It was ten years since Garnet had become Queen... and seven since she had vanished, proclaiming that she was taking a short break.  They had investigated, of course. The bodyguards she took all had matching stories, that the Queen had simply vanished from her quarters while on the holiday. She had apparently went to the village of Dali, but searching that area and asking the villagers there yielded no results.

There were many other questions beyond "where was she" or variations thereof. Why had she not taken her beloved fiancée, Zidane? Why had she not taken her most trusted bodyguards, Steiner and Beatrix? Why did only the handful of guards she did take know where she had gone before vanishing?

The questions and the angry debates continued for months, the mystery no closer to being solved when a new mystery emerged. Zidane vanished also. Steiner was convinced that the pressure of the accusations and theories had been too much for him and that he had fled or worse. After the second year since she had vanished, many theories had emerged, each as credible as the other but only because none had any evidence.

First, Garnet was in hiding and had invited Zidane with her. The two had found their love impossible to hold in Royal life, and in devotion to each other, Garnet had abandoned the crown. Second, Garnet had taken her own life, and the pressure on Zidane had led him to the same. Third, a similar to the second, that Garnet had been assassinated by Zidane but he had taken his own life later in guilt. Fourth, another assassin had killed her, and then had targeted Zidane when he learned the truth.

There was a fifth theory, but only one person held it, and it was not truly a theory. It was truth. This person was the woman who had replaced Garnet as Queen. Eiko Fabool, the adopted daughter of Regent Cid the Ninth of Lindblum. She had apparently been invited to act as Garnet's representative, being next in line to Alexandria's throne thanks to the way Alexandrian succession worked. She had eventually been crowned Queen two years earlier at the age of fourteen, Alexandria having to move past their missing Queen and assume that she had abdicated or was no longer among the living.

Eiko had earned loyalty and respect from the people of Alexandria. Though only nine when she had been fatefully asked to act as Garnet's representative she had stayed on in her absence until eventually, with the Queen missing so long, Eiko was given the role permanently and unanimously.

But there were strange stories at the castle. The rumours there had a secret door hidden in the Queen's chambers, according to a maid. The original maid supposed to have claimed denied ever having seen a door, and soon after the next rumour started claiming the door was hidden on the west wall of the room. This meant that the door led directly outside, and probably to a twenty foot drop.

Of course, the main reason no door was found? That would be because the door was hidden in a different room. Vivi's room.

Since becoming Queen, Eiko had made Vivi's role as her main bodyguard official, and the once small and timid Black Mage was now taller than most men, and sufficiently imposing to frighten experienced soldiers with a glare. His room was the perfect place to conceal Eiko's secret. No questions were asked about her occasional visits to her friend... Well, recently there had been a few raised eyebrows, after all they were no longer children. But while she visited her monuments to her ascension to the throne, Vivi would prevent any chance of anyone finding her private gallery.

"Good evening, Vivi." She said as she walked into his room.

The Black Mage greeted her back, and without a word stood facing the door as she opened the secret passage concealed behind a closet. He had been conditioned over the years by Eiko's growing powers of hypnosis into being able to read her wishes like a book, and tonight, like every night like this, she wished some privacy.

The passage was a thin, dark corridor, unknown to virtually everyone. Those few that knew of it, suddenly had no recollection of it as soon as Eiko found out. It led into an abandoned section of the castle, a small area that had been bricked up in the distant past, sealed as more rooms were added in ignorance of the room they entombed. Eiko believed the stained glass window in the largest room meant it had once been the chapel, for a larger chapel had been built elsewhere in the castle grounds, and it was certainly one more than capable of having rendered this small room obsolete.

She'd found it by pure luck. It was far more secure than her old hiding place, an empty room off the stairs leading to the roof. The small presume-former chapel was bare except for two human-shapes, standing below the stained glass windows facing each other. Coloured moonlight filtered in through them, illuminating the two.

"Hello, Garnet. Zidane." She greeted the statues with a grin.

***

" There she is!" Eiko whispered. Vivi nodded beside her.

The two had waited in the shadows of the roof, waiting to hear a sound. Eiko wasn't sure if Garnet had just arrived, but she had her plan. She'd obtained a spare key to the door here, and had learned that Garnet generally had left this door unlocked so as to not bother with her own key.

"Okay, Vivi, count to twenty then do it. I'm going to go lock the door so no one interrupts."

"Sure." Vivi complied as she slid out towards the door.

Keeping an eye on Garnet and her mental countdown, she stealthily moved to the door, and locked it carefully, unheard. She had her eyes on Garnet the whole time as she reached nineteen... then twenty. Vivi cast the spell. Garnet barely had time to realise it before she was turned into stone, but had enough time to jump in surprise.

This meant she fell over with an alarming crunch. Eiko almost screamed, but instead let out a brief yelp before preservation instincts silenced her, realising a scream would alert people, locked door or not. It then occurred to her, that a scream and a locked door would be even worse.

"Oh no! that wasn't meant to happen!" She cried out more quietly, frantically running over to Garnet.

Vivi followed, slowly. Garnet was still trying to guess what had happened when Eiko's frightened face appeared in front of her and looked her over.

"Oh good, we didn't break her, just her clothes cracked up a little..." Eiko said, looking relieved.

Then she saw that Garnet's petrified form seemed to be crying. In fact it was just the tears from earlier, not dried up and not affected by the spell in a rare side effect of petrification, but Eiko didn't quite realise this.

"S-s-she's crying! What did we do?! I just wanted to petrify her to hypnotise her into letting me be Queen for a little while but how do we explain this?! What do we do?!" Eiko panicked.

Vivi was no help, simply shrugging. She had no ideas herself, still somewhat panicky. However, after a few moments, self-preservation took over. She had to hide this and she couldn't turn Garnet back...

***

Eiko had once wondered what would have happened if she had made another choice then, when she had panicked. She could have tried to salvage her original plan. She could have restored Garnet right away and faced the music on the spot. but she hadn't. At the time, she'd feared what she had done.

***

It had been a month since Garnet had "left", and Eiko knew the longer she held off, the more likely it would be she'd be in serious trouble. But an idea was forming in her head. What if she did get away with this? Everyone had been tricked into thinking Garnet had decided to visit Dali, and that she would be back soon.   

But then, she hadn't returned for a month, when many had expected a week or so of absence at most, or some notification of how long she would be gone. And then her "guards" reported her missing.

They looked everywhere for her but the castle. Garnet's petrified form lay in an anonymous room off a stairwell, unknown to all but Eiko and Vivi...

It had been six months. Eiko was sure she had got away with it. She had been acting in the Queen's place now for those six months and had become used to it. The only problem with the nobles she really had now was Zidane lingering in the castle. but she refused to follow a request to order him away. Even so, she knew Zidane might discover the truth, and though she had felt worried as the idea surfaced, she knew she would need to make a choice. Zidane would need to rejoin Garnet.

***

"I was young and somewhat foolish then, of course. I was powerful with magic, but I was like you. I was timid. I never took the big decisions and risks. But when I feared what would happen desperation showed me the light. I had no reason to turn you back at all. You were a friend, and I still think you are. You might disagree, of course. But out of loyalty to you, I've given you a great gift. You need not worry about the people of Alexandria: They have a capable Queen that they adore , one who will make the bold choices for them. In addition, I solved your problem with staying with Zidane. now you both are together, forever young."

She turned to face the petrified form of Zidane.

"Aren't you glad, though? Glad that I realised my kindness? When Garnet was missing you were such a bore, always moping and wondering where she was. I found her for you and gave you your wish."

***

Eiko learned Garnet's handwriting with painstaking effort. The many letters the Queen had written helped, but it took Eiko a long time to quietly and secretly forge a letter claiming to be from Garnet. It asked Zidane to leave the castle, alone, and destroy the letter when he did. Zidane wasn't being sent to meet her just yet.

Eiko had been taking a risk, but Zidane took the bait. He arrived were he was instructed, and Eiko moved out to meet him.

"Eiko? What are you doing here?" Zidane asked in confusion.

She produced her watch, and before he could realise the truth, he was under.  

"Okay Vivi. your turn." Eiko instructed. Vivi, also under his own entrancement, obeyed, petrifying Zidane. Eiko shrank the resulting statue, making it easy to move, and had it taken back home.

***

Neither of the two statues responded. She stood in silence, admiring her trophies as she often did.

"Well, thanks again for helping me see the light, Garnet. If you hadn't fallen over, you'd never have derailed my original plan. You'd still be queen, still not married to anything but a desk and endless letters and requests. I liberated you both, and I liberated your people. You weren't a bad Queen... But to be really good, I guess you've got to be a little cruel sometimes." She grinned.

Eiko knew power corrupted. but guilt was something she'd expunged long ago. After all, she only used her power for the good of Alexandria. In seven years, it had become prosperous once more. All thanks to her, and all thanks to Garnet's disappearance.

"Well, it's time I went to sleep. Good night." Eiko said, kissing each statue to bid them a farewell for the evening, before leaving them.

Zidane had been hypnotised before his petrification, and was therefore completely unaware of events. Garnet, however, remained conscious. and the only words she had for Eiko would probably destroy the personality the new Queen had built up over seven years. These words would have pierced the armour that suppressed the once kind, energetic girl she had known. The guilt Eiko no longer felt would have come back a hundredfold, and all from three words, if ever she could hear them.

'I forgive you.'