So going from "Tietra's been kidnapped, we have to get her back" to "Oh my gods! Tietra's just been murdered by Argath on Zalbaag's orders" doesn't exactly make this less depressing than the recent vignettes. Sorry.

Epilogue – Ruination

A sheltered clearing, about a quarter-mile from the newly ruined Ziekden Fortress, late afternoon.

Samantha:

Sam felt so disconnected from what was going on, that it was almost like she was drifting above the slushy snow that they had trudged through, half-dragging, half-carrying Ramza's limp body. She knew, in a detached way, that this was probably a touch of shock... yes shock – that would be it. She shook her head to try to clear it - that didn't seem to work.

Hildy had first asked and then had to bark orders at Ophellia to get a blanket and lay it out. Even then, it took a few moments before Ophellia, moving as stiffly as an automaton, did as she had been told. Sam and Hildy unhooked Ramza's arms from around their shoulders and, with some difficulty, laid him down on the blanket, and Hildegarde covered him with another.

"Sam... Samantha! Gods, you're in nearly as bad a state as she is!" She heard Hildy say. She registered the words, but little more than that. So...who was "she"? It couldn't be Juliana, she'd crystallised and one of the enemy knights had just walked up and absorbed the crystal as if it hadn't been all that was left of Juli, their friend. That couldn't really have happened, could it?... 'One of the enemy knights'... enemy? They weren't enemies, though, not really; they were Northern Order, just like they themselves. How...?

This was a nightmare... it had to be - she'd wake up in a moment and Juliana, Delita and Tietra wouldn't be dead. She didn't notice Hildy approach her, but suddenly the other girl was almost nose to nose with her.

"Sam, you have to snap out of this. You're better at white magick than I am, so I need you pull yourself together and do your best with Ramza. If you'll do that, I can see to Ophellia; that's a nasty burn on her arm – you know I have to deal with it quickly or it will scar badly. Sam! Do I have to slap you?" Hildy asked, her voice harsh, though there was a sheen of tears across her eyes too. Sam swallowed a couple of times.

"No, I'll... I'll see to Ramza, it's fine." She said, again shaking her head - hard this time.

She knelt by the boy, absently rummaging her pocket for a clean handkerchief. Wetting it with water from one of the canteens, she cleaned his face which left it scratched and scraped in a few places, but fairly free of other marks except a large ugly-looking contusion on his forehead. Head wounds could be deadly, and nothing else could have roused her so effectively as knowing that if she didn't pull herself together, there could be yet another death today. She got to work. Cura was a very new spell to her, one she wasn't yet confident with, but, in comparison, Cure felt like an old familiar friend and so she used that, knowing that, though she might have to cast it multiple times, it always worked well for her.

After the second casting, Ramza's eyes fluttered open and he stared uncomprehendingly up at her. She was now sitting cross-legged next to his head while she abstractedly stroked his messy hair back from where it was clinging to his damp face as she tried desperately not to cry in mingled relief and grief. She didn't succeed.

Ramza looked up at her tear-streaked face in what appeared to be mingled confusion and consternation. He raised a hand towards her, almost as if to wipe her tears away, but then dropped it as his eyes went very wide and he shot up into a sitting position. That made him dry-heave, which she knew was almost certainly a sign that his head-wound wasn't fully healed, so she began to quickly chant the Cure incantation again. Then she saw him glow with the blue-red of a Chakra and she stopped mid-syllable.

Chakra... she remembered Juliana complaining, a lifetime ago, which was actually just this morning, that her monk's outfit had never been made for cold weather, and Delita giving her a look of frank admiration and telling her that it might be cold, but at least she looked sexy as hell in it. Sam had been a little embarrassed by overhearing that, at the time. Now she was just glad that Delita's compliment had made her friend seem to glow with happiness. Though not entirely unworried, Delita had seemed relatively cheerful that morning too - this was the day that they should be getting his sister back, after all...

When Ramza finally spoke, his voice was hoarse and so unlike him that, if she hadn't seen him speak, she would never have recognised the voice.

"Delita! Oh gods! Sam, what happened? I remember being knocked down by the explosion, and I couldn't get up and then... then I think there was another explosion..." He met her eyes and the expression on his face was wild and pained. "Please, Sam, what happened?" She watched him warily for a moment, concerned and reluctant. She very much did not want to be the one who told him that Delita must also be dead.

"There was another explosion – much bigger than the first. A chunk of debris hit you on the head and you were knocked out... you were concussed I think. Delita... Delita was... There is no way he could have..." She took a deep shuddering breath. "He couldn't have survived that, Ramza, he was almost right up against the building when it exploded – an enormous explosion, the entire building was destroyed... Ramza, I'm so very very sorry." Her voice dropped to a whisper with her last words.

She suddenly remembered two evenings before when he had said: "Alma, Delita and Tietra, they're like part of me. If anything happened to any of them, I don't know what I would do." His face, which had briefly regained a little of its colour after her second Cure, was now ashen and he looked nauseated - she didn't think it necessarily had anything to do with the head-wound this time, though. She realised that she was crying again – had never stopped, actually. Child-like, she attempted to dry her tears with the heels of her hands, all the while trying to keep a wary eye on Ramza.

"Sam, I..." Ramza began. "He's not dead, Sam. He can't be – not him and Tietra, not both of them. I have to go and..." He began to get to his feet and Sam clutched at his arm.

"Ramza, please, the second explosion was huge, no-one could have survived it. Please, please don't go back there. The whole place is still really dangerous – all of the piled up rubble keeps shifting as it's settling - if you tried to find their bodies, and it will be bodies Ramza, you could end up being buried under the debris yourself. I'm not talking about pebbles, Ramza - big blocks of masonry. Please Ramza, you dying too won't bring them back!" In her desperation she began to sob again.

He looked at her, shivering, his eyes dull and haunted. She would have expected tears, but he shed none. Perhaps he was in shock too – it seemed highly likely. They sat staring at each other for more than a minute, and then he made to rise again, his movements as stiff as an old man's. She grabbed for his arm again.

"It's okay, Sam," he said, his voice still hoarse and hollow, "I believe you - they're both dead." Something registered in his face. "All three of them... oh gods, Juli too!" He fell silent, his eyes going dull again. Then something flickered again in their depths, it was almost as if each new thought of Ramza's was taking an age to form.

"And Zal, how could Zalbaag have... I just... I need some time alone... please, just let me be." She watched as he rose, then turned and walked away from her, out of the clearing, heading south, not back towards the smouldering ruins, which entombed two of the people he had loved and cared most for in the world. She wanted so much to help him and knew anything she did, right now, would be futile.

Three hours later, she, Hildy and Ophellia scrambled down to the ruined Fortress in the dying light of the sunset. They spent twenty minutes frantically combing the area around Ziekden and found no signs that Ramza had even passed this way. They should have followed his trail, after all, it seemed, not headed directly back here. But if Ramza hadn't come here, then where in Ivalice had he gone? And how were they even to track him, when it would be full dark in less than half an hour?

Under the ruins of Ziekden Fortress, the early hours of the following morning.

Delita:

He came back to consciousness very gradually, his head pounding, his mouth incredibly dry. The realisation of why he was lying in absolute darkness, every inch of his body aching, came upon him all at once and he tried to say his sister's name, but his mouth was so parched that it came out as an unrecognisable whispery croak. Why wasn't he dead? He should be dead. He'd rather he had died and Tietra had lived.

They'd been going to save her. Why couldn't they have saved her? If there was anyone who didn't deserve what had happened to her, it was Tietra.

Oh gods, if he wasn't dead, that must mean he was underneath what was left of the fortress. He might half-wish he was dead so that he could be with Tietra again, but unless he could get out from under here he would starve to death... no, dehydration would kill him first. It was supposed to be a horrible way to die.

Ramza... Would he come and get Delita out? He'd said things to Ramza hadn't he, something... he wasn't sure. Something was wrong with his mind, it wasn't working quite right, he thought vaguely – he'd hit his head or something had hit him on the head... or something.

He didn't want to die, not like this, and not until he had killed Zalbaag... and Dycedarg, anyway; Zalbaag could barely manage to decide what to have for breakfast each day without Dycedarg's say-so - pulling his strings, like the puppet he was... so Dycedarg had ordered this. Why? Why had they...?

Ramza would come, wouldn't he? Ramza didn't hold grudges; he wouldn't blame Delita for what he had said, would he? Not enough to leave him here to die, surely? He'd only said it because it was what he wanted to say to Zalbaag, hadn't he? Just because Ramza was Zalbaag's brother...

Oh gods, Tietra... All he had had left, after his parents died was Tietra, she was the only thing he'd had to love left in the entire world and they'd taken her from him. Her body must be somewhere around here, mustn't it? He groped around for a couple of seconds, until he realised that the last thing he wanted to do really was feel his sister's cold dead body under his hand in this Stygian blackness.

Why didn't Ramza come and get him? Had Ramza ended up buried under the rubble too? He couldn't be...? No! Ramza couldn't be dead, he'd been much further away from the fortress than Delita, so he wouldn't have been buried, surely... and surely he'd be all right? He had to be; who the hell else would bother trying to get Delita out?

No-one else cared for him now but Ramza and Alma. Juli had cared... poor Juli. Why was it that the thought of Tietra being dead was like a gaping, howling, fathomless pit of pain within him and he hadn't even remembered Juli until just then?... He felt nothing when he thought of her... lovely Juliana turning into a crystal in the snow. He should feel guilty about that, grieved, but he just felt... nothing – numb.

He didn't feel numb about Zalbaag and Dycedarg and Argath. He hoped Argath would roast slowly over the fires of hell for all eternity. He'd do his best to see Zalbaag and Dycedarg would join him; though not too soon, if he had his way they'd suffer right here first as well!

Ramza and Alma loved their brothers. They loved Tietra... so where would the two of them stand on this? Would they help him, or would they stand in his way? He'd have his revenge and if Alma or Ramza tried to stop him he'd... he'd what?

He felt a breath of air, a faint breeze on his face. No he was imagining it, wasn't he?... Maybe not. He was lying on his back and he tentatively lifted his hands in front of him, until they were at full stretch. That simple action shot pains up his bruised arms, the skin tightening agonisingly where he must have been burned during the second explosion. He lay panting on the ground for a few seconds, his entire upper body awash with pain. Forget the pain, it isn't important, he told himself – he'd managed to extend his arms fully; he should be able to sit up. So he sat up and threw up.

Great, and he'd thought that things literally couldn't get any worse. Now he was stuck in a dark hole with the body of his dead sister somewhere near, feeling like no inch of him didn't hurt and to crown it all, said dark hole now stank of vomit.

With that thought, he was certain his mind wasn't working quite right – he shouldn't be thinking like that at a time like this. He should probably be panicking. Instead of panic, he was swinging from intense hatred to grief to feeling weirdly detached and analytical.

He'd just sit here and rest for a minute, at least until his brain started to work right again. Gods, he was thirsty! Hang on, didn't he have a Potion in his belt-pouch? One Potion wouldn't do too much for his thirst and it couldn't come near to healing him fully, he felt certain, but it surely must help!

It didn't do a lot. Yet, after a couple of minutes, the nausea had lessened and he began to grope around. He found a small gap, at about head height when he was kneeling, between two pieces of fallen masonry... and yes, that was where the breeze was coming in. While feeling around, he'd found a sheet of tangled long hair stretched along the ground, but oddly, it had ended, not in Tietra's body, but one of the "walls" of his tiny prison.

After Lady Beoulve had died, Alma and Tietra had sometimes seemed to be trying to "mother" their elder brothers. Even though he and Ramza had often disparaged their efforts, the girls had always done their best to take care of them. It seemed as if the slanting stone "ceiling" had wedged against something, preventing it from crushing him. His sister's body? Even in death had Tietra somehow managed to take care of her brother? Would she continue to watch over him? Half of him said that that was superstitious nonsense, but Gods, he still hoped she would.

The necklace! Tietra's necklace, that had been their mother's; priceless to them but worthless to anyone else - he'd had it in his hand. There was no way to judge time in that absolute darkness, but it felt like a very long time before he found it. He put it around his neck for safekeeping.

He realised that tears were running down his face and dripping from his chin. He vowed he'd have his revenge, and to do that he had to get out of here alive! He could cry later; right now he had to survive. He supposed that crying would only make him dehydrate quicker, so he had to stop. He was becoming increasingly convinced that Ramza, even if he wanted to, would not just be able to dig Delita out, besides, Ramza probably already assumed he was dead.

He slumped against one of the walls. This was hopeless, wasn't it? He was going to die a horrible death.

His sword hilt was rubbing painfully against one of his worst burns and as he shifted it, he thought darkly so much for becoming a Holy Knight. Weren't Holy Sword techniques meant to be amongst the strongest? If he'd only found out three years ago, when he should have, and had trained in the skills, could he have used them, now, to break these rocks that penned him in? That might have ended with the rubble shifting and him crushed to death, but even a quick death was surely better than what awaited him now.

They were innate, those skills, weren't they? From what Ramza had said, you were given guidance to perfect them, but could he, somehow, still access his gift to get himself out, without that? If desperation alone could do it, he was certain it would work. He was definitely starting to feel the panic that had been oddly absent in him earlier

What did he know about Holy Sword techniques? Damnably little. Ajora's arse! He'd spent half his time at school reading, why had he never bothered to read anything on sword techniques? After racking his brains, he suddenly realised that he'd seen, and felt, Wiegraf Folles using them a couple of days before. One had involved ice, hadn't it? He remembered a feeling of cold, then a huge crystal of ice had formed around him, shattering moments later and doing him some serious damage in the process. Hopefully it could also damage stone as well. He remembered what the energy enfolding him had felt like - now he had to work out how to do that himself.

He had also seen those two treacherous duplicitous Beoulve bastards, Zalbaag and Dycedarg, using sword techniques, that one time, and that day he'd had the leisure to study what they did. Like Wiegraf, they'd just made gestures with their swords and... stuff had happened. Damn it, why hadn't he ever tried to find out more? He desperately tried to remember anything he might have read in passing about how this actually worked and drew a blank. Shrugging hopelessly, he unsheathed his sword and concentrated very hard on the idea of ice, then, turning to face the place where the draught had come from, gestured with his sword. Nothing. He tried again, this time trying with all his might to project ice at the wall. Was he imagining it, or had he felt something that time, a tiny flicker of cold?

Taking a deep breath and trying to mentally prepare himself to concentrate even harder, he decided he'd just keep trying until it worked or he was dead. Unless Ramza really did come and somehow get him out, he really had no other alternative.

Beoulve Mansion, Eagrose, two days later, in the early evening.

Alma:

Lying on her back, staring up at the canopy of the bed she had shared with Tietra for years, Alma ignored the knocking on her bedroom door. Her eyes were itchy and a little sore from all the tears she had shed in the last couple of days and she just wanted everybody and everything to leave her alone.

Two days ago, Dycedarg had summoned her to his study, on her return from school, and had informed her, in a sympathetic tone – sympathetic for him – that Zalbaag had not been able to save Tietra; that she'd been killed, on the previous day, when the army had stormed the Corpse Brigade's final stronghold. That Zalbaag had done his best but had been unable to save Tietra. Dycedarg had also said that she wasn't to speak of it to Zal; that Zal was distraught at his failure.

Zal had certainly seemed upset and, so far, he hadn't dealt with the situation well. After she'd left Dycedarg, she'd felt that whatever he said that she must speak to Zalbaag, but when she tried, she discovered that he'd already shut himself away in the library and, according to his concerned manservant, was systematically emptying all five decanters, on his own. The next day he hadn't been seen at all, staying in his rooms. Alma, likewise, had stayed in hers, refusing to get up for school, though without Zal's undoubted hangover.

Yesterday, halfway through the morning, she'd again been summoned to Dycedarg's study again, this time to be informed that he had just received a report that Delita had also died... somehow – Dycedarg had been vague. She had done her best to accept that quietly and had excused herself quickly. In the last couple of years she had gained a sense that Dycedarg was not always happy with her having the same level of affection for Delita as she did for Ramza and Tietra.

Perhaps he had worried about a scandal or a mésalliance – which was ridiculous. Nevertheless, something inside her has instinctively stopped her from incurring Dycedarg's disapproval, on top of everything else - she couldn't have borne a lecture - though she'd never know how she had managed it. So she had done her best to hide her horrified, redoubled grief in front of Dycedarg and managed to get almost back to her rooms before she broke down completely.

The knock on her bedroom door came again, and again she ignored it. The door opened a little and her maid poked her head through the opening. Alma thought about quickly shutting her eyes and pretending to be asleep, but instead sat up. Her voice a little croaky, she said:

"Jaane, if you are here to deliver another summons to my Lord brother, so that this time, he can tell me that Ramza's dead, you can just go away again! I can't cope with that too!" Her voice shook and cracked, especially on her brother's name.

"I'm not, Miss, I mean, My Lady. Time's getting on, so I wanted to know if you would be wanting to dress for dinner."

"Dinner?" Alma sounded, even to herself, as if she had never even heard of such a meal. "No Jaane, no thank-you."

"Shall I bring you a tray up, then, My Lady?" Alma just shook her head.

"You must eat, Miss... My Lady."

"I'm not hungry." The maid looked as if she would object, then sighed slightly and began to back out of the door.

"Jaane, just one moment. I know what I just said, but do you know if there's been any news of my brother? Ramza, I mean."

"I thought you would already know, Miss... My Lady – three of the young ladies who were here before – you know, the ones with Lord Ramza and Master Delita – were here this afternoon, just after luncheon. Lord Beoulve was up at the castle, but Lord Zalbaag spoke with them, even though he'd... he'd already had a few drinks.

"Only three, and without my brother? Do you know anything more? I need to know what's happened to Ramza, Jaane." The maid bit her lip.

"The one who was missing was the young lady Master Delita seemed, er, fond of. Er... Miss Juliana, wasn't it?" Alma nodded impatiently. "I don't know why she wasn't here with the others, though. And I've no idea where Lord Ramza is."

"Anything else?" She asked.

"I... well, Miss, I probably shouldn't..."

"Oh for heaven's sake, just spit it out." Alma said testily.

"Joseph, the footman, he said that as the young ladies left the library, the tallest young lady turned round and actually shouted at Lord Zalbaag."

Alma frowned at the girl.

"Did Joseph hear what Hildegarde said?" She asked.

"He said that she said 'I hope you drink yourself to death, My Lord, though that's a better end than you deserve!' Then all three of them marched out, Miss... My Lady."

Alma frowned at Jaane, completely flummoxed. She tried to understand why Hildy would have said such a thing. She'd done it in public, too, so she'd wanted it to be overheard, presumably. What had happened? Where was Juliana? Far more importantly, what the hell had happened to Ramza?

If Zal had been drinking, again, she couldn't go to him right now, but come morning, she'd demand answers. Dycedarg wouldn't tell her what was going on, she felt certain, but Zalbaag wasn't normally a heavy drinker, so his hangover should be bad enough that he'd tell her anything she wanted to know, just to be rid of her.

A tearful, disgruntled Alma left her middle brother's apartments the next morning with only the most terse answers to her questions. Ramza was missing, but there was no reason to think him dead or even hurt. Zalbaag had no idea where he was and he told her sternly that, after their brother's gross insubordination, Zalbaag would be more than happy not to see Ramza for quite some time. With that, Alma had to try to be satisfied. It turned out that that was as much as Zalbaag would ever be prepared to say to her on the subject.

In desperation, Alma tried that afternoon to turn to Dycedarg for more information and was merely told, coldly, that he was not obliged to keep a child like her informed on any subject, and that she would oblige him by not mentioning Ramza's name again.

Author's note:

I mentioned, right at the start of these vignettes, that the reason that "the girls" exist is that I used four generic female squires in the play-through of FFT I was doing when I started writing these. So, when Juliana died at Ziekden Fortress in the game, I decided to carry that through to the vignettes. That happened after I had already randomly designated her as 'Delita's Love Interest' (though 'sex and fondness interest' would be more accurate) and I had set myself the 'challenge' that if any of the generics died for real, I'd write that in. That turned out to be a little annoying, as it seems a little clichéd that the "clingy-girlfriend" generic is the one who snuffs it and I didn't want her death to impinge on Delita's sorrow for Tietra – so I just wrote it so that it didn't. People's reactions to grief are sometimes a little odd to those not feeling the same thing, so hopefully, I can get away with Delita just feeling numb about her.

This epilogue was going to be even longer, as there was going to be a short Ramza PoV between Delita's and Alma's. Then I decided that writing four people in a similar disbelieving and grief-stricken frame of mind would just get tedious (you may, of course, now be thinking "What? Even more tedious?") Plus, Ramza's wouldn't have 'said' anything astounding, he would have simply harped on about "can't believe Zalbaag would do that, can't even face him, can't believe Delita and Tietra are dead, shouldn't have abandoned the girls" etc. (The sentiments are all there, though in a different way, in "Just Another Sellsword" (click through to my profile to find it), anyway, so go and read that!)

Last note – "Ajora's arse" - teenagers swear, and they're likely to use far worse than the damns, bloody hells and similar that I've put in their mouths so far (but not when you're trying to keep things well within a T-rating!). Many of the most offensive swearwords, in societies that are extremely religious, are likely to involve being disrespectful about your god(s) or their representatives so I'm officially coining this one (and I should have done so much earlier, I guess). It's roughly equivalent in offensiveness to the f-word, hence Delita and Ramza, as nicely brought up young men, would never have used it in front of the girls, anyhow (of course, their not using it before now had nothing to do with me not having given it enough thought up until now, had it?) Delita, very probably condemned to die a slow painful death, as he believes he is, isn't likely to be merely thinking "damn it all to hell", however.

I have a few more things to say about the Vignettes as a whole (all four game-chapters' worth, I mean), but they would make this even more long-winded, so instead I'll just do a short Afterword, I think, and post that as the definitely, very last chapter of this at some time in the next couple of days.

Edited 28/01/15: I've just finished re-reading and correcting all of these vignettes for errors (since I never seem to pick up all of them on the proof-reads I do before and after I upload them, no matter now hard I try!) And I realised that I had a whole piece where Delita thought about knowing nothing about sword techniques really; only having the vaguest notion that one of the Holy Sword techniques was lightning based and trying to produce it from thin air. I am so thick! He's not only seen, but also been on the receiving end of a couple of Holy Sword techniques within the last few days; it's how he realised he was a Holy Knight in the first place and it was only the last vignette! (I don't even have the excuse of there having been a big gap in time between the two. If I remember rightly, this was published less than a week after #22) Thick as two short planks, I am! So I made some (fairly minimal) changes so that, instead of it being Hallowed Bolt he tries to force himself to produce, he tries to reproduce Judgement Blade (which hopefully feels a lot more plausible, anyway!) Since it's the 'easiest' (i.e. cheapest in terms of JP) technique to learn it seems the most plausible to be able to reproduce himself anyway, and Wiegraf pretty much always has it at the windmill battle at Fovoham Windflats, so he's likely been on the receiving end, or felt it happen to one of the others. I don't think I've made any more glaringly idiotic errors in these, but if I have please, please leave a review or PM me and I'll make the correction (and add a huge thank-you in an edit like this one!)