Blood Tithe

Prologue

A hundred feet. Just another hundred feet through the tight, cramped earth that almost squeezed the very air out of him. Just a hundred more feet. He crawled through the filth, just able to fit into the tunnel that would eventually take him to the surface. Earth was crushed beneath his fingernails as he pulled himself along, his mouth and eyes screwed shut and his legs pushing him steadily upward. Sweat was rippling down his body, mixing the soil into smeared streaks of mud that began to cake in his hair. The stagnant air was beginning to feel cool and fresh, he was almost there.

The sweat began to cool and the mud started to dry as he poked his head out of the hole, opening his eyes and seeing the darkness of night. He took a deep breath through his nose, a cool shock that started in his lungs and rippled through him. He looked up and saw the innumerable stars, his expression one of renewed wonder.

But there was no time for pause. He could hear the dogs.

Naked he ran down a slope of loose earth, mindful of the dozens of other burrows like the one he just crawled out of. He tumbled several times, thankful not to trip on a hole and possible break his legs. He reached the bottom and didn't stop, sprinting across the grasslands as the barking echoed louder behind him. His heart was pounding, the adrenaline addictive in his blood. He couldn't stop, he had gotten so far, if he could just reach the falls...

The sound of running water was steadily overwhelming that of the dogs, giving him a modicum of confidence that he would succeed. He stumbled again, landing face first into the icy river as his stomach slapped onto the rocky bank. The pain was short lived, it had to be, he had to keep running. He waded out into the river and headed downstream with the formidable current. It was becoming deeper as he progressed, the edge of the falls only some yards ahead.

The dogs weren't far off now.

He could hear the crashing of the falls. He took a deep breath and held his nose before he let the current take him away. It was a twenty foot drop.

I will survive, he thought. I must survive.

He felt the riverbed disappear and gravity shove him downward. His heart was still racing as he struck the pool below, the water there deep enough so he wouldn't break his legs. If that had been the case, those in pursuit of him would simply kill him, not bothering to take him back.

The flow carried him further down, towards a second terrace of the falls, this one higher than the first. It was almost fifty feet. Again he convinced himself quietly of his instinct to live. He had to, he'd gotten this far already. He was so close!

He braced himself once more for the impending drop. He prayed that water was deep enough, or, at the very least, that his death would be quick.

Fifty feet straight down.

SPLASH

The impact was hard against his back, making a loud slap echo through the ravine the river had made. It stung terribly, his eyes clamped shut and his breath threatened to let itself go before his head was above the water again. When he felt cold air against his face he quietly exhaled, his face still scrunching from the burning tightness in his back.

He was thankful for the darkness, not wishing to see what he could feel all around him. Normally there were stones at the bottom of falls, but not here, not in this terrible place. There bones and the half decaying bodies of helpless souls that had died and were discarded. He didn't want to see, he didn't need to. His simply kept swimming, blind until he felt the pull of the river again.

With his body just peeping above the waterline he let the river carry him on, helping himself along by pulling on the stones and debris embedded in the muddy muck at the bottom. He drifted for miles, through the grasslands and to its southern border, until he could no longer hear the dogs. The barking quickly became a distant memory.

Now he was tired, weary with his legs weak and ready to give as he pulled himself from the water. He struggled for breath, his chest rising and falling in sharp succession. He lay on the bank, his back to the grass and his limbs spread out. He ran his fingers over the silky soft provender, reveling in the feel of it. The air was clean and crisp, brand new.

Free. Finally free.

Again he looked up at the stars amazed, pulling stray strands of wet hair from his face.

That wonder turned to startled curiosity. Something was happening to the south, something in the sky.

He turned onto his hands and knees and looked, his gaze going over the stretch of forest a mile away and to the red glow. At first he couldn't believe his own eyes, but...

By the gods...Cocoon was falling.

Cocoon had been ripped from its lofty perch and was now plummeting towards Gran Pulse in all its vindictive grandeur, a pit of vipers ablaze as it fell further and further towards its sister planet below.

Within the darkened center of Cocoon was a glimmer of light, and from it came the horror known as Ragnarok. Mighty and terrible, its bellowing roar cut the sky. It leaped through the gaping fracture in Cocoon's shell, climbed to the lowest point, and then threw itself downward. Below a lake of molten rock bubbled and churned, and then up it came as Ragnarok struck the surface. In a matter of only a few seconds, barely even a minute, Cocoon was seized. A few hundred feet from impact it stopped, cradled in a crystal nest. The sun began to rise, rays of light striking the colossal pillar that held the usurped moon steady.

In the wilds beneath the pillar gathered those children of Cocoon now without a home, without the Fal'Cie to guide them. Alongside the liberated L'Cie they would have to find a new way, a new path, how to survive in this world left to them through the sacrifice of the two L'Cie now resting at the very core of the crystal pillar.

It would take a miracle.

A miracle they would have to make for themselves.

Author's Note: Very short prologue, but I wasn't going for something long and ornate. I wanted to set the time and place, and introduce one of the many coming exclusive characters. Much like "Forgotten", my FF8 fiction, I'm doing this strictly for my own pleasure. If you enjoy it, let me know, if not, keep it to yourself. Flames will be promptly deleted. I'm writing this for my own satisfaction, because I love it, and I hated how XIII ended. Just forewarning, no Fanille or pairings that fall under that category. I have nothing against them, it's just not what I want. With all that being said, enjoy or GTFO.