"Are you ready, Miko?" Zidane asked before entering Sir Wulfweard's cell.
"Just make sure he doesn't try to kill me mid-session and we'll be fine." Mikoto replied, donning a metallic, monkey-themed mask.
"He wouldn't do that... would he?" Garnet inquired, disturbed by the idea.
"Uh... are you sure this is a good idea, sir?" Beatrix intervened, worried for the genome siblings' safety, "I can go with you if you want..."
"He won't try to hurt anyone; you can rest assured of that!" Freya told them, dismissing their concerns with a wave of her hand.
"Yeah, don't worry, Dag, I bet we'll walk out of that room as besties." the king quipped, struggling to tie one of his mythril bracers.
"Hmph... I sure hope you do." the dragoon muttered, grabbing his wrist and fastening the loose arm-guard with practiced efficiency, "I'll be here in case I'm needed. Please, treat him gently; Sir Wulfweard has always been a honorable man and a devoted protector of Burmecia, but he can be quite... abrasive when he feels disrespected."
"Okay, Freya, I promise I'll be nice." Zidane replied, nodding to her, "Beatrix, could you please open the door?"
"Right away, sir." the general answered, disabling the barrier and letting the genomes into the dimly lit room.
The first thing Zidane noticed was that that the burmecian had neither drunk nor eaten anything; in fact, the chamber seemed completely untouched, as if he had never been there.
"Back so soon, Your Majesty?" the old soldier greeted him. Zidane wondered if he had moved at all since his last visit. The dragoon calmly stood up and turned around with a grandfatherly smile, his wrinkled face wreathed in shadows.
"Good afternoon, Sir Wulfweard." the king replied, "As promised, I've brought along Alexandria's best interrogator. If she believes what you say, I believe what you say, that's the deal."
"Hmm… you two smell similar… family, perhaps?" the demi-rodent said with a knowing smirk.
"Close, but no." Mikoto dryly replied, "You have a remarkable olfactory capacity, nevertheless... I've always found your people fascinating."
"Oh, thank you! It's good to see someone likes us for a change." the burmecian answered, courteously bringing three chairs to the middle of the room and taking one for himself, "Colonel Wulfweard Rolfsen. Nice to meet you."
"Your name is an alias, isn't it?" Mikoto replied, seating herself in front of him, "Well, I usually go by the code name "Professor", deception expert, the pleasure is mine."
Wulfweard smirked, amused by how precisely she had called his bluff.
"May I ask what's the mask for, Professor? You don't need to intimidate me to get me talking." he said, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, this? It's an amplifying device I've designed and built myself. If we have a honest conversation, it will remain just a ridiculous facial decoration. However, I strongly discourage trying to deceive me while I have it on."
"Hmm… interesting… In thirty-five years of service I've never seen one of those. I must admit I almost want to lie to you just to see what happens!" the burmecian joked, stroking his drooping whiskers.
"Well, you've just lied again, in fact." the scientist retorted, "Are you quite done with your experiments?"
The former colonel reclined himself on his chair and flashed her a satisfied smile.
"Impressive. I could have used someone like you in my team back then..." he said, "I've served for forty-six years to be precise. I just don't like admitting I'm that old in front of such a charming young lady."
"Let's get this started, shall we?" Mikoto said, completely ignoring his compliment, "Did you try to kill Freya Crescent?"
"No, and I never would." the burmecian replied, this time in a dead serious tone, "She's my student, my comrade in arms, my friend and my family's friend. Her own mother asked me to protect her long ago, and I intend to keep my word."
Zidane eagerly stared at Mikoto, waiting for her analysis.
"He's telling the truth, or at least he's convinced he is..." she stated, "Alright, second question, are you working for Ulrich or for Margaret Bishop?"
"Margaret Bishop..?" Wulfweard repeated, blankly staring at her, "You mean the government of Treno is behind all this?"
"Answer my question, please." Mikoto interrupted him.
"Alright, no, never would I serve the interests of a traitor to our people, nor those of a rich bitch like Bishop for that matter."
"Good..." the monkey-tailed scientist commented. "Third question, are you under someone else's orders or are you exclusively following Puck's instructions?"
"I'm fighting to fulfill Puck's last wish: to free Burmecia from Ulrich's tyranny and to prevent a war between our kingdoms." he answered without hesitation.
Zidane glanced at his sister and she nodded to him, confirming that he wasn't lying.
"There's something that still bugs me, Wulfweard..." the king intervened, "Was Puck ruthless enough to put Freya's soul on the line for his cause?"
"Ruthless? I think you're twisting the facts, sir." the dragoon retorted, "You seem to be quite obsessed with the Reliquary, in fact... as if you were accusing Lord Puck of trying to murder his dearest friend with it."
"Don't get me wrong, Wulf, I find your ideals beautiful and we both agree that Ulrich is a threat to the entire Mist Continent, but how does exposing your dearest friend to a soul-eating god in order to accomplish your goals make you any better than him?" Zidane asked.
"Let me tell you two things, Zidane Tribal." the dragoon replied with a dangerous glint in his eyes, "First of all, I've already told you that what happened last night was literally unforeseeable. Second, I find your behavior towards your loved ones troubling."
"Troubling? What do you mean?" the genome inquired.
"You're so hellbent on protecting them from all harm that you're smothering them without even realizing." Wulfweard asserted, "Freya is a grown adult, a professional soldier and she hails from a culture that you do not understand. She doesn't need your approval to make her own choices, and, had the Allfather not called her to arms, she would have been in her right to decide whether to challenge him or not, your royal opinion notwithstanding."
"Royal opinion..?" Zidane growled, breathing harder and harder, "You may be right about my controlling tendencies, but don't you think it was a little too soon to give her that thing?!"
"Why do you insist on treating her like a child, Tribal?!" the dragoon exclaimed.
"I treat her like a friend who needs a fucking break, godsdammit!" the king barked, "She's just lost everything, Wulfweard! Letting her cool down a bit before giving her a life or death choice is not belittling her, it's basic decency, man!"
"That's enough! This argument has nothing to do with the matter at hand!" Mikoto interrupted them, trying to change the subject before a senseless fight broke out between the two. "Colonel, would you please state your plan to take down Ulrich?"
"I can't do that, and I'll tell you why: Alexandria does a terrible job of keeping delicate information confidential. Do you know how did I find out that Cherry was staying here, Your Majesty? I simply bought the secret from your subjects, along with the intel I needed to infiltrate the castle." the old soldier stated, sternly folding his arms, "Believe me when I tell you that with that knowledge I could have beheaded Alexandria in a single night. Instead of that, I'm calmly sitting here, politely taking your shit while my country burns."
"Heh... you're quite the arrogant geezer, aren't you?" Zidane retorted with a smug smirk.
"I've just snuck up on the legendary Thief King while being in my sixties." Wulfweard replied with a satisfied smile, "I think my actions speak louder than my words."
"Okay, enough cock-fighting for today." the monarch exclaimed, mildly embarrassed, "Just tell me one thing, and you better be honest about it: how many people are you willing to kill for your cause? Ten? One hundred? One thousand?"
"You're quite prudish for a man who personally slaughtered hundreds to settle a border dispute..." the burmecian shot back, "but luckily for both of us, this time I only intend to take a single life to save yours, hers and millions more."
"Bullshit." Mikoto exclaimed, "I don't even need this mask to realize that you're lying to yourself."
Zidane gaped at her, utterly baffled. The dragoon huffed irritably and rolled his eyes before glaring at her.
"Excuse me?" Wulfweard growled.
"Murdering an usurper is not going to change things in the long term. You would be just replacing a tyrant with another one." she calmly explained, much to the warrior's annoyance.
"How old are you, girl? Twenty? Twenty-five?" he disdainfully asked her, "What could you possibly know about how this world works? About how war works?"
"That's a childish retort and you know it: you can't hide your inner turmoil from the eyes of my mask." the scientist stated, "Have you ever heard about ontological inertia?"
"Enlighten me, kiddo." the dragoon replied, his lip threatening to curl into a snarl.
"In simple words, ontological inertia is the tendency things have to continue existing, even if you destroy what created them." Mikoto explained, "I have no doubts a man like you could easily eliminate Ulrich, but that would certainly lead to a civil war, for his ideas won't simply disappear just because you killed him. Let me ask you something, noble knight: can your species really afford any more in-fighting?"
Zidane glanced at Wulfweard's conflicted expression and realized that if Alexandria was going to secure an alliance with the stubborn old wolf, it would be entirely thanks to Mikoto.
"What do you suggest, Professor?" the veteran dragoon inquired, his voice no longer tinged with contempt.
"We have an unknown enemy in Treno who's illicitly funding and arming Ulrich for war. I'm sure that if we join forces to publicly expose the puppeteer, the puppet will fall on its own." Mikoto affirmed.
The old soldier stared pensively at her for a moment and finally smiled, closing his eyes.
"Your idealism is refreshing, if a little bit naive... you remind me of someone I trained many years ago." he said, reclining himself on his chair and taking a deep breath, "Alright, I'll let you on far more that I'm allowed to, so listen carefully: as you might imagine, I'm not working alone. I cannot give you names, places or numbers, but I can tell you that we all share the same ideas. We call ourselves the "Partisans", so if you ever hear that word from a stranger, you can rest assured you've just met a friend."
"Your secret is safe with us, Wulfweard." Zidane said, "I give you my word."
"You shouldn't make promises if you're not sure you can keep them, sir." the burmecian replied, cheekily smirking at him, "Speaking of that, I don't know if I can stop our original plan from unfolding, but I'll do my best to convince the team to go after our mysterious enemy in Treno. Maybe you're right and we can take Ulrich down without spilling any more burmecian blood... well, what do you say?"
The king glanced at the scientist, seeking her approval. She nodded her head in return.
"I say we have a deal." Zidane replied, extending his hand to the dragoon, "Welcome on board, Wulfie."
"You know I could be your father, don't you, kiddo?" the dragoon retorted, accepting the handshake.
"Believe me, you should thank Reis you aren't." the genome quipped.
Sitting on the ledge of a cliff overlooking Alexandria, two worried burmecians argued about what to do next.
"I say we should storm the castle and bring him back! I knew he would get caught!" one of them exclaimed. She was a petite, brown haired demi-rodent wearing leather armor with multiple short knives strapped to it.
"But Wulfweard said that under no circumstances we were to risk the whole operation by going back to Alexandria, Sigrunn!" the other one answered. He was leaner and taller than her but less muscular and carried a lyre strapped to his back.
"C'mon, Sigfred! You know he's the man with the plan! Losing him now will make breaking Fratley out nigh impossible!" she exasperatedly replied.
"We still have Brynhild and Astrid and we know full well what to do." he answered, "If we get caught or killed now, Brynhild alone won't be able to save Irontail and we will lose everything!"
"Are you seriously going to abandon master Wulfweard here?" Sigrunn squawked, standing up to intimidate her squadmate, "I should have known that sooner or later you'd turn out to be a coward, you spoiled brat!"
"Hey! I'm just saying that he gave us clear instructions and that his survival odds with Queen Garnet are much, much better than Fratley's chances with Ulrich!" Sigfred answered, "I'm not a coward, Sigrunn! I'm a soldier and I intend to follow my officer's orders!"
Sigrunn kicked a nearby pebble downhill and sat down again, letting out an angry huff. They remained silent for a while until Sigfred, mostly out of habit, took out his lyre and started playing a long forgotten cleyran tune.
"What the hell is that?" Sigrunn inquired, "It sounds really weird... but it's also kinda catchy!"
"I think it used to be a hymn to Reis or something along those lines..." Sigfred replied, playing another short section of the song before resuming his explanation, a custom of his that annoyed Sigrunn to no end, "I believe it's called the 'Eternal Harvest'... it always cheers me up when I'm feeling down."
"So it was true, you really are a follower of Reis... a heathen." his companion said.
"I like her more than Berlioz, that's for sure. Why, do you find it weird?"
"What can I say? You've always been an all around weirdo... but you're kinda fine the way you are. Kinda."
"Uh... thank you?"
"You're welcome."
They ran out of things to say and Sigfred kept playing his lyre while Sigrunn absentmindedly sharpened one of her knives with a rock.
...
"Why aren't you leaving, Sigfred?" the young warrior asked after a moment.
"I dunno... it's nice and warm up here, I have my music, you have your stabby things... we've just had lunch..."
Sigrunn stared at her squadmate and smirked.
"Heh... I knew you'd do the right thing." she exclaimed.
"It's what I call a compromise solution, Siggie." he replied with his eyes closed, "If he doesn't come back by nightfall, I'm taking the ship back to Burmecia. Someone has to tell Astrid what happened."
Sigrunn's ears twitched. She shushed her comrade and silently approached the edge of their improvised platform, knife in reverse grip and ready for trouble.
"Well, I'll be damned!" she exclaimed, waving her companion closer, "C'mere Sigfred! Bring the rope!"
"Is he back?!" the bard inquired, hurriedly reaching for their climbing cord and giving it a strong pull to check if it was correctly tied to the tree, "Here goes!"
"Gimme, gimme!" Sigrunn ordered, impatiently taking the line and throwing it down the cliff, "I can't believe he made it! Infiltrating the royal palace on his own... what a crazy old fart!"
Like a zombie breaking out from its earthen prison, Sir Wulfweard extended his hand upwards. The younger burmecians immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him back to safety.
"Dammit... I'm too old for these stunts..." the knight grumbled, rubbing his sore lower back, "Good morning, kids, how have you been?"
"I was already bored to death before Sigfred started playing his stupid banjo." Sigrunn replied, dusting herself off.
"It's a lyre, Siggie." the musician corrected her while he handed his instructor a water canteen, "How did the mission go, sir? Did you manage to contact Freya?"
"Better than that, boy." the veteran dragoon replied before chugging down half the bottle, "Father Berlioz favors her. She will probably become the next Spear."
"For real?!" his students yelled in unison.
"Yeah, but let's not count our chocobos before they hatch." Wulfweard answered, throwing the canteen back to Sigfred, "Get the ship started, Partisans, we have work to do."