'Scorpios are known for their intense and powerful natures. They are willful, proud and calm with an electrifying undercurrent of seething intensity. Purposeful and animated with force, they project a magnetic personality.'
Zodiac Signal
A Final Fantasy Tactics fanfic
By Tenshi no Ai
I don't own the characters and locations in the game that are presented in this work, Square-Enix does.
VIII. The Scorpion, Scorpio
No matter how used he was to death, Cidolfas Orlandu still felt a dull ache of sadness every time he was confronted with it. There were countless bodies strewn about on the vast, barren fields of Zeltennia. He mourned for each and every one of them, whether they were friend or foe, Nanten or otherwise. Their deaths were unnecessary, a waste of so much potential, and all for a war that ultimately meant nothing. He was proud to be a part of the ongoing peace process, but his pride faltered now.
Balbanes Beoulve, his closest friend and the progenitor of the treaty between Ivalice and Ordalia, was dead.
It was as dark inside the spacious Beoulve manor as it was outside. He found it appropriate, given the circumstances. Each step he took echoed dully in the vast atrium, one after another until his stride could not be distinguished from the pounding rain. Despite the news that had brought the Holy Swordsman and his son here, his finely honed senses were strumming up and down his spine as if he were a freshly strung lute. A part of his mind was dulled and at peace, mourning the man who had sought nothing but it, but another part of his mind was paying attention, parting through the shadows and the steps and--
"Before you retire for the night, why don't you come with me to my office. I wanted to talk to you about Father's interment tomorrow."
"Of course," was all he could say, staring at Dycedarg Beoulve's back, trying to differentiate it from the darkness. When he still could not after a minute, he had to wonder if it was because of his age, or something else that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the man in front of him.
He felt as if he had just been invited into the behemoth's den.
They walked up the stairs, the elder behind the younger, in a silence nearly palpable with the cold sensation of sharpened knives. Understandable, as the two men only tolerated each other. Cidolfas could not explain why he had never warmed up to the eldest son of his best friend, only that something made him wary. There was something seething within those dull hazel eyes and stony countenance, a writhing darkness that could've never been inherited from the eternally pure Heavenly Knight. That was why he had asked Olan to take care of the bags and to find their rooms; the young man was capable of taking care of himself, but the eldest Beoulve was far out of the astrologer's league. Cidolfas, much as he hated to admit it, had the same pulse of darkness inside himself. It would be easier to talk to Dycedarg without prying eyes, especially since the elder knight had something he wanted to know. While he didn't care for the ducking and weaving of what would surely make up the upcoming verbal battle, the subtle half-truths and outright lies mingling with the sickly-sweet venom only those with a silver tongue can spew, it had to be done.
Hide and Seek was never truly a child's game.
Up more stairs than should be required in any one house--or castle, for that matter--and the men entered a room cobwebbed with shadows. Dycedarg set about in lighting fresh candles while Cidolfas stood at the door and watched the darkness scatter farther into the corners with each lit candle. There was an image in his mind, that of the eldest Beoulve working into the depths of the night. A lone candle on the table served the need for light while the shadows surrounded the man, hovering over him like the antithesis of a painted picture of Saint Ajora with the requisite golden aural halo.
When the room was bright and cheery and completely wrong for the overall looming atmosphere, Cidolfas stepped inside the room and sat down at the chair Dycedarg had placed at the front of the grand mahogany desk. The other man, in the meanwhile, pulled out a bottle of wine, Limberrian by the look of the slim, cherry-black bottle topped by a light cork. "What are we celebrating?" the Holy Swordsman asked, his tone harsher than he would've liked. He was bothered by the light and the black.
Balbanes, dead.
"Of course, there's nothing to celebrate," Dycedarg said, his voice mildly chiding while his hazel-green eyes glittered like a glacier clogging up Larner Channel. "Father loved this brand. It's a good year, eighty-one," he continued, using the Church's method of counting the years instead of the common vernacular.
A lie, lobbed straight at Cidolfas' face. He couldn't believe it. Balbanes cared little for wine, as it was too harsh on a palate used to bland rations. 'Eighty-one'? That was nine years ago. An icy feeling caressed the older man's skin like a past lover's touch. Wasn't that the year Balbanes' pretty second wife had been paralyzed by a riding accident?
"I see," was all he could say in response, his face bland, his mind churning out suspicions and theories.
The Lune Knight put two wineglasses on the orderly desktop, corking the bottle with a deft ease and pouring a portion of its contents into a glass, which he handed over to the other man. "Try it, Sir Orlandu. See if it's to your liking."
Cidolfas looked down into the dark liquid and a memory bubbled up, one of Balbanes and an innocent sneeze.
"Certainly."
The wine went down well enough, a perfectly principled sourness followed by the appropriate aftertaste. To the man who had traveled from Bethla to Igros with nothing but the greasiest of foods and driest of ales to sustain him, it was seductive in its taste of richness, of a life indoors that he chose not to live in favor of rations and well water. But this one meager sip left him wanting, and he supposed that was the way of nobles and wine, royalty and land, humans and power.
Dycedarg was running long fingers through his thin beard when Cidolfas looked up from the wine glass, an unreadable expression on his face like always, yet tinged with something that made the elder man pleased.
Annoyance. The tiny pause before Cidolfas drank the offering of wine must've made him wary.
How strange, Thundergod Cid mused.
"I assume it's to your liking," Dycedarg smiled thinly.
"Naturally. It was Balbanes' favorite, after all. The man had good taste, barring a few things."
"Of course, that's the same with everyone."
"Not at all. I've known some people who thought they knew everything, but it turned out that they were...lacking in one area or another."
The eldest Beoulve kept smiling, though it seemed a bit pinched. "That's how it is with taste. No one could possibly know how to please other people, no matter how renown their taste may be."
Cidolfas paused. He thought that he was controlling the double talk, but there was something behind Dycedarg's words that seemed...like the other man was speaking of an entirely different matter. Not at all perturbed by this, the elder man merely gestured to the wine glasses. "It doesn't seem right to have empty glasses. You should indulge a bit, I'm sure the loss of your father must be weighing you down."
"Isn't that guilt?" Dycedarg remarked as he amiably poured the wine. Cidolfas raised an eyebrow at this.
"Excuse me?"
"Guilt weighs people down."
"Oh, but what would you have to be guilty about?" The question was more than a little sardonic. "Surely you didn't wish Balbanes ill will?"
The younger man leaned back in his chair, a small smile on his face as he drank the wine. "Oh no, I didn't wish it."
Cidolfas had never thought that six words could sound so truthful and yet so viciously a lie at the same time. "I wouldn't have believed it to be true even if you did. Balbanes spoke well of you," but he never spoke of you with such pride as he did of Zalbag and Ramza, he didn't finish.
"My father had kind words to say to everyone," Dycedarg replied, and it was the first thing he had said that wasn't pitted with the acidic residue of a lie. "But, that is not what I wanted to talk about."
"Ah, yes. The interment, correct?"
"Yes, as well as afterwards," Dycedarg affixed a searching gaze upon his elder, who had merely raised an eyebrow. Better to wait him out, Cidolfas knew; the Lune Knight had a reason behind every syllable. "I hope that, despite my father's death, there will still be unity between our families."
'Why?' the Holy Swordsman nearly asked, but knew that would lead to an entrapment of lies and half-truths. He could almost taste them now, mixed in the wine, Balbanes' favorite. Instead, he idly rubbed the bottom of the fluted glass with a leather rough thumb, his stance that of the innocent. "When has there not been? The Beoulve and Orlandu families have been bound by the tenets of honor for over a hundred years now."
The other man seemed to bristle at that, though his expression was neutral. "Yes, Father had often mentioned that when he was alive."
"Is there a point to all of this?" Cidolfas asked briskly, suddenly wary.
"I only wanted to be sure of the ties between our families, now that Ivalice is headed for a new age," Dycedarg answered smoothly, washing down his words with wine, "things are bound to change."
Finding allies when your father hasn't even been lowered into his grave yet, Cidolfas realized, at once both sickened and amazed by Dycedarg's words. He placed his glass onto the desk and stood, feeling a sudden need to leave before his patience dwindled like the flames of the candles in the study. "I'll say this much, Dycedarg," he started, his voice even, "the Orlandu name is devoted to loyalty, as much to one's lord as to the people. But that loyalty has a second clause, and that is to stand by those who hold true to the honor of their name...no matter how things change."
The Lune Knight looked as if he had tasted something bitter. "Fitting words for one's epithet," he finally replied.
"Perhaps," Cidolfas smiled, though it looked like a grimace with the dancing candlelight playing over his face, "but I don't plan on leaving this world yet. I will see you in the morning." With those words, he left the study, his sharp eyes catching a glimpse of Olan and his yellow mantle in the darkness. He could not help but think of the fate of his departed friend's family as he strode through the night-cloaked hall, a glimmer of worry at what could happen now that Balbanes was gone. Now Dycedarg was the head of the Beoulve family, the first of that esteemed name.
Tomorrow...what then?
-Scorpio fades into Sagittarius...-
It's nice to be back. I had a lot of fun, writing and playing Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne and Katamari Damacy (both excellent, wonderful games that happen to be polar opposites), but it's time to get this series squared away!
Scorpio, the sign of driving passions, of secrets, of life and death and rebirth. Oh, and of sex. Can't forget about that, though with the Scorpios in FFT I'd kinda like to. (Bleh, sorry.) There is an astrological theory that says that there are three stages of Scorpionic personality, which can be outfitted upon our three Scorpios:
-The Scorpion: I know, you weren't expecting this, were you? This is the stage of emotion and instinct, where one is more likely to sting themselves than others. Actually, I'd say that Dycedarg could fit this one, if only in the way he blew up at Zalbag over the 'you're not upholding the honor of the Beoulves' and then proceeded to out himself as Balbanes' murderer. But, then there's--
-The Eagle: This is the stage of exercising power through intellect. Dycedarg thought he was smart, and so did Draclau. All those complicated plans, their diagrams of betrayal, all foiled by a mere squire.
-The Dove: The final stage, this is where the Scorpio exercises power through love. Ah, Orlandu through and through. Showing a lot of love through All Swordskill, the cheap bastard. And Excalibur too.
But, other than that, the general traits of a Scorpio show through all three men. Driven, powerful men, all with their own secrets. Scorpio is the fixed water sign of the zodiac, and the opposite sign is Taurus.
Reviewers...actually, it's been a month. Do you really remember what you wrote a month ago? Sorry, but I doubt it. Thank you for reviewing, though!