A/N: Yes. I updated it.

You probably all forgot the entire context, but even so I'm not going to do a recap episode.

Chapter 8

Ovelia. My angel. My hope.

No, it couldn't be. I dismissed it as a factor of the fell fever that held me. A joyful self deception of an addled mind.

Even so.

"You should not be here." I told her weakly.

"I could say the same for you." She replied wanly. "Do you remember the night we met? In the monastery? Alma called you our hero. Had you sleep with us, to protect us, to put us at ease enough to rest." She said softly. "How our positions have changed."

Cool kips met my fevered brow then. "Rest Ramza, It is my turn to look after you. Leave it all to me."

"What a pretty dream you are." I muttered. "But that's how it always was. We had nothing more than a few days together. Just a drop in the pond. Yet, I could already see myself living out my days with you. So pretty was that alure. More than anything, I loved you for the thought of you. The dream. The everyday hope."

"Hush, Ramza." Ovelia told me with a wavering voice. "You'll make a girl cry. I felt the very same. That's why I just had to see you. I don't care about the crown. I don't even know the first thing about the crown. I knew you a month, but it was infinitely more than I know the crown. I know you, I want you, I need you, I… I love you very much."

She kissed me deeply then. "Four." She said sweetly. "And hark, beloved, I am not without recourse." She gestured to our accompanying cell. "I have ensnared quite a promising member of the Lionsguard in my flight. I convinced her of my desperation, and we fled the carriage bound for the capital."

"With her neck." The robed figure grumbled. What I once thought as a devout and silent monk lowered her hood to display a high cheeked nobility. Her bond flowing hair was matched in its beauty only by the cold severity of her knitted brow. "Upon threats of suicide, I accompanied this cursed errand."

"Don't say it like that Agrias." Ovelia scolded.

"It is the truth, your highness!" Agrias insisted. "God is punishing us for walking from the path of royalty and devout service. We have broken from what is proper, and this is our karmic lot. Caught up in some mad struggle between brothers!"

I laughed loudly.

"So it is a dream for certain!" I proclaimed in amusement. "I had been almost fooled by the sweetness of your lips." I chided Ovelia.

She blushed.

"But I know well this dream-person." I looked to Agrias as I said this. "Although I tend to forget her, as with all dreams. Hello, My Sheild."

The lionsguard member stiffened. "W-What did you just call me?"

"Sheild. You are designated shield." I reminded gently.

Agrias looked stricken, taking a half-step backwards.

"The sword. Where is the sword?" I muttered absently.

"I've no sword!" Agrias exclaimed. "We had to discard it for the sake of these disguises!"

"No sword? Always a sword." If not Orlandou, then I or Agrias herself could shoulder the role. In all cases, one needed a sword. Above all, there must be a decisive role to attack. "Forget what I said. You be sword instead." I judged. I was too incapacitated to be good for anything, probably. "Can you break these bars?"

"With what?" She hissed. "I tell you, boy, I am unarmed!"

"Try to punch it out. Find the weakest looking one and put all your weight in." I ordered absently.

My ailment made everything seem… languid. Unhurried.

A loud and meaty 'thwak' met my ears in response, immediately followed by a string of strained half-curses.

She was always too proper to curse like a soldier.

"I… I broke something in my hand." Agrias judged with a pained expression.

"I see. Welded steel. And not so lightly tempered." I sighed.

"Agrais!" Ovelia gasped in shock. "You're not a real monk… are you?"

"A… A few ranks." Agrias ground out. "All knights… receive a brief apprenticeship with a mid-level monk. Barely enough to earn a single belt."

"Then what are you doing throwing your weight at a steel bar?" Ovelia asked in exasperation.

"He-He told me. Your boy did!"

"He is poisoned. He is not with all his facilities!" Ovelia argued. "Do not take him so gravely, Agrias! We must use our minds to escape, not our untrained fists!"

"I know. I just…" Agrias looked briefly lost. "I don't know why…"

"Agrias, here." I held out my hand. "Hand." I gestured.

Quickly, Agrias put her own injured fist through the bars and into my grasp.

A brief application of 'Chakra' and all was well.

Both women looked at me in befuddlement.

"Ramza… are you a monk?" Ovelia asked in bewilderment.

I could only give Ovelia a silly look, for I had no idea myself, and so I dragged her down into a languid kiss in lieu of a response.

Ovelia stiffened in surprise and a little protest, but she soon relaxed into our lover's display with a little moan. Scarlet, she pulled herself back after what seemed like a great deal of happy times.

"Oh… f-five." She looked away briefly, blushing, to seek some self control. "I… might like you like this, a little bit, Ramza. But don't you do that again."

"I'm quite enjoying myself. I don't usually have dreams like this. Mine are usually filled with blood and sacrifice." I admitted. "Very rarely, I have good ones such as this. There are friends, allies, and deep bonds."

"It's not a dream, Ramza." Ovelia huffed. "You must take it easy, but do try to sort yourself out. I am beginning to wonder if Agrias is such a hopeful prospect for our escape after all." She mused.

"If it were no dream, it would be a nightmare." I laughed.

"What do you mean, Ramza?" Ovelia asked me gently.

"If you were really here, and I was really here, both in this dungeon cell, and mine beloved brother had put us here, then it is a war." I judged. "That's why."

"Eh?" Ovelia, Agrias, and even Mad Dog muttered this kind of expression and shared a sentiment of surprise.

"Yes." I said sleepily. "Mine brother, he poisoned me. He said that opportunity was afoot, and it was most incredible. He had no time to turn me to his questionable methods. Then, it would be inferred by this hazy mind of mine, that it was you he spoke of. He threw me here to bring you here. He threw you here, not because you tried to save me, but because he knew your identities all along. He was not fooled a second. He simply, honestly, found the princess of his kingdom on his doorstep and called it an 'opportunity' that was juicy enough to walk the political razor-edged path of Fratricide. Then it must be a war he's after. One behind closed doors, or one across the open plains, but either way there would be a great deal of violence."

"Are you saying that I… I am the reason you are in such a state, Ramza?"

"Of course." I replied haphazardly. "Who am I? But a bastard. Hardly worth a bullet, much less a vial of nectar from the ghostly willows."

Was it ghostly willow poison? Maybe. Probably.

And I didn't know how I knew that. I only knew that I knew it.

Sometimes, I get these… flashes of knowledge, or inspiration, or even martial techniques.

And I have no idea where they come from.

And that's when I'm fully awake.

So it's not all that surprising while I'm in a dream. In fact It's perfectly normal.

Ovelia slumped then. "Yes… I suppose so. I just thought… no, don't pay it a mind. I do understand if… it's like this. I was sent to grow up in monasteries because of this. The children of royalty are often in danger throughout their lives, and their youths especially. You know that, don't you, Ramza? That's why we're so often sent away to some remote place to hide, until we are need to do our duty as an heir, or old enough that we are not so easily explained away as an accidental death."

She smiled sadly at me.

"Don't fear, Ramza. I'll… I'll talk to your brother. We'll come to an arrangement for your safety."

I laughed again. "You talk to my brother? Now that really would be a nightmare."

"Good thing this is all a dream." Ovelia said with a pained expression.

"Yes." I agreed.

I considered pulling her into one more kiss, then, but in my drowsy state I did not make it that far. The sandman took me, then, which was strange, for I was already asleep was I not?

If anything, I suppose, I fell into a deeper slumber.

Yes, I fell incredibly deeply into sleep.

I wasn't quite sure where I was.

Captured, obviously.

But aside from that, I knew very little. It was disorientating.

I heard voices.

"You must swear to me, Dycedarg, in all solemnity. Ramza will be safe, beyond all harm, and I shall be allowed to affirm it with my own eyes periodically. I need to hear it."

"On my honour, your majesty."

"Your honour, is it? Can't you swear on anything a little more concrete than that?"

"Hahaha, you wound me, princess."

"I'll rebel instantly if you kill him." Ovelia warned. "I expect to see him regularly, and well."

"Highness, for all I care, you are welcome to affirm his health with your own body, on a regular basis, as long as you remain obedient to my plans. I'll arrange it all."

"What plans?" I interrupted.

"Ramza!" Ovelia gasped. "You're awake! Or… your eyes are closed. Ramza, what's wrong?"

My eyes are… exceedingly heavy. I can force them open only for the briefest glimpse of the situation. My body is also incredibly sluggish.

Meilandoul, esuna. No, she's not here.

No, this affliction is not one to be solved on the battlefield. I require a doctor, and time.

I have neither.

"Brother!" Dycedarg greeted. I knew his voice anywhere. "Are you playing at yet being asleep? Or are you too ashamed to open your eyes? I am quite shocked to learn just how profoundly you have ensnared the heart of her highness. Quite a feat. Quite bold! Certainly, exceedingly useful."

"Don't worry Ramza." Ovelia assured stiffly. "Everything will be fine. You'll be safe and I… I will also be fine. This is not the end. Don't do anything reckless, ok?"

"Indeed, Ramza. I hope that we can come to understand each other, in time. After all, we are brothers. That same great blood flows through our veins."

"What are your plans, Dycedarg?" I insisted. "Kill our father, I know that much, and what?" I asked. "Eldest son, and primary heir, to one of the great houses said to be a pillar of this nation. A power and authority that is already spanning across thousands of men. What more can a man like you need? At what point would it be enough?"

"The world, brother. I am after it all. But, that is not such a bad thing. Someone, somewhere, has to be in charge. I find myself well suited to the task. In fact, it's as if the heavens are asking me to take the role. Look how they place even royalty at my mercy, so easily! This nation is on the eves of a great war, Ramza. An entire generation now lives that don't even know what to do with the peace we have now won. Worse, we can barely pay those that bled for that peace. This is a period of dangerous transition, my brother. Both a steady hand and an unshakable will are required to guide us to the next year with a minimal fuss. It's not so bad, is it?"

I sat, groggily. That sounded like the eve of the war of the lions. But that was far in the past.

No, it was the present.

No, I had no idea.

I didn't only not know where exactly I was. I didn't know when I was either.

I was completely lost.

I also didn't know if I was asleep or awake.

But.

I knew one thing.

"It is incredibly bad." I judged my brother. "It is nothing but pure evil. You are not seeking to help anyone. You are only thinking about using them, and hurting them. You want to make them weak, so you can climb over their collapsed bodies."

"How can you say all this, my dear brother?"

"It is exactly what you have done to me and Ovelia." I judged.

"Some things are necessary."

"I can read between the lines." I argued. "Your ambition is too large. Delita started poor. He wanted to be rich. Therefore he may have wanted a kingship that was unquestionable, but you who were already born with everything that normal boys dream of and still want more… have no concept of satisfaction. Until the whole world is under your heel, you don't think you'll stop. But I know it. You won't stop even if you had the whole world. You already fell into the grasp of those rocks."

"Delita? What would that raggy boy have to do with any… No. You… just what do you know about those stones?" Dycedarg asked. "I knew you were hiding something! Tell me! The merchant you encountered within that monastary was my man! He was transporting weapons, and armour, and above all else that stone! What happened? What did you do with it?"

Did I have it?

No. Yes.

Rather, I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Pick one." I offered. "A Zodiac Brave, or the Princess."

"Ramza…" Ovelia interjected.

"Shush!" My brother scolded.

He licked his lips.

"So you have it."

"I have it."

I had no idea if I had it.

The last thing I can recall is fighting Altima at the bottom of the Airship graveyard, my friends all dead, the crystals of their passage from the land of the living littering the battlefield.

I still had no idea how I got here, or where, or even when I was.

So it wasn't a lie.

I might very well have the stone he's talking about.

"You're not in a position to negotiate, brother." Dycedarg answered.

"None the less, pick one. It's an easy choice." I argue. "A princess that will do as you say… that is surely something far more priceless than a rock."

"It's no mere rock…" Dycedarg ground out.

"It's a sin. It's a poison ten times greater than whatever you gave me. It is a path of self destruction. Put it aside and… and perhaps we can work together, after all. I don't mind if you become king, brother. I never cared a damn who became king. If you can really keep your word to transition Ivalice in a safe manner towards a peaceful future, then we can stay up all night as we consider underhanded means to achieve that."

This is my attempt at a plea of reason.

"Just… forget the stone."

"I said, I'll take both. The princess and the Zodiac Brave." Dycedarg hissed. "Give it to me. It belongs to me."

"No. You belong to it."

This man is completely lost. He is in a mad haze and lust.

What he desires is a power he can place his hands on directly. The Zodiac's ability to enhance a person, and even demonise them, is too sweet a whisper in his ear.

And those things desire only two things. War and blood.

But mostly blood.

So much blood.

And I will not stand for it.

"Agrias." I growled out. "Punch it out!"

"I told you, boy, I can't!"

"AGRIAS!" I howled.

"S-Sir!"

"Now!" I demanded. I didn't have time.

I leapt even as agrias dashed towards me.

She threw her weight behind the blow as she launched a left hook cleanly between the bars that separated her cell from mine, and into the only bar she could reach on my side.

At the same time, I struck that same bar from a posture mid-air with a spinning kick with all the chi in my body gathered to that point.

With remarkable abruptness, I felt the bar give way.

I landed and immediately dove through the one-bar gap in my cage at that point.

Along the way, I grasped the loose prison bar in both hands.

"Brother!" I howled as I fell on Dycedarg.

"Damn!" He cried. "When did you get so strong?! Is it the stone's power?!"

I struck down, treating the long and heavy bar in my hands as both a pole and as a Knight Sword. It had both weight and reach. It was also one of the most unwieldy things I've ever held.

But certainly it would hit hard.

I clashed with Dycedarg's hastily erected short sword with a heavy clang and spray of sparks.

I was ailed by some fluid… possibly ghostly willow sap. Yet my will was strong, and my weapon was very heavy. I pushed my brother back.

"Hypocrite!" He hissed.

"I didn't use the stone, brother." I objected. "You can get this strong without! You don't need it!"

"What would you know!" He cried. "You, who have inherited our father's godly way with the sword! Even kings ask me about my bastard little brother!"

With a surge of strength from the larger man, I was pushed back.

Without momentum and initiative, this large bar in my hands was nothing more than a very slow inconvenience.

I discarded it, and took notice of the weapons around us.

"These are the wares my merchant was transporting that night at the monastary." Dycedarg admitted. "I have searched exhaustedly for the stone amongst them. Where is it, Ramza? Tell me!"

"You don't need it!" I objected, grasping a Knight Sword that had been propped against one wall.

"I do!" My brother objected, as he too grasped a Knight Sword.

We met in another deafening clash.

Now I was to be pushed back.

"Look how strong you are already. Look how respected and beloved! Alma looked up to you! I looked up to you! What more do you want?!"

"Everything. Everything!"

With a shove upon our interlocked blades, I was pushed until I felt my back hit the bars of the cell I had once been trapped in.

"Betrayed our father. Betrayed me. Betrayed Alma. Betrayed your country. And you can't even give up on a questionable power like that! Who's going to trust you now?!" I demanded.

"Ramza!" Ovelia cried out in worry, seemingly finding her voice.

This briefly distracted both I and my brother, but I recovered first.

I dropped one hand from my swodrgrip, and shoved it firmly into my brother's gut.

This knocked the wind out of him, and as he bent around my fist, I then followed it up with a sharp head-butt. My brother reeled back in pain, but was quick to regain his senses. He created distance quickly as he scrambled away from me with a guarded posture.

My pursuit of my retreating opponent was a little delayed. My body was not working optimally, and in my brief relief at pushing my opponent away I lost a little of that adrenaline edge that was keeping me up. However, that was a weak excuse.

I then pushed my poisoned body on with all my willpower. I was determined to end this fight before my enemy could come up with some desperate unpleasantness. I remembered all I had lost in similar situations. I tightened my grasp and bent down as I rushed forwards to grasp at the handle of the Knight Sword my brother had dropped in his pain.

I put forth the secretive oriental strength taught by those of the ninja class into my arms and determined to dual-wield these Knight Swords until the fight's conclusion.

I made to fall on my brother in a whirling dervish of heavy steel.

But I was too late.

He had already foreseen the flow of the battle, and his defeat. He had already prepared his desperate unpleasantness.

"Hold, brother." He commanded.

I held.

I did not move a muscle.

"Drop them." He said easily.

I let the dual Knight Swords fall to the cobblestone floor with a clatter.

I had no choice.

He had a thin dagger placed against the smooth neck of Ovelia Atkascha.

It is just never easy.

A/N: Ramza's trippy adventures with being poisoned continue.

Shout out to... basically everyone who's reading this. I wrote it in the odd chance that people remember this story exists. In other words, it's all thanks to you, who's actually reading right now. Good job.