A/N: And we plop right back into the thick of it, shall we?
Born of Dragons
"Is it Cecil?" Kain asked over Rydia's head with his deep, sonorous voice that managed to rattle her thoughts.
"It's nothing," came Rosa's clipped reply.
Rydia was confused by the argument going on around her, and wished she was still unconscious for it, for all the pain Rosa's frustrations were causing her. She squinted at her companion who hadn't yet realized she was awake—at how Rosa's normally steady hands were shaking as she plucked the gravel and shards from Rydia's ruined palms with merciless strokes.
"It's not nothing," Kain said, hinting at something just beyond Rydia's comprehension.
Rosa finally looked up, her brown eyes flashing a warning at Kain.
"Something scared the hell out of you," Kain said quietly. "What was it?"
Rydia and Rosa's eyes met for a second, and the white mage blinked in surprise. "Oh," she said, appearing flustered. "You've come around again."
Rydia winced and hissed, trying to pull her hands away from the white mage's fingers when her inattentiveness caused her to probe a little too deeply again.
"Hold still," Rosa scolded her, not attending to her discomfort as she snatched Rydia's bruised and bleeding hands back into her grasp.
Rydia sighed and leaned her head back, surprised to find something there. Kain must have caught her on the way down, she realized, because her head had bumped into the hard breastplate of his armor. In fact, he was the one holding her upright as Rosa tended to her injuries…badly.
It was all very disorienting, having so many people near her at once, and Rydia peered over the white mage's shoulder to see Edge standing some distance away, unwilling to look at her. Her biting comments to him earlier had hit their mark a little too well.
And where was Cecil, She wondered, trying to spy a glimpse of him.
Finally, she saw him, standing near the Behemoth's corpse, his arms crossed as he stared at it in silent contemplation.
She glanced back at Rosa who had begun chanting the healing spells that would knit her flesh back together. Once that was completed, Rydia was lifted to her feet again, teetering a little. Her hands and head were mended, but her mind still felt tattered, frayed. The heavy cost of her magic had exacted its price, and she felt as if she were observing the world from somewhere outside of herself.
And then, of course, there was the matter of Kain that left her thoughts more muddled than ever. Did she have it within herself to accept his amends?
"Rosa," Kain entreated again, only for Rosa to glare at him more fiercely.
"You're the one who's concussed," she seethed, turning away. "You shouldn't be worrying about anyone but yourself right now."
Rydia followed them, confused, to what was left of the Behemoth. Rydia stared at the giant fiend that lay still and dead on the ground, amazed at the wounds she saw on its hide. Wounds scored by magic, but not by any she'd ever seen before.
She glanced at Rosa, who was making a point of not looking back.
Had Rosa done this?
She stepped over the beast's limp tail to learn more of the battle, and heard something snap, followed by a cascade of sounds like raindrops falling on glass. Rydia glanced down to see that the beaded belt around her waist had lost a strand, its bright beads falling to bounce and clatter on the crystals below. She sighed, watching them roll; catching the last few beads before they could slip from the strand.
Just another piece of her past gone, she mused, as she knelt to collect a few of the polished beads from the ground. They seemed out of place here, too bright and colorful, and from another world.
She looked up again to see Edge striding toward her, looking murderous. She tensed.
But when he walked past her, she turned to see that Kain was the person his anger was meant for.
"What happened?" Edge demanded, sounding like a king taking his subject to task. Rydia winced.
"Yes, what happened?" Cecil seconded, and Rydia paused long enough in her gathering, to realize the paladin had asked her the question and not Kain.
She stood, slipping the collected beads into a pouch on the other belt at her waist, before facing the whole company.
"Nothing worthy of tales or legends," Kain said plainly, looking at Edge.
"The both of you look worse than half-dead," Edge retorted, whirling to glance at Rydia, giving her a brisk once-over.
Rydia knew she must have looked terrible, but she had certainly been through worse. "It's fine—" she interceded, feeling guilty that Kain was taking her portion of the blame. "It's fine," she repeated when it seemed Cecil still hadn't believed her. "We're alright."
"Which is not how the rest of you appear to be," Kain pointed out, turning the tables. "What became of the behemoth? How did you defeat it?"
Rosa was betrayed by Cecil who had flicked a glance in her direction at the question. Rosa looked pale as a ghost.
"Rosa?" Rydia asked quietly.
Rosa gazed back at her and frowned. "I—" she said hesitantly, guiltily. "I know now, how the song ended," she said, looking up again.
The summoner stared at her, remembering their earlier conversation. "You do?"
"The spell that only Tellah was rumored to have learned," Rosa said.
"One of the forbidden spells?" Rydia asked, her thoughts turning pages as she searched for a suitable explanation.
"Holy," Rosa revealed, her eyes worried.
Rydia was stunned. That was what the Crystals had been teaching to Rosa? Whispering words from legend?
What, then, were they teaching her? And what danger would she bring to the others if those words ever left her tongue?
"Tellah…" Cecil said slowly, recollecting. "When he was on Mount Ordeals, told me that in a single moment, the memories of all his spells, including those that had been sealed, were returned to him. Perhaps Holy isn't a spell that can be learned. Perhaps it must be given."
Rydia glanced at the paladin.
"There was one other spell," Cecil went on, looking back at Rydia. The look he gave her gripped her heart with icy dread.
"Meteor," she murmured, feeling hot and cold all over.
The group was silent, pondering the ramifications of this.
"I had hoped for more honesty from the two of you—especially you," Cecil said, looking reproachfully at Rosa.
She blanched. "How was I to know that this was the Crystals' intent?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Have they been manipulating your thoughts as well?" Cecil demanded.
Rosa frowned, her lips pressed into a thin line. "You think I've gone mad," she said.
"Not mad—vulnerable. And what's worse, is you said nothing about it."
"How could I tell you, doubtful as you were of me coming in the first place," she retorted.
"If the forbidden spells have been unsealed, it can mean only one thing," Kain said, cautiously looking at the white mage. "The destruction of Zemus requires a greater power."
"Rosa," Cecil began.
"I'm fine," she said with force. "Startled, but fine."
"Can you control such a magic?" Kain asked, worried.
Rosa was silent, staring at the Behemoth before meeting Kain's gaze. "I don't know that there is such a thing. Once you invoke the spell, it manifests however it wishes."
"And if it consumes you?" Cecil asked, his question meant for Rosa, though he looked at Rydia when he said it.
"White magic behaves differently than other magics," she answered. "It is the magic that heals, not destroys."
"But even a healer can give too much of herself," Kain said, unconvinced, earning a dark look from Cecil.
Rosa stiffened. "I assure you, I did not."
"I will see to it that you never have to," Cecil told her, taking a few steps toward her.
Kain's gaze was unwavering as he stared at the paladin who had made his position at Rosa's side quite clear. "You'd better," he said and then sighed. "And what did we earn for all of this trouble?" he asked, turning his attention to Edge.
"This," Edge said, thrusting a rod into Rydia's surprised hands.
"A rod…?" she asked, uncertainly.
"Seems a waste, I know," Edge told her, lowering his voice. "Especially since the only person who would use it can't seem to stay conscious long enough for it to matter."
She glared at him and saw the equally annoyed look he was mirroring back at her.
He pointed, then, to his nose.
"What?" she asked, experimentally dabbing at her own nose with the back of her hand.
"It's bleeding," he said, walking away from her to collect his scattered weapons.
She pulled her hand away, seeing a smear of red on her knuckles. She sighed with over-exhaustion, the one thing Rosa's magic couldn't cure.
"I'd offer my concern, but you wouldn't accept it anyway," he called back to her,
She followed him with her eyes, thinking that if she had the energy, she'd set his path ablaze.
"Your concern and your fatal devotion are two different things," she replied, leaving the others to follow him.
"Oh, so you don't mind when it's Kain who saves you," he said, the dryness of his tone indicating he was more hurt than annoyed.
She nearly tripped over her own feet.
"You know, I'm beginning to think there's more genuine sentiment in his actions than in yours," she replied. "You said you weren't going to offer your concern, but here you are, still trying to hold the high ground."
"My mistake," he retorted. "I had forgotten about our deal."
"You really don't care if I get myself killed."
He shrugged, giving her a sharp grin. "You're going to do it anyway, one way or another," he said snappishly.
"It was a fluke," she said.
"Flukes happen at random, not in increasing amounts," he said, looking away from her as he wiped the behemoth's blood from his blade.
"I didn't know where it'd come from—how it got there," she stammered, trying to justify herself as she looked at the behemoth.
"Couldn't resist the temptation of all that power," he remarked with a quick glance. "Even though you'd promised not to."
"I didn't promise," she answered, stiffening. "But I did try."
"Lunarian got too boring for you, didn't it?" he asked.
She reddened, becoming indignant by the minute. "I saved Kain's life," she said.
He raised his brows in feigned amazement. "I'm sure it was worth it."
"He was more grateful than you've been."
"Of course he'd grovel for your forgiveness," he said acidly. "He's a condemned man. He wants to clear his conscience."
"And what's your excuse?" she shot back.
He didn't answer as he stooped down to pry another blade from the behemoth's flank.
"For the sake of your own bravado?" she guessed.
At his flat look, she grew bolder. "So, for no other reason than to prove me wrong," she decided, hands on her hips.
He straightened, turning on his heel and walking directly toward her until they stood only a few inches apart. Rydia tried not to wither under his glare.
"And just for that," he said angrily, "I'm not going to tell you."
She stared up at him, the anger in the pit of her stomach intermingling with nerves. His proximity in that moment was more terrifying than the behemoth encounter.
"Rydia," Cecil called out to her, and she turned.
"What is it?" she asked, retreating to the other side of the fallen fiend.
"Can your magic transport us to the other side of this breach?" he asked.
She looked where he was pointing and saw the slope she had sheared with Quake. On the other side was the pathway, but the bridge to reach it had been demolished.
She sighed. Her head was still throbbing from the encounter with the dragons, and she felt nauseous at the thought of casting magic again.
"I don't think—" she began, thinking up excuses, and then remembering Edge behind her.
"If you can't, we'll find another way," Cecil told her, walking to the edge of the ravine.
She took a deep breath and mustered her reserves.
"I can try," she decided, studying the width of the ravine.
One short burst, she thought, calculating the necessary words.
"We'll find another way," Edge cut in with a dry remark from behind.
She glanced at him unappreciatively over her shoulder as he approached.
"Edge?" Cecil asked, having not overheard their conversation.
The ninja stopped a few feet away, looking dubiously at Rydia. "She can barely stand," he said. "She has no business casting magic."
Cecil gave Rydia a quick look. "She can speak for herself, you know that."
Rydia shot Edge a look of challenge, daring him to encroach further on her good graces. He looked back at her, unimpressed.
"I can manage," she snapped, hoping to convince at least Cecil. She did, and the paladin left to speak to the others.
"Rydia," Edge said evenly, gripping her wrist.
"I can do this," she assured him, prying her hand out of his grip.
She noticed how his eyes darkened with annoyance.
"Now who's being dishonest?" he asked with a low voice.
"Would you rather we be stuck here?"
"You've done this before," he warned. "And you nearly got yourself killed."
"But I didn't, did I?" she reminded him defiantly.
When the five of them were standing together again, Cecil nodded to her.
"Hold on," she told them, taking Rosa's hand in her right, and Cecil's with her left.
She cast the Warp spell, feeling her words evoke the power necessary to whisk them away to the spot she had fixed upon in her mind's eye. It was a simple spell, an exercise in precision, but already she could feel the fabric of the spell begin to pull apart. She sensed her control slipping, losing focus as the crystals tried to impose their own will once again. Where would the crystals send them, if they had their way?
It took all her concentration to stabilize the spell and not endanger any of her companions, lest they fall too early before reaching the destination. Finally, with a great effort, she deposited the five of them on the other side of the ravine, her strength giving out completely. She felt her legs buckle beneath her and her dizziness redouble.
She had half expected Edge to be the one to swoop in and catch her, to tell her he'd been right, but instead it was Kain who caught her, surprising her yet again.
"You should know better than to pick a fight with Edge you can't win," the dragoon muttered into her ear, catching on right away.
She grimaced, too proud to admit that this time she'd been the fool. She knew better than to cast when she had no strength.
"Rydia," Cecil said, giving her the same look he had given Rosa earlier. "I trusted your judgment, but is there something you'd now like to tell me? Or are you and Rosa in some silent agreement to keep your troubles to yourselves?"
She reddened, embarrassed. "It was a miscalculation," she answered, catching Edge's eye for a moment. His look, by contrast, was scalding.
"The time for you to prove yourself is long over," Cecil said angrily. "I know as well as anyone what your magic can do. It's not your magic that concerns me—it's you."
"I haven't changed," she said. "It's this place—"
"Your magic is slipping away from you again, isn't it," he ventured.
She glanced away, understanding now how dangerous the crystals had become to her—like an addiction. They had encroached upon even her simplest, most controlled spells. It wasn't only raw emotion that drew them to her now, but their own keen interest.
"The influence of the crystals is," she trailed off. "Overwhelming."
"What if that spell had failed?" Cecil demanded.
She frowned, trying not to imagine what that outcome might have been. "I would never let harm come to you," she said.
"I don't think choice is involved in this," Cecil argued. "You're completely at the end of your reserves, aren't you?"
She swallowed hard.
"A summoner casting magic she doesn't even have," Cecil said, his voice heavy with disappointment. "If the crystals can impart their knowledge to others without leave, I worry to think what they're doing to you. You've always been the most influenced by their power."
"I can still fight," she protested.
"No," Cecil said, shaking his head.
"You're not thinking of leaving me behind again, are you?" she asked.
Cecil stared back at her, with a look in his eyes that worried her. "Unless you can give me a reason why I shouldn't."
"I only need more time to figure them out," she said, trying to stand up.
"You've done enough today," Kain said from behind her, sighing; scooping her up and hauling her over his shoulder again.
Rydia squeaked as she was tossed like a sack doll. She beat at his back with her palms, but the dragon armor stung her skin and did nothing to bother Kain.
"Kain?" Cecil asked.
"I don't mind," the dragoon rumbled, jostling Rydia into a position that was easier to carry.
Rydia slumped in defeat, unable to pry herself loose and too tired to try.
Losing Cecil's faith stung worse than accepting assistance from the dragoon. Still, it would be a long march being carried on the back of another….
0-0-0-0-0
"He took a chance on you," Kain told her later.
"Who?" Rydia asked dully. "Cecil?"
"Edge," Kain said, surprising her.
She flinched, trying to balance herself upright. "He thinks I'm a child who should have stayed at home," she retorted.
She thought she heard Kain laugh. "And yet he's the one who tricked you back onto the ship," he said.
"I chose that on my own," she said, feeling all the blood rush to her head. "He thinks this isn't a war for someone like me."
"I'd have to say he feels the opposite," Kain told her, chuckling a little. "But he also seems to know something about you that you'd rather he didn't."
"He's playing games," she answered, not relishing the idea of Kain knowing her business. "He tells me everything that's wrong, without telling me what to do right."
"That magic you cast on the dragons," Kain mused, trailing off.
"I hadn't meant for that to happen," she said hesitantly. "When my emotions overwhelm me…."
"I didn't know a mage's magic could do that," he said, filling in her silence. "That the Crystals were sensitive to such subtleties."
"I can't separate myself from them," she realized uncomfortably. "It's become…"
"Dangerous?" he guessed.
She swallowed hard again. "Sometimes."
"No magic is worth dying for," Kain told her, jostling her as he set her down to draw his sword for battle.
"If only it were so easy," she answered, glancing up at him.
"I would make peace with the ninja," he said simply, getting ready to leap into the air.
"It won't work," she complained stubbornly.
"Ask nicely," Kain suggested before jumping away.
She watched him vault into the high cavern, her eyes falling to rest again on her companions farther ahead.
Ask nicely she thought to herself, dreading another argument with Edge.
"Hellfire," she said instead, resolved to do no such thing.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
There was something very humbling about being someone else's luggage. Kain's steps unsettled Rydia's stomach with each footfall, and she squirmed, propping herself up against his shoulder blades and wishing he'd just set her down.
"Do you really think he'd be willing to help me?" she demanded of Kain several hours' later, still slung over his shoulder.
Kain sighed, having already answered this question twice before.
"He'd be a fool not to," he answered her again. "We need the two of you alive and able."
"Me and Rosa, you mean," she guessed.
"Even if she's playing at forbidden spells," he muttered to himself, tightening his grip on the back of her knees.
Rydia squirmed again, silently staring at the ground passing beneath them. They had entered a new cavern, one that was steeper and narrower than before. Kain's leg's strained as he chose his footing, and she felt him stumble on the more slippery pathways.
How long would Cecil keep them marching before everyone succumbed to exhaustion?
"Rosa knows what her limits are," Rydia told him.
"Just like a certain summoner we know?" he joked, tossing her a bit.
She groaned, chagrined. "I—" she sputtered.
"Have a stubborn streak," he said. "And you still haven't worked up the nerve to ask the ninja for advice."
"I've asked before, and he said no. And what has you so convinced that he'd change his mind?"
Kain paused, another sigh escaping his lips. "He worries about you."
Rydia rolled her eyes, still unsatisfied with his answer. "He doesn't worry so much as he needs to feel he has the upper hand."
"This is more than your wordplay," Kain replied, becoming annoyed. "He was willing to take a death curse for you."
She swallowed her next words.
"He worries about you," Kain repeated.
"For the same reasons you worry about Rosa?" she asked quietly.
Kain was silent for a moment. "I'll let you figure that out for yourself."
Rydia was tempted to sigh at him again, but blinked when she sensed that the air had changed. Darkness had been pressing in on them for some time, a heavy weight on their minds, but now it had suddenly lifted.
Kain set her down, and Rydia finally felt well enough to stand under her own power. She glanced around in amazement and saw wards rooted to the ground in a loose circle.
"A warding?" she asked, taking a few more steps.
"Get sleep while you can," Cecil told everyone, slipping his pack, gear, and weapons to the ground.
Rydia felt her shoulders slump automatically, no longer strained from having to prop herself upright against Kain's back.
Rosa was already spreading her cloak on the ground, prepared to use her pack as a pillow, but Edge had chosen to move farther away from the others, sitting down to sharpen several of his blades.
Rydia felt a finger poke into her back, and she frowned, knowing Kain was prodding her to speak to the very person she wanted to avoid.
She glanced at Kain, and his expression was fixed.
"Go," he told her, nodding in Edge's direction.
She straightened her back and took a breath, walking awkwardly toward the prince.
He didn't look up at her until she was standing a few feet away, and said nothing—waiting for her to speak first.
"Edge," she said, pausing because she'd momentarily lost her nerve.
"How's Kain?" he asked sharply.
"Clearly full of bad advice," she snapped, unable to prevent her hackles from rising at the cold welcome.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" he asked, returning his attention to his weapons.
She sensed he was trying to get rid of her, and she would have loved to do so, if not for a question she wanted answered. She took another deep breath.
"I was thinking," she said, sitting down. "That there must not be many women among your people who are ninjas."
"There aren't," he answered, not looking up.
"The person you were looking for," she began again, hoping this was the right direction to take and not a terrible mistake. "She is the doctor's assistant, isn't she?"
He glanced up at her then, holding her gaze.
Rydia stared at him, feeling cold settle into the pit of her stomach. "I'm sorry," she told him, and meant it.
He gazed back at her silently, then took a deep breath of his own. "That's not why you're here," he guessed.
"Is that why you feel compelled to protect me?" she asked hesitantly, afraid to meet his eyes.
He frowned, startled by her conclusion.
"You couldn't protect her, and that's why you're so determined to protect me in her place," she went on, reading his reaction.
Edge stared at her. "You think—" he said, almost laughing. "No," he said, shaking his head.
"I'm right, aren't I?"
Edge set down his knife and whetstone and steepled his fingers under his chin. "There is a passing similarity between the two of you," he said. "But that's not why."
"What, then? Why trouble yourself?"
"Because—" he said, stopping himself from saying one thing and instead saying another. "Because I look after my own."
"I thought we were only a means to an end for you," she said, genuinely surprised.
"I made a choice coming here with Cecil," he said. "I look after my own, and for now that happens to include you."
"But not Kain," she noticed.
His expression changed, one eyebrow twitching with annoyance. "Kain," he said. "Has found himself on the wrong side one time too many."
"What about those you couldn't protect—those men we found in the caves when you went after Rubicante?"
Edge's lips turned down into a frown, and she sensed she'd crossed a line.
"Watch your kingdom fall to ashes and your parents captured, and see how clear-headed you react," he said sourly.
She wanted to retort that yes she did know what that was like, but she refrained. Hadn't she brought a mountain to its knees to avenge her own people? Who knew how many survivors she'd buried beneath stone and mortar?
"I'm just trying to figure you out," she said. "You seem so bent on keeping me alive, but you never tell me why."
He studied her shrewdly. "Believe what you want. If it's between you or me, I'd rather it be me."
"Why?"
His look unsettled her, but he broke it with a grin. "It really bothers you not knowing, doesn't it?"
She sighed and glanced away, annoyed. "You're still not going to tell me, are you?"
"Tell you what?" he asked for the sake of amusement. "Why don't you ask a different question?"
"How you control your magic," she said, looking at him out of her the corner of her eye.
He tilted the knife in his hand, regarding it before he regarded her. "I thought you had that figured out."
She frowned at him. "You keep reminding me that I haven't," she said.
He nodded, and studied her for a minute.
"What?" she asked.
He arched a brow with a sudden thought and leaned forward. "Those beads you were picking up," he mentioned.
Her hand went to her waist, at the pouch where she'd put them. "What about them?" she asked.
He held out his hand, his palm outstretched.
It took her a moment to realize he wanted her to hand him the pouch, and she did, watching as he poured the bright beads into his hand.
"You've always worn these," he observed.
Her mouth quirked open, wanting to ask why he knew that, but she settled for staring at him with a puzzled expression.
"They were gifts," she explained. "From the Eidolons."
"Do they mean anything?" he asked.
She watched him roll some of the beads around his palm.
"They remind me of the Eidolons," she explained, and then paused, adding, "They remind me of home."
Edge suddenly picked up the knife at his side and took it to something at his own waist. Rydia glimpsed the blue sash he still wore tied around his tunic and armor—items they had also found in the subterrane. There was a beaded tassle on one side of the sash. The beads were muted in color and different sizes, but Rydia was surprised she had never noticed them before.
He cut the strand and let the beads fall.
"What are you doing?" she asked in shock.
"To replace the ones you lost," he answered as if it were obvious.
She watched him catch the beads in his other hand. "But why do you have these?" she wondered, not picturing him to be someone interested in baubles.
"For reflection," he said, and she glanced at him. "I know each one by shape and size," he explained. "We're taught to use the beads for meditation."
"Meditation," she murmured, remembering another conversation they'd had. "To help you control your magic?"
"At first," he replied with a shrug. "Eventually, we don't need the beads anymore."
"But," she interjected, amazed that he was finally being honest with her. "How does your magic not run wild?
"Memory," he said. "Anchors. It's not an exact art. Not like having a language that dictates every form the magic will take."
"You use memories as anchors," she said, puzzled. "I still don't…"
"Take an emotion and connect it to a memory—a powerful memory," he said, gesturing for her to give him the rest of her broken belt. She did, and watched him begin to slip all the beads back onto it again, one at a time.
"That memory becomes the core of the magic, it's source."
"What does that have to do with the beads?" she asked.
"They're the physical reminder," he explained, holding up one bead and looking at her through it. "Each bead is a mantra, to fix that memory in your mind."
"So if you feel your concentration wavering," she mused.
"They steady your thoughts, give you something to focus on," he told her, nodding.
"Do you think they could do the same for me?" she asked, watching as he tied off the last strand and handed the belt back to her.
"I think home is important, and you shouldn't be quick to give up on it," he said instead, meeting her gaze.
She tilted her head at him, perplexed. "That hasn't solved my problem," she pointed out.
"I don't know that beads can help you," he answered with a sigh and a shrug. "But you're a mage and mages have always had their own tricks."
"What do you mean?"
He nodded to the rod that was tucked into the pack at her side. She frowned.
"I always thought they were old fashioned," she said, pulling it from her pack to hold it in front of her.
"Relics?" they both said at once.
Edge smirked, taking the rod from her hands. "I always thought it was the elderly who used these because they were too old to cast under their own power."
"Something to focus on," Rydia realized, noticing for the first time the golden threads braided along the rod's length and an amber jewel set into the intricate crest.
"I doubt the secrets the Lunar crystals are whispering into your ears were ever meant for you at all."
"Why do you say that?" she asked sharply.
"Have you met many people who could cast the sealed spells and survive? Isn't there a reason why they're—sealed?"
Tellah. His name made her flinch.
"This might be your solution," Edge told her, running his fingers along the rod's crest. "Rods and staves were made for that purpose; to lessen the burden on the caster, weren't they?"
"Why do you know all of this?" she asked.
He looked at her, until his eyes fell to the space between them. "I told you—my mother was a mage."
She swallowed and nodded. "You did tell me that."
He passed the rod back to her, and she curled her fingers around it.
"Maybe it's time you got in touch with your heritage—your earth heritage," he said. "It might just keep you alive."
She stared at the rod in her hands and noticed he'd gone back to sharpening his weapons. It wasn't a direct answer, but their conversation had given her something to think about. She stood, taking her pack with her, but before she returned to the others she looked over her shoulder at the ninja.
"Edge," she mentioned, calling back to him.
He glanced up at her briefly.
She flicked her head dismissively, changing her mind, and strode away as quickly as her bruised pride would allow.
0-0-0-0-0
While the others slept, Rydia lay against her pack, staring at the rod beside her. It had a fiery countenance to it and its shaft glimmered like starlight.
Something outside of herself. Something from her past. Memory.
She had used rods for the powers they inherently possessed. Each rod or wand had a character, an element all its own that could enhance a mage's power; but she had never diverted power from herself through a rod before. Was it possible to do such a thing?
The Lunar spells held power unlike anything she'd ever wielded before, and perhaps Edge was right—they were never meant to be spoken by humans at all, but only the Lunarians themselves.
Unless you had a way to lessen the danger….
She closed her fingers around the rod again, falling asleep with it beside her.
0-0-0-0-0
She awoke later to hear a conversation at the edge of the warding. She sat up and listened, her hair wild and tangled around her face.
"Grab it and run?" Edge asked briskly, looking at Cecil.
"It isn't that long of a distance," Cecil answered, sounding cautiously optimistic.
Rydia glanced up and saw the both of them standing at an opening in the small cave just beyond the warding. She looked dubiously at Rosa.
"What are they talking about?" she wondered.
The white mage looked back at Rydia out of the corner of her eye. "Another shrine."
"Another one?" Rydia asked, sitting up straighter. Where there was a shrine, there was always danger.
Rosa sighed, busily ordering her things. "It's a trap and they know it, no matter how they plan to get around it."
Rydia stared at the other woman with wide, tired eyes. She hadn't cast magic since casting Warp, and she wondered if the crystals would be cooperative, or—
"I don't think the two of you will be part of this venture," Kain said from a few feet away, standing between the two conversations.
"You, who knows so much," Rosa complained, glaring at him.
"Edge is supposed to take the weapon as Cecil covers his retreat."
Rosa's brow rose incredulously. "And we hide in the warding?" she wanted to know.
"That was the plan as I understand it," Kain muttered.
Rosa sighed and glanced at Rydia. "This isn't going to end well," she said.
Cecil returned just then, and Rosa looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Were you hoping I would stay asleep through all this scheming?" she asked icily.
Cecil sighed. "You would be safe here in the warding," he explained. "There's no reason to risk all of us."
"And its guardian?" Rosa asked, looking put-out.
Cecil fidgeted, shifting his balance from one foot to the other as he evaded answering.
Rosa sighed, standing up. "Thought so," she said, slinging her pack and bow over her shoulder.
"You don't have to go," Cecil said, taking hold of her arm.
She smiled with deceptive sweetness. "Don't I always?" she asked, slipping out of his grasp as she walked past Kain to join Edge by the small cave opening.
Rydia followed a few minutes later, feeling disheleved and not entirely awake. Why were they doing this? She knew the weapons that each shrine held were powerful, but for a warding to have been placed so close to one….
They left the cavern and stepped onto a narrow ledge that spiraled upwards to a platform of rock and crystal that seemed to float above everything else. Atop it was the structure of a shrine made of white stone that shone with a faint light.
"How did you find this?" she asked, surprised by how narrow the path was.
"Went looking for a new route, and found this by accident," Edge informed her, walking with cautious footsteps.
They climbed a staircase made of crystal that wound around the jetty of stone, and with each step, the air became thicker, darker.
"I don't like the looks of this," Kain mentioned as they climbed the stairs. "And you really thought you could liberate this weapon with just two of you?"
Cecil glared irritatedly at the dragoon. "Ideas are not plans, and we had never settled the matter."
When they finally stood upon the platform, they saw what awaited them.
"It's just like the Murasame," Rosa said, noticing a long sword set into a plinth in the center of the shrine. Its hilt was scant on decoration, but runes glowed down the length of the blade from white to blue to green. It's hilt and pommel were simple but elegant, and the sword itself looked fit for a king. It was a sword for war.
The white mage drew her bow out of habit as her eyes cast about.
"Where is its guardian?" Edge asked, drawing his own swords.
"Everyone stay back," Cecil said as he approached the sword.
Rydia watched him with wary eyes. There was magic heavy on the air. Angry, crackling magic that tickled her skin and made her hair stand on end. It wasn't crystal magic, but something older, full of fury.
Cecil's feet had touched only the first step of the shrine when they heard the sound of wind whooshing like a bellows from below.
Rydia stiffened, her right hand holding the rod she had been given. It felt heavy in her hand, like a scepter that carried with it a grave responsibility.
"Stay sharp," Edge warned, catching her eye. "We may have to run."
She had gone pale, wondering if she was up to the task at all.
The wind continued to swirl around them, and the sound of it became apparent as wings beating the air. Giant wings.
Dragons' wings, Rydia realized, staring into the face of Bahamut as it rose above the crystal platform.
Only it wasn't Bahamut.
"Run!" Cecil shouted, trying to yank the sword from the plinth and failing.
The four of them had only gone a few steps before they realized Cecil wasn't with them. They slid to a stop and held their ground, unwilling to leave.
"Go!" Cecil cried out to them, shooing them away.
In the confusion, it was Rosa who was already chanting, speaking quickly before any of them had a chance to make a decision. The dragon saw them and soared above, its nostrils flaring as it pulled in a massive gulp of air. The force of it was enough to pull everyone to their toes as the beast's belly glowed with oncoming fire.
Too late, Rydia thought to herself, preparing for the flames.
Reflect had time to cover only two of them, Cecil and herself, before the dragon released its snarling flame. Fire swallowed the precipice, devouring everything and everyone, including the air. Rydia squeezed her eyes shut, as the force of the blast propelled her backwards. She was unable to dig her heels into the ground and find purchase, and then the ground gave way altogether.
For the second time in a day, she felt herself falling as heat and light swirled around her in dangerous eddies.
She flailed her arms, thinking to land on the stairs behind her, but nothing caught her fall. She twisted in mid-air and saw that it was only dark, empty space below her. She swallowed panic and cast out with her senses, ignoring the drowning sound of the dragon's roar from above.
She still held the rod in her hands, and closed her eyes, thinking that it would be far more useful if it could give her wings.
Make me fly, make me fly, she thought furiously, feeling no response from the rod in her hand. Even the crystals had gone oddly quiet—expectant.
She refused to die—not like this.
Memories of home.
Warm sun, soft grass, and cool mist—the sound of laughter—they all graced her thoughts, but none of them offered her the strength she required. None of them was distinct enough, clear enough.
And then a memory of fire and ash and smoke kindled her thoughts—the sensation of her mother's limp fingers in her tiny hand….
One terrible memory, but a powerful one.
She had taken up her mother's rod that day…and she took in a deep gasp of air as she suddenly realized.
She had already done this as a child.
She held her own rod in her hand, but it was her mother's that she saw, fixed in her mind. She focused on its constancy, and the memory of that day. The day she had summoned a giant and brought a mountain tumbling down. She channeled the memory from her thoughts to her fingers to the amber jewel.
Light flashed against her closed eyes, tendrils of stardust shooting out from the rod like sparks and going ahead of her. She had called out a name in desperation with no way of knowing if he'd heard, but clutched on to the hope that he had. Something had been called forth, connected to her like a second heartbeat.
She continued to fall, but a gust of wind and a wave of heat stalled her descent, lifting her like a leaf. She opened her eyes, convinced she was floating. This time she glanced down to see Bahamut beneath her, resplendent with his wings unfurled as he rose to meet her.
She landed on his scaled back, clutching onto one of his spines as his mighty wings drove him upwards.
You called, his voice boomed in her mind.
Rydia gasped, wonderstruck.
"It worked," she murmured, staring at the rod in her hand. "It actually worked!"
Why does my summoner think she can fly? He asked her as he spun to fit through a narrower opening between the passages.
Rydia was dizzy with the momentum.
"A dragon," she answered him, frowning as she heard the cries of the beast above them.
My own kin, Bahamut snarled and shot forward, rising above the precipice with fangs fully bared.
Cecil was still standing, and he turned in terror to find himself pinned between the two dragons. The others had not been so fortunate. Burnt bodies lay on the ground, unmoving, and Rydia tried not to see them, tried not to fear what that meant.
Their time is nearly spent, Bahamut observed, coming to rest on the platform itself as he squared off against the other dragon.
Bahamut and his apparent twin stared at each other for a long moment, and Rydia felt anger bristle through Bahamut's thick hide like its own kind of fire.
They've made you nothing but a Wyvern, the Hallowed Father uttered. A wretched slave. As if the Lunarians could ever dare conquer a magic as ancient as ours.
Bahamut beat his wings, rising once again into the air. A blood sacrifice binds you to them, and I will break it, he vowed, snarling.
Rydia's eyes stung as the Wyvern volleyed fire at the two of them. The strike missed, and exploded against the cavern walls beyond them.
Come, Bahamut challenged soaring through twisting passages and over paths and under others. Rydia saw the subterrane laid out before her like never before and heard the roar of the Wyvern behind them like a declaration of war.
Wind whistled through her hair and against her face as she clung to Bahamut like a small child to her mother's side.
The dragons twisted and turned, diving between columns like graceful raptors. Bahamut's tail struck and buckled one column after another, impeding the Wyvern's pursuit.
They flew across vast caverns and tunnels until the subterrane opened into a giant cathedral, hollowed out by what looked to be some great working of magic. Bahamut spun and waited for the Wyvern, unleashing fire from his maw like an inferno under pressure when the other dragon dove into his sight. The Wyvern folded its wings before its horned head and divided the flames like the prow of a ship, roaring with anger.
Bahamut answered with a roar of his own that shook the air. And then both dragons lunged.
Rydia was once again buffeted like a leaf caught up in a maelstrom as the two dragons collided, claws raking, and teeth gnashing. She wondered how her strength hadn't failed her with the magnitude of such a summoning.
She glanced at the rod still gripped in her hand. It was glowing white-hot, but felt cool to the touch. She felt connected, but distanced from it, as if it had lifted the brunt of the summoning from her shoulders and blessed her with space to think.
The Wyvern scored a bite to Bahamut's flank and Rydia was thrown, releasing the spine on his back and slipping down his side. Bahamut snarled and folded his wings, falling like a stone beneath her. He unfurled his wings again and caught her once more on his back.
Hold on, he told her, lowering his head and charging the Wyvern from beneath. Fire poured from his mouth, and the Wyvern rebutted, columns of flame twining together. Crystals above them exploded and shattered, falling like ice in winter but glimmering like flower petals in spring. Shards swirled around them, as the two dragons locked arms and spiraled through the air, tails and wings beating against gravity.
Bahamut's teeth tore into the wing of the Wyvern and it screamed, spewing out fire. Bahamut struck with iron talons, tearing scales from his enemy and drawing blood.
The wyvern dove to escape Bahamut's fury, but the Eidolon gave chase, his teeth clamping down on the wyvern's tail and applying counter-momentum with a fearsome jerk.
The wyvern lost balance and flew sideways into a cavern wall, sending up clouds of shattered crystal.
Bahamut roared, and threw back his head, gathering fire. Flare came forth, blue and white and gold.
The wyvern had pushed itself off from the cliff face and strove to plow through Bahamut's attack with sheer force alone. But nothing could stand in the path of the Hallowed Father. Flesh peeled from the wyvern's muzzle and neck as it flew into fire; and all down its side, scales melted like black oil and its wings tore to tatters.
It dove until all that was left of its head was bare skeleton with molten cores for eyes, and even then, Bahamut's flare dissolved the bone to dust. From nose to tail, the Wyvern burst to shining motes, glinting in the lingering heat as Bahamut quenched his fire and beat his wings triumphantly, scattering all that was left of his foe with a great gust of wind.
Rydia stared, watching the glimmering dust fall to the cavern below. Her arm felt leaden, holding the rod in her hand that was now glinting blue like the hottest of flames. She exhaled and collapsed with exhaustion against Bahamut's back.
Are you alright, little one? He asked, as if suddenly remembering she was there.
"I am," she said, glancing at the rod in her hand and feeling weariness creep into the fringes of her mind, like a swirling storm held barely at bay.
"I don't understand," she said, sitting up straighter. "How did you hear me? How did you know to come?"
Bahamut laughed and dove, flying back the way they had come.
Your voice was like a beacon in a dark place, he answered her, his wings stretched wide for gliding.
"But I only called your name, I didn't perform the rites," she said in bafflement.
I am the king of the dragons. I either choose to come or I don't.
"And you answered," she realized in wonderment.
I have business in these caverns, he told her. The arrogance of the Lunarians to set my kin to guard their own tombs—their souls bound to their bones by dark and terrible magic. It sets my very blood to boil.
"Why have they imprisoned you?" she asked as he flew deftly and calmly between crystal chandeliers and ornate structures impossible to be made by human hands.
Bahamut snarled at an unpleasant memory.
The Lunarians have always feared the dragons. We existed outside of their science, and had a magic far older than their precious crystals.
"What do you mean?" Rydia asked, clutching on to him fiercely.
The magic of the dragons. Surely you are not so young and the Feymarch's memory so limited that you were never told?
Rydia stared at the cavern stretched out before them and blinked tears from her eyes.
"I thought it was the crystals that brought magic to the world," she said. "And the Lunarians who taught humans how to cast their spells."
Bahamut laughed and it sounded like a roar.
And how do you think humans were able to wield magic meant for a race from among the stars? he asked.
Rydia looked at the dragon, feeling as though she was staring at history itself.
We devoured the magic of their crystals like it was air to be breathed and made it our own. None on earth could stop us, and all came from us.
"You gave magic to humans."
We gave magic to all, he said.
Rydia listened to Bahamut speak, too amazed to interrupt him as the wind of their flight tousled her hair.
With the crystals, we created magicks unimaginable. We used the power of the stars for our own wonderment and pleasure and we created the Eidolons, the king of the dragons told her gravely.
"But I thought—" Rydia faltered.
Mmm, the great dragon hummed. The Lunarians will tell one tale, the humans, another. Each has their own tale to tell. That doesn't mean their tale-telling is true.
"But the Eidolons came from the crystals," Rydia said, confused.
And so they did, but by our doing, Bahamut said. They are children of magic. The product of the dragons and the crystals, both.
"But how did you end up here? Why the moon?"
Bahamut snarled angrily. The Lunarians would never suffer a contender to their crystal throne. They were not over fond of sharing, and ferreted the crystals to the far corners of the world, leaving the Eidolons to die. But not the dragons.
We waged a war against the Tower, and out of revenge, the Lunarians taught the humans their wicked words. Spells to enslave the Eidolons and to use them against us. There were few mages so dangerous in those times as the Summoners; second only to the Lunarians and to us.
"And you lost," she realized, stunned.
We certainly didn't win, he snarled. They crafted ways to destroy us with magic and machines. One by one the great dragons fell—our scales, teeth, and bones used in the making of new weapons and other magicks. We fought humans and Lunarians alike, and they in turn, fought each other. And when they grew tired of each other they fashioned a new enemy and sought to cleanse the world of those they considered abominations. Your kind.
"My kind," Rydia repeated to herself, slowly revising her own people's history in her mind.
The magic-born.
"You can't mean—" she said, closing her eyes as he dove beneath a giant arch of crystal.
Magic was your inheritance, the culmination of our power, he said. But the Lunarians feared your kind most of all—what you might eventually become—for yours was the last evolution of magic.
"And the world went to war," she prodded, eager now to hear more.
The dragons they had learned how to kill; the Eidolons they had learned to enslave, but your people…. Either the Lunarians would subdue the races of the world, or they would claim the planet for themselves and purge it of all others.
"It was Zemus, wasn't it?" she asked, imagining the world torn apart by fire and bloodshed. "He was the Lunarian who began all of this."
Bahamut roared, baring his teeth. That worm will suffer ten-fold the fall of the dragons, he snarled. He found a way to use our own blood against us. He snared us with spells of our own making—the trickster king.
"But the Lunarians didn't win—they couldn't have," she said, her brow furrowed.
They chose to leave, hoping the humans would destroy themselves. The crystals they forfeited, but they refused to leave empty-handed. They hunted the very last of the dragons. They took us as prisoners and used us for study until I alone was left.
Rydia was stunned as she looked upon the ancient dragon.
"He found a way to control you," Rydia said.
Control? He snarled, shaking his head and nearly shaking Rydia loose from his back. We can be imprisoned but never beaten. I am chained, but not tamed. I will rise again.
"Why answer to me?" she asked, feeling entirely unworthy. "I'm a summoner, one of the people who betrayed you."
You possess the magic of my kind, he repeated.
"But it's—I'm not…I don't have the power you think I do," Rydia told him, reluctantly.
I recognize the spark of my own kind, he answered her. Small, though it may be. Had you been a summoner only, I would never have honored your call, but the magic of my kind lives on in you.
"My magic is uncontrollable, hardly worthy of the dragons," she said, anguished.
Uncontrollable? he chuckled. It is the dragon in you that is attracted to the power of the crystals, and they to it. It is where the two meet that incomparable power follows—or terrible disaster.
"Terrible disaster," Rydia murmured to herself.
Bahamut shook his scales. There is a balance to be struck, little one.
"I don't know how," she said, her voice sounding plaintive even in her own ears.
Bahamut chuckled and his scales shook as he glided closer to the platform where she knew Cecil would be waiting.
You are a child learning to walk, he said. Eventually you will learn, as all new creations do.
Bahamut alighted on the platform where the shrine still stood and Rydia slipped down from his side to land on the ground below.
She caught his magnificent golden eye.
The Lunarian must be destroyed, he rumbled. Zemus still fears the dragons, and he is right to do so. There is one who still thirsts for Lunarian blood, and I will not be denied.
Rydia gazed up at the dragon, at his mighty stature and bearing. Was she really staring at magic itself?
She bowed to the Hallowed Father and spoke the word that would release him from her side. The rod in her hand ceased glowing, and when it did she plunged to the ground with exhaustion. She wasn't sure if it was the summoning itself or the presence of Bahamut that had stolen her strength, but she eventually glanced up to see the other four staring at her.
Tears spilled from her eyes as she stood and walked toward them.
"You're alive," she said with relief.
Rosa ran forward and hugged her fiercely. "You flew off on a dragon," the white mage told her exasperatedly.
Rydia giggled as she wiped away tears. "There's a reason you all keep calling me dragon tamer," she joked. "But all of you—you were dead!"
"Your mad plan gave me the time to save them," Cecil said, holding the sword from the shrine in his hand.
Rydia sensed something unusual about the blade, even from a distance. After being in the presence of a dragon, she recognized the weapon for what it was.
"Ragnarok," Cecil said, sheathing it.
Rydia looked at the paladin, unsurprised.
They used our scales, teeth, and bones to create weapons, she recalled from Bahamut's tale, watching Cecil slide the scabbard onto his belt.
"Those weapons are dragon-made," she told them, earning peculiar looks.
"Dragon-made?" Kain asked; keenly interested.
She glanced at the dragoon, wondering how much his own history was also tied to the dragons. "They were made from the dragons themselves," she explained. "And Zemus detests them."
"It was the Lunarians who killed the dragons," Kain repeated, his face set to a scowl.
"Not all," she reminded him, giving him a quick look.
"But why fear creatures they had already put down?" Cecil asked, staring in wonderment at the sword in his hand.
"That I don't know," she replied, sagging. "Only that they contain old magic."
"So the dragons guard their own bones," Kain said mournfully, looking back at the shrine.
"And Bahamut seeks revenge," she told them, taking jerky steps toward the stairs on the side of the platform.
"Rydia, are you alright?" Rosa asked, keeping up with her.
"No," she decided, leaning against Rosa for support. "I could sleep for years."
Rosa chuckled, patting her head. "I'm just glad to see you on your feet."
"Did it work?" she heard Edge ask from behind.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Did what work?" she asked.
He nodded to the rod in her hand and she glanced down, stopping for a moment.
"It did," she admitted with surprise, lifting the rod so that the jewel in the crest was by her face. "And I think I have a name for it," she said upon reflection.
The others looked at her in bewilderment, no one but Edge having any idea what she was referring to.
"Stardust," she decided, twirling the rod fancily in the air. "And," she mentioned, looking back at Cecil. "I know which way to go."
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A/N:
As with many of my chapters, there is always a central puzzle that has to be figured out before I can finish the chapter. Often, it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the chapter itself and everything to do with myself. I wrote this chapter with feverish abandon, but after six days, knew there was still something missing.
I owe this chapter to a certain someone—he knows who he is—for being the Edge to my Rydia in this process. What would I do without him ;)
For everyone else, thank you again for continuing to plunge deeper into the madness with the characters and myself. This chapter got a bit…insane ;)
Aaand yet we're only at the very tip of a teetering iceberg.
Oh my, dragons! Oh my, META! MORE EDGE BACKSTORY?! I'm pretty much off my rocker at this point. Oh well.
I hope you all enjoyed this update, and thanks for reading.
And with this, my winter break ends… :(
Happy New Year, everyone!
~Myth