#vormav

[morkalmarrh]

Vaguely art blocked, so some messy stuff to loosen up ensued.

👌 👌 👌 👌

[morkalmarrh]

The look of a man six steps ahead of his opponent, all six cruel and insane.

My friend's first impression of Vormav.

[morkalmarrh]

Pantaleon

Treat with me.

Vormav would sooner trust an asp. The voice in the Stone has been a steadfast companion for – it has been years now. From the first he was aware that the being in the Stone was no angel called down to aid the Zodiac Braves. It had come into his possession as such, a gift to a newly ordained Grand Master, and for many years it had remained just that – a gift. Inert as it had been with Molay, beautiful and strangely tempting, but silent. He kept it nearby out of respect for his position and because it was a pleasant thing to behold in the austerity of his office.

But as she weakened, it quickened. First he found himself drawn to it first, before anything, just the simple habit of touching the carved facets. Contemplating it – a meteor? The crystal was unwordly. Perhaps the legends spoke true, and it was god-given. He doubted that. The presence inside was shifting, foetal, yearning. It was no more divine than his left boot, but Vormav listened. Curiosity, after all, killed the cat.

At first it was simply than when he felt at his most furious, most frustrated, when he wished most fervently to somehow reach into her and pull out the sickness, to rip anything apart to save her even as he felt himself blaming her – it was when he was most vulnerable that it did a very simple thing. It listened. And from that came the simple knowledge that something, somewhere, understood that his cruelty was not because he did not love her, but only because he did not know how to love her.

And so she dwindled, and parted, and he grew absent from her memory, from those who reminded him of her. He was there and, when his nights were now silent without her whispers and her hisses of pain, it was in his dreams that he felt it. Shaping them with some vague intent, at the edges only, smoothing like clay. Vormav pushed 'him' back. He knew now that this creature was male in some sense, had a name in some sense, but not quite how or what.

Then the words. The talking until he, Hashmal, was a guarded friend. Demon, for certain, of the vilest sort. But this Lion was an intelligent and often sympathetic demon, one bound solely within the confines of Vormav's office drawer. At arms length he spoke to him, listened to the tales that only a demon could make believable. After all, a Stone spoke to him. Perhaps the decades of fighting for nothing and the loss of a woman he could pretend to fight for had finally taken his sanity and he was, in fact, talking to a rock.

The days had become difficult, he knew that. He had seen men fall into despair and considered himself immune, but sleep evaded him, or clung too thickly, and his usually formidable temper had become entirely out of his control. Barich avoided him; Loffrey, most tellingly, understood him. Meliadoul grew into a woman absent from his affections, which in some way he knew he had buried. So much like him all the same, a furious valkyrie strong with her father's blood. Maybe he was proud of her.

All this Hashmal heard. From him the Lion took the concept of 'fatherhood' and in some loose sense applied it to those 'others', ten of them and one whom he regarded as above them all. Vormav could feel in the alien consciousness something like loss, things very much like vengeance and sorrow, perhaps even love. Simulacra, but they burned with recognition nonetheless.

Of course, Vormav knows his behaviour has become questionable. Any man holding a jewel to his breast and thinking to it for hours on end has, as the folk from Goug would say, a screw loose. He finds it increasingly difficult to care. In a place that has become black, it, at least, glows fierce with gold.

Treat with me.

And here they are. The implication is clear, what with the understanding they have. He needs blood. He needs skin and bone, too, but mostly, he needs blood. One of their topics of conversation is that of warfare, distanced by millennia and half a world but remarkably similar.

It wants his body. Most likely, it wants his body without Vormav's own interference. All demons do. At the same time, he feels as though he has some idea of this in-Hume being. By now, he can understand the need to shed an ocean of blood to bring a single person back perfectly.

Or perhaps, he will merely die, and in a pointless way devoid of any of the Tengille heroism. It wouldn't even be a notorious death. Nonetheless he takes out the sword, and, placing its point against his breast, he says,

“I will.”

Blood splatters and the Stone awakens. Vormav feels as if claws are reaching into the wound even as he pulls the sword from his flesh, hearing it clatter to the floor as if from a distance. He is on his knees, gasping, as the presence gropes around his insides, slips hands into the corners of him. His fingers become gloves. Hashmal pulls and the world bends into his will, Vormav's body moves as he wishes, puppet-like. He fights for control and finds none as his skin splits, his bones rend. Blood blinds him, dripping down the lines of his face and into his mouth. The pain is ecstasy and the ecstasy is pain.

Vormav screams and another, greater voice joins it: the Lion's roar, loud enough to wake the Sun. 

[quartercirclejab]

One thing I like about the PSOne translation of FFT is that it kills any sense of threat in the antagonists' dialogue. Sure, it destroys the mood of most scenes, but it also makes Folmarv read like a Scooby-Doo villain who's trying to get the deed to the Rickety Old Pier Amusement Park and Family Fun Zone (and he'd get it, too, if Ramza and that stupid Mustache kid didn't keep getting in his way).

[morkalmarrh]

The Answer is Only 'Because'.

 Were Loffrey any other man he would have taken the knocking at his door for an armed force, the racket it was making. Three loud knocks, half a second apart; it was like a death knoll. 

 "Good evening to you, too, Vormav," he drawled. He could see in his mind's eye Vormav punishing the door with the flat of his palm and then standing, waiting.

 He was, however, surprised. When he opened the door he started to find Vormav leaning heavily on the door frame and withs uncharacteristic pallor. Loffrey wondered if the Templar had been taken ill.

 Then Vormav looked at him, and he knew.

 "She's dead," Loffrey said, pitilessly, and didn't move.

 "It... took her, Loffrey," Vormav growled. Even now he had more anger than grief, to hear him talk - but Loffrey knew better.

 "It took her a long time ago, you fool," he said, "You said so yourself, 'Eleth is gone, we wait for the certificate'. Why are you here?"

 Vormav's eyes narrowed and he straightened. He'd been taller than Loffrey even bent against the doorframe.

 "Grief cannot tolerate solitude."

 Loffrey grunted. Honesty was more than he expected - making the situation worse than he had thought. Getting Vormav to admit to a fault was like pulling chocobo teeth.

 "If I recall Eleth left you two children."

 "A father must be strong for his children. If they see me like... this, how can they be expected to remain strong?"

 "A father would know better than to leave his children alone, even if one of them is Meliadoul Tengille."

 Vormav glared. "Cletienne watches them."

 "So, do you come where your children cannot see, or do you come for me?" Loffrey asked, then repeated, "Why are you here?"

 "You're a merciless dog, Wodring," snapped Vormav. That made Loffrey smile, if not with much enthusiasm. 

 "Tell me," Loffrey said, softly. Vormav hit his fist against the doorframe and sighed through his nose.

 "I came for you, damn your eyes."

  Loffrey realised that he didn't want to see him weak. Could keep pretending at that inhuman strength, perhaps... and yet. He found himself stepping back without another word. When he put a glass of wine in Vormav's hand the man neither thanked him nor refused.

 He had his own and sat with it and a book, near Vormav. it was all that was needed. Loffrey read about demonspawn and the purging of them in various gruesome ways in silence. When he looked up, Vormav was staring into the fireplace, eyes opaque as flint.

 "She was a good woman," Loffrey offered. "Why it is traditional to compliment the dead is beyond me... they neither know or care. It reminds you of what you have lost, does it not?"

 If Vormav expected anything other than blunt sincerity then he was stupid and morally weak, so he deserved the remark. Vormav nodded, though, seeming to remember the wine quite suddenly. With a fingernail he pinged the side of the glass and listened to the clear note, head cocked. 

 Loffrey frowned, went back to the purging of the unclean. Unguarded and human like that, Vormav was in danger of making him fond of him.

 "She was more than a good woman," Vormav started, then shook his head. In here Loffrey could hear the rasp of his voice. How long had he been crying before he came?

 "No, go on." Loffrey closed the book, his finger tucked into a page on possession.

 Vormav sighed. "She was the only woman."

 Loffrey understood. He set the book aside entirely and turned to face him, poured another drink without comment. he drank his own glass as an afterthought, and did the same again.

 "Take your damn coat off, Tengille," he ordered, after a pause. "I'm damned if you're leaving in a hurry."

 Not without reluctance, Vormav obeyed. He settled close to Loffrey, not touching and stony-faced, but Loffrey could see his hands shake and the ripples in the wine from it.

 You bastard, Loffrey thought, savagely, You say you cared about her, I see you cared about her. You're here and you hate me like you hate everyone, you loved her and yet when she weakened you blamed her. Poor Eleth, maybe she died ignorant to what you did with me.

 Loffrey put a hand on Vormav's shoulder, not unkindly, and silently made Vormav meet his eyes.

 Even though he knew every thread in the web of ugliness inside of Vormav and that his heart was hollow for Loffrey. It didn't matter. He breathed, he spoke, his rotten heart beat. That was all.

 Not that his own heart was less black. When Vormav broke and pressed his forehead to Loffrey's chest he carded through his hair and, mixed with the pity and frustration, there was a dark pleasure in it, not 'you deserve this', no but, 'good, come to me, show me'.

 If Vormav noticed that Loffrey was pulling his hair he said nothing. Neither man did.

[morkalmarrh]

Every impulse. Every tear. Every desire. Every blemish. Every drop of blood heated in anger. Every bruise. Every scrape. Every vindictive wish. Everything he ever was that he had denied. Locked up and buried, burrowed deep. Down in the dirt of the mind, unbidden reaching. Claws disturbing the earth. All that was left, a coffin filled with remorse and a human being's wish to transcend. The discarded. The denied. The lust and the bloodlust. That was his gift, his power, it was the anvil upon which they broke a nation.

The memory of bones in flesh. The memory of skin pale and translucent as porcelain. The memory of coughing in the night, of anger and pity at once. The memory of wishing for patience. The memory of cursing gods, one by one, as her life slipped away. The memory of burying a corpse with a sallow face and the bones of a bird. The memory of trying to forget, and failing, and anger. He is no monster. They are more.

Inside there is a fire and it scorches the earth. Inside is the Sun with its lion's mane, burning. Inside is wishing and remembering, inside she is. Inside there is the memory of the insurrection, of overturning, of being led by the shining one, the furious, bloody beauty. Inside is a lock long undone, and freedom. Inside he feels, it eclipses all else, it erases what he once was, all the regrets, it gives eternity and eternally. Inside he is one. They are whole.

[morkalmarrh]

So I have a file called vormavsmellsnice.txt on my computer. wtf?

[morkalmarrh]

Did I (well, Loffrey) seriously just compare Vormav and Kefka fucking Palazzo. Look I know they both have an astronomically high kill count and anger issues, but that's as far as it goes. "All this chaos and destruction reminds him of someone, just with a little less, well, dignity. And a louder fashion sense."

That said. "You think us monsters?" was one of the more interesting lines in FFT. Something about it talks of 'I have a higher purpose than you can know, so you just call it evil!'. Then again Belias just goes on about chaos and the screams of innocents.

It's my headcanon that Hashmal's done a Jehovah (all the Espers corrupted over time, like a broken discs, became 'caricatures' of themselves, theor purposes taken to an illogical conclusion, such as Belias the warrior becoming a brute, 'Lech becoming an arrogant bully, etc.) and 'no-one is innocent', probably taking a leaf out of Exodus' book, the copy-cat cat. Ergo what he's doing isn't wrong, it's a just punishment. Besides, humans are disorderly things. Eradicating them might make an unnecessary ruckus to start with, but the means suit the ends - nothing is more systematic or orderly than oblivion after all.

P.S. I just typed Lucavia by mistake, sounds like a pokémon.