(only one chapter left until the end of Part 1! Thanks for reading so far, everyone. If you've like what you've read, be sure to check out my other stuff at quickascanbe dot com)

Chapter 26: Nasty Little Words

...of course, each of the seven states maintained their own armies, but by the time of the War of the Lions the Hokuten and the Nanten were the undisputed powers of Gallione. Barinten's Khamja and the Church's Templars might have been the strongest warriors in Ivalice, but they could not match the vast war machines of the White and Black Lions. The last army to come close to rivaling them had been the patchwork Haruten, with commanders and recruits gathered from Limberry and Zeltennia, but hard fighting exhausted their ranks and the last shred of their power was broken when the King censured them at War's end for their hands in atrocities in both Ivalice and Ordallia, Of curious note is that the Haruten were condemned for war crimes even in areas where they did not operate—areas principally controlled by the Hokuten and the Nanten...

-Alazlam Durai, "Larger Consequences of the 50 Years' War"

Everything hurt.

That was the first thing Ramza was conscious of. His joints felt hollow and weak. He could feel his neck protesting the slightest motion, taut and tense. Deep pains throbbed up at him out of his chest as the muscles in his shoulders and thighs trembled and groaned. And his chest...nothing was right there, weak and broken, little cracks of pain radiating out with every motion.

And that was before he remembered.

His eyes fluttered open—he knew better than to try and rise—and found an unfamiliar cottage all around him. He was reclining against several pillows atop a large bed against one wall, so he was almost sitting up. The place was spread out before him: heavy stone walls and rough wooden furniture. A little dining room was just in front of him, with an alcove to one side that might have been a kitchen tucked just out of view. Beyond the dining room was a salon, with sunken couches and chairs. To one side was another little alcove—the bathroom, Ramza assumed—and to the other was a heavy wooden door he assumed led outside.

Ramza did not know this cottage. He did not know how he had come to be here. The last thing he remembered was the final, spectacular collapse of Fort Zeakden, Delita and Teta lost among the rubble and the flames.

He thought about rising, and the very idea sapped what little energy was left from his aching bones. He sank against the rather luxurious mattress—this thing felt ever better than the one he'd had back in the Beoulve Manor—and a wave of nausea rose up from an aching spot in the back of his head. He shut his eyes as the world spun, trying not to gag.

Hurt. Where was he? Where was anyone, everyone? Where...

The door creaked open. Ramza opened his eyelids, then started, jerking backwards in the bed so his body ached and his head spun, and Ramza fought that feeling as he cast his head from side to side, looking for a weapon, and-

"Easy, Ramza," said the red-headed woman who'd fought against him at the Plateau. "Easy." She dropped the sack she was holding and lifted her hands to show they were empty. "What do you remember?"

"I...I don't..." Ramza shook his head. Other memories were intruding onto his thoughts, like shadows against a bright sun, hazy and blurry. "Zeakden and...what?"

"It's okay," she said. "It's your head. Part of the fort hit you, when it blew. Bandage on the back. Feel it?"

Ramza lifted a protesting arm and hesitantly put his fingers against the back of his head. He met the soft linen of a bandage.

"I'm not much of a healer," she said. "I did the best I could, but I think you're having trouble...you've been in and out of consciousness."

In and...yes, it was coming back now, in snippets and flashes. He remember a shoulder digging into his chest, as the snow sighed down around them. Someone had slung him across their shoulders. He remembered a campfire, and hands probing for damage as he moaned in protest. He remembered...

So hard to remember. But it was her face, watching him in the firelight, making sure he wasn't dying.

"Thank you," Ramza whispered.

She shook her head. "It's...it's what you'd have done, right?" Radia asked.

Ramza didn't answer. How could he? He'd killed a man—not just any many, but Argus Thadolfas, who he'd saved upon the Plains, who he'd comforted in a moment of weakness in the dark of the Mage's Mystery. He'd done it to save Delita's life, and now...

"Did anyone..." Ramza cleared his throat. "Anyone besides...us?"

"I don't know," she said. "I...don't wanna ask too many questions, y'know? Have people wondering..."

"I...yeah." Ramza trailed off, staring at the woman who'd been part of a revolutionary army, who'd tried to kill him, who he'd last seen stumbling away across the Plateau with all her companions dead by the hands of Ramza's friends.

"I didn't see," she said. "Did...did you rescue Teta, or-"

Ramza saw her falling again, with that arrow in her neck. He shut his eyes and shook his head.

"Oh," she sighed, and said nothing else. Ramza kept his eyes shut, trying not to see Teta falling, or Argus collapsing into the bloodsoaked snow, or the fort falling around Delita...

Ramza didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until a loud curse woke him. He blinked awake and found the red-headed woman in front of the fireplace, stirring a black pot set over the fire and sucking on a burnt finger.

"Are you..." he slurred, fighting off the crushing wave of exhaustion. "You okay?"

"Yeah," the woman mumbled around her thumb. She kept stirring the pot. "Stew for you. Thin. I don't want you throwing up again."

"I..." Ramza trailed off. "Again?" She nodded. Ramza felt a creeping flush of embarrassment in his cheeks. "I'm sorry," he said.

"It happens."

Silence, as she ladled the soup. The fire cast her wiry figure in sharp relief. A long green tunic hugged the contours of her body, pulled tight around her waist by a leather cord. It was odd, not to see her in her armor.

"You knew...?" Ramza started, and found he couldn't say Teta's name. It caught in his throat and felt like it was choking him. "Her?" he finished.

She nodded. "I...we talked, before you guys..." She closed her eyes. "Before."

Before the Plateau, and Miluda. So much lost.

"Who are you?" Ramza asked.

She looked up at him at last. "Radia," she said.

Ramza's throat felt very dry. There, on a little table near him, was a ceramic mug. He reached out with a clumsy hand, focused on his fingers and managed to wedge them under the handle. He lifted the mug from its resting place, pressed it against his lips in one swift move, and drank greedily. Water dribbled down his chin, staining his bare chest.

"I think your brother's alive," Radia said, rising from the fire with a steaming bowl in her hands. "I'd probably have...people would be talking, if he wasn't."

Ramza should feel glad about that, right? Glad that his brother was alive. Glad that the man who had ordered Teta's death was...

Radia brought the stew to Ramza and helped him to sit up, propping him back against the pillows. He took the bowl in his weak hands, felt them shaking with the effort. He sipped a salty, savory broth, felt a chunk of some vegetable he couldn't identify bumping against his nose. He ate too fast, choked, coughed, and spattered food across his blankets.

"Sorry," he mumbled miserably.

"It's fine," Radia said, grabbing a cloth, wiping his face and the blanket clean. "Eat more."

He ate, slowly but steady, and when he set the empty bowl down upon the nearby table he felt a little stronger for it. Radia sat at the foot of the bed, bracing herself on her knees.

"What happened?" Ramza asked. "How did you...find me?"

Radia shrugged. Ramza felt it in his feet. "I was helping Wiegraf fight the Hokuten," Radia said. "Hitting them as they came through the pass, trying to make them...but then the fortress was blowing, and...and I ran back, trying to..." Her hands tightened into fists. "You were the only one I found."

Silence. Ramza stared past her, at the fire. Radia stared straight ahead, at the wall.

"What happened to her?" Radia asked.

Again that awful vision, Teta tumbling through the snow with her hair wild in all directions. "Shot," Ramza croaked. "Shot by...by my friend, and he didn't even, it wasn't, it was Zal, he ordered-!"

Faster, faster, faster, and there were tears in his voice, and he shut his eyes against them. He didn't want to cry in front of this woman, who'd already seen him so weak and so pathetic.

"Did you see Wiegraf?" Radia asked.

"Fighting my brother," Ramza said. "I don't know if..."

"Yeah," Radia said. "What about...what about her brother?""

Ramza closed his eyes against that terrible guilty grief. "They were...they were right by the fort, when it..."

Silence again. Their faces loomed against the darkness of Ramza's eyelids. Delita, as he'd looked at the end, hollow with grief. Teta, confused and then calm, as death had taken her. Argus, cursing and raging with blood on his lips. Zal, with those wild, strange eyes. Wiegraf, calm and resolute.

All gone? All dead? Was there anyone left?

He heard the click of a key in a lock. He felt a sudden movement, the bed shifting as Radia rocketed to her feet. He opened his eyes.

The man who entered the room was dangerous.

It was the first word that leapt to Ramza's mind. It was not the armor he wore (a mesh of chainmail and dark plate) or the sword at his side that made him seem so fearsome. He was small—shorter than Ramza, a little shorter than Radia, too—and he wore an expression of genial confusion. Lank white hair was stuck to his forehead, and a prominent handlebar mustache of the same ivory white gleamed on his upper lip beneath a bulbous nose. The lips smiled easily, but the eyes...

Those green eyes boiled. There was an intense intellect behind those eyes, appraising everything they fell upon, showing not the faintest hint of surprise. And the way he walked...he rolled from step to step with the languid grace of a panther, a predator who could burst into sudden, terrible movement at any moment. Together, eyes and stride gave the impression of a dangerous beast at rest.

The man had stopped walking, but those hunter's eyes were fixed on Ramza.

"I am bound by blood to welcome you back," said the man, a Limberry brogue rolling his syllables together. "Whatever foolishness you do. But I will not welcome your fugitive friends. Get out." He was in the kitchen now, and there was a knife in his hand that Ramza was quite sure hadn't been there before.

Before Ramza could say anything, Radia had shifted, so her body was between the man and Ramza.

"He's not from the Corps, Dad," she said.

"Oh?" Radia's father replied. "So he's just a strange man you brought home without asking."

"What if he was?" Radia asked. "I'm old enough-"

Her father laughed. "Old enough," he scoffed. "Old enough to risk open rebellion against the crown, and for what? What cause were you willing to kill for?" He shook his head. "You're a child yet, Radia."

"I'm not-!" Radia started.

"But you are not the topic of discussion." Radia's father looked past her, back to Ramza. "Not an idiot rebel, so who the hell are you?"

"Ramza, sir," Ramza said.

"And how do you know my daughter, Ramza?"

Ramza had no idea how to answer.

"Beoulve, Dad," Radia said. Ramza glanced towards her, saw her watching her father warily. "Ramza Beoulve."

Surprise broke the dangerous fire of her father's eyes. He blinked, stared first at her and then at Ramza and then back again.

"Beoulve," he muttered. "Beoulve?" He shook his head. "By the Saint," he said. "You rebelled against Larg and you brought a Beoulve into my house?"

He hurtled over the counter, faster than Ramza would have believed possible, and Radia moved towards him and there was that strange shimmering magic and Radia sank to one side, trembling, and her father was moving towards Ramza with that knife in hand and Ramza half-raised his aching arms in defense and then let them drop away, because what was the point of fighting back after everything he'd done and everything he'd failed to do?

Radia's father stopped suddenly in front of him, still within easy striking distance of that black knife.

"Defend yourself, boy," he said.

Ramza shook his head, barely aware he was doing so. Radia's father gave him a puzzled once-over.

"He saved me!" Radia cried weakly, from her place slumped against the wall.

"More the fool he!" her father snapped, but his mouth was twisted thoughtfully to one side. "You saved her?" he asked.

"No," Ramza said.

"Ramza!" shouted Radia.

"No?" repeated her father.

"No," Ramza said. "I just...I didn't want to kill her, and...and when her captain, I didn't..."

Her father considered Ramza for a little while, then took a step back, glancing towards his daughter. "This seems like a story worth the hearing," he said. "But not sober."

He dug around in a pantry until he found a glass bottle, and began pouring drinks. Radia rose unsteadily towards her feet, eyes flickering between Ramza and her father. Her father dragged two chairs to the edge of the bed, shoved a glass into Ramza's hand, and took a seat.

"How do you know my daughter, Beoulve?" her father asked.

"I..." Where was Ramza even supposed begin?

"The fort a little ways north of here," Radia said, standing just behind her father, her fingers curling and uncurling.

"Ah, that business in the swamp," he grunted. "Of course you were there." He shot his daughter a venomous glance. "And why is she under the mistaken impression you saved her life?"

Slowly, hesitantly, Ramza tried to tell the story. He failed: he kept losing track and having to go back, and he found he still could not bear to repeat Delita or Teta's names. He called them "my friend" and "his sister." But the more he talked the harder it was to stop, until he was going back further, to that first meeting with Miluda and Wiegraf, and that took him to his second meeting with Miluda and his first meeting with Radia in that boiling swamp, to that frightful duel with Wiegraf and the frozen hell of Zeakden and Ramza's sword in Argus' back.

At some point during the story, Radia's father had pulled out a pipe and packed it tight. It smelled rather sweet as he puffed and listened, his eyes glittering.

"What say you, Radia?" he asked. "Any holes in his story?"

"None I know," she said. "And what Teta told me..."

"Teta," he repeated. "The girl." He puffed his pipe. "You're an odd one, Beoulve. A man who spares his enemies and kills his friends."

"Dad-" Radia said.

"My daughter protests," her father grunted. "Do you?"

"No," Ramza said. He could have subdued Argus, but he hadn't wanted to. He had wanted to tear into the man who had sunk an arrow into Teta's throat. Who had been about to do the same to Delita. And now they were all dead, ash in that great fire.

"When are you heading home?" her father asked.

It took a moment for Ramza to make sense of the question. He understood the individual words, but lost the larger meaning. "When am I..." He felt a flash of bright rage that knocked the cobwebs from his thoughts. He straightened up in bed, his anger giving him a surge of strength that blasted away weakness and pain. "Never," he whispered.

"Never," repeated Radia's father. "Why?"

"After what they did?" Ramza demanded.

"And what precisely did they do?" her father asked.

"It was Dycedarg's plot that started this!" roared Ramza, his throat aching with it. "And Zal gave the order! He killed...she was one of us!"

Radia's father took another puff on his pipe. "No, Ramza," he said, after a moment. "They would not let an enemy army hold their interests hostage for one of their servants. Alma's lady-in-waiting. Not their sister."

"After everything-"

"Lucavi take me, boy," the older man sighed. "How can you be a Beoulve and be this sheltered? What manner of man takes to the battlefield with blade in hand and tries not to kill? Did you really think your family would sacrifice their interests for the sake of a servant?"

Ramza didn't answer. Radia's father set down his pipe and glanced towards his daughter. "I take it he doesn't know our name?" he asked. Radia looked down at her hands and didn't say anything. Her father sighed again and rose to his feet. He offered Ramza his hand. "Geoffrey Gaffgarion," he said.

Ramza stared at the man in front of him, smiling a little beneath his imposing mustache. His eyes flickered away from the older man to Radia, still staring fixedly down at her hands.

"Gaffgarion...of the Haruten?" Ramza said.

"Formerly," Gaffgarion said. "Then again, no one's of them these days, eh?"

"You..." Ramza pulled away from the man, shaking his head. "The things you did-"

"First of all, boy," grunted Gaffgarion. "I didn't do anything. I was charged with knowingly aiding war criminals in avoiding justice. Which is absolutely true, but it brings me to my second point, which is why I got off with a discharge and am not rotting in prison."

"What do you..." Ramza started, trailing off as he realized he was unsure what he was asking.

Gaffgarion's smiled widened. "How many stories have you been told now?" he asked. "About your brothers, and the Corps, and the Hokuten?"

Stories like Gustav being responsible for the taking of the Marquis, all by himself. Stories like discharging the Corps without pay to protect the interests of all Ivalice, not just Larg and the Hokuten. Stories like Zalbaag doing anything to get Teta back.

"Someone in Ivalice had to take the fall for what we'd done during the war," Gaffgarion continued. "It was the only way to broker a peace with the Ordallians. So the Haruten command took the fall for every crime Ivalice stood accused of, at the behest of king and country." He chuckled. "And of course, at the promise of gil and favors, when things had settled down."

"You let them dishonor you for money?" Ramza asked.

Gaffgarion guffawed. "Dishonor!" he exclaimed. "You don't really believe that tripe, do ya?"

"Of course I do!" Ramza shouted. "I'm a Beoulve!"

"So're your brothers," Gaffgarion said. "Do they seem honorable to you?"

Ramza felt his anger collapsing in on itself. The pain and dizziness surged in like the tide, and he sank back against his pillows.

"What are you doing, Dad?" Radia demanded.

Gaffgarion shrugged. "I have some contracts to straighten out nearby" he said. "Thought I'd check on the place, make sure it was still standing. I didn't expect-"

"No, Dad," Radia hissed. "What are you doing to him?"

Gaffgarion laughed. "Doing?" he asked. "Besides letting him sleep in my bed?" His eyes glittered. "I'm making a point."

"What point?" Radia growled.

"The same point you keep refusing to hear," Gaffgarion retorted. "This idiot notion that there's a right cause to kill for—or, worse, that there's a way to fight on a battlefield without blood on your hands." He turned baleful eyes on Ramza. "What you call honor is a nasty little word designed to keep idealistic fools like you in line," Gaffgarion said. "Your brothers use it so they can pretend their hands are cleaner than the men they fight. What are those fancy swords of yours? Justice and Service, right?"

Ramza didn't answer. Gaffgarion's eyes blazed. "The powerful do not serve those beneath them," Gaffgarion said. "They are served by them. Mind, it's a mutually-beneficial arrangement. Under the aegis of their powerful protectors, their servants are safe. The rulers command the obedience of those they rule, and the ruled benefit from the power and authority of their ruler. Service is a nasty little word that covers an unpleasant truth. Ruler or ruled, all the world runs on one principle: you use, and are used. And do you know what you call it when you're used in the way your ruler wants?" Gaffgarion chuckled. "Honor. Nasty little word, eh?"

"You're wrong," Radia whispered.

"Am I?" Gaffgarion sneered. "I've been keeping tabs on you and your friends, oh daughter mine. One of your commanders had a nice racket going in Dorter, didn't he?" Gaffgarion snorted. "I bet he called it justice. Revenge against the kingdom that had wronged him."

"He was wrong!" Radia barked.

"Only because he got too big for his boots," Gaffgarion countered. "Took the Marquis, and his death warrant was signed right there, because the nobles won't let you kill one of their own. They can't. Their order demands that any uprising be crushed, because it threatens their power. The rulers can't exist if the ruled won't be ruled. Just like you and your friends."

"That's...what?" Radia breathed.

"Your justice," Gaffgarion spat. "Killing soldiers just like you so you get the power you deserve." Gaffgarion shook his head. "Justice is a nasty little word you use to pretend your violence isn't violence. That it's better somehow. Cleaner. It's not." He grabbed at his glass and took a swift pull.

Through all of this, Ramza was silent. The words echoed across some vast gulf inside of him—the gulf that had been torn into him when Teta had been taken, that had widened when he'd heard of Argus' betrayal, when Miluda had died in front of him and Beowulf had bled on the side of the hill, that had yawned open to a gaping chasm when Teta had fallen from that bridge. Nothing felt right anymore. Nothing made sense. Justice. Service. Honor. Was Gaffgarion really wrong?

"So what do you believe?" someone asked. It took Ramza a moment to realize that he was the one who'd spoken.

Gaffgarion shrugged. "I believe I'm good at killing," Gaffgarion said. "I don't believe in these easy lies, so I see things a lot clearer than the rabble. That makes me valuable. The rulers use me, and I prosper from it, because I don't pretend I'm not getting used."

Ramza shook his head. "That's not...how can you live like that?"

Gaffgarion grinned. "The reason I'm still alive is because I live like that."

"You're wrong," Radia whispered.

"Am I?" Gaffgarion asked. "Look around you, Radia. Look what your so-called nobility bought you. Far as I know, you're the only survivor of Zeakden. And were your friends really so noble? How many were rapists and murderers and kidnappers? Which doesn't really do much to distinguish them from the Hokuten-" He gestured towards Ramza. "-as your noble friend here learned. All your talk of honor and justice, and what did it get you?"

Radia closed her eyes, her jaw clenched. Gaffgarion studied his daughter for a long time, then shrugged, and turned back to Ramza.

"So what matter honor?" Gaffgarion asked. "You were born to good fortune, boy. Don't throw it away over a matter of childrens' stories. Go home."

"I..." Ramza closed his eyes again, remembered his time in Dycedarg's room, after Teta had been taken. Promises from Dycedarg and Zalbaag alike, to keep Teta save. And Zalbaag's wild justifications in the murderous snow around Zeakden. He couldn't go home, to his traitorous brothers. He couldn't wander those halls where Teta and Delita had once roamed with him. He couldn't face Alma, and admit he'd failed.

"I can't," Ramza said.

Silence in the room. Radia, watching her father with a mixture of hate and grief. Ramza, staring at Gaffgarion. Gaffgarion, not quite looking at either of them.

"You don't want to go home," Gaffgarion said. "So what do you want to do?"

"I..." Ramza shook his head. "I don't know," he said. All his quests had ended in failure. His attempt to fight without killing. His attempt to spare the Death Corps, and see justice served. His attempt to save Teta, and when he'd failed there, to save Delita. Pointless. All of it, pointless.

Gaffgarion pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I see," he said. He closed his eyes, and exhaled through his nose. "He saved you?" Gaffgarion said.

Radia jolted, then gave a little nod. "Yeah."

Gaffgarion nodded slowly. "Alright," he said. "Alright." He opened those dangerous eyes, and studied Ramza for a moment. "Idiot my daughter may be, but I'd still rather her alive than dead. You have my thanks, Ramza. Stay here as long as you like."

Ramza stared at the man in turn, met his green eyes. This cruel man, who'd aided and abetted criminals and torturers and rapists, who spat on the notions of honor and justice, and who now offered him a place to stay.

"Thank you," Ramza said.

"But I didn't pay all that gil for that bed so a spoiled noble bastard could sit his fat ass on it," Gaffgarion grunted. "I want you good enough to sleep on the floor within the week."