(no subject)
Random bits from the middle of the fic. Subject to change five seconds from now when I notice all the damn glaring errors.
The state of Cid’s inner sanctum suggests that a dozen people, all working on different projects, suddenly had the impulse to toss everything into the air and run out screaming. He was never exactly tidy, the situation deteriorating in the last few years, with his life upended by new discovery, more and more more projects put on extended hold. Vayne maneuvers with long practice around the piles of paper, random airship components sticking out here and there, or simply scattered across the floor.
An architectural marvel, really, tomes stacked up into precarious positions, more scrolls and loose papers piled on any book that sticks out more than a quarter inch. All covered in varying levels of dust, depending on how long they’ve been set aside. A handful of most of the documents in this room would be worth thousands, tens of thousands to Rozarria. If Cid ever took an interest in defecting, any of the ruling families would flock to bury him in titles and estates and gold-plated virgins.
A massive sculpture takes up most of the narrow shelf on the back wall, a hundreth-scale replica of the Leviathan, one of Cid’s earliest successes. The ship’s outer plating is missing, revealing every deck, each supporting system and minute detail of its construction. A gift from the people of Archades, from the Emperor, for twenty-five years faithful service. In the drawers beneath, leatherbound folios in ivory parchment and onionskin contain the finalized blueprints for every ship Cid has ever designed, near-transparent pages with crinkling layers outlining each section of the ship’s systems.
Works of art, though at the moment Vayne’s attention is focused entirely on the half a pie resting at the corner of the desk, and he gives the crust an inquisitive tap, pleased to find it isn’t a fossil. Most likely breakfast, forgotten about as Cid was distracted by some problem or another. He pulls off his gloves, stuffs them into a jacket pocket, and makes a mockery of several years of etiquette lessons by tearing into it with his hands. Draklor has its own cooks, both as a security measure and to keep the noble born less fussy about the barbarians in their midst. Given the range of origins of the staff, they’ve been able to attract more than a few interesting culinary options beyond the usual Archadian standard of boiling all the taste out of the food, though the pie has nutmeg /and/ cinnamon, which is two spices more than Cid’s usual preferences. He may be a genius, but his appetites are pure upper noble.
“Yes, you’re quite right, but even if we had the magicks to maintain that sort of core temperature, let alone anyone with the stamina to attempt such an extended burn - we’d melt the room /and/ the equipment before the Nethicite showed a result. No… I don’t, yes I understand what you’re - well I /am/ rather stupid, as you are well aware.”
Cid is pacing back and forth in a smaller, adjoining room with even more shelves and papers stacked high. In a good mood, despite the argument he seems to be having, or perhaps because of it. It is not as difficult as one would think, having conversations with a man who often pauses to address the empty air, though not a skill Vayne ever thought he would need to learn. Cid nods briefly, acknowledging his arrival, even though his attention is still fixed on a point two feet higher and to his left.
“Well, at least in that sense, it might not be so impossible to - the shape of a blade is only convention, after all. Rather archaic, really.”
“Is this going to be a theory with five zeroes or six?” Vayne says dryly. “I’d almost think you held a grudge, the way you fill my days with empty coffers and angry Senators.”
Cid grimaces, even less patience for the small-minded than Vayne does.
“As if they know any other way to be. You secure my funding for the quarter, I’ll get you fifteen percent off the total engine cost for cruisers and dreadnoughts, with a twenty percent power increase across the board. We’ll see them complain about that.”
“And?” Vayne says - it’s the other work that actually matters, that everyone knows they’re doing that no one will speak of aloud, but Cid’s back to nodding at the empty air.
“No, I don’t suppose so. Yes, that might work, but… no, not like that. It certainly won’t be built in a day, and even if you may have all the time in the world… Well, you are more than welcome to stay, of course. Ah, yes, then. In short order.” A pause, and Vayne wonders how he can tell when Cid is no longer looking at the phantom and is simply staring into the distance instead. “I do wonder where Venat goes. How else does such a creature occupy its time?”
“Watching people in the bath, I suppose.” Vayne replies. “I do not have to be here, if there is work to be done between you.”
Cid shakes his head. “Always work to be done, but I am less the apt pupil than I ought to be, as of late.”
“Venat is… disappointed?”
“Oh, nothing so common.” Cid sighs, makes a frustrated gesture which means the actual explanation is about an hour long and would bore a normal man cross-eyed. “The world it knows, or knew - the techniques, the materials on hand… the distance between what Venat assumes I can do and what I am actually capable of is… optimistic at the best of times. Nethicite itself is one thing, but this treaty blade - there are things that are like breathing to an Occurian that I have not the mark or measure of. We speak the same words, yet hardly the same language.”
Vayne licks a bit of congealed syrup off his thumb, tossing the empty pie tin back on the desk. “Keep it simple, if you will. I spent all morning in mediation.”
“Judges?”
“House Calsesa.”
“Good gods, those fools are still at it?” Cid moves carefully through the piles on his desk, shifting them from one side to the other, looking for something. “What is it now, the tapestries or the candlesticks? You ought burn the whole place down, let them squabble over the ashes.”
“I have no doubt they would. It seems to be mostly over, though in order to escape I was forced to resort to… drastic measures.”
Cid smiles knowingly. It is not the first time Vayne’s used Larsa’s precocious charms to avoid another ten hours of tedious debate. “Your brother is well, then?”
“Always. So what is this new problem of yours?”
“The same problem as ever. Diamonds scratching diamonds. We have a difficult time doing anything with Nethicite as it is, and that’s when we can actually get it to crystalize properly. Attempting to modify at the seed form yields some results, but there’s only so far to shape it once it’s started growing. So dense, and damned brittle even when we /can/ crack it - and manufacted’s nothing compared to the real thing. This blade, if it’s to go through the Sun-Cryst itself…”
Magicite is simple storage, a one-use battery, the Mist within it bouncing off the channels and paths inside, a temporary source of power. Nethicite, in comparison, does not lose all of its Mist, even fully drained, and the Mist that remains within its pathways refracts and bends and - changes, over time, or so Venat has said. Gives it a certain kind of life. Manufacted Nethicite is dumb, and the only paths they can create within it are rough and simple things. Still, it contains a network of channels twenty to fifty times that of Magicite, absorbs magicks like a sponge and can be extremely powerful if properly used.
Deifacted Nethicite, in comparison, is a network of endless fractal pathways with ages for the Mist inside to steep. Dense and unbreakable, nothing in any standard armory capable of scratching it, let alone destroying it. The Shards do not simply resonate, they can reach out, from what Cid has learned they are somewhat aware of their surroundings - and even then they are but fragments cleaved from an even more powerful whole.
The Sun-Cryst is /alive/, with even the spare details Venat has revealed of its construction there can be little doubt of that. It is as conscious as any creature, with a will of its own and perhaps - Cid has speculated - even watching the world turn, observing all of history through the Mist. Eons spent in silent observation from wherever it has been hidden away. Venat does not answer many questions about it. How it came to be, if it had /always/ been or if the Occuria had created it, and just how destructive its power is, if unleashed. Only how to destroy it, only that it must be destroyed. It does run counter to Vayne’s usual impulse of keeping all avenues open, not discarding a potentially useful tool, but there is some sense in Venat’s insistence.
Who knew what had happened, ages ago, why Raithwall had chosen to take only slivers of the Sun-Cryst’s might for his own? Just why it had been so long kept from the hands of humes. Maybe it has truly been watching them all this time.
Maybe it doesn’t like what it sees.
“Venat has not provided any further clues?”
“Clues? Answers, all but written out for me, yet we lack the barest of essentials. The technology for such equipment does not exist anywhere in Ivalice. I would need to spend ten, twenty years building the /infrastructure/ first.” Of course, this is Cid, so he’s likely cobbled together at least half a solution out of spare glossair rings, tape and bits of rope already.
“I would give you more time if I could, but I fear we are quickly approaching the end of our advantage.”
“It goes well with Nalbina?” Cid shakes his head. “I am still amazed that king of theirs never thought to marry the girl off to you.”
Vayne shrugs. “Well, I do have that nasty habit of devouring virgins whole, and there’s the endless orgies to consider.”
Cid makes a thoughtful sound. The benefits of courtly manners, if it were a real competition it could be a week before one of them might slip and crack a smile.
“You are certainly insatiable. I wonder how my old bones have lasted this long.”
“Oh, don’t put yourself down. You hardly creak worse than the bedsprings.”
He would be lost, to do this alone. Either he would be completely out of his mind or he would be no different than the rest of the fools in court, and given the option Vayne would much prefer to be a lunatic.
The doctor continues shuffling papers, voice musing and mild. “Who knows, perhaps Bergan will end up dueling me for your hand? He seems the jealous type.”
“And there is an image that will haunt me to my very grave. Thank you, Cid.” The doctor chuckles, acquiescing, and Vayne smiles, though it doesn’t last. He did ask about the war. “Nabradia is not without skill in battle, but there are few strategies open to them, once they are forced to stand and fight, and a bottleneck gives very little advantage with our ships in the skies. Yet again, it is your work that will give us the day.”
“The Emperor has said as much.”
It is not all that surprising, or perhaps only that it took him this long to make the attempt to turn Cid to his side. Desperate, frightened old man. Almost pitiable, first to never gain hold of Larsa and now this. How far he’s falling behind, and Vayne would enjoy it more if such failures weren’t likely to make His Imperial Highness all the more likely to panic.
“What did he offer you?”
“I may be a curse on the industry, but…”
“Cid, you /are/ the industry. What did he say?”
“Nothing new. He just wished to see that I was productive - and still too far gone to be of any real use to him. You would think by now that I ought be insane enough to get out of /all/ of my meetings…”
Each of them has used the other as an excuse for ducking out of all kinds of events, enough that Vayne has lost count, though he does not have Cid’s added option of simply ranting to the air as a way of avoiding unwanted conversations. A shame, that.
“He threatened Draklor, I’m sure?”
Cid has his glasses off, cleaning them on the edge of his shirt. “Oh, with all due apology. The Senate is trying to freeze spending, so he says. It is a matter of fiscal caution, a… ‘shared uncertainty, over how to best allocate resources in the current climate’.”
Without a war, there is nothing for the laboratory to do but grow stronger, more essential in a dozen ways domestically, and that is not discounting the endless, simmering conflict with Rozarria, fear of the unknown driving the need for the protection they provide ever higher. If Vayne wanted to try for a coup, it might be done with very little trouble before the end of the year. Gods willing, it will not come to that, not when a seamless transition would far better serve. The old man may have spent the better part of a decade at death’s door, playing it for all it was worth, but even he will have to pass from this age eventually, though it seems all too likely they will have to pry his unwilling corpse off the throne.
“Do not trouble yourself over the Senate. I’ll deal with the consequences.”
“You always do.” Vayne realizes after a moment, that Cid is actually angry on his behalf. Surprisingly touching, though he had given up on anything better than antipathy from the Emperor a very long time ago. “He was /shocked/ at where things stand, you know? As if he held no part in it. A tale of woe, that you were no longer the sweet boy he raised, and who could say what had happened, and even though I am obviously deranged, would I support the effort to put your brother on the throne? Young and inexperienced, and let’s not discuss how in the hell Larsa would ever manage to /keep/ it.”
“It’s not personal. It never has been. What would you do, Cid, if you built a machine that you could not longer rely on?”
A scowl, the same look Cid gives him whenever Vayne refers to his life as the tactical blunder that it truly is. No doubt the Emperor regrets it more with each day, and there is something magnificent in the idea that his father would have preferred for him to fail and die, years ago. Hell, maybe he’d never intended for /any/ of them to survive.
“After all that you’ve done in his name, he thinks he can just buy it out from under you. That all loyalties are as cheap and meaningless as his own.”
“Promise not to betray me for less than a dukedom.”
Cid snorts. “I’m already an Earl, for all the good it does me.”
Back to shuffling papers across the desk, though Cid is likely wishing he were working on something with more moving parts that he might occasionally bash with a wrench, now and then. No one should have to stand between him and the Emperor, to be anywhere in range, when Gramis’ paranoia finally gets the better of what’s left of his common sense.
“Will you hire someone to do it, or just poison my tea?”
The doctor ponders his options. “I thought I would build a robot. I’ve always wanted to build a robot.”
A good amount of time has passed, and Vayne is sure a messenger will be waiting for him, as soon as he leaves the lab. He doubts it will be over quite this early, though this would be the time to learn that something has gone wrong. Even if nothing has, there are plans to be made.
“How fast could you take down the Leviathan’s engines, should it be required?”
“Sneak in? Two hours, if that, and they won’t have it moving for a week. Give me half a day, without anyone to tell me no, and I’ll cripple the Ifrit and the Shiva as well. The Alexander’s a bit trickier, not that it will matter, when Ghis can get a dozen private ships in the meantime.”
“He might have some trouble with anything too small. Rozarria’s been watching the sea, picked up on the legends that the Sun-Cryst is there. Anything from Archades moves, and they’ll be on it.”
Venat has severed all ties with its fellows, which unfortunately means losing the crucial detail of locating the Sun-Cryst on a map. Still, they know more than most, including the fact that knowing where it is and actually reaching the damned thing are two entirely different problems. Once it is located, Venat ought to be able to get them past any of the Occurian defenses - maybe not an Esper, should one of those be in place, but then Vayne might just as easily be able to feed the Rozarrians to it. Or Ghis. Or both.
“I can get you a ship. I can get you one of /their/ ships, or at least a good mockup, radio signals and all. By the time Rozarria realized it was you, you’d be there. Wherever that might be.”
“Destroying the Sun-Cryst we can’t find, with the treaty blade we don’t have.” It isn’t meant to accuse, Vayne just isn’t as familiar thinking it all out loud, measuring up what he needs to have happen against all the unknowns that stand in his way. “I’ll want Larsa here, when Raminas gives up its location. Lock him in, if you have to. It will keep him safe until this is resolved.”
Cid doesn’t answer. He’s stopped moving, one hand in a loose fist on the desk. All of the doctor’s personality comes from constant motion, a fluid language of strides and gestures. He does not now know to keep still, and it is unnerving to see him so quiet.
“I think I need to show you something.”
Vayne considers chiding him, it’s /good/ news that makes him uneasy, not the bad, but Cid is looking grimmer by the minute, disappearing into that antechamber, reappearing with a rather heavy, rough wooden crate in both hands.
“I wanted to have actual answers, before I troubled you. It is hardly an auspicious time for baseless conjecture.”
“As if it ever is.” Vayne watches quietly, as Cid slides the crate apart, a series of interlocking pieces unfolding to reveal a rather nondescript rock sample, light and dark grays and browns all sandwiched together in wide and narrow bands.
“A geology student from the Grand College was studying some cliffs near the Cerobi Steppes, mentioned some odd findings in passing to one of the interns, who thought I might be interested. I suppose I have a… reputation for curiosities.”
Vayne smiles slightly at the deliberate understatement, and reaches out, brushing his fingers across the rock. A bit of powder gray softness clings to his skin from a thinner band in the middle, almost like ash.
“It’s magically inert. The surrounding layers are no different than any other soil, but that layer there - there’s no Mist in it at all.”
Which is an impossibility, but Cid already knows that, or he wouldn’t bother showing him this. Mist is like air, like water - it saturates everything in the world, and though they’ve managed to create clean rooms, temporarily free of its influence in Draklor, there is no banishing it in any permanent fashion, let alone…
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have a theory.”
“I always have a theory.” Cid taps at the edge of a stone with a fingertip, thoughtfully. “The depth of this strata, it’s around… four thousand years old? Give or take a few centuries. I did send out for a few more samples, no absolute proof, but... it’s all the same. Everywhere that we can find it, it’s the same. Whatever did this, it could very well have affected all of Ivalice, at the least.”
“A power that could drain every drop of Mist out of the land.”
Thousands of years old? No logical explanation? What else could it be, but the Sun-Cryst? The evidence of its birth.
“Do you think there’s enough ambient Mist on the planet right now, to-?”
“No. I don’t.”
The only other place that Mist comes from, besides the earth, is the creatures that live on it. It’s what allows them to use magicks, a part of life, and there’s no way to… harvest it. Which means that knowledge could very well have died, along with nearly everything else, to bring the stone to life.
All that Venat wants, is to destroy the Sun-Cryst, for reasons it will not explain. The Occuria are little better than phantoms, for all that Vayne can tell. Venat broke all vows just to speak with Cid, to reach out. It does not sound like much of a godhood to him.
One thing, to ponder armageddon. Another, to rub the crumbling memory between his fingertips. Vayne can all too well imagine some glorious plan gone terribly wrong. Just pride and misplaced confidence. Or maybe there was no choice at all. Which would be worse?
“The amount of Mist in the Sun-Cryst, if released all at once - it could be catastrophic. If it is out at sea, it would be luckier, but if it lies inland… it might very well kill the Viera, sensitive as they are. I can’t say what it would do to anything else, to humes or to magicks or the airships…”
“You have asked Venat about all this?”
“I am not sure what to ask. If it is anything… the Sun-Cryst is not a popular topic on the best of days. I doubt I would get an answer.”
Cid’s hand has drifted just below his throat, an unconscious gesture Vayne doubts he realizes he is making, when he is most troubled or deep in thought. Tracing his fingers over the edge of the wedding ring he wears on a chain, tucked safely away from harm. Far too precious to wear otherwise, when he might be elbow deep in half-manufacted Nethicite with barely a moment of warning.
“Venat is not comfortable, when you are around. I think it is… bothered, that we are friends.”
“Jealous?”
“No. No, not of you - but more… the sense of camaraderie itself. Of not being alone.”
This is not anything he has spoken of before, and Vayne’s eyes narrow. “You can feel what it does?”
Cid waves a hand, as if in dismissal, but his expression is grim. “Barely. In passing, sometimes. It is…” He trails off. “Resignation. Sorrow, without even death to limit it. As if… as if one had an eternity, to burn out into empty oblivion, and then have nothing else to do but learn to be sane again. Whatever happened, Vayne… the Occuria may have survived it, however it is that gods do so, but they did not recover.”
“Not just gods, then, but /mad/ gods? How marvelous.”
Cid chuckles, though there is not much amusement in it. “And now we must seek to succeed, where they failed? We are to be Venat’s attempt at absolution? I believe I need a word, for when the regret is there, even before attempting what I know full well ought to be left alone.”
“You knew better than to fly that antique ship of yours, even before the wings fell off and it crashed into that mountain.”
“It was a hill, not a mountain, and the theory was sound even if the struts were not. It was mostly repairable, anyway.” Cid sighs. “The world is not an airship, Vayne. If I were capable of humility, this would be the time for it.”
... and a bit further down
The western hall is in need of a new portrait, the last now nearly two years out of date, as neither brother is much interested in slowing down long enough to allow for one. The rest of the hall is lined with old Solidors, and Vayne has made more than one impromptu lesson out of the walk, entertaining Larsa with tales of battles won and honors granted while checking off the names in his own mind - //drunk, drunk, bastard, raging drunk, slept with his mother//. No paintings remain of his brothers, all of those destroyed when they were judged to be traitors. Every personal possession, every private document seized by the Judges or burned outright. A decent Firega can reduce a man’s life to nothing in minutes.
Vayne has a single memstone remaining from his eldest brother, discovered months after the fact, tossed in randomly among his own possessions. It is nothing much, the notes from some long distant meeting, reminders for a day’s activities that have less than no meaning now. He has nearly gotten rid of it half a dozen times, yet for some reason it remains, tucked in the back of a desk drawer, a compromise with uncertain terms.
He is not early, but Larsa still stumbles in late, trying to pretend as if he hasn’t just run the length of the southwest corridor. He is freshly scrubbed and attired, and Vayne can see a slight red patch along the knuckles on his right hand, a the scrape doused carelessly to heal.
“Who won, then?”
The look his brother gives him, as if he needed to ask, and Vayne reaches out to ruffle his hair but Larsa ducks away, laughing. Judge Drace appears at the door, taking up a position near the wall, silent and disapproving of his existence, as usual.
“Seven to four. I took three goals.”
“Good man. It would make a decent profession, lest you should tire of being a prince.”
Larsa sits down, while Vayne remains standing, just slightly behind and to the side of the chair. Open sky behind them, as high as they are, though they’ve sat for this before, and he knows the artist has sketched the backdrop from a lower room, the Archadian skyline stretching out instead. The woman leans around her canvas, and Vayne can see her frowning slightly, because Larsa is fidgeting, tugging at the high collar that… no, starched lace? Really?
“Gods save us, brother. Who dressed you in that and why didn’t you have the good sense to tell them no?”
Larsa scowls, two red spots high on his cheeks, though he is doing his best to pretend it is in insult rather than embarrassment. “It seemed a bit… excessive, but I… I did not wish to cause offense.”
“If you don’t put up a fight, they’ll be coddling you like this forever.” Even the servants reluctant to admit their precious charge is growing up. Vayne can sympathize, yet there is nothing to be done for it.
“Hold still.”
He carries the dagger with him always, an easy weapon to conceal, especially here in the palace where it is considered bad form to walk around openly armed, no matter how many nobles have come to a bad end within its walls. It is too far a distance to hear if Drace’s breath catches, the Judge Magister’s armor revealing nothing, but Vayne imagines she is standing a bit more rigid, her eyes fixed to the fraction of space between the point of the dagger and Larsa’s throat, as he delicately cuts the ridiculous trim off the shirt. Of course his brother notices none of it, still a bit annoyed, all childish pride, the Solidor crest around his neck and no idea at all that there is anything to fear.
Without a doubt, his greatest victory.
“The Grand College took the match today. Are we going to the finals?”
“I should imagine so.” Vayne says, dagger back in its sheath and standing back up. Larsa flashes him a grateful grin, returning quickly to a poised alertness, the sort of formal pose that has Vayne longing to shove him out of it, preferring an informal slouch over the reminder of who he must become, how fast the time is passing. How it feels no span at all, since he had held Larsa in the crook of his arm and promised him the whole of the world.
“I have two jockeys who’ve petitioned to ride Zephyr in the Tchita Twelve-Mile.” It is his brother’s fastest bird, a brilliant white-gold, little more than two years old, and already a champion several times over. “Lord Bailean wishes to stud him with the birds in his flock, and says I can have my choice of the eggs.”
“… and then you will have a chick of your own, to join the other… two dozen?”
Where he’s standing, he can see Larsa struggle not to turn and glare at him, though his voice conveys the proper annoyance well enough.
“It’s only eight, and Lai is too old now to do much but sleep in the sun.”
The state of Cid’s inner sanctum suggests that a dozen people, all working on different projects, suddenly had the impulse to toss everything into the air and run out screaming. He was never exactly tidy, the situation deteriorating in the last few years, with his life upended by new discovery, more and more more projects put on extended hold. Vayne maneuvers with long practice around the piles of paper, random airship components sticking out here and there, or simply scattered across the floor.
An architectural marvel, really, tomes stacked up into precarious positions, more scrolls and loose papers piled on any book that sticks out more than a quarter inch. All covered in varying levels of dust, depending on how long they’ve been set aside. A handful of most of the documents in this room would be worth thousands, tens of thousands to Rozarria. If Cid ever took an interest in defecting, any of the ruling families would flock to bury him in titles and estates and gold-plated virgins.
A massive sculpture takes up most of the narrow shelf on the back wall, a hundreth-scale replica of the Leviathan, one of Cid’s earliest successes. The ship’s outer plating is missing, revealing every deck, each supporting system and minute detail of its construction. A gift from the people of Archades, from the Emperor, for twenty-five years faithful service. In the drawers beneath, leatherbound folios in ivory parchment and onionskin contain the finalized blueprints for every ship Cid has ever designed, near-transparent pages with crinkling layers outlining each section of the ship’s systems.
Works of art, though at the moment Vayne’s attention is focused entirely on the half a pie resting at the corner of the desk, and he gives the crust an inquisitive tap, pleased to find it isn’t a fossil. Most likely breakfast, forgotten about as Cid was distracted by some problem or another. He pulls off his gloves, stuffs them into a jacket pocket, and makes a mockery of several years of etiquette lessons by tearing into it with his hands. Draklor has its own cooks, both as a security measure and to keep the noble born less fussy about the barbarians in their midst. Given the range of origins of the staff, they’ve been able to attract more than a few interesting culinary options beyond the usual Archadian standard of boiling all the taste out of the food, though the pie has nutmeg /and/ cinnamon, which is two spices more than Cid’s usual preferences. He may be a genius, but his appetites are pure upper noble.
“Yes, you’re quite right, but even if we had the magicks to maintain that sort of core temperature, let alone anyone with the stamina to attempt such an extended burn - we’d melt the room /and/ the equipment before the Nethicite showed a result. No… I don’t, yes I understand what you’re - well I /am/ rather stupid, as you are well aware.”
Cid is pacing back and forth in a smaller, adjoining room with even more shelves and papers stacked high. In a good mood, despite the argument he seems to be having, or perhaps because of it. It is not as difficult as one would think, having conversations with a man who often pauses to address the empty air, though not a skill Vayne ever thought he would need to learn. Cid nods briefly, acknowledging his arrival, even though his attention is still fixed on a point two feet higher and to his left.
“Well, at least in that sense, it might not be so impossible to - the shape of a blade is only convention, after all. Rather archaic, really.”
“Is this going to be a theory with five zeroes or six?” Vayne says dryly. “I’d almost think you held a grudge, the way you fill my days with empty coffers and angry Senators.”
Cid grimaces, even less patience for the small-minded than Vayne does.
“As if they know any other way to be. You secure my funding for the quarter, I’ll get you fifteen percent off the total engine cost for cruisers and dreadnoughts, with a twenty percent power increase across the board. We’ll see them complain about that.”
“And?” Vayne says - it’s the other work that actually matters, that everyone knows they’re doing that no one will speak of aloud, but Cid’s back to nodding at the empty air.
“No, I don’t suppose so. Yes, that might work, but… no, not like that. It certainly won’t be built in a day, and even if you may have all the time in the world… Well, you are more than welcome to stay, of course. Ah, yes, then. In short order.” A pause, and Vayne wonders how he can tell when Cid is no longer looking at the phantom and is simply staring into the distance instead. “I do wonder where Venat goes. How else does such a creature occupy its time?”
“Watching people in the bath, I suppose.” Vayne replies. “I do not have to be here, if there is work to be done between you.”
Cid shakes his head. “Always work to be done, but I am less the apt pupil than I ought to be, as of late.”
“Venat is… disappointed?”
“Oh, nothing so common.” Cid sighs, makes a frustrated gesture which means the actual explanation is about an hour long and would bore a normal man cross-eyed. “The world it knows, or knew - the techniques, the materials on hand… the distance between what Venat assumes I can do and what I am actually capable of is… optimistic at the best of times. Nethicite itself is one thing, but this treaty blade - there are things that are like breathing to an Occurian that I have not the mark or measure of. We speak the same words, yet hardly the same language.”
Vayne licks a bit of congealed syrup off his thumb, tossing the empty pie tin back on the desk. “Keep it simple, if you will. I spent all morning in mediation.”
“Judges?”
“House Calsesa.”
“Good gods, those fools are still at it?” Cid moves carefully through the piles on his desk, shifting them from one side to the other, looking for something. “What is it now, the tapestries or the candlesticks? You ought burn the whole place down, let them squabble over the ashes.”
“I have no doubt they would. It seems to be mostly over, though in order to escape I was forced to resort to… drastic measures.”
Cid smiles knowingly. It is not the first time Vayne’s used Larsa’s precocious charms to avoid another ten hours of tedious debate. “Your brother is well, then?”
“Always. So what is this new problem of yours?”
“The same problem as ever. Diamonds scratching diamonds. We have a difficult time doing anything with Nethicite as it is, and that’s when we can actually get it to crystalize properly. Attempting to modify at the seed form yields some results, but there’s only so far to shape it once it’s started growing. So dense, and damned brittle even when we /can/ crack it - and manufacted’s nothing compared to the real thing. This blade, if it’s to go through the Sun-Cryst itself…”
Magicite is simple storage, a one-use battery, the Mist within it bouncing off the channels and paths inside, a temporary source of power. Nethicite, in comparison, does not lose all of its Mist, even fully drained, and the Mist that remains within its pathways refracts and bends and - changes, over time, or so Venat has said. Gives it a certain kind of life. Manufacted Nethicite is dumb, and the only paths they can create within it are rough and simple things. Still, it contains a network of channels twenty to fifty times that of Magicite, absorbs magicks like a sponge and can be extremely powerful if properly used.
Deifacted Nethicite, in comparison, is a network of endless fractal pathways with ages for the Mist inside to steep. Dense and unbreakable, nothing in any standard armory capable of scratching it, let alone destroying it. The Shards do not simply resonate, they can reach out, from what Cid has learned they are somewhat aware of their surroundings - and even then they are but fragments cleaved from an even more powerful whole.
The Sun-Cryst is /alive/, with even the spare details Venat has revealed of its construction there can be little doubt of that. It is as conscious as any creature, with a will of its own and perhaps - Cid has speculated - even watching the world turn, observing all of history through the Mist. Eons spent in silent observation from wherever it has been hidden away. Venat does not answer many questions about it. How it came to be, if it had /always/ been or if the Occuria had created it, and just how destructive its power is, if unleashed. Only how to destroy it, only that it must be destroyed. It does run counter to Vayne’s usual impulse of keeping all avenues open, not discarding a potentially useful tool, but there is some sense in Venat’s insistence.
Who knew what had happened, ages ago, why Raithwall had chosen to take only slivers of the Sun-Cryst’s might for his own? Just why it had been so long kept from the hands of humes. Maybe it has truly been watching them all this time.
Maybe it doesn’t like what it sees.
“Venat has not provided any further clues?”
“Clues? Answers, all but written out for me, yet we lack the barest of essentials. The technology for such equipment does not exist anywhere in Ivalice. I would need to spend ten, twenty years building the /infrastructure/ first.” Of course, this is Cid, so he’s likely cobbled together at least half a solution out of spare glossair rings, tape and bits of rope already.
“I would give you more time if I could, but I fear we are quickly approaching the end of our advantage.”
“It goes well with Nalbina?” Cid shakes his head. “I am still amazed that king of theirs never thought to marry the girl off to you.”
Vayne shrugs. “Well, I do have that nasty habit of devouring virgins whole, and there’s the endless orgies to consider.”
Cid makes a thoughtful sound. The benefits of courtly manners, if it were a real competition it could be a week before one of them might slip and crack a smile.
“You are certainly insatiable. I wonder how my old bones have lasted this long.”
“Oh, don’t put yourself down. You hardly creak worse than the bedsprings.”
He would be lost, to do this alone. Either he would be completely out of his mind or he would be no different than the rest of the fools in court, and given the option Vayne would much prefer to be a lunatic.
The doctor continues shuffling papers, voice musing and mild. “Who knows, perhaps Bergan will end up dueling me for your hand? He seems the jealous type.”
“And there is an image that will haunt me to my very grave. Thank you, Cid.” The doctor chuckles, acquiescing, and Vayne smiles, though it doesn’t last. He did ask about the war. “Nabradia is not without skill in battle, but there are few strategies open to them, once they are forced to stand and fight, and a bottleneck gives very little advantage with our ships in the skies. Yet again, it is your work that will give us the day.”
“The Emperor has said as much.”
It is not all that surprising, or perhaps only that it took him this long to make the attempt to turn Cid to his side. Desperate, frightened old man. Almost pitiable, first to never gain hold of Larsa and now this. How far he’s falling behind, and Vayne would enjoy it more if such failures weren’t likely to make His Imperial Highness all the more likely to panic.
“What did he offer you?”
“I may be a curse on the industry, but…”
“Cid, you /are/ the industry. What did he say?”
“Nothing new. He just wished to see that I was productive - and still too far gone to be of any real use to him. You would think by now that I ought be insane enough to get out of /all/ of my meetings…”
Each of them has used the other as an excuse for ducking out of all kinds of events, enough that Vayne has lost count, though he does not have Cid’s added option of simply ranting to the air as a way of avoiding unwanted conversations. A shame, that.
“He threatened Draklor, I’m sure?”
Cid has his glasses off, cleaning them on the edge of his shirt. “Oh, with all due apology. The Senate is trying to freeze spending, so he says. It is a matter of fiscal caution, a… ‘shared uncertainty, over how to best allocate resources in the current climate’.”
Without a war, there is nothing for the laboratory to do but grow stronger, more essential in a dozen ways domestically, and that is not discounting the endless, simmering conflict with Rozarria, fear of the unknown driving the need for the protection they provide ever higher. If Vayne wanted to try for a coup, it might be done with very little trouble before the end of the year. Gods willing, it will not come to that, not when a seamless transition would far better serve. The old man may have spent the better part of a decade at death’s door, playing it for all it was worth, but even he will have to pass from this age eventually, though it seems all too likely they will have to pry his unwilling corpse off the throne.
“Do not trouble yourself over the Senate. I’ll deal with the consequences.”
“You always do.” Vayne realizes after a moment, that Cid is actually angry on his behalf. Surprisingly touching, though he had given up on anything better than antipathy from the Emperor a very long time ago. “He was /shocked/ at where things stand, you know? As if he held no part in it. A tale of woe, that you were no longer the sweet boy he raised, and who could say what had happened, and even though I am obviously deranged, would I support the effort to put your brother on the throne? Young and inexperienced, and let’s not discuss how in the hell Larsa would ever manage to /keep/ it.”
“It’s not personal. It never has been. What would you do, Cid, if you built a machine that you could not longer rely on?”
A scowl, the same look Cid gives him whenever Vayne refers to his life as the tactical blunder that it truly is. No doubt the Emperor regrets it more with each day, and there is something magnificent in the idea that his father would have preferred for him to fail and die, years ago. Hell, maybe he’d never intended for /any/ of them to survive.
“After all that you’ve done in his name, he thinks he can just buy it out from under you. That all loyalties are as cheap and meaningless as his own.”
“Promise not to betray me for less than a dukedom.”
Cid snorts. “I’m already an Earl, for all the good it does me.”
Back to shuffling papers across the desk, though Cid is likely wishing he were working on something with more moving parts that he might occasionally bash with a wrench, now and then. No one should have to stand between him and the Emperor, to be anywhere in range, when Gramis’ paranoia finally gets the better of what’s left of his common sense.
“Will you hire someone to do it, or just poison my tea?”
The doctor ponders his options. “I thought I would build a robot. I’ve always wanted to build a robot.”
A good amount of time has passed, and Vayne is sure a messenger will be waiting for him, as soon as he leaves the lab. He doubts it will be over quite this early, though this would be the time to learn that something has gone wrong. Even if nothing has, there are plans to be made.
“How fast could you take down the Leviathan’s engines, should it be required?”
“Sneak in? Two hours, if that, and they won’t have it moving for a week. Give me half a day, without anyone to tell me no, and I’ll cripple the Ifrit and the Shiva as well. The Alexander’s a bit trickier, not that it will matter, when Ghis can get a dozen private ships in the meantime.”
“He might have some trouble with anything too small. Rozarria’s been watching the sea, picked up on the legends that the Sun-Cryst is there. Anything from Archades moves, and they’ll be on it.”
Venat has severed all ties with its fellows, which unfortunately means losing the crucial detail of locating the Sun-Cryst on a map. Still, they know more than most, including the fact that knowing where it is and actually reaching the damned thing are two entirely different problems. Once it is located, Venat ought to be able to get them past any of the Occurian defenses - maybe not an Esper, should one of those be in place, but then Vayne might just as easily be able to feed the Rozarrians to it. Or Ghis. Or both.
“I can get you a ship. I can get you one of /their/ ships, or at least a good mockup, radio signals and all. By the time Rozarria realized it was you, you’d be there. Wherever that might be.”
“Destroying the Sun-Cryst we can’t find, with the treaty blade we don’t have.” It isn’t meant to accuse, Vayne just isn’t as familiar thinking it all out loud, measuring up what he needs to have happen against all the unknowns that stand in his way. “I’ll want Larsa here, when Raminas gives up its location. Lock him in, if you have to. It will keep him safe until this is resolved.”
Cid doesn’t answer. He’s stopped moving, one hand in a loose fist on the desk. All of the doctor’s personality comes from constant motion, a fluid language of strides and gestures. He does not now know to keep still, and it is unnerving to see him so quiet.
“I think I need to show you something.”
Vayne considers chiding him, it’s /good/ news that makes him uneasy, not the bad, but Cid is looking grimmer by the minute, disappearing into that antechamber, reappearing with a rather heavy, rough wooden crate in both hands.
“I wanted to have actual answers, before I troubled you. It is hardly an auspicious time for baseless conjecture.”
“As if it ever is.” Vayne watches quietly, as Cid slides the crate apart, a series of interlocking pieces unfolding to reveal a rather nondescript rock sample, light and dark grays and browns all sandwiched together in wide and narrow bands.
“A geology student from the Grand College was studying some cliffs near the Cerobi Steppes, mentioned some odd findings in passing to one of the interns, who thought I might be interested. I suppose I have a… reputation for curiosities.”
Vayne smiles slightly at the deliberate understatement, and reaches out, brushing his fingers across the rock. A bit of powder gray softness clings to his skin from a thinner band in the middle, almost like ash.
“It’s magically inert. The surrounding layers are no different than any other soil, but that layer there - there’s no Mist in it at all.”
Which is an impossibility, but Cid already knows that, or he wouldn’t bother showing him this. Mist is like air, like water - it saturates everything in the world, and though they’ve managed to create clean rooms, temporarily free of its influence in Draklor, there is no banishing it in any permanent fashion, let alone…
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have a theory.”
“I always have a theory.” Cid taps at the edge of a stone with a fingertip, thoughtfully. “The depth of this strata, it’s around… four thousand years old? Give or take a few centuries. I did send out for a few more samples, no absolute proof, but... it’s all the same. Everywhere that we can find it, it’s the same. Whatever did this, it could very well have affected all of Ivalice, at the least.”
“A power that could drain every drop of Mist out of the land.”
Thousands of years old? No logical explanation? What else could it be, but the Sun-Cryst? The evidence of its birth.
“Do you think there’s enough ambient Mist on the planet right now, to-?”
“No. I don’t.”
The only other place that Mist comes from, besides the earth, is the creatures that live on it. It’s what allows them to use magicks, a part of life, and there’s no way to… harvest it. Which means that knowledge could very well have died, along with nearly everything else, to bring the stone to life.
All that Venat wants, is to destroy the Sun-Cryst, for reasons it will not explain. The Occuria are little better than phantoms, for all that Vayne can tell. Venat broke all vows just to speak with Cid, to reach out. It does not sound like much of a godhood to him.
One thing, to ponder armageddon. Another, to rub the crumbling memory between his fingertips. Vayne can all too well imagine some glorious plan gone terribly wrong. Just pride and misplaced confidence. Or maybe there was no choice at all. Which would be worse?
“The amount of Mist in the Sun-Cryst, if released all at once - it could be catastrophic. If it is out at sea, it would be luckier, but if it lies inland… it might very well kill the Viera, sensitive as they are. I can’t say what it would do to anything else, to humes or to magicks or the airships…”
“You have asked Venat about all this?”
“I am not sure what to ask. If it is anything… the Sun-Cryst is not a popular topic on the best of days. I doubt I would get an answer.”
Cid’s hand has drifted just below his throat, an unconscious gesture Vayne doubts he realizes he is making, when he is most troubled or deep in thought. Tracing his fingers over the edge of the wedding ring he wears on a chain, tucked safely away from harm. Far too precious to wear otherwise, when he might be elbow deep in half-manufacted Nethicite with barely a moment of warning.
“Venat is not comfortable, when you are around. I think it is… bothered, that we are friends.”
“Jealous?”
“No. No, not of you - but more… the sense of camaraderie itself. Of not being alone.”
This is not anything he has spoken of before, and Vayne’s eyes narrow. “You can feel what it does?”
Cid waves a hand, as if in dismissal, but his expression is grim. “Barely. In passing, sometimes. It is…” He trails off. “Resignation. Sorrow, without even death to limit it. As if… as if one had an eternity, to burn out into empty oblivion, and then have nothing else to do but learn to be sane again. Whatever happened, Vayne… the Occuria may have survived it, however it is that gods do so, but they did not recover.”
“Not just gods, then, but /mad/ gods? How marvelous.”
Cid chuckles, though there is not much amusement in it. “And now we must seek to succeed, where they failed? We are to be Venat’s attempt at absolution? I believe I need a word, for when the regret is there, even before attempting what I know full well ought to be left alone.”
“You knew better than to fly that antique ship of yours, even before the wings fell off and it crashed into that mountain.”
“It was a hill, not a mountain, and the theory was sound even if the struts were not. It was mostly repairable, anyway.” Cid sighs. “The world is not an airship, Vayne. If I were capable of humility, this would be the time for it.”
... and a bit further down
The western hall is in need of a new portrait, the last now nearly two years out of date, as neither brother is much interested in slowing down long enough to allow for one. The rest of the hall is lined with old Solidors, and Vayne has made more than one impromptu lesson out of the walk, entertaining Larsa with tales of battles won and honors granted while checking off the names in his own mind - //drunk, drunk, bastard, raging drunk, slept with his mother//. No paintings remain of his brothers, all of those destroyed when they were judged to be traitors. Every personal possession, every private document seized by the Judges or burned outright. A decent Firega can reduce a man’s life to nothing in minutes.
Vayne has a single memstone remaining from his eldest brother, discovered months after the fact, tossed in randomly among his own possessions. It is nothing much, the notes from some long distant meeting, reminders for a day’s activities that have less than no meaning now. He has nearly gotten rid of it half a dozen times, yet for some reason it remains, tucked in the back of a desk drawer, a compromise with uncertain terms.
He is not early, but Larsa still stumbles in late, trying to pretend as if he hasn’t just run the length of the southwest corridor. He is freshly scrubbed and attired, and Vayne can see a slight red patch along the knuckles on his right hand, a the scrape doused carelessly to heal.
“Who won, then?”
The look his brother gives him, as if he needed to ask, and Vayne reaches out to ruffle his hair but Larsa ducks away, laughing. Judge Drace appears at the door, taking up a position near the wall, silent and disapproving of his existence, as usual.
“Seven to four. I took three goals.”
“Good man. It would make a decent profession, lest you should tire of being a prince.”
Larsa sits down, while Vayne remains standing, just slightly behind and to the side of the chair. Open sky behind them, as high as they are, though they’ve sat for this before, and he knows the artist has sketched the backdrop from a lower room, the Archadian skyline stretching out instead. The woman leans around her canvas, and Vayne can see her frowning slightly, because Larsa is fidgeting, tugging at the high collar that… no, starched lace? Really?
“Gods save us, brother. Who dressed you in that and why didn’t you have the good sense to tell them no?”
Larsa scowls, two red spots high on his cheeks, though he is doing his best to pretend it is in insult rather than embarrassment. “It seemed a bit… excessive, but I… I did not wish to cause offense.”
“If you don’t put up a fight, they’ll be coddling you like this forever.” Even the servants reluctant to admit their precious charge is growing up. Vayne can sympathize, yet there is nothing to be done for it.
“Hold still.”
He carries the dagger with him always, an easy weapon to conceal, especially here in the palace where it is considered bad form to walk around openly armed, no matter how many nobles have come to a bad end within its walls. It is too far a distance to hear if Drace’s breath catches, the Judge Magister’s armor revealing nothing, but Vayne imagines she is standing a bit more rigid, her eyes fixed to the fraction of space between the point of the dagger and Larsa’s throat, as he delicately cuts the ridiculous trim off the shirt. Of course his brother notices none of it, still a bit annoyed, all childish pride, the Solidor crest around his neck and no idea at all that there is anything to fear.
Without a doubt, his greatest victory.
“The Grand College took the match today. Are we going to the finals?”
“I should imagine so.” Vayne says, dagger back in its sheath and standing back up. Larsa flashes him a grateful grin, returning quickly to a poised alertness, the sort of formal pose that has Vayne longing to shove him out of it, preferring an informal slouch over the reminder of who he must become, how fast the time is passing. How it feels no span at all, since he had held Larsa in the crook of his arm and promised him the whole of the world.
“I have two jockeys who’ve petitioned to ride Zephyr in the Tchita Twelve-Mile.” It is his brother’s fastest bird, a brilliant white-gold, little more than two years old, and already a champion several times over. “Lord Bailean wishes to stud him with the birds in his flock, and says I can have my choice of the eggs.”
“… and then you will have a chick of your own, to join the other… two dozen?”
Where he’s standing, he can see Larsa struggle not to turn and glare at him, though his voice conveys the proper annoyance well enough.
“It’s only eight, and Lai is too old now to do much but sleep in the sun.”