Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in a privative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight.

- Thomas Aquinas

Dyne had been thinking as he moved through simple exercises on the cool midmorning dirt.

"The Serpent," he said, "is not a noble animal. It is a low animal--low and base, like the worms. In great Centra, no noble house had a serpent as an emblem." Dyne balacned on the balls of his feet, moving through a kata all of his own. "But in the Kashkabald Desert where I found you, they were overjoyed to see serpents once. They saw in you all the possibilities of creation."

The Kashk were perhaps the wiser ones, the serpent leered.

"What did they call you?"

That is immaterial.

"I would like to know your name." He felt as if he was dancing, but he had never learned to dance. It was a conceit, and he was well aware of it.

Names can be powerful.

"Only if you give them power, and I am powerful anyway." He spun, landing lightly on his feet time and time again. The sorcery flowed through him, flooding him with energy. "I think I am much like you, serpent--loved by few, reviled by many, fearsome and base but beautiful and deadly. I don't believe I want to be your enemy."

You are the world's enemy.

"Are you a part of this world?"

Perhaps I am.

"And perhaps you are not." Filled with momentum and vigor, he attempted a forward handspring. He failed painfully, and found himself looking up at the thin wisps of cloud in the sky while feeling minor lacerations all up and down his back. "Who are you?"

The serpent hesitated, regarding him with wary distrust. I am a tempter and a deceiver.

"And I am a liar and a fool. Who are you?"

...I am Naja, the serpent replied. Last lord of the Desert.

"And I am Dyne," Dyne replied. "Simple Dyne, once simpler Jared Tomaggru. We shall be friends before too long."

I doubt that, Dyne Ascendant. The serpent's voice was cold. I doubt that very much.

Dyne smiled. "I knew you would."

-

They are standing together under moonlight and the stars are in her eyes. Dyne frowns to see them so contented. He dislikes the potential for a happy ending.

A happy ending cannot exist if what is happy is not the end.

(I'll be your knight.)

The Knight is sleeping.

The Knight is waking on the morning of a new day. The world is fresh and new and scarred and old and bitter around him. He knows it too well to think that he wakes victorious.

"Time. It will not wait. No matter... how hard you hold on...."

They are floating together against the the blood of the moonlight and the stars are all around them, breathing precariously and trying to hold on.

"You want to live, right? You want to go back and see everyone, right?"

"I don't want the future. I want the present to stand still. I just want to stay here with you...."

Time will not wait. It escapes them, and--

(...this is what Rinoa decided. There's nothing I can do about it... right?)

And--

"Squall's sword will pierce my heart...."

And--

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Haven't you done enough? I know you're not like that!"

And--

And--

And--

Dyne waits and watches intently, murder in his eyes.

"Reflect upon your childhood. Your sensation... your words... your emotion..."

(Perhaps we were born... only to fight?)

SeeD is sworn to kill the Sorceress. That much, everyone knows.

"I see. Interesting."

"We've come to take back--"

His enemy raises the sword, and cuts downward. He will bear that scar for life.

"Thanks to you, I feel like I can take on anyone."

There are knights and there are nights and there are Knights, and Odin rides out of the storm and the thunder to challenge him. "Knight errant."

Time---it will not wait.

It is running out too quickly, and Odin has all the power to kill them all.

"Well, this is how it turned out."

"You've become the Sorceress'--"

"Knight. This has always been my dream."

There are knights and nights and Knights....

"Squall, you're mine!"

Odin rides out of the storm and the thunder. "ZANTETSUKEN."

His enemy raises the sword, and the mounted Knight is cut in half. Incredible. The GFs embodied such power, and now--

"Huh? Was it you...?"

-

Dyne startled out of his immersion in Squall's memories, a strangled cry caught in his throat. He couldn't escape the usual unsettled feelings any more than he usually could--but now there was something new; the afterimpression of staring eyes, a challenging voice not his own, not Naja's, and not Squall's.

He was shuddering in the afternoon warmth--quaking at the thought of being discovered. Death had brushed its tattered cloak against him, and he had escaped by the narrowest of margins.

The serpent was hissing a quiet chuckle in the back of his mind. You have garnered enemies already, Dyne Ascendant.

"What--what was that?" Dyne held the ragged blanket tighter around him. "That wasn't--wasn't natural--"

You think to sneak into empty houses when the master is long gone. You do not remember the master's pets and friends.

Dyne swallowed. "A Force--"

A Force more powerful than you, Dyne Ascendant.

Dyne shook his head. "Impossible. No such power exists--"

But I did not say a power, sorcerer. I said a Force.

"Even Odin was defeated. There is no insurmountable foe."

Naja laughed. Odin realized himself to fight on his enemy's ground. I would not suggest engaging Gilgamesh on his own. You will most certainly die.

"There is no insurmountable foe," Dyne repeated like a mantra.

Perhaps not. But there are foes insurmountable by you, Dyne Ascendant.

-

Dyne did not know the man's name, nor his profession. What he knew was that he was walking out in the badlands after dark, with a lantern and a heavy pack on his shoulders. The pack would have snapped Dyne in half. The man wore it as if it were full of feathers.

Dyne watched him from the safety of deep shadows, eyes trained on ever slight movement the man made. He was being sized up, appreciated--judged.

Dyne judged him adequate.

The man has never seen a Sorceress. He had certainly never seen a Sorcerer. When Dyne stepped out of the shadows into a blinding display of light, when the great Serpent was Summoned behind him, the man recoiled and fell to his knees.

One did not run from a Bearer of Light. There would be no escape.

"This is my land," Dyne said, "and my lair. You tread uninvited. I could strike you down with impunity. Do you understand me?"

The man shuddered. He might have been powerful in comparison to other men, but Dyne was so far unlike other men as to allow no comparison. "I--I'm sorry, I didn't know--"

"You did not, which is why I spare you for the moment. But you are in the serpent's hole, stranger--you stare at its fangs. Do you understand?"

"I--I do, sir, forgive me--"

"I am the Sorcerer, Dyne Ascendant."

The man nodded. "I can see, sir--that is, I believe it."

"No living eye has seen the Sorcerer except the Sorcerer's themselves--and now you have beheld me. But I think I may spare you. Do you wish me to?"

"Yes! Please!"

"Good." Dyne looked down at the man of such incredible girth--who was shaking and cowering before him. "I have the terms. Will you accept them?"

The man nodded frantically, eyes wide in terror and flicking from Dyne to the serpent and back again as if they were one and the same and he could not tell from which the questions were coming. He opened his mouth to affirm again, and then closed it in favor of another spate of nods.

Dyne smiled a smile without warmth or mercy. "You will serve me. You will love me. You will be my second. My Lieutenant... for now."