Author's Notes
The fic is still sideboarded, and I have less than sixty days before I ship out for Missouri. Even if it is summertime, I have other things to focus on besides physical training: I need to say goodbye to those I'm leaving behind.
This installment will be the last, and even then, its incomplete. They are the beginnings of several scenes in which I have run out of steam. Failures in creation.
Author's Notes
Crucible Notes
Misc Scene: (A prequel to the story, covering Agrias' Fifty-Years' War career)
Crucible Notes
"Crucible"
"Square!" Agrias cried out as she ran into the wreckage that remained of the enemy's wooden fortifications.
The company she was a part of had been sent in as a morale booster. The royal family's Order of St. Konoe were committed as part of the reserves as Ivalice mounted a counter offensive in Zeltennia.
Ballistas were brought into play after the mages sent into the front were slain before they could set fire to this fort's timber walls and earthen ramparts.
The Black Sheep lead the charge even as the walls were being shattered by the metal-capped stakes launched by the ballista battery the Ivalicians had finished constructing on the spot.
Agrias had almost faltered as the first massed volley or arrows launched by the archers struck an infantry column of that paced the squads she was amongst. These were not ranging shots – the enemy had become familiar with this patch of no man's land. The screams she heard confirmed that at least three soldiers had fallen.
The second, third, fourth, fifth, and umpteenth subsequent volleys took more.
There was no slowing down to drag the wounded off the field, and Agrias muttered a prayer that the subsequent waves would reach the fallen in time. All there was for her now was to charged through the gaps and take the gates. It was so simple a plan... so simple a plan that the enemy was crafting into a trap for them, Agrias knew.
Such was the trap she met once she cleared the fallen section of the timber wall.
"Form a square!" she cried, repeating herself. The senior knight that lead them died as he threw himself into the shallow encirclement the enemy had formed around the gaps in the wall. Agrias screamed as she saw her comrades running into death so that those behind them would not be swamped.
It wasn't only the knight officers that suffered, but also the squires, chemists, and priests that followed as well. Agrias realized when a priest that had followed them into the fort was taken down by an opposing squire that the rules of warfare didn't really apply anymore. The priest had exposed himself, tending to the wounds of a fallen knight.
Following the one who had taken the initiative to take command in the vacuum of leaders, the surviving squires formed on Agrias as she ran the only direction she knew was both death and survival: at the enemy within.
The initial resistance the enemy had faded as they retreated into the platform on the wooden walls and almost half ran deeper into the fort into another set of barricades. Agrias and her people were not far behind.
Another killing zone had been formed.
Of the two score that followed her, only three meshed squads remained, less than half of the ones who made it to the walls. If we die now, at least the second wave will hit before they can seal the breach, Agrias thought, her fear of death beginning to fade into resignation. The anguish that she felt was also compounded by the fact that for having lost so many, they had taken so few of the enemy, who gave ground instead of blood, and the inverse price the St. Konoe paid.
Crucible Notes
The premise was to be the early phase of Agrias career in the closing months of the FY War. It was a vivid tangent when I wrote it, but I imagine too much, and wrote too little.
This is an example of one of my greatest flaws: Attempting to write in too much technical and background detail to the point where the plot and the story is diluted, ruined.
I've lost the other sections of this side-project, where I experimented with the persona of a younger Agrias.
Crucible Notes
Scene 17 Notes
This was to be the next linear installment... and the way I've written myself into so many traps and complications... its not going to pan out unless I do a rewrite and have a clear plan of where I will take the story.
At this point, I was tired of writing the backstory and structure... and I wanted to indulge in pure WAFF.
Scene 17 Notes
"Scene 17"
Agrias and the others continued to eat breakfast as almost all of Draclau's soldiers left. Two knights, in non-formal dress, stayed with them, politely eating.
It would have been unreasonable to refuse the cardinal's support, and their terms were favorable except for the fact that Agrias would not command them. However, neither was Agrias being replaced. Instead, she would return to her role as the primary bodyguard, yet she felt something taken away from her when the role that been thrust upon her was taken up by another. Agrias had to cope with the fact that, for the better and for the worse, she was no longer wholly responsible for Ovelia's safety. She grunted as she thought back to the shift system the cardinal had put forward for Ovelia's watch; the St. Konoe was not included.
Lavian ate methodically, whilst Alicia scooped, swallowed, and repeated her motions. Neither could offer their leader anything that could make her feel better; Agrias believed the cardinal's logic was just, but she struggled to accept the transfer of power.
Nine women would reinforce them, a number Agrias found almost excessive. Typically in the military, for every eight soldiers, only one was female. Even in the integrated units, the ratio was skewed; all-female groups were oddities created for publicity or to protect eccentric VIPs.
The steaming dish in front of her cooled, congealing. Wincing, she looked towards Ramza as she repeated Tabatha's message. "You leave before the next morning..."
Silently, Ramza nodded.
"You cannot be serious," Ramza said softly in the barracks' yard.
An armored squire, who had trim on his leathers that marked him to be attached to a dragoon unit, held the reins of Boco in his right hand, and Windfall's on his left.
"We are cavalry..." Sanders told him as other saffron chocobo were lead into the yard from the stables.
"Wee-hoo!" Mustadio screamed, unseen.
Helplessly, the soldiers under Sanders' command could only watch as the engineer, mounted on a chocobo –backwards- plowed through the small herd of chocobo. Only the stirrups held Mustadio on.
Mustadio's exultations warped into terror as the Chocobo halted suddenly and flung him. For a moment, Mustadio flew, flailing limbs makeshift limbs, baggy sleeves and legs canary and cerulean feathers.
He impacted upon his back, inverted, against the ceiling of a gardening shed, the thick sound of his descent complimented by the shattering of wooden slats.
His groan signaling that he was, at the least, alive, the soldiers began to laugh. This only heightened when the ceiling gave way, and Mustadio followed the collapse into the shed.
"Good omen?" Sanders said to Ramza, who just shook his head at the oxymoron.
Even in armor, Ramza was uneasy to approach Boco. The squire and the chocobo were on a tenuous understanding: so long Ramza left Boco alone, there would be peace.
"Warbird," another dragoon remarked, attending to his chocobo as a squire helped adjust the chocobo's harness. "Your chocobo."
With a small inhalation of breath, Ramza nodded his agreement. "When we first met, no one rode him. We fought," Ramza clarified.
"Guy le Roux" the man introduced himself, extending his gauntleted hand from where he sat atop his chocobo.
"Ramza... Ruglia," the squire replied monotone.
Giving Boco a sad look, Ramza turned to face in Sanders' direction and called out. "I will need another mount."
"You'll have to trade in your chocobo for something else," Sanders replied, waving Ramza over to him.
Taking the reins from the younger squire, Ramza led Windfall to someone else who was an outside in the group of Lionel dragoons. A black mage, a wizard, dressed in unevenly faded blue robes, striped and baggy pants and sleeves, and face shrouded by an acute straw hat with a wide, flat brim.
Wondering if he would have luck, Ramza began to talk to the black mage.
As the day peaked and began to ebb, Ramza completed his preparations. It was obvious that he and Mustadio would only be required to be around the city, not to participate in any actual operation. He missed the activity, finding the tedium atrocious, accusing. Now, all that was left was the departure itself. To leave Lionel Castle for Goug, the city of machines, where Mustadio would confront his destiny. Ramza chuckled at that, bemused at a thought that resembled how he used to be once upon a time; a year, a lifetime, an eternity.
His sword, in its scabbard, was tucked into the harness of the red chocobo that he had bartered for. It had cost him extra gil in addition to Windfall, but Ramza felt he had a fair deal.
The hardier, larger, and more robust chocobo would be ideal as a mount. However, Ramza knew he would be relying on the bird only for transportation, and training the bird for fighting while ridden would take time that he did not have. Somehow, he knew that he would need to ride chocobos once more, not into battle, but away from trouble, the same turmoil fomenting above Ivalice.
Tucking the bird into the stables at the dragoons' barracks, Ramza excused himself and returned to the main wing of the castle.
What he had to do next wouldn't be a preparation, but a meeting that he anticipated, dreaded, and desired.
"Are you ready to leave?" Agrias addressed him bluntly, after being pulled into a side corridor.
Ramza felt winded, but it wasn't short breath that caused his pause. He realized that he had nothing to say. Nothing new, nothing significant, no earth-shattering revelation. The desire to be around was enough, though he felt discomfort on his part, he savored the proximity.
"Do you need my help?" Agrias' expression did not soften. Instead, she dug in, her bearing hardening.
Bothered, Ramza shook his head. "I wanted to know if you needed any assistance..." Ramza murmured. "My help?" he trailed off softly. Taking a small breath, he said in a louder voice, "All that is left to do is to depart at dawn."
Agrias flinched, and Ramza knew then that he had wounded her far worse than any challenge of verbal rebuke that he could have leveled at her. "Do whatever you wish."
She expected Ramza to leave after the awkward moment she created, yet, the boy stayed. There was no false bravado, no show of strength on his part. He simply stood where he was, and even through the armor he wore, it was evident that his body sagged.
Scene 17 Notes
Confused? I am too.
One of the reasons I've stopped writing is that I didn't feel that I had a coherent story anymore, and towards the end, the story became very personal to me, and I am not going to put someone through the trouble of editing my story not knowing that they were encountering errors and inconsistencies based on my problems in real life.
The subject the scene was to cover was Ramza's final day with Agrias before he left.
I wrote myself into a trap in that I placed too much importance on this day. In effect, I spoiled the story for myself, and I was trying to make this section of the story more significant than it was.
Scene 17 Notes
The Morning After Notes
Literally that.
Since I lost steam in writing the prelude to Ramza's departure, I chose to cover the immediate aftermath, from Agrias' POV. I was trying to focus on her again, since those who are left behind feel a different pain from those going away.
The Morning After Notes
"The Morning After"
Agrias awoke in bed. The pale heat of the sun shone through the slats of the wooden door that lead to a balcony, warming her to an uncomfortable rising. She hadn't dreamt, only slept, floating in oblivion, an ache beyond her mind beginning to intensify as her consciousness rose and developed.
Wincing, she turned her eyes to the dim portions of the room, cast in shadows. She felt sore, wondering why she was in bed half-dressed. She still wore her dress uniform, the stiff leather portions beguiling her. Stretching from where she lay, her stomach down, she had a feline expression as she rose to her knees and extended her arms forwards as she curled her back. Pleased that she had enough presence of mind last night before she passed out to remove her boots, Agrias lied back on her side and regarded the darker half of the room, facing the door.
When she noticed the bitter and sour taste in her mouth to be her own breath, Agrias nearly gagged. Spotting a pitcher by the bedside on a table, she took a sniff of the contents before beginning to gargle the water. Looking around, finding no convenient place to spit, she wavered as she stumbled into the outside, her eyes closed. Her hands fumbled in front of her, feeling for the banister as she slowly opened her shut eyes. Leaning forwards, Agrias coughed out the contaminated liquid, retching over the rail.
"Damn this light..." she muttered, turning to stagger back into the room she awoke in.
Pausing at the threshold, Agrias pondered why she was in this place, instead of Ovelia's suite. Turning to view the contents of the balcony, she found a table, furnished by two rough stools. An opaque cobalt bottle, corked, was kept company by a pair of wine glasses, their bell-shaped cups held aloft by curved necks stemming from a circular base. Blinking, Agrias focused her eyes enough to read the wine-stained label on the bottle as she walked to the coarse table. He pilfered this from the wine cellar, Agrias thought, before wondering how she knew the bottle's origin.
"Ramza..." she stated. It was plain. An idea, an emotion, a monologue.
"Come tomorrow..." she said softly, remembering his words. "Tomorrow... I'll be gone."
The haze of alcohol that fogged her mind was cleared by a revelation.
Dawn had passed, and she was alone.
Lionel was warm, yet Agrias shivered on the stone floor of the balcony, looking past the rough-hewn rails. She reclined against the sun- baked wall. Staring levelly at the table with the decanter and vessels undisturbed, Agrias sifted through the emotions that began to surge.
Her face was sore, and she could not cry. The inflammation of her nasal passages was a welcome discomfort; she could attribute the pain she felt to a physical source.
Her breathing slowed, as her vision dimmed, and soon, Agrias succumbed to the need for air. She shuddered as she gasped -a dry moan. Her eyes returning to focus, Agrias stood from the floor without assistance from her arms, she wavered.
Able to tolerate the light, she regarded the sky. Agrias surmised that morning was nearly past. In this instance, she did not rush to prepare herself to return to her duties. She felt lethargic, deprived, missing a critical aspect; knowing the source of her turmoil was no relief. Wondering why it was she who felt displaced, Agrias went to clear the table. Sifting the stems of the two glasses in between the fingers on her left hand, and grasping the bottle with her right, Agrias strode back into the room in which she awoke.
The wine in hers had not yet been finished, and Agrias paused mid- stride at that observation. How do I know which is mine? Bringing the rims to her face, Agrias inhaled the stern scent, almost a taste. In that moment, it was night again, and she felt warm despite the evening's chill.
The wine was burgundy, warmer than the air, heated in the glass'es bowl cupped in her hands above her lap. Raising her head from how it was bowed, her eyes saw Ramza's outline, his hands held together in front of the table before him, his gaze morose as hers was mournful.
When Agrias blinked, she was where she had always been during her recollection: in a room within Lionel Castle, separated from he with whom she shared that final night.
Numb, Agrias sat back on the bed, attempting to sift more details from her memories of the night before, finding them as if they were a dream. So vivid, so real, yet, when grasped, they become ephemeral, enigmatic, evanescent.
She wanted to blame the bottle that stood on the bedside table, half- finished.
The Morning After Notes
Maybe its best that I stopped writing then... before she found the ring.
The Morning After Notes
Author's Notes
Those were three scenes that I was working on over the past few weeks that I have simply lost the will to work on. I still imagine, and ideas come to mind, but when I sit down in front of my computer, I feel no will to transcribe those thoughts.
Author's Notes
Readers' Response Corner
"I'm leaving on a jet plane... don't know when I'll be back again..."
For the most part, I'm sure for the better part of the next year, possibly the next three, I will not be able to write.
Do I still intend to finish this project then?
Not in the form its in now.
As I've said before... Ramza and Agrias' story is something I will continue. Their names may change, but the characters whom I have given the names of FFT characters will continue to live in my mind.
I'll write again... for now, I'm beginning to go back to learning through reading. Not so much literature as history and science.
Minka, Highwaywoman, and all the guys I'm too inconsiderate to remember:
The only way I'll ever stop being an author is to kill me.
I'm too selfish and prideful to stop expressing my thoughts.
For now, my focus will be on succeeding in life.
Readers' Response Corner
To she whom my heart belongs:
In admitting and revealing my love for you, you have helped me discover that I love myself.
The fic is still sideboarded, and I have less than sixty days before I ship out for Missouri. Even if it is summertime, I have other things to focus on besides physical training: I need to say goodbye to those I'm leaving behind.
This installment will be the last, and even then, its incomplete. They are the beginnings of several scenes in which I have run out of steam. Failures in creation.
Author's Notes
Crucible Notes
Misc Scene: (A prequel to the story, covering Agrias' Fifty-Years' War career)
Crucible Notes
"Crucible"
"Square!" Agrias cried out as she ran into the wreckage that remained of the enemy's wooden fortifications.
The company she was a part of had been sent in as a morale booster. The royal family's Order of St. Konoe were committed as part of the reserves as Ivalice mounted a counter offensive in Zeltennia.
Ballistas were brought into play after the mages sent into the front were slain before they could set fire to this fort's timber walls and earthen ramparts.
The Black Sheep lead the charge even as the walls were being shattered by the metal-capped stakes launched by the ballista battery the Ivalicians had finished constructing on the spot.
Agrias had almost faltered as the first massed volley or arrows launched by the archers struck an infantry column of that paced the squads she was amongst. These were not ranging shots – the enemy had become familiar with this patch of no man's land. The screams she heard confirmed that at least three soldiers had fallen.
The second, third, fourth, fifth, and umpteenth subsequent volleys took more.
There was no slowing down to drag the wounded off the field, and Agrias muttered a prayer that the subsequent waves would reach the fallen in time. All there was for her now was to charged through the gaps and take the gates. It was so simple a plan... so simple a plan that the enemy was crafting into a trap for them, Agrias knew.
Such was the trap she met once she cleared the fallen section of the timber wall.
"Form a square!" she cried, repeating herself. The senior knight that lead them died as he threw himself into the shallow encirclement the enemy had formed around the gaps in the wall. Agrias screamed as she saw her comrades running into death so that those behind them would not be swamped.
It wasn't only the knight officers that suffered, but also the squires, chemists, and priests that followed as well. Agrias realized when a priest that had followed them into the fort was taken down by an opposing squire that the rules of warfare didn't really apply anymore. The priest had exposed himself, tending to the wounds of a fallen knight.
Following the one who had taken the initiative to take command in the vacuum of leaders, the surviving squires formed on Agrias as she ran the only direction she knew was both death and survival: at the enemy within.
The initial resistance the enemy had faded as they retreated into the platform on the wooden walls and almost half ran deeper into the fort into another set of barricades. Agrias and her people were not far behind.
Another killing zone had been formed.
Of the two score that followed her, only three meshed squads remained, less than half of the ones who made it to the walls. If we die now, at least the second wave will hit before they can seal the breach, Agrias thought, her fear of death beginning to fade into resignation. The anguish that she felt was also compounded by the fact that for having lost so many, they had taken so few of the enemy, who gave ground instead of blood, and the inverse price the St. Konoe paid.
Crucible Notes
The premise was to be the early phase of Agrias career in the closing months of the FY War. It was a vivid tangent when I wrote it, but I imagine too much, and wrote too little.
This is an example of one of my greatest flaws: Attempting to write in too much technical and background detail to the point where the plot and the story is diluted, ruined.
I've lost the other sections of this side-project, where I experimented with the persona of a younger Agrias.
Crucible Notes
Scene 17 Notes
This was to be the next linear installment... and the way I've written myself into so many traps and complications... its not going to pan out unless I do a rewrite and have a clear plan of where I will take the story.
At this point, I was tired of writing the backstory and structure... and I wanted to indulge in pure WAFF.
Scene 17 Notes
"Scene 17"
Agrias and the others continued to eat breakfast as almost all of Draclau's soldiers left. Two knights, in non-formal dress, stayed with them, politely eating.
It would have been unreasonable to refuse the cardinal's support, and their terms were favorable except for the fact that Agrias would not command them. However, neither was Agrias being replaced. Instead, she would return to her role as the primary bodyguard, yet she felt something taken away from her when the role that been thrust upon her was taken up by another. Agrias had to cope with the fact that, for the better and for the worse, she was no longer wholly responsible for Ovelia's safety. She grunted as she thought back to the shift system the cardinal had put forward for Ovelia's watch; the St. Konoe was not included.
Lavian ate methodically, whilst Alicia scooped, swallowed, and repeated her motions. Neither could offer their leader anything that could make her feel better; Agrias believed the cardinal's logic was just, but she struggled to accept the transfer of power.
Nine women would reinforce them, a number Agrias found almost excessive. Typically in the military, for every eight soldiers, only one was female. Even in the integrated units, the ratio was skewed; all-female groups were oddities created for publicity or to protect eccentric VIPs.
The steaming dish in front of her cooled, congealing. Wincing, she looked towards Ramza as she repeated Tabatha's message. "You leave before the next morning..."
Silently, Ramza nodded.
"You cannot be serious," Ramza said softly in the barracks' yard.
An armored squire, who had trim on his leathers that marked him to be attached to a dragoon unit, held the reins of Boco in his right hand, and Windfall's on his left.
"We are cavalry..." Sanders told him as other saffron chocobo were lead into the yard from the stables.
"Wee-hoo!" Mustadio screamed, unseen.
Helplessly, the soldiers under Sanders' command could only watch as the engineer, mounted on a chocobo –backwards- plowed through the small herd of chocobo. Only the stirrups held Mustadio on.
Mustadio's exultations warped into terror as the Chocobo halted suddenly and flung him. For a moment, Mustadio flew, flailing limbs makeshift limbs, baggy sleeves and legs canary and cerulean feathers.
He impacted upon his back, inverted, against the ceiling of a gardening shed, the thick sound of his descent complimented by the shattering of wooden slats.
His groan signaling that he was, at the least, alive, the soldiers began to laugh. This only heightened when the ceiling gave way, and Mustadio followed the collapse into the shed.
"Good omen?" Sanders said to Ramza, who just shook his head at the oxymoron.
Even in armor, Ramza was uneasy to approach Boco. The squire and the chocobo were on a tenuous understanding: so long Ramza left Boco alone, there would be peace.
"Warbird," another dragoon remarked, attending to his chocobo as a squire helped adjust the chocobo's harness. "Your chocobo."
With a small inhalation of breath, Ramza nodded his agreement. "When we first met, no one rode him. We fought," Ramza clarified.
"Guy le Roux" the man introduced himself, extending his gauntleted hand from where he sat atop his chocobo.
"Ramza... Ruglia," the squire replied monotone.
Giving Boco a sad look, Ramza turned to face in Sanders' direction and called out. "I will need another mount."
"You'll have to trade in your chocobo for something else," Sanders replied, waving Ramza over to him.
Taking the reins from the younger squire, Ramza led Windfall to someone else who was an outside in the group of Lionel dragoons. A black mage, a wizard, dressed in unevenly faded blue robes, striped and baggy pants and sleeves, and face shrouded by an acute straw hat with a wide, flat brim.
Wondering if he would have luck, Ramza began to talk to the black mage.
As the day peaked and began to ebb, Ramza completed his preparations. It was obvious that he and Mustadio would only be required to be around the city, not to participate in any actual operation. He missed the activity, finding the tedium atrocious, accusing. Now, all that was left was the departure itself. To leave Lionel Castle for Goug, the city of machines, where Mustadio would confront his destiny. Ramza chuckled at that, bemused at a thought that resembled how he used to be once upon a time; a year, a lifetime, an eternity.
His sword, in its scabbard, was tucked into the harness of the red chocobo that he had bartered for. It had cost him extra gil in addition to Windfall, but Ramza felt he had a fair deal.
The hardier, larger, and more robust chocobo would be ideal as a mount. However, Ramza knew he would be relying on the bird only for transportation, and training the bird for fighting while ridden would take time that he did not have. Somehow, he knew that he would need to ride chocobos once more, not into battle, but away from trouble, the same turmoil fomenting above Ivalice.
Tucking the bird into the stables at the dragoons' barracks, Ramza excused himself and returned to the main wing of the castle.
What he had to do next wouldn't be a preparation, but a meeting that he anticipated, dreaded, and desired.
"Are you ready to leave?" Agrias addressed him bluntly, after being pulled into a side corridor.
Ramza felt winded, but it wasn't short breath that caused his pause. He realized that he had nothing to say. Nothing new, nothing significant, no earth-shattering revelation. The desire to be around was enough, though he felt discomfort on his part, he savored the proximity.
"Do you need my help?" Agrias' expression did not soften. Instead, she dug in, her bearing hardening.
Bothered, Ramza shook his head. "I wanted to know if you needed any assistance..." Ramza murmured. "My help?" he trailed off softly. Taking a small breath, he said in a louder voice, "All that is left to do is to depart at dawn."
Agrias flinched, and Ramza knew then that he had wounded her far worse than any challenge of verbal rebuke that he could have leveled at her. "Do whatever you wish."
She expected Ramza to leave after the awkward moment she created, yet, the boy stayed. There was no false bravado, no show of strength on his part. He simply stood where he was, and even through the armor he wore, it was evident that his body sagged.
Scene 17 Notes
Confused? I am too.
One of the reasons I've stopped writing is that I didn't feel that I had a coherent story anymore, and towards the end, the story became very personal to me, and I am not going to put someone through the trouble of editing my story not knowing that they were encountering errors and inconsistencies based on my problems in real life.
The subject the scene was to cover was Ramza's final day with Agrias before he left.
I wrote myself into a trap in that I placed too much importance on this day. In effect, I spoiled the story for myself, and I was trying to make this section of the story more significant than it was.
Scene 17 Notes
The Morning After Notes
Literally that.
Since I lost steam in writing the prelude to Ramza's departure, I chose to cover the immediate aftermath, from Agrias' POV. I was trying to focus on her again, since those who are left behind feel a different pain from those going away.
The Morning After Notes
"The Morning After"
Agrias awoke in bed. The pale heat of the sun shone through the slats of the wooden door that lead to a balcony, warming her to an uncomfortable rising. She hadn't dreamt, only slept, floating in oblivion, an ache beyond her mind beginning to intensify as her consciousness rose and developed.
Wincing, she turned her eyes to the dim portions of the room, cast in shadows. She felt sore, wondering why she was in bed half-dressed. She still wore her dress uniform, the stiff leather portions beguiling her. Stretching from where she lay, her stomach down, she had a feline expression as she rose to her knees and extended her arms forwards as she curled her back. Pleased that she had enough presence of mind last night before she passed out to remove her boots, Agrias lied back on her side and regarded the darker half of the room, facing the door.
When she noticed the bitter and sour taste in her mouth to be her own breath, Agrias nearly gagged. Spotting a pitcher by the bedside on a table, she took a sniff of the contents before beginning to gargle the water. Looking around, finding no convenient place to spit, she wavered as she stumbled into the outside, her eyes closed. Her hands fumbled in front of her, feeling for the banister as she slowly opened her shut eyes. Leaning forwards, Agrias coughed out the contaminated liquid, retching over the rail.
"Damn this light..." she muttered, turning to stagger back into the room she awoke in.
Pausing at the threshold, Agrias pondered why she was in this place, instead of Ovelia's suite. Turning to view the contents of the balcony, she found a table, furnished by two rough stools. An opaque cobalt bottle, corked, was kept company by a pair of wine glasses, their bell-shaped cups held aloft by curved necks stemming from a circular base. Blinking, Agrias focused her eyes enough to read the wine-stained label on the bottle as she walked to the coarse table. He pilfered this from the wine cellar, Agrias thought, before wondering how she knew the bottle's origin.
"Ramza..." she stated. It was plain. An idea, an emotion, a monologue.
"Come tomorrow..." she said softly, remembering his words. "Tomorrow... I'll be gone."
The haze of alcohol that fogged her mind was cleared by a revelation.
Dawn had passed, and she was alone.
Lionel was warm, yet Agrias shivered on the stone floor of the balcony, looking past the rough-hewn rails. She reclined against the sun- baked wall. Staring levelly at the table with the decanter and vessels undisturbed, Agrias sifted through the emotions that began to surge.
Her face was sore, and she could not cry. The inflammation of her nasal passages was a welcome discomfort; she could attribute the pain she felt to a physical source.
Her breathing slowed, as her vision dimmed, and soon, Agrias succumbed to the need for air. She shuddered as she gasped -a dry moan. Her eyes returning to focus, Agrias stood from the floor without assistance from her arms, she wavered.
Able to tolerate the light, she regarded the sky. Agrias surmised that morning was nearly past. In this instance, she did not rush to prepare herself to return to her duties. She felt lethargic, deprived, missing a critical aspect; knowing the source of her turmoil was no relief. Wondering why it was she who felt displaced, Agrias went to clear the table. Sifting the stems of the two glasses in between the fingers on her left hand, and grasping the bottle with her right, Agrias strode back into the room in which she awoke.
The wine in hers had not yet been finished, and Agrias paused mid- stride at that observation. How do I know which is mine? Bringing the rims to her face, Agrias inhaled the stern scent, almost a taste. In that moment, it was night again, and she felt warm despite the evening's chill.
The wine was burgundy, warmer than the air, heated in the glass'es bowl cupped in her hands above her lap. Raising her head from how it was bowed, her eyes saw Ramza's outline, his hands held together in front of the table before him, his gaze morose as hers was mournful.
When Agrias blinked, she was where she had always been during her recollection: in a room within Lionel Castle, separated from he with whom she shared that final night.
Numb, Agrias sat back on the bed, attempting to sift more details from her memories of the night before, finding them as if they were a dream. So vivid, so real, yet, when grasped, they become ephemeral, enigmatic, evanescent.
She wanted to blame the bottle that stood on the bedside table, half- finished.
The Morning After Notes
Maybe its best that I stopped writing then... before she found the ring.
The Morning After Notes
Author's Notes
Those were three scenes that I was working on over the past few weeks that I have simply lost the will to work on. I still imagine, and ideas come to mind, but when I sit down in front of my computer, I feel no will to transcribe those thoughts.
Author's Notes
Readers' Response Corner
"I'm leaving on a jet plane... don't know when I'll be back again..."
For the most part, I'm sure for the better part of the next year, possibly the next three, I will not be able to write.
Do I still intend to finish this project then?
Not in the form its in now.
As I've said before... Ramza and Agrias' story is something I will continue. Their names may change, but the characters whom I have given the names of FFT characters will continue to live in my mind.
I'll write again... for now, I'm beginning to go back to learning through reading. Not so much literature as history and science.
Minka, Highwaywoman, and all the guys I'm too inconsiderate to remember:
The only way I'll ever stop being an author is to kill me.
I'm too selfish and prideful to stop expressing my thoughts.
For now, my focus will be on succeeding in life.
Readers' Response Corner
To she whom my heart belongs:
In admitting and revealing my love for you, you have helped me discover that I love myself.