[Final Fantasy IV] Mad as the Wind and the Storm
Characters/Pairings: Barbariccia/Rubicante, Scarmiglione/Cagnazzo
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Explicit sex, violence, references to torture, depictions of gore, sex between nonhumans, knife play (in the form of claws), bloodplay, and creepy all over the place. The pairing list can also be considered a warning.
Notes: Written for anima_mecanique in the 2009 round of ff_exchange. The prompt was, FF4, The Four Fiends. I'm kind of fond of the Scarmiglione/Cagnazzo pairing (yes, really), but anything about any of the four would be great. Meta about where they come from and what they really are would be awesome, as would something about their relationship with Golbez and the elements themselves. Creepiness definitely encouraged. Although I typically use "Valvalicia" as the spelling for her name, I've used the DS translation for this fic.
Wordcount: 9816
Summary: Even angels fall, and Eidolons are no angels.
Beta: mithrigil
"By my decree neither of you shall be King of the Summons alone, for such an arrangement creates unnecessary strife. Upon each Equinox the rulership of the Feymarch shall pass from one of you to the other, with Leviathan ruling over the light half of the year from winter to summer, and Cagnazzo the opposite. Thus shall you share in rulership over the Feymarch, and thus there shall be balance; for well I know that never have you agreed on a single thing in your entire lives, and the prospect of having your work undone by the other might lead you to be more circumspect in your decrees."-Bahamut, God of Summons, declaring his twin sons Cagnazzo and Leviathan as rulers in his stead upon departing the Feymarch to sleep on the Moon
The summoner stands before her, a slim woman with flowing dark hair and eyes too intense for her face. She reminds Barbariccia, unnervingly, of the Eidolon that of late has taken up much of Leviathan's time, the warrior-healer Asura.
"Summoned, I come," Barbariccia says, the ancient words of the contract between the Feymarch and the Land Above.
"An offering," the woman says, and holds out a tray of beaten metal. The tray is heaped with the tiny purple flowers of a plant that grows in the mountains high above the village. Barbariccia reaches out and scoops up a handful, inhaling their scent. This summoner has done her research-and she must want the power of wind very badly, to make an offering this rare.
"What would you?" Barbariccia puts one of the flowers in her mouth, and it releases sticky sweet nectar. Eidolons do not require food as humans do, but that does not lessen the pleasure of a sweet.
The summoner points at something behind Barbariccia. She turns, and sees a narrow mountain pass.
"Men from Damcyan have kidnapped one of ours," the woman says. "I desire you to pursue them, and punish them, and bring back the child they stole."
Barbariccia nods. It is a small task for one of her power. The woman must want it very badly. "Define your terms," she says. Some summonings are simple, a request for aid in battle, and need not be thus formalized, but for the less defined tasks, Eidolons contract with their summoners. The terms of the contract help them remain in the Overworld, when otherwise they must struggle against the spiritual pull of the Feymarch.
"You will hunt down the band of Damcyan soldiers, led by Captain Caros Verini. You will take from them the child Glenna of Mist, whom you shall know by her red hair and green eyes. Once the child is safe, you will use your powers over wind to flay their flesh from their bones with a sandstorm. You will then return the child Glenna to me. This contract I form with the power in my blood and in accordance with the laws of the Feymarch." The woman's expression is uncompromising, and the protective circle formed by her will is unshakeable.
Barbariccia bows within the circle. "So mote it be," she says. The walls of the circle fall away, no longer needed to shield her from the Overworld's power. She plucks another flower from the heap on the tray and licks the nectar from it.
The woman bows. "They went east, and north," she says. "Do you desire to take the offering with you, or do you prefer I keep it here until the task is complete?"
Barbariccia considers. "You will keep it, and return it to me when I return to you your child." The woman's eyelids flinch, and Barbariccia allows her mouth to curve in the expression humans call a smile. She was correct, then. If she so desired, she could wring concessions from this woman, by holding the child hostage.
Her inner core resists the idea. Such a thing is contrary to the contract forged centuries ago between the denizens of the Feymarch and the summoners of Mist.
Barbariccia sighs and launches herself skyward, calling the wind to buoy her up and carry her to these Damcyan soldiers. Killing them will at least prove entertaining.
The mountains that surround the village of Mist are some of the highest in the world, and the air above them is thin, clear, and icy cold. Barbariccia arrows upward and slices into a cloud, letting the tiny ice crystals within it cling to her hair and eyelashes until she nearly sparkles in the sun. This high above the ground, the land loses most of its smaller distinguishing features, becoming an uneven patchwork of green, brown, blue, and white. She breathes deeply of her element, and begins her dive.
The wind screams past her, and were she human it would be sharp on her skin like knives. She plunges downward, calling on the wind for more speed, and laughing aloud at the sheer pleasure of being surrounded by her element-nothing like the airless stillness of the Feymarch, where she must expend her strength to get even the hint of a breeze to stir. The ground rushes up to meet her, and she sees the detachment of Damcyan soldiers. Her approach is so swift that they do not even see her coming, and she slices through their midst to snatch the child from her perch on the front of a soldier's saddle. As she soars upward, the men shout in confusion and reach for their swords-but to strike what? She is insubstantial as air save where she wishes to be, and they seem unwilling to strike the child.
She causes her voice to echo like the great tolling bells of Mysidia. "You have taken that which did not belong to you, and you shall be punished," she tells them. She could have simply slain them with no warning, but she finds their inchoate panic and accompanying terror so much more rewarding.
"Begone with you, hell-demon!" Their leader seems unperturbed by his men's fear and her actions; he stands in the stirrups of his saddle with his sword drawn. She finds him intriguing, and allows herself to take enough shape to be visible, if not tangible. The child burrows closer in her arms.
"Who are you, to challenge me thus?" she asks.
His face, beneath the steel helm, is determined, jaw set stubbornly. "I am Captain Caros Verini of the Damcyan Royal Guard, and I am charged with seeing the Princess Glenna safely to her father. You will not interfere."
Barbariccia laughs. The honourable humans are always the most fun to shred. She will save him for last.
She makes a gesture, and the light breeze that had been swirling grains of sand around the feet of their chocobos intensifies. The girl child is safe in her arms, and the wind divides neatly around the captain so as not to touch him. He has conveniently moved forward, out of the detachment, and that means she need spend less care on keeping him out of the maelstrom. She diverts a fragment of the wind and spins it in on itself, feeding it her own power as it whips the sand into a tornado.
What were formerly harmless eddies of sand grow denser, but she does not wish the fun to be over too quickly. The chocobos wark uneasily, shifting their stubby wings. She causes the whirlwind to narrow until they flutter in panic. They cannot escape, for they will not attempt the edges of the sandstorm. She has tested her powers on such animals before, and knows that their instinct is to duck their heads under their wings and sink down onto the desert floor, seeking to wait out the storm. From the shouts of the soldiers, they are discovering this very fact, to their chagrin.
The whirlwind rises higher, a golden-brown mass. She can hear the shouts of panic from the soldiers.
The captain charges her; she leaps aside. The tornado spins higher, and she commands it to lift the chocobos right off their feet, then to narrow in and scour the flesh from their bones. It obeys, for it can do nothing else when she is so near it. Tiny crimson droplets escape the whirlwind and spatter her. She licks a few from her claws and smiles. They are the colour of Rubicante's cloak.
She calls a gentler breeze to lift the child and hold her safely suspended some two hundred feet above, and then turns to face the captain. Unlike many human men, he meets her eyes directly, observing her face rather than her shape. She bares her fangs at him.
"Release my men, fiend," he commands, his sword held at the ready.
Barbariccia tilts her head. Their screaming is only barely audible over the howling fury of the maelstrom. She causes the wind to abate the slightest bit, the better to enjoy the sound. "Do you wish to put an end to their suffering yourself, then?" she asks. "For when I am done with them, there will be naught for them to do save crawl until they die of exposure and heat." She diverts a fragment of her attention to the maelstrom and discovers that it has nearly done its job. She lessens the winds, letting the men and birds sink to the desert floor. Combining sand with her element is so very effective; she ought to speak to Scarmiglione about devising more ways for their powers to work together, though he has rarely had the stomach for this sort of task.
His focus does not waver. "If that is what I must do to prevent their death at your hands, yes."
She taps her claws against her lip in a manner she has seen human women do when considering a problem. "And what do you offer, in exchange for my clemency?" she asks. She will not violate the terms of her contract, but that does not mean she cannot enjoy herself in the meantime.
"I offer you the chance to retreat with some semblance of dignity, if not honour," he says.
They never seem to learn.
She spreads her arms wide. "If you think you can defeat me-" Her pause is punctuated by the nicely timed thump of his men's bodies hitting the ground in the sudden silence as she stops the storm "-then by all means, let us battle. If you win, you may grant your men the swift death you seem to think they deserve."
To his credit, he does not waver, nor give in to the temptation to look at his men. She waits for him to strike.
He is a skilled opponent, enough so that he could give her some slight trouble were she lazy or careless. She is neither-she only projects that image-and she evades his strikes with ease, fitting only a few of her own into the gaps.
She sees the effect of her powers soon enough, seeing his limbs slow and weigh down with the pressure of petrifaction. He realizes too late what she has done, and lunges forward in a last desperate bid to strike her down. She soars out of his reach and hovers there, watching, as his limbs freeze into the pallor of stone.
His head, of course, is the last thing to be changed, and she hovers low to whisper in his ear. "Well fought, Captain."
Even now, he shows no fear of her. "Your time shall come, fiend," he tells her, and she laughs, for if the finest warriors of Damcyan cannot even touch her, who would have any prayer of besting her?
He faces his doom bravely, and his expression when at last he turns completely to stone is impassive.
She is unwillingly impressed.
She has been told that those seized by such spells retain awareness and intellect, at least for a time, until they go mad. Perhaps in a hundred years she will return here and call a sandstorm to wear him down into fine gravel. Perhaps she will bring a golden needle with her, restore him, and continue their game. He might be more entertaining when driven mad. For now, she calls the wind to carry him to a remote cave in the mountains, there to await her attention.
His men are nearly dead, but not quite, the last of their life's blood seeping into the sand beneath them where she has flayed the skin and flesh from them. Slowly its brilliant shade darkens to something more reminiscent of Scarmiglione's woody flesh. She stands attendant until the last of them has expired, and then takes the child back to Mist and claims her reward.
~*~
There are gaps between the Land Above and the Feymarch. They make it possible, albeit difficult, for eidolons to pass between the worlds absent a summoner's contract. Barbariccia remains in the Land Above until the pull of the Feymarch becomes too insistent and painful to ignore, and then seeks out the nearest gap and dives into it. The closer she draws to the Feymarch, the less it pains her. She slips through the other end of the gap and pulls up short, surprised to find the others awaiting her.
It takes her but a moment to survey their moods. Cagnazzo is resentful and angry, which is not unusual as he is to relinquish rulership to Leviathan in two weeks' time (or perhaps today; she is unsure of the passage of time when she has been in the world above.) Scarmiglione has one of his hands resting on Cagnazzo's shell; the scent of earth and growing things emanates from him much more strongly than usual, a sure sign of agitation. Rubicante is comparatively impassive, but the set of his shoulders implies trouble. She can smell cinder smoke, and the tang of brine. If all of them are this upset, something ill indeed is afoot.
"What is it?" she asks.
Cagnazzo growls. Scarmiglione strokes his shell gently, and the scent of lavender comes to her. She crosses her arms and pins them with her best glare. "I do not possess talents of mind-reading," she reminds them sharply.
"Leviathan took office today," Rubicante says, and she turns to him, drawing a little closer to the heat he exudes as easily as she floats.
"And?" she prompts, when he seems unwilling to continue.
Cagnazzo growls again. Scarmiglione sighs. "He has named Asura his Queen, to share in his power and rulership during the light half of the year."
"And yet he tells me it is an unfair use of power if I name Milon my co-ruler during the dark half!" Cagnazzo bursts out, and sprays salt water in a wide circle around him. It hisses when it hits Rubicante's cloak, and a few of the leaves growing from Scarmiglione's flesh wilt on contact with it.
Barbariccia can only gape.
"We have awaited your return, Barbariccia," Scarmiglione says. His voice is soothing, like the scent from the lavender blooms that he has caused to grow in some profusion from his flesh.
"I want you to help me kill him," Cagnazzo says, and little wavelets begin to lap at his feet.
"No," Rubicante says quickly, before Barbariccia can agree or disagree with Cagnazzo's proposal.
"No?" Scarmiglione repeats, tilting his head.
"If you would have this out," Rubicante tells Cagnazzo, "and if you would have the Eidolons acknowledge the rightness of your claim, you cannot start with violence."
"What, then?" Cagnazzo asks. "I am simply to sit by while he ruins the balance our father crafted?"
For herself, Barbariccia thinks that balance more like uncomfortable stasis, neither able to accomplish much for fear of the other undoing his work for spite, but that is not the issue here. "It would not be honourable," she says aloud, quietly, and earns a look of approval from Rubicante.
"Who cares?" Cagnazzo snarls.
"I do," Rubicante snaps, "and if you would have my aid and support in this, you will heed me."
Cagnazzo pauses at that, for Rubicante is the strongest of them. "And if I don't?" he says at length, his tone sulky.
Rubicante folds his arms. "Then your actions will determine mine. If you seek to act dishonorably, I will stand against you, whether I agree with Leviathan or not."
Barbariccia wonders what it is about those with honour that causes them to choose such difficult paths. She hesitates, torn between loyalties.
"Rubicante is wise," Scarmiglione says soothingly, and saves her the trouble. "If you just up and attack him, you leave the pathway open for another to do the same to you."
Cagnazzo growls and the wavelets lap harder about his feet. Barbariccia lifts herself a few inches into the air to spare the end of her trailing mass of hair; salt water makes it irritatingly sticky.
"We can accomplish your aim honourably," Rubicante assures Cagnazzo, who grumbles again. "He knows the terms of the arrangement as well as you do."
"Come, Cagnazzo," Scarmiglione coaxes, "you should have some rest. It has been a tiring day." He presses close against Cagnazzo's shell, nut-brown fingers smoothing over the glistening damp skin of Cagnazzo's head. Barbariccia barely contains her smirk. Rest, indeed.
They depart, Cagnazzo still grumbling, and she turns to Rubicante. He shakes his head. "I cannot tell you any more than has already been said," he says. "The crown had barely settled on Leviathan's head when he called Asura up on the dais with him."
Barbariccia frowns. "But I recall that at the last changeover, he specifically objected to Cagnazzo naming Milon to aid him," she says.
Rubicante shrugs. "That may have been before he made this decision; at any rate, he must now allow Cagnazzo to do the same or else I shall protest Asura's involvement."
"You might protest it anyway," she suggests.
He shakes his head. "She has done no wrong, nor has he."
"Yet." Barbariccia flicks her hair back.
Rubicante shrugs. "There is naught we can do for it now, until Cagnazzo decides what he will." He smiles then, changing the subject. "And to what purpose were you summoned?" His eyes linger on the tiny drops of blood she has not yet cleaned from her flesh, and she sees his interest spark.
She tells him of her task as they make their way to his abode, relishing the telling of her sandstorm. He draws her into bed with him, his hands clever and hot on her skin as he encourages her to tell him the details. He does not particularly care how the men died, but he likes the game of distracting her, forcing her to split her attention between just what his hands and tongue are doing to her and what she is trying to say.
He waits until she is close, so very close to climax, and then his hands grip her hips and hold her still. She strains to move, and finds herself constrained, unable to create the friction she needs. "And what did you do to their captain?" he asks her, his voice taking on that deep note that always stirs her.
She swears at him, and he laughs. "Well?" he prompts. He barely shifts his hips, enough to promise more. "Tell me."
It takes effort to pull her mind away from the insistent drive of passion, and she bares her fangs at him to indicate her displeasure. He merely waits.
She debates, her pride warring with her desire for him, and snarls again when desire wins. He knew it would win, and she could almost hate him for it, except that he is the only one strong enough to do this to her, and she rather relishes that fact. So she calls the wind to lash his skin with the ends of her hair, tiny stinging barbs, to indicate that while she complies she is not controlled, and flexes her claws into his shoulders. "I turned him to stone," she says. His hands loosen on her hips, enough for her to move, but she can't move enough and she snarls at him again and flexes her claws deeper. He looks at her impassively.
"I turned him to stone," she says again, "and put him in a mountain cave to wait for me. If I remember, I'll go back in a few centuries to play with him." Her lips curl into an expression of derision. "He was an honourable man."
Rubicante is no fool; he hears what she does not say. She pursues honourable humans because it pleases her to break them. She cannot break him, and so she breaks them instead, hoping to find the key by which she might break him down in a similar fashion.
He shifts his hips just a touch-not enough-and she moves hard against him, bringing the force of storm winds to bear. He stills completely. Snarling, she rakes her claws across his chest-no mere warning swipe, this, leaving deep gouges in his flesh. His hands grip painfully tight on her hips, more of his fire coming to the surface, and it scorches her skin. She hisses at him.
"One more thing," he says agreeably. "What was the summoner's name?"
She cannot fathom why he is so interested in this one task, save only to torment her. "Her name is Resha," she snarls.
Finally, finally he lets go her hips, his own moving in quick rhythm against her. She sinks her fangs into his shoulder when she comes, a reminder to him that she might be slightly less than he in power but that this does not mean she will meekly accept anything he chooses to do. He bites her neck, tearing her flesh, and licks the blood away. She sees the silvery gleam of her blood on his lips, so different from the crimson blood of the humans, before his scorching tongue flickers out to consume it.
She rises from his bed immediately, uninterested in remaining with him now that her urge has been sated.
"Barbariccia," he says as she reaches the door.
"Yes?"
"You will tell me, if Cagnazzo seeks to do anything foolish?"
She considers it, more out of spite than anything else, but ultimately the matter is of no importance to her so long as it remains amusing. Tension between Rubicante and Cagnazzo is nearly always amusing, so she shrugs. "I will."
She leaves his basalt-and-obsidian palace and flies to her own abode, an eyrie tucked into the heights of the Feymarch, to savour the remainder of her reward from the summoner.
~*~
She hears a buzz of interest and conversation far below her eyrie, and leans her head out to see what is afoot. Leviathan is out in public, and she notes Asura by his side, looking composed and gracious. She wonders what has prompted him to come out in this manner; usually when governing, he remains at the Eidolon Throne, waiting for the Eidolons to bring problems to him.
Far below her, she sees the gleam of Cagnazzo's shell, and the blur of green beside him that must be Scarmiglione. She drops from her eyrie like a bat releasing the branch on which it has hung, diving toward them with her arms closed tight against her body. She unfurls at the last moment, landing gracefully before them.
Scarmiglione greets her warmly, with an embrace. Cagnazzo snorts wetly and glowers.
"Well?" she says, and tilts her head to indicate the current rulers of the Feymarch.
Cagnazzo starts to pull his head into his shell. Scarmiglione strokes the top of his head soothingly. "It seems he wishes to show off his new queen," Scarmiglione says, and there is bitterness in his tone, for all that he is gentle with Cagnazzo.
She casts her gaze about for Rubicante, but she does not see his crimson cloak anywhere. Well, if he is not here then he cannot gainsay them. "Why do you not ask him about it?" Barbariccia asks.
Scarmiglione considers. "It may be well thought of," he says slowly to Cagnazzo. "At best, he may relent and apologize; at worst, you make your discontent known, and may sway others to your cause."
"Can't I just kill him?" Cagnazzo grumbles.
"No," Scarmiglione says in unison with Barbariccia.
"Rubicante told you not to," Barbariccia says.
"You cannot be certain that you are stronger than he, at least not alone," Scarmiglione adds.
Cagnazzo dismisses her contribution with a snort, but he does appear to consider Scarmiglione's words. "I will not fight him," he says at last. "Not today." He begins to make his way toward Leviathan and Asura, slow and ponderous in his favoured turtle form. Scarmiglione hangs back with Barbariccia, watching as anxiously as any human woman with a single child.
"Do you think he will succeed?" Scarmiglione asks her.
Barbariccia shrugs. "Do you think he can keep his temper under control?"
Scarmiglione sighs and shakes his head. "You know he will not. That gives Leviathan the advantage."
"You will stand with him?" It isn't really a question, and he knows that.
"Rubicante said something this morning about another option," Scarmiglione says, braiding some of the tiny vines dripping from his arm in a typical nervous gesture.
"Where is he?" She cranes her head and lifts a few feet into the air, but she still does not see him among the clustered Eidolons.
"I don't know. Gone to investigate, I suppose." Scarmiglione gnaws on his lip.
"Leviathan!" Cagnazzo's voice rings out over the square with the thunderous roar of surf. Everyone freezes and turns toward him, standing only a few yards from Leviathan. Barbariccia notes that Asura has chosen to wear her mother-face today, soothing and gentle.
"Brother," Leviathan says, with every indication of cordiality. Barbariccia knows that they loathe each other, loathe the power-sharing that Bahamut forced upon them, but you would never know it to see Leviathan in public. Today he wears the guise of a bent old fisherman, rather than the face of a dragon. She wonders if they knew what Cagnazzo intended, and chose to clothe themselves in their weakest-seeming miens, the better to win support.
It would not surprise her if they did so.
She can hear Cagnazzo's struggle to control his temper in his tone. "You have dealt with me unfairly, Leviathan, and I demand that you remedy this."
"Unfairly?" Asura says, her expression one of astonishment. Barbariccia would almost believe it, if Leviathan were not stroking his beard in the human manner. She mistrusts his expression of polite interest.
"They know what he is after," Scarmiglione murmurs, and Barbariccia shushes him.
"When last I took the throne," Cagnazzo says to Leviathan, "you told me that it would be unfair for me to have Scarmiglione with me. Yet the moment the crown rests on your head, you call Asura up on the dais to be your Queen!" His irritation shows in the wavelets lapping at his feet, and the increasingly strong smell of brine.
Asura's expression shifts to dismay, and she reaches out a hand. Leviathan frowns. "I did not realize you sought to name Scarmiglione your-" He pauses, just an instant too long. "Your bond-mate," he finishes.
The smell of autumn leaves nearly overwhelms Barbariccia. She grabs at Scarmiglione's wrist before he can storm into the center of their confrontation. "Don't go down there," she hisses.
"They are playing with him," Scarmiglione snarls.
"Yes, they are, and you will only make it worse if you go!"
She nearly misses Cagnazzo's response, caught up in her efforts to stop Scarmiglione. "I told you," Cagnazzo is shouting, "I told you that he was my mate!"
Asura steps backward, hands upraised in what should be a gesture of peace. It would be, if Barbariccia did not see the cold, hard smile at the corner of her warrior-face's mouth. "I don't wish to be a cause of strife," she says aloud.
Leviathan puts a hand on her wrist-not her sword-hand, Barbariccia notes-and addresses Cagnazzo. "I did not realize your intent, and I am sorry," he says very calmly to Cagnazzo. "When next you take the crown, by all means name Scarmiglione as your-bond-mate." Again, that faintest of pauses taints the overture of peace. Eidolons have no preference on gender, as such things are fluid, and the only reason for Leviathan to so dismiss Scarmiglione is to infuriate both him and Cagnazzo. Barbariccia stares, fascinated, and nearly forgets to hold Scarmiglione back. "I would not have it said that I have upset the balance between us," Leviathan concludes.
Objectively, Barbariccia could admire his ability to maneuver others, were it not Cagnazzo and Scarmiglione he chooses to manipulate.
Cagnazzo jerks his head in something that looks like assent, but Barbariccia knows him too well. He stomps away from Leviathan and Asura, leaving puddles of seawater and trails of seaweed in his wake.
He rejoins them amid the murmurs of the other Eidolons. "I will tear his throat out," Cagnazzo snarls, and seawater sprays all around him. Barbariccia levitates clear of it, brushing at the drops that cling to her legs. "Rubicante or no, I will have his blood!"
"Well, do not do it right now," Scarmiglione advises him sharply. "He has turned most of the other Eidolons to his side with that so-gracious little speech, and you cannot fight all of them at once, even with my help and Barbariccia's."
Barbariccia wonders precisely when she had offered to fight beside them, for she does not recall saying such a thing.
"I hate them, Milon," Cagnazzo says.
"I know." Scarmiglione bestows a kiss on the top of Cagnazzo's head, and looks up at Barbariccia. "We are going to retire," he says firmly. "You will tell Rubicante of these doings?"
"I am not your dog," she says, "to be ordered hither to fight and thither to bear tales."
"I am sorry," Scarmiglione says, and she thinks he is probably sincere. "I assumed too much. Would you mind telling Rubicante, as a favour to me?"
Mollified, she nods. He places a hand on Cagnazzo's shell, and they move toward the grotto that they share.
She flies back to her eyrie, to wait and watch for Rubicante.
~*~
He is nearly three months in returning to the Feymarch, and she wonders what task he could possibly have been summoned for that would take so long in the world above. Cagnazzo grows more impatient, and it takes all of Scarmiglione's formidable store of patience and soothing tricks to hold him in check. Leviathan and Asura go about their business calmly enough.
She is playing a game of tag with the Sylphs, who have left their cave to visit on the Solstice as they usually do, when he returns. She quickly tags one of her smaller cousins and bows out of the game, shrugging off their laughing invitations to remain. Rubicante does not acknowledge her, but turns toward his palace.
She flies after him, and finds him sprawled in the enormous fire pit that forms the center of his receiving hall. His attendant Whyts-those who aspire to become fire-spirits one day-have kept the flames burning in his absence, and now they rise high around their master, wrapping him in flickering red-orange light.
He ignores her for several minutes more, a fact that would irritate her if she did not see that his breathing is shallow and his complexion paler than it ought to be. She grows bored of waiting, and snarls at one of the Whyts to stoke the fire higher.
At length he revives somewhat, and sits up in the fire pit to face her.
"What could they have asked of you, that so wearied you?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "I was not summoned; I went of my own accord."
Barbariccia calculates the time he would have spent in the world above, and is stunned. "To what end do you drain your strength like this?" she asks sharply.
He shakes his head again. "I will not discuss this more than once. You will know when I tell Cagnazzo and Scarmiglione."
"I will bring them," she says, and he nods wearily.
She bursts into their grotto, the force of her storm winds tangling the artfully arranged curtain of hanging seaweed that serves them for a door. Cagnazzo, in his humanoid form for once, starts and twists toward her. Scarmiglione ignores her utterly, continuing to move rhythmically.
Barbariccia settles herself on a convenient rock protrusion and watches.
It amuses her that her presence makes no difference to them (and why should it? Shame is a human frailty not shared by their kind.)
When they are done, Scarmiglione turns to her. "I presume you have some reason for coming here, other than to watch me deploy my skills," he says with a playful leer.
She laughs. "Rubicante has something to tell us."
Scarmiglione pauses, and glances at Cagnazzo, who is in the process of turning himself back into a turtle. He shakes himself, and salt spray flies. "He had better have a very good plan," Cagnazzo says.
"Even if he does not, you still have the option of just killing him," Barbariccia says amiably, leading the way out of the grotto. She levitates to more easily navigate Scarmiglione's complicated gardens; she is not in a mood for his clever hedge-mazes today. For him, of course, the plants bow gracefully out of his way.
Rubicante looks much improved by the time they arrive, though he remains within the flames that will restore his strength. He rises and bows courteously to all of them. "Thank you for coming here," he says.
Scarmiglione takes an automatic half-step forward. "Are you well?" he asks. "Did your summoner mistreat you?"
"I was not summoned." Rubicante seats himself once again in the flames, ignoring the Whyt that bustles around to heap more fuel into the fire pit. Barbariccia seats herself mid-air to hear what he has to say. Cagnazzo half-retreats into his shell, and Scarmiglione kneels next to him.
"I have spoken to Leviathan," Cagnazzo says before Rubicante can continue. "He claims he did not realize I wanted Milon to reign with me as bond-mate, and that I should do this when we exchange again. I think he lies."
"Whether he lies or not, I have a better proposal." Rubicante smiles. "I have been in the Land Above of my own will."
Scarmiglione draws a sharp breath. "Small wonder you are weakened," he says.
Rubicante shrugs. "It is of no matter. I believe I have found a solution to Cagnazzo's problem. The Feymarch stifles us, holds us bound to its laws. You have experienced this, I think-any time you sought to disobey a summoner's commands?" He waits for their nods, and smiles. "I think I have found a way that we may remain in the Land Above absent a contract, and not drain our strength. It will require all four of us, and it will require us to work together whole-heartedly, holding nothing back; but if we do so, we could rule the Land Above."
"How?" Cagnazzo says, his head popping fully out of his shell.
Barbariccia is too taken aback by the scope of his plan to say anything.
"We will raise a tower of magic," Rubicante says, "and tie it to the four elements, so that it will sustain itself. That is why all four of us must do it. It will be a shelter for us. We will still need to spend some of our strength to work in the world outside it, but it is a temporary measure. When we are more established, we can devise a better safeguard for ourselves, but this will do for the present."
"If we cannot leave the tower without spending our strength," Scarmiglione says thoughtfully, "how then do you propose that we rule the Land Above?"
"Through the summoners," Barbariccia says suddenly. "That is why you wished to know who had called me."
Rubicante inclines his head. "Indeed. The summoner Resha desires power. We can give it to her. She is only human and will die in a few years anyway. By then, we will have been able to create a better anchor, and there will be nothing to stop us."
"And Leviathan?" Cagnazzo asks.
"Let him keep the Feymarch," Rubicante says. "He is so concerned with staying out of human affairs; let him then remain outside them entirely. We can sever the link between the Feymarch and the Land Above, and use that power to build our second anchor."
"Why not the first?" Scarmiglione says, and then answers his own question. "Ahh, because the anchor provides enough power for us to remain in the human land in the interim."
"Just so." Rubicante nods.
"When?" Barbariccia is bored with all this planning; she just wants the simple points.
"When I have regained my strength. Two days' time, let us say," Rubicante says.
They agree, and go their separate ways.
~*~
"Are you prepared?" Rubicante asks. Barbariccia nods, eager to be on her way. She does not take well to stillness, nor enforced idleness. She dared not raise a challenge in the Feymarch so near to the execution of their plan, and she is frustrated by inaction.
"Then let us go," Rubicante says, and the four of them clasp hands. Cagnazzo has deigned to take on human shape today, and his palm is damp and clammy against hers. Scarmiglione's is covered in tiny leaves and vines, which emit a pleasing scent where her claws score them. She sees steam rising where Rubicante's hand clasps Cagnazzo's, and a faint smoldering smoke where he clasps Scarmiglione's.
She hears a shout of alarm from someone-Shiva, she thinks-as they launch themselves upwards and through the rift that forms a more direct link to the Land Above than the tortuous hallways of the Eidolon Passage. It is draining to travel so, like forcing one's way through shoulder-deep honey, sticky and agonizingly slow. She throws the power of wind out before her like an axe-blade, spinning until she is a whirlwind of destruction, and knows that her brothers do the same, pitting their power against the gravity of the Feymarch.
At last, at last, they burst through the rift in the mountains high above Mist. She can feel the rejection of the Land Above, which tries to force her back into the rift and down into the Feymarch where it thinks she belongs.
She refuses to go.
"Now!" Rubicante commands, and she directs her power toward him, draining her reserves to a dangerous point. Rubicante is the oldest of them, and the strongest. They all entrust their power to him, and he shapes it around them, a dazzling spear of milky crystal that rises whole from the mountaintop and forms itself into a tower. As the walls coalesce around her, the pull of the Feymarch weakens, until it is no longer an overwhelming force but merely a nagging consciousness.
Rubicante breaks their circle, letting go of Cagnazzo and Scarmiglione's hands, and they all collapse into a heap in the center of their tower.
It is a long time before any of them speak.
~*~
Within a month of the human world's time, the summoner Resha rules a territory stretching over nearly all the continent, from Damcyan to Baron City, and westward nearly to Troia. The Epopts of Troia yet hold out, but they cannot do so for long, not when Scarmiglione can siphon the power of their Earth Crystal and hold the blessings of it at bay. They used similar tactics in conquering Damcyan, using the elemental power of the crystal to empower themselves while depriving their opponents of the same. The elemental energies go to feed their Tower, making it easier to replenish their energies while within.
Barbariccia is the only one in the Tower when the Sylph arrives, a nervous flighty thing bearing a silken scroll. "I come for Cagnazzo," the Sylph says.
Barbariccia flips her hair to her back and smiles at the Sylph, who shrinks back in fear. This one is young, probably only just transformed. Barbariccia calls the wind to spin slowly around her. "Cagnazzo is out," she says sweetly. "Leave your message."
The Sylph shrinks back fearfully. "I cannot, my lady," she says respectfully. "I was commanded to speak only to Cagnazzo."
"Mmmm." Barbariccia drifts closer. "What is your name?"
"M-Mindy," the Sylph stammers.
Barbariccia smiles at her. "And do you know Sandy and Cindy, little Mindy?"
Mindy's nervous gaze darts around the Tower. "Y-yes, lady," she says. "They-they are Sylphs."
"They were Sylphs," Barbariccia corrects her. "Now, they belong to me."
Mindy's eyes widen. "You-you cannot do that," she protests.
"Of course I can." Barbariccia gauges her moment, and reaches out to snatch the scroll from Mindy's hand when the Sylph stumbled backwards. Mindy squeaks in protest, but makes no effort to retrieve it. "They were given a choice, you see," she continues, tapping the scroll against her palm. "Serve me, or die."
"We can't die," Mindy says.
Barbariccia laughs. "Oh, you can die, certainly. Do you not know the tale of how Alexander willed himself into lifeless stone, when he grew tired of unceasing existence?" She smiles and stalks closer to the Sylph, who shrinks back in fear. It is intoxicating. "It is difficult to kill one of us, certainly, but when we wish for death..." She lets the sentence dangle.
"My sisters wouldn't wish for death," Mindy says, suddenly fierce.
Barbariccia calls the wind, and it lifts the tiny Sylph and slams her violently into the wall. She cries out in pain.
"At first, no," she says, when she is sure that Mindy is paying proper attention again. "But I can be very patient, and I wanted their servitude. They chose wisely." She steps closer, her claws trailing lightly over Mindy's arms, and feels the shivers that wrack her body. "Will you require me to be patient, Mindy? Or will you serve of your own will?"
"I-I don't believe you," Mindy says.
"Girls, come out," Barbariccia calls.
Sandy, tall and thin and ramrod-straight, steps out of her hiding place. Cindy tucks herself into a ball and rolls to Barbariccia's feet. Mindy stares in horror at the two creatures, once proud and beautiful Sylphs, now reshaped in a way that suits Barbariccia's purposes. Such is the Tower's magic, and the power of the Crystals.
"Serve with us, little sister," Cindy says. She is half Sandy's height, yet even so she towers over Mindy. "The Empress of the Winds is a most gracious mistress."
Barbariccia strokes Cindy's hair, and is pleased when Cindy cannot control the twitch that the caress evokes. Nonetheless, she rubs her cheek against Barbariccia's hip in a caress.
Mindy whimpers.
Sandy steps forward now. "Be one with us, little sister," she says encouragingly, trailing a fingertip from Mindy's chin down to the curves of her naked breasts. Barbariccia sees how the motion makes the skin of Sandy's back crawl, and she is pleased. "Barbariccia has given us great power. We are so much more than we were."
Barbariccia's hair twines around the haft of Sandy's spear. Sandy strokes her hair carefully, but her hand is shaking with fear. Barbariccia smiles.
"Serve me," she commands.
"It is better if you serve willingly," Cindy says, and shudders. "The Empress of Winds is kind to her servants when they are good."
"She gave me this lovely spear," Sandy says, stroking it with a shaking hand. Barbariccia recalls the crimson taint of Sandy's blood when she plunged the spear into the Sylph's shoulder, and Sandy's screams. The memory sends a little shudder of pleasure running through her, and she debates whether it would be more pleasant to demand the attention of her new servants, or wait for Rubicante's return.
No, her servants have behaved themselves admirably today. They have earned a reward. Rubicante has frequently stressed the idea that well-rewarded servants will provide better service in the long run.
Barbariccia smiles at Mindy. "Decide, little one," she says, too softly. Her claws hover above Mindy's shoulder, razor-sharp tips barely brushing the skin.
"It is a worthy service," Cindy says, and her voice quavers only a little. She learns. Her fingertips stroke tiny circles on Barbariccia's inner thighs; this, too, she has learned.
"She is generous to us," Sandy adds, toying with loose strands of Mindy's hair.
Mindy seems to crumple in on herself, a slow collapse. Leviathan should not have sent one so young and weak; at least the first two showed signs of spirit and determination. "I will serve," she says in a very small voice.
"Good girl," Barbariccia croons, stroking Mindy's cheek delicately with the tips of her claws.
After Mindy swears the oath, Barbariccia bids her servants please her.
They perform adequately, and for that, she withholds punishment.
~*~
The shouting downstairs rouses her from the pleasant state of semi-awareness that she slid into after her servants' ministrations had exhausted her. Grumbling, she descends to see what so enrages the others.
Cagnazzo is shouting, Leviathan's silk scroll half-trampled underfoot. Barbariccia yawns and perches near the ceiling to observe.
"I will not stand for this!" he declares, probably not for the first time.
"No one is asking you to," Scarmiglione soothes him.
"Ignore it," Rubicante suggests.
"No." Cagnazzo stomps, and crushes the scroll utterly. "I have ignored the last two. I cannot ignore this. I will not go running home like a whipped dog."
Rubicante sighs. "I will not aid you in assassination. I have told you this. It is dishonorable. Either stand and fight as befits an Eidolon, or lack my support."
Cagnazzo snarls. Barbariccia understands; Leviathan is a powerful adversary, and it would make things easier to strike from the shadows.
"Perhaps it is best," Scarmiglione admits reluctantly. "We do stand together quite well."
"Why do you side with him?" Cagnazzo seems caught between outrage and puerile whining.
"I do not take sides," Scarmiglione says, and it is a sign of the toll this affair has taken on him that his voice is sharp. "I am telling you what I perceive to be best. You are under no obligation to take my advice-but I would hope you would consider it nonetheless. We are not here to cause you harm, Cagnazzo."
Barbariccia considers adding to the conversation, but it is then that she feels the sharp prickles of summoning in her mind. Her first thought is that the summoner bitch is getting uppity; the second is that this is far more powerful a call than any mere human could muster.
From the way the others have abruptly fallen silent, they feel it too.
"I cannot fight it," Rubicante says aloud, and she feels a chill run through her.
"Nor I," Cagnazzo says, and his voice is strained.
Scarmiglione's smile is grim. "It seems our choice is made-"
This is unlike any summoning she has ever experienced. Usually it becomes harder to travel the farther along the magic-woven path she goes, only the will of the summoner making it possible to break the last few barriers between the Feymarch and the Land Above. This is quite the opposite, more akin to how her speed increases when she plunges downward from a great height. Her claws scrabble for purchase on the glass-slick walls of the magic pathway, to no avail.
She lands, not on her feet as she is accustomed to do, but in a heap below a dais. She springs upright, dimly aware that she feels more alive here than she has in over a month. Their tower is an adequate shield, but naught compared to the true power of the Feymarch.
She is bound in a circle of golden light, much as she might be in a summoning above. Beside her, she can see Rubicante enchained in crimson light, and to her other side, Cagnazzo's azure prison. Scarmiglione's emerald circle lies beyond Cagnazzo's, only barely visible to her.
Before her, Leviathan is resplendent in his dragon form, Asura proud beside him with her severe warrior's face foremost. They have arrayed themselves so as to be above her, which she loathes, and so she draws herself up to her greatest height and fixes a glare upon them that would have turned humans to stone.
"Rubicante, Barbariccia, Cagnazzo, Scarmiglione," Leviathan says, in the booming voice that is like unto waves crashing at the base of a high cliff. "You are summoned here to answer charges of violating the laws of the Feymarch and endangering our land by so doing."
"Rot in the deserts of Damcyan," Cagnazzo snarls.
Rubicante's tone, by contrast, bears at least a semblance of courtesy. "We do not feel that those laws are beneficial to us, thus do we choose to live outside them," he says. "It is of no concern to you what we do in the Land Above."
"Untrue," Asura says, and the fact that Leviathan lets her speak in his place is more telling than anything else of the esteem in which he holds her. "The creation of your tower stole power that was needed to maintain the Feymarch, and your actions in the Land Above have repercussions here. We exist-the Feymarch exists-by virtue of the contracts we have formed with the summoners and with the basic forces of the world. Your actions threaten those contracts."
"If the contracts are broken, so too would the Feymarch dissolve," Leviathan continues. "And if you have no care for us-which I am forced to assume you do not-then consider this: if the Feymarch dies, so too will your tower, and you will last only as long as your personal will allows before the World tears you limb from limb."
Barbariccia glances at Cagnazzo, who strains forward in his circle and appears not at all chastened, and then at Rubicante, who appears unsurprised.
It is then she realizes that he meant for it to come to this all along.
Has he been working for Leviathan?
"A challenge, then," Rubicante says, and there is something in his tone that draws her attention again. "A battle, between us and you, for the rulership of the Feymarch and the right to rule our lives as we please."
Yes, he has planned all of this, but for his own reasons.
Leviathan sighs. "I did not wish it to come down to this," he says with a convincing attempt at appearing sad.
"Then you might have tried conversation, rather than tyranny," Scarmiglione says.
"This is your will?" Asura asks, looking each of them in the eye in turn.
Rubicante says, "It is." Cagnazzo's agreement is rather more obscene. Scarmiglione merely nods.
Barbariccia bares her fangs and smiles.
Asura sighs. "Let it be so." She raises her arms and her head rotates to bring her healer's face foremost. Her power sparkles bright and refreshing around the six of them, restoring everyone's strength to its peak. Her head rotates once again until she is the warrior.
"To the death, or merely to yielding?" Rubicante inquires.
"Yielding," Leviathan says, and Barbariccia is surprised-she would not allow any who so opposed her to live, were she him.
The circles melt and bleed into a dazzling rainbow.
It begins.
Barbariccia whirls until her hair and her element form an impenetrable tornado, shielding her from Asura's strikes. She lifts higher into the air until she is above Leviathan's pounding waves, and contemplates the best way to fight. Rubicante is raining fire upon them both, and Scarmiglione's vines snap out like angry whips to rain a flurry of blows upon Leviathan.
She times her blasts of lightning to strike immediately after Cagnazzo's own tidal waves, exacerbating their effect. She laughs aloud, feeling the power of her position surge through her. She is invulnerable while cloaked in wind. They cannot touch her, and it is inconceivable that they should lose, four against two.
Something shifts behind Leviathan.
Almost instinctively she flings a powerful thunderbolt at it, but it passes through the draconian shadow as though naught were there. The dazzling light of their combat seems to coalesce there, creating silver scales and dark claws between them.
She knows that form.
Bahamut takes shape behind and above Leviathan, and Barbariccia knows the moment the others recognize him. Rubicante's face twists with rage behind his mask, and Scarmiglione shouts in protest.
"You have broken the laws," Leviathan says, icily implacable, "and you shall be punished."
Bahamut raises his claws.
Even as Barbariccia pulls herself out of her tornado to dive at him, the claws descend with terrible speed toward Cagnazzo.
The sound of death is not the crash of surf, but the groaning crack of ancient wood.
Cagnazzo screams.
Barbariccia halts herself mid-dive, appalled. Scarmiglione's broken body is splayed at Cagnazzo's feet, red blood and green sap leaking from him in blurred profusion. Bahamut's shape fades from sight, as though he was never really there at all, and an eerie silence descends, broken only by Scarmiglione's gasping breaths. Cagnazzo stands guardian over his lover as best he may, his entire posture one of defeat and submission.
Unwillingly, she pities him.
"Your power is insufficient," Leviathan says. "Our father has judged us, and found me the better."
"This was not in the terms of the agreement," Rubicante says. "You are despicable. A human has more honour than you."
Leviathan meets his gaze coldly. "You failed to specify the terms, Rubicante. Accept your defeat."
Barbariccia flexes her claws. While they are distracted, she could slip behind them, cut Asura down with ease. She could be spinning and immune to Leviathan before he realizes what is happening.
Asura looks up at her, and shakes her head. Then she clasps her hands together on the hilt of her sword.
At first, it is an itch at the back of her neck. The itch intensifies into pain and spreads through her entire being, and Barbariccia screams when she realizes it is pulling the very wind itself out of her, draining her power. She tries to spring forward, to attack, but her body twists into a pain-wracked arch and refuses to obey her. She screams.
Dimly, she is aware that she has never heard anything more frightening than Rubicante screaming in pain.
The drain stops just before it would unmake her completely, and she falls to the ground, once again crumpled beneath them and forced to look up to them on their dais.
"You will be sealed within your tower," Leviathan says.
Asura bears her healer's face, and her smile is terrifying. "May you live very, very long lives," she says, and raises her hand.
They hurl back through the magic-woven path, and Barbariccia feels it tearing at her flesh, shredding bits from her as they hurtle toward the Land Above and reappear in their tower.
"Milon," Cagnazzo says, soft and broken, and bends low to nudge at Scarmiglione's shoulder with his head.
"I am not....dead...yet," Scarmiglione says with some difficulty, opening his eyes and forcing a faint smile to his lips.
Yet, if he is not dead, neither is he truly alive. His vines and flowers are drying and decaying at an accelerated rate, and within a few minutes he is no longer the paragon of vitality and growth, but a twisted, rotting hulk.
She had not realized Asura was so cruel.
"This is all your fault!" Cagnazzo shouts at Rubicante, who turns to face him so quickly that Barbariccia must dodge the flame-infused threads of his cloak or find herself scorched.
"I?" Rubicante asks softly. "Who complained of his role in kingship? Who sought power? Who demanded a greater share than he had already been given? No, Cagnazzo, not I. Look well within yourself, ere you bring such complaints to me."
"Let us not fight," Scarmiglione says, and his voice is no longer the patient rumble of rocks falling down a mountain, but instead a hideous bubbling sound. "We must make of it what we may."
"We are sealed in," Barbariccia says after a moment.
Rubicante sighs. "Then let us wait," he says. "We have naught to fear from old age, and there are always humans curious and eager for power. One of them will come, and then we will have our revenge."
Barbariccia has not even the energy to fly. She lies down in a corner of the crystalline room, and wills rest to come to her.
~*~
It takes centuries, by the human reckoning, and millennia longer by the Feymarch's standard, for them to recover their strength. In truth, Scarmiglione never truly recovers, reshaped by Bahamut's claws and Asura's magic into a twisted mockery of what he once represented; but he lives, and he and Cagnazzo remain close as ever. Barbariccia plays with her servants, and hones her skills, and betimes she goes to Rubicante; there is little else to do in the long years that pass.
~*~
The human who breaks the seal at last is a tall man, well-muscled, clad in black armour and a cloak so dark that all light around him seems drawn into it, eaten by its power. Barbariccia knows him not, but the power all around him sends a thrill through her that she has not felt since before they lost. She floats down from her eyrie to see him more closely.
Magic snaps tight around her, dragging her closer. There is no circle such as she was accustomed to, but she and the others are all brought before him for a close inspection. She snarls and struggles, to no avail.
"I am Golbez," he says, when he has finished examining them. His accent is strange, his language barely comprehensible from the human tongue she learned so long ago. "I offer you terms. Serve me, and rule all the world with me. Fight me...." He pauses, and Barbariccia suspects that the smile beneath his black helm is not unlike her own. "Fight me, and I will unmake you," he says, too gently.
"If I serve," Rubicante says, "you must understand that I will commit no dishonourable act."
"I will serve if you will destroy the Feymarch," Cagnazzo says.
"I want my body back," Scarmiglione says, the first word of complaint she has heard from him since their battle.
"And you?" Golbez looks at her.
Barbariccia shrugs. "I shall serve so long as it amuses me," she says. "You cannot chain the wind."
He laughs. "Very well," he says, and recites a formal oath that Barbariccia does not recognize. They repeat it, and the magic binding them collapses.
For the first time in centuries, Barbariccia feels the freshness of the spring wind on her face.
He is only human, this Golbez. There will be plenty of time to kill him later. For now, returning to her element is enough to justify whatever petty task he may demand.
Barbariccia dives into the wind, and soars.
Rating: NC-17
Contains: Explicit sex, violence, references to torture, depictions of gore, sex between nonhumans, knife play (in the form of claws), bloodplay, and creepy all over the place. The pairing list can also be considered a warning.
Notes: Written for anima_mecanique in the 2009 round of ff_exchange. The prompt was, FF4, The Four Fiends. I'm kind of fond of the Scarmiglione/Cagnazzo pairing (yes, really), but anything about any of the four would be great. Meta about where they come from and what they really are would be awesome, as would something about their relationship with Golbez and the elements themselves. Creepiness definitely encouraged. Although I typically use "Valvalicia" as the spelling for her name, I've used the DS translation for this fic.
Wordcount: 9816
Summary: Even angels fall, and Eidolons are no angels.
Beta: mithrigil
"By my decree neither of you shall be King of the Summons alone, for such an arrangement creates unnecessary strife. Upon each Equinox the rulership of the Feymarch shall pass from one of you to the other, with Leviathan ruling over the light half of the year from winter to summer, and Cagnazzo the opposite. Thus shall you share in rulership over the Feymarch, and thus there shall be balance; for well I know that never have you agreed on a single thing in your entire lives, and the prospect of having your work undone by the other might lead you to be more circumspect in your decrees."-Bahamut, God of Summons, declaring his twin sons Cagnazzo and Leviathan as rulers in his stead upon departing the Feymarch to sleep on the Moon
The summoner stands before her, a slim woman with flowing dark hair and eyes too intense for her face. She reminds Barbariccia, unnervingly, of the Eidolon that of late has taken up much of Leviathan's time, the warrior-healer Asura.
"Summoned, I come," Barbariccia says, the ancient words of the contract between the Feymarch and the Land Above.
"An offering," the woman says, and holds out a tray of beaten metal. The tray is heaped with the tiny purple flowers of a plant that grows in the mountains high above the village. Barbariccia reaches out and scoops up a handful, inhaling their scent. This summoner has done her research-and she must want the power of wind very badly, to make an offering this rare.
"What would you?" Barbariccia puts one of the flowers in her mouth, and it releases sticky sweet nectar. Eidolons do not require food as humans do, but that does not lessen the pleasure of a sweet.
The summoner points at something behind Barbariccia. She turns, and sees a narrow mountain pass.
"Men from Damcyan have kidnapped one of ours," the woman says. "I desire you to pursue them, and punish them, and bring back the child they stole."
Barbariccia nods. It is a small task for one of her power. The woman must want it very badly. "Define your terms," she says. Some summonings are simple, a request for aid in battle, and need not be thus formalized, but for the less defined tasks, Eidolons contract with their summoners. The terms of the contract help them remain in the Overworld, when otherwise they must struggle against the spiritual pull of the Feymarch.
"You will hunt down the band of Damcyan soldiers, led by Captain Caros Verini. You will take from them the child Glenna of Mist, whom you shall know by her red hair and green eyes. Once the child is safe, you will use your powers over wind to flay their flesh from their bones with a sandstorm. You will then return the child Glenna to me. This contract I form with the power in my blood and in accordance with the laws of the Feymarch." The woman's expression is uncompromising, and the protective circle formed by her will is unshakeable.
Barbariccia bows within the circle. "So mote it be," she says. The walls of the circle fall away, no longer needed to shield her from the Overworld's power. She plucks another flower from the heap on the tray and licks the nectar from it.
The woman bows. "They went east, and north," she says. "Do you desire to take the offering with you, or do you prefer I keep it here until the task is complete?"
Barbariccia considers. "You will keep it, and return it to me when I return to you your child." The woman's eyelids flinch, and Barbariccia allows her mouth to curve in the expression humans call a smile. She was correct, then. If she so desired, she could wring concessions from this woman, by holding the child hostage.
Her inner core resists the idea. Such a thing is contrary to the contract forged centuries ago between the denizens of the Feymarch and the summoners of Mist.
Barbariccia sighs and launches herself skyward, calling the wind to buoy her up and carry her to these Damcyan soldiers. Killing them will at least prove entertaining.
The mountains that surround the village of Mist are some of the highest in the world, and the air above them is thin, clear, and icy cold. Barbariccia arrows upward and slices into a cloud, letting the tiny ice crystals within it cling to her hair and eyelashes until she nearly sparkles in the sun. This high above the ground, the land loses most of its smaller distinguishing features, becoming an uneven patchwork of green, brown, blue, and white. She breathes deeply of her element, and begins her dive.
The wind screams past her, and were she human it would be sharp on her skin like knives. She plunges downward, calling on the wind for more speed, and laughing aloud at the sheer pleasure of being surrounded by her element-nothing like the airless stillness of the Feymarch, where she must expend her strength to get even the hint of a breeze to stir. The ground rushes up to meet her, and she sees the detachment of Damcyan soldiers. Her approach is so swift that they do not even see her coming, and she slices through their midst to snatch the child from her perch on the front of a soldier's saddle. As she soars upward, the men shout in confusion and reach for their swords-but to strike what? She is insubstantial as air save where she wishes to be, and they seem unwilling to strike the child.
She causes her voice to echo like the great tolling bells of Mysidia. "You have taken that which did not belong to you, and you shall be punished," she tells them. She could have simply slain them with no warning, but she finds their inchoate panic and accompanying terror so much more rewarding.
"Begone with you, hell-demon!" Their leader seems unperturbed by his men's fear and her actions; he stands in the stirrups of his saddle with his sword drawn. She finds him intriguing, and allows herself to take enough shape to be visible, if not tangible. The child burrows closer in her arms.
"Who are you, to challenge me thus?" she asks.
His face, beneath the steel helm, is determined, jaw set stubbornly. "I am Captain Caros Verini of the Damcyan Royal Guard, and I am charged with seeing the Princess Glenna safely to her father. You will not interfere."
Barbariccia laughs. The honourable humans are always the most fun to shred. She will save him for last.
She makes a gesture, and the light breeze that had been swirling grains of sand around the feet of their chocobos intensifies. The girl child is safe in her arms, and the wind divides neatly around the captain so as not to touch him. He has conveniently moved forward, out of the detachment, and that means she need spend less care on keeping him out of the maelstrom. She diverts a fragment of the wind and spins it in on itself, feeding it her own power as it whips the sand into a tornado.
What were formerly harmless eddies of sand grow denser, but she does not wish the fun to be over too quickly. The chocobos wark uneasily, shifting their stubby wings. She causes the whirlwind to narrow until they flutter in panic. They cannot escape, for they will not attempt the edges of the sandstorm. She has tested her powers on such animals before, and knows that their instinct is to duck their heads under their wings and sink down onto the desert floor, seeking to wait out the storm. From the shouts of the soldiers, they are discovering this very fact, to their chagrin.
The whirlwind rises higher, a golden-brown mass. She can hear the shouts of panic from the soldiers.
The captain charges her; she leaps aside. The tornado spins higher, and she commands it to lift the chocobos right off their feet, then to narrow in and scour the flesh from their bones. It obeys, for it can do nothing else when she is so near it. Tiny crimson droplets escape the whirlwind and spatter her. She licks a few from her claws and smiles. They are the colour of Rubicante's cloak.
She calls a gentler breeze to lift the child and hold her safely suspended some two hundred feet above, and then turns to face the captain. Unlike many human men, he meets her eyes directly, observing her face rather than her shape. She bares her fangs at him.
"Release my men, fiend," he commands, his sword held at the ready.
Barbariccia tilts her head. Their screaming is only barely audible over the howling fury of the maelstrom. She causes the wind to abate the slightest bit, the better to enjoy the sound. "Do you wish to put an end to their suffering yourself, then?" she asks. "For when I am done with them, there will be naught for them to do save crawl until they die of exposure and heat." She diverts a fragment of her attention to the maelstrom and discovers that it has nearly done its job. She lessens the winds, letting the men and birds sink to the desert floor. Combining sand with her element is so very effective; she ought to speak to Scarmiglione about devising more ways for their powers to work together, though he has rarely had the stomach for this sort of task.
His focus does not waver. "If that is what I must do to prevent their death at your hands, yes."
She taps her claws against her lip in a manner she has seen human women do when considering a problem. "And what do you offer, in exchange for my clemency?" she asks. She will not violate the terms of her contract, but that does not mean she cannot enjoy herself in the meantime.
"I offer you the chance to retreat with some semblance of dignity, if not honour," he says.
They never seem to learn.
She spreads her arms wide. "If you think you can defeat me-" Her pause is punctuated by the nicely timed thump of his men's bodies hitting the ground in the sudden silence as she stops the storm "-then by all means, let us battle. If you win, you may grant your men the swift death you seem to think they deserve."
To his credit, he does not waver, nor give in to the temptation to look at his men. She waits for him to strike.
He is a skilled opponent, enough so that he could give her some slight trouble were she lazy or careless. She is neither-she only projects that image-and she evades his strikes with ease, fitting only a few of her own into the gaps.
She sees the effect of her powers soon enough, seeing his limbs slow and weigh down with the pressure of petrifaction. He realizes too late what she has done, and lunges forward in a last desperate bid to strike her down. She soars out of his reach and hovers there, watching, as his limbs freeze into the pallor of stone.
His head, of course, is the last thing to be changed, and she hovers low to whisper in his ear. "Well fought, Captain."
Even now, he shows no fear of her. "Your time shall come, fiend," he tells her, and she laughs, for if the finest warriors of Damcyan cannot even touch her, who would have any prayer of besting her?
He faces his doom bravely, and his expression when at last he turns completely to stone is impassive.
She is unwillingly impressed.
She has been told that those seized by such spells retain awareness and intellect, at least for a time, until they go mad. Perhaps in a hundred years she will return here and call a sandstorm to wear him down into fine gravel. Perhaps she will bring a golden needle with her, restore him, and continue their game. He might be more entertaining when driven mad. For now, she calls the wind to carry him to a remote cave in the mountains, there to await her attention.
His men are nearly dead, but not quite, the last of their life's blood seeping into the sand beneath them where she has flayed the skin and flesh from them. Slowly its brilliant shade darkens to something more reminiscent of Scarmiglione's woody flesh. She stands attendant until the last of them has expired, and then takes the child back to Mist and claims her reward.
~*~
There are gaps between the Land Above and the Feymarch. They make it possible, albeit difficult, for eidolons to pass between the worlds absent a summoner's contract. Barbariccia remains in the Land Above until the pull of the Feymarch becomes too insistent and painful to ignore, and then seeks out the nearest gap and dives into it. The closer she draws to the Feymarch, the less it pains her. She slips through the other end of the gap and pulls up short, surprised to find the others awaiting her.
It takes her but a moment to survey their moods. Cagnazzo is resentful and angry, which is not unusual as he is to relinquish rulership to Leviathan in two weeks' time (or perhaps today; she is unsure of the passage of time when she has been in the world above.) Scarmiglione has one of his hands resting on Cagnazzo's shell; the scent of earth and growing things emanates from him much more strongly than usual, a sure sign of agitation. Rubicante is comparatively impassive, but the set of his shoulders implies trouble. She can smell cinder smoke, and the tang of brine. If all of them are this upset, something ill indeed is afoot.
"What is it?" she asks.
Cagnazzo growls. Scarmiglione strokes his shell gently, and the scent of lavender comes to her. She crosses her arms and pins them with her best glare. "I do not possess talents of mind-reading," she reminds them sharply.
"Leviathan took office today," Rubicante says, and she turns to him, drawing a little closer to the heat he exudes as easily as she floats.
"And?" she prompts, when he seems unwilling to continue.
Cagnazzo growls again. Scarmiglione sighs. "He has named Asura his Queen, to share in his power and rulership during the light half of the year."
"And yet he tells me it is an unfair use of power if I name Milon my co-ruler during the dark half!" Cagnazzo bursts out, and sprays salt water in a wide circle around him. It hisses when it hits Rubicante's cloak, and a few of the leaves growing from Scarmiglione's flesh wilt on contact with it.
Barbariccia can only gape.
"We have awaited your return, Barbariccia," Scarmiglione says. His voice is soothing, like the scent from the lavender blooms that he has caused to grow in some profusion from his flesh.
"I want you to help me kill him," Cagnazzo says, and little wavelets begin to lap at his feet.
"No," Rubicante says quickly, before Barbariccia can agree or disagree with Cagnazzo's proposal.
"No?" Scarmiglione repeats, tilting his head.
"If you would have this out," Rubicante tells Cagnazzo, "and if you would have the Eidolons acknowledge the rightness of your claim, you cannot start with violence."
"What, then?" Cagnazzo asks. "I am simply to sit by while he ruins the balance our father crafted?"
For herself, Barbariccia thinks that balance more like uncomfortable stasis, neither able to accomplish much for fear of the other undoing his work for spite, but that is not the issue here. "It would not be honourable," she says aloud, quietly, and earns a look of approval from Rubicante.
"Who cares?" Cagnazzo snarls.
"I do," Rubicante snaps, "and if you would have my aid and support in this, you will heed me."
Cagnazzo pauses at that, for Rubicante is the strongest of them. "And if I don't?" he says at length, his tone sulky.
Rubicante folds his arms. "Then your actions will determine mine. If you seek to act dishonorably, I will stand against you, whether I agree with Leviathan or not."
Barbariccia wonders what it is about those with honour that causes them to choose such difficult paths. She hesitates, torn between loyalties.
"Rubicante is wise," Scarmiglione says soothingly, and saves her the trouble. "If you just up and attack him, you leave the pathway open for another to do the same to you."
Cagnazzo growls and the wavelets lap harder about his feet. Barbariccia lifts herself a few inches into the air to spare the end of her trailing mass of hair; salt water makes it irritatingly sticky.
"We can accomplish your aim honourably," Rubicante assures Cagnazzo, who grumbles again. "He knows the terms of the arrangement as well as you do."
"Come, Cagnazzo," Scarmiglione coaxes, "you should have some rest. It has been a tiring day." He presses close against Cagnazzo's shell, nut-brown fingers smoothing over the glistening damp skin of Cagnazzo's head. Barbariccia barely contains her smirk. Rest, indeed.
They depart, Cagnazzo still grumbling, and she turns to Rubicante. He shakes his head. "I cannot tell you any more than has already been said," he says. "The crown had barely settled on Leviathan's head when he called Asura up on the dais with him."
Barbariccia frowns. "But I recall that at the last changeover, he specifically objected to Cagnazzo naming Milon to aid him," she says.
Rubicante shrugs. "That may have been before he made this decision; at any rate, he must now allow Cagnazzo to do the same or else I shall protest Asura's involvement."
"You might protest it anyway," she suggests.
He shakes his head. "She has done no wrong, nor has he."
"Yet." Barbariccia flicks her hair back.
Rubicante shrugs. "There is naught we can do for it now, until Cagnazzo decides what he will." He smiles then, changing the subject. "And to what purpose were you summoned?" His eyes linger on the tiny drops of blood she has not yet cleaned from her flesh, and she sees his interest spark.
She tells him of her task as they make their way to his abode, relishing the telling of her sandstorm. He draws her into bed with him, his hands clever and hot on her skin as he encourages her to tell him the details. He does not particularly care how the men died, but he likes the game of distracting her, forcing her to split her attention between just what his hands and tongue are doing to her and what she is trying to say.
He waits until she is close, so very close to climax, and then his hands grip her hips and hold her still. She strains to move, and finds herself constrained, unable to create the friction she needs. "And what did you do to their captain?" he asks her, his voice taking on that deep note that always stirs her.
She swears at him, and he laughs. "Well?" he prompts. He barely shifts his hips, enough to promise more. "Tell me."
It takes effort to pull her mind away from the insistent drive of passion, and she bares her fangs at him to indicate her displeasure. He merely waits.
She debates, her pride warring with her desire for him, and snarls again when desire wins. He knew it would win, and she could almost hate him for it, except that he is the only one strong enough to do this to her, and she rather relishes that fact. So she calls the wind to lash his skin with the ends of her hair, tiny stinging barbs, to indicate that while she complies she is not controlled, and flexes her claws into his shoulders. "I turned him to stone," she says. His hands loosen on her hips, enough for her to move, but she can't move enough and she snarls at him again and flexes her claws deeper. He looks at her impassively.
"I turned him to stone," she says again, "and put him in a mountain cave to wait for me. If I remember, I'll go back in a few centuries to play with him." Her lips curl into an expression of derision. "He was an honourable man."
Rubicante is no fool; he hears what she does not say. She pursues honourable humans because it pleases her to break them. She cannot break him, and so she breaks them instead, hoping to find the key by which she might break him down in a similar fashion.
He shifts his hips just a touch-not enough-and she moves hard against him, bringing the force of storm winds to bear. He stills completely. Snarling, she rakes her claws across his chest-no mere warning swipe, this, leaving deep gouges in his flesh. His hands grip painfully tight on her hips, more of his fire coming to the surface, and it scorches her skin. She hisses at him.
"One more thing," he says agreeably. "What was the summoner's name?"
She cannot fathom why he is so interested in this one task, save only to torment her. "Her name is Resha," she snarls.
Finally, finally he lets go her hips, his own moving in quick rhythm against her. She sinks her fangs into his shoulder when she comes, a reminder to him that she might be slightly less than he in power but that this does not mean she will meekly accept anything he chooses to do. He bites her neck, tearing her flesh, and licks the blood away. She sees the silvery gleam of her blood on his lips, so different from the crimson blood of the humans, before his scorching tongue flickers out to consume it.
She rises from his bed immediately, uninterested in remaining with him now that her urge has been sated.
"Barbariccia," he says as she reaches the door.
"Yes?"
"You will tell me, if Cagnazzo seeks to do anything foolish?"
She considers it, more out of spite than anything else, but ultimately the matter is of no importance to her so long as it remains amusing. Tension between Rubicante and Cagnazzo is nearly always amusing, so she shrugs. "I will."
She leaves his basalt-and-obsidian palace and flies to her own abode, an eyrie tucked into the heights of the Feymarch, to savour the remainder of her reward from the summoner.
~*~
She hears a buzz of interest and conversation far below her eyrie, and leans her head out to see what is afoot. Leviathan is out in public, and she notes Asura by his side, looking composed and gracious. She wonders what has prompted him to come out in this manner; usually when governing, he remains at the Eidolon Throne, waiting for the Eidolons to bring problems to him.
Far below her, she sees the gleam of Cagnazzo's shell, and the blur of green beside him that must be Scarmiglione. She drops from her eyrie like a bat releasing the branch on which it has hung, diving toward them with her arms closed tight against her body. She unfurls at the last moment, landing gracefully before them.
Scarmiglione greets her warmly, with an embrace. Cagnazzo snorts wetly and glowers.
"Well?" she says, and tilts her head to indicate the current rulers of the Feymarch.
Cagnazzo starts to pull his head into his shell. Scarmiglione strokes the top of his head soothingly. "It seems he wishes to show off his new queen," Scarmiglione says, and there is bitterness in his tone, for all that he is gentle with Cagnazzo.
She casts her gaze about for Rubicante, but she does not see his crimson cloak anywhere. Well, if he is not here then he cannot gainsay them. "Why do you not ask him about it?" Barbariccia asks.
Scarmiglione considers. "It may be well thought of," he says slowly to Cagnazzo. "At best, he may relent and apologize; at worst, you make your discontent known, and may sway others to your cause."
"Can't I just kill him?" Cagnazzo grumbles.
"No," Scarmiglione says in unison with Barbariccia.
"Rubicante told you not to," Barbariccia says.
"You cannot be certain that you are stronger than he, at least not alone," Scarmiglione adds.
Cagnazzo dismisses her contribution with a snort, but he does appear to consider Scarmiglione's words. "I will not fight him," he says at last. "Not today." He begins to make his way toward Leviathan and Asura, slow and ponderous in his favoured turtle form. Scarmiglione hangs back with Barbariccia, watching as anxiously as any human woman with a single child.
"Do you think he will succeed?" Scarmiglione asks her.
Barbariccia shrugs. "Do you think he can keep his temper under control?"
Scarmiglione sighs and shakes his head. "You know he will not. That gives Leviathan the advantage."
"You will stand with him?" It isn't really a question, and he knows that.
"Rubicante said something this morning about another option," Scarmiglione says, braiding some of the tiny vines dripping from his arm in a typical nervous gesture.
"Where is he?" She cranes her head and lifts a few feet into the air, but she still does not see him among the clustered Eidolons.
"I don't know. Gone to investigate, I suppose." Scarmiglione gnaws on his lip.
"Leviathan!" Cagnazzo's voice rings out over the square with the thunderous roar of surf. Everyone freezes and turns toward him, standing only a few yards from Leviathan. Barbariccia notes that Asura has chosen to wear her mother-face today, soothing and gentle.
"Brother," Leviathan says, with every indication of cordiality. Barbariccia knows that they loathe each other, loathe the power-sharing that Bahamut forced upon them, but you would never know it to see Leviathan in public. Today he wears the guise of a bent old fisherman, rather than the face of a dragon. She wonders if they knew what Cagnazzo intended, and chose to clothe themselves in their weakest-seeming miens, the better to win support.
It would not surprise her if they did so.
She can hear Cagnazzo's struggle to control his temper in his tone. "You have dealt with me unfairly, Leviathan, and I demand that you remedy this."
"Unfairly?" Asura says, her expression one of astonishment. Barbariccia would almost believe it, if Leviathan were not stroking his beard in the human manner. She mistrusts his expression of polite interest.
"They know what he is after," Scarmiglione murmurs, and Barbariccia shushes him.
"When last I took the throne," Cagnazzo says to Leviathan, "you told me that it would be unfair for me to have Scarmiglione with me. Yet the moment the crown rests on your head, you call Asura up on the dais to be your Queen!" His irritation shows in the wavelets lapping at his feet, and the increasingly strong smell of brine.
Asura's expression shifts to dismay, and she reaches out a hand. Leviathan frowns. "I did not realize you sought to name Scarmiglione your-" He pauses, just an instant too long. "Your bond-mate," he finishes.
The smell of autumn leaves nearly overwhelms Barbariccia. She grabs at Scarmiglione's wrist before he can storm into the center of their confrontation. "Don't go down there," she hisses.
"They are playing with him," Scarmiglione snarls.
"Yes, they are, and you will only make it worse if you go!"
She nearly misses Cagnazzo's response, caught up in her efforts to stop Scarmiglione. "I told you," Cagnazzo is shouting, "I told you that he was my mate!"
Asura steps backward, hands upraised in what should be a gesture of peace. It would be, if Barbariccia did not see the cold, hard smile at the corner of her warrior-face's mouth. "I don't wish to be a cause of strife," she says aloud.
Leviathan puts a hand on her wrist-not her sword-hand, Barbariccia notes-and addresses Cagnazzo. "I did not realize your intent, and I am sorry," he says very calmly to Cagnazzo. "When next you take the crown, by all means name Scarmiglione as your-bond-mate." Again, that faintest of pauses taints the overture of peace. Eidolons have no preference on gender, as such things are fluid, and the only reason for Leviathan to so dismiss Scarmiglione is to infuriate both him and Cagnazzo. Barbariccia stares, fascinated, and nearly forgets to hold Scarmiglione back. "I would not have it said that I have upset the balance between us," Leviathan concludes.
Objectively, Barbariccia could admire his ability to maneuver others, were it not Cagnazzo and Scarmiglione he chooses to manipulate.
Cagnazzo jerks his head in something that looks like assent, but Barbariccia knows him too well. He stomps away from Leviathan and Asura, leaving puddles of seawater and trails of seaweed in his wake.
He rejoins them amid the murmurs of the other Eidolons. "I will tear his throat out," Cagnazzo snarls, and seawater sprays all around him. Barbariccia levitates clear of it, brushing at the drops that cling to her legs. "Rubicante or no, I will have his blood!"
"Well, do not do it right now," Scarmiglione advises him sharply. "He has turned most of the other Eidolons to his side with that so-gracious little speech, and you cannot fight all of them at once, even with my help and Barbariccia's."
Barbariccia wonders precisely when she had offered to fight beside them, for she does not recall saying such a thing.
"I hate them, Milon," Cagnazzo says.
"I know." Scarmiglione bestows a kiss on the top of Cagnazzo's head, and looks up at Barbariccia. "We are going to retire," he says firmly. "You will tell Rubicante of these doings?"
"I am not your dog," she says, "to be ordered hither to fight and thither to bear tales."
"I am sorry," Scarmiglione says, and she thinks he is probably sincere. "I assumed too much. Would you mind telling Rubicante, as a favour to me?"
Mollified, she nods. He places a hand on Cagnazzo's shell, and they move toward the grotto that they share.
She flies back to her eyrie, to wait and watch for Rubicante.
~*~
He is nearly three months in returning to the Feymarch, and she wonders what task he could possibly have been summoned for that would take so long in the world above. Cagnazzo grows more impatient, and it takes all of Scarmiglione's formidable store of patience and soothing tricks to hold him in check. Leviathan and Asura go about their business calmly enough.
She is playing a game of tag with the Sylphs, who have left their cave to visit on the Solstice as they usually do, when he returns. She quickly tags one of her smaller cousins and bows out of the game, shrugging off their laughing invitations to remain. Rubicante does not acknowledge her, but turns toward his palace.
She flies after him, and finds him sprawled in the enormous fire pit that forms the center of his receiving hall. His attendant Whyts-those who aspire to become fire-spirits one day-have kept the flames burning in his absence, and now they rise high around their master, wrapping him in flickering red-orange light.
He ignores her for several minutes more, a fact that would irritate her if she did not see that his breathing is shallow and his complexion paler than it ought to be. She grows bored of waiting, and snarls at one of the Whyts to stoke the fire higher.
At length he revives somewhat, and sits up in the fire pit to face her.
"What could they have asked of you, that so wearied you?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "I was not summoned; I went of my own accord."
Barbariccia calculates the time he would have spent in the world above, and is stunned. "To what end do you drain your strength like this?" she asks sharply.
He shakes his head again. "I will not discuss this more than once. You will know when I tell Cagnazzo and Scarmiglione."
"I will bring them," she says, and he nods wearily.
She bursts into their grotto, the force of her storm winds tangling the artfully arranged curtain of hanging seaweed that serves them for a door. Cagnazzo, in his humanoid form for once, starts and twists toward her. Scarmiglione ignores her utterly, continuing to move rhythmically.
Barbariccia settles herself on a convenient rock protrusion and watches.
It amuses her that her presence makes no difference to them (and why should it? Shame is a human frailty not shared by their kind.)
When they are done, Scarmiglione turns to her. "I presume you have some reason for coming here, other than to watch me deploy my skills," he says with a playful leer.
She laughs. "Rubicante has something to tell us."
Scarmiglione pauses, and glances at Cagnazzo, who is in the process of turning himself back into a turtle. He shakes himself, and salt spray flies. "He had better have a very good plan," Cagnazzo says.
"Even if he does not, you still have the option of just killing him," Barbariccia says amiably, leading the way out of the grotto. She levitates to more easily navigate Scarmiglione's complicated gardens; she is not in a mood for his clever hedge-mazes today. For him, of course, the plants bow gracefully out of his way.
Rubicante looks much improved by the time they arrive, though he remains within the flames that will restore his strength. He rises and bows courteously to all of them. "Thank you for coming here," he says.
Scarmiglione takes an automatic half-step forward. "Are you well?" he asks. "Did your summoner mistreat you?"
"I was not summoned." Rubicante seats himself once again in the flames, ignoring the Whyt that bustles around to heap more fuel into the fire pit. Barbariccia seats herself mid-air to hear what he has to say. Cagnazzo half-retreats into his shell, and Scarmiglione kneels next to him.
"I have spoken to Leviathan," Cagnazzo says before Rubicante can continue. "He claims he did not realize I wanted Milon to reign with me as bond-mate, and that I should do this when we exchange again. I think he lies."
"Whether he lies or not, I have a better proposal." Rubicante smiles. "I have been in the Land Above of my own will."
Scarmiglione draws a sharp breath. "Small wonder you are weakened," he says.
Rubicante shrugs. "It is of no matter. I believe I have found a solution to Cagnazzo's problem. The Feymarch stifles us, holds us bound to its laws. You have experienced this, I think-any time you sought to disobey a summoner's commands?" He waits for their nods, and smiles. "I think I have found a way that we may remain in the Land Above absent a contract, and not drain our strength. It will require all four of us, and it will require us to work together whole-heartedly, holding nothing back; but if we do so, we could rule the Land Above."
"How?" Cagnazzo says, his head popping fully out of his shell.
Barbariccia is too taken aback by the scope of his plan to say anything.
"We will raise a tower of magic," Rubicante says, "and tie it to the four elements, so that it will sustain itself. That is why all four of us must do it. It will be a shelter for us. We will still need to spend some of our strength to work in the world outside it, but it is a temporary measure. When we are more established, we can devise a better safeguard for ourselves, but this will do for the present."
"If we cannot leave the tower without spending our strength," Scarmiglione says thoughtfully, "how then do you propose that we rule the Land Above?"
"Through the summoners," Barbariccia says suddenly. "That is why you wished to know who had called me."
Rubicante inclines his head. "Indeed. The summoner Resha desires power. We can give it to her. She is only human and will die in a few years anyway. By then, we will have been able to create a better anchor, and there will be nothing to stop us."
"And Leviathan?" Cagnazzo asks.
"Let him keep the Feymarch," Rubicante says. "He is so concerned with staying out of human affairs; let him then remain outside them entirely. We can sever the link between the Feymarch and the Land Above, and use that power to build our second anchor."
"Why not the first?" Scarmiglione says, and then answers his own question. "Ahh, because the anchor provides enough power for us to remain in the human land in the interim."
"Just so." Rubicante nods.
"When?" Barbariccia is bored with all this planning; she just wants the simple points.
"When I have regained my strength. Two days' time, let us say," Rubicante says.
They agree, and go their separate ways.
~*~
"Are you prepared?" Rubicante asks. Barbariccia nods, eager to be on her way. She does not take well to stillness, nor enforced idleness. She dared not raise a challenge in the Feymarch so near to the execution of their plan, and she is frustrated by inaction.
"Then let us go," Rubicante says, and the four of them clasp hands. Cagnazzo has deigned to take on human shape today, and his palm is damp and clammy against hers. Scarmiglione's is covered in tiny leaves and vines, which emit a pleasing scent where her claws score them. She sees steam rising where Rubicante's hand clasps Cagnazzo's, and a faint smoldering smoke where he clasps Scarmiglione's.
She hears a shout of alarm from someone-Shiva, she thinks-as they launch themselves upwards and through the rift that forms a more direct link to the Land Above than the tortuous hallways of the Eidolon Passage. It is draining to travel so, like forcing one's way through shoulder-deep honey, sticky and agonizingly slow. She throws the power of wind out before her like an axe-blade, spinning until she is a whirlwind of destruction, and knows that her brothers do the same, pitting their power against the gravity of the Feymarch.
At last, at last, they burst through the rift in the mountains high above Mist. She can feel the rejection of the Land Above, which tries to force her back into the rift and down into the Feymarch where it thinks she belongs.
She refuses to go.
"Now!" Rubicante commands, and she directs her power toward him, draining her reserves to a dangerous point. Rubicante is the oldest of them, and the strongest. They all entrust their power to him, and he shapes it around them, a dazzling spear of milky crystal that rises whole from the mountaintop and forms itself into a tower. As the walls coalesce around her, the pull of the Feymarch weakens, until it is no longer an overwhelming force but merely a nagging consciousness.
Rubicante breaks their circle, letting go of Cagnazzo and Scarmiglione's hands, and they all collapse into a heap in the center of their tower.
It is a long time before any of them speak.
~*~
Within a month of the human world's time, the summoner Resha rules a territory stretching over nearly all the continent, from Damcyan to Baron City, and westward nearly to Troia. The Epopts of Troia yet hold out, but they cannot do so for long, not when Scarmiglione can siphon the power of their Earth Crystal and hold the blessings of it at bay. They used similar tactics in conquering Damcyan, using the elemental power of the crystal to empower themselves while depriving their opponents of the same. The elemental energies go to feed their Tower, making it easier to replenish their energies while within.
Barbariccia is the only one in the Tower when the Sylph arrives, a nervous flighty thing bearing a silken scroll. "I come for Cagnazzo," the Sylph says.
Barbariccia flips her hair to her back and smiles at the Sylph, who shrinks back in fear. This one is young, probably only just transformed. Barbariccia calls the wind to spin slowly around her. "Cagnazzo is out," she says sweetly. "Leave your message."
The Sylph shrinks back fearfully. "I cannot, my lady," she says respectfully. "I was commanded to speak only to Cagnazzo."
"Mmmm." Barbariccia drifts closer. "What is your name?"
"M-Mindy," the Sylph stammers.
Barbariccia smiles at her. "And do you know Sandy and Cindy, little Mindy?"
Mindy's nervous gaze darts around the Tower. "Y-yes, lady," she says. "They-they are Sylphs."
"They were Sylphs," Barbariccia corrects her. "Now, they belong to me."
Mindy's eyes widen. "You-you cannot do that," she protests.
"Of course I can." Barbariccia gauges her moment, and reaches out to snatch the scroll from Mindy's hand when the Sylph stumbled backwards. Mindy squeaks in protest, but makes no effort to retrieve it. "They were given a choice, you see," she continues, tapping the scroll against her palm. "Serve me, or die."
"We can't die," Mindy says.
Barbariccia laughs. "Oh, you can die, certainly. Do you not know the tale of how Alexander willed himself into lifeless stone, when he grew tired of unceasing existence?" She smiles and stalks closer to the Sylph, who shrinks back in fear. It is intoxicating. "It is difficult to kill one of us, certainly, but when we wish for death..." She lets the sentence dangle.
"My sisters wouldn't wish for death," Mindy says, suddenly fierce.
Barbariccia calls the wind, and it lifts the tiny Sylph and slams her violently into the wall. She cries out in pain.
"At first, no," she says, when she is sure that Mindy is paying proper attention again. "But I can be very patient, and I wanted their servitude. They chose wisely." She steps closer, her claws trailing lightly over Mindy's arms, and feels the shivers that wrack her body. "Will you require me to be patient, Mindy? Or will you serve of your own will?"
"I-I don't believe you," Mindy says.
"Girls, come out," Barbariccia calls.
Sandy, tall and thin and ramrod-straight, steps out of her hiding place. Cindy tucks herself into a ball and rolls to Barbariccia's feet. Mindy stares in horror at the two creatures, once proud and beautiful Sylphs, now reshaped in a way that suits Barbariccia's purposes. Such is the Tower's magic, and the power of the Crystals.
"Serve with us, little sister," Cindy says. She is half Sandy's height, yet even so she towers over Mindy. "The Empress of the Winds is a most gracious mistress."
Barbariccia strokes Cindy's hair, and is pleased when Cindy cannot control the twitch that the caress evokes. Nonetheless, she rubs her cheek against Barbariccia's hip in a caress.
Mindy whimpers.
Sandy steps forward now. "Be one with us, little sister," she says encouragingly, trailing a fingertip from Mindy's chin down to the curves of her naked breasts. Barbariccia sees how the motion makes the skin of Sandy's back crawl, and she is pleased. "Barbariccia has given us great power. We are so much more than we were."
Barbariccia's hair twines around the haft of Sandy's spear. Sandy strokes her hair carefully, but her hand is shaking with fear. Barbariccia smiles.
"Serve me," she commands.
"It is better if you serve willingly," Cindy says, and shudders. "The Empress of Winds is kind to her servants when they are good."
"She gave me this lovely spear," Sandy says, stroking it with a shaking hand. Barbariccia recalls the crimson taint of Sandy's blood when she plunged the spear into the Sylph's shoulder, and Sandy's screams. The memory sends a little shudder of pleasure running through her, and she debates whether it would be more pleasant to demand the attention of her new servants, or wait for Rubicante's return.
No, her servants have behaved themselves admirably today. They have earned a reward. Rubicante has frequently stressed the idea that well-rewarded servants will provide better service in the long run.
Barbariccia smiles at Mindy. "Decide, little one," she says, too softly. Her claws hover above Mindy's shoulder, razor-sharp tips barely brushing the skin.
"It is a worthy service," Cindy says, and her voice quavers only a little. She learns. Her fingertips stroke tiny circles on Barbariccia's inner thighs; this, too, she has learned.
"She is generous to us," Sandy adds, toying with loose strands of Mindy's hair.
Mindy seems to crumple in on herself, a slow collapse. Leviathan should not have sent one so young and weak; at least the first two showed signs of spirit and determination. "I will serve," she says in a very small voice.
"Good girl," Barbariccia croons, stroking Mindy's cheek delicately with the tips of her claws.
After Mindy swears the oath, Barbariccia bids her servants please her.
They perform adequately, and for that, she withholds punishment.
~*~
The shouting downstairs rouses her from the pleasant state of semi-awareness that she slid into after her servants' ministrations had exhausted her. Grumbling, she descends to see what so enrages the others.
Cagnazzo is shouting, Leviathan's silk scroll half-trampled underfoot. Barbariccia yawns and perches near the ceiling to observe.
"I will not stand for this!" he declares, probably not for the first time.
"No one is asking you to," Scarmiglione soothes him.
"Ignore it," Rubicante suggests.
"No." Cagnazzo stomps, and crushes the scroll utterly. "I have ignored the last two. I cannot ignore this. I will not go running home like a whipped dog."
Rubicante sighs. "I will not aid you in assassination. I have told you this. It is dishonorable. Either stand and fight as befits an Eidolon, or lack my support."
Cagnazzo snarls. Barbariccia understands; Leviathan is a powerful adversary, and it would make things easier to strike from the shadows.
"Perhaps it is best," Scarmiglione admits reluctantly. "We do stand together quite well."
"Why do you side with him?" Cagnazzo seems caught between outrage and puerile whining.
"I do not take sides," Scarmiglione says, and it is a sign of the toll this affair has taken on him that his voice is sharp. "I am telling you what I perceive to be best. You are under no obligation to take my advice-but I would hope you would consider it nonetheless. We are not here to cause you harm, Cagnazzo."
Barbariccia considers adding to the conversation, but it is then that she feels the sharp prickles of summoning in her mind. Her first thought is that the summoner bitch is getting uppity; the second is that this is far more powerful a call than any mere human could muster.
From the way the others have abruptly fallen silent, they feel it too.
"I cannot fight it," Rubicante says aloud, and she feels a chill run through her.
"Nor I," Cagnazzo says, and his voice is strained.
Scarmiglione's smile is grim. "It seems our choice is made-"
This is unlike any summoning she has ever experienced. Usually it becomes harder to travel the farther along the magic-woven path she goes, only the will of the summoner making it possible to break the last few barriers between the Feymarch and the Land Above. This is quite the opposite, more akin to how her speed increases when she plunges downward from a great height. Her claws scrabble for purchase on the glass-slick walls of the magic pathway, to no avail.
She lands, not on her feet as she is accustomed to do, but in a heap below a dais. She springs upright, dimly aware that she feels more alive here than she has in over a month. Their tower is an adequate shield, but naught compared to the true power of the Feymarch.
She is bound in a circle of golden light, much as she might be in a summoning above. Beside her, she can see Rubicante enchained in crimson light, and to her other side, Cagnazzo's azure prison. Scarmiglione's emerald circle lies beyond Cagnazzo's, only barely visible to her.
Before her, Leviathan is resplendent in his dragon form, Asura proud beside him with her severe warrior's face foremost. They have arrayed themselves so as to be above her, which she loathes, and so she draws herself up to her greatest height and fixes a glare upon them that would have turned humans to stone.
"Rubicante, Barbariccia, Cagnazzo, Scarmiglione," Leviathan says, in the booming voice that is like unto waves crashing at the base of a high cliff. "You are summoned here to answer charges of violating the laws of the Feymarch and endangering our land by so doing."
"Rot in the deserts of Damcyan," Cagnazzo snarls.
Rubicante's tone, by contrast, bears at least a semblance of courtesy. "We do not feel that those laws are beneficial to us, thus do we choose to live outside them," he says. "It is of no concern to you what we do in the Land Above."
"Untrue," Asura says, and the fact that Leviathan lets her speak in his place is more telling than anything else of the esteem in which he holds her. "The creation of your tower stole power that was needed to maintain the Feymarch, and your actions in the Land Above have repercussions here. We exist-the Feymarch exists-by virtue of the contracts we have formed with the summoners and with the basic forces of the world. Your actions threaten those contracts."
"If the contracts are broken, so too would the Feymarch dissolve," Leviathan continues. "And if you have no care for us-which I am forced to assume you do not-then consider this: if the Feymarch dies, so too will your tower, and you will last only as long as your personal will allows before the World tears you limb from limb."
Barbariccia glances at Cagnazzo, who strains forward in his circle and appears not at all chastened, and then at Rubicante, who appears unsurprised.
It is then she realizes that he meant for it to come to this all along.
Has he been working for Leviathan?
"A challenge, then," Rubicante says, and there is something in his tone that draws her attention again. "A battle, between us and you, for the rulership of the Feymarch and the right to rule our lives as we please."
Yes, he has planned all of this, but for his own reasons.
Leviathan sighs. "I did not wish it to come down to this," he says with a convincing attempt at appearing sad.
"Then you might have tried conversation, rather than tyranny," Scarmiglione says.
"This is your will?" Asura asks, looking each of them in the eye in turn.
Rubicante says, "It is." Cagnazzo's agreement is rather more obscene. Scarmiglione merely nods.
Barbariccia bares her fangs and smiles.
Asura sighs. "Let it be so." She raises her arms and her head rotates to bring her healer's face foremost. Her power sparkles bright and refreshing around the six of them, restoring everyone's strength to its peak. Her head rotates once again until she is the warrior.
"To the death, or merely to yielding?" Rubicante inquires.
"Yielding," Leviathan says, and Barbariccia is surprised-she would not allow any who so opposed her to live, were she him.
The circles melt and bleed into a dazzling rainbow.
It begins.
Barbariccia whirls until her hair and her element form an impenetrable tornado, shielding her from Asura's strikes. She lifts higher into the air until she is above Leviathan's pounding waves, and contemplates the best way to fight. Rubicante is raining fire upon them both, and Scarmiglione's vines snap out like angry whips to rain a flurry of blows upon Leviathan.
She times her blasts of lightning to strike immediately after Cagnazzo's own tidal waves, exacerbating their effect. She laughs aloud, feeling the power of her position surge through her. She is invulnerable while cloaked in wind. They cannot touch her, and it is inconceivable that they should lose, four against two.
Something shifts behind Leviathan.
Almost instinctively she flings a powerful thunderbolt at it, but it passes through the draconian shadow as though naught were there. The dazzling light of their combat seems to coalesce there, creating silver scales and dark claws between them.
She knows that form.
Bahamut takes shape behind and above Leviathan, and Barbariccia knows the moment the others recognize him. Rubicante's face twists with rage behind his mask, and Scarmiglione shouts in protest.
"You have broken the laws," Leviathan says, icily implacable, "and you shall be punished."
Bahamut raises his claws.
Even as Barbariccia pulls herself out of her tornado to dive at him, the claws descend with terrible speed toward Cagnazzo.
The sound of death is not the crash of surf, but the groaning crack of ancient wood.
Cagnazzo screams.
Barbariccia halts herself mid-dive, appalled. Scarmiglione's broken body is splayed at Cagnazzo's feet, red blood and green sap leaking from him in blurred profusion. Bahamut's shape fades from sight, as though he was never really there at all, and an eerie silence descends, broken only by Scarmiglione's gasping breaths. Cagnazzo stands guardian over his lover as best he may, his entire posture one of defeat and submission.
Unwillingly, she pities him.
"Your power is insufficient," Leviathan says. "Our father has judged us, and found me the better."
"This was not in the terms of the agreement," Rubicante says. "You are despicable. A human has more honour than you."
Leviathan meets his gaze coldly. "You failed to specify the terms, Rubicante. Accept your defeat."
Barbariccia flexes her claws. While they are distracted, she could slip behind them, cut Asura down with ease. She could be spinning and immune to Leviathan before he realizes what is happening.
Asura looks up at her, and shakes her head. Then she clasps her hands together on the hilt of her sword.
At first, it is an itch at the back of her neck. The itch intensifies into pain and spreads through her entire being, and Barbariccia screams when she realizes it is pulling the very wind itself out of her, draining her power. She tries to spring forward, to attack, but her body twists into a pain-wracked arch and refuses to obey her. She screams.
Dimly, she is aware that she has never heard anything more frightening than Rubicante screaming in pain.
The drain stops just before it would unmake her completely, and she falls to the ground, once again crumpled beneath them and forced to look up to them on their dais.
"You will be sealed within your tower," Leviathan says.
Asura bears her healer's face, and her smile is terrifying. "May you live very, very long lives," she says, and raises her hand.
They hurl back through the magic-woven path, and Barbariccia feels it tearing at her flesh, shredding bits from her as they hurtle toward the Land Above and reappear in their tower.
"Milon," Cagnazzo says, soft and broken, and bends low to nudge at Scarmiglione's shoulder with his head.
"I am not....dead...yet," Scarmiglione says with some difficulty, opening his eyes and forcing a faint smile to his lips.
Yet, if he is not dead, neither is he truly alive. His vines and flowers are drying and decaying at an accelerated rate, and within a few minutes he is no longer the paragon of vitality and growth, but a twisted, rotting hulk.
She had not realized Asura was so cruel.
"This is all your fault!" Cagnazzo shouts at Rubicante, who turns to face him so quickly that Barbariccia must dodge the flame-infused threads of his cloak or find herself scorched.
"I?" Rubicante asks softly. "Who complained of his role in kingship? Who sought power? Who demanded a greater share than he had already been given? No, Cagnazzo, not I. Look well within yourself, ere you bring such complaints to me."
"Let us not fight," Scarmiglione says, and his voice is no longer the patient rumble of rocks falling down a mountain, but instead a hideous bubbling sound. "We must make of it what we may."
"We are sealed in," Barbariccia says after a moment.
Rubicante sighs. "Then let us wait," he says. "We have naught to fear from old age, and there are always humans curious and eager for power. One of them will come, and then we will have our revenge."
Barbariccia has not even the energy to fly. She lies down in a corner of the crystalline room, and wills rest to come to her.
~*~
It takes centuries, by the human reckoning, and millennia longer by the Feymarch's standard, for them to recover their strength. In truth, Scarmiglione never truly recovers, reshaped by Bahamut's claws and Asura's magic into a twisted mockery of what he once represented; but he lives, and he and Cagnazzo remain close as ever. Barbariccia plays with her servants, and hones her skills, and betimes she goes to Rubicante; there is little else to do in the long years that pass.
~*~
The human who breaks the seal at last is a tall man, well-muscled, clad in black armour and a cloak so dark that all light around him seems drawn into it, eaten by its power. Barbariccia knows him not, but the power all around him sends a thrill through her that she has not felt since before they lost. She floats down from her eyrie to see him more closely.
Magic snaps tight around her, dragging her closer. There is no circle such as she was accustomed to, but she and the others are all brought before him for a close inspection. She snarls and struggles, to no avail.
"I am Golbez," he says, when he has finished examining them. His accent is strange, his language barely comprehensible from the human tongue she learned so long ago. "I offer you terms. Serve me, and rule all the world with me. Fight me...." He pauses, and Barbariccia suspects that the smile beneath his black helm is not unlike her own. "Fight me, and I will unmake you," he says, too gently.
"If I serve," Rubicante says, "you must understand that I will commit no dishonourable act."
"I will serve if you will destroy the Feymarch," Cagnazzo says.
"I want my body back," Scarmiglione says, the first word of complaint she has heard from him since their battle.
"And you?" Golbez looks at her.
Barbariccia shrugs. "I shall serve so long as it amuses me," she says. "You cannot chain the wind."
He laughs. "Very well," he says, and recites a formal oath that Barbariccia does not recognize. They repeat it, and the magic binding them collapses.
For the first time in centuries, Barbariccia feels the freshness of the spring wind on her face.
He is only human, this Golbez. There will be plenty of time to kill him later. For now, returning to her element is enough to justify whatever petty task he may demand.
Barbariccia dives into the wind, and soars.