Chapter Ten:
Skirmish on the Snowy Summit
Petty Officer, Third Class Tomlin Jeffelo of the Imperial Navy cursed the events that had led him to this point. Of course, it all had started by getting too caught up in a drinking game and missing his ship back home to Vector. This had then led to Lord Kefka punishing him by recruiting him for the march to Figaro and nearly killing him when the castle had, surprisingly, sunk beneath the sands. Instead of giving up and returning home, they had been marched to Narshe, a move that had, at the time, confused him to no end.
He had wondered who in their right mind would ever consider marching on Narshe. It was a remote town in the remotest part of the world and offered nothing of value to anyone. It was cold, full of snow, and horribly run down due to mayoral incompetence. Marching was for the dogs anyway. He was a naval officer. He belonged on a ship out at sea, not in the middle of hot sands or frozen wastelands.
As they had approached Narshe, Lord Kefka had stopped the troops to address them, the outburst serving to answer Tomlin's initial question of why Narshe. "I don't care what you have to do, kill, maim, or destroy! Just get me that freakin' esper!" he had said with a toothy snarl and shaking fists. An esper for the taking would be beneficial to the Empire. Hell, as the Navy's emissary he could have possibly negotiated procuring the MagiTek Armors it desperately needed.
"What about the civilians, sir?" a nearby soldier had asked. Silly bastard had guts to question Lord Kefka.
"What about them?!" Kefka had growled in retaliation. "Is this a face that looks like it cares, grunt?! They're peasants! Nobodies not worth scraping off the bottoms of my boots!"
"But Narshe is a neutral city-"
A fire had broken out among the soldiers, silencing the objections of anyone who had thought of one. Tomlin, like the others, had given it a wide berth to let it burn itself out. The sight had been horrific, as had the smell.
Lord Kefka hadn't shown any remorse for the action; he had sadistically cackled as if he had enjoyed the display. "Idiot!" he had spat with a growl. "Read my freakin' lips: mercy is for wimps and retards with no spines! Oppose and dispose of anyone who gets in your way or else I'll oppose and dispose of your balls!"
Tomlin had never felt fear in the Navy where things were done sensibly but now knew why morale in the army was low while fatalities soared at an all-time high. Things just happened on a silly whim at Kefka's discretion, such as turning a soldier into a pile of ash, a pair of boots, and a belt buckle in retaliation for asking a simple question. The stories he had heard had been too outlandish to have been taken seriously, but there could have been no mistaking what he had seen.
Their marching in the frozen Narshean Ice Cap Zone had felt like it had taken forever and a day. Tomlin had silently rejoiced when Lord Kefka had led them under the fire-scorched town gates and through the empty soot-covered town to the location of the esper high in the mountains. They had only been allowed to stop at the summit, where, from the frontlines, a group of five people had stood defiantly before a frozen beast that could only have been the esper. Two of the five he had recognized, General Chere and the King of Figaro; the others had drawn question marks.
"Oh, my!" Kefka had said with a gleeful cackle. "What have we here? Why, if it isn't General Chere – the traitor, King Figaro – the deserter, and… Ooh! My lovely magical assistant! You've saved me the trouble of hunting you down and snapping you like a twig!"
General Chere had merely responded with a middle finger which had incited stifled laughter from King Figaro.
Tomlin had been unable to believe that the five of them had carried balls enough to stand up to a battalion of Imperial ground troops and a handful of MagiTek Armors. That thought had changed the moment he had made eye contact with the small-framed girl in the purple cloak. Her glowing red eyes had filled him full of surprise, fear, and a desire to be anywhere other than the present.
Within the blink of an eye, she had traversed the battlefield in a ball of fire to hover over him, her beastly, flaming scowl a mere inch from his nose. Two sharp stings had made themselves known in his stomach and chest respectively, but he had been unable to break his gaze away to inspect the cause. He had only been able to retreat to the past to recount the events that had led him here to the present.
This girl… She wasn't human!
"I will send each and every one of you to meet your precious gods," she said with a growl, her dual-layered voice coming from everywhere yet nowhere. She jerked her blades free, spun around on her heel, and-
The next thing Tomlin knew, he was falling backward and upside-down. He couldn't react. He didn't know how to; he had no idea what had happened. The inverted looks of horror on his comrade's faces told him nothing. His arms and legs had stopped responding. The pain in his chest disappeared. He could no longer breathe. He couldn't shout out for help. When he hit the ground with a hollow thud, he could only watch as a body fell on top of him—a headless body.
Before the cold touch of death took him sailing away in a sea of darkness, one thought passed through his mind over and over. The hundred gil he had won in that drinking contest hadn't been worth this.
"What are you idiots waiting for?!" Kefka screamed in a tantrum. "Capture her and kill the rest!"
"God dammit!" Celes said as she ripped her blade from its magnetic holster. She ran towards the quickly approaching opposition with the intention of encountering them head-on. "Someone protect Edgar!"
In less than a second, her entire plan of attack had gone belly-up thanks to Terra going hog wild on enemy lines without any sort of warning. This wasn't the first time she had battled by the seat of her pants. No battle ever went according to plan, but she'd never experienced total derailment right from the very start. She got a funny impression that the Imperials weren't running towards them for battle; they were trying to get away from the berserked Terra instead.
"Don't look at me!" Sabin said over the yelling, the explosive MagiTek Armor footsteps, and the clash of clanging swords. "I've saved his ass way too many times over the years!"
Edgar scoffed. "I do carry a close quarters melee weapon as well as my auto-crossbow," he said. "I believe I can handle myself!"
Celes, channeling ice magic into her blade, leaped into the air and brought said weapon down the center of a faceless opponent. Where there had been one, there was now two and a huge mess of gore. She used the force of her attack to jam the blade into the ground and unleashed the stored energy that had been begging to be released. An icy explosion taught the ring of soldiers surrounding her how to fly and coated everything nearby with an additional layer of frost.
She swung her sword above her head with a victory pose of dominance before brushing the icicles from her hair. "I don't care who does what!" she said. She stepped aside to allow a leaping Imperial to stab at nothing but air and hit the ground in a heap. She made sure he wasn't going to get back up by swiftly stabbing him in the back. "Can you retards stop standing around scratching your bloody arses and do something other than look bloody pretty?!"
A glint from the corner of her eye caught her attention. She spun on her heel and brought her blade up in a parry to deflect a blow aimed for her abdomen. Once the danger had returned whence it came, and sparks disappeared, she thrust her weapon into the frozen ground and blasted the bastard back into his allies with a Hadouken of ice.
Edgar had complied with her wishes. Imperials the battleground over cried out in shock, surprise, and pain as arrows rained from the heavens. The common complaint was of missing out on dreams of becoming adventurers due to arrows in the knees. Another reason she was glad to be rid of the Empire! Imperial men were more akin to that of bloody entitled children! The lot of them!
A war cry prompted Celes to freeze the air around her forearm in a makeshift shield of ice. The attack deflected, and the opponent staggered back with a look of confusion. She decided to aid said stagger by swiftly booting him in the groin and shattering her ice shield on his face. However, where he had been several more appeared to take his place. She ripped off her jacket for a greater range of mobility and tossed it to the snow behind her. Now things were getting interesting. It had been awhile since she had been in a four-way fist fight.
"Hey, Edgar! How many you got bagged?" Sabin called out.
Celes stepped to the side when one of her many opponents tried breaking her nose with a bum-rushing. She grabbed his outstretched arm and used his off-center balance to swing him around face first into the sharp edge of her grounded sword. If he had ever wanted to have his nose removed and his eyes spread farther apart, he certainly had gotten it and free of charge!
Edgar said, "Four I believe, brother! But since our dear general has described me as pretty…" There was an unmistakable sound of a mechanically stretched rubber band snapping back into a resting position. A shower of arrows soon followed. The gentleman that Celes had whirled around to target with an icy fist fell, instead, by way of a one in a billion chance. An arrow had managed to fly between his helmet and his visor, effectively impaling him through the eye. "Actually, make that seven!"
Celes and the remaining Imperials around her took a moment to share confused stares with the now dead lottery winner and with each other. "Lightweight! Try twelve!" Sabin said from behind her with a laugh. "Also, I think she was-" He grunted just before an Imperial came crashing from the sky into her opponents, knocking them to the ground and out for the count. "-referring to all of us!"
Edgar laughed as well. "Yes, well, compliments are rare from our Celes, so I will accept whatever she throws my direction!"
"You're pathetic, you know?"
"I am what I am, brother!"
Nearby, a screeching Terra commanded Celes' attention away from the adversaries the brothers Figaro had unknowingly taken care of. She was squaring off against three MagiTek Armors by herself and had somehow managed to trick one into firing on another—with explosive results. Terra had always been quick on her feet, but to pull something like that off… She was moving so fast that she was practically glowing red.
A fist to the gut brought Celes' attention back to where it needed to be. With the wind knocked from her, she doubled over and backed into her still grounded sword. Damn her short attention span! She brought up an ice shield in anticipation of another attack, but none came. She cringed at the sound of crackling energy and nearly panicked when all she found was the charred bottom half of her assailant. It didn't take much to figure out what had happened. A MagiTek Armor had targeted her and if she hadn't been knocked back…
A faint mechanical whirring caught her attention. One of Terra's MagiTek Armors was powering up for a magical attack and Celes was once again the target, only this time luck was not on her side. Time stopped functioning properly, to the point that any movement took too long to accomplish. The best and correct form of action was Runic to absorb all surrounding magic harmlessly. But a proper sword was needed for that to work and with her blade embedded in the frozen ground behind her, she'd never make it in time. She could run for it, but her legs had stopped responding to her commands.
The beam fired, seemingly unaffected by the lag in time. She couldn't draw her attention away from its bright red light. She could feel its electrical charge. She could feel its heat. The hair on her arms and the back of neck were standing at attention. Her bladder expressed a desire to empty itself. She forced her ice shielded arm into position, but she'd be dead by the time it made it there. "Oh, fuck me-" Even her voice sounded wrong, deep and stretched out.
Time snapped back into normal gear as the battlefield flipped around ass over tits and disappeared behind a flurry of snow. An explosion sang of the demise of either a mountainside or a MagiTek Armor. Discerning which was slightly difficult, especially considering it took a moment for Celes to realize that she was lying on the ground with a red-faced Locke on top of her. It took an even longer moment for her to realize that he had just saved her life.
"Holy jeez!" he said. "You almost bought the farm back there!"
Celes couldn't respond. All she could think about was how she had frozen at a critical moment. Narshe had nearly been her final resting place. Kefka had almost bested her. Something was digging into her hip. She narrowed her eyes and said, "That better be your dagger, mate."
Locke gave a wry grin before rolling off her. "Uh, yeah. Sure. My dagger," he said with a stammer. "You're welcome, by the way."
Celes gave him a warm smile and said, "I'll thank you when this is over, hey."
Another explosion rocked the battlefield, showering them with chunks of sediment and ice. A downpour of arrows followed suit. "Stop dying, you frickin' cowards!" Kefka screamed furiously from his perch high up on a nearby crag. How the hell had that bastard gotten up there?!
Celes was on her feet, sword in hand, and running in his direction with one swift movement. The near-death experience completely forgotten and replaced with a new objective: skinning alive an annoying psychotic jester. "Kefka!" she shouted with a challenging swing of her sword. "Get your painted arse down here and fight me like a man!"
Kefka cackled and waggled his finger at her, the sardonic sneer eating away at his face. "Why should I take the pleasure away from the troops, Celes?" he said. "It's more fun watching them make bumbling attempts at killing a beloved-"
His tirade halted when crackling of magical electricity lifted his gaze upwards. Celes followed suit and nearly lost her jaw to gravity because of- Just what the hell was she looking at?
Above them, the clouds in the sky had turned dark and ominous as they whirled, with ever increasing speed, around a hovering and fire-coated Terra. Red lightning arced from the top of her head and into the nearby frozen esper with a deafening blast of thunder. She held her hands up to the sky as if calling for divine intervention and shouted, "You'll have plenty of time for inane banter after I destroy you!" Somehow, her voice sounded like it was both hers and not hers and coming from all directions at the same time. This was not right. This was very wrong.
"This doesn't look good," Locke muttered, echoing Celes' thoughts.
Kefka giggled uncontrollably. "Such power! Such glorious, magnificent power! Who knew that she had so much power?!" His screeching stopped the moment it started hailing red-hot pebbles. His confusion soon gave way to fear as the sedimental storm increased in intensity.
All about the battlefield, the fighting had stopped, allowing the sounds of sizzling snow and wailing winds to fill the air. Fearfully, Celes realized she had seen something like this once before. These weren't ordinary pebbles.
"He who runs away lives to gloat another day!" Kefka said with a chuckle. "You win for now, General! Or maybe you'll be crushed! Either way, someone wins! Tee-tee-eff-enn!" He pulled a glowing orb from his cape and disappeared in a wisp of smoke.
"You sonova bitch!" Celes yelled to the empty crag. "Get back here! I'm not finished with you!"
She and Locke were soon joined by Edgar, Sabin, and what Imperial soldiers hadn't run away covered in urine. "Celes," Edgar said, "I think it'd be prudent to focus on the calamity in the sky before Kefka!"
A tear in reality had now opened at the nexus point of the swirling clouds from which Terra was trying to pull something unseen. The red lightning was now flickering and flashing like a dance club gone wrong, but this allowed Celes a glimpse of what that something was between the flashes of darkness. If the MagiTek beam had been scary, then this was frightening. Somewhere, somehow, Terra had learned the penultimate black magic, a spell that supposedly only Kefka knew and refused to cast due to it nearly killing him and nearly destroying the entirety of the Imperial Palace when he had.
Celes took a fearful step back and nearly tripped into Edgar. "Terra's casting Meteor."
Locke grabbed her arm. "That's bad, right?"
"We're boned."
"Terra!" Sabin said through cupped hands. "Kefka's hightailed it outta here! We've won by default! You can come down now!"
Celes tried gaining Terra's attention as well, but all actions failed. Either she couldn't hear or wasn't listening with deliberation. But this wasn't making sense. The last time Terra had been transformed during battle, she had turned docile once destroying everything in her path. And even then, her style of combat this time hadn't been one of playfulness, it had been full-on raging. Hell, she'd been acting strange ever since they had entered Narshe territory. Maybe it was her transformation. Maybe it was something else entirely.
One calamity at a time! Celes put herself at the front of the group and adopted a defensive stance. Regardless of what spell Terra was casting, only Runic could save their asses. Granted, it wasn't an ability she often used, especially against high tier spells, but it was worth a shot. The best-case scenario: she absorbed all the magic successfully with no incident. Worst case: the amount of magic was beyond her capacity, her head exploded, and a giant fiery rock crushed everyone.
"What's your plan?" Edgar said.
"I'm going to try to absorb the magic. If anyone feels they can outrun a flaming rock falling from the sky, now's the time to start moving!"
Terra finally succeeded. With a wet-sounding pop and the buzz of now constant crimson electricity, she yanked a monstrous spherical rock from the void and, with a cat-like yowl, threw a fastball in their direction.
Celes started to panic. The magical capacity of the spell was too large! She'd die the moment she started sucking on its magical teat! Narshe would be crushed under a ball of flames! Once again, time seemed to malfunction as it sped closer and closer to them. All she could do was stare in a blank horror. She couldn't even cry out in fear like some of the others had. This was the MagiTek beam all over again, only this time there was no one to save them at the last minute. This was the end of the Returners, the end of Narshe, all because General Celes Chere had, once again, frozen in the heat of the moment.
Her life flashed briefly before her eyes. The orphanage. The Imperial Academy. Playing on the Imperial softball team. Graduation. Kissing Terra at the-
She looked at the sword in her hands and back at the meteor barreling straight for her. Softball…? That was it! It was worth a shot! It had taken an eternity, but she had finally fallen into a batter's position and, not even a split-second later, swung with all her might. With a loud crack, time returned to normal and Meteor careened back in the direction it had come and then some. It had narrowly missed Terra and sailed out over the mountains before rocking the entire Narshean gorge with an explosion of powdered, frozen sediment.
Celes looked down to her sword, to the mushroom cloud of dust and snow in the distance, and back to her sword again. Her years of playing on the Vector Don-Ralphs had not been in vain! "Holy shit," she said with the wavering of shock. "I can't believe that actually worked." She then cried out with a cringe as sharp pains traveled up and down her arms. "I can't believe I still have arms!"
A wild, fear-inducing scream came from above, sounding as if someone had stomped on a cat's tail. One moment, Celes had been looking up for the source of the noise. The next, she was flat out in the snow several feet from where she had been previously, the wind knocked from her and a sharp pain in her chest. An uncontrollable coughing fit attacked her, forcing her to spit out a red-tinged fluid. Blood. Fantastic.
Celes rose to her feet and discovered that a burning ring of fire encapsulated her, preventing escape. Her sword had been knocked from her hands and rested in the snow beyond her reach. Terra stood at the other end of the circle with flames and arcs of electricity dancing all over her body. The look in her glowing eyes told of a woman ready to disembowel at a moment's notice. Locke, Edgar, Sabin, and several Imperials watched the situation unfold with the wide eyes of confusion and shock.
"What's wrong with you, Terra?" Celes said as she readied herself for, well, anything.
"What's wrong?!" Terra said in a furious, crackling tone. Her voice came from everywhere yet nowhere. Never had such a rage radiated from her before. It was so powerful that her magical field physically crackled and popped. "You deflected my magic with a sword?!"
Celes blew the hair from her eyes. "What the bloody hell you expect me to do? You were aiming at us, you silly sod!"
Terra laughed, but this wasn't her usual intoxicating musical laughter. This was the crazed cackling of a madwoman, reminiscent of Kefka and his demented ways. If it hadn't been for physical appearance, Celes would have assumed that this woman before her was another person. The lightning that had been surrounding her, which had been flickering like Figarian holiday lights, was now consistently glowing, almost like it was tethering Terra to the esper a few yards away. One could also theorize that it was altering her state of mind.
"Silly sod?" Terra twisted her head completely on its side, much like a bird. The pose looked uncomfortable and impossible. "You sound very much like that long dead goody-two-shoes queen. It matters not. We'll see who the sod is once I destroy everyone on this godforsaken planet!" She made a mad dash in Celes's direction, twin katana points first.
Celes brought her ice shield into existence, but she might as well have been dancing in a wet T-shirt contest. The closer Terra's full body flame got, the smaller and weaker the shield became. Not wanting to be impaled, she dodged out of the way and rolled to a crouching position. "Destroy everyone? What the hell happened to healing people?"
A familiar mechanical sound echoed around the gorge by the time Terra had stopped at the edge of the fire. She raised a glowing hand to the sky and, somehow, had stopped Edgar's supporting fire. The arrows merely hung in the air as if time had ceased to exist for them. "Healing?" She once again turned her head on its side and allowed a wild grin to spread across her face. "I'll show you what I think of that worthless magic!"
With a cry of surprise, Celes managed to bring her shield up once more before the onslaught of arrows concentrated on her. But several explosions of pain told her in hindsight that she hadn't made it large enough. Several arrows had caught her on her legs and another embedded in her shoulder. She collapsed to the ground and tried ignoring the sharp stings coming from everywhere. "You…bitch."
A firm grip on her jaw forced her attention upwards. Terra was lording over her with that painful looking head position and that stupid, yet scary grin. After laughing, Terra said, "You may look like her, you may sound like her, but you certainly are not formidable like her. But still, I can pretend that you are her, allowing me great closure. Rejoice, little girl. I may let you live to see the demise of the rest of your race." It might have been a trick of the eyes, especially with stars of pain exploding everywhere, but it almost looked as if the electrical arcs surrounding her were pulsating when she spoke.
Celes chuckled. "I love it when you talk dirty to me, Terra," she said. "Strip me naked and rock me like a hurricane."
A kick to the ribs sent her sprawling to her back and led to a coughing fit. "I'll teach you to show Valigarmanda respect, you magic thieving twat!"
Before she knew it, there was another explosion of pain in her other shoulder. Terra had pinned her to the ground with a katana! Celes nearly shrieked in pain. She tried to stifle it as much as she could as she wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction! "Valigarmanda?" she stammered with a cough. "That's a stupid name." The electricity in the air had turned an angry deep red just before the katana twisted in her wound. She had no choice but to cry out this time; the pain was too unbearable.
Terra cackled with glee. "Don't mock that which you don't understand, little girl," she said. "I have the power to level this entire gorge in one fell swoop. Combined with that of my new thrall, I can turn this entire continent into a wasteland."
Celes couldn't help noticing the usage of the word 'thrall.' That meant that Terra was under someone's control. Kefka was no longer present, so that meant that the only being with the power to do such a thing was- That sonova bitch! "You're the esper."
"That's a cute look for a worthless human," Terra said. She leaned over Celes and brought a fireball into reality. "But don't fret, little girl. My thrall thinks highly of you. This entire time she has practically begged me to spare your miserable existence. She has even agreed to surrender herself to me completely in exchange for your safety." She laughed. "Although, I might just keep you as a pet. Your stolen magic is peculiar; familiar."
Celes growled in pain and frustration. Words! All worthless words that turned into sticky orange wax in her ears! The esper was toying with her now, and she was in no mood for it. If only she had access to a blade, then this asshole would see who had the last laugh! It suddenly dawned on her; she had a sword sticking out of her shoulder, one that Terra still had her hands on. It was an unorthodox way to go about it, but these were unorthodox times. With all the magic crackling about, with Terra holding on to the other end, there was a chance that she'd die from over-consumption. It didn't matter. She'd give her life if it meant that Terra was free of some asshole's mental grip.
"Hey, bird-brain," she spat. "How about the next time you possess my friend you make sure I'm not touching a sword?"
Terra's face quickly dropped into one of confusion. "Wait. What?"
Celes didn't waste any time opening the floodgates. Terra's sword, acting as a lightning rod, channeled everything through her wound in a far from pleasant experience. She cried out in agony as the electrifying pain was so great that she could feel its stabbing in her toes. The electricity that had surrounded Terra flickered multiple times before shifting to its new home deep in her shoulder. She arced herself upward to relieve the pain, but, if anything, that only made it worse.
Under normal circumstances, Runic only drew magic from the surrounding environment. But she was now drawing an overwhelming amount straight from the esper, including thoughts and feelings. She had a desire to kill all and destroy all using nothing but the triad of elements at her disposal – fire, lightning, and ice. Creatures of all shapes, sizes, and types flashed through her mind's eye – a horned man with lavender hair, a naked blonde woman armed with a harp, a colossal dog-like creature covered in fire, a scowling woman made entirely of ice; they were all familiar and strangers at the same time. The final vision was one of herself dressed in the clothing of royalty. The intense anger at this memory sent her into a panic of pain and even deeper into the haze of confusion. The world around her began to wobble and contort as if it were behind a bowl of quivering gelatin or a distorted funhouse mirror. If this didn't stop, she was going to die!
HOW? HOW DO YOU HAVE MADUIN'S-?
The world exploded in a flash of light, the signature sign of Runic finishing its job only on a much grander scale, and all that Celes could hear was that of silence. Most feeling disappeared leaving her only with the sensation that she was falling down a deep, dark hole.
Had she…? Had she died?
The farther she fell, the louder the crying of the wind became. The longer she tumbled, the lighter the sky became. She just kept falling, falling, falling, until she snapped through an invisible barrier and landed face first in the snow.
Celes propped herself up on her elbows and spat dirty snow from her mouth. The first thing she noticed was the absence of her injuries. She secondly noticed that they were on an entirely different summit of the Narshean Gorge. LOCKE stood nearby, offering a hand to help her to her feet. Behind him, EDGAR, SABIN, a normal looking TERRA, some old Doman she had never seen before, and some scraggly looking kid were standing around the frozen esper—no, Valigarmanda. It was strange. She had never seen those last two, but somehow, they were familiar at the same time. Just who were they?
"That was a close call!" EDGAR said with a wipe of his brow.
Celes wordlessly took LOCKE's help in standing and immediately regretted it. Why the bloody hell was she wearing a green one-piece swimsuit with a cape and combat boots?! Who had let her dress like this?! No wonder LOCKE was staring at her with star-struck eyes! All of her goods were practically hanging out for the whole world to see! Even more surprising was EDGAR not paying her clothing, or lack thereof, any mind.
Another oddity: why were everyone's names now coming to her in all capitals? It was…weird.
The old Doman—the name CYAN popped into her head for some reason—spoke up with a near indecipherable archaic accent. He sounded as if he found unexpected foreign inquisitions, silly walks, and a dead parrot's journey to the afterlife hilarious. "Zounds! Mayhap it liveth and breathes still?"
Celes wanted to scream out a warning, that Valigarmanda was a dangerous creature hell-bent on the destruction of humanity and possibly even the world. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out other than the sound of air in a tube.
"I know," SABIN said with a nod. "Impossible, right?"
"GAU!" said the boy as he waved his hands above his head.
TERRA cried out and took several steps back. Before Celes could run to her, LOCKE and both Figaro brothers had beat her to the punch. It was strange since TERRA usually ran to her first for any kind of support or for any reason. She was like a cat with separation anxiety. Leave her alone long enough, and she'd start ripping up the curtains and the carpet.
"TERRA!" LOCKE said as he helped her maintain her balance. "What is it?"
A blinding arc of lightning shot out from the esper and collided into TERRA. The explosion knocked LOCKE back several feet from his original position. If Celes hadn't acted quickly and grabbed him at the last moment, he would have been a smoking pancake at the bottom of the gorge.
The group huddled closer to TERRA as she crouched in the snow with a whimper. "Don't let him control you!" Celes tried saying, but again nothing came out. She instead settled on placing a comforting hand on a shoulder. The next thing she knew, she was laying at the edge of the cliff with the feeling that she'd been socked in the jaw with a softball bat.
LOCKE and EDGAR had been thrown over the edge and were clinging on as if their lives had depended on it. SABIN had been thrown the farthest, over the bridge and onto the next cliff. CYAN and the boy were missing in action, presumably in the same predicament as EDGAR and LOCKE.
TERRA cried out in pain as she held her head with a cringe. The air in the mountains flashed with a strobing blue light and buzzed alive. There was so much magic in the air that reality rippled like a pond's disturbed surface or a bowl of gelatin in an earthquake.
"TERRA 'n the esper…" SABIN slurred with awe.
Celes forced her aching body to its feet. TERRA needed her! If Valigarmanda gained control of her, it was game over!
"There's some kind of reaction!" Edgar said from behind.
Celes tried making her way to TERRA as quickly as she could, but it felt as if her body was in a thick fog and twenty minutes behind. She had to tear her away from the esper's influence!
"Please, tell me!" TERRA said with a squeak. "Who?! Who am I?!"
"TERRA," EDGAR shouted. "Step away from the esper!"
EDGAR's warning came too late. Just as Celes was about to reach out and grab TERRA's shoulder, another bout of electricity sparked between them and the esper. That added little bit of magic was just enough for another explosion, one that flung her far and fast beyond the solid ground of the cliff's summit. As gravity snatched hold of her, all she could do was stare in panic as the frozen river below raced toward her. She screamed a last-minute prayer to any god who'd listen. She had no fears of death, but this was not how she wanted to die!
Celes braced herself before smashing through the ice. White hot pain shot through her, forcing her to choke on the freezing river enveloping her. It was so cold that even she couldn't tolerate it! She thrashed about in a valiant effort to break the surface, but she couldn't tell which way was up. Everything was dark. Everything burned. Her chest tightened to squeeze every bit of air out of her empty lungs. The biting cold and muddled sounds only added to the confusion.
The mind was willing and unrelenting, but the flesh was weak and finally had enough. She reached out one last time above her to feel the sweet nothingness of air, but she was so frozen, her nerves so overloaded, that she felt nothing regardless. Her eyes slammed shut as her body gave up its battle. All that dominated her thoughts were TERRA and an overwhelming desire to sleep.
"CELES!" Was that Locke?
"I got her!" And Sabin?
Even in her drowsy, unfeeling, half-dead state, Celes recognized a peculiar magical feeling; she had felt this before landing in this strange place that was familiar but not. She had snapped through an invisible barrier and could feel its wobbling in the magical haze surrounding her. A refreshing warmth returned feeling all over her body. She recognized this secondary sensation, Terra's healing magic. It cleared the fog in her mind. It soothed the ache in her lungs, eased the burning all over. But what it didn't do was fill said lungs with air.
Celes bolted upright with a gasp and took in all the air she could, her eyes all the while snapping to various points in her surroundings. She was on a summit above Narshe. Edgar and the others were dead ahead, watching her with concern. Her shoulders and legs were still painful and bloody from arrows, but she was no longer drowning in a frozen river and certainly wasn't going to question why. Such things were better left under the assumption that they were dreams or figments of a disturbed mind.[1]
Beside her, Terra was on her knees violently shaking, shedding violent tears, and appearing violently normal. The expression on her once again human face was one that reminisced of the night they had found each other—silent paralyzing terror. She did move her jaw a few times as if to speak, but nothing came out.
Celes's shoulders screamed in protest as she shared with Terra a tight embrace. Much to her surprise, she was roughly shoved away with a muttered apology. While Terra had quickly disappeared down the path back to town, her heart-wrenching wails of anguish echoed throughout the gorge.
Celes fell back into the snow with a sigh, a metaphorical katana now lodged in her heart. If Valigarmanda had been telling the truth and Terra had been aware of the fight, she, no doubt, would have been feeling responsible for actions that hadn't been her own. She glared daggers in its direction, knowing full well that it was watching the situation. If that overgrown, multicolored asshole ever attempted to enthrall Terra again, she was going to try her hand at making Albrook's famous fried chicken.
Locke, Edgar, and Sabin appeared over her, all three showing signs of concern. "You okay, Celes?" Locke said.
"My life's complete, mate. I now know how a pincushion and an over-filled water balloon feel," she said.
Sabin adopted a bewildered look. "How does that make you complete?"
"I believe she is being facetious, Sabin," Edgar said with a sigh.
"Oh, right."
Now if only she knew who Maduin was and why Valigarmanda seemed to think there was a connection between her and them. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon. She had a better chance of getting Terra drunk now this was over. However, the chance of getting herself drunk was even better. She muttered, "I need a god damn drink."
Narshe at night was not much different from Narshe during the day. Nobody was out and about. It was quiet aside from the snow gently wisping over itself and the occasional whistle of the wind, perfect for someone seeking silence, star gazing, and time to be lost within oneself. Occasionally, Terra's mental journeying was interrupted by the drunks down below getting excited over something, but it was never anything that brought her to a full stop. Not even the crescent moon setting behind the high rises of the gorge could bring her to a standstill. It did, however, attempt to dredge some long-lost memory up from the murk in her mind but the line had snapped, allowing it to slip free.
She hugged her knees closer to her chin and hid her face behind them. They made a horrible shield to hide from the world, but it did make her feel slightly better especially considering that the events at the summit replayed torturously in her head. She had allowed the esper to control her and he had nearly killed Celes which meant that she had nearly killed Celes. She had tried healing injuries, but the extent of and the sight of those injuries, injuries that she had inflicted, had nearly crushed her. She had nearly taken a life most precious and destroyed the world's most beautiful smile. That scared her just as much as the thought of being enslaved to another or having to traverse this world alone.
She didn't want to be alone. And if that esper had gotten its way…
"Penny for your thoughts, my dear?"
The forceful disengagement with the starlit sky caused Terra to let loose a yelp of surprise. She turned to the source of the voice and discovered Edgar sitting next to her and grinning like he had won the lottery. Somehow, he had found her in her hiding spot above the tavern and, somehow, had joined her undetected. She wanted to berate him for the intrusion on her solitude, but instead chose to keep silent and buried herself further into her arms and legs with a sigh.
"That depends," she muttered. "What's a penny?"
Edgar chuckled as he pulled an intricate, polished pipe as well as a satchel of tobacco from under his royal cloak. "A penny was once used as a form of currency in Figaro," he said, his tone implying that it was information that she absolutely needed to know. He proceeded to pack said pipe before lighting it. "It is unfortunately no longer used thanks in part to the…" He laughed with a puff of smoke. "My apologies! I tend to ramble on about useless information! Pennies are not important to this discussion. I was merely wondering if you wanted to talk about what is bothering you."
Terra shrugged and rolled her head to one side to get a better look at the man beside her. "There's nothing bothering me," she said. "Although, I do like the smell of that pipe, hey." One-part lie, one-part truth. She liked Edgar, but not enough to share her issues. Only she could solve these problems herself. Well, maybe Celes, too, but she didn't want to break down in tears at the sight of her mangled and bruised body.
"Why thank you!" he said with glee. "It contains a mixture of cherry blossom and…" His pipe moved from one side of his mouth to the other which, along with his scrutinizing stare, gave the impression that he wasn't going to let her off the hook easily. "I'm afraid that I shall have to call shenanigans on that one, my dear, and smack you with a broom! There is something bothering you! It is written on your face, clear as the stars in the sky!"
"Those are freckles."
Edgar took several puffs on his pipe before showering her with a grin. "Now, now. There is no need for sarcasm, my dear. I am only offering you a shoulder and a sympathetic ear. It is bad health to hold such things in."
"I… I don't understand," Terra said. "Why? Are you trying to use me like the Empire? Like… Like that damn esper? Is it because of my fire? My healing magic?" She hadn't meant for her frustrations to vent, but they had, in one sticky clump. The two of them had just met several days ago. Why would someone offer emotional support to someone they barely knew? Money? Something else?
A look of betrayal had flashed across Edgar's face before it disappeared behind a stoic frown. He puffed on his pipe for a long moment of silence, almost as if he were choosing his words carefully. "No. No. No. And no. If you like, I shall give you three reasons why as well. First of all, a friend of General Chere is a friend of mine. Secondly, it goes against my nature to leave a beautiful woman to suffer on her own. And lastly, you can say that I am curious to know if I am your type." He smirked his pipe to the corner of his mouth. "I guess the fact that you could kill a man with a mere thought and a flick of the wrist could be a reason as well, but do not get overly excited about that. It is practically dead last on the list of reasons."
"Your type? I don't understand." Edgar was a strange one. Just when Terra felt she was at a point that he made sense, he proclaimed something outlandish and confusing, such as this. She knew she wasn't the only one. Celes and Locke had rolled their eyes and buried their faces in their palms numerous times.
"Yes. As in, the type of man you have interest in."
"There are multiple types of men? Why would I be interested in a specific one or even one at all?"
His smirk became bolder. "So, you opt for the fairer sex, then? That certainly explains things."
Terra had no response for him other than a frown that she made certain he had seen before she buried it between her arms and legs once again. This conversation had gotten off track worse than a train wreck. She could only shake her head at just how confusing he was. What the bloody hell was 'the fairer sex?' Had she missed something somewhere? "I'm done talking to you," she said.
"My apologies, Terra," Edgar said with a laugh. "I have derailed the conversation with perversions far more than I should have."
"No kidding."
"Look, I want you to know that it was not an easy task for Banon to ask of you as he did, especially when your history with the Empire and…more recent events are taken into consideration. If we force our beliefs and ideologies onto you, then we are no different to the Empire and their silly slave crown technology."
Terra rolled her head to the side and shot Edgar a glare. "Why are you telling me this? This isn't why I was up here."
He smiled in return. "I know. I mentioned it because I want you to be aware that we Returners are not out to use or abuse you. I want you to know that there is a difference between deranged jesters, thousand-year-old espers with thousand-year-old grudges, and us. Despite Banon's finality, you can choose to join us or not. It is your freedom to make that choice."
Had she a choice? FireBeard had worded things in such a way that made it seem that her cooperation had been mandatory. And now here come along Edgar telling her that it wasn't. Typical Edgar; confusing her to no end.
He continued, "Regardless of what you choose, Figaro will always welcome you. All you need do is give the word."
Terra gave a half-hearted nod. "Why…" She paused to sit up straight. "Why didn't you tell me about Doma?"
"My apologies. I did not believe either you or Celes had been ready to hear such troubling information. Banon obviously thought otherwise."
"I wish he had never told me. It's hard enough coming to terms that I nearly killed everyone, but knowing that I slaughtered an entire castle full of innocents…" The recollection of those memory fragments that had surfaced in the mayor's house made her shudder. And if she had slaughtered a castle of innocents, what worse atrocities had she done?
"I shall not pretend to understand what it is you suffer through, Terra, but I can assure you of this: despite how it may look or how you may feel, you do not have to be alone. Sometimes, all you need do is walk to the bar and order a drink."
Terra nodded, all too aware of the scratchy feeling at the back of her throat. "I am kind of thirsty."
Edgar stood and patted her on the shoulder. "When you are ready, come join us down below. If I am not mistaken, I believe there is a sister golden hair waiting for a friend to join her."
Terra sighed with relief after Edgar had gone on his merry way. But now that she was alone once again, she very much felt it, almost as if she had been stripped naked and left with not a scrap of clothing – a feeling she was well acquainted with. She wasn't ready to face Celes yet, but she had to. The solace she sought could only be found in one place, and that was in the company of her friend. The sparkling sky did bring her comfort, but it just wasn't the same. Perhaps the only way was just to get it over and done with, like ripping off a bandage.
Facing Celes was the only way to feel safe again.
It wasn't long before she was on the ground below and walking through the screeching, swinging doors of the tavern. Surprisingly, the place was devoid of the millions upon millions of people that she had been expecting. Not surprisingly, it was filled to the brim with a smokey haze despite no one smoking. After finding no source, Terra briefly wondered if perhaps there was some sort of unwritten law that stated all taverns needed to be filled with smoke. It was annoying, but she had to admit, it did give the atmosphere a particular sort of ambiance.
Dead ahead, it was difficult to miss Celes slumped over at the bar and drowning in several bottles' worth of sorrows. The bandages covering her shoulders and legs broke Terra's heart and her courage. Her first instinct was to fly as far away as she could, but her desire to press forward kept her rooted in place.
Laughter from the corner of the room captured her attention. There, Locke and Arvis were playing a game of Triple Triad while Edgar and Sabin looked on with excitement. Several mugs of varying states between empty and full littered their table along with unused cards. Edgar took notice of her in the doorway, grinned, and jerked a thumb towards Celes. She almost heard him say, "Walk up to the bar and order a drink." Except it had been in her voice and that made it a touch weird.
With a shake of her head, Terra took the plunge. As she crossed the room, she unsuccessfully tried to quiet her beating heart; it was so loud she could hear its rhythms in her ears. When she arrived at the empty seat beside Celes, she couldn't help wrinkling her nose at the pungent smell of alcohol. It certainly wasn't cider they were serving here. Although, she wished they did; cider smelled nicer.
"Oi! Look who finally decided come down off her high chocobo, hey," Celes said with a wobbly slur.
Terra had to pull her frown up from the floor. This woman looked like Celes. She sounded like Celes. She even had the same bright magical field as Celes, but she certainly didn't give off the same impression as Celes. Celes was usually very guarded and rigid, only relaxing when she felt no one was watching. In the now, she uncharacteristically slouched in her seat. Her form hiding jacket was missing, allowing her torn and bloodied tank-top and barely contained cleavage to go on full display. She looked ready to spill all over the place – whether that was with words, alcohol, vomit, or boob was anyone's best guess.
"You've been drinking," Terra finally said.
"I'm not drunk, mate," Celes said, defensively. She hiccupped so violently that she nearly fell out of her barstool. "Okay, maybe I am. Honestly, I can't tell, hey. Oi! Barkeep, a drink for the lovely lady."
"I didn't say you were drunk." To sit down, Terra had to stretch herself to the point of snapping her ankles. These barstools were so high! A person had to be a giant to get up on them comfortably. By the time she had finally settled, a bottle of brown liquid had appeared in front of her. Garland's Sorrows, the label read. Its odor, aided with a hint of cinnamon, was strong enough it could open interdimensional portals. Interesting. Celes had been drowning in Sorrows. "So, uh, what's this?"
Celes grinned in a lopsided all-over-the-place sort of way as she leaned closer. "A bottle of rum?"
"I drink rum?"
"I dunno," Celes said with a lazy shrug. "After today, it'd be a damn bloody good time to start, hey!" She somehow, to Terra's amazement, hiccupped and giggled at the same time, which gave birth to some sort of hiccup and giggle hybrid. It was both disgusting and adorable at the same time; stomach-churning cuteness at its finest.
Terra couldn't help but tilt her head in puzzlement. "Why would I want to do that?"
"Because I always wanted to get drunk with you."
Getting drunk with others was a thing? Was this what normal people did? "Why?"
Again, there was a lazy shrug and an even lazier wave of the hand that nearly had an accident with a bottle. Celes said with garbled drunkenness, "I dunno. Just because? Why do people do half the things they do? Why do they want half the things they want?"
Taken aback by the ferocity of the question, Terra looked around with hopes that someone would answer for her. Clear on the other side of the room, Locke, Sabin, and Arvis were still engrossed in their game of cards. Edgar was at the other end of the bar ordering drinks. Even the bartender couldn't help her since he was pouring said drinks. She wasn't even going to bother with any of the other patrons; they were probably still mad at her for burning up the town. She turned her attention back to Celes, who was staring at her expectantly when not jumping with a hiccup.
Terra tried to hide in her seat and turned her gaze to the bottle of motor fuel in front of her. "I… I don't know," she said.
Celes downed a significant amount of liquid from her bottle before lazily adopting an adorably confused expression. "You what?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know what?"
Terra turned back to Celes, who was in the middle of finishing the last of her drink. "What?"
"That's what I want to know."
"I'm confused."
"No, you're beautiful."
Terra's heart stopped, the force setting her cheeks ablaze. Had Celes just muttered what she thought she had? Had it been a truth that had slipped out? Or had it been the result of alcohol's nonsense? She had to find out for sure! "I'm sorry?"
Celes' face spread wide with a lazy, relaxed smile as she leaned closer. "I…" The smile quickly crumpled up into something almost unrecognizable. "I think I'm gonna fall."
With a gasp, Terra was quick to the floor and caught Celes before she tumbled off her stool and injured herself any further. Naturally, the pose they ended up in had attracted the attention of most the men in the room. Celes had face-planted into the exposed part of Terra's chest and had nearly pulled her dress down with her. Terra, meanwhile, had stabilized her by way of hands on hips.
The room broke out into clapping and shrill whistling, the latter courtesy of Edgar. Mortified, Terra tried to get Celes to stand on her own, but the stubborn woman continued giggling stupidly while repeatedly kissing any exposed skin. "Celes! Stop it! You're drunk!"
"There's nothing wrong with cutting loose after absorbing so much magical energy that you become yourself in an alternate reality!" Celes said into Terra's chest.
"That doesn't make any sense."
Celes lifted her head and, finally, decided it was time for a face to face discussion. "The only thing not making sense is you not drinking with me!" Their strange embrace quickly turned into a hug that showcased something just never seen with Celes – vulnerability. "And I have to dull the pain somehow. You left me up on that mountain after I stuck with you and protected you." Even the tone of her voice had changed, falling from loud and arrogant to shy and minuscule.
Terra sighed and rested her forehead on Celes'. That panic after being freed from Valigarmanda's control was something she regretted now, but she could still make it right. "I'm sorry," she said. "I did come in here to talk to you about that. But…"
Celes broke the hug and cupped Terra's cheek with a calloused hand. Her smile shined brightly, filling the room with warmth. "Well, why don't we go someplace private, hey?"
Terra took Celes by the hand and led her towards the door. "I'd like that, actually," she said. "I'd feel more comfortable away from…people."
"I'm glad you agree, hey. 'Cause I think I'm about to chunder."
"What?"
As soon as they passed through the door, Celes leaned up against the side of the building and lost a battle with her stomach. As Terra soothingly rubbed her back, she couldn't help but think that this was not what she had in mind for the evening.
"I'm Lone Wolf, the pickpocket."
"Shut up!"
Wedge leaned back against the wall of their quote/unquote cell and crossed his arms. The mayor of Narshe seemed to have a thing against jailhouses, so the Returners had used the first thing they could get access to, the mayor's storage shed. It was filled to the brim with odd trinkets, old clocks, buckets of various sizes, golden hairpins, and some strange fellow in a wolf's mask, some really annoying fellow in a wolf's mask.
"I'm Lone Wolf, the pickpocket," he said once again. Wedge was beginning to get the impression that was all he knew how to say.
"Oi! We heard you the first twenty times!" Vicks shouted. "Now, for god's sake, shut the hell up!"
Wedge sighed. He still had trouble believing that this predicament was real. There had been no trouble believing that Lord Kefka had abandoned them and left them to fend for themselves. However, it was hard to swallow that they were the only three left out of a group of nearly a hundred.
Probably better to be a Returner prisoner than killed hypocritically by Kefka for failure.
The wooden door opened, revealing a young, pretty Returner woman and a tray loaded with donuts and steaming cups of coffee. Wedge shared a look of concern with Biggs. Was it laced with poison? Truth serum for a later interrogation? Well, those Returners would be sorely disappointed! They were Imperial soldiers! They knew nothing because it was the Imperial Way!
The Returner guard gave them a big smile as she curtsied, all the while with her tray completely level. "So, who'd like a coffee?!"
Biggs stood from his bucket, the speed of his rising so great that it flipped over. "What's the catch, sir?" he demanded.
The Returner shrugged. "Name's Rinoa, not Sir," she said apologetically. "And it's instant coffee, not the proper brewed stuff. I'm really sorry about that."
"Surely, you're trying to poison us!" said the other soldier whose name Wedge could not remember.
"No," said the Returner with a shake of her head. "Consider this an attempt to make up for the lack of a proper prison cell. I mean, there isn't even a lock on the door."
Wedge scrambled to pick his jaw up off the floor. There was no doubt that Vicks and the other guy were busy doing the same thing. Here was one more thing to add to the list of unbelievable things that had happened. "We could have left at any time?!" He had to ask to be certain. She had to have been mistaken.
She nodded. "Yeah. We figured that you'd rather want to stay here with coffee than go back to the Empire's abuse. I heard General Chere's story of living and working conditions under Kefka. It was heart-wrenching! You don't even have unions!"
"I think I've died and gone to heaven, sir!" Biggs whispered. He was swooning with hearts in his eyes, though Wedge suspected that it had nothing to do with the beauty of the coffee girl and more everything to do with the prospect of switching sides.
The Returner set her tray on a nearby table. "Help yourselves whenever you want," she said with a bright smile and a small wave of the hand. "Oh, and thanks for looking out for the mayor's son. Thinks he's a wolf or something." She looked around before mockingly whispering, "He's a bit special."
"I'm Lone Wolf, the pickpocket!" the masked man shouted, even though the proclamation fell on deaf ears.
"If you boys need anything, just let me know. I'm stationed just outside." The Returner gave them a wink before disappearing out the door. And with that, they were once again alone.
"I dunno about you sirs," Biggs said, "but I'm thinking that if an organization offers donuts and coffee to their prisoners, then they might not be all that bad to work for."
"They even have a union!" said the other guy. "No wonder General Chere defected."
Wedge nodded in agreement. He said, "Surely, working for the Rebel Alliance-"
"Returner Alliance," Biggs said flatly.
"-Returner Alliance would be much better than anything Lord Kefka had to offer. Kicks to the balls? Set on fire? Turned to ash? Impaled on a clock tower?"
"No thank you, sir!"
"Here we get coffee, donuts, and-"
"That Returner sheila wasn't too bad on the eyes either, mate," interjected the man whose name Wedge really needed to learn.
Wedge looked over what remained of his squad. Should they remain loyal to an Emperor and a system that had failed them time and time again? Or should they defect? "Let's have a coffee," he said, "and see if we can get an audience with-"
The man in the wolf mask abruptly stood and bellowed, "I'm Lone Wolf! The pickpocket!"
Wedge shot a glare in the masked man's direction. Biggs took it a step further; he raised a fist, seconds away in decking this masked lunatic in his fake furry nose. The other guy looked like he was about to toss a scalding hot coffee.
"Right," Wedge said. "Who's in favor of ditching this nutcase and officially defecting?"
The answer was unanimous as they stormed out of the shed, coffees and donuts in hand. And with that, they left Lone Wolf the Pickpocket to his own devices, never to be seen again.
[1] In an alternate reality not too far away, CELES wakes up in a bed in ARVIS' house. LOCKE is sitting at her side.
CELES:
*groans* Aw, man…
LOCKE:
CELES! You awake?
CELES:
I think so… I feel like I'd been run over by a runaway chocobo cart.
LOCKE:
I'm not surprised. You fell into the Narshe River. SABIN had to jump in after you.
CELES:
Oh, no…
LOCKE:
We had to revive you with a Phoenix Down.
CELES:
That might explain the really strange dream, then.
LOCKE:
Strange dream? What was it about?
CELES:
I'm still trying to work that out, at least what I remember. I was dressed like a man, seriously injured, and had a crying malnourished TERRA caressing me as if we were lovers…
LOCKE:
*winks* I can think of worse things.
CELES:
Plus, everyone's names were a combination of capital and lowercase lettering!
LOCKE:
*gasp*
CELES:
*gasp*
LOCKE:
So... You been hitting the cider hard lately?
CELES:
LOCKE!
LOCKE:
*waggles a finger* What? It's a valid question.