Final Fantasy VI
Tales of a Lonely King

By Sky Render

 "Another boring day, huh?" Edgar asked.  The Chancellor nodded, and indicated
the adjoining throne.  "I do hope you will take a queen one day, Sir Edgar.
The castle is starting to whisper rumors that you're...  Well..."  Edgar
jumped.  "I knew I'd been slacking off on getting a wife, but I didn't think
it was THAT bad!  Hmm...  Well, I guess I'll just have to find a spouse,
then!"  Edgar lept out of his throne, and proceeded to fall flat on his face.
"Ungh," he said, "I need to work out more."  The Chancellor said nothing, and
walked out of the throne room.  Edgar slowly got up, and looked around the
room.
 Only a few months ago, he'd met a beautiful young woman by the name of Tina,
who by some odd chance had helped him and several other people save the world.
Edgar had fallen in love with her the moment he'd seen her (as he did with all
women), but he was dismayed when she showed no signs of liking him.  His
desire to find a steady girlfriend from that time on to the saving of the
world had become quite intense.  He even considered a 10-year-old girl at one
point, but logic had saved him from THAT path.  Now, two weeks after the group
had separated and headed back to their respective homes, Edgar was starting to
lust for Tina again.  He shook his head.  He was hopeless, he knew, but he
still wanted to try, at least.
 Grabbing his Glow Lance and Genji Armor, Edgar left the throne room.  The
Chancellor raised an eyebrow at the sight of Edgar in armor and holding a 
spear, and asked, "Are you going to seek out a bride, or kill someone?"  Edgar
chuckled, and replied, "Maybe both, if I know this world.  I've got to WALK
all the way from the head of the Serpent Trench to the tail, after all."  The
Chancellor shrugged, and turned back to his usual business of wandering around
doing nothing particularly interesting.  Edgar, meanwhile, hurried out of the
castle, and walked his way to South Figaro.  Making his way through town, he
reached the port, and caught a ship to Nikeah.
 "I hear the king's looking for a wife," one of the sailors said.  Edgar
raised an eyebrow, but kept silent.  The sailor laughed.  "Him?!  He couldn't
attract a fly to honey, the loser!"  Edgar jumped up.  "HEY!" he shouted, and
the two sailors that had been dissing on him quickly found other things to do.
Edgar sat back down, but he knew they were right.  He had been a failure at
finding the right woman all of his life.  He couldn't even get his matron to
like him any more...
 A few minutes later, the ship arrived in Nikeah.  Edgar stepped out into the
port, and looked about.  The town hadn't changed, it was still the same little
bustling port that it had been a month ago.  Edgar walked up through the
crowds, and made his way to the chocobo stable at the back edge of town.  He
paid his 100 Gil for the chocobo, and hopped on.  It would be a good three
hour ride to the tip of the Serpent Trench, but he was glad he'd thought to
grab a Chocobo for it.
 Along the way, Edgar thought back on his love life (or rather, his lack of a
love life).  He had tried to (and failed to) woo every woman who had come to
the castle.  He had flirted with more than 200 women, almost all of whom had
come to his castle for refuge and salvation from the Empire.  It had always
made him feel low, but he knew that he was helping them as well.  Then, when
he had gone on that grand adventure, he had met Tina, Celes, and even little
Relm.  When he had returned to the duties of being king two weeks ago, he
found that the previous flow of women and children seeking refuge in his
castle had been turned into less than even a trickle.  He hadn't seen any
refugees in almost a week and a half.
 Two hours into the trip, Edgar halted his chocobo at a small forest near the
far end of the Serpent Trench.  "I should've left the castle earlier, now I'm
going to have to camp out," he said, and tied his chocobo to a tree.  Taking
out one of his special tents, he activated it, and it turned into a
full-sized, 4-man tent.  "So convenient, these things are," he said, "Too bad
they're disposable one-use models."  Yawning, he crawled into the tent and
closed his eyes.  Six seconds later, he opened them up again and stretched.
"Ah, what a great rest!  I feel ready to take on the world!  Now then, time
to get moving."  Edgar then proceeded to hit the self-destruct button on the
tent (scaring the living daylights out of the chocobo), re-mount the bird, and
continue his journey down the Serpent Trench.
 At last, he reached the mountains in the middle of the trench that surrounded
the former Tower of Fantatics (now Lock's treasure storehouse), and he gave a
great sigh.  "How much longer is this going to take, anyway?  I seem to recall
that traveling this trench took all of a few minutes back when we were trying
to save the world..."  Then he realized that the chocobo was walking at a
sluggish pace.  "Hey!  Get a move on, you dumb bird!"  The chocobo, not fond
of being yelled at, broke into a run.  Unfortunately for Edgar, he'd forgotten
to strap himself to the saddle, so he was thrown off rather ungracefully.  He
sighed as the chocobo ran off into the horizon.  "So much for that..." he
muttered, and stood up.
 Just then, a great cloud of dust was shot into his face, and he sputtered out
through a mouthful of sand, "What the hell was that?!"  He looked up, and saw
a familiar airship landing a scant fifteen feet away.  "Damn that Setzer,
doesn't he check his landing zone before putting that thing down?"  He looked
up to the deck of the ship, and nearly fainted.  Tina was standing there,
waving to him, an arm wrapped around Setzer.  A sudden flood of rage filled
Edgar as Setzer and Tina jumped off the airship and came over to him.  "Hey,
Edgar!  What are you doing here?"  Avoiding saying something that he'd regret
later, Edgar replied, "Er, I was going to go visit Tina, but apparently I
won't have to now."  Setzer grinned like a mad canine, infuriating Edgar even
more, but Tina giggled.  "Oh, Edgar!  Do you miss us all that much?"
 Put off guard by Tina's comment, Edgar shook his head.  "Er, that's not it.
What are you two doing here, anyway?"  Setzer grinned even wider, making Edgar
all the more inclined to kill him.  "Well, we were coming to visit Celes and
Lock, and tell them the good news.  We're getting married!"  Barely holding on
to his sanity, Edgar managed to stutter, "Married?"  Tina's face suddenly took
on a concerned aire.  "Edgar, are you alright?  You look like you're about to
explode with rage..."  Edgar started to reply, but was cut off by the
still-grinning Setzer.  "He's fine, sugar-cakes.  I'm sure of it."  Edgar's
rage could be contained no longer.  He let out a vicious cry that scared both
Setzer and Tina senseless, and impaled Setzer on his spear.
 "What the hell's gotten INTO you?!" Setzer called out in pain from the tip of
Edgar's spear, but never got to find out, as Edgar swung up and slashed Setzer
in two.  Breathing heavily, he looked over at Tina, who was staring at him
with her mouth agape and eyes wide.  "Er, sorry about that," he said weakly.
Tina screamed louder than a banshee, and took out a very vicious-looking
sword.  "You asshole!  You killed the one man who ever expressed true love to
me!"  Edgar's rage suddenly refueled.  "What about me?!  I love you, and you
don't even notice me!"  If Tina could still morph into a Phantom Beast, she
would have.  "You call killing somebody dear to me love?!  You are a sick man,
Edgar!"  She suddenly swung the large sword violently, and it was all Edgar
could do to avoid sharing Setzer's fate.
 "What are you two doing?"  Both Edgar and Tina looked towards the voice, and
saw that Lock and Celes were standing there, looking very confused.  "Er,
well, that is..." Edgar began, but Tina cut him off.  "He killed Setzer!"
Lock looked over at the corpse of Setzer, and then at Tina.  "So?"  Celes
smacked Lock, and so did Tina, albeit with a sword.  "Shit!  Ow, watch where
you're putting that damned thing!  You almost took off my arm!"  Tina snorted
angrily.  "Serves you right, you jerk!  You go fawning me like I'm the best
thing since baked chocobo, then you dump me like a sack of week-old laundry
for THAT slut!"  Celes walked over to Tina and slapped her hard.  Had she
survived Tina's counter-attack, she would have realized that slapping a
sword-wielder who is angry is a very stupid thing to do indeed.
 "You killed Celes!" Lock screamed out, still gripping his bleeding arm.  He
drew a short dagger, and threw it at Tina.  Edgar shrieked in terror, and
struck the dagger with his spear, which Tina promptly (and accidentally,
interestingly enough) cut in half in an attempt to do much the same.  Edgar
threw down the now useless haft of his spear, and drew out his Holy Lance.
"You tried to kill Tina.  For that you will die."  Edgar then charged Lock,
and managed to impale him rather nicely right around the chest.  Lock died
shortly afterwards, coughing up blood as Edgar removed his spear.  Edgar
turned to Tina, and would probably have been killed if he hadn't brought his
spear up to guard him.  "What the hell is wrong with you?!  I just saved your
life!"  Tina struck his spear again, infuriated.  "You murderer!  First you
kill my true love, then you kill my next best bet!  When are you going to get
it that I want no part of you?!"  Edgar cringed at the words almost as much as
Tina's next blow, which made a nasty gouge in the spear haft.
 "Please, be reasonable!" Edgar cried out.  "I'm a king!  If you married me,
you would be a queen, and have anything you want!"  Tina struck his spear even
harder, and it all but splintered from the blow.  "You killed both of the
things that I want most already!  When are you going to get it that you're an
asshole?!  That's why nobody will marry you!"  Edgar stepped backwards, and
threw his useless spear to the ground.  "I hadn't thought of that.  Come to
think of it, I really am a cheauvanistic pig, aren't I?"  He jumped further
back as Tina's sword swiped the air where he had been standing.  "You know,
you have to be the blindest person ever to have working eyes in the history of
our world," Tina said in a disgusted voice.  Edgar drew his last weapon he had
on him, a rather weak sword, and replied, "Well, it's not like I had any real
clues.  Except for the women always sighing and being angry with me.  And
their cruel looks.  And all of the talk to my face about what a jackass I am.
Come to think of it, I can't see how I missed this in the first place."
 Tina took a grand swing, and Edgar quickly ducked to spare his head.  "Look,
I can change!  Really!  Just give me a chance!"  Tina looked at Edgar as
though he had two heads (which he didn't, in case you're wondering).  "You
can't change, you're a living cliche!  The world would be better off without
you!"  She then proceeded to perform a double feint attack that Edgar
completely failed to dodge in any manner, and thus ended the poor dubious
king's life.  "Serves the jackass right," Tina said.  She then proceeded to
cast Araise on everybody else (saving Celes for last, since she had slapped
Tina), and she and Setzer went off to get married as planned.  A few days
later, Lock had pity on Edgar and revived him, but Edgar was a shadow of his
former self ever since.  This might have been because Lock played a prank on
him by replacing his royal ring with an Undead Ring, but we'll never be sure,
will we?  Edgar never got married, and when he died, the estate went to Mash's
sixteen children, who turned the kingdom into a gigantic casino.

The End!