Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy X-2
"Mother? Where are we going?" piped the young one.
"Hush, child. You will see."
The child fell silent. This wasn't nearly as exciting as she'd expected. She had waited for so long, and this year she had finally been told that she was 'old enough'. But all she'd done so far was a lot of walking.
"Mother?"
"Yes?"
"Why is this place so important?"
"It is a place of remembrance. Now quiet. We are nearing the sacred place."
The word sacred, so similar to 'secret', and thus infused with the thrill of the forbidden, served to mollify the young one.
Zanarkand stood before them, the ancient place, its ruins standing tall.
"Now, Kita," the mother said, "we must give our toll to the guardians of the ruins.
Fruit was piled up, and soon the guardians-- the monkeys-- scurried up. The largest looked up at Kita's mother and gave a quick nod, as if to say "Go ahead," before digging in along with the rest of his troop.
"Come." The two rushed down the path.
"It's sealed!" Kita cried out suddenly in shocked disappointment.
"Not to us. I will show you the way we use."
She broke into a run, and her daughter followed. After a minute, the elder stopped.
"Mother...?"
Reaching out a talon, Kita's mother brushed aside some branches piled there to keep intruders out. "It's a bit of a squeeze, but it will be easier for you. Go on."
Kita ducked down and scurried through. Her mother followed.
On a pile of rubble sat three objects.
"Not too close, Kita. Look."
The first was a bracelet.
"That is the bracelet of Calli, who helped save us."
The second was a sword.
"That is the sword of Clasko, who taught us many things."
The third was a golden chocobo feather, weighed down by a rock.
"That is a feather from our ancestor, of whom it is said that even the humans called amazing."
"Oh! So... is this what we are to remember?"
"Yes, my child. Even if the humans have forgotten their names, we have not. We shall hold on... now and forever."
Kita closed her eyes. Yes... even as the machina cities grew, covering more and more land, slowly pushing the wild chocobo flocks north, they would hold on. And when there was no room left...
They would travel to a new land. They would find a new home, where grassy fields covered endless plains, where fiends were few, or perhaps nonexistant. Where they could run, and be free, forever.
Forever...
---
"Mother?"
"Yes, child?" Kita replied, looking down at her new daughter.
"Where are we going?"
"You will see. Now hush."
The child fell silent.
It was too close to Caelin City for comfort, but she followed her mother into a cave.
The darkness also made the young chick nervous, and she tried to stay as close to Kita as she could.
"Look."
It was a machina... or rather, a pile of machina parts.
"Mother... why are these here?"
"These are the tools of the humans, but we must learn to use them. Someday, Tika, there will be no more room for us here, and we will have to find a new place to live. To do that, we must learn the secrets of their machina, that we may know how to fly through the air, as they do, or at least sail across the sea. I created this place, my daughter, so that we can learn as much as we can. Remember..."
---
"Mother? What are you doing?"
"I am trying to build, my dear one. Hush."
Her talons were not built for such delicate work, but she did as best she could to assemble the machina.
Tika had learned much since her mother had first shown her the Machina Cave. By watching the humans and fiddling with the metal pieces, she now knew how to build a few simple things.
"Mother... perhaps we could train monkeys to do it?"
"Meela... you are a genius."
---
"Good girl Coco!" Meela told the tan-furred monkey. The chocobos had become almost symbiotic with their monkey companions, teaching them the ways of building machina, while the monkeys assembled them with a nimbleness which no chocobo could match.
"Mother, I saw humans today."
"Where, Sheeana?"
"Near the edge of the ruins."
The ruins of Zanarkand were the last refuge for the wild chocobos. True, the humans did keep some tame ones for educational purposes in zoos, but no self-respecting wild chocobo would consider that any sort of life. Chocobos needed to be able to run free... but even now they were fenced in.
The fact that the humans still considered this place too sacred to build upon would buy the chocobos some time... but not forever.
Fortunately, the project was nearing completion.
---
"Mother! Big brother has come home from the scouting expedition!"
Sheeana looked up as her daughter, Kita, rushed up to her.
"We should alert the humans. Is the Speaker fully charged?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Good."
Sheeana remembered that fateful day when the Speaker had been finished. For the first time, the chocobos could communicate with the humans, the builders of machina, the ones who had created a ship that sailed through the stars...
And the humans, unbelievably, had listened. The fact that most already had a fondness for the incredibly cute birds hadn't hurt, either.
Zanarkand was being preserved for those who chose to remain on Spira. For the rest... they had gone with some of the humans to find a new world to colonize. Now that they could speak on equal terms, the chocobos were learning more than ever about the ways of machina, but some preferred to live in the old ways, as far away from human civilization as possible.
And they could do that, here. It was a big world, and there was plenty of room to run.
The chocobos had made a single request of the humans, as far as buildings went.
Out in the plains, far from any city, a lone obelisk stood. On each of its sides was etched a bracelet, a sword, and a feather.