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There were strangers in
the castle.
In fairness, this was hardly an irregular occurrence– after all,
with the new trade sanctions Cecil had developed between the
countries, new faces were arriving every day, and the castle was
filled with the hum of activity. But these– these strangers were
different. She could feel their hum, their auras, shimmering in the
magic-infused air of Baron, and it was odd. Foreign. Not
foreign like the six-stringed instruments of Fabul or the spicy
soups of Troia, but very foreign. It took her a long time to
figure out exactly what the gentle thrumming around her was, but
when she finally put her finger on it, the realization chilled her
to the bone.
They felt like the Lunarians had.
It left Rydia's hands sweaty and cool, clammy even when she closed
her fingers down around the tender skin of her palm. They'd come
into the castle with a distinct, business-like air, with faces that
could have been made of stone and weapons that resembled no others
Rydia had ever seen. They walked through the hallways with their
steps echoing around them and did not look at those they passed by,
did not stop to admire the tapestries or portraits Cecil had lined
the halls with. They felt hard and cold, and Rydia watched them
pass, half hidden behind one of the stone pillars marking the
entrance to the Great Hall. She felt more like one of her students
than a Mage Instructor then, keeping sure she was shrouded in dark
shadows, but she did not like the way they made the atmosphere
chill, nor the way their heels clicked resolutely with every step.
She feared what news they had, and what evil they brought with them.
They disappeared into the large double doors marking the receiving
hall, and stepped out from the shadows with a sigh. She knew that
hiding would do her little good– Cecil had made sure to put her on
the council when she had arrived back in Baron, and his good-natured
request had required of her a new set of responsibilities, including
her presence at state meetings within the hall. One of the White
Apprentices scuttled by her position looked frightened, and the
sight of the child-like face so marred by fear seemed to solidify
something inside of her. Rydia wiped her hands on her skirt, ran a
hand through her hair, and hoped she did not look as if the
strangers' presence had unnerved her so badly.
When she walked into the Great Hall, they were already standing
before Cecil's throne.
She made her way down the sides, beside the flickering chandeliers
and shimmering stained glass windows, until she reached the small
seating used by the council members during hearings. Most of the
others were already there, looking intently at the black-clad
foreigners standing before them, and Rydia was pleased enough to see
that she was not the last one to arrive. She sat, eyes on the
strangers, hoping that the news they bore would be only light and
temporary in nature.
Rosa caught her eye and gave her a tiny nod, a ghost of a smile
crossing her radiant features. The Queen was due with the heir to
the throne any day now, her robes extending halfway across her
thighs, and yet Rydia should not have been surprised that she
refused to take her to bed chambers as the other Mages had
requested. Rosa was hardly one to give up her duties. Rydia let her
eyes flicker over Cecil's face, which was set and lined, and then
her gaze settled back on the foreigners.
There were three of them, in total, all male, all clad in identical
black suits with crisp pleats in the pants. All of them carried
weapons mechanical in nature– she had half a mind to tell Cid about
them later and let the engineer marvel over the ingenuity of their
sleek designs.
"You are certain?" Cecil said, snapping Rydia back to reality. She
had missed the information first presented that had prompted the
King's question. "There can be no mistake?"
"No," said the one that seemed to be the leader, sporting hair that
reminded Rydia strongly of Yang. She fought back the rising
nostalgia as he continued. "He is here, or has been here recently.
We have been following his trail for months."
"What does he want here?" Rosa asked. She looked nervous, one hand
resting over her swollen midsection.
"We don't know," the leader said with a shrug. "It could be
anything, it could be nothing. But the trail leads through here, and
we need to find him before he causes any more destruction."
"I don't understand," Cecil said, shaking his head. "How could he
arrive here? How did any of you arrive here?"
"Lifestream," the black haired stranger said, and when both Cecil
and Rosa's faces remained blank and unseeing, he sighed, shifting
somewhat. "The lifestream is in the planet, moving underground and
inside. It's what your magic comes from."
"But I still don't understand," Cecil said, and this time his frown
was more visible. "If the undercurrent has always been there, why
now would such portals be opening?"
They continued talking, but Rydia was lost as soon as she heard him
say 'underground'. Immediately her thoughts swam with memories of
long corridors and honey-comb shaped floors, of the sweet, musky
smell of ancient tomes and the richness that seeped into everything
through the infusion of magic. She could almost taste it again, the
fullness and abundance of mystical energy that saturated the caves.
Her heart was in her stomach, and her pulse was pounding in her
temples, but she knew, and she stood.
"Your majesty," she said, glad that her voice did not falter. All
eyes turned to her, and she fought back against the flush in her
cheeks. "If I may– I might know what has caused this."
Cecil nodded once, and she moved from her seat to stand next to him.
She was unsure if she should include the strangers in her
conversation, but she could see little harm now, for they already
knew more of what was happening than the King did.
"The Land," she said, softly, and both Cecil and Rosa's eyes lit up
with recognition. "It could be the Land."
"Could it?" Rosa asked. "How is it possible, I thought–?"
"When I left, I told you that it was because the magic that held the
Land together was beginning to fall apart," Rydia explained, holding
her hands out in front of her like a diagram. "The Land was– a
separate entity, almost. It existed outside of normal time and laws,
and thusly it required a great deal of energy to keep together.
Asura and Leviathan knew that it was only a matter of time before
the magic dissipated. That is why they sent me away."
There was a hard lump in her throat when she thought of the fate of
her mentors, her family who had raised her all those long years in
which she was growing there, and she paused a moment to swallow it.
"Why now?" Cecil asked. "Why would the magic fall apart now?"
"The Devils," Rydia said. "Golbez. The Lunarians. All these forces
had unnatural affects on the magic of the Blue Planet, and caused
things to shift. It weakened the hold of the Land."
"What happened to it?" Rosa asked.
"I don't know," Rydia ground out, refusing to let the stinging in
the corners of her eyes force its way down to her cheeks. She was a
member of the council, a respected authority and a Mage Instructor,
and she would not let her power be undermined by old memories. "It
is possible that it simply faded from existence. It could have been
pulled deeper into the planet's core, and it could have imploded on
itself, causing a rift."
"Could such a rift have brought others here?" the King asked,
looking older and weary in the dim lighting. "Could it have brought
the man they seek through the portal?"
Rydia leveled the three strangers with an even gaze, betraying none
of the emotion hammering in her chest.
"It could have," she said. The man with the black hair shifted
again, his grip on his mechanical weapon tightening somewhat, and
the action seemed to catch Cecil's attention. The King's gaze moved
back to the foreigners.
"This man you seek, he is dangerous?" he asked, and Rydia was not
surprised that his voice had lowered significantly in volume. The
other council members were murmuring to each other behind her, but
she thought it best that such things– if they were true– were best
kept to the smallest number of people as possible.
"Very," the leader replied, and Rydia felt a tingle of magic run
through her, like a warning. What the dark-haired man said was true,
and she could feel it in her fingers like the workings of a spell.
There was something altering the very fabric of the magic of the
planet, and whatever it was had quite a large amount of power. She
worried for the safety of the other nations who had not received
word of this strange new discovery, and hoped Cecil would send a
messenger out to inform them all of the possible danger.
"You have my permission to seek him out," Cecil said, and from his
tone, Rydia gathered that the briefing was over. "Should you require
more aid or transportation, my people will be more than happy to
accompany you. If you need anything, we would be glad to help."
This seemed to please the black-clad strangers, and they turned to
leave, their heels clicking resolutely against the floor as they did
so. Rydia watched until they had disappeared back out the double
doors, and then turned back to Cecil and Rosa, who looked grim.
"What do you make of it?" she asked. "Are they a threat?"
"I don't think so," Cecil said, frowning at something far beyond the
stone tiles of the floor. "They would not have bothered coming here
to get my permission, nor would they have announced their motives.
Besides, I think they are speaking the truth– I think there is
something here that shouldn't be."
"Can you feel it, too?" Rydia inquired. When both King and Queen
nodded, she shivered and put her arms around her chest. "It feels
like the very air has gone cold."
She did not miss the way Rosa's hand moved automatically to rest on
her stomach again, an action that made Rydia vaguely glad she had no
one to watch out for save herself and her pupils. If what the
strangers said was true, then it was possible they were all in very
real danger. She shivered again, and pulled her arms closer.
--------
The briefing dismissed with a whirl of mumblings and whispers, and
Rydia had already heard more than enough to cause her worry for the
rest of the night. She knew that sleep would be difficult to come by
with so much on her mind, and so she headed instead not to the
tower, but down the stairs near the receiving hall and into her
teaching chambers. She was expecting the usual pitter-patter of mice
feet as she walked into the door, but she was not expecting to see a
figure already standing inside the room, looking up at the spines of
the tomes shelved in her wooden bookcase.
Since the figure had not yet been alerted to her presence, she
slammed the door loudly behind her, and was pleased when it seemed
to startle the man. It was one of the three strangers, with hair the
color of a Fire spell, and he did not seem to look guilty at having
entered her chambers without permission.
"What are you doing in here?" she asked, adopting the same voice she
used when one of the apprentices got into something they knew they
should not. "Do you not know that these are private rooms?"
"Interesting setup," he said, picking up another book that was lying
open across the small wooden desk. He seemed disinterested in what
the pages held, but it was the action that angered her, and she
stormed over to yank the tome rather forcibly from his fingers.
"This is my classroom," she said, biting back a more severe swear
she'd learned from Edge. "I teach here, and you have no business
letting yourself into places you have not been admitted to."
"We've been admitted everywhere," he said, smirking, and there was a
flash in his eyes that she did not particularly care for.
"Not here," she shot back, and slammed the book down onto the desk,
causing a cloud of dust to fly up into the air. It caught him
off-guard, and he began to sneeze, looking thoroughly annoyed with
her behavior. "Now leave, your alliance with Cecil does not give you
unlimited access to my own personal chambers."
The man looked at her, hard, his expression bordering on amusement.
"I see," he said, answering some unspoken statement. "You've got
quite a mouth on you."
"And you have quite a penchant for pain if you continue to stand
there," she said, quelling the urge to light the hem of his pants on
fire. "I will not ask again."
"Spirit," he said, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards. "I like
that in a woman."
She did not resist letting a few sparks of thunder escape the tips
of her fingers and land squarely on his back– he let out a surprised
shout and nearly dropped his weapon. Having barely saved his machine
from hitting the floor, Rydia used the opening to hit him with a
second barrage of sparks. He scampered for the door, limping like a
wounded chocobo, all the while glaring at her balefully over his
shoulder.
"Out!" she cried, and when he paused at the door, she tried shooting
the thunder at him again. He ducked behind the wood and was gone,
and she could hear his footsteps moving down the hall only for a few
moments before they faded away, and she was left alone in the room.
She looked around, but nothing seemed to be missing, and she
wondered what he'd been looking for there.
-------
She saw nothing of the strange men for several days, and assumed
that they were trying to find the missing man they were searching
for, and threw herself into her teachings to the point of
exhaustion. The apprentices never once questioned why their lessons
were being extended into long hours of the afternoon, and Rydia was
glad, for she didn't have the heart to tell them it was because she
wanted them to be as prepared as she could, in case the tremor in
the air became a reality.
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