Track 12: Storm Calling
Another late February night saw me skulking around the hallways of Krakenburg. I approached my destination with heavy steps, and knocked on the door. I knew Xander wouldn't be asleep yet; he rarely went to bed early even as a prepubescent kid, though I rarely did either, if me being there said anything. A knocking later, Xander's unarmored form greeted me, still garbed in a dress shirt and silk pants, but verily much not ready for bed yet. I spied his desk lit by a single lamp, full of documents which he was surely studying.
"Good evening, brother" Xander eyed me suspiciously. "To what do I owe this late night visit?"
"Got something to show you." I replied, lifting the small stack of papers under my arm. "May I come in?"
Xander wordlessly pushed himself to a side and gestured me to go in, and I followed through with quiet steps. I had walked all the way from my room to his, which were quite apart, actually, as mine lied on the far west wing while Xander's was nearer the central tower. Once I was in, I Xander made a spot in his desk, where I dropped my documents.
"Do you have a tray or something to burn paper on?" I asked him.
"I do… Ignis, what is this?"
My eldest brother took wary steps towards the papers I had brought in, all while giving me the expected quizzical look. I prodded him to check one with a wave of my hand, and he reluctantly took the first of various compilations of documents, the result of many sleepless nights and grunt work. His eyes narrowed sharply once he skimmed not too deep into the compilation.
"Blackmail" I said gracelessly once his understanding was reflected on his face.
"…And why do you have such… documents with you?"
"Let's just say I've been doing extra homework."
My eldest brother pinched his brow.
"Ignis, where-"
"We both know the answer to that question, but please do not finish it either way."
"It should have been obvious in hindsight. I knew, but I refused to accept it. Your horrid sleeping habits, your relation with her, the advanced classes…" My older brother sighed. "Is this it? This is your plan?"
"A vital component of it," I replied as neutrally as I could. "Or better said, the main one, actually."
"Ignis, by-"
"By law this is inadmissible in court, I know. The original ones were both obtained and reproduced illegally, and should by no means be in my possession." I cut him in. "Not to mention these balances, records, and even some signatures have been adjusted."
"You've-!?" Xander was completely dumbstruck, one of the expressions I had rarely seen in all of my 9 years of second life. "You've actually tampered official, private records!?"
"The original ones are untouched, and it's a work in progress," I hurried. "I think that out of the hundred or so files we have, only about five or seven are spotless, so nothing is ready whatsoever. I… we identified and grouped the information as best as we could so long it was assets that couldn't be traced back, simple stuff like minor unrecorded purchases that on their own wouldn't bat an eye, but nobles are too relaxed in how that money is spent, so it was just a matter of-"
"Adjusting the balances in those gaps to your liking. If the assets cannot be traced, no one can tell if that money was really spent like how the records say, since there is nothing to back those claims." Xander completed for me. "A simple and effective method if greatly time consuming, to not say mind-numbing, one that with smart handling could be used to attribute the expenses to whoever or whatever you desire so provided you played it smartly and built some form of history to associate it to"
"…One of our main weaknesses in infrastructure… now more than ever that money is flowing in every direction imaginable with Garon focusing all of his efforts and attention on the army… He cannot possibly keep track of everything." I said with gritted teeth, anxious at how Xander would react.
"Ignis… Give me one good reason to not arrest if not banish you right now for robbery, defamation and falsifying government records right now." Xander seemed like he wasn't sure whether to hyperventilate or tear the documents in his arms.
"I can give you three better." I replied. "One is that these are copies based on outdated info, the good ones are far better cleaned up and further secured, two, I have even more than this, certainly not for the whole Court whatsoever but still enough to cause a significant political catastrophe, I'm not lying when I say I have about a hundred different files, and three, you may possibly need this even more than I do."
"Queen Arete and you… " Xander didn't need to finish that sentence.
"The problem I have, Xander, is that I cannot use this information, or at least not myself, not without causing one of the biggest shitstorms to come to Windmire, no- maybe all of the central lands that will only get Arete in trouble, even more than she already is."
"Trouble is the understatement of the decade, Ignis!" Xander for once ignored my crude language. "You've… how could you? Do you have no scruples or shame!?"
"I'm sorry…"
"No, you're not!" Xander was almost enraged. "Ignis, if father finds out about this, you're going to get yourself executed!"
"I don't expect you to use this information, or at the very least not yet, but I want you to know it exists." I hurried. "The other night I just went and antagonized Alraune because of course, and now I'm about to stir the sharks once more."
"Don't tell me…!"
"Our latest records are from 3 weeks ago, and our spies-"
"Of course you have them patrolled" Xander didn't even seem that perturbed.
"That's not even the biggest crime, and you know there are spies everywhere; even ninja from Hoshido roam undetected in the streets and a few hover near the castle, heck, I suspect we might even have a few posing as servants, but that's beside the point."
Xander gave me a reluctant look of disapproval, but thankfully decided not to contest that point.
"I don't know for certain, but I believe there's a high chance that at the very least Ornella has hired someone. It at least lines up with her most recent movements. There was a recent withdrawal of about 50 thousand golden coins that she never spent anywhere we could trace, and though we've been having complications to obtain last month's closing records I'm sure we can guess where such a strong sum was surely spent."
"Ornella surely covers her tracks well". Xander's eyes kept darting between the spreadsheets I had created and me. "Besides, I don't think I am reading this information correctly."
"That's because it's my own method of accounting." I said shadily. Mother of Naga, who would've thought I'd actually put that knowledge to use of all things? Why couldn't I have learned how to make actual paper? Fucking parchment is a bitch to handle. "It's a bit hard to follow, but I have created a small identification system to categorize movements based mostly on biotics and miscellaneous spending you can ignore, but it gets juicy when you go under the unidentified section, umm… Aw nuts, where did I leave it…?"
I had to take a dive at the papers, rustling through various scrolls, but I eventually found out what I was looking for. I handed Xander a parchment that contained a crude sorting table that was meant to be used as the reference for the other documents. Xander soon began catching up.
"Important movements, as well as our adjustments are marked accordingly. Afterwards each set of columns compares the bank's records with our uh… illegally obtained ones, and the last column is the result. That's why the numbers keep piling so drastically. Also, we have letters and bills, but I didn't bring any of those, those are kept elsewhere under lock and key."
He caught up after a bit.
"These… I'm assuming the… stars?" He eyed the numbers critically.
"Asterisks" I supplied.
"Is that what you call them?" I nodded at this question. "These are your adjustments?"
"Actually no, those are their own misgivings."
I could feel Xander do a metaphorical collapse, the spreadsheet was almost 2/3 full of asterisks after all.
"Uh, sorry if the numbers are a bit hard to read. These are my own drafts, and I kinda rushed through the transcription to make these for you, and you know how I am with the abacus, so there might just be a couple thousand coins of error."
"No." I could beat dollars to donuts Xander wasn't sure what he was denying either. Thankfully, even through my hieroglyphs, I could see him running the math in his mind, and it was just dawning on him that I wasn't wrong per se. "A 'couple'? By the Dusk Dragon, Ignis, these might as well sum up various tens of thousands!"
"For Ornella and Rachael though? Not quite enough to warrant an arrest for the type of money they usually manage." I said dejectedly. "This might as well be pocket change for them."
Xander pinched the bridge of his nose, and I could swear that his eye bags grew bigger.
"Ignis, I have four questions for you."
"Four?" I replied ungainly at the highly specific number, receiving a disapproving look in return. "Okay."
"First. Can you swear on our brothers and sisters' names, that this information is veridic, your own adjustments notwithstanding?"
"Yes, but to be fair I can't say that for what we've built in good conscience." I admit. "The volumes of adjustments are a bit different for everyone, so I have to admit we cut corners a bit in some places to make some cases more harmful where we could, especially for Alraune, since she's the one who keeps her finances the most guarded, we couldn't get much of her. It's why I said that this is not ready. More adjustments need finer covering after all."
He nodded slowly, which I took as my cue to continue.
"Preliminarily, that spreadsheet I made can technically give you an overview of what the numbers would look without our adjustments for November and December and the first 3 weeks of January, though you'd have to do the subtractions accordingly and do some tax punching, which we both know will be a nightmare. It does paint one hell of a picture though, that I can assure. As for their precedence, we are sure of the crests we found."
"Language." Xander grunted. "Second. Why are you showing me this?"
I bit my lip.
"Because even though I could never use this information officially, I still can use it in other means, however, with that said, the true reason I want to show you this is that you're my insurance, Xander, to put it bluntly."
"Explain yourself." He hissed with a dangerous tone.
"All right... All right…" I was running on fumes. "I know that you're planning to ask me what do I plan to do with this information, and it relates to why I'm showing you this."
It took all of my willpower to look at him in the eye.
"Xander, I'm going to use this information to blackmail them. Use it as a deterrent to either keep them in line or ideally, make them destroy each other."
"How do you plan on doing so?" Xander's eyes were drilling a hole through my skull at that point.
"I can't just go ahead and show this information to them. That'd just put me on their targets and give them one single thing to get rid of. Numbers and letters can do so much on their own, and to be honest, we are still lacking in more physical evidence to paint them completely as enemies of Nohr."
"…You will falsely accuse them of treason?"
"Last resort." I said grimly, with no humor, no nonsense nor quirky snark present on my voice anymore. "I will draw a line, Xander. And I'm completely sure they're going to trespass it and cause a lot of shit if they find out what is really going on. They're dumb enough to take advantage of anything that they think will give them an edge in this madness, so if I mix up who gets which info and let them know the others have it, it may just work."
"You're laying a dangerous trap, Ignis." Xander warned me sternly. "If they do find where this information is coming from, which is by all means a real possibility, you will turn this whole castle upside down, and that's not to say what will echo outside."
Xander's face contorted in phantom pain.
"Which is why you want them to worry about something bigger in their minds: Each other" He reasoned. "You're betting on them pulling back in fear of others breaking this balance. The state of affairs is already precarious, and if a killer's already been hired, it's a march against the clock. How did you even come with such an answer?"
"If I'm going to lose Lorraine, I'm going to make sure they lose everything as well."
"Ignis, we already talked about this."
"Xander, I know I might get myself killed in this stunt." I replied sternly. "But I can't- I won't sit in the sidelines before this escalates further. I can't stop thinking at every single time that if I stand still… that if I don't do anything I can to prevent more deaths among us, it will haunt me for the rest of my days."
"I don't expect you to forsake any of us, Ignis." Xander agreed. "But I cannot accept this method."
"What else do you propose, then?" I sighed. "Are you telling me you can prevent Lorraine's death? We all know we can't trust anyone in this castle, so don't even think about delegating this to someone else, there's been enough poisonings and slit throats already."
Xander stopped cold, his lips pursing into a tense line. He took a deep breadth of his own and looked at me squarely. I met his gaze defiantly.
"I… admittedly have been trying to get the concubines away from this castle for years now in my own terms." Xander gave me his back and took steady steps towards the bookshelf in front of his bed. He retired a set of books from the third shelf and ran his hand through the planks, and soon enough he slid the ledge to a side, and pulled out a set of documents from a hidden compartment.
He has been doing his homework too.
He took one of the various small worn books with faded leather covers and opened it, and after he leafed through the beginning and skipped to the end, he closed it again and handed it to me.
"…What is this?" I parroted his words from earlier.
"My own research notes." He told me grimly. As I skimmed over the old pages, which almost protested at my eager touch, I found out a rather detailed chronicle of events about the concubines, their daily routines, their contacts, their relationships and standing among the various members of the court, among much more. Neatly organized like everything Xander did, much unlike my own mess of notes, lines, numbers and figures. The book I was looking at in particular featured events from last year.
"If you have all this much information…" I told him. "Why haven't you done something?"
"Because I never did something as bold as illegally acquiring their personal finances nor ever counted on you doing it to build a case as big as yours, nor could I make request out of it without giving a very good reason to father."
Urk.
"You're telling me you never really sent spies on them? Are you serious?"
"Of course, but not one single person in this castle is as close to the Queen as you, Ignis, outside of maybe Azura. Nor as foolish, it clearly seems." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And every single time I asked for this type of information from a third party it just led me to dead ends. I knew I wouldn't be able to trust the information I obtained were I to ask for it upfront either."
Of course, Crown Prince and all that jazz. If he were to ask for something like that, he'd just be causing too much commotion.
"I'll work with you." I told him earnestly. "Xander, your information from the Court is amazing; put it together with ours and you basically have the whole nobility of Nohr recorded."
"Nothing remotely as close as that." Xander dismissed my flattery. "Why haven't you kept closer tabs in the Court is what surprises me. Besides, you told me yourself your own information is incomplete."
"Xander, for crying out loud. I'm third in line and absolutely every noble in Court despises Arete. No one takes the kid seriously and no one wants to talk to the Queen, so we couldn't trust them, besides, I've mostly focused on the concubines and actually bringing the information together, as neither her nor I trust anyone to handle this information."
Xander gave a bitter laugh in what I assumed was a form of twisted amusement of our mirrored situations.
"I hate to ask again." He said slowly. "But are you sure on the veracity of your records?"
"Xander, you wouldn't believe how lax and unguarded our own records are." I told him. "If it's not gold, not even the accountants give a damn with how busy they are assuring Garon the weapons are coming along, so I had a free ticket to do this, though it wasn't fun. For them it's paper first and foremost, it's why there's a lot of insider trading, embezzlement and frauds, but you know better than anyone what a single signature can mean."
"Embezzlement?" He eyed me warily.
Aw snap, I'll need to introduce Xander to the finer details of financial crimes too, won't I? Fucking medieval times, get on with the times! Or don't, I fucking hate politics… Ugh. I had to introduce the concepts to Arete in the first place too, and though there are notions and actual punishments for these type of crimes, they aren't well defined.
…For this one, if I can, I'll just lay the groundwork, I think.
"We can leave that for another time." I tried to dodge the issue, and Xander thankfully followed though he didn't seem pleased.
"They wouldn't believe a child as young as you to be able to make sense of such information…"
I gave a strained, awkward smile.
"Xander, will you please work with me?" I pleaded him. "I'm willing to give you every bit of information I have down to the last number, hell, I'll see through that the documents we stole are put back in their places if you want to, but don't tell me you don't have use for our information."
"I…" Xander hesistated. "I don't believe that to be sensible, Ignis."
"What? Why?"
"I can't on principle." He said. Shit. "I admit your information could prove vital to my own, but… if father ever finds out…"
"Xander, break the rules for once in a while." I told him defiantly. "I know I'm making it seem you're making a deal with the devil, but please, trust me. I'll do everything I can to compile back the true state of finances if you so desire, it'll be shooting ourselves in the foot down the line, but if that's what it takes, I'll do it. My info will make yours stupidly solid!"
"I…" Xander bit his lips. "I will think about it."
Fuck. Not good enough.
"Three days, Xander. I'll stick to Camilla and Lorraine like glue, though they'll surely break me some bones." I said. "I'll give you three days to think about it, after that you'll have to arrest me before I start divulging my information among the concubines if you don't agree to work with me, or if they don't get me or Lorraine before."
"You haven't talked to Camilla?" He eyed me in mild surprise.
"After my little exchange with her mother? I had to scurry the hell back to my room before the nerves killed me. I still don't know what I want to tell her, honestly, but after the act was done I was so manic I would have only made things worse if I actually talked to her." I told him gracelessly. "I still want to talk to her, but I needed to have this talk with you first, before this upcoming storm comes."
"I see." He told me simply, still bewildered at everything. "I must admit that I didn't expect you to be this… stubborn, but I guess it goes to show that you're determined to save our sister."
"Determination and stubbornness aren't necessarily synonyms, least in this case." I admitted, and had to take a moment to compose myself. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that war will break out some time in the future, and if I don't have all of you at my side when the time comes, I will not be able to face it."
Xander took a moment again, and looked at the bunch of papers I had brought in. I saw his fingers twitch, as he deliberated whether to check the papers or not.
Time seemed to stand still for the both of us, as my whole body trembled with cold goosebumps. I… admittedly felt dirty at forcing Xander to make this choice. I knew he was a stickler to the rules and despised those who had no ethics or honor, a line which I was beginning to dip in in his eyes, heck, he could actually know I didn't give a damn about them too, but consciously turned a blind eye. For all of his righteousness, Xander was admittedly inflexible, and in my eyes, that rigidness brought both strengths and weaknesses, because sometimes doing the right thing goes against the rules.
"I'll think about it. I will seriously do." Xander finally caved in as his hand reached for one of my rolled scrolls, which he pointed at me. "But don't you dare do anything stupid."
"I already am doing something stupid." I admitted. "But I'll hold on from making any more 'bold' moves until I hear from you."
"Good. Now get out of here before I change my mind." Xander sighed irritably. "You've just given me more work to check."
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're not."
"Guilty as charged."
"Very funny." Xander heaved irritably. "I haven't said yes yet."
"'Yet'."
"Dusk Dragon, you're being insufferable tonight, brother."
"Xander, thanks."
"Don't push me further, Ignis." Xander growled. "And you're welcome, even if I don't like this."
"Perfect. I'll let you keep these and the key sheet I made for you to understand what my crude ciphers mean, but I hope you burn them when you're done with them."
"Of course, Ignis. This isn't the time I've handled delicate information." The crown prince shook his head sternly. I could see him deliberating everything he had just heard. "Before you go, Ignis. I still have one last question for you."
Right, he had four questions for me. Xander rolled the parchment again and neatly laid it among its comrades, and after that he silently made his way right in front of me, and looked squarely in the eye. He was taller than me by a good head and a half, surely due to our age difference, but standing here, in front of him, I truly felt tiny.
"…How come you… do all this?" He asked me.
"What do you mean?" I asked slowly. I didn't need more misunderstandings tonight.
Xander didn't answer immediately, standing silently for a few seconds to ponder how to proceed. His shoulders tensed, and I could see his eyes burning fiercely even though the room was shrouded in the darkness of midnight. He curled his admittedly tiny hands into fists, and faced me once more.
I almost felt ashamed at not being able to match his conviction, unable to answer immediately, as I searched for an answer that didn't sound as ridiculous as 'So hey, turns out I'm a fuckup of an adult pretending to be a kid who killed another kid. Go figure', and it's in moments like these that the disconnect of being Xander just 11 years old and my complete lack of illustriousness shines all the more evidently.
Because I still don't really know how to relate to him in this level, nor really anyone in this world. I don't think I can ever relate on this or ever will completely, on the amount of guilt I feel at looking at my face every morning, of seeing Victor's face looking behind my shoulder in the mirror, of knowing that one of those empty seats in the dining hall is empty because of me. I can barely read the glyphs of the Thunder tome I'm just beginning to grasp without having that phantom memory of the praise he received. Xander had the right to make errors, for he was truly a kid, and children simply don't have the experience to play everything perfectly.
As for me? I will have to keep arguing that having been Shanghai'd into this setting of all things might have been the single worst experience for someone like me, tiny and non-transcendental in the whole scheme of things, because if I don't, and I let myself be swayed around by the events around me, then what even am I?
After all, if I can't even remember my previous name, do I have the right to call myself that person? If I can't truly remember the people who once were the dearest to me, what is left but a bunch of information and experiences to sloppily parse into this body? Can I even say those memories are 'mine'? Are they Ignis', or that stranger I used to be?
"I can barely keep going, but I don't find much else to do- no, I don't have anything else to do." Both in the past, and in the present. "Because it might be displaced, but I feel like I'm obligated to try and protect the others from becoming like us, and give them just one chance to live."
"In place of our fallen?"
Guilt is one hell of a poison, after all.
"In place of our fallen."