Drunken Clarity
Written By: Sixto L. Limiac III
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a property of Square Enix. Their characters, settings -- right down to their
creations are sorely theirs. I simply use them to enrich my craft!
In man's feeble attempt to behold a view of Bervenia Palace he envisions it to soar as a vast, indestructible spire. It must be so unreachable that, if it desired to, it could intrude upon the immortal planes. The finely honed eyes of viera correct such nonsense, beholding nothing so celestial. Bervenia Palace doesn't shoot up to meet the heavens but an impenetrable mass of obsidian cloud. The unwelcome body accumulated and collected more of itself into prodigious volume. Sudden downcast of thunderous weather augmented to the grim news.
The Judicial System has detached itself from the palace walls. Lighting sang violently.
Bangaa sentries, patrolling the armored gates, manned their position. They were unaffected by the harsh, howling winds. Behind the guarding dozens along with the concealed viera snipers, lies the royal courtyard. A watchmen buried his face into his chest, trying to hide from the stinging rain. He barely recognizes a man go by him. The other's wobbly stride clanked armor and the watchman's senses resurfaced. In a split second he reverently bowed his head to the other.
"Milord, forgive me. The weather seems to have ambushed me. Ha-ha. . ."
The identified figure, looking of someone to be honored, swerved in his footsteps. He failed to notice or chose to ignore the patrolman altogether. A pungent aroma distinctly related to vomit and piss trailed him. The patrolman grimaced at the musty odor and returned to his nightly duties. Coughing fiercely, the armored one headed toward the direction of Bervenia's armory.
He swept the door before him wide open. Staggering, he struggled his way inside the thin entrance and began down the flight of stairs. The torches, hung every so yard, barely lit the passageway, including his worn, glum face. His autumn brown goatee wore bits of his latest fit of gagging. He combed a silver hand through his facial hair and pried some of the purplish, wet muck. Picking up his pace, he felt as if he were floating midair and suddenly noticed his scalp growing hot. Almost as if his head were on fire.
A torch had reached out and caught on to his wavy hair. At the top of their sockets, his eyes found a blur of orange. He slammed his skull into the wall. The skimpy fire died and he decided to chuckle at the folly. His smile helped defined a man who distinctly belonged to Japanese ancestry. In Ivalice what race you segregated didn't matter. Racial injustice or preference was not a part of the fantasy. Smothering the fire out, he withdrew his skull form the dusty walls and continued his decent.
Finally on flat level and feeling oppressive lassitude creep up on him, he breathed in and mumbled gibberish to himself. He blinked his eyes while walking and accidentally drove his body into a rack full of swords. First the fire now this, he dolefully thought. His right hand grip on expensive viera wine tightened. Regaining little soberness, he went deeper in the endless sea of weapons. Bervenia's arsenal was magnificent, from the slender kanatas the ninja coveted to the massive scimitars the Bangaa smiled upon.
Lighting crackled outside, the sheer sound penetrated pass the underground walls and the man's mood alike. In a leapt of fright, he dumped the contents of a nearby rack. Swords of every kind cascaded down into a mess of all sorts of metallic clatter. Of all feelings, he felt amused, he burped, farted, and disregarded the mishap altogether, then he resumed through the deep corridor until he went on to the next entrance. On the wall are the engraved words, "Judgemaster Chambers."
The man is given little comfort sitting on a rigidly taut chair. Consumed by the darkness that seeped along the dusk, his chamber was illuminated by the ignition of a meekly roused fireplace. Up, the bottle tipped to his lips and he guzzled the sizzling liquor down, down, and down. The wretched cold clinging on his soul subsided, his face reddened into vibrant animation. Both the pouches under his eyes visibly vanished. He hammered the bottle on the table which was formed by the very bones of dragon. Guffawing mindlessly at his lazy shadows across his table, he stopped and glanced at his plate of silver armor. Beneath it, the fiery chill encroached upon him with a terrorizing vengeance. Swiping the wine in his right hand, he sought the warmth of a bottle.
His left hand rested on the head of the dragon skull. Clam and stanch, the left wore the famous mythril gantlet passed down to every appointed Judgemaster. While his right, naked, kept shaking. Immediately, it ran after the drink in an unsettling grasp, as if the bottle itself were to flee. He takes additional hits in an effort to seek out alcohol's evil-tasting tranquility. Pass the cruel, dry taste, it quelled the hardest of times. Its recurring buzz distorted emotion and manned the ropes to memories of past joys, of unforgettable pain. The man suddenly thought of it as scratching or tonguing a bruise, peeling that black scab off. It was sex with a total stranger, exciting at first, then terribly wrong once your load arced all over the sheets. That crushing guilt could slaughter the mind. Of all women, why did you pick the neighborhood slut?
He hammered the bottle down again and belched. The stink of his breath fouled the flowers Queen Remedi furnished his room with. A singular sound was left in the room, if it were even possible. His right hand kept shaking frantically and the wiggle of it was audible. The armored left hand cautiously moved toward the fluttering right and clasped it in an unrelenting hold. The left ceased all motion then broke out into a forceful seizure. At boiling rage, it flung the invader backwards.
The man cried in a rickety outburst of guttural phrases. He slobbered to find his coherent language. After a couple of attempts he succeeded.
"Ah - hah! When his mother died I stopped caring. I made terrible mistakes! MISTAKES!" he howled as terrible and as
nerve-wracking as the banshee sprites. He swung the bottle, spilled some of it and winced at the disapproving sight. "Oh no, can't waste this. A No- no - you know," he chimed, "it's rumored that the very blood of viera is a swimming in dee liquor. Their bloody blood changes the drinker, lets him see things. So delicious - hic!"
Nausea came at him in terrible force, it ticked at his temples. His headache throbbed and the utter sound of it gave him enough reason to temporarily cease drinking any further. It was time for a break. Minutes seemed like seconds. Hours felt incredibly like minutes, and before he could put a finger on it he was slowly becoming aware again. Hazes, dizzying sights were dissipating. After two bottles of viera liquor, his binge drinking ended. The viera drink was a lofty, tall bottle, known for its joyful history. It wasn't supposed to be consumed solely, but by a party of old acquaintances. To help spring merry characters, strengthen bonds, and possibly exchange one another's affection in lovemaking. Shrouded in the dark, the man rambling to himself, the pitch black room and his demeanor suggested he expected no one but himself.
The fire raged in the hearth. Swirls of the blaze flapped from its indolent source and vanished into the thinly stretched air. On one side of the fire a part of it eerily seemed placid, atoned to the very essence of control. Every part of the blaze shines the man's half, while his other is dimly lit. It seems as if the man were in fact two separate individuals.
"What are you gaining from this?" Somehow a stern voice emerged from him. "Throwing it all away on something like this. Drinking your life away. This is not your role."
"I told him. My son. Oh, Mewt," the defeatist resurrected. "Why!" The black spots beneath his eyes materialized. A wry smile muscled its way on his face and he mocked the other voice while tilting his head back and forth, "don't hesitate to call, Mewt. I'll be there for you." His distressed manner returned, "you know his back was turned on me -hic! On his father. It was Marche who's done this. If it weren't for him -hic - Mewt wouldn't be disappointed at me. He has afflicted me with my past. The irresistible urge to drink. Marche - hic - Marche - hic - Marche!"
"Marche opened our eyes. Through him, clear, consequential clarity."
"No, no, no! Through him - hic - through him, hic -hic -hic - Jesus!" He tried to bury the blasted hiccups and reinforce his speech. Under the influence he couldn't muster it. His eyes flitted in every direction as though he could find some kind of nerve. "Through him appeared this - hic - bottle! I thought I could get away from it here. Of all -hic - places. The addict is back. When I first stepped here I noticed how different I was. I was - hic - respected." He quitted hunting for a solution and sighed, "no, you were the one respected. I would never be like that. I am reduced to this. This is me - hic -hic- hic!" His voiced trailed off, "I'm already, hopelessly dead."
"Dead? Look at yourself in the mirror. Realize who you are. Then you will come to know that you are the great Judgemas-"
"I can't go back to that - I can't. I know after this bottle of viera shit - hic - I'll run for another. Like I just did." He heaved the liquor back in his mouth and tried to drain as much of it before his meager body eventually protested. The bottle's tip in his mouth, a world of self-pity launched at him. He yanked the liquor form his mouth. "This is my only comfort. I know it costs me everything but - hic. . ." The tears were coming in streams, he darted his eyes to the fire and searched for a brighter memory. He was tired, so very tired. "Did you know I lost my car to gambling after I was fired from my job? I even have dead roaches nestled all over my bed - hic! Mewt cringes when I ask him to sleep with his Papa. It's truly a wonder how I manage to put food on the table. I surprise myself sometimes - hic!"
"I'm not surprised." the other voice retuned tomblike and cold. His jaws tensed, grinding tiny fragments of wisdom teeth. "You think your wife would approve of this?"
"You think I like this? Well, I don't. I don't want to go back to my real home. Neither do I want to be here. Its been the - hic - worse two years of my life without Remedi. Here, Queen Remedi kissed me once and her lips were frost! She scorned at me when I asked her to -hic - let me go down on her - hic! I can't believe that I asked my dead wife for sex. When she shot her eyes of fury at me, I wanted to bend her over and flush her insides out. She hates me. My only son hates me. I'm the loser of all losers."
He began to imagine himself looking at the top of his shoes. The cars, people, everything looked like tiny insects going about their business. At the top of a skyscraper the world seemed so fragile. With a furious wind trying to grind his face in, he jumped, going down and splattered on the concrete. Bashing the picture out his head, he flinched and felt his spine go frozen. He wanted to panic, and at the prospect of panic he wanted to smother the panic out by dousing himself in flames.
"She is not your wife. She is your son's fraught creation. He has no idea of the mess that is adulthood. He will be a boy trapped in a man's body, and never experience what life is about. Mewt will stay in his fantasy and rot his brains. Are you going to be as pathetic as Mewt? The real question is, will you sit idly by and allow him?"
"Hic - hic - hic, " he took up the bottle, elevated it in the air, taking his time and banged it once, twice, again and again on the table. "I can't overcome this. I - hic - can't asshole!"
"You got yourself into this mess, you surely can do the opposite. Even if it means worming your distraught existence out of it."
"If treatment couldn't help me, what makes you think a stupid, childish dream can? Looky me - hic - I'm the Judgemaster Cid. Ha-ha! The judicial system is going to be a -hic- neutral entity, free from politics. You're a joke Judgemaster and you're not at the least bit any funny."
The Judgemaster knew his spectrum of calm ebbing, it was enough that he let this self-loathing man freely insult him the first time. Followed by a second time. Asshole. The word hung in the air. Asshole. It was similar to the revolting language of the mysterious beetle, hunched kind that was the tonberry. He freshly remembered picking up the lifeless form of a viera that a tonberry had slain. His lantern glowing profoundly, the creature poked at her face with his fingerless hands. Monsters were free in this world, and the Judgemaster recognized that the forlorn man was becoming one of them. He was a monster to his son and himself Asshole. Sheer poison ready and willing to wait for the perfect opportunity to amplify its disease within the realm. There will be no sequel to the dangerous language. For the first time in ages, the Judgemaster used force against another.
A flash of silver cut the thin air and grabbed the nape of the hopeless man's neck. It was as if the miserable father were possessed by an overriding demon. The hand equipped with the magnificent gauntlet hurled the man on his feet, suspended in air, and crashed him down on the hardened skeleton of the dragon slaughtered decades ago. The hardened bones crashed into splinters, crunching and collapsing as easily as wood. The attacked father only discharged a frail cry while the silver attacker clutched his neck harder. He already deemed it impossible to ward off his assailant.
Which was his hand!
His only concern lied in his precious bottle. He stared fixedly at it. Through the miasma of his scrabbling thoughts, through the onslaught of sickened emotion, he clenched the bottle as equally as the other's hold on his neck.
The armored hand pulled him back on his feet. Unexpectedly, after the man's face washed in relief that he did not let the bottle slip away, the left hand released his neck and nailed a hammering fist on his cheek. His gaunt face was crushed into what seemed to be a hundred granites of bone. He could clearly pick out a faint ringing sound from the strike. His cheeks were humming and he felt the source of the hiccups deteriorating. But his throat was free, and how good it was to clearly breathe.
"Is this what you want?" the brutal voice returned treacherously. Another hard left bashed at his face. "Is it? This is what you're heading for. Pain all through your life."
"Just leave me alone. I'm painless and changeless. Ah-hah!"
The silver grappled on his neck once more, driving the painless, changeless man near the fireplace. He felt quite cheery to be exposed to the warmth of heat, but like all things done excessively, it began to adversely affect him. An excruciating pain was born. His opponent pushed him closer to the hearth. His cheeks began to burn intensely. He couldn't help but think of his decent down the stairs earlier. How ridiculous it was to have a fire on your head. Was that a warning of this, why hadn't I noticed the signs, he thought. The thought was soon dismissed and he imagined a picture of his face melting into pure, seamless wax. He tore the picture out of his mind and envisioned a forest fire breaking out. An army of serpent fire razed nature's working of centuries. Breathing harder, he fought to flee the burning forest, and concentrated on the stacks of smoke billowing in the skies. He dove into the pitch darkness and everything suddenly stopped.
"You bury yourself alive on the inside. So passive, you try to shut everything out, you're an engine of your destruction. Remove yourself form there. Save yourself."
The terrible hand hauled the man's head inches deeper into the fireplace. He swore he could make out the contours and lines of its intricate design. Judgemaster Chambers filled with horrifying screams. Through razor sharp shrills, the man was forced to be free of his mental escape and ran through a tunnel. At the end of it was a promising, bright light. Inward the tunnel he felt himself flying backwards in time. Entering the light, he saw a figure that looked completely like him. It is him, it was him before stepping in the alternate Ivalice. Across the street, Mewt was staring at him in disgust. This was when he had first met Ritz and Marche. Of the three, Marche was concerned about him, as if he wanted his company unlike the son who ashamed of him or Ritz who imprinted her face in revulsion. Marche genuinely smiled at him.
"You are beginning to understand. You have a twofold situation here. Your son and Marche. Marche has no father. If your son chooses not to love you, Marche will. You want a son, then there is a lucid chance to build a relationship. The boy desires a father more than anything. Do not give up on Mewt, but Marche needs you at this moment. Right now! Mewt has shaped Marche's biggest threat. Llednar Twem. And he will stop at nothing to end Marche. The Queen has granted Llednar an invincible shield, and its up to you to stop Llednar and save Marche. Through this boy is your revival. Through you is a better Mewt."
It was grievous times for the man, he recoiled at the feeling of bleakness. The forceful hand let go of him. Immediately the man retreated form the fireplace and Curga sprang at him in a wild force. Already his gashes and wounds were pinned back into working order. Despite the angelic tranquility swarming at him, he thought every chance of hope ran off before he could even touch or study it. There was a purpose to him after all, and how he wanted the chance to prove himself. Before his wife Remedi died, he worked at a respectable software company, he was surrounded by numerous colleagues and best of all Mewt ran to him when he finally arrived home. Courage to pick himself up was dwindling further, the magnitude of happiness could only be pretend. The only thing he had ever relied on was some kind of bottle. A tremendous thirst for jack, vodka, tequila, viera, rammed at the pit of his stomach.
No, he chastised to himself, no!
"Where and when can I begin?"
"Now. I know what you need is someone strong to guide you."
"Like," his voice saturated with lassitude, " like you?"
"Like me. You know you are broken . I will fix and mend you. I will take you into manhood and you never will be as such. Through Mewt's imagination, a transformation of who you've always dreamed yourself to be will erect. You will also take what you learned from me wherever you go. But first. . .the toughest step."
The man looked deep in the half emptied bottle.
"No perfect plan unfurls. Do it."
Do it. He was unsure what the commanding voice expected from him. Whether to hurl the bottle into the fireplace or swig it in remaining, last gulps. Undecided, he shook the bottle in a twirl, hearing the plain sound of the liquor sloshing. The addict in him demanded he finish it and begin the newfound lifestyle tomorrow. It was an innocent desire. He wasn't going to cost the lives of others, he wouldn't be hurting anyone else in the process. It was his decision, his life, and he wanted to do it. Do it. At the back of his mind, he remembered a poster at work. It read in stylus font:
"Procrastination is like masturbation, in the end your only fucking yourself."
The left hand rushed in an attempt to snatch the viera wine.
"Are you testing my will?"
At first, the man wanted to protest, to say something bold and daring, but the words were deserted. His right hand bolted far as it could, while the armored other was unable to reach it. For a moment, the man was entirely still, he held his breath and shut his eyes. Do it. He threw the bottle into the fire. The flames lunged at him as if in angry retaliation. Roars of flames lit the armored man as one.
"You are Judgemaster Cid. This is your fight. Repeat these words, I am Judgemaster Cid. I am Judgemas -"
He could not help but feel entirely exposed and awkward, talking to himself. Mewt must have inherited the gift of imagination form his father. They both were playing with their minds in an effort to ameliorate their plight, but unlike Mewt, he was heading in positive direction. This was a leap to a proud future, his focal struggle of self-hate was nearing to its closure. With it he will blend with society, be employed, start out hardworking like before but this time promotions were predestined for him. There was a world out there to explore, but his life would mostly be defined into his first and only born child. Remedi, his real deceased wife, will shall shine over him.
The words were a challenge to utter, the first time he went to an alcoholic's group, he sank deeper in his chair. Other losers in the room revealed their name and their joint predicament. Once his time was up, he bolted for the door, but at this moment he grabbed the candle of courage and ran with it. Like a fragmentation grenade, courage detonated all over him. In this world he is known as Judgemaster Cid. He grimaced at the remembrance of the insides of an empty bottle. It was the path of complete, self ruination. The tunnel to rock bottom. He vowed never to return into that waste-hole.
"I am Judgemaster Cid." Every consonant and vowel brimmed.
"Excellent. Now, Judgemaster, you have work to attend to."
The Judgemaster felt a sharp gallop in heart and his breath fell drastically. Reflecting back, he felt that same state of dread that assailed him once he gazed at Llednar Twem. There was trouble. Trying to pinpoint its location, he finally registered that the threat emanated from the Deila Dunes. Llednar was ready to pierce the soul of Marche with the forbidden use of Ultima magic. Hurriedly fetching his armor and sword, the Judgemaster summoned the spell of teleportation.
Leaving his chambers, the faint yet resounding voice of his echoed throughout Bervenia Palace.
"Sheath your sword, Llendar!"