Part 1
Terra was having the strangest dream.
In her dream there was a cliff, and on that cliff there was an Esper, and before that Esper stood a girl.
"After this everything changes," said the girl, with the foresight of one who is dreaming.
"Yes," said the Esper in the way of humans, for this was a human dream, or as human as the girl could make it.
She breathed in the sharp, cold air, and said, "I want to know who I am. Can you tell me?"
"No," the Esper said. "You will have to tell yourself."
And that's when magic happened.
That's when the girl became two people.
- o - o -
Terra woke.
She saw ceiling.
She knew this ceiling. She knew this bed, that clock, she knew the faint sound of fire crackling just beyond the grey walls.
She was in Arvis' house again. Her head hurt again.
The Esper. The cliff. She'd tried to speak to it, because they'd asked her to, and this time—
What happened up there?
The door clicked open, and her sense of disquiet only increased when Arvis entered, just like before, with that same look of concern on his worn face.
"I thought I heard you," he said, moving toward her quickly. He had something in his hands. Not a slave crown this time—Terra felt a terrible surge of relief—just a glass of water.
She took the water from him and gulped down as much as she could, carefully. She hadn't known how thirsty she was until she saw the water. But it would not do to be uncareful. "What happened?" she asked him, when she could speak again. "How long was I..."
"Almost a full day. We decided to let you wake on your own. Thank goodness you still have your memory."
"What happened?" she repeated. It scared her, to know that she'd lost a day. More memories gone, more time spent helplessly asleep...
Arvis gave her a long look. It bothered her, but it shouldn't have. People were always staring at her, studying her.
Finally, instead of speaking, he came closer. His hand rose to her shoulder. He took a strand of her hair and showed it to her.
It wasn't green.
It was yellow. Still wavy, still long, but yellow.
It wasn't hers.
"When you attempted to speak with the Esper," he began, slowly, "you and it...reacted to each other, from what I hear. I think the same thing happened when you first made contact, when you came to Narshe before. However, this time something very strange happened."
He hesitated. "I wasn't there, so I'm not sure how well I can describe this. But the others tell me that...they saw another being emerge from you. They said it looked like you, but..."
But Terra stopped hearing him, no longer needing his words. She remembered. Like all her rememberings, it came too fast:
No pain, just the terrible sensation of being peeled inch by inch out of her skin.
Something inside her now outside her.
A faint shade of pink, almost white.
Hair, fur. Claws long and sharp.
It turns around.
Dark eyes staring at her from her own face.
A scream like an animal's scream.
Whose scream was that?
She was breathing too fast, she knew. Arvis was looking at her with even more concern now. Everyone was always looking at her with concern.
"Do you want more water?"
She shook her head, still unable to speak.
"Do you want me to get the others?"
Yes, she nodded. Arvis had been the one to push her out the door that first time into the cold unknown. She wanted her friends here.
Arvis left, leaving her to her own whirling thoughts.
What was she?
She suddenly wanted to call Arvis back. Don't bring them here, she wanted to say. Her friends. They would see her hair, the non-strangeness of it. It was normal now. She had always wanted them to look at her and see normal.
Was she normal now?
- o - o -
Locke came, but not Edgar and Sabin.
Instead, he brought Celes.
"The others are still at the meeting," he explained. "Narshe is officially allying with the Returners. They're hammering out the terms of the agreement and getting it in writing."
Terra nodded, eyes lowered. Of course. Edgar would be needed for that, and Sabin would stay with him. They were important people. It was easy to forget sometimes. The king and his brother would not have time for her.
But then she looked up at Celes. Celes was so beautiful and strong and tall. In her boots she stood higher than Locke, and she fairly towered over Terra in her bed. Surely she was important too? Yet here she was, looking down at Terra with that calm gaze of hers.
"Terra," Celes said, brisk but not unkind. "I want to try some things. Can you cast Cure for me? I know you were able to during the battle."
But now? Terra wondered.
She put her hand to her aching head and tried to cast Cure.
Nothing happened.
Somehow she was not surprised.
She held her hand out and tried Fire, her most well-practiced spell. Then Poisona and Drain.
Nothing.
Locke and Celes were looking at each other. They didn't seem that surprised either. But their faces were grim.
"Arvis told me that a...another person came out of me." Terra gave a queasy smile.
"Yes," Celes said.
"She must have been the part of me that could do magic. Though it sounds ridiculous when I say it like that." Terra laughed, and even to her own ears it sounded fake.
But Locke flashed her a grin, and as always she was grateful for the easy warmth.
"There was a big flash of light so we couldn't see it that well," he said, "and I got knocked out pretty quick, but Celes can probably tell you more."
He was knocked out? "Were you hurt?" Terra asked anxiously.
"Maybe a little."
"He was lying in bed for almost as long as you were," Celes cut in. Then she tried to give Terra a small smile too. It didn't quite work for her, like she hadn't had much practice at it. "I saw it all. The other...person was like a ghost at first—a faint image, very blurry, and I'd wondered if I was seeing things. Then it became more solid, and it seemed to just...rip out of you. You and the...other you looked at each other for a few seconds...I think it was as shocked as you were. She was shocked." Celes' voiced softened. "She looked like you, Terra. Your face, your eyes, your body."
Locke added, "Except with more hair."
Terra looked at him. His face was red. Then she understood more, and she thought her face might go red too.
"After that, she flew off," said Celes. "She made this sound..."
The general of ice shivered.
"I remember," Terra said quickly. She couldn't forget that scream. "When she separated from me, my hair turned...like this?"
Celes nodded. "The other you had a very strong magical presence. I think..."
"She was loaded for bear," Locke quipped. "That's what I would say." Then he gave a nervous laugh, and looked around like he was hoping someone would continue the joke for him.
Neither Terra nor Celes knew what to say.
He was uncomfortable, Terra realized in a flash of insight. He was uncomfortable and using humour to compensate. She remembered when Locke and Edgar first realized she could use magic. Both of them had looked at her like she was a monster of some sort.
And now, even though she had lost her magic and her monster had flown away, Terra was still a freak.
Would they still need a freak without her magic?
"Hey," Locke said, kneeling down. "You okay? I'm sorry, Terra, you know me, I don't always think..."
"I can attest to that," said Celes.
Terra managed a weak smile. She looked up at Locke, who was still kneeling by her bed. "I'm okay. Just confused, as usual."
"I don't blame you," Locke replied, grinning back awkwardly. "If something came out of me, I wouldn't be taking it as calmly as you."
Calmly? Yes, that was right. She needed to be calm. She wasn't sure she could be. She took a deep breath and asked, "What are you...what are the Returners going to do with me now?"
"Actually," Locke's gaze slid away, "I think they might be discussing that right now, among other things."
"They couldn't ask Terra herself, of course," Celes added drily.
Terra didn't know how to respond to that. She looked up at Celes, but kept addressing Locke. "Banon said I'm supposed to be your hope, but without my magic, I'm just an ordinary girl now. Right? What use am I to the Returners?"
She felt her heart beat a little faster as the questions spilled out of her. She felt like she was testing him, like she was almost a little angry at him. She had never been angry at him before. Maybe this was part of her newfound humanness.
Tell me to just stay here and rest, she wanted to say. Tell me you don't need me. Tell me I'm ordinary. "I'm not needed if I'm ordinary."
Locke seemed taken aback—his back straightened abruptly—but as usual he knew the right thing to say. "You'll always be extraordinary to me, Terra. Back before I met you, you woke up in this bed without your memory, nothing but the clothes on your back and a little knife on your belt, and yet you've come all this way and saved my life a dozen times over. You did it all because we were selfish enough to ask you to. For others, not for yourself. You really are something special."
Now it was Terra's turn to blush. Her anger started to drain away. She really was ungrateful, wasn't she? "What else could I have done? I had nowhere else to go. You saved me, not the other way around."
"There's a place for you in the Returners, whether you have magic or not. We need all the skilled warriors we can get."
Terra was feeling proudly embarrassed of being called askilled warrior when she realized Celes was looking at her, and at Locke, with a strange intensity. Terra didn't really understand that look.
Celes met her eyes straight on, then started talking again, like nothing had happened. "Actually, Terra, I think Banon will have a mission for you. To find her."
She knew right away who "her" was. Dread clenched at Terra, an almost physical sensation in her stomach. "You think so?"
Locke leaned back on his heels and put a hand under his chin. "Yeah, that sounds like what Banon would do. He's not the sort to let you rest."
"No, he's not," Terra said, shivering. Banon wanted her to chase after the monster that had come out of her. So much for being ordinary.
Celes and Locke were looking at her with concern. Everyone always looked at her with concern. She let them.
"We'll talk to Banon and see what he says, okay?" Locke's voice was gentle.
"And if he sends you out, I'll go with you," Celes said. "I promise."
Locke looked at her in surprise. Then he turned and winked at Terra.
"Ha, she stole my line. I'm going with you too."
"Thank you," Terra whispered.
"Why don't you wash up?" he suggested. "We all should. We'll be meeting the others for dinner soon."
"Okay." She could do that. She would do what they said.
"You can use Arvis' bath here," Celes said. "The one at the inn is less secure."
"And less clean. See you at the inn, okay?" Locke leaned down and squeezed her arm, and his hand was warm and gentle. But when they opened the door to leave, a gust of cold winter wind blew through the small house, and Terra shivered under the covers.
She wondered if the other her was shivering somewhere too.
- o - o -
Dinner, thankfully, was distracting.
"Tomorrow we head to Kohlingen," Edgar told them as they ate. "People are reporting that our lady in pink went that way."
"Kohlingen? You think she'd have better taste," said Locke.
"Like it or not, if that's where she went that's where we go."
Terra tried to fade into the background as they talked about their plans for her. Her other self. She still wasn't sure what to call it. Thankfully, in the noisy dining room it was easy to be ignored.
"Of course," Edgar went on, "we can't fly over the mountains like her, but my castle can take us under the mountains."
"Swanky," said Locke. He looked down glumly at the meat on his plate. "Is this Wererat? I think this is Wererat."
"Don't complain," Edgar chided him. "You'll have a chance to visit Kohlingen."
"Wonderful. And you and Sabin can visit Figaro."
"Right."
Edgar's gaze drifted to the table next to them, where Sabin and Cyan were trying to get Gau to use a spoon. At Edgar's insistence they'd already taken away the boy's fork and knife. It was safer to let him eat with his hands. In spite of their efforts, Gau seemed to have gotten more food in his hair than in his mouth.
Somehow, the two men and the boy were sitting very close but also very far away. Edgar watched them with a look on his face that Terra didn't quite understand. It was half amused, half something else.
"I will go with you as far as Kohlingen," said Edgar slowly, decisively. "After that, I'll turn back. I've been away from my kingdom too long."
Locke looked up from his plate. "What about Sabin?"
"He can make his own choices."
Half amused, half...melancholy, Terra decided.
Celes, who'd been eating steadily and silently until now, said, "And after Kohlingen?" Somehow she didn't have even a crumb around her mouth "If she continued westward, over water, what then?"
"Then we'll need to travel by ship," Edgar replied. "In Jidoor, if you're willing to spend the money, you can find almost anything. Commercial ships are almost completely stopped, but I'm sure you can charter a private boat."
"Will this be funded by Figaro?" Locke teased.
Edgar's voice went flat. "No. It will be funded by Banon."
"Ah."
Terra looked up from her food, surprised by Edgar's tone. Had something happened? Was he upset with Banon?
Or...was he upset that he had to go on this mission at all?
Terra wanted to say something. To apologize, for causing so much trouble-
She felt a hand take hers under the table. A cool, slender hand.
Celes?
"Are you going to eat your food?" Celes said to Locke, breaking the silence. "It's a waste if you don't."
"Huh?" Locke looked to her, as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Oh, do you want it?"
"No."
"Hey," said Sabin from the other other table. Gau was crouched on his chair now, and Cyan seemed to be ignoring the boy in favour of dinner. "What are you guys talking about over there? Planning?"
"Yes," Edgar answered him. "In the morning we'll head to Figaro, then take the castle to Kohlingen."
Sabin whistled, and Cyan looked up from his food. "You've still got the best toys, bro. Not many people have a castle as transportation."
"Alas, if only it cost less to move it, and there were fewer bodies of water in the world to get in its way," Edgar said, voice light. "I would ride Figaro as my grand chariot, and all the women of the world would flock to me."
"Ha, you wish."
Cyan looked from one brother to the other, the two like but unlike faces, and shook his head. "I did not believe you to be twins at first, but now I see."
"Me think Mr. Thou and Mr. Edgar both silly," Gau added, and they all laughed at his honesty.
But Terra saw that same strange look on Edgar's face again.
There was more discussion. Sleeping arrangements for the night, things they would need to be buy in the morning, details about the route. Strictly business. Terra let them talk. She didn't want to think about it. Instead, she watched Gau and Cyan. She still didn't know a thing about them, other than where they were from. She just knew they were coming along, and Sabin treated them like brothers.
"Don't say 'uwaoo' at the dinner table," Cyan was saying.
"'Uwa...uuu.'"
Gau looked at her plaintively, and Terra couldn't help but laugh. Cyan looked up at the sound, and a faint smile appeared at the edge of his lips, somewhere under that bushy black moustache of his.
Terra was aware of Celes, beside her, eating her meal with a stiff formality. Cyan still hadn't said a word to Celes, she realized, since their initial meeting.
While the others were finishing their discussion and dinners, Terra made a discreet trip to the outhouse. When she came back most of the others had already left for their rooms. Edgar was at the bar, paying the innkeeper for the meal, and only Locke and Celes were still at the table. They seemed to be waiting for her.
As Terra sat down, Locke leaned forward and said, "You'll be okay tonight, right?"
She tried to smile for him. "Considering who I'll be rooming with, I don't think there's a safer place in the world."
"That's not what I meant."
Terra let her eyes fall away from his. She hadn't wanted to talk about it. She'd wanted to keep reality away for a little longer.
"She'll be as well as she can be," Celes said unexpectedly, saving Terra from the need to answer.
"I'm sure she will," said Edgar, coming back to the table. "You don't have to worry tonight, Terra. We'll have someone guarding your door."
"And I'll be down here," added Locke, "so you can rest easy. I'll make sure King Castle here doesn't ride into your room 'by accident.'"
"I resent that, Locke."
- o - o
Celes and Terra's room was on the second floor, at the end of the hall. "The most secure room in the inn," Celes explained.
Beside their door stood a man Terra vaguely recognized. A Returner.
"Banon asked me to keep watch," he said, standing stiff and straight. He looked younger than Terra.
"Oh. Thank you," Terra answered, feeling a bit foolish at all these precautions. Celes was here to guard her too. Apparently the Returners trusted Celes now. Everyone except Cyan.
"As you were," Celes said to the Returner. "You should get a chair. It's going to be a long night."
The young man nodded.
They entered, and Celes locked the door behind them. Then she dragged a chair over and jammed it under the knob. "We have an early start tomorrow," she said, choosing to ignore Terra's gawking. "Get as much sleep as you can."
"I'll try," Terra promised.
Celes took off her jacket and hung it in the wardrobe. She began unfastening her jacket, her back to Terra. It seemed like Celes wanted to get to bed as quickly as possible. Terra turned away. She was not looking forward to tonight. Her reprieve was over. She doubted she would be able to fall asleep. As soon as she closed her eyes she would see-
A face half hers, half someone else's, a half human, half alien thing—
"It might be hard to sleep," Celes said, "with so much on your mind."
Terra jerked her head up, but Celes was still facing away from her. Terra could not see her face. She saw instead a long, straight back corded with pale muscle, and long hair gone golden in the lamplight.
As Terra watched, fascinated by the sight of another person's skin, Celes pulled a nightshirt over her head.
"The night before a battle," Celes continued to speak, unaware of the gaze on her back, "I would look the other way when my soldiers would gamble and fight, so long as they obeyed curfew and no great harm was done. I knew they needed to take their minds off their possible deaths in the morning."
She was unlacing her breeches now. Terra looked away.
"Some of them, though, chose not to distract themselves in that way. Some of them simply wanted to talk." Celes paused for a moment. "Not with me, of course, but with each other."
"Are you asking if I want to talk?" Terra said softly. Not because she was afraid, but because Celes sounded so uncomfortable with the idea.
"Yes," came the answer, eventually.
How strange, Terra thought. Usually Celes sounded so sure, so crisp. It was an opening, a thaw in the ice, and though Terra had her own fears, it made her braver to hear them in another's voice.
"Can you help me understand what happened today?" she asked. "On the cliff...with the Esper?"
For a moment there was only the rustle of fabric as Celes finished changing into her nightclothes. Then:
"Before...it happened, I could feel your mind, Terra. My runic blade is attuned to magical energy, you see. But now I can't feel anything from you."
Terra nodded to herself. "That would explain why I can't use my spells."
"It's more than that." Celes turned around then, and in her clear grey eyes there was something like worry.
"Terra...everyone has at least a little magical energy, even if they don't know how to use it. Locke, Edgar, Banon, Gau, children I pass on the street, animals and plants even. Every living creature."
"Really? But hardly anyone can use magic."
"Yes, that's true. But I suppose they all have the potential, and that's what I can sense. From you, though, right now...I can sense nothing."
It wasn't fear exactly that pushed itself into Terra's mind at these words. It was, rather, an alien familiarity. Because she understood now the feeling that had been gnawing at her consciousness since she woke. That emptiness.
"Yes," she said, sounding distant even to herself. "That's exactly right. You knew before I did."
Celes gave her a look of pity, and Terra remembered the woman's words from when they'd first spoken, as they'd climbed the snowy paths to where the Esper waited on his cliff: Isn't it a lovely gift?
Terra had never thought her magic a gift.
"Maybe this is a good thing," she said. "Maybe the Esper knew what I truly wanted and gave it to me. I won't have to fight anymore. I can't."
At these words the pity on Celes' face changed. Her eyes went hard again. Her voice was no longer so strangely gentle. "So is this truly what you wanted? To avoid the fight?"
"I…" Terra found she did not know the answer. "I don't like fighting. It was Kefka who made me fight. I remember that much."
At the mention of Kefka's name, Celes' gaze flickered away. After a moment, she said, "I apologize. I forget that you were never a willing participant in this war. It was wrong of me to expect you to correct the sins of others."
Terra could not answer at first. It seemed so strange to hear such vacillations from this hardened soldier—never mind that Celes was no longer a general. "There's no need to apologize," Terra said. "You weren't the one who put the Slave Crown on me."
But Celes' eyes still seemed far away. Terra wondered if she had said something wrong.
Suddenly she felt exhausted. It was so hard, talking to people—like trying to cross a bridge, a frayed rope bridge, to meet the other person in the swaying middle. Once in a while the other would reach out a hand, would smile at her and make her feel like she was on solid ground with them, like them, human—but then this would happen, a wind upon the mountainside, sending her back across the bridge to huddle upon herself, a cold beastly thing.
Hair, fur. Claws long and sharp. A scream like an animal's scream—
"It's late," said Celes. "We should sleep."
"I'll try," said Terra once more, dully.
Celes looked like she wanted to say something more, but Terra turned away and started to turn down her blankets. She had kept Celes up long enough.
Behind her, Terra heard blankets shuffling, the sound of Celes climbing into bed, a soft sigh of breath.
It didn't take long for Celes to fall asleep. Military training, Terra supposed. But then, Terra had that too. She just didn't remember. She was a soldier, a slave, a witch, a monster-and now she was a girl without magic at all, a nothing. But still she had to fight, without knowing why. She only knew to do what she'd been told, as if the slave crown had never been taken off her head at all.
Who was she?
Dark eyes staring at her from her own face.
There were too many people she might have been once, too many parts of her lost. She lay awake, eyes wide open even as she wondered: Is this a dream now? Am I truly awake now? Or am I somewhere else, am I standing before an Esper on a frozen cliff, breathing air sharp and cold, seeing myself seeing me? Or am I flying free though the frozen air, wind streaming through my hair, far from this place, far from care, magic, magic everywhere?
She fell asleep, half-dreaming she was awake.
Author's notes:
I am not sure when I'm going to continue this! Don't get your hopes up for updates, sorry.