[FFXII OG] Prisoner of Fate (2/?) (Basch) (R)
This got bloated enough to split into two parts, so hopefully it's not cut in a weird spot. Feedback is highly appreciated.
Also, this has always bothered me, ever since I first played the beginning of the game and thought, "wasn't his voice deeper before?"
Title: Prisoner of Fate ( 1)
Characters: Basch, Vayne, Gabranth
Overall Rating: R
Overall Summary: Imprisoned by the Empire, disgraced knight Basch fon Ronsenburg fights insanity in the blackness beneath Nalbina Fortress. His twin, who betrayed him to this fate, finds the stains on his honor harder to bear then the blood on his hands.
And Vayne Solidor, who orchestrated the fall of Dalmasca, has greater plans for the brothers than either of them ever dreamed.Chapter Title: Perchance to Dream
Chapter Rating: PG
Chapter Warnings: none
Chapter summary: Basch's reminiscence of treachery.
Word Count: 2336
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst thy cerement, why the sepulcher
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred
Hath...cast thee up again.
- Hamlet, I.iv.47-51
He was free to pace, at least; he had not yet been bound to the shackles that hung from the roof of his cage. His legs were long, his strides normally wide; the chains around his ankles cut them in half. So - four steps across the cage, four steps back. Walking the circumference turned out to be uneven; roughly thirteen strides brought him a little over where he started, so for a time he concentrated on placing his feet exactly so that he could end up in precisely the same spot. A pointless diversion, he knew, but one that kept him focused on something other than his imprisonment. Counting his steps, such accuracy and narrow concentration had the added benefit of keeping him from rehashing the night of the supposed treaty-signing. He'd dwelled on that too long as it was; the memory felt scarred into his brain.
But he could not maintain such control while he slept, and with little else to do and growing weaker, he slept often. His dreams were full of blood.
*******
The beat of his blood roared in his head, nearly drowning out the sounds of fighting. Basch charged forward, hoping the boy could manage on his own, knowing that even had he wished to, he could not stay behind to care for Reks. The boy was too young to be here in Nalbina, but not young enough to be safe in Rabanastre. A necessity of the situation, that children barely grown were called upon in this last defense. Basch regretted the need. He had been only sixteen himself when he took up arms to defend his homeland, and the Republic had fallen a year later. The thought spurred him forward; he denied the possibility that Dalmasca should meet the same fate.
He would not fail again.
An Archadian squad materialized to the left of him; without slowing, Basch pivoted, sword flashing. The first stroke glanced off thick steel, but the next found the seam under the shoulder, and the one after crashed down strongly enough to stave in a poorly welded knee joint. With his own lack of full plate armor, Basch could move more quickly than the Archadians. He took full advantage of that slight edge and whirled to place the wall at his back for leverage, interposed a foot between himself and a soldier, and shoved hard as he could. The man cursed at him as he reeled backwards, his flailing arm knocking his companion off balance. Basch leaped forward and drove the sharp edge of his buckler into that man’s face, snapping the thin metal faceplate in two and feeling the crunch of bone from beneath, then thrust Loyalty through the fallen one’s exposed throat. He flinched from the gurgling screams cut short, muttering a benediction for the dead under his breath as he continued up the hall. For all his years as a soldier, he still hated the necessity of killing men.
He could dwell on the regret later, sharing Omisan stouts with Vossler while they toasted the fallen until they themselves could no longer stand up straight. For now, he had a job to do, and he was already late for its execution.
Basch raced up the dark hall, his breath harsh in his ears and throat, one jagged heave of air after another as he tried to make himself move faster. He should have taken the opportunity to study Time lore years ago, but ironically never found enough hours in the day to devote to such intricate magic. Magecraft had never appealed to him anyhow; he much preferred the solidity and dependability of steel and muscle. Yet steel could break, muscle grow weak; the hume body could only do so much. Tiring, driven by the impending sense of doom that beat in his mind, Basch ran on. He caught up to two Knights who had gotten confused in the labyrinthian corridors; he paused a moment to collect them.
“This way,” he rasped, and they fell in gratefully behind him. Jaran, mouth a grim line under his helm, gripped his sword too tightly as he flanked the general’s left. Basch thought to correct him, then saved his breath for running. If they were too late, it wouldn’t matter, and the man had nearly five full years experience in the corps - he could manage himself. The other soldier, younger, was one of Vossler’s regiment. Basch couldn’t remember the name, but knew he had a pretty wife who’d moved with him to Rabanastre from the nomad camp in the Giza Plains, and she now rounded with a child due in a few short months. He prayed the man survived to see the birth, knew in his heart the chance was a slim one.
They launched themselves up another staircase, battled through a small knot of guards thundering down from above, and plowed up the next interminable hallway. Basch growled in frustration as they ran through another corridor empty of green or tan. The reinforcements were nowhere to be found, or were they the reinforcements?
“Where in all the hells is Vossler?” Basch demanded harshly as they rounded yet one more corner with no sign of their comrades. He sagged against a wall, trying to catch his breath.
“Sir,” Jaran panted, “they took the left path, hoping to outflank the Archadians. I lagged behind to tend to Silas, here, and we were separated from the rest. They might be up ahead or behind - either is likely.”
Basch shook his head and ran the splayed fingers of his free hand through his hair, dragging sweat-soaked strands from his face. “Right, then, we go on without them. The throne room is where the King will be. It cannot be far. Hurry! All is lost if we are too late!” He shoved off the wall and ran onward, the other two close behind. The pulse that beat behind his eyes threatened to blind him, and his gasps sounded like the ragged edge of panic. They had tarried too long. He knew it, and his stomach churned with fear and doubt.
Then he saw the doors, looming ahead at the end of the hall, ancient iron carved everywhere with the symbols of the Dynast-King. “We found them!” cried the younger man, Silas; they charged forwards. The three soldiers burst through the unsecured doors, running full tilt up the center of the room. The shadows were thick in the corners, lights dimmed, but Basch could nevertheless make out the figure of Raminas, sprawled on the throne, unmoving.
“No!” Basch skidded to a halt and stared wildly around him as Imperial troops materialized out of the gloom. A quick count revealed numbers the three of them alone could not hope to face, and no sign of Vossler or any other Dalmascan soldiers. Jaran and Silas, neither men cowards, readied their blades as the Imperials rushed in. Basch attacked, not waiting for quarter to be given, his goal the slumped king. His blade whistled through the air as he slashed, but he had no space in which to appreciate her song. Bodies pressed around him, and he heard a scream as Silas fell, leg crushed by the heavy swing of a mace. Another thud ended the young man’s life. An Imperial fell to Loyalty’s sharp edge, then a second, and a third, but more waded into the fray to take their places. Jaran shoved aside an Imperial and set his back against Basch’s, but the general twisted to dodge a sword and Jaran, too, was pulled down. Basch abandoned the niceties of form and swung wildly, hoping to keep the Archadian soldiers at bay, but the sheer press of numbers overwhelmed him. A foot lashed out, catching him behind the knee; he buckled, regained his balance, swung and stepped and something heavy crashed into him from behind. He bowed under the weight of the blow, again found his footing, and roared in sudden fury that it should come to this, after all he had done to make amends for losing Landis, all his training and adherence to duty and hope for redemption wasted in nothing more than a brawl, dragged down at last by a pack of dog soldiers.
Loyalty was struck from his hand; he could not see where she spun. He flung himself forwards, trying yet to reach the throne, to help his king, and the remaining Imperials grabbed him by the shoulders. A mailed elbow smashed into the back of his head where the curve of his skull met his neck, and the room slipped sideways. Basch cried out, and the chill wash of a spell descended, robbing him of voice and strength. Wrapped in silence magick, he could hear only his harsh panting, each inhalation a sob, as they forced his head down to the floor, arms wrenched straight out to either side. He sagged, nauseated from the blow to the head, and retched as they dragged him back. He stumbled over a body - Silas, who would never again see his wife display a desert flower in her brown hair, never meet the child she carried beneath her breast. Basch’s boots left bloody marks on the plush carpet as he staggered, yanked towards the pillars that lined the edges of the room.
A man in Dalmascan armor, previously hidden by the balcony’s shadows, stepped forward slowly into the light. For a wildly hopeful moment, the general thought of Vossler, but this man was fair, and the armor he wore identical to Basch’s own. A red-stained hand gripped Loyalty, blood dripping from her smooth edge. Shaggy blond hair fell into eyes the same faded blue as his; the man’s free hand splayed through golden strands in a heart-rendingly familiar gesture. Basch felt the world spiraling away, all his assumptions dissolving into ashes. He gaped open-mouthed, unbelieving, as his mirror image stared back without expression. After standing long enough for the full effect of his presence to be felt, Basch’s twin turned his back and walked away.
Enveloped in darkness under the balcony, the soldiers who held him shoved him down onto his knees; Basch’s cries of recognition and horror were lost to the silence magicks that bound him. He surged to his feet, momentarily shaking the grip of the Imperials, but they recaught his arms and yanked them out at a painful angle that prevented him from squirming loose. He shook his head frantically, trying to shake the apparition, the ghost, for surely it was a haunting, this creature striding from the throne with Raminas’ blood on his face and chest and hands, Basch’s own sword raised up and back and then thrust, quivering, into the king’s heart. It had to be a ghost, because this couldn’t be happening, Basch could not be in two places, could not conceive of this sort of treason, and yet here he was, confronting the boy, Reks, his voice cold and low and - oh, gods, could no one hear the nasal Archadian vowels, the clipped cadence? Could the boy not notice this man’s paleness, desert tan lost in the space of an hour? Reks begged to know why, and Basch’s ghost answered with hate in his voice, a loathing such as Basch himself had never expressed.
The boy dropped to his knees, a knife in his gut, Basch’s expression of chill satisfaction filling his vision. A fresh wave of Imperials filed in and rushed forward to lay hands on the killer, held him fast as a new player strode forth from the shadows, proclaiming Basch’s treachery as good for the Empire even while denouncing his name. Basch himself screamed curses until his voice broke, his body straining against the men who confined him, their hands digging hard into his biceps and shoulders. Mailed fingers clawed into the back of his neck, shoving him back down to his knees even as he writhed and threw himself forwards, struggling to move, to break free and accost the apparition who falsely mirrored his stance.
It had to be some form of necromancy. Noah was dead.
Reks’ eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped, finally unconscious. The noble who’d come forward with the reinforcing soldiers tilted his head, letting thick, dark hair slide along the side of his face.
“Imprison the insurgent,” he ordered calmly. “Get the boy to a physicker, quickly. We shall do as we can for him, and send him home. He is no longer a part of this fight.” The young man turned then, and he looked directly at the shadows where Basch thrashed. “Indeed, the fight is now over. Dalmasca is no more; only the Empire remains. For Archadia’s glory.” He turned back and watched dispassionately as Imperial troops dragged Basch’s phantom away. The imposter in their grip struggled, but a sharp blow to the face stilled him long enough for the soldiers to drag him to his feet and shove him towards the doors. The young Archadian noble winced almost imperceptibly and arrested their progress with a sharp word.
“Stop! He is not to be harmed,” he ordered with certain authority. “He will pay for his treason after facing a Judge Magister as required by law; you will comport yourselves properly until his fate is decided.”
The Imperials snapped to attention, those with free hands saluting smartly. “Yes, Lord Vayne," they chorused, and herded their captive away with no further violence. Others carefully gathered Reks from the floor and bore him from the room. Others still busied themselves with the rest of the fallen, laying out Dalmascan and Archadian bodies side by side.
Basch continued to thrash ineffectually while they worked, until the arm of one of the Imperials drew taut across his throat. Everything faded to sick grey; exhausted and grief-stricken, he let it go.
CHAPTER 3
Also, this has always bothered me, ever since I first played the beginning of the game and thought, "wasn't his voice deeper before?"
Title: Prisoner of Fate ( 1)
Characters: Basch, Vayne, Gabranth
Overall Rating: R
Overall Summary: Imprisoned by the Empire, disgraced knight Basch fon Ronsenburg fights insanity in the blackness beneath Nalbina Fortress. His twin, who betrayed him to this fate, finds the stains on his honor harder to bear then the blood on his hands.
And Vayne Solidor, who orchestrated the fall of Dalmasca, has greater plans for the brothers than either of them ever dreamed.Chapter Title: Perchance to Dream
Chapter Rating: PG
Chapter Warnings: none
Chapter summary: Basch's reminiscence of treachery.
Word Count: 2336
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst thy cerement, why the sepulcher
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred
Hath...cast thee up again.
- Hamlet, I.iv.47-51
He was free to pace, at least; he had not yet been bound to the shackles that hung from the roof of his cage. His legs were long, his strides normally wide; the chains around his ankles cut them in half. So - four steps across the cage, four steps back. Walking the circumference turned out to be uneven; roughly thirteen strides brought him a little over where he started, so for a time he concentrated on placing his feet exactly so that he could end up in precisely the same spot. A pointless diversion, he knew, but one that kept him focused on something other than his imprisonment. Counting his steps, such accuracy and narrow concentration had the added benefit of keeping him from rehashing the night of the supposed treaty-signing. He'd dwelled on that too long as it was; the memory felt scarred into his brain.
But he could not maintain such control while he slept, and with little else to do and growing weaker, he slept often. His dreams were full of blood.
*******
The beat of his blood roared in his head, nearly drowning out the sounds of fighting. Basch charged forward, hoping the boy could manage on his own, knowing that even had he wished to, he could not stay behind to care for Reks. The boy was too young to be here in Nalbina, but not young enough to be safe in Rabanastre. A necessity of the situation, that children barely grown were called upon in this last defense. Basch regretted the need. He had been only sixteen himself when he took up arms to defend his homeland, and the Republic had fallen a year later. The thought spurred him forward; he denied the possibility that Dalmasca should meet the same fate.
He would not fail again.
An Archadian squad materialized to the left of him; without slowing, Basch pivoted, sword flashing. The first stroke glanced off thick steel, but the next found the seam under the shoulder, and the one after crashed down strongly enough to stave in a poorly welded knee joint. With his own lack of full plate armor, Basch could move more quickly than the Archadians. He took full advantage of that slight edge and whirled to place the wall at his back for leverage, interposed a foot between himself and a soldier, and shoved hard as he could. The man cursed at him as he reeled backwards, his flailing arm knocking his companion off balance. Basch leaped forward and drove the sharp edge of his buckler into that man’s face, snapping the thin metal faceplate in two and feeling the crunch of bone from beneath, then thrust Loyalty through the fallen one’s exposed throat. He flinched from the gurgling screams cut short, muttering a benediction for the dead under his breath as he continued up the hall. For all his years as a soldier, he still hated the necessity of killing men.
He could dwell on the regret later, sharing Omisan stouts with Vossler while they toasted the fallen until they themselves could no longer stand up straight. For now, he had a job to do, and he was already late for its execution.
Basch raced up the dark hall, his breath harsh in his ears and throat, one jagged heave of air after another as he tried to make himself move faster. He should have taken the opportunity to study Time lore years ago, but ironically never found enough hours in the day to devote to such intricate magic. Magecraft had never appealed to him anyhow; he much preferred the solidity and dependability of steel and muscle. Yet steel could break, muscle grow weak; the hume body could only do so much. Tiring, driven by the impending sense of doom that beat in his mind, Basch ran on. He caught up to two Knights who had gotten confused in the labyrinthian corridors; he paused a moment to collect them.
“This way,” he rasped, and they fell in gratefully behind him. Jaran, mouth a grim line under his helm, gripped his sword too tightly as he flanked the general’s left. Basch thought to correct him, then saved his breath for running. If they were too late, it wouldn’t matter, and the man had nearly five full years experience in the corps - he could manage himself. The other soldier, younger, was one of Vossler’s regiment. Basch couldn’t remember the name, but knew he had a pretty wife who’d moved with him to Rabanastre from the nomad camp in the Giza Plains, and she now rounded with a child due in a few short months. He prayed the man survived to see the birth, knew in his heart the chance was a slim one.
They launched themselves up another staircase, battled through a small knot of guards thundering down from above, and plowed up the next interminable hallway. Basch growled in frustration as they ran through another corridor empty of green or tan. The reinforcements were nowhere to be found, or were they the reinforcements?
“Where in all the hells is Vossler?” Basch demanded harshly as they rounded yet one more corner with no sign of their comrades. He sagged against a wall, trying to catch his breath.
“Sir,” Jaran panted, “they took the left path, hoping to outflank the Archadians. I lagged behind to tend to Silas, here, and we were separated from the rest. They might be up ahead or behind - either is likely.”
Basch shook his head and ran the splayed fingers of his free hand through his hair, dragging sweat-soaked strands from his face. “Right, then, we go on without them. The throne room is where the King will be. It cannot be far. Hurry! All is lost if we are too late!” He shoved off the wall and ran onward, the other two close behind. The pulse that beat behind his eyes threatened to blind him, and his gasps sounded like the ragged edge of panic. They had tarried too long. He knew it, and his stomach churned with fear and doubt.
Then he saw the doors, looming ahead at the end of the hall, ancient iron carved everywhere with the symbols of the Dynast-King. “We found them!” cried the younger man, Silas; they charged forwards. The three soldiers burst through the unsecured doors, running full tilt up the center of the room. The shadows were thick in the corners, lights dimmed, but Basch could nevertheless make out the figure of Raminas, sprawled on the throne, unmoving.
“No!” Basch skidded to a halt and stared wildly around him as Imperial troops materialized out of the gloom. A quick count revealed numbers the three of them alone could not hope to face, and no sign of Vossler or any other Dalmascan soldiers. Jaran and Silas, neither men cowards, readied their blades as the Imperials rushed in. Basch attacked, not waiting for quarter to be given, his goal the slumped king. His blade whistled through the air as he slashed, but he had no space in which to appreciate her song. Bodies pressed around him, and he heard a scream as Silas fell, leg crushed by the heavy swing of a mace. Another thud ended the young man’s life. An Imperial fell to Loyalty’s sharp edge, then a second, and a third, but more waded into the fray to take their places. Jaran shoved aside an Imperial and set his back against Basch’s, but the general twisted to dodge a sword and Jaran, too, was pulled down. Basch abandoned the niceties of form and swung wildly, hoping to keep the Archadian soldiers at bay, but the sheer press of numbers overwhelmed him. A foot lashed out, catching him behind the knee; he buckled, regained his balance, swung and stepped and something heavy crashed into him from behind. He bowed under the weight of the blow, again found his footing, and roared in sudden fury that it should come to this, after all he had done to make amends for losing Landis, all his training and adherence to duty and hope for redemption wasted in nothing more than a brawl, dragged down at last by a pack of dog soldiers.
Loyalty was struck from his hand; he could not see where she spun. He flung himself forwards, trying yet to reach the throne, to help his king, and the remaining Imperials grabbed him by the shoulders. A mailed elbow smashed into the back of his head where the curve of his skull met his neck, and the room slipped sideways. Basch cried out, and the chill wash of a spell descended, robbing him of voice and strength. Wrapped in silence magick, he could hear only his harsh panting, each inhalation a sob, as they forced his head down to the floor, arms wrenched straight out to either side. He sagged, nauseated from the blow to the head, and retched as they dragged him back. He stumbled over a body - Silas, who would never again see his wife display a desert flower in her brown hair, never meet the child she carried beneath her breast. Basch’s boots left bloody marks on the plush carpet as he staggered, yanked towards the pillars that lined the edges of the room.
A man in Dalmascan armor, previously hidden by the balcony’s shadows, stepped forward slowly into the light. For a wildly hopeful moment, the general thought of Vossler, but this man was fair, and the armor he wore identical to Basch’s own. A red-stained hand gripped Loyalty, blood dripping from her smooth edge. Shaggy blond hair fell into eyes the same faded blue as his; the man’s free hand splayed through golden strands in a heart-rendingly familiar gesture. Basch felt the world spiraling away, all his assumptions dissolving into ashes. He gaped open-mouthed, unbelieving, as his mirror image stared back without expression. After standing long enough for the full effect of his presence to be felt, Basch’s twin turned his back and walked away.
Enveloped in darkness under the balcony, the soldiers who held him shoved him down onto his knees; Basch’s cries of recognition and horror were lost to the silence magicks that bound him. He surged to his feet, momentarily shaking the grip of the Imperials, but they recaught his arms and yanked them out at a painful angle that prevented him from squirming loose. He shook his head frantically, trying to shake the apparition, the ghost, for surely it was a haunting, this creature striding from the throne with Raminas’ blood on his face and chest and hands, Basch’s own sword raised up and back and then thrust, quivering, into the king’s heart. It had to be a ghost, because this couldn’t be happening, Basch could not be in two places, could not conceive of this sort of treason, and yet here he was, confronting the boy, Reks, his voice cold and low and - oh, gods, could no one hear the nasal Archadian vowels, the clipped cadence? Could the boy not notice this man’s paleness, desert tan lost in the space of an hour? Reks begged to know why, and Basch’s ghost answered with hate in his voice, a loathing such as Basch himself had never expressed.
The boy dropped to his knees, a knife in his gut, Basch’s expression of chill satisfaction filling his vision. A fresh wave of Imperials filed in and rushed forward to lay hands on the killer, held him fast as a new player strode forth from the shadows, proclaiming Basch’s treachery as good for the Empire even while denouncing his name. Basch himself screamed curses until his voice broke, his body straining against the men who confined him, their hands digging hard into his biceps and shoulders. Mailed fingers clawed into the back of his neck, shoving him back down to his knees even as he writhed and threw himself forwards, struggling to move, to break free and accost the apparition who falsely mirrored his stance.
It had to be some form of necromancy. Noah was dead.
Reks’ eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped, finally unconscious. The noble who’d come forward with the reinforcing soldiers tilted his head, letting thick, dark hair slide along the side of his face.
“Imprison the insurgent,” he ordered calmly. “Get the boy to a physicker, quickly. We shall do as we can for him, and send him home. He is no longer a part of this fight.” The young man turned then, and he looked directly at the shadows where Basch thrashed. “Indeed, the fight is now over. Dalmasca is no more; only the Empire remains. For Archadia’s glory.” He turned back and watched dispassionately as Imperial troops dragged Basch’s phantom away. The imposter in their grip struggled, but a sharp blow to the face stilled him long enough for the soldiers to drag him to his feet and shove him towards the doors. The young Archadian noble winced almost imperceptibly and arrested their progress with a sharp word.
“Stop! He is not to be harmed,” he ordered with certain authority. “He will pay for his treason after facing a Judge Magister as required by law; you will comport yourselves properly until his fate is decided.”
The Imperials snapped to attention, those with free hands saluting smartly. “Yes, Lord Vayne," they chorused, and herded their captive away with no further violence. Others carefully gathered Reks from the floor and bore him from the room. Others still busied themselves with the rest of the fallen, laying out Dalmascan and Archadian bodies side by side.
Basch continued to thrash ineffectually while they worked, until the arm of one of the Imperials drew taut across his throat. Everything faded to sick grey; exhausted and grief-stricken, he let it go.
CHAPTER 3