Chapter 32, Edgar's second fall

Joy should fill Figaro castle. The resistance had risked a great deal of its most powerful warriors and their greatest asset, the Falcon, in a plan that lightly said had been desperate. Now, the long wait that had kept king Edgar and his people awake for many hours was finally over.

Joy did fill Figaro castle. Returning safely, Locke's group brought news of a successful blow against the seemingly omnipotent enemy. Not only news, but also a large group of people whom were prepared to fill up the small ranks of the Returners, more survivors than most had considered to hope for.

The sun had lately been given the pleasure of watching a lot of joy surrounding the mechanical castle of the great desert, which of course was a nice change of pace.

Now, freed prisoners were carried and supported across the short distance between the Falcon and the castle, hurrying to get out of sight of the happy, but none too gentle giant ball of fire in the sky.

Joy filled Figaro castle and its inhabitants. Victorious warriors and new friends were taken cared of almost before they knew what happened. The grim state of the world and their own situation had changed the people of Figaro into a moving mass of humanity and care, now opening up for those in greater need of help. It would only be a question of time before the wrecks dragged from Maranda would be prepared to fight for the same cause.

So supportive were the army of good Samaritans, so joyful they were in their cause that none of them had time to notice that something was amiss. No, it is wrong to blame even one of them, for they all knew that the load of people the Falcon had brought were in dire need of help, and that was what the needing would receive. Let it be known that the missing piece of the puzzle hardly became forgotten – however, those who did send him a thought quickly let it slide, thinking that he surely was somewhere in the crowd, handing out food and offering healing magic or bandages like everyone else.

But the soldier who dove into the crowd filling the castle all the way into the throne room knew better, far better than he wanted to. People gave him odd looks as he wormed and pushed his way through the ocean of humans, croaking out pleas for a healer.

"They are all by the entrance!" a man carrying a basket of bread called, "is somebody dy-"

But the soldier only caught the first part, his insecure walk instantly turning into a desperate tearing through the hindrances.

"A healer! A healer, for the love of Heaven!"

People quickly noticed that somebody literally bulldozed his way through their numbers and those who were in his way tried to make room. The crowded state of everything hardly allowed for that, however.

The soldier fought with all his might to keep the panic bottled, but it was like a nightmare. Hundreds of worried faces surrounded him, and none of them seemed able to offer him any help in his search. A few raised their voices to bring his words further ahead quickly, but the need for healers was hardly something uncommon in the situation the Returners were in. The calls disappeared among the others.

Pushing and squirming forwards, the man bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from giving out the information that probably would give him a healer, but also cause a catastrophe. His orders were firm; one false move and there would be a mass hysteria.

A wave of green suddenly passed, caught just in the corner of his eye.

"Miss Branford! Miss Branford, please…!"

Terra groaned in protest as a rough hand closed around her arm and ripped her aside, people crunching against each other as they tried to make room for the crazed soldier and his quarry. The half-esper sluggishly waved her free hand at the offending grip, but she was too exhausted to think clearly. Maduin offered no protest either, slumbering in his magicite after the trying night.

Despite the unkind treatment, Terra's brain worked too slowly by now and was too locked in the feeling of being in a safe environment full of friends, to process the idea of a danger.

That was, until she found herself alone in an empty room with the soldier, her back against the wall and his hot breath scorching her face.

Ripped from her fatigued trance, Terra croaked out the hoarse spoil of an alarmed scream, trying to free herself from the man. Startled, he pressed a finger against her lips.

"No! No, please, Miss Branford, I…" he whispered.

His own brain kicked into gear and he realized what he was doing. Recoiling as if burned, he held up a pair of shaking hands.

"Forgive me, I didn't mean-"

Drawing in a sharp breath, he cut himself off again. Terra could only stare at him, her head spinning with the clash of exhaust and shock. The guard licked his dry lips and tried again.

"Miss Branford, please come… it's His Majesty, he…"

The words hit Terra like an ice cold shower.

Afterwards, she never could remember how she made it over to the royal chambers, only that she stumbled inside Edgar's study to find it in chaos. The chair had fallen over and papers littered the floor, spilled ink crawling over them like black blood. The dark liquid seeped down the walls, half dry, half liquid. It seemed that the bottle containing the ink had been thrown across the room.

"Edgar!"

Terra nearly fell through the satin curtain separating the study from the bedroom, and crashed into the chancellor.

"Thank goodness…" he whispered before pushing her forwards, towards the bed dominating the room.

The closest of three guards assembled around the king's resting place reached out and offered Terra support as she staggered closer. Still, she almost fell over Edgar's unmoving form but regained control in the last moment and straightened up.

She recalled that his face had been less than rosy when she saw him before leaving for Maranda, but now his cheeks had turned ashen in color and the rings around his eyes seemed dark enough to glare at her on their own.

"What happened, was he attacked?" Terra croaked.

Not even waiting for an answer, she frantically scanned her friend for signs of harm. No blood visible… his robes were rather wrinkled, but spotless. Terra reached for Edgar's throat to check his pulse just when the chancellor answered.

"It seems that His Majesty is only asleep, Miss."

The half-esper jumped in surprise and spun around to stare at the fidgeting man. Her first impulse was to run out to find the guard who had frightened her and bestow pain upon his nose for the false shock.

But the chancellor cleared his throat.

"However, things are apparently not well," he grimly said, "he only reacted briefly when we tried to awaken him."

Before he even reached the end of the explanation, Terra kneeled by their king's bedside and whispered words of healing. Her vision swam, but she pressed her will into creating the soft power needed. Rather she would drive herself unconscious than let Edgar slip away…

'Wake up, we need you! Wake up!'

"Mmfgh…"

Edgar softly groaned and slowly fought a pair of blood-shot eyes open as the magical light washed over him.

"Your Majesty!"

Sighing in relief Terra let her head fall down on the mattress, completely drained as the tension bounced into oblivion. The relieved calls from the chancellor and guards melted into a goo of mushy sounds together with the whispering of Edgar's hoarse voice, and Terra couldn't hear a single word. She didn't try either, too exhausted to focus enough.

After a short while, she vaguely heard the sound of several pairs of feet moving away as silently as would be possible with boots. But by then she was half-way into the land of dreams and hardly even noticed.

Silence… Terra tumbled over the edge of consciousness and into the warm, welcoming embrace of sleep.

That was when somebody weakly pinched her ear, digging both nails into her earlobe for added effect.

"Ow…!"

She groggily grunted in protest and more rolled away than anything else, already about to forget she ever felt anything and preparing to head back towards sleep… yes, sleep… rest…

"… terra…"

"Mmm?"

"… you're in my room… you know…"

"Whaa…?"

Reluctantly she lifted her head to investigate the source of the irritating croak, and squinted her eyes at Edgar. He watched her with one halfway closed eye, not even a sparkle of amusement hiding anywhere in his haggard facial expressions.

Edgar. Edgar's room. Edgar's bed.

Oops.

Terra's brain managed to somewhat return to life at this reminder, and she heaved herself upwards on her arms – them still resting on the mattress, though.

"Sorry," she murmured and made a feeble attempt to get up properly.

Edgar let out a sigh; it might have been a groan had he felt a little more inspired, and slowly lifted his hand towards her. It fell down before coming close, however.

"Terra… please…"

She slowly blinked, frowning. The sole open eye of the king disappeared from sight as the lid of it inevitably sunk, but his lips still moved. Terra carefully leant in closer, though half comatose still having her instincts telling her not to trust Edgar with too much intimacy.

But the whispers she caught, more breaths than words, were hardly flirtatious.

"Please… get me out of here…"

"What?" Terra said, startled further towards an awakened state.

But Edgar had fallen asleep, leaving the half-esper to worriedly trying to understand what he meant.

'-'

There was a problem. Well, two problems. Or, if one wanted to get into the great unnecessary detail, a troubling problem that had spawned another, smaller but far more irritating problem. Or twins of a problem. Or again, since there were enough twins around already, a more favorable wording would be something along the lines of two sides of the same-

Siren had to slap herself to snap out of it.

The whole tirade about the problems was a little something she had composed while trying to avoid thinking about the problems.

She floated around the room aimlessly, unsure of what to do. The silence should have been peaceful, but there was a small tension that made her teeth remember how it felt to ache. It appeared that nobody else acknowledged it, however. At least not for the moment, since Gogo slept.

The mimic laid on his side in Kerr's bed, face turned against the wall. Still he refused to remove his helmet, even if his brother had muttered warnings about torn pillows. Now he seemed relaxed, but Siren had watched him all day.

He was glaring at things.

Constantly.

It amazed the esper that Kerr hadn't noted the fact that Gogo's gaze, instead of being used for reading, tried to set fire to the book in the gloved hands.

On the other hand, it really was preposterous thinking that Kerr would notice anything beyond his own nose unless it was pointed out. Or killable.

But back to the problem. Obviously Gogo was angry, and rightfully so in Siren's opinion. What worried her was the fact that he wouldn't talk about it. He didn't confront Kerr, and had hardly uttered a word all day, neither aloud nor in thought.

Siren had been waiting, keeping her silence with the belief that he wanted to be left alone.

Of course, Kerr was blabbering about as usual without a worry in the world, unheeding the fact that he hardly got a grunt in reply. Now that he didn't have a brother around that would listen to him, he was sitting in the sofa, sipping wine and reading one of his own notebooks. Ah, the embodiment of perceptiveness.

So there the whole trouble lay. Gogo was silently moving towards a boiling point and did nothing about it, which worried Siren. That was the first problem. The second was that the only one she possibly could discuss this with was Kerr.

Little to no elaboration needed on that one.

It seemed that the mimic planned something, but he would not let the esper in on it. Whatever it was, it probably caused him problematic thoughts. From what she knew of Gogo, he never hesitated when his feelings told him to act; very much like his brother. The current behavior seemed unlike him, and it unsettled Siren. Whatever he thought about he might in fact not like at all.

'-'

Terra planned to wake up early the next morning, but considering the circumstances she could only be grateful that she opened her eyes before lunchtime.

Relm and Celes kept snoozing, comfortably curled up in their beds as the half-esper slipped into her clothes and tip-toed out of the room. She felt dizzy and lightheaded, but despite knowing that she needed to find breakfast she instead headed in the opposite direction of the dining hall.

The castle was silent, and she only met an occasional soldier or worker, whom "scurried" about in the pace of stranded turtles.

However, and this was with a feeling of relief, she found that the place guarded by the most alert-looking guards was the room she had in mind to enter. The two men even requested that she would state her business and leave any weapons by the door. Not even when one of them followed her inside did Terra find it irritating; instead a feeling of relief filled her. All this only meant that the person inside received the care and protection that he needed.

Edgar was still in bed, now changed from his normal clothes into a simple white shirt. The rest of him stayed hidden beneath the blanket, and at least now he was sitting up with his back resting against the high head-frame of the bed. Or rather against the heap of pillows leaning against the frame. As Terra and the guard entered, he just raised a piece of bread from the plate resting in his lap. The food returned to its origin however when the still blood-shot eyes of the king turned towards the visitors.

"Good morning, Edgar," Terra said, keeping her voice low just in case.

He tried to smile, and looked at the guard.

"You may leave," Edgar said.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The silk curtain fell back in place behind the man, steps moved away and a few seconds later the door of the study closed.

Edgar turned to Terra, and though she had been planning questions while she headed towards his room, they all turned into smoke under his tired gaze. Suddenly she felt like she was intruding when what he really needed was more rest, and she started considering an apology and leaving when he silently nodded once towards a chair in a corner.

Quickly Terra hurried over to it and with ease lifted the piece of furniture a few inches above the floor. While she carried it towards the bed, Edgar moved the plate in his lap over onto the bed table, where it met up with its companion the Rapidly Cooling Cup of Tea.

"Are you feeling better?" Terra blurted while she sat down on the chair almost before she had put it down beside the bed.

The question came out stupidly since he obviously was not, but it was all she could think of right then.

Edgar looked down at the blanket and slowly shook his head.

"I need to get out of here, Terra…" he muttered at the bed.

She frowned.

"What?"

"I can't just sit here and be helpless while the rest of you fight, it's driving me crazy!"

One could hardly claim that there was force behind his words, since his voice never rose above a murmur. But there was a resolution.

Terra could not answer at first. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had been expecting something like that since his prayer last night, but still no good reply came up as quick as she wished.

"You're safe here…" she started.

This was solely based on his importance and the fact that he looked like something that a baby areneid could kill off – despite the fact that her emotions screamed at her that such a statement would not be received well. In fact, it felt utterly wrong just to think of it. She was proven right.

Edgar's fist thumped against the mattress and his head dropped even lower.

"God damn it, Terra!"

All her weak wishes to protest wavered at the sound of his bitter voice.

"I just sit here, all day long, terrified that the Falcon will return with news that one of you have died, or that it won't return at all!" he snarled, still without looking up, "Terra, I have to get out of here!"

Even though she staggered in her resolution to keep him safe, there were still problems that demanded to be pointed out in the face of this.

But she could impossibly look him in the eye when she said it.

"If you get captured again, or killed, then what will we do?" she asked her clenched fists.

"I already feel like I'm captured and dying in here," Edgar growled.

She looked up in confusion at his hard words about Figaro. Even without the memory of his grand return from the empire, for a king who loved his kingdom so much it seemed incomprehensible. A king who loved his kingdom so much that he would… die for… it…

"Is our resistance so weak that we would fall with me? I thought that I could trust you and everyone else with more than that."

His cold eyes were downright frightening.

"No… yes, of course, but we're afraid…" Terra said, clenching and unclenching her hands.

"And you think I'm not? I already told you…"

Edgar sighed and pressed a hand against his face while shaking his head.

"I'm being turned into a saint, you feel that yourself, don't you?" he said without looking at her, "even you don't trust in my ability to fight anymore. I'm not allowed to do anything."

These accusations were almost more than she could bear. How could he think so badly of her and the others?

"I know you can fight, Edgar…" Terra said, frowning.

"Then why won't you let me?"

He still did not look at her, but his teeth were bared.

"Who's the one giving orders around here?" the half-esper pointed out, hoping that this was the argument that would bring him down.

She should have known better.

"Yes, who indeed?" Edgar grunted, "as I remember it, I'm always voted down when I ask to come along and help on any assignment outside of the castle. What good am I doing here, Terra? Staring at papers and waiting for the Falcon to return? You're not listening to me!"

Frustrated, Terra reached out and grabbed a hold of the king's shaking fist.

"But you're important to us, Edgar!" she said, "to the resistance and the people all over the world. You need to-"

"Be hung on the cross like the savior!" he cut her off.

Ripping his hand free, he raised both arms upwards and faced the ceiling, snarling to some unseen spectator high above:

"Thank you, Gestahl, Kefka, for being the only ones understanding the meaning of my existence!"

At this display of helpless despair, Terra could only gape. For a couple of seconds. As soon as the amazement settled enough for her to move, she shot to her feet and grabbed both of Edgar's wrists to force his arms back down. He did not fight back, but stared up at her with such a pleading gaze that her heart nearly jumped into her throat.

"You need to rest…" she croaked out.

He fell back against the pillows, and she released the wrists. Without anything holding them up anymore, his arms crashed onto the mattress.

"I need to get out of here…" he whispered, as if the repetition was the only way he could make her understand, "Terra, please… it's driving me crazy."

With shaking hands the half-esper reached down and awkwardly pulled the blanket upwards as if to tuck him in, that being the only thing her spinning mind could come up with to use for showing him that she did care.

Edgar said nothing more, but when Terra straightened up and dared to look him in the eye – despite knowing that it probably was a bad idea – the same pleading stare bore into her. She wanted to turn away but could not, held stuck by Edgar's drained gaze.

Finally she realized that the price she would pay for refusing to help him would be to forever stare back at those bitter, tired eyes whenever she looked at him, and as she stood there Terra knew that it would be unbearable. Edgar was truly suffering.

"I… I'll talk with the others," she said in a low voice.

Closing his eyes, Edgar leant his head backwards with a deep sigh of relief.

"Thank you…"

Somehow managing a pathetic smile, Terra backed out.

She turned around when it was time to open the door of the study and step out into the bigger hall. About the time she reached the next door, she moved quicker than a normal walking pace, and when she entered the main castle, she ran.