Holy Angela

This story is a continuation to the story "A Shadow of Doubt"

The silken sheets draped themselves tightly around his body as he moved, trying to release himself from their oppressive grip. It seemed that the more he attempted to tear at their soft smoothness, the crueler their hold upon his skin became, until their very pull across his body dug into his flesh with a biting wrench. For a moment his struggle ceased and he lay back, his chest moving up and down in labored breathing. The ceiling was a pale arch above his head and he could see figures carved across it with wings on their backs, white angels that became the wraiths of his consternation through the dark, floating haze. He moved his arm, and the pale sheets moved with it.

The girl at his side was awake, the slender figure sitting upright in the bed of satin and silk that, was to him, a deadly trap of surging memories. He squeezed his eyes shut, recalling the image of yet another trap that rose like a haunting apparition from the shadows. The cold day floated around him, numbing him. Yet he could not feel it, because of the body of the girl that lay between his arms that was, to him, the coldest thing that he had ever touched. His mind accepted the realization that she was dead, but he could feel his heart freezing with a chill deadlier than that of the snowy day around him. And then the world exploded in searing heat and darkness, and he was hurled into an oblivion that was, for once, a blessing.

"Delita..."

The slender fingers touched him, their soft caress bringing back the memory of the night they both shared. But even as he remembered it his mind played the same shadowy nightmare on him, and her living face was transformed into the livid flesh of that dead body he had once embraced, shaded in pallid hues and overcome by a mist that was impenetrable to any living creature.

"Delita, I..."

"Be quiet," he said, his voice grating in the still, stifling atmosphere. Her voice was silenced at once, but then it began again.

"I..."

Delita sat upright, tearing the silken sheets off himself and flinging them at her with an almost violent gesture. He could see her cringing before his motion, the slim figure a wan apparition through the semi-transparent drapes of silk. They fluttered softly as before an invisible wind and settled around her slowly. Yes, these were for her: that bed of silk and satin that threatened his ruin.

He turned his back on her and sat very still, not speaking, not responding to her motions. The shadows of the nightmare still hung upon him. He felt his hands trembling and clenched them, setting his jaw. He had thought that he destroyed the weakness engendered by those soft emotions when he had planned this final move. He tried telling himself that this was just a momentary emotion, brought about by this change between them, perhaps a lingering sense of guilt towards her that he had to overcome. In the silence that ensued he heard a soft sound, a sound that jerked him into stillness. The sound of her stifled sobs.

This sound jolted Delita back into complete awareness. The transformation overcame him all at once at this display of weakness from her. Yes; this was the weakness that he himself had overcome and destroyed, that soft, false betrayer that he will never again allow to rule him. He sensed the cold, practical day dawning upon him, the day that was as hard and as cruel as stone, the day of the living. His eyes began to quest for something: his clothes. He leant over and grabbed them, then began to pull them over himself with precise, slow movements, savoring his actions as his brain cleared, preparing him for what he was going to say. The sobbing in the background quietly died down until everything was perfectly silent. Then, her voice spoke again, in a low cry:

"Oh no, oh no, oh no... oh, God..."

Delita finished putting on his clothes. He turned around and gazed down at the bed, at the snowy mound of sheets and covers. He saw her sitting up between the sheets and staring up at him, her face a floating white oval through the darkness. The morning was clearing the dusk away outside the windows, and in its indistinct light she was all soft shades of ivory and gray, like a carved statue. The whiteness draping her and the whiteness of her body made her exactly like one of those holy figures of death that he had seen carved on the ceiling. But her face, with its livid expression of pain— it was like—

Delita set his teeth, wishing he could tear the image away from his memory forever, and with it the pale, haunting shadows of the night. He spoke with an effort, but his voice was clear.

"Say what you wish to say, Ovelia."

She spoke in a broken whisper. "What... what did I DO? Oh, how I hate myself for it!"

He waited silently, regarding her without a change of expression, recognizing the struggle in her, and despising her for it. She hung her head low, the long ropes of hair falling across her face and concealing it. It was better this way: he did not like to look at her countenance. After a pause she spoke. "So," she said, "what do you want of me now?"

She looked up at him again with a pallid countenance. "NOW what, Delita? Tell me!"

Delita's eyelids fluttered a little, but his face remained set. Let her just say what she wishes, and he will take care to complete the manipulation. It didn't really matter what she said, anyway; if nothing else, it was just an additional test for him, and merely strengthen his fortitude. Yes; let her weep, then. "Just say what you want to say, Ovelia," he repeated with hard, flat tones.

She shuddered inside the silken sheets, although he could not tell if it was with misery or with fear. "YOU," she said with quick, quivering accents, "YOU, Delita. I recognized you for what you are, and I ignored it. A cold-hearted, manipulative user! I wanted to tell myself that—"

But she paused, as if she couldn't bear to voice the realization. He understood her struggle, and decided that shooting his shaft to the heart won't matter much at this point. "What did you want, my queen?" he asked with a cool voice. He seated himself on the bed again and reached out with his hand. She was startled, but remained still as his fingers touched the long tresses with a gentle, caressing gesture. "What did you want? You wanted me to pour my heart out? You wanted your one true knight to fulfill all your dreams? You fooled yourself on purpose, and you have only yourself to blame."

She blanched at his mocking tones and jerked her body away out of the reach of his insultingly caressing fingers. "Yes!" she replied vehemently. "I was a fool, and I DESPISE myself for it! I can tell you that I didn't know about you, but that would be a lie. But you are worse than me, Delita! You deliberately used my loneliness! Acting like you loved me—" Her voice fragmented, but then she said fiercely: "You're a hateful LIAR!"

Delita did not flinch at this accusation. He was enjoying the contest of wills. It helped him to forget the shadowy memories and hardened his resolve. After a pause he spoke, his voice perfectly even.

"Now listen to me, Ovelia. I don't give a damn about your feelings about this whole situation." He could see her wincing and averting her face, then raising her hand and passing it over her face with a shuddering, exhaled breath. He ignored this gesture of despair, and continued. "Listen to me carefully, because I am going to tell you what you are going to do. Three days from now, Ovelia,, you will wear your most beautiful white dress, and you will weave sprigs of scented jasmine in your hair, and you will put a pretty blush on your cheek. And you and I will stand before the High Priest, who will then marry us."

Ovelia turned, meeting his gaze with a wide-eyed shock. "Oh, I knew it!" she cried with a strangleds voice. Her hands intertwined, gripping each other until the knuckles turned livid. "I should have known it all along, but I was such a fool! This is why you wanted me a queen, isn't it, Delita? Taking advantage of my friendless situation, then using me to get to the throne!"

Delita made no reply. After a pause he told her with a calm voice: "Yes or no, Ovelia? Make your reply, and be quick about it."

"No!" she replied. He could detect a spark of anger in her eyes, but listened to her without a change of expression. "I refuse to do this, Delita!"

A sardonic smile curled his mouth. "If it's your personal emotions that you are considering," he said coolly, "then you'll find that they don't matter in this situation."

Her face turned white again, but she persisted. "No, it's because— you are NOTHING, Delita, even if you tricked the people into thinking you a hero! You are still NOTHING— nothing but a common boy. They will NEVER let me marry you, no— not even if I wanted to!"

Delita's face turned livid at her words. He rose to his feet and turned around sharply. The young queen suddenly understood that she had struck a nerve, but her face expressed no triumph. She could tell from his rigid pose and set shoulder that he was trying to hold that terrible anger in him under control. She had learnt to recognize these signs by now, and she was always possessed by a chilling fear when he was in this mood. She watched his set back, wondering what he will say next. There was a prolonged silence, and she could see his tightly clenched hands slowly relaxing. When he spoke again, his voice was low and steady.

"Listen to me, Ovelia. As I told you before, you are now the queen. Your word is the law. If you wish to do this, trust me when I tell you that they will not attempt to stop you, and that, in fact, they cannot stop you. You will marry whoever you want to marry, and I don't think that they will raise too many objections to me, commoner or not. And—"

He paused, and after a short silence he continued with a peculiarly grating tone. "If you will not do exactly what I told you to do— if you will not obey my orders precisely as I told you to obey them— IF, Ovelia, you will refuse to marry me as I ordered you to— I will go to the crowds out there and proclaim to them that their beautiful young queen is nothing but a common whore, who sold her body and her chastity to, as you put it so aptly yourself, a commoner. Do you understand?"

He turned around and looked at her. She was perfectly white now and he could see the glistening wetness on her face. He felt no pity for her predicament, but breathed in, fighting off the shadows of death again. After a pause she spoke with a broken voice.

"My word— is the law— a fine thing it is, Delita, when you can use it to your own ends— I wish I never had this power— I wish I was DEAD!"

He stared at her, feeling himself perspiring quickly. "Don't say that," he said, his voice retaining its harsh tones. Her face in the shadows was so livid that he was once again reminded of the face of the dead girl. The returning pain seemed to constrict his chest. His hands clenched again.

But she wouldn't stop and continued with quick, trembling accents: "DAMN you! YOU killed me, Delita, killed all the feelings I had in me— I feel like I died already— you— you HATEFUL LIAR!"

Delita spoke again through clenched teeth. "Will you— do— what I told you? Answer me, and quickly."

She flinched, staring at his livid face. After a pause she replied with a low voice. "I will. I know I am damning myself but I have no choice. So I will!"

Delita turned around and left the room without saying another word, ignoring the sound of her sobs. He was only conscious of one thing, of her voice echoing upon these words:

"You killed me, Delita— you hateful liar."

© Written by Hadas Rose
Final Fantasy Tactics is © Square, 1998.

Notes
"Holy Angela's Theme" is the dark tune in FF Tactics that influenced my writing of this short piece.

This story relies on the premise that Delita, being of common heritage and therefore not eligible to marry the queen, used blackmail to convince Ovelia to marry him, which might be one of the reasons she loathed and feared him when he became king by marrying her, leading to her attempt to kill him. In retrospect, I'm not sure that my interpretation of this situation was correct, even if it meant that I could write ANGST! for it, since Delita could still use a pretense of love to convince Ovelia to marry him, and he actually plans to use his legend in order to gain power. This, however, does not explain the cold way that he treats her even before they get married, for example, in the situation with Orlan.

I always thought that Delita's main attraction to Ovelia was because he perceived her as a victim of the cruel politics of his country, the same as his sister. And yet her very position as princess who could be used by him is what complicates their relationship. Thus, his cruelty to her makes him hate himself, for the knowledge that he is being cruel to her like the politicians had been towards his sister, and consequently he hates HER for making him feel this way. This is why his emotions about the seduction of her is of 'ruin' in this story, because he knows that with this act he becomes an inhuman user, like the politicians in his country.