Author's pointless babbling, which you can skip. This story is still about Agrias and Ramza.
There's going to be an OC character here. He's appeared in both my early FFT fics, and, perhaps due to an overactive imagination, Heinline was the sole character not directly involved in the plot to develop a personality during my playing of the game. i really loved my chemist. He was the most stressed-out character in battle, because he always had to look after everyone else. He spent several brief and rather unsuccessful stints as Priest, Mediator and Wizard, among other things, but there were only two things he turned out to be really good at: throwing stuff at people, and handling a gun. He was as good as Mustadio, and the two of them left to their own devices on almost any battlefield made an unstoppable pair. He also had a bright shining star above his head by the time i stopped playing the game. i've also got a link to a...rather slipshod... 5-minute scrawl of Heinline I drew in my profile somewhere, if you're interested.
On to Chapter Two of Dancing on Knives.
---
Were the nights always so dark out here?
It never stopped being disturbing, seeing no difference in the unchanging pitch black whether your eyes were opened or closed. It felt like blindness. It was crippling, not just to your senses, but to your mind.
It was no wonder then that Heinline screamed like a woman when someone clamped a gloved hand onto his shoulder.
"Heinline, do explain, after the hearing in my left ear comes back, why you were facing the inner corridor when you're supposed to be on lookout for any activity outside?"
Ramza gave the chemist's shoulder a friendly squeeze before moving into the shelter of the ruin, and running a hand through damp hair he looked back to smile at Agrias, who followed just behind him, whispering a quiet, unimaginative "ladies first", after moving aside to allow her to enter the fallen archway. Noble boy born and raised, despite the unkempt hair and the tattered gear he had come to fit so well.
For a moment Agrias stood still, her smile a small, controlled one out of habit and hardly adequate an expression of her inner thoughts, and marvelled how she could feel so warm in the cold wind and misty rain.
No one was sure how long the fort had been abandoned, this far out in that deserted, overgrown woodland. The stone keep was not precisely intact, but offered sufficient shelter for their small party in its still labyrinth-like state. Sandstone halls vaulted strong and imposing, dark and cold and full of shadows and silence, save for the rain and the occasional scuttling thing. After scouring much of the place by light of day, they had decided to occupy one of the inner halls, not as large as the main one, where a fire in the middle of the floor actually lit the far corners of the room.
Seven startled, somewhat sleepy pairs of eyes looked up as Ramza and Agrias entered the almost cheerfully-lit chamber, leaving their jumpy, day-dreaming chemist to his watch in the outer hall. Dawson, experienced knight and lancer, already had his weapon out, but relaxed at discovering it had been a false alarm.
Ramza threw Agrias a bemused look as they settled on opposite sides of the fire. Here it came, starting with Mustadio.
"Ramzaaa, Rosa burnt my portion again. She does it on purpose, I swear!"
"If you didn't keep rushing me, then I wouldn't burn the food."
"Ramza, I don't think we've enough greens to last the chocobos the next two days."
"Boco will help them forage. He did used to find his own food in the wild."
"Boco's the laziest of the lot!"
"Waaaark!"
"Ow!"
As it went on, the friends who had stayed by his side through the years of doubt and discovery brought their concerns, large and small, to the patient, cheerful attention of the noble boy who did not know how to be a noble, but who gave more meaning to the title than most ever would. His father had left him that only legacy, for all status and property and even name had been stripped from Ramza ever since he had been outlawed as a "heretic".
Across the fire their eyes met, and Agrias was the first to drop her gaze, her stern, mask-like seriousness no match for the burning blue eyes that spoke rather more than she dared imagine. She was not entirely sure when it had begun, somewhere in the flash of steel and fall of blood she had found his eyes upon her more and more often, and at first she had been utterly bewildered by the unsought-for scrutiny, and more than a little self-conscious under that intense, handsome gaze.
She remembered the few moments of their first meeting inside the chapel, when she had been thinking, even over her angry brush with that scoundrel Gafgarion, how beautiful a face that boy had, and how dare he smile at her when she looked at him, as if Gafgarion's behaviour had nothing to do with him, despite the fact that at the time they were working together. The boy did not smile a lot in the weeks that followed, suddenly alone in the world as his dearest friend returned forever changed, his brothers all but severed him from the family, and a price large enough to attract the attention of the most desperate to the most skilled of mercenaries was placed on his head for doing only what he thought was right.
Losing Alma had been the last straw.
Agrias had found him crying one night, on the flat rooftop of some inn they were resting at, where she had retreated to pray, out in the wind and the night where none but God would hear.
Ramza cried like a child, sobbing with a hand in his flaxen hair and knees tucked up to his chest, eyes glittering like wells in which stars in a night sky were reflected, and although in many ways Agrias felt the years that put them apart keenly, this time was not one of them, for in the day he was a man whose sincerity and thoughtful decisiveness lead them to risk their very lives at his trusted command. She had seen men twice his age bear lighter burdens more poorly then this young man who stood bravely at the head of every conflict, eyes full of questions but for where his conscience directed him.
For the one time he had wavered it had sundered one of the few good things he had ever known.
So she had decided not to mention the name of the man she blamed for Ovelia's peril as she stepped closer, respectfully allowing him to become aware of her presence. She had come up here to do the exact same thing, perhaps with a greater feeling of shame, for the person she really blamed for her sorry state was herself.
When he had turned his tear-filled gaze upon her, Agrias found, for all of her years effortlessly maintaining her outwardly-cold demeanour, that she had never so desperately wanted to touch someone as much as she had then.
Wells of stars.
Don't cry.
I'm so sorry.
She had placed her hand on his head, smoothing his cornsilk hair, and the manner in which he had straightened, leaning into her touch, stirred her to kneel behind him and press the side of her forehead to his so that she could speak clearly next to his ear. His hand came around, taking the one she had in his hair and holding it against his shoulder.
"Hope in God, let Him shelter your soul until your grief is past. Alma is not lost to us, and if God wills we will find her again. Trust that there is a purpose and a truth somewhere, and that He will cause us to see it, else we are all lost to uncaring circumstance." She needed to believe that herself. She did believe, but to relinquish control to the sovereign, invisible hand that moved one's conscience and made one's path straight through snares and traps set only for the soul was both a painful and fulfilling thing, and took more courage than one sometimes had.
Coming back to the present, Agrias moved to unlace her armour, raising an eyebrow pointedly in Ramza's direction, and he obligingly looked elsewhere while she got down to a white tunic and soft leather leggings, turning his attention to a rather well-cooked bowl of light stew, peppered with herbs that Heinline, adept with his plants as he was with his potions, had gathered for a more homely touch to their meal.
Home. Where was that, anyhow? One more thing to look for someday, when the threat to Ivalice and the uncertainty of the very ground he stood upon was past. And perhaps… perhaps there would be family to fill that home.
Ramza could not help but let his eyes wander more than speculatively to Agrias at that thought. She stood as tall as poor Heinline, perhaps taller, although it was hard to tell with everyone in thick-soled boots and Heinline more often than not up a tree or some high, safer place. Shoulders which were unfashionably broad because of the blade and the dance she loved so much did nothing to hide the narrow waist and the resulting shapely curve of her hips.
How different she had been from the women whom he had to cross paths with during the war, who mostly did not cope at all well with their places on the battlefield, who forced from their gentler souls a will to raise a weapon and put it to use. Some who had been in it longer ended up hardened and angry and bitter. Ramza thought he had seen the traces of a more beautiful face in one called Meliadoul, before the purpose that had driven her thus far drew the haggard lines of pain upon her countenance.
But the Holy Knight who stood protectively over the kneeling form of the Princess Ovelia in the chapel was a picture of sheer grace. This was not a woman forced to play the role of a man. Her armour fit well and her sword fit better still. Her hair twined long and lustrous down her back, proudly accentuating the comely face with bright, cold eyes the colour of a daytime sky. Her hair was her one vanity, and Ramza was certain that if Agrias ever lost her brush there would be murder.
She was a woman who had chosen the blade, not because she enjoyed killing, but because it thoroughly became her to wield a sword and make its dangerous elegance a part of hers. And what with the world become so perilous a place, what order and peace was gleaned by those skilled in the weapons of war.
How he loved watching her, and how well she must know it as he engaged her in dance after dance, although their now natural sessions of sparring had come out of a less well-planned tactic than Ramza might have preferred.
"Is there something the matter with my appearance?"
A shy smile, a shake of his head.
"Then what is it you keep staring at, boy?"
"Because you are so beautiful."
"Audacious little---"
She had whipped out her sword and he, despite best efforts to reduce damage to himself, had been trounced quite badly, following which a barely-winded Agrias had offered him the strangest thing.
"Perhaps we should practice a little more on your skills with the blade, boy, at least you'd know how to defend yourself should I feel more inclined to poke out your pretty eyes one day."
Now she would have to "cheat" to get the upper hand much of the time (and she had indeed blown him halfway across a room once in her own surprise at his marked improvement) and Ramza had learnt a little more subtlety concerning the way he handled his attraction to Agrias.
Just a little.
Ramza finally raised his "pretty eyes" to see the look of annoyance on his lady's face, her spoon poised just above her bowl. These were the times their being four years apart was clearly impressed upon her awareness. Where hormones were concerned Agrias had always been rather more… subdued.
No amount of prudishness on her part could sour the mischievously lecherous grin on the youth's face, however. Ramza knew he was making progress with her. Not that he intended to have her in his bed anytime before she would consent to carry his name. He was just being a boy.
Agrias wanted to throw a rock at him.
Outside the rain continued, and Heinline, an hour still left on his watch, leaned against the side of the arch, pistol casually cocked in one hand. He decided against continuing to look for the strange shapes he thought he had seen in the darkness of the inner corridor after staring down it long enough. There was nothing down there that wasn't the doing of his imagination and boredom.
But looking for imaginary things in the darkness was easier than dealing with his thoughts now. Heinline missed home. Seven other siblings, a few adopted (he tended to forget which), and cheerful, if harried parents waited for the war to end so their eldest son could come home. Although he had risked sending them a generic letter and most of his money a week ago, Heinline knew that the next time he saw them, if ever again, might be to say goodbye.
Especially if Ramza took Alma with him when…If…they ever found her again.
There came a sudden sound like a grinding of stone from the black vault above his head, and then a rumble as Heinline raised his pale green eyes in startled realization that the ancient archway he stood in was collapsing.
He had about three seconds to decide whether to step out of the arch where he might escape being caved in, or dive back in to warn the others of the ghostly white shadows, too frighteningly clear in shape and movement to be his own attempts at scaring himself, which he had seen move the rock and tear at the supporting stones to cause the collapse.
What the lean, diminutive chemist lacked in stature gave him speed, and his boots scuffed up a small cloud of dust as he darted from under a falling pillar, taking a tumble with his gun still at ready, ducking another block which thundered down to crush him, and ran down the corridor, into the dark, toward the chamber, racing the white shapes which tore along above and around him at the edges of his vision, ghostly impressions of snapping teeth and claws and blazing eyes, fear rippling through him as sure as stoic courage sent him further into the treacherous dark, at the end of which the light of their small fire still burned.
"Ramza!"
-end chapter-
i would very much welcome some useful criticism at this point, because even though i don't need help with the plot itself, there are facets of character placed into Agrias and Ramza i don't think i've seen anyone else attempt, and while i like it this way i'm not sure if it sits well with anyone who's studied Ramza's behaviour a little better during the game (Agrias having a small enough role to allow more speculation). This entire work is going to see editing and adjustment as each chapter is installed, and if I find time, in between each installation as well. I do make sure the chapters I present are adequate for quality and flow the first time round, so that missing an edit isn't going to confuse the heck out of anyone who reads just the later chapters as they are installed.
Editing is going to happen quietly. Who's got the time to reread stuff over and over anyway?
Oh, and can anyone tell that Heinline is likely to get his very own fic soon?