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year 5, quarter 3
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The war cry came with a current of darkness and the familiar pull of anti-gravity. A demi spell. Kuja did what he could to sidestep the worst of it, but it wasn’t a spell to be avoided so much as endured. Instead of striking back, he touched a sparking finger to his own wrist and hardened his defenses with an anti-magic Shell. It struck him like an ocean wave, nearly knocking him backwards and clawing at him forcefully towards the ground. Kuja grit his teeth and squared himself against it, wincing as he felt his power draining.
’Just get through it. You’ll deal it tenfold soon enough.’
”People aren't yours to use!” The mage’s righteous indignation pierced the shadows. ”We aren't play things to amuse you. You, you…!" It paused, searching for the right words. ”You’re just mean!”
Kuja laughed then. Loudly. He couldn’t help it. And as the shadows died back to lap pitifully at his boots, Kuja stood his ground, unfazed except for the slight displacement of his hair and a new fire in his eyes.
”Was that your first insult? Congratulations. A little longer, and I might almost call you sentient.” He spat the words with renewed malice now. Gone was the play at formality and restraint, replaced by something far more primal. Kuja hated to admit to the blood lust that coursed through him at times like these. Times when he’d suffered slights and offenses that made his tail bristle yet he’d plaster on his same, plastic smile. But there was no audience now save for the two of them -- the actor and the victim. He had no cause for restraint.
No. There was no denying it. His soul cried for blood.
”It seems I’ve struck a nerve.” He laughed again into his hand before tilting his head at the mage. ”Such grand speech, and yet, how many could you save from their fate? The weak lose their will to the strong, and heroic words won’t alter the course of nature.” Kuja scowled as he straightened, turning fully to the mage and keeping ready on his feet. Spells could strike as rapidly as the tongue could speak them.
”But if you so long for dramatic retribution, then I shall play the villain yet. I can’t have you running off and slandering my name, now can I?” There was a pulse across his right hand. It had been some time since he’d wielded his magic for murder. Too long. ”Thundaga.” The sky shuddered then split open with a bolt of streaking violet. It crashed to the earth in heavy thunderclap that splintered the trees above them and caught the branches on fire. Kuja was moving before he saw it land. The mage was clumsy, but it wasn’t a novice. It wouldn’t take long to retaliate in kind.
How long had it been since he’d had a battle of magics? Not since his days on Terra, most likely, and this time his target couldn’t teleport. Or mind read. Or seize him in a psychic grip. No, this was a Gaian. A puppet. His own creation with less than a year of experience under its comically overlarge belt.
Kuja’s blood was boiling with latent energy. He’d recharged by the time the his eyes had focused once again from the thunder’s blinding light. He touched his fingertips to his lips, muttered an incantation, and let it loose with a swipe of his hand. ”Flare!”
This battle, as climactic as it might be, wouldn’t take long.
Before the words had left his lips, Kuja felt the heat of incoming flames. He dodged on instinct, sidestepping the danger before his conscious mind could process it. The fireball surged past him inches from his bare stomach, nearly singing the few stray strands of hair that whipped behind him. Kuja saw the light, the flame, the smoke that only grew more pungent as the fire burst upon impact in a nearby tree and fizzled on smoldering bark, and his eyes widened.
The mage had attacked him. His tail bristled his indignation.
”Was that supposed to hit me?” he said though of course he knew the answer. The aim was pitiful and the magic less than impressive, but the intention was clear enough. To harm. He felt his own magic spark at his fingertips, ready for retaliation.
But the mage seemed less than interested in what Kuja had to say. ”You...You…” There was rage in its miniscule voice. Actual emotion quivering and about to burst. It was all so unexpected that Kuja couldn’t help but stare in mild astonishment. Was it a malfunction or…?
Did this mage have a soul?
"We weren't all the same!" The outburst was as unexpected as it was wild. A child’s wrath with balled fists and fiery eyes, but there was a certain tension to it that sparked on the wind. Magic. It built around the mage with every word. "Where's Zidane? Why are you here? Are you just a phantom of this place or are we doomed to know each other here, dead as well?"
Darkness rose from the mage’s hand. Darkness as thick and obscuring as Kuja’s own confusion. A phantom? Dead? It had all come so fast that for a moment, Kuja could only blink at the mage, dumbfounded. It was then that he noticed that this mage had a different design than the rest. A little more patchwork. And wasn’t it smaller than he’d made in the past weeks? Kuja played through the outburst again until his mind settled on a single word and everything clicked into place.
Zidane.
”Oh.” It seemed at once so obvious that Kuja could have laughed at himself for his own gullibility. ”You’re that one. Zidane’s pet. Always following at his heels. Forgive me, I have trouble telling your kind apart. Something about the face, I presume.” He did laugh then, a cold, cruel laugh he only ever gave at another’s expense. He touched at his forehead and looked up to admire the pale shafts of moonlight filtering through the treetops. ”Though I can’t help but wonder what tricks of fate have led you here of all places and now of all times. An alignment of the stars, perhaps? Or of planets.” His smirk came bitter. Truly, the timing was ironic.
”Believe what you will, but I’m disappointed to say I’ve done nothing with that brash idiot since I found my way to this place. In fact, you’re the first I’ve met who’s known me. A pity. I’d have liked to have trifled with the princess again. Her beauty was unmatched even in her grief.”
Kuja swept his hair over his shoulder and glanced aside to eye the indignant mage before him. He cast him a cool and bitter smile. ”But alas. It seems I can hope for no better company than a puppet.” He touched at his bottom lip and laughed again, quietly behind his hand. ”How very…underwhelming.”
Please forgive my overindulgence. Also Kuja being a dick. He's projecting like no one's business
Why should the world exist without me?
”When you waste a vessel’s life, you waste my time. And I will not tolerate my time being wasted. Do you understand?”
His knees ached on the hard stone. His back had gone rigid. Before him, there was blood. Viscera. Torn and mangled flesh leftover from what he’d let his dragon to do to one of them. The dragon had fled at the first sign of danger, leaving behind a mess of mottled skin, slack lips, and dull eyes. The face looked almost like his. Too much like his.
”Kuja.”
Kuja tore his attention away to glance at the darkness looming over him. Garland never changed expressions -- not now and not ever -- but there was a cold tension from him that brewed so thick he could hardly breathe. Kuja opened his mouth. He tried for the words he knew were right (‘Yes, Master Garland. It was a mistake. I’ll never do it again.’) but his throat closed on itself and he felt his fists tighten.
”You’ll make more tomorrow.” He might as well have pushed himself off a cliff. His heart pounded a mix of exhilaration and fear as he tumbled faster, faster, faster. ”There are hundreds of them, aren’t there? And they never do anything. Not like me, going to Gaia and back for you! They’re worthless. Empty! So what does it matter?”
Silence. For a moment, there was only silence and that constant, suffocating tension. Kuja pressed his hands against his knees to steady them.
Finally, there was impact. ”I won't repeat myself.” Every syllable was like a dagger about to fall, but Kuja was already plummeting too quickly to see them. It wasn’t enough. It never was.
”Why do they deserve to live?” His voice rose, angry, shaking. For the first time, he lifted his chin to meet eyes that were colder and deader than those of the corpse at his feet. ”They’re all the same and I’ve done more than they ever have! They don’t deserve it! Not like me! So why-?”
His soul was seized by taloned hands. The breath was squeezed from his lungs as he felt himself fall forward, his palms scraping the ground. It was a familiar feeling -- a psychic intrusion that sought to dim his consciousness -- but the familiarity did nothing to steel him against it. Here on Terra, he was in his creator’s power completely. Here, he was only…
...a vessel.
”You deserve nothing.” The words surrounded him. A chilling voice. A dead soul. ”You exist for a purpose. That is all.”
His throat tightened. ”But I’m-!”
”A mistake.” So sure. Like mathematical truth. Kuja winced as the darkness took hold and his head spun. ”Your delusions have grown out of hand. Do you think you’re irreplaceable simply because you have a soul?”
His eyes fell to the wreckage before him. The splashes of blood looked almost violet beneath cool, lifeless blue. What was left of the Genome stared back at the light without comprehension.
”What has been given can just as easily be taken away.”
Blue eyes. His eyes. Cold and dead and staring. His soul flared its objections against bristled tail and gritted teeth.
‘They’re not like me.’
‘Not like me.’
‘Not me.’
***
The face below him was ghastly in its own chilling simplicity. The expression was wooden. The cheeks smooth and bulging as though stuffed. There was no life behind the blank and darkened eyes. In its full effect, it reminded him more of a doll than a man. Like a children’s plaything oversized and thrust upright. Or a puppet barely held aloft.
Kuja eyed his creation coolly. It was the product of months of research, experimentation, and error, and yet, it was nowhere near complete. He hated the lumbering nature of the thing. Its lack of grace, poise, or anything resembling beauty. Compared to the work of Terra, it was but a child’s imitation stitched together in an evening and displayed like a trophy. He supposed it was a trophy, to a degree. This was his reward for sleepless nights and wasted days, for skipped meals, drooping eyes, and feverish writing to flickered candlelight.
Pathetic. He’d start from scratch in the morning, but for now, he supposed he might as well let it join the others in the forest. Maybe its waking nature would surprise him.
A spell slipped carelessly from his lips, and he weaved it between his fingers like silkwork. His magic stitched together into a shroud of shadows before the thing’s face (Good. He wouldn’t have to look at the hideous thing any longer) before he cast his mind into the husk and activated the Mist within. There was a snap, a long sigh of air, and his creation stirred to life -- or something like it. It moved on its own. It made noises like breathing. And after a moment, two small yellow orbs pierced through the veil of darkness where its eyes might have been. They stared at him for two long, dull seconds before blinking slowly. Kuja’s teeth ground together in a snarl.
(‘How he longed to strike it! This empty mockery that was nothing like him! He hated its lumbering steps, its hollow voice, its blank eyes -- a chilled, solid blue-’)
”Go.” The word came sharp as a dagger’s blade. Kuja touched at his forehead, his nails pressing into the skin. ”I don’t care what you do. Just go.”
The thing stared at him, blinked twice, and lumbered into the forest.
Kuja hated the prototyping process.
It had taken him too long to get here. Too many frustrations in his ramshackle workshop in the middle of a haunted forest. He’d refurbished the dilapidated temple into his own personal lair. He’d created his own vessels from whole cloth using outdated technology he’d reversed engineered from nearly nothing. And all of it, he’d fueled on a strange, chilling fog that he still didn’t entirely understand. Even still, his attempts were crude. Back on Gaia, he’d automated the process to perfection -- thousands of mindless soldiers patched together on an assembly line. This early on, he had to do every step manually. It was exhausting.
It took him nearly an hour to notice that his traps had been triggered. Perhaps it was the stress of the evening or perhaps it was his intense brooding, but he hardly noticed the vague pull of broken, ethereal tripwires in the back of his mind. When he did take notice, he thought it must have merely been one of the forest’s many monsters, but no. He’d set it to only react to intelligent life, hadn’t he? Kuja cursed his luck, the fates, and whatever fool had thought to trespass in a haunted forest at night.
Regardless, it had to be taken care of.
His dragon snorted her complaints as he woke her that night. She was always as fussy about sleep as she was about food, but Kuja paid her little mind. Ava stilled as he pressed his palm between her shoulder blades and lifted himself effortlessly into his usual position on her back. A few whispered words and a coercion or two later and she’d lifted herself from the ground and taken flight against her better judgment.
This would be quick, he told her. Nothing but a trifling errand not five miles away. And she would be allowed free reign on whatever he left behind.
The flight took less than a quarter of an hour. Unfortunately, it landed him above a thick patch of fog covering what he presumed to be thickets of trees. Kuja bristled at the obstacle, but asked that his dragon lower herself into the mist. She did so begrudgingly, and Kuja felt a familiar prickle at the back of his neck as the fog crept across his skin in chilled tendrils.
When his dragon reached the treeline, she stopped, hovering there with heavy wingbeats that tossed him about like waves on a sea. Kuja eyed the fog hatefully.
Something would have to be done about it.
The spell slipped from his tongue and played at the edges of his fingertips, waiting. He waved his hand and released the power with a single word -- ”Aeroga.” A tempest wind swept through the trees in a cyclone of branches, leaves, and loose soil. It caught the mist like a whirlpool and funneled it out of the forest through its peak. Looking down, Kuja caught a weak and flickering flame somewhere in the foliage. His eyes narrowed. Was that magic?
His gaze swept from the flame to an oversized, patchwork coat, to a pointed hat that shivered in the wind. ”Oh.” Understanding flooded him as quickly as disappointment. ”It’s just one of you.” Disdain chilled his voice as thickly as Mist. It was only a black mage. Getting into trouble. Wasting his time.
Kuja slid from the back of his dragon, blasting through the tree branches with magic to clear his way, and casting a quick float spell on himself to slow his descent to the ground. He touched the forest floor lightly, straightening to eye the thing before him. He pushed back a handful of hair and scowled. ”How you managed to stumble this far out, I haven’t the slightest idea. A malfunction, probably.”Stupid. Bumbling. A waste of life.
”What? Haven’t you anything to say for yourself?” A smirk twisted on the edges of his lips. Of course it wouldn’t. These mages weren’t capable of speech. But it amused him anyway. ”Or perhaps your strings have been tangled in the wind?”
The woman’s response was as predictable as it was impractical. The monster was their responsibility now. Any blood it might spill would be on their hands. The woman didn’t say it, but Kuja knew the thought process well enough to mock it quietly. Who else would handle the situation but them? What might the creature do if left to its own devices? What other lives might be taken?
Why was any of it his problem?
Thankfully, the woman didn’t actually say any of that. Instead, she chose a different route. Shame.”I mean I've got it under control. Wouldn't want you to break a sweat, and besides I've got money on the line.”
”Well then. I’d hardly want to keep you from it.” Kuja gave her a dry look as he continued his careful path towards the exit. Her goading did nothing to him. He knew his own power and that he could handle the situation better than she could if he wanted to, but why “break a sweat” if it was unnecessary? He hardly needed the effort.
She glanced around them and then cursed the iguana-man’s absence. Kuja hadn’t noticed him leave either. Perhaps the man had already taken Kuja’s own logic and fled when the situation had changed. Kuja wondered how he hadn’t noticed, but then, he supposed he’d been rather distracted by the murderous green golem.
Still, how did a man as hulking as that manage to sneak anywhere?
”One more reason to take our exit and to do so quickly,” Kuja suggested, but as soon as he’d said it, the situation changed once more. The golem was inching forward, eyes gleaming with murderous intentions, when suddenly it just...wandered off. Kuja stopped, blinking at it, but he wasn’t mistaken. A tonberry -- one of the most aggressive creatures on Gaia -- had simply given up. How very...unusual.
"Strange,” the woman agreed, ”I've never seen one behave so calmly. Let's see where this fellow's going.”
”Pardon?” Kuja cast her a scathing look, but she was already charging off after it. Kuja’s eyebrows furrowed at her idiocy. Yes, yes. Let’s corner one of the most troublesome monsters in the world. Maybe that will make it easier to handle! Why are we here again? But he couldn’t just leave on his own. Not now that his own curiosity was pounding in his ears. Was this tonberry somehow under the command of the mage fabled to haunt these halls? If so, could he learn the same spells? He couldn’t let the opportunity slip away.
And so, begrudgingly, Kuja followed her.
The tonberry led them through rune-marked catacombs, down crumbling staircases, over fetid waterways, and finally to another ritualistic alter room not so different from the one they’d left. Once again, a glowing stella rose from the room’s center and once again, the air was heavy with magic. The tonberry stopped as though standing at attention, and on the room’s other side, a door creaked open. Kuja tensed at the sound, fiery spells already at his tongue, but what emerged could only be described as a disappointment. Instead of some wizened mage or corrupted necromancer, there was only a girl. A fragile looking girl with tangled blonde hair down to her waist who looked no older than nineteen. She was dressed in common clothing, torn and weathered with neglect. She scampered down the stairs to the stella and the tonberry which awaited her, and as she saw it, her eyes list with an almost impish glee.
”It finally worked!” she cried, and in that moment of pure excitement, Kuja decided that there could have been a certain kind of beauty to her had she not been damned to lurk in sewers and graveyards. His eyes flicked over her in interest.
The dragoon, however, had different intentions. ”For a necromancer, you seem pretty lively,” she said as she prowled like a lion from the shadows. The girl gave an audible squeak of alarm and scrambled away from her, arms raised defensively. What little color left in her complexion had drained in an instant.
”You-! How did you-?” she started and then drew herself up. ”I’m a mage. I’ve just studied magic. Powerful magic. The kind we need right now.” There was a certain spark in her eye even as she glanced nervously at the woman’s spear. ”I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Kuja glanced from the girl to the apparently docile tonberry. Then he stepped forward as well. ”And what impressive magic it is. Tell me, did you summon that creature or merely craft a charm to control it?” His eyes lit with cool fire at the thought. There had been few greater rushes than commanding the Mistspawn to his will. If only he could do the same now. ”I’d be quite interested in your methods.”
It became quickly apparent that if nothing else, the thing before him was not a mindless beast. No, in fact, as the violet light faded like an afterglow from the creature’s skin, he saw it transform back towards its true nature -- a rather delicate looking girl. Kuja frowned at the waning magic before him. A trance. It could be nothing else.
The girl was like a stained glass window that shimmered in the sunlight but shattered under the slightest force of will. For a moment, he could only stare in awe of her. She wore a series of flower-adorned silks in red, white, and lavender. Scarves and bangles wrapped around her hips and tussled about her hair, pulled back in careless ringlets. She carried herself with a submissive stance, tottering in golden heels, and despite the sword at her side, she projected vulnerability above all else.
In a glance, she wasn’t so different from Kuja, really. They both carried with them a sense of hidden power that sparked at the edges of raised fingertips. They both adorned themselves in gold, violet, and glittering rouges. People thought him fragile. They thought him weak because lesser minds couldn’t associate beauty with strength. But Kuja’s eyes alone were different. His were sharp and focused. Hers -- oblivious and glassy. Kuja knew a victim when he saw one, looks be damned, but beauty was something to be admired -- and hers was as delicate as rose petals.
She pursed her lips nervously as she turned to face him, eyes darting towards her surroundings before meeting his again. ”M-my apologies! I d-didn't mean to intrude I promise!” she said in little more than a squeak. ”I was looking for an oasis, and I felt an intense magic coming from this place! I didn't know anyone lived here. I-if my presence is unwelcome I-I'll leave!"
It was the stutter that gave him pause. He couldn’t imagine feeling such panic over intruding on another’s space that he’d lose words over it. He supposed it was a fear of conflict over anything else, or perhaps a fear of overstepping her bounds. Either way, Kuja could give it nothing but disdain.
She begged him not to turn the situation violent. She opened her arms to display just how nonthreatening she was. And all the while, Kuja could only watch her -- half scathing and half taken aback by the spontaneity of it all. And he’d just wanted a break to read up on his notes…
For a moment, it seemed that she was actually kneeling before him to beg his forgiveness, but after a brief pause, she clarified, ”P-please sit down. M-my name is Terra.”
Terra.
Kuja’s eyes narrowed at that familiar name. Was this some kind of cosmic joke? No. He didn’t believe in such things. It was coincidence, pure and simple, but it was a dangerous one that left a sour taste in his mouth. Of all the names she could have spouted for him, why did it have to be that one?
And why did he feel as though he’d thought all this before? The sense of deja vu was nauseating.
Kuja didn’t sit. He didn’t kneel. He didn’t so much as change his stance. He did shake the magic from his fingertips, however, and cross his arms loosely over his chest. She hadn’t finished speaking.
The girl took a breath to calm herself. It didn’t work. ”S-so as I was saying, I was looking for an Oasis. T-the stories say that an old man drank of it's waters and recalled several memories of his life even as his mind failed him. A-and when I set out on my own to find t-the fabled oasis, I searched for several days before I found this place!" She looked at him as though she expected an answer, but he could only raise an eyebrow as she continued. ”I-if you could share any i-information about the fabled Oasis, I would really appreciate it!” she blurted out before bowing her head submissively. Kuja breathed slowly. Such displays of weakness always sent the magic in his fingertips sparking for blood. But no. That wouldn’t do. He’d already been far too unapproachable as it was.
This girl had power. As dim-witted as she might appear, there was use in that. Kuja threw his hair over his shoulder, eyes pensive, as he considered the ceiling.
”The oasis…?” he repeated slowly. ”I’ve certainly noticed some magical properties, but hardly anything worthy of note. I believe you’ve been mislead.” An easy feat, he imagined. He doubted it would take much more than a few hopeful words to lead this girl astray.
”As for myself, you may call me Kuja.” He offered her a sly smile and slid into a bow he’d perfected in the high courts of Alexandria. The queen had always relished in his grace. ”I’ve stationed myself here to research the planet’s more peculiar qualities. I sense that you’re not native to this place either, and from your pursuits into lost memories, I can assume you suffer amnesia. You’re not the first I’ve found who can claim the same, though I must say, you are the first to drop in on me from above.” He laughed softly behind the back of his hand before gesturing up to the cave’s skylight. ”These walls tower thirty feet high. But I suppose your magic cast you over the edge. What a peculiar magic it is too. Was that a trance?” He tilted his head in interest. ”I’ve hardly seen anything like it.”
The desert heat swaddled him like a blanket made of feather down. Outside, the sun was scorching -- deadly even -- but in the shade of his oasis, the heat was a comforting weight. It played well with the cool blue reflected from the water and the sway of lush grass sprouting from its edges. If he closed his eyes, this place brimmed with nature in all of its sharpest extremes. It was nothing like home.
Kuja let out an indulgent sigh and let his hand rest on an open page of his notebook. He’d needed a moment to think, or rather, to open his mind from the narrow constraints of research. He didn’t know how long he’d confined himself to the depths of this place. Days maybe. A week at most living off of dried rations so he wouldn’t break his concentration by lighting a stove. The tunnels beneath the oasis were useful in their complexity and isolation, but the air quickly grew stale underground and the flickering of candlelight was maddening after days. It made his mind wander again back to those ashen halls where time stood still and death was a religion. Once his breath grew sallow and his fingernails bit sharp into the palms of his hands, he’d emerge again to his oasis to admire the heat and let his wrists trail across the water.
That was where he found himself now, lazily sprawled across the grass with his notes in one hand and a pen in the other. His work was too important to break from for even a moment, but a change of pace would keep him sane enough to focus. He knew that he was close. He’d already managed artificial life once before, after all. He just needed to account for new technology and the ever-mystifying properties of that forest’s “haunted” fog. It wouldn’t be long now. A few months at most, and then he’d hold the fate of nations in his hands.
Kuja didn’t know what it was that told him that he wasn’t alone. Perhaps it was the subtle sound of shifting air. Perhaps it was the bristling of his tail at foreign magic. Regardless, he knew it a second before he saw it -- a flash of lavender light and a humanoid form at the skylight of his oasis. For a moment, Kuja could only stare at it (’Where had it come from? How did it surpass his security? Was it flying?’) before his mind caught up and he was on his feet in an instant, hand outstretched and spells sparking on his fingertips. The walls around the oasis were nearly thirty feet high and blended in perfectly with the surrounding antlion tunnels. What was this thing and how had it known where to look?
None of that mattered. Not now when he could be facing down a friend, foe, or mindless monster. Still, that light echoed in the back of his eyes with the shadows of something familiar. His eyes narrowed into the sunlight as he sought to decipher it. Whatever it was, he wasn’t about to lower his guard.
”Can I help you?” His voice came shrewd and cool as he stared down the unknowable beast before him. Magic exuded from it in waves. ”I wasn’t expecting visitors, I’m afraid.”
The glint of a lantern. Shuffling steps. Kuja kept his hand raised warily, head tilted slightly to the side. What was it approaching them and why did it sound so very...short?
His questions were answered as the creature stepped into the light. Not a ’who’ but a ’what’. And in fact, this what was a squat, green troll with beady yellow eyes, robes akin to a burlap sack, and a simple cleaver held steady in one hand.
Recognition flashed like lightning. A common tonberry. The mercenary’s reaction summarized the situation perfectly.
”Shit!” The word was as explosive as her jump as she threw herself bodily away from the thing, spear raised defensively. She threw the spear rather than get anywhere near it, but the creature merely ducked at its approach and continued its death march forward. Kuja’s eyes darkened.
Ridiculous. What were the odds?
He had encountered tonberries once before on an excavation through the lost Terran site now known derivatively as Ipsen’s Castle. Deep within the castle’s depths, a colony of the horrid green demons had taken hold and Kuja had found the misfortune of discovering their resilience firsthand. They had no weaknesses, were immune to nearly everything, and while he had no trouble dispatching one or two of them at a time, they tended to travel in packs. A single hit with those knives would have been enough to kill anyone but him, and three of their accursed strikes had been enough to convince Kuja that dealing with them was thoroughly not worth the effort. Kuja had absolutely no interest in dying to some worthless golem’s hands, and that had hardly changed.
”If I might make a suggestion…” Kuja took a step backwards for every step the tonberry took towards him. ”I’d think it best not to waste our time. These never come alone, and if they’ve infested the catacombs, then the mage is most certainly dead.” Kuja’s back pressed against the wall, and he side-stepped towards the room’s exit instead. If nothing else, the abomination before them was at least slow.
”If given the choice, I'd rather conserve my magic.”
The woman answered by explaining the whims of fate of all things. She claimed she wished to be free of a burden, but that she feared straying from the path set for her. Weak. That was the only word Kuja had for such unwillingness to act. There was no use lamenting one’s purpose if there was no attempt to change it and fate was nothing more than the idealogical trappings of victims. Still, Kuja kept his expression steady, and in a moment, the woman smiled and took his hand.
Did she not find it odd that he was here at all? Did she not flinch away from her dragon and the rider that had so nearly allowed her gruesome death? Apparently not because she grasped his hand without a hint of caution. Her expression held nothing but warmth.
She told him that he was right. Of course he was, but that didn’t mean she had to accept so willingly. And then she asked his name.
Kuja paused. He looked over this weak, trusting, idiotic girl and he couldn’t help but laugh. He kept it to himself, quietly, as he pulled away and hid his amusement behind the back of his hand. He could have been anyone. In fact, if she’d known the kind of man he was, she would have fled into the icy wilderness rather than follow him, but she didn’t and he intended to keep it that way. At least for a while. So he turned back to her, eyes glittering his amusement as he appraised her. ”But of course. How are you to trust a stranger?” he said and then slipped into a sweeping bow more worthy of an Alexandrian court than a desolate cliffside. ”Kuja. It’s truly a pleasure, Miss Lohte. It isn’t often that one finds such appreciation for the finer arts.”
Idiot. She’d played into his hands before the game had even begun. Perhaps it was the near death experience that kept her from using her full judgment, but that hardly made it better. Kuja was as mysterious as he was dangerous and no one but an imbecile would have confused him for either.
But thankfully the world was full of imbeciles and intelligence was harder to find than decent theater. Kuja smiled at the woman and gestured towards the back of his dragon. ”Would you care for a ride? Or would you prefer to stay?” he asked, and though his smile never wavered, his eyes glittered with amusement. ”The choice is no one’s but yours.”
His dragon longed for to stretch her wings atop frigid cliff-sides and frozen mountain peaks. She’d spent too long in the desert, she insisted. She’d grown tired of the withering heat, blazing sun, and endless expanses of sand. It seemed a silly thing to leave his research on the whims of a dragon, but Kuja had long ago learned that keeping others in line meant giving them something in return for their services. For his dragon, he’d have tolerated far more than hypothermia and wasted time.
Still, he’d avoided the mountains for a reason. Kuja shivered against the biting wind. His body was made more resilient than those of Gaians so freezing would have been nearly impossible for him, but still, he far preferred the heat of the desert to the icy touch of snow. He wore his usual attire with all its violet leather, bare skin, and gold embellishments, and for once, Kuja couldn’t help but question its practicality. He would survive, of course, but the trip by dragon was less than comfortable. He nestled into her down feathers despite himself and quietly cursed the weather, the mountains, and his dragon alike.
What he wouldn’t give to feel his boots sink within sweltering sands. But progress was not directed by his whims alone. No matter how he wished it was.
”Are you done?” His voice came sharper than usual when addressing his dragon, but she wasn’t listening. Instead, she’d cocked her head, eyes narrowed in an expression Kuja knew too well. It was the look of a cat frozen at the sound of scampering feet. She looked back at him longingly.
Kuja touched at the bridge of his nose. ”If you must,” he said. ”We’re here on your doing.”
The dragon snorted her approval and started a spiral down towards the mountainside. Compared to his last dragon, she was almost boorish with an infamous impatience and hunger for anything that moved. His last dragon would have never interrupted him for a hunting detour, but then, she’d been something truly special. Cordelia, he’d named her, after the graceful heroine of his favorite play. He’d struggled for ages on a name worthy of her replacement, and had only recently decided on “Ava” for said play’s far less delicate author.
Ava drifted down until she found a cliff-side cave. There was likely something inside seeking shelter, and her ears twitched at the sounds of life that Kuja couldn’t decipher. Instead, he took the brief respite from the wind to conjure a small flame to warm his hands. His dragon would do as she would unless instructed otherwise, and he had no reason to pay any attention to her little indulgences.
That was, until he caught a voice -- female -- echoing off of stone walls. ”I wish to live my life under the sky. At times I shall laugh, at other times cry.” There it was. As clear as the waters of Terra. A quote he’d whispered to himself a million times over.
Here, in the middle of a desolate mountain cave on an alien world, someone had recited the works of Lord Avon.
He’d hardly noticed his dragon stalking forward. Hardly realized that her teeth were already bared as her haunches raised and she readied herself to attack. It was only then, as teeth and claws were inches away from rending through flesh that Kuja stiffened, came to himself, and shouted his command, ”Stop!” It came in the Terran tongue for his dragon’s sake, and Ava froze a mere arms-length away from her target. She gave a low whine to which Kuja hushed her and slid gracefully from her back. As his boots clicked against the stone floor, he found a stream of new words slipping from his tongue.
”For no life is more insincere than that lived as a masquerade.” He smirked as he spoke, eyeing the ceiling thoughtfully as he ambled forward. ”Worry not. Cast away thy trappings of royalty, and I shall swaddle thee in a gown of pure love.” His eyes wandered to the mysterious poet. She was an odd girl to say the least. Small. Shivering. She wasn’t human, though what she was, he couldn’t say. Something connected to cats, perhaps, though not enough that she couldn’t have hidden it with a few well-placed accessories. That was two things they had in common.
”Will you accept?” Kuja extended a hand to her, head tilted in a smile as cold as the mountain snow. ”You seem hardly in a position to refuse.”
To Kuja’s immense surprise, the iguana-man’s answer was almost useful.
The man told him that he wasn’t from this world (as if that hadn’t been obvious) and conceded that skulking around in catacombs wasn’t like him. He was from a warrior race, apparently. Someone who placed pride in such ridiculous things as pride, loyalty, and honor. Still, such traits were useful in their own rights. They were incredibly easy to manipulate, for one.
”My blood does not boil here, my mettle is not tested and my fangs grow dull- but my honor is to be kept. When Au Ra makes a promise, promise must be kept. Need work to live, contract is contract.”
Kuja hummed in faked interest. So he was bound to any contract? He sought action above all else and would remain loyal to any he pledged himself to? Kuja had no idea as to his skills, but if he could somehow wrench control of that contract away from this pitiful mage…
”I have nothing but my honor now,” the iguana-man went on. ”When this contract ends, I will seek a battlefield to excite me once more, yet for now...I keep my word, bleeder. Always." The man straightened with the force of his words and started ahead of them as though spurned by that very honor that he sought. Kuja gave a short sigh behind the back of his hand.
What would it take? It was a question he’d asked himself several times before. What would it take to sway the gluttonous queen to violence? What would it take to bring the cowardly Meltigemini under his thumb? What would it take to tempt a steadfast iguana-man away from his contract and into Kuja’s employ? Perhaps nothing would sway him. Perhaps Kuja would have met a possibility and would have to let it slip away. He didn’t need the extra muscle, after all. But if he could capture it…
The Warrior of Light still sulked somewhere in this world whispering horrible tales of his deeds. Perhaps this man could be the one to take care of that problem.
Kuja found himself so lost in thought that he hardly notice the short and rather anticlimactic battles taking place before him. He simply wandered behind, eyeing the iguana-man curiously, and only raising his hand once when the undead attacked from behind and he shattered it with a well-placed spell cast with hardly a glance in its direction.
If he could capture this man under his thumb…
He seemed like the perfect type…
For murder.
The woman’s lance brought his thoughts back to their present predicament. The iguana-man had brought them to a circular room covered in ritual circles with an oddly carved obelisk erected at its center. Kuja eyed it all before letting out a light sigh. As he’d suspected, the work of an amateur. How disappointing…
”Hey Scales. You ever met your boss?” The woman looked nearly as frustrated as Kuja found himself as she circled the obelisk carelessly.
”No,” the reptilian man answered. ”Only been down here once before, voice came from the shadows and all at once as if from multiple persons. This is all I know.”
From the shadows and amplified? Kuja touched at his lips and couldn’t help a quiet laugh that made his shoulders tremble. The fearsome necromancer used his magic for theatrical effects? Clearly he was compensating for something if that was the case. But he kept his thoughts to himself. The ridicule might insult his potential assassin.
The woman kicked at the base of the obelisk, eying it carefully before reaching for her lance. Kuja never learned what exactly she’d planned to do with it because the force seemed to activate the thing and its runes began glowing an eerie blue. The woman gave it a distasteful look before stepping back and crossing her arms, tossing her head to Kuja with her eternal air of confidence. ”So Mr. Sorcerer, what do you think of it all?”
Kuja felt his shoulders tense at the obvious mockery, but he let it go as quickly as it came. It wouldn’t do to cause a scene.
So instead he stepped forward. The runes burned with magic etched into them like the edges of a puzzle piece. ”Some rituals require certain conditions to fulfill. Often it’s necessary to find a location properly located along a source of power. Typically underground where the planet’s core flows most freely.” Kuja’s thoughts wandered to the catacombs of Alexandria or the depths of Mount Gulug. Yes, there were certain rituals that couldn’t be performed in the light of day. Generally only the most taboo of them with a taste for blood.
”Even so, that power must be channeled by something. An emblem, for instance. Or meticulously carved runes. Or -- as you see here -- an obelisk.” Kuja cast a careless hand to it, shrugging with a shake of his head. ”But I doubt it’s been constructed long. In fact, it looks like it was just a support pillar until recently. The mage must have known this place was situated over one of the world’s magical streams and tried to harness it himself. The work is shoddy at best. I wouldn’t guess the necromancer’s been studying for more than a few years. Perhaps six months if the mage was ambitious.”
Still, the column burned with blue. It touched at the air with a distasteful scent almost like ozone. Kuja’s tail prickled from behind its shroud. ”Anything could have activated it. Perhaps the planet gave a particularly strong magical flare. Or perhaps…” He felt something, lurking beyond the shadows to his left. His eyes darted towards it, and though he saw nothing, the trail of magic was unmistakable.
