The day was moving slowly from dusk to night when he appeared. Vestiges of crimson and gold were fading in the western sky, and a cool evening wind sighed through the graying atmosphere. The wind flared out a long gray coat, combed through short golden hair like loving fingers, and fled in search of others to tease.
"Looks like I'm in the right place."
He stalked through the deepening darkness, movements full of feral grace. A long white-gray coat swished around his calves as he turned around to take in his surroundings.
"Ultimecia's castle--and I'm only a few hundred years too early."
It was nothing but an empty field at the moment, barren and withered from the long winter. In a month's time spring would burst upon it in a hail of flower and foliage.
In two centuries' time there would stand a castle, a darkly magnificent place of nightmares.
The visitor held in one hand a bottle of wine, and in his other were two paper cups. He searched around for a suitable spot, eventually deciding on a flat-topped boulder.
He reached into an inner pocket to take out a white wax candle, which he proceeded to light with a match. He shook the match out, dropped it into a patch of bare sand away from the scant vegetation, and tilted the candle over the surface of the rock. After dripping a few molten drops he set the candle upright on its own wax, a faint but cheery glimmer in the indigo evening.
He unbuckled a sleek black gunblade from his side and sat down carelessly on the ground, facing the rock. The gunblade he placed on the ground near his hand. He filled the two paper cups with wine, and placed one next to the candle.
"It's been a while, Sorceress." He touched his cup to the one sitting on the boulder, careful not to tip it over. "Remember me, your knight?" He laughed drily and took a sip from the paper cup. "I brought the best cheap wine I could find, and I got all night to sit and chat."
He tossed back the contents of the cup and leaned back on his hands, head thrown back to watch the stars twinkling one by one into existence.
"Don't like the wine?" He shrugged and refilled his own cup. "Probably not--all your stuff was the most expensive available, vintages from Dollet and Galbadia.
"I wonder what they'd think if they could see me now," he continued between sips. "'That lapdog, he's finally gone off the deep end. Talking to himself in the middle of nowhere.' Or maybe: 'Oh no! He's got some nefarious purpose, coming to Ultimecia's place of death.'
"Well the truth is, they--all of them, the stuck-up Instructor, Puberty Boy, Chicken-Wuss and the rest, they've got a right to sing 'Ding dong! The witch is dead!' and get on with their lives. But I...I don't have that right.
"You never got a funeral. Or a memorial. What kind of closure is that? Just because you were an evil megalomaniac hell-bent on the destruction of the universe doesn't mean you're not entitled to a burial." He smirked.
"So this is my final discharge of duty as knight. Tonight is my wake for you, and at dawn a funeral. It's my sort of closure for a woman who hasn't died yet."
Night had fallen completely. A wind made the candlelight sputter, threatening to extinguish it. Almost absently the man shaded the flame with a hand, then touched his chest pocket for a pack that wasn't there.
"Oh yeah, I quit those. Self-control sucks."
He searched around some more, all but turning out every pocket, then came up triumphantly with one crooked cigarette.
"Now how did that get in there?" His lips curled with that now world-famous smirk. "Hmm, maybe just one more."
He leaned close to the candle, cigarette clenched in his teeth, until the tip gave a reddish glow. He leaned back on his hands again, the quiet light of the night stars reflected in his eyes.
"Funny how there's so many stars at night... I never noticed them during the war, you know. One day there's perpetual brightness that drowns out everything else, and the next, poof! Suddenly the night sky dazzles you, rivers and oceans of constellations like they were never there before." A long puff of smoke swirled around the candle flame, glowing orange, then was swept away on an eddy of the black night air.
"Here, you finish it." Gently he shook the ash from the cigarette and set it on the rock next to the paper cup, where it sent up thin streams of smoke. "Not that you'd have smoked this cheap crap in your life, but I'm running on limited funds here, okay?" He gathered his coat closer around himself as the chill set in.
"Remember the parade at Deling City? Man, I had the time of my life. Fireworks, dancing, music, crowds, stone lizards, getting trashed by Puberty Boy... Come to think of it, it wasn't that fun." He poured himself more wine.
"And there was the broadcast tower at Timber..." his eyes clouded over, and he threw his head back to drink. "Saying 'why me?' is trite, and it's whiny. Still, that's never stopped me from waking up in the middle of every friggin' night to ask. Was it in the history books, and you had to follow it? Or was I just easy to manipulate?
"I guess that's the hardest part to forgive. More than the things you made me do, more than the things you did to me, it's the things you never told me. I never got a reason. Never got to make sense of what happened. I'd like to pass the whole thing off, call it completely meaningless and coincidental. But I can't accept my life was turned upside down without reason or rhyme. Guess that shows I'm still human enough.
"After the things I did, I didn't think I could be human anymore. After torturing Puberty Boy, attacking the Gardens, throwing Rinoa to Adel, fighting against the people I grew up with. Guilt? I wish that was all. What's worse, much worse, is feeling like your humanity's draining away like blood down a gutter. I guess you passed that point long ago, before I ever laid eyes on you. Did you want me to feel that? You certainly succeeded." His voice cracked, and he took a sip of wine to wet his parched throat.
The night passed in silence, the long slow hours turning the stars on their axis. He sat still, eyes gleaming and demeanor alert, moving only to sip from his cup from time to time. Despite the times he had been broken and the falls he had had to endure he was still strong and proud, both physically and emotionally. He awaited the dawn as a hunter waits for his prey to emerge, as if he would ensnare the very sun and carry it away as a trophy.
There was gray in the sky when the bottle of wine was empty, and the cigarette cold ash on the boulder. He stirred and stood, his coat lifting on a cold wind that signaled daybreak. He swayed a little, and grinned almost sheepishly.
"Didn't think I could get drunk on that shit," he said. He stretched and yawned, then watched as the first strands of royal red unfurled in the east.
Dawn was a symphony in colors and light. It was on the wings of birds in their flight across the sky, in the pale orange flame of the almost spent candle, and inside the eyes of the young man who opened his arms to welcome another day. Soon the magical moment was simply early morning, a kind of contentment tempered by long nights of darkness.
He took the untouched cup that had been offered to the Sorceress and sprinkled the wine on the ground.
"I hope you've found in death what you were looking for. Damned if I know what that is, though. A measure of peace, maybe, and no more pain. I hope."
He took a folded piece of paper from a pocket of his coat. He touched it to the candle flame, now intense and soaring in its last throes, until the paper crinkled and turned black and finally fell away as ash. The candle gave one last flash and died out.
"There! Funeral over." He clapped once, then looked around as if expecting the Sorceress' ghost to appear and upbraid him for its briefness. "No complaining, all right? I hope you weren't expecting a state funeral."
He yawned, rubbing his dry sleep-deprived eyes. "Guess I'll skip over to Dollet now. One of the few places left where I won't get shot on recognition...hopefully." He gave a crooked grin. "I have to admit, being wanted by four different governments can be a minor inconvenience."
He turned to go, then turned back again. "In the end, I'm glad I don't have all the answers. I'll take each day as it comes, one at a time. Least I've learned that much. Happy afterlife Ultimecia, if there is one." He turned around and walked away into his life, eyes bleary and throat sore, but perhaps with a lighter heart.
Ode to a Sorceress
We could have been siblings, you and I
Instead we played at Lady and Knight
Two children lost in nights of dreams
Their poisoned sweetness air we breathed
What dreams you see beyond the night
What visions in the earth you lie
Night passes; new Day has begun
A world begins; I set you free
Like the wings of flight at dawn
Fly away and pass beyond
Your nightmare life is over
Like a memory of dreams
Forgiven and forgotten.