”Aren’t you lonely though?”

Kuja tensed and gave the mage a sharp look. It looked back at him with a strange kind of sorrowful naivete, and Kuja gave a hollow laugh in return. Lonely? ”Is that what you think of me?” His smirk was bitter. Mocking. ”That I’m but a sad man, driven by loneliness?” He laughed again at the thought before suddenly going still. ”No.” He looked the mage over again, wondering briefly if his more casual demeanor had garnered undue sympathy from the creature. Absurd. ”Everything I did, I did because I wanted to. You know quite well what I’m capable of.”

Murder for one. Genocide for another. He stretched out his fingers and watched a spark of magic dance between his polished nails. One would think that if he’d had a spark of human empathy, it would have stayed his hand. Him? Lonely? The thought was nothing short of laughable.

To his great pleasure, the mention of the mage’s inevitable disposal brought the creature to squirm. ”I can...I can…” It’s sputtering was like the desperate flailings of a drowning man. ”I can tell you more when you're ready.” The black mage fidgeted nervously. ”It's probably really scary not remembering things.”

”I’m not scared.” The sneer came sharp and biting, curling at the edges of his lips. Kuja recrossed his arms irritably. ”I’m curious, that’s all. Even if it makes my head pound.” He scowled and touched lightly at his temple. There was pressure there and a dull ache the way it always was when he tried to remember. ”Knowledge leads to strength and strength leads to power.” It was like a mantra -- the cycle of control. Kuja turned from the mage, considering the wall instead. ”Ignorance begets weakness.”

But what was he to do with the mage? Kuja glanced at him over his shoulder -- a compact, waddling puppet made of magic and the dregs of souls. Its over-large hands were fiddling nervously, its boots kicking like a child’s at the ground. It didn’t matter. Kuja had killed children before, but still…

”Do what you will.” Kuja threw up a dismissive hand at the mage. He tilted his head almost carelessly to the side. ”It hardly matters to me. I’ll learn the rest from you in time, and it’s not like you can leave here.” He smirked at the thought. ”We happen to be directly in the center of a desert that makes the Kiera look hospitable. I wouldn’t recommend trying to escape unless you wish to die among the sands. I can assure you, your body would break down long before you ever reached the desert’s edge. And I haven’t left any airships lying around for you to follow me in either.” Kuja smirked. Part of him wondered if Zidane had really thought him so stupid as to grant them such an obvious path to victory. Not a single one of them had questioned the sheer convenience of it all.

”Stay out of my sight and don’t harass my dragon. She won’t listen to you and she’s developed a taste for defective mages.” He turned and started towards the door, raising a hand to dispel its magic before continuing on.

He stopped, intending to construct the barrier behind him before his eyes fell on the mage again with its gleaming eyes and trembling frame. Kuja’s eyes narrowed before he lowered his hand and sighed, throwing back his hair as he shot the mage a wry smile. ”Be a good little prisoner and keep to yourself, won’t you? Or perhaps I’ll change my mind.” He left without locking the door. There was nothing the mage could do here, after all, and there was no escape.

The puppet would fall in line or it would die. There was nothing else to it but that.

ulla