as he could. He jumped into a hole of the Tree, falling. He saw Kuja on his way down, lying there dying… Zidane plummeted to the ground, hitting it with a thud. "U...Ugh..." he moaned....?" Zidane stood up. "Phew... Still alive..." He looked around. "I guess that was pretty crazy."
There wasn't time for anything else, though… he'd known his purpose for coming here the instant he'd decided to come… He had to get Kuja. So, he ran up the tree to where he'd seen him.
"Hey! Are you alright?"
"Zidane...?" Kuja looked over at him. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to go..."
Zidane sat down. "Wouldn't you do the same for me if you knew I was dying?"
A moment passed in silence
"Never mind." The answer, or lack of one, stung... but Zidane did his best to ignore it. Why should Kuja have saved him, anyway? Why had he even asked? Zidane guessed he'd just… hoped.
"Your comrades were able to escape?" Kuja asked.
"Yeah... I knew you had something to do with it." Zidane confirmed, thinking over how they must have escaped from death… it was very much like how Kuja described having taken a soul in order to Trance, wasn't it?... Who else could do that, if not him?
"... I'm glad they made it."
"Yeah, well...it's our turn to get movin'." He looked around, wondering how they would escape this time.
"... ... I don't deserve to live after all that I've done. I'm useless to this world."
"No one's useless... Zidane said. "You helped us escape, remember?"
"... After you and your comrades defeated me, I had nothing left... nothing more to lose. Then, I finally realized what it means to live..." Kuja said, "I guess I was too late."
Zidane wasn't sure what to say to that. While he was trying to think up an answer, Kuja started to drift off.
Zidane looked over, noticing the sudden lack of movement."Hey! Don't you go dying on me, alright?"
There was a loud noise… and the vines started coming again. Zidane looked around, quickly, but where was there to go? There wasn't enough time… to get them both out of there.
The idea to run and save himself never struck Zidane's mind. He'd come there to save Kuja. If he was going to leave him, it would have been when the others left… it wouldn't be now.
He lunged forward, using his body to shield his brother's as he looked around and watched the vines coming and slamming into the tree around them.
Then everything was silent and dark.
"We gotta find him!" Blank shouted.
It was days later…
Mikoto walked ahead of their group.
"Kuja... What you did was wrong..." She whispered mentally into the wind, hoping that at least one of her fallen brothers would hear. "But you gave us all one thing... Hope... We were all created for the wrong reason, but you alone defied our fate. We do not want to forget this. We want your memory to live on forever... ...to remind us that we were not created for the wrong reason - that our life has meaning." She looked back at the group of people who searched the bottom of the tree, an area she was unable to reach because of all the monsters. She sent that image out in her mind, for someone else like her to see.
"Zidane? I don't even know you. But I want you to be alive, to be okay. Zidane? Kuja? Please… answer me."
Zidane woke up to those images and the monsters swarming around him. He heard and saw it all as he staggered to his feet, trying… trying to survive. His trance that lasts only a few seconds blew his previous thoughts from him as the darkness and the silence returned.
"Zidane? GUYS! HURRY UP! I FOUND HIM!"
"ZIDANE!"
Zidane jumped out of his bed, hitting the ground hard on his back. The sudden scream had startled him.
"Ow…"
"GET UP, NOW!" Steiner screamed.
"What the hell?" Then Zidane noticed the time on the clock. 12:00. "Shit!" Zidane jumped to his feet and ran to get ready.
Half an hour later.
He opened the door to find Steiner, Beatrix, Garnet, and Queen Brahne staring at him.
"What?" He asked and scratched his head.
Garnet punched him in the arm. "We thought you were dead! Steiner's been screaming for hours!"
"I was not screaming, I was yelling!" Steiner sulked. Screaming sounds to girly in his mind, yelling is a much better word.
"Sorry."
"That's all you have to say for yourself?" Beatrix snapped.
Zidane nodded and is punched again, this time by Beatrix.
"Ow!"
"Now, everyone stop. I assume he has a good excuse..." Queen Brahne butted in.
Everyone looked back at Zidane.
Sure do! I was catching a few z's in dream land! Oh yeah, that'll go over well...
Zidane stared wide eyed at them. He took a step back, pulled Garnet with him, and slammed the door, quickly locking it behind them.
"Hey, Garnet, wanna run away again?"
"What are you up to now?" She laughed, listening to the uproar from all those now outside the door.
"Nothing. I slept in late. That's all there is too it... C'est tout, as they say."
"You always sleep in late."
Zidane gave a faint nod, "Not eight hours late."
"Oh. You're going to die. They are going to kill you!"
"Thanks, Dagger, real reassuring."
"I assure you, they will kill you."
"Is there a back exit?"
"Nu uh! Come on, Zidane, face them like a man!"
"… Dagger, I congratulate you for finally finding some fun in life, but now is not the time to be acting like one of my friends from Tantalus."
"Well, you could always-," Garnet's sentence was interrupted by Steiner knocking the door open with his shoulder.
"YIPE!"
"RUN! ZIDANE, RUN!" Dagger cheered as Zidane bolted down the hall.
Run, Zidane, run! Steiner heard it, like an order, and thus, that is what Zidane did.
All day.
"Stop! Make it stop!"
"Things get hard, you run; you get in trouble, you run, things get difficult, you run. All you ever seem to do is run... What if Princess Garnet went against her better judgment and fell in love with you? Would you run?"
Zidane was on a treadmill type of thing. It was a 3'ft wide by 5'ft long cage, basically, with a machine powered floor. It was also on an incline and the bars had electricity running through them so you couldn't stop no matter what. Much like what some trainers use to train greyhounds to run races. (Believe it or not.)
"Open the door!" Zidane ordered.
Steiner waved it off, "Never mind, don't answer that."
"Rusty! Let me outta here!"
"You see, I figure I'll just get all that running out of your system now, so I won't have to worry about it."
"DAMMIT YOU TIN CAN! LET ME OUT!"
"You would think with all that running you've been doing your whole life, this would be no problem."
"I HATE YOU!"
"That's fine," Steiner smiled. He looked at the clock and saw that it was five till nine. "Oops! I'm late! Beatrix wanted to meet with me."
Zidane sighed in relief, thinking this meant he was free to go.
"I'll see you later!" Steiner announced as he started toward the door.
"WHAT? You can't just leave me in here!"
"I'll be back soon."
"No you won't! Beatrix can talk for days! LET ME OUT!"
"That's not a very kind thing to say. I'll do you a favor, though, and fail to mention your comment to her. Fare thee well."
"What?"
"Fare thee well." Steiner sighed, looking back at Zidane who gave him a confused look.
"It's a-," Steiner stopped and thought about how best to explain the sentence. He nodded quickly once he had an idea, congratulating himself.
"Shakespeare," he explained.
He could see it click in Zidane's mind. Fare thee well, goodbye, good luck. It was a commonly used line in Shakespeare's plays.
"Is that some kind of sick joke?"
Steiner smiled, "That was an example of how you should be speaking from now on."
With that, the Captain Knight departed.
Zidane glared at the door, then at his surroundings.
"This sucks!"
It was a fair amount of time later, after Steiner had finished making his rounds and making certain his knights were all in line and working, that he remembered about Zidane.
"Ah! I forgot!" Steiner gasped as he ran back into the room he had left Zidane in.
Zidane was still running. His failed efforts to escape had kicked the machine into a higher gear. Steiner slowed it down.
"Open the freaking door!" Zidane snarled.
"That would be dangerous-,"
"RUSTY!"
"Because a sudden stop would shock your system and could kill you."
"Ugh! How much longer do I have to be in here?"
"Five minutes," Steiner promised.
Zidane could feel the machine slow.
Get slower.
Slower still.
Slower and slower until it finally stopped. Zidane stopped a few seconds before it did and then kicked the door.
"Let me out, Rusty!"
Steiner walked to the door, "After you promise not to attack me."
"LET ME OUT! RUSTY!"
"Temper, temper."
"You are so loving this." Zidane pouted, tail flicking angrily behind him and he crossed his arms; glaring at the captain knight.
"I must admit I am," Steiner grinned.
"Ugh…" Zidane gagged, looking away. "…by the way, what you were saying before, about Dagger going against her better judgment and falling in love with me… what did you mean?" Zidane looked back over at Steiner.
"Well, the issue is she already has. And though it is not a problem for us, to some people it would be." Steiner looked at Zidane, gauging his reaction.
He considered Zidane a friend. As Garnet looked up to Beatrix, he hoped Zidane would look up to him and he already respected the boy. Zidane had proved himself in Steiner's eyes. At least… mostly. Steiner would always worry about everything, he always had.
"Because I'm a thief," Zidane snarled. His anger wasn't directed at Steiner, for the moment, but at society in general.
"No. Because of your past; because you were a commoner and a thief."
"… Were?"
"Yes. You are a Knight now. And while people can disagree with her love for a thief, her friendship with a Knight would be looked upon highly." Steiner tried to assure him.
"All right, then. Teach me to be a Knight..." Zidane sighed.
He felt like that had been the hundredth time he had said that exact sentence. Steiner opened the door and it was as Zidane stepped out that the agony his muscles had been put through showed itself.
"OW!"
"Come on, keep moving and it won't hurt as bad."
"Why do I doubt that?" Zidane hissed, ready to collapse. Steiner pushed him out the door.
"Titles."
"I don't see the point in this," Zidane groaned.
Steiner and Zidane were patrolling the outside perimeter of the Palace and while they were doing that, Steiner had been giving him lessons on how to be a noble.
It was about an hour later. Zidane had dropped the second they left the guardhouse and refused to move. Saying he was in pain and his legs didn't work, but then Lana mentioned lunch was ready Steiner had never seen Zidane move so fast in the entire time he had known him. Beatrix asked Steiner to patrol and he picked Zidane to go with him and was pleased when Zidane didn't argue, though he had been very busy helping Lana throw breadsticks at another knight.
Now they were patrolling!
"Social standing and proper etiquette can be told by how a person is addressed. Now, titles."
Zidane sighed. "M'lord or M'lady – respectful. Sir or Madam, Gentleman or Gentlewoman, Cousin or Cuz...—,"
"Zidane!"
"Equal birth standing," Zidane smiled.
"Continue."
"Your Majesty or Your Highness- King and Queen."
"Very good, now, how would you great a member of the Royal court?"
"Sup, dude?"
"ZIDANE!"
"Howdy partner?"
"GRRR!"
Zidane laughed as Steiner hopped with anger. "Your Grace."
"Correct. How would you great a craftsperson, a market man? You know…"
"A peasant of the working class? Nice, Steiner."
"I-err."
"Master or Mistress Artisan."
"Exactly!"
Another night with little sleep and much to learn, three days to go, Zidane wondered if he really could do this. If he could change his lifestyle completely in a week.
… I had comments for this chapter… but I don't remember them.
Reviewers review!