Yes, I'm still in the sandbox. Managed to get this done amongst other things, though a continuous path I haven't accomplished yet. This one scene is just the most complete and coherent of the bits that I have accomplished.
Lacking in detail, since my motivation in this one was to drive the story into open waters yet again, and to avoid the looping frustration that accompanied the scenes in Lionel Castle.
Inconsistencies abound since its been over two years since I started the story... hopefully will have them addressed soon enough, but one of my main intentions was the portrayal of the evolution of the characters.
For the moment, enjoy.
Author's Notes
Condensed Mist
Dorter Trade City
The Green Goose; the inn that Gafgarion's mercenaries and Ovelia's bodyguards had spent an evening less than three weeks past.
Alone in the room with the young man who stood next to her in the demise of a life she thought was secure. Alicia, Lavian, Mustadio, and the reunited members of Ramza's platoon filled the other rooms of the inn, whilst the angelic demon refused to let her be alone as she struggled to surface from the ocean of turmoil she was drowning in.
It had been three days since Ramza and company limped into the city after being taken aboard a coastal barque(1) on the western coast of Lesalia.
A perplexing twist for him. Now, it was not he who was numb, but Agrias. The first time Ovelia had been taken from her custody, inside, she felt only anger, shame, and the will to redeem herself.
The conspiracy laid out in front of her, Agrias realized that she may as well have never been. Immaterial of what she could have attempted, Ovelia was a sacrificial lamb, and the knights of St. Konoe merely tended the offering to civil war that Ovelia had been all her life.
Could she really be free? she wondered, as she had received no less than four letters in that timeframe, conveniently finding her, of all places, in Lionel, before her word of help could even have gotten to Lesalia.
Release. The termination of the St. Konoe's mission from being the princess' guard and the transition into defense of the Imperial loyalist coalition in the upcoming war.
Ovelia. Simon. The Royal Chamberlain. The warrior-bishop of the St. Konoe. Four people, different motives, yet one ultimate conclusion. For her own protection and gratitude. An old man's concern. Monarchial intrigue and compromise. From disillusion and the call to war.
She may as well have never been. Her own order all but stripped her of authority and command, all her subordinates suspect as well. No position to even get close to Ovelia again and extract the princess from her role as a tool, the future of the imperial throne, wielded, no more than a sceptre, an ornament to be worn as a crown.
Alicia, Lavian, and the three other female knights that must have heeded her call for rendezvous sometime in Orbonne was all that she had. Where it all began. Or was it all in Lesalia itself, several years ago? A fresh veteran who caught the final insignifact skirmishes of a war long since concluded. Bloody formalities when she still believed in Ivalice. A bright-eyed princess that Agrias felt not only duty towards, but sisterly affection.
For naught. All for naught.
And now…
Ramza.
Ramza Beoulve. The Beoulve… one of the great houses of Ivalice. The guardians of the throne. Had he matured… she knew that he would eventually have ascended to lead one of Ivalice's most capable units; steel and ether. Dycedarg and Zalbag were old dogs in comparison, still leashed by their upbringing through war.
Innocent was something that had to be stripped of Ramza. Agrias wondered if Ramza was aware that he was selected to eradicate the Death Corps to prepare him, to give him experience, experience not only in war, but against other Ivalicians. Unfortunately, the boy has a conscience, she pondered, wondering at how it may have been if they had not gotten involved together in this affair. Would I have fought him…
She looked up from her side of the couch to Ramza on the opposite arm. His eyes… his eyes, she blinked and hurriedly looked away. Unlike before, there was no denial on her part of acknowledging that she was blushing, and the rush of adrenaline and Ajora knows what else that she felt.
She was in lust… no… not lust, but she was afraid to admit more. Weary of the lies, tired of the restrictions self-inflicted, exhausted from discipline.
Eyes unglazed, eyes bright; how she enjoyed those windows into his soul. When there was none of the conditioning he underwent visible in his eyes.
No longer innocent, no longer pure, but by no means tainted. Tempered, forged, and proven.
The spirit of the Beoulve name, thought of by his brother's as weak for being so simple. It was they who were unfit for command of the Hokuten, or what once was the Hokuten. Corrupted, blind to what their father and his knights embodied in the war.
Agrias wondered where her allegiance lied. Civil war is something she could never wage, hating herself already for killing men and women, who once, fought alongside her in Ivalice's twilight hours. She knew she would never be within reach of Ovelia again. A glimpse mayhaps, but no longer with the ability to safeguard her former ward.
The church was quite different from Faith. Ajora ruled supreme in Ivalician thematics, yet why was there so many sects, orders both clerical and martial?
Her mother had been St. Konoe, her father, a plain warrior that never knew religion. Ironic, Agrias thought, I am only here because my mother was stricken from her order, breaking the vow of celibacy we all took. And I was all that she had of my father; the kind man whose eyes were…
"Agrias? Butterfly?" Ramza asked her, finally breaking his languid idleness during her reverie.
"I'm awake, Ramza," she murmured, vitality returning to her dormant features. Life and animation began to flood her body once more, as she shifted, unconcerned about her lack of dress -his proximity and lack of the armor he too wore as a second skin.
"So I see," he told her softly, cautious mirth in his tone, the stone angel's face softening into a smile.
"Fool," she told him, unbalanced by how she was coming back to life.
"But a happy one," he replied.
"And there's wisdom in that," she finished for him, opening the blanket that wrapped around her.
Taking the silent cue, Ramza chose to reach over to her, his body leaning all across her legs so he could bring his face up to hers.
It was Agrias who rose up nuzzled her cheek against his. Like silk, Agrias purred. Warm, silky, she could feel the presence of his soul beyond physical contact. As if her body hummed in tune to his, as her heartbeat began to emulate his; two beating as one, different entities, yet the same being. Truth and reality.
"Are you happy now?" she asked him. "You've won, you know that…"
"No, I have not," he admonished her gently as he brought the two of them up to sit together on the couch, his legs intertwining between hers. Noting how softly she trembled as he embraced her fully, his hands softly tracing her chest as he reached to clasp his hands against her back. "I take no joy in conquest, and I seek no submission from you, no surrender, only acceptance of me and all that I am, as I have come to cherish you, Agrias Oaks."
Agrias began to sob softly, and she reciprocated his hold on her, leaning against him until he leaned back and as they lay down, she felt herself being spooned into his form,
"I'm no longer who I once was, Ramza. I'm no longer a knight, I'm no longer Ovelia's protector, and worse of all, I'm unable to do anything about it. I may as well be…" she trailed off.
"Why mourn change, butterfly," he whispered in her ear, warm air flowing across sensitive skin. "You can see, you can feel, taste, and you can touch…"
Agrias nuzzled his right arm, draped over her, pulling it so that his hand rested above her heart. "And I can smell you," she remarked as she inhaled, shuddering gently.
"You remind me of jasmines," he told her.
Having no reply save a blush, Agrias sidled up against him, fitting herself to his form as best she could. Heavenly, she thought with mirth.
"Butterflies, jasmines, what else would you call me if I'm no longer Agrias Oaks, Holy Knight of the St. Konoe," she asked whimsically, allowing herself to float in this peace they provided each other, forgetting, if for a moment, the conflict of the world around them. "A maiden sworn to chastity…"
"Mine," was his succinct reply, delivered by his breath into her ear.
"Perphaps fate was not so cruel to me," she thought out loud.
"Yes?" Ramza asked, wondering what it was she replied, his heart in the air.
"I am content… for the moment," she said, tossing the lower half of her blanket over them. "Ramza… hold me…"
"I already am," came his cherubic reply, and she could almost see the grin her had behind her.
With a sigh, Agrias only closed her eyes and for the next few hours, there they remained, Ramza beginning to stroke one of her few vanities -her downy hair let down, both of them reveling in this moment of peace stolen from the world around them.
Effectively -but happily- pinned, Ramza kept watch on his new ward, wondering just how much normal development he had been deprived of during his education and conditioning to become a successor of the Hokuten. Namely, familiarity in dealing with the fairer sex.
He thought back on his previous experiences. He was no virgin; as a noble, it was almost expected of him to be hormonal, ravishing any female that fell under influence, but, Ramza's escapades fell far short of the randy nobleman stereotype.
How to court a lady, Ramza always thought of as a crock subject, having viewed women almost as a totally different creature, even at the academy. Able to match men in combat, but truly, frailer, having less endurance and tolerance to the inhuman conditions of the field; a completely different set of interaction -touch the wrong subject, and you die. Slowly, internal agony without peer. None of the dominance and camaraderie amongst the other boys, there was always that buffer that separated the boys from the girls in his experiences.
Then again, he thought, it wasn't as if I wanted to get into anyone's trousers.
Holding Agrias in his arms, again Ramza felt the same content he had before in being with a girl -a woman- now. The lust was there -yet, like anything that he associated with her, was tempered. He wondered how long not this moment would last, but this exposure of her being, shell torn asunder, the oak's weathered bark stripped away.
His own barriers sundered from where he had been comfortably numb. A state of peace he thought he had achieved, as he continued on existing, unable, rather, unwilling to abandon who he was, or who he would have become. The shades of black and white of his life had turned into the gray existence he had known in the last year. Thirteen months now since the events of those days, thirteen moons, thirteen turns of regret and reflection.
He was beginning to feel, emotion that did not echo the injuries that replaced the ailments of his sickly childhood.
Recalled to life. Warrior reborn. Purpose found. Existence justified. So many ways to think about how he had begun to care again outside of simply what he saw, but again, a cause, however dim, growing brighter in his mind again. Inspiration, motivation -that which drives a man.
What cause? Her, he asked himself… no, life could not be that simple. All I could do now is to watch my homeland be torn apart, and wonder who will claim the shattered remnants and forge this kingdom anew. The seven provinces of Ivalice. A war of the Lions; black and white, once, just how he had seen the world.
Even the Hokuten held little allegiance from him. Though he was only a boy, birthright decreed him command, and as old and childless as his brothers were, as much as the likelihood of them surviving the conflict he had known even as an adolescent was inevitable, he was the heir. Limberry was ruled through the Hokuten. Larg could only rule through Beoulve consent.
Perhaps, I could have made a difference Ramza noted, wondering if he could have survived to bring about change. Larg had done damned well in corrupting his brothers as their father waned in his deathbed. Would he himself have been spared if he refused to be collared, to be tamed, to be used?
Jasmines, he realized, his internal discourse on himself thrown to the wind as he drank in Agrias' scent. Fresh bathed, skin free of the grime she was loathe to admit coating her skin -a point he teased her mercilessly about, and warm. Mine, he thought, heated by his admission to her before he could rationalize his statement.
He wondered what effect he had on her, was it a reflection of how she began to change him. A princess to save and a civil war to thwart. Betrayal from the man you knew was sent to manipulate you…
Fodder for courtly intrigue. Frivolous indulgences that cared not about suffering, only one's conceited self-worth. The ascension over one's fellow to another circle, where the desire to climb began again.
But… with Agrias… things were simply. Red fusing purple, coalescing into blue, blooming green, ripening yellow, glowing orange, and catching fire to where the circle began.
It was not that his world made sense anymore than it had before, but that he felt that while all was not right -far from it- that he could live again.
That maybe, someday, he could rise and become who he may have been. An opportunity, a gift of blood that few have ever had, and even fewer had put to use for the benefit of his brethren. As he had once envisioned to do so with his third brother, Delita.
Just as Delita had died and become born again, so would Ramza choose to take the ashes from his past and scatter them to memory. Bitter lessons learned, scars branded into his heart and mind, yet the determination to continue, to try and try and try again. To rise up one more time for every time that he fell, faltered, or faded away.
It was not that he could no longer become the leader of the Hokuten, a defender of the realm, but that the Hokuten no longer defended Ivalice, but threatened it, and Ivalice in its current form was due for change -change that would be bought with death and fire.
He changed his hold on Agrias, satisfaction indeed, he thought. Tentatively, he brought his lips to her crown, and he tasted her for the very first time. The bittersweet taste of a girl that had given all she was to a cause now lost, and now seeked redemption, restoration to the flow of her life.
This tide would ebb, he knew, and she would retreat. Ramza had no fear or concern. Just as the sun and the moon had a cycle, so would they.
A person's internal strife is one something can only be brought to peace by one's self. Yet, such wars within need not be fought alone.
As they sustained each other in the past, so will they continue?
Till death do them part?
Ever the rogue of the group, Alicia persuaded Lavian to breach the seclusion of their motley crew's leaders. The personalities around which they had gathered.
The two knights had taken their unofficial expulsion from the St. Konoe more pragmatically than Agrias had. As much as they wished they could console the woman, they knew that Agrias Oaks had roots into the order that dug into the generations, that which she defined her life by.
"I swear," she told her companion, "she's more sheltered than you are…"
Lavian simply frowned as she normally did whenever her friend dealt her backhanded compliment. "Yes, but even so, we must give her time."
"We have time?" Alicia asked her. "Two weeks ago, we were running through wilderness, then, we had no time. Now… what is it that we do next?" she exclaimed, arms opened wide, frustration obvious on her pixie features. "Do we even know if we're still being hunted? I don't even have anywhere else to go after this…"
Lavian merely shrugged. "There's purpose into rushing headlong into more problems?" she asked, a balance to Alicia's righteousness. "Now, is the null between activity -time to rest, time to recover, and time to think."
Deflated, Alicia glared at her partner. "Whatever, its been too long that we've left those too alone upstairs."
With a smirk, Lavian laughed softly. "I remember that you were always first in pushing Agrias to, how you say… loosen up?"
"Not in that state, damn it!" Alicia bit back. "Her lost as she is, and Ramza just being…"
"Being?" Lavian prodded.
"Upstairs," Alicia grunted, gesturing at the roof above them. "Now."
With a shrug, Lavian accompanied her, not so much as to discover and prevent intrigue, but rather, prevent her partner from turning it into one. Though, for a moment, she did feel some remorse at potentially curtailing a special moment for Agrias.
Eyeing the two slyly from the corner of his eye, Mustadio looked towards the bartender. "When the cat's away," he murmured.
"Aye," the barkeep agreed, shaking his head ruefully, before taking the stein he had finished cleaning and pouring himself ale from the tap.
"Never heard of the mice actually looking for the cat, though," the engineer thought out loud.
At the threshold, Alicia hesitated, wondering if her decision to bring her dagger would be taking the joke too far, as Lavian's disapproving glare was reminder of the times that indeed, the chemist-knight had gone beyond the line.
"It does not sound as if they are doing anything inside…" Lavian remarked.
"You know how to pick locks?" Alicia asked, pulling a hairpin from the auburn bun that she kept hair on.
Shrugging, Lavian reached out and turned the knob, slowly pushing the door past the clasp, and looking sidelong at her companion, several mangled hairpins in her hand.
"Not. A. Word," Alicia hissed out. a scowl on her face.
A wan smile graced Lavian's expression, before she pushed open the door and let out a small gasp at the image of Ramza and Agrias. Together. Underneath a blanket. Agrias' shoulders bare. Her legs exposed, unclothed. A smile of satisfaction upon her sleeping visage, skin a rosy hue, and Ramza looking down upon her softly, stroking her hair with his free hand as the two were spooned on the cushions.
As Alicia gawked from underneath Lavian's hand clasped against her mouth, Ramza looked up at them, indifferent, as if he had just woken up from a nap, or another, more rigorous and pacifying activity.
He combed his hand through her strands, and as she cooed in slumber, he brought a finger to his lips.
Dumbstruck, the two knights had ideas ranging through their mind, from what was hopefully an innocent event, to indecent, to him taking advantage of her.
Edgewise, Lavian remarked to her partner, "Well, you got what you wished for."
"Five words… five words, Ramza," Alicia muttered, the sheathed dagger in her hands now having purpose, her hand barely kept under control.
"It's not what you think," Ramza calmly replied, a cupid's smile on his demure face, before returning his eyes to the sleeping Holy Knight.
Alicia advanced on his now, her mithril dagger bared, held low and reverse, the ideal position to drive it in deepest into flesh and to rake. While she had no intention of really hurting him, and inside she believed that things may not be as they seem, Alicia felt that for pulling a stunt like this, she would show them who the trickster was in her trio. "That was a contraction," she emphasized, fire in her emerald eyes, "making it six."
"You are one to talk," Lavian remarked, a little alarmed now, but still feeling surreal as to the state in which she found her superior and the boy whom had befriended them in all, Agrias more so in particular in this situation.
At this moment, Agrias and her hazel eyes golden with fury awoke. She tensed under the sheets, opening it and revealing that she was clothed -barely- by a silken slip slid low. She took a small breath, and as Ramza began to move, the purr that he drew out of her turned to a soft growl. "Move, and you die. All of you."
Taking the culmination of his experiences avec les femmes fatale, Ramza chose the best action; he did as he was told, and he resumed his exploration of her hair, committing to memory as much of her features by touch, vision, and scent that he was able, the first time in his memory that someone opened his heart to him in mutual bond.
"I'm still your leader, and I will never abandon any of my girls," Agrias gently admonished them, "but this, right now, is something that I need," the desperation of her situation evident in the chord of her voice, melancholy, with underlying passion and sheer desire underneath the desperation that still wore upon her. "I am healing, and I feel as I'm in a cocoon," she stated, "so, leave us be, and I will emerge as I was before; different form, but the same soul."
Flustered, Alicia made a martial about-face, turning her head to look back upon the two. "We were only worried for you." She took a small sigh. "The same goes for you Ramza. Like it or not, you're part of us now." Another shrug.
Taking her subdued companion under her wing, Lavian remarked to them, "Well, congratulations to the both of you."
"Pray tell, oh maiden more holier than thine," Agrias crossly tossed out, "what do you mean by that?"
Lavian only sighed. "Little steps, I see, Ramza."
Ramza grunted softly as Agrias felt him nod in agreement from behind where he spooned her. "I felt your head move…" she murmured quixotically, both stern and sensual… "both of them," she whispered only for his ears.
"See you in the morning," Ramza jibed gently towards the two, earning himself another elbow, one replaced by her hand resting and beginning to knead his chest as he reached under her with his trapped hand and tossed the deep green and fuzzy blanket over the two of them.
Alicia and Lavian laughed with and at him for that bold statement. As they closed the door, Alicia poked her head in for a parting shot. "Take care of her for us Ramza… real," she emphasized with a conspiratorial air, "real good care."
Author's Notes
The story refuses to fade away, and in truth, its what my original projects have taken their wings from. Hopefully, my style can evolve or at least recapture what it was before.
Oh yes, the footnotes:
Barque: A shallow-draft boat with triangular sails. Effective only in calm, coastal waters.
Hopefully, Agrias and Ramza's maturity has begun to show, as well as bit of introspection on who Ramza could have been, and the person he is becoming now.
A moment of peace for the two of them… perhaps I'll give them more.
Ramza isn't as naïve or innocent as he was in FFT, and likewise, I'm keeping Agrias away from the nun stereotype… humanizing her, even if it means stripping away some of her protective layers.
Author's Notes