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.
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year 5, quarter 3
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”We found Lady Hilda, and she told us all about your plans," the mage started and Kuja gave a dismissive wave of his hand.
”Obviously,” he said. ”I left her there for you to find. You didn’t think I kept her at the bottom of a dormant volcano, did you? Well. I didn’t do it often at least.” The mage went on about the mirrors and the shrines and opening the gates to Terra, and Kuja didn’t much bother paying attention to him. He’d already guessed that, after all, and it hardly surprised him that his plan had succeeded. It was only when Vivi mentioned meeting someone on Terra’s surface that he gave the mage an odd look.
”My sister? What on earth are you-?” And then he stopped. ”Oh.” His expression stilled. His tone echoed with the subtle tones of darkness. ”So he made another.” He refolded his hands onto his lap, straightening into an idol of poise and control. He didn’t know why it surprised him. He’d stolen Zidane away, and Garland was hardly one for sentiment. No, he’d have replaced him as well -- nothing but a disposable pawn even with all of Garland’s praise. And now Kuja was two times irrelevant.
The mage cleared its throat. Its nerves were obvious though whether it had sensed Kuja’s displeasure or merely feared for its story’s conclusion was impossible to say. Either way, the mage had the look of one at the edge of a narrow precipice, readying himself to jump.
”Zidane rebelled against his fate, and we all helped him take on that big scary man. Still, that's when you showed up."
Kuja tensed. This was the point of no return, the edge of the truth he so feared. Perhaps it was not the mage who stood at that precipice.
”You'd used other people's emotions to Trance. You hurt us pretty bad, and killed that scary man, but…” The mage took a long breath. ”His spirit lingered for a while. He told you... He told you…”
Kuja’s throat seized with anticipation. Why couldn’t the mage just say it and spare him this suspense? He almost wanted to sneer at him, to lash out and demand the truth with sharpened claws. Garland’s spirit had lingered. How was that possible, the man was not a master of death! But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was…
”He told you about your lack of time.”
”Lack of time? What do you mean by…lack?” He leaned forward, eyes incredulous, lips already pulled into the sneer he’d repressed. ”Do you mean to tell me that Garland could survive without a vessel? That he’d somehow transcended life itself? That’s absurd! That’s-!”
’Did you think a defect like you could last forever…?
Kuja’s breath froze. That voice -- Garland’s -- it resurfaced like a like a spear through water. It had seized him. Intruded upon his thoughts, and then-
’I built you only to last until the worthy Genome, Zidane, grew. It was too dangerous to let you last any longer than that.’
Kuja seized his head, teeth grit against the reflection of that memory. His chest seized in panic. No. No, Garland was only lashing out after his own death. It was all an attack, nothing more. A last attempt to wound him. And yet…
The truth struck him like a dagger through the chest. Garland never lied.
’You’ll be dead soon.’
Dead. Yes, that was what the mage had been trying to tell him along. He was dying. Perhaps in the mage’s time, already…
He laughed. For a long time, he laughed, the force it thrusting from him in waves. That it was. His life had an end, an end rapidly approaching, a cold and meaningless end encoded within him from birth. His life itself had been meaningless. Always meaningless. Always disposable. From the start, he’d been nothing but a tool and there could be nothing else. Every struggle, every night plotting in desperate abandon, every fight, every point of pride, it had all meant nothing. Nothing. He was-
His laughter stopped. He knew now the end of the mage’s tale. Had he come to this truth while balancing the power of a hundred souls at his fingertips. Had it only needed a breath to unbalance, to strike the world where it stood, to seize control of that which bound him. Yes. He would have done it.
He would have turned his wrath upon the world.
Kuja took a long breath through his nose. He tried to keep himself steady. The shock of it had faded. Deep within him, he’d always known. Even with the details faded, eve as the memory blurred, that truth had remained. He’d simply refused to believe it.
”You said that I tried to end all life.” His voice came oddly even. ”I must have been truly desperate.” He pushed his hair back over his pauldron, lips pursing as he pressed his hands into his lap to keep them from trembling.
”Well? Did I-?” His throat closed. The word choked itself. ”You said you’d been resurrected. I scoffed at the possibility, but if what you say is true…”
Then could he not have also been granted the same reprieve? It felt like driftwood amidst a tumultuous sea. The world had never granted him any mercy. He’d clawed every bit of fortune from its clenched fingers and he had never granted the weak any mercy himself. It seemed impossible that the fates could have offered him back something as precious as his life, but he couldn’t deny the evidence before him. Even still, he found himself hesitant to grasp that hope too tightly.
If he’d been granted his life then he had nothing to fear. Kuja had never before given regard to the idea of a god, but for the first time in his life he couldn’t help but ponder the existence of something greater than himself.
”Garland isn’t here,” he said. ”There is no second moon. And my body has yet to turn on itself. This world, it seems, is removed from that reality entirely. A second life.” He laughed under his breath. ”I’ve never so much as considered the possibility.”
Kuja’s soul had been molded by expectation, rebellion, and desperation. Every action, every moment, every feeling had been defined by Garland’s control and his impending fate. If that had faded then there was nothing left. He felt himself wilt beneath it, felt the exhaustion seep into his eyes. After all that time. After everything he’d done.
All of it was meaningless.
“I need time to think,” he muttered. His eyes met the mage’s and something twinged inside him. Something strange and altogether foreign. He glanced away. ”Tell me one more thing,” he said. ”At the end of it all. Did I…?” The words escaped him. What had he meant to ask? ”Did any of it matter?”
The mage listened with a kind of patient wisdom that Kuja couldn’t comprehend. How did a puppet hardly a year old learn obtain that kind of understanding? There was a clumsy innocence to its eyes, and its childish waddle had hardly matured in that time, but still. Kuja couldn’t help but recognize the mage’s social awareness nonetheless.
The mage plopped gracelessly into a patch of grass at the oasis’ edge, and Kuja hesitated for only a moment before following him. A pleasant wind filtered through the rocky skylight at the oasis’ ceiling, and Kuja paused for a moment, appreciating its rustle in his hair before he settled across from the mage with his legs folded beneath him. He pressed his hands into his lap and watched Vivi with careful interest. Whatever came of this, it would not come easily. Even the mage had known that.
"Let's start with the last thing you remember?” The mage looked at him cautiously, its nerves obvious. ”When and where was that? I can go from there!"
Kuja paused. It was hard to say exactly when his memories fell victim to the fog. They progressively grew faint near that nebulous border, blurring at the edges like watercolor. He glanced to the side and eyed the grass thoughtfully. Their leaves were springy and young, sprouting out from the less than fertile ground with all the rigid determination of birth. He bit at the side of his tongue.
”I remember trapping all of you in my palace. Or should I say that you walked into it yourselves? It’s not as though I lured you into that part at least.” Kuja touched at the grass, gently wrapping a blade around his finger. ”I sent Zidane out to retrieve the Gulug Stone from Oeilvert, and to my eternal surprise, he was competent enough to carry it through.” He stopped. After that, the memories slipped like water between his fingers. They came only in hazy images.
”I must have traveled there. To Esto Gaza,” he started slowly. ”I’d planned to bring the summoner with me and leave behind a clear trail for the rest of you to follow. I’d planned to extract her eidolons, but…” He winced. His temple throbbed with pressure. Yes, something had gone wrong. But what?
The moogle.
Yes, its image flashed behind his eyes. The moogle thrust itself in front of the summoner, its furry collar puffed with determination. Then there had been a burst of light and magic that had startled even him. The moogle had tranced. It had…
Laughter rose unbidden from his lips. It came humorless, quiet, and dry. Yes, that was the great irony of it all wasn’t it? A mere, pitiful moogle had achieved the one thing that Kuja had most lacked! He touched at his forehead, nearly trembling with the echo of his own emotions -- shock, rage, envy, and then elation. If a moogle could achieve trance, then surely any soul could do so. And wasn’t he, at the end of it all, nothing but a vessel for souls?
”That’s it, isn’t it?” He raised his head to watch the clear desert sky. ”Trance? If only enough souls could be gathered, its power would be unmatched. And if the gates were only opened to Terra’s doorstep, I would have access to hundreds of them.”
Yes, he was certain of it. The memories had faded, but that was what he’d have done then, and what he’d still do now. The portal would only open if all four gates were activated at once, and Zidane’s friends would be more than capable of doing so for him. He’d have reached Terra on their backs and let them, in their infinite naivete and goodwill, do all the work for him. Yes, that was what he’d have done. That was…
Not so dissimilar from what the mage had described. Kuja stopped, eyes still raised to the sky. Then it was true. His plans had already been thrust into motion. The ending had already been secured.
”That is the last I remember,” he said, oddly expressionless as he gazed dully at the sunlight. ”I reached Terra, didn’t I? And let you fight Garland in my stead. That is what I would have wanted.” He finally lowered his eyes and looked to the mage again. A new wariness had seized him mixed with the apprehension of a truth he might have already known.
He was silent for a moment, ponderous, before he once again posed the question with a new sense of darkness layered beneath. ”What did I do?”
Kuja couldn’t focus. For days, his mind had been shot, scattered, and sluggish an unoiled machine grinding its last. After a time, he’d had no choice but to stop trying as he leaned back in an armchair of his personal library and tried for the sixth time to distract himself with some menial play or another. It was worthless, of course, just as it had been for the last four days, and he sighed, rolling back his head and watching the uneven ceiling without interest. A shadow lurked behind him, just out of reach. A shadow with a pointed steeple hat and glowing yellow eyes.
Despite his promises, Kuja had not returned that wreathe of ruby desert flowers. He had, however, cast a potent slowing charm upon it to stave off the inevitable and they sat on a sequestered table even now like a cursed talisman that muddied his every attempt at productivity. A doubt had been cast into his mind -- a terrible doubt that he couldn’t wrench out no matter how he tried.
What if the mage had been right? Not about his insipid insistence upon Kuja’s emotions, but of the alternate future? Of the past that Kuja had forgotten? The fact were laid out in front of him like documents of his own destruction. The mage had been to Terra. He had visited the halls of Memoria by some impossible twist of fate, and neither of those concepts should have even been available to him. If that was true, then what were the chances that he had lied on anything else?
Kuja’s stomach twisted and he quickly wrenched himself away from his own pondering thoughts. No. That would do no good. Kuja straightened, rising to his feet before he could be lulled back into morbid temptations. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder…
What did the mage know? He bit his tongue, fearing the answer as much as he longed for it. Seeking those answers would undoubtedly destroy him, but shying from them felt just as wrong. When had he ever been one to shirk away from truth? Kuja touched at his head, grimacing at his own confliction. No, there was only one thing to do, and he would do it right this time.
He would question the mage once more, this time with a clear head and some sense of amiability. That was the only reasonable course of action.
He found the mage in his oasis -- the only source of sunlight other than the dragon’s keep. The water sat still as glittering glass and a few grasses and vines wound their way around it like flower chains. Kuja watched the mage silently for a time before finally striding towards it, expression cleared and head slightly tilted. ”You,” he started. It wasn’t elegant, but for once he didn’t particularly feel like wasting words. ”I’ve come to talk. What you said earlier. About the fate of the two planets.” Kuja hesitated. What exactly had he come to ask? ”And of me. I wish to be told it again. I suppose...I’ve had the time to digest the original shock.”
That was enough. Straightforward with just a hint of humanity. He hesitated before adding his only extraneous sentiment. ”Please.” It came out slightly weaker than he’d meant it. He pushed back his hair and tried again. ”Or that is to say, it’s been weighing on my mind.” His eyes wandered to the mage’s own. ”I’d like to learn the truth whatever that might be.”
Snow-laden winds brushed at his bare stomach, prickling the skin as his boots tapped on browning asphalt. The lanterns above hummed with something like magic and the air reeked of oil and exhaust. This city was like something out of one of Terra’s old historical records in Pandemonium or Oeilvert, a grim flash to a civilization on the brink of self-destruction. The same towers loomed over head, the same technology flashed by on thundering wheels, and the same sense of artificial life pulsed through the city’s veins.
In short, Kuja hated it.
Yet still, he had heard tell of this city and its culture beyond the fundamentals of war. He would taste its artistic merit while he scoped the city as a potential buyer for his weapons and enchantments. Still, as the snow iced on his skin and his boots trudged through gray sleet, he couldn’t help the wave of black vitriol that welled inside of him.
Places like this, he thought, were the epitome of what he hated most about technology.
The opera house rose from the ashen snow like a beacon, and Kuja hurried towards it, taking a moment to appreciate the classical architecture before slipping inside. The indoor heating, at least, was appreciated. He took the time to brush the snow and ice from his hair, primping it around his ears as his attention swept across the entrance hall.
He had been underground too long, far too long beneath the scorching sands with nothing to occupy him but his thoughts, his research, his plots, and that mage. His stomach curled at the thought. Vivi. He’d only just started using the mage’s name (for convenience only, of course) but something about the boy still made the fur of his tail bristle. Perhaps it was those wavering, hopeful eyes or the way he apologized far too often, trembling in fear. Maybe it came from the odd friendship the mage had formed with his dragon or those flowers the boy had offered him picked from the desert. No, Kuja needed time alone -- not to think, but to clear his head. He needed culture. He needed space.
He needed theater, and this was the best he could find on short notice. He pushed his hair over his shoulder and looked across the ticket board. The night’s showing appeared to be some silly love story, but it would do for now, he supposed. He’d gathered enough money from his business selling charmed weapons to scrounge up enough for this, and he intended to take advantage of that. He felt eyes fall upon him as they so often did, slipping down his hips and scrutinizing his armor, and gazing upon his softened features accentuated in makeup with either admiration or disgust. He cared little for the attention and bought his ticket without incident. Whether the eyes of the masses could appreciate his beauty or not meant nothing to him.
He swept into the lobby and breathed a sigh of relief. The embossed edgings, the marble floors, the red velvet accents. It all breathed of nobility, of wealth, and of a classical time that he had grown far more accustomed to than the metallic wasteland outside. Yes, this was what he needed regardless of the harsh or lustful gazes. He felt his shoulders loosen as he flitted to the nearest bar and acquired a glass of golden champagne. He swirled it thoughtfully and savored the bitter taste on his tongue.
For the first time in a long time, Kuja thought of nothing but decadence.
The mage held the wreath up higher for him to take it. Kuja did not.
"I know you like pretty things," it said and Kuja wanted to laugh but didn’t. What a trite idea! An act of pure sentimentality without any grounding behind it. Yes, Kuja marveled in all things of beauty, but that hardly meant he went out of his way to pick flowers.
The mage stuttered a response to his accusation, clearly nervous. "I was just trying to be nice,” it said. ”I thought you might want to brighten up your home. I know how pretty you made your last one. I wasn't trying to trick you or anything. I promise."
Kuja gave the mage an odd look somewhere between skepticism and shock. It certainly wasn’t wrong. His current lair was established more for practicality than for aesthetic, and he’d hardly had the time nor the wealth to customize it as he saw fit. He supposed a wreath of desert blossoms wouldn’t hurt anything, at least not until they wilted. Perhaps his magic could rectify that. Kuja hesitated, eyeing the thing the flowers as if they were a deadly snake.
What was he supposed to do?
The mage sighed, and an oddly introspective look flashes across its loathsome yellow eyes. ”And even if you let me leave where would I go?"
For a moment, Kuja was speechless. He hadn’t thought the black mages capable of any amount of self-awareness, let alone one so dismal. His gaze flicked between mage and flowers before he finally gave a short huff and swiped the wreath away.
”You’ll doubtless bring them back regardless of my opinion,” he said. ”And without my magic, they’ll die and look even more dismal than they do now. I’d rather they not offend my senses.” The petals were soft in his hand, and their flowery perfume had only strengthened. He supposed it wasn’t unpleasant.
”And I don’t know what you were talking about ‘being nice to myself.’ I hold myself in the highest regard.” Kuja pushed a handful of hair over his shoulder. ”I suppose…” he said. ”That I wouldn’t be opposed to bringing you along again. If I’m going out anyway. And you don’t get in my way.” He glanced to his dragon. The glutton was already in the palm of the mage’s overlarge hand. She’d certainly enjoy the company at any rate.
Kuja called magic to his hand and levitated the flowers above it so as not to damage them. A time-altering charm would take only a few minutes of concentration, but he was unlikely to manage that now. Perhaps he’d place the wreath at the mage’s bedside when he was done. Kuja certainly didn’t want it.
He moved towards his dragon, whistling to her as he vaulted easily onto her back and folded his legs beneath him. ”Well? Are you coming or would you rather die of exposure?”
”What would I do?” The question returned to him with a kind of thoughtful curiosity. ”I’d do what I’m doing now.”
Kuja smirked bitterly. Of course, what had he expected from not only a puppet but a child at that? Nothing. He’d expected nothing but empty sentiment and naive expressions of hope. And that was what he received. Kuja couldn’t be angry nor could he even let his frustrations rise, not when the outcome was so thoroughly expected, yet he couldn’t help a kind of wry wariness. Would he ever meet another capable of satisfying conversation?
”I hope I can do better than I did before,” the mage finished. ”I hope you know you can too."
”Better?” Kuja opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to catch the mage out of the corner of his eye. What on all of Gaia was it talking about?
”I don’t know what you’d expect me to do,” he said dryly. ”I’m not much for grand shows of benevolence. Nor minor ones for that matter.” Kuja gave the mage an odd look. Surely, it should have learned of Kuja’s true nature by now? The events of Gaia aside, Kuja had abused the mage often enough that any belief in his “better nature” were surely some sign of a mental dysfunction. Yet still, it rocks on its heels with its simple, dull look as it twisted some desert blossoms between its hands.
”Do you like my flowers?” it asked, holding it up so he could look at it. Kuja gave it a steady look. ”If you like it you can have it, I can make another one for myself some other time."
”You want me to-?” Kuja said and then he laughed, covering his mouth behind his hand. ”Why would you-?” he started and then stopped, hesitant. His eyes slid back to the flower wreath. ”Why would you do that?” The laughter was gone from his voice now. The desert blossoms reflected back at him in a sickening perfume of petals.
”Are you expecting I’ll release you if you appeal yourself to me? Because it won’t work. I have no intention of letting you run off and disgrace my name, whether you’re feeling charitable with flowers or not.”
Even Kuja didn’t understand it. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t advantageous. There was absolutely nothing to gain from winning the mage’s favor. If someone else had done the same, he would have mocked them mercilessly. Why show compassion for a worthless puppet? Why waste it on a being that can’t benefit you in return? It was ridiculous. It was absolutely nonsensical.
And yet…
The dry wind of the desert calmed him as it always did. It felt so different from the dim, half-dead corpse of a planet he’d once called home. The sunlight and the heat had always done wonders for his mood, and now was no exception. He stood at the edge of a cliff, admiring the view before him as his dragon curled lazily beside him. There was nothing at all to draw his ire except…
The shuffling of clumsy feet. Kuja pushed his hair over his shoulders, turning his head to the clear sky as a means of distraction. The creature was harassing a cactuar by the sound of it -- an eternally risky game; the black mage would only have itself to blame if it met a barrage of needles for it. Kuja touched his head and ran it back through his hair.
What was he doing here? He still didn’t have an answer.
”Vivi, was it?” Kuja kept his eyes on the sky. With any luck, it would keep him calm. ”Tell me, when did you gain sentience? A soul, I mean. It’s an uncommon defect, but it can’t be helped. Not with Gaia’s spiritual atmosphere, at any rate.”
Kuja crossed his arms and considered the horizon. ”Ironic, isn’t it? That I should go about creating soulless dolls. It was no small task mimicking such advanced technology on a planet that had hardly discovered steam engines, but then, it was the most efficient use of my talents. He would only be satisfied with the slaughter of thousands, so slaughter I did.”
What was this odd feeling that had grasped him? He’d only ever felt this when he was alone or standing beneath the twin moons at midnight. He decided not to fight it. The mage could tell no one.
”It was all so simple, really. Arm the most insatiable of kingdoms and watch them all destroy each other. I didn’t have to raise a finger, and if all had gone well, I could have let it all play out without doing a thing. The mages would break down, and the kingdom of Alexandria would be left defenseless with the entire world as its enemy. A perfect plan, wasn’t it? Exploiting the nature of Gaians to their own destruction. I was almost blameless.”
He gave a short laugh without any real heart to it. It had all gone nearly according to plan, but to what end? If the mage was telling the truth, Garland was dead and Kuja couldn’t even remember it. A cruel irony.
”And here we are as though nothing ever happened at all.” The desert stretched out in all directions, beautiful and deadly. It continued without end. A desolate expanse. ”Tell me, what would you do? I have nothing to plot towards, nothing to plan, no goals, no machinations. I’m merely going through the motions, I suppose." He closed his eyes, tilting his head to the side.
"And you? You’ve babbled on about friendship and love and all other kinds of drivel. What would you do alone in a world that isn’t your own?” Kuja smirked bitterly. ”I know the feeling all too well.”
Kuja knew almost immediately that he’d made a mistake. The mage paused as though uncertain of what it was hearing before going on about how it was “wrong” before bowing its head with something like shame. Kuja glanced at it, scowling before looking forward again. Something terrible was welling inside him, something that couldn’t be lessened by the warm touch of sunlight or the tussle of wind in his hair. Why had he said that? It had been a moment of weakness, and Kuja was anything but weak.
"Learning new things is scary,” the mage went on. Kuja’s nails dug into his palms. ”It took me a long time to learn that being scared is okay though. It's scary being here without any of my friends. It's scary not knowing where I am or why I'm here." The mage stopped and Kuja restrained the urge to slap it right there. But it kept going as though heedless of his own decaying composure. Its instincts certainly weren’t sharp. ”But it's okay to take the things that scare us little by little. Sometimes we have to figure out our feelings ourselves, but sometimes, it's okay to talk about it.”
Kuja was silent for a long moment. Magic crackled at the edge of his fingertips and he placed a hand on top of it to keep himself steady. Once he felt that his most murderous instincts were suffocated, he gave a loud, harsh laugh.
”Afraid? You think I’m afraid?” He gave the mage a disbelieving look laced with every bit of mockery he could muster. ”Next you’ll tell me it’s not my fault that I sent Alexandria to its ruin, that I had no real interest in slaughtering those hideous rats, or that leading all of you to my bidding was merely a product of circumstance!” He laughed again before his eyes darkened. He twirled bits of feather around his fingers.
”I’m not like Zidane. We might share the same blood line, but we don’t share a nature. He might pick up every stray child, rat, and Qu that he comes across, but I honestly couldn’t care less. I’m not a victim, and you’d do well not to mistake me for one.”
Simply mentioning Zidane’s name in relation to him made his lips sour. Zidane, an idiot nothing compared to him always wallowing in his own foolishness. And yet, he’d been the one who fortune had favored. If only Kuja hadn’t flinched at the thought of murdering him with his own hands.
But there was no use in dwelling on the past. Kuja had no intention of making that mistake ever again.
The mage was ecstatic which wasn’t surprising. It had taken such a liking to his dragon that it was a wonder it hadn’t already provoked her in its own foolish desires for companionship. Still, there was something slightly disarming about the extent of the mage’s glee and Kuja couldn’t help an odd look as he watched it struggle atop Ava’s back even as she lowered herself to the ground for them. After a moment, the mage settled himself into her feathers, looking to Kuja for guidance as though he weren’t the mage’s creator and captor. Kuja scoffed, arms crossed as he gave him a dismissive wave.
”Anywhere will do so long as you don’t pull out her feathers. Once she’s in flight, you’ll hardly have need of it assuming you keep your balance.” Kuja mounted her easily, settling in his usual place between her shoulder blades with his knees bent to one side. He stroked her neck gently, letting out a short sigh before whispering to her in Terran, ”Take us out, about halfway across the desert. We’ll find a place to land there.” Ava snorted her understanding and spread her wings, rising straight up with a combination of heavy wing beats and aero magic until they were out of her hollow and peering down at the expanse of desert beyond.
Oceans of sand reached out to the far reaches of every horizon. From the top of their rocky plateau, he could see everything from the swirling antlion nests to the east to a roaming colony of cactuars bouncing their way across the north. The sun beat down in oppressive rays of heat, and Kuja tilted his head to revel in it. His dragon took short notice of their surroundings and lept off the edge. They glided steadily until she flapped her wings and they ascended higher into the sky.
The wind swept through his hair and he sighed, running his fingers through it and pushing it back over his shoulder. The mage was still there, holding on and looking around in wonder. Kuja glanced at it before considering the solid blue of the sky.
”When we met,” Kuja started and then paused. What in all of Gaia was he doing and why did he feel the compulsion to do so? He considered his next words carefully, scowling faintly to himself. ”I may have...perhaps...reacted stronger than I would have liked.” He cast his gaze aside. If he pushed the mage off now, would it die? ”I try to keep my reactions controlled, but with what you said…”
About Terra, about Garland, about Memoria, and what happened after...
Somehow, despite his captivity and Kuja’s abuse and the very real threat of danger, the mage beamed with an energy so positive that Kuja could only blink at it, eyebrows raised in surprise. Was it really too stupid to realize its own situation, or was it just too simple to care? With every passing second in the puppet’s company, Kuja felt he understood it less and less, though perhaps that was a unique effect of its malfunction.
”Okay! I’ll be super careful!"
Kuja’s eyes narrowed. The mage sounded like a child, and a young one at that. Ridiculous. It had been manufactured into a mature body with a mature mind just as Kuja had. Its stupidity was nothing but its own making, not a sign of age, but of inherent worth. Kuja had never been like this. Not once since he’d gained his own soul. He’d never looked upon anything with such gleeful eyes, hands trembling with anticipation as he awaited permission to-
"Kuja, said I could pet you! I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it too. I promise I'll be soft!"
Kuja stilled. He’d heard those words before or something like it, from a boy no less stupid or excitable as this one. They shared the same expression, the same naivete, the same nauseating good will. All that the mage was missing was a death wish and a tail.
”I bet you guys have a lot fun flying around!"
"Hm?” Kuja’s thoughts had wandered too far. He touched at the side of his head and tried to rid himself of his own foul mood. This had nothing to do with Zidane. ”It’s useful at least and I far prefer flying by dragon than by airship. It’s less troublesome.” Kuja stepped away from his dragon and looked up at it without any particular interest. What on all of Terra was this feeling stirring within him? His lips pursed against it, and he couldn’t suppress a scowl. It was a foreign emotion and one that he wanted to strike away before it could impede his judgment any further. It was a feeling that made him think incessantly of-
Big blue eyes, staring up at him, heels bouncing as fists pounded at the air in anticipation. ‘Please, please, please! Won’t you let me fly? Won’t you-?’
-Terra. It made him think of Terra and his own weakness. Perhaps that was why the sight of this mage so offended him. Kuja had seen enough puppets in his life to loathe the addition of another.
”I was about to go for a flight. This stale air is maddening and I can hardly make progress when I can’t focus.” Kuja hesitated, not entirely sure what he was going to say until the words had left him. ”You could come with me, I suppose. If you chose to. You’d be no good to me completely senseless from boredom.” He gave the mage a dismissive wave. ”I hardly care one way or the other.”
