Back in prison. What brought me here? I was always such a good little Imperial. I was loyal. So was Terra. How could we not be? It was our homeland. Gestahl wanted only to avenge the wrongs Vector had suffered at the hands of its enemies. We were his soldiers, playing a small part in Vector's return to glory. It was what we'd been raised to do.
"Let me protect you," I had said, and then I let fly the spells I'd been readying. Healing for them, and a warp for Kefka and the soldiers that took me with it. I had to hope they could get out on their own.
We'd ended up in the foyer of Leo's quarters. Conscious effort on my part, or chance? The armor wouldn't even have fit through the door, and the air displaced by the massive arrival made a crash that alerted him immediately. In a fog, I watched him snap out orders – he knew all of the soldiers by name. I don't know how. He had Kefka sedated and me arrested before my vision had even cleared. "I'm sorry, Celes," he'd murmured as he put the cuffs on me.
No. Before that. Further back. An incident during a training session. I read the reports, sat frozen in the conference room; a new general, the stars still sat awkwardly on my sleeve. And during my first meeting as a member of the emperor's cabinet, the main order of business was the judgment of my friend.
Later, much later, Cid would tell me that it hadn't been a training session; she, along with other magically talented students, had been given a tour of the research facility when she had a strange breakdown, even seeming to shapeshift before she became engulfed in flames that injured the three people closest to her. I realize now that she was reacting to the presence of the Espers.
A visit. "I had sex with Kefka," she blurted, and I sat down heavily on the desk chair, gaping at her, and asked, "Are you all right?" We were both so very, very young then. We're still so young.
"I'm fine. It wasn't that bad. I mean, it was my decision. He agreed not to hurt me if I just do what he wants. And he won't put the slave crown on me, that was part of the deal."
Later on, he did anyway. I passed her in the hall, but she didn't even see me. Her eyes looked dead. When I next had a chance, I visited her, and was relieved to see her normal again, but also terrified and unreasoningly angry. "I thought you said he wasn't going to use the slave crown!" I shouted, as if it were somehow her fault.
"It was just for a couple of hours. He said he wanted to test it, that's all. He's always taken it off. He thinks if the tests work out he can actually convince the Emperor to send me on missions. It helps control my powers, he says." I thought she was crazy to trust him. He was talking of poisoning Doma. Collateral damage, but he thought of it as a bonus. He told me, once, that he had killed the previous king of Figaro.
A different visit; we were talking, and then suddenly he let himself into the room and shooed me out. I stood outside the door, feeling sick.
Gestahl always took his advice. He even outranked Leo, by the time I was arrested. The first time I was arrested.
Rumors began to circulate about Kefka and Terra and the crown. "Sometimes he just puts it on her and watches her cast magic," someone told me. I bet he did, too. I think the magic was what he really wanted.
Worse rumors. "They say she killed fifty Magitek soldiers in less than three minutes!" someone told me, and my fists clenched. I saw her less and less without the crown, and when I did she seemed withdrawn, upset. But maybe that was my imagination. "He promised me he'd never use the crown for... he said it's just for training and stuff. Celes, he doesn't really have me practicing on our own soldiers, does he?"
I felt sick. I felt very sick. "I don't know."
I tried to bring up the topic with Gestahl, but I didn't push hard enough. He ignored me, stationed me in Doma for a time. He must have suspected.
Home again. "I know she's your friend, but you absolutely cannot tamper with the slave crown, understand? If it's improperly removed, she might have permanent amnesia, or be reduced to a vegetable... you just cannot risk it." Cid knew me too well.
I didn't exactly join the Returners because I wanted to, but I didn't have any real objection to it. There was nowhere else for me to go. Locke wouldn't leave me behind, and I had to do something with my life. No one knew better than a general all the horrors the Empire committed; I just had to decide that the ends no longer justified the means. It was a passionless decision. Just change sides. I'd already committed treason, so this was nothing new to me, was it?
I had never truly wanted to betray the Empire, but she was my friend. Kefka kept the crown on her for longer and longer intervals, and I was beginning to think he'd eventually just keep her that way forever. While she was under the crown, her personal effects were kept in storage; I bluffed the guards into letting me in, grabbed her pendant, and gave it back to her. No one took it away before they got her into the armor, I suppose, because she was still wearing it when I saw her next.
When he arrested me, Leo told me that was the reason. I had been seen visiting her while she was under the crown, and then she escaped. The link was strong enough to sentence me to death in occupied South Figaro, strong enough to bring me to trial now. Their hunch was right, although I haven't enlightened them. I saw it. The pendant started reacting first when she transformed in Narshe that time, and then the light spread over her and she changed. I hadn't wanted to betray anyone, not even the Empire, but then when I saw her in Narshe, clinging to Edgar like a child, and I had to treat her as a stranger – I knew that I had betrayed her, and badly.