Dedication: To Crimson Skye, with utmost thanks.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Final Fantasy VI.
Dreams of Love and Pride
I watch the people of Kohlingen move through their city from the edge of the bridge that leads to the house in which Rachel lies. I see the adults shuffle around, going about diverse tasks which are united only by their common futility: I see the teenagers trying to become normal amid the dead grass and trees, searching for the love that their parents knew before beauty became confined to fairy tales. I see the children, doing their best to nurture whatever has managed to survive this long, as though they are not themselves the ones who require nurturing.
Life is so far from what it is meant to be that I almost feel at home.
Locke has only been inside the house for a few minutes, and yet I feel as though I've been standing here, in this struggling village, my whole life. I think of the cracks in the Phoenix Magicite, and know that it can't possibly retain any of its power. Any moment now, he'll come out, walk past me, and we'll go back to the Falcon together. Neither of us will speak, and it will be like the trip to Thamasa all over again.
His sudden hopelessness will not bother me as it will the rest of them, because I have become accustomed to seeing it within myself.
When he finally does appear, however, he simply grins at me and begins to show off the treasures that Gestahl hid in the Phoenix Cave, as though Rachel were not still dead, as though his entire reason for living had not been rent like the Blackbird during the last seconds of the old world. My surprise when I see the repaired Phoenix shard is sincere, and I wonder what happened in that basement tomb, but I dare not ask.
It isn't that I don't want to hear the answer: I don't want to give him the impression that I care what it is.
As we walk across the rocky ground to where the Falcon sits, a white beacon against the red sky, he turns to me, and finally says, "Aren't you gonna ask what happened?"
"It isn't any of my business," I reply. Which, of course, it isn't.
"That doesn't matter. I would have thought…" He trails off, then shrugs. "Forget it."
"Fine," I say.
It only takes him a few more moments to continue speaking. "Well, I mean, it's not every day that we try to raise someone from the dead. Don't you at least want to know if it worked?"
"If it had, you would have stayed with her."
"Not necessarily." He seems hurt. "I mean… I might still have come with you guys. I want to stop Kefka too, after all."
I wish my motives were that simple. "Then it failed?"
He is silent for a few seconds. "Not completely. She came back, but only for a bit." He looks up, at the dying pine trees on the horizon. "She told me that I had to start living again, that I had to keep going, even though she was gone. Then, she fixed the Magicite, and her body…" He inhales, with just the hint of a shudder. "She's gone now, for good."
"I'm sorry," I say, only because I feel I should.
"It's okay. I'm glad I got to see her again. It makes all the years of trying worth it." I hear the ends of his bandanna lash the back of his neck as he turns to look at me. "Celes?"
"Yes?" I say without turning to look at him.
"Why didn't you stay on the airship?"
I don't know what answer I should give him. I could remind him, somewhat pitifully, that it's dangerous to walk even the short distance between the Falcon and Kohlingen alone. I could say that I couldn't wait to find out whether the Magicite had worked. I could even try and make him believe that I had considered that he might need a friend if it hadn't.
My hand slides into the pocket that I cut into the lining of my cape during the raft ride to Albrook, and my fingers brush the bandanna that I took from the seagull on the beach where I fell. Even now, I don't know why the thought of him filled me with such hope, when only moments before I had been disconsolate enough to throw myself from a cliff. I don't know what I feel for him, or why I feel it.
Maybe I'm just afraid to find out.
"Did I need a reason?" I finally reply.
He seems to think it over. "I guess not." He stretches his arms upward and clasps his hands behind his head. "So, I've been thinking."
"Have you? I wasn't aware that was so noteworthy."
He chuckles. "You've got a pretty good sense of humour when you want to use it."
I don't bother telling him that I wasn't joking. "Maybe."
"Definitely." Another brief silence. "During this past year, I looked for you guys, you know."
"I think everyone must have."
"Yeah." I feel his eyes on me again, and I'm glad for the curtain of hair that separates mine from his. I no longer feel in control of the emotions they must be projecting. "I gave up after a while, and kept searching for a way to bring her back. It was all I thought about. But, Celes…" His arms drop back down to his sides, and his voice becomes at once hesitant and excited. "When I saw you guys, when I knew that you were okay, I was so happy. It was the first time in months that I'd thought of anything besides Rachel. And then, when she asked me to get on with my life… I made myself a promise."
"Why are you telling me this?" I whisper. Of course, I know the answer: I'm just stalling for time.
"You'll find out." His hand moves to his belt, and I can see him toying with the crosspiece of his Valiant Knife through the veil of my hair. "I promised myself that, once all this was over, I'd get a little place somewhere, and try to remember what it means to live, to be a normal person again." He takes a deep breath. "Will you come with me?"
I think of the man in South Figaro who swore to rebuild the town a thousand times, and wanted nothing more than to protect his homeland. I think of Duane, and Katarin, and their simple dreams of family: I see Terra, fighting to protect that dream when not even self-preservation could move her to cast a single spell. Most clearly of all, I see myself on Cid's island, ready to survive fish and solitude.
I see myself pushing the raft out to sea, and leaving even those final emotions to rot alongside Cid's body.
"I don't think so," I say.
"If you think I'm just looking for a replacement for Rachel…" he begins, too quickly.
I wasn't, but it's a convenient out. "Aren't you?"
"Of course not." He runs forward a few steps, then spins to face me as he inserts himself into my path. "Celes… I'm always gonna love Rachel. But that doesn't mean that we can't be together. I want…" He reaches for my hand, but I move it behind my back, out of his reach.
"When I asked you why you saved me in Figaro, you said it was because I reminded you of someone." I speak very softly, knowing that he'll mistake my enforced indifference for something along the lines of sorrow, or perhaps regret. "You were so adamant about rescuing a total stranger, even though you knew who I was, and what I had done: her ghost was powerful enough to make all that unimportant." I meet his eyes for the first time since the world was torn. "If I had been a man, you'd have left me to die. You might even have cut my throat yourself, and taken pleasure in it."
"What does that matter?" His hand strikes the side of his thigh, likely as an expression of frustration. "Since then, I've gotten to know you. Even if it started out as… what you think, it's not like that anymore. Not at all."
"I don't believe you." This is true, but even if it weren't, it would make no difference.
He stares into my eyes, and I can tell that he believes he's being honest. "I'm not lying to you, Celes. Why can't you trust me?"
"A fine person you are to talk of trust. Has a year been long enough to forget the Magitek Factory?"
He looks away. "I'm sorry for that."
"I don't want an apology." I try to take advantage of his distraction to slip past him, but he moves to block me too quickly.
"Look, what do you want? What's it going to take to make you believe me?"
"The truth," I reply simply.
"This is the truth, dammit!"
"No, it isn't!" I only realize I'm shouting once these first words are out of my mouth: then, I'm powerless to stop the rest from following. "The truth is that you've finally realized that Rachel's never coming back. You've finally let go of her, but you're too used to holding onto something to let go of that feeling as well. You need another person to take over your life in her place, and that's what you want from me: a surrogate Rachel." I turn my back to him. "You don't know the first thing about me."
He's silent for so long that I wonder whether he's slipped away without me noticing. Then, he says, very quietly, "You're right. I guess… I guess maybe I have some stuff to work through."
"Yes," is my reply.
"Yeah," he agrees. "But, Celes… I want to promise you something."
"Alright." It seems unreasonable to deny him that. A promise is, after all, only so many empty words.
"Once I've figured out where I stand, and where the line is between you and Rachel, and all that stuff…" He trails off briefly. "I know that I'm still going to love you. And when I'm sure that I feel that way for the right reasons, I'm going to ask you again. I promise you that."
"Alright," I repeat. My voice suddenly sounds dull, and my mind feels as though it's in the midst of a particularly thick fog. I have no idea why.
His boots slide against the barren ground as he turns back toward the Falcon. "I guess we should get back. They'll all be wondering what happened to us."
"You go ahead," I say. "I've just remembered that Setzer asked me to pick up some Revivifies. I should go back for them." I look at him, almost daring him to call me on this obvious lie.
He only nods, however. "Alright. Be careful,"
"Don't worry about me. The monsters in this area are nothing."
"I know, but just… be careful anyway, okay?"
I turn back toward Kohlingen. "I will," I say, and begin walking forward.
Behind me, his lighter steps are soon beyond my notice.
----
I stop on the outskirts of Kohlingen, far enough from the town itself that I won't be seen, and take the strip of worn, dirty cloth from my cape. When I found it, I had been so certain that it was his: it's the same color, made of the same material. I had even imagined that it carried the same scent, a combination of sweat and dirt, though that perception is distant enough to have been a dream by now.
It gave me hope, this small reminder that he might be alive, in a way that seeing Cid hadn't. Without ever knowing it, I had come to care whether he lived or died, to the point where protecting him had become reason enough to go on living in a world worse than any Hell I had ever imagined, or created.
Is that love? I don't know, because I don't have any exemplars to compare it to.
Frost begins to wind its way over the outer surface of the bandanna, and its unnatural chill stings my hand as it encloses the part I'm holding onto. With an effort, I let it slip from my hands: it falls like a stone to the ground, and the surprisingly thick layer of ice around it shatters on contact. I watch the shards melt in the dry heat as I contemplate leaving this, my last token of hope, my last link to any human emotion, behind me as well. It would be so simple, I tell myself, to go back to the Falcon, get on with the rest of my life, and leave my hope here with people deluded enough to appreciate it. No more confusion. No more weakness. No more pain.
I place four steps between myself and the piece of tattered cloth before the need to turn back for it becomes too strong, and then it's safely tucked away in my cape once again, a single slash of navy beneath a sea of stagnant white. No one else will ever see it, but it's there just the same, and it's the one piece of driftwood that keeps me from drowning in the glare of my own tainted light. I am still not strong enough to let it go, and slide completely into the endless sea of false purity. Perhaps I never will be.
It seems that, after all, I am simply a woman.