Chapter 21: Are You Always an Idiot, or Just When I'm Around?

The next morning was usual.

Steiner wanted Zidane to wake up; Zidane did not want to get up. In the end, neither was happy, but Zidane was awake.

He watched Mikoto leave and then went to the meeting Steiner had called.

"Since you're late, Zidane, you get full duty today!" Steiner announced.

Full duty was the ultimate punishment, seventeen hours of work. You guarded the guardhouse, dock, the new airship port, and became everyone's lackey.

"… Someday all the bad Karma you're building up by torturing me will come back to haunt you…" Zidane announced as Steiner scoffed and headed off to patrol. "…That day, is today." Zidane decided that if he had to do full duty, he was going to have fun and make sure they never made him do it again.

Every time someone asked him to do something, he asked if they wanted fries with that. He then encouraged his colleagues to join him in a little synchronized chair dancing, which worked.

Zidane put a garbage can on the desk in the Guardhouse and labeled it 'IN'. He also decided to develop an unnatural fear of swords…, which was rather humorous for about 4 hours.

He put decaf in the coffee maker and decided that once everyone had gotten over his or her caffeine addictions he would switch it to espresso. Even if it took months, he could wait.

He replied to everything someone said with, "That's what you think." and finished all his sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy". As often as possible, he skipped rather than walked. He also decided it would be fun to ask random people what sex they were. Brahne didn't like the game.

When questioned, he told Steiner, "It's not the voices in my head that bother me, it's the voices in your head that do."

Steiner learned to avoid him.

Every time Zidane saw a broom, he yelled, "Dagger, your mother is here!"

Needless to say, this angered a few people. He also made beeping noises whenever Steiner and or Brahne backed up.

"Zidane! What is wrong with you? Why are you bothering everyone?" Steiner yelled.

"It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off…" Zidane mused.

"That's it! You're on patrol duty with Jordan!" Steiner sentenced.

"Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?" Zidane asked.

"Will you, for once, do what I say!" Steiner shouted.

"No! My powers can only be used for good!" Zidane replied.

Just then, Queen Brahne walked up.

"What's the problem here?" She asked.

"What am I? Flypaper for freaks?" Zidane was not in the best of moods… this many hours at 'work' was driving him insane. He received glares from both people. Then Jordan arrived.

"Ah... I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again..." Zidane sighed.

"Hello, Zidane. Nice to see you're still alive," Jordan lied.

"I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public…" Zidane hissed at Jordan.

"Oh look, a fine example of wit." Jordan said to Zidane as Lana walked in.

"Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't watching, didn't ya?" Zidane fired.

"Jordan, you're just acting out because you're afraid of Zidane," Lana added.

"If he had a brain he'd be dangerous..." Jordan growled.

"Lana, listen!" Zidane exclaimed. "If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean!" The three Knights in training COMPLETELY ignored the Queen and Captain glaring at them.

"Well you know what they say, stupid parents get stupid kids!" Lana laughed.

"I can't believe your siding with proof that evolution can go in reverse!" Jordan said to Lana.

"I don't symbolize evolution; I fall clearly under the revolutionary category. In accordance with the prophecy." Zidane retorted.

Jordan glared, "One-celled organisms outscore you in IQ tests."

"You two stop fighting!" Steiner ordered. "Zidane, mind your manners."

Zidane grinned. "All I'm saying is he makes stupid look smart."

"It's a complement for you, Jordan." Lana snickered.

Queen Brahne and Steiner got in between the soon-to-be fight and sent everyone to their opposite corners before they went about their way.

"Another day, another day out of duty…" Zidane applauded himself.

As he was following Lana, he happened to look up and see Prince Drake and Princess Garnet on the balcony. They didn't see him and they were laughing. Zidane stopped walking. He watched the Prince.

"What's wrong with you now?" Lana asked, walking back after she noticed he had stopped.

Zidane pointed at the Prince and the Princess and gave her a questioning look.

"Oh yeah, they've been spending a lot of time together…" Lana admitted.

"... You emphasized "lot"... Why?"

Lana shuffled her foot. "Whenever you aren't around, he is."

"Oh... I do not like this..." Zidane muttered.

"Sorry…"

"What? Don't be sorry, it's not like it means anything." Zidane said, mostly to himself.

"…"

"It doesn't. Nope. Not at all. Nothing to worry about. Drake s my friend. Dagger's my girl."

Lana tipped her head once. "Dagger may be your girl, but Princess Garnet can only have 'relations' with royalty if she wants to help prevent wars."

"Lana… How can that be true, after everything I've done; everything I am doing?"

Lana sighed. "A Princess can't marry a peasant… Not when she's an only child and the future of Alexandria rests on her. A Knight is a possibility, but it is unlikely that the World Leaders will let her without argument, and massive amounts of gossip. You don't add anything to the pot. Anyone who would ally themselves with Alexandria because of you already is, and, well, the others don't like you much… Prince Drake is… well, if they were to wed, even if it was just a promise ceremony, it would link the Mist Continent and the Forgotten Continent... actually, it links the Mist Continent with all the other continents since Daguerreo has connections reaching far beyond what Alexandria has. He's… perfect."

First, Zidane glared, and then he got really nervous. "… She'd do anything for the good of Alexandria."

"You get to live in the castle, isn't that good enough?" Lana asked.

"No."

"Look, maybe I'm wrong?" Lana offered. "I've spoken to Garnet, she says they're just friends-well... she worded it differently, but that's what she meant."

"How did she word it?" Zidane asked.

Lana wanted to change the subject... but she saw the determination in his eyes, so she answered. "Well she said he was her best friend, after Beatrix."

"What...? I thought... I was..."

"Okay, what happened was I mentioned she was spending a lot of time with him, and she said she knew, and it surprised her in a good way. Before she ran away with you, she had never even left the palace except to visit the Regent and his Wife with her father. Her best friend was Beatrix because she didn't know anyone else, and Beatrix sees her as the princess, so a deep friendship was never fully possible. But ever since your adventures, she's been getting out a lot more, and meeting new people... It's an exciting time in her life, Zidane. She met many of the World Rulers... and before you returned, she was very depressed about that. She didn't like any of them, and started to worry that she didn't belong."

Zidane shook his head. "Didn't belong? As a royal?"

"No. Being royalty is what she knows, she just... She's from a small town, in all honesty. She thought the palace and what she saw out the windows was the whole world... She knew about Lindblum, but to her it was like... that's it. This continent was all there was... and now she has to see Alexandria is just a small portion of the world, and she would be responsible for fitting into it. Alexandria is no longer the center of her world, it is simply the place she is charged with protecting, and she now fully understands just how fragile life can be, just how easy wars can start... She worried that she didn't much like these people she was meeting, and worried that would cause more fighting, and she just wanted the fighting to end."

"The world is a big place... but that doesn't mean everyone can't get along." Zidane argued. "If they don't like her, it's their fault!"

"It can't be seen that way, for royalty, Zidane. These people were out to get her, and they are the people she will be spending her life around. Alexandria and Lindblum get along. That's what she grew up with, for ten years, knowing that they got along, so what else mattered? But now? ... Her mother started a war, Zidane. One that affected us all. One where people had to spread the rumor that Brahne had died just to keep other countries from attacking us. Now Brahne is back... and that puts a lot of stress on Garnet... There are still many who consider Princess Garnet to be the Queen, because they got used to it, and also because it is safer than saying Brahne is Queen... Heck, Brahne doesn't even get to leave the palace much out of fear of what people will do."

"What people should do." Zidane cut in.

Lana nodded once,stating her agreement. "But Garnet wants her old life back. She wants her mother... She doesn't want to lose the woman again, and she was just feeling so alone in this world, a world she cannot leave... and then she heard rumors that she hadn't met everyone. She told me that meeting Drake has eased a lot of her worry, because it tells her she does belong. She greatly enjoys his company, they are equals, and even though she loves how you treat her, and how she doesn't have to constantly worry about being polite around you; that she can just joke around... she also loves knowing that he understands where she comes from. That he knows the games that royalty plays, and he knows how to defend her from them. She loves knowing that when she complains about some regal thing that doesn't seem like anything to us, he understands it, and he listens. She can whine about it, and he will always understand why, in a way you just... can't."

"... So... he's her best royal friend?" Zidane decided.

"... Yeah." Lana gave a nod.

Zidane was willing to accept that, until he saw Drake put his hand on Garnet's. "Then why is it he's acting like her boyfriend?"

"You can't fix this, Zidane! You didn't break it!" Lana blocked the path to the stairs, on the chance Zidane did something she knew he'd regret.

"That guy has his paws on my girl!" Zidane snarled.

"And then, when you go beat him down, how will that look?" Lana argued.

"I don't care!" Zidane informed. "We're supposed to be friends, right? He has to know he's going to far!"

"I... imagine he does." Lana admitted, giving a shrug. "But what can be done about it?"

"I'll show you exactly what can be done about it."

Lana sighed in frustration, throwing her hands don at her side. "Fine, I didn't want to do this, but…"

"…But-? Hey! Stop it!" Zidane insisted.

Lane pulled Zidane out of the room and to the docks by his tail. A low, cowardly attack, but he was stronger than she was, and pulling his tail hard enough made him move.

"Go on a vacation, Zidane!" She ordered.

"What?"

Lana let him go. "You're a World Hero." She stated, "Find something you can fix."

Zidane paced for a moment, headed back toward the palace, then toward one of the waiting ships. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to think.

He was out of line... Drake was his friend, but... was he? Zidane couldn't be sure... His friends in Tantalus would never do this to each other. They were brothers in a way that actually being family could never compare to, because they chose it for themselves through desire, not blood. Drake was his friend... but was that convenience, or was it real friendship?

He realized he was steaming over something that he couldn't do anything about, and he realized Lana had probably just stopped him from making the situation so much worse.

"… Thanks." Zidane got on board an empty ship and headed away from Alexandria, "I'll go… I'll go to Oeilvert."

Lana watched him go. "I should have gone with him..." She sighed, looking back toward the castle. "Then I'd get out of guard duty, too…"

"Okay… this is the entrance… how did I get in last time?" Zidane stared at the large door. "Hmm… oh yeah!" Zidane struck a pose and declared. "No way I can open a door this big!" He waited.

And nothing happened.

"… Grr! Open up!" He pushed against the door and it opened. "AAAH!" He yelped as he fell over. "… well… last time it wouldn't open when I pushed it…" He got up and looked around. "Wow." Zidane walked into the building he was once sentenced to visit. He looked around at the wreck of a place. Zidane walked through it, getting rid of any monster that remained, he was glad there weren't many.

"Man oh man, this place is falling apart! It's been here so long… why is it falling apart now?" He knew he couldn't let that happen, this place was all he had left of Terra… all the Genomes had left. Under the 'Genome Order' the Queen had written up… Oeilvert, Ipsen's Castle, and Terra were all associated with the Genomes and those places belonged to them. Whoever controlled the Genomes, owned those territories. This place wasn't being taken care of, though.

"Grrr… Queen Brahne was supposed to be handling things. She said she hired someone to restore it." When Zidane looked around, he saw proof that people had been there, but… things looked more destroyed than repaired. "What is going on? Oh man…" The Face History… it was trashed. He walked up and stood on the blue platform. It rose.

"Hey! Still works!"

One of the stone heads glowed and pushed forward. "Welcome, once again."

"Hey, you remembered me? I thought you were just recordings."

"We are… but we have some response skills."

"How... useful." Zidane nodded.

"You came back."

"Yeah… uh, needed to clear my head… funny how traveling thousands of miles by speeding through the sky on a boat that was just recently adapted to fly without mist over an ocean by myself on a giant ship usually crewed by three pilots for hours and hours is surprisingly good therapy…" Zidane clicked his tongue. "What happened here? Everything looks all crumbly."

"That is not to be expected?"

"Queen Brahne said she hired people to come restore this place… it looks like they destroyed it."

"… That is not to be expected?" The stone face replied.

"Hm. Should have figured as much," Zidane hissed. "But everything still works?"

"Yes. Oeilvert can be repaired. Eventually it can return to be how it once was. And all will be known."

"Wait," Zidane interrupted as the blue platform started to descend. "You mean, if I rebuild this place… I can get even more information on Terra?"

"Of course." The platform set down and Zidane got off, heading for the door.

"Terran Angel," The head spoke. Zidane turned back. "Next time… just say: Door Open for I."

"… Had to make me look like a moron, hu?" Zidane asked. The face receded and stopped glowing. "Oh, that is such a yes."

Zidane made a list of things needing to be fixed up, and grabbed a few more books so he might better understand how to fix the place up.

"Okay, so! Eventful … however long I've been here… shit, I'm not going to count this as work, though, otherwise… I've done something constructive and I'm not yet at a point in my life where I want to start doing that!"

He boarded the airship for the long flight home... and he just couldn't stop thinking about the situation there. He'd almost lost her before... Before Bahamut attacked Alexandria, he thought he'd lost her. Now, he just wanted to fight! He wanted an actual battle, something that would give him an actual chance at winning! He couldn't stand the situation where he would do his best, but still have no chance at success.

He really just needed a fight.

It had been a week that he had been gone, it seemed. Yet the Prince was still there. The first person Zidane encountered was Lana who smiled a fake smile and prepared to do anything it took to keep Zidane from killing the Prince.

"Hello, Lana!" Zidane said, mock smile.

"Nice to have you back, Zidane!" Lana replied with an identical mock smile.

"Thanks!" Zidane bolted for the window where he could see the Prince and Princess.

Lana tackled him "No!"

"I just want to see!"

"You should have stayed gone longer!'

"That's not a comforting thing to hear!"

"Listen to me, listen! I know you want to fight for her! But attacking a royal figure is now how to do it!"

Jordan walked out of the Guardhouse and noticed Zidane and Lana.

"Fiiiiiight!" He called.

A bunch of the Knights came running.

"What's up, Zidane?" Jordon mocked, "You have to fight a girl to make yourself look tough?"

Zidane stopped struggling to make Lana let him go. He jerked out of her grip and stood up, looking at Jordan.

"… You are a stupid… stupid man!"

"I don't know where he went!" Princes Garnet cried. She didn't mean to cause such a scene, but she couldn't hold it in any longer... A week, it had been a full week since she had last seen Zidane, and she couldn't understand why he had left her Drake walked in an hour ago, she had thought it would be Zidane, and the moment she saw it wasn't,she just couldn't stop herself from crying. The Dark Prince had stood at the doorway, eyes wide, before he looked around the room. Then he had taken a book out of his coat pocket and flipped through it, frantically, before putting it away and walking over to her, with some hesitance.

Prince Drake was doing his best to comfort her, but it was obvious she just wanted Zidane... it was equally obvious that he had no idea what to do in a situation like this. It made him uncomfortable.

He wanted to leave... but it was wrong to just walk out on a lady who was in distress. "I'm sure he's fine…" He tried.

"Then why did he leave?" Garnet sobbed.

"Um… maybe we went to get you a present?" Drake nodded, giving a smile. "You like presents, I'm sure, and I'm sure he knows that, so maybe he just went to get you a nice present?"

Garnet thought this over a moment, and then burst into tears again. Prince Drake sighed and put his hands in his coat pocket. In his right hand, he now held the black velvet box that held the engagement ring he had bought for Garnet. He had planned to ask her today, but today... clearly wasn't the time. Garnet had discovered she wasn't the only one who hadn't seen Zidane in a week. She had trouble finding him before, but she asked everyone and no one had seen him… today someone mentioned seeing a ship leaving a week ago and she panicked,having her worst fears confirmed.

Drake just couldn't ask her when she was so upset, it would only hurt her… and he couldn't do that.

Prince Drake looked out the window and then jumped toward it, watching in mild shock.

"Um, Princess Garnet? I found him."

"MEO TWIST!" All the rage Zidane was feeling, plus Lana grabbing his tail to keep him from killing anyone, had caused him to trance and Jordan was his target. His armor Tranced with him, it glowed and flashed white light when he attacked, blinding his opponent.

"Zidane!" Garnet cried, running over.

Zidane's trance faded as he turned to look at Garnet who jumped into his arms.

"Hi, Dagger, what's wrong?" He asked, and then he spotted the Prince standing about sixteen feet behind her, watching with his sharp red eyes.

"Where have you been?" Garnet asked.

Zidane thought about it, and then shrugged. "Nowhere, just been busy."

"At least you're back in time for the tournament." Jordan said, throwing the bait as he struggled to get to his feet.

"He's not going to participate." Garnet snarled, looking at the Knight who had spoken.

"Yes. It wouldn't be fair; he doesn't even know what it is…" Prince Drake helped.

Zidane took the bait. "I'm participating!" He stated.

Everyone stared at him.

"It's tonight, you know..." Lana said.

"It's dangerous!" Garnet insisted.

"Zidane, don't be foolish, this is a little out of your league." Prince Drake hadn't meant for Zidane to take that as a challenge... However, that is exactly how Zidane took it.

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