The Empire steamship knifed through the water, the chop of the waves loud against its iron-plated hull. General Celes Chere walked the length of the main deck, moving between unmanned Magitek armor units and the gunwale. Without the grinding sounds of spinning gears or the crackle of magic in the air, the machine giants were harmless, mute passengers rusting in the spray. Her boots slid against sea-slicked metal as she ascended the nearest exosuit, jerked her cape from the wind's grip, and settled into the cockpit.
Inky black clouds passed over the moon, and the ocean seethed in the feeble illumination of the ship's electric lights. Propping her feet up on the Magitek armor's console and readjusting the sword at her side, Celes sat brooding at the coastline a long while, staring down the hulking mountains that she could barely make out against the dark sky.
It was a warm night. Her long hair hung heavy and damp, starting to curl in the hot salt air. Celes was more accustomed to the frigid waters surrounding the Mirandan peninsula, having never sailed this far east. Just a few short months ago, she was hailed as the knight that united the southern continent, and she had never even seen the eastern shore until now. So much had happened in so little time, so much had changed.
The runic blade vibrated on the edge of her awareness, a soft pulse signaling another presence on deck. Celes didn't have to look around the corner to know that it was Terra.
"Having trouble sleeping?"
And General Leo? Her brow furrowed in confusion as a flash of imperial green entered her peripheral vision. She held herself as still as possible, straining to hear the conversation.
"…It's strange, isn't it? The Empire used me, controlled my very thoughts…and now here I am, cooperating with the same people."
Terra's voice was soft, but steady. Reasonable. Sane. There was a slight rasp to it that Celes would have never noticed during the day. It was surprisingly good to hear. During her time with the Returners, Celes' memories of the other girl had been gradually replaced with the image of some nightmarish other, a half-formed, fanged divinity fallen from the sky into a city of thieves, barely conscious and hurting. She must still hurt.
"I knew that you were half esper and being made to suffer through horrible experiments... Yet I did nothing."
Celes remembered fire without smoke, flashing bright against Vector's skyline of steal towers and iron terraces. The Emperor's palace jutted out from the uppermost level, a gleaming spire of metal stairs and red flags. Too high to hear the screams from the streets, but she could still taste the acrid, polluted air tinged with magic, the intensity setting her runic sword ringing in its sheath, resonating Terra's pain. She had known as well, and done nothing.
"Do you think a human and I could love each other?"
"Of course."
"I don't even know what it feels like."
Why wasn't she angry? Celes fumed from her perch in the dark. What must it have been like to realize, through the painful, slow fog of amnesia, that there existed a basic need that she had never been shown? Terra didn't remember her physical abuse, but she intuitively felt that lack, that very human longing.
If Terra had sustained, or somehow regained, her memory before Celes arrived at Narshe, would their reunion have been different? Would she have demanded an explanation, sought revenge for inaction? Instead, Terra had stood in the gentle hush of a gathering snowstorm and asked one of her former captors if she could feel love, as if it were a learned ability. Maybe it is.
When she asked Celes that question, or General Leo or Locke or Shadow, was she really asking someone to love her?
Celes had turned and walked away.
She followed orders blindly, and attacked a civilian town. She deliberately betrayed her people, traded her uniform for a traveler's cloak, and buried her stars somewhere in the dunes of a desert far from home. It wasn't until tonight that she felt anything like the monster many, Imperial and Returner, accused her of being. Not a courageous whistleblower, not a traitor or a spy, not even a pawn in a nonsensical chess match where there was only one player and the rules kept changing.
The night wore on and no one seemed to be doing much sleeping. When Terra finally left the bow, making her way toward the midship stairs, Celes followed, dropping silently onto the deck behind her.
"Terra…"
She didn't startle, nor did she turn around, just stood there patiently contemplating the passing mountains in the distance.
"I'm sorry."