(And with that, Part One is over! As a special treat, the entirety of Part One can be found as a downloadable pdf on my website, quickascanbe dot com. As you may have noticed, I am currently updating every two weeks, and will continue to do so until my personal life is less cluttered. I want to thank Squaresoft for creating such a wonderful world that's so much fun to write about)

Chapter 27: The Unknown World

...at what point was the Zodiac Brave Story added to the myth of St. Ajora? At what point in his service in the Ydoran army and his revolutionary preaching across Ivalice was he supposed to be a legendary warrior wielding artifacts given unto him by God himself? Yes, I can point to the Glabados Conclaves that incorporates these apocryphal accounts, and rest smug and satisfied on my secular throne. But the timeline is even more muddled than common sense would suggest. Yes, the legend of the Zodiac Braves predates the official Church account, and the evolving Glabados Church made a conscious choice to incorporate elements of this older story into their religious text. But even early versions of the Ajora Gospels feature references and allusions to his time as one of the Zodiac Braves. How much is political artifice? How much the inevitable bloat of myth over time? And how much is accurate historical account?

-Alazlam Durai, "On the Origins of the Zodiac Braves"

By week's end, that had been Gaffgarion's order, but the next day the white-haired mercenary was bustling around the kitchen, packing supplies for the road.

"Contract work," he explained, to Ramza's sleepy questions. "Just got word of an especially lucrative job." He pointed with one gauntleted hand. "I still want you out of my bed when I get back."

Razma nodded. Gaffgarion left without another word.

When the pressure in his bladder or his bowels got too strong, Razma would rise from his resting place and stumble towards the bathroom. He couldn't help but admire it: it was Ydoran-style construction, smooth and clean and convenient as any of the lavatories in the Manor. Work like this cost a fortune, just like the bed. Exactly how much gil did Gaffgarion have?

Ramza heard the door creak open. He tensed upon the toilet.

"Ramza?" Radia called. Ramza felt a flush rising in his cheeks, a wave of hot shame in his chest.

"Just...just a moment!" he called back.

"Take your time!" she said.

Right, take his time with the beautiful woman who'd tried to kill him and the woman who'd successfully saved him sitting right outside the door. Make as much noise as possible.

But he didn't exactly want to limp back to bed still feeling this uncomfortable.

He tried to finish without making any noise. He failed in one ghastly gaseous spattering splash, and his cheeks felt hotter, and his chest felt tighter.

He finished, flushing the toilet and cleaning himself up with the bidet. He stepped out of the bathroom, trying not to make eye contact with Radia, who was busily cooking in front of the fire again.

"You're walking better," she said, stirring something in a broad black pan.

"I guess," Ramza muttered. He didn't feel any stronger: every step seemed to make his joints creak, and he was lurching awkwardly from side to side.

"You can walk," she said. "So that's a start." She raised herself away from the fire and scooped out a steaming pile of scrambled eggs, half in one bowl, half in another. "Sit," she said, gesturing to the circular dining room table of bright polished wood. Ramza sat in one of the rickety chairs, feeling it bow a little beneath his weight, and Radia slid the bowl in front of him. "Eat," she said, siting opposite him.

Ramza ate. The eggs were slimy in some places, charred in others, but wonderfully seasoned. Ramza ate greedily, then felt saliva thick in his mouth as bile rose in his throat. He sank back against his chair, taking slow, deep breaths to quell the queasy feeling.

"Don't eat too fast," Radia said.

Ramza nodded, and looked around the cottage again. Small, but ornately furnished.

"Your father's away a lot?" Ramza asked. Radia nodded, her eyes closed as she ate, slowly but persistently. "Who looks after the place?"

She swallowed and said, "No one."

"No one?" Ramza repeated, looking at the mattress, the table, the furnishings. Fully-stocked and totally unguarded? How was that possible?"

Radia shrugged. "Part of it's his rep," she said. "Everyone knows this is Gaffgarion's house."

"What's the other part?" Ramza asked.

She set her fork down and studied him. "You strong enough to go outside?" she asked.

"I...I think so."

"Okay." Radia got to her feet, grabbed a light blanket, and wrapped it around Ramza like a shawl. She led him to the heavy wooden door, and shoved it open. A chill breeze rattled the door on its hinges, carrying with it the heavy tang of sea salt: Ramza felt goosebumps racing down his arms and legs.

A thick layer of mist hung heavy in every direction, rimming the little stone house. Somewhere nearby, he could hear the crashing of the ocean against rocks. From where he was standing, Ramza could see what almost looked like a wooden shack, off to one side.

"What's that?" he asked, raising his voice a little to be heard over the crashing surf.

"My room," she said. "Dad added it on when mom died."

She walked slowly around the side of the house, towards a slope. Ramza followed, stumbling as he went, the back of his head pounding, his knees croaking in protest.

He reached the crest of the slope and hunched over in the mist, panting as his lungs and muscles burned with the effort. Every breath seemed to make his head spin worse, and he teetered, about to fall. Radia's arm wrapped around him, helped him to his feet. She kept him stable as he breathed, and the spinning in his head lessened.

"You good?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. He turned cautiously, wary of any fresh spins. Surrounding this remote cottage was a wide expanse of empty green, hidden by the mist that ghosted between rolling hills. Behind them, a jagged cliff overlooked the wide grey expanse of the churning sea. Farther down the coast, Ramza could just make a tall shape, tapering to a point at its apex, with a fire burning at that highest point.

"What..." Ramza said, gesturing towards that distant shape.

"Midnight's Deep," Radia said.

"Midnight's..." Ramza trailed off and stared at her. "Elidibus' tomb?"

Radia snorted. "Tomb?" she repeated. "They never found his body, Ramza. Plus he built the place himself."

"He..." Ramza squinted his eyes, trying to make out that grand structure through the mist. He'd heard tales of the Deep, straddling that peculiar border between Lionel and Gallione, a towering construct built into and atop the cliffs. It functioned, first and foremost, as a lighthouse, to warn incoming ships of the treacherous coastline. And there were other stories, odder stories, about Ydoran wonders and ancient treasures and ancient secrets spirited away by the wizard...

But he'd never heard anything about the legendary mage building it himself.

"Was he really that powerful?" Ramza asked.

Radia shrugged. "Dunno. He died when my father was a kid. I thought Balbanes knew him?"

Ramza gave her a surprised look. "He did?"

"He never told you?"

"There..." Ramza shook his head, fingering the ponytail he wore in the style of his father. There was so much he'd never asked. So much he'd never learned.

They stood together, her arm wrapped around him, staring at the lofty relic of a bygone legend.

"Wait," Ramza said. "We're...that's Midnight's Deep?" He turned to stare at her. "We're that far south?"

"Yep," Radia said.

"How..." Ramza trailed off. They'd been on the north side of the continent, straddling the border between Fovoham and Gallione. How the hell had she managed to get them this far south?

"Wasn't easy," Radia said. "But it's the only safe place I know." She almost smiled. "That's why we were hiding out in the swamp, y'know. I used to go hiking around there, when I was younger."

"How old are you?" Ramza asked.

"Seventeen. You?"

"Sixteen."

They kept talking: that afternoon, and over the many days to come. Ramza got stronger, moved more easily, helped Radia clean and cook, helped her restore the runes and the magic of the place. He learned about the cottage he'd come to: built where a Ydoran lighthouse and stood, before the Fall. The house's plumping connected to an ancient Ydoran system built right into the cliffs, and retained enough of its magic to be quite comfortable. The closest village was a few miles southwest, running along the fringes of the swamp where Ramza had first met Radia.

Gaffgarion had built the house well before the Haruten had been disbanded, finishing it in the latter days of the war. Radia, too, had lost her mother to the Choking Plague. She had been raised in Limberry, but after her mother's death, Gaffgarion had returned home long enough to take her to his cottage. She had grown up here in the latter days of the war, seeing her father but rarely.

He told her of his father, too, and of his sister and his brothers. He told her of Delita and Teta, what had happened to all their parents, how they'd grown up under Balbanes' care and protection. He tried and failed to teach her to play grass flutes.

Late one sunny afternoon, they walked along the cliff's edge, shielding their eyes against the sunshine reflecting off the ocean.

"The Draining Blade?" Ramza repeated.

"Or the hungry blade," Radia said. "Or the Vampire's Sword. There's a lot of names, but they all mean the same thing."

"He taught you?" Ramza asked.

Radia shrugged. "A bit. He's not here often, and..."

She trailed off. The resentment between her and her father had been obvious from the moment Ramza had first seen them together: it was much clearer now, seeing how she simmered every time she begrudgingly talked about her father and his life.

"I've never heard of it," Ramza said.

"It's not like the Bursting Blade," Radia said. "There aren't really schools for it. In theory, anyone can learn, but it's hard. It's not the way magic usually works, so..."

She trailed off, studying Ramza, who had stopped walked and was staring out over the ocean. Thinking of Zalbaag and Wiegraf, and Gaffgarion's words.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I..." Ramza shook his head. "No."

Radia sighed. "I hear ya."

The waves kept crashing down below. The contrast between the chilly, wet breeze and the golden sun upon Ramza's skin made him feel a little unsteady, a little strange.

"You taught Miluda?" Ramza asked.

"I..." Radia closed her eyes. "Yeah."

"So you must be good."

Radia shook her head. "I'm really not," she said. "She was, though. She learned so...but if it was my dad, he..." Her voice took on that familiar strain. "The thing is, the art's about stealing your enemy's strength, and using it for you. The things I do are...like, you saw me when I hurt your friend."

Argus, slumping atop his chocobo, so weak he could barely move. Argus, bleeding in the snow, cursing at Ramza. Ghosts and sins, no matter where he turned.

"I was just...I couldn't stand, either," Radia said. "But if it was my dad, that...that would've made him stronger." She shook her head. "I don't do it right. I couldn't teach them...not really...not enough to..."

Her words faded into the rising wind. The salt stung at Ramza's nostrils. The ocean roared and crashed down below.

They meandered inside, silent, lost in their own worlds. Ramza remembered his brother's order, and Argus' arrow: Teta, with blood plastering her hair to her face, and Delita kneeling in the snow as the fort collapsed around him.

"Radia," Ramza said, as the door swung shut behind them, silencing the wind. "Why did you join the Corps?"

Radia didn't answer right away. She shrugged off her blanket and curled up on the sofa. Ramza took his customary place on a dining room chair he'd pulled up beside the fireplace.

"You've heard the Zodiac Brave Story?" Radia asked.

Ramza hesitated, caught off-guard by the question and the peculiar discomfort he always felt when people asked about his religious beliefs. But her eyes were on the ceiling, not quite looking at him, and anyways she didn't seem a particularly fervent believer herself.

"Ajora's band, right?" Ramza asked. "The Disciples who slew the demons corrupting the Ydoran Empire."

Radia snorted. "That's the Church's story, yeah," Radia said. "Not sure I buy it."

"There's another story?" Ramza asked.

"An older story," Radia said. "My dad says it predates the rise of the Ydorans."

Ramza had never heard of such a thing. "Tell me," Ramza said.

Radia leaned back in her chair. "Before the Ydorans," Radia said. "Before Ajora. Before the Fall. Ivalice was a nation of seven kingdoms. I think you know them?"

"Gallione," Ramza said. "Fovoham, Lionel, Mullonde, Zeltennia, Lesalia, and Limberry."

"Right," Radia said, and her words assumed a dreamy, poetic cadence. "The kingdoms were always at war. They'd form coalitions against their mutual enemies, then betray their allies for a fleeting advantage. All Ivalice bled, over and over, and no man could rise above. One King of Lesalia decided he would put an end to the madness. He would form an army that could not be resisted, and conquer Ivalice. He learned ancient magics, he spent gold and blood and lives, until he summoned the Lucavi."

"Demons," Ramza said.

Radia shook her head. "Demons is too light a word," she said. "The Lucavi were devastation incarnate. They could obliterate whole castles and armies. They could burn whole nations. The first thing they did was slay the king and destroy his castle, and then they set across the seven nations, bringing disaster wherever they went. They might have laid all Ivalice to waste."

"Except for the Braves?" Ramza asked, smiling a little.

"Except for the Braves," Radia agreed, smiling in turn. "Who took on the difficult task of slaying the terrible monsters." Her voice lost its storyteller's rhythm. "Who they were varies each time I've heard the story. They're Ajora's Disciples from the far corners of Ivalice, united under our savior to do God's work. They're mercenaries, nobles, commoners, mages, local heroes, foreign heroes. The best version I ever heard had the son of the King who summoned the Lucavi take up the mantle, finishing his father's work by mercy and kindness, not magic and conquest."

"Isn't there a bit about crystals?" Ramza asked.

"The Zodiac Stones," Radia said. "One for each of the Constellations, each blessed with remarkable powers. The Glabados Church says that they were gifts from God to his prophet, Ajora. They say the months are still named for them."

"I remember that," Ramza said.

"But I don't think the story needs the Stones," Radia said. "I mean, I guess it's a way of leveling the playing field? They're fighting demons, so they need a gift from God, right? I just...what mattered to me..."

Radia closed her eyes. Ramza waited.

"In every version of the story," Radia said. "In every version, the Braves aren't from one army or one nation. They aren't all nobles, they aren't all commoners, they aren't all men of God. They're just people trying to do the right thing."

"Heroes," Ramza said.

Radia nodded. She was silent for a while, leaving Ramza to his own weary thoughts. Heroes. Men like his father, fighting to end a war. But what about his brothers? Was Dycedarg one, if he turned friends against one another to win a future war? Was Zalbaag, if he ordered a defenseless woman shot? Was Wiegraf?

Ramza still believed in heroes. He just wasn't sure there had ever been very many of them.

"I thought the Corps..." Radia began. Ramza looked up and found she still had her eyes closed. "I thought they were heroes. And I always...I always wanted to be one."

"So you joined them?" Ramza said.

"So I joined them," Radia agreed. "I thought...but..." She shook her head. "It wasn't like that, was it? The things Gustav and Gregory did...hell, even Captain Miluda..." She gave him an odd look. "And then there was you."

"Me?" Ramza said.

"Teta told me you were trying not to kill anyone," Radia said. Ramza felt a sharp pang of guilt and grief mixing with all his other pains. Teta, who he'd failed to save. Just like Delita. Just like Argus.

"Look where it got me," Ramza whispered.

"I didn't believe her," Radia said, as though she hadn't heard him. "I didn't think anyone could be that stupid."

Ramza felt a warm flush in his cheeks. "It...it was stupid," he agreed.

"So stupid," she agreed. "But you did it. You did it, and you beat me, and..."

She trailed off. Silence, as Ramza thought of Teta, and Delita, and of his sword in Argus' back.

"I was lying there," she said. "Sure I was about to die, sure that...and then you didn't, and...and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I was still alive. I thought I was...I thought I was gonna die, right there. And then..."

Ramza remembered. The cold Plateau, and the dead all around.

"I didn't know why I was alive," Radia said. "I didn't know why we'd taken Teta, or why Miluda had hurt her, or why she was dead, or..." She buried her face in her hands. "Like the world had ended, you know?"

Ramza remembered Zeakden collapsing in geysers of fire. His last glimpse of Delita, before the bridge had fallen.

"I know," Ramza said.

"Nothing made sense," Radia said. "And everything I tried just made it worse. Just..." She shifted so her eyes were just visible above her hands. "The fort was coming down," Radia said. "And you were the only one I could find."

Ramza looked into her green eyes. He touched the spot on the back of his head, still sore but free of its bandage. He wondered what had gone through her head, when she'd found him. He wondered if she'd thought about killing him. He was scared to ask.

"I don't know what to do, Ramza," she said. "I just...I don't."

Ramza didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

Minutes, or moments, or hours passed in silence before the key turned in the lock. They both looked up as Gaffgarion entered the room, still wearing that customized mesh of plate and mail. His helmet of the same dark color was under one arm.

"Still with us, Beoulve?" he asked.

"I am, sir," Ramza said.

"Hmph." Gaffgarion set his helmet down on the table, grabbed a dining room chair and hauled it closer to them. He sat squarely between them. Radia had straightened up, her face white, eyes carefully averted from her father.

"Well, Beoulve," Gaffgarion asked. "You won't go home. What do you want to do?"

Ramza didn't know. Had he ever known? Even back at the Academy, he'd had no clear objective. He'd always known he could never live up to the example of his brothers, and now he had no desire to, having seen and heard the monstrous things that they had done. But even they hadn't stabbed a man they'd saved in the back. How could Ramza embody the values of a Beoulve, when he saved a man one day and murdered him the next? When he swore not to kill, and led an injured band into the jaws of a vicious army? When he couldn't even save his friends?

"I don't know," Ramza said.

"Hmph." Gaffgarion drew out his pipe, packed it, lit it, and began to smoke. Silence presided over his cottage.

"When I left the Haruten," Gaffgarion said. "I did so on very particular terms. I liked the work I did, and I wanted to keep doing it. I call myself a mercenary, but that's not quite the right word. I'm a specialist. A man who knows both politics and combat. A man who gets the diplomatic and the military. A man you can trust to train green troops or fight in a difficult spot or handle a delicate job."

"A hired thug," spat Radia, not looking at her father.

"The whole world is hired thugs, oh daughter mine," Gaffgarion said. "The difference is that I know what I am." He puffed on his pipe again.

"But I was looking at these most recent contracts," Gaffgarion said. "And the work they need, well...it's work I can handle, but it's work that would be easier with the right, ah..." Gaffgarion studied his pipe for a moment. "Specialists."

Ramza stared into Gaffgarion's glittering eyes. "Specialists," Ramza repeated.

"Oh yes," Gaffgarion said. "I'm quite well-known in certain circles so while I was looking at my new jobs for the season I floated the idea of expanding my unit with new specialists—say, an Academy-trained soldier with extensive experience operating under difficult mission parameters." He set his pipe down as his words drifted across Ramza's mind. "There was some interest, Beoulve. And just as much interest when I mentioned a soldier with skills similar to mine and extensive experience dealing with covert operations and rebellions."

Radia's white face whitened further, and her hands curled into fists in her lap. "I told you, I would never-"

"Never what?" Gaffgarion asked. "Never fight for an ignoble cause? You know that ship sailed with Gustav, if not before. You may as well get paid."

"I would rather-" she started.

"Rather what!" Gaffgarion shouted. "Fight and die in some pointless war? What have you ever done that mattered, Radia?"

Father and daughter glared at each other, green eyes on green eyes.

"I'm sorry," Ramza said, as his thoughts caught up to the conversation. "Are you...are you saying..."

Gaffgarion looked away from his daughter. "I'd like to add you to my team," he said. "Specialists who handle complex jobs."

"I..." Ramza shook his head. "I don't understand." Things felt very strange, very surreal, and he couldn't quite make sense of any of it. "Why would you...I don't..."

"He wants to use you, Ramza," Radia said.

"Of course I do!" Gaffgarion said. "That's the way of the world! We all use each other. Ideally, we all benefit from that use equally. Like a marriage."

"Oh please-" Radia said.

"I loved your mother, Radia," Gaffgarion said. "I married her for love. So let me assure you that any vainglorious notions you have of selfless love are idiotic and uninformed. We used each other. For money, for comfort, for passion. That's all anyone ever does." Gaffgarion shrugged, looked between them. "So I want to use you, and let you use me in turn. See the world, far from your brothers. See the world, far from your rebels. And put a little gil in your pocket, too."

"What do you get out of this?" Ramza asked.

Gaffgarion lifted his pipe back to his mouth and took a smirking puff. "There's two answers otothat question," he said. "The way I see it, you travel with me and see the world. You learn I''m right, and you go home, and use your power the way it should be used, and when that day comes you remember your old friend Gaffgarion who showed you the way." He snorted. "And even if you decide I'm wrong, you'll learn enough about the world to know a man like me has his uses. You're a useful protege to have."

"And the other?" Ramza asked.

Gaffgarion closed his eyes and took another puff from his pipe.

"When a man takes his first step onto a battlefield, he thinks himself a hero," Gaffgarion mused. "Everyone tells themselves a story, about...about what they're fighting for, and how they'll fight. How they'll be better. How they'll prove them all wrong."

Gaffgarion set his pipe down. He opened his eyes, and for the first time since Ramza had met him, they didn't look that dangerous. They looked a little tired, and a little sad, and a little wistful. "And every man learns," he said. "How wrong they were. What's required from the very best of us. Even men your like father." He sighed. "I will not coddle you, boy. I will not spare you. But I can help you walk an easier path than I did." He looked at his daughter. "I can help you both."

Ramza stared at the strange, mercenary man, who'd spat on notions of honor and justice and service, on everything a Beoulve was supposed to hold dear, but what Beoulve held them dear now, when Zalbaag ordered the death of innocents and Dycedrag let good soldiers starve to solidify Larg's place upon the throne and Ramza couldn't save anyone, could only swing his sword and kill his friends?

If his father hadn't been telling him the truth...if honor and justice and service were empty words...

If that were true, Ramza hadn't failed. He'd only been a fool.

"May I have some time to think about it?" Ramza asked.

Gaffgarion laughed. "I leave for my first contract tomorrow," Gaffgarion said. "You have until then."

Ramza nodded, rose from his seat, and headed for the door. He needed air, sunlight, clarity. He left the cottage behind him, made his way up the slope, and stood at the cliff's edge, looking out at the magnificent lighthouse cairn. Erected in the honor of a mage unequaled in the history of Ivalice. A hero of the 50 Years' War. A killer even more prolific than his father.

Ramza fingered his ponytail again. Not as long as his father's, even now. They had called him the Heavenly Knight, because he had swung his sword and killed so many. And Ramza wasn't saying it was the wrong thing to do, but it was still murder. That was the problem Ramza kept coming back to. What was the difference between what Gustav had done to Ivan's friend and what Ramza had done to Argus? What difference in betrayal, intention, action? What made Gustav unjust?

"Ramza."

Ramza looked over his shoulder, as Radia ascended the slop and came to a stop a little ways behind him. He turned away from Midnight's Deep to face her.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"I..." Ramza shook his head. "I don't know." He tried to parse together the right words that could explain it: how he'd understood on some level what war and killing were, that he had idolized his brothers and his father, how he still idolized his father but he felt queasy at the notion of his brothers, how he felt like such a profound fucking failure because he couldn't save Teta and Delita and he hadn't been strong enough to stop Miluda and he had always felt like there was no place for him in the world but never more than at this moment.

"What about you?" Ramza asked, barely able to hear himself through the clamor of his thoughts.

Radia shook her head. "I..." She looked past Ramza, out to the lighthouse, and Ramza craned his neck to follow her gaze. They stared at Midnight's Deep together, while the ocean pounded against the rocks below.

"I never wanted my father's life," Radia said. "Not when he was in the Haruten, not after. I...he's always been like this, Ramza. He's always..." She shook her head. "He told me about the Zodiac Braves," Radia said. "Because he wanted me to know that...that they weren't real. That they're just a story so the people in charge can...can play pretend, and..."

She looked down at her feet. "Was he wrong?"

Honor. Justice. Service.

"I don't know," Ramza said.

The surf kept pounding against the cliffs.

"Not wrong," Ramza said, and it hurt to say it. The words caught in his throat, because he heard echoes of his last moments with his father, promising that Ramza could embody the virtues of his family, and how had Ramza repaid him? Justice, when the innocent died and Ramza killed his friends? Service, when Ramza fought and tormented men and women whose only crime was rebelling against Dycedarg's broken promise?

"Not wrong," he said again, more surely this time. "Not...not right." No, not right. Because his father's words were with him, and whatever else he had seen, he still knew Balbanes had been a worthy soul. He remembered his father's plea, that he should show his brothers what it meant to be a Beoulve.

The problem was, Ramza had no idea what that meant anymore. Every part of the strange journey from the Academy had robbed him of those notions. He didn't believe the Crown, or his brothers, cared much for the common people of Ivalice. He didn't agree with what the Corps had done, but he didn't know what other choice they'd had. He knew so little. And he had failed, time and time again, to achieve anything worthwhile. He was alive, where so many others had died.

Gustav. Ivan. Miluda. Beowulf. Argus. Teta. Delita. He let their names wash over him, and remembered his last sight of them—of bodies burning on pyres, bleeding in the snow, kneeling with arms around their sister's corpse as Zeakden crumbled around them.

"I don't know enough to know," Ramza said. "And your father, he..."

Gaffgarion was a lousy man of a poor reputation, and Ramza knew better than to trust him. But he knew that in part because the man made it so clear he didn't want to be trusted. He mocked honor, justice, and service. He called them nasty little words. But at least he didn't hide behind them. Didn't that make him better than Dycedarg and Zalbaag?

Ramza didn't know. And he was suddenly, terribly conscious of how little he knew. About the lives of others, and his own family. About how Ivalice really worked, at its highest levels and at its lowest. He had always felt daunted by the responsibilities that came with being a Beoulve: now he found he didn't fully understand those responsibilities, or the world around him.

He didn't know. And he wanted to know. He wanted to make sense of his brothers, and the Death Corps, and everything he had seen. He wanted Delita's death to mean something.

"Your father wants to show me something," Ramza said.

"He wants you to end up like him," Radia said. "He wants me to end up like him."

"I know," Ramza said. "But at least...at least he tells me that." He felt tears burning in his eyes, and looked away from Radia so she wouldn't see. "I'm so tired of...of people lying, and..."

He choked back a sob fighting its ways up his throat. He shut his eyes and clenched his jaw and flinched against the faces of the lying and the dead looking back at him from the darkness.

"I know," Radia said.

The waves crashed down below, a muted roar rumbling just under the skin of their silence.

Whatever work Gaffgarion had for them would be different. It would be bloody. Ramza would have to kill again, and that thought didn't scare him the way it once had. What did it matter, after he'd stabbed his blade through Argus' back?

But the idea of doing it alone scared him.

"I'd feel better," Ramza said. "If it was...if it was both of us."

He looked back at her, now that his eyes were no longer burning. Radia stared past him, out to the horizon.

"I need to know I can leave," Radia said. "Whenever, okay? If I say go-"

"We go," Ramza said. "And I'll..." He swallowed. "I'll go with you, if you'll..." He looked down sheepishly. "I owe you that."

Radia took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then she nodded. "Okay," she said.

Ramza turned away from the ocean, and the cairn. He walked towards her, stopped just in front of her. Her eyes were still closed. "Thank you," Ramza said.

Radia nodded again. Ramza hesitated, feeling his ponytail tickling at the nape of his neck. "Radia," he started. "Do you...do you have a knife?"

She blinked her eyes open, her mouth twisting to one side. She studied him for a long time. Ramza didn't know what she saw, looking at him: he only knew what he saw, looking at her. The red hair, a little cleaner now, and the green eyes so unlike her fathers, that looked just a little hurt and just a little angry. Powerful eyes, emotional eyes, but not dangerous eyes. This woman was powerful, but she was not a predator.

She reached down to her side, and pulled a knife out from its sheathe. She flipped it casually and handed it to Ramza, handle first. He took it from her, and in one quick, aching tug severed his ponytail, feeling his straw-blonde hair itching its way down his neck and back.

Nothing like his father. And he had no idea how he could be. He needed to know what the world really was, before he could ever try again.

He handed the knife back to her, and they trudged their way back down the hill, shoved open the door and found Gaffgarion still sitting in the living room with a drink in hand. He examined them indifferently. "Well?" he asked.

"We'll do it," Radia said. "But we leave whenever we want. What's our cut of the profits?"

Gaffgarion cocked his head. His eyes flickered to Ramza. "She speaks for you?"

"She probably knows your tricks better than I do," Ramza said..

Gaffgarion grinned. "60-20-20," he said. "But you forfeit your share if any job goes unfinished."

Radia nodded. Gaffgarion rose to his feet. "So!" he said. "I'm a commander again!" He clapped his hands together. "Clean your shit off my bed, boy. You're taking the couch."

...invisible forces. The web of chance, consequence, and decision is so complex, it boggles investigation or explanation. Again and again I come before this wall, in every research and every work. The Death Corps rebellion mattered, of course—its example inspired countless imitators through the years to come, which festered and disrupted and made the War of the Lions a still more difficult slog. But that such a relatively inconsequential rebellion could have such far-reaching consequences! The more I look, the more I find. How the Glabados Church found the lever by which they'd move Ivalice. How the Hokuten gained the experience they needed to challenge the Nanten. How Ramza Beoulve fell in with Geoffrey Gaffgarion. And, most importantly, how it could have set Delita Heiral on the path that would make him King of Ivalice. I fear I still have so much more to learn in my search for truth.

-Alazlam Durai, "Letter to the Dean of Historical Studies at the College of Lesalia"