Vignette 4 - Argath's Ambitions
Mandalia Plain, early evening
Just before dark, they had been set upon by a group of fiendish red panthers and goblins. Having taken injuries, they'd been forced to set up camp not a hundred yards from where they had fought and Ramza thought he could smell blood as they sat around the fire. Then he realised that, of course, he could and it was his own, which had earlier soaked his sleeve and hadn't yet fully dried.
He was sipping a Potion as he munched on his evening's dried rations, and was watching the gash on his arm gradually close as he did. Observing the rapid healing process when drinking a Potion had always interested him. Delita called it a morbid fascination.
This not his first Potion of the evening, though and he suddenly remembered how he'd got the previous one.
"Argath, thank-you for passing me the Potion in the fight, I think it would have been a Phoenix Down for me, otherwise." He said. He still might not like or fully trust the other boy, but Argath had fought well and he'd helped more than just Ramza with a potion at an opportune moment.
"How did you end up as an apprentice in the Marquis' household, anyway? After what you said about your grandfather, yesterday, it must have been quite an achievement to gain a place in the retinue of your Province's liege lord." Ramza wanted very much for all seven of them to get along, but he didn't know much about Argath at all. Perhaps if he got to know the other boy better he might start to like him a little more. That had proved difficult so far, Argath tended to be rather withdrawn and made no effort to be friendly with the other knights apprentice.
Ramza would, therefore, have expected Argath's answer to be somewhat terse, so he was surprised when Argath actually spent a few minutes explaining how he had become one of Marquis Elmdore's squires. Perhaps he had misjudged Argath, perhaps the other boy was merely shy and only needed a little encouragement to come out of his shell.
"My mother, while she was dying, wrote a letter appealing to her cousins to take me in and help me along in life. They're influential people at the Limberry Court. They agreed to do it only if I would keep a certain... distance between myself and my father.
"My father has spent his life trying to clear my grandfather's name, but the evidence against my grandfather appears incontrovertible... to everyone except my father. His actions have left the name of Thadalfus not only still in disgrace, but an even greater embarrassment to hold; he's seen not only as the son of a traitor but a quixotic fool for his inability to see the truth in front of his face!
"Anyway... my cousins found me a place as a page at the Marquis' court, when I was eleven, and I have worked hard, ever since, to dissociate myself from the stain on my family.
"Only Fovoham and Gallione have Military Akademies, you know. The Lesalian's usually send their children to one or the other, but in Limberry, like Lionel and Zeltennia, we still apprentice ourselves first as a page, then a squire in some more important knight or Noble's household. It was a great privilege to be given a place with the Marquis." Argath paused, sighing morosely.
"If anything happens to him, I lose what little advancement I've gained for myself over the past five years."
It was a story that seemed strange to Ramza; he had always idolised his father, he could not imagine trading a father's love and honour for position and a chance solely for one's own glory. It seemed like an ignoble way to behave and he'd begun to notice just how touchy Argath was about his oh-so-Noble background.
On changing watch around midnight, Delita and Ramza quietly discussed Argath's story. After a few minutes, Delita summed up the discussion:
"It may make me understand him a little better but it doesn't make me like or trust him any more than I did."
Ramza felt that those sentiments accurately reflected his own feelings about Argath and his tale, as well.
Author's Note:
I know that if they've just fought a battle on Mandalia Plain, at this point in the game, Argath wasn't involved, it was just a random one, but since I am loath to get too mired in game-mechanics, I can't think of a realistic reason why he and Delita would really just sit around navel-gazing while the others were being attacked.
Argath and potions comes about because, if you set "items" to Argath and Delita's second action slot, they do seem to be very efficient at handing them out. To the point where, even if no-one has Auto Potion set as a reaction ability, and you go in with what seems like an excessive amount of potions, you may well have run out of them before the end of the battle, as the two "guests" will often hand them out willy-nilly – they barely seem to do anything else (except kill-steal, of course!) The AI just likes to err on the side of caution, I guess. That isn't a bad trait, it's just a bit expensive, at this point in the game, when you aren't exactly flush with cash.