The Crystal Melody

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy, but it is great to use as a basis for working through trauma!

Notes:

FIC START!

Part 14

Canti fully expected to land the same way she did when she came to the Seventh Realm alone last time. Face first in the sand, surrounded by beach plug monsters, and ready to toss at them her limit break. But she didn't feel the sensation of falling at all. When she opened her eyes, she was surrouned by darkness. Deep, black. Devoid of any light at all. When she tried to stand up, even though she couldn't see anything, there was something solid beneath her. This wasn't the Seventh Realm at all. There was no place like that that she could remember. When she lifted her foot as if she was going to take a step, a light came from a short distance away. Slowly, she approached it, not sure where else to be drawn to.

"Welcome, welcome!" came an excited male voice. "Welcome, Cantirena!"

"...what is this place?" she asked as she came to the light. It was on whatever it was that she was standing on, until it began to float at the same height as her eyes. "Who are you? I'm... trying to go to the Seventh Realm..."

"I know where you're going," the voice spoke again. "You've arrived in the magical space between realms, my dear."

"What? But I'm not supposed to get caught between different areas of space-time. I have a keeper's badge," she reached into her purse to retrieve it. "See? I'm a keeper in good standing with the Eidolons, so I'm allowed passage. Even when things were bad between me and them, I was never stopped before I arrived in the realm! Let me pass!"

"I'm afraid I cannot do that," the voice answered.

"Why not?!"

"You are not of sound mind."

"I would be of sound mind, had my father not just... become a dream!" she retorted loudly.

"Cid Highwind being your father was not a dream," the voice said. It was soft and comforting. She had a hard time figuring out where it was coming from or what was saying these words.

"But... according to the records back at the library, he isn't a hero of the Seventh Realm... and the way that I remember him, he was! He lived at the university with all of us! He even said he was going to stay with me after all of the darkness is sealed!" Canti said. "Are you telling me that what I'm remembering is real?"

"It is."

"Then... what about this world where I'm engaged to Emperor Mateus?! Where he is quite literally my only companion, and I'm just some bard?!"

"This world is also real," he reassured her.

"...what?!" she shook her head. "How could that be?"

"How could it be, how could it be... there being a world where you are a confident dragoon adopted by Cid Highwind, and a world where you are a meek bard engaged to the lifelong ruler of the Palamecian Empire... this is a good question..." The light grew dimmer, just a bit, until she saw a picture of herself floating there, wearing the armor of a dragoon. Then right beside it, an image of her wearing the costume of a bard. "Two Cantirenas, side by side. How do they come to be? How do you remember becoming a dragoon? You were not born one, were you?"

"No! I made the decision to be a dragoon, to train at it! I studied under dragoons of great renown to learn how to do it!" she said very proudly.

"Indeed. Now how do you believe a version of you could have become a bard instead?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Clearly I didn't seek a relationship with the dragoons... I must have just been afraid after being... hurt... instead of trying to fight back." Canti shrugged. "I suppose I must have been scared of everyone, just looking for someone willing to take care of me and keep others away, to prevent being hurt again. I was born with the natural aptitude for singing. Even I remember people suggesting I become a bard instead of a dragoon."

Another image of her appeared, wearing the garb of a white mage. And next to that, one of her wearing the garb of a black mage. One by one the known jobs from every realm appeared until there was a gigantic circle that went around the light source, showing different versions of her.

"All of these versions of you are real," the voice said. "All of them are you. You are them. You choose who you want to be."

She stared at each of those pictures. "With my decisions..."

"Yes. Make your decisions based on where you wish to be."

"It seems like everything is all ready decided for me, though. That's why I'm here! I want to find..."

"You wish to find Cid Highwind. In one life, he is your adopted father."

"Yes! That's the life I want to return to! That's the life I miss!" she said vigorously. "How do I get back there?"

"There is no... going back there."

"But you just said-"

"Ah, ah. I don't believe you fully understood me."

"All these alternate versions of me are real!" Canti said. "So that means there's all those alternate worlds must exist, right?"

"No. There is only one unified world."

"If there's only one world, how could there be all these different versions of me?" she asked. She put her finger onto one, the one of her dressed as a samurai, and then she moved along to another version of herself that was wearing the ornate clothing of a summoner. "Unless, it's not that they all exist. It's that they're all possible... depending on the decisions I make, and who I choose to hold close to me, I could be any one of these versions of myself!"

"Correct."

"This bard version of me didn't go to run away to Rocket Town to get away from Borghen, probably because it doesn't even exist in this version of the world. I don't know what this version of me did to try to cope with her fears of that happening again. Hell, she may have not had the courage to stand up to Borghen until someone commanded him to stop, like... Mateus..." she gasped upon that realization. "Of course I would have been thankful for him saving me, and of course Borghen would back off when the order came from his own leader... Holy shit! Now I get it!"

"Make your decisions and follow through, Cantirena. No one can do this for you."

She nodded. "Right! Now... how do I get out of here?"

"Do you wish to return back to the Seventh Gallery, or do you wish to continue to the Seventh Realm?"

Canti answered, "Well. I have to figure out why Rocket Town is gone. The only way to do that is to go to the Seventh Realm and investigate. If Cid doesn't become a hero in the world where Space City exists and Rocket Town doesn't, that means I have to know what changed."

"Very well. Close your eyes."

"What? Why?"

"Close your eyes, Cantirena."

"...oh fine..." She closed her eyes.

"Now, do not open them until I tell you to do so. Can you manage this?"

"Yes. I can."

"Good."

The ground beneath her feet began to wobble under her weight. Even though she felt as if she was going to panic, she began to crack her eyes open.

"Keep them closed or I cannot send you on your way!"

"Sorry!"

She put her hands over her eyes. The space around her was changing quickly and not being able to see what it was only scared her further, but she did as she was told. She wasn't sure what she was feeling exactly, but it was... it was certainly something. A haziness. Almost like... falling asleep, or something... Well shit. That lying voice...

Canti opened her eyes. She was staring straight up at a partly cloudy sky. Soon, she noticed an airship crossing the sky. That caught her interest immediately. What it a Shinra Gelinka? Was it just a standard ship? She picked herself up off the grassy patch she had been snoozing on. She stretched herself, making a good note of her physical condition. She had to completely avoid monsters if all she had was a harp to work with. There weren't even musical weapons in the Seventh Realm! They wouldn't be effective at all! So, that meant she had to be very careful about what she chose to engage. Exactly where had she landed, anyhow?

In the distance, she noticed there was a river. And on the other side of that river was a town built in an old style nestled up against very tall mountains. She knew that was Nibelhiem instantly. Which meant that Rocket Town would be... oh, that's right. This world didn't have Rocket Town. It had... she turned the other way, noticing there was a very large, sprawling technological city that resembled Midgar or the Golden Saucer over there. That wasn't right! This was supposed to be a country village surrounding the broken rocket. That had to have been where she was going to find out what happened!

She tread very carefully, doing her best to avoid any monsters that were prowling about the land. And there were quite a few of them! When she had almost touched the border of this weird place, she had been spotted by a creepy flying monster. Canti stretched out her left arm, reaching for her weapon, feeling as if she was particularly doomed.

"Stay away!" she yelled, grasping at the strings of her harp. Canti didn't remember focusing on her harp lessons, but here her hands were going with a melody on their own. The monster only growled and charged at her, causing her to jump to the side to dodge it. "I'm... I'm warning you!"

It lunged again, this time cutting into her shoulder. Blood splattered out from the wound.

"N-no! I have to..." she stood in place, playing another song that she didn't recognize. This one was much simpler, and prettier, too. It caused the floating monster to close its eyes and fall asleep. "...find Papa Cid..." Her shoulder felt as if it was lit on fire. She looked at it, and then over at the monster's claws that dripped with venom. She gasped, wondering if in this world she had studied any white magic. Trying to concentrate her aura so she could activate her spirit, she found nothing of that within. The magical power she'd taken for granted wasn't anywhere in her. She hadn't opened those channels to bring forth the white magic in this world, even if she had the knowledge of how to activate it. "...oh shit..." With that, she tried to run away from the battle, sweating heavily. The poison was working its way through her body and with each step, she felt weaker.

The escape made it so that she was able to make it to the border of this weird techno city. Everywhere she looked through her now blurry vision, she could see celebratory messages regarding rockets. There were stars and models of planets and star charts and all sorts of space related things. Canti just wandered aimlessly, not sure where to go or who to ask, until she came to the center of town. There was a grand statue of a man holding up a flag. She walked closer, looking at the name plate on the statue.

"To commemorate the successful launch of Shin-Ra No. 26 We honor Cid Highwind, Gaia's first man in space."

Canti fell to her knees, extending her hand to touch the plate. Tears slid down her face. "...is... this... what... Cezre meant?" she asked. "If I didn't... make sure... you lost your dream, that... I'd never..." She slumped down, shaking her head. The weight of the world back home being overrun with the darkness was nothing compared to finding this out. Of course Rocket Town had its hopes of being known as the Space City. Everyone in Shin-Ra and around the world were excited about it. The failure of that rocket changed the history of the entire world, and her own history, too. In a world where he isn't a hero to learn about in class, she doesn't think to run away here to be inspired to follow in the ways of the dragoon. She doesn't pick up his habits of speaking his mind as bluntly as possible from living with him for a month. "...Papa..."

The poison had coursed through every inch of her body by then and she couldn't even pick herself back up. She felt as if she was going to die right here. That was fine, she figured. Papa Cid had the life he wanted, didn't he? Without him to support her, what was the use of defending Cosmos' sacred land anyhow? Just to return to Mateus, to submit to him to the point where she had no real identity of her own? Nah. She'd pass on that. Canti loved him, but she couldn't be as submissive as he wanted. It was... just... not... enough...

"I loved being a dragoon,,," she whispered. "...I loved my makeshift family... I- I loved you."

As the life force started to be pulled from her very body, her eyes closed. She was fading away. At least, if she died here, she would become one with the Lifestream. She once begged Headmaster Ramuh to allow her to just become a part of the Seventh Realm instead of existing outside it. But she was refused because Cid needed to become a hero. Ha! Well! She got what she wanted in some weird, roundabout way, now didn't she? Take that!

"Up unto the sky... White Wind!"

Suddenly, her eyes popped right back open and she felt energy flowing through her body again. "...wha...?!"

"You didn't think I was going to let you just die here, now did you?"

She looked over just a bit to see a familiar face standing there. "Wait... aren't you...?"

"The man depicted in this here statue? Yep! You're lucky I still had my enemy skill materia equipped!"

She immediately stood up and rushed into him, wrapping his arms around him as tightly as she could. "I've been looking for you!" she cried. "Where've you been?!"

He pulled himself from her, with an expression of both being creeped out and extreme concern. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe I know you."

"I'm Cantirena!" she said. "I'm... a really big fan of yours!"

"Is that so?"

"I've been studying the history of flight, and... well, you came up in the texts. I travelled from the other side of the world just to come meet you!" she lied blatantly. But Canti needed to know what happened differently. She did say she was going to find out so she could set things right. She remembered word for word Papa Cid's original accounts of his personal history, and she'd be able to figure out exactly what was going on with no problem! "My textbooks said that you started out as a pilot, and I really wanted to know about how you became the first man in space!"

Cid smiled at that. "Why don't you come sit with me, and I'll tell ya all about it! I started out as an eager young student, too. I'll help ya in any way I can."

"You're more amazing than people told me you were," Canti said as he led her to his house. Instead of it being a small house, broken down and filled to the brim with old parts, it was a huge mansion. "...this is your house?!"

"Yeah. Rufus made damn sure to see that I was properly rewarded for what I'd managed to do for the world."

"Um... Pa... I mean, Cid..." she said when he opened the door to the huge mansion. "I don't mean to pry, but... your big house seems so... empty..." She fully expected to see Cid's daughter and wife there in the house, but it seemed like he was the only person who lived in such a huge house. That was impractical and Cid Highwind was never a man to live in such an impractical way. They had to be here somewhere.

"I hear that silence louder than any other sound in this whole city," Cid confessed. "Lost both my daughter and my wife the same night..."

Canti remembered how Cid stopped the launch from happening because Shera was in the engine room, checking on different fuel tanks. One of them was malfunctioning and Shera was going to fix it, but she worked so carefully that Cid stopped the launch. "...I... thought she was... with you when... y'know, the launch... she was one of the mechanics in charge of working the rocket, right?"

"Oh yeah, she was. But one night..." he sighed. "...she was attacked... I was in Junon, working with the higher ups in the space program, working on all the paperwork and things like that. Came home and... my wife, pregnant with my daughter, was dead in a pile of her own blood outside town." His eyes were filling up with tears, so he immediately turned away.

Canti, however, broke down completely. So, in a life where he got his one dream, he had to give up both his wife and his daughter?! Th-that was cruel! Too cruel!

"I... I don't understand,,," Cid said, bewildered. "Why... why are you..."

"There's a lot you don't know," she said, forcing herself to stand up. She had to fix this. Whoever took out Mama Shera was going to get the full force of her wrath! "I'm so sorry, Cid, but... there's something I have to do."

"But... didn't you want to hear the story-"

Canti wiped her face and looked at him as she said, "I just pray the next time I see you that you remember me..." With that, she ran out of the door as fast as she could, activating her keeper's badge before she even reached the town's border. If Papa Cid became an empty shell of himself... then she had to be the one... to take the dream away from him. Her heart ached from losing him, but it ached even more to see him in such an empty state. What use was getting a dream that he couldn't share with his family? She had to do the right thing!