It lands on her finger, feet wet with desert dew, just as the first rays of sun sneak over the sand. Diaphanous wings of obsidian, cobalt, and peridot flutter with her breath, back and forth as gentle as a baby bird's heart. She cups her free hand just a whisper away to feel the pulse play against her fingers like a violin's strings. Who knew that a butterfly's wings could sing?

The creature's tendrillar tongue touches her thumb, and Terra unfurls her fingers, turning her hand to make a platform of her palm. Six spindly legs tickle her lifelines as her visitor feels about. Lowering her free hand, she dips into her pocket for a sugar cube. Nearby, her Chocobo lifts its head from grazing on sand-sunken weeds and shuffles closer to the tree she picked for a perch. With a questioning wark, it nibbles the tassels of her skirt and she laughs. Two sugar cubes, then.

"Everyone thinks you're dead," she says to the jewel-toned rarity as it sups on sugar crystals. So I guess that makes two of us. The corners of her mouth can't seem to make it up far enough for a smile as she laughs again and says: "But I guess things change, huh? I'm sure the world is happy to see you again. I just hope that there are more of you. How lonely it would be to survive and…and be the last one left."

Blinking against the sunrise, Terra scrubs the silk of her sleeve over her eyes. Her butterfly doesn't budge, and below, even her Chocobo has gone back to grazing. She tucks her knees up to her chest in the nest of the blackened old tree, folding her arm carefully across the top as she watches the butterfly eat. The sunlight on her skin is gold now, bleeding rose on the horizon where jagged pieces of metal still stab at the sky. There are some wounds even the earth can't heal, she supposes, and six years can only do so much.

"And yet it feels like such a long time," she murmurs.

"Terra…?"

Her lungs scream for air that she can't give. For a moment, she can't see, either. And then the world comes rushing back in one vertiginous instant of sweltering heat and hands helping her down from a tree whose bark breaks away into ash under her nails. The sky is still spinning when she sucks in her first breath. It is so sharp it hurts. All she can manage to say is "the butterfly."

For all the flutters in her stomach, she might as well have swallowed a whole kaleidoscope of them, but she has to know the fragile life form is okay.

The voice that startled her curses. "It flew up into the tree. Here, stay. I'll catch it for you again."

"No, don't!" Reaching blindly, Terra grasps a handful of crushed velvet and shakes her head. "Butterflies…" Her mouth is dry, and she licks her lips. He is staring and starting to come back into an uncomfortable focus. "Butterflies die if you touch their wings," she says.

"And you?" Edgar says. The sun is soft around him, a halo in his hair, glamour at the edge of his fingertips as he reaches for her cheek. "If I touch you, will you die? Will you disappear on me again, Terra?"

The way he says her name is a summer rain sighing against the heat of his nearness. She shuts her eyes and braces her feet in the sand as he steps closer. Maybe she will disappear if Edgar touches her, lose track of whatever has kept her tethered here so long and just…fade away. Her heart is already beating frantic as her fled butterfly's wings. What do you even say to someone you haven't seen in six years when their voice just sinks into you like the ocean and their touch burns you up at the edges like a dying star? What do you say to fix six years of "I thought you died"?

Edgar's palm cups her cheek and melts against the back of her neck. Opening her eyes, Terra finds a tendril of citrine hair twined through his fingers and his eyes fixated on hers. She swallows and tries for a smile. It makes her cheeks ache.

"Hi," she says on an exhale. "Edgar."

Six years hasn't done him too badly, her golden-maned king. Wind-swept hair bound by two black ribbons tumbles over shoulders that look a touch broader since she'd last touched them herself, and there is a dusting of tawny stubble on his chin. From the sand on his boots to the azure of his eyes, he is as handsome as ever. Only a few lines etched into the sunburnt corners of his lips and eyes—smile lines if you were careless—speak of any aging. It is his touch that speaks of bereavement; he can hardly touch her for being unable to keep his hands off her.

"Hi." He laughs like breathing hurts. "You disappear for six years, and all you can say is hi. The lady, she feigns to kill me with her coldness." Brushing his thumb over her cheek, Edgar bows his head and lowers his voice. "It's really you? We all thought…"

"No, I just…" Without an answer to give, Terra lifts her hand, pauses as if to take it back, then lays it gently over his. "I just needed…something. I don't know. I left with Ma…with my father because I thought I had to, thought it was necessary." Thought I wouldn't be missed. Thought I didn't belong here.

"And did you find what you were looking for?"

He twists her hair around his finger and catches a handful as the first lock slides free. His eyes never leave her face. The sky behind him pales to white, accentuating the indigo edge of his irises. There is no more magic in her, but the world has kept its secrets from the Espers, she thinks; not all things magic need them to work.

"Maybe. I still don't know." And for the first time since she woke up in Narshe, that is okay. "I must have found what I needed, though." Closing her eyes, Terra remembers sitting at the edge of the Esper World, running her fingers through the aether and wishing. "Father said I would always have a mortal form, as long as there was something here that I truly cared for."

Something tickles her nose, and she blinks. The butterfly flicks its tongue out against her forehead and bats its wings patiently.

"Your friend came back," Edgar says, his breath hardly stirring the insect's wings.

Terra smiles and lifts her finger to the fluttering jewel. "When it was ready."

Edgar waits until their visitor has had its fill of her, waits even as it trades hosts and stalls on his shoulder. Careful, he removes his hand from Terra's hair and offers it to the butterfly, watching as it inspects his fingers, then wraps its tongue around one and climbs aboard.

"And you?" he says when the butterfly finally offers them privacy, bobbing away on a heat wave. "Are you ready?"

Words, she decides, won't fix anything. There is nothing she can say to undo the past; undoing is only done by doing in the first place. Standing on her tiptoes, she slants her mouth over his and sighs as he surges forward like a broken dam. Edgar's palm cups her waist and hold her up against the tree and him, warm and solid. Both gasp for air when they finally break, and his arms snare her tight. With her face in his chest, Terra shuts her eyes and inhales, warm oil and leather and home.

"I came back, didn't I?"

Final Fantasy VI (whose plot and characters I do not own) was originally going to end with Terra disappearing with the other Espers. Because the game developers felt that this would be "going too far," they simply stripped her of her magic and left her as a human because of the love she felt for the children of Mobliz. This vignette, however, takes place after the alternate ending, with Terra having disappeared at the end of the game play with the remaining Espers. What tethers her humanity to the world, in this case, would be her affection for Edgar. Not my best piece, I'll admit to that, but pretty damn good for being written in one day and finished an hour before I wanted to post it, yeah? Reviews and messages are always welcomed and appreciated. Happy New Year, everyone.