Heart Less Love
Chapter Ten: Before
If this is all a dream, don't wake me up.
She pushed the door open and froze on the point of entering, holding her self back and trembling even as she wavered with thick indecision. Entering this room would mean finding out exactly what the voices in her head had been telling her all the steps of the way to this place, and she found that she was afraid. It was ridiculous, wasn't she some kind of hero, at least, wasn't that what everyone made her out to be, all the damned time?
"I…"
"You don't have to go," Yuffie said quietly, everyone turning to look at her in surprise. "We could find another way; we don't have to go looking in here."
"Yuffie," Aerith murmured, "You see though, don't you? I have to go into here."
"Do you really?" The younger girl was obtuse as she pressed the issue, hand fluttering up to rest on the shoulder that the ancient had healed not so long ago. "What's so special about something in there? What's it got that we don't?"
"…"
"Isn't that for Aerith to decide?" Cloud added into the conversation, "It's not your choice, it's her choice. All we did was to come all this way with her. Not because she asked us to, but because we wanted to."
"Out of love, our friendship and bonds that run deep."
Yuffie glanced at her boss, Vincent, from the corner of her eye as he spoke, "I just don't like it, that's all. Are you gonna go in there on your own too?"
"I have to. I think I can't bring anyone with me to see it."
"Aw man, what a bust!"
Tifa smiled, but Aerith could see the edge of disappointment welling under the surface and quickly tried to stem off anything that would later be grounds for an argument between them; Planet only knew how little she wanted to spark a fierce debate about going places on her own. "Maybe if-"
She didn't have chance to get much further, as a sudden pall came over the party and the corridor where there had been a vague murmur from the Planet in the form of the hymn she was used to hearing, ever since her time in the Lifestream. There was nothing, just an aching silence that she found unbearable and panic rose quickly from her stomach to her throat, sitting there in cold dread. Then she heard it; the slither and the click-clack of talons on the magic hewn stone corridor, coming steadily towards them.
More than those simple sounds, she heard the voice, cool and dark, whispering in a voice that was layered many times over to her 'other' ears, the ears she used to listen to the Planet.
"Gainsborough…" it hissed to her and she swallowed.
"It's coming."
Tifa glanced at her, then at the group. Aerith had noticed the way that Vincent tensed and Yuffie drew back against him, clutching her shoulder in remembered agony and she couldn't find the right words to make them fit suddenly, drawing against the door herself and gripping the frame.
"Yuffie, Vincent, how do we stop it?"
"It?" Aerith said, "There's more than one!"
"Crap," Tifa snapped, glancing at Cloud, "This wasn't in the guidebook."
"Damn surprise tours," he grinned in return.
Aerith pondered a snide remark but the sudden screech from the corridor disbanded all sane thought, for it was filled with malicious hatred, a cut-glass edge of fury and mindlessness that made the hair on the back of her neck rise in response. She shivered and gripped the door again, hunching over. Cid was the only one to move in the face of this, stepping so his body was in front of her, facing the path of the corridor.
"Cid?"
"Alright, guys and girls, here's the damned plan so you all had better listen up because I ain't repeating myself to you jackasses more than once, okay? Aerith, you get your pretty little butt into that room and do whatever you gotta. Yuffie, set up a defensive magic grid, Tifa and Cloud, on the front line and me an' old Vampire here will back you up – don't you be giving me none of those red eyed looks mister, I ain't the one who tried sleeping in a coffin. Y'all got that?"
Aerith paused and then smiled, laughing softly, "Aye, aye Cap'n!"
Tifa echoed her laugh, and soon there was a smile on every face at the blunt but practical way in which the old captain had handled their moment of fright at the screams from whatever was approaching. She sought Tifa's eyes for a moment, locking her green ones to the wine dark and expressive ones she loved dearly. Tifa was looking back at her, nose wrinkled as she smiled.
"You don't take too long, alright? If you get into trouble, just call me, Aerith."
"I will, you too."
"Hah, me, get into trouble?" Tifa flashed her a cocky little grin and fiddled nervously with her leather gloves – she tried hard not to show it, but Aerith could see the tremble in the fingers and the waver in that smirk. She could always read her love like an open book.
"I know, I know," Aerith smiled.
"Go then."
She hesitated then drew into the room, closing the door just as the screams flashed down the corridor, howls of anger that their intended target was closeting her self in yet another room protected by deep Cetra magic. The inside of the large room was sparse, painted white or perhaps, naturally so. Round and inset with a circular altar in the centre, she was drawn towards a chunk of natural quartz crystal that gave off a faint green-white glow.
It reminded her of something that she couldn't put her finger on and as she came closer the sounds of battle that had just started faded into the singular song of the Planet, rising in crescendo. Once she was stood by it, she was swaying with the force of the magic playing with her very senses and unwittingly, placed her hands onto the crystal.
With this, all rational thoughts fled.
She opened her eyes, lowering her hands from the great crystal and looking behind her as there was a commotion coming down the corridor, so loud that it even echoed into the smooth chamber where she stood with the other priestesses, tending to the crystals and tuning their luminescence to the song of their planet.
"What's all that noise for?" She muttered, going to the door and pulling open to look upon the sea of acolytes and other types, from all walks of study in the great halls of the Cetra Lyceum. Her robes fluttered with the passing strides of anxious people and peeved slightly, she folded her hands into the robe sleeves and stepped through the crowds with the two other priestesses closing the doors behind her, just as smoothly diving through the storm of people after her, never seeming to be disturbed by the rash and almost panicky motions.
Soon she came to the door that opened on the first ledge of trials and the sunlight streaming through onto her face was warm with the promise of summer, her eyes looking across the crowds as they jostled to see over the ledge and down onto the city.
"Move aside," she commanded firmly and at the sound of her voice, all the lower acolytes drew back to allow her closer to the edge. Slowly she came to the ledge end and with her sisters-of-study close by, looked upon the chaos below. Then lifting her eyes she spotted what had caused the dismay.
Stood on a spire of the tallest building, swaying softly was the figure of the High Priestess, some look on her face that was indecipherable at the distance, yet she looked over just as K'listo was looking towards her and the face was calm, as calm as the dead of night and those bright green eyes faded into darkness.
She had no time to spin wind or call the great waters of the city up to catch her; between one breath and look and the next, the High Priestess let go of the parapet and hurtled towards the ground. She closed her eyes as the crunch sounded, the screams rising from the onlookers and when she dared to open her eyes, brimming with tears of confusion, the blood splatter was arranged in almost a perfect circle about the body of the fallen High Priestess.
At the head of the figure, where one hand pointed in death, bent out of place, was the black clad figure of the woman with reptilian eyes and pale hair, lifting her golden gaze very slowly to look unblinkingly at her, looking through her and there was not even a single expression on that alien, perfect face. Not so much as a flicker of an eyelid as a globule of blood trickled down from the cheek to chin, tracing the landing arc on skin.
Sickened, K'listo tore her eyes away and snapped her orders out smartly, "Don't just stand there gawking. Rouse the healers; fetch the Examiners, someone for crying out loud find a calming spell! Joraile, go run to the High Priest's office and alert him of this, quickly! Larenne, I want you to go find my brother quickly, hurry now!"
Whilst perhaps not the best at giving orders, any kind of order was good; her two priestess friends dashed off and with a snort for the magical students who couldn't remember the basis for the spell needed, she flicked a hand over the crowd, intoning softly. The Planet sighed and gently put the Cetra adolescents to sleep, stood up and unmoving.
Her eyes came back to where the woman had stood. No one remained there but the body of the High Priestess.
K'listo had never been one to ignore a sign, and that pointing hand was one she could not afford to ignore at all. Never at all.
He paced as though he would wear a trench into the floor. His black hair flounced with each step he took, his eyes piercing and he chewed his lip in adorable distraction.
She watched him, pace up and down and down and up and once every so many steps, pausing to listen to the quiet of the chamber, then he would resume the long strides and pace of the motions, biting his lip and twiddling his thumbs nervously.
Unlike her brother, K'listo sat sedately on the low cushioned chair without a back, hands folded coolly in her lap and brushing on the fine silks, swirled with the patterns of moonbeams and stars. Her hair was drawn away in the priestess style and her eyes were unreadable, or so she liked to think but they followed his motions.
"Is it normally this long?"
"Longer, sometimes."
He scowled, "I just, and she hasn't made a single noise."
"She is not like us, and not like others. She would not make a sound if a bandersnatch chewed her leg off."
"K'listo, whilst faintly unkind I fear you speak the truth."
"I never lie, especially not to you brother."
"The Temple is nearly complete now; the High Priestess was going to remove the black materia, wasn't she?"
"The remnant of stars and nothingness, yes. It was to be interred in the tomb with the chosen few to protect it a week past but with these events… things have been occurring so strangely of late. It worries me, brother."
"Worries? Looking for another way to point your finger at my wife?"
"If… I am chosen as the High Priestess, I would find cause to question her ability to live in harmony here, yes. We have tried so hard to accept her alien ways, but she has not tried to change to fit in with us." K'listo tightened her hands on the skirts of the robe, the exquisite embroidery bunching up, "What does she want us all to do, leap from the spire too?"
"K'listo!"
"Don't 'K'listo' me, brother – you didn't see what I saw and you can try to defend her all that you wish. Others saw it, others bear witness to it."
"Even if what you say is true..." he sighed and sat down next to her, "Even so…"
"I understand. She is your wife; you love her and would do anything to protect not just her and that love, but the babies she bears for you."
"I would leave with her."
"…That would sadden me."
"That's the way of things, isn't it?"
K'listo bent her head to hide the tears in her eyes, "Yes. That is always the way of things."
From inside the chamber there was a reed thin wail piercing the air and like a shot, Arkilles was up from the divan chair and into the room, exclaiming with joy over the babe. K'listo remained there, listening to the dry responses of Arkilles' wife and the healers on hand. She waited, heart thudding with trepidation on her ribcage when the second wail went up, piercing the quiet.
"Twins," she murmured, "…what a mixed omen."
She couldn't believe it.
Her brother lay in a heap next to her, his face pushed into the mud slightly and her own robes that marked her eventual ascension to High Priestess after the current task were drenched with blood. Her own and some of the others, mingling together and darkening the fine weave, already a little dim in the twilight of the day.
The Temple where they would house the remnant of nothing was just beyond them and their litter had been bearing the chunk of crystal towards it, guarded by magic users and warriors alike, but now they lay in the mud. The last person she had expected to see had done it, eyes wild and hair streaming down about her as the heavens continued in the downpour, lightning crashing in the distance and briefly lighting up the mad eyes, the tautness of skin and the grin snarled across the alien, perfectly beautiful features. The left hand of the woman gripped the black materia hard enough to draw blood and her right arm, holding a splinter of wood that had been a halberd and dripping thickening blood.
"This is mine," she hissed.
"Why? Why would you do this!"
"It calls to me, it always calls to me. It owns me and my soul and why not give it that, it promises everything to me, everything!"
"He loves you, you have children, isn't that enough!"
"Never enough, it'll never be enough!"
K'listo scrambled to her feet to make a dive at the woman, but the pole cam about and drove the splintered end through her shoulder fiercely, chased by hollow laughter, mocking in the chill that edged it.
The alien face came close, pressing nose tip to nose tip. The eyes were dilated, filled with a madness of the mind and soul that made K'listo's own soul shrink in response, made it quail in fear. She swallowed hard and then wished she hadn't, pinioned to the side of the litter by the sharp wood.
"Does it hurt, Cetra?"
"It hurts."
"How much, should I make you suffer more? Yes, you Cetra like your suffering, you like feeling like martyrs to the rest of us, don't you? Shall I make you a martyr, little Cetra girl, like your High Priestess?"
"So it was you!"
"She was taking it away from me," the left hand drew the chunk of materia up, the blackness slick and glittering evilly at her, "My beloved stars, my beloved ending and something. I couldn't let her do that and then they chose you, it had to be… you… as her successor. I know you can't stand me, Priestess… and I don't mind. I'll go North, to where the world touches the stars and leave this place by summoning disaster upon you all. Won't you enjoy that suffering?"
"Madness!" K'listo gasped and writhed, "You wouldn't!"
"…everything dies," The woman said coldly and just as quickly as she had appeared to them, she was gone, leaving her stuck to the litter with blood trickling down her shoulder.
Brave enough to attempt to wrench the pole out, she gave a few sharp tugs but the waves of sickening pain was soon enough to dissuade her from it without help. Unfortunately, those who weren't dead from the attack lay under a heavy mind-spell that would leave them asleep for a while and without use of her hand, K'listo was unable to call up the magic needed to awaken them.
Without much of a choice, she tried yelling a few times for them to wake and eventually, as blood loss began to wear on her vitality, she hung her head forward and breathed through pale and cracked lips, trying to concentrate on staying awake.
When the darkness was coming in dizzyingly close, she heard his voice; "I was wrong, sister. I was… so wrong."
The war raged for a year, on and off. Sometimes they would imagine they had her cornered against escape but then the reality would come crashing in and they would realise they were kidding themselves and she had already found a way to evade them and move on.
With greater numbers and resources, they eventually cornered her at the Knowlespole and despite her resistance, managed to prevent the total summoning of Meteor, the shards of the great sphere of a dead planet crashing down, splitting the planet and creating great canyons of jagged pain. There it was that she proved to have a dangerous ability to deceive humans and the war continued, growing bloody for a short while.
But then she grew tired and weak and together with her brother, K'listo tracked her to the precipice where the lifestream bubbled out of the core of the world, gushing up to try and heal the immense wounds.
She was just staring up at the sky, the chunk of black materia held balanced in her hand and from the glare of the raw energy of the world, she could see the stains of tears on those cheeks, perfect, flawless and like tiny stars themselves.
Arkilles lowered his head, "I found you."
She didn't turn or move, no single motion, simply bouncing the materia a little as a hollow, broken sob choked from her throat. "Arkilles…"
"You have to stop now. You have to give yourself up."
"I want to, I w-want to stop it all." She looked at them, her eyes calm and not showing a hint of the wild madness that had eaten at her, a year before, a strange kind of delirium brought about by contact, mere vicinity with the black materia. "I want it all to go away… Arkilles… no… K'listo, help me… High Priestess."
The raw need in the plea hurt her so much that she was forced to lower her gaze, "I do not have the power needed to undo that which the Materia has done."
"Take it… take it then and seal it away."
"What?" K'listo said in surprise.
"Seal the materia from the world, if others sense it or know of it, then it will draw them here… ah, take it, before I do more m-madness…" She threw the rock and it clattered harmlessly from the cliff face, coming to a stop by an Examiner who picked up the rock with gloved hands and placed it into a spell lined box. As he did so, the woman turned and lunged with a screech of, "NO!" before getting a hold of herself and dropping to her knees to prevent her mad headlong dash.
"My love," Arkilles said softly, "What has it done to you?"
"I…I… still hear it. Ah, I will go mad from hearing it… w-whispering to me… singing to me…" She sobbed and cupped hands over ears, "Still singing. Let me have it!"
"No," He said firmly.
"We shall seal it away," K'listo murmured, "So none may have it again, so there will be no more destruction."
"No!" The woman hissed, hands tightening in her hair, "No, no… no!"
"Come, we must do this quickly. You will answer for your crimes… …it is the way." The new High Priestess turned to go with her group of magic users, but there was a scuffle and someone pushed her gently forwards.
Then a scream…
As she looked back incredulously, she could see only Arkilles stood at the precipice, sobbing softly. Her eyes glanced about, catching the smear of blood on the rocks that led to the edge and her mind quickly deduced what had happened. She flicked fingers at her followers, "Hurry, seal her before she returns or uses her wicked magic!"
They hurried to do her bidding, but the final blow was to be felt years, year later after they sealed her within the crack of earth in the Knowlespole. Leaving them to do what they needed to, she went to Arkilles and instead of standing quietly at his side, she laced her arms about his waist and mumbled into his back that heaved with wretched sobs, "You saved me."
"I killed her."
"You saved your children."
"…my children."
"You don't have to tell them, about what happened. Just say that their mother had to go far, far away."
"I will never love again, K'listo."
"You might do. You might be surprised at how the heart works." She sighed softly, "You … made a supreme sacrifice today, Arkilles."
"You're my sister… and you were right, and I was wrong. She was still evil, under it."
"…No," K'listo murmured as her brother broke free and stalked off to help with the magical sealing process, "Underneath it all, Jenova was just as fragile as we are, brother, only she had much fewer choices than us." She sighed and looked towards the box that contained the black materia, "…let us hope that this never comes to pass again. Sleep well, Jenova."
"Jenova, a woman born of the stars and not of this world; migrating from planet to planet, cursed to sensitivity of the lethal radiation that the black materia gives off. Hers was a life filled with discontent and a love she must lose. Mine was more the pity."
Aerith opened her eyes, looking at the hooded figure that stood across from her in the room, faded faintly by the glow of the crystal. "Those creatures who are following us, what are they?"
"Aberrations of the magic; twisted souls that were twisted yet further by the recent re-emergence of the black materia."
"Twisted souls… they are the descendants of Jenova and Cetra? Mixed blooded children, overly sensitive to magic."
"There are many in your world who claims such. Those who underwent the testing of their blood by ShinRa. It was those that would become eligible for the First Class programme, drawn to points of magical study."
"First Class… so Zack!"
"Zack was one with some mixed blood inside of him, possibly why he felt so drawn to you, another with magic inside of their selves like he."
"…If what you say is true, then why are they after me?"
"To eradicate the Cetra was one of Jenova's wishes and her last thoughts, resonating with the black materia, continued not only to Sephiroth, but to others with her mimetic legacy."
"That's a bit awkward then." Aerith sighed, "But… why K'listo?"
"K'listo eventually married and had children, descendants of the line of the High Priestess. You share some genetic makeup that she did, meaning, as far back as two thousand years ago, you are related."
"…and you… then… you could only be…"
The figure drew the hood down and Aerith smiled faintly as he spoke, "I promised that I would look after things, after the mess she and I made for this world."
"I see," The ancient murmured, mouth twisting with a sudden grin, "I never imagined you as the cleaner type, Arkilles."
"I'm not too bad."
The door opened and a weary Yuffie poked her head about the door, looking at Aerith who jumped and tore her gaze from the man in dark clothing that she could only see, to gaze at Yuffie. "You startled me!"
"Uh huh. They're dead. Hey, who's the stiff?" She pointed at Arkilles' image.
It was all Aerith could do not to drop her jaw…