Figaro had been at war, presumably with the Empire, for some time. Or so I'm guessing from Sabin's reference to the "war-sick realm." They eventually made peace, but it was only superficial; the Empire poisoned Edgar and Sabin's father, and may have had a hand in their mother's death as well. I suspect Kefka of immediate responsibility for this, as he seems to have a thing for poison, using it not only on Doma but also in your first fight with him (in Narshe.)

From the Empire's point of view, it was a brilliant move. Figaro couldn't do a thing about the subtle assassination, short of declaring war, and to do so would probably be playing right into Gestahl's hands. Figaro's military is no match for the Empire's. Anyone who didn't know the twins personally would assume that they'd both want the throne; historically, people do. Twin heirs to the throne could only look like a recipe for disaster, and Gestahl was probably hoping for a civil war that would weaken Figaro, leaving them easy to conquer or manipulate. Even with the uneventful succession they eventually had, the kingdom was still left with an inexperienced teenage monarch on the throne. I love Edgar, and he seems to be a wonderful king, but he couldn't have been in much of a position to stand up to Gestahl at first. And, at the beginning of the game, he still isn't. The dive mechanism for the castle was apparently created in secret, and Edgar's collaboration with the Returners was secret, too. The Imperials apparently had their suspicions, but it wasn't until Terra escaped that they acted on them.

Meanwhile, Sabin had been living in the vicinity of South Figaro, training with Duncan and his son Vargas. Vargas grew jealous of Sabin and eventually attacked his father, leaving him for dead. Sabin apparently believed he was dead as well, and confronts Vargas on Mt. Koltz when Vargas attacks the party. He and Edgar are reunited for the first time in ten years. With Duncan dead and the situation with the Empire nearing a crisis, he decides to join the Returners. At the Returner base, he tells Terra that Edgar has always been fair with him. "You can trust him, Terra... but don't you DARE tell him I said that!" When Locke tells Terra to be wary of "a certain lecherous young king," Sabin asks Edgar if he's ever going to grow up. Um, guys grow out of being interested in sex? Do they know this? Anyway, Sabin is assigned to escort Banon to Narshe along with Edgar and Terra. After the fight with Ultros, he decides to finish the annoying octopus off, and gets separated from the party for his troubles. Sigh... if only he'd SUCCEEDED...

He washes up north of Doma, and encounters Shadow, who offers to guide him south to Doma. Which is under seige by the Empire. That'll put a crimp in your travel plans. Kefka manages to end the standoff by poisoning most of the population of Doma, and Sabin (and, optionally, Shadow) join forces with a revenge-seeking knight named Cyan. They steal some Magitek and escape the Imperial base, but now they have to find another way to get to Narshe. They head south through a forest, and accidentally end up on the Phantom Train, which takes the dead to the "other side." Sabin can't have that, since he still has things to do on the original side, so they end up fighting the train and giving Cyan one last glimpse of his late wife and child. It's a good scene, but this isn't a Cyan shrine. The group then heads for Baren Falls, and if Shadow is still with you he bows out here, leaving Cyan and Sabin to jump the falls and wash up on the Veldt.

They keep running into a feral kid after their fights, and eventually befriend him by feeding him dried meat. Sabin and Gau wrestle (or "dance," as Gau teases him) and Sabin tries to prevent the kid from teasing Cyan. Eventually, with Gau's help, they locate some equipment that will let them swim the Serpent Trench. They wash up in Nikeah (Sabin does a lot of washing up onshore, have you noticed?) shop for a bit, and you can watch Cyan freak out when he's solicited by a hooker. Or "dancing girl," since this was on a Nintendo system. Anyway, they head to Narshe, although why Gau cares remains a mystery. In Narshe, the party is reunited, along with the new additions - Sabin's two recruits, of course, and Locke comes bearing Celes. You get some party interaction, namely Celes having conversations with Terra, Edgar and Cyan, but since these don't involve Sabin I'm not going into detail here.

So, the party repels the Imperial invaders and goes to check out the Esper. Terra reacts to its presence again, morphing into a strange, pink form, and flying off. The party has to track her, and if you take the twins along, you can get their signature scene, one of my favorites in the game - the coin toss. This can occur at any point, but I do it here, just because.

Once you arrive in Figaro with Sabin, he'll run off to explore the castle. He'll rejoin you if you leave, but what you want to do here is stay in the castle's inn. You'll see Sabin in the throne room, reflecting on all the changes since his childhood, mostly the deaths of his parents and others. He sits in the king's throne, and at this point we go into a flashback - Sabin's disjointed memories of the doctors sounding unhopeful, himself crying and angry, and Edgar trying to comfort him. Sabin is angry that people are worried about the succession; he wants a chance to mourn his father properly, without duty hanging over his head, although he doesn't put it in those terms. After a confrontation with the Matron, who says that the king's dying wish was that the kingdom be divided between his sons, Edgar and Sabin agree to settle the succession with a coin toss and no regrets. If it's heads, Sabin gets to choose his path. Edgar enters from the wings, commenting that Sabin chose his freedom. He adds that it's been ten years, says "the little shrimp's grown into a whopping lobster," and Sabin retorts "and you're a king crab!" They are such brothers. It's cute. Edgar takes the throne next to Sabin and wistfully says that he often wonders if "he" would be proud of him - meaning, of course, their father. Sabin says never to doubt that. They wonder again at the amount of time that's passed, and stand up, saluting their parents and Figaro, then look at each other as the scene fades out.

The next important entry in the Edgar and Sabin chronicles occurs near the end of the Opera scene. After Setzer kidnaps Celes, she lets the rest of the party into the airship. Setzer finds them all waiting for him and sulks; they talk him into hearing them out, and he says he'll fly them to the Empire if Celes agrees to marry him. Celes bargains, saying they'll flip a coin; heads she wins and he helps, tails she marries him. So she goes to Edgar to borrow a coin, flips it, and it's heads. Setzer picks it up and notes that it's a double-headed coin. Sabin catches on. And Setzer agrees, with a couple of cheesy gambling metaphors, to help the party.

Blah blah Magitek factory blah collect Magicite blah Celes accused of being a traitor blah blah wake Terra up and see a long tedious flashback of her origins blah find out why the Esper world is sealed off blah blah blah. No Sabin material yet. Blah go with Terra to Narshe and talk to Banon blah blah go to the Sealed Gate blah communicate with Espers blah Kefka's there and you have to fight him blah. Blah blah blah Espers run amok and sack Vector blah Gestahl wants to talk peace with the Returners blah. Locke and Terra go to Thamasa with Shadow, Celes and Leo blah, Relm Strago blah BLAH blah, retrieve some Espers and have Kefka betray the whole group blah blah. Blah lots of Espers killed. Leo dies! Wah!! And the rest of the party, which had stayed in Vector, arrives in Thamasa. Everyone had been suspicious, but like dolts they played along - they shouldn't have played along until they had proof it was okay, but anyway. Edgar got his suspicions confirmed by getting, uh, friendly, with the serving girl, about which Sabin teases him. Relm refers to Sabin as a puffed-up aerobics instructor, which he takes with far less good humor than he did Terra's bodybuilder joke. Relm threatens to paint his portrait, and he is baffled when Locke, Terra and Strago freak out. Further wackiness ensues, including Relm hitting on Edgar.

No sooner does the party board the airship than things start to go very wrong. Kefka and Gestahl use their newfound Magicite to get a continent - namely, the former Esper headquarters - airborne. The party has to make their way through the continent, probably the hardest dungeon area in the game, in hopes of stopping them from wreaking havoc using the three Goddess statues. They arrive just in time, but Kefka knocks them all out of commission, paralyzing them. He leaves Celes mobile, and he and Gestahl try to tempt her to rejoin them. She instead stabs Kefka, who paralyzes Celes as well. He and Gestahl turn on each other, and Kefka kills Gestahl, then pushes the statues out of alignment. Shadow swoops in for a last-minute rescue, trapping Kefka within the statues. The party escapes - if you wait for Shadow, he does, too. But the misalignment of the statues was just as disastrous as they'd said, and you see explosions and earthquakes all over the world. The airship is destroyed and the party scattered.

We next see Celes, waking up after a year-long coma. She's on a deserted island with Cid, who's ill himself. They have no contact with the rest of the world, if there is a rest of the world - for all they know, they're the only survivors. Celes tries to keep Cid alive by fishing, but she isn't necessarily successful. If she is, he gives her a surprise gift of a raft and tells her to go looking for her friends; if he dies, she tries to kill herself, but washes ashore on the same island and sees a bird bandaged with a scrap of bandanna. She assumes it's Locke's, which means he's alive, which means everyone's alive. Comforted by these leaps of logic, she goes into the house, finds a letter from Cid telling her about the raft, and leaves the island.

She finds herself on what was once the Imperial continent, and hears rumors of Sabin. She arrives in Tzen just as it's attacked by Kefka's "Light of Judgment," a death ray of some sort that he apparently uses on any villages that are thriving too much or standing up to him in any way. Celes finds Sabin supporting a house on the verge of collapse, and she ventures inside to rescue a trapped child. They all jump clear as the house collapses, and Sabin and Celes reunite. He assures her that a little thing like the end of the world wouldn't kill him, and they head out in search of the others. Annoyingly, the game doesn't provide him with any lines during the whole sequence of pursuing "Gerad" through Nikeah and South Figaro, though it should - this IS his brother, after all. Maybe he just knows how stubborn Edgar can be, and figures there's no point to pushing it, he'll never admit his identity. Or, you know, it could be because Sabin's recruitment is optional, but I want to rationalize it.

Sabin's next big scene occurs when you find Duncan's house. Yep, Duncan. He's alive, heaven knows why. Sabin cries on finding this out, because he is a wonderful, sensitive person who is secure in his own masculinity. Duncan also says that the end of the world wasn't enough to kill him (um, what about that "murdered by your own son" thing, Dunc?) and teaches Sabin the Bum Rush, his ultimate technique. It kicks ass. Get it as early as possible. Unless you are one of those people who have seizures triggered by bright flashing lights, in which case I wouldn't recommend it.

In the final confrontation with Kefka, Sabin says that his relationship with Edgar is his reason to go on - each has their thing, and this is his. In the ending, he saves Edgar by holding up another huge falling thing (um, I can't remember what it is specifically.) And, well, that's about the extent of it.