(Publishing one chapter a week until the end of Part 5)

Chapter 129: The Victorious

"Oh!

"Ohhhhhh!"

"Oh yes."

"Oh God!"

"Don't stop!"

Ramza sighed, and shot another wary look at the ceiling, where the muffled moans, groans, creaks, and other noises kept drifting down to them. "I don't remember Beowulf being quite so loud."

"Really?" Ovelia asked, with her own wry look at the ceiling. "Alma told me it was usually like this."

"When did Alma overhear them?" Ramza demanded.

"On more than one occasion," Agrias said, from her place napping on the couch. "She took a certain perverse delight in arranging their rendezvous."

Ramza and Ovelia gaped at Agrias. "You-" Ovelia started. "How did you-?"

Agrias opened one eye, looking uncharacteristically smug. "Neither you nor Lady Beoulve is nearly as quiet as you believe yourselves to be."

Ovelia laughed in surprised delight. Ramza smiled at them both.

"Oh God yes!"

Ramza gave the ceiling another annoyed look. "I'm checking on Radia."

"I'm sure her condition has changed drastically in the last five minutes," Agrias said. Her eyes were closed again.

Ramza studied Agrias for a moment. "Have I ever seen you this..." He trailed off. He didn't know what the right word was.

"Relaxed?" Agrias suggested, and shook her head. "No." She opened one eye again. "We met at a moment of crisis, and we have been thrust from one danger to the next." A smile on her face, soft and serene. "But our nearest enemies are beaten. My friends are safe. My Queen is safe." She closed her eye, and wriggled back against the couch like a satisfied cat. "We've won."

Ovelia smiled, and took Agrias' hand in hers. Ramza felt a disbelieving smile tugging at his own cheeks, making his face ache with it.

He went upstairs to check on Radia, smiling even as the old wounds in his leg twinged in protest. Old wounds were about the worst of what they faced tonight: Rafa and Radia were more badly hurt than rest of them but that was because both of them were not fully healed from past battles (the magical wound Wiegraf had inflicted on Radia, and the physical wounds Celia and Lettie had inflicted on Rafa). Even Faris and her crew were intact: they had abandoned the Syldra just before Bremondt had destroyed it

Only old wounds. The rest was victory.

There was relief and joy in every word he overheard, and in every face he spied. On his way up to Radia's room, he waved at Rafa and Malak, both sitting on the edge of their bed. Malak looked like he was barely keeping awake, his head swaying on his shoulders like a charmed snake, but there was a satisfied smile on her face. Rafa was talking, quietly but animatedly, and gesturing in spite of the bandages on her arms.

They looked so young. Younger than he'd ever seen them.

He hurried past them, pushed open the door to where Radia lay sleeping. Lavian was no longer tending to her: Radia lay above her covers, bandages across her chest. She and Zalmour had kept the rest of them safe from the black dragon's first attacks, but Radia's Draining Blade was more physical than Zalmour's defensive spells. The cut she'd gotten from the dragon's claw had been blessedly shallow, but her magic was so depleted by the effort of fighting him off that she'd barely kept conscious, and even with Lavian's help, could barely heal herself.

In the weak runelight spilling through the door, her face was creased with sleep. He remembered their kiss aboard the Inquisitor's skiff. He remembered other nights, and other kisses. Gently as he could, he kissed her cool forehead. She stirred, ever so slightly, though her eyes did not open: her fingertips trailed across his thigh, and a slight smile tugged at her lips.

Almost, he stayed at her side. But she was asleep, and Ramza was too excited to stop moving. Like Agrias, he felt at ease for the first time in a long time.

He stepped back into the hall.

"A Worker and a Dragon, Mal!" Rafa's voice was bright with excitement.

Malak chuckled sleepily. "Yeah. I saw, Raf." A moment's quiet. "Wish you'd taken it easier. Your poor arms..."

"Oh, they'll heal fine," Rafa scoffed. "Lav patched me up." Another moment's quiet. Then: "'Sides...I kinda...don't mind."

"You don't mind getting hurt?" Malak sounded more awake than he had a moment ago.

"I don't like getting hurt," Rafa replied. "But it's...worth it, this way." She sounded wistful. "Like...like the stories Dad used to tell."

Ramza exhaled slowly, and looked down the hall. There was another staircase that way: he didn't want to interrupt Rafa and Malak. He took a few cautious steps down the hall-

Paused. Cocked his head. He'd heard something through the closed door on his right—a low, strange sound, like an animal in distress, or-

"Oh, Saint!" It was a woman's voice—high and breathy with ecstasy.

"Calling me saint now, Al?" Lavian's voice was a low purr.

Ramza jumped back as though scalded, and hurried back the way he'd come, not even sparing a look in at Rafa and Malak. He didn't want to interrupt them, but he definitely didn't want to interrupt Alicia and Lavian. He stepped down the stairs as quietly as he could-

Almost ran into Melia, waiting on the landing halfway between the first floor and the second.

"Sorry," he muttered.

She shook her head. "I'm the one lurking down here."

"You're not the only one," he said, with a look over his shoulder.

"Were you listening in on them, too?"

Ramza flinched again. "What?"

Melia arched her eyebrows, and jerked her head towards the closer door, where Rafa and Malak were just barely audible.

"Oh." Ramza shook his head. "I was checking on Radia."

"She'll be alright."

"I know." He started to move past Melia, then stopped and looked back at her. Hers was the only face he'd seen so far that didn't glow with their victory. "Are you? Alright?"

Melia shook her head. "Not for some time, now."

Ramza nodded. "Izlude?"

Melia started to nod, then stopped. Started to shake her head, stopped. "Since before that, I think," she said. "I've been...thinking about it. I think what...what killed him...was the same thing that...hung over us all that time, since Quan and mother..."

The old ache, in the pit of Ramza's stomach. Mother, deft and funny and sweet. Alma had gotten most of her brains, but on his best days, Ramza liked to think he'd gotten something of her heart. Nearly ten years since she'd been passed. Nearly ten years since his father had made them Beoulves. And the gap between the child he'd been, the adult he'd been supposed to grow up into, and this person he'd become...that hurt nearly as much as thoughts of his mother.

"I'm sorry, Melia," Ramza said.

Melia laughed. "But it's not...all bad." She looked past Ramza, up the stairs. "Since we met, it feels like...like things I'd given up on...might be..." She looked back at Ramza. "Thank you, Ramza. Thank you for...trusting me."

Ramza shook his head. "Thank you for believing me," Ramza answered. "My brother didn't, but you..."

"He might," Melia said softly. "While he's alive, there's...there's always hope." She nodded up the stairs: Ramza scooted aside to let her slip past. He watched her go, heard Rafa and Malak's hushed voices lift in greeting. He smiled, and padded down the stairs again.

"-I've never seen it's like!" Mustadio's voice rang down the hallway from the salon. Ramza turned his head towards his friend's voice: apparently he was back from his work helping to repair the Invincible.

"It seems like a very impressive ship." The satisfaction and amusement in Agrias' voice made her almost unrecognizable.

"You have no idea!" Mustadio's voice hummed with delight. "The engines are already a marvel, and if we finish salvaging the pieces we need from the Syldra, we can nearly double their efficiency! The Ydoran framework is intact enough that you can simply build cannons onto it and start drawing the magic from the core!"

"You intend to stay on with them?"

Mustadio sighed. "I wish."

"If you wished to-"

Mustadio laughed. "Captain Oaks, I am with you to the end."

A moment's strange silence. The back of Ramza's neck prickled.

"With me," she repeated, and her voice no longer sounded quite so satisfied. "You mean me, specifically, don't you?"

"From the first moment I saw you, Captain Oaks." Still that same delight in Mustadio's voice. "You looked like something out of a story, the way you stepped into that courtyard and smashed Baerd's men apart. You have saved me, time and time again. Saved all of us. How could I help but love you?"

Agrias made a strange, strangled sound. "Mustadio-"

"You do not feel the same." Mustadio sounded just as cheerful as he had before. "I know."

"Then why-"

"This is the first time we have parted ways since Warjilis," Mustadio said. "And while I worked the Syldra's engines, I was half-mad with fear of what might be befall you. I do not know what our future holds, but it seemed very important you know how much you mean to me."

Agrias sighed. "You are as sincere as ever, Mustadio."

"No less sincere than you, Captain."

Agrias laughed. "Yes, I suppose that's true."

Another silence, this one more companionable than the last. Ramza lingered in the hallway, not quite daring to move.

"Sincere is not the right word," Agrias said. "True, is what I meant. True to who you are, and to what you believe. You left your father in cruel hands, to keep those hands from the Stone you both believed they should not have; you went into danger to save your father, the moment you could afford to do so without betraying his wishes; you left your father's side, to repay your debt to us."

"I see the same truth in you, Captain Oaks," Mustadio answered.

Another brief silence.

"I have never...felt that way," Agrias said. "About anyone. Not like Ramza and Radia. Not like Alicia and Lavian. Not like..." She trailed off. "I do not know if I am...capable of feeling that way." She was quiet for a moment, then said, "If I were, I could do...much worse than you."

The silence was so much warmer and easier now. Ramza smiled.

"Well, to be fair," Mustadio mused. "You could do much better, too."

"So could you, Mustadio Bunansa.

"Then perhaps we have both dodged a bullet, Captain!"

They were laughing together, and Ramza smiled after them, and gently pushed the front door open. Whatever this moment meant to the two of them, he did not intend to interrupt it.

The sea air wafted around him, cool and refreshing, as he delicately closed the door behind him. Ahead of him, the Invincible glowed at the end of its rickety dock, ringing with the raucous laughter of its crew. Faris had only joined their venture on the promise of good plunder: Ramza had to say, she seemed to have gotten her wish.

But that was not for him, either. None of these moments seemed for him. There was a part of him that was content with that: to bear brief witness to these moments of joy in the lives of friends and comrades who well-deserved them. But a different part of him clung to those moments, because his own joy felt so small and thin beside theirs.

Zalmour had believed him. Ramza was glad. But Alma was still in the clutches of demons, whatever paltry reassurances Ramza had that they would not hurt her. When he and Beowulf had parted ways weeks ago, Ramza had set out to save his sister. He had failed, as he had failed in so many things.

His friend deserved to celebrate their victory tonight. Ramza had no such victory to celebrate.

Occupied by his bitter thoughts, Ramza cut across the sandy patch of grass that wound around the island's central mass of rock, angling for the shed hidden behind the rocky promenade. He stopped halfway towards the shed: there was movement farther down the shoreline, where the rock gave way to a proper beach. Ramza approached slowly and cautiously, watching the figure lounging the water, as shafts of bright moonlight drifted down from the sky to illuminate bare limbs-

He blanched, and turned his head quickly to one side.

"Ramza?" Ovelia called.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty-" Ramza stammered. "I didn't, I mean I didn't mean to-"

"Care to join me?"

Ramza fought to keep his head turned away. "Your Majesty-"

"Do not call me Your Majesty." Ramza could hear Ovelia's scowl in her voice. "You, of all people." Her voice softened. "The water's lovely. And we're friends, aren't we?"

Ramza lifted his eyes to the sky for a moment—to the faded stars, scattered around a nearly-full moon high above. A long time since he'd swam naked in the ocean: once as a child, taken to a south Gallione waterfront by his mother, and then once a few years back, he and Radia drunk and chatting in the Gulf of Mullonde after a job chasing thieves out of Warjilis. This was something else—he was sober, for starters, and fully grown, and the woman asking him to skinny dip was the Queen of Ivalice...

And he could just imagine Alma, laughing at the situation, laughing at him for feeling so nervous.

"Then I respectfully ask you to avert your gaze, Your Majesty," Ramza aid, slipping off his purple tunic and loosening his breeches. "I do not wish to offend your virginal eyes."

Ovelia snorted. "Ever the gallant knight, Ser Beoulve!"

Ramza grimaced, letting trousers and underwear drop to the sand. A moment later, and he had plunged into the sea. It was warmer than he expected, and swirled pleasantly around his skin. He found he was smiling again. He swam out to Ovelia throught the bobbing waves at a slow, easy pace. "Should you be out here by myself?"

Ovelia laughed. Her hair was wild above her head, and her eyes were bright. Had he ever seen her look this way? So human, so...free? "I'm safer at this moment then I've ever been in my life."

Ramza laughed in turn. "I suppose that's true." He stopped a few yalms short of her. "What made you want to come out here?"

"What, besides getting Mustadio and Agrias alone?" Ovelia laughed again.

"You knew?" Ramza asked.

"You didn't?"

Ramza shook his head. "How could I?"

"Have you ever seen the way he looks at her?"

Ramza thought for a moment. Mustadio looked at everyone so attentively: he made you feel seen. "No different from anyone else."

Ovelia shook her head. "He can't keep his eyes on her. He keeps looking away."

"So-"

"So she was the only one he was self-conscious about looking at."

Ramza laughed in surprise. "Oh!"

Ovelia nodded. "I hope she let him down gently."

Saint Above, but Ovelia was sharp. How did she piece together so much with so little? She and Alma were both so brilliant. They saw things so clearly.

"Did you know Alma learned how to sword fight?" Ramza asked.

Ovelia nodded, bobbing up and down in the surf. "Lessons with Agrias just after dinner. Orbonne never had much in the way of staff, but that was the safest time for it. No risk of anyone but Simon seeing, and Simon would never have..."

She closed her eyes, and dunked her head beneath the water. Ramza leaned back a little, to look back up at the sky. When he heard Ovelia slip her head back above the water, he asked: "Did you read the Gospel?"

"Some." Ovelia's voice was solemn now. "Poor Simon..."

"I'm sorry."

"You did everything you could." Ovelia followed his gaze to the sky. "That's all we can do."

The ocean sighed around them, as the waves gently lapped across their skin.

"No idea where Alma is?" Ovelia asked.

Ramza shook his head, as tears stung his eyes. She was alive, and thank God for that...but who knew what she was going through? All because he'd let her follow her.

"Don't."

Ramza looked over to Ovelia, who was staring steadily at him. Her brown eyes were different than he'd ever seen them: as solemn as they'd looked after her prayers at Orbonne, and as bright as they'd looked when he'd first joined her beneath the moonlight, and as free as she'd looked when he'd taught her how to blow a blade of grass.

"Don't what?" Razma asked.

Ovelia smiled, and it was a new thing entirely. There was wry amusement in that smile, and pain. There was knowledge, and regret, and cynicism, and determination. There was wisdom in that smile. A Queen's wisdom.

"Alma told me you do this," she said. "That you can't help but...but see even your successes as failures. That you can't ever let anything be good enough." Ovelia paused a moment. "It drove her crazy. But she loved that about you. That nothing good was ever good enough."

On another night, Ramza might have objected. But here, physically, mentally, and metaphysically exhausted, plagued by the exact feeling she was describing, witnessing everyone else's joy, everyone else's victory...here, it felt true. Here, he could, nod, and smile, and answer: "She's not wrong." He looked away from Ovelia, back up to the sky. "Even before I...before I knew who my father was, I knew he...mattered. Mattered in a way most people don't. Like...like that moment when you...when you see something your eyes can't quite believe."

For Ramza, that moment had been the ocean, when his mother and his father had taken him and Alma to the beach in southern Gallione. Before the two of them had splashed naked together in the shallows, Ramza had stood stunned before the weight of the sea, the endless blue stretching out to the horizon until it blended with the sky. He had been shocked by the sight...but he hadn't really been surprised. On some level deeper than memory, he knew what it was to be so small, next to something so immense. That feeling had been with him from the first moment he started to understand who his father was.

The sea at night was a different thing. No less vast, no less weighty...but somehow more filled with potential. With promise. More dangerous in some ways, yes...but more understandable, in others. Humans often fumble through the dark. And, more often than is really fair, they make it out okay.

"But it's not...all bad," Ramza said softly, and looked back at Ovelia, away from the star-strewn dark. "It made me...smart. It made me sharp. It made me listen." He was almost surprised by what he said next: "Whatever happened to...to Dyce, and Zal...and Argus, and..." He closed his eyes. "I always understood I was...small. So when I did something, it...it mattered. I could do better, sure, but...but I could also do worse." He laughed, and tears prickled in his eyes. "Alma doesn't get that."

"She doesn't?" There was hint of laughter in Ovelia's voice.

Ramza shook his head. "No. She...she's smarter than I am. Sharper. A lot like Dyce. A lot like Mom." His mother, always with that hint of laughter in her voice. Cold sometimes, and distant...but always cheerful. Laughter even in her coughing, when the Plague had claimed her. "But she...she sees what the world could be, so sometimes she can't...understand what the world is." He felt a little coal of warmth in the pit of his stomach, buoyed by the gentle rocking of the cool waves. "I...see it too. The world like it...could be. That's what makes me think I can do better. But I also know what the world is. I know what I've done...matters."

A moment's silence between them. The dark of the night seemed to glow with starlight. The wind chilled his cheeks, as the ripples tickled his skin.

"You've changed, Ramza," Ovelia said. "You've...grown." She laughed. "How have you grown so much, in so short a time?"

"I could ask you the same, Ovelia," Ramza answered. "You were always..." He shook his head. "But look at you now." He smiled. "I...I really would call you my Queen."

Ovelia closed his eyes. "You shouldn't."

The silence between them was more fraught. Ramza studied her: her eyes scrunched tight in the moonlight, so she looked like a child avoiding a nightmare. He started to ask her what she meant.

"Room for one more?"

Ramza and Ovelia whirled around. The moonlight blanched Delita's clay-red hair, and dulled the old burn on his cheek. He stood on the shore with his hands in his trouser pockets, his eyes hidden in shadow.

"It's a big ocean," Ovelia answered, swimming back to the beach. When she stepped up into the shallows, wading back onto the beach, Ramza averted his gaze: from the corner of his eye, he could see Delita did not.

"You won't be joining us?" Delita asked.

If Ovelia answered, Ramza didn't hear her. By the time he felt safe to look back, she was already striding back down the beach, pulling her clothes on as she walked. She didn't look back.

Delita watched her go until she was out of sight. Slowly, his head titled back towards Ramza.

"You and her?" Ramza asked.

Delita shrugged. "Maybe. Not sure if she still..." His head turned back the way she'd gone. "She didn't know," he finally said. "Some of the things she learned from you guys...she didn't know."

"What," Ramza asked, swimming closer to shore. "Like you sending us into a trap?"

"You sent yourself into a trap," Delita retorted. "I tried to stop you."

"You used us." Ramza stepped out of the ocean, feeling the same indignation he imagined Ovelia had just felt: it warmed his clammy skin, made him utterly unconcerned with his nudity. He pulled his trousers back on, careless of the way they stuck wetly to him, careless of the sand scratching and scraping against his thighs. "You used me."

Delita was quiet for a moment. "Yeah."

Ramza shook his head. "And you...you knew about the Lucavi?"

Delita hesitated. "Not...exactly." He looked up at the stars, just a moment, then back to the ground. "Wiegraf and I were...both of us were recruited by the Braves. Different stories...different lines of work. He used his reputation to spark rebellion in the open...I had to work behind the scenes." There was disgust in his voice. "S'how I found that Stone. Old bandit group, operating since the 50 Years' War, their first boss had stolen it years and years ago. I got into the group. The group...died. I got the Stone." He rubbed tiredly at his eyes. "It was like that...over, and over, and over again. In...in Gallione...in Zeltennia..." He drew a shuddering breath. "I...started to feel...a lot like Gustav."

"Did you have reason to?" Ramza asked.

"Yeah." Delita was quiet another moment. "I was sent to Lesalia, just before I ran into you. To keep tabs on the royal family. To make sure if they made any moves, we'd know about'em. S'how I found out about...about Ovelia. But..." He closed his eyes. "You know the Iphis family?"

Ramza frowned. "What, like the old story? Ser Iphis and the Lord of Behemoths?"

"That's the one." Delita's whisper was ragged with guilt. "Long history of serving in the Lionsguard. Annabel Iphis had just joined, and she...she found out what they were planning. About the fake Nanten, and Ovelia, and she...she wanted to warn someone."

"And she warned you?" Ramza asked.

Delita nodded, and said nothing else. Ramza studied his friend for a long time: the taut shadows pooled beneath his haunted eyes.

"You killed her," Ramza said.

Delita nodded again. "Dycedarg was already onto her. She'd be caught, and I'd lose my chance to-"

"She tried to save Ovelia, and you killed her."

Delita only nodded.

"What happened to you, Del?"

Delita looked out to the sea. "Sometimes it takes a monster to end the monstrous."

"Do you really believe that?"

Delita hesitated. "I...I don't know."

They were quiet for awhile. The ocean murmured to itself.

"I don't know," Delita said again. "I don't know now, and I didn't then. I killed her, and I left the city, and I started...started making plans to..." There were tears in his voice. "But it all felt so...I killed her, Ramza, you're right, she wanted to do the right thing, she was clumsy and stupid and she was going to get Ovelia killed but she didn't deserve to die and I...I'm no better than Argus."

"And the Stone spoke to me."

Ramza's head snapped back to his friend. Delita was staring straight ahead, his eyes wide and unseeing. "Told me that I was...right to feel guilty. That all men are guilty, all of us corrupt and cruel and vain, but at least I...I knew it. And if I...if I truly wanted to make a better world, and bring justice to the guilty, it could help me do it. It could give me a way to atone for my sins. And it could give me such power that the guilty would never escape my grasp."

Ramza studied his friend again. "And you said no?"

Delita laughed shakily. "I didn't say anything. I didn't...trust myself to say anything. I...I wanted to say something, but..." He took a trembling breath. "It was right. There are so many guilty people who won't admit their guilt. So many powerful people who will never face justice. Everything I've done is to change that, but...but I can't be the one to..." His voice was taut. "I'll end the monsters," he said. "But justice is...justice is gonna have to be someone else's job."

"Whose?" Ramza asked.

Delita looked up at him. For the first time, the moonlight caught his eyes, free of shadow. There was hope in his gaze, and guilt, and wry amusement.

Ramza's throat tightened. "Absolutely not."

"It seems to me you're doing a pretty god job of bringing justice to the unworthy as it is," Delita said dryly.

"Del-"

"Tried to save the lives of men and women everyone else called traitors," Delita said. "Turned on your own brothers, when they showed themselves cruel. Saved an innocent Princess from assassination. Struck down...what, three demons, an evil duke, the corrupt Cardinal that turned himself into a dragon-"

"That's not-

"It doesn't matter what I say, Ramza," Delita said. "You're...you're going to keep..." He looked briefly out at the horizon. His smile had turned wistful. "I can't believe a man like you exists."

Ramza shook his head. "I'm nothing special."

"Don't give me that." Ramza said nothing, and Delita sighed. "Well. If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one I'm counting on."

He looked down the beach, in the direction Ovelia had gone. Ramza followed his gaze. "I've never met anyone higher than a Prince," Ramza said. "But she really...she really seems like a Queen."

"You have no idea," Delita said. "That's why they want to kill her."

Ramza's head snapped towards him. "What?"

"I told you what I knew of the Church's plans," Delita said. "Bethla Garrison is their masterstroke: their agents have earned the trust of Larg and Goltanna both." He paused, and put a hand on his chest. "I suppose I count as one of them." He closed his eyes, and shook his head. "Larg thinks he is marching his army into a miraculous victory: assassins will kill Goltanna and the Nanten high command, and the fortress will fall without a sword swung or a cannon fired. Goltanna thinks Larg is marching into a slaughterhouse, egged on by men who truly serve the Black Lion." He laughed. "I suppose the Church realizes that Ovelia is somewhat less pliable than Orinus. They intend for her to die in the same stroke as Goltanna."

"And what do you intend, Delita?"

Delita's gaze had changed. He had been haunted, moments before: now he seemed almost worshipful. "To see someone worthy of the throne upon it."

"With you her faithful servant?" Ramza suggested.

Delita chuckled. "I'll put myself on her leash, and let her send me out against her enemies. I'll be her monster, until the only people left in power are people like her." He paused, and looked back at Ramza. "And people like you."

Ramza shook his head. "I've the one who killed Argus, Del." He looked back to the sea, and the faces of the dead flickered in front of him, like foam upon the breaking waves. "He's not the only one, either."

"Mmm." For a little while hey watched the ocean in silence.

"I won't...talk you out of your guilt," Delita said. "You...didn't try to talk me out of mine, and I...honestly I...appreciate it." He closed his eyes. "There's things I've done that...don't deserve to be forgiven. And if you...if you tell me you're the same, then...I believe you." He cleared his throat. "But Ramza? Balbanes was always a Beoulve."

That hurt: a shock of cold lightning to Ramza's heart. He winced, but before he could say anything, Delita shook his head frantically. "Shit, I'm sorry, that's not what I...I mean..." He opened his eyes and looked desperately at Ramza, took him by the hand. "Everything he did...the battles he fought, the war he helped to win...he didn't have to...he didn't...sacrifice. Like you've...sacrificed."

"I didn't-"

"Don't give me that," Delita snapped. "If you've a right to your sins, you've a right to your virtues, too. When your brothers were wrong, you left them, and never mind the life you had to live."

"Dycedarg was paying Gaffgarion-"

"And when you found out about it, you took him on, and two whole armies with him!" Delita exclaimed. "You've been called a coward and a traitor and a heretic, you're accused of murder and worse besides, for the crime of killing demons! And...and when your friends needed you, you...crossed a whole country to..."

"I won't tell you you haven't done unforgivable things, Ramza. But you're more than your father's equal." He squeezed Ramza's hand. "You're...the best man I know." He laughed. "You always have been, since...since the first day I..."

Ramza remembered. Hollow with the grief of his mother's death, drifting through days that felt half-empty of sunlight in the lush expanse of the Beoulve Manor, until a chocobo-drawn carriage had pulled up, and Balbanes had stepped out with two hollow-eyed children behind him. Delita and Teta, who looked exactly like Ramza and Alma had felt. Ramza had never fully understood what had possessed his father to take the Heirals in. But in the days that followed, Ramza had started to feel human again.

So long since his mother had died. So long since Ramza had stopped being a Lugria, and become a Beoulve. So much had changed, and Delita had been there at every step of the way.

Ramza was quiet, as all this rushed through his head. "Well," he said at last. "For all the stories I've heard about my father...I don't think he ever punched a dragon in the face."

Delita laughed. "No. I don't think he did, either." He squeezed Ramza's hand again. "It was...it was good. Fighting alongside you...and alongside Beowulf." He let Ramza's hand go, and took him by the shoulders. "I trust you, Ramza. I trusted you then. I still trust you now. I trust your strength. I trust your skill. I trust your heart."

Neither of them spoke for a little while. The ocean murmured beside them. Moonlight cast them both in dusky radiance.

"I don't know if what I'm doing is right," Delita said. "But I'm doing it for the right reasons. I want to make a world better for people like Teta. People like Ovelia. People like-"

"Don't."

Delita looked stricken "What-?"

"Not for people like us," Ramza said. "For us. Right?"

Delita hesitated. He started to nod, then stopped. Started to shake his head, then stopped. "I can't...I can't quite say that's...true." He closed his eyes, and released his grip on Ramza's hand. "The truth is...if I could be sure, absolutely sure, that killing you would make a better world for everyone like you..."

Ramza felt a flash of anger: after everything, his friend would kill him?

Like you killed Argus? Gaffgarion? Wiegraf?

That was different.

Killed Wiegraf to save Alma, but they still took her. Killed Gaffgarion to save Ovelia, but she was gone by the time you got there. Killed Argus to save Delita.

Did you save Delita?

"But you're right," Delita said, as Ramza's thoughts roiled. "And besides..." His voice went very quiet. "I'd die for her." His voice went quieter still. "And for you, Ramza."

Ramza looked up at his friend, and saw no dishonesty in his dark eyes. He looked like the hollow-eyed boy who'd stepped out of the carriage behind Balbanes, all those years ago.

"You trusted me, to kill a Lucavi?" Ramza asked.

Delita was quiet for a moment. "I didn't...know. What the voice was, that spoke to me. If it was a nightmare woven by my guilt, or something else. But I...I knew..." He swallowed. "I knew if...I there was anyone who could resist that voice, and whatever it meant..." He looked at Ramza again. "It was you."

They locked eyes for a long time. When they could look at each other no longer, they looked out to the starlit sea. After a little while, Delita idled his way along the shoreline, and returned with a blade of grass in either hand. He offered one blade to Ramza, who took it in numb fingers. So many years since they'd learned how to blow grass flutes in the hillsides outside Lesalia. So much had changed since then. So much lost.

"Delita," Ramza said, before he put the blade to his lips. "What you're doing...is it worth it?"

"No," Delita said, and closed his eyes. "The people who've died...the people I've killed...they deserved better." He was quiet a moment longer. "All I can do is...is try to make that better world. No more Miludas. No more Tetas."

Ramza nodded, and put the blade of grass to his lips. Beside him, Delita did the same.