Morning saw a young man, who looked no more than 16 meditating under the
rising sun. The man's hair was as white as the snow on the distant Mount
Gagazet and his emerald green eyes, that missed nothing, flickered under
closed lids. His conscience was burning within his chest, though he was
unsure why.
Days before, the dark clothed Riku had arrived, claiming to assist in his cause, and had brought refugees a few days later from a dying world. One was a woman who apparently knew a friend of his — a young man who resided in a section of his world.
Baralai opened his eyes and looked out from the balcony onto Bevelle. The city was slowly awakening, first with thieves, merchants, then with the commoners and lastly the wealthy. The priests always seemed to be awake. There was never a time when the young Praetor could go for a walk without being watched upon by his defenders or priests. He hated this infringement upon his privacy, but he had no choice; he was the head of Bevelle, the chief, the boss. Being in his mid thirties and without a wife or even an heir, his death could make the fragile world fall apart.
But it wasn't as if Nooj or Gippal could find someone with whom could replace him. Baralai frowned and leaned over the railing.
Gippal....
The three had been friends for years, with Gippal always planning something that got the other three in trouble. Nooj was always wiseass while Baralai was the practical joker—until Nooj lest his arm and leg in the separation of their world and Baralai was subjected to watching the deaths of the ones he loved. Gippal was the only one that seemed to stay the same.
Baralai shuddered. At the memories of his loss, the near destruction of Spira, and how a new part of Gippal had seemed to come alive over the past few months. This new Gippal scared him. It seemed to use the eye that his friend had covered up with a leather and metal eye patch into the hearts and minds of people.
Shaking his head of the Al Bhed man, Baralai began to think of Nooj. Nooj had aged drastically in their youth, but while they had nothing to worry about except what was to be had for dinner...he was as much as a smartass as Gippal was blonde. Baralai chuckled when he remembered the light in his friend's eyes when he came running to their hiding spot; he had watched a girl skinny dip and had stolen her top, but with the help of his friends, it later wound up around the collar of a very irritated Chocobo when her boyfriend came after them.
Then his thought shifted again, but out of his control. Suddenly, the sky turned dark and cracks grew under his feet. Gippal was about to fall into a crevice when noojs dove into him to get him to safety. There was an explosion and Baralai fell backwards in horror as he watched Nooj withering in pain as his left arm was missing. Baralai couldn't remember if he lost his leg as well then, because a split moment later his friend was shrinking into the distance and he heard his mother scream behind him.
Baralai ran home as swiftly as possible, only to see his mother weeping as she held his dead – or comatose – sister in her arms. Baralai was positive she wasn't dead, but something was wrong...Baralai remembered her feeling feeble and weak as he shoved her behind him, but the next thing he allowed himself to remember was their funeral service. The rest came in his nightmares, which visited him nightly.
Baralai sighed and wondered what it would be like to be normal person, not worrying about bringing a world together or having to fight the Heartless that broke it apart. Unlike the Al Bhed, he refused to believe that the Heartless were sent.
-------------------------------------- ------------------
Nooj, nearly 28 but feeling 60, rolled out of bed with a groan and felt around in the dark for his Machina leg and arm. A part of him respected his friend's face, the Al Bhed, for their mechanical skills, but another part resented that they hadn't considered comfort in their design. Nooj's arm and leg ached, and he wondered if it was worth the effort, to say literally, put himself together for the day. His mind disagreed, and inevitably won. He looked out his window and saw Baralai looking out into Bevelle.
Only the briefest twinge of concern for his elder, but fairer looking friend kept him from going home to Kilika the past few nights. Baralai, as a service to his friend, had women to keep him company, but Nooj refused. Gippal had ased the third night if it was about the woman he had spied on years before. He had asked if she had stolen his heart. Nooj replied that if Gippal didn't want his leg stuffed somewheres uncomfortable, then he would keep his mouth shut.
Dressed in his red 'dictator' suit, which Gippal lovingly called it, Nooj looked out of his window again. Baralai was gone from view, but Nooj guessed the Praetor was meditating again. He wondered how someone could find solace in silence, but then supposed that staving off the nightly screams of terror, pain and fear for silence was a decent enough trade-off. He would ask later how his friend could do it.
Nooj awkwardly walked to his cane in silent pain, took a look around his room, then limped out. He found a servant girl and ordered her to find a healer to his pain. The frightened girl ran off with his orders and where he would be.
Someone had once asked him if he had ever smiled, been carefree, been in love or had been loved. Nooj pointed a gun at the person's head and ordered him or her away, then left to sulk. In private, the man missed running around in the babbling rivers and streams that ran through the Kilika Woods, sneaking a kiss from a pretty girl even when it meant being slapped and just laying in the fiends, enjoying the warm spring days. Now his days were filled with limping down long corridors, snapping orders at soldiers and frightening women he would have rather had dinner with and drilling the soldiers in all terrains possible.
Nooj was a man preparing for a war. He had preparing for it since he had died. Well, Nooj considered his life was over since the Heartless had claimed his arm and leg since he fought with all of his strength to keep his heart. Nooj doubted that he had even kept it, since it was rare he felt any emotion coming from it. For the briefest of moments he wondered if he would find that one heartless and reclaim his limbs and heart, then he dismissed the idea as ludicrous and walked into the dining hall.
The past powers of Bevelle, Spira had spent as much money as possible making the hall as fantastic as possible. It was only second to the ballroom, which had been unused since Baralai's father celebrated his 18th birthday, where he chose Bralai's mother for his wife. He pitied the woman; her husband died two days after the birth of his third child, Baralai's baby sister and left the responsibility of running Spira to her. Soon after, the Heartless came, but it wasn't her fault – no one had prepared for the man to die so young, but no one knew how he died, since there was peace in the lands then...
Nooj sat in a wooden chair with a burgundy velvet cushion and sighed. Soon their breakfast conference would start and his progress with the soldiers was unsatisfactory only to him. They weren't perfect. They weren't the well oiled, working Machina that needed no oral orders or had no fear of losing a heart. They were flesh and blood humans. Humans! Weeping, feeling, worthless things!
But then why did a part of him want the simple pleasures of a married man? The simple touch of a woman's hand on his shoulder, a child grinning up at him triumphantly as they showed him a pyrefly in their hands that they caught, only to realize with tears that pyreflies couldn't be caught. Nooj tried to imagine such a life, of holding the weeping child and showing them how to find their way home by looking at the stars, or simply fishing until the tears stopped...
Nooj growled and beat his fist on the table, banishing his daydreams. A single green eye stared at him from across the table. Nooj paled, wondering how long he had been there.
-------------------------------------- ------------------
Gippal yawned loudly at the dead of night and looked at the wall clock. In a few hours Baralai would be up to meditate and even later, Nooj would crawl out of bed, both escaping their dreams of carnage and tears. Gippal banished his by rarely going to sleep. His refusal to sleep nightly was one aspect about him that kept the Al Bhed from having a steady girlfriend. Each had found his refusal to sleep by their side as insulting and walked from his life forever. He didn't mind; a variety of girls was healthy, at least to him.
Setting down a map, Gippal leaned back and wondered about the love lives of his friends. Baralai was a solemn man, looking like he was 21 when he was closer to 35. To the average man would have joked that the Praetor had nightly visitors that kept him looking young, but Gippal knew for a fact that Baralai was a solitary man. Before his return to his friends, Gippal spied them and watched as all who tried to get emotionally close to the man were shoved away. Gippal made his first mission to get under his friend's skin, which failed, and to cheer him up, in which he succeeded. It didn't show much to some people, but Gippal could see the complete change in his friend. Baralai's Chief Priest had mentioned that the Praetor was more upbeat in any conference since the return of Gippal.
The Return of Gippal. The blonde grinned and ran his fingers through his hair, then traced the strap from his eye patch from habit. It was a title given to him by the Priests and Nooj, but for different reasons. Nooj had proclaimed, in his dry voice, that his return meant that Hell was returning. No one knew how right he was, and they forced the comment from their minds when it accidentally came up in a conversation.
Nooj. What could Gippal say about him? He had changed so much, but who wouldn't change after losing nearly half of his body, then being forced to wear uncomfortable replacements so he would appear almost normal? He knew Nooj was lonely, which was why he barked at anyone who came close to him. Only the one eyed Al Bhed was sly enough to find the solitary man watching a woman with longing, but walk away before she even realized that anyone was there. Gippal laughed aloud once as Nooj watched a woman string up laundry in the servant's section. Nooj turned slowly and awkwardly to look at Gippal with his ever present frown before leaving.
Gippal once again ran his fingers along his strap to the back of his head thoughtfully. He, on the other hand, had no problem attracted the female species, and supposed this was why Baralai made more of an effort of finding female companions for Nooj than him.
A gust of wind from Gippal's open window sent some of his papers scattering. Gippal growled and jumped around, plucking the papers from the air before they drifted out his window. After a few minutes of hopping around like a juvenile Chocobo, Gippal went back to the task at hand. In the papers was an outline of a 21 year old male, 5'8", with lean muscle and a flair with any women. On the top of the papers was labeled 'KeyBlade Guardian', then penciled in next to the title was written "Sora". The boy reminded him of a combination of Baralai and Nooj and the Al Bhed felt instantly sorry for him. Something in the back of his mind told him that he was once like Gippal himself, but that part seemed a long time dead. But no one could live on pity and his daydreaming got no work done.
Eight hours later had Gippal sauntering down a corridor, winking at a few blushing girls. One girl in white robes was running past him, and Gippal grinned, fully knowing that she had the unpleasant opportunity to meet Nooj. Rounding a corner, he ran into Baralai, who was listening to a young serving boy who was happily telling his master that his father had taken him fishing and held up his hands to show the size of the fish he caught. Baralai nodded solemnly and called the boy a 'man', making the boy grin happily and leave to do his chores. Baralai chuckled softly and stood straight. He spied Gippal and smiled sheepishly, and the two walked into the dining hall to find Nooj, silent and staring into space.
Gippal grinned happily and sat across from Nooj and stared into his eyes until Nooj pounded his fist on the table, then jumped back when he noticed Gippal's emerald eye.
"Damn it Gippal!" he exploded, red faced. Gippal laughed and ran his fingers along his strap.
"Mornin' to you too Noojie Woogie!" Gippal mocked, using the nickname a blonde Bevellian called Nooj. The woman, named Leblanc, seemed to be chasing the man, but Nooj was completely oblivious to her advances. Nooj stared at him, a bit confused, then blushed.
"Childish." He snapped, looking to the side. The woman had recently slapped him when he told her to go back to her brothel. He didn't know she was of a respected family...that was apparently dear friends with Baralai's deceased parents.
"All right you two," Baralai interjected, sitting at the head of the table. This signaled a horde of servants to bring in a lavish breakfast with several types of fruit juice, flavored waters and alcohol. Gippal looked over a red haired girl and winked at her with his good eye. The girl blushed deeply, making it look like her head was on fire and left giggling. When the servants were gone, the trio began polite conversation, then Gippal sniggardly asked about Leblanc and the room exploded with yelling.
"This Sora, how can we help him help us?" Nooj asked, once calmed and plunging his fork into some chocobo eggs. Baralai took a elegant sip of red wine and looked at Gippal over the edge of the glass.
"We need to find his other half first, along with Riku's other half, and once we have their powers combined, all of the hard work will be done for us." Gippal sat back and let the information sink in.
Days before, the dark clothed Riku had arrived, claiming to assist in his cause, and had brought refugees a few days later from a dying world. One was a woman who apparently knew a friend of his — a young man who resided in a section of his world.
Baralai opened his eyes and looked out from the balcony onto Bevelle. The city was slowly awakening, first with thieves, merchants, then with the commoners and lastly the wealthy. The priests always seemed to be awake. There was never a time when the young Praetor could go for a walk without being watched upon by his defenders or priests. He hated this infringement upon his privacy, but he had no choice; he was the head of Bevelle, the chief, the boss. Being in his mid thirties and without a wife or even an heir, his death could make the fragile world fall apart.
But it wasn't as if Nooj or Gippal could find someone with whom could replace him. Baralai frowned and leaned over the railing.
Gippal....
The three had been friends for years, with Gippal always planning something that got the other three in trouble. Nooj was always wiseass while Baralai was the practical joker—until Nooj lest his arm and leg in the separation of their world and Baralai was subjected to watching the deaths of the ones he loved. Gippal was the only one that seemed to stay the same.
Baralai shuddered. At the memories of his loss, the near destruction of Spira, and how a new part of Gippal had seemed to come alive over the past few months. This new Gippal scared him. It seemed to use the eye that his friend had covered up with a leather and metal eye patch into the hearts and minds of people.
Shaking his head of the Al Bhed man, Baralai began to think of Nooj. Nooj had aged drastically in their youth, but while they had nothing to worry about except what was to be had for dinner...he was as much as a smartass as Gippal was blonde. Baralai chuckled when he remembered the light in his friend's eyes when he came running to their hiding spot; he had watched a girl skinny dip and had stolen her top, but with the help of his friends, it later wound up around the collar of a very irritated Chocobo when her boyfriend came after them.
Then his thought shifted again, but out of his control. Suddenly, the sky turned dark and cracks grew under his feet. Gippal was about to fall into a crevice when noojs dove into him to get him to safety. There was an explosion and Baralai fell backwards in horror as he watched Nooj withering in pain as his left arm was missing. Baralai couldn't remember if he lost his leg as well then, because a split moment later his friend was shrinking into the distance and he heard his mother scream behind him.
Baralai ran home as swiftly as possible, only to see his mother weeping as she held his dead – or comatose – sister in her arms. Baralai was positive she wasn't dead, but something was wrong...Baralai remembered her feeling feeble and weak as he shoved her behind him, but the next thing he allowed himself to remember was their funeral service. The rest came in his nightmares, which visited him nightly.
Baralai sighed and wondered what it would be like to be normal person, not worrying about bringing a world together or having to fight the Heartless that broke it apart. Unlike the Al Bhed, he refused to believe that the Heartless were sent.
-------------------------------------- ------------------
Nooj, nearly 28 but feeling 60, rolled out of bed with a groan and felt around in the dark for his Machina leg and arm. A part of him respected his friend's face, the Al Bhed, for their mechanical skills, but another part resented that they hadn't considered comfort in their design. Nooj's arm and leg ached, and he wondered if it was worth the effort, to say literally, put himself together for the day. His mind disagreed, and inevitably won. He looked out his window and saw Baralai looking out into Bevelle.
Only the briefest twinge of concern for his elder, but fairer looking friend kept him from going home to Kilika the past few nights. Baralai, as a service to his friend, had women to keep him company, but Nooj refused. Gippal had ased the third night if it was about the woman he had spied on years before. He had asked if she had stolen his heart. Nooj replied that if Gippal didn't want his leg stuffed somewheres uncomfortable, then he would keep his mouth shut.
Dressed in his red 'dictator' suit, which Gippal lovingly called it, Nooj looked out of his window again. Baralai was gone from view, but Nooj guessed the Praetor was meditating again. He wondered how someone could find solace in silence, but then supposed that staving off the nightly screams of terror, pain and fear for silence was a decent enough trade-off. He would ask later how his friend could do it.
Nooj awkwardly walked to his cane in silent pain, took a look around his room, then limped out. He found a servant girl and ordered her to find a healer to his pain. The frightened girl ran off with his orders and where he would be.
Someone had once asked him if he had ever smiled, been carefree, been in love or had been loved. Nooj pointed a gun at the person's head and ordered him or her away, then left to sulk. In private, the man missed running around in the babbling rivers and streams that ran through the Kilika Woods, sneaking a kiss from a pretty girl even when it meant being slapped and just laying in the fiends, enjoying the warm spring days. Now his days were filled with limping down long corridors, snapping orders at soldiers and frightening women he would have rather had dinner with and drilling the soldiers in all terrains possible.
Nooj was a man preparing for a war. He had preparing for it since he had died. Well, Nooj considered his life was over since the Heartless had claimed his arm and leg since he fought with all of his strength to keep his heart. Nooj doubted that he had even kept it, since it was rare he felt any emotion coming from it. For the briefest of moments he wondered if he would find that one heartless and reclaim his limbs and heart, then he dismissed the idea as ludicrous and walked into the dining hall.
The past powers of Bevelle, Spira had spent as much money as possible making the hall as fantastic as possible. It was only second to the ballroom, which had been unused since Baralai's father celebrated his 18th birthday, where he chose Bralai's mother for his wife. He pitied the woman; her husband died two days after the birth of his third child, Baralai's baby sister and left the responsibility of running Spira to her. Soon after, the Heartless came, but it wasn't her fault – no one had prepared for the man to die so young, but no one knew how he died, since there was peace in the lands then...
Nooj sat in a wooden chair with a burgundy velvet cushion and sighed. Soon their breakfast conference would start and his progress with the soldiers was unsatisfactory only to him. They weren't perfect. They weren't the well oiled, working Machina that needed no oral orders or had no fear of losing a heart. They were flesh and blood humans. Humans! Weeping, feeling, worthless things!
But then why did a part of him want the simple pleasures of a married man? The simple touch of a woman's hand on his shoulder, a child grinning up at him triumphantly as they showed him a pyrefly in their hands that they caught, only to realize with tears that pyreflies couldn't be caught. Nooj tried to imagine such a life, of holding the weeping child and showing them how to find their way home by looking at the stars, or simply fishing until the tears stopped...
Nooj growled and beat his fist on the table, banishing his daydreams. A single green eye stared at him from across the table. Nooj paled, wondering how long he had been there.
-------------------------------------- ------------------
Gippal yawned loudly at the dead of night and looked at the wall clock. In a few hours Baralai would be up to meditate and even later, Nooj would crawl out of bed, both escaping their dreams of carnage and tears. Gippal banished his by rarely going to sleep. His refusal to sleep nightly was one aspect about him that kept the Al Bhed from having a steady girlfriend. Each had found his refusal to sleep by their side as insulting and walked from his life forever. He didn't mind; a variety of girls was healthy, at least to him.
Setting down a map, Gippal leaned back and wondered about the love lives of his friends. Baralai was a solemn man, looking like he was 21 when he was closer to 35. To the average man would have joked that the Praetor had nightly visitors that kept him looking young, but Gippal knew for a fact that Baralai was a solitary man. Before his return to his friends, Gippal spied them and watched as all who tried to get emotionally close to the man were shoved away. Gippal made his first mission to get under his friend's skin, which failed, and to cheer him up, in which he succeeded. It didn't show much to some people, but Gippal could see the complete change in his friend. Baralai's Chief Priest had mentioned that the Praetor was more upbeat in any conference since the return of Gippal.
The Return of Gippal. The blonde grinned and ran his fingers through his hair, then traced the strap from his eye patch from habit. It was a title given to him by the Priests and Nooj, but for different reasons. Nooj had proclaimed, in his dry voice, that his return meant that Hell was returning. No one knew how right he was, and they forced the comment from their minds when it accidentally came up in a conversation.
Nooj. What could Gippal say about him? He had changed so much, but who wouldn't change after losing nearly half of his body, then being forced to wear uncomfortable replacements so he would appear almost normal? He knew Nooj was lonely, which was why he barked at anyone who came close to him. Only the one eyed Al Bhed was sly enough to find the solitary man watching a woman with longing, but walk away before she even realized that anyone was there. Gippal laughed aloud once as Nooj watched a woman string up laundry in the servant's section. Nooj turned slowly and awkwardly to look at Gippal with his ever present frown before leaving.
Gippal once again ran his fingers along his strap to the back of his head thoughtfully. He, on the other hand, had no problem attracted the female species, and supposed this was why Baralai made more of an effort of finding female companions for Nooj than him.
A gust of wind from Gippal's open window sent some of his papers scattering. Gippal growled and jumped around, plucking the papers from the air before they drifted out his window. After a few minutes of hopping around like a juvenile Chocobo, Gippal went back to the task at hand. In the papers was an outline of a 21 year old male, 5'8", with lean muscle and a flair with any women. On the top of the papers was labeled 'KeyBlade Guardian', then penciled in next to the title was written "Sora". The boy reminded him of a combination of Baralai and Nooj and the Al Bhed felt instantly sorry for him. Something in the back of his mind told him that he was once like Gippal himself, but that part seemed a long time dead. But no one could live on pity and his daydreaming got no work done.
Eight hours later had Gippal sauntering down a corridor, winking at a few blushing girls. One girl in white robes was running past him, and Gippal grinned, fully knowing that she had the unpleasant opportunity to meet Nooj. Rounding a corner, he ran into Baralai, who was listening to a young serving boy who was happily telling his master that his father had taken him fishing and held up his hands to show the size of the fish he caught. Baralai nodded solemnly and called the boy a 'man', making the boy grin happily and leave to do his chores. Baralai chuckled softly and stood straight. He spied Gippal and smiled sheepishly, and the two walked into the dining hall to find Nooj, silent and staring into space.
Gippal grinned happily and sat across from Nooj and stared into his eyes until Nooj pounded his fist on the table, then jumped back when he noticed Gippal's emerald eye.
"Damn it Gippal!" he exploded, red faced. Gippal laughed and ran his fingers along his strap.
"Mornin' to you too Noojie Woogie!" Gippal mocked, using the nickname a blonde Bevellian called Nooj. The woman, named Leblanc, seemed to be chasing the man, but Nooj was completely oblivious to her advances. Nooj stared at him, a bit confused, then blushed.
"Childish." He snapped, looking to the side. The woman had recently slapped him when he told her to go back to her brothel. He didn't know she was of a respected family...that was apparently dear friends with Baralai's deceased parents.
"All right you two," Baralai interjected, sitting at the head of the table. This signaled a horde of servants to bring in a lavish breakfast with several types of fruit juice, flavored waters and alcohol. Gippal looked over a red haired girl and winked at her with his good eye. The girl blushed deeply, making it look like her head was on fire and left giggling. When the servants were gone, the trio began polite conversation, then Gippal sniggardly asked about Leblanc and the room exploded with yelling.
"This Sora, how can we help him help us?" Nooj asked, once calmed and plunging his fork into some chocobo eggs. Baralai took a elegant sip of red wine and looked at Gippal over the edge of the glass.
"We need to find his other half first, along with Riku's other half, and once we have their powers combined, all of the hard work will be done for us." Gippal sat back and let the information sink in.