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“This is a story that I am not the first to tell. It is a tale of love, of the world's end, of life and death and truth. It is a tale that was told to me, by a young man we now know as the great Queen of Alexandria’s husband… Yes, Zidane Tribal. This is the story of how he and his friends saved this world from its destruction.”
The crowd applauded. Magali smiled. It was a great tale, really. The fact that it was true made it all the better. One detail about it still irked him. Kuja. Kuja, Kuja, Kuja. That name, he knew it. He had met him once. One night. Treno. The sky was dark and Magali was playing a tune in the streets. He had Kuja’s praise. They made conversation, no, banter! And Kuja liked it. Said Magali was more tolerable than any yes-man or social climber he had met that night. He whisked him away to a soiree, where they chatted more until it was Kuja’s time to go.
Magali never met him or heard his name mentioned again until that fateful encounter with Zidane. In a bar, of course. Where stories were exchanged. And realizations made. And Magali Covus Castlebuilder, wandering bard, realized he had a brief, pleasant encounter with the man who almost ended existence as it was known.
When he finished the tale, the crowd applauded. He was offered some drinks, to which he had accepted. But tonight, he drank them not with the euphoria of a good tale, but a musing. An itch for inspiration. He had to set out.
It took him a bit of travel, but he had made it. The Outer Continent. He stopped at the Black Mage Village to rest. Genomes, Black Mages, and the people native to Gaia… to think, they could all unite here, in a place they called home.
Magali had nowhere he called home. He was always on the move. Was he getting to the age where he wanted to settle down? No, no, certainly not, he told himself. But maybe he was itching for some companionship. Not that he’d admit that.
But there was no time to think about that when he saw that beautiful wreckage. Plant life entwined, decaying and living. The Iifa Tree’s roots.
He had to reach out and touch it. To walk on it. To really embrace it.
He leaned too far and fell in.
~
When Magali came to, it was dark and he was dizzy, but he saw a way up. Light at the top. He wasn’t the best climber, but he didn’t want to stay down here forever. Nowhere to go but up, when you’ve hit rock bottom, or perhaps root bottom, in his case.
He climbed for several hours, pausing on little alcoves to take in his surroundings and jot down notes to muse on later. The light got closer and closer, but it still felt so far. It even had dimmed from the pale blue of day to the gilded orange of sunset.
That’s when, on his way up, he spotted a bit of dirt forming an island, and upon it, a bed of roots right where the light fell, almost like a spotlight or a pinhole. Upon closer inspection… a humanoid form under the roots.
By Gaia, had someone else fallen in and gotten trapped? He tugged at the roots expecting a struggle, but instead, they gave quite easily, causing him to hesitate. After he had taken in that perhaps they were old and dead or dying by now, he made quick work of them, pulling them off of the stranger.
Or, at least… he thought it was a stranger. That face. He knew that face. And that outfit, of course he recognized that odd outfit… It was Kuja.
Magali could not explain what he felt at that moment. It was a surge of awareness, a feeling of the slightest of magic in the air, like breath from the man before him, and then, a flurry of feathers forming from Magali himself.
It had been years since he had last taken his Trance form, and the last time, it was to flee after something terrible had happened. It was to fly far, far from where it had occurred.
This time? It was something else. Pure instinct. He didn’t know what had come over him as his body shifted his arms into wings, his legs into talons, his human form into that of some sort of bird-man, his face still human. Magali had often heard of Trance changing the form of one’s garb, maybe causing their body to glow, or some other things, but he didn’t know of any Trance as odd as his own.
The next few minutes were a vivid blur in Magali’s memories. He picked up Kuja in his talons, picked up his bag with his mouth, its grip strengthened as if it was a beak, and he looked up. The pink-orange sky awaited.
He flapped his wings and with a gust, flew like an arrow, straight and true, up and out of the Iifa Tree’s wreckage.
The question was now, where should he go from here?
~
Magali’s mind was full as he flew through the skies, not feeling tired yet, somehow still in Trance, and with a man who barely had a breath of life in him in his talons.
He had concluded that seclusion was ideal, that he could tend to Kuja on his own, that for anyone else to know about this just yet was far too soon - if Zidane had went back for Kuja as he had said once, when they had met, then Magali wouldn’t wish to get his hopes up should he be beyond recovering.
Had he a place he called home, he would have brought Kuja there. But he did not, and frankly, to return to his kin with the man who nearly ended the world would be a convoluted and humiliating idea. So, somehow, the next best thing was breaking and entering.
Normally, this would be below him, and indeed, this was a ridiculous idea. But if Kuja had called this place his own in the past, if Magali could recall correctly what he was told, there was no greater comfort than one’s own bed. Besides, it would have been abandoned by now if Kuja wasn’t around, right…?
He found himself, after some time flying, over the Desert Continent, circling around to find the Desert Palace. It was then he stumbled across a large root like the ones he had seen in the Iifa Tree’s wreckage, looking just as dead as what Kuja had been engulfed in. It appeared to be blocking something, and that was when he realized he had found the right place.
~
Magali’s Trance still had not fully worn off, but he was more humanoid again, the only traces of his birdlike state earlier being the fact that he was still cloaked in feathers (that he was shedding as he walked along), but he had hands again, and for that, he was very grateful. He carried Kuja into the building, and it was sprawling and almost maze-like. It took him ages before he found what appeared to be a sanctum of sorts, which led to a bedroom that looked at least a bit lived in, minus the dust.
And there was a bed in the midst of it all. Finally. Magali gently placed Kuja in the bed, and he could have sworn he saw his chest rise and fall.
He pulled a chair to the bedside, took off his pack, and sat down, exhaustion finally hitting him, but the adrenaline and Trance not gone just yet.
So, he got to work before he was fully worn out. Healing spells. Magali evaluated his condition, and no, he wasn’t dreaming, he was breathing! Perhaps flight had knocked some wind back into him, or perhaps warmth brought some life back into him, or something, but it was a downright miracle in Magali’s eyes that he didn’t have to even attempt a revival spell first.
By the end of it, Magali could not have counted how many healing spells he had cast, or how many pain numbing spells he had added on top of that just to ensure Kuja wouldn’t be in great pain. If he did awaken, pain would be a rude awakening, after all.
When all was said and done, he sat down, Trance finally fizzling away, the adrenaline of the moment gone, and fatigue finally hitting him, not an ounce of magical capacity left in him.
All he could do was wait and hope he woke up.