By the time the two of them had completed distributing the remainder of the provisions in the crate it was late evening, with the reddish sun hanging in the sky just above eye level. They had ended up at the railing overlooking the reservoir at the edge of town where they had met the first time a few days prior, only this time fully visible.
"Thank you for letting me come with you and help you with this," said Terra. "I'm always doubting myself, but most of what we did today were small, simple acts that still made a world of difference to the people who needed them. It made the prospect of being able to move on to saving the world from Kefka... a little less daunting."
"I still do not see where you see yourself as deficient in your ability to provide assistance," he replied. "I would never have made it this far without your support. And I have the utmost gratitude to you for that."
Terra blushed and looked down into the water. "It... it was nothing, really..."
"Which is consistent with what you said before," he said, folding his hands on the railing. "Something does not have to be large or difficult for it to be worthwhile." He swiped his fingertips across his forehead. "Even the simple act of taking off a mask can make a huge difference, but it still takes courage to do so. Thank you... for helping me to find it."
Terra was both flattered and a little uncomfortable with all the praise as she still felt like somewhat of an impostor who was undeserving of it. With the way that Leo also shied away from praise, though... did he also somehow think that he was unworthy of it? Back when they'd first met a year ago, he'd even called himself no better than Kefka simply for being unable to intervene in the experiments on her. Did he really think so poorly of himself despite all the good he'd accomplished? Did he still feel that way?
He inhaled and let out a deep breath. "And... I think it has helped alleviate a fear that I suppose I was not even consciously aware that I had. I hid myself out of fear of betrayal... but I think it may also have been out of fear of who I might have been. As I wandered through this decaying world when I first awoke a common theme I heard was of the evils of the Empire. Yet the effects I wore... identified me as an Imperial myself. I was terrified that I had been complicit in, or worse, perpetuated the state the world was currently in."
"No, you did what you could to stop it," Terra insisted. "Being unsuccessful at stopping evil isn't the same as being evil yourself. Just as some problems are simple to fix as long as you get up and try, some problems are too big to ever expect one person to be able to overcome them alone. That's why... I wanted to support you."
He nodded with a smile. "And I appreciate it. The feelings that came back to me after helping these people, and the gratitude from both you and Lola all helped me to accept that the General Leo that you knew... was not so different a person than who I am now. That perhaps... I should not be afraid of being him."
He sighed, "But that would still require remembering my past. Even if I accepted calling myself 'General Leo', those who knew of me would still have expectations of me based on my prior actions that I myself have no recollection of." He pulled out the notebook and read down to the line he'd written after listening to Lola's wishes. "That woman Lola desires to meet General Leo and thank him... but thank him for something that I do not remember doing. It would be meaningless for both of us to meet if I did not understand why."
Terra reached over and put her hand over his. "General... I love that you're always thinking about other people's needs and doing what you can to help meet them. But in the case of regaining your memories... I know I would be happy if you did and so would Lola... but would you?" He made a sound of surprise, but she clarified, "You said you were afraid of who you might have been before, and what sorts of memories were terrible enough to cause you to block them out. And you do seem... generally happy as you are now, and I would hate to think that you feel pressured to wish for something for our sakes that you yourself might not really want." She looked up at him. "I agree with Lola that you deserve to be happy, too, and there's nothing selfish about taking your own happiness into consideration."
He bowed his head with a chuckle. "I do indeed have a habit of always putting everyone before myself even to my detriment," he admitted. "However, while you are correct that thinking about what may have happened in my past causes me discomfort... I believe that the root of it is in the uncertainty. As long as I do not know what my past consisted of, my imagination can fill it in with whatever horrors it can concoct, causing me anxiety over things that may not even be true. No matter what demons I might have had, I would rather they be real and able to be confronted than hypothetical and elusive."
"And if you ever do have to face them, I want to be by your side to help you," Terra said with a soft smile.
He squeezed her hand back. "I sincerely hope so." He let out a long sigh and looked into the water. "... As one of my greatest anxieties involves what my memories of you might hold..."
"Huh?" she responded, confused.
He laced his fingers and fidgeted with them. "When I was able to directly provide service to people, I could feel past emotions seeping through again that highly correlated to what I feel now, leading me to conclude that General Leo and I shared the same love of service." He swallowed, but pressed on, "But my emotions regarding you have been... less coherent. As I am now, I feel..." He moved his mouth as though trying to find a proper word. "... great affection towards you. I do not know what our prior relationship was, but for some of my feelings I have yet to feel a past counterpart like I did when we hold hands. Meaning that what I feel towards you now... is potentially not what General Leo felt towards you. But if I am to accept that he is me..." He clenched and unclenched his hands. "... Whose emotions take precedence?"
Terra's face flushed deeply. It was true that Leo as he was now was certainly much more open with his affection than he had been previously, which was what had driven her to take a step back for reassessment in the first place. But it wasn't because she disliked the affection. On the contrary, if... if she was certain that he was fully of sound mind and still consented to it, she would probably hug him and never let go.
"I... have neither the ability nor the right to tell you what you felt about me back then beyond what you told me yourself," Terra admitted. "But I could feel that you certainly cared about me, and you called me a dear friend." She thought back over their brief time together previously and noted, "We only knew each other for a few days before we were separated, and only one of those days was as relaxed as this one." She let out a little chuckle and shook her head. "We even spent it looking out over the water and talking about our anxieties regarding our feelings, just like now. So if you're worried that your feelings were different in the past, your situation was different, too."
He pursed his lips and looked down into the reservoir with her, watching their reflections waver on the surface. If that was the case, then it was entirely possible that the only reason his feelings from before differed from now was simply because they had never had the opportunity to mature, and this was merely picking up where they had left off. His shoulders relaxed and his chest warmed at the thought. Maybe he really was worrying over nothing all this time.
He squeezed her shoulder with a smile. "Well, I would say the best way to know for sure is to keep drawing more of my past emotions to the surface. Being with you and providing these services has worked wonders for that." He looked behind them towards the western horizon. "It is about an hour until sunset. If we have one more full day before you must rejoin your companions, then we should have time for one more delivery if we leave for Jidoor now. Orcus will have to go by land this time so it will take a little longer, but I think we can still manage."
She giggled. "That's all right, I like spending time with Orcus, too." And she liked Leo pressed against her back with his arms around her when they were riding him, buuuut that wasn't a reason she needed to vocalize right now. "Shall we get going?"
"By all means," he said, offering her his arm to take as they turned to leave town. She took it without hesitation and he sighed contentedly. She'd helped him reconnect with emotions he'd forgotten he'd had and discover new ones that were thrilling to feel. Nevertheless, despite how comfortable he felt now, the sudden stop in his mind still persisted: a lingering fear and uncertainty that he couldn't even define that refused to let go. But whatever it was, he had still finally learned to trust, and he trusted that Terra would help him overcome this, too.
The sun was just setting when they arrived back in the forest near Maranda. Orcus was initially slightly perplexed to see his master without his usual mask, but he got over himself quickly enough with another offering of raisins and allowed them both to mount. Terra grinned in contentment when she once again felt a chest against her back, arms on either side of her, and warm hands holding hers over the chocobo's feathers. "Ready to go?" he queried gently into her ear.
She shivered pleasantly and nodded. He looked up and requested, "All right Orcus, back to Jidoor. The long way, for real this time."
They sped off in the direction of the setting sun, the horizon glowing a fiery red and casting a crimson hue over the landscape. It was somewhat unnerving yet somehow there was still an eerie sort of beauty to be found in it. The world had been turned into something unwelcome and unfamiliar, but if they looked hard enough they could still find remnants of hope that Kefka had been unable to destroy.
After about an hour of riding, the silhouette of a large building appeared on the horizon, backlit by the dimming sky. Terra was a little confused. She was sure he'd said that it took about two hours of riding by land to get from Jidoor to Maranda, so they couldn't be in Jidoor yet.
"Ah, the opera house," she heard him say behind her, as though he had heard her wondering. "I guess you could say this was where I adopted my new identity. There was a crate of discarded and damaged costume pieces that contained the lion mask, the sashes, and the coat, though I added the feathers to the mask and the multiple extra pockets to the coat."
He pulled on Orcus's feathers slightly to slow his pace. "Kefka attacked me for being an Imperial, and the commentary I overheard from the general populace regarding the Empire was mostly unfavorable, so I had no desire to appear associated with them when I had no memory of my role within it. So I cast off my supposed identity as General Leo and became a nameless, invisible non-entity."
"Not entirely, though," Terra observed. "You kept your tags."
He chuckled and pulled the chain out from his collar. "You are right about that," he ceded, looking at the small metal plate bearing a name and personal information that he still couldn't quite make his own. "I had considered discarding these as well, but... they felt important. That dissociating myself from the Empire was one thing, but abandoning these tags felt like I was only throwing away myself, and I had no intention of going that far. I did not know why they were important, but when you recognized them you said that they were... a relic to identify lost soldiers and bring them home."
There was a sudden loud roar that sounded like it was coming from inside the opera house. Terra blinked in surprise and realized, "Oh, that's right, didn't that little girl in Jidoor say that the opera house had been overrun by monsters?"
"I did record that in my Book of Wishes, yes," he confirmed.
Terra turned her head up to grin at him. "So do we have time to make a detour to grant a little girl's wish?"
His chest swelled a little and his lips pulled back into a broad smile. "I do like making children happy..." he said contemplatively, as though this was actually a decision he had to think about. Craning his neck around and patting the chocobo's side, he queried, "Orcus, do you mind if we stop here for a while? There isn't a forest around here, but there really aren't any people, either. Will you be all right?"
Orcus made a bit of a grumble through his nose, then spread his wings and launched off the ground, causing the two of them to suddenly grip his sides to hold on. However, he only went as far as the roof of the opera house, then settled himself between some spires and continued making soft nasal noises like he was muttering to himself.
"Oh, these spires are sort of like trees, I guess," Terra observed as she dismounted.
Her partner dismounted as well and scratched under the chocobo's beak, slipping him a raisin in the process. "Thank you for accommodating us, my friend. I'll see if I can find you some more dried fruit when we get back to Jidoor, all right?" Orcus bobbed his head in response.
Terra held out her hand to him and offered, "I can get us down from here with a Float spell. Are you ready?"
"I always welcome your assistance," he said with a soft smile, taking her hand and absently looking down over the edge of the roof into the darkness below.
There was a sudden uncomfortable gnawing in the pit of his stomach that gave him pause. Was he... suddenly afraid of heights? He had flown on Orcus countless times over the past year and the height had never bothered him before. But for some reason standing here on a ledge and looking down into what looked like a dark void caused him to bristle with anxiety. He had become so contented by the pleasant emotions that had been triggered from his time with Terra that he hadn't been anticipating that something might still trigger a negative one.
"General?" Terra questioned when she saw him lost in looking down into the darkness.
He shook his head to bring himself back to the present. "Ah, I just got the feeling that I may have had an unpleasant experience with a cliff in my past when I looked down," he admitted. With a smile, he squeezed her hand and said, "I trust that such will not be the case this time."
"I promise," she said, nodding. If he was recalling an unpleasant experience with a cliff, that was most likely the Floating Continent, which they'd all fallen from just before they were separated. Now that they were faced with jumping from a ledge while holding hands again, she also suddenly felt a bit of apprehension, even though the drop was much shorter and in much less dire circumstances. Nevertheless, she reached over and took his other hand, insisting, "Two hands this time, just to make doubly sure no one lets go."
He cocked his head at her as she let out a breath, then chanted, "Float..." The two of them suddenly became weightless and drifted off the edge of the roof. He slid his hands up to clutch Terra's upper arms mostly in surprise at being airborne without the aid of a chocobo than out of fear. Orcus, back on the roof, was equally perplexed at this mysterious manner of flight and stood at the ledge tilting his head back and forth like a quizzical dog.
The chocobo's master laughed and called over to him, "Don't worry, my friend, I'm not abandoning you for a different mode of transport. This is just so that you can stay up there and be safe. We'll be back for you, I promise." Orcus made an agreeable sound, then turned away from the ledge and settled himself back down between the spires.
As they slowly descended, lazily rotating in the darkness while holding each other's arms, he breathed out deeply. "Well, whatever experience I had with a cliff before, I am certain that this is much more pleasant." Looking at their positioning, he gave a small chuckle. "It's almost like we're dancing in the air."
Terra blushed. "I... I've never danced before, though."
"I cannot recall if I ever have, either," he admitted. Sliding one hand to her waist and the other to her hand, he noted, "But if my body remembered how to fight all on its own, perhaps if I have experience dancing it will remember that as well."
She giggled and moved the hand he wasn't holding to his shoulder. "The point of holding each other like this was so that we didn't let each other go, though."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about me letting you go," he said with a wink, causing her to blush harder.
When their feet lightly reached the ground and the Float spell was dispelled, they continued holding each other in that position for some time longer. He looked at her seriously and elaborated, "And by that I mean... even if I regain my memory, even if we defeat Kefka, even if the world is restored... I still want to be by your side. I know you have other responsibilities and I have no intention of taking you away from them, but... I'd like to hope that after this is all over we'll still be able to see each other."
"Of course we can still see each other," she said, slightly surprised. "You make it sound like after everything is finished I'm going to vanish or something." Looking to the side, she squeezed his arm and admitted, "You're right that I do have other people I need to take care of, so I'm not going to be able to stay with you helping with your humanitarian work like this all the time... but you have a flying chocobo and I have friends with an airship. Hopefully those will give us some good options for seeing each other regularly." She shyly looked back up to him. "Since I like being with you, too."
He smiled contentedly and relaxed his shoulders. Letting go of her, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, a little embarrassed, "I apologize for the clinginess. I simply... have had no meaningful human contact in the last year, which is the extent of my entire memory, so now that I have it... I may be overly paranoid about losing it. But you have helped me to open myself up to other people again, so even if we do end up apart for a while... I think I will be able to manage."
He cleared his throat and held up his Book of Wishes. "But while we have our time together, we should make the most of it. Therefore, shall we fight together to make a little girl's wish come true?"
Terra grinned and hugged his arm. "I would love to."
The pair entered the front doors to the opera house, where they were greeted by another roar coming from somewhere deeper within the building. They passed through the turnstile, which alerted a man in a fancy black suit in the front lobby to their presence. He walked quickly and stiffly in their direction and announced, "Yes, hello, I am the Impresario of this establishment. I am terribly sorry, but due to a continuing monster infestation that we are doing our best to remedy, the opera house is closed for business at this time."
"That's okay, we're here to defeat the monsters," Terra explained happily.
"You are?" he replied in shock, looking them over. "Just the two of you? Because I'll have you know that we have a dragon that has decided to sit right in the middle of our stage and refuses to budge!"
"Don't worry, I have experience killing dragons," Terra said. She then indicated with her thumb to her partner and added, "And he once killed a legendary monster single-handedly." His eyes widened at this assertion but he said nothing, merely shrugging and nodding in affirmation.
"Oh... my..." said the Impresario, pacing quickly back and forth. "I do hope you're not bluffing. I don't want to have to deal with both a monster and dead bodies tarnishing my stage..." He hunched his shoulders and pleaded to them, "Please try not to damage anything."
"We will do our best, but we also make no promises," said Terra's partner, bowing.
The Impresario sighed. "Very well... you may access the stage from the trap door on the second level. Do take care."
The two of them made their way to the second level through the balcony seating area to the stagehand room to the right side. "I almost didn't want to help him, he was so rude..." Terra complained.
Her companion shook his head. "No matter their behavior, all people deserve a base level of respect. Refusing to help him means refusing to help the little girl who misses going to the theater with her family. I am not about to let other people suffer because I find one person who may benefit from my help less deserving of it. Even the people of Jidoor who would mostly squander it, and the people of Zozo who would mostly exploit it, have still received aid from me. Because I would rather serve a hundred undeserving people than fail to serve one deserving one."
Terra suddenly felt horribly guilty. "Y... yes, I guess you're right. We do still need to help regardless." She pursed her lips. "... But I can still call him 'rude', right?"
He laughed. "Yes, he was quite rude."
They entered the stagehands' room, catching the operator by surprise. "Oh, wow, you're really here slay that dragon? I hope you can; we haven't had any work in months thanks to it taking over the stage and it's killing us financially."
"Don't worry, we'll get you back in business soon. I know of people who are eager to come back and see your performances," Terra assured him. She glanced over at her companion who was examining the levers on the wall and blushed a little. Leo liked opera, too, she knew. She didn't know anything about it herself, but maybe once everything was settled, they could come back here and see a show together and she could discover what he liked so much about it.
"Oh, that's great to hear!" said the stagehand. "Well, just pull that lever and you'll have access to the stage."
"This one?" Terra's companion queried, pulling the one on the far left.
"Woof."
He blinked and pulled the lever a few more times and it just continued to make a "woof" sound.
"Honestly, I'm not sure why we have that lever," said the stagehand. "This one on the right here will get you to the stage."
"This one?" said Terra, walking over and pulling the lever he indicated.
A trap door suddenly opened under her and she gave a squeak of surprise and fell, but not before her partner dove to the floor to catch her hand before she fell completely. Looking up at the stagehand in annoyance, he questioned, "Just what manner of senselessness are you peddling here?"
The stagehand shrugged, "I don't know why we have that lever, either. Really, I don't know why the Impresario didn't just direct you to the performers' entrance behind the curtains. I think he's just kind of a jerk."
"I am beginning to see that." He looked down into the hole in the floor where he was clutching Terra's hand and wondered, "Are you all right?"
"I'm all right!" she called back up, catching her breath. "It just surprised me, is all. Come on, I can Float us the rest of the way down."
He slid down the hatch with her and they descended slowly towards the stage. "I still intend to help them and do my best to follow their wishes of minimizing collateral damage, but their behavior is certainly straining the goodwill I would feel towards doing so," he commented.
Terra giggled. "I'm just excited about being able to fight alongside you to grant someone's wish, so I don't really mind so much. There was no harm done in the end."
He bowed his head with a chuckle. "And you are correct. That does still make this all worth it."
They reached the stage, still hovering a few inches above its surface thanks to the Float spell. The dragon spotted them and let out a roar, then swung its head to send a shockwave towards them.
That... passed right under them. Terra watched it sail by behind them and noted, "Oh, this dragon uses earth-based attacks. So while we're floating, it can't even hit us, anyway."
"Convenient," her partner said, rolling up the cuffs of his sleeves and drawing his sword. "Then with our defense already taken care of, we are on the offensive." Holding his sword to the side, he noted, "My Shock attack is a bolt of energy from the ground which would likely damage the stage, so I am going to be limited to melee attacks for this battle."
Terra nodded. "And I probably shouldn't be throwing around any fire inside, so I'm going to have to rely on powering up lesser spells." She closed her eyes and willed her inner energy to the surface, bathing in a blue light that radiated out, fanning out her hair and turning her skin a faint pink. When she opened her eyes, she noticed that her partner was gaping at her, and she suddenly realized, "Oh... that's right, you wouldn't remember that I can do this... Um..."
He shook his head, mouth still open. "Part of me is upset that I would have forgotten something like this, and part of me is glad that it means you continue to be full of exciting surprises." He raised his sword to her and nodded. "I anticipate this is going to be an enjoyable battle. Shall we?"
She bowed playfully at him. "We shall."
A head popped up from below the front of the stage. "You're here to get rid of that dragon? Bless you both, we will provide you with all the backup we can muster!"
"Oh, that's all right, this is probably going to be too dangerous for-" Terra began, but the man turned his back to her and raised a wand in the air.
"All right, everyone, put all your energy into it! We can't let those instruments rust!" He waved his wand and the soft sounds of stringed instruments began reverberating around the concert hall. They crescendoed, adding more strings, winds, and percussion, the volume increasing until it felt like it fully surrounded them.
Terra looked to her companion, who had gone stiff when the music started, then his face slowly broke into a grin, his fists clenching and his hair bristling. "This feeling... My chest is swelling and I feel completely energized... Like the sound is melding with my body and guiding my emotions and movements...!" He brought up his hand and his wrist and fingers twitched in time with the music in a manner similar to the conducting motion that Terra remembered seeing him do when they'd first met.
"Terra!" he said excitedly, reaching his hand out and taking hers. Slightly breathlessly, he nodded towards the dragon and requested, "I still owe you that dance. Will you join me?"
Terra blushed hard. Even during their first conversation, his obvious enthusiasm towards his interests was something that had endeared him to her, especially because unlike the others' passion towards things like revolution or romance that she didn't understand at the time, his passion towards music was benign and unintimidating. And now that they were here, in this acoustic hall, surrounded by waves of music that were mingling with her own magical aura, she also felt... energized. Excited. And even though she had no idea what he wanted to do, if the music was directing him, she felt like all she had to do was follow its lead and she would naturally understand it.
She clasped his hand and nodded, and the two of them pushed off the stage floor towards the dragon, the Float allowing them to glide easily over the surface of the stage. The dragon kicked up numerous other shockwaves that harmlessly passed beneath them. Enraged that its special abilities had no effect on them, the dragon spun around and swiped its tail at them. Terra's partner swept up his arm holding her hand, tossing her over the dragon's tail in an elegant spin while he feinted to the side, allowing the dragon's tail to sweep past him, giving him an opening to slash his sword across the tendon at the back of its knee.
From the air, Terra cast a Gravity spell on the dragon, forcing it to the ground on its wounded leg. This allowed her partner to leap onto its back and drive his sword into the back of its neck. Without even needing to look, he reached up his hand and Terra was in position to take it. With his sword still piercing the dragon's skin, he slid down the dragon's flank, opening a deep gash as he went, which Terra filled with a close-range Blizzard spell, freezing the monster from the inside out.
When they reached the ground in front of the dragon's chest, he twirled her around so that his arm was wrapped around her and her back was to his chest, her hands clasping his sword arm. Smiling and sliding her hands to the hilt of his sword, she chanted, "Banish", imbuing the sword with the spell. They launched forward as a pair, driving the sword into the dragon's chest, causing its frozen body to implode into nothingness.
With the dragon gone, the orchestra reduced the tempo and volume of their playing and the onstage pair's actions followed suit, lowering the sword and passing it off to his right hand to sheathe it, turning Terra around in the process to face him. He brushed one hand down her mane of pink hair to rest at her waist, and took her hand with his other. Terra placed her free hand on his upper arm and the two continued to frictionlessly revolve together on the stage, still hovering a few inches above it.
"That was even more enjoyable than I had hoped," he said softly, gazing at her with a warm smile. "You dance well."
"Mm..." was all she could think of to say, lost in his eyes. "You'd told me that music sets your mood, like it can direct your emotions, and at the time I didn't understand what you meant, but... now I think I have an idea. Like feelings that I didn't know how to put into words could still be put into sound. When the music was loud and fast during the fight, I felt excited, but now that it's slowed down, and I'm with you like this, I feel..."
He touched his finger to her lips. "Sometimes words aren't necessary. If we're both listening to the same music, then I think we both feel the same way."
She felt a pleasant shiver run down her neck when his finger touched her. When he took it away and returned his hand to holding hers, she almost missed its touch. Looking up at his face, she found herself wondering that if just a tap of his finger to her lips felt that nice, what would it feel like if...?
Suddenly one of the trumpets belted out some kind of victory fanfare that shocked the two of them out of their mutual dazes. Terra blushed hard at realizing what she had been thinking about, while her partner laughed and called back, "What was that supposed to be?"
"Sorry!" came a voice from the orchestra pit. "You beat the dragon and I wanted to celebrate!"
"You are allowed," he called back in amusement. Pulling the small notebook out of his breast pocket, he crossed off the entry for defeating the monsters at the opera house. Clapping the book closed and returning to to his pocket, he commented to Terra, "Well, mission accomplished. Shall we move on?"
She patted her cheeks to clear her head, then reverted to her human form. With a bashful nod, she agreed, "Y, yeah, let's get going."
Notes:
- "Imposter Syndrome" is an actual term for the feelings of self-doubt that people feel about their accomplishments, believing that they're all due to luck or other people not understanding what true competency looks like, and that they're not actually very good at it. Ironically, the kind of excess humility that drives Imposter Syndrome usually requires the understanding of the full difficulty of the task being praised, which can usually only be achieved with true competency at it.
- Come on, I couldn't NOT make an "Emperor's New Groove" joke about the lever with the surprise trap door in the opera house.
- Conveniently, if both have the Float status and Leo is relegated to just the "Fight" command while Terra just throws ice spells while in Trance form, the two of them can still duo the Dirt Dragon easily since most of its attacks miss.
- The song I imagined the orchestra playing during the dragon battle was "Valse di Fantastica" transitioning into "Sunset Waltz" once the battle completed. This choice was made mostly because I was listening to the FFXV soundtrack while writing this chapter. XD
- And thus, appropriately, the title of this chapter means "to dance" and describes music that is intended to be danced to.