Authors Notes: The first person to R&R or flame me gets a cookie! No no, it's just I didn't get much (read, any) feedback on the last chapter, which surprises me, I was expecting, I don't know, at least thirteen different flames. (I'm of the opinion the thing was too crossdamn long to catch anyone's interest.) So far the only feedback I've gotten is from Karen Black, aka Misato-kun, god bless her.
Also, for those of you with problems dealing with the ending to Chrono Cross, might I recommend "World Without End". (it's an actual, printed book) I don't know who wrote it, two authors I think, but it has some bearing on the problem of 'somehow, somewhere, sometime, I will find you.'
*** indicates where there is a change in prespective. Arigato and Ja Ne.
Elsgod - Glimmerings
-The End of Time-
Gasper wasn't surprised when he felt the boy return. What surprised him was the form the boy wore. Ark appeared as he always did, suddenly and silently, kneeling. He waited for a moment, probably to make sure he he had assembled himself correctly, Gasper thought, and then rose. Gasper greeted him as he always did, by smacking him in the shin. Usually the body Ark had built for himself was strong enough, or not developed enough, to ignore the pain. This time he jumped, and dropped back in a defensive stance.
The old man gruffed laughter to himself, and then raised his hat to get a good look at his visitor. The old man squinted, blinked, looked again. "Janus?" Not so tall, slender build, white hair, just about right... The old man stood, despite the burning pain his joints gave him. "Janus? Is that you? I thought you were... someone else." 'Janus' still hadn't relaxed his defensive stance. He asked, "You are the Guru of Wisdom, Gasper, correct?" The old man laughed again. "I believe that's what they used to call me, ages ago. But you should know that as well as anyone!" 'Janus' relaxed a little.
***
Janus... that was the name of the Princess' brother wasn't it? Was the old man so senile to think he was that boy? "I'm not Janus, sir." Courteous. The old man looked at him, and reached out with one clawed hand. The hand seemed to test the air around it, and then disappeared back into the folds of his cloak.
"Ark... so you've come back. I thought you would." The crone gestured beyond the fence that encircled the 'End of Time'. "I felt you awhile back, figured you must finally be doing something productive for a change." He waited. Nothing. "So what did you do this time? Try to deflect it totally? Yank it outside time again? Or were YOU the one that planted that second moon in the sky?" Second moon? As far as Ark knew, there had always been a second moon in the sky.
"I came to you because you're the only person I remember who is still alive." The Guru of Wisdom regarded him for a moment, his mood changing from irritance to interest. "Remember? Have you lost a part of yourself boy?"
***
Ah, something hadn't felt right. That bold arrogance that was so characteristic of Ark, the blind enthusiasm to take whatever course of action that presented itself. Totally absent from this specimen. 'Carthesis' the old man's mind screamed. "I... don't remember a lot of things." Ark was almost totally different now, fascinating. "I was moving around outside the timestream, and found something..."
After Ark had finished his story, they both sat in silence. Gasper scratched his chin absently, deep in thought. Ark was rubbing his swelling shin. Finally, silence broke: "Tell me Ark, why did you choose that form?" Ark looked down. As far as he could remember, it was the only body he had ever known. "Because... hm. This was the form I had in the Princess' dream. I assumed it was my own." Gasper got up, and began to hobble around Ark. After a complete revolution, he sat down again. "That body you wear, is very close to what Schala's younger brother, Janus, probably looked like at your age. You're what now? Nineteen?" Ark shook his head.
Doesn't even remember his own age... fascinating. "Did the Princess ever recognize you as Janus?" No. "Did she ever address you as Prophet?" Again negative. Hmm... very interesting indeed.
***
What was the old man trying to get at? Looking totally different from everyone else in Zeal had damned him. That was why the guards had suspected he was Earthbound in the first place! The old man continued: "In all the times you've come to talk, this form is the most vulnerable you've worn." The old man grinned, and smack Ark's other shin, who yelped and scooted back. "This body is also well formed, if I'm reading you correctly, down to last synapse in that wooden head of yours. Since you don't seem to remember, you used to take numerous forms whenever the fancy struck you. Most were humanoid, others not so. You would link your brain to major motor functions, basically making it a stupid mannequin, not even really aliv*" the old man stopped, and grinned. "You haven't decided to go sowing your wild oats have you? Found some pretty girl who doesn't consider extradimensional dysfunction a risk to the relationship?" The old man laughed until he had to spit, and Ark turned red.
"No, that couldn't be it, you would have just added a couple of blood vessels and a stronger heart..." the voice dropped into a mumbling garble.
This conversation was really starting to unnerve Ark. In his visions of Chronopolis, he had worn the same body. If that had not been fact, how much of the vision had been changed by his lack of memory? He pictured Relista in his mind again, and became aware that something was wrong with the picture. He couldn't place it, but it was enough to seriously unsettle him. "I guess Schala's powers would be magnified significantly outside the timestream... hmmm." Ark had the distinct impression the old man was talking to himself. "So... trapping another, forming a dream... not applying typical temporal axioms to a power not native to them in the first place, add in the applications of the fifth and sixth dimensions on a nonphysical state..." The old man's words became a mumble again.
How long has the Guru been here? How far away was he from insanity? Ark's thoughts, and their implications, were not pleasant. "Yes... that would make since. She would be looking for that, wouldn't she? Yes, her brother and she were very close." The old man was staring off into the nothingness... doubtless thinking it was looking back at him.
Ark shuddered, perhaps he should have figured all this out on his own, over a glass of something strong, and maybe some sulfur paste. But no, that path had only made time move faster. He hardly remembered any of the year he had spent in that bar, save the times he passed out drunk and woke up more or less sober, a situation he had been quick to rectify. And he was still recovering from the hangover, three days after he had walked out of the bar.
"Listen when I'm talking to you boy!" As if on cue, the Guru of Wisdom slammed his stick against the side of Ark's head, turning what had been a dull throb into a very intense, searing pain. While Ark was busy gently sobbing to himself, the Guru began to explain the current condition, as his logic perceived it. "When you were drawn into that dream your body was without form, as you said. Schala's subconscious, which was obviously not as empty as you thought, must have given you that form in hopes that you would run into Schala at some point in the dream and be able to comfort her. Why the years were advanced, the last time the Princess saw Janus he was eight... or nine..." The old man's eyes glazed over for a moment, Ark was worried that he had just snapped.
"...ten, he was ten-ish. Yes. So why would the age be... hmmmm. Schala, how old were you? Lesee.. oh dear, that's right isn't it? Disturbing, but I agree, that does make sense. No, I'm not saying it was intentional, probably just a coincidence..." Ark rose to his feet, very slowly. The Guru was beginning to get very animated in his arguments with the void. Ark had hoped to find some answers here, instead it had only raised more questions and doubts. While the Guru of Wisdom began to duel an invisible opponent, he opened a Gate and stepped through, he needed a drink.
***
When the boy had left, the Guru stopped his seemingly insane ramblings. The door behind him opened and a small, white furred creature rolled out. "Was it him again?" the creature asked. Gasper nodded. "What are we going to do about him? Want me to get him the next time he comes?" Gasper considered. "No... we can't be certain that he won't achieve his goal. If he does manage it, we won't have to worry about him anyway." Gasper closed his eyes and pulled at his walking stick's 'handle'. A hidden sword came out of it's sheath. "But if it comes to that, I'll kill him myself."
The creature nodded and rolled out of the room, leaving Gasper to sheath his weapon and collapse against the lamp post. Would Ark be surprised to learn how frightened Gasper was of him? Would he be surprised to learn how every moment Gasper sat here, at the end of an eternity, he worried about the next time the boy would visit? Gasper began to shake, his body was getting too old, if he didn't finish what Crono and his friends had started oh so long ago, no one would. 'Schala.' The old man thought to himself, 'Watch yourself.'
At a bar, in a nameless tavern on the continent Porre, Ark sat. He slowly turned the glass in front of him around. Again. It tasted wrong. Nothing tasted right since he had gotten sober. He realized, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that nothing would taste right until he made things right again. 'Princess' his mind cried. 'Please be the same person I glimpsed in that dream, please be unchanged.' His hand tightened on the crystal goblet until it shattered. His hand bled, he didn't care. 'Please don't let Lavos change you... please don't add another name to the long list of people I've killed.' He ran both hands through his hair. People he thought he had killed, in any event. 'Please, please...' his inner voice was beginning to plead with nothing, growing childish and desperate. 'Please don't make it that I killed you.'
To Be Continued
Also, for those of you with problems dealing with the ending to Chrono Cross, might I recommend "World Without End". (it's an actual, printed book) I don't know who wrote it, two authors I think, but it has some bearing on the problem of 'somehow, somewhere, sometime, I will find you.'
*** indicates where there is a change in prespective. Arigato and Ja Ne.
Elsgod - Glimmerings
-The End of Time-
Gasper wasn't surprised when he felt the boy return. What surprised him was the form the boy wore. Ark appeared as he always did, suddenly and silently, kneeling. He waited for a moment, probably to make sure he he had assembled himself correctly, Gasper thought, and then rose. Gasper greeted him as he always did, by smacking him in the shin. Usually the body Ark had built for himself was strong enough, or not developed enough, to ignore the pain. This time he jumped, and dropped back in a defensive stance.
The old man gruffed laughter to himself, and then raised his hat to get a good look at his visitor. The old man squinted, blinked, looked again. "Janus?" Not so tall, slender build, white hair, just about right... The old man stood, despite the burning pain his joints gave him. "Janus? Is that you? I thought you were... someone else." 'Janus' still hadn't relaxed his defensive stance. He asked, "You are the Guru of Wisdom, Gasper, correct?" The old man laughed again. "I believe that's what they used to call me, ages ago. But you should know that as well as anyone!" 'Janus' relaxed a little.
***
Janus... that was the name of the Princess' brother wasn't it? Was the old man so senile to think he was that boy? "I'm not Janus, sir." Courteous. The old man looked at him, and reached out with one clawed hand. The hand seemed to test the air around it, and then disappeared back into the folds of his cloak.
"Ark... so you've come back. I thought you would." The crone gestured beyond the fence that encircled the 'End of Time'. "I felt you awhile back, figured you must finally be doing something productive for a change." He waited. Nothing. "So what did you do this time? Try to deflect it totally? Yank it outside time again? Or were YOU the one that planted that second moon in the sky?" Second moon? As far as Ark knew, there had always been a second moon in the sky.
"I came to you because you're the only person I remember who is still alive." The Guru of Wisdom regarded him for a moment, his mood changing from irritance to interest. "Remember? Have you lost a part of yourself boy?"
***
Ah, something hadn't felt right. That bold arrogance that was so characteristic of Ark, the blind enthusiasm to take whatever course of action that presented itself. Totally absent from this specimen. 'Carthesis' the old man's mind screamed. "I... don't remember a lot of things." Ark was almost totally different now, fascinating. "I was moving around outside the timestream, and found something..."
After Ark had finished his story, they both sat in silence. Gasper scratched his chin absently, deep in thought. Ark was rubbing his swelling shin. Finally, silence broke: "Tell me Ark, why did you choose that form?" Ark looked down. As far as he could remember, it was the only body he had ever known. "Because... hm. This was the form I had in the Princess' dream. I assumed it was my own." Gasper got up, and began to hobble around Ark. After a complete revolution, he sat down again. "That body you wear, is very close to what Schala's younger brother, Janus, probably looked like at your age. You're what now? Nineteen?" Ark shook his head.
Doesn't even remember his own age... fascinating. "Did the Princess ever recognize you as Janus?" No. "Did she ever address you as Prophet?" Again negative. Hmm... very interesting indeed.
***
What was the old man trying to get at? Looking totally different from everyone else in Zeal had damned him. That was why the guards had suspected he was Earthbound in the first place! The old man continued: "In all the times you've come to talk, this form is the most vulnerable you've worn." The old man grinned, and smack Ark's other shin, who yelped and scooted back. "This body is also well formed, if I'm reading you correctly, down to last synapse in that wooden head of yours. Since you don't seem to remember, you used to take numerous forms whenever the fancy struck you. Most were humanoid, others not so. You would link your brain to major motor functions, basically making it a stupid mannequin, not even really aliv*" the old man stopped, and grinned. "You haven't decided to go sowing your wild oats have you? Found some pretty girl who doesn't consider extradimensional dysfunction a risk to the relationship?" The old man laughed until he had to spit, and Ark turned red.
"No, that couldn't be it, you would have just added a couple of blood vessels and a stronger heart..." the voice dropped into a mumbling garble.
This conversation was really starting to unnerve Ark. In his visions of Chronopolis, he had worn the same body. If that had not been fact, how much of the vision had been changed by his lack of memory? He pictured Relista in his mind again, and became aware that something was wrong with the picture. He couldn't place it, but it was enough to seriously unsettle him. "I guess Schala's powers would be magnified significantly outside the timestream... hmmm." Ark had the distinct impression the old man was talking to himself. "So... trapping another, forming a dream... not applying typical temporal axioms to a power not native to them in the first place, add in the applications of the fifth and sixth dimensions on a nonphysical state..." The old man's words became a mumble again.
How long has the Guru been here? How far away was he from insanity? Ark's thoughts, and their implications, were not pleasant. "Yes... that would make since. She would be looking for that, wouldn't she? Yes, her brother and she were very close." The old man was staring off into the nothingness... doubtless thinking it was looking back at him.
Ark shuddered, perhaps he should have figured all this out on his own, over a glass of something strong, and maybe some sulfur paste. But no, that path had only made time move faster. He hardly remembered any of the year he had spent in that bar, save the times he passed out drunk and woke up more or less sober, a situation he had been quick to rectify. And he was still recovering from the hangover, three days after he had walked out of the bar.
"Listen when I'm talking to you boy!" As if on cue, the Guru of Wisdom slammed his stick against the side of Ark's head, turning what had been a dull throb into a very intense, searing pain. While Ark was busy gently sobbing to himself, the Guru began to explain the current condition, as his logic perceived it. "When you were drawn into that dream your body was without form, as you said. Schala's subconscious, which was obviously not as empty as you thought, must have given you that form in hopes that you would run into Schala at some point in the dream and be able to comfort her. Why the years were advanced, the last time the Princess saw Janus he was eight... or nine..." The old man's eyes glazed over for a moment, Ark was worried that he had just snapped.
"...ten, he was ten-ish. Yes. So why would the age be... hmmmm. Schala, how old were you? Lesee.. oh dear, that's right isn't it? Disturbing, but I agree, that does make sense. No, I'm not saying it was intentional, probably just a coincidence..." Ark rose to his feet, very slowly. The Guru was beginning to get very animated in his arguments with the void. Ark had hoped to find some answers here, instead it had only raised more questions and doubts. While the Guru of Wisdom began to duel an invisible opponent, he opened a Gate and stepped through, he needed a drink.
***
When the boy had left, the Guru stopped his seemingly insane ramblings. The door behind him opened and a small, white furred creature rolled out. "Was it him again?" the creature asked. Gasper nodded. "What are we going to do about him? Want me to get him the next time he comes?" Gasper considered. "No... we can't be certain that he won't achieve his goal. If he does manage it, we won't have to worry about him anyway." Gasper closed his eyes and pulled at his walking stick's 'handle'. A hidden sword came out of it's sheath. "But if it comes to that, I'll kill him myself."
The creature nodded and rolled out of the room, leaving Gasper to sheath his weapon and collapse against the lamp post. Would Ark be surprised to learn how frightened Gasper was of him? Would he be surprised to learn how every moment Gasper sat here, at the end of an eternity, he worried about the next time the boy would visit? Gasper began to shake, his body was getting too old, if he didn't finish what Crono and his friends had started oh so long ago, no one would. 'Schala.' The old man thought to himself, 'Watch yourself.'
At a bar, in a nameless tavern on the continent Porre, Ark sat. He slowly turned the glass in front of him around. Again. It tasted wrong. Nothing tasted right since he had gotten sober. He realized, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that nothing would taste right until he made things right again. 'Princess' his mind cried. 'Please be the same person I glimpsed in that dream, please be unchanged.' His hand tightened on the crystal goblet until it shattered. His hand bled, he didn't care. 'Please don't let Lavos change you... please don't add another name to the long list of people I've killed.' He ran both hands through his hair. People he thought he had killed, in any event. 'Please, please...' his inner voice was beginning to plead with nothing, growing childish and desperate. 'Please don't make it that I killed you.'
To Be Continued