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Heavy is the head that wears the crown
Saddled on the back of his trusted Chocobo, Delita steered the reins to peer upwards at his kingdom from underneath the drab hood and attire he wore to conceal his identity. A kingdom he built through adversity, through strategic manipulation and the cost of being a husk of a man who once had loftier ideas. A man who was more trusting and smiled more.
“Let us venture forth, Echo” The King of Ivalice places his hand on the top of his prized Chocobo. The soft kweh from her before the reigns steered her away.
“I have an old friend to visit.” Cryptic admittance as he communicated with his body language to get Echo to move forward, clicking his tongue to interact with her to go faster.
Roads familiar and new were in his pathways as they adventured to a secret place. A cemetery where Orran Durai gave him the details before he was branded as a heretic and burned by the Church of Glabados. The now deceased Durai doesn’t know the gift he gave Delita in revealing the location of this and the final words of “He lives.”
The wind rustling his lower middle-class attire as it caressed his face and filled his lungs with fresh air. Breathing in expensive perfume, the smoke of expensive cigars and the fumes of arrogance and feigned pleasantries can be unhealthy after a while, but this was what his hard labor won him in the end. Having implemented changes to keep the aristocratic of the families that maintained their prestige after the War of the Lions, while granting opportunities for the proletariat and peasant classes. To set an example by being a man out of poverty and wedlock for them has to count for something… even if he felt like a hypocrite in other ways.
Traversing towards the location he marked on his map was not a long endeavor, but it allowed for his thoughts to wonder. Allowing him to reminisce about a time that has gone past. Five years had passed since Delita’s coronation, yet the time did not feel long enough. While he remembers his sister Tietra, every day, and incorporating a few things she enjoyed into his life as King… there was only so much one could do in memory of their deceased sister. He wore her closest to his heart since she was the only reminder that there was a form of humanity inside him.
His wife, the woman whom he paved a bloody, treacherous trail to her succession as Queen, held no trust in him. The people he cut down were just as cruel as he was when he took in their hypocrisy. They did not care about people like him or her, yet all she saw was a man that would do anything to get his hands on an ounce of power. She did not want to witness the good or the dismantling of such power away from the corrupt nobility.
Ovelia, his Queen, saw a monster.
Delita agreed, solemnly. He was no fool to the consequences those former alliances would lead him.
His wife, polite in the face of guests at soirees, public assemblies, and political congregations; a woman and mother to the people of Ivalice… disgusted by the very sight of her King. While Ovelia’s dislike of him is rooted in her perception of what deception is to her, he never betrayed her. The betrayal would have been in the form of speaking of such platitudes of carving out a true noble lineage for his wife, only to not take her as his Queen.
Or worse, to greedily keep the monarchy exclusively to himself and figure out a discreet way to do away with her.
Yet, he loves her, even after all these years, even after she stabbed him on the day of his coronation as Ivalice’s new King.
“Life is sordid in it’s dealings.” He murmurs to himself, hearing thunder rumbling distantly. Just as he needed, a storm as he approached his destination.
A humble cemetery flourished with greenery with a few tombstones with names and some epitaphs etched into them. The speckles of rain pattering down gently. Reeling the reins in allowed for the halting of his Chocobo’s pace as he safely dismounts. He stroked along the side of her beak before he walked towards the very place he had been avoiding for a few years.
Did he feel shame? Guilt? The emotions one would feel after contemplating a situation for quite some time.
He lives, Orran told him the day before his execution.
He didn’t say where, but only shared that he saw him and his sister, Alma, leave after the funeral held that day. Presumably to lead a life away from Ivalice. Ramza was already branded a heretic by the church despite saving the church in the overall grand scheme. What more could they do to him? Would he too eventually be burned at the stake like Orran was?
“…No.” Delita said at loud the second the thought crossed his mind. With his power, an execution of death would not happen.
He walked until he was in front of the two gravestones, named Ramza Beoulve and Alma Beoulve respectively. Placing both hands on the stones, he rubbed them in contemplation, loftily hoping that they would reveal the location of where the two had gone. It may have been a few years, but the King of Ivalice couldn’t help feeling nostalgia. He couldn’t help but remember his days as a Squire with Ramza, how even though they were of different classes and always had been their entire lives… he never once saw him as lesser than. However, that was because Ramza never was challenged to think otherwise… until the events unraveled, and they were at odds with the situation for what it was.
“I have no idea where you could have possibly gone, to Ordallia? Perhaps crossed the oceans to another continent…” Delita muses aloud, the only time he allowed himself such vulnerability. In the presence of no one, but his Chocobo behind him.
Reaching down, he yanked the soil upwards a blade of grass and whistled.
The pitch lower than Delita was accustomed to making. The whistle sounded like a pitch of those in mourning of a time long past.
He certainly was.
No man chooses evil because it’s evil
He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks
Discontent stems from the hand that doesn’t feed their loyal servants. A dog can only take so much before it inevitably bites back.
As one of the former soldiers of The Fifty Years’ war, those who were peasants or barely middle-class citizens of Ivalice found themselves at odds with those they rallied behind in the war. Wiegraf was no different. He was soldier that stood behind the revered Silver Prince, Marquis of Limberry, Messam Elmdore. Ushering victory behind the Order of the Northern Sky, ensuring that Ivalice wasn’t taken by the country of Ordallia… only to be treated as expendable chattel in return, unanimously by the entire aristocracy class.
Wiegraf, formerly Commander Folles of the Dead Men, had been respected and connected with the survivors of the war. Yet what the nobles did went too far. So, bonded by war, camaraderie, and distrust of nobility, the Corpse Brigade was born.
Many men were sons and brothers to families that didn’t have access to the appropriate health care or the funding to be able to afford simple human essentials. It felt as though they were punished for being in the type of social class that they were in. It wasn’t right and that formed anger is what gave them power and drive. The insurgent group was meant to be more revolutionary and to cross boundaries and classes to get the rich to listen to their demands, to understand their point of view. However, what would someone of that caliber even understand about struggling to survive when they were spoon fed their entire lives?
As the leader of the Corpse Brigade, Wiegraf did not want to employ the despicable means that the upper class enjoyed utilizing with their own political chess game they were administering for everyone to witness. Widespread that the Taverns always had the latest gossip and even some passersby within that had further details that some dared not to bring to light.
Lenalian Plateau… As much as Wiegraf, a commoner doesn’t like to admit it, but news upon hearing his sister being felled by a noble and his racketeer crew only served as the catalyst into descent. He swore revenge initially as that was his only sister and living kin he had left. Everything started with Milleuda, didn’t it? As a Folles, no one backs down and no one leaves without fighting for what they believed in.
Even if it was within their final breath.
As a strategist, he remembers that when one is outnumbered and the resources are spread too thin, it was best to pull back. With this knowledge, he knew that’s why the remaining active Corpse Brigade had disintegrated. Either through death of their cause or cowardice without their leader. In Wiegraf’s eyes, there was not much he could do to assist them if they didn’t know when to withdraw.
Only a fool would remain in the dire straits.
With a renewed purpose and goal to make the snobbish pay, this began his descent into his lust for power.
Everything that had transpired went past vengeance, even if it would have been a satisfying drive to have. To fell those that have brought her down and to bring about the only thing that ruminates in his mind as of late: Madness. Chaos. Anarchy of it’s purest form. His anger seared with a name attached to his ire: Ramza Beoulve.
Joining the Templar Knights, he only cared to make the aristocracy pay. That was all. To wipe them radically from existence and to erect a new Ivalice.
If he could be honest with himself, meeting Loffrey Wodring would be his downfall. He never once cared for the Church of Glabados. What has their Savior, Saint Ajora ever done for him? As a young lad when he did pray for the illness to be rid of his family, only for it to take his mother and eventually debilitate his father, what did he have left? He prayed endlessly, only for one of the priests to tell him that with a pure heart will his prayers be answered.
Was his heart never pure under such logic?
Was he always tainted?
Such flawed beliefs did not bode well for him to place them in the church.
“A religion of such fallacies has no bearing on me.” He disclosed to the fellow knight.
Loffrey placed his hand on the sturdy shoulder that belonged to Wiegraf, “Trust in me, Folles. We are fighting for the same cause, are we not?” Such persuasive words enjoyed slithering around the iron heart he held.
The persuasion tactics persisted long enough to have him join, work amicably amongst others… until Folmarv Tengille, one of the more renowned Templar Knights came to congratulate Wiegraf on something menial. There was more honor in thieves than amongst the nobles and the Tengille name was one he remembered tied to higher power. Nevertheless, there was a shiny orb, a gemstone almost with the Aries insignia etched in… what is this?
“A gift. Surely you did not believe your efforts thus far was all for naught?” Saccharine and convincing from Folmarv.
Gazing upon the gem, it glowed before dimming… Whatever this gift is, Folmarv promised a great power to accompany it—to help him achieve all that he’s wanted and more.
Such a bold offer.
The Aries auracite, later he found out it’s actual name, was fueling his wrath as fuel to power him. Whenever he would hold it close, there was a chance of murmurs being heard. Even in his sleep, there were otherworldly voices beaconing to him. It was unsettling.
But the promise of power beyond his wildest dreams, the ability to enact his goal, and the shared goal of the Templar Knights? Palpable.
To call upon Belias in his final battle with Ramza left him in power of the Lucavi. The demon used his body as a vessel, an avatar to demonstrate how substantial his power was. Only for it to come short since Ramza was stronger… to take out a Lucavi is a feat even Wiegraf, knew was commendable.
Yet, when his body ruptured and dissolved from such a defeat, the only thing he could think of in his final moments in this world…
Milleuda, I’m sorry.
The more equality there is established among men,
The more virtue and happiness will reign in society