[final fantasy tactics] [fic] Sore Feet
Jan. 18th, 2007 05:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonsheenTitle: The Sore Feet Song
Series: Final Fantasy Tactics
Character(s): Beowulf Kadmus
Warnings: ONLY FOR WHAT GOD GAVE HIM
Summary: The Legendary Tale of the Heretic vs. The Great Sweegy Hydra...
The hunt had not gone well for Beowulf. The petitioner’s crude sketching of the beast had been a promising one: its size and gait a possible match, the description of its glowing eyes, the length of its teeth, but what he came upon the wood turned out to be little more than a hydra of a…slightly larger girth than normal. The disappointment aside, he made it a point to dispatch the creature quickly. It had been attacking traders on a well traveled forest route, if the debris in its lair was any indication. These were days when the kingdom lacked enough in food and dress, without stray monsters making it even more difficult for the merchants and the people who relied on them. Everyone was better for the creature’s death. He could only hope a hunter of a similar caliber would not apply the same reasoning for the quarry for which he still searched.
As it stood, the hydra had made a mess of him. One of the heads had caught him off guard and, winding around from behind, doused him with a mysterious liquid. It stunk to high hell, dripped in slow viscous gobs, and was probably hopelessly easy to set ablaze. Beowulf was not looking forward to returning to town in such a state, but really there was nothing for it but to look at things from the better angle. It had not been the her, true enough, but that also meant she’d not been attacking innocent travelers. He had a new bounty to collect. He had been victorious over a very wicked being. He had obtained his supper for that evening. Not the worst hunt he’d ever had, then. Finding heart in this, Beowulf lifted the very ugly and very dead fowl by its stiff scaly feet.
“Granted, you won’t be feeding any armies,” he said to it, stuffing it into the thick leather of his rucksack, where its scent would be dampened from any roving beasts. “But you will be feeding me. Mark these words, my difficult friend, that’s a fine accomplishment.” He trudged back up the slope.
The path was a ways off but, proof that God did yet have a place for someone who didn’t take everything like a cranky house coeurl, he soon heard the sound of water. It seemed a worthy detour to take. He was rewarded by a fresh, forest pool, bubbling under the steady slope of a modest waterfall. Oh, thank the heavens, it’d been too long. Throwing caution, and his cape, immediately to the wind, Beowulf set down his packs and stripped off all but what his mother had given him. It was still the thick of summer. The pool was cool, but not bitterly so, and even if it had been the chill was a welcome change to the sweat and the grit and the hydra’s oil. At its deepest, the water came to his waist. The hunter held his nose and let his legs slip from under him. He plunged down to the very bottom and, emerging with a smooth, tumbled stone, pressed for the falls with a more thorough scrubbing in mind. The flowing water felt damnably good as it hit his shoulders and streamed down his face. The forest’s luxuries were a rare and wondrous thing. He set about scraping away the residue of his fight.
He thought about the lake that the fed the orchards his family had owned. How could he not? He’d spent his boyhood there, carousing when he had not been learning the way of the sword, when he had not been the chasing poachers and thieves that frequently sought to sully their good lord’s lands with their presence. Lionel nobility had always had the advantage of space and mild weather, not to be locked up for long, miserable storm seasons like those of Limberry stock. Truly he had spent more time out and about his father’s lands than in his father’s keep. Then he had set out to fight the war, then he had joined the Knights Templar, and long gone were the hills and the apple trees. Long gone was that lake where he’d run about bare-chested with the dogs. It didn’t stop him from telling a woman he would show her that place some day. It was the sort of promise born in the boastings of an utterly besotted fool, but he held onto the ragged hope that some day he might yet keep it. If not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then…well. He’d thought of it like that for years now.
His reverie was broken by the awareness of movement filtered through the sound of water in his ears. Beowulf opened his eyes and saw… a wet blur. He stepped out from under the waterfall and heard immediately the most wretched, half-swallowed barking excuse for a language he’d ever had the misfortunate of being familiar with. A group of goblins were grouched by the bank of the pool, in the process of taking their liberties with his vestments. One of them was wearing his cape around its shoulders. The other was pawing at his pack…
“Oh, Sweet Saint Mateus’ balls like hell you will,” growled Beowulf, barreling forward with a shout. He moved faster than the little beasts had reckoned, launching a sharp spike of blizzard into their midst. His fingers found his rune blade right quick, but they retreated quicker, taking with them the lightest things that they had to grab: which were his clothes. Mindless of all but the outrage of it, Beowulf charged after them, bramble slapping his bare thighs. They left a clumsy trail, dropping things as they went. He found his half emptied bag, his torn gil pouch, his ascot.
A well placed spell had one of the little buggers on his ass in the form of a very warty little toad. It squirmed on its back, legs flailing, startled at the sudden loss of most of its previous body mass. Beowulf thought it was justice done fair. He knelt, to retrieve what it had dropped…
…and, tucking the dead bird under his arm, stood in clear sight of a group of travelers, paused at the commotion. They consisted mainly of an old woman, her daughter, and what was either a son or a husband. They had a small cart, covered with a canvas and drawn by a skinny, ferocious looking chocobo. All three and the bird stared with a mix of shock and clear alarm at what was, in all appearances, a mad man just staggered out of the wood. A mad man wearing little more than a few scrapes and the rueful grin that he offered them, as he leaned his elbow against the nearest tree and saluted them smartly.
“Afternoon, fine sir, fair ladies.”
The daughter had her hand on a blade at her hip. Beowulf answered this by stabbing his neatly into the ground in front of him. He propped one foot up onto the hilt of it, bending his leg at such an angle as to afford him some modesty-- for the women’s sake, at the very least.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard tale of a beast called the Holy Wyrm? Tall as that bough there? Body black as night? Eyes green as Romandan lanterns? No? Ah, well. Carry on, then! Good travels to you, and may your day be less eventful than mine.”
“And so after I collected my bounty on that fiend’s…heads, I bought myself a new pair of trousers,” finished Beowulf, his arm draped over the shoulder of the Lady Reis, who was coiled like a serpent against his leg. “Oh. And that’s how I defeated the Sweegy Hydra, I suppose…”
“I see,” said Ramza Beoulve who, over the campfire, could only stare.
“Yup,” remarked Mustadio, faintly. “Definitely not how my Pa told that one.”
The hunter laughed, heartily “Yes. Well. Some things do get omitted in the retelling of these things. I’m sure your father’s version much more flattering.” He glanced down at Reis and, to her and the whole camp, admitted: “It did get rather chilly, you see…”
Series: Final Fantasy Tactics
Character(s): Beowulf Kadmus
Warnings: ONLY FOR WHAT GOD GAVE HIM
Summary: The Legendary Tale of the Heretic vs. The Great Sweegy Hydra...
The hunt had not gone well for Beowulf. The petitioner’s crude sketching of the beast had been a promising one: its size and gait a possible match, the description of its glowing eyes, the length of its teeth, but what he came upon the wood turned out to be little more than a hydra of a…slightly larger girth than normal. The disappointment aside, he made it a point to dispatch the creature quickly. It had been attacking traders on a well traveled forest route, if the debris in its lair was any indication. These were days when the kingdom lacked enough in food and dress, without stray monsters making it even more difficult for the merchants and the people who relied on them. Everyone was better for the creature’s death. He could only hope a hunter of a similar caliber would not apply the same reasoning for the quarry for which he still searched.
As it stood, the hydra had made a mess of him. One of the heads had caught him off guard and, winding around from behind, doused him with a mysterious liquid. It stunk to high hell, dripped in slow viscous gobs, and was probably hopelessly easy to set ablaze. Beowulf was not looking forward to returning to town in such a state, but really there was nothing for it but to look at things from the better angle. It had not been the her, true enough, but that also meant she’d not been attacking innocent travelers. He had a new bounty to collect. He had been victorious over a very wicked being. He had obtained his supper for that evening. Not the worst hunt he’d ever had, then. Finding heart in this, Beowulf lifted the very ugly and very dead fowl by its stiff scaly feet.
“Granted, you won’t be feeding any armies,” he said to it, stuffing it into the thick leather of his rucksack, where its scent would be dampened from any roving beasts. “But you will be feeding me. Mark these words, my difficult friend, that’s a fine accomplishment.” He trudged back up the slope.
The path was a ways off but, proof that God did yet have a place for someone who didn’t take everything like a cranky house coeurl, he soon heard the sound of water. It seemed a worthy detour to take. He was rewarded by a fresh, forest pool, bubbling under the steady slope of a modest waterfall. Oh, thank the heavens, it’d been too long. Throwing caution, and his cape, immediately to the wind, Beowulf set down his packs and stripped off all but what his mother had given him. It was still the thick of summer. The pool was cool, but not bitterly so, and even if it had been the chill was a welcome change to the sweat and the grit and the hydra’s oil. At its deepest, the water came to his waist. The hunter held his nose and let his legs slip from under him. He plunged down to the very bottom and, emerging with a smooth, tumbled stone, pressed for the falls with a more thorough scrubbing in mind. The flowing water felt damnably good as it hit his shoulders and streamed down his face. The forest’s luxuries were a rare and wondrous thing. He set about scraping away the residue of his fight.
He thought about the lake that the fed the orchards his family had owned. How could he not? He’d spent his boyhood there, carousing when he had not been learning the way of the sword, when he had not been the chasing poachers and thieves that frequently sought to sully their good lord’s lands with their presence. Lionel nobility had always had the advantage of space and mild weather, not to be locked up for long, miserable storm seasons like those of Limberry stock. Truly he had spent more time out and about his father’s lands than in his father’s keep. Then he had set out to fight the war, then he had joined the Knights Templar, and long gone were the hills and the apple trees. Long gone was that lake where he’d run about bare-chested with the dogs. It didn’t stop him from telling a woman he would show her that place some day. It was the sort of promise born in the boastings of an utterly besotted fool, but he held onto the ragged hope that some day he might yet keep it. If not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then…well. He’d thought of it like that for years now.
His reverie was broken by the awareness of movement filtered through the sound of water in his ears. Beowulf opened his eyes and saw… a wet blur. He stepped out from under the waterfall and heard immediately the most wretched, half-swallowed barking excuse for a language he’d ever had the misfortunate of being familiar with. A group of goblins were grouched by the bank of the pool, in the process of taking their liberties with his vestments. One of them was wearing his cape around its shoulders. The other was pawing at his pack…
“Oh, Sweet Saint Mateus’ balls like hell you will,” growled Beowulf, barreling forward with a shout. He moved faster than the little beasts had reckoned, launching a sharp spike of blizzard into their midst. His fingers found his rune blade right quick, but they retreated quicker, taking with them the lightest things that they had to grab: which were his clothes. Mindless of all but the outrage of it, Beowulf charged after them, bramble slapping his bare thighs. They left a clumsy trail, dropping things as they went. He found his half emptied bag, his torn gil pouch, his ascot.
A well placed spell had one of the little buggers on his ass in the form of a very warty little toad. It squirmed on its back, legs flailing, startled at the sudden loss of most of its previous body mass. Beowulf thought it was justice done fair. He knelt, to retrieve what it had dropped…
…and, tucking the dead bird under his arm, stood in clear sight of a group of travelers, paused at the commotion. They consisted mainly of an old woman, her daughter, and what was either a son or a husband. They had a small cart, covered with a canvas and drawn by a skinny, ferocious looking chocobo. All three and the bird stared with a mix of shock and clear alarm at what was, in all appearances, a mad man just staggered out of the wood. A mad man wearing little more than a few scrapes and the rueful grin that he offered them, as he leaned his elbow against the nearest tree and saluted them smartly.
“Afternoon, fine sir, fair ladies.”
The daughter had her hand on a blade at her hip. Beowulf answered this by stabbing his neatly into the ground in front of him. He propped one foot up onto the hilt of it, bending his leg at such an angle as to afford him some modesty-- for the women’s sake, at the very least.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard tale of a beast called the Holy Wyrm? Tall as that bough there? Body black as night? Eyes green as Romandan lanterns? No? Ah, well. Carry on, then! Good travels to you, and may your day be less eventful than mine.”
“And so after I collected my bounty on that fiend’s…heads, I bought myself a new pair of trousers,” finished Beowulf, his arm draped over the shoulder of the Lady Reis, who was coiled like a serpent against his leg. “Oh. And that’s how I defeated the Sweegy Hydra, I suppose…”
“I see,” said Ramza Beoulve who, over the campfire, could only stare.
“Yup,” remarked Mustadio, faintly. “Definitely not how my Pa told that one.”
The hunter laughed, heartily “Yes. Well. Some things do get omitted in the retelling of these things. I’m sure your father’s version much more flattering.” He glanced down at Reis and, to her and the whole camp, admitted: “It did get rather chilly, you see…”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-18 11:17 am (UTC)Also I demand you write more Beowulf, the narrative is so quirky and sly and SO HI-LARIOUS. Would read again (and will!)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-18 01:16 pm (UTC):::falls over and dies::
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-19 06:08 am (UTC)