FINAL FANTASY XII: The Prodigal Son
Chapter 1: Armour of the Past


He had always thought about it.  No matter how far away he ran, his mind always brought him back to the same place.  It was a sort of home, he supposed, since he always seemed to return when he least expected, but his home was as empty in his head as he knew it was in the real world.  He hated thinking back on that life, the life he had left behind.  He had only one friend, one constant in his life, and that was all he would ever need.

Archades did not matter anymore.  Let it wage its war with Dalmasca.  Though he did not agree with the circumstances that had come to pass, he was not about to become involved in the intricacies of warfare.  Just see where bloodshed gets them.  It did not concern him.  The only thing he was interested in were the little rewards he could get his hands on amidst the conflicts.  Besides, what was a war without a little thieving?  Honest thieving, though, for he did not take what he did not need.  At least, that was how he saw things.

The life he had made for himself had become much better off without his past ties, and he had been more successful than most independent souls.  Not that he was solely alone in life, though.  His partner provided all the social comfort he could handle.  Surrounding himself with a crowd of people was only something he preferred doing when necessary.  If he could stay away, stay in the sky where he was free, then everything would be better off ... for everyone.

But no matter where he was, those images were always somewhere in his head.  And as he stared up at the ceiling of his cabin aboard the Strahl, it was as if they were photographs taped above him and staring back down.  With every blink he tried to erase them, but it seemed more difficult the more tired he became.  

They had been chased throughout continents trying to find the information they had acquired just hours ago.  It seemed a good conversation was hard to come by when there was a price on your head.  Nevertheless, he and his partner were well on their way to uncovering a rather interesting artifact.  Yet, it had come at a price.  The Strahl had taken some damage during their last launch, and though their lengthy chase through the streets, rooftops, and skies during the night had thrilled him, his bones felt the aftertaste of legarthy now that they were safely on their way.

His eyes drooped off, and he instinctively kept shaking his head back awake.  He shifted onto his side, seeing if that might help steal those pictures away from his eyes, but even as he turned, digging  his face into his cushion-like pillow, those images had been burned into his skull.

At last, though, sleep found him, and he dozed off, mumbling.  The images in his head played through his mind like a series of snapshots.  They were just tiny moving pictures at first.  

He and his partner flying their ship.  

A few years ago wondering through the Jungle.  

And then ... a sixteen-year-old boy sat in his room, his luxurious room.  He was sitting on the railing of his balcony, gazing out on the city of Archades.  The bright orange and red sunset loomed as a painted backdrop behind the towering buildings.  He could even see the poor sectors from his room, see the little children playing in the streets.

He could hear the voices then as he shifted in his sleep.

"Ffamran, where are you?" a muffled voice called.

The boy turned to look into his room, but the new presence within had already located him.  The armoured man approached him, removing his helmet.  "Thought I might find you out here," the short-cropped blond haired man said with an amused grin.  

Ffamran stared blankly back at him for a moment.  Of all the Judges, Gabranth was likely the most tolerable, not that he preferred any of them.  He turned away, looking back at Archades.

"What is it you're looking for when you look at the city?" Gabranth asked, as he approached the balcony and laid his helmet down on the railing under his crossed arms.

The boy did not reply; instead, his eyes remained on the city, as if he were straining to maintain the gaze.

"I understand that you don't agree with the Empire's ways, but I assure you, if I did not believe it best, I would not serve it so freely," the Judge said.  Yes, the Judge within Gabranth was now speaking.  The side of him that defended the Empire, his precious Empire.  Was the building of fleets of air ships and the invention of stronger weapons truly the ultimate aim of Emperor Gramis Solidor?

Would not serve so freely, would he?  Ffamran nearly broke his vacant expression in amusement.  Did the other Judges truly think him ignorant just because he was so very much younger than them?  Drace had always passed him sympathetic glances and had offered many times to take him under her wing, but he had always declined.  He had been observing their conversations and actions ever since he was a toddler, and there was little more he needed to be taught in the ways of their corrupted politics.

Obviously, Gabranth realized that he did not intend on speaking to him, so he finally cut to the chase.  "You're father's been looking for you."

And I suppose looking for me in the most obvious place is too much out of his schedule, Ffamran thought.  He nodded to Gabranth, and the Judge left his side after a moment's hesitation.

No matter what you may think ... I don't need your sympathies.

Ffamran listened as Gabranth exited through the door and heaved a sigh the moment he was finally alone again.  He did not much mind the man save for his attempts to pull his emotions from within him.  Did the man not understand that he was an independent soul, one that needed not the company of another?  He did not need pity.  He did not need comfort.  He had been without it for so long that being without had become a way of life, second-hand nature.

And I've had about enough of this as I can take, he thought as he leapt down from his perch with the sound of clanking metal.  He adjusted his breastplate and his gauntlet before he returned inside, and then he, too, left the room.

The halls were quiet save for his echoing footsteps.  He turned the corner into an open room and stepped into the elevator along the right side of the junctioning chamber.  He punched in the correct floor and waited as the elevator hummed to life.

When the elevator halted, he stepped out of the automatically opening doors and strode down the hallway stretching before him.  There were imperial guards flanking the hall and the doorway at the end, and as Ffamran came to it, the guards were already in motion of opening the doors, nodding to signal that he was allowed to enter.

As he stepped inside, he looked about.  He did not see his father anywhere, but papers were scattered about on his desktop at the corner of the large room.  A wraparound balcony stretched around the bottom level of his father's office, floor-to-ceiling windows encasing the room in the glow of the outside.

Just as he was about to turn toward the spiral staircase leading to the upper tier of the office, his father began descending them.  He was mumbling to himself again.  "Yes, yes.  Oh, yes," he chuckled.  "That is absolutely a novel idea."

When his father came to the bottom and stepped out into the room, he moved directly past Ffamran to his desk.  He leaned over it from the front, looking at various papers.

Ffamran took a step forward, but his father held up a hand, "Yes, my son, a moment.  I must-- Oh, indeed!  That is splendid.  Splendid!  Ah, Venat, right again."

His son frowned at that.  What was that word he always heard?  Was it some kind of muse?  Was it some invention he was working on?  He could never fathom it, and so it always appeared that he was just talking to himself.  He did not know if all "great" scientists were like this, in fact, the few he had met in the Draklor Laboratory were nothing like him.

He was just an insane, babbling fool.  Full of empty promises.

"Oh!  Well, this is simply ingenious!" his father announced, stroking his bearded chin as he turned toward the door.  "Sorry, boy, I'll have to speak with you later.  Something brilliant has come to my attention."  He stopped alongside Ffamran for a moment, but without looking to him, he asked, "Why don't you come by the laboratory in a few hours.  I'll have something interesting you may want to see."

And then he left.  Ffamran's gaze was cast downward.

His gloved hand clenched into a fist before he realized that his fingernails were digging into his palm through the leather material.  Relaxing his muscles, he looked up again, out past the panes of glass.  The outside.  That beautiful sky.  It looked so inviting, so free.... Better that any of this.  For so long he had gazed toward it, longing.  He had often wondered what it would be like to live away from all this.  The constant pressure not to step too far out of line with the other Judges watching his every move.  Being right under the nose of the imperial Solidor family.  Just seeing Vanye feud with his older siblings made him understand that he was a man not to be crossed openly.

Politics.  That was what he had grown up knowing.  But it was time, perhaps, to finally end the mundane life he had been presented by the Fates.  I think it's just about time I took fate into my own hands.  Waiting by and letting it unfold hasn't done much for me so far.

Ffamran looked to the polished metal of his gauntlet, gazed over its intricate designs.  The armour, his very role in the Empire, a gift from his father.  But it could not make up for any of it, any of the things he had done--or had not done.  And so, his mind was set.  It was time to find his own life, make his own living.  Anything could be better than remaining under the watchful eyes of the Empire, destined to remain silent of his true beliefs for the rest of his life.  So many in Arcahdia loathed or admired him for his high position in his youth, but to be hated or loved were two things he did not care for.  If he managed to make something of his life, he would rather be some simple name in the crowd.  Fame was not exactly what he wanted at the moment, but maybe someday....

Right now all that mattered was the short term, where he was going to end up sleeping the next day.  He had a few friends in the city that would likely take him in without reporting his presence.  It was not that he trusted any of them in the least, but most had proved helpful in getting him out his worst spots of misfortune--which his father had never known about.  If the good doctor had known of his meddlings in the rich and poor sectors of the city, he thought it likely that travel into Archades for him would have been restricted without a chaperone.  Not that the doctor cared for his wellbeing.  It was simply that he would not want someone of his good name to dilute his reputation.

No matter, no matter, thought Ffamran. None of that will matter anymore.  I could smear his name if I wished....  It's time this ended.  I make my own life from here on.  I've had enough.  Enough insanity.  Enough silence.  Enough empty promises....

He looked into the fading sunset once more, his expression resolute.

He stirred then, a dull sound beeping louder and louder until he awoke fully.  Groaning at both the disturbance of the sound and that of his dreams, he sat up in his bed and looked at his night stand.  He grabbed the flashing communicator from its polished resting place and flicked the switch on the side.  "What is it, Fran?" he grumbled in his thick accent.  A memento from his father that sometimes bothered him.  It was not that he did not like his smooth-talking voice, for it had proven rather useful with the ladies, but the dialect that had been imprinted on his speech had been a little something of his father, and it was a harsh reminder sometimes of the high society from whence he had come.

"We are closing in on Rabanastre now.  Should I land in the plains to avoid unwanted eyes?" the familiar feminine voice of his pirating partner asked.

"No, no.  We're party crashers.  We've got to arrive in style," he replied into the device, as he swung out of bed and shuffled his feet into his shoes.  "Bring her over one of the landing sites and signal in for clearance.  I'll be up momentarily."

He flicked off the communicator and shoved it into a pouch on his belts.  He bent over to lace up his shoes and then stepped over to the table in the middle of his cabin.  He grabbed up his shirts he had laid over the back of a chair and slipped into the laced sleeves and collar of the white one, and after adjusting the sleeves, he pulled on the more decorative vest-like shirt.

Fully dressed, he opened the door of his cabin and stepped out into the corrior.

===============

He joined his partner in the cockpit a moment later and sat down in the seat to her left.  He adjusted himself in the seat as his partner looked to him.

She was a dark-skinned viera, seemingly a woman but far different from his race of humes.  Her dark, armoured clothing fit her tightly, and much of her skin--like most of the vieras he had met--was exposed.  Her beautiful long, white ears grew out the top of her head and bounced at the motions of the Strahl.  Her white mane of hair stretched back across her spine down and out of an ornate helm that fit firmly around her ears and eyes.  Her darkened eyes sharply gazed toward him, and her black-tipped ears bobbed as he took the controls.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Ah, yes, of course.  Like a new man," he returned, but he immediately changed the subject to their situation at hand.  "Have you called in our dietary needs?"

"I have."

"And?"

"We are to land in number three," she said.

"I take it there were no problems then," he said, adjusting his course toward the areodome to compensate for their landing coordinates.

"None."

"Good," he nodded.  "I want Nono to get a look at the Strahl as soon as we land.  It was a little bumpy getting out of Bhujerban airspace.  I don't think we should announce our next visit."

"Agreed," said Fran as he flicked one of the controls on their approach.  Then she looked out onto the streets below. "Vayne Solidor did not waste time in placing soldiers around the city."

"It's a new toy for him.  Honestly, they get more paranoid every day.  Too much security can be a bad thing, you know," he said, bringing them to hover over the third hangar of the areodome.

Fran looked to him as they waited for the ceiling below them to open.  "For whom?" she asked in an amused voice, already knowing the answer.

"Well, for them, of course.  The more soldiers, the worse their pride hurts when we slip by."  He winked at her as the hatch below opened, and he guided the Strahl gently downward.  His gaze hardened then as he piolted his ship.  "Let's just hope our source was correct.  Collecting on rare and precious treasures is usually better if they're where they're supposed to be."

"I did not sense falsehood in him.  We will find the Queen's Magicite in the palace treasury," assured Fran.

"Well, call me distrusting then," he mumbled.

"I do."  He shifted his glance to her then and flashed a grin.  The sense of humour of his viera partner was always something that could brighten up his day.

He then took a last glance toward the sky as they flew down past the ceiling of the hangar.  He could not help recognizing that the sky was the very same colour that the young Ffamran had seen the evening he had deicded to abandon his home.