This story came about when a small bit of dialogue popped into my head that I thought sounded interesting (which appears at the end of the first section of the story). I liked it so much, in fact, that I decided I'd write a story around it. That also might be why the story turned out kind of weird….
And Kefka, Terra, Vector, etc. are property of Squaresoft.
Someday
Kefka is not himself tonight. They sit on the lip of a fountain that seems so out of place in the dismal city that is Vector, and he's still wet from falling in after he tried to fish out the coins people had thrown in. He had earned for himself a good 58 gil for his trouble, though Terra thought he cared far more for the sparkle of money than the value, and she wonders if their good luck still counts with their offerings displaced. Kefka really didn't care either way. He didn't much believe in luck.
She couldn't remember the last time they had gone out like this. Kefka didn't much care for the presence of others, which was for the best, considering they shared in his sentiments, and she, too, discouraged any notion he had to go anyplace where large numbers of people might gather. As a result, they hardly went anywhere together anymore, not since back when he was still kind, a time he only remembered in the occasional act, but not in actual memory, and they had strolled together, arm in arm, about the city for a large part of the evening before settling in the spot they occupied now.
The square emptied out with the darkening sky, and stars began to blink open like countless glittering eyes, and there the two of them remained, ignorant of the developing chill that seemed more pronounced when the spray from the fountain left pinpricks of cold on her arms. These were the times she loved most, when she felt loved the most, to have someone choose to be with her and only her, for though she was now 16, not ever had she caught a young man's fancy. It could be due to her green hair or her unnatural ability to wield magic when no one else could without first having to undergo painful experiments; she believed a lot of it, too, was her association with Kefka that caused others to avoid her so, but the reason for her isolation all her young years was unimportant when she wouldn't have chosen a different path even if one had been available to her.
Kefka had made her promise that she would never date, that she would stay with him always, and it was a promise she was quick to make, as she had no desire to be with anyone else. She didn't have to be in that kind of a relationship to be happy, for Kefka had told her that such love was shallow and self-serving, that if a man ever chose her to be his wife, it would only be because he wanted something from her, and he'd cut off the hands of anyone who ever laid so much as a finger on her. And though it made her stomach clench to hear the things he threatened to do to those imagined wrongdoers, it only proved all the more that he loved her when the mere thought of another person using her distressed him so.
She had no desire to leave him, truly she didn't, and if only she could convince him of this, he wouldn't have to worry anymore that she might abandon him one day. He may've been difficult at times, but a husband would be no better, when he might want the things from her that Kefka had warned her about. And though he had the most unsettling way of making her feel like an object, like she was his property, at least he loved her only for her.
He was her family, her father and her brother, and she his daughter and his sister, and she wouldn't think to give that up for the kind of love he swore to her was frivolous and short-lived. No one will ever love her like he did, he tells her, and she thinks that she, too, is the only person that's ever loved him and that ever will love him, and she had promised as many times as his faith in her wore out that she would remain by his side forever. And before he had changed, he had promised the same to her.
And it was times like this that she was reminded why she had made the promises that she had, and meant them, a reminder she needed more than ever when it was hard to keep her love as strong as it was years ago when the man she had given her heart to had since turned into someone she no longer recognized, not even in appearance anymore. But she knew some of the old Kefka was still in there when they could smile together like in days bygone, and though he never strayed from his new, corrupted self for long, she knew she had to enjoy this relapse while it lasted. The good times grew shorter and shorter anymore, and she wondered if this was similar to the way people said that the years went by faster the older one got, though for her, it seemed the opposite was true in regards to her time.
Kefka had since settled into a silence quite uncharacteristic for him, while the fountain that had distracted him for the better part of an hour was allowed to return to its dutiful tinkling undisturbed. It seems it will be up to her to break the silence tonight. Back when he was a different man, he hardly ever spoke, and it took all she had to coax him into any real conversation. Now he talked all the time, even if he rarely had anything nice to say, but when he was in an uncommon pleasant mood, such as what he had displayed earlier that evening, she had to take the opportunity before it was lost to her.
She tries to speak to him, about whatever comes to mind, about how lovely the moon looks and how very refreshing the night air is, and she manages at last to lure out some agreement from him in response to her comment on how nice it is now that all the people have gone, and she watches the side of his face as she continues.
"But, you like having me here, right?" This wasn't the first time she had asked such a thing, but she always had to check, just in case the answer changed one day.
"I wouldn't have brought you along if I didn't," he says and leaves it at that, and she can't elicit further from him and returns to her silent vigil over the empty square and the quiet houses with their dark, sleepy windows.
Her hands rest on the fountain's edge as she kicks her feet, and he releases a sigh to mingle with the brisk night air, and her eyes turn again to him.
"I just don't know how I can go on much longer," Kefka says in a voice soft enough that the slightest breeze could carry it away, if it had been so inclined, but the air is breathless tonight, just as she is to hear these words leave his lips.
"You don't mean that," Terra says, and he turns to her, and his eyes meet hers for the first time in hours.
"I don't say things unless I mean them."
Her lips remain parted, and she is still as she watches his gaze slip away until it is stopped by the fountain on which they sit, and she thinks she almost prefers the mad glint his faded blue eyes normally hold. The temperature seems to have dipped just in those few, short moments, and she asks, "What happened?"
Kefka studies the space between them, and he seems worn out beyond his years, with hunched shoulders and a bowed head, and she repeats, "Please, tell me what happened to make you think that way."
"It's nothing that happened. It can't be helped anyway, so it might as well be nothing." He shakes his head, in confirmation, or perhaps, in contradiction, and he closes crimson eyelids. His painted smile makes not a bit of difference.
She moves in close and pulls him to her, and he doesn't resist like she expected him to. In fact, he doesn't respond at all. He smells like perfume and cinnamon, and this close to him, she's reminded that she's almost reached his height. She kisses him on the cheek and squeezes him, as if to confirm he's still really there. "Don't say those things," she says into his shoulder, "You can't mean all that. It's going to be okay. Everything will be better someday."
His response is delayed, but his arms eventually wrap about her, as well, and he holds her tight enough nearly to cause pain, and she feels something hot and wet slip down the side of her face, but she doesn't think it's hers.
"I've been waiting for my 'someday' all my life, but it's never come."
It all came back to her one day, as she sat on the floor reading to the children encircling her, that someone used to do this same thing for her once. It was like waking up from a slumber she didn't know she had been prisoner to, one that the slave crown had kept her in even after a year had passed since its removal. And then her memories returned to her in a flood, old friends she never even realized were gone until they were back, and she couldn't comprehend how she had managed to get by without them. Not all of them were good memories; in fact, many of them were truly awful ones, but there was enough sorrow as it was since the world had been ravaged a year prior that the pleasant memories seemed strongest of all because of how out of place they were.
She remembers many wonderful things, of the man that had raised her since she was very young, and it was not as much of a shock as it should have been that the man she remembers was also the very one responsible for the ruined world they now lived in and for orphaning the children now in her care. But, she had been so very happy then, the years before he had lost his kindness and his memories, back when he still adored her and would tuck her into bed at night even when she was too old for it and would fret so over any slight sadness she ever felt.
That man was dead now, and once he had changed, she couldn't imagine ever being happy again, not after losing the only good thing she had ever had. And she wasn't happy, for so many years, and these were memories she was only willing to welcome back because they couldn't be so easily separated from the ones she cherished.
She never expected at all to find any lasting happiness again, but even in a world where joy itself seemed to have been stamped out, she had finally found a reason to get out of bed in the morning in the form of the children that needed her as much as she needed them, but when she lay awake until the wee hours of the morning, thoughts passed her mind of whether or not he could possibly be happy after what he had done. Though she hadn't so much as laid eyes on him in a full year, nor had she any meaningful conversation with him for longer still, she had known him for long enough that she couldn't imagine that he had found any sort of fulfillment throughout all of this, even upon reaching a goal that no mortal had any right to achieve.
No, he couldn't have been happy. She knew him better than that. And it was ironic, really, when he had gotten what he wanted. She didn't. She didn't want this, to live in a world where the lives of men and women and children alike could be ended as if they were no better than insects, all on the whims of one man, while those that survived struggled to do so in a dead world that was hardly worth struggling for.
He thought he could find happiness by destroying all that he hated, as if he believed that if he rid the world of all the things that brought him sorrow, all that would be left was the joy he so desperately sought, but it didn't work like that. Suffering didn't create anything but more suffering, and she didn't think he would ever understand that. He had a brilliant mind; she would never take that from him, but he knew nothing about what mattered.
And that was why she knew in the deepest part of her soul that her statement that night at the fountain had only rung true for her. She had found it, at last, that proverbial "someday" where everything would be better. Somehow, she had, even in this dying world, all thanks to the children she had been given a second chance to protect. It was possible to find joy out of imperfection, after all, even in this ruined world her dear one had created, and though she had to accept that those good times with him were long gone, she had new, wonderful things to keep her afloat and to give her the willpower she needed when it would be so much easier just to give up.
Yes, her statement that night did indeed come to pass, but not for him. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair a better life awaited her and not him, when he had been so good to her once. It wasn't fair that, as she gave a soft smile to one of the youngest of the little girls that had come to her for help getting changed for bed, that he wasn't here to share in any of this joy she had found.
Whether or not he knew it, whether or not he cared, he had cheated her just as much as himself.
A great battled raged that day. Terra hardly remembers it, though, even if it should be fresh in her mind. It ended mere minutes ago.
Kefka knelt on the ground, struggling with ragged breath. She smells blood and singed flesh, but the former is not all hers. Her friends leave her, leaning on those nearby for support, after she had nodded her permission for them to go. The one who shattered their world will not breathe much longer, but it's a solemn victory. It won't bring the old world back. It won't bring him back, either. She never did believe he would ever be his kind self again. But, this only sealed it.
She kneels before him, and she has to suppress the urge to brush the loose strands of hair from his face.
"Kefka," she says, "did you ever find your happiness?"
At first, she suspects he's not going to respond, but he lifts his head with an effort, as if its weight is too much for him. "Did you?"
"Yes."
"Well," his head drops, "that makes one of us."
Yeah, it was weird, wasn't it? I did like the ending quite a bit, though. And I think at this point, I am seriously out of "Final Fantasy VI" fan fiction ideas. To be honest, I'm not even certain I should have written this one….
Anyway, please review, my dears.