Disclaimer: It all belongs to Squaresoft. (Though Zidane has my name written on his forehead. ^^)
I Used To BelieveBy Kia
I used to believe in fairy tales. Once upon a time.
Once upon a time I used to believe in happy endings.
I used to believe that the bad would be punished for their sins while the good life happily ever after. Once upon a time.
I grew out of that a long time ago.
Once upon a time I looked up to the sky and it was blue and clear even when it was raining. But the night came, and it came for everyone and the good ones were in the darkness, together with their worst nightmares. And the morning came and the sun was shining again, but it was touching the faces of evil like it touched mine, making no difference, seeing no marks or glory.
Once upon a time the sky promised me that there is justice in this world. That the rain would drown the evil and never touch the pure. The innocent. That evil never won and a happy ending stayed happy till the very end. I believed in it.
I believed in it for a long time. I believed in it when I grew up and I still believed even after my trust in fairy tales was shattered and I found out that they were nothing but lies told to little children, making them behave and be good so they would get to heaven.
I believed in that promise. Life wasn't so nice to me and the fairy tales were always only told to the other children, but that promise stayed in my mind, all the time. I didn't even realise it until it was finally gone, but the feeling of emptiness and betrayal that now never leaves my heart just tells me that it has always been there. The one promise I believed in.
Life could be cruel, but, I always thought it would only be cruel to the unimportant, those who weren't evil or mad but also hadn't done anything really good in their life. The world wouldn't betray someone who saved it, would it? And every hero gets his happy ending.
Hero. That word sound alien to me, describing something that doesn't really exist.
All those girls who dream of their 'hero' every night, do they really know what this word means?
Does anyone know?
I knew some heroes once, or what one might call it. It is the world, after all, the view people have on them that creates 'heroes' until they forget about them again.
They were no heroes. They didn't come down from the sky in a shining ray of light, pushing all problems away with the move of a finger. Everyone of them had their own problems, their own little tragedy in life. Garnet, who couldn't save her Mother from her own madness, Freya, who finally met her long lost lover again to find him without a memory of her in his heart, Eiko, who had to live all alone at such a young age, Zidane, who spend all his live searching for his home and family only to find out that he had no family at all, that he was created for the destruction of the world he'd been living in for so long, that his only reason for life was to kill… They all had they burden to bear, and though I have mine too, I can only imagine what each of them felt when fate punched them in the face once again. Still, they had made it to the very end.
Evil was defeated and the heroes were save and after that, shouldn't they all have been happy? Shouldn't they have stayed happy? Wasn't that what the sky had promised me, so long ago, when the eyes looking at it had still been full of innocence?
So, I never doubted that Zidane would finally come back again. Even after two years, when everyone was starting to loose hope I still had faith in that promise.
And he came back. Just like I knew he would. The sky would keep its promise, I knew, though the first cloud had already casted its dark shadow on me and everyone who was supposed to stay in the light of the sun forever.
And we all had thought that Vivi was special….
Black Mages didn't live long. They hardly ever lasted for more than one year, but when we first met Vivi, cute, brave, innocent little Vivi, he already lived for some years, so we thought he would continue so, until we all were old and grey. He deserved it, didn't he? He'd always been such a strong little guy…
He used to visit us sometimes, at our home at the theatre district, and Ruby just loved to spoil him, because he was such a cute little boy and all. We often talked about things, he had surprisingly deep thoughts for such a small guy. And just like me he never stopped believing in Zidane's return. He never stopped looking up to him. He missed him, though, like me and everyone else. To Vivi, he meant even more than to the others, I guess. I remember him telling me how much Zidane had helped him understand himself, how he was always there for him, how he had kept him from sinking into his dark thoughts too deeply some times, and that the thing he wanted to do most once he came home to us was to say 'thank you'. Just two weeks before Zidane finally returned Vivi's life suddenly ended.
Nobody had expected it. One day he was just fine and happily laughing with Eiko about some silly story Regent Cid had told them and the next day he wouldn't move, wouldn't speak, wouldn't open his eyes. He would have said he had 'stopped'. I say he just died.
There is a difference between stopping and dying. Something that 'stops' will eventually move again once given the necessary energy. Dying means forever.
He used to call me 'Uncle Blank' for some reason. It always sounded wired on me but now I miss it.
Still, I never thought something like that could happen to anyone else. Vivi was a Black Mage after all. Maybe we should have been prepared for this to happen. The others were save I thought and every one else thought the same. The danger was over, even Zidane was back, the cities were slowly rebuild and though Vivi's death had left a dark hole in all our hearts it seemed that everything was just perfect. Freya was finally reunited with her Fratley, Eiko had found a new family in Cid and his wife and I had Zidane back. We all had him back, and looking back I can only guess how much the news about Vivi's death had hurt him. He always was very protective of him, trying to keep him from every harm, but I never thought about that, and he was good at hiding his own pain, so I simply decided not to see it until time would heal that wound, too.
Still the sky got darker and the first raindrops made their way down to earth. But we didn't see it, at least I didn't see it until I was standing all alone in the cold rain suddenly, while there was no rain at all.
I never thought fate would be cruel enough to take another friend from us.
I never thought fade could ever be cruel enough to take Zidane.
Garland's first Angel of Death only was given a very sort lifespan, so he would have died even if they hadn't defeated him. But even though Zidane was created by the same person for the same reason, none of us ever thought that the same fate could await him. For he was the good one. The hero.
He saved the world, didn't he? And after that, it's like the world decided that it wouldn't need him anymore and just threw him away, let him die of old age at the age of twenty-one.
It seems as if he and Vivi had a lot in common, after all.
But other than Vivi I think Zidane knew he was going to die. He had felt it when his body had started to fail him but kept it to himself, not wanting to worry us for there was nothing that could have been done about it. And I still remember the morning tried to wake him up so hard, for we were late for some business and he just wouldn't open his eyes.
I tried for a very long time before finally accepting the truth. He never even gave his friends the chance to say goodbye.
I looked down onto the floor, for a long time, when I told them, for I wouldn't have been able to bear the look in their eyes when they finally realised what I was talking about. Vivi might have been the heart of their group, but Zidane was the soul.
Without a heart and a soul nobody can survive. After the funeral, only visited by his closest friends, the group slowly fell apart like my heart did the morning I called his name and he didn't answer. Soon, there will be nothing left of a spirit once strong enough to face the devil.
I used to believe that this day would never come.
We buried Zidane beside Vivi, on a small hill near Lindblum and now the golden leaves of autumn are falling on his gravestone as if trying to hide the last signs of his existence.
Once upon a time I used to believe that the moon could glow on its own. That men would never forget the ones they owe their life and that a person as innocent and strong and bright and fragile as Zidane always stayed deep in his heart would get his happy ending. That a soul as pure as his would finally get to heaven.
I used to believe.
I used to.
Now there's nothing left of that faith I once held so dearly, after I had to learn the hard way that nothing can be taken for granted. That the light of the moon is nothing but a lie, borrowed from the sun in a pale refection. That, in the end, happy endings really are only for fairy tales and fairy tales are only for little children, and now that we've grown up we are left with nothing but broken trust and almost forgotten dreams, left in the cold wind of truth while the rain of reality washes away our hopes. Standing unprotected and alone under the clouds and the moon and the sky the betrayed us.
-fin-
August 23. 2002