Chapter One
The Great Maw

It was dark.

That was the first thing he noticed.

The second thing was that he was laying on cold, gravely, ground.

He groaned sitting up and rubbing the heels of this hands against his eyes, scrubbing away the gritty feeling left there, dropping his hands to the ground Cid peered past the dirt and blurriness of his vision to look around; it was night time, the sky was clear and full of stars -but there was no moon- he was in a valley devoid of planet life but full of fallen rocks, the sides of the valley and the floor was rock, it was purple and blue, slate, by the shards digging into his knees and stuck against his numb face. It was very, very, cold and Cid couldn't remember why he was here.

He sat huddled over for sometime, hugging his legs tucked up to his chest and hanging onto fleeing memories, "Cid Highwind," he said, "Captain of the airship Highwind, "I'm here because…" he frowned, "Damn, I don't have a clue… Where is here?" he looked up from his boots, "It's meant to be Radiant Gardens," tugging his coat closer, "But I ain't there, unless something's happened, or whoever named it is damn cynical," he snorted and got to his feet, as he'd sat here time had moved on, as it does, and a fog was drawing in, now it was damp and cold, but in the far distance an orange glow lit the fog from the inside, and, unless it was already reaching sunrise, that meant a town or a city, or a large fire or something, and something was better than the nothing of right now. Cid stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to walk, head down, still thinking and wrangling memories from his cloudy mind. Feels like lard, he scowled, Can't think for shit.

After only 20 minutes of walking Cid stopped again, blinking and turning his head this way and that, but the odd strangled sound he'd heard didn't come again, and with a shrug he started off again, only to stop in his tracks, "Hay! Hay wait up!" he looked over his shoulder, scrambling over the rockslide that had just hindered his path, was a slender figure, hurrying to catch up, "Wait damn it!" he frowned, having not moved an inch. "Fine!" he called back, "Hurry up!!"

"…Yuffie."

The girl, leaning on her thighs and gasping for breath in the cool night air looked up at him, "You remember? Good! I didn't remember your name for ages! Whatever happened to our memories is obviously fading now, eh?" she grinned manically and Cid shrugged off his coat, "Guess so," he said, offering it to her, "Cold?"

The mist evaporated with the dawn, and the cold began to lift, but it took with it the two trudging walkers' energy and determination, particularly as the valley was turning away from where Cid had seen the orange light the night before, and now he didn't know where he was aiming for, and Yuffie hugging herself and following quietly -for the first time in hours- seemed to be depending on him to find a way out of here.

"Cid, are we lost?" he looked back at her, "Because my feet hurt, and I'm tired."

He frowned and tried not to nod, "Yeah," he mumbled, "I can't see a direction without that light, so unless something happens, I think we're gonna have to wait for the fog again," he looked way at Yuffie's expression, "What!? But we'll freeze!"

"Didn't freeze last night, so who says we will tonight? Shit, I thought ya were more positive than that! But look, I remember that," he pointed to a long outcrop of rock spearing out over the valley, "The light was beyond that, if we can get there today and rest up, we can continue tomorrow."

"Yeah!" she perked up, "Heck, we might even see civilisation from there, come on, Cid!"

"Hoi!" he called after her as she scooted past, "I thought ya feet fucken hurt!?"

"Better now!"

"Shit…" he took off after her.

They'd been walking for far longer that day than either of them had realised, even though Cid had quickly noticed that with the cold air, that hadn't got much better with day, and time passing quickly through the day, it would seem to be early Winter, or very early Spring, either way, it was a concern, that last night might have been a fluke, the last warm night of the year, and if this was Winter, it really had been mild without cloud cover. That wasn't bothering him now though, what was bothering him now was the cut on his arm, it wasn't clotting and his handkerchief was soaked through with dark blood.

Climbing up the shale valley walls had been tricky, Yuffie, lighter and nimble had hopped up the loose rock, but one wrong footstep and the rock had shifted under Cid, sending him flying backwards and slamming him into the sharp stones, a shard had sliced into him, at the time he had just been glad he'd got away without a broken neck, but now he was starting to curse the throbbing cut. They had, however, gotten to the outcrop without much other hardship, just as the sun had started to sink below the high horizon.

Yuffie was perched on the edge, bare legs swinging in the air, Cid sat back, leaning against a crystalline structure jutting out of the rock, he was tired and his stomach felt tight, he was also hard pressed to figure out why: was it the blood starting to trickle down his arm, or the metallic smell that filled his nostrils and made the bile rise in his throat, now he knew -didn't remember, but did know- that he'd smelt that smell before, and was currently associating it with unpleasant things and painful times.
A few days later Cid would return here, and beable to put a name to the smell, because those crystals were strangely like natural materia deposits.

Cid dozed as it grew colder, and only woke up again when he felt Yuffie curl up at his side, "'m cold," she said and Cid hugged her closer, though it made him wince when the almost-but-not-quite knitted cut flexed. If he was going to be cold tonight, Yuffie was going to be freezing.

"Hoi, hoi, gal, wake up," he shook her, and the movement made motes of light dance in front of his eyes, his arm was still shining with new blood, "There's cloud cover," Yuffie, shivering and yawning looked up at the dull orange glow, overhead now, "I think we're close to the light source," Cid said, "Come on, help me up," he chuckled, Yuffie shook her head but pulled him up anyway and together, hungry, cold and tired, they hobbled away from the valley down a dark canyon, toothy crystals lined it's walls.

"…Shit."

"Yeah. I think we found the light source."

"Mmn. Still don't look like 'Radiant Gardens' to me though."

"Hay! Hay! Up here!"

"Who's that? Yuffie pointed upwards, a young woman with a voluptuous bosom, was bouncing up and down waving to them, "Oh! Oh it's Tifa!" Yuffie tore away from Cid's side and started to bound up the rock sides to the higher levels where the woman was. Cursing and muttering under his breath, Cid followed, "Damn it," he growled, "Of all the people to meet us, bet I get a bollocking, probably my fault Yuffie and I were together so long… Bah! We were meant to have all shown up together, but noooo…"