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year 5, quarter 3
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[attr=class,bulk] Mikoto did, in fact, make it quick. She didn’t say anything either which was another positive. She simply left, acquired her strange sugar concoction, and returned, holding it reverently in both hands. In that moment, she looked happier than he’d ever seen her before. It wasn’t a high enough bar to clear to be remarkable, but it was still worthy of note.
Kuja felt some satisfaction in that. Strange.
The ushers for the play announced that it would begin within the quarter hour. Excellent. They weren’t too late then.
”I’ll find the tickets,” he said and started towards the theater booths. The best seats were already taken, naturally, and if he was to be honest, they would have been outside of his current price range. That fact in itself irked him, but the standard house seats would have to do.
He had money. He had enough to survive. He had enough to fuel his research even which was something he couldn’t have always said for himself. Still, he missed the many benefits of the aristocracy. Whoever had said that money couldn’t buy happiness had never lived in the darker districts of Treno.
He returned to Mikoto, handed her a paper slip with her seat number on it, and started towards the gates without explanation. The usher asked to see their tickets, Kuja showed off his, waited for Mikoto to catch on, then followed the man to their seats in the upper back row, stage center. Kuja might not have had his first choice in positions, but he knew which were best of those available. He’d visited the theater so often in Alexandria that it had long transcended a mere hobby.
Once they were alone, Kuja carefully arranged himself so that he could sit comfortably. He was fond of his outfit with all of its layers of silk and leather and metal, but it did make sitting a somewhat more difficult task than it should have been. Sometimes he missed the simplicities of his old Terran fashion.
Sometimes. Rarely.
The theater was buzzing with that peculiar mix of muttering and idle conversation which could only come in the minutes before the house lights dimmed. Kuja looked at Mikoto to make sure she’d settled in. The thought struck him that her strange candy would leave a disgusting, lacquered stick behind once she was finished with it. Since there weren’t any trash cans in their section, he supposed she’d just have to deal with it. He hoped she wouldn’t dirty her dress in the process.
”Once it starts, don’t talk to me. If you have any questions, they can wait until after.” He watched the empty stage and felt a familiar sense of anticipation. It swelled with every pluck of strings from the nearby orchestra, practicing one final time before the show started. ”I don’t want any distractions.”
[attr=class,bulk] Lady Hilda explained herself as anyone would. She sounded distressed. Legitimately surprised, perhaps. Then that surprise faded into frustration, and he was being chided again. Still, something she said struck him.
’I inquired because I do not understand the world you come from. The technology and its language has locked me out from understanding.’
Kuja glanced at her, and felt something stir within him. He wasn’t sure what. It felt dangerous.
”Get to know me?” he repeated, and once again it circled him back to the same contentious question. Why would she bother to get to know him unless it was to use that knowledge against him? What could this possibly be but subterfuge? Yet she insisted again and again that her intentions were pure -- or if not pure then at least benign. Part of him wanted to simply turn around and march right back out of this accursed garden, but the other part…
Well, that would be like admitting defeat, wouldn’t it?
”A topic of conversation…” He tilted his head thoughtfully. There was something about her rising frustration that urged him to speak. She wasn’t scared. She wasn’t furious. She was merely frustrated like she was losing in a game of chess.
It was strangely casual.
”We already spoke on my time in Treno,” he said. ”To answer your question, I would commission the metalwork done by another professional then simply infuse the work with magic. I’m a well-accomplished mage. As I’m sure you’re aware.” His lips twitched. ”I was desperate, Lady Hilda, and had a craft I could monetize. I had to earn my fortune on Gaia. I’ve seen both sides of Treno extensively, I’m afraid.
”It comes from being stranded on an alien planet.”
Kuja moved on, drifting towards the water feature in the center of the courtyard. The fountain was a beautiful, three-tiered structure carved with the relief of fish along a riverside. He snatched a flute of champagne as he went and sipped it as he came to a stop.
It was a fine vintage, naturally. Expensive. He’d always had difficulties telling wine apart.
”A topic of conversation…” he echoed slowly. ”Well, you’ve always had a fascination with my life on Terra. I suppose there’s no harm in telling you now.” He watched the water bubble and dance within its fountain, swelling and overflowing in an endless cascade. It always felt strange to speak of Terra. Even now, in this new world where such things had no consequence, it felt as though he were breaking some great taboo. Not that he hadn’t broken it with Hilda before, but…
This was different. Somehow.
”On Terra, the water never flows.” He sipped his wine. It fizzed, thick and sweet on his tongue. ”The very mechanisms of time have slowed there. Every planet is like a living creature in itself. It must feed and process and grow. There isn’t enough life on Terra to sustain a planet’s natural processes so it was put into a kind of semi-stasis. Think of it as a slowed metabolism.”
If that meant anything to her. He decided that he didn’t care.
”Terra is forever bathed in the blue light of Gaia. As such, it receives no light from the sun, and plantlife can’t photosynthesize. Fungi feeds on the detritus of a dead civilization. There are a few species which feed off the fungi, and there are monsters which live off of those. The ecosystem, if you can call it that, is limited and could never survive outside of Terra’s stasis.”
The sky was cloudless. Blue. It was a pleasant enough day which smelled of flowers and wine and the stale mist of fountain water.
”It’s a dead planet,” he said. ”Kept barely alive by unnatural means. Or it was. I’ve heard I destroyed it.” Kuja tapped at the side of his champagne glass with his finger. ”It’s hardly a loss.”
[attr=class,bulk] Lady Hilda had quite a lot to say on the nature of the arts. Kuja couldn’t call himself surprised, exactly. They’d had several discussions over such things in his palace, but Hilda was a woman who survived on the value of her words, and he assumed she could speak on almost any topic required of her if it meant securing her safety for a time longer. These were her own thoughts, freely chosen.
Kuja listened.
She expressed a fondness for an artist’s darkest moments, and told the tale of a talented and troubled painter lost to suicide. She hoped that his art would live on to influence others even as he himself was gone, but Kuja found the whole romanticized wish pointless. The artist had left behind work to be used and exploited by the living, but it wasn’t as though it would make any personal difference. The artist had never known fame, fortune, or popularity. Whatever his posthumous impact, it was worthless to him now.
”You mean Louis Fournier.” Kuja glanced at Hilda though she didn’t meet his eye. ”We came into possession of a small collection of his works. They sold for nearly four times the price of the same work when he lived. He was long dead by the time that I found employment, but each item’s price is kept on record if it had been sold more than once. I read the ledgers.”
With the way she spoke, Kuja wondered if Hilda had been a patron of the arts herself. Had she funded any bright-eyed artists to fulfill their passions? Or had her industrious husband dismissed such pursuits as childish?
”You participated in the auctions?” Kuja’s eyebrows raised. More than that, Hilda had an eye for magical amulets and accessories. His lip twitched. ”It’s nearly certain then. I exclusively supplied their highest selling magical works after we signed our trade deal in 1795. They were sold under a number of pseudonyms for the sake of anonymity.”
And to make the entire operation seem less like a monopoly. The auction house had a reputation to protect as well as profits to be made. Kuja hadn’t minded the arrangement. It had meant that he could remain on the sidelines, largely unknown until it was time to take the spotlight.
They moved on.
Hilda accepted a tall flute of sparkling champagne. Kuja declined. They drifted towards the next painting in the row and stopped to consider it. It depicted a naked woman lazily reflecting upon herself in a mirror held by a winged child. It had a dark aura. The background was painted like a cage of dark red satin, closing in upon the woman who cared only for herself. Such paintings were usually titled something like ’Vanity.’ He found them dull.
”Treno is a unique place. I wonder what made the nights so long unlike any other place in Alexandria.”
Kuja smirked faintly. ”Do you really want to know?” He knew more about the planet’s functions than any of its native inhabitants. It came from having the technological advancements of a millennia old alien race at his disposal, he supposed. ”It’s a combination of geological phenomena and the effects of an ancient magic if you’d like the simplified version. A more complicated explanation would require several lessons in basic scientific theory.”
The Gaians were so primitive that he wouldn’t have known where to start.
”As familiar as I am with the city, I don’t think I’d make for the best escort.” Kuja watched the painting -- the woman lounging within the dark, her reflection the only sight worth her attention. ”Should I ever return, I do believe I’d be arrested for war crimes.”
If not more than that. He doubted there were laws on the books of any singular nation to describe what he had done. It didn’t particularly matter, he supposed, as his previous actions alone would be enough to warrant execution.
Once one had already reached the highest of crimes, why not keep going and really make a statement? It all came to the same sentence in the end.
Hilda had a question for him. Wonderful.
She turned to face him. He chose to continue his idle examination of the painting. She was preaching trust to him. Something he had said had caught her attention. It was a gloriously revealing moment, saying more in what was left in silence than what was given voice. She truly had an ear for the subtleties of conversation, didn’t she?
He was aware that someone could love him? He wanted to laugh.
”Because I’m damaged, is that it?” He pushed back his hair in a careless sweeping motion. ”I was never cared for as a child before being thrust into a strange world, isolated by my very purpose of destruction. My entire existence has been defined by a deceptive game of give and take with my own life on the line as collateral.”
Kuja shook his head, recrossing his arms. ”It makes for a fascinating character, doesn’t it? A villain revealed. I’m certain I would have all manner of apologists among literary scholars. They’d catalogue all of my contradictions and complexities and claim that while my actions were unjustifiable that they were the tragic end of some unalterable course.
”But reality isn’t quite that simple, and for someone with your social tact, I’m surprised that you would think it appropriate to ask if someone knows they can be loved. When it comes to matters of my character, I’d quite appreciate that you keep your curiosities to yourself.”
Kuja felt the words sour on his tongue. ”Is this your idea of light conversation?”
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja was not the type for self-reflection. He’d never had time for it, he thought, when life was a game of chess and only the strong survived. He’d never had much use for questions such as “why.” Why did he look down upon the Gaians so very much? Why did the sight of a black mage, his own creations, fill him with such disdain and disgust? Why did he want so desperately for the world to fit comfortably under his thumb?
These were questions that prompted hesitation, and so they were the kind that he avoided on instinct. And so, it was with some mild surprise that he found himself asking a question which he could neither trivialize nor ignore.
’Why do I want to burn this whole beautiful place to the ground?’
The colors were as bright as ever. Soft music drifted like petals on the wind. The flowers emitted a sweet and subtle perfume, and yet, he felt his fingers twitch with the destructive magic which came to him so easily. This was a perfect day -- the kind beyond even his wildest imagination in those early days trapped in his timeless cage. And yet, given his heart’s fullest desire, he would see it all turned to ash.
Why?
”Shall I save a dance for you?”
”I don’t dance.” Kuja’s eyes drifted from the regentess, half-hidden behind the veil of her fan, towards the flowering cherry blossom trees. Their petals were a soft and powdery pink like a noblewoman’s blush. ”It seems degrading. Of all the arts, it has the least to do with intellect and the most to do with sheer physicality.”
That wasn’t to say that he couldn’t dance if his hand was forced. It had been before at a few high stakes galas where he’d been forced to play nice and smile for the sake of his standing at the auction house. The owners had been appalled by their new protege’s lack of social etiquette. ’But that’s what you get, taking a chance on new talent, isn’t it?’
They approached the courtyard, and Kuja slowed to appreciate it. There were more flowering topiaries here. A fountain was carved from polished stone. At the far end was a platform for the violin quartette, and beside it someone had set up space for an auction. Canvas paintings lined the yard’s perimeter, and Kuja felt his mood brighten at the sight of them. If only a little.
Hilda had eyes for them as well. ”Did the Treno auction house take bids on art?” she asked. ”I can think of no better place to reminisce.”
The lady was tactful as always. That was a rather safe point in his history, wasn’t it?
”It did,” Kuja answered. He drifted towards them, starting counter-clockwise. There were others milling about the space now, appreciating the art with soft, chiming laughs and flutes of sparkling champagne. He felt eyes on him the way they always were whenever he entered such a space. Lively enough for an audience, sparse enough to not find himself lost in the crowd. It felt like walking on stage.
”Treno had its share of artists as it did most everything else, and the auction house hardly discriminated. It was one of the only fronts to showcase the works of both noble and common blood. You could always tell the difference between the works crafted from meticulous training and those forged by passion alone. I took a particular interest in the latter. I’ve found that an artist works best on the brink of ruin.”
Kuja stopped to appreciate a still-life painted in a peculiar style with short, stiff edges of a brush. It was supposed to depict a quiet, sunlit dawn, yet it somehow felt stifling.
”I sold all manner of magical items there,” Kuja went on. ”Charms, amulets, and other accessories. The proprietors took such a liking to my work that they negotiated a more permanent trade deal.” Kuja crossed his arms, head slightly tilted to the side. ”And that’s how I came into my fortune. Treno is truly a peculiar place, isn’t it?”
Kuja kept his arms crossed, watching her. At first, he felt himself bristle at her continued grace -- it was as though she’d never so much as heard of taking the bait! -- but that wall of composure cracked soon enough with a swell of emotion adjacent to pain. He watched as her voice finally rose and she clamped it down, taking a moment to dial herself back in. She watched as tears gathered in her eyes.
It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting.
Hers was a truly tragic tale -- unfortunate if not unique. It was strange that she’d consider herself equally imprisoned by society as she had him considering he’d been her literal captor. Kuja was the type to hold a grudge and plot his oh so satisfying vengeance. He was the type to seize power where he could and bide his time until that opportunity presented itself. Hilda, by contrast, simply accepted her servile role amongst the nobility. She was submissive towards her patriarchal masters, and felt a kind of gratitude when one treated her better than another.
He’d never made her feel less than what she was? What did she consider herself then? A bird to be kept locked away? She was weak of will if not in sheer magical power, and it was will, he’d found, that truly mattered.
Why had he kept her? Because she couldn’t have her running off and telling the world of his plans, theft, and secret lair amongst the sands of the Outer Continent. He’d been integrated into the courts of Alexandria at the time, and such accusations would have proven troublesome. As for why he hadn’t killed her…
It hadn’t seemed right, he supposed, for a woman of such dignity as herself. Such a shame it would have been to waste such beauty and grace!
As for why he was so eager to speak of the past? ”It seemed the zaghnal in the room is all,” he said lightly. He raised an eyebrow as a concerned onlooker approached them, asking the distraught woman if he was bothering her. How nice of the man. Truly there was chivalry left in the world.
It wasn’t like Kuja to be so indiscrete. Not in public, at least, and not when he wasn’t abusing that public.
Hilda dismissed the witness, taking responsibility for the situation, before addressing him again. ”If my being here is against your wishes, well, just like I am not confined by walls, you are not either. You agreed to join me, but you can as soon leave.”
”Hmph.” Kuja tilted his head, looking to the sky. ”I agreed to join you if you so wish. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
He flipped his hair over one shoulder, shaking it out behind him. ”Though perhaps I would rather speak of the past or at least the present situation. I’m not in much of a mood for idle conversation, and the garden no longer holds its frivolous appeal.” He recrossed his arms and gave a careless sigh.
”There’s a time and place for facetious pleasantries, but I don’t see anything to be gained from it now. My patience is thin.” His eyes drifted back to hers. ”So Lady Hilda. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”
[attr=class,ooc-notes]
[attr=class,tagline]@ladyhilda
Tension diffused. She sure knows how to navigate his moods
[attr=class,bulk] Kuja felt himself bristle as she once again stopped, her words impatient and chiding. She did indeed seem tired of it all. She seemed so tired, in fact, that Kuja almost could have believed her when she dismissed him. It was an act, of course. It had to be an act. It simply wasn’t in human nature to look past such assaults on one’s dignity.
He should know.
She turned towards him decisively. Their eyes met for a moment before Kuja glanced away in disinterest, arms crossed and looking pointedly at the sky. How could she enjoy time with him? It was ridiculous. It was absurd in a particular way that even Zidane wouldn’t have been capable of. That idiot thief might have chosen to help him for reasons that Kuja would never understand, but he certainly wouldn’t have chosen to spend time with him. There was too much history, too much lost, and what on all of Gaia would they even have in common?
His tail swished irritably. Why did she insist on lying?
Hilda watched him for a moment longer before turning to appreciate a few well-trimmed rose bushes at the base of a topiary. It was carved into the shape of several flattened discs, supporting each other like floating islands.
”I’m not bitter,” he said then scowled, tossing his bangs to the side. ”I’m simply curious as to how long you intend to lead me on!”
This was going in circles, wasn’t it? He’d insist she had a motive. She’d insist she had none. Then she’d go on about how really it wasn’t so unbelievable she’d take to the company of someone so refined and intelligent as himself. Flattery was appreciated. Manipulation, however, was a game which he would only play if he held the winning hand.
”Why don’t you then?” Kuja shot her an irritable look. ”Why don’t you want to talk of the past? It can’t just be my winning personality.” He smirked dryly. ”Are you so entranced by my charms? So beguiled by my poetics and ethereal beauty? I’ve tried quite hard to dispel such illusions, yet here you are, blatantly disregarding my wishes!
”This isn’t my palace,” he went on. ”You’re free to say whatever you will though I suppose the noble courts of Lindblum have trained you against it. I’m not a spider, Hilda, as much as I might enjoy the imagery. I acted of my own volition even if my will was hardly my own. I’d quite appreciate if you’d stop pretending otherwise.”
He pursed his lips, waving a hand dismissively. ”It’s insulting.”
[attr=class,ooc-notes]
[attr=class,tagline]@ladyhilda
Quite uncharacteristic of him to go anywhere near the point
[attr=class,bulk] It seemed unlikely that the beast had heard his words, and far more unlikely that it had understood them. It just stood there, ears twitching, fur bristling, its nose wrinkled. All the while, Kuja came closer, stopping some short distance behind his dragon. Should he simply attack it now? Maybe. But he doubted it was any match for a silver dragon.
The beast closed its eyes, opened them, and shot them a dark, simmering look set in deep violet. A dark energy pulsed from its core, and the shockwave swept over him, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. It was an ugly magic. An unknown magic, and thankfully a weak one. Some kind of weakening agent, he thought, though it was almost entirely useless. It made a good show, however, and for that he had to give some small credit.
”Hm.” The creature still seemed intent on attack. Why? He had no idea. ”Have I interrupted something? Some kind of territorial dispute?” His lips twitched with the shadow of a smirk. There was no reason to taunt the thing when it couldn’t understand him. Still, it was cathartic in some insignificant way. The beast had caught him in a bad mood.
”Well if you so wish for death…” Kuja raised a hand, already sparking with magic. ”Ava. On guard.” His dragon listened as she always did, bound by an unbreakable link of both affection and psychic interference. Ava backed up, baring her teeth in a beastly snarl of her own. She flapped her wings defensively, intent not to let the creature pass. This would give him the distance he needed to end this little encounter.
Quickly.
Kuja wound magic around his fingers like thread then swiped his hand down. ”Thundaga.” The clear skies cracked with deadly purpose. There was a blazing flash of blue-white light as the haze of charged particles made their descent. They crashed into the earth with searing purpose, crackling out into endless tributaries which brushed by him in a static hum.
He hoped this little scuffle wouldn’t ruin the flowers.
[attr=class,bulk] Despite everything, Hilda hadn’t lost her smile. She was seemingly unfazed, pleasant even, as she started down the path with her parasol in hand and a teasing gleam to her eyes. She was cordial which meant that it must have been an act. He’d been nothing but bitter since the moment they’d started this little conversation. It wasn’t in human nature to take that smiling.
She must have thought she could handle this diplomatically. That wasn’t the worst idea, he supposed, but it was ultimately pointless. At least the ones pointing fingers had an end goal in mind.
She’d believe every word he told her. What a way to tempt him to lies.
”A privilege, I presume.” In truth, he had little interest in the freedom of her speech simply because he couldn’t trust her to honesty. ’Free’ did not mean ’true’, and from the record of this conversation, it seemed she was quite content in smiling above the table while sticking a pin into her hand. Oh well.
Maybe it would provide for some interesting conversation.
”I haven’t spent enough time in the city to familiarize myself with any artists of note,” Kuja answered. They were trailing back into the heart of the garden, and with it, the swelling sound of the violin. Its melody was sweet and cold and somewhat distant. It reminded him of stained glass.
”I haven’t found any of the cities particularly to my liking. Then again, I wasn’t fond of most of Gaia’s nations either. It was a motivated familiarity.” Except for Treno. There was something deeply poetic about its harsh difference in class, and he’d experienced both. It was an opulent city, a dark city of corruption and merciless powerseeking, but it wasn’t technically a nation to itself so it hardly counted towards the point.
”I came on a whim,” he went on. ”I heard of its opening, and it seemed it might be worth my time. Of course, any time spent wandering comes with risks of its own. I can’t seem to escape those who know of my misdeeds.” He sighed dramatically. ”It’s tiring.”
[attr=class,ooc-notes]
[attr=class,tagline]@ladyhilda
She continues to be unusually easy for him to talk to
[attr=class,bulk] It was cold on the slopes of Mount Hotan. Cold and windstruck and wet in a way that he didn’t find particularly appealing. None of this was a surprise, of course, but Kuja felt his mood sour nonetheless as the chill sank deeper, settling into his very core. It was sunny at least, that cold and wretched day. The light cast the slopes in a blinding white that was patchy in places, revealing the wild green beneath.
Kuja watched it all pass from the back of his silver dragon, soaring above the already considerable altitude of the mountain slopes. He resisted the urge to press himself into her brilliant feathers and share her warmth. Instead, he shivered.
He had business on Mount Hotan. That was the only reason he’d have visited this accursed country in the first place, but he was already regretting it now. There was a certain plant which flowered only in the post-melt season on the hiking trails of the mountain pass. A certain plant that he’d heard had particularly potent alchemical properties when dried and powdered and used in matters of medicine. Its effects were that of preservation rather than healing -- a kind of temporary stasis which bought time for curative magicks to do their work. He thought it might be a useful stabilizing component in the manufacturing of artificial light.
It was important, he reminded himself. Far more important than his comfort. Still, he found himself cursing it as he neared his third hour of flight in the bitter cold. Why couldn’t it be grown anywhere else on this damnable planet?
”Descend.” Kuja crossed his arms tightly over his chest as his dragon banked slowly downwards, approaching the trails at last. From here, he could see splashes of color working its way across the countryside like a patchwork quilt. There were the famous flowers, he thought, and hopefully his plant was among them. If not, he feared for the next man unlucky enough to cross him.
His dragon circled the flowering ridges until she found an appropriate landing space in a small field at the base of a cliffline. She slowed in her descent, each powerful wingbeat sending up a cyclone of colorful petals, before she settled onto solid land, crushing a great circle of the things below her weight. Kuja eyed the ruined flora distastefully then slid from her back, landing lightly on his feet.
The place was beautiful, really. Once he discounted the weather.
He spent some time searching through the plantlife, identifying each of the species in turn. Vanilla orchids, Mountain Arnica, Bellflower. Nothing out of place and nothing of particular use. He drifted about, testing one plant then the next as his dragon took the chance to stretch her wings. She’d wandered as far as the cliffside when he heard the unmistakable sound of her chuffing. Which meant she was in some kind of distress. He looked back to see her backing up, teeth bared as she carefully watched the slopes. She stomped about as a clear sign of defensive aggression.
Strange. Usually she was the one on the attack.
The threat revealed itself suddenly. One moment they were seemingly alone in their field of flowers, and the next a great, blue something had descended from the slopes and straightened itself before them. It was a monster clearly. Some kind of hulking, bipedal beast that looked like a cross between gnoll and a yeti. There were signs of sentience -- clothes and a spear for one -- but Kuja doubted it extended particularly far. What kind of intelligent creature would think of single-handedly ambush a dragon?
”I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kuja called on the off chance that it could comprehend languages. He drifted towards them, in no real hurry to clear the space. ”Ava’s not particularly fond of strangers.”
[attr=class,bulk] She asked questions as to his work which wasn’t a terrible thing. They were somewhat informed questions. Slightly intelligent questions. It was strange, having someone care about the mechanics of it all. Garland hadn’t thought much of his projects, but then what did Kuja care what he’d thought? He distinctly remembered his creator calling them a ’waste of time.’
A waste of time which wrought the destruction of every remaining kingdom on Gaia. That twisted, shriveled man had been entirely devoid of imagination.
”The technology’s more advanced, but it’s still not Terran. This planet is underdeveloped in the fields of bioengineering, and without a Soul Divider, it’s lacking in Mist. An artificial vessel needs an essence whether it’s hollow or not, and the Black Mages processed their internal stores of Mist like fuel. Without Mist, they couldn’t function. Which, incidentally, is why they had such a short lifespan. Once those stores were depleted, there was nothing left to power them.”
Crowds were a funny thing in that the greater the saturation of potential eavesdroppers, the less likely they were to be heard. Not that anyone here would comprehend even the fundamental principles of his work.
”Their development took over six years initially,” Kuja went on. ”I’d studied the theory on Terra, but the practice was another matter entirely. I had to master Gaian technology, the properties of Mist, and the intricacies of the planet’s magic. Then came the prototyping itself. Obviously there weren’t any machines or development chambers available so each mage had to be constructed manually. They were dolls, essentially, made of eighty percent nonorganic matter. Then they were given life.”
He shrugged. ”It’s the same process here. The technology might be more advanced, but it’s still not suited for the task. I have to study it, master it, and suit it to my needs. I think the spiritual residue of the Headstone Forest could serve as a replacement for Mist, but its properties aren’t an exact match. It will need a different method of processing. Which requires more research, testing, and the machinery to do the job.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. ”I take meticulous notes of my studies. In Terran, naturally, but that would likely be a more comfortable read for you. Though I have had to add certain glyphs to the lexicon. There aren’t any proper translations for most planet-specific terms.
”I’ll have to show you my library. I don’t believe I’ve taken you to my reclusive hideaway in the sands. You’d find the city more comfortable, but if you want to learn more of my work…” Kuja waved a dismissive hand. ”I suppose I could bring you along.”
It might do him some small good to have someone to bounce his ideas off of. Not that he expected her to have any useful input, but it was better than talking to a wall.
It was only once he’d finished that he noticed the quiet look of desire in her eyes. At first he thought that he might have filled her with passion over his research, but then he recognized it properly. It was the same look she’d had at that hideous magical park as they’d passed the snack stands. He followed her eyes to a cart whipping up something out of hot sugar.
It was a strange fluffy thing wound as though by a sculptor into all manner of whimsical shapes. It was clearly meant for children, and from the delighted reactions of several nearby, it must have been effective. He looked at Mikoto again with her wide, wondrous eyes and sighed.
It would do better to keep her happy, he supposed.
”Here.” He magicked out his coin purse, rummaged inside, then tossed her enough gil for one serving. And only one. ”Get something for yourself if you want. It would be too sweet for my taste.”
Because she would doubtlessly try to give it to him. She was like a loyal dog in that regard. Or perhaps a puppy given her age.
