Author: Cyhirae

Note: ...SSHH! Don't tell Life I've updated twice in a thirty day span. . It might get ideas.

I will briefly note toward a complaint I had received on the original Dark Moon about the story being too heavily geared toward it having to be Golbez to set things right. Before this complaint rises again, let me simply remind that first-person perspective tends to give that lilt to anything since you will not see what the character himself does not see. Cecil is every bit as important to this story as Golbez, particularly in the final chapters; he is not, however, a character noted for incredibly twisty ways of thinking (and you can't tell me figuring out potential time/space dilemmas and paradoxes does not require twisty thinking) or even a particularly deep understanding of magic. Nor did he have access to Lunarian knowledge or pay the price to receive that hint Golbez did from Rubicante. So yes; a lot of this winds up relying on Golbez; this would be why he's the main character of the story.

This chapter is split between Golbez and Cecil. Cecil's part begins with a brief step back to pick up at the same point Golbez's does. It's also a good bit longer, actually. It feels perhaps a bit overlong, honestly; I may step back and edit this at some point. I kept getting a plethora of interrupts when attempting to do this chapter.

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Into the Dream

Golbez

The journey back to Baron goes even swifter than the path to Mt. Ordeals had; and yet I can't help but feel it is taking entirely too long. Far more than I had bargained on had been revealed in that little game of history show and tell; but though I was now aware of it, I hadn't the faintest idea how to set it right. I doubt anyone had that particular bit of knowledge simply lying about for me to snatch up and make use of.

Or...perhaps I have simply been looking in the wrong places. 'I' might know the answer already, though perhaps it's just a fever dream brought on by the fatigue the 'road' from Mysidia to Baron leaves in both Palom and I as we emerge. Right into the care of an irate company of guardsmen clad in red and gold who had evidently been about to make the journey themselves.

"There they are!" Gauntleted hands are grabbing hold of me and Palom both as we stagger forward, though at least the weapons are remaining at bay. Likely simply a band sent to fetch us at my dear brother's request, I would guess.

"H-hey, hands off...can't you see we're beat? Geeze..." Palom's grumpy sentiment echoes my own perfectly; but these guards may prove useful in either case. I make no effort to free myself from their grip as he does; instead, I nod toward the door of the building, trying to communicate some of our urgency in the gesture even as weariness drags down on my voice.

"We need to go to the King; we may have discovered a way to help..." The guards begin to mutter between themselves at my words; apparently they had orders to the contrary for what was to be done with us once we were found. So much for them being of any use.

"We have instructions to return you to the infirmary upon finding you-" That was as much as I needed to hear. I take a deep breath to steady myself, dragging on the last of my reserves to scrape together a spell, even as my mind reaches out to find Cecil. This spell was not meant to be used like this; I'd surely pay for it but I was not going to waste time trying to reason with Baron's idiot guards.

I can distantly hear their startled shouts as I vanish, the altered 'warp' spell taking hold and whisking me on to my destination. It was only meant for short range travel, reaching not even so far as white magic's 'teleport' could. Cecil's room was just at the edge of my range at the best of days from the middle of the town; attempting it in this condition leaves me half sprawled on the dying king's bed, half on his floor. It's a mixed blessing Cecil is too weak to even raise an adequate cry of surprise to alarm his guards at the intrusion; it will take them awhile yet to realize where I've gone.

"Do not..argue with me, Cecil." I may as well get that one out of the way now as that withered figure begins to try to form words; be them of welcome or scolding, there's little enough time. "...We need to go in...one more time. As deep as we can....I have to...to talk to him..." To myself, though Klu Ya's words remind me of their own dire portent. If I am too reckless in this, we will not be coming back.

We would be well past caring what happened to this world when the Dark Moon shone upon it.

The figure on the bed makes no sound of protest; he merely raises one decrepit hand for me to take. Those entirely too-living eyes in that dying frame show only agreeance; perhaps in some rare moment of wisdom, my brother had made his own guesses about how this must go. I close my hands lightly around that skeletal appendage, but this time there is no dizzying fall into the corner of Cecil's mind or plunge into darkness.

This time, I can see us both; Cecil as he had appeared several years ago, myself as I had been since my acceptance into the Lunarian fortress as the moon departed. The world forms slowly around us; the frozen walls of Baron taking shape from the darkness little by little as the cold begins to cut at us both. It clings to our forms as a thin layer of frost seeking to grow ever thicker as our feet find ground beneath them. Cecil drags me forward as I try to orientate myself; he knows Baron far better than I ever shall.

Yet no sooner have we entered the castle proper than does Cecil abruptly vanish from my side; something is different in this place. Outside of the castle, it had appeared normal enough- if one could count a thriving settlement coated in killing ice 'normal' -but within? Baron does not have so many halls, of that I am certain. Nor would they be so oddly broken; they twist and split, then rejoin in ways senseless to the mind. In some, the ice has begun to take hold, in others, it has yet to reach. Those are the ones I find myself stumbling through, seeking some faint bit of warmth that seems to be keeping the ice at bay.

And the oddest things are found lying in these halls. Here lies an old toy, one I actually recognize. Klu Ya had made it when I was hardly more than a toddler myself, a little wooden cart of sorts. And a little ways from it, a book, its pages tattered and worn. Across its yellowed pages, simplistic explanations of magic and the most basic of healing spells are written.

Memory after memory begins to fill the halls I walk as I strive to reach the center of the 'castle'; toys and old possessions are replaced by sounds. My mother's gentle voice singing a lullaby; Klu Ya attempting to teach a man from a nearby village how to cast the same basic spells he sought to teach me. The taunts of other children; sometimes playful, sometimes cruel...they begin to form a shadow dance of their own in my mind, bidding images to rise where an empty hall should be, dredging up memories thought long vanished.

Memories that slow my steps and pin me in place as they seek to pull me back and live them again. A time before Zemus, before Klu Ya's foolish sympathy toward superstitious townsfolk had seen to his death. In here, those days did not need to end. I could be Theodore again...Klu Ya could be 'Father' again and not die; Mother would not die after leaving behind a brother I no longer wanted.

I could stay. I could stay forever.

I almost want to laugh and cry at the same time at the lie; I drag the truth up from my mind with a scream of purest hatred for the fact reality cannot be so easily cast aside. This little trap almost worked; it would have worked if I had not been Zemus' pawn. He had taught me the strength hatred could give, and though my Uncle had warned me to temper it lest I become like him and not merely a tool...here it becomes my tool to combat the trap laid. It's a bitter irony that the very thing that let Zemus take control of me is now what denies 'me' the ability to control me.

The halls shatter as my rage, my hatred for the false promise of the trap, strike against them on the wake of that cry. Like pieces of broken glass, they fall about me, revealing the ice-clad door to the throne room. And still, Cecil is no where in sight. I look about for a moment, then begin for the doors...if he is trapped in those halls, only he could free himself.

I place my hand against the ice covering the door, sending my thoughts beyond it and smiling at a startled reaction within. Oddly satisfying to catch 'myself' off guard; but alarming in its own right to think he did not even realize the trap had been sprung and escaped. With a whispered spell, I prepare send myself into the room beyond; there is little time left to get my answers if anything were to be done back 'home'.

I could only hope that Cecil would find his own way in quickly, so that I might talk to the true Golbez of this reality and not merely a reflection of him, split to keep a tenuous balance.

Those thoughts are quickly shattered, however, at a sudden scream from...somewhere. The spell I had been weaving falls to pieces with that distraction; and I do not need the urging of the one within the sealed throne room to leave off and seek the source of that cry.

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Into the Nightmare

Cecil

It had taken some time to discern where Golbez had most likely disappeared to; it was Rosa who had thought to ask Palom where his 'charge' had vanished to; only to find he had disappeared as well. Yet for the life of me, I could not figure out why Palom would take him to Mt. Ordeals. If there had been anything left to learn there...wouldn't he have told me?

Or had my brother learned something, somehow, that I had overlooked in months of going through the self same books he had requested brought to him in the infirmary? Rosa and I had poured over them fruitlessly until I could barely read the pages any longer. And still nothing had made itself known to us.

"Rest easy, Paladin-King. Your brother shall soon return with all you need to know." The room is so much hotter, the moment that voice sounds. I do not need to open my eyes to know who is here. I had not told even Rosa of the Archfiend's visits; strange to trust in the honor of a monster, but Rubicante had shown little interest in Baron itself. "You will need your strength for what he will require of you."

"...Why are you...?" The words are barely forced out before a pang of that hideous cold bites through me. They had been growing worse as of late...but as with every visit that he had yet made, Rubicante drew warmth closer to me to drive it back. He could never banish it all; but he seemed intent to buy me time even so.

"I told you once before, Cecil of Baron; I have my own interests in seeing that which pains you defeated." Yet not enough to offer up what it is he knows unless I agreed to a price; something I had thus far refused and prepare myself to do again...but the offer goes unvoiced, this time. I force my eyes open to look where the Archfiend, or what remains of him, drifts...little more than a ghostly flame somehow wandered from the hearth kept blazing.

It takes a moment for my thoughts to drag their way back through the pain and cold to recall with what words he had awakened me. 'Your brother shall soon return with all you need to know'.

"..What..have you..." No knife of cold greets those words as I breathe in the heated air the ghostly flame emits; I imagine this would seem near stifling to any other, but to my nearly frozen self, the heat is nothing more than a blessing, easing the shuddering of lungs and form.

"What have I done? I offered him what I offered you; and he accepted. He knows now the way to which he must look...something I think you will soon see." I have no strength with which to even rise from my bed, let alone to offer the creature the glare and threat I long to. It is all I can do to simply fist one hand weakly against the blanket, wishing the Archfiend's neck were somehow caught between fingers I barely recognize as my own.

Then there is a sudden shuddering in the air, a sudden weight half thrown across the bed. I hardly need sight as sharp as I had once had to know who it is that would dare throw himself through the defenses Baron had against such magically aided entries; though the gasped out words bring little comfort paired with what Rubicante himself had shared.

"Do not..argue with me, Cecil." The words are barely audible, his voice strained and exhausted. What did he think to accomplish with both of us so worn? "...We need to go in...one more time. As deep as we can....I have to...to talk to him..."

Yet more chasing after things we had already tried; yet whatever Rubicante shared with Golbez appears to have opened doors we had no means of unlocking. I can only hope whatever it was Rubicante had demanded as payment was worth the information as I give my assent. There is no time to demand that knowledge, not if a possible solution lay so near.

This time it is Golbez who takes us into the dream; every entry I had ever made into this had been chaotic and frightening. It had been not unlike falling headfirst off a tower stair, watching the steps fly by as you waited for the inevitable strike against the floor below that never came. With his guidance, it is more akin to walking through a tunnel of pure shadow that gradually shapes itself. As always, the cold is the first thing noted; then it forms ice clad walls and the 'statues' that were the castle's citizenry, frozen in defense of it.

Here even Kain stands, spear raised to the starless sky, returned home at last...only to die as the rest have, it seems. It brings some guilt to me to be glad suddenly the the Kain of the waking world has kept away, as if his return would be some portent of this disaster becoming reality. I tug Golbez along, away from the 'monument' of a friend ten years lost and into the castle itself. We were in 'Cid's courtyard'; the mechanics made use of it regularly. The throne room, seen so often in this dream, was not far away.

But it is not the passage to the throne that awaits once the door has opened. Suddenly, Golbez is gone; the door itself has vanished, leaving me within a maze of twisting halls. Though they bear the look of Baron's architecture, I know them to be wrong; there should have been stairs here and that ridiculous 'secret' door everyone knew about. There is no sign of such, however; only a hall that extends before and after me.

I begin moving along it, calling out for Golbez; it feels pointless but if this is some magic born trap, surely there was a way to defy it. And being a dream, shouldn't will alone be enough? But this dream has never seen fit to bow to my will, and it does not do so now. Instead of my brother calling back to me, other voices begin to emerge from the shadows.

Even though it's been many years now, the voices are familiar. I've heard at least one every day for the past several years, though older now...the other has been absent from my life for nearly a decade but will never be forgotten. I hurry down the hall, using them as my guide as branches appear to happen at random. I nearly run into them, though they look so out of place in here.

And so young. Kain bears the armor of an apprentice Dragoon, no helmet barring his face and long hair from view. Rosa is in her apprentice's robe, smiling up at Kain as they speak.

This...I remember it. It was the day Kain had left to complete his training as a Dragoon; a year at least away from his friends and any form of true civilization to train in the wilds under the supervision of his instructor. Rosa had been heartbroken to learn of the impending seperation; and though I stand so near now, their words are still little more than a murmur.

I had nearly walked into them then; I had come to wish Kain well on his training but held back to let them have their time on seeing them together. Rosa's smile is bright but her eyes are bright for a different reason than happiness; tears are barely being held in check as Kain leans down to kiss her gently on the cheek before turning to go. And then, in this strange vision, I see myself, stepping from my own shadow in this hall to approach Rosa, offering her comfort as she watched her then-love walk away without so much as a glance back.

But something is wrong...this isn't right. The 'me' in the vision is smiling as Rosa presses her face to his shoulder with a sob; a victorious sort of smirk flung after Kain as she clings and weeps at being left behind. His arm rests about her waist, hand lingering dangerously near the hip as he strokes her hair soothingly with his free hand.

"This isn't what happened...I comforted her. I did not do-" My words of protest shift oddly in this place; distorted and echoing back as the tone turns into a mockery of itself. First the tone of denial becomes a plaintive one, then a mockery of itself as the words bounce and slip about the murmured conversation the two figures are having in that patch of 'day' in the midst of this dark hall.

"Did not do what, Cecil? Steal her from me the moment my back was turned?" From out of the shadows, the younger Kain appears before me, stepping to the side to watch the two conversing in that odd patchwork of brilliant sun and grassy turf. "You certainly wasted little time."

"It was nothing of the sort!" But to look at that pair, even I would have had to wondered had I see it like this then. But I know this is not what happened; I did not do anything but offer Rosa a shoulder should she need it while Kain was gone. She was just a friend then, and very dear to another friend. "She was upset; you had simply walked away and seemed to have already turned your mind to your training before you were even out of sight!"

"Are those the same words you used to win her over?" This young Kain smirks at me a moment, then shakes his head. "How could I have ever trusted you? Either of you? I should have known better than to trust in a Dark Knight."

"I was only offering her comfort! I didn't-" My words break off as my own hand, raised to sweep away the denial, comes into view. The armor covering it is as familiar in all the worst of ways; black as pitch and fitting like a second skin. I stare down at myself then as the apprentice Dragoon begins to stroll around me with a mocking curiosity. "How is this..."

"It is what you trained for, isn't it? You certainly embraced the first lesson of that armor and sword; take what you want. You failed to learn it all the way through." Kain raises his lance then, tip just above the ground as he shifts his weight. "After all...I am still here."

The apprentice Dragoon leaps; but when he returns, lance leading, he bears the full armor of his father. My sword leaps up without my willing to meet the blow, forcing him to land away from me with his lance positioned before him.

"Kain, I did not-" But he's only smirking; even as my words are coming forth, my body is moving forward of its own voilition it seems. I strike again and again at him, forcing him back until he takes to the air again. This is not the first time I have fought Kain; not in practice or in true battle. In true battle, however...I always had hesitated. I never wished him any harm.

Now, my sword rises up again, but not to meet the lance. I step aside, a puppet to this armor's commands, my arm swinging up lazily to bring the sword along the inside of the lance, driving it into the Dragoon's chest as gravity reclaims its hold on him. Warmth sweeps over my arm as a flow of blood turns dark armor scarlet; he slumps against my shoulder as the armor refuses to let my knees buckle, taking his full weight onto the blade as the lance clatters to the ground.

I want to catch him, to ease him to the ground...but instead I find myself throwing him down, kneeling only long enough to clean my blade against the hair splayed across the floor, hastening its dying to the deep red that's gathering around his fallen form.

"Kain...Kain!" He's looking up at me, no smirk in place this time. His eyes are unfocused though turned in my direction, his mouth moving as he attempts to speak. The armor allows me to lean down, freeing me from its control at least briefly, but only so I can hear his dying words.

"...Now she's truly yours...won fairly like any prize...as...as befits such as...you..." The figure stills, growing as dark as the world around me. Light suddenly spills across me, that little patch of daylit world somehow come closer during that 'battle'; Rosa stands there now, smiling at me with her hand extended. She does not seem to even take note of Kain, lying but a foot or two away, even as his blood pools about her feet.

This isn't how it happened, this place wasn't even trying to claim it was. It was declaring how it 'should' have happened; a fact I can feel clawing at my mind as Rosa keeps her hand held out for me. There is a dreadful certainty that if I take that hand, I will be trapped in this armor forever...it is all I can do to resist the armor's command that I do just that.

"This isn't...real. It cannot be. It never should have happened as it did; it certainly never should have been like this!" The armor is still bidding me to rise, to claim my 'prize'. I rail against it with all of my strength, but it is like a tide, like the very thing I had once feared as the Captain of the Red Wings. The blade, the armor...they bring their own taint to try and trap me, to twist my thoughts to those befitting what I had once been. Rosa now steps forward, to encourage the submission to what stifles the light I had embraced upon Ordeals.

It is a move of desperation; one I had never imagined myself ever doing as I rise to my feet before Rosa. I submit to the armor that far, but as her hand closes about mine, her eyes are widening in shock. The blade that was still stained with Kain's blood now sinks into her torso, devouring the life in this false Rosa even as it had Kain's.

"I deny you; and all this place would make of me..." Her mouth opens in a scream that never forms to the ears; instead it rips across my mind, driving me back to my knees. Then the hall is blindingly bright after that strange darkness...Rosa is gone, Kain is gone...though the dark armor clings to me even still, there is no blood upon it or the blade.

"...You must always do things the difficult and dramatic way, Cecil." I jerk my head up from where I had been looking to the floor in search of some sign of the nightmare that had happened here; Golbez stands near the end of the corridore, arms crossed as he looks me over with a musing expression. "...I suppose that is one way to keep his precious balance. Come on then; if you're quite through playing with traps and hallucinations, we need to see this finished."

I push myself up as he turns his back to me and begins to walk away; never had my dreams entailed such...dreams within them in turn. I avoid looking down at myself as I try to catch up to my brother before another such trap descends; I had never thought to see myself in this again. I could only hope this particular venture would end before it began to feel like a proper fit again.

Some things were best left to only to uncertain memory.

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To be continued in: A Reality's Dying Dream