Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
at adventu, we believe that colorful story and plots far outweigh the need for a battle system. rp should be about the writing, the fun, and the creativity. you will see that the only system on our site is the encouragement to create amazing adventures with other members. welcome to adventu... how will you arrive?
year 5, quarter 3
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[attr=class,bulk] If any nation could embody the very concept of misery, it would be Sonora. Oh, how he could count the ways! Should he start with the weather, a near constant cold that seemed to defy the laws of astrophysics in its constant, biting chill? Even on a day such as this when the rest of the planet was gripped by the will of the blazing sun, Sonora seemed somehow immune to such pleasures, offering nothing but dismal skies and biting winds. Should he, instead, soliloquy on the nature of the Sonora’s citizens? The guards here were always on alert for the abnormal, the foreign, and the untrustworthy which was an unending source of irritation for him who happened to be all three. The common people fared little better. They eyed his silver hair, wild as a dragon’s feathers, the piercing blue of his eyes, and his face sculpted to an artist’s perfection with unending suspicion. Which led him, perhaps, to the most maddening aspect of them all.
Here, he was forced to blend in.
His first visit to the city had been careless. He’d found his way past the city walls on the back of his dragon (a shortcut that he still blessedly possessed) and then walked the streets in his usual style of plush violets, flowing white sleeves, and gleaming gold. He had stood out then, of course, but he was used to the eyes which questioned and reviled and lingered sensuously over the straps of his hips. At least he’d had the sense, as always, to hide his tail. Now he knew the dangers to a foreigner caught walking these dismal streets. He knew, as well, that the authorities didn’t take kindly to those who chose beauty over practicality and preferred color and style over the city’s constant metallic gray. And so he had adapted as he always did. And he hated it.
There was nothing he could do for the hue and style of his hair nor, naturally, the almost uncanny perfection of his facial features, almost doll-like in their symmetry. He refused to go without his lacquered lips or his striking orange eyeshadow which complimented the blue of his eyes. Removing his violet nail polish was also far more trouble than it was worth, and he kept his nails filed into murderous points, but his attire had to change. Gone was the regality of purple and gold. Instead, he embraced a pair of brown leather riding boots, high-heeled and extending nearly to his knee. His collared shirt was in the style of a Gaian commoner though he had rolled up the sleeves and unbuttoned it to keep it from stifling him. Far worse than that, however, were the pants.
A dull brown. Terribly restrictive to a body far more accustomed to free-flowing skirts. And then there was the matter of his tail. He could not merely alter the clothing as Zidane seemed to do so that his tail was open for all to see nor would he wish to even under less pressing circumstances. Instead, he wrapped his tail around his waist, securing it with a plain leather corset which also served to hide the unnatural spiraling lump beneath. When he gazed upon himself in the mirror, he looked if not like a Sonoran native then at least like a traveler from an adjacent kingdom. The effect was convincing and loathsome all at once. He could hardly wait to be free of it.
But unfortunately he had business in town. He almost always did in one place or another as he’d worked to build up his considerable list of contacts across the planet’s more prominent craftsmen, inventors, and sellers of oddities and artifacts. At times, his services as a purveyor of magical talismans and weaponry would be called upon with the promise of a decent haul of gil in return. At others, he would be sent word whenever an item of his specific interests had come into a collector’s hands. This was one of those times.
The door let out a terrible mechanical drone as he stepped inside, a poor replacement for the simple innovation of a bell to signal the arrival of potential customers. The store (or was it more of a warehouse?) smelled as always like decades of accumulated dust and old yellowing pages. He’d grown quite used to that smell among the halls of Daguerreo, and associated it with forgotten places rife with lost knowledge and artifacts that were his for the taking. The owner of the establishment, a human man ravaged by the unpleasant effects of aging, shuffled out to greet him, thumping unpleasantly with his cane with every step.
Kuja greeted him pleasantly. The owner responded with a grunt. Why was it that the elderly always seemed to dislike him on sight? Still, Kuja continued his well-mannered facade, smiling politely even when he felt like raking his nails down the man’s papery skin. The man may have been ill-mannered, but he had the sense to accommodate a patron he knew to pay well, and it had been his letter which had summoned Kuja in the first place. Kuja had left the man with a list of his preferred items should any come into stock. There were magical artifacts, of course, and old books on lore and legend from the region. Below that were interesting works of theater. And this one had most certainly caught his attention.
How a Gaian work had ended up here of all places was beyond him. Perhaps he would ponder the implications of such a phenomenon at a later time. For now, he wished simply to hold it, to possess it, to devour its pages as thoroughly as he always had. For in the shopkeeper’s letter, it had listed several new additions to his inventory in that neat, mechanical script peculiar to the region, and among its contents was one of most pressing interest to him: ”1 x book, stage play, ‘I Want To Be Your Canary.’”
A work of Lord Avon. His favorite, no less, among the playwright’s significant library of comedies. Kuja had readied his dragon immediately. That play would be his. By gil or blackmail or murder if need be, he would not leave without it in his possession.
He inquired after the play, keeping his voice steady so as not to reveal his desperation and raise the price on negotiations, and the shop owner responded that it was still in stock, he thought, somewhere deep in the warehouse. He led Kuja slowly, ever so slowly, down the dusty aisles in the back cramped with boxes and crates that likely hadn’t been touched in decades. Finally, they stopped in front of a shelf that rose up to the ceiling. The shopkeeper pointed to the top, ”Should be up there.”
Kuja watched him expectantly, waiting for the man to retrieve it. Instead, the owner simply turned around and started his slow, shuffling way back to the front of the shop. ”Ladder’s in the back.”
Kuja felt his eyes flare. His nails dug into his palms as he swallowed back his desire for blood. There would be time for that later. If negotiations fell through. If the old fool ever tried to report him to the authorities. If there was ever an item of interest that he was unwilling to part with. There were so many in his life that sought to strip him of his dignity, and there was always, he’d found, a time and place to have his long awaited revenge.
Kuja took a deep breath, steadied himself, and looked up to the highest shelf where his prize theoretically awaited him. A simple float spell would suffice to retrieve it, and once the shopkeeper was out of sight, he waved his hand to cast it. Nothing happened.
He blinked and tried again to no avail. Then he tried casting firaga on an adjacent shelf for good measure as his desire to kill grew exponentially. Still, nothing. It felt as though some core part of him had been cut off at the root. It was as though he had suddenly lost the use of his own hands. An anti-magic field. Kuja’s eye twitched with barely concealed fury. He could write a sonnet, no, an entire epic on his contempt for the city’s love of anti-magic fields.
With no other options left for him, Kuja went in search of the ladder.
It took him some length of time and another length more to find the lever to disable the breaks and start wheeling the unwieldy thing between the narrow aisles. He heard the front door’s atonal drone again and scowled if for no other reason than that his mood was already soured and another customer would hardly serve to improve it. He heard muffled voices up front as he finally directed the ladder in the proper position and struggled to reengage the brakes. Their conversation was short, a woman’s voice contrasted with the unfriendly grumblings of the old man. He heard the tap of high-heeled footsteps as this newest patron entered the warehouse alone. This newest potential customer was, it seemed, below the owner’s interest.
Whatever it was that she was doing, Kuja finally managed to lock the ladder in place and after giving it an experimental tug, he started his climb towards the top. His new boots weren’t made for this, he decided, nor was the box he found at the top which was, distressingly, wooden. He couldn’t see inside from his current angle and was forced to carefully release his grip on the ladder and take the rather heavy box in his arms instead. He cursed the shopkeeper. He cursed this warehouse. He cursed his own interest most of all and his complete powerlessness in the face of a simple anti-magic field.
How easy it would have been to merely move the box by telekinesis! Instead, he was forced to bring it down using only the strength of a body which had not, as it were, been created with heavy lifting in mind.
He shifted it towards him, first on one side then the other as he felt his balance waver, the box teetering ever closer to the edge. Kuja hissed a curse in Terran which, roughly translated, wished the box’s very existence to be stripped from the crystal’s memory. Its weight struck him all at once and Kuja grunted with exertion, wondering if it was worth the effort to bring it down one step by agonizing step down the ladder or if he should simply drop it and hope for the best. His trembling arms told him that he might not have a choice.
’Do it for the play,’ he told himself as he took a slow, laborious step down the first wrung of the ladder. ’Do it for Lord Avon.’
Kuja pressed his hand to his dragon’s maw, gently caressing the feathers which spanned the ridges of her cheeks. She was restless. Perhaps it was the climate – far too humid for a creature such as her bred in the timeless fungal forests of Terran soil. Perhaps it was simply the time she had been made to wait as he explored yet another of the Lost City’s crumbling buildings for ancient technology to salvage. Perhaps it was the weight of that technology on her back. She was unused to being used as a pack animal, preferring only to bear his weight, nestled comfortably between her wings. He had no choice, however. His spoils were far too large and numerous for him to carry on his person, and he had not even the most primitive of airships at his disposal. And so he had refitted the saddle bags of an Aljanan kujata for her size and maneuverability and had strapped them in such a way that it would not hinder her wings.
Ava pawed the ground, snorting her displeasure even as her eyes closed at Kuja’s caress. She would bear the weight. For now at least.
With his dragon reassured, Kuja began again at his work. The day had been more productive than most. This time, he’d cut to the root of the half-collapsed ruins he’d been exploring for some time and found the root of its stronghold, a room made of strangely time resistant metals and guarded by its half-sentient mechanical sentries for what must have been millennia. The desiccated bodies in the guarded hallway told him that the room’s guardians had found quite the success over the years, but today they had finally met their end. He’d made short work of them with a few well-placed thundaga spells, and then the bounty of the ruins was finally in his hands.
He’d moved each part of the dismantled machinery one piece at a time. Most were too heavy to lift by hand, and so he had captured each in the sparkling grasp of his telekinesis. He did this, treading the same path again and again until each component formed a pile on the terrace he’d made his landing position, and it was only a matter of placing each carefully within his dragon’s modified saddlebags. He had not expected her resistance to the process, but that had been yet another challenge to seize and then quickly overcome.
By the time that he had finally loaded the last of it, hours had passed since he’d first found that hidden room, and he felt exhausted, both in his magic and in his mind. He was as ready to leave as it seemed Ava was.
And he would have, too. He would have taken his place on her back, sighed, and willed her fly them back to the base they’d made nestled beneath the ruins of the Valley where he’d have spent the night feverishly examining each component, memorizing their functions as his inventor’s mind pieced them back together in schematics and schemes. He would have had a fairly normal time, that was, if he hadn’t sensed a sudden shift in the planet’s core.
Kuja froze, hand still at his dragon’s side as he frowned, trying his best to place that strange feeling that felt more foreign than familiar. He was used to monitoring the Mists of Gaia as the planet slowly died, fed upon and parasitized by a foreign infection deep below the planet’s surface. But this…
Kuja looked to the sky above. Where it had once been a standard sunny, humid day in the Valley, the sky had now darkened most ominously. The clouds (had there been clouds there before?) seemed to flee from some distant force, and as he looked over his shoulder, he thought he saw something. A bright spot in all the darkness due south. Why, that was the direction of the Tower, was it not?
The Tower had always intrigued him, and he needed little provocation to examine its mysteries. Curiosity plucked his soul’s strings like the keys of a harpsichord. His business with the mechanical components was of utmost importance, and yet…
The planet itself was reacting in ways that even he couldn’t identify. How could he possibly resist?
His silver dragon let out a sharp cry like a bird of prey as they entered the Tower’s sphere. This was not Kuja’s first visit to the World Sight by dragon’s flight. He’d taken to it more than once, circling the Tower and all of its endless floors, searching for some weak point in its defenses that he could enter from above. Alas, the Tower’s construction was immaculate even after all millennia in ruin, and he had yet to find one. This visit, however, was wholly different. This time, he searched not for a shortcut to the Tower’s upper floors, but for the source of the planet’s disturbance. And that was easily found.
Far above him, beyond the Tower’s uppermost reaches and far beyond his dragon’s maximum range, he saw what appeared to be grassy fields spreading out before him, upside down almost from his perspective as though gravity itself had shifted. The edges of the image were blurred into the planet’s sky blue atmosphere. His heart raced at the sight of it. He knew that image or at least the phenomena that it could cause.
”A portal,” he muttered, staring up into that strange, colorful mosaic in the sky. As his dragon circled the Tower, he caught more details – a strange, glittering mountain. The outline of a distant castle. Laughter burst from him in disbelief as he reached out a hand towards the magical tear between worlds, between planets, between infinite realities. ”Now, how did you come to be?”
Its very existence brought everything he thought he knew into question. Were inter-planetary portals the key to it all? Inter-dimensional, perhaps? He had once theorized as such, but without any further evidence…
”Something so familiar and yet only just out of reach…” He knew well that he could not reach the top of the World Sight by his dragon’s wings. It simply reached too far into the atmosphere where the temperature dropped below that of the most vicious mountain winds and oxygen became too sparse to fill a dragon’s lungs. Yet this was a phenomena worth his investigations. If only it were a few kilometers lower in the sky! If only he could reach it, study it, and perhaps…
No. It would not do to slip between worlds. Not when his mortality loomed like an ax blade above his neck. He would have to address one issue at a time, and his life took the utmost priority.
That did not mean that he couldn’t study this strange new piece of data in his ever growing collection, and once he’d sated his curiosity peering into the world above, his gaze dropped to that below. It seemed a fair number of travelers had stalled here to gawk at the portal. Odd. The World Sight rarely entertained so many visitors, but it seemed there was a caravan of them below him, all with their necks craned to gaze upon the unknown. And to gaze, no doubt, upon the threat of his dragon circling above them.
He smirked at the thought of their fear. Doubtlessly, his silver dragon could tear them all limb from limb, and he wouldn’t need to lift so much as a finger. These were no ordinary travelers, however. They were also witnesses. And witnesses, in this case specifically, were more useful living than dead.
Kuja bid his dragon circle ever lower, taking her slow time in descent as he examined the caravan from above. They were nothing interesting. A grizzled type, surely, already pulling their swords and weaponry to face the encroaching threat of his dragon. A moogle was among them. How convenient. If they wished to stay in touch with the postal services, that was.
His dragon landed at his command, and he slipped from her back, landing lightly on his feet like a bird come to roost. He approached them, head held high, thick locks of silver hair rustling in the wind.
”It appears that there are great vistas in the sky. Have you ever seen anything like it?” Kuja had, but it was better to ask or at least act ignorant of his own vast knowledge. He lifted a hand to the portal dramatically. ”Did you happen to notice when it appeared? My own investigations have yielded little.”
Yet. They had yielded little as of yet. Questioning these potential witnesses was but the second step of his studies.
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja was fond of his own echo. It had often been his sole companion while traveling the pitch black corridors of ancient ruins lit only by his magic as he studied the wisdom of lost civilizations. His echo, too, had been a kind of research assistant, a companion, and a sounding board all in one. And so, at that moment, he let his echo fade, listening to his desperate pleas a second time as he closed his eyes in thought.
He had done more than enough to exhaust the patience of most would-be explorers, but he knew better than most that just because he had tried hours’ worth of inputs and variables, that did not mean there were no more to be found. He only needed to look in the right places.
Kuja calmed himself, and when he opened his eyes, he began his search anew.
It did not take long. He was examining the screen closer, searching for some kind of switch on the side when his thumb accidentally trailed across its surface and the screen reacted with a change of icons and characters. His attention was drawn to it instantly, and he frowned in concentration as he attempted to make sense of it. Tentatively, he touched one of the icons and it changed again.
Interesting…
This was a development. Not necessarily the correct development, but a development nonetheless. Part of Kuja, the Terran part, wanted to scoff at the simplicity of a touch-based control system mounted on glass. Another part, the part which had survived on Gaia for over twelve years, couldn’t help but marvel at the feature. It must have been based on heat, he decided, for the screen did not respond when he attempted to tap an icon with his long and lacquered nails. For not the first time, he wished that he could make sense of the long dead language flickering before him. As it was, he could only guess by process of elimination, and every tap of the glass led to a new branching tree of variables.
He managed to turn the lights off once and then bring them back again. He managed to start up some distant machinery with a distinctive, throbbing hum. And then, after what seemed like another hour of aimless trial and error, he heard a metallic clink from the door and the ancient and mysterious metal began to shudder open.
Kuja smirked to himself, laughing softly in satisfaction. Of course, this could mean nothing in his search for advanced technology. It could mean simply more useless and dusty rooms to explore, but it was something. A place to start. Kuja drifted to where the door was slowly parting, arms crossed as he waited, quite certain that nothing could dampen the pleasure of his recent triumph.
That was, until he saw a humanoid something standing on the other side.
He summoned his magic instinctively. It sparked around his fingers as his arm raised and he took a defensive stance, startled into attack, but as he got a better look at the thing in front of him, he realized that it was not robotic. Or perhaps, it was more accurate to say that it was not metallic, but rather shrouded in layer upon layer of brightly colored cloth. That shock stilled his hand once more though he did not dissipate the aura of magic surrounding him. Caution was key.
”You…what are you doing here?” he asked, hand still raised and sparking with thunderous static. As the door creaked to a halt, fully open, Kuja’s eyes flicked from the thing’s pointed boots to its red and white patterned robes to its approximately six layers of capes. Its head was completely shrouded in some kind of yellow covering adorned with a feathery mantle and a single horn sticking out one side, but it was as Kuja’s attention was drawn to this shroud that he noticed two eyes peeking out of a strategically placed opening in the cloth. They were human eyes – or at least bioorganic eyes. This was a person, or if not a person, then a highly advanced organic machine.
But why was it waiting on the other side of this door?
His mind flashed immediately to Garland and the genomes. Was he facing some kind of ancient, ageless guardian, engineered by the lost race for the city’s protection? Was it, in fact, a member of said race still thriving deep within the heart of the city’s sanctum? Did it have a soul? What might those layers of cloth be hiding?
He imagined a metallic framework beneath it, shrouded so as not to give its lack of humanity away. This image did nothing to quell his caution.
”Can you…understand me?” Kuja asked. He tried to psychically project the words as well. This had never worked before on anything beyond Terra’s scope, but he thought it worth a try.
”I mean no harm,” he lied, magic nearly bursting from his fingertips. ”And who might you be?”
[attr=class,bulk] ”Open,” Kuja said for the third time, trying his best to properly enunciate and project the thought psionically as well as verbally. The door in front of him remained infuriatingly and stubbornly closed. Kuja scowled and studied the control panel in front of him again. It was all foreign, of course. He hadn’t exactly come to the ruins of a lost civilization and expected anything familiar, but he’d thought that he of all people would be able to figure it out as he went along. Who else had the same knowledge of advanced technology and the same experience in excavating lost ruins as he did?
The trip to what the people of Keleawe naively called “The Lost City” had been uneventful. The jungles below may have been rife with danger, but the skies were clear and that was all that mattered when one primarily traveled as the dragon flies. The Lost City itself could hardly be missed from his aerial view, and he bypassed many of the initial barriers to entry by virtue of his mode of transportation. The weathered city had, it seemed, seen better days. Time and erosion had crumbled what once must have been intricate terraces and vistas. It reminded him of the Terran ruins transported violently to Gaia to rot. Those, too, must have been impressive in their younger days before they had moldered, forgotten and abandoned for two millennia.
The comparison had, perhaps, given him a false sense of confidence. He circled the ruins for some time, searching for a flat landing which wouldn’t crumble beneath his dragon’s weight. Finally, he found one and entered the city proper, exploring its darkened hallways, destroying security systems as he went with a flick of his hand and the crack of his thunder magic. There were fewer malicious robots inside the city proper than there were roaming the jungles at its feet. There were, however, far more magitechnological traps concerning lasers and barriers and automated spellcasting. These were child’s play for him, and he proceeded unhindered until he found a generator deep within the labyrinthine building that he powered with his strongest thundaga spell. His magic did its work, and the lights of the facility hummed to life. Further explorations found only dust, debris, and rats scurrying out of his way.
That was until he found the door.
Unlike its surroundings, this door was made of metal. It was of some kind of highly refined alloy which he couldn’t recognize and which proved impenetrable to his spellwork. The stark difference between this door and the rest of the stone-carved facility caught his interest, and he spent some hours searching for a means to its opening. The most obvious was a screen mounted into the wall at its side. It wasn’t a holographic screen as he was used to, but it seemed to be made of some kind of tempered glass, likewise out of place in its primitive surroundings. The screen displayed icons and sigils which were entirely foreign to him but must have had some meaning to its original inhabitants. Was it a summary of the facility’s status? He could only imagine that one of those unfamiliar characters must have read: “Power: On. Door: Closed.”
But how was he to open it? That was the real question at hand.
He’d searched the entire room and beyond for some kind of manual controls – perhaps a switch or even an orb? He’d searched too for some kind of magical trigger that only required the proper input. Now he’d resorted to vocal commands. He’d even pressed his hand against the door and tried to psychically communicate with it, but it seemed that this technology, though advanced, had not progressed to a biomechanical level quite yet.
Which left him…where, exactly?
Kuja’s nails dug into his palms as they clenched in frustration. ”Must I learn your entire language before you’ll allow me to proceed?” He glared at the control panel, contemplating destroying it before his better mind brought him back to the brink of restraint. ”I don’t have that kind of time! I know you’re hiding the best of your technology and I need it now!”
Nothing. He didn’t expect it to open at his impassioned soliloquy. Still, he had far too much experience speaking with his own echo to stay silent. ”What must I do? Grovel at your feet? All hail the impenetrable door? Do you require sacrifices in blood? Or perhaps I must simply say the magic word! No lock, no key, I have tried everything and still you do not yield!”
Kuja paced first one way and then the other until he stood at the center of the accursed door and glared at the split in the metal down its center, arms crossed. ”What must I do…?” he asked again of his echo. It had no reply.
[attr=class,bulk] Mikoto did not leave. It was annoying, how little she listened to him when it mattered. He could hear her breathing behind him, and he could hear her distinct lack of footsteps at his dismissal. Kuja scowled at the cave wall before finally turning just enough to glance over his shoulder at where she stood, watching him with her placid blue eyes.
Then she spoke. How annoying indeed.
She reminded him of Garland. How astute an observation. Kuja felt his tail lash at her unwanted insight. He felt his tongue sharpen, but he kept it in check. His nerves were frayed from his unexpected foray into honesty, and he wanted nothing more than the silence of solitude so that he could brood with his thoughts and perhaps speak them aloud in rhyme.
Was it not Mikoto who had forced the truth out of him? Perhaps she would deserve the punishment of his soured mood, but no. That would only prove her point, wouldn’t it? If he did more to punish her now? Instead, he merely turned to her, keeping his expression as cool as he could manage under the circumstances.
”You defend his ideas,” he retorted. ”I find it despicable.”
Then his eyes drifted up towards the roughly hewn ceiling, once clearly carved by intelligent hands and now weathered by the chisel of time. Had the princess really lashed out at Mikoto because of him? How vastly unfair. Mikoto was merely another of his victims though perhaps if she’d spoken the same words that made him bristle to her, she would have associated them quite wrongly with him.
Kuja’s fingers tapped impatiently along his sleeves, arms still crossed. ”Though I suppose…I could try to keep your point in mind.” And perhaps she would keep in mind that it was best to avoid reminding him of their creator, deliberately or otherwise.
He did not need their psionic connection to see how she hurt. It was strange to see such a thing reflected in a genome’s eyes. They were generally immune to such sensations as emotional distress, and yet he saw it stirring in her. How she had already matured in the short time he had known her…
Finally, she found her words. Kuja’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
’If Garland was here…’
She would protect him. She would think to stand between them even. Kuja opened his mouth to speak and then closed it when, for once, he could not find the words.
She would stand at his side. She would defend him.
Kuja felt a strange feeling creeping within his chest. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but he had no idea what to do with it and so he shoved it aside until he had the time to sift through his thoughts.
He longed for solitude.
”You seemed perfectly capable of resting when I found you,” he said, his lips twitching into a smirk. ”I might not need your protection from monsters, but I do value your mind. If I should find something of use within these depths, I would like your thoughts on its usefulness. You’ve shown an innate talent for all things mechanical and biological.” Of course she had. It was a trait they both shared, but her understanding of advanced concepts would be fresher than his. He hadn’t had access to Terra’s vast stores of knowledge in years. Instead, he had been obsessively combining that knowledge with the infinitely inferior technology of a half evolved planet.
As much as he was loath to admit it, she would perhaps be more useful in their particular intellectual goal than he could have managed alone.
”Your mind will be of little use, sleep-deprived and emotional. It also wouldn’t do much good if you wandered off again and were eaten by a monster.” He glanced at her, a hint of amusement in his eyes. ”Rest. I will clear the path and then, when I return, we can switch. I…” He hesitated on the words, not because he had never used them before but because he had never meant them before. Not with any amount of honesty at least.
”I…need you, Mikoto.” He hated how pained he sounded. It betrayed the truth of it all. ”I have no hope of repurposing this machinery without your aid, let alone running procedures on myself that might very well require my own lack of consciousness.”
As much as he hated to admit it, he could not do this alone. He would have to rely on her. It was enough to make his skin crawl.
”We have different talents. Mine is in destruction. Yours is in invention. You’ve shown great strides in your magic, enough that I believe you could defend yourself in most cases, but if we are to succeed in this endeavor then we must keep our focus.” Kuja waved a hand dismissively, uncrossing his arms.
”All of that is to say that you should return to the entrance as I asked. I’ll report in a few hours’ time.”
He didn’t like repeating himself, but that was what came of working with a being with a soul. She was asking questions now. She was refusing orders. He could simply force his will upon her, of course. It would be as simple as casting a sleeping spell and then telekinetically dragging her along back to that makeshift bed where he’d found her, but that was his last resort.
Mikoto was right in one aspect. She may have reminded him of Garland, but she was not him. Neither was Kuja. He would use force if necessary, but only if it was necessary. He far preferred the utility of persuasion to sheer demonstrations of power. It produced less resentment or temptations of betrayal.
”Do you understand?”
[attr=class,ooc-notes]
[attr=class,tagline]@blacksuit4
Probably wrapping this up unless you want to do one more post to end it! He's getting so attached to her even if he won't admit it. He would murder so many people if they threatened her.
[attr=class,bulk] Mikoto looked up at him with the same apathetic, hazy look as she always wore. It was impossible at first to decide whether or not she still felt the monster’s hypnotic spell, but then her eyes cleared and her expression changed with it. Something gleamed in those placid blue eyes that couldn’t have existed in their soulless counterparts. And then he felt it.
Her tail lashed. Her lips pursed. Emotions shot from her like a psionic arrow meant to pierce his defenses and shatter the wall he’d constructed between them. In that instant, he felt it all. A kind of dull depression and loneliness mixed with frustration at his demeanor, the lingering fight or flight instincts of battle, and the underlying haze of hypnotizing magic. She looked at him, and he recognized that look. Defiance.
Kuja raised his eyebrows as he took a step back from him. Her boots sank into the foul-smelling tar of the dead Hecteyes. It would take ages to remove it.
Vocalization had always given Mikoto difficulty, and at first, Kuja thought she would content herself with her emotional attack, confident that her feelings had gotten through him by psychic link alone. Then her grip tightened on her unfairly granted staff, and she finally managed to speak. From her demeanor, it was clear that she thought she would hurt or even shock him. It made him want to laugh. With her tail thrashing about, fur bristling, she looked far more like a baby mu mewling for respect from its pack.
She cried as she spoke of her desire to die, tears streaking down her cheeks. She looked down at the melted monster beneath her feet as though in contemplation or perhaps longing before she looked back at him again. It seemed at some point she’d learned to raise her voice or perhaps he had simply pushed her to it.
Kuja, for his part, watched her with a kind of idle curiosity, eyebrows raised in surprise if not shock. He certainly was not overwhelmed by her emotions nor did her words contain the poisonous barbs that she perhaps intended. Once she was finished, he simply pushed back a handful of hair, tilted his head, and sighed.
”How long has it been since you gained sentience?” he asked. ”Your soul has developed since we first met.”
He turned and took a few steps from her, stopping to consider the age-worn walls and the cables strewn above them. It was a better view than the slowly blinking pool of eyes at their feet.
”I abhor honesty,” he said, examining the archaic technology hanging above his head. ”It’s inconvenient and far less amusing than lies. Though I suppose it has its place, and if you so desire the truth then so be it.”
He raised a hand and waved it carelessly before resolutely crossing his arms.
”How long did you live on Terra? After you awakened to true consciousness, I mean. You were still unaccustomed to your own emotions when we met so I’d guess…a few months? Less than a year, certainly. By now, you’ve spent more time here than there, on a living planet granted the privilege of freedom.” Kuja’s lips twisted into a dry smirk. ”If you had spoken that way to him then he would have shut you down halfway through the first sentence and blamed your defiance on a failure of construct.”
His heart pounded with a dark and twisting hatred. It pounded in his throat a little like adrenaline, but no. He was not afraid. He never had been.
”I spent twelve years at his side. I was at his mercy and his command with nothing but the dull gaze of the soulless genomes to accompany me, and when I acted in self-preservation when he attempted to replace me, I was sent into exile. One might think that his grip would loosen then, but of course it didn’t. If I did not achieve the results that he had already deemed it impossible that I could achieve then my life would end. My entire existence until now has been shaped by him either in obedience or defiance, and you would ask why his name has an effect on me?”
He breathed, slow and steady, quite used to the rise of wild emotion that such thoughts invoked in him. Mikoto had clearly thought her own psychic projection of depression and frustration would disorient him. They were pale imitations of his own daily existence, and always he had been forced to keep his composure. Until he was alone. Until the powerful were powerless and he had something groveling at his feet to kick.
Like Garland. How he had dreamed of that moment! And yet…
His fingers curled tight into the fabric of his sleeves. ”Another twelve years I spent clawing my way from nothing on Gaia’s soil. I achieved with my mind what he had deemed it impossible that I achieve with my inherent strength. All the while, I walked a tightrope act to see him overthrown. When I finally arrived on Terra’s rocky surface for the first time since my exile, I intended to rule it in his place. Gaia was a doomed planet, and there was no force which could possibly save it from what had been set in motion. I intended to enact my revenge, secure my life, and take a seat of power in the place of my creation. I remember his expression now as he knelt there, weakened and at my mercy. And when finally he was dead and gone…”
Say it. There was no point in hiding anymore. He would have to say it.
”...His soul lingered. And I was informed that I had no chance of victory from the start. I was nothing but his disposable puppet. And so I sought to destroy everything he had built. If his soul insisted on resisting the cycle then I would force him to watch as Terra fell to ruin.”
Kuja paused. Perhaps this would provide some insight to his young successor. Perhaps not. She knew well what he had done. She knew better of what he was capable.
”I dislike our connection because it was used only by him. I denied my fate to die, I didn’t trust Garland’s plans to end me, and I destroyed Terra because I wanted him to feel a fraction of the pain he’d caused me. If I punish you, it is only because I hear you defending him.”
This was too much honesty. The truth was meant to be kept inside his own head or spoken only to echoes and ghosts. His tail lashed its discomfort, but still, he continued.
”You didn’t want to live. I wanted nothing more. Then, when it was revealed that there was no alternative, that no matter what I did, it had all been useless from the start…”
’I won’t have to be afraid anymore…’
”I chose to take oblivion on my own terms. He would not have power over me, not this time. And I would take everything with me.”
The silence of the cave felt overwhelming. He could hear the drip of distant rainwater, the muffled sound of thunder in the tropical storm. Kuja ran a hand through his hair, pausing with his palm pressed against his forehead.
”You must be tired,” he said. ”I can feel your exhaustion from here. You’re right. I don’t need your protection. It just seemed the best way to motivate you in learning to defend yourself.” He smirked faintly. Why stop his streak of honesty now? ”Return to the entrance. Sleep. I’ll explore this place on my own.”
On his own. Alone. As was so often the case. He would be more effective that way.
”I’ll report back in a few hours’ time and tell you if I found anything of use.”
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[attr=class,tagline]@blacksuit4
Turns out he just needed Mikoto to yell at him lol
The subtle ire of Kuja’s soul spiked into something closer to resentment. For not the first time, Kuja wondered how wise it might be (for his sanity at least) to spend so much of his time around Garland’s docile little lap dog. It was one thing that she’d inherited a staff. It was quite another for her to defend the mass of unaging steel and biomechanical components pretending at lordship over a dead planet.
’I understood Garland’s reasons. Garland also understood my biology and improved upon it.’
Improved upon it from what, Kuja wondered as they stepped carefully into the darkness. From her original form? From Zidane’s? From his? Oh yes, Kuja remembered quite well Garland’s attempts to improve upon him until finally the lord-master of Terra abruptly gave up his efforts and created new life to replace him. What would Mikoto say if Kuja told him that it was only a matter of time before the same fate came for her? Likely that she would accept it, of course. That it was her duty to face death willingly if that was what their master required.
Kuja’s tail bristled at the thought. Oh yes. She would most definitely sense that emotion, now wouldn’t she? Perhaps he would not even bother shielding it from her. She would have to learn to read other beings eventually, and why not start with the one she could sense psionically?
Then she would wonder if she had said something wrong. She would wonder what and why. Kuja remembered those days, staring helplessly at the human expressions that were so foreign to him wondering, helplessly, how he could have avoided such a humiliating lack of understanding.
Now it was her turn.
”The Earth Shrine housed one of the four guardians to Terra’s portal,” Kuja said, answering only her immediate question. ”It was an underground labyrinth of traps and dead souls located deep below the Outer Continent. When Terra attempted its first doomed fusion with Gaia, several of its locations merged with the planet, and in time, they became lost ruins to which no Gaian could gain entry. The elemental shrines were four such structures.”
None of that mattered now. It hardly mattered back then. But the conversation kept his mind off the gloom and the dust. If he were not speaking with Mikoto then he would have been speaking out loud to himself and his own echo.
Mikoto looked up towards the cables winding their way along the ceiling and around a bend into the darkness. Then she ran ahead of him. A beginner’s mistake, and a foolish one at that. Kuja did not quicken his pace. Not even when he heard Mikoto’s monotone echo ahead of him and saw a dim flickering of red light that could only have come from magic. If she had stumbled across some monster, she was not so fragile that she couldn’t lose a bit of blood without losing her life.
Kuja expected to see Mikoto in dire straits when he rounded the corner. What he did not expect was a Hecteyes.
Kuja’s eyebrows raised as he took in the scene. The hideous blob of red flesh, blinking its absurd amount of deep blue eyes in his direction. Mikoto, standing dazed before it. Kuja had not expected anything so deadly or so, well, Terran in these tunnels, but despite the abysmal creature’s undeniable strength, that also gave it a grave weakness.
It was Terran. Which meant Kuja knew it quite well. He could have recited its entry in the Terran archives from memory.
’Weak to fire. Strong against shadow magic. Undead.’
Kuja sighed and waved a hand. A simple Life spell later, and the monster was nothing more than a puddle of foul-smelling sludge at their feet, its eyes still blinking without comprehension of its own demise. Kuja walked up to Mikoto and shook her gently by the shoulder. With the creature well and dead, the effects of its hypnotizing spell should have worn off, but there was always a chance that it would persist in those seconds between life and death.
”Tell me again how you intend to protect me?” His lips flickered with the shadow of a smirk. His eyes strayed to the muck spreading across the floor. ”I can’t say that I missed dealing with these. Truly an abomination so horrid that it could only exist on Terra. I wonder what it was doing here of all places…”
[attr=class,ooc-notes]
[attr=class,tagline]@blacksuit4
I'm so sorry about the wait! I love this thread, but real life has destroyed me for months. I hope to be back at it again soon!
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja thought that his proposal had been quite reasonable, even considerate given Mikoto’s strange trepidation at the mere thought of the xenobiologist and all that he’d done to her. Still, after only a moment of thought, she pulled her knees tightly to her chest and said simply, ”Killing doesn’t solve everything.”
Kuja felt irritation cross his heart like a trail of thorns. He’d said the same to her once, and he knew that she’d repeated his words purposefully. But back then, he’d been referring to Lady Hilda, a woman he did not hate and who had done nothing to hurt him. It sounded as though this “doctor” had very much hurt Mikoto, and that she quivered in fear at the mere mention of him.
Killing didn’t solve everything, it was true. But it would solve this.
”Then we can steal his magic rocks once he’s dead,” Kuja said. ”I doubt he’d part so willingly with them while living.”
The idea of stones made entirely of condensed souls was quite of interest to him, but that interest would have to wait. Mikoto was having an introspective moment, and as much as Kuja wished to hurry their conversation along, he had the sense to listen. Twelve years among the Gaians had taught him not to interrupt unless there was nothing left that he wished to gain from the speaker in question.
Listening built trust. Trust was a social currency. And so, he listened.
Her insecurity felt…odd. He considered it for a moment before tilting his head to the side questioningly. ”Why fear the humans? They’re far weaker than anything on Terra. With a few exceptions.”Notable exceptions, admittedly. Like General Beatrix. Or, as he was loathe to admit, Zidane’s merry band of misfits espousing love, trust, and the power of friendship.
”Was it not Garland who restrained and dismissed you? Was it not he who riddled you with tests and treated you like an object? Garland was not human.”
It was certainly possible that she feared the humans specifically because she didn’t understand them. Or perhaps…
He sat beside her. Or he tried to sit beside her, at least. She was on the floor, curled behind some heavy machinery, and while he adored his general attire, it wasn’t exactly designed for the best mobility in tight spaces. He chose to crouch beside her instead. It was the best he could do.
”You trust Zidane and myself, do you not? We’re the only Terrans with souls which rather stacks the deck in Terra’s favor. Perhaps then it’s simply that you’d rather not be touched by those you don’t trust.” Kuja paused and then, with a dry smile, reached out and prodded her lightly on the nose. ”Unless I also make you wary?”
He should have by all accounts. He’d destroyed her home and everything she knew. He would have murdered her along with the rest of the genomes if Zidane hadn’t intervened, and he wouldn’t have had a second thought about it. But she seemed to have gotten it in her head that he’d somehow freed her, and that was a powerful delusion if nothing else. Kuja rose to his feet and took a few steps towards the center of the room.
”And of course I know how to wield a makeup brush. I could show you once we have the time.”
He wondered what colors would best compliment her features. He was fond of a shimmering orange eyeshadow himself to best contrast the cool blue of his eyes. He wondered how he might transform her, how she might ascend from her usual plain persona to something more unique and personalized. What set her apart from any other nascent genome? He wondered…
But now was not the time for wondering.
No, now was the time for exploration. They had a goal in mind, after all, and Kuja was nothing if not determined.
Despite his warnings, Mikoto was insistent that she would be the one protecting him. It was endearing if nothing else. Kuja raised his eyebrows as she climbed into the cockpit of a weathered mech and pulled from it both the rapier he had gifted her and a staff made, unmistakably, of Terran biomass. ”Now where did you find that?” he asked. She certainly hadn’t been in possession of it before. Unless pieces of Terra had fused with this new world (something that was certainly not impossible), he couldn’t see any other way she could have recently come across it.
He had to say, he was somewhat…well, jealous wasn’t the right word as he had no need for such a thing, but he felt a sense of injustice that she should have something so unmistakable Terran when he’d had to rely on nothing but his own innate skills. He’d seen such staves before, and he knew that it would act as a powerful channel for her psionic abilities. He would have killed for that kind of aid during the early stages of his banishment. He supposed that was something of the point. Gaia had been his punishment, after all.
Whereas Mikoto was nothing but a victim of Garland’s failed first experiment. She was a victim and a loyal one at that. Did it not make sense that she’d be gifted with Terra’s blessings while Kuja would be left to live or die by his own will? It was typical, really. Why waste resources on a flawed prototype?
He said none of this aloud. It was irrelevant to the task at hand, and Mikoto had already started down the crystal-lit corridors. Could she sense his ire? If she could, she didn’t show it.
Her staff lit a dim path for them, and Kuja followed it idly. Mikoto was insistent on remaining in front of him, and while that seemed unwise, he didn’t object. It was her life at stake, after all, and thus, it was her choice to make.
Silence closed in around them as completely as the darkness. Kuja had not missed delving into ancient cave systems.
”Did you ever see much of Gaia?” he asked as he stepped over an uneven break in the ground. The path here had once been paved, it seemed, but time had a way of wearing down even the most tenacious of architecture.
”There were many tunnels and cave systems throughout the planet. This reminds me a little of the Earth Shrine.”
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[attr=class,tagline]@blacksuit4
I didn't push them forward, but this post was long enough as it was lol
[attr=class,bulk] They spoke of their business. A comfortable topic. Kuja raised his eyebrows as she offered her aid in his endeavors. He certainly hadn’t made them sound glamorous or fruitful enough to warrant such an invitation on the merits of profit alone. Though perhaps it was his methods that interested her. They had something to offer each other, it seemed, and he knew the value of a resourceful business partner.
”You will have to show me your extraction process,” he said. ”And the resulting product. I’ve generally outsourced the metalworking to local smiths then I buy, add value, and resell. I haven’t put much thought into innovation. My time has been occupied by other endeavors.”
Namely, by his many failed efforts to thwart his own mortality. But he wouldn’t think about that now. It would only serve to sour his mood.
They had other matters to discuss. Art, beauty, music. She seemed particularly passionate on matters of the harp. Kuja touched his fingers to his lips, laughing softly as she chastised him for his limited perspective of the instrument. Amusement lit his eyes as he tilted his head to consider her. ”It seems I’m in need of a demonstration. Perhaps you could assist?” She was far too invigorated to have been mistaken, but Kuja simply couldn’t imagine it for himself. What was the piece without the tragic and sorrowful tones of the organ? Could it truly be played by a single musician without the organ’s multiple rows or keys and pedals and switches? He wondered…
She said it was like a stirring of tempests under a curtain of stars. He found he could relate to that feeling.
”We could play together,” he said. ”Though to be honest, I’ve never been fully satisfied with the harpsichord. There’s an instrument here, the piano, which seems of a similar kind but which produces a superior sound. I’ve been meaning to try its keys, but I haven’t yet found the chance.” He paused. ”Perhaps if I visited your conservatory…”
It was a tempting thought. An almost seductive thought. But he had other work to do – work on which his life depended. Though one could hardly fault him for taking a break every now and then.
There was a long pause between them as she considered the beauty around them, her voice wistful, almost a whisper. Kuja watched her thoughtfully. She painted quite the portrait of words, so bright and vibrant that he could almost see them for himself. It wasn’t so different from how he might have answered, really, should he have been prone to such fantasies.
She turned and started down the stairs, carefully leading them closer to the festivities. Kuja followed, his tail sweeping the steps as they descended.
”I think it a fine place of temporary employment, but I’ve never been fond of patronage. With your ingenuity, I think you better suited for enterprises on your own terms. I examined the structure of your messenger bird, between its form and function, I found myself quite impressed.”
They came to the landing and merged into the bustle of the crowds. It was quite lively here, energized by the scents and spices and colors of it all, loosened by the free flow of wine. Hilda was offered a glass almost immediately, and she took it with a smile. She seemed as natural in this setting as a bird in flight or perhaps a fish to water.
She turned to him, still smiling, and he wondered again how it had come to this. What strange twists of fate had brought them together again, here of all places, and how did she seem to so genuinely enjoy his company? Without the satisfaction of his deceit, he felt strangely exposed, almost uncomfortably so. His tail swished in kind, and he hated it.
”It would seem so,” he answered. He kept his tone light and his expression as pleasant as ever. He hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t know to read the traitorous motions of his tail as it threatened to reveal his unease.
”Is there anything in particular that has caught your interest?”
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[attr=class,tagline]@ladyhilda
Definitely no chemistry here at all, what are you talking about?
[attr=class,bulk] How very strange it was to speak in such a way. Stranger still in such a setting. Kuja had much experience perusing the gathering of nobles, playing at their mannerisms and adopting them as his own. He’d always felt like a spy, an intruder in plain sight, dressed up in learned habits and charms that soon became as natural as breathing. He breathed in slowly, eyes closed. When he opened them again, the same mountains greeted him, the same gathering of the wealthy below, and he stood above them, no longer a stranger to himself.
This was no act. He had no foul intentions. He could simply…live.
How very strange indeed.
Hilda spoke – of course she did – and as she spoke, he imagined her as a part of the mountains themselves. She seemed to belong here among the cliffs and the hills and brilliant array of turning leaves, splashed across the horizon as though painted in watercolor. He imagined her as a kind of alpine bird, white feathers ruffling as she prepared to take flight. He could have painted the scene if he’d been so inclined. Perhaps he would one night in the quiet of the moonlight when he had nothing else to distract himself from his own sleepless anxiety.
He didn’t turn to her as she spoke. Hilda and the scenery were one in his eye.
”Shall I consider that an invitation?” he asked, lips twitching with a smirk. ”I wonder how we would fill that space. There is art, of course, and any number of passions.” He laughed quietly to himself. ”Perhaps my curiosity will get the better of me.”
Such scandalous propositions from a woman of her status. He knew the courts well enough to read between the lines. Her secret letter, stored within her corset and smelling of perfume. And now these coy invitations to her time.
He knew better than to think she was suggesting anything beyond the realm of decency, but to a woman of her station to invite the private company of a man at all was…questionable to say the least.
”As for my time…I suppose I’ve passed it no differently than yours. Before one can strive for higher ambitions, one must first have the means to survive. I’ve returned to my old trade, dealing in charms and magical weaponry.” He glanced at her, smirking slightly. ”Nothing nefarious, I assure you. A sword blessed with the spirit of flame. A staff meant to enhance one’s curative magic. A pendant which wards off deadly poison. The people of the desert pay quite handsomely for such things. Their environment demands innovation.”
Below them, something hissed and he saw the stovetop of some kind of food vendor erupt into flames. Apparently this was all part of the process because no one had any particular reaction. The smell of seared meat drifted up to them, and he was reminded a little of Lindblum.
”I’ve had a few altercations with heroic types seeking justice. Some of them warranted. Others less so. I have little to gain from starting trouble.” Little but not nothing. He hoped that she wouldn’t learn of his less palatable actions. Though she could likely imagine them regardless.
”I’ve always loved the sound of the harp. I would like very much to hear the range of your music. Though Toccata and Fugue is meant for the organ, isn’t it?” He tilted his head thoughtfully. ”It’s a haunting piece nevertheless. It feels like drowning in the waves of one’s own sorrow. Music is hardly my strongest point, but I do have some skill with a harpsichord.”
She had given him so many thoughts to interest him and so many ideas to catch his eye. He hardly knew where to start, but it seemed they had time for whatever they so wished.
”I hardly think your classroom would need my critical eye, but it seems as good a place to find your means as any. More so if it follows your passions.” Still, it all seemed rather dull and unambitious to him. He’d always preferred the simple exchange of goods for wealth and wealth for power over the complications of patronage. It felt far more in his control.
To each their own, he supposed.
”What would you do, I wonder, if you had the fortune and reputation to apply yourself to anything?” It was a difficult question, one to which he himself had no answer. ”Where would the winds take you?”
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[attr=class,tagline]@ladyhilda
Your letter gave me inspiration. Hope this is okay. Still rusty!
