"You can't blame anyone else for this, Kain."
"Can't you..be a little bit more sympathetic? Don't shrug your shoulders at me, Cecil," the irritated elder man spurts out. Neither of them could decide whether embarrassment or anxiousness is the culprit of..Kain's specter-pale face.
I think it's both. And even more, suppressing the laughter (not sadistic, Cecil promises both to himself and half-heartedly to Kain) isn't a feat he'd decide to be easy.
"Deep breaths," Cecil musters, I promise it will help and not squash your ego! but Kain yells out something that could've been either offensive or sexual, it's the first case at this situation though.
Kain actually does it anyway - a rather over-exaggerated version of it. "No, I am NOT getting flustered about something like...ugh..."
Kain Highwind, leader of Dragoons, King of Sarcasm.
Something is burning his entire body, head to toe with lazor beams. The merciless, don't-screw-with-me glare is definitely expected, "but Kain..." Cecil is already pounding his fists on his thighs in an attempt to control his mirth, "that makes you look more adorable! You know, like a hungry cat!"
Slowest and most painful doom impending, the younger man deliberately slinks away...slowly...slowly...
Just to give Rosa some painted paper roses? Teehee. Kain, you're a true romantic.
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Redolent with everything and nothing at the same time, Rosa's small apartment tells of two comforting stories: home - an actual home that dried a drenched, tired heart. homely air profusely singing with the scent of lemon pies, spirited flowers on the velvet curtains that ward off the distressing hailstorm outside.
Walls of his bedroom, temporarily protecting him from spears and arrows and orders to bloody battles. Rosa and Cecil's late-night visits, tickling him off the fake warmth of his empty bed. Cecil's smile chasing away the battle-lags cursing his brain while the incense Rosa brought is diffusing slowly and gently through his stale room, washing off the stench of blood branded on his armor. his heart. his hands. everywhere.
Rosa always treated the both of us equally. She never failed to prove that...
Kain closes the book running through his head, his chagrin and impoliteness this morning pushed away for now. Two comforting stories - home, and family...
The sole tear that escapes from his eyes is as white as his current face. more like transparent. Thank god they can't see it, Kain heaves out a sigh to himself.
"What's wrong, Kain?"
"Kain?" Cecil's concerned voice almost pushes out another tear, becoming double on the precipice. All three of them understand the saturated silence. overloaded with words, with feelings.
When the terrifying aftershocks couldn't wear off.
When the numbness could not uncloud his screaming mind.
"Your helmets," Rosa would soothe both of them with that voice that cut through the bloody, incomprehensible insanity of war and battle and crimson, "still can't...cover your eyes...can't cover your ears, both of you can still hear them...can't make you...unemotional," her words were a bit shaky because she couldn't bear seeing her only two boys suffer like this...
"Kain," the firmer voice is Rosa's, not Cecil's, "whatever you're thinking...please stop it." Cecil had fallen silent (but agreeing) at Rosa's side, his powder-blue eyes starkly pointing down the plush carpet.
"You too, Cecil," she gives them both a gentle pat on the shoulder, packaged along with that smile of the brilliant sun. This is Rosa Farrell.
Kain hears himself miraculously changing the subject. "I apologize for my...rudeness this morning," he's counting his toes, even if they're covered with socks. But what he really wanted to apologize for was his...I don't know. too many things.
The sun splayed on Rosa's lips magnify even more in its endless glory. But to her, it's just another plain everyday smile. "You and Cecil warm up near the fireplace while I get some cocoa. Okay?"
She has no idea what kind of woman she is, Cecil's eyes validate both of their thoughts. Looking at each other back and forth, no idea what to do...
Amidst the cacophony of clanging spoons and kissing mug cheeks and jars popping open (yes, the woman could make them that melodious), Rosa yells out from the counter, "You could sit on the couch and warm up, to start with!"
She really has no idea, Cecil shoots him a close second nod. They take Rosa's common-sense suggestion and settle on the long white couch, stuffed with lilac pillows like the flowers on Rosa's hair..
"A hailstorm outside and neither of you wearing a coat," that admonishing tone. The blonde woman lay the mugs down. And neither of them noticed just how large the gap between them is, until Rosa takes her place between them.
"It feels natural," Rosa follows-up the explanation, "but I don't know where the feeling comes from."
"No problem at all, Rosa," Cecil smiles at her casually, but couldn't exert the same feeling for the cocoa. House invitation when we barely know each other. I mean, for Rosa at least? Need. to drink. the. cocoa. Don't. look. impolite.
She is the person to chat with the assassin paid to take her life in a few seconds.
"Well...it seems like you needed me for something..." Kain could feel Cecil's heartbeat relax at his effort to get an actual conversation going.
"Oh yes," she sparkles even more, "well, those paper roses you did for me, Kain - you really didn't have to go through all that effort...I love them, though."
Is that rejection or what?
"No hassle. I'm still rather sorry - "
She pokes a finger to his gradually-warming cheek, and Cecil could swear Kain jumps to the ceiling, but Rosa is looking ever-so-comfortable, "None of that, sweetheart. I was the one out of my mind, calling someone when the day hasn't even broken yet."
"Then," Cecil covers for his friend whose brains are going to be stuck in Mars for at least fourteen more centuries, "it must've been something really urgent, Rosa."
"Actually...remember Rydia? That young girl back in the square?"
"Yes," Kain's brain has an unexpected early arrival from Mars, "what's going on with her?"
"Her mother...asked me to take care of her," the worry in Rosa's voice swells and swells, "off to find - oh, it's absurd, even for me!"
Cecil rubs her back and hushes her as Kain hands her the mug, "Nothing is absurd, Rosa."
"Oh, Cecil," Rosa takes a hurried sip and then some more, "and Kain..you were the only ones I could tell."
"But you haven't told us anything yet," Kain points out. Cecil glares at him. Give her time.
"Okay," she manages, taking deep breaths, "you know the statue of this strange dragon that nobody really knows where its design was based on?"
"It looks like a bald, uncomplicated Asian dragon to me," Kain says.
"Hmm," a finger to her chin, no idea how...delectable she looked, Rosa is in her imaginary bubble again. "Yea. Without the long stuff. The whiskers."
"But what happened exactly?" Cecil is growing more and more comfortable, unspokenly urging Kain to do so as well. "I did hear this morning that mist is gathering around it..."
"Like it's possessed or something," Kain adds.
"You don't have to put it that negatively, sweetie," Rosa croons, leaning down the table to reveal a hidden stash of...Turkish delights. Three hands fight for space in the box..
"Also," Cecil's voice sounds a bit funny while chewing, "that snow isn't covering it...it's the strangest thing I've ever heard in a while. Snow unable to cover it when everything else is blanketed and drowning."
"And mist surrounding it so suspiciously. It's growing thicker day by day," Rosa's voice held worry and concern for Rydia and her mother; Kain's, suspicion and speculation; Cecil, curiosity and more.
"So...I'm guessing the statue must have a special meaning for Rydia and her mother," Cecil's palm is on his chin, wearing that calculating, scouring expression..
Attention! Sir Cecil Harvey, Commander of the Red Wings!
Anything in sight?
No, my lord!
Toast...to my brother's fortunate return!
Cecil! Don't overthink, okay?
The son of the king is truly brilliant. A genius. Brilliant!
The Red Wings follow only you, Sir!
It's almost funny but common-sense, how Rosa's house is blurring and how...images of wood and brick and blazing torches lighting the dark, metal clanging at every step...helmets thrown frustratedly at the bed rather than hung on their respective stands when the mission turned out to be way too bloody..
Cecil's obsidian sword kissing Kain's dead-sharp lance in intimate, heated dances, much like how their bodies respond to each other in this life, and how their honest whispers and caresses spark flames...reminding Kain of those times when competitive spars fast-forwarded to draws - Cecil and Kain both on the ground, beat...
"We will help them," Kain concludes. The other two give him their own versions of strange looks, like he'd emerged from a portal back to planet Earth.
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I wonder if kids can absorb the feelings from art, even if it's not meant to be for them. It was extremely difficult, uncomfortable beyond words, unnatural as holding a foreign axe instead of a brush, to step out of Rosa's house. Neither wanted to keep each other for long - Rosa had class in fifteen minutes anyway. "You're always welcome here, though - even when I'm not here," the woman told both of them, inviting them in again and again with that signature refined radiance. as if they barely knew each other..
But the three of us...
"Yes, Kain," Cecil greets him for the fourth time this hour, "just like how some self-centered people make everything in town about them."
"I've been thinking deeply," he admits, pressing a quick kiss to Cecil's tranquil smiling lips. then pulling away like a cold ghost. quickly, quickly, quickly, before the kiss augments and augments and they're both helpless to peel themselves out of their own messy heat..
"It's just...I made them with Rosa in mind...what if the child picks up on the cheesiness of the whole goddamn crap?"
"It's not crap, these roses are symbols of your sincerity," Cecil sneaks yet another kiss, this one directly to the center of Kain's closed lips. anxiety still blocking passage. The small things, the seemingly-small body parts expand to a galaxy when one loves, I guess..
"Not now, you hungry imp," even though imp's a word that would never, ever suit Cecil. not in any life.
"Can't you think of better words?" the innocent chuckle is no match for Cecil's roaming hands.. Kain drags himself away, away away. The task defines the word unnatural.
"It took all my effort to tear myself from you," the artist sighs, recapping his one million previous thoughts in the last minute, transferring them on his face. then maybe Cecil would understand better. But knowing him, he still wouldn't stop..
"Then come back, Kain," Cecil whispers, but respects Kain's choice for now. His hands stay still. but equally eager to start whenever Kain said yes again.
"Let's go see the statue first," Kain forces it out, out out out - before he succumbs to the sweet temptation of Cecil's hands all over him and Cecil's lips breathing a searing fire into his lungs. "Rosa's counting on us. The storm has already let off. It should be fine now," but he's feeling so unsettled. like something unexpected is going to happen.
"Things will work out, Kain," Cecil switches to counselor mode again, "As much as we know about ourselves already...there will still be things we won't be able to control."
"You sound like Rosa," Kain says simply. There's a blank frown on Cecil's lips that says he doesn't know exactly what to make of the comment.
"I agree with you, Kain. Let's go." So Cecil recounts and actually remembers to make himself and Kain wear a coat. Just so if anyone, anyone happens to be mad enough to be in the now-perilous statue's square...they wouldn't gape at two young men wearing nothing but thick shirts and pants and boots. no coat. no bonnet. no scarves. in this cold.
"What Rosa said earlier has been getting to me," Kain confesses when they got out and the cozy wooden walls are replaced with unwelcoming, blank white snow, "...telling her that we don't really feel cold despite all of this. Ever since we were born."
There's a long expression on Cecil's face, "She said it out of concern. But I admit, Kain...I do feel the same way you do."
Kain starts walking faster, his feet desperate to match his heartbeat's skyrocketing march. Been a habit. The shorter-legged of the two, Cecil has to jog a bit to keep up. "What if we're just ghosts? Unsettled spirits of the past? Sent to this life for the sole purpose of making amends?"
"And so what if we are, Kain?" Cecil huffs out, raising his voice so that his pants wouldn't obscure his question. The scenery itself as a whole intensifies even more...the snow mercilessly sweeps to a horrifying white. the winter cold finally seeps to their bones and the absence of human life in the perimeter actually sinks in.
"You know how this feels, Cecil," kicking the snow isn't enough to silence the frustration. the venom in his voice. "All my life, I've been sure I was the one who led my own story. Now, I'm proven wrong."
"By thinking like this, you're giving yourself less power," Cecil swallows hard, coming closer to Kain's side. "You're right. Let's get to the statue and clear things up."
"I know this feeling, Cecil," Kain's words glue their feet to the snow, "we're going to learn a truth we don't even want to hear about."
"If it's the truth," it's after a while before Cecil could manage to speak, "then it's worth hearing about. I didn't want to recall your betrayals in the past. How it crushed you. But I still saw them all. It didn't make you any less of the Kain Highwind that I love."
Kain turns away. "Your words are supposed to be touching...but it's the wrong timing now, Cecil. I'm sorry." He walks faster, determination pushing his heels to move, to move, to move. Time seems to halt; Kain's too absorbed in his thoughts. His feet leave no tracks in the snow. the scenery doesn't register in his eyes, the wind is howling a familiar feral song from long, long ago...something is wrong. many things are wrong.
"KAIN!"
"CECIL!"
The snow itself howls and howls a million things all at once. scattered and coalesced at the same time, curses and curses and curses and threats of doom blanking out the whiteness even more. Nature is against them.
"Don't listen to it!" Cecil sounded like his windpipe was being crushed. "Don't listen, Kain! It's testing us!"
The ground beneath him splitting, the sky impressing itself upon the collapsing earth. There was nowhere to jump. not when rocks crashed like meteors from everywhere. They were trapped between the ground and the sky; they were trapped inside their own useless bodies.
Would there be a place to go?
I can't find Cecil anywhere.
It wasn't our fault, was it? We were told to bring a ring...but we should've checked what was in the sack before we set out!
I HATE YOU! the young girl's voice thundered over the mayhem.
We didn't mean to kill your mother.
We were so blind to obey our King, even if we knew he wasn't himself recently.
Cecil's hesitations were right.
"Little girl...we are sorry...just please let us bring you somewhere safe," Kain remembered Cecil reaching out to the girl, but goodwill wasn't a language you could communicate with to a newly-orphaned.
A surge of snow rips through the insane whiteness like a cannonball.
Kain breathes deeply, and even deeper as he starts to feel the eons-old strength gather around his legs, blessing his thighs with that power he loved so much...
The vice snow lungs for his stomach like a deadly blade. Kain's brain carries out a command. He plummets up out of the way, high high high, even though the blankness and redundance of the snow rendered height immeasurable.
From his vantage point, he spots a greyish-purplish-black...aura? clearly defying the snow. Veering a bit to the side, Kain catches himself thinking, "Yes, Cecil. You can't fight light with light. Good choice."
Hold on...Cecil can switch?
A defined hiss amidst the snowstorm warns Kain of another attack. As fast as an exhale, Kain lands on the purplish-black sanctuary. It won't be able to come close.
Dark azure blends in with purplish-black. Kain is dematerializing to blend in with Cecil's nonphysical form, but he doesn't really care as long as they're safe.
"We're not going to strike it down this time, Kain," he hears Cecil speak. He knows the snow can't hear them.
"Definitely not. Not like last time."
"Rydia," the name turns the locked door open; it's the right key. "...I'm sure she's here somewhere."
Kain doesn't know how in any law of magick or physics can he jump in this flame-aura-whatever form, but he's grateful for it. Cecil's Darkness still lingered all over him...like a blessed full-body kiss, so the pure-white snow is repelled like a bad spell.
The snow still renders him blind, with the all-encompassing blankness. But the statue's shaking, glowing in desperation. A very small pale-bluegreen aura flickered on and off near its base, obviously unable to hold its own against this terrifying snow...
Or is she the one causing all this?
Purplish-black flies down to meld with him in a split-second, "No, Kain. We are not going to repeat the same mistake!"
Kain halts, grateful for the refill of protection. Quite funny how one had to be protected against Holy. Holy, of all things. "What would you have us do, Cecil?"
"The roses!" Cecil's voice is starting to distort, as if the holy snow's biting it off to pieces. Persistence and determination kept Cecil running, even as his Darkness aura followed his voice to worrying flickers. "Rosa asked us to bring it!"
They're strange colors...even if Kain painted them for Rosa's forgiveness, it just didn't do. His brush was possessed - his mind was encaged in who-knew-what and light fuchsias and light purples became clear water-blue and mythical blue-greens.
And now they're crusting with ice even if the snow couldn't bite them off.
Both of them fight against the overpowering current - Cecil's strong, solid chest and Kain's powerful and flexible legs. The aura form is strange enough but it allowed them to meld bodies and complete..incompleteness. fill each other's gaps. Neither knew that they weren't able to do this, not even in their past lives...
"Rydia!" Cecil's yell is like a siren. No response; pale blue-green just kept flickering in and out in its own space.
"Cecil! What are you doing?" purplish-black is painfully yet gracefully paling to grey, then to a warning white. "Don't switch! The snow will devour you!"
"Rydia! It's not safe here!" Cecil's white is shimmering with a special light cornflower blue, setting it apart from the snow. Kain sighs in relief, until the cornflower blue cracks and Cecil returns to his physical body.
Pale blue-green wanes, then stabilizes. "Cecil.."
"CECIL!" Kain screams at the top of his lungs as he himself felt his flames switching to bones and skin, "THE SNOW WILL DEVOUR YOU! SWITCH BACK!"
Cecil's face, his entire body from head to toe is being drowned in the whiteness. He's shaking on and off like static on a sad telephone call, like a disturbed water surface, like tears voicing certainty.
"She didn't listen to me back then because she was...afraid of my armor," Cecil smiles down at her, and hands her the roses. Even if her face didn't look like she's decided yet.
"I..." Rydia's sobs thundered like her screams of fury long ago, "I didn't...realize back then that...it wasn't your fault!" the snow ripples down, calming and calming as if Rydia's sobs soothed their vice. But even so, the snow kept piercing Cecil's body in unforgiveness. Bruises started kissing and pounding into his muscles, and Kain is beginning to remember Dark Knight Cecil's contoured body again. He's upset that it's not his lips that are pounding into Cecil's skin, but Kain knows that they have to resolve things now.
I will heal those blasted bruises later.
Cecil's smile only widens, that Paladin light blessing his lips despite the furious snow. "We are sorry, Rydia. Me and Kain. Let's forgive each other."
"I, too, am sorry, little girl," Kain manages with sheer will, "Please stop the snow. Me and Cecil and Rosa will look after the statue. We promise," his voice is foreign, but he knows he's been dying to let go of the words ever since his past life. quite literally.
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It had been a tough, tough, tough day. Been too long, actually. Way too much revealed and imposed on all four of them in such a small timeframe. Tough and long and cold. Cecil notices that his thoughts are chopping up in bits and accepted that. Yes...looks like I really am tired. Rosa's ephemeral thank-yous and radiant smiles cut through the after-daze, though.
I'm worried about Kain…it's been really hard on him.
"I put Rydia to bed now," Rosa's voice drags him out of his introspection, "and Kain's soaking in the tub. Maybe he'll be out in about an hour...but he looks like a water-lover."
"That is true," it's a bit easier to force a smile.
"Thank you once again, Cecil. To both of you. Kain's sick of hearing me say it now…but I can never really thank you guys enough for this."
Cecil tries to flatten a chuckle at the thought of Kain scowling. "Always here to help, Rosa. No matter how odd or dangerous it turns out." He's rewarded with a soft kiss on the forehead. The woman's vanilla-rose perfume clears the stench of the snow that they'll hate so much now.
"I'm really glad to have you, my boys," Rosa says silently. as if she remembers the terror-filled nights, the torches casting long and dark shadows on the castle walls, the fact that the three of them were still together being the most soothing and most assuring knowledge in all of the universe. as if she remembers the three of them looking up to the Twin Moons, each wishing for different things. small things. big things.
"So are we, Rosa," Cecil returns, smiling vaguely. That smile wouldn't change whether Rosa remembers the three of them in the past life or not.
"Don't let today…linger on your mind," Rosa tells him, the nearby fireplace casting shadows on her face that Cecil finds very disconcertingly familiar.
You love Kain. You promised Kain. And Kain loves you. Kain promised you.
In a flash, both of their arms wrap around each other like perfect ribbons on the right box. For a moment, Rosa remembers everything and the homecoming of all that filled the blanks…for a moment, Cecil does not hesitate, Cecil does not plague himself with any guilt or any regret or any thought of Kain seeing them. not even a single thought of Kain finding out later.
In this moment, Kain did not exist.
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"You were cursed in this life as well, reborn only to amend the mistakes and bloodshed and darkness of the past,"
the snow…the mist's words…did Cecil hear them too? Kain has scrubbed his freezing skin raw in hopes of cleansing off the snow's stench. the snow's traumatizing weight; it's vengeful current that still sticks to his body complicatedly.
He saunters down the hallway, hoping to meet Cecil and Rosa in the living room. Then warm up a bit by the fireside, perhaps. Nothing is certain anymore. Even after amends and reconciliations.
Still, Kain pulls up a smile. He'll ask Rosa to let him and Cecil sleep on the same room – she'll agree, since she explicitly told Kain that she supported them. The guilt of rejecting Cecil earlier still tugs at him…he needed to make up. He promised Cecil that they would make love after the task was done with. And now it was. And they both needed the warmth and the primal contact…
When he opens his eyes, the walls crush in on him, the ceiling storms down savagely, and the fireplace explodes to a flare. Kain's eyes cry invisible tears of blood and every bone and sinew in his body rips to pieces a million times over. No matter how much red washes over his eyelids, Cecil and Rosa are sharing a blinding kiss. Both of them wanted it.
So they both remembered, huh.
Kain is grateful he wasn't that close to the living room. If he was, it would be harder to stumble away without causing a disturbance…
The door is closed as gently as how savage and unstoppable the hurricane inside Kain is. This time, he hears himself sobbing and he hates himself even more for it. Cecil's light, every single pair of butterfly wings and firefly gaiety is finally being consumed into the void. Red, crimson, most terrifying black floods Kain's senses.
I was foolish to think my time with him would last. Goddamn foolish.
The door slams open. Hurried, anxious – guilty footsteps rip his bludgeoning brain back to the present. to Rosa's guest room. to freezing London. "Kain!" It's Cecil's voice, thinking it wants and needs to heard. Rosa's by his side, thinking her face wants and needs to be seen right now.
All three are afraid to say anything. Cecil and Rosa are afraid to breathe, but they've both sucked each other's souls out already and are using that as an excuse to.
"Both of you can tell me it was a mistake."
"Kain-" Cecil's voice sounds slightly repentant, even though it just disgusts Kain even more.
"Both of you can tell me it was a kiss of friendship."
"It's not like that, Kain –" Rosa's voice makes him want to vomit right now. vomit his own guts out. They'll find Cecil's name in them. in every single fiber of his being. in every single corner of his cells, filthy or clean.
"I lost both of you in the past life," Kain's voice is breaking fast and he knows he has to finish the sentence even faster, "and now, they won't even let me have one of you? I didn't love Rosa this time. I didn't make that mistake again. But Cecil…" his tears dramatically freeze on the spot, mirroring his fluctuating heartbeat. It still screamed Cecil. Cecil. Cecil. Cecil.
Always the mediator, Rosa speaks first. Her moon-shaped face is pale; her lips are swollen, because Cecil gave them a slight modification earlier…"For a minute…I swear I remembered feelings. That's my…excuse, Kain."
"And what about you, Cecil?" Kain doesn't even bother to look up and read the man's expression. He doesn't care.
"I….I didn't want to make it awkward for her. She would feel so lost if I didn't…" Kain doesn't bother to read between the lines, to hold onto every rise and fall of Cecil's voice when he knew that it wasn't going to speak for him and him alone anymore.
"I remembered how you felt…burdened by memories you couldn't make sense of," Cecil continues, "I didn't want another person to feel the same way we did!"
"Don't raise your voice at me," the stars have stopped shining and the Cecil's face is a sight that rains daggers down at him. Kain turns to Rosa. "You supported us. You explicitly told me so."
"I still do," Rosa's face is tear-streaked, and it touches Kain a bit. "I just..I'm sorry, Kain!"
"I forgive you," he just lets go. It will be easier this way. I will stop losing now. "I'm not going to bitch about the past and wallow about what could've been. Cecil…I won't ask for your loyalty. No pointless stuff like that."
"Kain…"
"I thought you wouldn't leave. We fought about Rosa for weeks and we still ended up together. You kept assuring me that you wouldn't let her come between us. But looks like I underestimated that glow in your eyes when I told you who she was. How your whole body relaxes when she's close to you. I was stupid."
"Kain," Rosa says silently but firmly, "I know I'm not in the place to say this, but-"
"What?!"
"I'm sorry…but please don't let me get in the way. I….I just made a mistake….a reckless one. Even if I remembered everything else….Cecil's not my right. Not in this life."
"Are you backing out now? Can't you take responsibility for what you just done? You're escaping, Rosa!"
"I'm not escaping!" her tears run down, down to her neck, "You found him first in this life! I was his wife in the last. But that doesn't mean that I have a right to steal him away from you just like that! The past is the past. This life is a new, different story."
Kain doesn't want to look at any of their faces. He doesn't want to be here, he doesn't want to breathe the same air that they did. "You sound unbelievable," he tries to counter even as Rosa's logic is undoing the newly-tied knots everywhere.
"Rosa..she's right," Cecil dares to say. "I just…led her on."
"You mean both of you just indulged for the sake of the memory?" Kain laughs darkly. "You're insulting me. Both of you."
As quick as the heavy tide turned, he stormed out of the room. out of the house. away from them. he didn't want to see them. not for at least ten years. Because I know I'm the one who's wrong here. I know I'm the one who steals away. who covets. who envies. It's been like that ever since the past life. Why am I even surprised?
Even the stench of the traumatic snow doesn't get to him. He doesn't know how he reached his house, but the next time he opens his eyes…he's sitting on his dark studio. The brushes are sharp, menacing daggers, the acrylic and watercolors are nauseating blotches, and the walls are made up of shadow and darkness….not of cement.
Cecil killed the shadow dragon in him. It's no longer a refuge. Cecil took everything with him, leaving Kain with nothing…not even a dark place where he could lick his expected wounds.
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"We should…check on Kain," Rosa's voice is trembling. in fear, in anxiety, in regret, in guilt, and a million more emotions she can't really hold up all at once.
"Rosa," Cecil softens his voice, "I'm not mad. I'm to blame as well. So…please don't cry anymore," he rubs the teartracks, making Rosa nod and strain to smile.
"Where do you think he went?" Rosa didn't try to move away.
"His apartment, most probably."
"I hope he's safe…he's got quite a fright after all the snow. Let's go, Cecil…please," Cecil couldn't decide whether that "please" was "I hope Kain forgives me" or "I hope Kain is okay".
"What about Rydia? We can't leave her here alone," Cecil reminds her. Both of them are still shaken and torn – he didn't even want to imagine how damaged and bruised Kain already is..
Her innocent presence loomed like a lightbulb of solutions, her voice child-like but held together. She knows what to do and what to say. "I will tell Kain…I have to tell Kain why mother was sad…and why both of you had to fight through the snowstorm."
"Rydia!" Rosa exclaims in slight surprise, wiping the last of moisture from her eyes, "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to wake you."
The green-haired girl's smile is both unminding and all-knowing. "It's perfectly fine, Rosa. I really need to tell Sir Kain."
"Okay then," Cecil manages, a bit unsettled because he knew Rydia would be the one who could say something to persuade Kain. But he didn't like it a single bit that he wouldn't be the one to talk to Kain…"let's get our coats, then."
"It's going to be okay, Cecil," Rydia beams. There's no mocking, playful innocence – she's a girl who knew the woes of the world and more strangely, the tears of lovers. "You've fought for him long enough.."
"What do you mean, Rydia?" Rosa asks as she wrapped a scarf around Rydia's shoulders.
"I…I separated them….I really have to tell Sir Kain."
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The snow reeks of gasoline. But it's fine. That's the specific way Kain wants the air to reek of. Gasoline and flames and burnt paint. Cursed was he in the past life, so there was no point in hoping for a turnover, for a plot twist as Cecil would call it – in this one. Cecil would never be his completely. Ever. Even if all three of them came to an understanding and repentance and Kain is blessed with amnesia.
He feels calmer than he expected, despite the million memories degrading to cinders, consumed by the physical fire that embodied his metaphorical pain.
Pain will follow me in every single life. Pain. And emptiness….because my name is Kain Highwind.
The armored dragoon, arms on his chest, leaning against the castle walls. Cecil told him the torchlights were too pale.
The paladin in his holy armor, the moon above him. Glorious and accomplished and fucking clean, unlike Kain who wallowed in the darkness. Then paid for it.
The dark knight and the dragoon sparring. Cecil reminded him that Rosa the Healer often watched, so Kain added her to the canvas.
The three of them sitting on Cecil's bed, finding relief in each other's words and contact. Cecil told him that Kain smiled at least thrice every night whenever the three of them were together.
Rosa donning her White Mage robes for the first time. Cecil reminded him that they were both clapping for her and were the most proud of her, and yes; Kain went through the trouble of painting that despite the small blank space left.
The day Kain and Cecil left for Mist, thinking it would be just another pardon mission. Cecil said that their obscuring helmets hid their anxiety and worry and fear…so Kain didn't have to polish up anything.
Kain's heart is thrown in the gutters of the flames. The little pieces….these little pieces….the memories…. Why..am I even doing this? What will I gain? He realizes the thought only when it's too late, when every single shade of blue and purple and gold and black and white and grey and purple had now been branded the same charred coal. Monotone, monoshade – unable to tell their own unique stories. a pathetic attempt for a phoenix, no matter how dynamic the colors originally were. It's not really that sad, Kain…
He loved Cecil too much. He still loves Cecil too much. And he loves Cecil even more after what happened tonight.
Cecil is a man and Rosa is a woman. What were you expecting, Highwind?
But Cecil promised me…he certainly promised me and assured me many many times!
You promised you'd protect Rosa even if you weren't the one she loved, but in the end you helped Golbez put her in a death trap!
If you swallowed your own stupid jealousy, then at least Rosa would've been safer!
Already thickening with smoke, smoke that couldn't drift with the snow's current…cinders couldn't be reversed...his vibrant colors will never sing from the earth ever again.
"Feelings aren't things you can just swallow," a familiar voice warbled against the smoke-saturated atmosphere, "..that's the thing, Sir Kain," the speaker comes forth. Rydia. What the hell is the child doing here in this insane cold?
"What could you possibly understand?" Kain tears his eyes from Rydia's light blue-green ones that spoke very important messages. messages and words meant for him. eyes – he drags them hard and forces himself to look at the ugly, obliterating smoke.
"I…I was the one who separated you and Sir Cecil back then," she tries with that childish confidence and purity, with the knowledge that Kain will listen to her whether it's the full truth or useless nonsense.
"Even you are bringing up the past life," Kain's breathing is as ragged as the agitating smoke in front of him. "I don't need any pity or sympathy. The fact that we saved you from the snowstorm is one less thing that went fu-awfully wrong today," would the fangs in his voice scare away the child? He didn't think so. He didn't really care.
"If I didn't cause that earthquake…you and Cecil wouldn't have been separated."
"You don't have to bring up Mist Town now, little one."
"No!" Rydia stomps closer, her small footsteps actually more determined than the goddamn effortless fire. "I have to tell you, Sir Kain. If there was no earthquake, you and Sir Cecil could've been together…"
"Rydia," Kain releases an exasperated sigh, "many more things could've happened even then," he's tired beyond words. His brain is totally overloading right now; he needed a really long sleep. maybe an eternal sleep.
"No," the little girl shakes her head with so much persistent vigor, "you saved me in that snowstorm, even if both of you got injured. Because you wanted to make things right. Let me repay you too, Sir Kain. Please," her bluegreen eyes were clear, resolute. Understanding and bright, yet uncomplicated…
"What do you want to say? I don't have all day to listen, Rydia," Just get this over with. Please. I'm already so exhausted…
"For this life…please think that you and Cecil never got separated….please, Sir Kain." It sounds so goddamn mocking, the living words themselves taking Kain for a fool...Kain dismisses it as a badly-phrased sentence. or a genuine thought the child's too young to express.
Out of reluctant politeness, Kain withdraws a sneer. "That's not something you can just ask people to do, Rydia."
The child is at a loss for words.
"Do you think that's enough to make things right again?"
"No….but please…please, talk to Sir Cecil. I'll feel bad if you two don't like each other anymore….and you guys saved me.."
Two presences make themselves welcome behind him. Kain is way too tired and drained and frustrated and insane and too much of a monster already to face them.
"I am not going to let Rosa come between us," it's a harder slap in the face since Rosa's listening right now.
"Please, Kain," Rosa backs up the plea, pulling Rydia to her side.
"Do you really think you can make things right now, Cecil? There's nothing to say…to be honest."
Rydia tugs at Rosa's arm, pointing to the fire with such a sense of purpose. You'd think she's a sage trapped in a young girl's body. The two men ignore them for now. "I know it's been a hell of a day for you Kain," Cecil tries, not quite meeting Kain's eye. Lies. Lies. Lies. "Please…let's….start over," Cecil's eyes swerve even farther. to a place Kain doesn't quite like. to a place Kain knows he won't quite follow.
"Look at me in the eyes, then, Cecil."
"No." There's no spark awaiting the wavelengths of their voices. no prolonged silences when the words weighed too heavy. bated breaths shaken off.. there's absolutely no connection between Cecil's heart to Kain's. If emptiness is an excellent bridge, this is the absolute evidence. That's what Cecil would say...
Cecil doesn't bother hoping for a miracle or trying to build that connection. Funny, because Cecil was and is the miracle in his life. Crouching down by the fire, he reclaims a suspicious chunk. It seems like time's actually still flowing, and that the snow has waned the flames. Why is my heart not beating? Kain rhetorically asks himself.
"Kain...it's fireproof," Cecil hands the canvas to him.
Aquamarine blue is aquamarine blue. The special glitter he used for the final touches still glitters like a terrifyingly cursed thing. The dove's wings are intact and it's still flying out of the canvas, exactly like how Cecil commented. Cecil's eyes are perplexingly cornflower blue, cleansing itself of the surrounding cinders...
It didn't make sense.
"It's fireproof, Kain," Rosa repeats like a goddamn stupid machine, "It wasn't meant to be burned."
"Obviously," the artist manages to say in his disappointment. Cecil...always forgave me...I fucked up more than thrice and betrayed him when he needed me the most...
I could never really repay him.
Fled to a goddamn mountain instead.
"Sir Kain...you know what that means," Rydia pleads with them, pulling Kain back to the present. away from the memory of Mount Ordeals..the actual misery, the loneliness, the mentality that his betrayals could never be made up for...
Cecil falls silent.
"The problem is, Cecil, no matter how awfully you fucked me up, I'll still forgive you. Even if I don't have to."
Profanity's the only thing that could speak his mind right now, and no one seems to mind. Rydia's face scrunches up a bit, though. Rosa did not reprimand him for swearing at a child's presence - no one really has the energy and bravery to stand against Kain. When Kain's the right one here...
My thoughts and the things I see are turning uglier and uglier. I can't think in vivid pictures anymore. The world is dark; I cannot see anything...Cecil, this is the monster you've made me into...
The artist ironically holds the survivor canvas to his chest, wishing, hoping to any god out there that it would help still his heartbeat. for better or for worse, it didn't really matter anymore. He walks away, not really caring if anyone follows him or just leaves him to die.
When your thoughts chop up and your heartbeat skyrockets, that's when you have to control your emotions the most, Cecil's voice haunts him, a consolation he doesn't really want right now.
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Silent fire. howling night. still wind; confounding, actually.
Rosa stuck somewhere in between herself and Kain and him, still unable to decide which wave to swim on.
Dying embers. thoughts short-circuiting, but thrusting pangs after pangs after pangs of sharp pain to his heart.
I am an agonized, tear-faucet demon screaming at myself.
I am lost.
Kain's water and Kain's ocean cannot coat the fire consuming him. The hurricane of every single emotion associated with regret, guilt, confusion, frustration, and utter pain, refuses to quiet down. The tears don't stop falling that easily.
He forces himself to look at Rosa's...face. Acid drips itself all over him, stinging his insides...no one really cares that it's negative eleven degrees celcius tonight. Even Rydia's heart is colder and more devastated than that.
"We should go back inside," Rosa finally manages to say something. anything. Her voice is cracked, but less haunted and less regretful than the surface of Cecil's ailing heart.
"The...crystal chamber. In Mount Ordeals," Cecil flings, his voice and soul dead and everyone knows it, "I..."
"Kain was the one who kept you going," Rosa's nod is weak, but something positive, something close to strength and enlightenment began circling around the cold, cold, cold, cold, cold house..
"I needed to save both of you. Not because I was commander of the Red Wings and not just because both of you meant the world to me," the words are coming out fast and easy, but Cecil still feels like a ghost. a ghost with nowhere to go, a ghost with no right to even haunt his loved ones...
"Tell this...to Kain," it's a plead, it's a suggestion, it's advice, even if it's just common sense. "I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who should hear this, Cecil."
"Sir Cecil," Rydia's eyes are red and grieving. this adds to Cecil's guilt, his desperation to make things right again..but I've broken Kain too deeply. "I was only a kid back then...and still am, in this life...but you and Sir Kain...both of you meant so much to me...I could've died on the rubble...but you saved me. You even protected me from the bad soldiers...do you remember?"
Cecil's tears aren't stunning crystal or tasty diamonds a lover would love to lick. They're something else...something more realistic. His thoughts fumble and fish for a decent description, but he's simply too tired and drained. not really communicating with the world anymore, barely processing any information, too devastated to think about the words being spoken to him..
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Don't romanticize my sighs, please, it's a strange thought - even for Cecil. He knows where it comes from and at the same time, he really doesn't. His puffs, long and broad and...farcical... what a condemning plot twist. already expected, yet he couldn't use better words, he broke Kain more mercilessly than any sawing machine. Imagining Kain's hand in his, imagining Kain's lips kissing his as he covers and covers and covers and wanders and wanders and wanders the snow-blanketed streets alone for eternities..
Simply wrong.
Odin...please help me make things right...
A roar drums from the white earth, detonating innocent snow and no one's in the streets to really pay attention. Cecil's eyes don't open as he tries to focus on that drumming. Not really. He's actually more interested in the snow. the sound of upset snow (still silent, no matter what). the sound of swooping snow; snow voral and shaken off and shaken shaken shaken shaken off elsewhere, perfectly stitching themselves in their relative blankets (still silent, no matter what).
Kain...I don't want you to be under a different blanket...
A screeching halt. Is that a sign or the angry bellows of Kain's heart? It sounds like both. a very small one-thousandth piece of Kain's heart.
The motorcycle's headlights flash, half-blustering half-irate. The engines' seemingly-sympathetic bellow (sympathetic to what, though?) is supposed to be deafening, but Cecil's thoughts are chopping up. his consciousness is dampening and already sunk anyway.
He speaks with an accent that's strange even to Cecil's well-versed ears, leaning against a foot on the snow. He's wearing goggles as if it's raining and not snowing - even though Cecil's sure he knows that snow is nestling on his ginormous beard...
"I was lost," that's the excuse Cecil makes when the motorcyclist asks him with a gruff concern, what in heavens' name is he doing out in the snow.
"Freezin' to death in the jolly process, eh?" it's a jolly voice Cecil is familiar with. Another someone from the past life? I'm...really tired today...
"I am lost," Cecil drones, not really in any mood for a conversation with a stranger.
"Lost in where, exactly? I'm pretty sure yo in a tight, stuffy place, eh? Hard to find yo way in and escape!"
Yes...I am lost. My selfishness, my guilt, my inadequacy...it's eating me.
And Kain's not the - Cecil physically shuts his mouth as if that would cut off the thought. Wait. What is this man saying? It's not making sense.
The motorcyclist looks too emotional for someone this gruff.
"Now, don't go all down on me, boy!" his deep yell cuts through the whiteness so plaintive - simple and clear and blaring as heartily as the engines that power his motor. function. efficiency. "Ya lost sumthin' that makes ye glum as a ghost, then take it back, lad!"
Heaven sends a messenger? Or is it just a test?
Cecil forces his head up with a duress that came from nowhere. Not really caring what it is, he looks for something in the motorcyclist's uplifting fist-up and his gruff, gruff, gruff, gruff face...and finds it.
Is it a feeling? An assurance? A will? Are these questions going to have a use?
"It's yer own shoes that's gonna bring ya where ya wann' be, son. Ye can't claim somethin', bringing fate in as a handy, silly excuse there - " his voice drops a significant bit, " - unless ye fight tooth 'n nail for it."
Where should I be right now?
Something in parity with the snow's howl is tearing itself out of Cecil's heart. frustrated, but getting there. His heartbeat is one with the endless, endless, endless, endless, endless, endless snow.
"What grieves you...eh, boy?" he doesn't seem to mind that Cecil's withdrawing in his thick shell cruelly. in, out, in, out... like a rock...
My brain is short-circuiting. not. good. not. good.
"What I want..." Cecil mumbles more to himself than to the deaf winter.
"Get it, boy," the motorcyclist's voice is persistent, persistent, persistent. like a rock. Cecil is already running out of words to describe his world in and he feels the droning words overwhelm his brain.
"Get..."
"Stop mumbling like a fried robot and go fight for it, boy!"
The motorcyclist's collective words ingrain a persistent thought in Cecil's mind. sabotage the numbness. sabotage the numbness. sabotage the numbness.
"Your sword in your heart," such a wild voice against the snow... Cecil could only smile in the stillest confusion and the clearest haze and the most empowering spell.
"Cid Highwind," his savior yells out cheerily - even waves as the poet walks away. with something new in his hands that were shaking mere minutes ago.
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Kain's derailed eyes glaring at him, crushing his scabbing heart to a pulp. The sides and the rims and every single nook is burning terrifyingly-red. the ribbon of unforgiveness.
"It's not unforgiveness, Cecil," the elder man's lips are twisted, twisted, twisted beyond recognition. It's no use interpreting it - the entire room's already conflagrated with Kain's darkness. point of no return.
Both of them know his shadows have already materialized. not to knock the air out of Cecil and purge his heart out so Kain can chain it to his own -
"That's right. They're killing me. Not you,"
Cecil is bombarded with seven subsequent headrushes. A strike of lance following-up a jump from high-heaven - Kain is grounding the younger, weaker (who is the weaker one of us here?) man against the wall as if it would drudge Rosa's name, Rosa's scent, Rosa's memories, Rosa's eyes, everything in Cecil that still clung to that woman.
I lost my sanity. I lost the freedom of thinking..my own thoughts...I lost them all loving the both of you in our past life, the mephitis of bitterness. the dirge of anguish.
Kain, Cecil's lips dare to start half-assedly. Fading cornflower-blue desperately look for Kain's in the suffocating conflagration. It's still Kain...I made him that way...
The absence of light, the shadows of the night layering on top of each other are cheery compared to the unexplainable cyclones Kain's body is discharging like a monster.
Cecil, this is the monster you've made me into, the artists' words, every single truthful syllable of it...
"We don't need reconciliations or compromises," the smoke of brokenness flows out of Kain's lips like he's a skeleton. "Just - just..."
Red and angry and battered and bleeding impaled. Teeth, no - weeping fangs biting deep into his neck like a vampire collecting his rightful share of human blood. his body's practically being crushed even deeper against the wall. yes, it was still possible. Kain's conflagrations - he's willing to take the punishment.
"Don't move, Cecil," Kain sings the broken melody, lead by something in between a ripped whisper and a primordial scream. "Then I'll forgive you. Let me take you tonight. Let this be the truth and let's fuck the complications."
If you allow me to tell you...
Yes, this is the real Kain Highwind I fell in love with. The real Kain Highwind I -
Battered between the first night's kiss and the crumpled wall, Cecil collapses. Kain does not fall for this. Kain does not go easy so he raises him back up, only to hammer his whole body against the cement again. Words and thoughts and trivial things such as heat and crazy contact warp out of comprehension,
they're useless now.
Black and thorough: the unique conflagration of Kain's priceless heart. dangerously fused with an acid-covered wound that Cecil cannot nurse and won't even dare to nurse.
Blinding white of the moonlight, flaw to Kain's shadows that deaden the studio: it's not a romantic kind of light and they both know it. It's the light that harshly reveals pain lines marring their faces. white light highlighting red-rimmed eyes - even if Kain and Cecil love the truth of things, the contrast is still shocking. Oh, and anxious lips bruised with calm-thirsty kisses set forth as peace offerings.
Cecil Harvey and Kain Highwind, white and black. They're painting reconciliation and attempt frustrated doses of forgiveness with their own bodies. The splotches of intense magic, the conflagrations are neither loved nor hated, but definitely needed and craved. They keep painting the truth, the room a conquered canvas and silence long murdered on the not-so-fluffy trail.
Tasting of tears as white and pure as the moonlight beating Kain's Yin, Cecil is simply there. as simple yet crisscross as the mysterious moon. They're the saltiest ever to flood down Cecil's cheeks, but Kain hasn't quite relented yet.
"Your tears will not easily cleanse you, Cecil."
It's a biting remark. it neither halts nor charge the honest current. Both of them breathe in each other's versions of dangerous agony, but neither can really fight against it at this point. neither have any strength to shoot out arguments of logic or sense...not at this point anymore. Hands might've as well been bone-deep, eyes staring right through the tiniest cell of each other's soul.
glaring at the faults and not the beauties. finding a goddamn sane reason to trust each other again. to allow the other to break him and break him and break him and break him so lovingly.
Cecil surprises the elder man, pushing Kain's angry body down the floor - a miracle soon crowned by the millionth kiss of the night. It reminds Kain of the dove with Cecil at the church a thousand eons ago. except that it's trembling, as if its purity is being watered down..
Kain doesn't bother to notice Cecil's breath is a wild tremor in its hitching.
So fiercely it's more blood than endorphins and stress-relief, Cecil rides him. in tears. of anger or sorrow, Kain doesn't bother to decide either. There's not a microscopic drop of pleasure that can be squeezed out. no matter which way they thrust. Whether they wear stale eyes of masks on each other or weep together, there's no difference. masks that have no use, when the intimacy is way too stifling. unpermitted. forced. and all the opposites of those, at the same time...
There's no love. only a gang of violent emotions too intense to express, whether in Kain's unusual colors or in Cecil's linked, domino-like thoughts.
Kain permits himself to weep when he realizes this fact.
"Rebirth," Cecil dares to whisper, "...that's what you told me how this felt, Kain...like you were born again."
Silence. then the air thickens with the first breath of darkness and pain.
"Well, fuck it now, Cecil. It's quite obvious that the whole ideology and image of this has already changed."
The poet gasps and closes his eyes, a reverse of his usual mannerism - the memories of making Cecil shudder, jump or squirm - then that rocketing off to a gasp or a scream or a hard confession are already singed into Kain's brain. into his subconscious.
Kain permits himself to weep even more. Who's reversing mannerisms now, Highwind?
Rebirth, he mouths the words. Why are the moments unlocking so unnaturally like forced scripts, like bribes, like lies and interrogations on gunpoint? Why is everything so goddamn slow and hard?
"I don't know how to fix things," there's something bubbling out of Cecil's eyes, but Kain doesn't find it in himself to call it a volcano-eruption scene yet.
"I don't need you to fix things, Cecil," Kain further lashes out, "You...you know more than anyone that you're the only one who can break me. And very easily, at that."
Censors down, screens obliterated. At that moment, Kain could swear to the moons that Cecil's teary cornflower blues burst. revealing a very angry, guilty, torn red. Almost instantly, the broken poet dives down and they're kissing again. Kain doesn't notice how thirsty he actually was until the salty tears slide down his parched throat.
One of them smiles at the end of the night. With their lips on top of each other's and practically branding everything everywhere, there's no way to know who did.