Chapter Twenty-Seven

After what had turned out to be the most dramatic breakfast they had ever had in their new house, Meliadoul prepped a bowl of oatmeal for Ramza, with raisins and extra honey. She poured him a cup full of milk as well (knowing he would definitely want his trademark milk to recover from a night of drinking), and carried the meal up the stairs to their shared bedroom.

Ramza was still asleep, but he stirred to wakefulness when he heard her open the door and walk in. He sat up quickly, as if trying to pretend he had not still been sleeping at this late hour.

"Hey there," he said, with a groggy half-smile.

He is so damn cute first thing in the morning, Meliadoul thought to herself. His thick blond hair was mussed up, and the slight sheen of sweat across his strong shoulders and chest looked so… ungh. He always seemed adorably confused in the first few minutes after he woke up, too, and all she wanted to do was get back in bed and curl up with him, bury her nose in his chest and smell his sleepy scent.

"I brought your breakfast up here. I thought if you were still in bed, then you probably were not feeling very well this morning," Meliadoul said.

She set the bowl and the cup down on the bedside table next to him, beside his messy collection of assorted monster paw charms. She immediately began to unlace her dress again. It would be nice to spend the next couple hours back in bed, cuddled up.

As soon as the dress was off, Ramza grabbed her by the hand and quickly pulled her across his still sleep-warm thighs.

"I am feeling well enough for something," he growled.

Meliadoul giggled, pretending to be affronted, and they tussled around on the bed for a minute, getting rid of her pesky shift, and the underwear he had slept in.

Ramza collapsed on top of her when they were finished, and she lazily scratched her nails down his back a few times.

This was really the correct way to start a day.

"All right, now I am starving," he eventually said, rolling over to grab the abandoned bowl of oatmeal. "Horrible woman, distracting me with your wiles," he accused with a grin.

"Oh, sure, I started it," Meliadoul said.

Swallowing a giant mouthful of his breakfast without really chewing enough, Ramza said, "I actually feel really good this morning! I slept a lot last night. Have not managed to do so in quite some time."

"I suppose the drink last night helped to distract you from thoughts of Delita," Meliadoul opined.

He shrugged. "Mayhap that was it."

Ramza had not managed to truly feel at ease ever since Agrias and Ovelia had come to them, bearing the news that Agrias had bested Delita in a fight, and told him that their friends were the ones who had spirited Ovelia away from him forever.

Ramza respected the fact that Ovelia did not want to be with Delita any longer… but that didn't stop him from pitying his old friend. There was a part of him that felt willing and eager to travel all the way back to Ivalice, to the Royal City of Lesalia, just for the chance to speak to Delita. Couldn't there be some way for everyone to feel at peace?

He wasn't even sure what he would say to Delita, if he saw him, but he abstractedly thought that he could help. Maybe convince his old friend to just enjoy his crown, to forget about Ovelia, and rest assured that Ovelia would never return to destroy his power in Ivalice.

Mayhap… Ramza simply just wanted to let Delita know that he still cared about him.

He truly did. If only Delita could have abandoned his dreams of kingship, and joined them in their fight against the Lucavi, toward the end. Ramza would not trade everything he had now, for a throne. Power had never called to him the way it called to Delita.

Of course, there was a chance that Delita truly would remake Ivalice for the better. In the long run, having someone like Delita on the throne might go far to make the lives of the poor peasantry quite a bit less miserable. It was possible, if any parts of that generous and gregarious boy he had known in Igros still existed within King Delita's mind.

As things stood now, however, Ramza was in agreement with Agrias: they both believed that Delita would send assassins to end Ovelia's life, and the lives of any others who got in the way.

The knowledge made it more than a little difficult to sleep at night, wondering whether this might be the night that Delita's assassins found them, and tried their hands at killing Ovelia. Meliadoul had probably been correct that the four ales he drank last night had helped him sleep better than he had since the night of the festival.

At least now they had purchased watch-chocobos to guard the property at night. The highly-trained birds had not come cheap, but they could be relied on to wark loudly and attack any human who dared approach the property while the household was asleep.

They thought it likely that any assassins sent by Delita would try to attack by night. Ramza's group had a terrifyingly fierce reputation. They had destroyed any and all opponents during their many fights in Ivalice. Even the most experienced assassins would not be eager to face them while they were all armed in the daytime. It would be far more appealing to creep in through a window and slit their throats while they slept defenselessly.

Ovelia and Alma had been practicing variations of their Aegis spells, and teaching them to the other magic users in the group. They were perfecting simpler spells that could be used to alarm all the bedroom doors and windows each night, as an extra layer of security beyond the chocobos.

When Ramza finished his oatmeal and his hangover milk, he nestled back into the blankets, spooning against Meliadoul's silky smooth back.

"Let's never leave this bed again," he said.

"Agreed," she murmured back, sleepily. "And, oh gods, let me tell you what happened with Alicia last night…"

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Mustadio found that he was having an especially awkward sort of afternoon. He and Alma were the only miners working today, and this was actually the first time they had ever worked alone together, so far. Mustadio had been secretly excited to spend more time one-on-one with Alma. He knew it was just a simple day at work, but with it being just the two of them, it almost felt like a date, at first.

Unfortunately, his original excitement was slowly fading into anxious embarrassment. The stutter he had mostly outgrown at the end of childhood kept acting up every time he tried to start a new conversation with her. He could tell that she felt sympathetic about his embarrassment each time he accidentally stuttered, and that somehow made him feel even worse, even though he knew she meant well.

Mustadio angrily wondered to himself, why did he have to get so nervous whenever he became interested in a woman? He had been a stuttering mess the day he gave Agrias her birthday present, as well.

He had spoken perfectly clearly to Alma over the past few weeks, when he thought there was absolutely no chance of her liking him. But now… Well, he had seen her dancing with lots of boys at the tavern last week, so he thought maybe that meant that Alma was ready to possibly start looking at suitors? And not only that; Alma was being nice to him again!

The seed of hope had been planted in Mustadio's mind, even if there wasn't much proof to back it up. And it had also made him unable to talk to Alma confidently, while they were alone together. He couldn't help feeling nervous, now that he believed he might actually have a chance of courting her.

That is, if he could get his damn mouth under control. Alma was working only about thirty feet away from him, but they had been working in silence for a while now, with Mustadio feeling humiliated about all the stuttering he had done earlier, while they were talking about the sale their group had recently made.

Ramza, Mustadio, Malak, and Meliadoul had successfully sold Construct B14 to a wealthy nobleman. Mustadio and Malak had been there to provide the technical knowledge and demonstration of how the Construct worked, while Ramza and Meliadoul had been present because their upper-class accents would make them all seem more trustworthy as salespeople.

The nobleman owning a functioning robot had caused a sensation in the town of Tiridates. Messengers were coming to their door multiple times a day now, on behalf of their lords, putting in bids and requests to purchase the next unearthed robot. If things continued this way, then their endeavors would be as profitable as Mustadio had originally guessed they would.

He was proud of himself, really. Alma had even congratulated him on this first success. Yet, feeling proud hadn't been enough to overcome his feeling of nervousness around her. Where was that confident man who had kissed Alma in a meadow, all those months ago? Why did everything have to feel so different, now that there was a possibility that he could really be with her, rather than just steal a kiss or two while her overprotective brother wasn't looking?

For the next hour or so, he didn't manage to say anything that wasn't directly work-related, as they toiled in the mine.

He hardly looked up from his work at all, until he unexpectedly heard Alma scream.

She was closer to the mine's entrance than he was, and three squat, hairy goblins were quickly making their way down the tunnel, straight toward her!

Mustadio panicked. The lead goblin was only seconds away from Alma, with his long, flesh-tearing clawed fingers, and there were two more to deal with besides! The surprise seemed to have frozen Alma in place. Still screaming, she hadn't even lifted her pickaxe in self-defense, as the goblin raced toward her.

So, Mustadio did what he always did when confronted with a surprise battle: he drew his gun and he fired down the tunnel.

His revolver's shot took the first goblin straight through its lumpy face. He got the second monster in the middle of its chest, immediately after. His third shot went just a little too wide, spelling catastrophe for them.

It hit the wall of the tunnel, and ricocheted.

The noise was loud, ominous, horrifying, while it lasted. He didn't have to shoot the last goblin after all, because it was crushed in the fall of black rock. Luckily, he and Alma both had the sense to scamper deeper into the mine, away from the cave-in, though the ground was shaking, they kept falling down, they couldn't see anything anymore, and they were most definitely scared out of their wits.

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When the insanity seemed to have stopped, Alma used her small pocket-staff to conjure a light. She saw Mustadio sitting on the ground, breathing hard, and she shakily sat down beside him, gripping his wrist for support as she did so.

"Fuck!" Mustadio gasped, sounding like he was already weeping a little. "Fuck! Oh gods, this is bad, Alma! This is so bad… Did you hear—Fuck! This is the worst I've ever… I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Alma…" A full-bodied sob burst out of him. "They'll never get us out of here in time! We're… We're going to run out of air, before… The whole entrance collapsed, it sounded like…"

Alma felt the purest form of dread for a few moments, as she digested his words. She had barely had thirty seconds to feel relief that they hadn't been crushed in the rock fall, when Mustadio told her they were doomed anyway.

She looked down at her own hand, where it gripped Mustadio's wrist, and saw that the sleeve of her tunic was saturated with blood. Something must have hit her arm, while she ran. Blood also dripped down Mustadio's forehead; though it moved slowly, through the thick layer of rock dust that now coated them both. Alma didn't know if they had any further injuries, yet. Adrenaline and fear had completely numbed her to any pain. She wasn't even sure where the source of the bleeding was, on her own arm.

Not having caught her breath yet, Alma did not reply to Mustadio's proclamations. Instead, she shakily swiped her fingers across his dirty forehead, smearing the trickling blood away before it could drip down into his eyes.

He continued to weep. "I'm sorry, Alma," he repeated again, more quietly. "I shouldn't have been so stupid; I shouldn't have fired inside the tunnel."

"It is all right," Alma said.

"No! It's not!" Mustadio howled. "Didn't you hear me! It's not—"

"Stop!" Alma ordered. "I heard you just fine! But we need to think; we cannot start panicking yet!"

At least she still had her staff with her, it had not fallen out of her pocket while she ran. Alma took a moment to cast Cura over them both. That ought to be enough to mend any of the cuts they sustained during the cave-in.

"All right. So…" Alma said, when she was done casting. "Well, they have Construct 8 up there. He might be able to dig us out quickly."

Mustadio shook his head miserably. "I don't know. It's dangerous, trying to dig out a cave-in. Construct 8 might move the rocks in a way that makes things worse, and buries us the rest of the way. He might fall in himself, if he causes another rock shift… I've never been in a mine during an accident like this before, myself, but I think this one sounded really bad. This wasn't just a little rock fall. It might take them days to dig it out carefully, and I really don't think we have enough air in what's left of the tunnels…"

Alma closed her eyes, rubbing her palms wearily over her dusty, sweaty face.

"I don't blame you for shooting the revolver," Alma eventually told him. "We did have goblins running at us. I was too scared and surprised to even move, at first. At least you did something to try to help us."

"I only ever mess things up," Mustadio said quietly. "I messed up here, and now we're probably going to die! I messed up at Orbonne too! I should have given you one of my pistols back then! I left you alone, with no weapons, and I couldn't have fucking made it easier for Wiegraf to kidnap you… I've felt bad about that every day. I'm really sorry, Alma."

"I… oh," Alma said. "I never even thought about that, I mean, if I had had a pistol while I was hiding with Father Simon. You have really been worrying over that?"

"I was being selfish," Mustadio said quietly. "I didn't offer one to you, because I was afraid not to have a backup for myself."

"Oh," Alma said. When he put it that way, she did feel a little retroactively offended.

She also spent a moment trying to picture things differently. Pictured herself, huddled in hiding with poor injured Simon, but this time with a loaded pistol clutched inside her hands.

"I would do it differently, if I could do it over," Mustadio said.

"It would not have changed anything about that day," Alma eventually said.

"Why do you say that?" Mustadio asked, sounding skeptical.

"Because I am not Agrias! Or Rafa, or any of the other women who are brave enough to fight with Ramza! I do not think I could have even shot, when Wiegraf showed up," Alma said. "I know he deserved it, I even know that his people kidnapped a girl I grew up with, and she was killed while they held her… But I remember it very clearly, when Wiegraf turned the corner and spotted me, I just froze. He looked so frightening, in his armor, and he had blood all over him, and… I saw the sword he was holding and I thought he was about to stab me with it, and it was exactly like when I saw the goblins coming just now. I could not even move! I just stared at him, while he knocked my staff out of my hands. I did not even struggle until he had dragged me all the way to the front doors."

Mustadio said nothing.

"So," Alma continued, "I guess, what I am trying to say is, I do not think I would have actually used the pistol, if you had given it to me. I appreciate that you believed I could be that brave, but I was not. I suppose I am still not brave, because I froze again, just now, when the goblins came."

Mustadio shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I still should have done what I could to help you."

Alma struggled for words. She felt touched in a way that she was not even sure made sense at all. The very idea that Mustadio, who had worked so much harder than she ever had, ever since he was a child; that Mustadio, who had been born with so much less than she, and also had never been a hired servant of her family, felt any duty or desire to help her at all?

She had always understood that her brothers would help her out of trouble, due to a nobleman's sense of familial duty and value on blood ties. Also, her family's servants would help her to a certain extent, because they were paid to do so.

But Mustadio's concern for her felt like something different, something sadly foreign to her. He was upset that he hadn't done everything he could to protect her, even though he owed her literally nothing. He was not her servant. He was not her family. Sharing his spare weapon with her at Orbonne would have gained him nothing, and possibly lost him much.

Was this what it was to have a true friend? And had Alma ever actually had one or been one before? She had thought she had been friends with Teta Hyral, but after everything that had happened… she was not even sure of that. Had Teta truly had a choice in being friends with her? The Beoulves had provided everything Teta needed to survive, so what choice did the girl have but to be kind and deferential to Alma Beoulve?

And after Teta was kidnapped, had Alma really done anything to help?

She had cried. She had knelt at the side of Dycedarg's sick bed, begging him to make sure Zalbag's men would be careful; would insist on rescuing Teta before attacking the Dead Men in force.

She had known, deep down in some primal part of her brain, that Dycedarg's replies had not sounded concerned enough, or truthful enough.

She had begged Zalbag too, for all the good it did; chasing after him around the courtyard as he organized his party of wizards and knights, and he introduced the Limberry recruit, Algus, to them, explaining that Algus would be his second-in-command for this mission, due to his previous experience and victories against the Dead Men.

Zalbag never talked to Alma about it afterward, save to tell her that Teta had not survived her imprisonment by the Dead Men, and the rest of his party, including Algus, had died fighting them.

During their travels together, on the way to Orbonne to collect the Virgo stone, Ramza had finally told Alma the details surrounding Teta's death. That boy, Algus, had been the one to fatally shoot her. Zalbag had been the one who told him to go ahead and do it.

And what had Alma done, while the other people who were supposed to love and protect Teta had instead led her to an early grave?

Alma had done nothing, ultimately. Absolutely nothing.

Looking back on it, she thought, a real friend would have run away with Ramza and Delita, to try to save Teta, and not given a damn whether Dycedarg or Zalbag thought it was inappropriate for a girl of her station to do so.

So, mayhap she hadn't ever been a real friend, after all.

Alma hated herself so much, sometimes. And she didn't feel like she deserved this friendship, this concern, that Mustadio apparently felt for her.

She didn't deserve it, but it still managed to bring tears to her eyes.

Alma squeezed Mustadio's hand tightly.

"Thank you, Mustadio. Thank you for caring about me, back then," she said.

Her thoughts spun, both hers and Altima's, if there really was any true difference between them anymore.

"And do not lose hope," she said, gesturing around at their bleak rock prison. "I think I know a way to get us out of here."

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