Prologue:
The Legend of Hyne
Once, long ago, there was a race of beings of great power.
They lived together in the Heavens, and there they worked to better
themselves, to grow in Knowledge, Wisdom, and Strength.
But there was one such being who did not work to better
himself. He saw no reason for it.
There was nothing, in the Heavens or out of them, that he couldn’t just
reach out and take if it pleased him. And
so he contented himself to live like this; to take the things he wanted, when
he wanted them, and not working to earn them, or to improve himself, or the
existence of others.
Eventually the beings that surrounded him grew weary of his
behaviour. They said to take
without giving in return was stealing. They
said leaving the work he could, and should, be doing for others to do was lazy
and selfish. They said he was a
fool, and they banished him from the Heavens until such time as he realised
that he must work for the things he wanted.
And so he wandered, looking for a place where he could
rest, and eventually he found our world. This,
he thought, was a good place. There
was much here for him, there were great rivers of fresh water, many trees
bearing delicious fruits, many animals, pretty rocks and minerals that he could
see below the surface of the world, and no one to tell him what he may or may
not do with it all.
Then he sat down to wait.
And he waited, and he grew bored.
And so he named all things to pass the time; he named the trees, the
plants, the rivers, the animals, the seas, and the lands.
And he named himself Hyne, and he named the land where he sat Centra,
and Centra would be his throne.
When he had finished naming the things of this world Hyne
looked for those things for which he had waited, but they had not come to him.
The fruit stayed on the trees, the water in the rivers, and the rocks he
could see below the surface of the world stayed below the surface of the world.
Hyne waited for days until he realised that these things
would not come unless they were brought.
In the Heavens he had told the other beings to bring him the things that
he had wanted, and they had. If
they had not, he would merely take them from the other beings as they passed by
him. But Hyne was alone, and
anything he wanted he must get for himself.
So Hyne got up from Centra that was his throne and drank
from the rivers, plucked the fruit from the trees, and dug the pretty rocks and
minerals from under the earth. And
he found the work tiring, and he did not think his profit was worth the effort,
for these things were luxuries, he did not need them to survive, he needed
nothing to survive, but these things he wanted.
And so to get these things that he wanted, Hyne created the Tools.
The Tools were created from a rib Hyne took from his own
body and broke into countless pieces. Then
he planted the pieces and watered them with a drop of his own blood.
After doing this he felt tired and weakened, and he fell asleep.
Even as the tools sprouted they were independent and
capable of thought, they had to be; Hyne had slept through their growth, and
they would have died if they couldn’t tend themselves as Hyne should have, and that
is the way Hyne wanted it. What
was the use of a Tool if it needed to be cared for by its owner?
The very purpose of their creation was to prevent himself from having to
work.
When Hyne woke and saw all the Tools he was happy, and he
set them to work, fetching the fruit from the trees, the water from the rivers,
and the rocks and minerals from below the earth.
But the Tools grew restless, for Hyne had made a mistake in
their creation. He had watered
them with his blood, and in doing so he had given them souls, and souls need a
reason for their existence, and a purpose for the work they do, and the actions
they commit.
So the Tools went to Hyne and asked: “Forgive us Lord, but
why must we do this? Why must we
fetch the fruit from the trees, and the water from the rivers, and the rocks
and minerals from below the surface of the world?
Why should we do these things for you, and not for ourselves?”
And Hyne replied: “You must do these things because it was
for that reason that I created you. They
are the reason for your existence.”
And the Tools were placated for a while, and returned to
the tasks set to them by Hyne, as they had a reason to do these things, it was
the meaning of their existence.
But again the Tools became restless.
Hyne offered no praise, no reward for all that they did for him. So they
went back to him, and they asked again: “Why
must we do these things for you, and not for ourselves?
Why do you not do them for yourself?”
And Hyne became angry, and replied:
“You do them because they are the purpose of you existence, and you will
be punished if you do not do them!” And
he gathered up his power and unleashed the destructive powers of this world on
some of the Tools; Fire, Ice, and Thunder.
When the Tools saw their fellows destroyed by Hyne’s power,
they fled in fear and anger and sorrow, and returned to their work, and left
Hyne to think. He wondered why the
Tools had become so restless, he realised that it must be because they did not
have enough work to do, and that this must be because there were so many Tools,
and so little work, and he came up with a solution.
Hyne went out among the Tools and gathered his power again,
and called once more on the destructive powers of this world, and with these
powers Hyne destroyed many of those little Tools that the Tools called
Children, the ones that could not do as much work as the bigger ones.
And then Hyne returned to his throne that was Centra felling pleased
that he had solved the problem, unaware that he had made a terrible mistake.
The Tools cried and wept with anger and rage and grief, and
they asked themselves: “Who is he
that would do this to us and ours, after all we have done for him?
He is our enemy!” And
they rose up against Hyne, taking him who was so much more powerful than they
by surprise, for he had thought they would be happier now they had more work.
In the battle that followed the Tools fought Hyne with no
regard for themselves, and as a result Hyne was sorely wounded, and his blood
flowed like a river with the blood of the Tools he had killed.
And when the Tools saw how many of their number were broken and killed
by Hyne, when they had barely hurt him, they backed off, as the remaining
children needed them, and they would die if there were no bigger Tools to
protect them.
But Hyne chased the Tools in anger as they fled, and
destroyed many more of them, and the Tools that survived wept in anger, and
pain, and grief. And their tears
ran like a river, and ran with the blood of the dead Tools, and the blood of
Hyne. And the anger and sorrow
carried by their tears, and their souls carried by their blood, and the power
and magic carried by Hynes blood, mixed together to create something that
carried all of these things. And
they came to guard the Tools and deliver them from Hyne, for that was the
purpose given to them by the souls and emotions of the Tools that they had
inherited.
These new beings were the Guardian Forces, and they told
the Tools that they were not tools; that their souls, and intelligence, and
emotion made them people, and the equals of Hyne.
They told them also that they, the Guardian Forces, had power equal to
Hyne’s, and that if the people joined with them, they would fight Hyne
together.
There followed a new battle in which the people fought with
the first Guardian Forces, Eden, Leviathan, Odin, Alexander, and Bahamut the
Dragon King, against Hyne. But
still, they were not strong enough to defeat him; the Guardian Forces carried
the power of Hyne, and because of this were incapable of destroying him.
And the fight continued, and the people spilt more of Hyne’s blood, and
he did theirs, and the people wept, and more Guardian Forces were born; Shiva,
Ifrit, Quezacotl, Diablos, Siren, Cerberus, and more, until finally the last
Guardian Force, Carbuncle, was born, and so was the solution.
The nature of the Guardian Force Carbuncle was different to
that of the others of its kind. Unlike
the others it was not angry. It
had been created when the people had all but given up hope that they would ever
be free of Hyne, so it was afraid. Its
power was not destructive, or offensive, it only wanted to protect and defend.
Carbuncle’s ability was to seal a person beyond the reach of magic, at
the very least lessening its effect, and at its peak, it could turn the power
back at its originator. The
people realised that if the could not destroy Hyne, they could use Carbuncle to
seal him and his powers.
When Hyne next attacked the people, they summoned Carbuncle
and used its power to protect themselves from Hyne’s magic, and reflect it back
at him. When Hyne saw that he
couldn’t touch the people with his power, and that his attempts to do so only
harmed himself, he stopped his assault. He
realised that with this new power he could not beat the people, and decided
that he would have to end the war.
But the people were too angry to just accept Hyne’s
submission, and used Carbuncle to seal Hyne and his powers.
This done the people wanted to punish Hyne.
To do this they once again used the Guardian Force Carbuncle to seal
Hyne’s spirit, his power, and his body from each other, and separate them.
With his power, spirit, and body separated, the people
burned Hyne’s body and destroyed it to make sure he could never re-unite his
being. Then they took his spirit,
and used the power of Carbuncle to seal it in a place between the worlds, to
prevent Hyne from ever regaining influence in this world.
Hyne’s power, the people decided, should also be locked away, to make
sure no one ever used it in the way Hyne himself had.
But not everyone agreed with this.
Some people wanted Hyne’s power to themselves.
And all the people were divided. There
were those who wanted to hide Hyne’s power as had been decided, and there were
those who wanted use Hyne’s power for improving the lives of the people.
But, there were also those who had agreed with one of these proposals to
hide their desire to have Hyne’s power to gain control over the people, and
soon, another war started.
This new war was fought among the people and the tribes
they had split up into, and it was over control of Hyne’s power.
The war lasted through decades, and finally the warlike Zebalga clan,
and their ruler Zebalga, who had joined with some of the most powerful of the
Guardian Forces and would use Hyne’s power to rule over all the people, won the
war. But when Zebalga came to try
and use Hyne’s power, nothing happened.
The power, which was confined in a ruby coloured the
bloodiest red, would not react to his commands.
He tried for months to work the power, but it would not come to him.
People began to laugh at Zebalga; they called him a fool, and an idiot
for not being able to work the power. Zebalga
became so frustrated that he gave the ruby to each of his sons in turn, and
told them to try and work the stone, but they could not.
Soon Zebalga offered the right to try and use the power to
all of his greatest warriors, and then all the cleverest men in the village,
and then any male in the village that wanted to attempt what their King himself
could not. They all tried.
They all failed. And so
Zebalga offered the ruby to any man on Centra that could use it, and all who
answered the challenge, failed it also.
It came about that Zebalga’s own wife, Queen Vascha, whose
name means ‘wise witch’ in the language of the time, and who had the joining of
the most magical Guardian Force, Leviathan, devised a theory as to how to work
the power in the stone. Vascha was
a special woman for her joining with Leviathan, as the people had begun to use the
Guardian Forces as Hyne had used the people themselves, as slaves and workers
so they did not have to do the work for themselves.
As a result, all but a few of the Guardian forces broke free of their
joinings with the humans, and went to live beyond their reach,
Vascha came to believe it unfair that all the men who lived
were allowed to try and work the power, but she, and the other women were not.
Leviathan agreed with Vascha, that this practice was unfair.
After all, the Guardian Force told the Queen, all the men had failed; it
was possible that that meant only women could use the power.
When she voiced her opinion to Zebalga, he laughed at her,
and said that she was a bigger fool than everyone thought he, if she believed
he would hand the power over to a woman.
And she argued back: Was
she not one of the very few who still had the favour of Guardian Forces?
Did she not have the joining of Leviathan, one of the most powerful
Guardian Forces that lived? Why
should she not be allowed to try to work the power?
Zebalga beat and abused her for defying him.
But this only hardened Vascha’s will and turned her against
her husband, and when Zelbaga next auditioned men to try and use the power,
Vascha used the magic afforded her by her joining with Leviathan, and cast a
spell on Zelbaga to hinder his sight. Then
she disguised herself.
She wrapped bandages tight around her chest to hide her
breasts, stole some of her sons’ clothes and dressed in them, and cut her hair
short with a hunting knife. Then
she covered her face with the paint in the manner of the warrior men of the
northern tribes whom she greatly respected, for they treated their women as
equals, and let them fight alongside them in battles, and, had they won the war
for Hyne’s power, they would let their women try to use it.
This done, Vascha went out to her husband Zebalga, stopping
on the way to test her disguise on one of her sons; she stopped to speak to
him, and in the clothes and with her face painted and her hair cut short, he
did not recognise her, not even her voice, for she had affected a deep northern
accent. And then she went before
the King, claiming to be the Northman, Vascaroon.
In her disguise, and with the spell cast on him so his
vision was impaired, Zebalga did not recognise that the man Vascaroon was
actually his wife, Vascha, and he handed over the stone and watched.
Vascha took the ruby that contained Hyne’s power, and spoke
inwardly to the Guardian Force Leviathan for help, for Leviathan was born
partly from the power the Queen now held.
Leviathan answered Vascha’s questions, and together they managed to draw
the power from the stone and into her body; Vascha had gained control of the
power of Hyne.
Now, unafraid of what her husband might do as she had power
greater than his, Vascha cast off her disguise and removed her spell from his
eyes. When Zebalga recognised her,
he made to beat her again, but she now had the power of Hyne and froze
mid-stride. Then she laughed at
him in front of all the people gathered and told him that, yes, he was a fool,
and that she, a woman, had succeeded where he had failed, and that he had made
her an enemy, a dangerous mistake when she had the power of Hyne at her
command.
Then she left, taking her two daughters and her favourite
son with her, promising to return and destroy Zebalga and his tribe, she would
not do it now, no, she wanted to do it with the whole of Centra watching, that
way she could impose the greatest humiliation on him, and reveal to the world
that she had become a true sorceress, with Hyne’s power in her body.
Zebalga swore revenge on Vascha for her betrayal, and the
way she had humiliated him, and immediately began to spread false information
about the ‘man’ called Vascaroon, saying he was learned and wise in the ways of
magic, and that he revealed to them the truth of the ruby; that Carbuncle had
made it impossible to access the powers, as releasing them would release Hyne
from his prison between the worlds.
Then Zebalga prepared for the day when Vascha, the first
Sorceress, would return to fight him.
A/N: I
know it’s not really how the Legend of Hyne goes in the game, but, oh well,
it’s my take on the legend. The
rest of this fic is set after the events of the game, about a year or so after
Ultimecia’s ‘ass whoopin’’, and not in the time of the legend; this is the
prologue, and just here to supply background knowledge, though I may write a
fic that goes into more detail about the whole thing here if I ever get round
to it.