Ah... the joys of Final Fantasy. But I leap ahead in my story.
Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. I am Silverlocke980, storyteller and writer extraordinaire, a long-time fan of Final Fantasy but never quite daring to write about it- until now. I have a deep, abiding respect for the series, having played since FFVI (III in the U.S., and the game I still consider to be the best game in the series) and afterwards finding pretty much every single game released in the U.S., and beating most of them. With the exception of Final Fantasy 11 (which I consider a "side story", and not a true member of the Final Fantasy series), I have played every single game in the series, and am eagerly awaiting Twelve. But I've always thought that the stories were best left alone, too good to really bother with my meager talents. But...! I have a story to tell.
I have been replaying Final Fantasy 9 recently, and finding that I greatly enjoy the game. I like Amarant's story, which is, in all honesty, quite funny- he appears to be this "dangerous loner", yet the only reason he's wanted in the first place is because of a screw-up involving Zidane, who's the real thief who took from the King auction house and is rightfully the person who should be on the wanted posters of the city! (Watch the ATE's in Treno, when you come back in Disc Three for the card tournament, to find this out. When, in one ATE, you get a choice to have Freya say something, make her say, " Of course I want to know, Amarant!", which will allow you to see the ATE where Amarant's past is revealed... and his obsessiveness over Zidane is explained). Also, he's actually a security guard, not an assassin, which explains why so many of his "Flair" techniques are healing/support abilites- and I also like Vivi's story, because in many ways he is the most "grown-up" of the characters, which, in fitting with a theme of "irony" (or Two Sides, as, in my online synopsis of Final Fantasy 7 at livejournal, I call it) that runs through all the Final Fantasies, is odd, since not only is he actually the youngest character, he literally can't grow up- he was made, not born! These are just two of the many odd little facts that surround FF9, and it is easily one of the best of the series.
But while watching it, one character struck me as incredibly pathetic and deeply self-centered. It is also, oddly, the character who is destined to rule! Yes, ladies and gentleman, I am talking about everyone's favorite Princess Garnet, or Dagger, as we mostly know her. She is easily one of the greatest character studies in indecisiveness, self-doubt, and reluctance in all of Final Fantasy- fitting, considering the overbearing bitch of a hippopotamus her mother was. She never really has a single, strong "This is my act!" type moment in the game, up until the point she cuts off her hair (a symbol of her beauty- and also of her inexperienced nature. Long hair is bad in combat- look at the other fighters in the game. No one has long hair, save Amarant, whose hair is flowing back on his head anyway and almost doesn't count. He is, however, quite inexperienced, as Zidane either tricks or defeats him multiple times, so despite his great size and strength and obvious "stature", Amarant is much like Garnet in the things he does and must learn. And they are also the two characters with long hair.)
Throughout the game, I, a very strong, dominant type personality, whose problem is not a lack of confidence but too much of it, found myself almost on the point of shouting into the game at Dagger, something along the lines of "Hey, dumbass! It's (a) not your fault, (b) not their decision to make, or (c) grow up and deal with it!" (Choice depending upon situation). If I were a normal person, nothing would come of it. Being, however, a fanfic author, and henceforth one of the most dangerous and least "normal" people on the planet, I instead began crafting a new world for Dagger. A one-shot world, with a queen on a throne of ice and encircling by her flaming and freezing and flying and dark attendants...
So... On with the show!
"SHOWTIME!"
Final Fantasy IX
To Spin This Dream
Onboard the airship Prima Vista, home of the Tantalus troupe of actors and thieves, heading towards Alexandria, night of the play.
" Alright, guys. You know what to do. Let's get this show on the road here. And someone get this blasted cape on me..."
Baku grumbled as he and his crew got into their costume get-ups for Lord Avon's "I Want to Be Your Canary." Blank, who knew that his boss never failed to get stuck in his own costume unless properly helped, moved over and absent-mindedly placed the cheap fur coat on Baku's shoulders. As Baku finally slipped into what he always privately called a "bath robe" in his own mind, Blank turned around and got into his costume (which mostly consisted of getting a sword for himself, a stage sword with a slight coating, made of some kind of gummy oil, that prevented the blade from actually slicing when it touched skin), then put a few of the special effects pouches in his belt. When thrown to the ground, the pouches erupted into the various special effects the audience would adore (Blank had picked up the "fire" group of spells). Audiences loved special effects the world round: Burmecia, which viewed magic as an essential part of life, would have found plays horrific and barbarian if they did not contain some sort of magic in them, while Lindblum, a place known not just for its size or its greatness but also for its splendor, had them as a rule rather than an exception.
But Alexandria, for all its seeming greatness (and, Blank had to admit, the town was pretty great; it even boasted the world's single most impressive accessory, a giant sword, stuck in the middle), was still a rather "back-water" nation, and the people here loved special effects. The plays here were rare and usually rather small, consisting of many bad actors on many small stages around the city, and they were usually lucky to have props, much less special effects. The Tantalus troupe, bringing not only musicians (literally unheard of in Alexandria; the thought of this novelty alone had almost enticed Brahne into inviting them, though it had taken some extra whining from the letters Baku sent her to get her to comply and invite them into her home) but "stage magic", as some people called it, had caused a huge sensation in Alexandria. The tickets had been sold out within weeks. It was heard told that scalpers had bought tickets and sold them for profits of over 400. Some people were making so much money off the play it almost wasn't funny. The Alexandrian army had great trouble keeping the populace away from the castle, many attempting to avoid the high price of tickets by sneaking in and watching the show. Blank smiled as he thought of the Alexandrian army. Ah, an army of ladies. Zidane would fall flat on his face when he met them.
Thinking of his womanizing, charming young friend, Blank looked across the room, where Zidane was debating whether he should keep his dagger (attire that would be an obvious indicator of "thief" or, at the very least, "scabrous wretch") or ditch it (as would become the lord he was about to play). Apparently deciding that he'd pass it off as a fencing dagger (or something like that; one thing Blank admired about Zidane was his quick way of coming up for answers to everything, no matter how odd the circumstances he was caught in might be), Zidane shrugged mightily and began looking around for his trusty old armor. Shaking his head, Blank got up and headed into the next room, looking for the oglops.
He shuddered. Ugh. Oglops. He hated 'em.
But, thankfully, so did everyone else.
And that's why the capture of Princess Garnet would be so easy.
Or so he thought.
-
Princess Garnet's Room, Alexandria Castle, same time.
Princess Garnet looked around herself and thought of how the world was changing. How everything was changing. How it seemed, when she looked in the mirror, that everyone was growing up but her.
And why, in her heart of hearts, she was so desperately afraid it was true.
She held her hands in her lap and shook with fear. And, as always, the booming, arrogant voice, a voice that was made horrendously the worse for the fear Garnet had that it was somehow not there, came into her mind, as it always did whenever she was afraid or unsure.
Fool, it boomed, shaking her very bones with its talk. Fool, fool, fool. No, you are not growing up. You are staying as a small child. You are weak, girl, weak! Zorn and Thorn tell childish jokes- why? Because you still laugh at them! Because, when everyone in the room is thinking "Oh God, what an idiotic, juvenile crack", you are thinking " Oh! That's funny!" and laughing about it! Everyone laughs with you- either because they are lower than you or, in your mother's case, to humor you. You are childish, girl, childish! And your mother knows it. That's why she's pushing so hard to make the empire strong, girl; that's why she's trying as hard as she can to make her kingdom grow. So that, someday, when you get on the throne, and you begin to screw things up, the kingdom will be big enough and strong enough to survive even your rule. And hopefully, your daughter, upon seeing how exceptionally weak her mother is, will decide to grow up wise and strong and proud- as a Queen of Alexandria should be! And then, finally, you, little girl, will no longer be a plague upon this kingdom.
And Garnet laid down her head and cried. There was naught she could do.
Somewhere in her room, a knife gleamed.
Darkness.
-
Theater of Alexandria Castle, several minutes later.
Baku scratched his ass before he came out on the stage, knowing that if he didn't, it would bother him the whole time he was on-stage (and he couldn't very well scratch it then without disgusting some nobleman's wife and then getting his head lopped off- or, more likely, here in Alexandria, some noblewoman's husband- people were weird here). Tantalus, despite its "official" (or is that true? Baku thought randomly) purpose as a band of thieves, actually did run an extremely good play theater, and Baku knew a lot about acting. A great deal, actually. A man who was big on "extreme" plays, ones who were so over the top as to be almost disbelieved (but no one really disbelieved plays; in a world where creatures like Grand Dragons roamed about and sometimes wiped out entire villages, and where strange, magical things were everyday occurrences, no one quite disbelieved what they saw in a play), Baku had watched his fair share, and participated in them too. Although Tantalus was actually a thieving band, more and more they were leaning towards the "productive" side of their activities, namely plays and writing (Blank had started a book based off their real adventures, titling it "The Acts of the Sharp Town Fools", off a mission, in a place called Sharp Town, that the Tantalus group had horribly bungled; Baku still groaned as he remembered running from that village, Burmecian foot soldiers all doing their best to shoot him in the ass with arrows, Blank and Marcus yelling at Zidane as they ran, figuring he'd done something stupid, when it had been Cinna's thievery of the rare Burman Coffee some old guy had been keeping in the village that sparked the assault) and so Baku had learned to be quite a good actor in the meantime. In fact, it was Baku's close connection with both activities (thievery and acting) that had led Regent Cid to give him the task of stealing the princess. Baku smiled as he thought of her. The sweet, sweet, beautiful Princess Garnet. She wouldn't be too hard to catch. And afterwards…
All he'd really have to do was keep Zidane as far away from her as possible…
Smiling and chuckling beneath his beard, Baku opened the play.
" Ladies and Gentlemen! Noble Lords and Ladies!…"
From above, Queen Brahne watched.
-
High Throne of Alexandria, the Gift of Alexander, Guardian of the Spirit of Mortals, Eidolon of Light, same time.
Brahne sat on her throne, and as she listened to the introduction (given by the deep-voiced man in the proper tone and voice; having watched a million plays in her time, Brahne knew that a introduction should be gentle, polite, courteous, and respectful, but without being weak in any way, or the play would have that tone the whole way through) she thought to herself as to what she would do with her darling child. Poor Garnet. She was such a tortured child. Of course, that wouldn't matter soon enough- when Zorn and Thorn were done with her, Kuja had told her, she would be less than useless to them, and Brahne fully intended to pitch the child away as soon as she could- but in the meantime, Brahne was actually enjoying playing mother to the girl. She had been doing it for some time now, and though she never really felt the way a mother should feel, that didn't matter. It was actually better like this; all the pleasure with none of the pain. (Of course, Brahne, with the greed in her mind like some slowly salivating, always hungry presence, lounging like an easy glutton in wait for its meal on an easy seat made of old bones and gold, forgot that, up until her husband's death and Kuja's appearance, she had felt like a mother to her child; in fact, she had been a mother to her child, but now that the thing was inside her, she never thought of anything except in terms of power or the hunger for it).
Thinking of the girl, Brahne turned and was about to say something, to see what Garnet thought of the play (sometimes, the girl had surprisingly deep or just interesting perspectives on things, ones Brahne had never seen; she suspected it was the sleeping eidolons inside her, because, for one, she believed that Bahamut at the least would have an opinion on plays, being the main figure in so damn many of them), when she realized that Garnet was no longer there. Shaking her head and sighing, she turned and summoned her two guardians to her. One was General Beatrix, who, with the possible exception of Garnet (who, Brahne thought, didn't count, because she couldn't use most of her powers), was the single most powerful person alive in Alexandria. As Beatrix walked up to the seat, she saluted her queen and waited, regal in the thick, heavily gelled curls of her hair. The enormous metal plate that covered the eye she had lost in a battle with a griffon (long, long ago- nowadays, Beatrix's fingernail was probably tougher than the average griffon claw) gleamed in the torchlight where her curls did not cover it. Her sword, Save the Queen (a name which Brahne still found gratifying, after all these years; if nothing else, it showed how dedicated Beatrix was to her), waited at her hip, asleep until such time as its master would need it. On her other side, Steiner, head of the Knights of Pluto, looked over and began to approach.
The knights of Pluto were the only males in the army; an odd story surrounded them, which Brahe remembered now, as Steiner, enormous jaw set, walked forward to her. Long ago, when Alexandria itself was under attack, three men, disdaining the culture of Alexandria that bespoke of how weak and cowardly men were, picked up the swords of their dead wives and fought with such ferocity and valor that the enemy fled before them, running for their lives, actually quitting the city and moving off to the city limits themselves. The three men, however, had not been content with this- that same hour, they had snuck in to the enemy encampment and actually killed the leader, exhibiting extreme skill, cunning, and bravery in sneaking into the enemy encampment itself. The men, mission over, had left the confused and soon-to-self-destruct enemy camp to its own problems.
Yet, when they came back later, with the general's head in their hands, the Alexandrian army had mistakenly thought they were enemy soldiers, and had shot all three of them. One lone soldier, however, recognized one of them as the husband of her sister, who had just been killed, and crying her grief, ran over to him. The man, the enemy general's head in his hands, had told her that it was alright- they hadn't fought for the army anyway. They'd fought for Alexandria. The men had been taken in for healing, but it was too late- they were dying. It was all the white mages could do to slow their deaths enough for the Queen to speak to them. The Queen, in an act of unheard-of kindness, asked the men if they wished to be knighted. The reply of one of the men had become famous, and was the actual coda and creed of the Knights of Pluto.
" My Queen," the man said, choking to death on the blood from arrows his own people had shot at him, " we... are... not your knights. We are not... of your knights. We... do not seek... to fight and to war for the glory of Alexandria. We wish... nothing more... than to protect our homes. We wish to protect our kingdom- to guard, not to hunt. To keep the treasure, not seek it out. If we are Knights because of this... then Knights we shall be, but not knights of this world, but Knights... of Pluto...."
Pluto (in Alexandrian cosmology, the third planet from their own world) was considered the planet of "home" (Alexandria had a long history of star-watching, related to Burmecia's; each planet had a "power" in their cosmology, and Pluto's was of the home and defending), and the man's speech struck a chord in the hearts of all those gathered there. The Queen, her eyes misty with wonder that the man's words could be so eloquent and so immortal, all at the same time as he was dying, had said, in a choked voice, " Then Knights of Pluto you shall be. I hereby declare all of you the Knights of Pluto, and in penance for our sins of harming your lives, a statue shall be raised to you- not in the main square, where our other generals lie… but in the town center, where our homes are, for by your own words, they are what you protect- not a Queen, not an ideal, but a home. For you, may that home be in the stars." The men died an hour later. Their weapons became famous (one, in the long, odd, and winding course of history, was mutated, transformed, and filled with the spirit of light- it later became known as Ragnarok, and was buried in the deeps of time, but that is a story for another day), and the statue was built. Realizing that the men's sacrifice may have been just the thing she needed to jumpstart a plan she'd held in the back of her mind (a plan for a knight army that simply stayed at home to protect the castle, a major worry of that Queen), the Queen opened up the newest chapter of Knights, the Knights of Pluto, made up of males, whose sole purpose was the defense and protection of Alexandria itself. Ever since, the Knights of Pluto were considered the only men equal with women in Alexandria. Their Captain was the one man allowed anywhere near the Queen on normal occasions (excepting any husbands or sons) and the title of Captain of the Knights of Pluto was considered the highest rank any male could attain in Alexandria. Though in her times it was considered a joke position, the title had held some considerable power over the years. Now, with the almost inhumanly powerful white knight Beatrix as Head General (below Queen, the highest rank of all in Alexandria), the position meant less. There were times when the Captain was the mightiest force in Alexandria, sometimes greater than the Queen…
Shaking her head of odd thoughts (the two soldiers waiting patiently), Brahne said, " Beatrix. Where is my daughter? She left her seat a few moments ago."
" I do not know, Your Majesty," Beatrix said. " However, might I offer a suggestion?"
" Go on," Brahne said, fluttering her fan.
" She may be in her room," Beatrix said. " She might be checking her dress again- she has some time before the play starts, after all." Beatrix smiled here. " It would be embarrassing for a princess to have a loose button on her robe. She's also a teenager, your Majesty…"
" Don't I know it…" Brahne said, chuckling, for reasons Beatrix was not aware of (involving Zorn, Thorn, an altar beneath the castle, and tomorrow evening).
" So she is probably making sure that she is perfectly attired," Beatrix said with a flourish. " Teenagers hate to go about badly dressed, your Majesty."
" Indeed," she said, then had a thought. Or was it a premonition? In an hour, with half her face burned off and only the incredible amount of bulk she'd garnered over the years preventing the blasted pieces of glass from entering her chest and piercing her heart (the surgeons later pulled over seventy pieces of glass, some quite long, from the Queen's body afterwards), she thought that maybe it was.
Maybe.
" Steiner," she barked, not bothering to pretend that she'd forgotten his name- she usually did that, as a joke to irritate the short-tempered knight. " Find the princess. Make sure she's all right." She had a feeling that nothing was all right with Garnet, and it worried her.
It worried her badly.
" Yes, my Queen," Steiner said, snapping a proud salute and heading off. He would die in exactly eight minutes, lasting long enough to save two soldiers, both of them under Beatrix's command, by throwing them out a nearby window- they only received minor burns wounds and a few bruises, though Steiner was burned alive by the flames that gouted out of the Princess' room and consumed everything nearby in a hellish flame. He died bravely, as a soldier should, and his last words were " Goodbye Alexandria! Long live the Queen!" In another world, he would have become one of the Eight Heroes (as they later were called), but here, in this time and this place, he did not live like a hero- he simply died like one.
Indeed, his was but one of many deaths that day (in a hideous sense of irony, Beatrix survived, but lost her remaining good eye- she was blind to the end of her days), a day that Alexandria remembers as the "Day of the Burning", though fire was not all that it contained. There was ice, too, and darkness, and…
and something greater…
That soared on great leather wings…
To the north…
-
Princess Garnet's room, same time.
Garnet sat in her room, and as she sat, she trembled. She felt the voices in her mind (weak, diluted, not very strong, but there nonetheless) and they talked to her. They had always been with her- gods, she thought she was going mad! Her whole life, they'd been there! Each and every one of them- talking and whispering and advising and leading and yet… and yet…
They always led her astray! By the time she'd finished listening to them, the voices in her head each arguing and saying different things, the moment of action had passed! By the time the things in her mind (who sometimes said such odd, somehow evocative words like "Shiva", "Ifrit", and- once or twice, in response to a horrid shrieking voice she never liked and which thankfully never spoke much- she had even heard "Bahamut", the name of a legendary dragon king) had finished speaking, it was too late to do anything at all… and so Garnet spent most of her life with her decisions made for her (by her mother), or simply doing nothing, because she kept listening to the voices.
She kept… hearing them… Oh, gods, she just wanted them to stop…
Garnet shook her head, and she heard the voices speak in her mind.
" Come, child," said a voice that was soft and yet somehow cold. " 'Tis not so bad, after all."
" Indeed," said another, one she knew as hot and short-tempered, yet somehow gloating and condescending. " She is, in many ways, blessed."
" Yes, indeed," said a third, finishing the trio that was most commonly in her head, a voice that was noble and yet somehow insane, like wind on steel. " Blessed indeed."
" After all," the first, soft, icy voice said, " it's not like…"
" SHUT UP!" Garnet screamed into the room. " JUST SHUT UP! OH, GODS, I CAN'T DEAL WITH IT ANYMORE! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UUUPPP!"
Her mind snapping, Garnet stumbled forward, hearing them speak in her mind- always in her mind, dammit, always in her mind!!!- running forward, grabbing the nearest things to her, flinging them across the room, rage engulfing her, passion filling her mind, and as she grabbed and threw, as she heard a few guards yelp in muffled wonder (and the great, deep bellow of Steiner, yelling in the confusion for order, order), she opened a drawer and saw something.
A letter-opener. A small sword.
A dagger.
And with one swift move, not considering anything, just glad, just so so glad, that the voices would stop, she slit her own throat.
And a horrified shriek suddenly rose up from the ground below her, and she was borne away…
-
Eight hundred years ago, a girl of a woman named Garnet killed herself. Yet the eidolons would not let her die- their existence depended on her existence, and for her to die they would have to die as well. Bahamut, mightiest of them, forced his way out of the dark seclusion of her mind and wished himself into being. And the force of that wish was such that it opened a gateway, and all the other eidolons in Garnet's mind- Odin, Ifrit, Shiva, and Atomos, all of them having been bound to this last of the summoners long ago, by her mother on the ship they were on, wanting to protect their heritage even though she knew she might damn her daughter to madness- came out into being. But the birth of their being was too much for the land to take, and by accident, their powers were unleashed. Blizzards of untold power whirled about, a great hurricane began to tear up parts of the city, gale force winds destroyed the towers of the keep (almost as if they'd been cleaved apart with a sword), and the great form of Bahamut destroyed Alexandria Castle from the inside out… but this was not what anyone remembered. What everyone remembered was simple.
Of the eidolons in Garnet's soul, each had a different personality- a different soul, one might say. And each of these bright little gems had their own agendas, and own ideals, and own pleasures. Bahamut was a simple creature- he didn't give one whit about anything except protecting his own scaly hide. No damage, save that of busting through the castle walls (something he actually hadn't intended- he was almost worried that Alexander, the greatest of eidolons, would come out and slay him for destroying part of the castle that the Eidolon of Light protected- but Alexander's spirit had been broken long ago by a group of men and women scared by a clever plan concocted by all the forces of evil in the universe, a plan that made them fear the only power in their world with strength enough to shatter the boundaries that protected darkness from itself and ruin evil with its own malignancy. Of course, Alexander was not the only power- that was proven wrong in a different time and in a different place- but he was one hell of a mighty one, and the evil in the universe always acts against whatever is right and good.), which he only did because he had to if he was to get up into the night sky and fly away from here. His plan was simple. He would enter the sky and fly somewhere- anywhere, away from the devastation that was now wrecking Alexandria- and cast healing spells on Garnet. Bad though the wound was, he was Bahamut, and though by nature a creature of destruction, he was powerful enough to empower even the simplest of Cure spells with potent magic. As he flew into the sky, Bahamut saved Garnet's life and drew her back from the abyss with a repeated barrage of the most powerful healing spells he knew. There were white mages in the world at that time who would gladly have stained their white robes red with blood to learn some of the spells he chanted to her nearly-dead form. Of course, she wasn't really all dead- no spell could bring back the dead. It had been tried, too many times already, and the price was always too much to pay. There are some barriers even magic can't cross.
The others, however, had just been freed, and though they would have to obey Garnet's commands (whenever and if ever she came around, that was), at the moment, their rule was their own. Shiva rose up and, as a creature who had always liked to view the world as a frozen glass, as a place where time had stopped and one could look through the mirror and see a picture-perfect world, she decided to make a small picture for herself in this screaming, running little town. Shiva, with one wave of her hand, froze to ice all the running, screaming humans passing her by in the streets below. They froze, and Shiva admired the art she had created with a master's eye. Cold, uncaring, and a perfectionist in every respect, she decided the picture wasn't good enough and shattered it to pieces with a single practiced click of her thumbs. Then she turned around and found other things to ice.
Atomos, eternally hungry, simply devoured up the harbor sections of the city. Then, seeing a star gleam in the horizon, he went after it, the one vague thought in the terrified horror jumble that was its mind a rendition of "Beauty..." (Atomos lives a nightmare life, filled with terror each moment, a terror so staggering that Atomos finally reacts with the one weapon it has, its endless hunger... and henceforth it devours everything around it in a single terrible attempt to save itself from the pain it perceives to be all around it at all times. Stars are the one thing that can calm Atomos or bring it peace, even for a moment. Somehow, their light never scares it, and it is often drawn to them, and sometimes spends long nights simply gazing upwards towards them.)
Odin, insane and yet honorable, killed no one save those directly in his path (a total of four people, three too amazed to move and a fourth unconscious- these he treaded over, or beheaded with a single swipe of his blade)- and then proceeded to follow Bahamut in the sky. Soon the others, taking the hint, left too.
But...
One did not.
One stayed behind, a little longer.
Ifrit had always been the cruelest of them. And flames burned a lot longer than ice did... or hunger or pain or darkness or steel...
And that is why they named it the Day of Burning. For the hell-swathed demon of flames they'd all seen. And for the burnings that scarred so many of them.
From that time thereafter, it was called the Scorched City.
Not that Garnet- or Glar'Frost, as she started calling herself- really cared, afterwards.
-
Four hundred years ago, as I stand here, children, the great Ruler Glar'Frost began the journey north, borne, nearly dead but slowly reviving, on the great back and wings of the mighty dragon king Bahamut, the same being who now guards our walls and keeps our peace. He flew her north, not because he had a direction in mind, but because it was the direction he had ended up flying in when he left Alexandria. That, my friends, is the truth of the here and now. Whatever it is that protects us and all life is a being of great and tremendous power... and it uses that power in small, secret ways. Little things amount to so much in the end.
Bahamut flew north, past all lands and all beings, and as he flew north, Odin went with him, and Shiva, and Atomos, and- finally, reluctantly,- Ifrit. Bound to the life of the summoner who controlled them, they accompanied her into the broken lands to protect her against whatever creatures that still lurked in those cold frozen wastes. It has often been said that only two places have ever produced monstrosities that were really worthy of a bard's legends, and that both of them were deserts: one of sand, and one of ice. It was towards the latter that they bore her, as the magic slowly revived her dying form. It took some time, but finally, eventually, they reached the lands that Bahamut had chosen, no special reason, just a nice little spot on the ice fields, no blizzard nearby and no storm clouds threatening one either, just a small, broken patch of a large, broken plain, one he could lay Garnet on and- with the help of the other eidolons, just arriving- one on which he could finish healing her. As Bahamut floated down, the other eidolons finally caught up with him, Odin first, Atomos second, with Shiva and Ifrit- newly arrived from finishing off what was left of Alexandria Castle, burning the remaining Pluto Knights in their armor, cooking them in a bath of red-hot flames and boiling heat- catching up after. Bahamut, landing, asked Odin to remove Garnet from his back. Taking the small, shivering form in his great hands, Odin held her tight to his magical flesh. He gave no warmth, for his skin was cold, but his cupped hands prevented the worst of the biting wind from gnawing at her bones. Odin looked up towards his draconic companion.
" What are we going to do?" Odin asked. " She will need shelter from the winds... And we need a place to gather our energies if she is to be healed. What do you suggest, Bahamut?"
Bahamut, blind head looking down as he mused, said, " Shiva. Shiva can form a few icy walls with her magic. They'll block out the wind and protect us from any monsters out there. Not that we need protecting," here the king of dragons smirked, imagining a miniature ice golem coming up and attempting to attack them, an image the great seriousness of the situation dispelled almost as soon as it was formed, " but she will, and while healing her, I don't want any distractions if I can help it. Ifrit can keep the building warm, at least for a little while."
" Then what do we do?" Odin said, holding Garnet close to him as Shiva finally arrived. She was flying through the air as gracefully as Odin had rode it, her body not moving an inch as she glided through the night air.
" I have no idea," Bahamut said, then the dragon performed a very human move: he shrugged. A single strange, almost defeated gesture ran through the dragon king, and then he shook his great blind head. " I've been living with humans too long. We'll keep her from killing herself, but now that we are out, she'll probably figure out something to do with us. Probably having to do with revenge." Bahamut seeemd to smirk, a sight that was odd even to Odin, who had seen some very strange things in his time. " It's been a while since I had to kill someone slowly. Maybe she'll give me a chance to do that again."
Odin shook his head. " Come now, Bahamut. She's not that cruel-"
" You don't know humans like I do," Bahamut said, turning as he spoke, facing Shiva as her daintily embroidered feet slowly touched the ground. Bahamut muttered backwards to Odin as he finished turning around. " I've been summoned too many damn times already. I'm sick of the games they play... always the same old, same old." Speaking in a louder voice to Shiva, Bahamut, said, " Shiva. We need a space we can work in. I want a small, open place, where we can lay her and heal her without interruptions. Hurry; we haven't much time."
Shiva, despite her quiet arrogance and almost negligent dismissal of others, knew a command when she heard it. Bahamut was their leader, his power the eloquent, smooth-tongued ambassador that warned them of the dire consequences of failing to obey him. Shiva clicked her fingers, and a great, powerful building, perfectly square, leapt into being. It was several miles wide- perfect room for the massive eidolons to move around in.
" Excellent," Bahamut said, soon interrupted by the ravings of something in the distance. Turning, already knowing what would be there, Bahamut watched as Atomos devoured a massive section of the icy ground and reduced it to frostbitten rubble. That, my children, is how we gained the port of Gap'Maw- named, of course, for the act that had brought it into being. Bahamut, shaking his head sadly, opened his mouth, gathered his energies, and with one blast, sundered Atomos' very being apart. Atomos was sent back into the now comatose body of Garnet, and with that little diversion taken care of, Bahamut turned back around. Odin, realizing what Bahamut would probably have to do with the terrified- and terrifying- eidolon, was not shocked in the least bit by the almost casual way Bahamut had fried Atomos. Shiva, who had been slightly shocked, quickly recovered her composure and resumed her look of perfect hauteur.
Ifrit, who had no idea what had just transpired, landed and said, " Huh? What was that? Did you just-"
" I sent him back into Garnet," Bahamut said, turning around. " Come on. Get in. We need to heal her. Shiva, you stay out here. Protect this place."
Shiva, not even nodding, drifted over to where the "door" ( a massive icy gate, decorated with a fresco of a roaring dragon- Shiva had no sense of humor, but she did have an excellent sense of art) was, and waited there as Odin, Bahamut, and Ifrit restored Garnet to waking life.
She was there for over three weeks...
-
The girl woke up, coughing and spluttering, feeling as though her spleen had been ripped out. Holding her body tightly, she moaned softly, as if the pain could be forced away by giving vent to it in the outside air. Her eyes were shut tightly against the pain.
" You are awake," a voice said. The voice reached her like any other voice; she heard it with her ears, not through her bones. She'd never heard this voice before; it sounded like that of a deep, big man, bass and resounding, mildly pleasant. Yet it had an undertone of impatience, and of uncaring. Garnet's small, paltry rocking movement- like that of a child imitating a mother's calm, rocking love- stopped immediately. Her eyes snapped open immediately, and shut just as immediately too. They repeated this several times, up down up down, her eyes snapping upwards and snapping shut, as if she were a shutter blink for a camera that had suddenly broken and could now only repeat the two actions it was designed to do, over and over, endlessly and endlessly. Garnet shook where she was, and then another voice spoke up, and her eyes snapped open for the last time.
" At least she's awake," said another voice, and somehow, the grin in that voice could be heard before it was ever seen. " Now maybe we can find someplace warmer. You chose one hell of a place to come to, Bahamut."
The earth rumbled as some great weight shifted about. " I did the best I could on short notice, Ifrit," a pleasant tenor voice said. The sound shifted about as she listened, as though the speaker were shifting his head from side to side, looking for something, searching, perhaps. " North, south, east, west- all directions are one and the same, so long as she's safe."
A calm, arrogantly cool female voice spoke from outside. " Is the girl safe?"
The tenor spoke back. " Yes. Continue your guard duties, Shiva."
No reply from outside. Garnet, her eyes finally adjusting to the red glow of the room (it reminded her of Alexandria Castle's forges), looked about herself, and her eyes grew wide with terror as she scrambled back before the creatures she saw gathered around her.
One was enormous, a giant of a man, sitting in a far corner and sharpening an enormous, wicked-looking blade. The second was a massive dragon, its slouched form- partially wrapped up in a great, enormous tail- seeming much like that of a snake, with the great horned head rising over it like a hissing bearer of death. The last, from whom the forge fire glow was coming, was a great, grinning demon, the one whose voice spoke of death and fire, a creature eternally bound to fire and flame. The three looked down at her, and in that moment, Garnet was broken for all time and in the shattered wreck of a shell where she had been, Glar'Frost was born. Garnet's thoughts went something like this, as she made the transition from girl to woman:
" What they're real oh thank everything they are REAL..."
" What are they doing out"
" Where am I"
" What the hell am I doing here"
" Who brought me"
" I should be dead"
It was that last that settled it for both Garnet and the world. The realization of what she had done- or at least attempted- hit Garnet with the force of a tidal wave. Her lip quivered- her eyes overflowed with tears. She didn't want to, but was helpless to stop it. She fought bravely until a half-whispered comment came into her mind, a slight remembrance of her mother's, perhaps the last thing her mother ever said to her before the greed completely consumed her mind. It had been the day of her father's funeral, and little Garnet had tried to keep from weeping until her mother said, standing apart, the guards a respectful distance from the mourning Queen, something in tones so dark and sad that it made Garnet think of a word she'd heard once, and with it the odd, detached idea that it was the first time she'd ever really realized what that word meant, and a realization of what true horror it contained in it.
The word she'd thought of had been sorrow. Her voice almost weeping with it, Brahne had said,
" It's okay to cry, Garnet. It's okay... to mourn, to weep, to pain... Let them wash you away. Maybe they'll find you on a safe shore when you've went through their bitter waters."
Garnet's eyes poured tears, and the eidolons, respectful of their summoner's position if not of the girl herself, respectfully kept their silence as she wept.
When she was done, she looked up, and said, " Where am I?"
Ifrit almost answered. If he had, the world itself would have changed. But Bahamut spoke first.
" The frozen reaches, Garnet. We escaped here when you..." Here Bahamut paused, and turned his great blind head away. " Afterwards, we escaped your form. We've healed you... we brought you here because we were searching at random."
" How did you... escape?" Garnet said. " And why did you save me, if you were free?"
" We're not," Bahamut said. " Until you die, we stay alive. The instant your heart stops beating, if we haven't found a new master, we die too. That's why we saved you. Our life is bound to yours."
" Oh." Garnet pondered this, then said, " Take me home."
" Garnet..." Bahamut began, and (coming up with a remarkable bit of play-acting on the spot), dipping his head, started his lie. The lie that eventually forged the kingdom of Wint'Gall. That forged a nation.
It began with the truth.
" Your mother wanted you killed," Bahamut said flatly, throwing two people (Ifrit and Garnet) into almost hysterical fits. " She wanted you dead."
" What? That's impossible! My mother... what... that... what are you talking about?" Garnet babbled and screamed, for lack of anything better to do. Her emotions had just swung wildly, wildly, out of control.
" What?" Ifrit said, roaring his confusion. " What are you-"
A sudden mental bolt from Bahamut, so powerful it almost hurt, shut Ifrit up. He had sense enough not to recoil- if he had, Bahamut may well have attacked him right then and there. And it wouldn't be a simple attack on his physical being, like what Bahamut did to send Atomos back to Garnet, either- it would be one on his very essence.
Shut up. Garnet has no idea what happened in Alexandria. Do you want to tell her we burst out of the castle, flying from her dead form, frying and killing and rampaging everything we came across? Do you want to tell her about the bars you burned, or that little black mage whose head you bit off? Or maybe that Burmecian boy, the one with the red hat, the one that Shiva froze into a perfect portrait of a running man, then destroyed with a casual snap of her fingers? Do you want to tell her how Atomos ate the harbor? Do you?!? You know what she'll do then- she'll kill us! And we can't stop her- a summoner's commands can never be countered! You know that! We read minds, so we know about her mother's plans for her. Her mother was going to kill her- we didn't care, because she meant to free us beforehand- but now that we are stuck with Garnet, I am going to give her the grandest lie she ever heard, and I'm going to do it by mixing it up with the truth. At all costs, we must keep her away from Alexandria!
Ifrit, recoiling from the mental backlash this message gave to him, fell silent and cold as Bahamut, speaking smoothly and completely without a pause, rolled out his lie to Garnet.
" We... have known about this for some time. We have slight powers to affect your world, and information gathering is one of them. Your mother planned on ripping out all the eidolons from your body, and she was only waiting until you were sixteen to do it. The day you... the last day you remember was your sixteenth birthday. Come tomorrow night, you were to be tied to an altar, and then Zorn and Thorn would perform a ritual to drag every one of us, kicking and screaming, into being. They would force us into gems-"
" Stop it!" Garnet yelled. " That's not true! It can't be true!" She reverted back, not to tears, but to holding her legs to her and rolling into a small little ball, face buried in knees. " It can't be true..."
" We cannot lie," Bahamut lied. " Not to our summoner. Brahne had intended this for some time, ever since your father's death. Ever since she became power mad. I think Kuja started it in her soul..."
Garnet, shaking her head, threw up the one defense she had. " Why didn't you act? By your own words, if I die, you die."
Bahamut, finding a snag in his plan, quickly found a way out and took it. " Alas, we, too, were bound by time. Until you reached sixteen, we were unable to do anything about it." Pleased with himself, Bahamut almost smiled.
Still in her defensive little ball, her little way of protecting herself against all the big bad world, Garnet said, " But wait. If... if you couldn't come out and fight for me, couldn't you have told me? I'm sure that Steiner would protect me, even against Mother's orders..."
" Would you have believed us?" Bahamut said. " Would you have really thought of it as anything more than the ramblings of an insane old dragon and his companions?" Bahamut seemed to sigh, and it was this sigh, more than anything else, that caught Garnet's attention and made her believe him. It was of heart-breaking, mind shattering loss, and Bahamut's unspoken sympathies seemed to be with her. " We didn't want to hurt you, Garnet. We could have told you- so what? Why ruin the last happy days of your life? We didn't believe it would do any good. When the time came, we planned on rushing out, defending you, and explaining it to you later." Bahamut seemed to smile at her, a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. Slightly blinking, her eyes full of fear, Garnet slowly looked up at him.
" The... events in your room forced us to act early. At least we are far from the castle, with no innocents harmed." Bahamut never noticed Odin smiling behind him when he said this. " And now, we await your orders." Confident his mission had been accomplished, Bahamut merely sat back to watch.
Her next statement surprised them all. It was the first words Garnet said as Glar'Frost, the Ruler of the Land of Bleak, soon to be the capital of all continents. She stood up slowly before she said them, and in her eyes was not pain, not fear, but a sudden, long-needed and newly-awakened sense of vengeance. For the first time in her life, Garnet had power. Her own power seemed to throb in her mind. Garnet shivered, but not from the cold. She had power in her hands now, and she found it good.
She also had a plan. Garnet could almost feel the gears in her mind, never before used and now hastily thrown together, turning and tinking, coughing sometimes when it hit a rough spot but never really slipping a gear, never really missing a beat. A lover of romantic fantasies and conspiracy plays alike, her mind was surprisingly cunning for its age and lack of experience. Smiling up at them, a hard and cold smile, Garnet said the first words that began her empire.
" Where did you say I was?"
-
My friends, as you hear this, I, Bitt'Eye, have been alive for almost four hundred years. I am old, and full of many stories; but still this place tells me storeis, as it always seems to do. It is the will of your land to speak stories, and now, as we huddle closer to the campfires of this great city of Free'Heart, we can hear them speak all around us, in the whisper of the cool winds. I need not tell you all the events of the intervening years; how Bahamut, in his old, tired, dead heart, found a new thing in Garnet, a thing worthy of watching and, maybe, aiding, and eventually grew to aid her and fight beside her as she built her city; of the fierce argument between Garnet and Shiva, as they began dredging the lands and building this fortress, over her newly chosen name of Glaring Frost, of Shiva's objection that it was cliched and old and childish and how, in a rage, Glar'Frost nearly ordered her destroyed. Of how she thought over Shiva's words, and an idea came into her mind, and how she eventually created the system of naming we have today, of taking the first four letters of our first name and adding them to the second, of having a full title- mine being Bitter Eye, as you may or may not know- and using it only when one must, a title and not a name.
Of how she built a city off the power of the great eidolons who served her, of Ifrit razing the land, burning it to make great holes where buildings would stand, of Shiva raising up a wall of ice about it, of Atomos sucking up the dredges of water that flowed from the streets like the rushing foam of some mighty river. Of Odin using his mighty sword to hack sculptures from the ice, of Bahamut using his mighty breath to destroy the monsters of the land that came to accost this stranger in their homes, and, finally, of Glar'Frost sitting on her throne and brooding that she had no subjects, and wondering what had became of the world. Of taking to wing on Bahamut's back and finding out what had happened to Burmecia, and to Alexandria, and to Lindblum. Of the devastation in Alexandria, one she assumed had nothing to do with her, and how her mother still lived. Of how a little, almost inconsequential town named Dali had suddenly risen to prominence, strange creatures of magic rising up and assailing the town's foes, of how a combined effort by Burmecian forces had finally put them down, razing the village with the help of a mighty stranger who wielded the weapon of a dragon knight and yet knew nothing of his truth. Of how Lindblum had finally perfected steam engines, from the effort of a refugee from Alexandria named Jonathan Briggs, whose wife was one of the two soldiers that Steiner saved. Of how steam airships were now exploring the world.
And she returned home, our Ruler, her mind full of intriguing thoughts and little pieces of idea... and found a group of cold, lonely Lindblum engineers, all nearly dead, crash-landed on her frozen, isolated world. Of the smile that lit her heart when she saw them, and the one that lit her face when she greeted them, flying down on Bahamut's mighty scaled back.
Of how she took them in, to the city she named Freezing Heart, and raised them up as her own, never promising what she could not give but always giving what she promised... and finally, as the years passed, of how they became her children, and the Ruler was now Ruler in truth, for a city was hers. The cold wilds shaped the people, and the rich veins found beneath the city provided them with the metal they needed. Great forests of pine lived in these slopes, and the domestication and taming of the great snow creatures gave them a means of transporting the mighty logs to their forges and their factories. I do not need to tell you of how the town grew, and grew, and grew.
I need not speak of that terrible time, thirty years from her attempted suicide, when the man who called himself Kuja appeared, with a vast army of mages with their steeple-hats and death magics behind him, demanding Ruler Glar'Frost and her eidolons for his army. Of how Atomos, in the greatest sacrifice of its life, drew all of Kuja's magic into its ever-hungry jaw and detonated itself, destroyed its own essence, to eliminate him forever. Of the strange scream we all heard, seeming to echo throughout the lands. The scream that came from the Iifa Tree, that great dead monolith we know now, because the explosion had reached out and touched far more than just Kuja's soul. The Iifa Tree died that day, and though we still do not know why it screamed so, some say that a world died that day. I do not know, though I do know that only the efforts of an entire nation and its people brought Atomos back from the great winding dark, and that when it returned, the fear was gone from it, and it became our nation's greatest hero. I need not tell you of all this, nor our rise to power as the dominant force in the world. Of how the dwarves became the first race to join us, and then the people of Daguerro, where Glar'Frost learned of Leviathan, the great creature she found and enlisted to our side for aid in defeating the final fleet of Alexandria's navy. I need not say this. Others know it better than I.
As for me? I, speaking of the black mages, have yet to say of myself. Glar'Frost cannot die; she is bound to the eidolons and so long as they live, so does she. I, too, am immortal; but it is only through the kindness of Glar'Frost that I live. For, you see, I was one of the terrible beings that stood on the shore with Kuja the day he died, and I was one of the ones that survived, that came to the city with outstretched hands, asking not for mercy, but for peace. I waited at that gate with my hands outstretched, not No. 288 anymore, not the semi-elected chief of a village of fellow constructs and outcasts, none of that any longer, just a poor, tired soul wanting death if I could not have life- for then I believed that Kuja had taken with him the only secret to extending our lives that existed. I waited there, and when Glar'Frost, clad in all her power, arrived at that gate and opened it, I begged for death.
And I shall never forget the look of pity on her face, or the mere brushing of her hand that gave me life. Now, I and all my kind- Black Mages no longer, but Frozen Mirages, known to you as the Cold Ghosts, gifted with eternal life by our Ruler- serve her with unwavering loyalty. Our country rules this world now, and with our reign we have brought both happiness and enlightenment to the world. Glar'Frost received her vengeance on her mother. Regent Cid, who was an ally of ours in the first series of Wolrd End wars, died, but in dying, bequeathed his kingdom to Glar'Frost and gave us command of Lindblum. Our enemy in the war, the naval kingdom of Triendale, was defeated, but the last of their ships assaulted the neutral power of Burmecia. We stood at Burmecia's side that day, though even we Frozen Mirages did not know quite why we stood- and there, on that field, the people of Burmecia joined us. Their king, holding on to what was left of his power, raged at them to stop, but led by a female dragon knight named Freya, and a man with red hair named Amarant (a human, and to this day no one knows why he was in Burmecia on the eve of the final battle of the first World End war, though rumors have flown that he had joined their cause after seeing how well Freya fought), the mass of Burmecia agreed to leave with us, in our great steam-driven airships. We took them away from their alternatively rain-soaked and parched lands, and finally, in the end, we took them home.
And now we wait. The world is at peace. It will not remain so, because that is not the way of the world- strife, not calm, feed the world most. But we will remain secure.
For the frozen throne of Glar'Frost will never be broken.
"Written by a scholar after listening to a story told by Bitt'Eye, the most renowned of all Frozen Mirages, and verified by Bitt'Eye himself as a word for word retelling of his famous oral epic 'Dreams of a Frozen Land', the long poem he wrote detailing everything that has happened in Ruler Glar'Frost's reign since the beginning, though Bitt'Eye correctly noted that this is but part one, correctly entitled 'To Spin This Dream'."
-From the notes and files of Arthur Wrynn, High Scholar of Free'Heart, found in his library by his successor, Terenas Lothar
Fin