Yo! Apologises for the short chapter, I didn't want to do two time jumps in one chapter. But hopefully Blank's presence makes up for shortness. Gad I've turned into such a hopeless fangirl.

By the way, go check out 'Master Thief Of Gaia' by Aliki. It's epic. And needs more love. DO IT. For me!

Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty
For The Future

i.

The Black Mage Village had all the potential to be one of Garnet's favourite places on Gaia. It was largely untouched by the hand of politics and complexities of city life; it's simplicity was endearing more so than any other quaint farming village she'd visited because its residents were unaffected by the prospect of being impoverished. The weather was fine most of the time (aside from when thunderstorms would flood the better part of the forest) and the sunshine empathised the cheerful disposition of the mages even without the aid of smiley faces carved into the dear little huts.

However, Garnet had reservations about the village. Not only because of the presence of Vivi's grave – poor, sweet Vivi cruelly snatched from the earth long before his time should have been over – but also because of the atmosphere. The cheerfulness of the mages was infectious, but the place had about it a sharp joy that felt somehow rushed. The mages knew they didn't have long in the world.

Although she felt she shouldn't pity them, Garnet felt sad here; it was an aura she simply couldn't dispel.

And she felt it most acutely now, lingering on the outskirts of the village with a basket of fruit under one arm. This uncomfortable aura was especially heady today, she thought; it pressed down on her with force, making her chest feel tight and the corners of her mouth turn down. She realised it wasn't just sadness in the air, but dread and anxiety too. Why?

It should be an especially happy time, for a new batch of Black Mages had been successfully hatched. It wasn't a particularly rare occasion anymore, but the Black Mages treated each event with more vigour than the last, and would always hold a grand festival in fields outside of the village. That's why she was collecting fruit – for the festival.

Garnet looked around. The village was empty. It seemed everyone had already gone on ahead. She felt momentarily annoyed and unappreciated. Her arm ached from carrying the heavy basket, laden with the rewards of a morning scouring the dangerous terrain outside.

She loitered stupidly for a moment, caught between annoyance and reluctance, until she realised the Black Mages never really got angry and wouldn't mind if she arrived late and without the fruit. She decided to put her basket in the storage shed so they could be eaten later – she was already so late, carrying the load would only hinder her travel further but there was no sense in wasting them.

The storage shed had once been the chocobo hut, but its function was changed for reasons she couldn't quite remember. As she approached it she noted that even the moogle, which was usually resident to the bundles of hay outside, had left for the festival – goodness, she was late!

She entered the chocobo hut, except it wasn't the chocobo hut anymore. It was her bedroom back in Alexandria Castle. It looked like a Behemoth had rampaged through it and ended with a Meteor spell for good measure. Her bed was upside down and shoved against the wall at a clumsy angle, the bedsheets missing and balcony torn. The curtains were shredded and the balcony windows were smashed, her wardrobe was firewood and her clothes ripped beyond recognition.

Angrily, Garnet dropped the basket of fruit and stomped over to her ruined clothes. "What am I going to wear to the festival now?" she stormed.

A voice airily replied, "What's wrong with what you're wearing now?"

Garnet turned to behold a table in the centre of the room (how had she not noticed it before?), ringed by a number of chairs, and at the head of the table sat Kuja.

"I can't wear this," she told him impatiently. "It's pink! That's a spring colour and it's autumn."

Kuja shrugged. "I don't like pink anyway."

She scowled. "If you're not going to be of any help than I demand you take leave of this place immediately."

"Come help me with this," Kuja said, gesturing to the table. Upon it, Garnet spotted a chessboard, though the figures weren't of the ordinary kind. Intrigued, she approached it and found them to be a collection of Royal Action figures that she had always thought quite horrid. There was Beatrix, and Steiner with his Pluto Knights, and there was were her mother… Oh! And Freya and Frately, even Amarant and Vivi!

Suddenly she found them quite endearing, and leaned over Kuja's shoulder, feeling flirtatious and giddy. "What will be your next move? Do let it be a good one!"

"I don't know…" Kuja mumbled, head bent over the chessboard. "I'm quite stuck."

Garnet frowned. "Well you must hurry! I'm awfully late for the festival."

"Fine," Kuja huffed crossly. "You make the next move."

"But I don't know how to play!"

"Do your best!"

"But –"

"Do your best!"

"Oh, okay…" Garnet faltered, abruptly feeling self-conscious. "Um… My best? Well… I guess my best would be Zidane." She scanned the chessboard for his piece.

"Zidane?" Kuja said, surprised. "Well, you can't play him!"

"Why not?" she snapped.

Kuja looked over his shoulder at her, and she startled backward with a gasp. Kuja's face wasn't Kuja's face at all.

"Because I'm Zidane," he told her.

ii.

Garnet awoke with a sharp intake of air, eyes snapping open. Much to her disconcertion, the image of Kuja with Zidane's face remained a vivid imprint behind her eyelids, like the afterimage of the sun if one stares at it too long. It left a bad taste in her mouth, and the shock she'd felt in her dream remained through the pounding of her heart.

Garnet groaned tiredly, throwing a hand over her eyes. That was the third time she'd had the dream, yet the disturbance it left in its wake hadn't lessened. She needn't be a professor of the mind to decipher its meaning; thoughts of the connection between Kuja and Zidane had plagued her since her discussion with Hilda some weeks previously.

What worried her most was the lucidity of the dream. Because of her origins as a summoner, both her and Eiko had a sensitive subconscious, Eiko's especially heightened by the presence of her horn, and Garnet had always thought of her mind as a floodgate that had been flung open, primarily to receive the eidolons. It was flexible compared to a normal person's, able to bend and stretch to establish a connection with beings from another realm. Not only that, but it also connected summoners, to a certain extent. If Garnet was in Lindblum Castle she could catch a glimmer of Eiko's location, and if the girl drew close could just discern her basic emotion. It was nothing telepathic, and she knew Eiko could gain a lot more from her than she could from Eiko, which might explain the younger summoner's natural appreciation of other's temperaments. She remembered Eiko's shrewd gazes and keen insights throughout their journey during the war, her comments and observations hitting a lot closer to the mark than coincidence would allow.

At any rate, such a heightened state of mind meant her dreams were particularly vivid and frequent; rarely a night went by without a dream of some sort. Quite often they were replays of memories, so vivid she could be fooled into thinking she'd travelled back in time, such as the nightmare of her journey from Maiden Sari to Alexandria. Sometimes she heard the voices of her eidolons, whispering, growling and cooing warnings and advice and pleas. This was her concern momentarily. She had never had a premonition of any sort, for not even the eidolons could see into the future, but it wasn't uncommon for them to send her warnings through such bright, tangible imagery.

Was this dream such a case? She wasn't sure. It could very well be that her worries had manifested themselves into a reoccurring nightmare, which wasn't at all uncommon.

But it killed her, because all she could do was wait.

Knowing from experience that slumber wouldn't return for a while, Garnet sat up in bed and immediately noticed the absence of her other half. Her heart skipped a beat.

She shook herself mentally; this unusual surge of anxiety was only a dream remnant, and she was being silly.

But still it didn't depart. And it felt strange. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Other than the dream she didn't have much reason to be anxious and yet –

"Sorry, did I wake you up?"

Garnet squinted across the room and realised the balcony doors were thrown open. The night was still; the curtains were motionless. Thick streams of moonlight spilled across the carpet, and she only knew Zidane was there by the cut out shape in the moon's light. He was sitting on the balcony, twisted round to stare at her over one shoulder.

"Zidane?" she whispered, puzzled. "What are you doing?"

(The stupid birds woke me up)

The shadow shifted; he shrugged. "Chillin'."

Momentarily thrown by his offhanded reply, Garnet frowned at his shadowy figure before slipping out of bed and padding across the carpet.

Outside, she could see him clearly, wearing a wreath of moonlight and balanced precariously on the banister of the balcony. The moons glared fiercely from above and Alexandria was pockets of shadow and silver, both beautiful and sinister at the same time.

In the moonlight, Zidane's hair looked silver too. She didn't like that at all.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he apologised sheepishly.

"You didn't," she said. "I um… I just woke up." She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the autumn chill, hopping from foot to foot as the marble numbed her toes. "Have you been awake long?"

He hesitated. "Yeah…"

"What are you thinking about?"

"…Nothin'."

She fought off a butterfly of annoyance, then was overcome by selfish concern. "Is it… me?"

He threw her a startled look, then slid off the banister to face her. "No! Nothing's wrong, Dagger. I just… I just can't sleep, that's all. Everyone gets that, right?"

She nodded hesitantly.

"Don't worry about me," he told her, thumping his chest. "You've got way more important things to worry about, like runnin' the kingdom."

She wrinkled her nose. "You're more important, Zid." She sighed. "Come back to bed, okay? It's cold."

He followed her in and closed the doors behind him. Already Garnet could feel the steady tug of fatigue, underlined by the anxiety that was as tangible as the flow of blood in her veins. What was with that, anyway?

Zidane's tail wrapped around her thigh as she shifted to her side, and he pressed against her back and traced the curve of her waist with one hand. "I'm startin' rehearsals tomorrow," he told her.

Her heart both sank and leapt. "In Alexandria?"

"No. In Lindblum." He must have felt her tense, because he added, "It's not that far."

"I know."

"And it's not for long. We'll be coming back to Alexandria to use Ruby's theatre."

She almost asked why they couldn't just rehearse in Alexandria, but that would have been selfish and besides, no one could go against Baku's orders. Baku preferred to rehearse in Lindblum, so she couldn't argue.

Zidane's return into the field of acting had been his choice, and something he had revealed only a few days ago. It was no secret between them that he was bored in castle, something that neither surprised her nor disheartened her. He didn't want to involve himself with the politics Garnet had to daily face, and she didn't particularly want him to either. So Baku allowed Zidane to rejoin them during the theatre season as an actor (and a thief, she didn't doubt). It would keep him busy and happy, and he would never be gone long or far from Alexandria. Primarily, he would base himself at Ruby's Theatre with the other actors she hired, but when Tantalus was scheduled to perform he would rejoin their troupe, which meant he had to rehearse away from Alexandria.

Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but Garnet would have preferred to keep him close until his unusual behaviour subsided.

If it subsides, a voice jeered in her mind, and she brushed it away crossly.

Instead of voicing her worries, she inadequately said, "Write me if you need anything."

He rolled her onto her back and moved on top of her, then kissed her neck. "You shouldn't worry so much. It'll give ya wrinkles," he murmured into her hair.

She smiled crookedly, but when the moonlight fell across him just so, she did notice that his appearance was changing. Of course he was aging, edging out of his teens and into early manhood (though he probably grew up long before most men), but instead of filling out and growing broad he remained lean and wiry. Abruptly she could see the relation between him and Kuja, and her dream popped to mind again. Gods, what if he grew up to look exactly like him? It wasn't impossible considering the manner of his… creation.

He must have noticed her grimace, because he drew back in confusion. "What?"

Stop it, Garnet, she scolded herself. Look at him! Even if they are related it doesn't make them the same. It's such a petty way to think…

She stared at him harder as he blinked at her with an expression that flitted between perplexed and concern. Then she felt kind of silly, because there was no hatred or bitterness in those azure eyes, no thin cruelty to his lips. As far as she was concerned, their similarities ended and began at their origin.

So instead of replying, she drew him into a kiss heady and deep, and when his hands found the skin beneath her nightdress the anxiety eased into a throbbing, pleasant lull.

When she slept, it was dreamless.

iii.

With a deft flick of the thumb the coin flipped through the air. The chiselled image of Regent Cid alternated with Lindblum's crest in hypnotic flashes as it sang out into the bright, morning sky. Two eager pairs of eyes followed it until it was snatched mid-flight and laid to rest heads up.

"Shit," Zidane muttered.

"Ha!" Blank exclaimed, then pocketed the gil with obvious relish. "All yours, kiddo."

"Don't call me that," the genome gritted irritably. "You're only six months older than me."

"Six months, three days and two hours, but who's counting?" Blank remarked with a cheerful grin as he strode away with his hands in his pockets. "Hurry up."

"You don't know my exact birth date… I don't know my exact birth date," Zidane grumbled under his breath as he stooped to pick up the enormous box. "Hey, wait up, you have to direct me! This stupid thing is bigger than me!"

"That's why I said hurry up!" the red head mocked from up the street.

Zidane grappled to hold the box comfortably (funny how light things seemed nowadays) but even with it firmly in hand the box had the advantage of at least a foot, obscuring his vision completely. It wouldn't have been a problem if the boys could stop bickering long enough to carry it together, but they had somehow resorted to tossing a coin every time Baku ordered them to pick up a stage prop from the otherside of the Theatre District, and now they were too stubborn to do it any other way.

"You alright with that, lad?" the sculptor worried from the doorway. "Don't drop it, eh?"

What do you care, Zidane couldn't help but think, we've already paid you. "Yeah, fine. Anything blockin' my way?"

"Nope. Yer friend is waitin' at the other end of the alley."

"Such a good friend," Zidane sniped as he carefully plodded in what he hoped was the right direction. As an afterthought he called back, "Thanks again, old man."

Zidane made it unscathed to the alley entrance where Blank was waiting, and hoped the rest of their trek went as smoothly. He had to admit, Blank took being a guide a lot more seriously than him. Last time when the roles were reversed, Zidane couldn't help but steer his brother into walls and potholes and a particularly grouchy old lady who had smacked Blank's knees with her walking cane.

Zidane prayed Blank wasn't the vengeful type.

"Left. Right. This way. No, no, this way."

"How am I meant to know which way you're talkin' about?" Zidane snapped as he barely avoided colliding with a lamppost.

"Follow my voice, idiot," Blank retorted crisply. "Geez, what's been up your ass lately?"

Zidane grimaced. "Sorry."

"Didn't ask for an apology," Blank muttered.

Zidane rolled his shoulders. "I dunno. I guess I just miss Dagger."

"You saw her last week."

"Yeah but it doesn't stop me from missin' her!"

Blank scoffed. "You've become a right softy."

"Says you, Mr I-Buy-My-Girlfriend-Roses-Everytime-She-Gets-Mad-At-Me."

"That's different."

"How?"

"It… it just is, alright? Ruby's difficult. And a sucker for chivalry."

"Whatever."

"Just turn left, already!"

Zidane complied, and it was as he stumbled his way through another alley that a poster caught his eye. It was relatively new and largely uninteresting to a resident Lindblumese; it was advertising this year's Festival Of The Hunt. He would have overlooked it completely if not for the prize presented at the bottom of the poster in big, swirly handwriting:

1st Prize – Quatrix Gem

"Huh," Zidane said, the gears of his devious minding clunking into action.

"What now?" Blank snapped hotly as he backtracked to the blonde.

"I think I'm gonna enter the Festival of the Hunt this year," Zidane told him. "I bet Dagger would like that stone. It might have something to do with summoning."

Blank glanced at the poster. "The Hunt? Isn't that… a bit outta your league, now? I mean, the biggest they let loose is a low level Zaghnol, which might've caused problems a few years back but…"
Zidane grinned, warming to his idea. "Exactly! I'll win it no sweat! Besides, I could do with a work out."

Blank rolled his shoulders. "I dunno, man…"

"You should enter too!"

"…Why?"

Zidane nodded at the poster. "Second prize is ten thousand Gil."

Blank mirrored Zidane's grin. "Ruby wouldn't get mad at me for a whole week if I came back with that much."

"… Dude, you're totally pussy-whipped."

"What? You're only entering for –"

"Pussy. Whipped."

Blank stomped ahead. "Whatever. Take a right."

Zidane decided that Blank's vengeful side wasn't his best side as stumbled down a flight of stairs.

Thanks to Myshu for inspiring me with her dream sequence in 'Cheating With GFs'. Drop a review on yer way out perdy please?