Chapter X
Sephiroth wakes to the sound of Auron speaking. He realizes just how tired he must have been when he slowly drags himself out of unconsciousness instead of snapping awake. His mouth is dry, his lips chapped; he must have overestimated how much longer he could go without water.
"What is it?" he murmurs.
"I said it's dawn, and we should be on our way," Auron replies. "I know how we'll get out of here."
"How's that?" Sephiroth asks. When he tries to sit up, he realizes there is something pulling him back down. Confused, he rolls onto his back and looks to his right to see Terra curled up against his side, one of her arms draped across his chest.
That gets him fully awake. He stares at Terra, who is still fast asleep, wondering how he might disengage himself from her without waking her.
"Problem?" Auron asks, his tone mild. Sephiroth glances at the guardian; the lip of the man's coat hides his mouth, but his eyes are smiling.
"You think this is funny."
"Perhaps."
Sephiroth gingerly takes Terra's arm and moves it off of him to her side, then sits up and scurries out of the tent. The movement does not seem to disturb the girl, who sighs before turning back onto her side. He realizes a slight flush has crept onto his cheeks, and he forces himself to breathe slowly. For his part, Auron stands a few feet away, looking amused.
"Well," Sephiroth says, "this is a positive sign. We didn't tell her to curl up next to me. Clearly something's still going on in there."
"Indeed."
"Now, if we could just coax it out when she's awake, she might be able to help us."
"Absolutely."
Sephiroth scowls at Auron. "I can tell you're smiling, you know."
"Yes, I do." Auron looks at the girl, shakes his head. "We'll let her sleep a few moments longer. There's something you ought to know."
"What?"
Auron's smile, which was in the process of diminishing, vanishes completely. "Last night, while you were asleep, Jecht came to visit me."
"Jecht? Did you fight?"
"No, he just wanted to share our fire and talk. He told me that this place we're in is called the Forest, and from it we can go anywhere we want to as long as we know where we're going."
This is disturbing news. Even while asleep, Sephiroth hasn't been unable to hear the approach of an enemy in years. He must have been very tired last night. "Good of him. What's the catch?"
Auron chuckles. "You mean concerning the Plains of Chaos? Jecht says they're not a place we can walk to. We'll end up there when we have nowhere else to go."
"That's vague and –"
"Irritating, I know. But it makes sense, at least to me. And at any rate, we have several places we can go."
"Back to Cosmos, which is the exact opposite of the place we need to go. Back to Ultimecia's Castle, which requires the dash to enter or exit. Neither of these are particularly enticing choices."
"There is a third option," Auron says.
It takes Sephiroth a moment, but then he thinks back to Mateus. "The old Chaos Shrine Mateus mentioned Zidane went to search."
"Exactly."
"We have no idea what it's like or where it is."
"It shouldn't matter if the Forest works the way Jecht says it does. We just need to want to go there and start walking."
Sephiroth rubs at his eyes. "Knowing of this place's existence would give any metaphysical philosopher nightmares." He turns back toward the tent to get Terra, then stops in his tracks when he sees the girl is awake and watching him. "Auron!" he says.
Auron also turns to the tent, surprise evident on his face. "Well, she's up," he observes. "Saves us the trouble of waking her."
Deciding on a direct approach, Sephiroth begins a slow walk toward Terra. "Terra, do you understand me?" he asks. "How are you?"
She stares, her eyes darting up and down him before settling on his own. Eye contact, good. However, she remains silent.
"We're not going to hurt you," Sephiroth says. "You're safe now."
"Says the half-naked man walking toward her in the forest," Auron deadpans.
"You keep that to yourself." When Sephiroth turns his gaze back to Terra, he sees she has begun removing the leather straps of his SOLDIER belt from the tent. By the time he makes it close enough to try to help, she's unwound them from around the branches and is holding them out for him to take.
"Thank you," he says, taking them from her. Terra gives no visible response, but instead stands almost at attention, her arms at her sides and her back straight. Her gaze, however, is fixed on Sephiroth's face instead of straight ahead.
"Well, this is certainly an improvement," Auron observes. "Sephiroth, get dressed. We should be on our way now that Terra's up."
It takes Sephiroth only a few moments to get his belt and coat back on. Throughout the process, he keeps an eye on Terra, whose gaze is not wavering from him.
"Do I have something on my face?" he asks after he secures his spaulders, not really expecting a response.
"It seems obvious to me what's going on," Auron says. "But I have been known to be wrong… occasionally. Care to venture an opinion?"
"Well, she's obviously got some form of post-traumatic stress disorder," Sephiroth replies. At the slight look of confusion on Auron's face, he says, "She's suffered a great deal and is having a very hard time coping." The other man nods, so Sephiroth continues. "But I'm not a psychotherapist. Even if this is the case, I don't know what I might do for her. Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but…"
"My guess is that Kefka's control was all that she knew for a very long while. Without it, she has no context in which to view the world. Suddenly, she has free will again. Does she even remember how to use it? Clearly it's coming back to her, but she's so used to thinking in terms of servitude that it colors her actions."
Sephiroth narrows his eyes. "You're saying she's latched onto me as a kind of surrogate Kefka."
"Possibly. As I said, I have been known to be wrong."
His stomach twisting at the thought of being a psychopath's substitute, Sephiroth glances over his shoulder at Terra. "Come on, then," he says. He begins walking in no particular direction. A moment later, the sound of her footfall joins that of his own.
He does not like this in the slightest.
They have been walking for half an hour when Sephiroth says, "Are you sure Jecht didn't lie to you?"
"I know Jecht," Auron replies, "perhaps better than he knows himself. He couldn't lie to me if his life depended on it. I am, however, unsure if what he told me was the actual truth and was instead the truth as he understood it."
"You mean one of his allies lied to him or brainwashed him?" Sephiroth asks. "But then how could he navigate this place?"
"I don't know, and that's the problem." Auron pauses, adjusts his sunglasses. "Do you suppose the spell Mateus put on us also interferes with using the Forest?"
"I hope not," Sephiroth says. "Because if it does, we're stuck here. And beyond that – if and when we get out, we'll have to fight him. And if he can get us in this much trouble without even waving his hand, just think what he could do if he tried."
Auron pauses. "Wait. Even if the spell does stop use of the Forest, Terra didn't have it cast on her. She should be able to get us to the old Chaos Shrine."
He looks at Sephiroth, who puts up his hands in protest. "I already have enough misgivings about this situation as it is, Auron. What if my giving her orders keeps her from remembering how to think for herself?"
"She either gets us out of here, or we stay here until the two of you die of thirst," Auron replies. "Or you might try telling her to remove the spell on us, for that matter."
Sephiroth shakes his head. "I don't like this."
"I understand your position, but I don't want to start making demands of her. It might just confuse her further, and she's clearly attached herself to you in some respect."
Unable to entirely hide his scowl, Sephiroth turns to Terra, who has maintained a distance of a few feet from him the entire time, still silent. "Terra," he says, watching her for any reaction and seeing nothing. "We need you to – no. Could you remove the spell Mateus cast on Auron and me?"
There – a twitch? No, a shake of the head. Miniscule, almost nonexistent, but there it is. A response.
"Good thinking," Auron murmurs.
Sephiroth ignores the guardian. "In that case, Terra, can you take us to the old Chaos Shrine using the Forest?" She gives him a nod, a tiny incline of her head that a casual observer would miss entirely. "Will you?"
Terra starts walking. She brushes past Sephiroth, who turns to follow her passage –
When he completes his turn, he is no longer standing in the Forest. He, Terra, and Auron are on an enormous platform of dark stone, seemingly ripped straight out of a castle or similar structure. The platform hurtles through an endless void of swirling purple and black. When Sephiroth looks around, he sees a ramp at the far end of the platform that slants up before being cut off by the edge. On either side of the ramp is a statue of a demonic form, the features worn to smoothness by what must be centuries of exposure.
"Below us," Auron says. Sephiroth looks down, sees that what he took to be the floor of the platform is actually a partially-opened roof over an enormous hollow chamber below. A long, purple carpet with gold trim runs along the length of the room, leading up to a ramp much like the one atop the platform. However, this ramp terminates in a throne. Twin rows of pillars on a raised level stretch across each side of the room, some of them partially demolished.
"Strange shrine," Sephiroth observes. He pauses, looks at Terra. "Thank you."
Auron raises an eyebrow, but decides against saying anything. Clearly, Sephiroth has some idea of what he's doing; best to leave him to his own devices when it comes to the girl. "Are we alone here? I find the idea doubtful."
"Yes, because I wasn't anywhere near tired of how things were going before," Sephiroth says. "Nobody here to try to take over my mind, put a spell on me, electrocute me, or slash me to death? I'm disappointed."
"Of course you are. Mateus may have just been lying when he said Zidane came here looking for Squall, but I think he was trying to tell the truth as much as possible. Still, if Zidane did come here, this is a very small… world. I don't imagine he would have spent long looking."
"Maybe there's something we're missing. Could there be more to this place?" Sephiroth asks.
Auron shakes his head. "This is frustrating. We may be pawns, but even pawns can usually see the other end of the chessboard. Yet here we are, being asked to get to a place we can't see, moving through disparate worlds with no relation to one another, some of which aren't even larger than a fort."
"Don't worry. You're not going to be alive long enough to worry any longer."
Sephiroth and Auron exchange glances. Nobody else is visible at the Chaos Shrine, but they are standing atop the roof of a throne chamber, a roof that is not particularly thick.
So Auron does the practical thing. In one motion, he pulls his sword from his back and slams it into the stone beneath their feet.
The roof shatters. As they begin to drop, they hear an undignified squeal when the debris from Auron's attack rains down on whoever thought it clever to hover beneath them, hidden by a thin layer of stone. Terra, thankfully, is far enough away from the two of them that the ground under her feet does not collapse.
Sephiroth takes the thirty-foot drop with ease, tucking into a roll as he lands. Auron pushes off a large piece of debris, propelling himself to the side of the room. There he gets an arm partway around one of the pillars, taking the rest of the descent in a controlled slide.
The two of them watch as their would-be ambusher extricates himself from the pile of rubble that now adorns the center of the throne room. It is a young man, with long silver hair accentuated by a large feather stuck between his bangs. He has bluish-grey eyes, haughty, aristocratic features, and pale skin. A purple jacket with gold trim covers his shoulders and chest, leaving his midriff bare. Around the back of his waist, extending down to his ankles, he wears a white cloak held in place by four straps that also serve to secure the codpiece that covers his groin. His legs are covered up to mid-thigh by purple leggings, and on his feet he wears matching, pointed boots with gold buckles.
"Wonderful," Auron says. "Another insane one."
With an ugly look, the young man dusts himself off and points a finger at Auron. "On the contrary, friend. You'll find I'm entirely in possession of my faculties, and secure in this knowledge I can say you will regret this gross indignity."
"As long as you leave the codpiece on," Sephiroth says, drawing his sword.
That earns him a truly murderous glare. "You will both regret this, but not now. I'm not foolish enough to try to take both of you without the element of surprise –"
"Perhaps you shouldn't have spoken before attacking?" Auron suggests.
His remark goes unacknowledged. "So here are some puppets for you to rehearse with." The young man snaps his fingers. Two white bursts of light appear, one on either side of him, and when they fade he is flanked by two crystalline, monochromatic beings that bear more than a passing resemblance to him. "Play nice," he says before vanishing in a similar burst of light.
"What a charming fellow," Auron says. "Shall we?"
The creatures wave their hands. Five points of white light blossom into being around each of them, and they charge.