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Chapter Text

It's cold, colder than Vivi's ever remembered feeling. Falling asleep seems like the right thing to do.

He slides down the slope into a pile of snow, but it doesn't matter that at any other time, he would have thought something might be wrong (he has some survival skill, after all); some deeper instinct calls for sleep, and so he does.

[-He hears the ceaseless chatter of voices he doesn't recognise. They flicker in and out of his awareness; he's uninterested in them. No curiosity sparks like a flame in him to listen. His wings flutter idly.

The only thing that's of real interest to him swims under frosted glass, shimmers in the magical light. Since he's not needed for anything else, he's content to sit, arms crossed on the glassy surface, until he's called away for yet more combat tests. His breath fogs, as it always does when he's near this crystal cage.

Something stirs within, the whispers of a connection light up inside his mind, and he presses his hands against the clear surface as if trying to wipe away the ice that frosts the inside and prevents him from seeing. It's all-too-tempting to warm his hands, to heat the surface until it melts away all trace of frost and the temperature rises to a fire's roaring heat--

--but they'd worked on his training, his discipline, and his orders are not to cause destruction unless he's told to, so he doesn't. It's important to be good, to follow orders, so he doesn't cause trouble.

"You're slow,"

says the voice that he doesn't recognise but seems to come from him regardless. Quiet and monotone, but with the faintest flicker of childish impatience, like the element that roars through him and comes easily when he asks it to.
(Fire jumps and dances at his fingertips, at his bidding, leaps to devour whatever he asks. It's so easy to destroy with it.)

He gazes into the clear surface, looking for something inside that isn't just his glowing eyes reflected back at him.

"Can't you hear me?"

The connection that calls him, drives him to linger, isn't fading like it has before.

There's a sulkiness to his voice, when he speaks next.-]

He startles awake, all thoughts of the dream thrust from his mind as he kicks and thrashes his way out of the snow in a panic.

He doesn't remember what happened, exactly; he'd fallen, and then he'd somehow fallen asleep, and it's so cold. Steiner and Garnet are here too, half-buried and still, and he frantically checks their breathing and their heartbeats;

no, no, they're not cold the way his grandpa was the day he left, it's still okay.

But as he whimpers in a panic and fire dances in his palms, no matter how much snow he melts away from them, no matter how he warms them until colour returns and shakes them, h e can't seem to get them to wake up or even show signs of stirring.

But Zidane isn't here, and he wouldn't have left them like this without a reason, so maybe he's gone to see what happened.

(The connection he'd felt faintly in the dream, that pull that beckons him, tickles the back of his mind.)

He needs to find Zidane. Zidane will make things okay, or at least make things make more sense, he's pretty sure.

He struggles up the slope (so much harder to get up it than down, which he thinks is unfair) and follows the only path that he can take, which is forward.

"Why didn't you fall asleep? You should be dead by now. You--"

The black mage - they probably are a black mage, Zidane thinks; the same pointy hat and the same hidden face too - looks up, suddenly, as if something's caught their attention. Their voice falters, and they don't pick up whatever they were about to say. He can't help but frown; even if the situation's dire, he doesn't like his odds if something else decides to come crashing in. This isn't his kind of territory; he doesn't know anything about it.

"Huh? What's the deal?" He glances around immediately, trying to follow where their eyes are looking, but he sees nothing but more ice and snow, and sheer cliffs. "Another trick like this blizzard you've stirred up?"

That gets a dismissive little laugh from his opponent, and they leap to the ground, wings flapping to slow their descent so they can land noiselessly. "Oh, if what I sensed was true, you'd much rather choose the blizzard, I'm sure!" Their voice quiets; over the roar of the whirling snow, even Zidane's sharp ears can barely pick up what they say next -

"But that's impossible."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the thief says, bluntly, as he pulls out his daggers and settles back into a combat stance. Bouncing on the heels of his feet is as much to keep himself warm and moving as anything else; he can't afford to let this mage get the jump on him and turn him into a popsicle, too. "But I can't sit by if you're not gonna stop this storm, so how about it? You wanna quiet down and let us go?"

"Hee-hee-hee! Oh, absolutely not!"

"Fine, then! Have it your way!"

Moving is a struggle, but Vivi pushes forward regardless, shivering. He can see Zidane's footprints half-covered in the snow, and he can hear the sounds of battle ahead, and one of those things would have spurred him into running, but both of them spur him into greater efforts.

He's not scared of a blizzard, at least. He holds out a gloved hand, a fireball growing in his open palm. The gentler side-effects of the blizzard melt away before him, clearing a path that's easier to forge through for his smaller stature and ensuring more doesn't pile up to block his way.

Burning it all into nonexistence is strangely satisfying; he could probably stand and watch it all day. But no, Zidane is in trouble, and he might need help, so he forges on despite his growing uncertainty and fear.

(Something is calling him forward, something that feels right and strange at the same time, and in a way he fears that, too.)

It's the monster the mage has called up to fight for them that notices first. It swings its head around to the entrance Zidane had used, red eyes fixed on it intently.

"Sealion, what--" snaps the black mage, before their eyes and then their attention shift in a similar way.

"Zidane--" Vivi says breathlessly as he skids into the room, fire still held in his hand, paying no attention at all, "Zidane, are you okay?"

The thief nods, sheathing one of his daggers to catch Vivi's not-on-fire hand as he slides past with a "Wah!" The little mage does a dizzy twirl and then comes to a stop, the fireball in his hand extinguishing with his lack of concentration. 

"Yeah, I'm good," he says, wondering if he should let go of Vivi and then deciding that he can probably fight one-handed if he needs to. The kid is uncomfortably light - maybe he needs to eat more. "I thought you were asleep, though. I couldn't wake you up at all."

"I had a weird dream," the mage replies, cursed with honesty. "Then it felt like something was calling me, so I woke up, and..."

He blinks, abruptly, like he's just noticed the other two figures in front of him, and his eyes widen even further. He seems to be reaching out and shrinking into himself, all at once, caught between two different reactions; magnetized and repulsed. The other mage, too, is staring at Vivi with what Zidane thinks is...familiarity? But that can't be right; there's so little similarity between this timid little kid and the mage who's willing to freeze them all to death.

(But, then, how much does he know about Vivi's past? Not much. Not at all. He had a grandfather; that grandfather is now dead. Anything else...)

"Impossible," says the mage again, their voice much less confident, wavering with some undefinable emotion. The motions of their hand still, the ceaseless ringing of the bell quieting; with it, the blizzard quiets too. "They lost you. You couldn't even fly--"

The monster they've summoned croons in what seems to be agreement, its aggressive stance relaxing as it leans down to look at Vivi more closely; red eyes fixed on yellow ones. Zidane pulls Vivi away from it, taking a step back, and Vivi clings to his hand like a lifeline.

"I--Do I know you? Why are you talking like you know me?" Vivi's voice is similarly shaky. "What--"

"No. No questions," the black mage says, voice sharp. "You, of all people, should know better than to ask." A leap and a flap of their wings takes them up to the cliff, putting distance between them. A hand motion, and it's as if the monster that accompanied them was never there; it disappears in a shattering of ice.

"'Wait--!" Vivi stumbles forward, hand outstretched; Zidane hangs onto his hand, not trusting that the danger has passed. The black mage on the cliff stares down at him for a moment, expression almost hesitant, before turning and leaving them alone.

Without the roar of the blizzard, the cavern seems strangely empty. Vivi grasps air in a useless fist and then drops his hand, staring at the space where the intruder had been, and from the faraway look in his eyes it's like Zidane isn't there at all.

"C'mon," the thief says gently, squeezing Vivi's hand until the little mage comes back to himself enough to squeeze back. He sheathes his other dagger, glancing around the cavern (he still feels he's being watched, somehow). "Let's go and check on those two, okay?"

"Okay," Vivi mumbles, blinking.

Zidane's relieved to see Garnet and Steiner awake and moving around, despite the less-than-welcome reception from Steiner.

"Nothing happened, you say?" Steiner practically bellows. "Then how do you explain Master Vivi's condition?"

"I'm fine," Vivi says, almost at the brink of tears, his voice rising and pitching uncontrollably, "and it's not Zidane's fault anyway so you can't yell at him and even if something did happen and I woke up by myself and none of you were waking up even if I tried really hard and I thought you were gonna sleep until you died it's fine and it doesn't matter!"

It's the closest Vivi's gotten to shouting at any of them. The echoes ring among the cavern, bouncing for some time in the uncomfortable silence. Vivi's gaze seems to have magnetized to the floor and shows no signs of moving any time soon. Zidane is watching Vivi, his eyebrows drawn worriedly together; Garnet and Steiner simply look at each other, as if recalling something in the not-so-distant past.

Without another word, Steiner kneels and picks Vivi up, holding him in the crook of an arm; the black mage doesn't resist, though he seems to have no idea what to do with it.

"You must be tired, Master Vivi," Steiner says, with a gentle tone of voice that Zidane didn't even know he was capable of. "Why don't you rest while we walk? You're light as a feather, so you're not the slightest burden to me." As if to demonstrate his point, he lifts Vivi one-handed in a move that makes him yelp in surprise, clinging to the knight's arm. It dissolves into a giggle, and then into the beginnings of a sob. At that point, Steiner adjusts his grip, holding Vivi so he can cry undisturbed into the knight's shoulder.

None of them call attention to it as they leave, except to reach out and squeeze a hand or pat his back. When Vivi cries himself out and falls asleep, they make a silent group decision that he doesn't need to be disturbed until they make camp for the night.

The cavern remains empty for some time; it remains stubbornly empty in the wake of the group's departure. Any observer could be forgiven for thinking that there was simply nothing there. But, defying all expectation, twin figures emerge from the darkness, talking amongst themselves.

"Was it wise to let No 1 depart without finishing their mission?"

"Yes, yes. Wise it was. For we have a much more valuable tool within our grasp."

"Will it still obey orders?"

"It will, it will still. Even if we have to...force things along."

Both of them laugh, fading back into the shadows, leaving only the echoes of their voices behind.

Chapter Text

Making camp that night, as far away from the cavern as they can get, is an unusually quiet affair. They've known each other for little more than a week at this point, and the stresses of their various situations generally render Steiner and Zidane at other's throats (something that the knight usually starts and the thief refuses to take), with Garnet having to talk Steiner down and Vivi trying to cut between them, telling them to stop.

Any usual arguments are absent tonight, though. Vivi is yet to stir, his face still hidden in Steiner's shoulder, and that means the knight's usual volume has lowered to something that approaches normal human speech. The sight of him fussing over the tiny mage would almost be funny if they weren't all still thinking about what had happened; Zidane troubled about what he'd witnessed, Garnet still thinking about everything that had brought them here.

"It doesn't feel real," she admits, talking mostly to herself as she helps Zidane to carry wood and build a fire. Steiner might have clucked about a princess must not dirty her hands but tonight, he has his own hands full. "The play, the crash..."

Zidane can't help but laugh, though he puts a hand over his mouth after a moment to stifle himself, glancing over at a still-slumbering Vivi. "It was pretty great, huh? Bet they'll be talking about it for years."

"Great isn't how I would put it," she says, her own laugh sheepish and quiet. (How many years has it been since she's been able to laugh properly, without feeling like she's being trapped in some giant cage? Far too long.) "I'm-- sorry about your ship. It was-- beautiful." 

She'd been struggling to find the words to describe the Prima Vista, from what little she'd seen of it. Certainly, there were the gilded, glittering airships she'd watched from her balcony, soaring away from Alexandria - but those were distant dreams, nothing solid. The sturdiness of the theater ship, the roar of the engines, its promise of freedom, though...that had been intoxicatingly real. She realises, with some surprise, that she wants to feel it again; she wants to fly.

That draws another laugh from Zidane. "You've got some taste, Princess." His mouth quirks up in a small smile as he builds the fireplace; Garnet crouches to watch, her face intent. "I wouldn't call it beautiful, I guess, but she's a good ship. It'll be even better once boss and the others rebuild it again."

"You think they can?" The question is pulled out of her before she even realizes it's bubbled to the surface; she can only think of the petrified forest, of Zidane's friend left behind.

"Yeah, sure." Zidane pokes the fireplace into shape, looking over at Vivi for a moment before pulling something out of his pocket to produce the sparks to light it. "It seems pretty bad right now, but the Prima Vista's crew always pulls through!" He flashes a cheeky grin, before it fades into something more sober.

"Well," he says, after a moment, "that's what the boss always says, anyway. Though I gotta admit, this might be the biggest challenge yet."

"Will you be leaving, then?" She can't help but ask. She knows that if it had been Steiner in his friend's place - if she'd been in Zidane's place....well, she can't think of why someone would place a princess over the wellbeing of someone they've known far longer. "After you've seen us far enough."

Zidane pokes at the fire for a moment, watching it hungrily devour the kindling he's set out for it, and then shakes his head.

"Nah," he replies, at last. "Blank knew what he was doing when he gave me that map. And you and Rusty wouldn't last long without me. You'd get snatched up like that," and he snaps his fingers, as if to demonstrate. "and then you'd be right back where you started and all of this stuff we just went through - it'd be for nothing, y'know? All your effort and all."

There's a conspicuous absence of a third name. "What about Vivi?"

"Vivi?" the thief says, the firelight playing over his face as he watches the flames dance. "He might be a kid, but he knows what the outside world looks like. I'd trust him with survival stuff more than you two, if I had to pick."

It takes her a moment to understand, and then she remembers the conversation they'd had as they entered the cavern, the way she'd woken up warmer than expected even buried in snow--

"My grandpa used to teach me lots of things, but he passed away..."
"Oh...Forgive my indiscretion."
"Don't worry about it."

I tried really hard. I thought you were going to sleep until you died.

--and then, another thought arrives, that she doesn't really know much about Vivi at all, except he's younger than she is and yet, traveling alone. As unbearably overprotective as Steiner can be, as willing as she was to leave him behind -- she's still grateful that he's here, chasing after her, worrying about her. She can't imagine her life without him there, especially as the castle grew less and less warm, her mother withdrawing into her grief and, later, into a strange distance Garnet had never been able to bridge.

If he'd died protecting you, says a treacherous thought at the back of her head, who else would care like you? You've heard everyone talk about him. You know what they think he's like; too loud, too clumsy, too obsessed with authority. They've never seen him try to sing you a lullaby or listen to him read you books to help you sleep; they don't know him as the person who drops everything when you cry, because in all the world he considers nothing more important than you.

Steiner tries hard, for her sake. Charges headfirst into things he doesn't always understand and makes himself look foolish, to make her laugh and to protect her from danger, even if he often overreacts to it. 

"Your safety is my priority," he'd said once. "If it was to protect you from harm, I'd jump into a dragon's mouth for you, Princess."
"Noooo, you can't!" She had giggled then, clinging onto his arm, and he had swung her into the air with a laugh of his own. "If you jump into a dragon's mouth, you won't help me at all, silly! You have to stay here like you said you would!"
"Very well," he had replied, gravely serious (come to think of it, even then, he'd treated all her requests seriously). "If your highness demands it, I'll listen."
Things had been better, then. Her father had still been alive, her mother had still been happy; Steiner hadn't had to step into the emptiness left by her father's death and her mother's absence, to do what he could to support her.

The familiar clatter of metal breaks her from her thoughts. Steiner seats himself by the fire.

"How's he doing?" Zidane asks before Garnet can voice the same thought.

"Master Vivi? He's asleep, still," Steiner replies, his attention clearly divided. Vivi shifts a little, little cracks of light in a dark face indicating that something has made him restless, and the knight moves him down to his lap with the air of someone who's done this before. "Whatever he was doing must have tired him. He doesn't usually sleep this long."

Zidane looks at him for a moment. 
"Didn't think you noticed," the thief says, propping his head on his hand, watching Steiner with real curiosity.

"I do have experience," Steiner replies, with an indignant little hardening of his mouth, "with taking care of children."

"Really? Couldn't have guessed, the way you keep chasing the princess like a lost hen." Zidane's grin is bright and cheeky and a little bit pointed, and to accentuate his joke he makes a surprisingly accurate clucking sound with his mouth.

"You--!" 

Steiner inflates, and then deflates again, looking down at Vivi in his lap. "I suppose," he says, and each word sounds like it's being winched out of the bottom of a well, so much effort is used to be civil, "you have a point."

He doesn't say anything else. They sit in silence together, listening to the fire crackle; when they talk, they talk about the most immediately relevant things, like what dinner will look like and who gets to clean up afterwards and who's going to take the first watch and where they're going tomorrow.

Steiner volunteers, as usual. 

"Can I take first watch with you?"

"You should get some rest, Princess. I fear we have a long day ahead."

"Please, Steiner," Garnet says, looking at him with sad eyes, and - as she knows he will- he gives in. She's glad for the respite; she doesn't want to be asleep - alone with her thoughts and what those thoughts produce - right now.

Vivi is blanketed in warmth, this time, much better than the cold. The sound of comforting voices and the crackle of flames - so reliable and familiar - lull him into further sleep. If there's no need for him to get up, he doesn't have to. The others will wake him if anything happens.

He opens his eyes at one point while the others are talking, still half-asleep. The fire dances bright and hypnotic before him, licking at the edges of his vision and his attention until he can't think of anything else. When he closes his eyes again, drifting, he slips into the deep chasm of another buried memory.

[- Their laughter rings, echoes off the contained space. 

"Kee-hee-hee! Is that all you have?"

 Frustration burns bright and deep in him, easier to draw from than any other feeling, making the others feel ashen and faded in comparison. It bubbles up as magic, as power. It fizzes and sparks in his head, and white hot flames burst forth from his hands.
Still, it doesn't mean much when he can't hit anyone. Accuracy is important in a soldier.

And no matter how hard he tries, 2 is too quick for him. Too quick to see, and too quick to hit.

(2 is quick in a lot of things. Even if 1 was made first, and 3 is still being assembled, 2 was already clawing their way out before 1 had really woken up. Maybe that's the reason for why, even if they try to hide it, things pain them more than the others. They're simply made more fragile, another act of their creators that he doesn't understand.)

He spins around, fire dancing at his fingertips, to catch the trailing edge of 2's robe fluttering out of his vision. From behind him, they laugh again.

Another burst of annoyance (how easily it turns to frustration's razor edge, that deep blazing crucible of something like rage). Rather than turn to try and catch the other mage, he swings his arm backwards and releases, and mocking laughter turns into a shriek of pain.

He turns to see his handiwork, and 2 is still for once, wings beating frantically as they struggle to stay upright. Small flames lick at the edges of a crumbling burn that eats away at their right shoulder.

Rather than purely satisfaction, as he should feel, there's the fluttering beating sense of fear, that soul-deep guiltiness of having done something wrong. But isn't this what he's meant to do?

He runs to them instead, reaches up to touch that injury out of sheer disbelief of having caught them, and they hiss in pain and swat his hands away.

"Don't touch me," they snap, "don't get cocky and think you've won this round, 0," but in their voice there's the splintering of composure and something, something he doesn't quite understand revealed underneath, like the way 2's wings break to reveal the skeleton they're stitched onto.

It makes satisfaction taste bitter in his mouth.

Their left hand lights up, surges with magic, and he's too slow to react. Ice barrages him and they take advantage of his distraction to warp across the room, increasing the distance between them. Instinctively, fire surges through him and he brings his own temperature back up, but that bright place inside, that pure well of anger, that doesn't come back.

All he has is that sick fluttering feeling, that almost painful sense of guilt, so potent it's pounding at the inside of his ribs like it's trying to break free.-]

He'll feel it again, in the future. 

Vivi, I die soon, says his grandfather, and all he can think, all he can remember thinking through his numbness, is was this my fault? He doesn't understand where the thought came from, the source of it drowned deep in him, but he doesn't question it either.

Such unpleasant thoughts make him jolt awake momentarily, but he's still so tired, and the fire is still warm and there. He can hear Steiner and Garnet, talking in soft, low voices, and he feels safe.
They'd wake him, if they needed him. But he's being allowed to sleep, and that feels important, so he does.

(A familiar connection flickers in the back of his mind, something that's not a product of his dream but real and terribly close. He's not awake enough to understand it, yet.)

The village of Dali sleeps uneasily. Even at this hour the underground factory rumbles and growls like a thing possessed, preparing for tomorrow's work. Two figures wander the corridors in the knowledge that anyone who has the right to be here also has more than enough sense in their head to get out of their way.

"It really is him," No. 2 muses, feeling that connection fuzzily in their head. It's unpleasantly familiar. If they had a brow to furrow, they'd be doing so; their eyes merely narrow into slits, instead. "What's he doing here?"

"He doesn't seem to recognise us," No. 1 says, crossing their arms. "Whatever happened, he likely doesn't know of our creators' plans. And speaking of our creators..the plan has changed."

"What, because you didn't do your job and ran away at the sight of him?" The taller Waltz is quick to jab at their sibling, as always.

"Well, it's a good thing I did, because now there's two of us instead of one."

"Good thing I don't need your help, then," 2 snaps, wings bristling. "I can deal with this without assistance."

1 clicks their tongue (or what passes for one) impatiently, their own eyes narrowing now. "And you'd be a fool to do so."

"Oh, a fool, am I? Well, better a fool than a weakling who relies on a summon to fight for them. Your precious Sealion doesn't do so well under normal conditions, in case you've forgotten! You'd simply slow me down."

"Orders are orders," 1 replies simply, which just seems to aggravate 2 more. "I'll fight alongside you, whether you want it or not. You know how it is."

No 2 hisses, magic sparking at their fingertips. "Fine. Fine. Do what you must. Just don't get in my way!"
 

Chapter Text

The world is blue and still and quiet when Vivi wakes next. 

The fire has died down to embers, no longer the dazzling flames that crept into his dreams. Steiner rattles off surprisingly quiet snores; Garnet leans against him, similarly asleep. The sound of cloth on metal in an almost noiseless world attracts his attention, and he carefully squirms his way out of Steiner's hold to follow it.

Zidane is sitting with his back to a rock nearby, keeping watch. Vivi drifts over to watch him clean his daggers, making sure there's no surprises that can hurt him when he needs them. He's reminded of the way his grandfather cleaned his cooking tools, the way he taught Vivi to cook and clean afterwards. 

"Make mess, clean mess, clean kitchen! No nasty surprises later!"

Here, in the blue morning-before-morning when all sound seems so far away, the echoes of his memories ring louder than ever. He wonders why that is.

"Hey, Vivi. You okay?"

He blinks, only just noticing that tears have been building up in his eyes that he thought were just blurry from sleep.

"Uh-huh," he replies, weak at first, and then stronger. "I'm- I'm okay. I was just thinking."

"And here I thought you were just really into weapons! That'd be kind of a surprise, huh?" Zidane grins at him, and that draws a little giggle out of Vivi, despite his melancholy thoughts. That grin seems to just get wider in response, satisfaction at a job well done.

The thief leans over to gently poke Vivi in the shoulder. 

"Y'know, you're up even earlier than I thought you'd be."

"Oh! Yeah...I had a lot of sleep." He was usually a light sleeper, but yesterday had been the exception, apparently.

The dream (the memory?) dancing in the fire's flames is already fading from his mind as he turns it to more practical things. 

"So, um, I thought I'd make breakfast," Vivi says at last, still watching Zidane (he's moved onto sharpening them now), "since everyone went through a lot yesterday. Is there anything you want?"

"Hey, I eat anything!" the thief replies, flashing him another grin. "The boss used to call me a stomach with a tail stuck on. You gonna need any help cutting stuff, though? Cause I can handle it." As if to prove his point, he flips both his weapons into the air and juggles them with a speed that Vivi can only gasp at and admire, a trick he never gets tired of. If he tried to do something like that, he'd probably cut himself, or worse.

He's about to say No, it's okay, I can do it myself, but - he remembers his grandfather's voice, the way he laughed, the first time he was faced with a truly empty kitchen knowing that he would never wake up to breakfast being made ever again - and those things lodge in his throat and his chest, a weight that makes it hard to form words.

"...I mean -- I guess I don't need to, but...it'd be, um, nice, if you did? I kinda...miss cooking with someone else."

That gets him a briefly sympathetic look that makes him want to hide under his hat and crawl away - Zidane had definitely been listening back then, when Steiner had been sorry about his grandfather - and it's a weird feeling, to get that kind of reaction from something he said, but it's not a bad one, he thinks.

Maybe it's just part of meeting new people.

He hopes so, anyway.

Garnet wakes to the sound of sizzling and the smell of something cooking. Far from the kitchens as her room was, it's enough of a novelty to get her to open her eyes entirely, rather than to drift back to sleep; she finds that the sun is just peeking over the horizon.

"Morning, princess," Zidane says cheerfully, despite the early hour. "Slept well?" Vivi, his back to Garnet, says nothing as he crouches over the frying pan.

"I believe so," she says, carefully sitting up. The movement is enough to jostle Steiner, who practically leaps to attention in a clatter of metal, his sword half-drawn before he realizes what's going on.

"Ooh, nice reflexes," says the thief, with a whistle that Steiner, by the look on his face, doesn't appreciate at all. "How long did it take you to learn that, Rusty?"

"Years of training and discipline! Something that I'm sure you have no idea about!"

"Aw, c'mon, you wouldn't say that if you knew what the boss put us through. It's hard being a performer, you know!"

Steiner splutters. "Are you comparing the grueling training of a proud Alexandrian knight to a-"

"Steiner, it's too early for an argument," Garnet interjects, seeing the mocking grin on Zidane's face and knowing it's not going to stop any time soon. She reaches up to place a hand on his arm, and Steiner grunts and sits down again, sword sliding back into its sheath with a thunk.

"And what is Master Vivi up to?"

"Good question! You should have gotten up early to see him," Zidane says, still grinning - though the mocking humor has gone out of it, replaced with genuine cheer. "As soon as it's about cooking, all his shyness just flies away! It's like magic." He wiggles his fingers, which draws a laugh from Garnet and an embarrassed squeak from Vivi, choosing the wrong time to look up and listen to the conversation.

"It's something I know about, that's all," he mumbles, one hand reflexively going to the brim of his hat as he uses the other to push around the eggs on the hot rock that's become a makeshift pan. "My grandpa taught me..."

(If he closes his eyes and blocks out the sound, then he can hear his grandfather's laughter, feel his presence standing over his shoulder. It was easy, back home. It's become harder to do now, and he doesn't know how to feel about that. The feeling knots in his chest, hard and painful.
Would his grandpa want him to let him go, like that? Shouldn't he hold onto him forever, to stop this last part of him from floating away like everything else had?
So many questions. More and more of them seem to come every day, until he feels like he might burst.)

"Oh, the eggs are done," Vivi says, blinking to clear his vision (strangely blurry; maybe it's the smoke of the campfire, though he's never had any problems with fire before). "Zidane, have you got something to put them on?"

"I don't carry plates in my pockets," Zidane says, "'cause they're too big to carry away when we steal stuff. Rookie mistake, see. You'd better remember it." That gets another strangled sound from Steiner; Garnet stifles a laugh. 

"I'll remember," Garnet says, very seriously. 

"Princess!" squawks Steiner, horrified.

The reactions behind him are enough to pull a giggle out of Vivi, even though he's anxiously peering at the eggs. 

"Well, the bread's almost done...we can use those." It's not what he would have preferred, but there's only so much he can do with what he brought with him. Spices and seasonings were easy to tuck into his pockets, but fresh ingredients he'd had to find with Zidane's help, and bringing any of the cutlery or equipment from home was out of the question. Too heavy for him to carry, and besides, it was his grandpa's anyway, and it should stay where he spent the end of his life.

"If you're worried about getting more stuff to cook with," Zidane says, sliding his dagger under the slices of bread and flipping it as he talks, "there's a village nearby. It's called Dali. We could probably stock up a bit there, since we're in for a long journey."

"We are not in for a long journey," Steiner interrupts, with a scowl. He leans forward. "The princess must go back to Alexandria, where she will be safe, especially from kidnapping brigands like yourself."

"Hey, you keep saying that enough times and I'll really regret saving you from all that stuff back there, you know?"

"You--!"

"The princess does not intend to go back to Alexandria, Steiner," Garnet interjects, her voice firm. "I have something I must do. Surely you understand?" She puts a hand on his arm again, looking up at him, willing him to understand the way he seems to have done so many times, even with things that go against the spirit of her mother's rules.

"...Very well," the knight grunts, his expression stiff, "but you will be returning after you've finished, yes?"

"I-" Garnet glances at Zidane, who gestures with his dagger in a just play along sort of motion, and then she bites her lip and nods. "Of course."

"And you, thief boy - if we are to be traveling together for the time being, you are not to refer to me as Rusty."

"I'll consider it if you stop trying to give me orders all the time. How's that for a deal, Rusty? Pretty good, eh?"

"Breakfast's gonna get dry if you keep arguing," Vivi interjects politely, waving his replacement spatula (a stick) in front of them to draw attention. "Or cold. So, um, if you could eat it before it does? It tastes a lot better fresh..."

The day dawns bright and clear above the Mist, which is a relief. It makes everyone's moods lighter, too. Even if it is still some way to the village - it's further away than Garnet expects, despite being close enough they can see it.

"Actually, before we get in there," Zidane says, hands tucked in his pockets as they walk down the sloping path that leads to the village, "we can't keep calling you princess all the time, right? People are looking for you, so you need a new identity."

"It's not proper," Steiner grumbles, his arms crossed. "She ought to be shown the proper respect."

"Yeah, and anyone who wants to butter up the Queen's gonna show her the proper respect by delivering Princess Garnet right back to her, so we're gonna have to put manners aside, alright?"

"Steiner," Garnet says, taking a deep breath, "it is fine. Zidane has a point - I ought to do these things properly." A new identity, a brave new face that could be someone more than a silent princess. "If I am to walk unnoticed among the populace, I should have a new name."

"You should have a hood, too," Vivi contributes. "Maybe one that hides your face? Like the one I, um. Burned." His voice gets progressively less enthusiastic.

"Like that big ol' hat of yours, Vivi?" The thief leans down to tweak the brim, playfully, and earns another squeak and a flailing of hands, his sadness forgotten. "That's not a bad idea. It's worth looking into once we get down there."

He glances up at Garnet. "But first we've gotta get a name. So, princess, what'll it be?"

Garnet looks up at the sky, and the village below, and then her thoughts catch on Zidane's weapons. She'd seen them in battle - it was hard to imagine them being used for anything else - but this morning's breakfast had proved they could be more versatile than that...

"What are those knives you use, Zidane?"

"Oh, this?" Zidane flips one of his daggers out of their sheath with a well-practiced motion that looks effortless in a way she envies. "It's a dagger. Knives that are about this long are all called that. If it's a bit longer, it's a short sword. Stuff like that," and here he uses his dagger to point at Steiner's sheathed sword, "that you use with both hands? Those are broadswords."

He taps the flat of the blade against his cheek, giving her a curious look. "So, why'd you ask? Do you want to learn?"

That gets a self-conscious, sad little laugh. "I think I would just cut myself...I don't think I could do anything so impressive as that. But 'Dagger' makes for a good name, I think."

Something fast and cutting, smaller than the swords of a knight (she'd watched them sparring from her window and daydreamed, once, her head filled with plays and stories, but tutoring and awareness of her place in the world as her mother's heir had ended those dreams; she hadn't had them in a long, long time) but not to be underestimated. Something that still commanded attention...

"Is that alright with you? You're the one who's gotta live with it."

"I..I am certain. Dagger it shall be."

"Then Dagger it is!" Zidane announces. "Try not to slip up, Rusty."

For once, that doesn't get immediate and loud retaliation, but simply a grunt.

"Um...it sounds cool," Vivi says, though he's remained almost unusually silent for most of the conversation, his gaze fixed on the village like he's trying to make something out. "I think it's good."

He bows comically low, sticking his hand up for Dagger to shake. "It's nice to meet you, Dagger."

"A pleasure, Vivi," Dagger says courteously with a pleased smile, liking the way the name sounds already.

"That's the name handled," Zidane says, clapping his hands. "Now, the other thing we gotta work on," he continues, his tail swishing as he thinks, "is the way you speak...."

Dali is sleepy and quiet, though Vivi feels strange here in a way he hasn't before. The ground seems to rumble restlessly, seething underneath his feet. His dreams feel like they're bleeding into reality; the cold echo of a connection in the back of his mind has been joined by another, one that buzzes with energy. They're familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

But it's silly. He's never had wings. His grandpa would have told him if he did.

His shoulders hurt.

"Hey, c'mon, Vivi," Zidane says, looking back to see him standing in the middle of the road. "I know the windmill's pretty impressive, but we gotta check in."

Vivi yelps in surprise, pulling his hat down over his face and scurrying after the others to catch up, his troubles temporarily fleeing in the face of not wanting to be a burden.

Zidane's conversation with the innkeeper, everyone's voices, it all turns into so much noise. It feels like the innkeeper's eyes are on him, unbearably, though Zidane seems to think otherwise, and maybe he's right - maybe it's just the princess-Garnet-Dagger who draws attention.

He doesn't know. All he knows is that there's something telling him come to me and though he doesn't know where the voice is, he's sick of being pulled and pushed around by things he barely understands, that he stumbled in on accident, that--

--he doesn't know where all these thoughts come from, all of a sudden. They crowd his mind like a storm rolling in, and maybe that's the problem - the air had felt wrong, stifling, during their walk, and the skies have darkened from friendly blue to ominous grey.

It feels like a warning. It feels like something is going to happen.

The others sleep, and so does he, and for a while it's all right. But in his dreams, the voice bids him, pulls him away.

It feels like ice. It feels like someone he missed

someone he sat by and waited to wake up, pressed his hands against a cold cage, talked to with no expectation of a response simply because he could and nobody was stopping him

and so, he gives in. He doesn't notice the other children avoiding him, the innkeeper's eyes on him again; there's an instruction, a pull that goes deeper than he can resist, and so he simply walks, not thinking about it.

 (It's such a relief, not to think about anything.)

Eventually, his legs stop on their own beneath the shade of a tree, next to the windmill, and he starts to think again (and he's not sure what it was, that fog settling over him that made it so hard to do anything but obey).

"Ah, and here you are. I thought I was seeing things at first, but you truly are real."

He looks up, temporarily dazzled by the light coming through the leaves of the tree, and makes out the shadow of the mage that had run away from them before. The one that had refused to answer his questions and was going to-

"Now, don't be so hasty," tuts the mage, with a little jingle of their bell. "I'm not planning another ambush. I just want to talk to you."

Vivi closes his hand, blinking, numbly wondering where that burst of heat had come from. Fire comes so easily to him, and for the first time, he's unsure of it.

"You really are a stray," they sigh, shaking their head. Glowing eyes, similar but different to his own, peer down at him from the darkness between hat and robe. "But then I suppose it must be hard, not having a purpose."

"I--" His first instinct is to say yes, some training wrenched out of him by sheer nostalgia, this strange calm that's come over him and made him numb. But something kicks, flutters, fierce in his chest. "I--I dunno."

"Still undecided, are we? Well, let me give you something to think about. I called you here for a reason, so I won't waste my time or yours." They glance over at the empty fields.

"I have no doubt you'll run back to your friends, as accommodating as they are of you," and here, they tilt their head, eyes narrowing, "for now. So here is my offer. You've noticed all the strange looks you've gotten since you came here, I'm sure. I can give you answers to the questions such things have no doubt raised in you, but in return-" they hold up a finger, "-you must help us to bring the princess back to Alexandria."

It's overwhelmingly tempting just to say yes, tempted by the resonance of the connection that fills his mind. To be good, to follow orders, to do as he's told. To fall in line and assist--

As he sits on the bed and stares at the wall, he dimly processes the conversation going on over his head.
"There is a reason I must leave this kingdom."
 "I cannot tell you why... But...please..."
Dagger's voice cracks, as she begs Zidane for help. It hurts. Dagger is brave and kind and so, so nice, and he doesn't want to see her sad like that--

"I won't."

His voice is strong in a way he doesn't expect. It comes out of him with no warning at all; the surprise on the mage's face speaks to that. But, unlike many of the things he says and thinks in what seems to be an endless storm of swirling uncertainty, he doesn't regret this one.

"Are you working with the Queen? Are you gonna drag her back to Alexandria whether she wants it or not?"

"Rarely do we do things because we want to," sighs the mage. "Well, I tried, I suppose. But I wonder if you understand the consequences of your decision...or, perhaps, it doesn't matter to you."

"I dunno," Vivi says, his voice cracking in frustration, "and you're not gonna tell me, because you don't like me, or because I'm too weird now to come back and that was the only reason I even came, to see if you were like me, and you are, but you're not! And, and--"

His vision is blurring again, but instead of feeling cold, he feels hot. Fire licks at his words, lives uncomfortably in his throat, stings his eyes.

"And you're right, I don't understand it, but just 'cause you're mean to me and you want to take Garnet away doesn't mean I want-- bad things to happen to you! So don't tell me that I don't care about it! You can't see inside my head! You don't know!"

His head hurts, his eyes hurt.

"That was quite an outburst," they say at last, "but I'm afraid that though you've made your point, the smart thing to do would have been to bring your friends with you."

He has enough time to think Oh, I should have told someone before clawed hands grip him tightly and a familiar voice laughs somewhere behind him.

"Go to sleep, 0," he hears, as he falls away into a deep darkness. "That's quite enough out of you."

Chapter Text

He regains his senses in a slow trickle. The floor is rough and cold; under him, the noise of machines thrums distantly, pounding like a second heartbeat, comforting and invasive at the same time.

He could almost be somewhere else; that place pulled from the depths of his dreams, that place he continues to revisit.

His head swims; his vision is blurry. It's so tempting just to sleep. 

"Keep this one with the others, but in a separate place. And if you wake him up...kee-hee-hee, I don't think you'll like what happens next! So careful, now..."
"R-right...."

Lying on the floor a moment longer, he listens hard. He can't hear any more footsteps or voices; they must have left him alone. He sits up, finally, though his head spins and he pulls his hat down over his face to try and deal with it, to see what's happened to him (again).

There's no windows in this room, no light except what leaks in around the door. There's a glint, high above, that outlines the shape of some kind of pipe. Over the ceaseless churning of machinery, he can hear the calls of...something. It sounds like a bird, though it's not a bird he's heard before.

He blinks away tears, and for some reason that annoys him more than anything else. It's like heat is building up in him with no outlet. He ignores his headache as he swipes his sleeve across his face to get his vision to stop blurring, he just needs to see clearly, it's not hard--

The tears keep coming anyway. He squeezes his eyes shut, and that only seems to encourage them. 

Thrown down here in the dark, should he be sad or angry? His chest squeezes tight, and no words come out of him no matter how hard he tries; just tearful sobs and cries that make the world spin, his feelings slipping more and more out of control. But no fire ignites to dry his tears; he's lost, alone, adrift. (Without purpose, without orders.)

Zero, they'd called him, a number that means nothing. They talked to him like they knew him, like he should know them...

"You couldn't even fly."

If he had wings, he could fly away, couldn't he? No, maybe not in a windowless place like this, but...

The others had wings. He remembers having them - fluttering weights on his back that he'd long since gotten used to - in his dreams, but where are they now? 

It's hard to cry and concentrate on other things at the same time, so his quiet sobbing slows down, the tears become less of a flood and more of a trickle. He reaches over his shoulder with clumsy fingers to try and feel if there's something there, after all.

He finds -- evidence. The vertical slits in his coat that must have provided space for them to free themselves are stitched neatly shut by a foreign hand. The space between his shoulders that aches at strange times becomes sharp pain that makes him jolt forward and yank his hands away from his own back like he's touched something hot, but before that ache became a pain he couldn't bear, there were hard edges there, shifting under the thick cloth. 

Now he knows they're there, he thinks he can feel them trying to push free, but there's far too much resistance, and they go still (and shamefully he's relieved at that, too, it's just all too much to take in right now). Sewn shut like his coat, maybe, or just healed over, but...

He doesn't know why.

He doesn't know why, and it's only brought more questions. His vision swims with tears; he's sick of them, angry at himself for doing nothing but cry, and relieved for something else to think about, all at once (and, on top of that, he just feels sick in general). 

He might have stayed like that for a while more, but a familiar voice, tinny but clear, startles him out of his weeping.

"...Vivi?"

He wipes his face against his sleeve and looks up towards the pipe, his only connection to the surface. 

"...Zidane?" 

"It is you! Vivi, where are you?"

"I'm underground," the mage calls out, tears all but forgotten in an instant. Here is something to do, something to focus on instead; much better than just sitting in a room, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. "I'm in a dark room! People carried me here and left me."

"Are you hurt?"

"Um," Vivi considers his options, and tries for 'honest as possible', "...no?"

"...Alright. Just stay where you are, okay? We'll hurry and come get you out."

There's the sound of footsteps fading, and Vivi turns his attention to his next problem, soothed by the promise of help.

He's not sure where to begin with the door. His newfound boldness suggests that he might be able to solve this with a fireball - but no, then that might burn everything else, too, and he'd be even more in trouble...

He sits, and stays where he is. It's a much safer choice.

Right until people that aren't Zidane or Dagger or Steiner open the door, anyway.

"Man, I guess nobody comes here, huh? Or they're all in on it." Zidane tests the solidity of the trapdoor and the ladder beneath, making sure they're not about to be trapped as they descend. "Not even an alarm. That's what I call easy to crack."

"Should....we get Steiner?" As Dagger peers into the darkness of the open trapdoor, she wishes she was as brave as her new name suggested.

"Uhhh." The thief scrunches up his face. "I know he's important to you and all, but we really gotta go. And, besides, you've got me!"

As if to prove his point, he flexes, which isn't terribly impressive when it's all lean muscle. Dagger stifles a giggle, and Zidane mock-pouts at her before he turns serious again, all business.

"C'mon, we gotta find Vivi quick - who knows what they're doing to him down there." He punctuates his urgency by sliding down the ladder at a speed Dagger only wishes she could emulate; instead, in the interests of not accidentally falling off and breaking a limb, she descends as quickly as she can, rung by rung. 

Someone shouts, not very far away. They look at each other, and then start to run; questions can wait until later.

It's important to be good. It's important to follow orders. He knows this; he's known it forever, deep inside himself.

But there's still the taste of bitterness in his mouth, the melting traces of an argument with no resolution stirring his urge for answers, and he knows that if he just goes with them like they're telling him to then he won't get answers. He'll get something else; he doesn't know what, but he knows it'll be worse than what's happened already.

His hands are glowing red hot, fire shaping itself to his palms rather than bursting out of him right away. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, but neither does he want them to hurt him, either. 

"Why's this one have fire? Nobody told us about that-"
"How're we gonna get it out?"
"Damn it, this is more trouble than it's worth..."
"Maybe if we throw water over it first--"

The man who says it is cut off by a clunk and a cry of pain as he goes down to, of all things, a bucket wielded with force. 

"Hey," says Zidane, from somewhere behind them. Vivi can't see his face from here, but he can imagine the grin. "Don't tell me you guys are all joining forces to bully one little kid?"

The familiar silhouette of Dagger steps into view, in the gap the collapsed man had left behind. She hefts up a bucket.

Things go much better for Vivi, but not for any of the men assigned to put him into storage, after that.

"You're really not hurt?"

"I'm fine! I promise." Vivi holds up his hands and doesn't mention at all the ache in his newly-rediscovered wings, still twitching now and then.

Having something else to focus on is almost a relief, even if it just makes him ache more. His chest is tight as they follow the production line - and it is a production line; from eggs, to a hatching room, to an assembly line where people who look awfully like him dangle motionlessly from mechanical claws.  Zidane and Dagger talk quietly in the background as he follows along behind.

(Like dolls. Like puppets. But dolls don't think, or hurt, do they?
They don't
"Rarely do we do things because we want to." 
For just a moment, they had sounded - not angry or sad or even a little upset, which he could definitely, definitely understand - but just tired.)

His hands clench into fists, his eyes burn, the world swims in front of him--

"Hey, you need to take a break? I know this is a lot..."

Zidane crouches in front of him; Dagger isn't far behind, leaning into view, her expression tight and concerned.

He scrubs tears away with his sleeve, shaking his head, and takes a breath.

"I'm okay," he says, more confidently than he feels. "I'm just -- thinking."

He blinks and takes another look at Dagger's face - it looks so painful - and then reaches out to grab her hand.

The tension in her shoulders, in her expression, almost collapses entirely. She squeezes his hand back, giving him a tearful smile in return.

"I am sorry," she says, like she's somehow responsible for everything happening in front of them right now, "I do not know why my mother is doing this. Why Alexandria is involved in...making these. But I can try...no, I will stop it, somehow. All...alright?"
Her tone is brittle, cracking like ice. Vivi looks at Zidane helplessly.

Zidane's response is to carefully put an arm around her shoulders, testing her reaction. When she gives him a watery smile, he gives her one back.

"We'll stop it. Right, Vivi?"

Vivi nods, squeezing her hand in both of his before letting go; Zidane gives Dagger another light squeeze around the shoulders before dropping his arm. Dagger takes a deep breath, wipes away her tears, and they continue on. 

"And if we play our cards right, we might even be able to get Rusty in on it," Zidane continues with a grin. "He said so himself--wait, hide!"

To say Steiner's day wasn't going well would be an understatement. 

Waking up to find everyone had somehow disappeared without him was one thing; another thing entirely to stumble into some kind of conversation about 'puppets' being made under order of the Queen while he was rushing to and fro frantically (and all that is something he needs to think about, but can't until he finds Garnet and Vivi and, as a reluctant last, Zidane).

When he stumbles across a barrel that appears to be moving on its own, he's just about ready to smash it to pieces to see what it is and damn the consequences, until he hears familiar voices from within.

"Pri--Dagger?!"

"There you go, you remembered!" says a cheerful voice from within. Steiner throttles the urge to kick the barrel and channels it into something more productive, like levering the top off it with a prybar he's found nearby (he could use his sword, but a sword should be unsullied by such labors).

He pops it open, and everyone he was looking for tumbles out in an ungainly heap, which is one problem solved. He fusses over Dagger and Vivi, helping them up and dusting them off.

"What, none for me?" Zidane grins at him, pressing a hand against his own chest. "I'm hurt, Rusty!"

"Well, clearly you can take care of yourself," Steiner snaps, his scowl deepening. "I'm sure you don't need me for that, thief boy!"

That just earns him a completely irreverent laugh. It does not, by any means, improve his mood.

"While you were missing," and here the word pitches up impressively, in a combination of stress and disapproval, "I procured some information. The cargo airship is bound for Alexandria Castle. Normally I would be happy with such a thing, as it would get the prin--Dagger back to her mother faster, but..."

"I can't go back yet," Dagger insists, hands curling into fists. "There's someone I need to see, first. We have to get the ship to go another way."

"I can do it," Zidane says, suddenly. "You don't know how to drive an airship, but I can. We'll get on board and turn it around-"

"Which is illegal," Steiner interrupts.

"Oh, you've got a better solution, Rusty? You gonna walk up there and just ask--"

Vivi says nothing at all, the bickering going over his head. He glances to the side, hands twisting in his coat, feeling those connections seethe in the back of his mind; his chest tightens again. He has a feeling that even getting aboard the airship won't be so simple.

 "What are you fussing about?" 2's voice is usually sharp, but it's reached new levels here. The Waltz flits here and there, as if giving their teleportation one last shake to see if it's performing up to standard. "Your task is simple compared to mine."

(2 has developed these obsessions, these little mechanical rituals, over time. Ways of soothing themselves into unruffled confidence, demonstrating they're still the same as ever, no matter the circumstances; giving consistent, reliable results. They're the quickest at picking up new spells, new patterns in which to shape their magic, and that makes them better. That makes them the best of all.
As if the measures of what it takes to be proven the best can't change at any time, because the measures aren't theirs to change.
As if any of it 
matters at all.)

"I thought you were going to complete yours easily, because you weren't a weakling like me. Or have you changed your thoughts on that?" In comparison, 1's voice is low, but no less barbed. They're not usually in the mood for such things, 2's idea of play, but they're even less in the mood now. "Any last words planned?"

"I don't need them," 2 snaps, and with a flash of magic the other Waltz is right in their face. 1 barely resists the urge to strike them in reflex for invading their personal space; their clawed fingers extend slightly, scratching against their gloves, but nothing more than that. "Think of some for yourself."

"Well, in that case, I don't need them either." 

(What was the point? The idea of last words, as they understand it, is to be witnessed in some fashion. 
They don't believe that anything would.)

"Now who's full of confidence," mocks 2, flitting around. "Well, I'd be too if all I had to do was destroy a failure."

"The failure who....set you on fire? Multiple times?"

"Oh, he's not even that any more," the Waltz says, with a disdainful little laugh. "I'd bet he's even weaker than he used to be. But, but!" They lay a hand on 1's hat, giving it a few gentle pats on the brim. "Good luck! I'm sure you can do it."

1 does react this time, swatting 2's hand away irritably. "Don't touch my hat."

2 just cackles, their eyes bright. 

(Their laugh cracks a little around the edges, as it always does when they're nervous.)

"They're here," Vivi says suddenly, as they watch the airfield from behind a building. It's all flat, cleared ground; perfect for landing airships, but not so perfect for sneaking onto one.

"Who--oh." Zidane glances at the little mage, who is twisting his hands in his coat (has been doing it since they decided on their course of action). "That mage that tried to put everyone to sleep, right?"

"Yeah. And another one...I haven't really met them yet, though."

He's met them in dreams, certainly. But it doesn't really seem fair, he thinks, so he keeps it to himself.

"Two against four, huh. Well, we still outnumber them...the odds are pretty good. And if we get in the air, we might be able to leave them behind for a bit." Zidane scratches his head as he talks, frowning.

"Do you...know what they want, Vivi?" Dagger crouches down beside him as Zidane and Steiner continue to observe the cargo ship as it's being loaded. 

"...Yeah." Vivi looks up at her, apologetically. "They want you to, um...come back to Alexandria. When I said I wasn't gonna do that, they knocked me out and put me underground, where you found me. But--" he frees a hand from his coat to grab Dagger's hand and squeeze it, as he did before, "--we're not gonna let them do that, okay? You gotta go somewhere, so we're gonna get you there! I promise."

That gets a tiny, sad smile out of her. 

"You are sweet, Vivi. But...will you be all right? They are your family, of sorts, are they not?"

His chest is tight again. He'd almost forgotten. He's not sure if they're family, but he's not sure if they're not, either; it's so complicated, all of a sudden.

"I'm...I dunno." His voice is small; his eyes are burning again. "I think...if they don't get to take you, something....something bad happens to them. I don't...want that, either. Even if they're...kinda mean to me...that doesn't matter. I want them to be okay, too."

"Oh, I feel the same -- with Mother, I mean...she's grown so cold and distant, and sometimes she says such awful things...but I don't want her to be hurt. So I too promise...that I will do my best to help your cause, as well." It's Dagger's turn to smile at his tearful expression, to gently squeeze his hand in both of hers. 

"Thanks."

His voice comes out as almost a whisper, wavering. But his burden eases, just a little. He feels slightly better.

Transcript:
Vivi: ...I'm gonna distract this Waltz while you get the other one, okay?
Zidane: Hey -- Vivi, are you sure?
Vivi: Uh-huh. It'll be easier to stop them from taking Dagger if they're both distracted.
Zidane: Yeah, but what if you get hurt? 
Don't try to be too brave, Vivi...
You don't have to bear it all yourself.
Vivi: I'm not.
This is just
something I need to do,
okay?

"Didn't I tell you," sighs 1, their wings drawn close around them, bell clasped in their hands like a prayer, "that the smart thing to do would have been to bring your friends?"

Vivi clutches his staff like a lifeline, holding it out to form a barrier between them. The connection between them surges with a tangle of emotions that makes 1's eyes narrow.

"They're here," he says, defensively, his voice tight.

"Not here enough. I'm sure they would be very distressed if you ended up as an icicle, which is what I could do to you...though, I admit, it would be more merciful than what awaits you now." Another surge of emotions; confusion and more than a little fear, burning bright and then being torn away, pressed deep.

Before Vivi can rethink his decision or turn away, 1 presses a gloved hand to his forehead, shifting his hat up. There's enough force there to startle him, and as pressure turns to the beginnings of pain when 1's fingers dig in (their entire body tenses, they hiss in pain), he's surprised enough to cry out

and then, there's so, so much more to worry about than that. 

His mind feels like it's tearing to pieces, trying to keep itself together in a howling barrage of voices telling him what to do and who to be. There is nothing he can do, no world outside this stifling cage, no space to move or breathe or cast magic or do anything, anything else-- 
Follow orders. Obey your purpose. Remember what you were taught remember what you were born to do remember you are a puppet, a doll, something made to take orders, something made to
 Come back 
come back 
come back
come back

...He can hear other voices, feel other feelings outside himself. Those connections are anchors, the only thing that's real in a world that seems to be eroding and collapsing around him.

Fear of failure, fear of punishment, fear of death and annihilation and erasure. The echoes of his pain, that shattering falling eroding sensation that creeps up their spine, reminds them that they're fragile and disposable no matter how hard they try to prove they're not; it's not up to them to decide. It never was.

Just stop it. Stop it! Just-- can't you just accept it, can't you just follow orders and come back to us and just--make it-- stop--

He can feel their rising panic, that frantic fluttering, and before he can say anything 

(who is he, anyway? who and what is thinking these thoughts? he's in pieces, falling, falling, falling)

The broken shards of him plunge into numbness, into cold water, into a world of ice; it reminds him that there's cold at all, that there's something of him left to feel these things
but this is no force of nature; he's not buried in snow, intended to sleep eternally.

Haven't you given up yet? You should be obedient by now.
0,
why are you here?

He doesn't have any answer to that. He doesn't know why he's here; he came here to escape, maybe, or because it felt right, or just to see. Everything of him is all broken apart, and he doesn't know how to assemble them again.

Are you asking me how to stop taking orders?
Shouldn't I be asking you that?

He's not asking anything. If he is, he's not aware of it. But now that he knows the concept of questions again, he does have a question to ask;
he remembers hands, and arms, the ability to reach out, he remembers he's more than a collection of confused, scattered shards

(he squeezes Dagger's hands and makes a promise)

Doesn't 
this hurt?

...You dare
to ask me that, now,
like this...
I truly don't know what to make of you any more,
0.

This world of ice is a blizzard, a snowstorm, a thing once whole and torn into many more pieces than him. Like this, detached, in pieces, he can see them falling with him
as they have been all along.
He expects to feel sadness. What he feels, instead, is a burst of heat that melts his pieces together, that brings back warmth and light and memory--
This isn't
fair!
Don't make us 
both suffer!

I won't obey you any more!

He remembers how to breathe again, finds himself huddled on the ground and 1's hand still against his forehead, their fingers no longer digging into his face. Their eyes are closed, as if they're listening to something.

"No," they say, with finality, and pull their hand away, releasing him. The bell shines between their fingers, ringing wildly as snow descends upon the field, a blinding curtain that veils them both from view.

Vivi finds his voice again, though it's hoarse now (was he saying something, through all that?). He coughs when his first attempt doesn't work.

"What are you doing?" His voice is small, but 1 hears his words anyway.

"I only have so much time left," they say, turning away from him. "You should go with your friends. I think they've knocked out 2 by now."

"You didn't answer," and he hates how weak it sounds, how weak it feels, how weak he feels. 

"I trust that you can put the answer together on your own, 0," 1 says calmly, and he wants to hit them and he also wants to cry. His entire body aches like he's climbed a mountain so he can barely move, but crying, he can do.

He knows. He knows what that means. He doesn't--can't-- accept it.

"What if I want you to come with us?"

"What if I want to do this? It's the first order I've disobeyed. It will be my last. At least let me savor it."

"I said--" he croaks, forcing the words out, stumbling forward and latching onto 1's free arm, "I said I didn't want--anything bad to happen to you. I want you--to be okay."

"Well, you can't get everything you want." They finally look down at him, and their expression softens into something less cold; something rueful and sad. "0, you need to leave me. I can only do so much, and after all the effort I've spent, I don't want you to die. That would be a waste."

That only makes him cling tighter. Someone else tugs at him and they look back; he's too weak to protest as they raise their arm and shake him off, relinquishing him to someone else.

His vision is blurring again, clouding over entirely and hiding 1 from view the way the snowstorm is starting to make them fade. He kicks weakly, boots hitting metal, hands curling into fists as he's held in a familiar grip. His thoughts, his words, they run together in his head, and whether any of them are forced out is something he's too exhausted to think about any more. 

He can hear his own voice, dimly; screaming, crying, words collapsing into incomprehensible sound, all of it too far away and too weak to reach. He makes a last, straining effort to squirm out and escape, but Steiner is holding him tightly as he runs, and he doesn't have enough strength.

A flash of dark hair, a glint of sunlight against a hairtie, and he wonders where Dagger is going, because isn't the airship the other way? He tries to ask, but the world is falling away from him, and the last thing he remembers is her hands squeezing his, her expression gentle.

He wonders how she can smile. Isn't the world ending?

When he wakes up, he hears the rumble of engines that means they're in the air, and he doesn't want to open his eyes again, so he doesn't. He wants to be back on the ground, so he can try again and do things better this time.

"You were a handful to rescue, you know," Zidane says, from somewhere, and he rolls over in the most sulky gesture he can muster. 

He hears Dagger laugh, quietly. "Not you, Vivi," she says, soft. "You have been very brave."

 "No'm not," he mumbles, his eyes still squeezed shut. "Not enough...."

"Are you saying you would have saved me all by yourself, if you were brave enough? Don't be ridiculous."

Now he knows it's a dream. Maybe he's still asleep, underground with all the other black mages. Packed in a box or a barrel, sent away somewhere. The thumping of the airship engine is just the production line underground...

He wishes it would stop. It's too sad. He dreamed of his grandfather every day he was at home; moving around, talking to him like usual. Then he'd wake up, and remember, and he doesn't want to deal with this right now.

Someone's gloved hand pats his head, the motions stiff and awkward, like the person doing it isn't used to it.

"Perhaps he needs more sleep," says the impossible voice.

"He definitely needs more sleep," Zidane says, firmly. "The weather's getting bad out there, and I don't think that's gonna stop the others from coming after us, but I think we've bought some time."

He's happy to sleep some more. The dream will go on a little longer, if he does. Maybe that's okay. He's still really tired.

He slips back - obediently, for once- into darkness.

Bonus for reaching the end of this very long chapter: here's a snapshot of how that other fight went

Chapter Text

It's starting to rain, a slow drizzle that threatens to become a downpour, by the time 2 gets to 3's little outpost. They're kneeling as they always do when left unsupervised, staff digging into the ground as they lean against it to spare the leg that ever-so-slightly moves slower and more painfully than the other. 

2 always tells themselves see, another flaw. They'd exploited it in training; figuring out quickly that the trick to avoiding another painful lightning bolt was to swerve around to their injured side, forcing them to turn and recalibrate - never as quick when it was their left as opposed to their right. But they remember how 3 always holds themselves, always takes note of it, and they don't know why it sticks to their memory so much.

(Shouldn't it be nice to know that even the most perfect of them, the one who came last and had the advantage of avoiding the apparent mistakes of the others  - especially the mistakes that, apparently, 2 has to live with - still has something that hampers them and holds them back? But the thought is simply bitter.)

"Finally," 3 says curtly, pushing themselves to their feet. "You took your time."

"Maybe if you hadn't cloistered yourself up here," 2 retorts, drawing themselves up to their full height, broken wings fluttering indignantly. "It's not my fault you choose difficult spots."

3 huffs sharply, a disdainful little noise; they obviously don't think the retort is worthy of a reply. They finally turn to look at 2, eyes bright and narrowed. 

"You wouldn't be here without orders. What is it?"

"Orders have changed. 0 and 1 are on board the airship." 3's wings flare out at this, their entire frame tensing even more than usual. There's only a fraction of hesitance before 2 goes on. "We're to retrieve the princess and eliminate them both, along with the soldiers on the airship, in case they 'get any ideas from 0'. The way...1 seems to have."

3 hmphs, clearly unimpressed by this information. (Their wings twitch, and the way their fingers drum on the staff's pole is irregular and impatient). "So kill an unreliable summoner and a failed prototype, along with a clutch of new-made soldiers. Simple."

2 does not think it is going to be simple as all that, not after what just happened, but they have a headache and 3 is stubborn, so they keep it to themselves. Still, doubt must have crept in through their mental link, because 3 draws themselves up to their full height and tilts their head to the side in a dangerously slow motion. Their eyes flash, the air around them crackling with the promise of lightning. "Are you having second thoughts, No 2?"

The tone is an eerie mimic of their third, mostly absent creator - the master of Zorn and Thorn, responsible for every black mage that will come after them. 2 can't help but bristle angrily (anxiously) at the sudden shift. 

"I simply think it wouldn't do for you to be so arrogant,"  they snap, immediately defensive. "Especially since you're likely to just shoot the ship down and risk killing the princess in the process because it's simpler!"

Another huff from 3, but the twitch of their eye proves that 2 has dug under their skin hard enough that they relent, settling back a little. "Fine. Fine. You have a point," they say, grudgingly. There's another long moment of silence.

"Leave the thinking to me," 2 says, still gracefully poised (rigid, holding themselves together). "And we'll both perform satisfactorily."

"I can think for myself, despite your assertions," 3 snaps back, grip tight on their staff as they turn away. "Keep out of my way and keep your thinking in your own head where it belongs."

The dark clouds rumble ominously, the rain drumming down harder, the storm rolling closer. 3's wings unfurl to their full width as they test the wind; they brace themselves and launch themselves off the cliff, catching the currents and beating their wings to gain height.

2's descent into the enroaching bad weather is utterly dissimilar. Their wings merely twitch as the wind blows through them, inert clumps of shivering feathers and a semi-exposed framework of bone, and they float themselves to the edge of the cliff before fixing their attention on the rapidly disappearing form of 3. They shimmer with magical light before they vanish into thin air, reappearing in the other mage's wake. Their lighter frame and a little more applied magic to give them a proper wingspan does the rest, the same swirling currents 3 is making use of buoying them up even higher and faster.

It's risky, of course. If their concentration ever faltered, they'd find themselves plummeting - or worse, at the mercy of the wind, which even now howls and grows stronger and threatens to blow them off course. But they refuse to think about that, focusing on maintaining the magical framework that keeps them aloft.

If they were fast enough to overtake even 3, perhaps they'd feel proud of it. Right now, it's all they can do to keep up, and so, even as they soar after the other Waltz, they remain bitterly discontent with their efforts.

The storm is passing over the airship, and Vivi shifts in uneasy sleep. Thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, the rain pours down -- and again, he dreams.

[- He can smell smoke, the acrid scent of burnt feathers and bone. Lightning doesn't linger like fire does; it simply comes and goes, an impact more startling at first than painful, that knocked breath out of him and even now makes it hard to move.

Sparks still crawl over his wings (what's left of them), but that doesn't matter. He's immediately defensive, fire guttering around a clenched fist, knees pulled to his chest to make himself an even smaller target. His breathing is jagged and irregular, every exhale pushing out shallow wisps of smoke. His fingers curl, his hand pressing into his shoulder, in a vain attempt to stop the pain from overtaking him completely.

(Dolls do not feel pain the way other peoples did. Or, at least, they shouldn't. But, of course, they were so well crafted by his hands that it was simply an unfortunate side-effect, an advanced version of an alarm system they were supposed to get over; so their third master had said. 

Pain was a useful detection system, a way for them to avoid obstacles and learn efficiency. But ultimately, not real, he had said, insisted, emphasized.

0 had decided some time ago that he did not, in fact, like their third and mostly absent creator very much, but he kept that to himself.)

Lightning dances between 3's fingers as they regard him with a dispassionately calculating look; it bleeds out to some strange emotion that's almost disappointment as he fails to move and throw himself at them for retaliation. Half a dozen scorch marks - some still glowing ember-red - mark his own successful attacks.

"Giving up, 0?"

He feels like any answer would be the wrong thing to say. He simply struggles to master himself, master his breathing, but pain grips him tight in a vice and doesn't let him go, piercing all the way through his core. It glows and pulses erratically.

"Hmph. I thought so."

He can feel the gathering of power, see the shadows dance as 3 draws lightning from within themselves once again, and knows that if they deliver another shock as strong as the first, he'll be just as helpless to resist - but the light goes out, that pressure simply dissipates, and 3 sounds dissatisfied, impatient, when they speak again.

"Get repaired quickly. The others are too cowardly to keep up with me."

They pass him by, brushing ash from their coat, and he remains curled there on the floor.

(Their footsteps are just slightly irregular in a way that suggests a limp, a leg that can't support weight properly. Was that, too, part of their creators' design? Even the one designed last, everything they wanted, must still be weak somewhere?)

The twitching remains of his wings can still obey him, and when he tells them to fold flat, that he doesn't need them any more, they press themselves against his upper back, sinking in; warped and twisted shapes that he knows will remain so. It's too much work to refeather them, to recreate them and shape them anew, and he was always terrible at flying anyway.

(it's not pain; it's not real; this sense of aching loss he feels is simply a copy of a real person's)

If it's not real, then why does it still hurt? He doesn't know. Only his creators would, he guesses. -]

The storm is in his dreams, but it lingers when he blinks awake, filling the world with its noise. The airship rattles in the rain and wind. Garnet - Dagger - is here, too, watching the rain drum against the windows of the airship's cabin ceaselessly. Zidane and Steiner are - below somewhere, he thinks; he can hear their voices. Hazily, he wonders why they're shouting so loud he can hear them through the floor.

Another black mage - one he hasn't seen before - is steering, keeping the ship on course. If they're anxious about the storm, they're not showing it. He wonders if they're afraid; wonders if he asked, they would answer. Another is peering out the window, possibly looking for obstacles.

1 is sitting next to him, keeping a polite distance, and when he touches their shoulder to confirm they're actually real and not some product of his hazy memory, they glance over at him, and then away. Relief floods him, and he almost starts crying again.

"You can feel it, can't you?" Their voice is soft, even with the boom of thunder overhead to compete with. Somehow, he can still hear them clearly. "They're heading this way."

1 always seems to think he knows more than he does. But he can't deny that, when he concentrates, he can feel the bright buzzing in his head that signifies another Waltz's presence; burning and alien besides the more familiar, delicate strands of 2's connection and the cold, crackling feeling of 1.

His shoulders ache. His wings twitch, uselessly. 

The storm roars around them, and he pushes himself to his feet. Dagger gets up, too, and 1 glances at her like they're about to say something, and then looks away.

"It's me they want, so you want me to stay here, is that not so? But if I am to take on the guise of something other than a princess, I must begin to act like one." Dagger's voice is firm. Vivi wishes he could be that confident. She brandishes her mage's rod in a grand gesture. "And I will not - won't - stand aside and let you shield me."

"Very well, princess. It's your choice." 1's voice is simply calm, accepting. Only the faintest flicker of - annoyance? resentment? comes through the bond they share with Vivi, and it's only then that he realizes how rare such flickers are, how much he doesn't know about how 1 feels -  even watching them, even connected to them like this.

I'll keep any feelings to myself, thank you. 

1's voice flickers in his mind, as if reading his thoughts. Vivi startles - but, well, he should have known, right? They can feel his emotions, too.
 
He waits, keeping the connection open, but it seems they have nothing more to say. Feeling more than a little adrift, he turns his thoughts away from it, and tries to squish his anxiety down, compress it, focus.

1 leaves the cabin, with a few short words to one of the black mages that silently keeps the ship on course. Vivi follows, torn between fear and an alien sense of something like anticipation that seems to come from the same depths that produce his half-remembered dreams.

He looks up at the black mage steering at the same time they look back at him. 

They look just as lost as he feels, for a moment. Any words he could say are all swallowed by nervousness that makes it hard to think; he puts a hand on their arm instead, trying to be reassuring, and they look at it like they've never seen anything like it.

"Sorry," he mumbles, and pulls his hand away before running out of the airship's cabin. He doesn't see them touch the cloth where his hand had been, watching him go.

The airship shudders as, in a flash of light, another Black Waltz - third and last - slams down onto the deck, their eyes burning and their wings spread to their full width, pointed staff in hand. 2's descent is just as sudden but far less impactful, appearing in a flash behind their sibling and gliding to a graceful stop beside them, with only the slightest hint of visible tension to indicate how much effort they're putting in.

"Dramatic as always, the pair of you," 1 says, as if this is just another day for them, as if nothing exceptional has happened. Vivi resists the urge to hide behind them, though it's hard when 3 seems to be staring at him specifically. He clutches his (much less impressive-looking) staff as a protective barrier. (He can feel Dagger's hand on his shoulder, comforting, but somehow all he can think is that she can feel him shaking and it suffuses him with guilt. Isn't he supposed to be protecting her..?) "What brings you here?"

"Oh, don't play the fool! You know what you've done," 2 immediately snaps, and any impression of composure on their part is immediately shattered. "Every task you've been given, you promptly abandoned, and to make matters worse, you've rebelled!" Their tone abruptly changes, from scolding to mocking, a more familiar thing to Dagger. "But here you are, delivering the princess to us anyway, so I suppose you weren't entirely useless. If I were you, I'd have run into the mountains and hidden yourself away with your little bell in hand!"

"Careful how you say that," 1 replies, drawing themselves up, wings flaring out and eyes narrowing. Despite the difference in height, there's a bearing about 1 that's somehow impossible to disregard. "In case our masters take that as advice you're giving me or a sign that you'd rebel, instead of a poor insult."

"Don't try and drag me down with you," 2 says, bristling, their tone furious, their voice taut (and only slightly cracking). "At least I can follow orders-"

"Quiet," 3 says, without taking their eyes off Vivi. 2 squawks indignantly at being suddenly interrupted, a distinctly animalistic sound, but they stop speaking regardless. 

Vivi's first instinct is to shrink from the gaze that promises burning, strike after strike until there's little left but ash, the pressure building like static in his head, but something in him rebels at the thought. The storm might be on him now, but there's nowhere left to hide, not here.

Dagger grips his shoulder a little tighter, and he clenches his fists. If he steps away, they'll take Dagger, and he can't let that happen. 

That sense of rising pressure vanishes, and he realizes what 3's intent is a split second before it happens. He drops his staff in a panic, pushing Dagger back and away from him--

His perception splinters into fragments. It hurts so much more than it did in his dream, and he wonders, hazily, if he got weaker or 3 got stronger. Maybe it's a little of both; he's forgotten, mostly, how to bear this kind of pain. 

Is that such a bad thing? he asks, and the fact he finds himself divided on the answer somehow hurts even more than the lightning does. 

The force of the spell slams him back against the cabin's wall (or maybe it's the deck; directions are hard, in this state). He barely hears Dagger's scream of horror, the sound of frantic footsteps from the engine room, 1 telling 2 to get out of the way and 2's shrill and bitter laughter, their response of why would i listen to you? --

3 is on him in a flash, or would be on him -- but there's someone else there, silently gripping 3's arm, keeping them away from simply picking him up and shaking him around like a ragdoll.

"You. You dare to touch a Black Waltz?" 

Vivi struggles to make his body respond. It feels like he's burning up from the inside, and he doesn't quite understand why; it's like his mind and body is wrenching itself out of his control. He feels dizzy and sick and he knows that something bad is about to happen. 

"Let go of me," 3's voice is a low, foreboding rumble, "or I will make you, you low-ranking doll."

"Don't," Vivi croaks out, and he can't tell if he's talking to the black mage that's holding 3 away, or 3 themselves. He doesn't know what he's asking for, but he knows, he thinks, what will happen next, if he can just get up then he can make it stop--

"Shut up," 3 snaps. He's still too dizzy to see what they do next, but he hears the sound of something - someone hitting the deck like they've been slammed against it and he screams like he's the one who's been hurt--

"Is this what you've learned since being lost, 0? Just screaming like a child?"

--it's too much. All of this is too much. He feels something shatter violently inside of him, and pure, molten clarity returns.

He missed it, he thinks, the overwhelming certainty of fire, the way it soothes his pain and makes it all seem meaningless. The lightning that had so dazzled him before falters in comparison to what's coming out of him now, a piercing white-hot glow that seethes and runs over his entire form, transforming him.

3 laughs again, but it seems less mocking and more impressed. He can't possibly get more angry than he already feels, so it doesn't do anything to him, or at least he doesn't feel anything about it, which is sort of the same thing.

"That's more like it, 0," 3 says with grim satisfaction, stepping back, wings outspread, sparking still.

Vivi is about to step forward, and then a larger hand grips his. He looks down.

The black mage he'd seen from the cabin is lying there, tattered and burnt, but they're not dying, he thinks. (That's a relief; he doesn't want anyone to die for him.) They squeeze his hand; whether they're trying to keep him from fighting, or just trying to be reassuring, he doesn't know.

He feels like crying at the gesture. In this state, tears flow easily as anger, and they come out before he can really stop them.

"You didn't have to do that," he says, not sure what else he can say. They got hurt for him; no apology will ever be enough, but he tries anyway, his voice breaking. "I'm-- sorry."

The nameless mage shakes their head, weakly, and squeezes his hand. He can't do anything but squeeze back, and leave them. 

Without thinking about it much, he picks up his weapon again; if 3 wants to fight him so badly, then they'll get what they want. He feels like he's made of fire; not invincible, but powerful still. Able to do anything, even stand up and protect himself and protect everyone he cares about.

"I won't let you hurt anyone else," Vivi says, and some small buried-deep part of him marvels that he can say anything at all in the face of someone he found terrifying just moments before.

"Now you sound like you used to," 3 replies mercilessly, pointing the staff at him in response. "You know what comes next, don't you?"

He does.

Fire comes easily to him now.

Chapter Text

[Click for the rest of the fight scene.]

Voices fuzz at the edge of his hearing, words that simply slip through his head like he's not there. Fury erases pain like it doesn't exist, fire consuming each spark as he pulls himself back together. His eyes are hot and dry, tears evaporated into steam from the heat of his rage; he has no room in his head, no view for anything else. This narrow field of vision, his opponent, his target, is the only thing in the world that exists.

He clutches his staff, breathes shakily, draws out more of that molten heat that seems to ripple endlessly around him and turns it into flame. Fire shines white hot in his hand, and he only distantly registers that it's so intense that it's searing his gloves.

Transcription:

Vivi: I won't...let...you...
Steiner: Master Vivi!
Your powers are great, but perhaps they'd be better aimed if you made use of my sword!
What do you say? Shall we fight together?
Vivi: ...
...Please...
Steiner...
Can you...help me...?

His eyes blur without boiling, the uncontrolled inferno he fears so much slowing its consumption; white flame cooling to allow someone to touch him without being scorched. Steiner's hand on his shoulder, that weight at his back - maybe the other black mages would see it as something that only weighs him down, but to someone who's never known flight, the idea of freefall scares him more than anything.

"Kyahaha! Hiding behind someone else now, 0? And a traitor impeding our mission, no less!" 

"How dare you!" Steiner points his sword at 3, pulling Vivi closer to him defensively. "I am no traitor to Alexandria! I will simply deliver the princess to Alexandria with my own hands - not entrust her to scoundrels like yourself!"

("As opposed to scoundrels like me?" Zidane says, mercifully out of Steiner's hearing as he ducks 2's attempt to set him on fire. Garnet, despite the urgency of the situation, stifles something that sounds like a laugh. 1 looks between them, baffled, before a bolt of fire glances off their hat and they have to hastily put it out. The ship jerks in the enroaching wind, and they get in a last smack with a wing that earns a startled squawk from 2 before they disengage to dart into the airship's cabin.

"You know, we wouldn't have to go through all of this if you'd just give up," 2 suggests, hurling another spell. Zidane backflips neatly past it. "But the more you get in the way, the more time you just waste--"

"What, you being graded on your performance or something? Sounds rough." 

Zidane seems genuinely sympathetic in his words. 2 hisses in annoyance. "It's none of your business," they snap.)

3 rumbles in annoyance, a deep and threatening sound eerily similar to the thunder that rocks the airship, grip tightening on their staff. "If I have to fry all of you to retrieve her, then so be it," they growl. "And since you're providing a target I can't miss, I'll start with you!"

They punctuate the threat with another bolt of lightning from the staff; Steiner throws Vivi under him despite the mage's protests, taking the spell head-on without complaint. His sword sparks and glows for a moment before dulling again.

"Master Vivi!" he shouts again, as the storm grows more tumultuous. "Use my power as your own!"

"As if someone like you can stand against a Waltz! What will combining your paltry techniques do?"

Vivi wipes away tears (why can't he stop crying?) and pushes himself to his feet, clinging to Steiner's free hand once more as support. What was a white-hot glow, unbearable heat, has faded into a more comfortable, controllable warmth that flows over him more easily.

He raises his staff in defiance of 3's words. "We're both strong," Vivi shouts, above the roar of the wind. "We'll show you!"

Steiner points his sword towards the Waltz. Vivi grips his hand tight, and sends magic into it, through him, instead of casting himself, and Steiner doesn't even flinch at this new blaze of power. 

The knight's sword glows with heat, and picking Vivi up, keeping him close and protected, Steiner leaps for his opponent.

Fire flashes across the darkened sky. 3's enraged cry shows that the blow has struck true, and they swoop to retaliate--

2 hasn't been keeping track of the fight that's been happening across from them, too preoccupied with keeping their opponents preoccupied. But when 3 starts to scream in earnest - both outwardly and through that mental connection the Waltzes share - 2's mind fills with nothing but static. They curl their fingers into the brim of their hat, reluctant to dig them in even to distract themselves - there's so little of them left unmarked that they guard, jealously, what they do have left to them, shying away from damaging it. They pull it down further over their face, no longer thinking of fighting, no longer thinking of much at all.

They risk a peek and, even burned and cut open as they are, 3 lashes out viciously with their lightning, hunched over like a wounded animal and acting like one, too. Their fingers have lengthened into claws that pierce their gloves; a long gash on 0's face that marks his hat as well, bleeding smoke into the air, proves that they've already found a mark once. 

(Was 0 taken by surprise, or did he try to help 3? They're no longer certain.)

One leg trails behind them, an imperfection they're no longer even bothering to hide. Their eyes are wide and near-empty of the usual sharp intelligence that guides their decisions, burning red and blue.

"I'll k--kill you--" they rage, their voice almost unrecognisable in its distortion as it pitches high and then low again, going out of control, "I'll shred you to pieces I'll char you to ash I'll burn this ship down until there's nothing nothing NOTHING LEFT--"

(Is it pain that makes their expression so wild, their voice hoarse and raw? That makes 2 uncomfortable for an entirely different reason. 3 hides pain and injury well, another reason they were considered the best of them.) 

"What's happening to them?!" The princess seems terribly concerned about the welfare of someone who'd threatened to murder her retinue several times in the last half an hour. The thief boy is similarly concerned, though they can't think of a reason why. 

"Are--are you asking me?" 2 hopes their voice sounds even a fraction as incredulous as they feel. How would they know what's happening to 3? 3 never tells anyone anything.

But all they can think of, at this time -of all times! - as they hear nothing but 3's echoing rage (their agony) - is a memory, not so long ago --

Zorn and Thorn are talking with 3 again. This is nothing new, but 2, as they perch obediently on their stool, is bored and inquisitive enough to actually peek around the flimsy divider that separates them to see what business their creators might have with them.

3 settles, only twitching slightly as Zorn chatters and places something small and gleaming between their wings. A needle of some kind, some sparkling little thing bound into the fabric of their coat.

2 withdraws back behind the curtain, eyes narrowed in thought. 3 pays little mind to it, but 2, though they don't know exactly why, feels the faintest trace of doubt.

It comes so easily to them (as 3 and 1 have both commented pointedly) those little pangs of distrust. But they don't ask. They've found it far easier, and safer, to not ask questions.

--and though the storm raging around them makes it near-impossible, they almost think they hear familiar laughter on the wind, and something in them, already strained, finally breaks.

"Enough!" The proclamation is for themselves more than anyone else. The ship rocks violently, everyone scrambles to hold on except 3, who hasn't had a coherent thought in the last few minutes and continues not to do anything but scream wordlessly in a voice that threatens to crack apart and lash out at the closest target. 2 doesn't need to teleport now to get close to them; the wind is threatening to send them careening into 3 anyway. All they need to do is use it.

(They can, faintly under the cacophony, feel 1's iron focus even through all this - probably keeping the ship from crashing and killing everyone on board. They envy having something to occupy them, frankly.)

"Shut up, shut up, shut up shut up shut up--" The acidic words are a chant, a litany, something to focus on that can drown out the sound of the noises in their head, while they try not to think about how easy it would be for 3 to tear them to shreds (which they're more than capable of doing in a state like this) as they slam into the other Waltz with more momentum than actual weight. Both of them are sent tumbling across the deck, fighting with each other.

3 echoes their own words back at them in broken fragments - shut up shut up shut up - as they dig their claws into 2's robes, furiously fighting for proper purchase so they can cause some real damage,  and some unidentified feeling in 2 wrenches unpleasantly. (Have they ever seen 3 this--mindless? How can they make it stop?)

"I can't believe I'm doing this for you," 2 rants as they narrowly avoid having an eye gouged out by jerking back at the last second. "You're certainly not going to thank me--"

3 snarls and digs their claws into 2's shoulder. 2 swallows a shriek of pain mid-sentence. They're somehow offended, too, that 3 isn't biting back, that even their voice isn't enough to bring them out of their magic-induced battle fever. In this, are they not good enough either?

(Do they miss 3's awful, acerbic comments? It seems unfathomable that they ever could. But there's an emptiness to 3 now, a complete lack of function that--

scares them, somehow.)

"--You're not even going to be the least bit grateful for me doing this--" 2 snaps, voice pitching high to be heard over the noise of the storm that rages around them and in their head, as they fumble for the needle (3's wings flap in violent protest, the other Waltz screaming again as they tear through 2's coat into the parts of their body that are actually solid) and tear it out in one desperate motion. 

The shock goes through them. Their creators' voices, briefly heard, are a furious chorus; 

How dare you interfere! 3, destroy them!

The storm goes silent; did it stop? 2 questions, with the clarity of thought that comes from a situation they know they're not fast enough to escape. The air is empty and breathless; if the others here are saying anything, they can't hear it.

But 3 has stopped screaming now, at least. The relief is worth it. 

(If they tell themselves that, they don't have to admit the terror that's crawling up their spine of what's about to come next.)

3's eyes are still swirling with red and blue together, their hand moving to continue the wound they started and rip them open to expose the core - and then bright clarity returns, and their hand stops on 2's shoulder.

Thunder rumbles in warning, but the next lightning strike comes from 3. 2 hits the railing fast and smashes right through, one wing pushed even further out of alignment. Both of them helplessly flutter as 2 tries to right themselves in a panic, tossed around by the rising winds of the storm closing around them once more.

3, meanwhile, pushes themselves to their feet and launches themselves away from the ship entirely, wings beating hard as they flee into the cloud cover. The next time lightning flashes, they're gone.

Vivi is the first and fastest to react, breaking free of Steiner's instinctual hold to bolt to the railing, his injuries and 3's escape entirely forgotten. The airship rocks again and he almost tumbles over the side, but Zidane is there fast enough to hold onto him.

"I don't think we can rope them in like this," Zidane says, his face grim. "It's too rough. And I think you're the only one light enough to stand a chance at grabbing them from this far away, but I don't want to risk you too, Vivi."

Vivi's on the verge of saying yes to the plan anyway - he can't leave them out there, not when they're afraid and hurt and getting further away by the moment - but his thoughts are interrupted by 1's voice, who is still in the cabin.

Tell everyone to hold on. The helmsman wants to try something. I think. 

The airship lurches, and Vivi only has time to yelp "Hold on!" and nothing else. The engine rumbles violently, enough to shake the deck beneath their feet, as it pitches dangerously to the left and accelerates. It's hard to get an airship to flip over by nature, but whatever's happening, it seems to be making a solid attempt.

"Are you sure they know what they're doing?!" Zidane shouts, half-folded over the railing and using his tail as an extra limb. Steiner has opted to simply plant his sword into the deck and hang on that way; Garnet is using both Steiner's outstretched hand and the railing itself to find some kind of solidity.

"I don't know!!" Vivi yells back, as the ship picks up speed. His attention abruptly snaps away from the conversation, his eyes wide and bright in the darkness of the storm, and he clings to the railing one-handed as he reaches out.

Zidane moves fast, snatching an anchoring rope as it sails past him and leaping to Vivi's side. He loops the rope and tightens it around the little mage's waist first, tying him to the railing, and then hands it to him.

"Hang on tight, okay?" is his only instruction, and Vivi hastily wraps the rope around both hands as Zidane takes the rest, tying another loop around his own waist and leaping near-blindly into the clouds. There was a flash, just now, and he hopes it was showing him the shadow of something real and not just another trick of the light--

Tattered cloth, the sound of frantically-beating wings. Zidane's outstretched hand finds 2's arm, and though the sound of the Waltz whining in pain at being grabbed somewhere that apparently strains an injury is audible, they don't flinch away from it when he grabs them.

(Later, Zidane will think about that lack of reaction, and wonder if it was just because they were desperate, or because of something worse.)

"Got you," the thief says breathlessly, tugging on the rope as he tries to haul them both in before they swing too far under the ship. Concentrated effort from the other end reels them both in much faster, and as the ship rights itself, their situation goes from 'practically floating on how strong the storm is' to 'subject to gravity once again', and they land hard on the deck together.

"Are you all right?" Garnet says, before she can stop her reflex. She and Steiner are still holding on to the rope. Vivi is trying to untie himself from the railing, a little clumsily.

"Been better," Zidane says, brushing himself off and taking a moment to catch his breath.

"No," 2 says, faintly, from where they're lying, motionless, on the deck.

3 is battered and burnt out - both mentally and physically - when they return to their post. As they expected, Zorn and Thorn are there to greet them. Monitoring them more closely now? they think, sourly, but they don't complain.

The shadow of overwhelming pain leaves them weary and with no real room for aggression. Even if they'd thought of exacting revenge for Zorn and Thorn's little augmentation, they'd find it supremely unfulfilling. It's not related to their task, after all, and the looming specter of something left undone bothers them far more than satisfying their own temper.

(It's something they've never questioned, that ebb of other purpose in the face of an order.)

"The airship is ready," says Zorn. "You have your mission."

They want nothing more, in truth, than to rest. But fierce, ugly pride twists in them - a perfect weapon doesn't need to rest, wounds matter little to sword or spear unless it's the one that breaks them - so they straighten their back and at least try to pretend that they're not using their staff more as a means of support than an extension of themselves.

"Don't talk to me about the mission," they snap, stalking over to the airship. It's in better condition than they are, but not by much, and that irritates them in an idle way. It's a moment's straying concentration that has them run gloved fingers over the beaten prow, wondering how it would look if it was new. 

(Such thoughts were dangerous, and more suited to 2, who if they had any sense would have let themselves crater into the ground instead of scrabbling for life. They'd always seethed under the expectations they were meant to rise to, so it would be a mercy anyway.)

They draw their hand away and climb in, settling their wings uncomfortably in a cockpit not meant to handle them. Thorn seems about to say something, and they get their own words in first. "I'll get it done and bring back your princess."

"And if you happen to see the others - you know what to do, yes?"

"Of course," 3 growls, ignoring the uneasy feeling prickling in their chest. "If they get in my way, I'll dispose of them."

There's a chorus of approving laughter that settles any latent uneasiness in them - that obvious sign of approval, doing something right - and they pull levers and lean forward to take the airship's wheel as the engine rumbles to life behind them. The little craft accelerates, and soon they're nothing but a speck in the distance, still chasing the cargo ship bound, now, for Lindblum.

Chapter Text

The storm swirls around them, crackling with strength, showing no signs of letting up. The airship creaks worryingly, the ropes that hold the balloon straining in the wind, but the cargo ship is built for sturdiness and not for speed, and so it endures. Still recovering from their encounter, everyone on deck drifts to the barrier from wind and rain that barrels, crates and the cabin on deck provides.

"Well, you're all intact," 1 says, poking their head out from the airship cabin as everyone crowds around it, still calm despite literally everything that's happened so far. "Congratulations."

Vivi can feel the mental link between them fizzing with some undefinable emotion. When he tries to touch it, even a little, he finds an all-encompassing wall that blocks him out completely, a shield of ice.

They do that, 2 grumbles. Lock themselves up all the time. They cough weakly, and Vivi startles, remembering that they're right there and he can simply talk to them. He sits and reaches out, attempting to see if he can do anything for them, even without the benefit of healing. (Zidane is joking about something with Dagger as she's healing him; Vivi can hear her laugh, faintly. That's good. Dagger needs more reasons to laugh, especially with what she knows now.)

His hand stings when he touches them, and brings back a memory--

(The first time he ever cooked, he'd touched hot metal without one of his gloves on, and it had hurt. That searing feeling had been more surprising than painful at first, but the shock and the pain that resulted from it had been more than enough to make him cry. 

Quan had removed the pan from the stove and snuffed out the fire, running water over the burn at first. When he found that this alone wasn't enough to fix it, he'd carefully examined the burn and wrapped it in bandages. 

"<It will heal,>" the Qu had reassured him, then. "<Don't cry, Vivi. The pain will fade.> And true to his word, one day he'd woken up and the burn had stopped hurting.

 He was almost certain that his grandfather had done it when he was asleep; how else to explain how that hurt had vanished, like magic, when Quan (at least, as far as he knew) had no magic of his own? But he had never found out what it was, exactly, that Quan had done; he never asked, feeling no need to, and then Quan had gone to a place where questions, or anything else, could no longer reach him.)

--and, recalling that, he tugs off one singed glove to see the damage. (It's the same hand; once again he feels a pang of guilt and loss. Undoing yet another part of something that his grandfather had done for him.) 

"Are you really feeling sorry for yourself that you got hurt?" 2's tone is hovering somewhere between curiosity and scorn. Vivi wonders how much of that memory they saw, how much they're in his head right now (if that's even how it works, this bond between them), and then decides not to think about it too much. "You're so odd now."

Vivi shakes his head, too tired to be angry anymore. "It's not that," he says, inspecting his hand. Even with the new burn on top, he can see a slight discoloration on his palm, exactly where his injury had been all those months ago. He runs a finger carefully over it, and feels neat stitches joining old and new together. "I burned myself once, but my grandpa fixed it. I was just thinking about it, that's all."

He brings it close to his face to see; there's a faint, dusty smell that lingers even now, an odd dry sweetness. It's not familiar to him at first, and then he remembers.

(Quan's aprons were always much larger than his, and his grandfather seemed to have no end of them, in all kinds of colours. One of his chores was to fold them when they were clean and dry, and he'd all but memorized that strange scent that lingered on them.

"<What is this for?>" he'd asked haltingly once, in Qu. Quan had beamed even larger than he usually did, to hear Vivi asking in his language.

"<It keeps away bugs, you see? The kind that feed on clothes. And it makes them smell nice. It's always important to keep aprons in good shape, Vivi. Remember that.>"

Vivi isn't sure how he feels about the smell yet, but it's a practical reason, and something in him approves of that. He breathes it in as he folds aprons, memorizing it.)

He lowers his hand. His chest feels tight again, but in a different way. It's sadness and happiness all at once; a reminder his grandfather cared enough to use something important to him. 

"And now you're happy about it," 2 comments, barely propping themselves up on an elbow. Their eyes are narrowed and judgemental, but there's a kernel of sharp curiosity they can't quite hide. "That, I understand even less."

Rather than answer, Vivi pulls his glove back on. He'll just have to figure it out later; there's too much to focus on and he's tired and his head hurts just from thinking about it.

"Master Vivi." Steiner's voice comes from above him, and he blinks sleepily for a moment before staring upward. There's a clatter of armor as Steiner kneels to look at him. "How do you fare?"

"I'm--what about you, Steiner? You got-- you got hurt for me and everything--!" It bursts out of him with surprising force, as the memories of the fight really begin to sink in. He scrambles to his feet, but fatigue means that Steiner holds his hands out to steady him instead. He reluctantly sinks back into a sitting position, frustrated at his own weariness.

"Worry not for my safety, master Vivi! A knight must endure greater trials than -- ouch -- this!" He thumps his burnt chestplate hard enough to make it ring in the middle of his sentence, shaking his hand off afterwards. "I will be right as rain with a bit of rest! And some treatment, of course." 

"Can I do anything?" He can't help but ask, even though his entire body aches. 

Steiner's expression gentles along with his voice. "Your concern is enough, master Vivi. You've done more than enough yourself. Just rest."

Vivi pulls his hat down over his face, at that. "But I've rested too much already," he says, trying to keep his voice from pitching into a plaintive little whine. He should be more grown up, he knows, but it's so hard sometimes. He plunks himself down besides Steiner instead, leaning against him.

His mind is all fuzzy from weariness, but 2's connection is sharp - it feels like constant motion, a surge of focus. It reminds him of questions he's yet to ask.

"Are you gonna heal that all up yourself?" He turns his head, watching 2 with sleepy concern as they grumble and fuss over themselves. "You should ask Garnet."

"I don't require it," 2 says, their voice clipped. "I'll manage." They push themselves up to an approximate sitting position, dusting ash off their injured shoulder as they tilt their head to inspect the damage. The distinct, zigzagging burns of lightning cut through the colour and embroidery, a spiderweb of charcoal.

"So they went easy on me after all," they say, in a tone that's somewhere between relief and disapproval. "I'm almost disappointed in them."

"But--they shot you with lightning and you fell off the airship and you almost died--?!" His voice is a high-pitched squeak. Vivi feels like his remaining volume isn't nearly enough to convey how alarming he finds the words he's hearing.

"So?" 2 picks at the burnt threads at the edges, eyes narrowing in concentration. "Our cores are in our chests, you know - well, maybe you don't." (Vivi glances down at himself with alarm. His heartbeat - corebeat? - flutters anxiously, like a caged bird.

A canary? 

He pushes that thought away.) 
 
"But it would have been easy for them to break it. They have enough power to." They heave a dramatic sigh, wings fluttering. "But they didn't, and so I continue to grace you with my presence. Or is it burden you? I can never tell with you."

Vivi has no idea what to say to it; that brisk analysis of how being torn up and hurt wasn't even the worst thing that could have happened. As he so often does, he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

"I'm--It's good. That you're okay." His voice is tired and vulnerable, but as his emotions and power cool to embers, he finds that he's fine with that too.

(Being vulnerable like this reminds him that pain isn't constant and isn't all there is. That there are other things in his life than that.)

 2 has no snappy retort to give, surprisingly. When Vivi glances at them again, they've already turned away, their expression hidden from his view. Even when he reaches out in his head, they're closed to him.

The wind and rain is a constant annoyance in this tiny craft, beating down on them ceaselessly. 

They're not tired. Constructs don't get tired, especially if they have a mission to complete. They don't get tired even if they have no time to stitch up their injuries, to repair themselves from the burns they had suffered.

And they don't complain about it, either.

Their hands grip white-knuckled to the airship's steering wheel, sparks of lightning jumping from them into the mechanisms of the little craft. Machinery is simple and straightforward and fits together perfectly, just like they do. It makes sense. It makes sense that by galvanizing the rudimentary engine, every jolt of lightning spurring the parts to work just a little faster, they can push the Fenrir beyond its usual limits.

The airship is not in good condition. It irritates them that it hasn't been better taken care of. But orders aren't to be questioned and machines are made to work, not to be polished and preened and carefully maintained, so they try not to think about it. They try not to think about how they'd care for it much better if it was theirs, but they have never had anything that was theirs.

The rain continues to soak them.

Constructs don't get cold, or bone-weary. They don't feel pain. A construct is just a better weapon, and a weapon can fight in the rain as well as the sun. 

Constructs don't get tired. They do what they're told.

The measuring instruments on the panel in front of them blur, and they can't tell if it's the wretched weather or their own eyesight betraying them. They dig sharp nails into their own palms and the pain makes them refocus, and they yank the wheel in irritation, pull a lever to pump more Mist into the engine, as they realize they've been dropping lower and lower while they daydreamed about their own injuries.

Their own wings twitch in sympathetic response as the Fenrir groans, the airship's wing-paddles beating to maintain height in the storm. It's a flighty, flimsy thing; built for fair weather and fair winds, not storms and muddy skies. The fabric that stretches itself to straining across the iron bones of each paddle is wearing thin, and should have been replaced months ago. But what can you expect from those two, they think acerbically, now that they are well out of control range. They can barely handle basic tasks.

"Focus on the mission," they mutter to themselves, eyes narrowing to slits as they prepare another bolt. Magic surges from their core, that straining feeling all too familiar - their magic is no longer coming easily, but if they have to wring out every last drop...

The hulk of the cargo ship comes into view in the gloom. Lindblum is not so far ahead, a great shape looming through the fog. Catching them before they go into the tunnel - perhaps even inside it- is their last chance; once they're inside the city, they can be lost among all the people and one solitary mage, lightning or not, won't catch them. Tracking is not one of their talents. 

Hitting targets in any conditions, however, is.

No matter the cost.

No matter the cost.

No matter the--

There is no rumble of thunder as lightning flashes past, charring the side of the cargo ship and causing everyone on deck to yelp or leap up.

Now that Vivi is listening for it, he can feel it, the bone-deep buzzing hum of 3's power and presence. He had almost missed it; is it because he's unused to it, or because they aren't a bright flare of magic now - because that first battle with them had eaten through much of their strength?

Part of him, his good-and-helpful self, the part that his father had nurtured and his new friends had continued to accept, feels bad for them - they must be so tired now. A lot of him doesn't. A lot of him is (sickeningly) glad, because they're weak now, and that means they can't hurt him - or anyone he cares about - as badly as they did the first time.

He could shoot them out of the sky. He could. If he didn't feel weak himself, his own power a handful of ash and guttering embers in the bottom of his heart.

If the thought, terrible but somehow logical, didn't sit in his gut and curdle uncomfortably at what it revealed - like turning an apple to reveal the rot eating through the skin - about the person the other Waltzes had called 0.

He could reach out to them, maybe, the same way he had reached out to the others. What would he find there? What would they feel like? When that pure, burning clarity had closed over his body, engulfing it in magic and flames, was that their presence? Or was there nothing of them left already - did he burn them up, unknowingly, drawing on their strength to live?

His head buzzes with uncomfortable questions. He wishes he had answers. He wishes he could ask - but where would he even start?

Another flash of lightning sears past, over his head, dragging him back to reality (it narrowly misses the steering cabin). They're closer now. Much closer. No time to think about it.

"Hey! Can you make this thing go any faster?" Zidane shouts, above the howling wind.

"Unless you can pull a new engine out of your pockets, this is as much as it can manage." 1's voice is low but clear, cutting through even the chaos of the storm. "We could try to increase the speed by heating the engines more, but I'm no expert. It just might blow us out of the sky instead."

The dark arches of Lindblum's gates loom up through the fog, lights winking in the pillars like distant stars. Vivi looks up at them, his hat crammed tight onto his head to prevent it from flying away, and tries to think of anything useful.

He feels that buzzing before he hears the distant clattering of the smaller airship's wings, feels the unbearable prickling of his entire body shrieking danger as 3 builds up power somewhere behind them--

In a panic, he crams that information through 1's mental link somehow. The ship creaks and tilts with agonizing slowness to Vivi's senses, and another lightning bolt shaves past, narrowly missing a propeller.

Not so loud, 1 grumbles. Their mental voice seeps through slowly, cold and distant. If cold had a voice, it might sound like them. And don't give it to me all at once.

I don't know how, Vivi thinks back as loudly as he can. I don't know how this works!

The propellers whine in mechanical protest as the ship fights the storm, rattling away into the wind. The squealing sound is terrible. The storm is terrible. Everything hurts and it's so, so dark; he doesn't know where anyone is, entirely focused on the mental connection between him and 1. 

Another building sense of dread and danger, somewhere in the darkness, off to his right. They wonder how 3 can even see them in this awful weather, and then it occurs to him that maybe they don't need to. Maybe 3 is finding him, a beacon in the dark night, the same way he's finding them. 

If only he had wings, still. (His back aches sharply.) He could drop off the ship and fly far away--

And fall, and crash, the same way you did last time? Don't be foolish. All you need to do is listen.

1's mental voice seems to cool him, dousing his rising panic in freezing water. He presses his forehead against the wooden railing and closes out the sound of the storm - easier to do now that they've entered the gates, the tunnel proper.

He needs to be brave.

I'm here, he shouts into the darkness, running to the side of the ship. In the back of his mind, calculations spin feverishly; 3's lightning bolts will do the least collateral damage if already aimed at a target. 3 is easy to provoke. 3 is tired, just like him, and isn't thinking clearly. I'm here! It's me you want!

That wasn't what I meant-- calls 1, a sudden flash of alarm tinging their mental voice.

He puts one foot on the railing, clinging to it with one hand, the other pressing his hat down onto his face. He leans out as much as he dares to look for the fast-moving shape.

There. He sees them with another lightning flash beyond Lindblum's gates, a shape in the darkness rapidly getting closer. Fear makes his heart (core?) flutter - he knows exactly how much damage they can do, after all. 

The scream of the little airship's engines, the clacking of the wings, they pound into his brain like an alarm. He musters up the last of his strength, scraping together those embers, ignoring the sick feeling in his gut. He has to do this. He has to make sure everyone will be safe--

3 is faster. 3 is always faster than him. Lightning is dancing at their fingertips, he senses it before he sees it, moving painfully slowly--

--lightning crawls backwards up their arm as they charge and arcs into their wings, their spine. Their shriek of pain echoes hollowly, bouncing off the walls; the way their body stiffens is unmistakable.

His world goes white from a shared agony that isn't his. 2's alarm scream sounds like a wounded animal. 1 grips so tight to the wheel they almost crack it before they shove their mental walls back up.

It's all he can do to grip the rail and watch in wide-eyed silence as they slump against the controls, still fighting to push themselves back up and drive the airship properly. They move like they've been chained down, lightning still arcing through their now-burned clothing.

Despite everything, he--

He lurches over the railing, reaching out.

If he still had wings...

3 manages to struggle upright, their eyes flicking upwards to focus on Vivi's reaching hand. There is no anger, as he expected, but a spark of weary confusion traveling through their mental link,

as if asking him why--

Lindblum's south gate is no place for an out-of-control airship. The small craft veers too far off course despite the best efforts of its pilot and smashes brutally into the tunnel wall, wings shattering against the unforgiving interior, tumbling end over end. 

The cargo ship soars past the still-tumbling wreck and away, free at last of pursuit.

Vivi's hand is still outstretched as he stares numbly at the closing gate, the smoke billowing from the mangled craft. He is reaching for nothing at all.

As they fly into Lindblum,

he still can't quite bear to lower his hand.

Chapter Text

He lowers his hand. It curls around the damaged railing, wooden splinters pricking at his glove.

A grand city, new and exciting and festooned with airships, looms before Vivi in all its glory as their battered craft putters through the sky; he'd appreciate it more if he wasn't still thinking about the last few moments, if he wasn't still looking back at the damaged gate and the people already beginning to descend on it.

He wonders how much damage that crash had done. He wonders if there were workers there, and if they'll be okay.

Then, guiltily, another splinter lodged in his heart, he wonders if 3 will be okay. 

(Neither 1 or 2 have any answers for him, even though he can feel their connections buzzing in his head. Maybe it's because they're tired. He knows he's tired.

He hopes it's because they're tired, and not because they've already come to a conclusion he's too stubborn to see. But then, weren't they used to death? Weren't they used to being disposable?

Wasn't he like that, once?

But he still can't let go. He can't let go. He opens his mind and feels nothing but a crackling emptiness, 3's connection silent and lost.)

His gut wrenches. He clutches at the railing like a lifeline, lurching against it.

"Careful, Vivi," comes the familiar, cheerful voice, and Zidane's hand tugs at the back of his jacket. "Don't fall while you're lost in thought, or I'm gonna have to rescue you too."

Vivi glances back. Zidane doesn't seem upset, despite everything he'd put him through. Despite everything he'd done, and was...

"Zidane..." His voice is faltering, hesitant. His head hurts and even though he doesn't want to, he feels like crying. "Did I do the right thing?"

"..." Zidane's mouth firms, and he crouches in front of Vivi, to be at his height. He doesn't have to. Even that small kindness makes his eyes burn.

"Listen, Vivi. You protected yourself. You protected us, even the parts of us that aren't....they didn't really ask to be with us, but I guess we're gonna have to deal with that. But I think you did the right thing."

He puts a hand on Vivi's shoulder. "I know you wanted to talk it out with them. But you gave it all you had, and that's enough, okay?"

It's not an answer that entirely satisfies him - I want to do more than okay - but he nods regardless. 

"Okay." His voice is a weak, hoarse whisper. He hates how he can't be cheerful, or confident, like Zidane.

He expects the other boy to leave him on the deck, lost in his own thoughts. Instead, Zidane sits down in front of him, and opens his arms.

"C'mere, Vivi."

It's too much. Zidane's overwhelming forgiveness is too much in the face of these agonizing feelings he has no name for, awful and crawling and burning him up inside until he feels like he's made of fire himself. He all but throws himself into Zidane's arms with a wail, his staff clattering to the deck, though it could just be the choppy movement of the airship as the helmsman attempts to keep it properly upright with all the damage.

He can't form words; he only sobs, his voice incoherent, into Zidane's shoulder. Zidane puts his head on top of Vivi's hat and holds him close, as if they'd been brothers a long time, as if Vivi had been with them on the Prima Vista too. He can almost imagine it, Vivi's bright and eager voice adding to the cacophony of Tantalus' plans, though he bets Vivi wouldn't have been any good at planning heists.

Or maybe he would have. Maybe, if he'd learned from them. He doesn't know. There's a lot he doesn't know about Vivi, he's found.

He's been thinking about family, lately, ever since Vivi's encounter with his own - violent and painful as it had been. He misses the Prima Vista, he realizes suddenly. He misses the old man. He misses Cinna and Marcus and Blank - Blank, petrified still because of his own whims, his decision to strike off on his own and rescue Dagger and get involved in this whole crazy journey - fiercely, like something he didn't even realize was a part of him had been pulled away and left emptiness behind, a hollow in his chest he can't fill.

"What've I gotten myself into, huh?" he murmurs, not expecting a reply. Vivi's sobs have diminished into the even breathing of sleep, though he holds on no less tightly.

He's pretty fragile for such a powerful little guy. Zidane rubs Vivi's back, gently. I've gotta do my best for him.

He keeps holding him, lost in melancholy thoughts, his expression serious. But that's alright, he thinks; by the time Vivi wakes up, he'll be able to smile and laugh everything off again, with nobody the wiser.

He's gotta do his best, after all. This is his mess too, and if there's anything the old man taught him, it's to own up to it.

Still, despite his gloom, he looks up as they drift over the city. Even if things are difficult, he can still appreciate a good view, and Lindblum has one of the best of all.

Garnet, with Steiner's help - really, it's mostly Steiner doing the work, insisting that she not strain herself - carries 2 inside the bridge with surprising ease, though it helps that they're too unconscious to protest. She feels shamefully relieved for that; she's too tired to argue with them, and she doesn't know what she'd do if they tried to claw at her again (hit them on the head, maybe? but they were already injured!). She props them awkwardly up in a corner; this airship was built for cargo, not comfort, and has no convenient pillows or rugs or blankets that could be used to make a softer bed for someone hurt.

"You can just leave them there, Princess," 1 says, turning around. The silent black mage at the helm (can they talk, or were they not meant to talk? She has no idea) keeps their eyes straight forward, focused on their task. "As long as nothing else happens, they'll recover."

"It looks uncomfortable."

1 shrugs. "Does that matter?" 

"Of course it matters."

"Not to us. For you, maybe."

She's not sure if it's meant to be a jab at her or not - probably for caring too much - but she's never been very good at not caring about things, so she decides then and there that she'll care anyway.

"Why is this important to you?" 1 asks, after a moment. Their hand fiddles with something hidden, tucked close to their side. Something metal, a treasure held within their fingers, gleams sharply in the light that keeps the bridge lit. "If you weren't the princess, 2 would have killed you. And 3 almost did anyway. We're your enemies, Princess, not your friend. Not anyone else's friend, either, no matter what 0 says."

Garnet doesn't answer right away. It is true; these black mages have caused nothing but trouble. They'd kidnapped Vivi, tried to take her by force, and almost crashed the airship they were on.

But if she hadn't run away, they wouldn't be here. That much she understands, with a clarity that stirs sickly in her gut. They would not be here without her - one of them would not be torn and tangled in the wreckage of an airship, one would not be curled unconscious against the cabin wall, one would not be asking her these uncomfortable questions - without her presence.

And they call her Princess.

It's a title that settles like a shackle around her wrist, a chain around her neck, a cage that traps her. But it means that she has a responsibility to them, as she has a responsibility for Steiner, who left everything else behind and followed her all this way. Because he loves her, because he cares, because he wants to see her safe.

The black mages, these waltzes, they share no such bond with her. But they are here because of her. And unlike her, who chose to run away - unlike Steiner, who had chosen to chase after her - they have no choice. 

"You didn't choose to be here," she says at last. "I don't think you should be punished for it."

1 stares at her for a long moment. She can't read their expression at all.

"If that's what makes you feel better, Princess." They turn away.

Steiner huffs, opening his mouth to retort, and Garnet puts a hand on his arm and shakes her head.

"They don't speak to you properly, Princess," Steiner grumbles. "As soldiers, they should have been taught better manners!"

"It's fine, Steiner. They don't need to speak properly to me..."

It doesn't seem to matter that much, in the face of all this. Whatever her mother is planning, whatever is going on under Dali, it all seems so much bigger than she could have ever expected.

She looks up at Steiner, taking in his battered armor, feeling the tension that keeps him upright even when he's clearly wounded.

Maybe she does have to go back to Alexandria after all.

"What is it, Princess?"

"...I didn't mean to get you involved in all of this....but you saved us. I thank you."

Steiner's expression softens, as it always does when she's around. She's noticed this too; Steiner is stern, even strict, around others, but he can never quite manage the same for her.

"Princess, you really are too kind to me. I am not worthy of such words. I am only doing what a knight of Alexandria should."

You shouldn't have had to, she wants to say to him, but the words stick in her throat. He'd faced an enemy on the deck, had taken the time to comfort Vivi. Would have shielded her too, if she had been out there and been in danger.

Not that she had ever been in danger. She wouldn't have been hurt. She was the reason Steiner had been hurt.

She can't think of anything to say. Her eyes burn, but she doesn't want to depend on him yet again for support; if he saw her cry, he'd fuss and be even more worried.

Instead, she places her hand on his arm again, summoning the feeling of the power that moves through her - she'd only used it a little, mostly to heal minor scratches she'd gotten from playing or exploring in places she wasn't supposed to be. But she can't just sit around and do nothing. Everyone is working so hard; she can't fall behind.

Even if she's a princess, she can at least be useful.

Power leaps into Steiner's body; she feels it seek out his wounds, binding them together, replenishing what was lost. He's strong; it makes it easier. (It's a relief to be reminded of how strong he is; she knows, she knows, that even if he was dying he'd act like nothing was wrong.)

When she's done, she lifts her hand off Steiner's arm, feeling drained. For a moment, she feels the alien burn of something else in the space her magic normally fills, something other, the echo of something ancient within, and then she puts it out of her mind. She's tired - they all are. 

She's too tired to notice the way 1's gaze is drawn to her, unwilling and surprised, as their magic pulls towards hers - as something in her calls to them, like moving towards like - for that brief moment.

"What is it? What are you looking at?" Steiner asks, already moving to support Garnet as she leans back against the wall, his eyes still fixed on 1.

"It's nothing," 1 says, after a long pause. "I must have been mistaken." They push themselves to their feet, standing next to the black mage pilot and watching as they draw near to the castle, and its airship dock.

As they reassemble on the deck in various states of weariness (2 is still firmly unconscious), the airship still intact enough to make it through the gate with only some alarming wobbling, Vivi stirs, tipping out of Zidane's arms and falling onto his face as they come to a stop. There's a soft thump as he hits the deck, despite Zidane's best efforts. 

He's far too tired to push himself up again, so when Steiner grumbles and scoops him up, Vivi simply hangs in his arms without a word of protest.

Zidane doesn't ask Steiner to be careful. He just looks at him holding Vivi and then nods a little, satisfied.

Steiner grunts. "I don't need your approval, thief boy."

Zidane flashes a grin. "Too bad, 'cause you're getting it anyway. You should treasure it, Rusty!"

Only the fact that his hands are full with an exhausted child stops Steiner from trying to cuff Zidane over the head, and then, as the guards come out to see the battered airship that's just limped into the castle's indoor dock, he has plenty more things to be angry about.

Though there are a few misunderstandings along the way, Garnet summons as much of her dignity as she's able in order to deal with the fraught task of convincing her uncle's guards to let everyone inside the castle. 

(Except the black mages aboard the ship, the ones who didn't talk. She'd tried to explain things, to say that it was fine, but...)

"It's too crowded," says the pilot, their rumbling voice whisper-soft and meek. She has to struggle to hear it in the echo of the airship dock, the roar and bustle of engines and people going to and fro. "We'll repair the airship and fly back to Dali."

"You don't have to go," Garnet says. "Don't you need anything--?"

This one, in particular, had saved their lives. Had borne pain for Vivi's sake. If there's anything she can do...

Their eyes crinkle, pressing into slits, and she realizes they're smiling - or something like it. They carefully take her hand, pressing it gently between both of theirs.

"Farewell and safe travels," they murmur. "Maybe we'll meet again." Their voice hums quietly, accepting; it burns her to think of whatever's been planned for them, gentle as they are.

(Did they learn it? Was it simply accidental? They know how to control their strength, her hand safe between both of theirs. It breaks her heart for the reality of it, for her...

Subjects?

They must be. If her mother claims no responsibility to them as people...shouldn't she? It feels strange to claim such, even in her head, but this is all she can do to protect them.)

"We'll meet again," she says, a firmer echo. "This, I swear."

There's power in the words, she thinks, even if they're torn from the pages of old plays.

The mage bows their head before her, releasing her hands. 

Mercifully, they do not call her Princess.

She can't be there to watch them go. To at least see with her own eyes that they're safely departing. There's more to do, but she hopes that sweet winds will blow them back to the village, their course straight and fair. (The words spring to her mind as if learned by rote, some sailor's prayer from her memories....but where would she have learned? She doesn't know. Even parts of her own past are obscured to her.)

She straightens her back and prepares, once again, to act her most royal. If it's for the sake of her newfound friends, loyal even through this mess they've found themselves in, she'll be as much a princess as she's told to be.

It's the maddening pulse of the tracking magic that tears 3 from oblivion, ripping them from uneasy sleep. In it, they could at least forget their wounds; newly awakened, the hammering false heartbeat nestled under their core only exacerbates the pain of their injuries.

Almost there.

A quick check of their own body reveals they must have not been asleep for long after the crash; tiny arcs of lightning still crawl and judder over their frame, they still lie in the dissolving fog that comes with the overexertion of their magic. They don't remember much of what happened after they lost control, but they must have been thrown from the airship before it smashed itself against the tunnel wall, striking the metal hard enough to lose consciousness.

Wings, staff, legs, hands, everything they need is there, intact enough to manage. Weariness dogs every stitch and weave of their body, but cloth and magic and Mist feel no pain nor weariness, so it's simply something they must overcome by will--

--there are people here. Their voices, their footsteps, carry down the tunnel. 3 clutches their staff close and folds their wings over themselves, tucking themselves into the shadow of a pillar as the humans pass. (It's the first time they haven't wanted to be looked at.)

There's the tug of some injury, some strange gasp of pain, as they cast a last glance backwards at the wreck of the craft; it's not important, it must be something misfiring. They can ignore it, discard it, as they discard the airship now; it no longer works, it had gotten them here, it wasn't necessary for their mission.

Still. Still. The invisible hook so close to their core, the injury they don't recall receiving, pulls their gaze. Despite the frantic hammering of the tracking magic, the reminder of their mission, it takes concentrated effort to yank themselves away from the longing to do something for the craft, to salvage, to repair, the way the people they're leaving behind must know how.

It had served them well. It was only right. 

Soldiers don't need attachments.

Reluctantly, painfully, they tear their eyes away from the broken thing, forcing themselves not to look back as they take clumsy flight towards the castle.

Garnet is restlessly staring out the window, refreshed from her nap, when she hears the scrabble-thump-flap of beating wings. She pulls away from the glass, startled, as the third Waltz lands on the guest room's balcony.

(How did they get this far? Even with the glass between them, she can tell it's badly injured.)

"Princess-ss," they hiss sharply, quietly, its voice carrying enough to be heard. It crackles with tension (with pain). It judders and leaps in pitch, in tempo, like the lightning it harnesses. "I'm here to bring you back."

She should call the guard. There's one right outside her bedroom door. If she screamed, it would be loud enough for people to come running...injured as the black mage was, it wouldn't stand a chance, would have to flee once more.

(To where? For what? It was a threat. They could all testify to that. It would be pierced with weapons, too dangerous to live, it would be destroyed for the crime of threatening Princess Garnet til Alexandros XVII-- never mind that it had already hurt so many people deemed less important than her but no less dear...

The memory of gloved hands clasping hers, the memory of Vivi reaching out beseechingly towards open air, the memory of this same mage's wild mindless madness, it stills the cry in her throat.)

It could kill her. It probably has enough power to do that. But it won't. She knows it won't. If it -- if they -- can be implanted with something to drive them wild with pain, then surely they wouldn't be permitted to harm her even if they wished to.

She swallows, her throat dry, and moves towards the balcony door, her only protection now.

You didn't choose to be here. I don't think you should be punished for it.

She'd said those words before. She'd thought of the black mages as her subjects.

She knows, with perfect clarity, that she's the only one who can do this.

"You can't, not yet," she says, as she opens the door and tries not to let her hands shake. "You're injured."

"Doesn't matter." A twitch, a flutter of their wings. They stare at her with an almost incredulous air as the last barrier between them is so effortlessly removed. "I can still--I can still fly."

"If you crash, then you can't bring me back."

"You don't know that I'll crash. I'm-m good at my job." Do they even realize they're stuttering? That pride in their tone suggests not, but she can't be sure.

"I don't know that you won't."

Another twitch. She watches as uncontrolled lightning crawls over them. 

"What do yo-ou want me to do about it, t-then?" Their hand spasms before they get it under control. "Nobody-y here can fix me. Would fix me. I'm-m a weapon."

"I'll fix you," she says, before she can second-guess, take it back. "But you have to come inside before anyone sees you. And you have to wait."

The winged mage stares at her for a long, long moment, and at first she thinks they're going to make a grab for her and she'll have to scream anyway, even if she doesn't want to -- and then they hunch themselves over, pulling themselves inside.

Up close, they're even more of a wreck than she expected. Their body is simply outright broken in several places, injuries that would have Steiner scolding the recipient and assigning them bed rest for weeks. For them, it seems to be simply business as usual.

"Mercy-yy isn't wise, Princess," they hiss, as she hastily shuts the door behind them. She can't help but note the feathers drifting down, coming loose...a black mage isn't a bird. Will those feathers regrow? 

She doesn't have a reply to their...comment? Taunt? Whatever it is. 

Despite the tension in their frame, it goes out as she places her hands on them. Their wings droop, their eyes slitting in a kind of dormant obedience, as they bow their head before her.

There's not that much difference between the black mage they'd hurt and themselves, after all.

Garnet breathes, calling up that bright spark of power from within her, and begins to heal their wounds.