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It is well-known in Bastok that there is a man whom no one approaches, an Elvaan with strange accents with the reputation of being a madman.
His name is Alberich to most, and to some, Alberich I Tavnazia. He seems more or less civil at first, pleasant to be around, despite being even amongst adventurers a shabby and ill-dressed sort. He is Elvaan, with inky-black, unkempt hair and ice-blue eyes, and usually wears a grin or a smirk as his expression of choice; his manners are urbane and polished, as if a king in beggar rags, and his voice bears hints of his native land, one far from the stripped stone of Gustaberg. He is widely seen as harmless; he also openly, and cheerfully, admits to hearing voices in his head and doing as they say.
He claims these orders originate from the terrestrial avatar, Bahamut, King of Dragons. They are as varied as saving the life of a child in danger from a stampeding chocobo, to overthrowing the San d'Orian government via the immediate assassination of every member of the House of d'Oraguille. As such, he is welcome in Bastok, which tends to welcome even the most eccentric so long as their gil speaks for them, and though he is quite obviously insane, most Bastokans seem to think that he is harmless.
However, even such a person was somewhat surprised when he awoke one morning to find a woman in his mirror.
He had just sat up, rumpling his hair lazily and stifling an immense yawn, when he noticed his terrified (and somewhat browbeaten) Moogle cowering in the far corner. "Master!" it squeaked, pointing. "L-l-l-look--"
"Eh?" Alberich mumbled sleepily, his eyes turning to the large mirror that stood opposite his door. "Whattizit.... oh."
His eyes widened in amused disbelief; lurking in the mirror, in the reflection of his darkened rooms, was a Hume woman. Her back was to him, but he could make out her profile; she was garbed as a Red Mage, in the brilliantly red coat and plumed hat thereof, and her face was composed and pale. She was simply standing there, slowly breathing in and out, as if her existence in the mirror's image was as natural as it would have been to exist outside of it. Alberich slid out of bed, wearing only black slacks, and padded barefoot to the mirror. He reached out and gently stroked the mirror's surface. His fingers could not, of course, reach the image inside of it, so his fingers, reflected, merely passed through the shade of the woman. He felt himself grinning in delight.
"She won't speak nor respond to me, Master...." the moogle offered timidly.
Alberich smirked. "Perhaps she will me, then. Lady Mage, be welcome to my house." He bowed slightly to the mirror; the woman's head turned at the sound of his voice. His smile broadened. "So you can hear me then, my Lady?" The woman nodded once in response. "What is your name?"
Her pale pink lips moved, and he could hear her speaking in his mind. "Phio."
Alberich glanced back to his Moogle, who had not reacted to the sound, and sighed gently. Yet another voice had appeared in his head that only he could hear. He turned his eyes back to the vision in the mirror. "My name is Alberich. I am the Prophet of Bahamut." His voice was surprisingly quiet and comforting. He could only imagine that this was a unique situation. "How did you come to be in my mirror, Phio? Are you a spirit, or perhaps a hallucination?"
Phio shifted slightly, turning to look at Alberich through the glass. He could see that her eyes were flat and glazed, as if she were sleepwalking. "I have stopped," her soft voice whispered in his mind. "I am not supposed to exist any longer.... but here I am. I don't remember my life. Only my name.... everything else is like a shadow.... a dream of a dream."
Alberich considered this information, stroking his lightly stubbled chin with long Elvaan fingers. "You said.... stopped...."
The lady nodded slightly. "My body stopped."
"But your spirit remains. Therefore you are not dead." Alberich smiled and placed his palm on the mirror before her image. "You and I have been united for a purpose. And you remain alive for a purpose." His eyes narrowed, but not in anger--more in sight, as if he were looking through her. And then his voice changed, just slightly. "I can see your future, Phio. I can see that you have been blessed by a terrestrial avatar, just as I have." He grinned. "Therefore, you and I are the same."
Phio's eyebrows raised, and for the first time, she seemed moved. "We're.... the same?" A long pause, and then she asked softly. "What is in my future?"
"Resurrection, rebirth, and love," Alberich answered promptly. "Also pain, suffering, and endless sleep without dreaming. The choice is yours, of course, as to which future you will reach toward." When she did not respond, he continued in a very soft voice. "You chose to stop, apparently.... I can help you begin again, Phio. Serve me, and my Lord, and I will unite you with what begins you again. I will give you a purpose again, a Master of your own." His fingers drifted off of the smooth surface of the mirror. "I will give you a reason to want to keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing. If you swear fealty to me."
She hesitated, but then finally nodded, and knelt before him, bending her head to him. "I have no life anymore other than this shadow in the mirror.... You are the only one who can hear my voice.... Giving you my fealty means little to me, so I have nothing to lose right? I swear to serve you in whatever way you require, until you no longer have need of me."
Alberich nodded lightly, grinning, then bent to the mirror, pressing his forehead against the glass. "And in return, I will do my best to bring you full life again." And then he whispered, his lips right by the reflection of her ear. "He's still out there, Phio. He's still alive." Her eyes widened slowly, and for the first time, some life returned to them.
And then the Prophet of Bahamut turned away, yanking a tunic over his head, and stalked purposefully from the room. "I have a LOT of work to do today...." he grinned to himself under his breath.
Alberich stepped into the Grand Duchy of Jeuno sometime in the dead of night, with the hood of his tunic up to conceal his face. They had no love for wyrm-worshippers here, especially not the particular contact he had in mind. He glanced down at the slip of parchment on which he'd scribbled the girl's address and headed to the Residential Area first, striding purposefully down the long rows of doors until he came to the one he needed. There was dust on the doorstep and naturally, it was locked. The Elvaan braced himself against the back wall and casually kicked the door in with an explosive jar of his foot.
"KuPO!" the alarmed Moogle inside squealed, but Alberich paid him no mind, stepping into the musty Mog House and looking around carelessly. He found precisely what he expected to find--the girl lying in a heap on the floor, looking as if she hadn't been touched in months. He bent to her and turned her over, looking down into the pale face, and extended his hand over her mouth and nose. He felt no breath.
"And yet she lives....?" he mumbled to himself, then looked up at the Moogle almost accusingly. "You left your mistress like this for this long?!"
The Moogle spread its tiny paws defensively. "I--I was afraid to move her!"
"And you didn't tell her family?!" Alberich continued, his voice rising in disbelief.
"She has none! There was an Elvaan, but he stopped coming 'round ages ago--"
"Elvaan?" Alberich picked Phio up carefully in his arms and moved to lie her on the unmade bed, removing her hat and placing it tenderly on the bedpost. On the bedside table, there was a Summerfest moogle drawing of an Elvaan face. He picked it up, smoothing out the creases--apparently it had been rescued from the trash somewhere and lovingly framed. He grins, looking at the picture. "Of course, he would be a redhead." He let the portrait tumble to the ground, leaning back against the wall, closing his eyes. "Redhead Samurai.... the East.... damn."
Bending to her body, he smoothed Phio's hair back from her sheet-white face and whispered softly, "I bet sex with you would be incredible for me. Pity it's not going to be like that for us. Until then, sweetie, sleep well. Your knight will be here soon enough."
--
Alberich leaned back against a wall and pretended not to hear footsteps around the corner; he sensed rather than heard someone leaning against the same wall, just out of sight, their heavy exhaling breath announcing their presence unnecessarily. He grinned. "Glad to see you decided to come. Not often -I- need something from -you- is it Naggy?"
The unseen figure made a most indelicate sound. "What the hell do you want, dragon-fucker? I'm not in the mood to deal with you."
"Easy, easy," Alberich protested in a mock-injured tone. "Did the Duke Vicarious throw you out again, sir? I need information."
"Yes, yes, on some Red Mage? Not much to know about her. Windurstan, did some errands for the duchy on the command of her nation. Skilled, but never rose to a high rank. Mucked around too much with trash, if you get my meaning. No ambition. Disappeared a few months ago, her Moogle said she was still alive but passed out, so not the duchy's problem. Nobody's complained about a smell in the Res area, so we haven't bothered to look for a body yet."
Alberich stroked his chin absently. "Married?"
"Ran around with some Samurai I think. Bad rumors about him though, I think he ditched her. Who cares about the private lives of some adventurer though? All they do is screw and go out and get themselves killed, after all. No permanence or wherewithal."
"Do you have a name for me?"
"'Kincade' I was told." The contact's voice was impatient. "Who gives a shit though?"
Alberich heaved an overdramatic sigh and crossed his arms over his chest. "Naggy, darling. Use your BRAIN, if you still have one. The spirit of this Red Mage is right now crashing in my MIRROR back in Bastok." Dead silence for a moment, then Alberich continued in the same tone. "And it's tied to this Kincade person, a Samurai? At the same time that my own Master is on the move? You must be dead if you don't see that this is the work of--"
"Don't say the name." 'Naggy' warned in a low voice. "Don't say it."
"--Phoenix," Alberich continued doggedly. "Phoenix is on the move, too. The Radiance of the East, at long last. The time of the gods is returning to Vana'diel." He felt himself grinning again, his heart racing. "Promathia stirs in his grave. Al'Taieu shudders and breathes again. The seas in the west and north are boiling; the holy places resonate with their power. The Mithran Sin Hunters scour Vana'diel. The Emptiness lurks. Our curse, our sin.... and now, at last, two of THEM are moving to strike. Bahamut and Phoenix.... I know the Duchy is aware of this, I know you went to the Monarch Linn to speak with Him."
The silence fell again, stretching long. Finally, the contact responds in a low voice, "Damn you and your witchcraft. Yes, I did. I invoked the Pact."
Alberich waved away the "compliment" with his long-fingered hand. "Draw me up an official death notice. Let's see if I can't find a proper.... messenger to send." He smirked. "Who am I--or any of us--to resist the beckonings of Fate? Or in this case.... The coercions?"
--
A Moogle was waiting nervously for Kincade, hovering above his bed, softly shining with the omnipresent power that the strange beings seemed to present. He seemed browbeaten and terrified of the drunk Samurai as he stumbled into the room, and proferrs the official notice from the Grand Duchy with shaking paws. "F-f-f-f-for you s-s-sir...." he stammered, then promptly disappeared as soon as it was taken.... or if not taken, he drops it on Kincade's foot and vanishes.
On official Duchy parchment, under the seal of the Archduke Vicarious, it reads:
"The Grand Duchy of Jeuno hereby recognizes the expiration of the adventurer known as Phio Piccolo of Windurst this Watersday of N Month, Halfmoon, CE 4623. Notarized by Nag'lomada under the authority of the Archduke Vicarious." Then, in scrawled handwritting underneath, the notation: "Stopped. Found in quarters."
The landing airship was greeted by a large company of Ducal Guards, headed by Wolfgang. There were also two figures in black hoods standing at the back, their hoods marked with the emblem of the Society, the Jeunoan "scientists." Wolfgang stepped forward to the airship ramp, blocking the way with his armored bulk, clutching a scroll in his fist. "Which one of you is Kincade Vouxineu?" he demanded in his deep, coarse voice, his black eyes flickering from face to face. But then, only one really matched the description he was given. His eyes landed on the redhead Elvaan and he snapped the scroll open with a jerk of his gauntleted wrist. "You are hereby summoned to the Ducal Palace. You're not under the liberty to refuse." He raised his gaze to take in Kincade's companions. "The presence of others will not be required," he added blandly.
If the others protested, he raised a hand to silence them, his Ducal Guards arranged behind him. "This is a peaceful summons, for the moment, but I have been authorized to use force if necessary." Wolfgang raised an eyebrow at Kincade. "It seems your presence is being requested at the highest level."
The Guards fell in around Kincade, separating him from the group, and they stalked up the winding stone steps of the tiered city to the highest floor, the lofty, marble area called Ru'Lude. The name and the design were said to be an homage to a loftier place; the layout was in the emblem of the gods, it was rumored, and the Archduke's Palace sat at the most auspicious position. The Guards brought Kincade into the Palace and into a large greeting room, richly appointed. There, perhaps surprisingly, they left him, the two black-robed figures remaining with him and Wolfgang retreating to just outside the door.
The first, smaller figure lowered his hood. He was a fiercely blond Hume, with a strange eye apparatus, and his eyes were sharp and cunning. "I am Nag'lomada," he said curtly by way of greeting. "I am a representative of the Duke Vicarious, who will be informed of all that is said here. He--" He jerked his head to the other hooded figure. "--is Alberich." He smirked slightly. "A scoundrel and madman, but who has his uses."
"Oh Naggy, you flatter me," came an amused retort from inside the hood. His voice was lilted strangely in an accent that most would not recognize. It sounded vaguely foreign.
"Let's not beat around the bush, Kincade," Nag'molada said curtly. "We wouldn't have summoned you otherwise. We have a stopped adventurer on our hands. Her body is still alive, but barely. And ALBERICH here says her ghost is inside his mirror. Apparently, this has something to do with you." Nag'molada leaned forward slightly, studying Kincade's face as if taking in each subtle eyeflick and change of expression from here on out. "Be very careful as to what you say. If this girl's death is your fault--"
"Now, now...." Alberich said soothingly. "The girl isn't dead. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation." But his eyes, too, were fixed intently on Kincade, and his large hands are clamped down tightly on the arms of his chair. However, where Nag'lomada looked intimidating and angry, Alberich's blue eyes glowed with a different emotion from the depths of his hood--excitement. This, to him, is clearly thrilling.
"Tell me, sir...." Alberich said, and here his voice almost thrummed, "... have you heard of Phoenix?"
((more old stuff..... this was my first attempt at an Alby!backstory, as y'all can see I revised it some))
My parents didn't make it out. My little sister went down first, when the Marquisate went down and the beastmen came pouring in. Her hand slipped from my mother's, and she turned, and then they were both just gone. My father went after them, but I could see on his face that he already knew. He had to know they were dead before he too died. I used to think, "Please, Goddess, never let me have to outlive my most precious person." More proof that the gods don't give ten damns about this Vana'diel they made, least of all Altana.
I didn't start to see the future til I was 12 or 13. At first it was just weird dreams, weird little flashes in my mind when I would look at someone. I brushed it off for the most part. I talked to Prishe about it and she said I was probably a bit touched in the head, then she laughed and said that all of us survivors were. Mildaurion was gone by then, so it was just me, Prishe, and Despechiaire looking after everyone. Times were tougher back then, we were huddled about fifty or sixty of us in a glorified cave. We barely had enough to eat, we couldn't go outside for fear of monsters. Only Prishe could really fight them. Everyone else was either too young, or too old. Funny how only the old and the children survived the Great War, at least on our cursed islands.
I grew up but damn, I was a brat. I had weird stuff going on in my head, though I hadn't heard voices yet, and I was angry. I hated everything. I hated having to live in a damned hole like a rat. The elders weren't too fond of me either. I wasn't noble or regal or well-mannered like my uncle had been. I was just an angry kid with an axe to grind against the world. I was too much like Prishe, I guess. She and I weren't really close, but I looked up to her all the same. She wouldn't have let anyone fall behind if she could've helped it. She was the only reason any of us were alive to begin with. Life is a gift, though most people (including me at that time) are too stupid to realize it.
I'm obviously not the only person in Vana'diel that can see things, but we all have our different techniques and methods. The Windurstan Star Sibyl, for instance, reads the future from the stars. She gets this power from Fenrir, who is the true Seer among the terrestrial avatars. Hence why Bahamut looks for mortal avatars to use, so he can do the same; he began to look for a human vessel shortly after the War, because Fenrir's powers were waning badly. What he found was some Elvaan punk who'd picked a fight he shouldn't have, a kid barely reaching adulthood, bleeding out his life all over the ground on some godforsaken cliff. He says I'm the strongest Seer he's ever had, though he's only had Kuluu before, and everyone knows how worthless the Kuluu were. (What's with the lanterns?)
I'm no head doctor. All I know is that the future and the past came together at that moment, and the punk kid ceased to be. I lost about, oh, five years of my life then. Don't remember where I was or what I was up to. Just know that when I came out of it, I belonged to Bahamut, body, mind, and soul. I had a big tattoo on my back sealing my powers, and that's when I learned to See properly. I don't even know WHAT I am now, whether monster or man, madman or prophet, angel or demon. I just am. I hear voices. Bahamut's voice. My mother's voice. My father's voice. My sister's voice. And my uncle's voice. Those guys never say anything different though, just the same things.
Now I hear Yuniko's voice, too. She asks me why I didn't save her. She asks me what damned good are powers that you can't use to protect the ones you love. I'd like to know that, too. But like I said before. Life is a gift. Whether you want it or not, there's only so long you can surrender before you find something worth fighting for again. A tiny shred of hope, greater than your own life, a hope for something better, for a tiny piece of happiness, no matter how momentary.
Here's where my... colleagues and I differ. They say that the future is one. That all that has ever been, is now, or ever will be was foreordained long ago. Written there in the stars, in stone, that this will happen, that will happen. I say that's chocobo doodoo. There is no one future. Else I could just See once, write it all down, seal it up and put it in some fountain underneath a city, and I'd be praised forever as some sort of awesome person. (See! I'm making a Windurst joke! I'm so clever!) But it doesn't work that way. Fate is something that surrounds us, that traps us, that encompasses us and holds us in its palm. But how fate is realized is dependent only on our decisions. That's why I can bear the blame for Yuniko's death. I wasn't strong enough to save her. It wasn't fate, or destiny, or the one future that killed her. It was me, for not being able to make the choices that would lead to her being able to live.
I wonder if I'll hear Kieliana's voice in my head too, someday?
Stupid journals.
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