A.N.: Again, apologies for my absence. RL struck again...some of it was nice, actually, so I should not moan.

And here is you update...it's a strange one. It doesn't all make sense to me yet, so prepare to just go with it and work it out later. I wrote most of it a while ago, but I wasn't sure when to post it. It would make more sense if I got back to the main-story first, but it occurred at the same time as part five (Mene's hangover) and I thought it might be nice to throw some enigmatic hintness around.If you've played FFIV, you might be able to unravel it a little...

So here we go. Don't let the title fool you...there is nothing romantic in here at all. It's called that for another reason. I'd be interested to know if you can work out why.


#7: Romeo

The Diary Of Stiltzkin
Iifa Tree

They're small. Yellow. Delicate. Rather dulled and dry, but still the most beautiful things I've seen for...too, too long. The things I do to find the answers... I poke my staff into the clump of flowers, and a hornet buzzes out. Hmm...I like insects. They know things I don't. Looks like a good place to stop for a scribble.

I settle on a gnarled patch on the great root of the Tree, pull out my diary, and flick to where I left off yesterday. No, it's not a stuffy great red one. It's a fifth of the size of the standard issues, a tenth of the weight and it doesn't inspire calligraphy. A few words will do - anything that catches the mood in the moment, anything that tells me the place I was. Something I can resurrect and expand on later when I need to, if I need to - I don't need a lot of words. And I walked a long way today and I'll be walking a long way tomorrow - I'm not feeling very polysyllabic.

Oh, those flowers. What to write... The name comes unbidden to my pen, drawn by an instinct honed so sharp I can't see it any more; amberflower. Yes. A good word. A good place, too - there's a memory around every corner, and not all of them are bad ones. Some of them are pretty cheerful, even... Memory gets scrawled, and tired, and glad, and then, in big spiky letters, a FLUMMOXED. I don't always come back from these journeys with an answer, and this time I didn't even really pack myself a question, so I couldn't reasonably expect a lot more at the end of it than confusion and existential dread. But reason is not my strong point, especially not here.

Mist. That's pleasantly concise, but it's appeared in my last five entries. I draw a curved mark, to show that I was thinking all this out this afternoon, and then, rather slowly, I add here. Oh, Virgo - if there's one way to solve a puzzle like this one, it's the context. Not how or why - it's where that's important; it's the places that'll always show you what's gone wrong. Gaia's old, and she knows a lot, and if you know her like I do you can see every tiny scratch on her surface, clear as moonlight; every place that's been changed from what it should. And here, something is seriously wrong.

I've checked it round every law I can think of - asked everyone I can find, every monk in every temple from here to Daguerreo, and there's nothing behind any of it. I cannot find a reason why Gaia should be producing Mist. It's not like rain, or wind, or lava - there's no cycle to it or purpose of it unless humans choose to give it one. And it only shows up on one little landmass and one accursed tree -

I wish I could ask the tree, really. There's probably something it isn't telling me.

Well. Tree, then - if I find out more later I can cross-reference everything to now. Why do I do all this? Maybe it's like Orphichus said in the Book of Stars (not the cheap version you get printed on birthday cards, the real one, which no-one bothers to read any more); most moogles are here to write things down, but some moogles are here to write down why we have to write things down. It's called reality by some old fools, and most people who know that quote get the wrong end of the stick about it anyway. I'm writing this down. He never said anyone had to read this stuff.

But they will do. Eventually.

Time. Time, time, time... Why time? Because it fits. I think it's the right word, and that, I have learned, matters more than anything. My words are my wits, and I live by them - I've been on the highroad too long not to trust myself. The Mognet troops will never get that - that taste you get of being too close to the edge... If I had a sword, I'd be good with it by now, and it'd have a hardened, deadly edge. Or a crossbow I knew how to aim. Or a fishing line I knew how to live off. But what I've got is my vocabulary, so I've honed that instead. They'll never understand...oh, they'll talk about Namingway, say he was 'born woth it' or 'divinely blessed' or anything that doesn't say that he travelled the world for over ten years and wrote his poems everywhere from meadows to volcanoes. So what if he was divinely blessed?

He made out right from the start that he was a very special moogle. If he hadn't...then I'd be a good deal less paranoid...

There's a vine down there, as thick as my arm - snaking around the great root in a parasitic spiral. Lke - like Mist is - oh, it's trying to tell me something. I chew my pen for a second, calculating the name in my head. Falaji. It sounds...almost Cleyran, really, but it has just the bite I wanted it to have. It's good. I'm glad I chose springtime to come back this way - first, I can see the living hand of Gaia drawing it from the grasp of the dead one. Spring (I add spring) is healthier for a place and a lot more revealing than winter. Secondly, it's changeover week, which means I have an evens chance of sneaking past the moogle - he'll be either confused, asleep, packing, or not here at all. Oh, I like moogles - but it wouldn't do to have them know where I was all the time, would it?

There was no-one at post when I came by a few days ago, which means that they'll probably be some disoriented rookie down there now. Shame it's not going to be Mene - the kit swore blind he wouldn't come back here if I dragged him. Hm, he'll have that vairë I sent him by now - wonder where he took it? I'm always behind on the Mognet gossip; comes of not liking the way they wander mindlessly over this planet without paying the slightest scrap of attention to what it is or where it's going. I'm currently wondering when Mene's going to drop out. He's not quite like them. He's going somewhere, even if he doesn't know where it is. (I have my suspicions. I'm a very suspicious person. And I don't much like this particular suspicion. He told me about the dreams once, and they sound a bit like mine only backwards).

I jot down another thinking-curve and the name beside it; Mene. About the only person in the world to ever really get to me. I do like company, don't get me wrong - but it's the same way as I love Gaia. I have to travel around and know as many places as possible, so I can't stay anywhere for long, not even the most beautiful and fascinating places. Seven years I've been travelling, and I've met so many people, overnighted on the highways and byways with so many different moogle-boys, and only one of them ever crosses my mind. It worries me sometimes, but so long as it doesn't interfere with the book I suppose it's harmless.

I look over the jumble of words - mist, memory, tree, time - and shake my head. It'll come to me later - hopefully before I get too far away. It's easier to work things out closer to the source. Now. It's getting close to sundown; I ought to find shelter soon - maybe even in the little nest-shack on the lower roots, if it's unoccupied right now. It probably shouldn't be, but it is the tail-end of changeover.

I pick myself up and brush the dirt off my khakis. I'd've sat on my vairë but it needs a wash - I was using it as a facemask the other day, trying to ward off the fumes down there in the underearth, and now it stinks of Mist and moogle-breath. Worth it, though. I don't think anyone else had ever been down that road, and that's real travelling for you. Took me ages to jack the elevator on - usual problem with magical mechana; the stuff can tell where I come from, and doesn't like it much. That one was more stubborn than normal. I had to rename everything in Caranyar before it would work, and unhook it afterwards too.

I pack up the notebook, pick up the staff, and settle into the loping trot that's carried me to the four corners of Gaia. Not far, with any luck - I pound down the thin root, letting it coast lower, then jump onto the thick horizontal one as they cross each other. I make for the posthouse, back towards the tree...there. Empty. Which is good, because I'm knackered. I open the door, see the tiny space within, and breathe in the hazy cloud of memory. This is the same place as it used to be. Neater, maybe - blankets all folded up, floor swept and bookshelf bare - but my feet still remember this place. It's not often I have to go somewhere twice.

I throw off my pack and untie my headscarf, wrap it around the head of the staff and lean the whole apparatus against the wall. There. Now if I do get some kit diarist barging in here later this evening they'll maybe have the respect not to wake me up. That's the other reason I don't listen to Mognet gossip; too much of it is about me, and they still never get anywhere near the truth.

*