(First part of a double update! The second part will be published on Friday. Please check out quickascanbe dot com and follow me on Facebook and Twitter if you're looking for more)

The Tale of Beowulf: Dream Into Reality

Beowulf Daravon stumbled from Dycedarg Beoulve's office, his head spinning. He sank down against the wall just outside, clutching at the sides of his face. The world felt distant, dim, and very far away.

"Beowulf?" Delita asked, leaning over him with concern in his voice. Delita, who had led their little mission, their wild quest into the dangerous world of the Death Corps and their criminal allies, who had kept them focused in their search through the teeming underbelly of Dorter, who had found Wiegraf Folles, Gustav Margueriff, and the missing Marquis. Delita, fearless and competent.

So how was Beowulf supposed to explain this? That after fighting enemy soldiers, raiding a Death Corps stronghold, and rescuing a kidnapped hero, this was what shattered him?

He tried anyways. "A Prince knows my name," Beowulf managed. "A Prince."

Not just any Prince. Prince Bestrald Larg, brother to the Queen of Ivalice, leader of the Hokuten, who counted men as fearsome as Dycedarg and Zalbaag and as legendary as Balbanes as his lieutenants. Prince Larg knew his name.

"What's the matter with you?" Delita asked.

"It's just so big," Beowulf breathed. "It's so real."

"But the killing wasn't?" Delita seemed nonplussed.

Beowulf should have known he wouldn't understand. He barely understood it himself. For as long as he could remember, he'd known he was going to be a legend. That certainty existed as an undercurrent to everything he did, and drove his every step. One day, he would tower above Ivalice. When the tales were told to children at their bedside or by drinking buddies trading stories, they would count Beowulf as dear as Balbanes or Elidibus.

But now a Prince knew his name, and that meant that the dream he'd nursed all his life was starting to bloom, just like he'd always known it would. And everything Beowulf had done so far had merely been to start telling the story he'd known he would be one day: to be the fearless hero cutting his way across Ivalice, dueling with depraved soldiers, brawling in bars, rescuing fallen heroes and facing fearsome enemies.

If a Prince knew his name, his story was already being told. And Beowulf, for all his certainty, was stunned by that reality. His name was spoken of, by Prince Larg and Dycedarg Beoulve and who knew who else? The thing he'd dreamed of for so long was being realized, right before his eyes.

"I trained for that," Beowulf muttered, his head buried in his hands. "I didn't train for this."

Neither Ramza nor Delita made any further effort to talk to him. Beowulf was glad, for he didn't know what he would say. He sat alone in the hall, trying to stop the endless dizzy whirling of his thoughts.

"What are you doing here?"

Beowulf looked up to find Zalbaag Beoulve standing over him, blue cape draped over his sable armor, the power fair radiating off the sword Justice sheathed at his side.

"Just..." Beowulf shook his head. "Thinking."

"About?" Zalbaag asked.

He waved vaguely towards the door where Larg and Dycedarg still sat. "Everything."

Zalbaag laughed. "Yes. I remember that feeling." He ran one hand thoughtfully through his trim beard. "It's...jarring, isn't it?" he asked. "Making contact with reality."

Beowulf started. "Huh?"

Zalbaag chuckled, and hunched over. "Let's give me some credit, hm?" He gestured down to his sword. "I'm not quite at the level of legends like my father, or Elidibus, or the Thundergod. But I'm at least in the same range as our dear Marquis, no?" He nodded down the wing where the Marquis was quartered. "If a piece of the ceiling fell on me right now, and crushed my skull, my name would still live on in history." He paused, and added, "If only for the hilarious way I died."

That startled a laugh out Beowulf. Zalbaag smiled, and continued, "I am the storied son of a storied man who wore a storied name long before he became one of the legends of Ivalice. That's the legacy all we Beoulves live with. A legacy you can only measure up to...or fall short of." His face had darkened a little. "My brothers are...not without their faults," he said, after a moment's consideration. "But I am not without mine. All of us trying to live up to our name. To our father's name."

"We simply find the way that works best for us," he said. "To do right by our father on earth, and our Father in heaven." His smile returned. "If it were easy, anyone could do it." He clapped Beowulf on the shoulder, stood up, and headed into the office. Beowulf stared after him, then got to his feet. The queasy, dizzy sense of unreality was pulling back like the tide going out, and he felt himself standing on firmer ground again.

A Prince knew his name. The story had already begun. But it was still up to him what it would say: what the chronicle of his deeds would read like, to some far-future reader on some far-future day. As long as he didn't sit down waiting for it.

The war against the Death Corps was not yet over. Beowulf Daravon's legend had only just begun.