muse descending into insanity

[spoke]

Ghaleon, overhearing Nash and Alex arguing, decides to investigate. He watches Nash trying to help Alex with his studies for a moment, then politely interrupts.

"Nash? Alex? What are you doing?"

They both jump a little; Alex backs up and Nash looks at him oddly. "Alex is having some trouble with his studies.. He has the potential, everyone can feel it, but he can't seem to use the magic."

Ghaleon nods and studies Alex for a minute. "Try this approach, Alex. Close your eyes and just focus."

"But the teachers..." Nash stares at him in surprise, and he shut up.

"Do not know everything,Alex or Nash would not be my apprentice now. If I am correct... Well, are you going to try this?" Hard stare.

"Yes sir. I'm sorry..." Alex steps back from the other two, and Ghaleon motions Nash out of what would be Alex' line of sight. After a few moments, and seemingly unconsciously, Alex changes his stance.

He places his left hand on the sword at his hip. His right arm lifts, then he moves his hand to face palm out. As he does, a soft wind fills the clearing, ruffling their hair.

"Whoa... Alex, this is wonderful. Wind magic is really rare!"

Startled out of it, Alex turns to look at them. "Wind? What wind?"

Nash frowns. "What do you mean, what wind? You just... oh no. Master Ghaleon?"

Alex looked from one to the other with a blank expression.

"I see. Yes, Nash, Alex has a block. He will have to get around this before he can go any further in his training." He frowned, considering Alex. "This is a difficult enough magic to learn without.. complications. I will look into your training."

"I... uh... Thank you, sir." Alex stuttered, bewildered.

Ghaleon raised an eyebrow. "You should." With a sharp look to Nash, he left.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Nash turned to his friend. "Alex! How could you be so rude!"

Alex, beginning to get worried, blurted :"What? What do you mean, rude? What just happened?!"

Nash stared at him for a moment before catching on and relaxing. "Just when I start to forget that you really are a hick."

Alex glared.

Patiently, Nash says."Alex, he just implied that he might apprentice you." A faintly worried look crossed his face. "Please tell me you've been keeping up with your assignments, at least the ones on paper."

Dazed, Alex muttered almost under his breath. "He... um... oh wow. Apprenticed to one of the Four Heroes... um... yeah, i've been writing, Nash... uh..." His head snapped up. "I was rude? How was I rude?! Should I apologize?"



i have no idea where this story is going right now... i had meant for it to be just Ghaleon gets Alex, sad ending for the heroes. this was just to have something to write that wasn't connected to anything else in my head.

then Phacia showed up, indignant about my ignoring the female characters(whom i rather like, except for Luna. nag, nag, nag.)

now Phacia seems to be developing into a borderline Voldemort/Palpatine type psychopath.

see, i was trying to work out how Phacia could be competition or a balance for Ghaleon. to use the female characters like i wanted to, someone needed to be strong enough to fight him, and she was the one who brought this mess in, so...

when Ghaleon goes to absorb Luna(Althena)'s power, Phacia somehow intervenes and the power is split between them. that's when i was playing through the game again, noticed that technically , Phacia is something of a religious heretic, rejecting her own culture's views to help your party, and... oops.

enter the mental instability. all she's doing right now is holding her head and mutter under her breath, but from the comments i'm hearing, it's not going to be pretty when she comes out.

dammit, Ghaleon's supposed to be the villain, but he's steering clear of her right now.