Filling In The Blanks

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy IX or any of its characters.

Chapter 52: Blast from the Past

"Are you sure you really want to just let them in like this?!" The man threw his hands up in the air and continued his pacing. His large, heavy boots clomped against the ground, shaking the table and rattling the dish she was currently seated in front of.

Closing her eyes slowly, then reopening them and pristinely picking up her cup, she took a feminine sip before setting it back down. He narrowed his eyes – he hated when she got all prude because she was acting superior.

"Nathan, you need to trust me… There's a reason we've been able to hide for fourteen years since the war started." She annunciated 'started' crisper than her other words, pursing her lips at him, eyebrows furrowed.

"Lysandra, these people could still be dangerous!"

"There is no way that every single one of these people fabricated the same lie…"

"Unless they talked to each other all before they left!"

"Please," she waved her hand in the air, taking another delicate sip and over-exaggeratingly crossing her legs, "as if Kuja's army was really smart enough to do that."

"Some of them are! You heard about those guys in gold with the white chocobos who run around like their fucking hot shit! Some of them are genuinely dangerous! We need to be careful!"

She raised an eyebrow at him, her lips still pursed. Then she leaned forward before she slammed a hand down on the table. "Do any of them wear gold? Did you see any white chocobos stored in their ship?" Then she leaned back, a cocky expression overtaking her face as she puffed out her chest, "There were no lies in Dagger's eyes… Nor Steiner's, nor Beatrix's, nor Zidane's… Therefore, you should trust me. You've done so thus far, and haven't died yet, correct?"

"Are you just going to let them walk into Ipsen's castle and nose around?! Are you going to show them every secret to our location?! Hell, are you going to tell them about the mi-"

"Enough!" She snapped, and wisely, his mouth clamped shut. "If they discover Ipsen's castle nestled in the mist, let them go in… If they make it all the way through – great… we share more secrets. If they don't then they can rot away in the dungeon below, or even get lost – I don't care. What I care about, is doing anything I can to help people who are serious about taking on Kuja… You do not get much more serious than an ex princess who has a couple of ex-knights, a Regent uncle, and two dreamers saddled on with her! I even hear they've got some black magic users… Nathan – someone could finally upgrade my spells!"

"Is that all you care about?" He snapped, "Personal gain? Sandra, people might die!"

"You're being overdramatic, Nathan," She scoffed at him, rolling her eyes and taking a sip out of the crystal glass.

"You're being ridiculous!" He threw his hands up again, but refused to walk out on their fight.

She sucked the inside of her cheek for a moment, debating on what she was going to do. "I'll make you a deal…"

"Oh here we go," he mumbled, slouching.

"Do you want to listen? Or not?" Again, she made 'not' crisper than everyone else, her head tilting with impatience. She stood, her chair scraping back on the stone floor. "Because I could let them have free reign if you'd like, that's really no problem for me…"

His whole body slouched after that, and he turned to her, desperate. "Yes, I'm listening."

"We'll tell them the rumor about Ipsen's castle…"

"But that's not –"

"I know," She hissed at him, louder than their conversation called for. "I'll tell them the common knowledge about Ipsen's… And by natural curiosity, they'll venture in."

"So? You're going to send their whole little gang in?"

"Goodness, no!" She put her finger tips to her chest, and let out a small, arrogant laugh. "Do you think I'm dense, Nathan?" She rolled her eyes, flipping her dark hair away from her face, "We'll direct their most elite people into the castle… Simply put, if they never come out, more will go looking for them, and slowly their numbers will dwindle. The rest will either leave, or not know what the fuck to do and be stranded here with us… We don't have to kill them! Just let nature take its course, Dear."

He sighed. He couldn't find anything wrong with his leader's plan, but he felt like they were leaving a lot up to chance. "But what if –"

"Na-ah!" She barked at him, glaring, "Like I said… This deal is for the benefit to you. While I could care less if they are here or not, I do not believe they are bad people… I'm testing this because you're paranoid, otherwise I would give them free reign just by going off their word. This many people do not travel this far just to kill others… It's not in Kuja's nature… We know – we've been tracking his nature for fourteen years."

He shook his head and stared at her. "I hope you're right about this one, Lysandra… We don't want a repeat of last time."

Her eyes narrowed, and her hands slammed down on the table where she had taken a seat again. She shot up from the chair and it clattered backwards. "You listen to me! You don't like how I run things, than get the fuck out!"

He turned around again and marched out, his combat boots still rattling her cup on the table.

Her tongue slid across her teeth as she glared daggers at the wall. Without another word, she strode out of the room as well, leaving whatever she was doing abandoned on the table.


"Ipsen's castle… We did intend to come here looking for that yes… But that's because we thought you'd be taking shelter in the castle, rather than around it…" Steiner nodded, folding his hands on the splintered oak table in front of him.

"You know the stories of Ipsen's castle, don't you?"

"Stories?" Zidane tilted his head, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward so his elbows were on his knees. "What kind of stories?"

"Stories that revolve around anything dwelling on the Forgotten Continent are like…" Lysandra thought for a moment, crossing her arms in front of her chest, "Horror stories for everywhere else…"

"Oh…" Zidane mumbled, leaning back in his chair. "Well that's settling…" The woman only gave him a challenging grin.

"Stories involve food?" Quina's hungry eyes never left the woman, and she had to say, under that flower-shaped iris of a stare, she felt more uncomfortable then scaling the stone walls of their makeshift home at night.

"None of these horror stories," She told the Qu, then straightened and turned, throwing a glance over her shoulder with another one of her mysterious smirks, "At least not yet."

"We make them?"

"Probably not," Zidane told Quina, shaking his head. Leave it to the Qu to make a completely serious conversation a little less creepy.

"So what is the real story, behind Ipsen's castle?" Marcus asked, leaning against the wall with one hand. "I mean, you guys have been living next to it for who knows how long… I'm sure you know…"

She tossed her hands up in an 'I don't know' gesture. "Your guess is as good as mine. We might be stealthy and exquisite fighters but we are no fools… People don't venture into Ipsen's palace unless they're searching for a death wish."

"Has it always been that way?" Freya asked, tilting her head to the side. She was seated on a chair, elbow on the table, chin in her palm, legs crossed. One hand absent mindedly clawed at the table lightly, only making light-colored scratch marks.

Lysandra shrugged, "I mean sure, some people have tried… Some people have tried everything don't you think? But we've never seen them again."

"Pleasant…" Blank mumbled, sitting up straighter. "Okay, so what's the standard story if you don't have a real one?" He glanced at Zidane, hoping to get the story straight for him and Vivi.

"Ipsen… Where he is now is beyond me… He was a grand explorer… The only person ever known to get across these canyon walls without an airship or a chocobo…" She smirked, "But I think personally, he cheated, and really did have a chocobo, though everyone claims the world was too new for any of those giant chickens to be mature enough to ride…"

"Aaanyways," Marcus reminded her, shifting so his back was against the wall.

She stared at him for a moment, before turning away. "Right," she drew it out a little, and turned around, another testing expression sweeping over her facial features. "He discovered the Castle – lost in the midst of the mist… For days he traveled with no sense of direction… But the man was smart, and when he saw shelter he took it… The Castle was mostly deserted. There were a few people inhabiting it, saying their King died long ago, but they simply didn't have anywhere else to go…" She shrugged.

"They took him in with open arms as he showered them with his stories of other – better worlds… But something they hadn't been exposed to was war and death and bloodbaths… They begged Ipsen to stay – to lead them, and to make this region better, happier… And so he did… Oh and how wonderful they made it. He challenged all remarkable swordsmen, magic users, and bandits to stay with him the castle – challenging their wit, common sense, instincts, and physical stature…

"People wished to stay… Soon comrades turned into lovers, and lovers into families, and the stone walls began being shoveled out, little by little, to make a hidden village, ruled by the honorable Ipsen…"

"So what makes this place so creepy and bad?" Zidane asked, glancing around at the others' faces. Though they'd heard the tale many times before – never was it in such depth… Never had it been so intriguing – the simple, well-known story of Ipsen.

"One of his challengers – a spell caster from far away – who we think descended from the elemental shrines of the world, failed Ipsen's challenge. All before him from the shrines had prospered in this land, and he failed? He couldn't accept it… So he cursed the castle, and the region around it.

"The whole valley was plunged into a dense mist – not just the morning mist that Ipsen had traveled through in his early days here, no – it was a blizzard of clouds… And on the castle itself, he turned logic into nonsense, and what was once strong, became very weak…"

"Do not be restricted by your knowledge and experience. This place turns logic upside down. What's big is small, what's strong is weak, and heaven is earth…" Steiner quoted, looking up. "That's the word of the castle, right?"

She nodded, "A brave explorer after Ipsen made it here – one of the only to do so after the mist… We greeted him many years ago… We begged such a fine man to stay. The first night he went into just the entry way of the castle and came out the next morning, bearing these words… He wrote a letter, with these words enclosed, and shipped it off to his family – his three sons a long time ago…"

Steiner nodded, "And he was never seen again?"

She shook her head and narrowed his eyes. "Why do you speak as though you know the story?"

He sighed, "It's nothing."

"If you want help in accessing Ipsen's castle –"

"We don't need to anymore," Steiner snapped, rubbing his temples.

"Secrets will not help your rebellion's cause here…" She needed to know… That man… that story – nobody knew it… Nobody but her and –

"He was my father…" He stood up and shook his head, briskly walking out of the room.

Everyone was just as shocked as Lysandra. "What?" She whispered, staring after the man. Nobody ever heard about Steiner's past, and if Beatrix hadn't grown up in Alexandria – the same place as he – she wouldn't even know… This was one of those pieces of information he never exposed about himself – even to her.

After that, the meeting was wrapped up quickly. A group would take them into the mist to find Ipsen's castle in just a few hours, and only the very best were going to go… Beatrix could hardly pay attention to what the woman was saying, and who was responding with what. Steiner's father? He had been here? And he went into that castle to never be seen again…

The woman was anxious to get up and find him – be there for him if he needed her. She bit her lip and gnawed on it, unsure of what to do. What could she do? Steiner was being pulled to a place where his father went, and never came home… And she hadn't a clue if the man was nervous or upset…

As soon as she saw Zidane hop up and stretch, she bolted from her chair and ran from the hall. She figured that he'd be outside, not wanting to be stuffed up in these now-suffocating tunnels.

She searched and searched, but for the life of her, couldn't find Steiner. Eventually, she made it to an on-ground training yard, and saw him. His armor was off, and he was wearing every day clothing. She scrunched her face… His hair seemed shorter, and this man seemed less muscular, his stature slouched with stress.

"Steiner!" She put a hand on his shoulder and whipped him around, but was startled when the glaring eyes met hers.

"I'm not who you're looking for," He snarled at her.

She recoiled with shock and blinked at him. "Excuse me," she began in a ruder tone than he'd just used. What was this guy's problem? "I'm sorry, my mistake."

He sized her up, glancing at her up and down, "Yes, your mistake."

"What's your problem?" She asked him, taking another step back and pushing her hair over her shoulder.

"You're mighty confident for being a newcomer," He snarled. She couldn't help but notice he just sounded so much like Steiner.

She stood back up straight after naturally sliding into a defensive battle stance. "Do you know who it is I seek?"

He scoffed, "I know. Doesn't mean I know where he is…"

She narrowed his eyes, "You know that name… Steiner… But not just for the individual man…"

"You're smart," he crossed his eyes, his tone a little more friendly (really just a little), and a smile actually cracking out onto his face. "I can see why he likes you."

She looked away for a moment, trying to regain control of the situation. "What does the name mean to you?" She demanded.

He rolled his eyes, "You're so much like him. So ill tempered and mistrusting…"

"I could say the same to you," She glared, huffing and crossing her arms in front of her. "You sound related…"

"Nothing more than a distant memory…" He grumbled, but it wasn't for her ears. Unfortunately, Beatrix was a very keen listener.

"Cousins?" She ventured, stepping closer and peering at his turned face, her hair falling over her shoulder. "Or maybe…" She stopped when she realized she hit the nail on the head. "Brothers…"

He turned to look at her fully now. "It's been a very long time, Beatrix…"

She gasped, putting an armored hand to her face, honey-golden eyes glinting with shock. "Nathaniel?"

"I go by Nathan now, but yeah, basically…"

"I – but you – and he – Steiner did –" She sucked in a breath, "How are you here? Steiner said you disappeared long ago!"

"Yeah… I did… I left Alexandria and went on with my life – exploring…"

Suddenly his exploration clicked with the news she'd just learned about his father. "Not exploring… Searching…"

"What's it to you?" He snapped.

"I just found out… Nathan I –" she put a hand on his arm, but then stopped, and let it slide away. "I'm so sorry… I never knew… He just told us…"

There was silence as Nathan turned and walked away, staring out into the deep mist in front of them. "These things are no longer mine to tell you… You are not my confidant anymore, Beatrix… We're passed that stage…"

"Nathaniel… You left… I was –"

"Go from one to the other, huh? The older brother turns you down, so you run to the youngest?" He smirked bitterly for a moment, "Tell me, how intimate are you two?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Why are you doing this? We've only just arrived and –"

"Brought back too many unwanted memories… Don't you feel it B?! We're spiraling eight years into the past! It's the complicated love triangle of Adelbert, Beatrix, and Nathaniel all over again! I ran away to find answers from my father – I ran away because I couldn't bear losing you in your stubborn pursuit of knighthood, and I couldn't bear the fact that with each and every battle you and my brother came home from, you grew closer…"

She straightened, putting on a hard mask that he wasn't familiar with. "I've got to find Steiner… We have a mission to discuss…" She grumbled, her voice wavering and cracking on the last stretch of the sentence. She turned around hurriedly and swiftly walked away. When she thought she was a far enough distance away, she broke into a sprint.

"You shouldn't have said that…" Stepping out from the shadows was none other than Adelbert Steiner himself.

"What? Been honest with her?"

"You're the one setting it in Lysandra's mind that we're Kuja's men, aren't you?"

He turned away. "I have to protect these people…"

"But you know Beatrix and me… You know both of us –"

"I knew you! I don't anymore…"

"Why? That's all I want to know, and then I'll walk away forever… I won't even mention you to anyone…"

"Why?" He threw a wry glance over his shoulder at his younger brother, "That could be in reference to many things." Steiner didn't answer him.

"Why did I leave? You heard my spew to Beatrix just moments ago… Why am I making you out to be the enemy?" It took him a moment to sift through his thoughts – say the right words to answer. "I thought you and Beatrix died a long time ago… Lysandra wasn't lying to you when she said that she wasn't aware of another big resistance…" He gestured to their surroundings. "We don't exactly get a lot of information flow…"

His brother stepped closer to him, and looked down at him. "But if the stories about your resistance are true… If you are really in the company of two Dreamers – one of which defied Kuja in the way of stealing his ship... You're a walking target…" He shook his head, "How do you expect me to welcome you with open arms into a world I've made my own?! In a world where I don't have all the muddy problems of resistance leaving tracks all over me?! We help, and we would eventually make a stand to Kuja, but we don't track mud all over our reputation – we hide in the shadows! Something your resistance doesn't do very well since you've gained new company…"

"What are you saying?" Steiner demanded quietly, ominously.

"I'm saying I have a big fear that you're going to trek trouble into my home… You come here, and Kuja is right after you! Your entrance wasn't exactly nimble and stealthy!" He threw his hand out, gesturing in the general direction of their fallen airship. "If he comes in here, let's face it, he'd slaughter us all! I will not let you fools ruin everything for us, if I can help it!"

"But you can't help it!" Steiner shot back quickly. "Just because you are my brother –" the word felt foreign to both of them, "- and just because you know Beatrix from the past… the past in which you were part of our resistance – does not mean that you can control what we do! You cannot stop us from finding people to help fight!"

Nathan was quiet, his eyes trained on his brother's matching orbs. "I will not fight with you."

"I don't ask you to…" Steiner shook his head, "I never once in all our times together, have asked you to fight with me… All through my training I never asked you to join me… All through my time as a Captain I never asked you to train under me… All of our time in the resistance, not once did I usher you to pick up a sword to fight for me, while all the people surrounding us tried to prod you into it! Do not feed me to the dogs simply because you will not fight with me!"

The man stepped back from Steiner's face. "I can't let you take my family away from me…"

"Nathaniel don't you understand…" He shook his head, and suddenly the sadness that had been looming over them settled around them, surrounding the tension. "If we don't do this… If Kuja is not defeated… Your family will be taken away from you regardless of who you consider a part of it. Myself, or Lysandra, or anyone else here you share a great bond with… Everyone will be gone…"

Steiner had grown up. Even at thirty years old, he was more mature, and more in-tune with the world than his thirty-five year old brother was… Nathaniel had always tried to deny it… He always tried to set his interests into other things so that Steiner couldn't outshine him with his intelligence… And yet here they were… Eight years of running only showered him with the knowledge that Steiner had done nothing but advance in his absence.

"I have to go…" Was all the man said, before he fled the training grounds, leaving Steiner alone once more…


(A/N: That was wayyy too much fun to write!)

"Hey! It's definitely past the fifteen minutes you promised me and basically I'm here to say: are you ready to…" He trailed off upon entering the room, seeing her sitting in the chair, staring into space. "go?" he mumbled quietly. "Dagger? What's up?"

She glanced up, and smiled when she saw the redhead. "Hello Blank…"

"What are you doing sitting here all by yourself? Don't you want to go into the creepy castle we might never come out of? Is that why? Are you afraid?"

She shook her head. "Actually, this isn't about the Castle at all…" She stared at him for a moment, before dropping her gaze to watch her gloved hands wring each other out. "I'm worried for Steiner…"

Blank scoffed, though not in a nasty way. "You're worried about him?! Dagger, come on… We're about to go on a suicide mission into a weird castle, and you're worried about the guy who –"

"You don't understand…" She mumbled. "Steiner's whole family is gone…" She shook her head. "He doesn't know if any of his family members – his older brother, or his father – are still even alive… He doesn't have contact with any of them… This must be really hard on him…"

"Doesn't have contact? Doesn't he want it?"

"He doesn't try to seek them out to keep them safe, wherever they are… To come to the place that his father disappeared…" She shook her head. "I knew he had gone away but… I had no idea that one of our mission spots was such a haunting place for Steiner…"

Blank sighed and squatted down in front of her. "He's going to be fine, Dagger… You'll see…" He wobbled a little bit, trying to get a better look at her face.

She smiled and kicked her leg up gently, knocking him onto his butt. "Hey now!"

"Oops," she giggled.

"What else is bothering you?"

She shook her head, "It doesn't bother you that Zidane could die? This could be the place, Blank…"

"Man you are worried about everyone today, Princess…" He teased with a grin. He knew it wouldn't help, but he found her thoughts kind of amusing. These people knew how to take care of themselves… "Of course… I know Zidane's chances aren't very good, but I was faced with checking for his heartbeat after Terra… I was the one who didn't hear it, and crawled away from my best friend's lifeless form –"

"Stop!" She demanded of him, not wanting those images going through her head. Her hands flew to her ears, blocking out the sound until his voice went away.

"Anyways…" He coughed and cleared his throat, stretching his legs in front of him. His emerald eyes traveled around the room; it was a pretty drab place, with even less light than decoration. No wonder why the raven haired girl was depressed. "What I mean is – I was faced with it once… And he pulled through. While I understand the risks that a second big mission like this holds… I know to expect a little more from him…" He stood abruptly, offering a hand. "While I know his chances aren't good, and these might be the last days I get with him… It won't be here… His death will be much more dramatic… He's an actor for crying out loud! You should have seen him in Terra!"

She laughed at this. Though she wondered if the redhead was being one-hundred percent truthful, she knew that he was making the situation better. Truth be told, she did feel little better about the problem after his couple of jokes.

He lead her out of the room, and she watched his body language as she shuffled along behind him. His demeanor had totally changed in the past year. Through finding his best friend, through losing Dali, to discovering Terra, to losing his best friend, and then finding him again… Everything that he'd been through – you'd think would have broken him down into a shattered shell… An echo of what he'd been before…

But if anything, she believed that the guy had actually brightened. There was a little more purpose in his light footsteps, and a little more fun in his glaring expressions. And she knew, even though Blank was the only one she'd analyzed, that everyone, including herself, had changed, since Vivi and Zidane's arrival…

And whether they wanted it to be or not, it was for the better…


A/N: So there is absolutely nothing else I love more, than developing characters' pasts. Luckily, FFIX gives me absolutely nothing to go off of with most of the characters…

This was very spontaneous, but I feel like I worked into it the right away… Steiner and Beatrix's relationship never gets any drama, with Zidane and Dagger hogging it all… So I figured meh – Bronson's not around, let's make trouble with someone else for once!

Needless to say, it was a lot more fun to write about Steiner and his brother and their relationship with Beatrix… You can't hate Steiner's brother :)

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I hope there aren't too many questions left to offer. If you are confused, however, just let me know, and I'll explain it better for ya! Thanks guys!

-zesty-