A/N: A drabble. A strange, insane drabble that was originally gonna be Vivi-centric till The Rest banged on the door and demanded in. The title came from a conversation with Athene Miranda, unrepentant Moogle and amazing witch sister. The flavour quote apparently originates from something to do with mad vampire wizards.

I own nothing. Heh, but I'd like to bet that neither does Squaresoft. You can't catch a canary with paper and Gil!

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Flame In Repeat

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"If you find yourself falling into madness-dive."

- Malkavian proverb

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Nuova, nova, stellae nuova.

Baby stars.

He plays catch with Meteor, and Ultima is the light on his Christmas tree; oversized puppy, playing in the shadows and the stars.

Look, it's Doom's Day. Look at the pretty colours! Ohh...

Fire twining, thunder and ice, simple tri-pattern of elements and magic.

This is all a game.

Sunshine, bright on cobbles. Listen to the children singing. Calling out the numbers. Eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two...Pain of the leaf, one two, word of the stone, three four. Foot of the dark, pit of the hand. Heart of the cloud five six and OUT!

skip

Freya she had white eyes

leaping woman dragon woman crying rain tears red blood crest on her front she bears the flag of lost nations

Dagger she had black

stars on black velvet lace and silk forward slash and grubby orange overalls and hacked-short hair

Eiko looked in Evil Wood

piccolo, fortissimo, allegro! child feet stamp and child voice sings and head thrown back as she gluts on Holy

And never came back!

death

Freya draws a red thread

bloodstains washed clean by raintears and purpose

Dagger spins it blue

royalty dropped like an afterthought as she swings into the laughing land

But Eiko will not bind it

screaming the words to a hymn and carmine stains the dusty ground as the wings come bursting out

Till her true love makes it

her soul sold for her at one year old

True!

blur

One two, leaf of the pain. Three four, stone of the word. Hand of the pit, dark of the foot.

Cloud of the heart five six and OUT!

jump

Tailedone, tailedone, where have you been?

I've been to Alex to kidnap the queen!

Her rooms are all empty, the red throne lies bare

They'll have to find somebody else to sit there!

laugh

Red hair swinging in cords; obscured vision.

Heart absent and a blade in it's place; failed comprehension.

'I don't understand him.'

*You'll never understand him.*

'He acts like a fool.'

*He steers by a different star.*

'He *is* a fool.'

*It's easy, oh so easy, when Kill is the only doctrine, and Do What Thou Wilt be the whole of the law. Easy, oh so easy, for one who knows no allegiance.*

*He's shaken up your world, hasn't he? Just by pulling you in.*

*It was just a spur-of-the-moment flippancy to him, but it'll confuse you for the rest of your life.*

high

Est sularis oth mithas; my honour is my life.

We have a Duty.

It is my responsibility.

Paladins bear the image of their gods on their shields; you bear no shield, but if you did it would bear the many-winged castle. Ringed by roses.

Ring a ring a roses! All fall down!

All your faith and your trust and your unthinking, blinkered, *doglike* stupidity! All that falling down.

Do you know your goddess is a hunger-crazed blue mage?

Do you know that she performed abominations upon her daughter?

I have a Duty, a responsibility, but all that is crumbling like sand castles in the face of the incoming tide.

Red tide; every nation's paving stones will be dyed deepest blood red.

howl

Magic has a mind, and the mind invades yours.

One impulse reified, striking into the world.

Here come the black mages; Kill! Kill! Kill!

Here come the white mages; Grow! Grow! Grow!

Black hole, supernova; wasting disease, cancer. Each extreme is a danger, and so is that of blue.

Blue is hunger, blue is ravenous. Blue is infinity wanting to be filled.

Infinity is always starving. Because there's so much emptiness, and only one soul to go round.

Blue is a mineshaft. Blue is an ooze.

Rising up from the swamps, among yellow iris and white-nettle and dead-nettle and bulrush and pond-weed; up from the rotting plant matter, crawling into minds.

The tribe that lived there are the masters and slaves of blue.

It was in the mists of antiquity; a spell gone wrong, a toxic mix, a curse from an angry eidolon. Who knows?

The facts are plain to see.

You are the master and the slave of blue.

Here come the blue mages!

Eat! Eat! Eat!

cry

Doom's Day, Doom's Day. Write it in the book. Write their lives and write their deaths; write their stories and write their names.

Write them all, for generations to come to wonder at; write them all, for the angels to call out at the end of Time and summon or dismiss for eternity.

Write them that none may forget! Singers are temporal, but songs are eternal! Do not forget them! Keep them safe in heart and mind!

Little writer, write them now.

Do not forget!