[fic][Final Fantasy Tactics] 20 Stories
Oct. 26th, 2006 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonsheenTitle: Twenty Stories
Series: Final Fantasy Tactics
Character(s): Ramza Beoulve
Word Count: 1,833
Summary: 20 excerpts from the memoirs of Ramza Beoulve...
1. “The night my father died, I returned to my room to find a bundle on my bed. It was no larger than the circle of my index finger and thumb, and felt no heavier than the shred of cloth in which it was wrapped. In it was a pair of small, dark ornaments made of a polished mountain ore. At first, they were cool to touch; I held them to my breast and soon they became warm. They were my mother’s earrings. My father had kept them on his person every day since the one that she had departed…”
2. “I am the third son of Balbanes Beoulve, Knight of Heaven and Hero of the Realm. I am also his unnatural one. The facts of my birth and my saint are, as such, blurry and recorded as guesswork at best. These facts, however, I can tell you are true: I was born on the outskirts of the Battle of the Red Woods, one of my father’s many military successes. He came riding back to camp as I gave my first cries. My mother named me Ramza, for at that time she was certain that it was the season of the Ram. As they had no astrologists in their party at the time, they could only estimate that this was true. My mother was a stubborn woman. No one was inclined to contradict her.”
3. “I won’t lie. I wished for war. I wished for it with all the heathen passions and bloodthirstiness that would have shamed the priests had I confessed to it. I was restless in the castle. I was restless in school. I wanted nothing more than glory and remembrance. There seemed no greater sin, I thought, than to die in obscurity… children believe in some very foolish things.”
4. “Fort Zeakden stands at the very edge of the plains of Fovoham. It overlooks the Larner Channel. A bastion against the Romandan fleet. At its height, it supported up to 432 units. The Great Larner Conflict occurred here. 2,000 Romandans attempted to storm the beaches below. They did not take account for the slipperiness of the slopes nor the advanced strength and range of the Zeakden cannons. Five ships sank before they thought to return fire. Out of 2,000 men, approximately one fourth of that made it to shore. They were quickly dispatched by our archers and mages. It was a brutal success.”
5. “Once, my brother Zalbag stopped a road side, knelt down, and took a flower from a little girl. She had Wished him luck in his next battle. He had thanked her by making a gift of one of his rings. It was too large for her hand, but she kept it forever afterwards and said very little about it again.
Teta Hyral was as quiet about her joys as she was about her suffering, you see.”
6. “In one summer, during a brief armistice, my sister sent me exactly 23 letters, talking eagerly about the guests that had frequented the monastery at that time. I read every one of them at least twenty times and kept them all. One day someone will knock over the helms of that suit of armor and find either a great deal of parchment or a handful of dust.”
7. “Rafa Galthana… was a woman of a very admirable character. I would never know, sitting by the campsite, when she would decide to slip out of the shadows to join me there. I never minded if she did. She thought better of me than I did. I hope she held herself in as much esteem as I held her. …I liked her rather a lot.”
8. “ ‘Hell, Ramza!’ Delita swore, ‘Do you want to kill me?’
‘Oh, shut up and be the woman,’ I snapped. Loud enough that Zalbag looked pale that evening when we stumbled in for dinner. I should have told him that we were practicing how to dance.”
9. “My first time on a chocobo I was actually less than a few days old and being carried in the crook of my father’s arm. My first time on a chocobo as the sole rider I was seven and sneaking out under the household’s nose. I lost control of the bird. I ended up halfway across the plains. I broke my arm. I had to be rescued by a farm boy and his sister-- some good came of that episode.”
10. “Gallionne is known for the strength and skill of its cavalry.”
11. “ ‘To my dearest sister.
‘I’d say I hope you’ve given the monks no cause to leave of the service of God, but given the contents of your last letter I realize you would just consider that a slow month.’”
12. “‘Brother dear,’ she laughed, ‘How exactly will you stop me?’”
The truth is: I had no idea.”
13. “A stable boy saw a young man standing outside the gates of the Beoulve estate, not long after the end of the Fifty Year War. This man looked to be around my brother Zalbag’s age. He was calling for him by name. The gates didn’t open. He yelled and yelled, and as far as the story was told to me, they never did. Not long after that, word of the Death Corps came to us, a new order, led by Wiglaf Folles.”
14. “A blow under her right arm and she fell to her knees, the point of her blade still angled upwards. I could feel it just miss my chest as I stumbled backwards against her next surging lunge. I struck, and I struck again, but these she deflected with a wild look in her eyes. She had me at the water’s edge in an instant. Her hair a mess of dirt and blood. Her next strike we locked guards, and I pulled her arm up, and, somehow, I managed to get the better of her…”
15. “ You asked me: ‘Why is it these things I grasp are always so swift to pass through my fingers?’
I don’t know. Had I been able to tell you, I would have. I wish I had. I wanted to ignore the differences between us, as if by closing my eyes and plugging my ears they might go away… but you suffered, didn’t you? We killed you too, didn’t we? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You were as dear to me as my own, and I did you a terrible wrong, and I am so, so sorry.”
16. “I ran.”
17. “Sixteen men. I counted the bodies once, and again. They were still warm. It would be some time before they crystallized. It was a brief skirmish. They’d been desperate, and poorly stocked. Their armor was pitted. Their boots worn through. They’d been running for some time before they’d come across us, and though they were deserters, men who had abandoned king and country, men who had fled from the battlefields—how was it that they were any different than I? The man nearest to me gave a groan. I knelt by him, but he was gone before the chemist could be called. It had begun to rain. I thought about my father, thought about what he would’ve said of me. I heard the sound of talons scraping to a stop on the stones and looked up. A single rider wearing the colors of Goltana. It was Olan Durai. Even in the dark of the downpour, he was unmistakable. He stared at me wordlessly, and I stared back. Such was our positions, then. There was nothing to be done about it.”
18. “‘We must leave immediately-- I am sorry to inconvenience you, Princess, but we must stay on the move.’"
‘I understand,’ said the princess, watching me quietly. With the knowing look she gave, I didn’t doubt it. She was very aware of her circumstance. ‘I don’t mind. May I ask you something?’
I felt my neck grow tense. ‘Of course,’ I replied. She smiled. It somehow seemed sad. She took my hand in both of hers. That she should show me this much regard was a surprise. I flushed and bowed my head.
‘Your full name,’ she said. ‘I do not believe I caught it before.’
‘Ramza Ruglia,’ I mumbled, not looking at her. I hadn’t said it before.
She let out a breath; her hands went tighter over my palm. ‘Oh…’
‘Princess Ovelia?’ I asked, alarmed. ‘Is something wrong?’
She let me go and shook her head; whatever affliction had taken her for a moment was gone now. ‘Oh. No. No, you just seemed familiar to me. I thought perhaps…ah. Nevermind. My apologies, Ramza.’
‘Princess…’ I began.
‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said.
19. “She fell free with a terrible, rending sound. I ran to her. She was frighteningly still. Her face and hair was covered with blood. I thought she was dead. I didn’t want to believe it. Pulling her into my arms I said her name over and over again: Alma. Alma. She didn’t move. Above me, I knew that the Ajora had turned her eyes unto us. I didn’t care. Alma, I cried. Alma. Alma. Someone put their hand on my shoulder. Count Orlandu, his other hand on the hilt of his sword. To my left, Mustadio, pale as a sheet, raised the barrel of his gun. In my arms, my sister gave a sudden heaving gasp.
‘Brother,’ she whispered, tears in her eyes. ‘Brother, you have to…’
Furious and bleeding, the Virgin raised her swords. ‘Stop crying,’ she snarled. She swung them down.
20. “Mountain mercenaries wear earrings as a sign of their kinship to one another. A strangely exotic practice, for one that exists within the borders of my homeland. My mother pierced my ears when I was still very small, in accordance with this tradition. She did it with a sharpened needle that she held over a candle. She held me in her lap and rubbed my head until the tears passed. It was the softest I remembered her being. She was so often in fur capes and black armor. She was so often by my father’s side, sweeping out the gates. Yet when it counts I remember these moments. The way she would touch my cheek and tell me to be proud of who I was. The way her earrings would sometimes flash as she whipped her head around and put her hand on the knife she kept always at her side. The way she swore fealty to her lord, my father, to whom she owed a great debt and to whom she served loyally to her very end. My father gave me her earrings, the night he died. I wear one now, and have for many years, as lord’s son, as a bastard, as heretic, and as an exile. The other is far away now, in a distant land. It is worn by a king. I remember him well.”
Series: Final Fantasy Tactics
Character(s): Ramza Beoulve
Word Count: 1,833
Summary: 20 excerpts from the memoirs of Ramza Beoulve...
1. “The night my father died, I returned to my room to find a bundle on my bed. It was no larger than the circle of my index finger and thumb, and felt no heavier than the shred of cloth in which it was wrapped. In it was a pair of small, dark ornaments made of a polished mountain ore. At first, they were cool to touch; I held them to my breast and soon they became warm. They were my mother’s earrings. My father had kept them on his person every day since the one that she had departed…”
2. “I am the third son of Balbanes Beoulve, Knight of Heaven and Hero of the Realm. I am also his unnatural one. The facts of my birth and my saint are, as such, blurry and recorded as guesswork at best. These facts, however, I can tell you are true: I was born on the outskirts of the Battle of the Red Woods, one of my father’s many military successes. He came riding back to camp as I gave my first cries. My mother named me Ramza, for at that time she was certain that it was the season of the Ram. As they had no astrologists in their party at the time, they could only estimate that this was true. My mother was a stubborn woman. No one was inclined to contradict her.”
3. “I won’t lie. I wished for war. I wished for it with all the heathen passions and bloodthirstiness that would have shamed the priests had I confessed to it. I was restless in the castle. I was restless in school. I wanted nothing more than glory and remembrance. There seemed no greater sin, I thought, than to die in obscurity… children believe in some very foolish things.”
4. “Fort Zeakden stands at the very edge of the plains of Fovoham. It overlooks the Larner Channel. A bastion against the Romandan fleet. At its height, it supported up to 432 units. The Great Larner Conflict occurred here. 2,000 Romandans attempted to storm the beaches below. They did not take account for the slipperiness of the slopes nor the advanced strength and range of the Zeakden cannons. Five ships sank before they thought to return fire. Out of 2,000 men, approximately one fourth of that made it to shore. They were quickly dispatched by our archers and mages. It was a brutal success.”
5. “Once, my brother Zalbag stopped a road side, knelt down, and took a flower from a little girl. She had Wished him luck in his next battle. He had thanked her by making a gift of one of his rings. It was too large for her hand, but she kept it forever afterwards and said very little about it again.
Teta Hyral was as quiet about her joys as she was about her suffering, you see.”
6. “In one summer, during a brief armistice, my sister sent me exactly 23 letters, talking eagerly about the guests that had frequented the monastery at that time. I read every one of them at least twenty times and kept them all. One day someone will knock over the helms of that suit of armor and find either a great deal of parchment or a handful of dust.”
7. “Rafa Galthana… was a woman of a very admirable character. I would never know, sitting by the campsite, when she would decide to slip out of the shadows to join me there. I never minded if she did. She thought better of me than I did. I hope she held herself in as much esteem as I held her. …I liked her rather a lot.”
8. “ ‘Hell, Ramza!’ Delita swore, ‘Do you want to kill me?’
‘Oh, shut up and be the woman,’ I snapped. Loud enough that Zalbag looked pale that evening when we stumbled in for dinner. I should have told him that we were practicing how to dance.”
9. “My first time on a chocobo I was actually less than a few days old and being carried in the crook of my father’s arm. My first time on a chocobo as the sole rider I was seven and sneaking out under the household’s nose. I lost control of the bird. I ended up halfway across the plains. I broke my arm. I had to be rescued by a farm boy and his sister-- some good came of that episode.”
10. “Gallionne is known for the strength and skill of its cavalry.”
11. “ ‘To my dearest sister.
‘I’d say I hope you’ve given the monks no cause to leave of the service of God, but given the contents of your last letter I realize you would just consider that a slow month.’”
12. “‘Brother dear,’ she laughed, ‘How exactly will you stop me?’”
The truth is: I had no idea.”
13. “A stable boy saw a young man standing outside the gates of the Beoulve estate, not long after the end of the Fifty Year War. This man looked to be around my brother Zalbag’s age. He was calling for him by name. The gates didn’t open. He yelled and yelled, and as far as the story was told to me, they never did. Not long after that, word of the Death Corps came to us, a new order, led by Wiglaf Folles.”
14. “A blow under her right arm and she fell to her knees, the point of her blade still angled upwards. I could feel it just miss my chest as I stumbled backwards against her next surging lunge. I struck, and I struck again, but these she deflected with a wild look in her eyes. She had me at the water’s edge in an instant. Her hair a mess of dirt and blood. Her next strike we locked guards, and I pulled her arm up, and, somehow, I managed to get the better of her…”
15. “ You asked me: ‘Why is it these things I grasp are always so swift to pass through my fingers?’
I don’t know. Had I been able to tell you, I would have. I wish I had. I wanted to ignore the differences between us, as if by closing my eyes and plugging my ears they might go away… but you suffered, didn’t you? We killed you too, didn’t we? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You were as dear to me as my own, and I did you a terrible wrong, and I am so, so sorry.”
16. “I ran.”
17. “Sixteen men. I counted the bodies once, and again. They were still warm. It would be some time before they crystallized. It was a brief skirmish. They’d been desperate, and poorly stocked. Their armor was pitted. Their boots worn through. They’d been running for some time before they’d come across us, and though they were deserters, men who had abandoned king and country, men who had fled from the battlefields—how was it that they were any different than I? The man nearest to me gave a groan. I knelt by him, but he was gone before the chemist could be called. It had begun to rain. I thought about my father, thought about what he would’ve said of me. I heard the sound of talons scraping to a stop on the stones and looked up. A single rider wearing the colors of Goltana. It was Olan Durai. Even in the dark of the downpour, he was unmistakable. He stared at me wordlessly, and I stared back. Such was our positions, then. There was nothing to be done about it.”
18. “‘We must leave immediately-- I am sorry to inconvenience you, Princess, but we must stay on the move.’"
‘I understand,’ said the princess, watching me quietly. With the knowing look she gave, I didn’t doubt it. She was very aware of her circumstance. ‘I don’t mind. May I ask you something?’
I felt my neck grow tense. ‘Of course,’ I replied. She smiled. It somehow seemed sad. She took my hand in both of hers. That she should show me this much regard was a surprise. I flushed and bowed my head.
‘Your full name,’ she said. ‘I do not believe I caught it before.’
‘Ramza Ruglia,’ I mumbled, not looking at her. I hadn’t said it before.
She let out a breath; her hands went tighter over my palm. ‘Oh…’
‘Princess Ovelia?’ I asked, alarmed. ‘Is something wrong?’
She let me go and shook her head; whatever affliction had taken her for a moment was gone now. ‘Oh. No. No, you just seemed familiar to me. I thought perhaps…ah. Nevermind. My apologies, Ramza.’
‘Princess…’ I began.
‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said.
19. “She fell free with a terrible, rending sound. I ran to her. She was frighteningly still. Her face and hair was covered with blood. I thought she was dead. I didn’t want to believe it. Pulling her into my arms I said her name over and over again: Alma. Alma. She didn’t move. Above me, I knew that the Ajora had turned her eyes unto us. I didn’t care. Alma, I cried. Alma. Alma. Someone put their hand on my shoulder. Count Orlandu, his other hand on the hilt of his sword. To my left, Mustadio, pale as a sheet, raised the barrel of his gun. In my arms, my sister gave a sudden heaving gasp.
‘Brother,’ she whispered, tears in her eyes. ‘Brother, you have to…’
Furious and bleeding, the Virgin raised her swords. ‘Stop crying,’ she snarled. She swung them down.
20. “Mountain mercenaries wear earrings as a sign of their kinship to one another. A strangely exotic practice, for one that exists within the borders of my homeland. My mother pierced my ears when I was still very small, in accordance with this tradition. She did it with a sharpened needle that she held over a candle. She held me in her lap and rubbed my head until the tears passed. It was the softest I remembered her being. She was so often in fur capes and black armor. She was so often by my father’s side, sweeping out the gates. Yet when it counts I remember these moments. The way she would touch my cheek and tell me to be proud of who I was. The way her earrings would sometimes flash as she whipped her head around and put her hand on the knife she kept always at her side. The way she swore fealty to her lord, my father, to whom she owed a great debt and to whom she served loyally to her very end. My father gave me her earrings, the night he died. I wear one now, and have for many years, as lord’s son, as a bastard, as heretic, and as an exile. The other is far away now, in a distant land. It is worn by a king. I remember him well.”
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Date: 2006-10-27 12:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-27 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-28 12:26 pm (UTC)