Chapter Text
The day that Ba’ul first met Judith, the young Krityan seemed tiny to him. What it was that drew him to take an interest in her was a question even Ba’ul himself struggled to answer. For a time, he thought it may be a passing whim. A curiosity that led him to explore the world together with Judith and her father. He knew that many Entelexeia would pass a few brief years with a Krityan friend, or sometimes even together with a human, but in the grand scheme of their lifetime, it was mere moments. Judith was, by all accounts, simply a child he found interesting at the time.
Judith was nine the day the war reached her village. A number of years that was nearly inconsequential in the lifetime of an Entelexeia. Ba’ul did not remember what he had been doing at such an age. And yet as chaos rained down around him, destroying the mountain range that he had made his home, Ba’ul could hear her voice call for him. It rang clear as a bell among the screams and panicked thoughts that hung in the air. Judith needed his help that day, and in response Ba’ul flew to her side.
When he arrived, Judith’s parents were already dead, as were many of those Ba’ul had seen in passing while living at the peak of Mt. Temza. Yet Judith stood strong, clinging to a weapon that was far too big for her as she fought to live. Her resolve was unlike anything Ba’ul had ever encountered before. It was without a second thought that Ba’ul joined the fight alongside her, the pair holding steadfast until the morning came and the battle subsided.
The two of them sat on the edge of Myorzo’s city, held aloft by an Entelexeia who had lived longer than any being Ba’ul had ever met before. They were safe, rescued by the Krityans who responded to the village’s call for help. Yet both Ba’ul and Judith felt a strange detachment from it all. As though they may at any moment wake up at any moment in a world that was not so inexplicably cruel.
“Why did you fight so hard to live on?” Ba’ul asked, his eye trained on Judith as she sat watching the clouds pass beneath them.
“I’m not sure I know,” Judith admitted, turning her attention towards him. “Why did you save me?”
“I’m not sure I know,” Ba’ul replied.
They fell into silence after that, but Ba’ul could feel her presence. And he could sense, even in the safe haven Myorzo provided, that Judith’s fight was not over. This, by extension, meant that it was not over for him either.
For years, Ba’ul lived in Myorzo alongside Judith. The local Krityan found his presence to be odd. An Entelexeia living inside another Entelexeia. The concept was indeed rather strange. He did not understand, however, why they found Judith to be odd as well. She was a Krityan, just like they were. There were not so many differences between her and those from Myorzo. Yet it seemed that things were not so simple as that.
As time passed, Ba’ul eventually began to understand what it was that the Krityan of Myrozo found unusual about Judith. Temza was her home, and she would always see it that way. She did not try to conform to their culture, but instead defined herself through her differences. The people of Myorzo were bookish, and Judith developed a love of fighting. They were isolationist, and Judith wanted to see the world. Most significantly, the people of Myorzo had long since disposed of blastia, but Judith retained her fascination with them. Like her father before her, she believed that blastia could be used for the betterment of the people who used them.
Admittedly, Ba’ul himself was wary of blastia. Not only did they serve no purpose to him, there was also something off about them. The use of blastia seemed to make the aer shift in strange ways. Still, Ba’ul trusted Hermes, who never had any hint of malicious intent. It was the people who misused these tools, Ba’ul decided, who were wrong. They were the cause of the war, not the blastia they used to enact it. Myorzo had stopped talking to him about this however, so Ba’ul could only share his thoughts with Judith, who understood where he was coming from.
The day that Judith came to him to tell him the truth, her spirit heavier than Ba’ul had ever seen it, was the same day their path was laid before them. The blastia which Hermes had so lovingly created to do good were harming the world. They were destructive, and Entelexeia with more experience than Ba’ul were willing to raze civilizations to the ground to stop their use. Judith did not know what to do at first, but she did know that something needed to be done, or there would be more lives lost as war began anew.
With a running leap, Judith threw herself from the docks outside the city, diving towards the world below. Just as he did every time, Ba’ul followed, catching her upon his back with practiced ease. This time however, rather than flying back to the city, the two made their way to the world below. While they did not have the solution yet, neither of them were the type to find their answer while sitting still.
“Are you truly willing to destroy that which your father created?”
The question Phaeroh posed to Judith was not unexpected, but Ba’ul was surprised to see Judith regain her resolve with the same strength she had shown on the day she fought for her life beside him. This time, however, it was not only for her own sake that Judith took a stand. For the world, the Entelexeia, and all the Krityans and humans who made their homes on the surface. There were many things Judith wanted to protect, but it was also clear that she had found her answer.
“I will do what I have to,” Judith replied, resting her hand on Ba’ul as she held out her spear, Brionac. “I swear that my weapon shall never rest until the last Hermes blastia is destroyed.”
“We will see this through together,” Ba’ul added, knowing well that this would be no small undertaking.
With both of them resolved to achieve the same goal, Phaeroh seemed to be satisfied. At least for the time being. Ba’ul could sense that they were not the only ones who were tired of loss. Maybe that was why they had the chance to make things right through their own efforts.
Ba’ul carried Judith on his back, travelling the world as they searched for the blastia that they needed to destroy. There was some comfort in having a shared purpose with Judith, and having a clear path ahead of them. Judith grew in size and strength, making use of all the days she had spent training to fight in order to destroy her father’s creations. She also grew increasingly bold, willing to make riskier moves in order to succeed at their mission. It was all Ba’ul could do to make sure she made it through alive some days.
It was subtle at first, but Ba’ul realized that these risks were not taken out of desperation or impatience. Rather, Judith’s attachment to life had begun to wane. She lived only to hunt down her next target, her thoughts only of where they might find their next target. Judith talked less often, but Ba’ul could feel what she was going through nevertheless. Being close to her was painful at times, particularly on days where Judith felt little more than conviction to fulfill her promise. But Ba’ul stood by her even so. They had become ‘partners’, a word that Ba’ul had grown rather fond of.
Judith could not fly on her own, be it physically or in spirit. Ba’ul’s presence helped her, providing the security of knowing that he would never let her fall. Still, he wished he could provide her more than that. He wanted to do something that would help her drop her mask. To feel free to smile as she had when she was young. While he admired how hard she worked, Ba’ul still felt a longing for a time that was a bit easier. Where Judith was happier.
Ba’ul would never have expected it, but there was something they encountered which shook Judith’s resolve for the first time ever. Something that completely derailed their clearly defined path. He could not tell if this was for better or worse, particularly with how it left Judith reeling with conflicting feelings.
To think, a simple pink haired girl would become an anomaly that Judith struggled to know what to do with. After bouncing back and forth with what to do with their strangely human shaped target, Judith finally spoke aloud.
“I need to kill her. There’s no other choice… right?” Judith asked, though Ba’ul could feel that her heart was not in it. There would be no uncertainty otherwise. When she was truly resolved, Judith’s emotions felt far clearer than they did in this moment.
“I will follow your lead. I am unsure what to make of her myself,” Ba’ul replied. “That said, it may be worth considering the reason you haven’t killed her yet. It is not just the balance of the world and the Entelexeia who you are trying to save.”
Ba’ul knew that Judith did not want to kill the girl. They both knew this. So while Ba’ul still felt wary of the girl he very much could feel was dangerous, he was not fully convinced it was the right decision to try to confront her head on as Judith did with all other obstacles. As Judith’s partner, Ba’ul wanted to make sure she could see her goals through, and Judith wanted to protect him from any power that threatened the world and himself. But seeing the small girl instinctively protect the smaller, brown haired girl when faced with their attack directly, Ba’ul knew this was not the sort of person Judith could kill without it weighing upon her.
Even after that encounter, Judith remained poised to kill the pink haired girl at any time, even though she confided in Ba’ul that she did not want to do so. This was, Ba’ul realized, her way of protecting him and respecting his feelings as well, just as he had done in encouraging her to keep a level head. Knowing that she would kill the girl if requested to do so was both a gratifying and a conflicting position to be in. The question of how long she could allow the pink haired girl to live was unspoken, but was keenly felt in their mutual avoidance of the topic.
The pair followed the pink haired girl and her group, keeping their distance and observing for a time. When they next encountered her, the dark haired swordsman stood up defiantly. Ba’ul knew that the man could effectively block his attack, but perhaps if he aimed it just right, the fearsome girl would no longer drain life from the world around her. As he thought this, he could feel Judith’s grip tighten in his fur.
“He needs our help.”
Judith’s words, spoken only to him, conveyed a complex array of emotions. She was cautious, understandably so, but also intrigued by how brazen the man was. There was also a twinge of sympathy, and a sense of respect evoked from how he stood his ground against a force that could prove to be either his demise or his salvation. He was unlike anyone they had encountered before, and Ba’ul could sense what she wanted to do even before Judith asked.
Flying down, for the first time since devoting his life to supporting Judith, Ba’ul allowed someone else to mount his back. The man was lighter than he expected, or perhaps it was Judith who was unusually weighty with the addition of her armor. Regardless, they flew off in pursuit of a flying man. Ba’ul had yet to encounter a human who could fly, but admittedly his knowledge of humans was limited to what he had heard and observed in the comparatively short lifetime he had lived.
In the chaos of the manufactured storm, Ba’ul managed to fire off a blast of fire that destroyed the blastia. But unlike previous successful missions, Judith wanted to linger, her focus on the man they had helped reach the top of the tower. In their distraction, Judith was thrown from his back by a blast of fire. Ba’ul’s instinct was to fly down to her, with full intention of joining the fight himself. As always however, Judith was quick to call out to him through their connection, telling him to keep his distance and get to safety. She would handle things on the ground.
It took every ounce of his trust to leave her and fly off, but Ba’ul knew well that it would be most helpful to do as she asked. When he had failed to listen to her in the past, one or both of them would inevitably end up hurt. As expected, once she reached the base of the tower, she called for him to meet with her out of sight, and they took to the skies once again. It was not a moment too soon, as Ba’ul could sense the approach of Phaeroh. He could feel Judith’s resolve waver as he informed her off this, but in spite of the fact that she might soon be ordered to kill the pink haired girl, Judith soon made up her mind to talk with Phaeroh and give herself the time she needed to truly understand if it was impossible to save the girl who knew nothing of the destructive nature of her powers.
Fortunately, Phaeroh was more agreeable than Ba’ul would have expected. Perhaps Judith’s words of reason won him over, or perhaps he was convinced by Ba’ul’s plea for patience as she resolved the turmoil within herself. It could also simply be that he wished to avoid restarting the great war. Regardless, the pair found themselves granted the freedom to learn more about this pink haired anomaly.
In order for Judith to integrate herself with the group, Ba’ul needed to keep his distance, his existence and Judith’s identity known only by the dark haired swordsman. Even as he flew close by, hidden among the clouds, Judith continued to communicate with him each night. It was during these talks that Ba’ul first got to know the group she was travelling with.
The pink haired girl was a frequent topic of communication, the source of continued frustration. Ba’ul did not fully understand why it was somehow increasingly harder to want to kill someone who was so passive and indecisive, but Judith’s growing fondness of the girl was apparent. She could neither ignore nor resolve to destroy the girl, and Ba’ul feared for a time that it may be a tragedy waiting to happen if this attachment continued to fester. As Judith’s resistance towards befriending the girl faded however, so too did Ba’ul’s fear of her. Judith described the pink haired girl to be one who was learning, striving to do better and facing the truth of her existence even with the threat that her curiosity may have deadly consequences. To some extent, Ba’ul also began to wish that her death was avoidable.
Judith also had often expressed a feeling of kinship with the small, brown haired girl. What Ba’ul had observed was a person filled with rage and fire, more often than not directing both these things at them. Ba’ul could sense that the more time Judith spent with this girl, the greater fear she felt about her identity being discovered. It was difficult to understand why Judith grew increasingly enamored with the girl, unable to see the sweetness in one so violent for himself. However, he knew Judith to not be one easily swayed by sentimentality alone, so there must be something to her assurances that there was something special about this one.
The small brown haired boy was also one who Judith became quickly attached to. Far less malicious than the other small brown haired companion, Ba’ul could understand this a bit easier. He had heard stories of guilds from other Entelexeia, and observed a bit of their city himself, though he did not fully understand why Judith wanted to be a part of that. She explained to him once that the guild would look out for her if she looked out for them. This sounded similar to their partnership, but Ba’ul wasn’t certain why she needed a second partnership when theirs was doing so well. He had been miffed about this for days before Judith appeased him by explaining her reasoning. Joining the “Brave Vesperia” guild was half on a whim, and half because she knew that no goal worth doing was feasible alone. Her travels with Ba’ul had proven that to be true. She had faith that the small brown haired boy would prove himself to be a capable leader one day, and in the meantime his youthful optimism was charming enough to want to support his goals as well.
In contrast, their conversations would often raise more questions than answers about the shifty man in purple. Judith found him amusing, particularly as the subject of teasing, but at the same time she did not trust him. She spoke of dull eyes and forced joviality, but even towards this suspicious one, Judith showed signs of attachment towards him. Whether it was out of sympathy, concern, or something else entirely, Judith herself did not seem to know. She asked Ba’ul once if there could ever be a world where people did not have to mask their pain and live under the constraints of lies. Ba’ul did not know the answer to this either.
Ba’ul himself found the small blonde girl to be the most suspicious of the group, as Judith could never seem to explain who exactly she was. He was not certain what it meant to have amnesia, but if such a condition could cause a large aura to be compressed into a tiny body, Ba’ul was not certain it was safe to be around her. Judith was unconcerned with this mystery, and Ba’ul realized that Judith saw some of herself in the girl. Persevering with the world against her, haunted by a past she did not fully understand, and putting on a brave front and pushing forward against all adversity. These things were true of both of them, which was reassuring to Ba’ul.
At the very least, both could agree that Repede was a welcome addition to the group. Judith felt most at ease with him, and Ba’ul was pleased that there was at least one other being in the group who was not poisoned with humanity’s tendency to only think of themselves. To some extent, no human could ever truly see outside their own biases that accumulated throughout their lives, and so they would never understand Judith’s cause. At least, that was what Ba’ul used to believe.
It was unsurprising to Ba’ul that Judith would speak highly of the two swordsmen in the group. The one whom Ba’ul was briefly acquainted with from the start, the man with long dark hair, was a person that Judith quickly became fond of sparring with. Perhaps it was because he knew her secret, or perhaps it was because the man was of a similar disposition to Judith, but she conveyed to Ba’ul that she rather hoped she would get to continue to be friends with him.
The second swordsman, one who differed from the first in many ways, was nevertheless also one of Judith’s preferred sparring partners. She often expressed that it would be a great accomplishment if she could get him to fight without holding back. Ba’ul found this to be an odd sentiment, but it was aligned with what he knew of Judith’s love of combat. From his perspective, Ba’ul found the blond man to be rather odd himself - moving in and out of the group for reasons which Ba’ul did not comprehend or particularly care to understand.
Once Judith became an official member of the group, pink haired anomaly and all, Ba’ul found himself taking an integral role in their journey himself. His wariness of the pink haired girl was alleviated after she held back her power during his evolution, supporting him with her best wishes instead of imposing her healing as she had with Belius. Although she had made a fatal mistake in the past, Ba’ul eventually began to understand why Judith still protected her and all the others in the group. Even those who proved to be treacherous. Ba’ul wondered if this was a side effect of maturing, or if there was truly something special about this group. They certainly had their fair share of enemies, but now their goals were aligned.
Ba’ul was no stranger to risk or hard work, and so upon gaining new companions alongside his increased strength, it became easy to overdo it. This time, it was Judith who would step in to stop him from going too far. It was a strange reversal from their usual roles, where Ba’ul had often protected Judith in the past when she became consumed by her drive to destroy that which she had sworn to destroy. It seemed to Ba’ul that Judith had gone through her own evolution as well, one that allowed her to stand strong and face the calamity alongside the companions she had gained along the way.
It was perhaps inevitable that Judith would come to gain the sentiment known as “love”. Ba’ul had known, on some level, that prior to saving the world Judith had locked away anything that would complicate things. It was only upon finding more companions that she gained a reason to live beyond atoning for crimes that did not belong to her. Her hesitation to open up to anyone besides Ba’ul was out of necessity, and so it was an indication to Ba’ul that Judith was finally beginning to heal from the wounds she had carried with her through much of her life.
Nevertheless, Ba’ul did not feel ready to leave her to journey without him just yet. As Judith told him about the people who caught her attention, conveying feelings unfamiliar to Ba’ul through their connection, Ba’ul found himself compelled to continue looking out for her. After all, some of the choices she made were questionable, even from Ba’ul’s limited experience with the topic. Judith found his judgement invaluable, or perhaps amusing. Ba’ul sensed both feelings when they spoke about her romantic prospects.
Judith’s interests seemed to jump around at a faster pace than Ba’ul could really comprehend. He did not bother to learn most of the names of her lovers, which Judith seemed to find frustrating at times, but before long she would forgive him for it. It felt as though time moved faster for her while she explored this new chapter in her life, making up for what Judith felt was lost time. Although Krityans’ lives were not long by the standards of an Entelexia, they were by no means instant. Saying this did not seem to dissuade Judith from continuing to rush through the exploration of this newfound interest of hers.
Eventually, Ba’ul found that he had very little thought to spare for those who Judith coupled herself off with. Unlike those who Judith had saved the world with, these people did not seem to spark the same significance in her descriptions of them - even at moments of her heightened infatuation with certain individuals not worth remembering. Still, Judith time and again would ask his opinion. She seemed hopeful every time she would ask, but Ba’ul could sense her enthusiasm drain away as he struggled to find anything much to say about any of them.
One night, as they sat on a mountaintop and idled beneath the stars, Judith let out a long sigh. Ba’ul could sense her frustration even before she spoke.
“It’s so hard to find anyone who understands me nearly as well as you do,” Judith admitted, letting her legs dangle over the side of the cliff. “Sometimes, I think what I’m trying to do is impossible.”
It was odd to hear Judith admit defeat in anything. But even without her saying so, Ba’ul knew that she didn’t want to give up. Romance was complex and frustrating, but Judith still wanted very much to work. Pulling from what he had managed to learn from observing Judith, Ba’ul focused his gaze on her and drew in a long breath.
“It may well be that you will never succeed, because you are attempting to do in days what has taken us years,” Ba’ul replied. “If you want the same depth of trust we have forged with the person you choose as your romance partner, it will take at least that much time. Our bond is not so simple as to be forged by a brief connection.”
Judith smiled softly, looking up at the stars above.
“I can always count on you to tell me these things directly,” Judith said. “And perhaps someday, I’ll be ready to put in that time and effort. I may meet someone who gives me that reason.”
“Someday?” Ba’ul asked, curious why that day could not be immediately. If she put her mind to it, she would get what she wanted sooner rather than later.
“I think I want things to be as they are for now,” Judith replied, shaking her head before looking over at Ba’ul. “I’d like to have fun, and keep seeing new sights and experiencing things I’ve never encountered before. No matter what, I’ve still got you as my trusted partner. It’s never been lonely when you’re here with me.”
“I suppose that means I can’t go anywhere for a while longer,” Ba’ul said, a low rumble in his chest as he chuckled.
Ultimately, his lifespan would far exceed Judith’s, and it was unlikely that everything would remain the same for long, even if he stayed by her side. Nevertheless, at this moment, their feelings were aligned. For Ba’ul and for Judith, their journey would continue on for a while longer.
