another story
Jul. 4th, 2010 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yukieI don't know what this is besides 'weirdass possibly-tenebrous-verse keyblade war crackwagon riding'. So there you go.
In the FF3 vein of 'too much dark = bad; too much light = just as bad'.
Original characters out the yin-yang. But you'll see familiar people up in that noise.
(not done yet, this.)
***
it's said that long ago people waged war over the light. that this strife and unrest was what led to the walls rising, and the worlds becoming separate from one another.
this is true, but this is not the entirety of what is true.
people sought the light in whatever shape or form they could: keys, magic, artifacts, and people. of those people who carried the light, the most powerful were the keyblade masters and the princesses of heart.
the problem is, these people were sought as possessions.
the moment you reduce a living being to a prize you'll be gazing down the bore of more trouble than you can imagine.
supposing the princess isn't interested in going with you and wants to stay where she is or go with your enemy?
supposing the keyblade master finds your philosophy repugnant or ill-informed or just plain stupid?
the right thing to do then is to leave them be. they're people, you see, and people have the right to choose their own fate, their own destiny, their own path.
unfortunately, those who sought the light above all else forgot this.
no one's hands were clean and no one was without blame; light and dark alight were foolish. but the ones who sought the light at the expense of all else brought ruin onto the heads of all their people.
- thaeron
***
"So they're from where?"
"We don't know. We know they're paladins but that doesn't exactly narrow it down. The fact that the leader's a woman does somewhat, but not enough." Ifalna flung up her hands in exasperation. "If they hadn't come here the way they did they'd be awake and mobile and complaining about the food by now - "
Thaeron watched the paladins' young leader twitch in her sleep and turn her head slightly as if searching for something. She and all of her phalanx were suffering from an advanced degree of exposure - to the cold, to the elements, and to the chaotic Dark beyond the Door. Doubtless they'd be under for a while recovering. Ifalna and the other physicians were doing the best they could with limited supplies and time. The hospital was a crowded place; the end of the war hadn't brought the end of the suffering.
"If I were to hazard a guess," said Thaeron, "I'd go with Valendia or Wendell. Both of them have enormous brigades of paladins. But Wendell wasn't ever out this far. All they did was guard their borders and talk back and forth with us, so unless a Door opened of itself there I'd rule that out for the time being. Valendia was all over everyone's doorstep..."
Ifalna made a face. "Maybe they were trying to get here and - "
" - And weren't told how ridiculous the flow of the World's Seas are here?" supplied Yuujin, who was on his way past pushing an empty cart. "Think they capsized? I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if so, their ships were pathetic."
"Yuujin," said Ifalna, "come on now."
The student grinned and nudged his glasses back up his nose with the knuckle of his index finger. "I wasn't insulting them this time; I was insulting their engineering, such as it is."
"Well," said Thaeron, "a shipwreck's not out of the question. We're a Wellspring after all. if they got caught up in the turbulence - not much one can do but ride that out - and if your vessel's not up to it, there's not much you can do about that."
"No."
Thaeron paused, then turned back to the bed; the leader of the paladins was staring blearily at him with yellow-tinged eyes.
"Not a shipwreck?" he said quietly.
"Not - " She made an effort to sit up, failed, and lolled, looking dizzy. "Not a shipwreck. They left us..."
"Who did?" Ifalna's tone was mild but her expression wasn't.
"The Cardinal," said the paladin, "and the Steward. And my - my - "
She started to shudder then and Thaeron moved to help her sit up. Once upright she buried her face in her hands.
"My betrothed. For the Light. He wanted the princess. He was supposed to be there when we arrived at the rendezvous point. He wasn't there. He was looking for her. None of us could hold the gate. We tried. The door closed--"
Her throat rasped and Yuujin handed over one of the little flasks of infused water. She looked at it as if it were about to bite her nose off for a moment, but need overcame fear and she drained the whole thing in one go.
"Better?" Yuujin asked.
She nodded and rubbed her throat. "'S warm."
"That'll help with the exposure symptoms but you're not going to be out of here for a while and neither's your phalanx. You'll have to deal with iffy food for the time being - which reminds me I ought to get you some. I'll be back in a sec."
As the intern and his trolley vanished around the corner, the paladin watched him intently.
"I - can see - "
She sounded amazed and horrified.
"I can see clearly - "
She turned to Ifalna and Thaeron.
"I can see his heart."
"That might fade or might not," said Thaeron. "We don't know. Some people the Dark leaves their system and they go on as ever. Some it remains and they're like you - with clearer sight or sharper ears. Able to see the hidden things."
She looked at Thaeron's chest, and Ifalna's, and her own, and then she clutched at the nightshirt with a wordless noise of relief.
"I can see mine."
"You're all right now," said Ifalna. "No one will harm you here. No one will call you a heretic and try to hurt you. We won't allow it."
From her words, she was guessing the paladin was Valendian. From the paladin's reaction, Ifalna guessed right.
"They would. Then. I can't go back. None of us can ever go back..."
"You can stay here," Ifalna replied. "As long as you wish."
"We're your enemy."
"Not any more. Can you tell me what happened when the door closed? And after? Do you feel able? If not, tell me so."
The paladin closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "We didn't know we'd gone through that one but we had. We were there for...for...I'm not sure. Maybe weeks. Not a year. Some of us are gone. Disappeared. I couldn't save all of us. There were more of us than this. We're all that's left."
"You are not a poor leader for having lost soldiers behind the Door," Thaeron said.
"I shouldn't have lost anyone. We should never have been there. We weren't - near it. I thought. "
"That Door is...perplexing really. It can be anywhere but at the same time it's nowhere. That it opened behind another door isn't unheard-of - especially not an artificial one."
She stared. "How did you know?"
"Natural doors don't require a gatekeeper to hold 'em open."
"I didn't know Valendia had the capacity to make those," said Yuujin, who'd just arrived with an insulated mug of vegetable broth and a package of little plain flatbread squares. "I assumed it was your alliance with Vector that was giving you the means to jump around so damn much, but after that pairing broke up - "
"We stole a generator," said the paladin, looking sheepish. "Built our own from its design. We weren't travellers before. Not until the Cardinal declared that we were at war."
Thaeron wrinkled his nose. Cardinal Batistum was a constant pain in everyone's neck. "So off to war you went."
"He said it was our task to protect the Princesses from the Dark - that if they fell into the hands of a Dark regiment they'd be killed or worse. So it was our duty to bring them to Valendia for their own safety."
Yuujin snorted. "Ri-ight..."
"We didn't know," said the Palaidn sharply. "if we had, I never would have brought us to the crossroads. I never would have touched that generator and I never would have believed Helion when he told me he would be waiting for us."
She clenched her fists in the blanket.
"He thought he was in love with her. With the princess. He wasn't. He didn't love her. He loved what she represented. Loved the power she had. Not her."
"What makes you say that?" Thaeron asked.
"The way he looked at her was nothing like the way he used to look at me." She broke off a little bit of flatbread to nibble on. "That wasn't love. That was greed."
"That's not uncommon," Ifalna said.
"Do you know what became of the princess and your betrothed?" Thaeron asked.
The paladin shook her head. "The last I heard, she'd fled from him. ...Why? Do you know of what happened?"
"The princess fled," said Thaeron, "and the man we now know to be your betrothed followed her. She opened a small door into the Corridors and he pursued her. After that, we don't know what became of him. She left the Corridors to the north of here, in Knowlespole. He didn't."
"So then she's safe."
"Yes."
The paladin sighed. "I'm actually glad. I was angry for a while. At her. I know it's stupid."
"Not really." Ifalna nudged the mug of soup closer. "It's a feeling. Feelings just exist. It's the way you handle them that's wise or stupid. And since you were in love with this man and it was her appearance that heralded his starting to ignore you, that's understandable. You didn't chase her with a stick."
The paladin snorted. "No. I didn't. I didn't get much chance to speak to her. But she was kind. Very much so. And I thought, 'well, if this is who she is, then I can understand why he's gone all doe-eyed'. But he hadn't. It wasn't her he had anything for, it was the idea of the power he'd have at hand."
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
"I know I'm not like her and her ilk and I never will be. That everything relies so much upon her and everyone dotes so much on her isn't really her fault. If others are forgotten in her wake, it's not what she wants. It just happens. She was born as she is, and everything else follows..."
She trailed off.
Thaeron said, "You know, it's permissible to be angry with your betrothed for forgetting you."
***
TBC hurrrfff
In the FF3 vein of 'too much dark = bad; too much light = just as bad'.
Original characters out the yin-yang. But you'll see familiar people up in that noise.
(not done yet, this.)
***
it's said that long ago people waged war over the light. that this strife and unrest was what led to the walls rising, and the worlds becoming separate from one another.
this is true, but this is not the entirety of what is true.
people sought the light in whatever shape or form they could: keys, magic, artifacts, and people. of those people who carried the light, the most powerful were the keyblade masters and the princesses of heart.
the problem is, these people were sought as possessions.
the moment you reduce a living being to a prize you'll be gazing down the bore of more trouble than you can imagine.
supposing the princess isn't interested in going with you and wants to stay where she is or go with your enemy?
supposing the keyblade master finds your philosophy repugnant or ill-informed or just plain stupid?
the right thing to do then is to leave them be. they're people, you see, and people have the right to choose their own fate, their own destiny, their own path.
unfortunately, those who sought the light above all else forgot this.
no one's hands were clean and no one was without blame; light and dark alight were foolish. but the ones who sought the light at the expense of all else brought ruin onto the heads of all their people.
- thaeron
***
"So they're from where?"
"We don't know. We know they're paladins but that doesn't exactly narrow it down. The fact that the leader's a woman does somewhat, but not enough." Ifalna flung up her hands in exasperation. "If they hadn't come here the way they did they'd be awake and mobile and complaining about the food by now - "
Thaeron watched the paladins' young leader twitch in her sleep and turn her head slightly as if searching for something. She and all of her phalanx were suffering from an advanced degree of exposure - to the cold, to the elements, and to the chaotic Dark beyond the Door. Doubtless they'd be under for a while recovering. Ifalna and the other physicians were doing the best they could with limited supplies and time. The hospital was a crowded place; the end of the war hadn't brought the end of the suffering.
"If I were to hazard a guess," said Thaeron, "I'd go with Valendia or Wendell. Both of them have enormous brigades of paladins. But Wendell wasn't ever out this far. All they did was guard their borders and talk back and forth with us, so unless a Door opened of itself there I'd rule that out for the time being. Valendia was all over everyone's doorstep..."
Ifalna made a face. "Maybe they were trying to get here and - "
" - And weren't told how ridiculous the flow of the World's Seas are here?" supplied Yuujin, who was on his way past pushing an empty cart. "Think they capsized? I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if so, their ships were pathetic."
"Yuujin," said Ifalna, "come on now."
The student grinned and nudged his glasses back up his nose with the knuckle of his index finger. "I wasn't insulting them this time; I was insulting their engineering, such as it is."
"Well," said Thaeron, "a shipwreck's not out of the question. We're a Wellspring after all. if they got caught up in the turbulence - not much one can do but ride that out - and if your vessel's not up to it, there's not much you can do about that."
"No."
Thaeron paused, then turned back to the bed; the leader of the paladins was staring blearily at him with yellow-tinged eyes.
"Not a shipwreck?" he said quietly.
"Not - " She made an effort to sit up, failed, and lolled, looking dizzy. "Not a shipwreck. They left us..."
"Who did?" Ifalna's tone was mild but her expression wasn't.
"The Cardinal," said the paladin, "and the Steward. And my - my - "
She started to shudder then and Thaeron moved to help her sit up. Once upright she buried her face in her hands.
"My betrothed. For the Light. He wanted the princess. He was supposed to be there when we arrived at the rendezvous point. He wasn't there. He was looking for her. None of us could hold the gate. We tried. The door closed--"
Her throat rasped and Yuujin handed over one of the little flasks of infused water. She looked at it as if it were about to bite her nose off for a moment, but need overcame fear and she drained the whole thing in one go.
"Better?" Yuujin asked.
She nodded and rubbed her throat. "'S warm."
"That'll help with the exposure symptoms but you're not going to be out of here for a while and neither's your phalanx. You'll have to deal with iffy food for the time being - which reminds me I ought to get you some. I'll be back in a sec."
As the intern and his trolley vanished around the corner, the paladin watched him intently.
"I - can see - "
She sounded amazed and horrified.
"I can see clearly - "
She turned to Ifalna and Thaeron.
"I can see his heart."
"That might fade or might not," said Thaeron. "We don't know. Some people the Dark leaves their system and they go on as ever. Some it remains and they're like you - with clearer sight or sharper ears. Able to see the hidden things."
She looked at Thaeron's chest, and Ifalna's, and her own, and then she clutched at the nightshirt with a wordless noise of relief.
"I can see mine."
"You're all right now," said Ifalna. "No one will harm you here. No one will call you a heretic and try to hurt you. We won't allow it."
From her words, she was guessing the paladin was Valendian. From the paladin's reaction, Ifalna guessed right.
"They would. Then. I can't go back. None of us can ever go back..."
"You can stay here," Ifalna replied. "As long as you wish."
"We're your enemy."
"Not any more. Can you tell me what happened when the door closed? And after? Do you feel able? If not, tell me so."
The paladin closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "We didn't know we'd gone through that one but we had. We were there for...for...I'm not sure. Maybe weeks. Not a year. Some of us are gone. Disappeared. I couldn't save all of us. There were more of us than this. We're all that's left."
"You are not a poor leader for having lost soldiers behind the Door," Thaeron said.
"I shouldn't have lost anyone. We should never have been there. We weren't - near it. I thought. "
"That Door is...perplexing really. It can be anywhere but at the same time it's nowhere. That it opened behind another door isn't unheard-of - especially not an artificial one."
She stared. "How did you know?"
"Natural doors don't require a gatekeeper to hold 'em open."
"I didn't know Valendia had the capacity to make those," said Yuujin, who'd just arrived with an insulated mug of vegetable broth and a package of little plain flatbread squares. "I assumed it was your alliance with Vector that was giving you the means to jump around so damn much, but after that pairing broke up - "
"We stole a generator," said the paladin, looking sheepish. "Built our own from its design. We weren't travellers before. Not until the Cardinal declared that we were at war."
Thaeron wrinkled his nose. Cardinal Batistum was a constant pain in everyone's neck. "So off to war you went."
"He said it was our task to protect the Princesses from the Dark - that if they fell into the hands of a Dark regiment they'd be killed or worse. So it was our duty to bring them to Valendia for their own safety."
Yuujin snorted. "Ri-ight..."
"We didn't know," said the Palaidn sharply. "if we had, I never would have brought us to the crossroads. I never would have touched that generator and I never would have believed Helion when he told me he would be waiting for us."
She clenched her fists in the blanket.
"He thought he was in love with her. With the princess. He wasn't. He didn't love her. He loved what she represented. Loved the power she had. Not her."
"What makes you say that?" Thaeron asked.
"The way he looked at her was nothing like the way he used to look at me." She broke off a little bit of flatbread to nibble on. "That wasn't love. That was greed."
"That's not uncommon," Ifalna said.
"Do you know what became of the princess and your betrothed?" Thaeron asked.
The paladin shook her head. "The last I heard, she'd fled from him. ...Why? Do you know of what happened?"
"The princess fled," said Thaeron, "and the man we now know to be your betrothed followed her. She opened a small door into the Corridors and he pursued her. After that, we don't know what became of him. She left the Corridors to the north of here, in Knowlespole. He didn't."
"So then she's safe."
"Yes."
The paladin sighed. "I'm actually glad. I was angry for a while. At her. I know it's stupid."
"Not really." Ifalna nudged the mug of soup closer. "It's a feeling. Feelings just exist. It's the way you handle them that's wise or stupid. And since you were in love with this man and it was her appearance that heralded his starting to ignore you, that's understandable. You didn't chase her with a stick."
The paladin snorted. "No. I didn't. I didn't get much chance to speak to her. But she was kind. Very much so. And I thought, 'well, if this is who she is, then I can understand why he's gone all doe-eyed'. But he hadn't. It wasn't her he had anything for, it was the idea of the power he'd have at hand."
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
"I know I'm not like her and her ilk and I never will be. That everything relies so much upon her and everyone dotes so much on her isn't really her fault. If others are forgotten in her wake, it's not what she wants. It just happens. She was born as she is, and everything else follows..."
She trailed off.
Thaeron said, "You know, it's permissible to be angry with your betrothed for forgetting you."
***
TBC hurrrfff
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Date: 2010-07-05 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-06 04:12 am (UTC)