Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Final Fantasy VI. In addition, "Linger" is the title of a song by Jonatha Brooke.
Linger
I close the door behind me, but only halfway, as though I've just stepped out for a breath of fresh air, or a walk around the garden. I leave it open, as though I plan to come back.
I thought I could handle this, the same way I've handled everything that lead up to this point. I thought that, when she was born, I'd suddenly know what to do, how to take care of her, how to be a father. I thought the essence of fatherhood would suffuse me like a theatrical lightning bolt, and… it didn't.
So I'm leaving.
If only Amelia had survived, I might have been able to stay, to try. She would have been my strength, as she always says I am hers. No, not 'says'… 'said'. She's a past tense now. They all are.
No healing magic or potions could break her fever, or make her lucid again. She barely knew who I was at the end, when I brought the girl to visit her. She never held our daughter, and the closest the girl came to her mother's touch was running her hands over the smooth wood of her coffin.
Once she was buried, the villagers started talking. Of course, this was her punishment, for lowering herself to consort with me, an outsider, a regular human being. I was no more than a grieving husband, but they painted the spectre of a monster over me, as a noblewoman paints a whore's face over her own.
How can I let the girl grow up in the shadow of that image?
I left her with a friend of Amelia's father, Strago. He looked at me as though he would have liked nothing better than to join in the fun of judging me, but he said nothing more than, "Of course, I'll take her. After all, she belongs here."
Which, of course, implies that I do not.
A noise, the soft scraping of claws on cobblestones, makes me turn around. Interceptor is standing there, his tongue dangling from his mouth, and I reach down to pat his head. "You have to stay here," I whisper, and his eyes seem to become more reflective, more sorrowful.
I never expected my attack dog to give me puppy-dog eyes.
"I'm sorry," I say as I kneel on the ground, careless for the state of my cloak, and wrap my arms around his neck. "I can't stay with you. I know it's selfish, but I need you to protect her. You have to watch over her. I'm trusting you, Interceptor."
He whines as I get up, and growls as I turn around. Then, suddenly, his jaws are around my ankle, and I can feel his tension as though it's radiating from the nerves in his teeth. If I take another step forward, I'm certain he'll cripple me.
I force myself to laugh, but he doesn't relax. "Stalemate, then?" He doesn't answer, so I sigh. "Alright. Come on."
He lets go immediately, and his bark is almost apologetic. Almost.
"If something happens to her, it's on your head," I tell him. He barks again, and I am reassured. After all, she has a village of wizards to protect her. I, on the other hand, have only my dog.
As soon as we start walking, I appreciate the company.
---
I recognize the house as soon as Locke's boots click against the first of the walkway's stones. Interceptor nuzzles my gloved hand, and I pat his nose. He remembers too, and why shouldn't he?
The very ground under our feet is stained with our betrayal.
Strago has changed little since I left. Time has coarsened his face a bit further, and he moves a bit more slowly than I remember, but he is still the same xenophobic old man, the very archetype of the Thamasians who exiled me from my family.
I will never forgive this town its sin.
My breath stops when she appears. At first, I can't believe it's her, though it could not realistically be anyone else. When I get a good look at her face, however, there is no longer any room for doubt.
She has my eyes.
Strago named her 'Relm'. I suppose that's as nice a name as any other, but its grandeur gives me pause. I've spent the last ten years amputating aspects of myself in order to fit more neatly into the role that has been thrust upon me, and my daughter's name evokes images of infinite landscape, and the infinite potential that it symbolizes.
I find this irony more thrilling than my daily defiance of death.
I warn her away from Interceptor without thinking, but, thankfully, Strago does not seem to recognize my voice. I know that his ignorance is not feigned, for I'm sure that he would not be able to stop himself from lashing out at me if he knew my identity. I can't say that I'd blame him, of course. I can't even say that I'd stop him.
He's earned at least that much of a chance at vengeance.
---
Because my instincts do not allow me to sleep as deeply as an ordinary human, I am the first to hear Strago barge into the inn, though I cannot confirm his identity until he enters my field of vision. Only once the moonlight turns his wispy hair into a halo do I allow my grip on the dirk beneath my pillow to relax.
I pretend to be asleep until everyone else has gone, though my first instinct is to bolt as soon as I learn that Relm's in danger. I stay in bed, however, for two reasons. First of all, I must strive against forming an attachment to the girl. That is, after all, the only reason I chose to live this life.
Besides, I haven't earned the right to play her frantic father.
Things become more complicated, however, when Interceptor takes it upon himself to follow Locke and Terra. My attachment to him is the one part of myself that I have not been able to leave behind, no matter how often I bathe in the blood of the innocent, or sell lives for cheap coin. Our bond has, if anything, only grown with the distance between our present and the day he forced me to take him along. Because he's gone to Relm's side, therefore, I am forced to go as well, to ensure his safety. I wonder if he planned it that way.
I wonder what that says about me, when the life of my dog is more important than the life of my daughter.
---
I leave Relm to Locke, Terra, and Strago once they've recovered. I will have to remove myself again, I realize. It's dangerous to be so close to her, to see her not as an apparition of a deferred future, but as a flesh-carved reality. I can't stand to see my eyes in her face.
She reminds not only of what I've lost, but what that loss denied her.
Terra and Locke try to stop me, but only half-heartedly; they know that they have no power to change my mind. Once again, however, Interceptor holds me back, and I turn just in time to see her run from the house and slide to the ground in front of him. I believe I hear her speak to him, but I don't hear the words distinctly enough to be certain. It could just be the wind in the trees.
Perhaps I don't hear her because I don't want to.
Once we've cleared the village's borders for the second time, I frown down at Interceptor, though the expression is rendered impotent by my face mask. "If only you'd been so attached ten years ago."
Interceptor only sniffs the ground.
---
Mere hours before we begin our final assault on the Tower, I run into Relm on the deck of the Falcon. I've done my best to avoid her since she rejoined the group in Jidoor, and I'm halfway back down the stairs when her voice stops me.
"Are you scared of me, or something?"
More than I know. "Hardly," I say instead as I step back onto the deck.
She turns, and taps her paintbrush thoughtfully against her Beret. "Could have fooled me. You're always running away from me; you wouldn't even be in my group when we went to the Phoenix Cave."
"It made more sense for me to go with the other team. Yours already had Edgar and Celes."
She giggles. "Excuses. You adults really think I'm an idiot." She leans against the railing, and looks down at the slowly-moving ground beneath us. "But I'm not," she says, more quietly. "I know we're probably not going to come back. We've got, what, twenty Magicite shards and some fancy swords? That nut job's got all the rest of the Espers, and the Statues too." Her grip on her brush grows stronger. "All I have is this."
"Don't sell yourself short." Why am I comforting her? "I heard your paintings can do some damage."
"Well, they aren't exactly shuriken." She turns back to me, and smiles. "Thanks, though."
"I didn't do anything."
"Whatever you say." She comes away from the railing, and moves closer to me. I fight the urge to back away. "I don't know much about you."
"No one does."
"I know. I've asked." She smiles again. "So, tell me."
"No, thanks." I look away from her, at the slightly warped boards of the deck.
In my peripheral vision, she cocks her head, very slightly. "Not even your name?"
"I'm just Shadow. You know that."
She rolls her eyes. "I mean your real name."
I watch her watching me, as though we are soldiers on opposite sides, waiting for the order to charge. Perhaps that's as apt a comparison as any. "Why do you want to know?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. I'm just curious. Does it really matter, either way?"
I look out at the grey land and crimson sky. She does have a point: what does a dead man's name matter? "Clyde. My name was Clyde."
For a few moments, she continues staring, as though I haven't spoken. Then, she grins. "Was that so hard?"
I grunt, and fold my arms over my chest. "Maybe."
She sniffs. "Whatever you say." She takes a few steps away, and I believe that she is finished with me until she says, "Can I paint your portrait?"
I blink. "Isn't that something like asking whether I'll let you throw shuriken at me?"
She laughs. "Not like that. I just want to draw you."
"Why me?"
"Well, I've done everyone else I want to. There's just something about you… I don't know. I just want to."
"Why?" I ask again.
Her answer steals my breath. "I don't know. I like your eyes."
As though I mean to hide them from her, I turn my back to her. When thirty-six seconds have passed, and she still hasn't moved, I say, "Once it's over, I'll let you draw me."
"Without the mask?" she presses, in a negotiator's tone.
I force myself to heave a theatrical sigh. "If you insist."
It's easy to make a promise that you have no intention of keeping.
---
As Kefka's Tower crumbles around us, and the others run toward the exit through a constantly-fluctuating maze of debris, I find a relatively clear space and, finally, stop running. My Stunner and Striker fall from my hands, and Interceptor looks up at me curiously when I don't reach down to retrieve them.
"No," I say when he moves to take the Stunner's hilt into his mouth. "I won't be needing them anymore."
He whines softly, and I can feel the sound more acutely than I can hear it over the rumble of the Tower's destruction. "I don't want to go on anymore, Interceptor. Please understand." I walk to the edge of the nearest precipice, and look down. I can't see the bottom: perfect.
I chuckle. "Nothing ever changes, does it?" Interceptor whines again, and I turn back to him. "Here we are, again. I have to go, to move on, and you're just trying not to be left behind." I shake my head, but do not go over to him. The time for comfort is past. "This time, you're going to have to deal with it, Interceptor. You don't deserve to follow me this time." I pause. "You're too good for this kind of death."
Interceptor barks once, and lunges forward. Five Tack Stars bury themselves in the ground between us, neatly blocking his approach, and he growls. "Thank you for everything, Interceptor." I smile behind my mask, as uselessly as I used to frown at him. "I just have one more favour to ask: get out of here alive. Get out of here, and start over with all the rest of them." I step back, and feel the ground disintegrate beneath my heel.
I do not say goodbye, to either of them.