Vignette 21 – Company for Middle Watch

Upper reaches of the Lenalian Valley, around midnight

Ramza woke with a start, as a few drops of water fell on his face.

"Wha... huh?" He sat up, vaguely aware that someone was leaning over him – Samantha presumably, since she had had first watch and he had middle.

"It's time." She whispered, handing him his own clock-watch, and then backing out of the boys' tent. Knowing he was due on watch, he had slept in his breeches, so he quickly finished dressing and then groped around in the dark for his waxed cloak – if Sam was so wet, he'd need to make sure he had that on as well, before going out there. Pulling it tight around him, he cautiously lifted the tent flap – only to find that there was no rain, and if the still unyielding feel of the soil underfoot was any indication, there never had been. Frowning, he pulled his cloak back off as he approached the girl, who was back at the large fire, sitting on the fallen log they'd dragged there when setting up the camp.

"Er... Sam, how come you were dripping on me?" He asked as he sat down next to her.

"Hmm? Oh, I, er... you know I've been struggling to learn Blizzard? I thought I'd practice while I sat here, so I kept trying to fire it off in random directions – that included trying to cast it directly overhead - which was the one that finally worked. It turns out that, if one wants to stay dry, it isn't such a good idea to do that when one is sitting close to a large fire. I probably should have had enough sense to realise that before I ended up soaked through, though!" She grimaced at him and he grinned back.

"Well, at least, this means you must finally be making it work." He said, hoping he sounded more consoling than amused.

"Mmm. I was going to go straight to bed, but do you mind if I stay with you for a few minutes, while I finish drying out?"

"Of course not." He said, smiling at her. He liked Sam – just as he did all the girls. He hadn't had much chance to just be their friend in the last few weeks; being their captain had overshadowed that.

"Ramza, are you okay?" She said, suddenly.

"Of course." He said, frowning. "Why do you ask that?"

"Well, Delita's distraught, which is awful for him, and can't be easy on you; but at least he's getting a ton of sympathy, while you're not getting much. I was thinking about you while I was taking my watch, you see, and I think half the time the rest of us forget that this business with Tietra must be tearing you apart inside almost as much as it does him. I'm sorry, Ramza, I don't think we've been as sensitive to you as we could have been. And today after we... well you know... fought..." She trailed off and looked away into the darkness.

"After we killed all those people, you mean." He said quietly, staring into the fire, himself.

"Yes... You looked almost as upset as Delita, but he was the one who was getting all the attention – even yours. I know he's upset about Tietra and now he's worried that this situation is turning him into something he can't live with - and him being the one who delivered the final blow to that Milleuda woman made that all worse - but I saw your face, too. I mean, we were all upset that they refused to surrender when we offered it, but you looked ashen after the battle." She said, reaching over and touching his arm.

"I love Tietra. Alma, Delita and Tietra, they're each like a part of me. If anything happened to any of them, I don't know what I would do. But... well... the last thing that Milleuda said was "forgive me brother". Every person we kill is someone's sister, daughter, brother, husband, father, or whatever. They'll all be as important to someone as Tietra is to Delita and I. Sometimes, in the dark watches of the night, I can't help but think about things like that, but her saying that, just as she died today, that really drove it home for me. I've deprived someone else of their sister, today - no doubt more than just one 'someone else' - just to get our sister back. Get Delita's sister back, I mean.

"We have to do this – I'll not flinch from whatever I'm forced to do to recover her. She's far too precious for me to baulk at the methods we have to use, but... it's just... the Brigade are beaten - they must have known it, even before they attacked Mansion Beoulve. Yet they're holding Tietra and they're going to use her as a hostage, a bargaining chip in some sort of futile last stand. I feel sure of that. I wonder if this was against Wiegraf's orders again? I understand why we had to fight them before, but now, when there are only, perhaps, a score left. I'll kill when I have to, I already have - we all have - but I just think that the deaths today were unnecessary. If only we could have made her listen!

"God's, I'm sorry, Sam, I've been rambling on and on." A slight blush tinting Ramza's cheeks was just visible in the firelight.

"Don't be silly. Just remember that I'm here to talk to, like this, whenever you want. But Ramza, try not to dwell on it too much. They kidnapped Tietra, they chose to do that, they must have known there were other ways to evade justice. If they had run, just scattered across Gallionne, there's so few of them they could have probably all have just kept their heads down and escaped any further retribution. They've chosen this course." She repeated.

"You know, I'd worry more about you if you weren't bothered by taking people's lives. I hate that we've had to do it over and over, but if we just didn't care when we killed...? What sort of people would that make us?" She asked.

Sam suddenly got up, turned and stepped over the log and then just sat back down. Ramza was perplexed for a moment, glancing at her now deeply shadowed face, then remembered that her back was probably still wet from the melted Blizzard spell.

"What do you think you'll do after this, Sam? I got the impression that, of all the girls, you're the least enamoured of the military life. And no-one has expectations that you will prove yourself a military prodigy capable of becoming the next General of the Northern Sky; you could choose not to go into the army."

"I don't know. Until I couldn't master Blizzard, I thought I had the potential to be really good at magick. I was thinking of asking my father if I could go back to Gariland next year, but to attend the Magickal Akademy instead. I'd probably have to start at first year again, but the pupils there have a wider age range, so it probably wouldn't be so bad if I was a bit older than average. But... well... if I couldn't even master Blizzard..."

"You'd been trying for... what? Four days? I don't think that makes you a black magick dunce - especially as you got both Fire and Thunder straight away!" He had to lean back so that he could make eye contact and smile at her, since she was now facing the opposite way.

"Besides, my mother once said that unless a mage was unusually talented, they'd quickly realise they had a better affinity for certain branches of magick. She'd mastered white magick by the time she was twenty, but she was closer to thirty before she did the same for time magick; she said she just didn't have as much of a knack for it. On the other hand, the couple of summons she knew, she'd had no trouble learning. She said the only reason she didn't change her secondary specialism was that, as a summoner, she'd have been expected to hurt people. She knew time magick's Gravity family of spells but I got the impression she never used them, she just stuck to being a pure support mage." She smiled back at him and suddenly leant over and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thanks, Ramza."

"What for? I think it should be me thanking you for listening to me maunder on, earlier." He hesitated for a second, smiling at her. It suddenly occurred to him how pretty Sam was, so he leant over and kissed her cheek.

He probably shouldn't have done that, he thought, vaguely. This was...well... actually, now he thought of it, this was probably flirting, wasn't it? He'd never really known what you were meant to do to begin flirting with someone, though Delita never seemed to have any trouble. What with the Tietra situation, this probably wasn't the time for flirting with anyone... though Sam seemed to be far from objecting, and... this was daft - they'd only kissed each other on the cheek.

After he'd kissed her, she'd ducked her head, as if she was embarrassed, but she put her hand on his as she spoke again.

"I was thanking you for being supportive and encouraging. I love magick; I think it's all fascinating, and I don't really enjoy any of the physical combat arts we've been using, but I have been worried that I wasn't as good as I needed to be to specialise in it. When we were attending that banquet at Eagrose, I overheard Lord Zalbaag say to someone that his step-mother had been an incredibly gifted mage – so when I heard that, I thought I knew where you got it from. However, if she really was so gifted and she still struggled with some magicks more than others - perhaps there's hope for me yet."

"Of course there is, more than just hope; you're really good, Sam. You know, you probably should write to your father straight away, and ask – do you worry he won't agree?" Ramza asked.

"Mmm." She said, in assent. "He wasn't very convinced that sending me to the military akademy was a good idea in the first place. If I ask to train as a mage instead... well he may just decide I'm a lot more use being married off to someone who would be a "good connection" for the family.

"Oh... I don't know. Maybe, if I can convince him that the Akademy hasn't been a total waste, that it's simply been a decent way to find out what I'm actually good at, he'll consent." Ramza thought about that for a moment.

"You know, I wasn't joking when I said you're really good, Sam. If you keep practising and then show the Masters at the magick akademy just what you're capable of, surely they'd let you skip at least first year? That might make it easier for your father to accept you taking your magicks training further. I can help you practise for now, if you'd like – I think you're at least as good as I am, but I'll do what I can." He paused for a moment, then went on thoughtfully.

"You're good at mathematics too, now I think about it. Zal's always said that there's nothing more helpful nor more deadly than a fully trained Arithmetician on the battlefield. If I told him that you were very interested in all types of magick and that you might end up specialising as one, I think he might easily be persuaded to write to your father and say what an asset you could be to the Northern Sky with further training. Would that help, do you think?

"Do I think General Beoulve writing to my father and asking him to let me continue my training would be helpful? Hmm, let me think..." It wasn't hard to pick up the sarcasm.

"Ramza, you're one of the Beoulves and I know, for you, it's probably difficult to understand how other people see the noble house of Beoulve, but you do understand just how powerful your family are in Gallionne, don't you? I'm just an ordinary cadet – father might be a Baronet, but he's pretty unimportant – we're basically just your typical landed gentry. So, honestly, if I want to be a mage, how much help do you think it might be, that General Beoulve took the time to write to him about that? He was impressed and a little surprised that we were friends when I told him that last summer."

"My family aren't really that high and mighty, you know. I mean, Dycedarg's an Earl, not a Duke or a Marquis or anything, and he's only... like... seventy-fourth in line to the throne, or something..." She looked nonplussed for a second, then started to giggle.

"So you're family aren't all that "high and mighty"... and you're second in line to an Earldom and "like" seventy-sixth in line to the throne, "or something"?" She asked, still laughing quietly.

"Perhaps." Ramza looked away, uncomfortably. There was no way in Ivalice that his father's cousins wouldn't strenuously challenge his right to the Earldom if, heaven forbid, anything were to happen to his two elder brothers – royal decree or no royal decree, they had never been prepared to admit his or Alma's legitimacy. If there was to be some cataclysm that destroyed everyone in the royal succession right down to the Beoulves... but no, that was impossible – mad to even think of it.

His lack of comfort with the topic was because, for all he never tried to hide that he was of mixed-birth, his friends didn't know that his parents hadn't been married when he had been born. Dycedarg had always drummed it into him that he could tell no-one about that! He was... okay with that, he supposed. His father had always been ashamed that he hadn't married their mother before Alma and Ramza were born, he knew, so he didn't keep the secret just at Dycedarg's urging, but to protect his father's honour.

Ramza realised that neither of them had spoken for a while and that Sam's hand was still on his - though just as he did realise, she removed it.

"Ramza, if you're being quiet because you'd rather not speak to your brother – you know, if saying that was just an impulse, or something – and you don't think he'd be happy..." He interrupted before she went further.

"No, Sam, no. Of course I'll speak to him, as soon as we get back, and I'm sure he'll be delighted to do it. He's been really pleased with how our squad has performed, you know. However," he said, grinning at her, "if he doesn't agree right away, I can simply set Alma on him. You have no idea how good she is at nagging Zal! He usually caves in after about two minutes - three tops. Of course," he added, rolling his eyes, "she's good at nagging everyone – even Dycedarg gives in more often than not!" Sam grinned at him for a moment, then she quickly covered her mouth as she gave a small yawn.

"I've pretty much dried out, now, so suppose I should be getting to bed. And... thank-you Ramza, you're a really good friend, you know." She leant in and kissed him again, this time at the corner of his mouth. Then she rose and left him to finish his watch alone.

Ramza considered going after her and seeing if he could claim a few more kisses before she got to her tent. He was coming to realise that no matter how prudish he was deep down, that it would still be nice to have a relationship with a girl. No-one said he had to jump into bed with anyone yet - just because Delita was doing that, did not mean he also should. Having an attractive girl he could kiss and cuddle with might be rather nice, though.

Sam was pretty and very kind and he liked her a lot. She was the quietest person in the squad which was, perhaps, why he hadn't realised she liked him like that until tonight... or had he misread that? Of course, he accepted Alma and Delita's assessment that he was "useless with girls", so maybe he should check with Delita if he had ever thought Sam might like Ramza as more than just a friend.

Of course, he had occasionally thought that Ophellia might be interested in him too. She was also attractive and somewhat more outgoing than Sam and... well... though she was petite, she was also curvier, he thought with a blush, which might be rather nice when it came to... cuddling. If there really was a damned Grand Ball, after all this was over, perhaps he'd ask one of them to go with him. Which one he wasn't sure; he liked both.

He wondered why he was even thinking it. Any time he tried to talk to a girl in any way that was more than just being friendly, he usually ended up so tongue-tied that he could barely string two words together. He'd just have to resign himself to going to the Ball with Alma and Tietra, no doubt - which probably wouldn't be so bad - they always had fun together and, at least, Tietra wasn't actually a blood relation. Plus, she was every bit as pretty as Sam or Ophellia and she was still the loveliest person he'd ever known...

Gods, please let her be all right!

Author's note:

Er... I was sure that this was going to be a really short one but, hey, longest one yet... so, moving swiftly on!

The good news is that I already have a rough draft of the next vignette, so hopefully I should be a lot quicker posting that one (fingers crossed for the weekend, though I make no promises) – and that will be the last vignette of this set, after that there'll only be the epilogue, which probably won't be quite like a normal vignette.