(First part of a double update this week, don't forget to check out the next chapter on Friday to see what Ramza and company are up to. Please check out quickascanbe dot com and follow me on Facebook and Twitter if you're looking for more)
The Tale of Beowulf: Onward To Glory
His moment had come at last.
Gariland and its academies had always felt too small for Beowulf Daravon, but restless as he was, he knew he had to be strong as could be before he set out into the world, to challenge (and surpass) its legends. Reis, Ramza, and Delita had sharpened his edge and his hunger: for months, every day spent in the Academy felt like a day wasted, no matter how he trained or who he tested himself against.
But then the orders came from Prince Larg and his Hokuten: rather than the traditional final exams, the Gariland graduates would take missions in the field, to relieve much-needed forces for the campaign against the Death Corps rebels setting Gallione ablaze. And though Beowulf was too young to graduate, he refused to be left behind. When his friends set out with orders to reinforce the guards at Igros, Beowulf was waiting for them, with Violet saddled up and a pair of good swords taken from his father's collection.
Had you asked Beowulf, he would not have been able to explain why he needed so badly to go with him. With hindsight, it as a much simpler thing. Wild as he was, Beowulf knew that legends are not forged in a single day. If he hoped to become one of the legends of Ivalice, he must first be strong enough to bear that weight: to challenge the men and monsters who would litter his tales in years to come. So he had spent his wild years around Gariland, playing at being a child, his eyes ever on the horizon he would day soar over.
In that twilit morning outside Gariland's orderly streets, he told Ramza and Delita that his only goal was to see Reis at Igros. But deep inside Beowulf's soul, something told him the time had come. Like a fledgling leaving its nest, Beowulf had to see if he could truly fly.
On the way to Igros, they found the Death Corps bandits amidst the massacre they'd made of Marquis Elmdor's escort. They found Argus Thadolfas, wounded and fighting for his life atop a rocky outcropping. They found the first real battle of their young lives.
And Beowulf leapt into the fray without a moment's hesitation.
He killed his first enemies in moments—sliced one man across the throat like he was cutting meat at a dinner table, slashed a woman across her chest when she tried to stand against him. He felt like a minotaur, Violet moving beneath him as though she were his own feathered legs, his strength as vast as the sky, his swords as swift as lightning. He killed four soldiers that day, and not a one of the traitorous rabble, hardened soldiers one and all, could touch him.
Here was an invitation to adventure, incontestable and inarguable. Argus Thadolfas, last son of a fallen house, lone survivor of a terrible crime. Marquis Elmdor, lord of Limberry and hero of Ivalice, imprisoned by terrible villains. Together, three scions of noble houses, with their trusted and brilliant companion, would set out to rescue him. They would save the Marquis. They would avenge the massacre. They would write the first chapter in the legend Ivalice would tell of them in ages to come.