#germonique

[endeavorsreward]

Excerpts (Bk.II, Chapter Indeterminate)

The Zeirchele River was known for its raw power; fed by the snow and rain from the Algost mountains, the tallest and most weather-beaten peaks in Ivalice, the river was too wild for water transport. Almost its entire length was riddled with rapids, creating a near impossible border to cross; there were only a handful of passable fords.

The river was one of two that served as natural defenses for Fort Besselat. From Mount Germinas to the east came the Dorvauldar—though a calmer river, it made up its difference in size, a wide, deep river that had once fed Lake Poescas, but now traveled uninterrupted across Zeltennia and Limberry, dividing them in twain, before reaching the sluices at Besselat and draining into the Dorvauldar Marsh. To reach the isolated Besselat, you must cross the well-guarded dam to the east, or cross the Zeirchele to the west.

While most came to Besselat via the Bethla Causeway, which crossed the river directly at the fortress, the group had agreed that Delita could not dare show himself there with the princess. The causeway, a broad stone bridge that passed the fortress on its southern side, was a taxed crossing. While King Denamda IV had instituted the tax under the pretenses of keeping Besselat's upkeep, it was largely a defensive measure – inspections were commonplace. Even with the fortress likely being Delita's goal, Duke Goltanna could not accept the princess into Besselat publicly without announcing himself as party to the plot. More likely instead that he would travel north to the falls and Germonique's Crossing.

The Algost Mountains formed a shelf where the highlands ended. During the dry season, at the river's calmest, there was a fordable pass which some enterprising merchant or cutthroat had found in a century past and linked with a simple bridge of rope and wood. Lesalian nobility had men come and fix it annually and kept it tax free, not out of largesse but to provide a route for their own to ferry contraband. It was patrolled, but only lightly. At some point, its nature as a way around the official crossing had left it named for history's most reviled traitor, but its location was something of an open secret. He'd have to bring the princess there, but once across, he might well be into the arms of the Black Lion and lost to them.

Technically the foot of the mountain range, travel was slowed for the group as they trudged through wood and glen and riverbed north to the falls. Boco time and again would snort with impatience, led along by Alicia to stay with the group. Chichiri, for her part, was more content to follow Lavian, ferrying their packs and gear. Agrias was more in the male chocobo's camp, honestly. Every muscle in her arms tightened, and her hand kept finding the pommel of her sword and then releasing it. Days of travel, and now they were sprinters approaching the ribbon-line, and they may yet have lost the race.

The mercenaries, though, seem unconcerned. Since leaving Araguay Wood, Ladd's usefulness as a guide had begun to fall away, and he now hung back, walking in a loping, casual gait that suggested either surrender to the delays that had kept them from reaching the falls sooner, or perhaps merely apathy in the day's outcome. And Gaffgarion walked alongside her without giving her a moment's notice, eyes slightly narrowed, clearly thinking about something. She didn't like his expression.

And then there was the boy.

Ramza Lugria wore a pained expression every time she glanced over to where he walked alongside Alicia. He stumbled at least twice, even, because he often marched with his eyes pinched closed. Whoever this Delita truly was, clearly the boy dreaded the confrontation. It was a far cry from the young man who had demanded he be taken along on this quest against his master's objections. At one point during a minutes-long break to rest and recollect breath, he had pulled a blade of grass from the ground and had merely stared at it before flicking it into the river, where it had spun in circles before being swallowed.

The rise grew steeper; the falls were ahead. She let her hand stay this time at her sword's hilt and increased the pace of her march. Boco ruffled his feathers. Lavian spit out the jerky that she had been chewing.

A hawk somewhere in the sky cried out, and Ramza's eyes opened and he began to jog.

The sudden movement caused Agrias to turn and find that at some point Gaffgarion had gotten ahead of her—ahead of all of them—and was taking point, vanishing into the trees. She nodded Alicia ahead to follow him, and she handed her reins to Lavian before sprinting to catch up with the older man. Boco was loosed, and he flapped twice and then started following as well. Wild chocobo or not, his previous master had trained him well.

The woods enveloped them into the dark, and then broke away of a sudden, and they were at the falls. The roar of the falling water seemed to erupt from nowhere. She couldn't see anything around the bend of the path and the cliffside. But she heard shouting. Ramza rushed ahead of her. She drew her sword.

***

Ramza vaulted over a boulder and turned to scale the last of the climb. Something had plagued his thoughts the last half-day that he could not name—in addition to all that he could—and when Gaffgarion had decided to lead of his own accord, he had understood at least as far as something was terribly, terribly wrong with this situation. When he reached Germonique's Crossing at last, he yet still was unprepared for what he saw.

The crossing amounted to two cliffs at about the height of a village church bell above the water, with a single-file rope bridge spanning the width of the falling water. The water fell unevenly—there were many crags and jutting rocks splitting the stream that dry seasons had saved from being worn away. On their side of the crossing, Gaffgarion and Alicia were two-thirds of the way up the hill to the crossing, their swords drawn. On the other...

“Princess!” Agrias was at his side, Lavian and Ladd both catching up from where they'd tied Chichiri to a tree at the bottom of the cliff. And there Ovelia indeed was, on the rope bridge, with Delita.

His old friend was dressed in a red tunic and golden armor, and the sun glared off his shoulders so brightly that Ramza could not see his face. He had his sword drawn as well, but not at the princess or even Gaffgarion, but instead at the five knights who faced against him on the crossing's opposite side, bearing weapons of their own. They stood astride corpses of their own, and Delita's sword was already red. They were hungry-looking knights who, despite standing on the Limberry side of the crossing, wore the standard of the Order of the Northern Sky.

“Stand aside, ser!” The knight's leader pointed at Delita with his blade. “You are defeated! Surrender the princess, and no more blood must needs be spilt!”

Ramza's friend, his brother, the man he'd betrayed, began to laugh. It was an ugly laugh, high and mad, that reminded him of Ziekden. “Do you so enjoy the taste of lies? Your orders are to see the princess dead! And once I've watched you feed the falls her blood, I'm to believe you'd let me live, a witness to your crime?”

“What foolishness is this? We came to save the princess, not to kill her! What could we possibly gain by Lady Ovelia's death? We wish only to see her freed from the Black Lion's claws!” Contrary to his words, he took a step forward, towards the bridge. Delita's sword lanced forward, and something exploded beside the knight, sending him falling back to his own troops. The bridge rocked back and forth dangerously, and Ovelia clung to Delita to halt herself from falling into the rapids.

“Your highness!” Agrias roared, and this time she was heard. Ovelia did not release Delita as she turned, and her eyes widened to see her knight had arrived.

“Agrias!” She reached out with one arm, as though she could pull the Lionsguard up with the strength of her heart. The leader of the knights, however, saw their arrival and spit.

“Hmm. It seems we are no longer alone. Gaffgarion! Kill them all!”

Ramza's eyes widened, and he turned, but it was too late, as he watched Gaffgarion kick Alicia in the small of her back, sending her tumbling off the cliff into the water below.

***

Agrias moved to scale the cliff, but Gaffgarion's sword began to glow with the powers of his sword arts. Despite everything, they were at temporary stalemate. She raised her sword. “You would now betray us!?” Less from surprise than a hope to buy time. Lavian was somewhere behind her, but Gaffgarion's man was at her side, and they were outnumbered three, maybe four to one.

Despite accusing the older man, her eyes were on Ramza.

“Betray you? You have a viper's tongue, milady.” He was laughing, that disgustingly damp moustache of his trembling as his helmet shaded his eyes from view. “I betray no one. I am in the Order's employ, and they are of it. My task was to see the princess safely abducted. And theirs, to see the one responsible silenced.”

She took a step forward slowly, her blade off to one side, praying he saw it as emotion rather than tactics. “You mean to say the kidnapping was a ruse?” One of her eyes kept flitting to the cliffside, in hopes of spying Alicia. The fall might not have been fatal.

“The princess is an obstacle to the throne. So long as she lives, the threat remains that someone could assert her claim above Prince Orinus's. Two heirs are one too many!” There was a whimpering sound from the bridge. It was then that Agrias resolved: there would be no justice here—she would murder him.

The man in gold, the kidnapper, called back to them from the bridge without even turning. “If her death is certain, then let it least not be in vain. Kill her if you must, but let it be held she was taken by  Goltanna's men. Do that, and the stroke that fells a problem princess at once brings down a rival Lion. That was no doubt Larg's plan all along... Or was it his? Such a plot has more the feel of Dycedarg's thinking. Would you not agree, Ramza?”

Ramza stood halfway up the rise, between Agrias and Gaffgarion. She could not see his face.

“That one has the right of it, Ramza. Come, let us earn our pay!”

[endeavorsreward]

Sample (Shouldn’t Show So Much, But Proud of This Bit, I Think)

And she was so tired. She fought with love, and saw truth and beauty in the faces of those she witnessed, in the struggles for freedom, freedom was all any of them ever, ever sought, she was emboldened, but so tired.

Her hand yet held, but she felt so heavy.

They marched her, Ajora, through the streets to Golgollada, and she was so tired. For a moment she was Orran, instead, and she started to cry. But the gallows grew closer, and she would not let them break her at the end. She’d not let Germonique see her weep.

“You can stop this,” she whispered.

“Why would I?” asked Ajora.

“I speak not to you,” she said, “But the woman you wear; I know she lingers still; she was stronger than I, you’ve proven that time and again.”

“We are the same.” Ultima’s voice was soft, like falling feathers.

“You are not.” She shook her head as the noose was lowered around her neck. “You shared a common pain, but I do not. You seek to make our cause common, but what you show to me is not a truth of value.”

“My power cannot be resisted forever,” said Ultima, and Alma offered a weak smile as the rope pulled taut.

“You gave that power to me.” And she refused to let the Mist burn.

The experience of being hanged. It is not a quick break of the neck; it is an agonized, slow strangulation, feet struggling to find purchase, the world hazing as it contracts to a single flickering dot. It is unlike anything else. Each part of her goes numb in turn as the blood ceases flow... it feels like turning to air. To Mist.

And for a moment, she thinks that she’s made a mistake, that this fallen angel has been right, that she is yet another woman self-sacrificed to keep the wheel turning.

But her hand holds.

Her hand holds.

And she feels another hand, a woman’s hand, take hers.

[morkalmarrh]

journal entry at midnight

 ...to wit, a spy of sorts - disseminating information across a network of underground sympathisers and empire antagonists. Rather than a child of the Gods it would be safer to call 'Saint Ajora' a kind of well-intentioned terrorist.

 Doubtless he knew what his underlings were doing with that information though he studiously kept his own hands clean. I am all too aware of how it works - deniable assets - gold leaving trails - a dangerous business.

 Of course they trusted the small man in a holy man's robes. And now they idolise him. I can only hope this book isn't suppressed before it's too late. 

 Mayhap I must become a martyr to unmake a martyr.

   (You know I knew you better than anyone. We were the only ones who could bear to see each other how we truly were... and yet you still remained. You may as well have knotted that noose yourself. Now look what I have wrought... I warned you, Aji.)

[morkalmarrh]

Zomal

 The taught rope is merciful as a broken neck. Below the gallows a pendulous body does not bleed. Germonique shuts his eyes, slowly.

 "He's dead," he says, to no-one, though of course Zomal is listening. Before the magnitude or even flavour of his emotions (relief? loss? guilt? loathing?) can solidify, the power held in that small body hammers at any Mage or Viera present for a dozen miles.

 Something screams and the Mist curdles, goes rancid. Besides him, Mrja gasps and, with the grace of a Viera, buckles to the floor.

 Germonique can taste it in the boiling Mist. Her rage. Her loss. Altima.

"Your vainglorious godling... she rages," Zomal offers. The voice scratches at the back of his mind. "Your 'Great Crystal'."

 Zomal feels Germonique's ripple of understanding and leaves the sentence there, its alien intelligence probing the surroundings. The Blood-Glyph on Germonique's chest prickles as it always does with the Time God's subtle threat.

 The world lists and reels, sharply, and water rises. Germonique also rises, jumping to his feet and threading with an assassin's ease through the suddenly panicked onlookers. 

 "Zomal," he hisses, unheard over the melée of voices. Any eavesdropper would only hear the whispering, guttural dialect of Old Kilean even if they tried. "Something went wrong."

 As he says that, he sees an airship from the corner of his eye. Its engines stutter and, ponderously, the great machine lurches out of the sky.

 "I am aware." Zomal is always aware. "We predict a total loss of life. This includes yours, Hume."

 "Excellent," Germonique snaps, throwing up his arms. "Is there anything you can do?"

 "We can, yes. You are but one vessel I did not request."

 Germonique always prefers to swear in Rozarrian. If Zomal understands, it does not comment.

 "What other crazy bastard is going to let you use him as a plaything? Just get me out."

 "Beyond my capabilities," it says, frostily. Then, after a pause long enough to consider what Germonique has thought the far-off concept of hs mortality, it concedes,

 "I can preserve this place."

 Curious wording. Germonique looks at the prone Viera who has sat so regally by his side. She could be dead.

 Zomal continues. "For it, I will need sacrifice."

 "I didn't ask you to spare me by killing me," Germonique spits, his panic showing as sharp-toothed spite.

 "Your mere life would be insufficient," the voices thrum. "I will spare you. And you will be the sole survivor." 

 Zomal speaks or spoke or will speak in manifold voices, some stolen from men not yet born.

 "I will make of Mullonde a Necrohol."

 Germonique looks around - to the rising water, the dense shiver of Mist he is sure even a Hume without magick-touched eyes can see. It looks as if there is a crack in the sky.

 At the Bangaa and Viera and Moogles and fellow Humes, and their lives, and what must be thoughts and dreams and, of course, terrors. How a child searches for his mother.

 And how he hates all of them. Hated them since he was a child and he was taught the hate of the Gods. And how they will always carry in them the death of that mortal body, a death that Germonique can only feel belongs to him alone.

 "Aji," he murmurs, and then, "Do it." After a pause he adds, with brutal logic, "They're soon dead anyway."

 He even goes so far as to draw his swords but, of course, this creature needs no help from blades. He feels the scars he carved into his chest flare with pain and tastes blood as Zomal reaches out with myriad hands and claws and nameless appendages, claiming a hundred lives to spare one that cannot love even itself.

[morkalmarrh]

Heat-stroke

 Some moments print themselves like coins on the malleable gold of a young mind. Later others may come and try to strike a different face into that surface - but it cannot be done. All that remains are confused ridges, malformed mountains of doubt and frustration. 

 Germonique feels he has been moulded a hundred times by now. He has been hammered flat, to start anew. All he looks for is a seal, wandering empty-handed into an abyss of time and freedom. 

 The first was an unclean blow, unskilled. Half the seal on the coin, the other half in emptiness. The rest in him blank, cut off by the edge of the design like teeth. That was what he felt like. Half-formed, unloved, destined for smelting. Assimilation. He would press the cross against his mouth, feeling it cut his lips. He would do it because it felt more like control than what the Church would normally have him do.

 Sinner, they had called him, false-seed. Get of two priests, sin made flesh, a punishment for them. Rather than cleanse themselves, they cleansed him.

 Dark spaces like cupboard or wombs; he cannot abide them now. Vulnerable like an idiot fawn they make him feel, dizzy and boneless. Germonique needs open skies, clouds, spice-smells, rain or grit or blood, anything but that.

 He was 'Sicar' then. More a dog's tag than a name.

 Next a hail of circumstances, which he emerged from with more blades than made sense. A bandoleer of them at his hip, two swords he rarely took with him. Trained in the ways of the travelers from the East in somes ways, as a mage in others. Adept at neither, not yet. 

 Even later, a mage not aware that he would become legendary for it - even then his Magicks were exceptional only because of their origin. Of the standard Grimoires he knew little. Time Magicks, mostly. With them his blades struck one after the other before his opponent could so much as twitch.

 He considered many things, even the sky, but he was bad with machinery and worse at dealing with Moogles. A short-haired Viera told him where home was - nowhere. 

 Not yet, he thought. Not until these foundations are in ashes, and I am free. 

 He was known as Rozzarian, because of his skin. In truth, only his Mother was. 

 And then - ash. They burned them with his books. Mother, Father. Just words. Like bitch or whelp, they meant blood and blood alone. All he remember of her now is the smell of smoke, the stubborn way she tried not to scream until the very end. 

 He cut his hair, he walked, he kept walking. 

 And then the Saint. He should have killed him earlier than he did. Saved the world and himself the pain of a pretty corpse and a martyr. 

 Even when he was in front of the bars between that man and the gallows, he called him 'Aji'. 

 In the storm that followed he wrote a book, a book that would last longer than his 'eternal soul'. Eaten by a mad God, jealous of unworldly secrets. Blind now, his feet walk, but the mind does not. 

 Now he is timeless like Zomal. 

 Now, now he is Germonique, Blessed Apostate. 

[morkalmarrh]

A bundle of Ivalice ficlets. In order - Loffrey, Germonique, Finnigan/Jeanne, Grissom, Germonique, Loffrey/Vormav. I didn't write for how long it told me to at all.

  (write for) 15 minutes * unreliable or confused character *

taking off your mask

When your mask has become your face - when your face, I

mean, deprived of light has some way atrophied - when the

mask is removed will we be bloody, or will our pale effigies

have outgrown?

If I take it off, will I die or be free - both? The mask

perhaps is the shadow on my face, perhaps it is - it is -

maybe indifference, to be sure, or quiet-speaking, maybe...

that is... I am so lost and alone...

Blood... perhaps the mask is off already. I have been...

flayed through I am pierced through only once. Maybe

twice...

He thinks I am dead or maskless, so pale I am that dark-

kept shoot... bloodless and wan... the portal is broken and

with it my strength; my head drops. I am unmasked and dying,

that I know. Do I think like a lunatic or only more clearly

than before?

I smell blood - mine or others' or Ivalice's - I feel -

panic - or comfort - or confusion - maybe pain,

melancholy... Because I can smell the incense, a Church-

musk, that always came with him. On my clothes... as likely

on my skin, like bleeding.

I think of Hell as darkness or fire or ice or turbulence...

I think of Hell as anything for it does not matter... only

that I am unmasked, that too is Hell, I go there - it's dark

- even Ralseph - I am not afraid any more

too tired i

waited for this

it is where i belong is it not

sleep

(write for) 10 minutes * journal entry * know you better

...to wit, a spy of sorts - disseminating information

across a network of underground sympathisers and empire

antagonists. Rather than a child of the Gods it would be

safer to call 'Saint Ajora' a kind of well-intentioned

terrorist.

Doubtless he knew what his underlings were doing with that

information though he studiously kept his own hands clean. I

am all too aware of how it works - deniable assets - gold

leaving trails - a dangerous business.

Of course they trusted the small man in a holy man's robes.

And now they idolise it. I can only hope this book isn't

suppressed before it's too late.

Mayhap I must become a martyr to unmake a martyr.

(You know I knew you better than anyone. We were the only

ones who could bear to see each other how we truly were...

and yet you still remained. You may as well have knotted

that noose yourself. Now look what I have wrought... I

warned you, Aji.)

1000+ words * male character * last request

It's a sunny day and it reminds him of escape. The breeze

is cool, the sun hot, all around the glass languishes, but

peacefully. Summer, his favourite season, a time of joyous

excess and coming open. He turns his face to the wind and

feels it blow through his hair.

Today is not a day he wanted to happen. Either today he or

she will feed the earth with their blood or, to save

themselves, they must become the monsters they swore they

would not. He can hear them coming, faintly. More he can

smell them on the breeze like an animal: their sweat, their

trepidation, the blood from her bandaged cut. A man and a

woman. She smells familiar, in a way. He knows her but can't

identify her from smell alone.

Her green hood even in the heat tips him off, visible over

yellow grass. They seem tired, not quite afraid. Proud.

These are monsters that are fearsome, they must think,

monsters that can be beaten. Monsters that killed her

brother and stole his sister.

A monster he became for her... and would do so again. Hell

is no sacrifice.

"They're coming, bird," he says quietly, though she's

already looking. They'll take a while and, sure, they could

run again. Take off like hind and hart, keep running. Chased

across Ivalice - but what life is that? Maybe they fear

pursuit or maybe they are simply too proud of tired, too

battered and hurt and too unwilling to risk separation. They

fall together, one way or another. Without a word he takes

her hand, presses her knuckles to his lips with a smile.

Despite the power in her stone her hand is on her blade. He

wonders if she'll prove Hume until the last, or not. He

doubts he can. Not if she's hurt.

When they crest the hill, he can see how tired they are -

the blonde-haired young man, younger than him, and the woman

their age with her father's grim strength but none of the

cruelty.

He bows because, well, they are worthy adversaries. Ma

taught him well; he'd rather die a gentleman.

They fight too fast to follow - clash - sword - parry - man

on man and woman on woman but - he is no warrior, though the

daemon is - he is no warrior and the spear pierces his chest

with an alien feeling. Body-rending... the ultimate. He

understands that he is dead, that is is the daemon that

holds him, that threatens to remake him, fight back, fight

harder.

But she - she bloodied and torn, her armour - she is still

beautiful, and on her knees still Hume, and when she looks

at him he only smiles and ignoring the blood on his mouth he

says,

"Find me."

drabble (100 words) * mystery * blinded by the light

The workings of the world are a mystery to me, as they are

to all Humes. The Father did not see fit in the making of

the world to grant us omniscience - because we must

discover, struggle, and feel the light of understanding for

ourselves. It is a privilege and a reward, not a right. it

is the outcome of a man's years of struggling on this plane.

This is what I have been told all my life, I have preached

for years, I have read in countless books and heard from

numberless mouths. It is a truth that is without name and it

should be part of me: the Father knows.

It's what I said to the undead horde. These cultists and

shambling wrecks I despise and - I admit - fear. I fear

their fate. Their power.

Without questioning, I served you, Father. But blinded by

the light, I have fallen into the Dark.

(write for) 25 minutes * unreliable or confused character *

start a fire

As above, so below. As begun, so ended. Fire is the spark

of life but a jealous master... stolen from the Gods it was

and so it envies us. It is the quickest route back to the

cycle of souls. One spark among thousands as the body burns

to ash.

I - am - confused. I am not sure what I expected to feel.

Father repented, and the mercy for such is a throttling...

not to feel the cleansing flames on the treacherous body.

But Mother -

Do I still hear her scream? Or do they burn only in my

memory? Was it only in my dreams that I wipe their ash from

the lines of my face - in my wishes that I feel guilt, or

sadness - or pride, or loathing? I feel nothing. Looking in

the fire I saw with great clarity and only with my eyes.

Red, orange, white, brown, blood, the way her hair fell in

her face, the kindling mercifully dry, the blue sky, a kite

swooping past. I could have seen the lines of the wind

itself if I chose to... I swear I could.

I bury in ash everything they held dear. They call me

'Judas', but I am Germonique.

(write for) 10 minutes * conflict * devotion

Devotion - it is a word like love, but not quite. Purer,

maybe, than love. But better - stronger - weaker? Does one

follow the other?

Perhaps not. Devotion could be said to be like need. A need

to need, or be needed. A need to do anything for someone,

perhaps to prove you are alive.

You - you know you are a damned fool. That you are knocking

your head against circumstance and wondering why you bruise

- walking into the den of the lion, knowing he is hungry,

knowing that one cannot live while the other survives.

But you do it, perhaps, because you are cold. You do it

because you are sick inside and you crave the claws. You do

it because being ripped apart is what you desire but your

pride and your cowardice would not let you do so.

Maybe you are devoted because you wish to end with purpose.

Or, you think, as you watch the way he moves, perhaps you

are devoted because you love him the only way a broken man

like you knows how.

[morkalmarrh]

On the Cataclysm (and also Germonique).

Our version of the Cataclysm started with Venat's passing. The Occuria lost influence in Ivalice, and the Great Crystal's power began to wane. Myst continued to leak from it, but it wasn't being replaced. It weakened over the next century, very gradually.

As well as this, the Empire shackled its scientists somewhat, and technological advances slowed and, as such, Ivalice began to stagnate.

It was with Ajora's death that things got worse. We propose that Giruvegan is within what was later named the continent of Mullonde. In a fit of rage the High Seraph used her influence on the weakened Great Crystal (she is after all found in it) to detonate it, wiping out Giruvegan and, with it, a large portion of the continent. Here Zomal intervened on his vessel's behalf, trapping part of Mullonde to save it from the blast. Airships overhead fell abruptly, creating the graveyard, and the place became time-locked, and still is. Germonique who was, of course, spared by this, made a portal to get out. The scar of powerful magicks left on the other side is within Orbonne. So he escaped to write the Scriptures, and the incantation he used to escape. Meanwhile, the rest of Mullonde fell into the hole left by the explosion (you saw what the Sun-cryst did!). All that remained was miles of ocean and a strange, myst-ravanged tower over a great, black hole – the scar of Giruvegan, which would become Midlight's Deep.

With the myst gone, technologies failed. Airships gradually ceased to work. The myst-starved Viera began to die out, and over time, the Cataclysm took all but the Humes. From this the Church of Glabados led the Humes, rewriting history as it chose. The ignorant Humes, without technologies or strong magicks, were kept from advancing by a Church who wanted power over them. And into that situation was Ramza born.

(This all makes a lot more sense if you know my version of Germonique, which Ashy convinced me to write up:)

So as I was developing out Loffrey, I also developed out Zomal(la), as a primordial entity of Time separate from the Lucavi. I tend to refer to it as 'the tyrant'. By any means, I was thinking and I figured that, given the nature of the Scriptures, the portal, and what exactly Loffrey's oath meant, I ended up getting some ideas for Germonique.

-Fan speculation seems to favour that, instead of being a greedy traitor, he was in fact a hero who saw Ajora as a liar and a demon and dutifully reported him. This didn't sit right with me. Pharism was against Ajora because he threatened their power. They held a strong power, enough to influence the Empire to seek him for themselves.

More tellingly still, the Scriptures contain information about what Loffrey at least metaphorically refers to as 'Hell'. Magicks not known elsewhere, too. They were his. So it's quite clear to me that Germonique was every bit as heretic as Ajora was – his motives were not noble. Rather than reversing the notion of a backstabbing coward, I instead saw that it was more complicated.

-Germonique is also a spy. It seemed the most reasonable conclusion to me. Specifically, a member of the Khamja, who we know from FFTA2 were around in some form for many, many years prior to Rapha and Marach's particular version of it.

-And he taught Ajora magicks the Church wouldn't have been fond of.

-And they were friends, though that isn't quite the word. Allies sometimes, enemies sometimes – his mentor and then a persistent presence after. Germonique found Ajora's insurrection entertaining and likely even gave him a hand, helping him avoid his fellows the Khamja, who would otherwise have found his dealings with the black market and the underground much more quickly. At the same time, he betrayed him.

-After betraying Ajora, he wrote the Scriptures for two reasons. One, to pay homage to a man he respected – his real self, flaws and all. Two, as an attempt to provide some evidence against the sudden rising force of the Church of Glabados. Everything in his nature went against this burgeoning religion.

-He wrote it in the same book he had written his research on Zomal and, once he had, he went about finishing it. Into it he wrote the incantation for the portal he used to escape from the time-locked Necrohol of Mullonde, and what secrets he had gained. He spent much of his youth reading books on the occult and ancient magicks, finding a thread running through them. This thread he pulled out and found it to be Zomal, and then condensed into his own Scriptures. His mistake was drawing into it the blood-sin he had devised to bring the God out, modified from his own (which was, incidentally, the one Loffrey carved into himself). Enraged at this telling of its secrets, Zomal overpowered him through the blood-sin, using his hands to claw out his eyes (the same ones turned yellow by the influence of the magicks) and then taking his body to use as a vessel. Technically, then, Germonique is still alive... in appearances at least. The blessed apostate is long gone, and in its place is a creature far more terrible still.

-Germonique's personality, going along with this distinct lack of nobility, is in fact incredibly turbulent. Raised by parents steeped in religious dogma, he was raised with the thought that he was inherently sinful and worthy of punishment. He grew up being punished in the name of the gods, and when he discovered the truth of the matter, he was livid. That anger remained as a thread in his personality ever since. He grew up to be a wickedly intelligent and driven young man, using these to his advantage. Not distracted by, say, friends, he picked up a few skills through sheer force of will, along the way becoming a spy. He fought his way into the Khamja, but even though he had achieved such a thing, Germonique never overcame the thought that he was somehow undeserving of what he had made for himself.

He cannot stand organised religion, and it's clear why. Though it is in part simply because he's a shit who rejects authority. He has no loyalty to the Empire, he simply liked being a spy.

-On account of being a moody fucker, and much too smart, sometimes (often) he deliberately drinks himself into a stupor. This annoys Ajora immensely.

-Germonique was a dangerous man. He tried to warn Ajora of what he might do, but the silly saint never listened. And he hanged for it. 

[morkalmarrh]

Someone should take my tablet away.

Edit: Pine marten Aji!