Disclaimer: I don't own Bravely Default, all rights to the owners.

So, uh, I finally got a hold of Bravely Default again. I appreciate it a lot more now than I did when I last played it, that's for sure (though the fact that it's missing some of the quality-of-life things Bravely Second has is slightly irritating, especially because I can already tell grinding is going to be more of a pain without being able to chain fights for stacking bonuses).

I don't really have a story in mind here as much as I just want to write something. I'm only part way through the prologue at the moment (I just beat Ominas and saw the king kidnapped), so up to then is my frame of reference for this little story bite.

Not that I'm going to focus on either of those events. I'm going to show my massive bias by focusing on something related to Second, at least for this story bite. I promise I'll do Tiz and Agnès stuff next time, because I adore the small little segment we got with just the two of them before Ringabel joined the party.


In hindsight, maybe it wasn't the most intelligent choice to spend two days stumbling his way across the countryside back to Norende when just walking up the castle steps in Caldisla to see the King left him winded. It was also probably a bad idea to not get something better than a dagger to fight with considering he was warned very explicitly that monsters had converged on the Norende Crater ("the Great Chasm" is what he heard other people calling it, but Tiz refuses to use that term. That chasm is- was- Norende. It has- had?- a name. He won't distance himself from his home by using some generic title).

Despite that, Tiz somehow makes it to the ravine that serves as the entrance to his (former) village. Whether through luck or his dim awareness of his surroundings, the only thing he came across in his travels that posed any sort of threat was a few slimes, and they're slower than even his weak legs and easily avoided.

Taking a moment to breath, Tiz leans against the rocky wall. His new pack (courtesy of Karl) feels like an iron ball on his back when in reality it's hardly heavier than an armful of lumber which he could have carried for a day without breaking a sweat before his unconsciousness. It's strange to think a mere week of inactivity wiped him out this badly.

Something prods the back of his mind, urging him to keep walking, and Tiz sucks in a breath and obliges. He needs to see Norende. There might still be survivors that were overlooked. There might be something to salvage. There might be Til.

So Tiz pushes himself off the wall and keeps walking. His footsteps are impossibly loud to his own ears and echo off the ravine's walls. Only the occasional shrill hiss of wind and the faint roar of an airship's engines occasionally interrupt his steps.

But his noisy passage through the ravine doesn't go unnoticed. It would be hard to miss him, considering the noise he's making relative to the silence of the ravine, and Tiz's footsteps cover up the surprisingly quiet padding of the goblins' feet.

They burst out from behind a rock with weapons drawn; a bow for one and a cleaver for the other. Though the gangly green monsters are only waist height, that hardly makes them unthreatening. They bellow gargling screeches that echo painfully loud compared to mere footsteps or wind, and Tiz spends a vital moment flinching in surprise rather than acting.

Tiz fumbles his dagger out of its sheath while backing away from the monsters. His eyes are off his opponents to make sure he doesn't cut himself drawing the weapon, and that's his first mistake.

He sees the cleaver a split second before it connects with his stomach, and manages to move enough that it only clips his hip.

And by "clips" he means that it leaves a deep, ugly gash only stopped by his hip bone. The pain would likely be horrible if his adrenaline wasn't pumping. That's probably why he doesn't collapse in agony and is still standing in time to get an arrow to his shoulder.

But that doesn't bring him down either. Tiz still manages to bring up his dagger and plunge it into the cleaver goblin's face, driving it straight through the thing's eye socket and into the brain. Tiz doesn't spend the time needed to withdraw his dagger from the monster's corpse and charges the archer, lowering his shoulder and driving into the thing's stomach, then heaving up and sending the monster flying off the edge of the ravine and down to the watery rocks below.

That's small comfort for Tiz though. With his foes dispatched, he's very quickly made aware of the immense pain of having an arrow in his body and a giant gash from a blunt cleaver.

He never should have come here. He's not even going to get to see the Norende Crater, he's going to die here among the rocks because his grief-stricken mind couldn't wait two days to get some rest or even two minutes to buy a shield, or a potion, or anything.

Tiz staggers back over to his first victim, and yanks the dagger out of their skull. The move jars his shoulder, and he spends a moment heaving breaths while leaning his head against the wall and fighting the urge to vomit. His pant leg is starting to get wet from the blood leaking down it, and he's starting to feel light-headed.

It's a miracle (the second in a week, along with his surviving the cataclysm that destroyed Norende) that he's not the only person travelling the ravine, and that this other person finds him before he bleeds out on the stone.

"Hold on there!" A muffled voice shouts as Tiz is slumping to the ground. He brings his head up enough to see a figure dressed in a bulky green coat with a similarly colored wide-brimmed hat on their head running towards him. They drop to one knee in front of him, pull what Tiz identifies as an X-Potion out of their pocket, rip the arrow from his chest, and promptly force the potion down his throat.

Tiz shudders violently as the powerful magic of the potion rolls though his body like a plow through untilled soil. It's hot and cold all at the same time, and his muscles vibrate when the magic grips them, searching for damage before moving on.

Within a minute his body is repaired to pristine condition, with not even a scar to show for his battle. The damage to his clothes and the blood still on his body is evidence enough of that. Tiz rapidly pats his body where he was injured, in awe of the awesome healing power of the potion.

"You gotta be more careful than that, Mister Arrior." The figure says, helping Tiz to his feet. It will only occur to Tiz afterwards that he never actually introduced himself, and he has no idea how the figure knew his name. "Wouldn't do to end your journey before it begins."

"I don't know what you mean." Tiz says. "I-I just came to check Norende for survivors."

"Mmm, of course. Don't mind me." The figure says. "I only came to deliver a gift."

"A gift?" Tiz says uncomprehendingly as the figure takes something out of their pocket. "For me?"

"Yes."

"But… from who?" Tiz asks, his voice catching in his throat. Everyone he knows lived in Norende, there's no one who should be sending him things from out of town.

"From people who love you." The figure says cryptically, leaving Tiz with even more questions than he had before. The figure pushes a small, ornate hourglass with a few crystalline beads of sand inside the glass at him, and folds Tiz's hands around it. "I need you to make a promise."

"But-"

"I just saved your life, I think I'm entitled to a small request." The figure cuts him off. "Promise me you'll keep this with you. Keep it at all times, no matter what fate befalls you. Do you understand me?"

Tiz clutches the strange hourglass tightly. "I do, but why?"

"You don't have to know. In fact, it's probably better you don't." The figure says. They dust off their pants and hike their backpack higher on their back. "You just have to hold onto it, no matter what."

"I will." Tiz promises. This doesn't make any sense, it's all far too cryptic, but he's in no position to refuse a relatively easy request from someone who just saved his life.

"Good. Now, I'd love to talk more, but I have to leave." The figure says, tipping their hat at him. "May you always find the courage to try again, Mister Arrior."

With that, the figure walks towards the entrance of the ravine and vanishes from sight after turning a corner, leaving Tiz standing alone in the rocky ravine, blood staining one of his pant legs, and clutching an hourglass of unknown importance sent from people he doesn't know.

After a few seconds of drawing a mental blank, it occurs to Tiz he shouldn't just be standing here, and he takes off running after the figure. "W-Wait! Sir!? Miss!? You have to tell me who this is from!"

Yet, when Tiz turns the corner, there is no figure in sight. He can see all the way back to the entrance from here, and even if the figure ran there's no way they would be able to leave before he spotted them.

They just… vanished.

Tiz stares down at the hourglass clutched in his hands. It's a small, slim, fancy thing made out of a metal he doesn't recognize. Looking at the top and bottom of the object only reveals a small raised metal disk with an inscription in barely readable letters written in what is clearly a foreign language: "Propriété de Sergent Arch - 1er Peloton de Danseurs de Bataille"

That tells him basically nothing, because Tiz can't read anything other than Luxendarc Standard and has no idea what that means. He has no idea why this hourglass is important, but he isn't about to break his new promise. He opens his backpack and finds a spot between his spare clothes and the blanket where the hourglass won't get jostled too much, gently fits it in there, and zips his pack back up.

With that out of the way, he picks up his dagger once more, steels himself for the rest of the walk while resolving to pay more attention, and slowly continues his journey down the ravine.


And thus concludes: Tiz gets his shit wrecked by two gobbos because a single dagger, no armor, and no combat experience is barely enough to fight a dog, much less armed monsters who are probably experienced hunters. Oh, and ha ha Bravely Second foreshadowing.