I'm so glad people are still interested in reading this old fic, and it's nice seeing some familiar faces in the reviews. You guys rock.


Chapter Twenty Eight
Cycle of Souls

i.

Garnet knew she was dreaming the moment she opened her eyes. This meant that the dream wasn't a dream precisely, but something else, created just outside of her subconscious in the place where her magic dwelt and the eidolon's could extend their tendrils of influence over her mind like ivy growing up a wall. The telltale sign of a not-dream was the definable beginning, rather than the indistinct sense of now that a normal dream has, and also because she was so lucid.

Garnet was encased inside a green light that shone with all the fluorescence of Leviathan's scales. It was blinding, tangible and yet intangible, distant yet near, and unquantifiable. Though there was no indication of direction, Garnet was very aware that she was looking down. She sensed rather than saw the vastness beneath her, and instinctively knew that the drop was very, very big. Vertigo made everything go swimmy for a moment as her stomach performed some very interesting flips.

The light pulsed, blinding her, and suddenly she became aware that she was falling. Panic shot through her body as she struggled against the light's magnetism, but she was incorporeal and could not thrash or scream or anchor herself to anything. She was sinking to the bottom of a luminous ocean, and when she reached the bottom there would be something much more frightening than death.

She could feel it now; her mind was unravelling and drifting away. The light was breaking her apart, piece by piece, hungrily devouring her identity, her memories, her sanity; she was becoming less of a person with every non-existent breath she took. She frantically tried to hold herself together, but her being slipped between her fingers as smoothly as water.

The name of her mother disappeared. The taste of her favourite food disappeared. The name of her birthplace disappeared. The sound of her father's voice disappeared.

Garnet's panic spiralled out of control as she became more disembodied. She fought to encase her essence, reaching for the memory of how to compress a ball of magic in the palm of her hand, but the memory of how to do that disappeared too, so all she could do was chant memories over and over in her head; names of places, names of friends, her first kiss, watching 'The Prince and the Lion' with her father, her mother's embrace, the feel of sand beneath her feet, the smell of chocobo feathers…

It's working!

A green tentacle shot out of blinding pit and wrapped itself around her core. She tried to scream, but nothing came out. Another tentacle emerged and latched onto her from another direction. They constricted and she felt herself bulge under the pressure. More memories flew away from her like birds breaking away from a flock, and then the tentacles began to reel her in towards the light, towards nothingness –

ii.

Garnet awoke with a scream tearing out of her throat. She shot upright, clawing the air wildly as her hair whipped around her face and her breath came in short, frantic bursts. Something was still clinging to her with a tenacious grip and fear eclipsed her senses. She struggled to get away, yelling now, and blinked to clear the blurriness from her eyes.

Zidane was sitting on the edge of her bed with his hands firmly grasping her biceps. There was no concern in his eyes though, or in his tone, as he said, "You were being overly active in your sleep. I thought you were malfunctioning and was trying to bring you to Mikoto."

Garnet's stomach churned suddenly and violently. "I'm going to vomit."

Zidane blinked at her, then opened his mouth to say something, but Garnet didn't give him a chance as she shoved him out the way and ran to the far side of the room, where she was noisily sick into the chamber pot.

The emotions she experienced during the dream – the sensation of her existence unravelling –clung to her many moments longer than what she considered normal. In all her years of suffering from vivid, lucid dreams, she had never experienced something so intense. For an awful moment, she had actually thought she was going to die. Could someone even die in their dreams? Go insane? If Zidane hadn't woken her up…

Garnet remained on the floor for some time after the nausea had passed, trembling violently. She curled into a ball and pressed her forehead against the cool floorboards. Her mind felt on the verge of breaking; her emotions were balanced on the very edge of her sanity.

"Do you require sustenance?" Zidane (if she could even call him that anymore) asked from the other side of the room.

I hate you, she thought. I hate you. I hate that you're not Zidane but you are Zidane and you're the closest thing I'll ever get to having him again but you'll never ever be him and it'll never be the same –

Garnet began to cry. She couldn't help it. She had felt it building for days: the constant hotness at the corners of her eyes and the lump that clogged her throat, so great that she felt like a well about to overflow after heavy rain, but she had fought it down, convinced that she was long past crying.

Great, heavy sobs wracked her body as she scrunched tighter into a ball, smelling her own sick and sweat. She wondered if she could even go back to being queen without him. It was a role she had prepared for her whole life, a role she had fulfilled even when Zidane had been presumed dead all those years, but now it seemed empty and stupid. She also wondered if her emotional display was making that empty genome feel anything at all. Gods, she missed Zidane so much…

"I will fetch Mikoto," Zidane said, and made for the ladder, but Garnet lunged forward and grabbed the end of his tail.

"No, no. Don't get Mikoto, I'm fine. I'm just… I had a nightmare, that's all."

Zidane flicked his tail out of her hand, though his face showed no sign of annoyance. Instead, he asked, "Nightmares?"

Garnet sniffed and sat up, then crossed her arms over her aching stomach. "Yeah, bad dreams." She looked at him. "Do you dream, genome?"

Zidane blinked at her, then his eyebrows drew down very, very slightly. "Dream…? I… do not… dream…" He sounded uncertain.

Garnet shakily climbed to her feet and approached him, eyes wide and beseeching. "Do you remember your dreams about the blue light? You had a lot of those. Do you remember telling me about them? We were in the Black Mage Village Inn. They were about Terra, you're birthplace. You went to find it once when you were a child and Baku…" She trailed off. Zidane was staring at her blankly, as if she was relaying a list of meaningless statistics. She sighed and scraped her hair out of her face. "Nevermind. Though I don't fancy any sustenance right away, you could fill the tub up for me. Please."

Zidane hesitated, and then nodded. He delicately skirted around her (making a noticeable effort not to touch her) and disappeared down the ladder.

Alone now, Garnet rubbed her stinging eyes. She wished Mikoto would move Zidane's shell somewhere else so she wouldn't have to interact with him. Though Zidane had opted to sleep on the sofa ever since the incident on the first night of his awakening, and was usually gone before she woke up, it still meant seeing him a lot more than she liked. She had put forward her request to Mikoto, but had been refused with another 'you're-so-ungrateful' lecture, which always made Garnet feel guilty, and then on the waves of her guilt came the hope that she might somehow coax Zidane's personality out of his shell. Yet her hopes were always ruthlessly crushed beneath his vacant stare (or worse, his very mildly irritated one, which was the same expression one might wear when there's a small fly buzzing around one's face).

For the sake of her sanity, she was going to have to make a decision soon. But first, she was going to speak to Mikoto about Vivi's strange ideas on souls.

Garnet slowly undressed. Her whole body felt stiff and run down and her bones creaked in protest when she stretched her arms over her head. Not for the first time, she noticed her extreme weight loss and the gradual disappearance of her womanly curves. Now she was all harsh angles and showed bones she didn't even know she had. It wasn't surprising though; she was pretty sure she had just vomited up all the food she'd consumed in the past week.

Garnet wrapped a towel around her body and climbed down the ladder. Zidane was just walking through the back door, holding a bucket of boiled water. He glanced over his shoulder and said, "The tub is full now."

Garnet followed him into Mikoto's small, unkempt garden. It was the only part of her property where she didn't exhibit her penchant for neurotic order. Garnet reckoned the only reason it wasn't a complete jungle was because of the pine tree in the middle of the garden, whose needle-like foliage made the ground practically infertile for other plant life to grow, aside from the toughest of weeds.

The tin bath was set on the carpet of pine needles, close to the house. Garnet had been reluctant to bathe here at first due to lack of privacy, but Mikoto reassured her that the village's inhabitants knew better than to wander around the back of her house, and even if they came across her by chance, they wouldn't appreciate the naked human form.

Eventually, Garnet became used to the arrangement, and Mikoto's word held true.

Zidane poured the remaining water into the steaming tub then returned to the house without a backward glance. Garnet stared after him, heart aching. She was still getting used to having her normally amorous husband express nothing but indifference toward her. He never lingered when she was undressing or bathing, nor did his eyes ever wander to anything below face level. She might as well have not possessed a body.

Disregarding his former personality, Garnet still found his behaviour odd. She wondered if the genomes were designed to demonstrate discretion around the opposite sex. Mikoto told her they lacked the drive to reproduce, but they were capable of having sex. Did Garland programme their prudent behaviour to prevent any unforeseen accidents? Or had he completely supressed their sex drive?

The thought was unsettling, so she pushed it aside. Garnet whipped off the towel and slid beneath the water with a grateful groan.

ii.

Garnet finally found Mikoto sitting cross legged atop a contraption the size of a small house inside one of the many disused chambers on the Invincible. The top of this particular monstrosity was domed, but Mikoto seemed to be defying gravity on the outer edges of its curves, to the point where her entire body was facing the floor. Garnet spent a baffled moment wondering if this was some kind of weird genome ability, until she spotted Mikoto's tail wrapped around a pipe behind her, apparently taking her weight.

"Have you come here to stare at me, or did you want to talk?" Mikoto asked coolly, not bothering to look up from a chart she was studying.

"They must come in handy," Garnet said.

"What?"

"Your tail. Why do genomes have tails anyway?"

Mikoto's blank expression turned sour. "You answered the question yourself. If you're here to quiz me about genome anatomy then go ask one of the vessels drifting around the village; they are programmed with extensive knowledge of their own functions and genetics, unlike the life forms on this planet, who don't even know how their own bodies work. Ridiculous." She waved a hand. "At any rate, leave me alone. I'm busy."

Garnet stepped up to the contraption Mikoto was sitting on and ran a hand over its smooth, metallic surface. Something inside it was clunking and it radiated a gentle heat. "What does this do?"

Garnet heard Mikoto sigh impatiently. "It used to run one of the Invincible's engines."

"And now?"

"Obviously nothing."

"Then why is it running?"

Mikoto glared at her narrowly. "Why are you here?"

Garnet returned her glare with a coy smile. "I have some questions I want to ask you. They're… important. Will you come down?"

There was something behind Mikoto's eyes that was very reminiscent of Kuja then. A kind of haughty impatience. It was nothing close to the arrogance Kuja had boasted, but Garnet had noticed similarities between them before, so much so that she even accredited her initial dislike of Mikoto to that, but now their likeness only appeared in rare flashes. Mikoto was callous and aloof, the way Kuja had been, but hers was not underlined by the malicious, sinister streak that had practically defined Kuja. Garnet often thought that Mikoto would have made a formidable enemy, had she chosen that path. A methodical, estranged killer was often more effective than a fierce one, and Mikoto was nothing if methodical. As it was, there was something of Zidane in her too. Something undefinable good. For that, Garnet was thankful.

The girl hopped down from the domed structure and headed toward the cockpit, her tail flicking in annoyance. Garnet assumed this was an invitation to follow, so she did.

Once in the cockpit, Mikoto busied herself with organising charts, saying, "Don't expect me to stop working for you. Say what you have to say and if you can't make it quick then at least attempt to make it concise."

Garnet briefly studied the charts Mikoto was shuffling. They looked like the blueprints Regent Cid used when designing or remodelling airships, except Mikoto's were all in Terran and looked far, far more complicated. It was pointless trying to understand them. She said, "I found Vivi's journal yesterday."

Mikoto didn't look up but raised an eyebrow and made a non-committal noise.

Garnet wondered what to tell her. If Mikoto was working on a way to create a new breed of genome, she was obviously reluctant to tell anyone about it, and Garnet thought it would be rude to ask, let alone reveal she was aware of its existence. "Tell me what you know about souls."

Mikoto levelled her with an unreadable look, then lowered her gaze to the blueprints again. "That's a very vague question."

Garnet thought about it for a moment. "What is a soul?"

"It's unquantifiable, is what it is," Mikoto replied irritably. "Too complicated to accurately delineate. It isn't what defines life, but it comes hand in hand with it. It appears in everything that is naturally conceived, be it a plant or a baby. If something is artificially created, such as a machine, genomes or the mages, they are without a soul, because a soul cannot be replicated."

"Then how is it that the mages developed souls?"

"You can't develop a soul. You either have one or you don't." She began to roll up the charts and slot them into cylindrical containers. "Gaia's Crystal is responsible for the creation of every soul on this planet. It acquires information from the memories of souls that have left their host forms, and then betters the next batch of souls, striving to maintain life, but ultimately to create improved life. However, if a life form is artificially created outside of the Crystal's influence, such as the mages, they are born without souls and are not part of the cycle. Men cannot make souls, only the Crystal can do that.

"Regarding the mages, I believe they got their souls from the Mist. The Mist was, essentially, the exhumed souls of Gaia's life forms, left to drift over the planet's surface and unable to return to the Crystal due to the dividing process. I believe the wandering souls took hold inside the empty vessels and began to grow again."

"So… a mage actually has an old soul inside of it, one that couldn't reach the Crystal."

Mikoto nodded. "If they had a new soul they would have been completely helpless, unable to do much beyond the most instinctual of functions. But the mages exhibited immediate awareness, intelligence and different personalities, and revealed talents they could not have learned as simple war drones. For example, Mr 676 discovered he could paint, and Mr 429 found he could cook. They have no memory of their past lives, possibly because the soul is not inside its original body, yet something of the soul's past life remains, enough to make me believe that the mages did not independently develop their souls."

Garnet nodded slowly, trying to understand. "So why did only some of them get souls? And why is it that the new baby mages have souls?"

Mikoto shrugged. "I can't give you a firm answer to either of those questions. Perhaps the mages that received souls were a faulty batch? Or perhaps the odds of a soul surviving inside a vessel it wasn't designed for are very slim? Regarding the babies, I imagine it's because they spend a significant amount of time maturing inside their eggs, giving the soul time to find the vessel. The success rate of it connecting with the vessel is probably raised too, considering that that the baby mages are undeveloped life forms. But the Mist…" She looked troubled for a moment. "Vivi never explained it to me. He came back from the Iifa Tree positive that he had figured out a way for genomes to acquire souls, but it would mean I would have to build some kind of stasis device similar to the one Garland…" She trailed off, eyes settling on Garnet. "It doesn't matter anyway. There's much to do before one can even the consider the complexity of soul-finding. I never got to ask Vivi about it before he died anyway, so I guess we'll never know."

Garnet stared at Zidane's little sister appreciatively. The survival of her kind rested on her shoulders. She had no help, no advanced Terran technology, no mentor to guide her, and yet she managed to continue, working tirelessly to ensure her species had a future with purpose. "Do you ever get lonely, Mikoto?"

Mikoto's expression remained impassive, but her tail bristled slightly. She turned away, busying herself with the chart containers. "I've never had company. I was the only soul-given genome on Terra and Garland wouldn't interact with me beyond overseeing my work on the production capsules. Besides, this is important… Or so Vivi convinced me."

"It is," Garnet said firmly. "And you won't be working on this forever. Once the new genomes are born and obtain souls, they'll begin to reproduce naturally and you'll finally be able to leave your lab for more than an hour at a time."

Mikoto looked momentarily troubled by that prospect, her gaze roaming the familiar jumble of wires and machinery. "I haven't thought that far ahead. There's no point." Her blue eyes returned to Garnet. "Are you done bothering me now?"

"Mm, almost. I need to borrow your assistant."

iii.

"Aw hell no."

Garnet didn't look up from the bottles of medicine that were carefully laid out on Mikoto's kitchen table. Would three phoenix downs be enough to see them through this ordeal? They were somewhat redundant considering her magical abilities, but if she was silenced and her companion became injured… Was there even still zombies at the Iifa Tree?

"Are you listening?...You're not listening. I'm saying no. N-o."

Best not to think that way. 'Negative thinking produces negative results', her father would say. But it didn't hurt to be careful. She'd buy just one more before they left the village. Maybe two.

"Will you…? Gah! Woman! I'm serious, I'm not going. You're on your own."

Garnet finally looked up, contemplating Blank through large, dark eyes. "I'm sorry, I thought I just heard you say you were willing to allow the Queen of Alexandria to wander through some of the most dangerous territory on the planet unescorted. I'm sure Baku would be very interested to hear about your reluctance, if anything was to happen…"

Blank blinked, then threw up his hands. "You're the big shot summoner, the war hero, the mage extraordinaire. What do you need me for?"

Garnet rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to flatter you, Blank. But it is going to be dangerous and I don't want to go by myself."

"You're not," Blank said as he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "Mr Personality is going with you. Last time I checked he was, oh, you know, the strongest warrior in the entire world."

"You obviously haven't checked in a while." Garnet's eyes trailed over to Zidane, who nonchalantly gazed back. "Zidane, will you fight?"

"Vessels are not permitted to display acts of aggression for risk of damaging other vessels and the environment," he droned back.

Garnet tipped Blank a look and the redhead snorted. "Yeah, yeah, I got that part. But I bet you ten gil he's still got his fighting spirit."

"He doesn't have any form of spirit."

"Nah, I mean… Just 'cause his personality is gone doesn't mean all that training is gone too. He must still be strong and have all those honed instincts. In fact…" Blank picked up his water flask and lobbed it across the room. The flask hit Zidane square between the eyes, making him stagger backwards.

"B-Blank!" Garnet yelled. "What on Gaia are you thinking?"

Blank gawped, then tittered sheepishly and ran a hand through his hair. "Ehehe, okay, my bad. I kinda thought he'd dodge it. Sheesh, what a pussy."

Garnet shook her head in exasperation and watched as Zidane stood straight again, revealing a small blemish on the bridge of his nose, and threw an incurious look towards the red head. So he doesn't get annoyed when Blank throws a hard object at his head, but if I so much as speak to him he gets all tetchy, Garnet thought with annoyance.

"Anyway," Blank was saying, "I don't like that tree. Never have done. After I spent a month diggin' around its roots tryin' find that brain-dead loser I swore I'd never go back there again, and I'm kind of a man of my word. Also, it's cursed."

"Cursed isn't the word," Garnet replied. "I'd say it's more like the root of all evil. On the other hand," she added brightly, "it's also the root of all life as we know it. So maybe the karma will balance itself out. Anyway, I'm going with or without you, and I'm going today."

Blank hefted the weapon Garnet had bought him, then cocked the blade at Zidane. "I just want to clarify that you have the worst taste in women. And also that you owe me big time." Zidane remained unmoved and Blank snorted. "How are ya gonna convince Sir Stare-A-Lot to go anyway?"

Garnet shrugged, not looking up from packing. "He just will. The genomes don't really have a purpose to contradict anymore so they do whatever you tell them to do."

"You don't think it's because it's you asking him?"

Garnet shot him an annoyed look. "Blank, look at him. He's not… He's not Zidane anymore. He doesn't think of me like that."

Blank hummed thoughtfully. "I dunno, man. He's been starin' at you this whole time and his tail is doin' that weird flicky thing it does whenever he's –" Blank abruptly cut himself off, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

"What? Whenever he's what?"

"Ah you know." Blank rolled his wrist. "Whenever he's um… thinking about…" He scrambled for a word suited to the company. "Girls."

Garnet looked at Zidane. His eyes were indeed fixed on her, but they were just empty puddles of colour, scrubbed clean of emotion. But Blank was right about one thing, his tail was twitching around his ankles in a manner that might have been mistaken as playful, even flirtatious, gods knew she'd seen it enough times...

Garnet was struck by a startling realisation. He's probably the only genome that's ever been sexually active. His body must be telling him things that the genome programming is contradicting. If his body is still lusting, it must really disrupt his system. No wonder he gets so annoyed around me.

Garnet sighed, wondering when she'd started to think so much like Mikoto. She didn't even bother reminding herself that Zidane wasn't a machine. Gods, she didn't even know what to call him anymore.

"Look, let's just get to the Iifa Tree as soon as possible. I have to know what Vivi found there. It might be my only hope of restoring Zidane to his former self."

"I wonder what it would be like having sex with a genome," Blank mused aloud. "I reckon it would be like doing it to a tree stump."

Garnet threw a leather wrist at him. "Y-you animal! Just pack, already."

iv.

Choco had been understandably confused by his master's behaviour. Zidane looked like Zidane and smelled like Zidane, but he hadn't shown Choco the slightest of interest. He even took a few uncertain steps backwards when the bird nuzzled him affectionately, then admitted that he didn't know how to ride a chocobo.

Knowing Choco to be a handful for first time riders, Garnet gave Zidane a more docile chocobo, which turned out to be a big mistake, because Choco threw a tantrum of epic proportion. Not only did he repeatedly nip the poor bird Zidane was riding, but he actually attempted to throw Garnet off his back. The queen scolded the bird and offered him another gyshal green to quell – or at least distract – him, and it seemed to work, though he kept one large, confused eye on Zidane the entire journey.

"S'gonna rain," came Blank's brooding prediction. "And some."

Garnet followed his gaze towards the horizon. They could see the Iifa Tree even at this distance; the most prominent land mark on the entire continent. Its twisted silhouette was made even more ominous by the purple thunderheads rearing around its balcony like the turrets of a castle. Wispy curtains of grey veiled the bulk of the tree, and judging by the way the wind was picking up, the storm would probably hit them within the hour.

"Yeah…" she agreed half-heartedly, suddenly feeling quite overwhelmed by everything. The ball of dread growing in Garnet's stomach was becoming hard to ignore. "There are worse things than rain, though."

Blank grunted ambiguously and changed the subject. "I'm guessing you haven't told Rusty about this little expedition?"

Garnet grimaced. "Ah… no. He'd want to come along and it would take days for him to get here. I don't think we have that much time to spare."

"Great. So it really is on my head if anything happens to the Queen of Alexandria." Blank cocked a thumb at Zidane, who rode silently a few strides behind the pair. "And I guess it'll be too much to hope for that Mr Personality will suddenly regain his fighting abilities."

Garnet shrugged and left it at that. Somewhere up ahead, there was a grumble of thunder, and for a delirious moment Garnet imagined it was the sound of Iifa uprooting itself, eager to close the distance between them. She shuddered, and tried to remember a time when life had been simple. It was surprisingly hard to do.