A.N.: And welcome back to Mene's fuzzy pink head. I do have more Stiltzkin to do, but this plopped out first and the thread is so out of order already that I can't be bothered hanging around waiting for the right chapter to come along... This is actually finally getting to where I wanted it to get, by a very round-about route.
FFIV fans among you are probably going to figure out what the hell is going on. The rest of you can just sit there and suffer. ^_^Er...a few sigs might be nice. Might be. I'll keep posting anyway, but I didn't get any last time and I know you love us really...
The Diary Of Mene
The Library, Desert Palace
He's been like this for hours - sitting there, frantically turning pages, and glaring so hard that something's going to spontaneously combust. Mogryo has a truly magnificent glare - it's so loaded and dangerous that it makes me feel irrationally guilty just because I'm in the same room as that expression. It's a glare that says "You did something and now you'll have to pay for it." Only I don't know quite how a book, however sacred, is going to pay for it. I came up here with it earlier and told him that Kuja gave it to me, and he flew off the handle before I could explain any further.
"Mogryo?" I try.
His head shoots up, bringing the Glare with it. I fight the urge to curl up into a little ball of fuzz. "What." See, not even questions any more. Just answers.
"Have you - found anything - wrong with it?" My voice is wobbling; I must sound like a four-year-old moogle-girl at scribe school.
He slams it shut and pounds on the cover. "LOOK at it! It's betraying everything it stands for!"
"Mogryo?"
"It's supposed to be the Book Of Names, damnit! You can't put the wrong name on the cover!"
His proclamation bounces off the painted walls of the Library. It's a wonder the stained-glass windows don't break. I swallow nervously. "So, it's the same book, then?"
"No. You can see it as well as I can." He points accusingly at the gold word on the black cover. "Names are important, Mene..." He trails off, and I realise that he's crying, and he's been crying for quite some time.
I walk over to him, sigh softly, and take the book from between his tight-clenched paws. "It's only a name, Mogryo."
"But it's the name of the Prophet - and when you change the name you change the meaning of him! That bastard tried to change the Third Prophet."
I - I'm probably imagining things, but I swear I can feel the book tingling. I look at the name again, graven in gilt calligraphy. NAMASANGITI. "It still sounds a bit like Namingway."
"It's not the same. The number's wrong." His head sinks down between his knees, leaving his pompom protruding at an angle.
"What?"
"Names are numbers. The khisab al nim* - the number of your name has a meaning. Sindai wrote it in the Book of Truths. That's why the Book of Names has twenty-eight chapters, one for each true letter, one for each Name of Eternity," he replies, somewhat muffled.
"Oh," I say, pretending that I have the faintest clue. A flicker of a voice sounds in my head... "...this 'Desert Palace' you so confidently came to has been The Desert Palace for less than two years..." I shake my head, try to follow it, but it's gone now. "I must say, though," I say distractedly, "Namasangiti isn't really a name you can see anyone calling her new kit by -"
"It's Cleyran**," he says shortly. "It means 'the chanting of the name'."
"Oh." I've been saying that a lot lately. "Well...isn't that what he did? Wrote the Book of Names?"
"It's not right," he says, pompom quivering.
I sit down beside him, book in my hands. "Does that mean he wasn't a moogle? A lot of humans think he was a human -"
"He was a moogle. He just wasn't from here."
"Oh." I feel that more is required. "Where was he from?"
"The moon."
I stop breathing. It probably isn't worth the effort any more.
"They come from the moon, where all moogles first came from, and they give us the Books of wisdom, one by one. We all spend many lifetimes meditating on the Books, and the fifth prophet is going to lead all the Enlightened Ones back to the moon again."
I blink a few times and then say the first thing that enters my head. "Which moon?"
"The moon. The only moon. The blue one's just a heresy painted on the sky by a false god. When people get enlightened by the Fourth Prophet it's going to vanish. It's not mentioned in the Book of Stars, you see."
"Oh." It suddenly occurs to me that religion is ridiculous and I am about to vocalise this statement, possibly obscenely, when the door creaks open. Framed on the threshold is our new employer.
"Good morning, little spirits." He stands in the doorway under the coloured light of the great windows in the west of the Library, with the whole spectrum shining in his hair. I freeze at the sight of him; no different from my dream, a dream in which everything else was changed, a dream that was at least partly real. He - he's a magician, isn't he? And not in a book - he's a real-life magician.
Mogryo springs upright and levels the Glare at him. "Good. Morning." he says, tone very fervently implying that it is not.
"So this is what happens when I put a wolf among the kittens." He smiles widely, and a patch of red illuminates his teeth.
"Why did you change the book?" snaps Mogryo.
"I did no such thing. Those stupid Cleyrans did that." Mogryo's jaw drops in theological outrage. "And I have something to show you, faeries. My new experiments. Come with me." He turns and strides off into the Shadow Chamber.
We look at each other, him in anger, me in confusion. Mogryo scowls and stomps off after him; I follow, still carrying the book.
We process through the Shadow Chamber, a room which seems to me to be missing its earth-packed coffin, and up to the highest gallery of the Stairwell. I grit my teeth and look straight ahead, focussing rigidly on how much I hate this room in the vain hope that I might forget why. Hangover from Iifa, I suppose - I still can't stand heights.
We step one by one into the portal at the apex of the twisted chamber, and when I emerge into the Hall, disoriented, I see Mogryo disappearing through the next one. I take a second to lean against the wall and give in to the giddiness I feel inside and out. I'm out of my depth today - thrashing about and not finding anything to hold on to, cursed to drift aimlessly on the waves of a world gone mad. Kuja is a creep, Mogryo is a nutbar, and I'm - standing around cuddling a book that they both think they gave me and I think has nothing to do with either of them. I look down, pat it gently on the spine. I feel strangely sorry for Namin - Namasang - oh, whoever he is. I wonder what he would've said to me about this. Maybe he really was a prophet. If he was...I think I'd feel even sorrier for him.
I step through the portal, and this time I try to enjoy it - that feeling of falling upwards. It's very liberating, in a way - breaching the dull constraints of reality for a few seconds.
There's an airship at the Palace dock - the biggest, bluest airship I ever saw in my life. Mogryo is standing on the dock like a statue and Kuja is posing on the pier like the ringmaster in the middle of the circus. And between them, muzzled, hobbled, and leashed to Kuja's upraised wrist, are two chocobos.
At least one of us must be irretrievably insane, then.
CASE NOTES: *This is one of the many Middle Eastern traditions that involves numerising the alphabet for the purpose of soothsaying. The Hebrew-based Geomatria is the best-known of these (666, the Number of the Beast, and all that), but I went with the Khisab al Nim because I'm a little more familiar with Arabic, and besides, the prophetic uses of it are more fun. :) The different systems all have one thing in common; that your number is part of your soul, and cannot be changed.
**He's lying; it's Sanskrit. It's the name of a Buddhist meditation god.
So how many religions are you ripping off in this?
Um...Buddhism, Jainism, Qabbalism, Islam, and Final Fantasy IV. So far.
Hm. Do you know what happens to heretics on the Lower Planes, then?
Haven't a clue. Why? Is it bad?
I thought you didn't.
Er, Plato?
Yes?
Do you know?
Of course not. What d'ya take me for? Some sort of sadist?
Aaah...okay, then.