The Four Zoas
Prelude Mortale: Scenes from A Memory
(Author's Note: I've re-thought the direction of my Final Fantasy VIII fanfics. Therefore, anyone who has read "Kindred Spirits" will notice a lot of differences. This story is based upon the poem of the same name by William Blake)
The boy stood on the apex of the divine geometry of the Centra Ruins, listening for the voice of Heaven.
There were very few people in the world that suspected just what the tower at the center of the Centra Plains had been originally designed to due, that the wild structure that framed the ruined tower had a purpose beyond architecture, and fewer still could hear the sound that the tower generated. The boy was one of the few that could, his gift, which had allowed him to scale the tower with the ease of a child in a playground, granting him access to the truth. The tower was a beacon to the divine, to the unseen world; its very structure designed to resonate with the natural forces of magic to send a signal to the Void. The boy could feel the signal as it moved through him, and he could tell what the intent had been, but intentions changed. What had once been a signal to the divine was now corrupted by age and time and fractured mathematics and now called to it different creatures of power. The boy had once been here, years ago, and he had felt the crushing, mighty sentience of not one, but two Guardian Forces, drawn to this place and kept here by the signal until someone had come and freed them. Perhaps they had thought themselves here on their own terms. The boy knew better.
Looking at him, one would not think anything remarkable about him except for the fact that he stood at the apex of a thousand-foot tall structure-he was slight in build, standing five feet eight and weighing less than one hundred and fifty pounds. He had been told by some that he was handsome, with elfin features, wide brown eyes, and a mop of black hair long on the top and short in the back. He was dressed in a black jacket trimmed in gold and black pants that had the look of being almost military in cast, and well-worn boots rested on his feet. His boots had carried him on a journey around the world, and now he suspected they carried him here on some darker purpose. The boy looked out across the Centra Plains and tried to put a word on the doubts that had filled him of late as he had traveled, on the feelings that he had felt and the dreams that he had recalled, and one word kept coming up:
Fear.
Something was eating at his soul, shattering the stoic demeanor that he had erected as a necessary defense given his gifts, and that was fear. The boy feared no man or monster alive-at seventeen years of age, he was already a highly skilled warrior, trained to believe no one was his equal-yet fear coursed through his veins. He had tried to drive the fear from him in training, in battle, even going so far one night as to become falling down drunk (which was something he cared not to repeat again) and yet he would be struck by the thought, lancing him at the oddest moments: I'm afraid. And so he had traveled here, to the place that he had first become aware of his gift, to try to find out why. He sat down on the apex of the tower and crossed his legs underneath him, calming his mind with a meditative discipline that had been drilled into him since he was old enough to walk and talk. He attuned his mind to the frequency of the tower and used the psychic ability that was his birthright, sending a cry out to the Void, sending a prayer to his father, whom he made him what he was and who now was dead. Father help me, he thought. I never needed nor wanted your help before, but I must know now, is this the time that you prepared me for?
No answer came.
The boy was not all that surprised, nor worried. He felt in the depths of his soul that the answer he sought was here, and that if he waited, he would find it. Settling in, his mind fell into a trance, perhaps into sleep, and Eric Alfredsson dreamed.
In his dream, Eric stands on a rocky beach, beneath a lighthouse that seems almost a ruin of a forgotten time, and indeed he sees signs of the culture of the Centra, lost for a millennium now, in the lines of the building. His ears can hear the sound of children at play, and as he watches, a group of children burst from the house, running for the beach. They number seven, he sees, four boys and three girls, one of the girls, with short brown hair, a bit older than the other two. It is not long before one of the boys, a boy that Eric somehow knows is named Seifer, begins to roughhouse with a boy with blond hair that Eric knows is named Zell. He also senses that there is little play there, that the boy Seifer actively bullies Zell, and as long as Zell allows him to anger him, it will continue. The two younger girls-the blonde haired one is Quistis, the brown haired one Selphie-decide on this occasion to allow the boys to roughhouse, and run down the beach. One of the other boys, Irvine, decides to follow Selphie and Quistis with a passion that brings a thin smile to Eric's lips; lady-killer alert, he thinks. That leaves only two to deal with the increasingly violent fight on the beach, the older girl and the last boy, who is named Squall, and whose face bears the mask of a loneliness that Eric finds all too familiar, for it is in his face too. The girl-Ellone-says to Seifer "That's enough," and Seifer bounds to his feet. Squall seems to want to step in front of Ellone, to protect her, but Ellone seems undaunted by Seifer. "You could hurt him." She says plainly.
Seifer smiles. "Aw, I was just playing with the little wuss." There is danger in this boy's voice, Eric senses, and he hopes that nothing ill will happen here.
Ellone remains undaunted. "Stop it."
Seifer opens his mouth to speak, and that is when the woman, pale, with long black hair, walks on to the beach. Eric senses then that this is not a family-only Squall and Ellone have any familial cast to their features-but that this is an orphanage, and the woman (Edea) runs it. Seifer closes his mouth and turns away as Zell gets to his feet and says "Bully" under his breath. Eric wonders why he is here.
"Because I remember this day, and you were always here," a woman's voice says from nowhere.
The children on the beach and Edea take on the appearance of ghosts now, things long gone, and Eric realizes that this is a memory that he has somehow fallen into. He is walking now, towards the house, his feet moving quite against his will. "Who are you?" Eric asks.
"The one who brought you here. The one who seeks to warn you. You sought your father but his spirit is beyond your reach. I am not."
Eric is walking through the memory of the house now, his gift showing him things that have been and things that will be. He knows now that most of the children he saw will grow up to become warriors, to battle both for and against each other, and that their destiny is terrible and glorious.
"And why do you seek to warn me?"
"Warn is perhaps the wrong word. Maybe I should have said 'prepare you'."
Eric leaves the house and suddenly a scent comes to him, the scent of flowers on the breeze, and the fear fills him. "No," he whispers.
"I'm sorry," the woman says. "But some things are inescapable."
Eric turns to his right and finds himself, without transition, in an endless meadow of flowers. He looks over his shoulder and sees the orphanage there, and oddly, he thinks So that's how I get here. He has returned to the familiar, to a vision that has haunted him for twelve long years now, since his father and mother told him about his gift. And sure enough, there at the center of the field is the girl, the pale, slim, beautiful girl in blue, her hair blowing in the breeze as she waits for someone. She has never been waiting for him, Eric realizes, and yet she has been waiting for him. Such is the paradox of dream. Eric finds that he is terrified of the gentle beauty. He is drawn to her, pulled now by some magnetic force in his soul, and as he nears her, the same thing that happens every time he dreams of her happens; she seems to become enveloped in feathers, until Eric realizes that in truth, she has the wings of an angel, and his world explodes in light…
But this time the vision is different.
Eric finds himself floating above a city that stretches as far as the eye can see, a city of marvels that he realizes instinctively is Esthar, though he has never been there in his life. He looks around and sees the entirety of the Esthar Plains, and the structures that make it unique; the Sorceress Memorial, Tear's Point, and the immense structure of Lunatic Pandora, still in the place where, eleven months ago, it called down the Lunar Cry. Eric has heard that monsters from that time still defend Lunatic Pandora, their efforts surprisingly coordinated, and SeeD, the mercenary army, has been contracted to deal with the menace. "Why am I here?" he asks.
"This is where it starts, for you," the woman says. "Open your mind, Eric, and see."
Eric obeys, and his mind floods with images, almost as if he stands at the wellspring of the future itself…
He sees Squall and Seifer, grown up, scarred both literally and figuratively, leading armies of children against the demons of the void, the other children battling with them…he sees the streets of Timber awash in blood as a madman triggers war as a mere side effect of his dream…he sees the angel, the girl of his fears, as she considers the pain of sacrifice. He sees men of power that scheme, in Esthar, Galbadia, and Balamb, to unleash an ancient horror upon the world; he sees his friends and family, re-united by pain and death. He sees a man, blond haired, carrying a black blade with hilts like the wings of an angel, and a man opposing him with an identical blade. He hears the cry of a voice that can awaken the heavens, and he feels, all around him, the power, the malice, of the lord of the void, of Urizen himself.
Eric tears himself away from this vision inside his dreams. "Do you know what this means?" he asks.
"Yes. The time of Urizen, of the Great Mother, of the soulswords Grieving Angel and Zero Destiny, of the Killing Hand and the Saint Soldier. The time of the Four Zoas. Your time, Eric."
"Do you know what this means to me?"
"Yes. I know of your potential destiny."
Eric frowns. "Potential destiny? I know my destiny!"
"Does anyone truly know that? Look again, Eric."
Eric looks, and sees, with horror beyond any fear imaginable, a gigantic beast; four legged, with the torso of a man, as it rampages through Esthar, killing all that lives with a monstrous sword. "No. Omega Weapon. That would mean…"
"Yes. Come to Esthar, Eric, and face your destiny, if you have one. This can be prevented, if you come now."
And Eric finds that he wants to believe her…
Eric's eyes snap open as the vision leaves him, bringing with it the realization that it is now dawn, hours after the dream took him. He stands and looks out at the horizon, his eyes seeing not the dawn, but the last image he saw, of Omega Weapon, the Destroyer, unleashed upon Esthar. "My destiny is unimportant to me," he whispered. "But I will not lose you again, mother." An aura of blue force surrounded him, and Eric bounded down the structure of the Tower, a living thunderbolt of power racing towards the future.
The heavens trembled.