by StarWolf
9/8/2005
Title: Estre
Author: StarWolf (elendraug at yahoo dot com)
Fandom: Final Fantasy IX
Rating: PG
Genre: Tragedy
Pairing: Slight Kuja x Zidane
Warnings: Canon death.
Disclaimer: Square's, not mine.
Distribution: Please don't archive it.
Summary: Tar and feathers.
Author's Notes: Iifa Tree; classic, eh? Written while listening to "Mars Rain" from the BLUEMARS: MUSIC FOR THE SPACE TRAVELER internet radio station.
Possessed plants have blocked the dying sunlight, and the two moons neither reflect nor produce anything to brighten a spontaneous, inescapable root-prison. Trapped but tranquil -- you can't see the forest as a tree.
Zidane wakes from a stuporslumber to find himself protecting an inert form of listless lavender. Groggily, he shifts sideways, eyes not used to the black of not-quite-night. His throat is clogged with mucus too dry to swallow; talking is tough, but he asks anyway.
"Hey, you alright?"
Kuja's eyes do not open.
"I see the stars."
Not expecting such a response, Zidane tilts his head and lifts his eyebrows.
"Hmm?"
Audibly exhaling, Kuja lets his skull fall back against the living platform, its bark flaking and snagging in his hair.
"Terra..." The word trails off into a futile almost-movement that never reaches completion. "The World. The fool contained; two sides to it all..."
A nervous hand on a too-still shoulder.
"Kuja, you're rambling."
"Eclipse."
Too soon, unprepared: not fair. Worried, apprehensive; not now... Recognising the inevitable, Zidane lies down again, literal silk against his skin -- no sense in holding grudges at this point. Strands of tangled grey and golden make his neck itch, but he doesn't bother to scratch it away.
"Phoenix." His voice is lowered; respect for the--
"Red."
---------------------
He digs for hours.
The cracked and dry dirt of the apocalypse resists his every move; broken sticks of a deathtree were never meant for labour. In the eerily silent former-oasis, the scrapes of wood against displaced dust fail to drown the ringing in his ears.
Gaia, Earth, Terra -- the origin of the soil makes no difference when Kuja's body lies soulless in its crumbles. In the distance, the sky meets the ocean. Zidane stares and thinks,
Blue.