A Dream of Paine
A flash, and the lightning shot across the dark water, an arcane machine moving beneath. It writhed and fluxed in fury and pain, a dark titan, an insipid beast made for a dual purpose, for hope and salvation. It was the harbinger of destruction, death born from its wings of dark sheath, and a core made from the fulcrum.
And there was a man standing before the monster. She saw him. He stood there before the fury, indomitable, powerful. And she was afraid. She didn't know the meaning of it. Where was she and why could she see him?
"Who are you?" But a silence was caste, golden. He would not hear her, because he was not really there.
Paine awoke from her sleep with fury to rival a fiend. Her bed spread responded like projectile from a gun, before it floated like a ghost in moonlight from the window of the airship to the floor. The moon, it caught her mind. It wasn't there when she had fallen asleep. It meant she had been out only few hours. But adrenalin pulsed through her and heart was a drum beat from the parties she had partaken in the past. When they cast down the indomitable Vegnagun, and sent two lovers to paradise. It was unusual, so why was she feeling so excited when she obviously was so tired?
She fell back. She didn't need or want to lose sleep. She didn't need any more heavy weights to carry. Her thoughts progressed her and she starred at the empty bed next to her. Her friend, Yuna, had until recently occupied it. Her friend who was absent because recently she had found someone she wanted to share a bed with. She laughed silently at the thought. It seemed impossible, but it was going to happen, if it hadn't already.
Her friend was the more likely to have dreams like that though.
What a bizzare dream it was.
She had nearly forgotten but the feeling, the fear, and the glory that seemed to come over her as she saw him, the ghostly man in her dream. Who was he? More importantly to her, what was he standing in front of? He was a definite stranger, someone she had never met in her life. So way should she care.
But the fulcrum? Paine wondered why that word had come to mind. It seemed familiar in the vaguest sense but she couldn't pin it down. It actually bothered her somewhat.
"The Fulcrum," she said aloud hoping that it might help her memory, but nothing came. "What the hell?" Indeed, why was she thinking about this. She was veteran warrior and sphere hunter. She had fought literal monsters, so why give any power to amorphous horrors in her dreams.
Besides she was tired and this wasn't the best sort of thought to put her to sleep or to calm her down. She sat up and threw her legs over the side, standing to stare at the Moon. It had such grace; half full almost, waning slowly turning to darkness. To her it was a mother, as it had been in the past when the great Sin had taken her own. She saw its pass with the Celsius over the dark water, an airship. She thought of her three friends. Their pledge to fly the world in a ship. The power and greatness they had already achieved. The world wasn't dark any more. Not with them and Yuna at the helm of their airship. It was hope.
"Why in Spira, am I letting this get to me?" She whispered through the glass.
She resolved herself, climbing back into her bed, slowly allowing her fatigue to drift her off to sleep.
"I know my friend. I see her too, and so does God. But I'm afraid you'll never make it to her."
(A/N) I don't know when I will write the next one. I'm a busy man, but please tell me what you think by reviewing.
"Fortune smiles upon those who review." –an anonymous guru.
Stonehenge.