AN - Thank you for all the reviews/faves/alerts. :)

"Celes Ascending" by Imrryr

Chapter 2: "Non so più cosa son"

...

"I don't know anymore what I am, or what I'm doing

Now I'm on fire, now I'm freezing

Every woman makes me change colour,

Every woman makes my heart flutter."

- Cherubino from Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro'

...

Three Years Ago, in the city of Vector...

...

"Celes."

...

"Celes?"

'Nnngggh..?'

"Hey, Celes? Wake up already!"

Groggily, the Imperial General opened her eyes. Before her was a familiar table with its many disorganized stacks of papers.

She shook her head, 'I really need to stop making a habit of falling asleep at my desk,' she mused. 'This is what - the third time this week? It's soooo pathetic...'

What was worse, she had been using her upper arm as a pillow, so there was no way she didn't have a big red mark on her face right now.

Sitting up and brushing the hair out of her eyes, Celes finally acknowledged the tall, dark haired woman looming over her. It was Colonel Fang, dressed in her tribal sari, a clear sign she wasn't on duty at the moment. Then her eyes darted to the windows, 'Oh, crap.' It hadn't been dark the last time she looked outside.

Fang stared down at her with those piercing green eyes and a slight smile on her face. Celes didn't know why, but her friend's predatory gaze always made her feel a little uncomfortable; like all her secrets weren't so secret when this woman was around. It was fortunate that the woman was so trustworthy (tribal codes of honor and all that) because she found herself frequently confiding in the younger woman. "You know," the unexpected guest drawled, "that red band across your forehead looks real good on you. Ever consider wearing a bandanna?"

Before Celes could even begin think of a suitably sarcastic reply, Lightning, her young squire, burst into the room. The girl dashed to the table and gave Fang a murderous look. But surprisingly, despite her haste, her voice was as calm as ever, "I'm sorry, General. I wasn't able to stop her."

"Damn right," Fang said, flashing the young Magitek Knight a grin. "And you won't ever be able to stop me either, Sunshine."

The sight of Lightning's narrowing eyes had Celes quickly holding up a hand in an attempt to diffuse the situation. Those two were always - fighting? flirting? She wasn't entirely sure sometimes. "Lightning, please, it's fine."

The young woman nodded, cast one last suspicious glance at the still grinning Fang, and then reluctantly turned on her heel and took her usual spot by the far door. 'That girl is way too rigid for her own good', Celes thought. She wondered who was training the young Magitek Knights these days, or if maybe the training was all handled by machines now.

"So," Celes began, as she rubbed her temple, "What brings you here at this time of night?"

Fang took a seat in her customary way: by grabbing the nearest chair, turning it around and sitting on it backwards. "First, it's barely 1900 hours. Second, I got something important to talk to you about, yeah?"

"Fine... Fine..." Celes said, instinctively reaching out for a now long cold cup of coffee. Fang was one of the few close friends she had in the army. And among women who had never been infused with magic, she had the highest rank by far. Oerba Yun Fang was commander of the prestigious 101st 'Flying Viper' Brigade. If ever there was a mountain fortress to be taken, a strategic bridge captured, a stronghold held against superior numbers, Fang's unit would always be Celes' first choice to handle it.

She was the most reliable soldier out there, man or woman, and she bloody well knew it.

The general looked down at the desk she had just been resting her head on for the past few hours, groaning when she noticed she had drooled on the list she was making. "Great. Now I'm going to have to re-write this."

"Good," Fang said, "and while you're doin' that you can put me on the top of that list."

'No way,' she thought, 'Fang couldn't possibly know, could she?' Thinking quickly, Celes decided to play dumb. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Fang rolled her eyes as she stared at the list beneath the general's hand. "Don't give me that. The Emperor wants an entire platoon of the best your army has to offer for some kind of secret mission. And as I see it, they don't have the best if they don't have me," she said with a tone that exuded absolute confidence in her own abilities. It was a tone she used often.

And if Celes' senses hadn't been enhanced by the Magitek infusion process, she might have missed Lightning's dismissive snort from the far end of the room.

"You know I can't talk about that, Fang. It's classified."

In a flash, Fang was on her feet and her chair was on its side. "Classified?" she roared. "My ass is classified! Are we friends or what?"

Celes sighed in defeat, she had a hard time denying Fang anything. "Fine... yes, I'm compiling a list of suitable candidates, but no, you're not going."

'Oh, that did it'. The warrior planted her hands firmly on the general's desk. "And why the hell not?"

Celes gulped involuntarily. It was at times like these that she was glad Fang truly was her friend. In the face of the woman's temper she needn't be worried about her own safety... although, the safety of her furniture was another matter entirely.

"Fang. We've got a war brewing with Tzen, I'm going to need you here. I can't have all my best commanders away from their units if we get the call to move."

"No chance of that happening, Blondie. I've heard Kefka's got that command for sure."

What? Kefka? Leading an army? Celes's mood was quickly turning sour. 'Was this some kind of sick joke?' "Who told you that?"

"Paine." Fang continued when Celes gave her a blank look, "You know, General Leo's squire, she filled me in. Kefka's been bitter about not getting a crack at military glory. I guess granting him this command is the Emperor's way of shutting him up, and keeping the fool from burning down the Imperial Palace in his boredom."

By this point, Celes was out of her chair and pacing. It just didn't make sense. What was going on in Gestahl's head? "But Kefka? I wouldn't trust him to run a lunch buffet, let alone an entire army!"

"No argument here," Fang said with a shrug. "But as I was sayin', you won't be needing me for anything, so just jot my name down on that sheet of paper there and I can get goin'."

Celes sighed as she picked up a pen. She would have to put the Kefka matter out of her mind. There was nothing that she could do about it anyway; if Gestahl made a decision then the matter was settled. "Where do you have to go in such a damn hurry anyway?" she asked as she added Fang's name to the top of a brand new list.

"Big get together at the Black Hand Inn. You're always welcome to join us, you know?" Fang smirked as Celes began shaking her head before she had even finished. "Come on! Lots of people will be there, plenty of handsome men and women, whichever tickles your fancy."

Celes blushed. "N - No thanks, Fang. I'm backed up as it is," she said, gesturing to a desk piled high with documents.

"Remove that stick from your butt and you'll find that'll clear itself out naturally," Fang said with a laugh as she made to leave.

Celes rolled her eyes, but called out Fang's name to stop her. The seriousness of her tone got the warrior's attention. "Are you sure you want to do this? If you go, you won't have the rest of your unit backing you up. I don't want to lose my best officer." 'Or my best friend,' she almost added.

The warrior smiled. "Every day could be my last. You know as well as I do that I could just as soon die tomorrow to an assassin's blade," she said with a shrug. "There are lots of people from Maranda who'd like to see me dead, same as you."

"What if I said I'd miss your company?"

Fang laughed. "Now that I'd understand, but no worries, you got Lightning here, and all those other attractive young guards of yours."

"Yeah, yeah," Celes said quickly, before Fang could embarrass her further. She should've known better than to try to change the warrior's mind. "Just... watch your back out there, all right? Come back safe. You can consider that an order," she added with a slight smile.

"No worries, love. Not even the end of the world could stop me."

With a slap to the blond woman's shoulder, she then looked Lightning up and down with a look of appraisal that had the pink haired woman narrowing her eyes again.

"You're welcome to come to the party too, you know."

Lightning shook her head. In response, Fang leaned over and whispered something into the girl's ear, which, Celes noticed, caused the young squire's face to turn a surprising shade of red. Celes grew alarmed when she saw the girl's hands tighten into fists, but fortunately, Lightning just stood there, like the well trained squire she was.

"See ya later, Sunshine," Fang added, flashing the squire a smile before she walked down the hallway and slammed the door behind her.

Celes noted with amusement that her squire's cheeks were still pink. "You know, I think she likes you, Lightning."

The other woman shook her head. "Hmph... I'm pretty sure she treats half the people in Vector like that."

"Perhaps, but she only gives nicknames to the ones she really likes."

"Lucky us then," Lightning said, looking up from the floor with a knowing smile.

Celes smiled, "Yeah," she said with a laugh. Then she sighed, remembering the list on her desk. Now she needed to copy the other forty-nine names from the old list onto this one. She'd never been inside an Imperial recruitment office, but doubtless the recruitment posters there emphasized the 'seeing the world' aspect of Imperial service more than the 'fill out forms and stand around with your thumb up your ass' parts.

"Just wait until you're a general, Lightning," Celes said as she leaned over her desk and wrote. "Then you'll be the one filling out endless forms day after day, and attending meetings with people like Kefka on a regular basis, while the smart ones, like, say, Fang," she said, pausing to nod in the direction of the door, "have all the fun."

"First time anyone's used the words 'smart' and 'Fang' in the same sentence," the pink haired woman muttered to herself.

Celes laughed. Lightning didn't take Fang's teasing well, but all the same, the girl had an undeniable crush on the older woman, a situation that Celes thought was just about the cutest thing ever.

"What was she yelling about, anyway?"

Since clearly this secret mission wasn't as big of a secret as she once thought, she handed her old list to Lightning.

"This is..." It took the girl a moment to make sense of it, "This is a list of all the most highly decorated soldiers in your army," Lightning said, sounding a bit confused. There wasn't a single soldier listed who hadn't been awarded the Knight's Cross, or a medal of valor of some kind or another.

"That's right. Gestahl wants fifty of the best soldiers I have for a mission 'of vital importance to the future of the Empire'," she said, making air quotes with her free hand as she continued writing.

For a moment, the only sound to be heard was the scratching of Celes' pen against paper. '- Number 18: Brigadier General Raines, Number 19: Sergeant -'

"I - can I speak freely?"

Celes stopped, more surprised by the woman's tone than the question, "Always."

"I don't like the sound of this."

"Just between you and me," the General began, crossing her arms and leaning back against the desk, "I don't either." And even that was an understatement. Everything about the Emperor's request was highly unorthodox. She just hoped it wasn't another pointless raid, like the one on Kohlingen last year. Twenty Imperial soldiers and over three-hundred civilians dead, and all for no gain whatsoever.

Still, if anyone could survive this upcoming mission, it would be Fang.

"Then why put your best soldiers at risk?"

Celes gestured at the chair Fang had knocked over earlier. Lightning took the hint, righted the chair and sat down.

"Have I ever told you how I got this command?"

Lightning shook her head. She had only been Celes' squire for maybe half a year now, and they hadn't spent much of their time talking about the past. Neither woman had childhoods that were all that pleasant.

"I was eighteen years old, officially I was a General of the Empire, but I had no army to lead. I watched as male Knights younger than me were given commands while I sat around doing... well, doing pretty much what I'm doing right now: filling out forms, just not for my own army, but rather for Leo's.

"Then, out of the blue, I was summoned to the Imperial Court. The Emperor actually met me in the waiting room, which was a huge honor in itself. He told me that he was building a new world order, and in his vision of a united humanity there would be no room for sexism. Everybody in his empire was to be given the position they were most suited for in life. He said that he chose me personally when I was plucked from that orphanage as a baby. He said he knew I was destined for great things, and there was no way I was going to be allowed to waste my life.

Celes blushed. She could still remember how, after that meeting, she grinned like an idiot all the way back to the dormitory. "And, well, the very next day I was traveling west to take command of the Third Imperial Army."

"The Maranda Campaign?"

"Yeah," Celes said with a slight smile.

"But -"

"What does that have to do with this?" Celes asked as she held up her list, Lightning nodded with a rare smile of her own. "Emperor Gestahl believed in me. He allowed me to hold the lives of one-hundred thousand of his soldiers in my hands, all so I could have a chance to prove myself. Now, I will show the Emperor how much I believe in him by sending my finest officers and soldiers on this mission of his."

Lightning nodded. "I think I understand."

Celes nodded back.

"Can I ask one more question?"

"Of course."

"Why am I not going?" she asked, crossing her arms. If Celes didn't know better, she'd call the girl's tone 'petulant'.

Celes fought back a smile. "You're already a fantastic soldier, Lightning, but you're still young. In another year you'll have an official rank and I can assign you to any unit you like. This mission, however, is for highly experienced veterans only."

The young Knight sighed.

"Don't be in such a hurry. You have plenty of years ahead of you in which to impress Fang with your martial skills."

"Oh, please..." she protested. But the blush from earlier had returned.

Celes dropped back into her chair. "Now, go," she said, pointing to the door, "tell Fang and the others, I said 'hi'."

"Wh –"

"I know you're thinking about going."

Lightning huffed and shook her head, pink strands of hair falling in front of her eyes. Inwardly, Celes was happy to see that, despite the girl's military upbringing, she could sometimes still look like the teenager she was.

"Just do me a favor and put a record on before you go."

The girl nodded; it was a typical request. Celes enjoyed listening to music and had an absolutely massive collection of records, all which occupied an entire wall of her office. "Any preferences?"

"Something classical," she mumbled distractedly, already returning to her list.

With an amused smile, because all Celes had in her collection was classical music, Lightning pulled out what was apparently a recording of an opera in a language she couldn't understand. When the record began to play and Celes began mouthing the words, Lightning quietly exited the room. Without a thought, her feet took her outside and in the direction of the Black Hand Inn.

Back in her office, Celes sang quietly to herself as she completed her list. Unfortunately, the rest of the night's paperwork required substantially more of her attention.

'Now to go through these damn reports...'

She honestly tried to stay awake, but by the time she got to Colonel Erulin's hundred page report entitled 'Preliminary Survey on the Status of the Aqueduct Networks in the Imperial Commissariat of Maranda,' Celes could feel herself nodding off. But that was o.k. There was always tomorrow. And it wasn't like she had anything better to do these days.

...

The Present Day, in the Forest South of Narshe...

...

As she awoke, the lyrics from that opera still lingering in her head,

'Ogni donna cangiar di colore, ogni donna mi fa palpitar...'

Yet some strange reason, she thought she could hear a vaguely familiar voice calling her name. "Celes, is that you?"

"Ogni don-na mi faaa paaal-pitaaar..."

"Um... Celes, are you all right?"

The blond woman groaned and shook her head. That memory from all those years ago... it felt so real. As bored as she had been in Vector, those days had still been the last happy ones she could remember having. Two weeks later, Fang and forty-nine of the Third Army's finest officers and soldiers disappeared and never returned.

No one would ever tell her what became of those fifty men and women, only that they died for the glory of the Empire, but the loss of such fine warriors was a serious blow to Celes' army. Moreover, it was a serious blow to Celes herself. She knew each and every one of those soldiers personally. She had been friends with many of them, had even grown up with some of them.

Indeed, practically everything in Celes' world fell apart in the weeks that followed, and that included her young squire. Lightning was no longer the same woman. The changes were probably hard for an outsider to notice, but Celes could see the telltale signs of sleepless nights in the bags under the woman's eyes, and she hadn't seen Lightning smile since the day the news came back. Losing Fang was a bigger blow to the young Knight than she'd ever admit, even to Celes.

A few months later, and not long after Lightning turned seventeen, Celes gave her command of Fang's demoralized regiment. She seemed pleased. It was an opportunity to honor Fang's memory, to do something that would make Fang proud of her, even if the woman was no longer around to actually be proud of her. Lightning immediately began devoting all of her time to rebuilding the unit, and by all accounts became as admired by the men and women of the 101st as Fang had been, but over the months and years that followed, she and Celes drifted apart to the point where the woman stopped answering her letters entirely.

Left to herself, receiving nothing but deflections when inquiring about the fate of her soldiers, commanding the ruins of a demoralized army with no enemies on the continent left to fight, Celes began to examine her life as an Imperial General. More and more she found herself questioning the orders she was being given, and the role her army was expected to perform. Eventually, she even came to question the use of power itself, and whether or not it was truly right to unite the world by force, as the Emperor, and she too at one point, desired.

It was those traitorous questions that eventually led her here, to this forest...

...

"A mysterious young woman, born with the gift of magic, and enslaved by the Gestahlian Empire"

Terra Branford

...

Shaking her head again, Celes tensed. Someone was definitely kneeling over her, but this was no dream. Despite crashing into that tree, she still had enough of her wits about her to be certain it wasn't Fang or Lightning. Besides, this person's hair... it was... green?

"Celes!"

Whoever it was placed a small hand on her aching forehead. In an instant, Celes felt a pleasant warmth traveling through her entire body. She recognized the feeling... healing magic. Her eyes rolled back in her head. It always felt worlds better to be healed by someone else, rather than doing the healing yourself, and Celes was exhausted, so this... well, this felt exceptionally good. Certainly, a hell of a lot better than those mass-produced potions the army handed out.

Finally, she could see properly, and her splitting headache was diminishing. She opened her eyes again. 'Green Hair, curious blue eyes. You know, that face looks awfully familiar. Wait -' "Terra?"

The kneeling woman smiled a bit nervously, "Hello, Celes," she said in a familiar, timid voice, "Um... how have you been?" The girl was remarkably calm, considering she was completely naked. "Do you feel o.k. now?"

Celes stared back at the girl with her mouth hanging open. Terra was naked. Why in the world was she naked? Unconsciously, she looked the woman up and down. 'Wow', she thought, 'apparently, green is her natural hair color.' Eyes widening as the full reality of the situation hit her, the General stammered, certain that her complexion was as red as a tomato at that moment. "Y-y-you're... uh... naked, Terra."

Terra looked down and regarded herself for a moment, "Yes," she said, blushing, "I, uh - appear to have misplaced my clothes."

'Yes, but WHY?' her mind screamed. Vowing to look anywhere except directly ahead, Celes quickly spotted her backpack lying on the grassy ground a few feet away and pointed to it. "M-my cape... it's in there."

Terra regarded the object, not quite understanding what Celes was getting at.

"Put it on, Terra."

"OH! Right, right..." she said, getting up quickly.

Before she could see any more parts of her, Celes clapped both hands over her eyes. She would not look. It wasn't proper to look. 'She sure is pretty though,' her mind added unhelpfully, and it even supplied pictures to illustrate the point.

A few moments of rustling followed, before Terra called out, "Um... you can open your eyes now."

Celes did so. She was now very, very thankful she had kept her green cape, and was rather amused with how well it matched the color of Terra's long, green hair. She did everything she could to forget that the woman was completely naked under it.

"Thank you for letting me borrow this," the green haired woman said with a slight smile, wrapping the cape more tightly around her thin body.

"N-no problem, Terra," Celes replied weakly while still trying to avert her eyes. Gods, was this ever awkward. Waking up with a naked woman practically in her lap was really throwing her off her game.

"It's good to see you again. How long has it been?" Terra asked, making an attempt to alleviate the awkwardness of this situation. Although the memory of her time under Imperial control was becoming more and more clear, she still couldn't remember ever being in a situation more uncomfortable than this.

Celes found her mind clearing now that Terra was no longer naked, "Three years, I think. The rally at the Grand Palace." And they hadn't really spoken that day. It hadn't been long after she had received the news about her fifty soldiers. She hadn't been in the mood to talk to anyone.

Terra nodded sadly.

Despite her own high position in the Imperial hierarchy, Celes didn't really know Terra all that well. They had played together very occasionally as children, but once she hit her teens she was frequently off training, and Terra... well, she didn't know what the Empire, and Kefka, were doing with her. Perhaps she didn't want to know. But there was one thing about the young woman that was a constant throughout all those years and continued to the present day: the ever present sense of sadness that hung about her; a feeling like the girl had lost something very important to her. Celes wouldn't be at all surprised if that were the case.

Wait just a damn minute... That face, she had seen it just before she blacked out! "Terra? That pink creature... that was you, wasn't it?"

The woman cringed, but nodded again.

Celes' mind raced. How was something like that even possible? "Have you always been able to do that?"

"N-no. It just... sort of... happened, and," Terra paused, thinking for a moment, "I think that may be how I lost my clothes."

"But how did you transform?"

"I-" Terra shut her mouth and regarded Celes skeptically. She had only been with the Returners for a few weeks now. What would Banon want her to say? How much was she allowed to tell the other woman? Was Celes still with the Empire? The woman was still dressed like a general, but the very fact she was out here alone in the woods certainly didn't make any sense. She couldn't picture General Leo hiking in the mountains deep behind enemy lines all by himself.

Perhaps she was out here to defect? Maybe she could be persuaded to join the resistance?

Either way, now was the time to see where the blond woman's loyalties were, and maybe prepare to throw a fireball at her just in case Celes didn't like the bombshell she was about to drop. "I've joined the Returners."

"The Returners?" 'What are the odds of that,' she wondered. In fact, her surprise was so great she didn't even register Terra's evasion of her original question.

Terra looked like she was getting increasingly irritated and distrustful, so Celes moved quickly to diffuse the situation. "I'm not with the Empire anymore either."

The green haired woman cocked her head. It reminded Celes of the way that pink version of Terra had reacted to her order to 'stay back'. "You're not?" Unbeknownst to her, the fire spell Terra had been preparing died in her hand. Maybe Celes could be trusted...

"I disagreed with the wrong people, in front of the wrong people. Major-General Dekker tried to have me locked up, but I escaped," Celes said simply. The less she thought about the past two weeks of traveling, the happier she would be. "I'm headed to Narshe. An Imperial army is marching there as we speak."

"Narshe? That's where I was bef-" Terra abruptly closed her mouth, staring at Celes suspiciously.

Celes smiled at the slip-up. 'So Narshe threw their lot in with the Returners then?' "What were you doing there?" she asked.

Terra sighed, this whole attempt at trying to figure out Celes' intentions without compromising the Returners was not going to plan. "Well, originally, Kefka sent me there with two other soldiers. Then I escaped, joined the Returners and came back." That was a very heavily abridged summary of the last several months, but she hoped it would do.

Of course, it didn't.

"Why would Kefka send you to Narshe?" Sure, Narshe was rich in mineral wealth, but it was hardly worth the cost in terms of lives and material that would be lost in order to secure a city so deep in Returner territory. There must be something incredibly valuable there.

Terra sighed and shook her head. It was time to lie... or at least, mislead slightly. That was o.k. if done for a good cause, right? "There are a lot of things I don't remember... Kefka made me wear a slave crown for the mission –"

Celes interrupted, her voice laced with fury, "A slave crown?"

Terra shivered. She thought she felt the wind pick up and the air grew noticeably chillier, but maybe that was just in her head. Regardless, Celes in anger was probably the most frightening thing she had ever seen.

"Sorry," the woman said weakly when she noticed the hint of fear in Terra's eyes. "It's just – those things should be banned. They should be more than banned! They should be dumped in a volcano, and then the volcano should be dumped in the ocean! It's inhuman to use them..." Of course, that very aspect easily explained why Kefka was so fond of the damned things.

The other woman nodded, but said nothing.

Minutes of awkward silence followed with both women staring nervously at their feet.

'How do I get her to trust me?' Celes wondered. Perhaps she could start by making her betrayal official. After all, here was a prime opportunity to forge a new destiny. Here was an opportunity to join a movement that might have more to offer her than broken promises, rule by maniacs, and a united world that more closely resembled a graveyard than the utopia Celes had dreamed of as a teenager.

It might be the only opportunity she would ever get. Sitting up straight, Celes steeled herself. "I want to join the Returners," she said into the quiet. "If they'll have me..."

The green-haired woman blinked, this was unexpected, she had thought Celes was as loyal to the Empire as Leo, or even Kefka. Yet somehow it made sense... the blond woman had never been much like either of them. Even when they were in Vector, Celes made little secret of her contempt for Kefka and his actions.

"Can I trust you, Celes?"

"I swear it, Terra," she said quietly, yet solemnly, "on all the honor I have left. I want-,"she paused, 'What do you want, Celes?' "I want to make up for the mistakes I've made." 'Oh, great, you'd better clear your calendar for the next hundred years then...'

It was annoying, but her inner voice was right about that. What could she possibly do that would ever make up for Maranda?

There was a another lull while Terra thought it over. As one of the Empire's most successful military leaders, Celes would be a huge asset to the Returners. But would her friends trust her? And if she were given soldiers to command, would they trust her? Admittedly, Terra had no idea; she wasn't military minded. She wasn't even a soldier, never had been. All of her life she had been a pawn. She wondered if, even after changing sides, she might still be one.

Meanwhile, being left to think, Celes was feeling increasingly miserable. It took years for her to become a respected military commander, working twice as hard as the men just to get half as much respect. Now she would have to do it all again, only this time with the specter of her betrayal hanging over her every action.

"All right."

"Huh?" What had they been talking about?

"I believe you. We can go to Narshe together, and I'll introduce you to Banon." 'And Edgar, Arvis, and hopefully Locke, if he's back by now,' she mentally added. If Celes was on some kind of unlikely assassination mission, Terra was reasonably confident that she and her friends together could stop her.

Not that she thought that would be necessary. She wanted to trust this woman. Celes had always been kind to her.

"But will they have me?" Celes asked in a surprisingly meek tone of voice.

Terra smiled. "I'll vouch for you."

"A former slave of Kefka vouching for a former general of the Empire... Yes, I'm sure that will go over well," the blonde woman muttered. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm, but there was a slight smile still on her lips.

Terra's own smile widened as she held out her hand, and with one strong tug, the former general was back on her feet. It was surprising how easily the other woman pulled her up. 'She must be a lot stronger than she looks,' Celes thought. 'I wonder if it's because she was born with magic?' There were so many things she didn't know about the woman, she had no idea where to begin.

"So..." Celes drawled, "you really don't know how you turned into that pink creature?"

Terra frowned. "I - well, like I said, my memory is kind of foggy," that wasn't exactly a lie; Terra could vaguely remember Banon, Edgar, and Arvis walking with her through the caves. She could remember the esper, and how it seemed to react to her presence... but then, there was a blank, and the next thing she knew she was flying through the air.

Even now, there were bits of memories coming to the surface that she couldn't quite place. Everything felt jumbled and out of sequence. It was like her mind had been run over by a herd of chocobos.

"You see, there's -" 'No,' Terra abruptly shut her mouth. There was this unbelievably strong desire to share everything with the other woman. Celes was a Magitek Knight, and she had served the Empire all her life, perhaps she was the key Terra needed in order to better understand herself. But still, Celes was an Imperial General, had at one time sworn loyalty to the Emperor, and had almost flattened Maranda for him. Could anyone who had done those things ever be trusted?

She would need to get to know Celes better before telling her about the frozen esper. "You'll just have to see when we get there," she added with a shake of her head.

Celes sighed. Terra was definitely holding back something, or rather, a lot of somethings, but for whatever reason she just didn't have the heart to force it out of the girl. Terra was by no means a weak person, physically or mentally, but the last thing Celes wanted to do was upset her. At least she was certain this wasn't a trap; Terra seemed to be a rotten liar.

The blond woman walked around the clearing, gathering up the various things that had been sent flying from her earlier encounter with the woman. 'Backpack, canteen, longsword, coin purse, scabbard... Now, where the hell is my -'

"Hang on," Terra called out as she ran over to the crater, cape flapping in the breeze. Lying there in the dirt was Celes' silver runic blade. The well cared for weapon shone brightly in the sun. "Here's your sword," she said, bending over to pick it up.

"Terra, wait!" But it was too late; the girl touched the grip and let out a shriek that made Celes cringe. "It's a runic blade," Celes added weakly, "It's not attuned to you."

Terra, who must have jumped a full five feet backwards, shook her hand, trying to dispel the burning sensation running up and down her arm. "Oww..."

Next Chapter: To Narshe!

AN – A magic absorbing runic blade needs to be attuned to the user before it's picked up, otherwise the experience can be quite painful. :)

I originally intended for this chapter to continue up until our two heroines got to Narshe, but Celes' flashback went on for a bit longer than I anticipated. Sadly, despite this change, I'm still failing at limiting each chapter to five-thousand words.

Hopefully, it won't bug people that I've included characters from FFXIII in this story. I wanted to expand a bit on Celes' earlier life as a General, as well as give her some friends from those days beyond just her "granddad" Cid. You'll see some of the characters in Celes' flashback in later chapters, but only as minor characters.