Still more.... (in which I torture Alberic mercilessly)

Alberic I Tavnazia lay choking and dying underneath a golden sunset.

It had just been this morning that he had ventured out of the Safehold, pursuing the vapor trails overhead that he was sure belonged to the immense black dragon. He had taken such pride in his care, sneaking across Lufaise Meadows, easily avoiding the wild tusked bugards and lumbering Gigas alike, contemptuous of being caught. He'd ventured out a dozen times before after all, and they'd never seen him. Even if they did, he could easily outrun such slow, cumbersome creatures, and the beastmen were all so stupid anyway. The trail had arced out over the old Marquisate, and heedless of risk, Alberic had scaled to the heights of Blueblade Fell to get a better look.

The highest point in Tavnazia, the cliffs of Blueblade Fell overlooked the broad forests, now overrun, that surrounded the hereditary lands of the Marquisate beyond Lufaise Meadows. Alberic had been mesmerized by the crisp, cool breezes that swirled up from the limitless vistas, clean with a hint of the musk of lush vegetation and untouched earth. A lump had risen unexpectedly to his throat as he raised his eyes to the distant peak and its abandoned city; long-forgotten, hazy childhood memories of feasts in a great hall, of brave knights hunting game in these forests, his cousin Rochefogne showing him how to grip a sword properly, his uncle spinning long tales of how to behave with courtly valor and bravery, the feel of his mother's long silken skirts--

And the past had evaporated in a spasm of agony as the first Orcish blade had pierced his side. He had been so lost in foolish boyhood remembrances that he hadn't even heard the pair of Orcs approach; their axes and blades were rusted and dull from shoddy care, but they had attacked him with enough brute force to snap bone and shatter his body. A broken rib had pierced his lung, and cough as he might he couldn't clear it of the blood slowly filling it. The Orcs had strpiped him of every piece of metal he bore, so he couldn't even end it quickly, but they had left him to die slowly, uncaring of the feeble life they left scrabbling in the dirt.

Alberic coughed up more blood, gasping raggedly for air, writhing pathetically on the ground in an attempt to stand, to crawl, to do anything. Was this how it was all to end--nauseated with pain, clutching to every heartbeat, willing his lungs to somehow reach one more breath, under a red-gold sky staring over the kingdom he would never rule?

Air buffeted his face then, and his chest constricted painfully at the suden crushing presence that overwhelmed his mind. The wind shook with the snap of heavy wingbeats, and the cliff groaned as two clawed feet grasped the edge, each the size of a fully-grown chocobo. Alberic rolled slowly onto his back, gazing up at the immense being rearing above him, too transfixed by the mastery of its aura to be afraid; it was no mere dragon he had been tracking, he realized now in awe, but a dragongod, its mawed face possessing an ancient and cruel intelligence as it gazed down at Alberic contemptuously.

Then it spoke, its voice addressing Alberic as much in his soul as in the crashing growl that assaulted his ears. "Know, O man, that I am Bahamut the Wyrm-King, Lord of all dragons and one of the five terrestrial avatars sworn and bound by the ancients to guard Vana'diel." The immense dragon-wings, gun barrel gray, snapped open wide, steadying Bahamut's bulk and blotting out the golden sky. "You who are but moments from death have some small use to me. I offer you this one chance to retain your miserable existence--swear your life to my service, become my creature in body, mind, and soul, or perish with your next breath."

Death... The very word, the inevitability of it, chilled Alberic's heart to the core. He had only a second to consider, a mere heartbeat to reach into his soul and find only terror there, the sheer terror of death. There was no time for rational consideration, only instinctive response; and his instinct, every cell of his body and inch of his spirit, screamed that he did not want to die! It didn't matter to him in that moment, if he could even comprehend it, what might become of him or what consequences there would be. His lips parted, seemingly of their own volition, and he choked out, "I--accept."

Bahamut reared back, roaring triumphantly at the sky, and seemed to swell enormously; as the echoes of his roar reverberated back from every end of Tavnazia, the great maw opened, and he bathed Alberic's body in a brilliantly white flame that scoured him in heat and healing magic. His heart seemed to stop a moment, then surged forth with new life and vitality, and he spit out the last traces of blood from his lungs, the pain vanishing along with the afterimage of the healing fire. Alberic sat up, amazed, flexing his arms and legs faintly, his head spinning from the power of the magic that had brought him back so rapidly from the brink of death.

One of Bahamut's heavy claws dropped on top of Alberic, enclosing him. "What are you called, mortal?" the Wyrm-King demanded.

"I am Alberic," he stammered, feeling afraid for the first time. "Alberic I Tavnazia, nephew of Altedour I Tavnazia, the late Marquis of Tavnazia."

"Not for long," Bahamut replied. "Now, you belong to me." And with a mighty sweep of his wings and the scrape of claw on rock, he took to the skies, Alberic firmly in his clawed grasp.

*** *** ***

The place that Bahamut had called Monarch Linn was soon packed with dragons of all sizes. From the mighty and ancient wyrms, each as intelligent as any of Altana's children, to wild blue and black-colored wyverns, unsworn to any dragoon; from tiny Puks more bird-kin than dragon, to two-legged war dragons with great crested heads; to even a few rare Peistes from distant lands, snake-like and stately; all had gathered at the Wyrm-King's call, to the bowl-shaped, cavernous cliff of Monarch Linn, high upon floating rocks above the remnants of Cape Riverne on the western coast of Tavnazia.

The dragons were nested all around the Linn, their eyes gleaming expectantly, when Bahamut shoved Alberic into their midst, the young man blinking and shivering at the intensity of so many fiends' regard. "My children!" Bahamut bugled triumphantly. "After over a century of waiting, the time has arrived for a human Prophet to serve me once more! This creature has the seed of power I seek, and has accepted the pact!"

The dragons exploded in a chorus of jeers and shrieks and whistles, beating their wings and blowing small puffs of flame into the sky, the small ones flinging small rocks and pebbles at Alberic, who tried to shield his face with his hands. An immense wyrm with hide as black as pitch rumbled in a deep voice, "He seems healthier than your last choice, my Lord, but weak. His sense of self and ego are strong. Even now, he has the arrogance to stand on his feet before us. Without the proper respect due to dragonkind, how can we be sure he will faithfully serve?" Murmurs of doubt and assent met the wyrm's words.

"You speak well, Vrtra, and your words are heeded," Bahamut answered. "He is not akin to those I have chosen in the past, no. I decided to seek out a more independent, willful specimen--although he will be broken, I guarantee so. His inner strength may allow him to survive longer than the more docile creatures that have served me in the past. We enter, my children, into an age of Apocalypse; my power must not be constrained by any weakness or failure, if we are to avert the disaster that awaits this Vana'diel."

The great wyrms rumbled quietly in agreement, shifting their weight back and forth on their legs. Bahamut set a heavy claw on Alberic's shoulder. "If we are all in agreement, let us set the seal on this man; this convocation will not end until this Elvaan mortal has been anointed as my Prophet, or has died in the process."

The dragons roared mightily from every height of the Linn, shaking all of Riverne with the sound so that birds and hippogriffs fled from the cacophony; a sheep, bleating in mindless terror, was brought forth and slaughtered, and Alberic was forced to his knees and made to drink the fresh blood from the dead creature's throat. He was wrapped in the cast-off skin of a dragon to the roars and caterwauls of the convocation, both mocking and approving, then taken to a pit hewn from the rock and flung inside.

*** *** ***

It was deep into the night of the second day when Alberic found the rolled-up hide. He had been subjected to periodic tortures and humiliation since the beginning of his "training," given nothing to eat or drink but the blood of freshly-killed animals, forced to clean the dragons' offal and wait on the ancient wyrms, whose responsibility it seemed to be to train him. Alberic was unsure what the purpose of the training was, other than to cause him abject misery; although his suffering seemed to amuse the wyrms as much as the other lesser dragons, he sensed they were waiting for something, as if all of this was designed to provoke some sort of response in him. Perhaps they were testing his strength. Grimly, Alberic resolved not to give them the pleasure of seeing him fail. He had not survived near-death at the hands of the Orcs only to falter here! Whatever fate awaited him, Bahamut had chosen him specifically to become this Prophet--that meant, as he had always known, that he was special, that there was something about him worth saving from death.

The hide that he found was, to his surprise, a well-cured sheep's hide. It was half-hidden beneath the remnants of a skeleton, curled up against one wall of the pit that was apparently to be his home. The bones of the skeleton, he noticed as he tugged the hide free, were curiously scored across the spine, hips, and shoulderblades with long, thick black marks, as if the unfortunate person had been flayed by a whip of fire. Alberic edged away from the skeleton, unrolling the hide, trying to hide it from the watchful gaze of Tiamat, who was standing guard over the pit to keep him from sleeping. There were words laboriously etched into the leather. Tilting the hide so he could read by the dull gleam of the moon, Alberic skimmed the missive.

"To my successor:

"I am Roccin, once a Hume of a small village called Bastok, but I am now the Prophet of Bahamut. My death rapidly approaches, for the service of Lord Bahamut is death, but I am content. I lived sixty-four years in Bastok, a simple fisherman, but I have known more joy in the two years that I have served my Lord and Master than in the whole of my previous existence. I write not to dissuade you, but to encourage you to embrace thjis destiny even as I have done, that you too may know happiness. Our Lord is all-consuming, inexorable and irresistible; give yourself over to him, surrender utterly to him, and die with bliss from his use.

"What is this new role to which you have been called? To be Lord Bahamut's Prophet is to join with him, soul and mind, and be a conduit for his limitless power, to see for him the future. To know the future is a profound gift, and to share Lord Bahamut's mind and power is nothing short of the profoundest ecstasy, but this power will waste you away even as it transfigures you. Flame and rapture alike will burn you to nothingness, and this will be the manner of your death, as it will be mine and as it was all of the Prophets that came before me.

"I know little of my predecessors, only that there were only six before me, and my immediate predecessor was a child. All have perished within a year or two of being anointed; Lord Bahamut's power, all glory be to him, is too great for a mere mortal to bear for long. Twice as many have been selected and sealed as potentials, but were too weak to survive the training; if you too are in training, heed my words: submit to the will of the Wyrm-King. Surrender to him, and live only to serve him, to love him. We who are his Prophets are as nothing to him. We are disposable, fragile mortal creatures that exist only to be used and consumed by him, then discarded. Believe these words, my brother and successor, and embrace the inevitability of your destruction."

Alberic lowered the hide, his heart racing so fast that he felt faint. For the first time, he was terrified--not of dying, but of living.