Archadian armies were, by all accounts and testimony, absolutely horrendous.


This crippling allegation was further cemented by the mass drafting that had occurred only some months prior, in lure of an impending war the mass Regents seemed suspicious of; malformed by a parasitic sense of persecuted fear and terror. All components of a last ditch attempt were lain bare in the sudden initiation, the sort that grouped all together under a singular label of "expendable".

Such a designation was numbingly inducing of a back lashing of hesitant fear to what many would align to a prospect of an early grave, but the dwindling economy and impending collapse of stability saw little decision in the finality of the publicly declared draft. So, warriors were made from the flesh of both man and boy, given a weapon and secluded to various locations and platoons to patrol sequestered borders left previously to the wiles of nature. Archadia was consumed of thickets of untamable wood or lain bare with frigid landscapes that flared yonder to the seas of Viera.

It was extreme in even the most moderate of times, but, it was home to one Archadian Captain.

A shoddy title implanted on the shoulders of one Kennington Griswall, a man well within his forties, mid range within terms of appearances and aesthetics with soot coloured hair twined with silver and artful grays. He stood at a cap of six feet, an average height compared to most youth, boys he often had aligned beneath his station, all pressed upon the misgivings of a laughable seniority. He guffawed and teased over the initial troupe given to his command, ripe sorts and glittering ambition like barbed teeth and wires, gilded in a sense of "heart and home" conception that, for a moment, tugged even on his ashen heart strings.

Still.

The bitterness of such an alignment wreathed him within blackened skepticism of their allotted purposes, after all, to crawl along the edges of the beach to patrol the canals and frigid borders of the Maridum Sea appeared in the dressings of pointless and thus, a waste of time to those of his severe leadership.

If only it were that.



Kennington loomed yonder their secluded encampment, built the night before with shared laughter and easy aplomb to their destination. They've scoped through the forests plenty of times, they know the trees and the easiest paths taken among their incredible trunks swollen and dug down deep with ebon roots. His gaze fell skyward, scoping out the skies, judging their time with swift eyes akin to a hawk that peers below and around to harness prey. The laughter within their collective tents reaches his ears easily, and if he listens to the pitched sound of one of his platoon eagerly and more so, none speculate on the rumoured favourtism. In truth, Kennington has gone soft on a few, their barbed vices and aims to please has given him something akin to hope, the speculation of such found in their willingness to do anything he asks just to reach favour. But it's the wide hazel eyes that glance upward, ticking slow through soot black lashes and glimpsed slight by the flutter of their feathered grace that makes him really smile.

Having a woman such as Emily Grace given to his command has been both a blessing and a curse; she's brutish and arrogant, deadly and refined by the grace of shimmering cape of scarlet hair that is the cause of his pining and his often glare. She looks just like her and somehow, in some way, he can't quite forgive her for that.

A swift sigh plumes white within his eyes and he turns away from the scene. Emily comes to his particular tent almost every night and it's hard for him to deny her otherwise, after all, beneath the glitter and beneath the ambition, there's a haunting shade of loneliness and pain. It's the same look most of Archadians reap now, after the attacks; the monsters, screams and flame belching houses where families once remained. The memory has shaken most to their bones and it's now with the drafts that they aspire to leave behind ghost laden memories and agony that most don't even survive from. So he hardly denies her, after all, sometimes it's not her face he's seeing, but another, and if a yard picketed in chain is all he sees, with laughter of children sound-tracking the entire cinema of his dreams, then so be it.

"Hey there sky-gazer. Gil for your thoughts?" And there she is, all smiles and laughter, easily afforded despite the shadow that cloaks over her much like a secondary form. Kennington laughed, a short bark of a chortle muffled by the high collar of his near ancient armour. They're all similarly outfitted, with hers afforded to slimmer aesthetics befitting to the routine appliances of her Scouting regime.

"For you m'dear, no charge." It's the closest they come to endearments, after all, once their enlistment has gone nullified into completion for their services, after all they did volunteer, then it's separate paths and ways of life for them. The boys down below roused one another at their close proximity, gesturing lewdly, but all within good humour at their expense, after all, traveling through the Archadian forests from the security of Faelan for so many near months has bequeathed them with close camaraderie and Kennington wouldn't have it any other way. A well functioning unit, even geared with young blood and ambition akin to barbed wire nooses, is better than one of stoicism and lingering fears of nightmarish.., things. Kennington shudders in memorial.

"All right boys, let's pack it up, the other squad is expecting our exchange within the evening and I don't need another young Captain barking at me for tardiness." They jeer and laugh, elbowing one another for Emily's amusement as well before she launches down into assisting their camp removal, whilst she may be Kennington's favour, she's still a lackey under his charge and command and rises to his indulgences all the more.



In Galbadia, where Dalmasca reigns under the spires of her own manufacturing and technological sovereign, an election will soon take place and with such, the future of the Dalmastice Govern will be shaken or cemented into the foundations of upheaval or conservative roots. One man lays much on the outcome, and as such, has gone to various length to ensure his primary position to the Govern. He's young, but ambitious, and such will pave his way into the probabilities of seeing all opposition silenced before they too take to his formidable gain.

"Sir, we've received transmission that the Shyp Tallrn has fallen, somewhere within the Quan Ma and Maridum Canal.. the cargo within has not yet been accounted for, but the manifest for such doesn't specify much, other than a weaponry transport?"

Dark eyes within a brooding fixture, his brow strong and thick, falling low. "I see. Shame to lose such."

"Sir?"

"There should be some Galbadian Coast Guard near by on the canals, send message to find the cargo, but not obtain it. We'll see the retrieval ourselves."

"Uhm - yes sir. Anything else?"

"Yes, prepare the Shyp Freya, we've another delivery to make."




The transitional forestry within Archadia was gradual before it eloped into severity, from thickets and oaks that towered above with their canopies of emerald and moss, to the thinning of sparse browse and reeds that impaled sand and soil of true Archadia browns and bisques. Kennington admired it all the more with each encroaching step, metal boots grinding minerals southward, each crunch and brittle of roots and reeds musical to his ears and punctuated by swift breath. They were making excellent headway to the shoreline, led by memory and little navigation was required, there are three passage ways, cleared only in such a way an Archadian would know of and he knows them all, as does his contingent. Emily is up north, a little was up to his right, as she always is and intercepts their commune through gestures and vague commentary to what she sees, the rest follow up along in a pattern similar to a flock, panning southward and only two-three steps in juncture beyond his own 'falls.

This was intended to be a regular exchange, a parting of crews and captains as they've all done before, only this time they've been ordered to double security regimens and -if they could afford it- almost triple the usual eyes on the sky, to pan for any unusual birds; whatever that's supposed to mean. But Kennington knows better than to question those above him.

He doesn't blame them either, not with what they've lost.

And suddenly, Emily stops, a sudden force that stirs the sands and sends pale grains within an arc.

"Captain," her voice laced thick with severity, endearments devoid from her dulcet graces. "There's smoke." She lifts her gesture above, tracing the ebon and charcoal fog blotting the sky, billowing in peculiar patterns even to their knowledge, and pans southward, where the roots pause at the shore of the canal. "On the shore line - there!"

It's all the warning they acquire.

"Move boys!" Though alarmed, they advance through without hesitation, weaponry cradled to chest, and following Emily's navigation to their Captains orders. It feels like hours, but only minutes ascend by breath and then they find it.

The Shyp within the waters, wreathed in flame, and the bodies within the sand.

"Oh my gods..." Emily breathes, her voice a whisper of disturbance on a shallow breeze, the only one who speaks aloud, a testimony to all their brief moments of lapsed shock.

"Check every one!" Kennington ordered, watching as each of them sprinted towards fallen comrade, removing head gears, listening in close to check pulses and breath. His eyes, though, his eyes fell onto the Shyp, recognized by the sheer mass of machinery, identified by the compacted unit of charges that assisted transport through the various rings manufactured for both means of luxury and military. And beyond such, the vermilion and scarlet tongues of flame that assuage and assault the bulk, he thinks curiously such is unmarked, where most are branded and labeled with garish insignia's of their transport. But this was not one of those.

The flames writhe a terrible hue of carmine that burns almost black within their cores, something that burns alive and writhing, all consuming and vengeful, something that cannot be put to labels. All he knows, is that this is no common fire, the heat alone is enough to bring a terrifying memory of beasts, where unnatural manifestations came to with claws and teeth, burning with such a ferocity that nothing could temper nor spur their wrath and intent. It chills him down to the very bone; could the creatures of Archadian nightmares reach out this far?

"Captain! We've found some alive," Emily announces, eyes wrought with fury and sorrow, fear banked beneath her lashes that glimmer jade in her glare. "But.. most of the others. Dead. Some burned... But the marks, it's like -" Her voice lapses and falters on a choke, and Kennington is painfully reminded of how she came to know her own demonic apparitions of a subconscious realm of dreams.

"Any able to tell us what the hell happened here?" He quires, eyes oblique and sharp, cutting away from her countenance that barely remains intact.

".. None, as of yet. They've taken various blows.. Knocked out."

So, some slain, and others incapacitated. Fortunately so, as monsters of nightmarish herald wouldn't leave anyone alive. This he knows, all too well. But, this is neither done by mortal means, he approaches the bodies gathered, the survivors of this sudden assault and finds helms caved in by impossible strength and claws marks, he sees Emily shudder, that bore deep into the bodice of few. Those of the dead, which he kneels down to pay respects and to observe, the gear somewhat like their own are melted and fallen away in some places, skin aflame and bubbled, their blistered remains blackened against paler skin that falls away at any slight movement.

"Kennington," Emily utters, knelt across from him, and summons his gaze and stoic expression. He's gone cold and frigid, the sort of stone structure akin to the trunks of the oaks she knows well by heart and home. "Who would do this? What did..." She, like he, knows that nothing quite adds up, the equation incomplete and devoid of components to lay rest to their desired answer. In this, he knows not a command he can give, or anything like to give assurance to his contingent. And for the first time, since the attacks against his home in what is now Ground Zero, since he witnessed the soft, meek form of his wife pillaged and torn asunder by blackened teeth and claws; he feels fear; fear of the unknown and once more, fear for his home left on the last vestiges of her prowess.

"Send a message to Faelan, tell them, Archadia is under attack once more."