Vicious roots of the Iifa Tree whipped in mad frenzy around
us, and still only you looked at me. And touched my cheek.
All around me I see white. It is almost blinding in its pureness,
and still it does not give off any particular light of sorts. I feel your
touch now. As always; I want to look at you, but you simply are not there.
I spin around and call your name. I cannot hear any sound emerging from my
mouth, but you turn to me anyway.
Yes
Turning those eyes at me, like amethyst in opal setting. Your
lips part as if to smile.
Zidane
I try to return the smile, try to move toward you. You hold
out your hand to me, but you're so far away... I can't quite reach you...
Zidane... Please...
I strain to reach you now. I see your smile fade. Like someone's
pulling you away from me, you turn away. Silver hair swirls in motion. Your
pale hand still held out. A plea.
Zidane!
"Kuja!"
Zidane sat bolt upright, feeling his heart beating heavier
than a steamhammer. Beside him, Garnet stirred.
"Zidane? Love? What's the matter?"
Zidane looked down at his princess with eyes wide in shock.
He didn't really see her frowning face. "Kuja... It was Kuja."
"Kuja?" She hid a yawn behind her hand. "Zidane, he's been gone
for almost over a year now. Won't you just let this whole thing go?"
"Huh?" Let it... go? "No, Dagger, you don't understand...
Kuja... He was calling for me."
Dagger looked sad for a moment. Ever since Zidane had come back
from what she had presumed to be death; he hadn't really been his normal
self. Sure, outwardly he showed no sign of regret or recollection of what
had happened after he left Garnet and the others to leave him at the Iifa
Tree. But he cried in his sleep, whimpered like a sad child. Cried out for...
his brother. The young queen knew he wouldn't be able to forget the happenings
any time soon.
She took Zidane's hand carefully.
"So. He called out to you. What did he say?"
Zidane... Help me
"He..." Zidane's voice trailed off. He stared at his hands,
lying limp in his lap. They were rather normal. Short, stumpy, tanned. Not
like his... His hands were slender and beautiful, pale like
moonlight, yet delicately so.
Zidane closed his eyes painfully.
"Dagger, I don't think this can go on."
"What do you mean? What can't go on?" A somewhat aching chill
suddenly grabbed hold of her heart. "Zidane?"
Her voice was trembling, but Zidane found himself smiling. "Don't
worry, love, I don't mean us." He hugged her lightly, but he could feel her
body trembling even though he tried to comfort her. "It's just that... I
need to take a break for a while. I feel I can't stay in the castle another
minute. There's too much on my mind to give me any rest."
Garnet swallowed with hardship. "So you're going then?"
"Hey, it's just for a while!" Zidane exclaimed, suddenly laughing.
Dagger looked up, daring a weak smile of her own.
"Oh... I thought you meant that you..." She stopped herself,
blushing hotly. Zidane laughed once more and hugged her again, tighter this
time.
"You silly, you," he chuckled into her ear. "I love you. I'm
not gonna leave you. But there are some things I need to do. When I'm finished,
I'll come back, see?"
"Then..." Garnet clenched her fists. "Then I'm coming with
you."
"No, you're not," Zidane smiled kindly, stroking her chocolate-brown
hair. "You're the queen now, remember? You've got a kingdom- sorry- queendom
to run now, your majesty."
Garnet looked at him furiously. "You need not remind me,
Zidane. You are the one who keeps forgetting who you are."
"Yeah, yeah..."
They were silent a few minutes, resting in each others arms.
Just when Zidane thought his princess had fallen asleep, she murmured:
"When are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow."
"Safe journey, you scoundrel!"
"Be seeing you, Zidane!"
"Come back safely now, you hear, Zidane?"
All these words, are they really for me? Zidane thought
as he turned around one final time and waved goodbye to Steiner, Beatrix
and his own Dagger. They'd come with him as far as the gates to outside the
large city of Alexandria, now rebuilt to shine more gloriously than ever.
But Zidane turned around and almost fled it now.
He didn't understand why, he just felt the need to be somewhere
else; somewhere were he didn't know anybody; where he was just the anonymous
passerby in the crowd; that weird boy with the furry tail. The days with
the guys in Tantalus had been just like that. Just what he wanted. Free,
and always on the run. On his way somewhere new.
But with what he'd come to call the Grand Mission and
all, he'd ended up travelling the world quicker than he imagined, seeing
all those wonderful things he'd wondered about all too quickly, and then
left again. On his seemingly fruitless journey, a quest that had started
with helping a fair lady. It had turned into a head-hunt, and then into the
search for his own identity. A search that lead him to a whole nother world;
a world now dead.
Kuja...
Despite what Garnet had thought, Zidane hadn't been exactly
crazy about telling her what actually happened after they left him at the
Iifa Tree. It was his own, personal, memories that he didn't want to share
with anyone. Not even Garnet. She held no love for Kuja. Zidane did.
Looking up to the sky, seeing strips of white clouds move across
its light blue: it was a rather windy day. Wind, little more than a breeze,
played with his blonde hair, making it whisk about his face, in his eyes,
in his mouth, but not unpleasant. The wind made him feel free.
He set to wandering. Walking across plains, crossing paths spread
through the mountains, fighting beasts he encountered... It should have felt
good, it should have felt like home, but it didn't. There was just this little
something missing.
He slept in small villages, took staying in towns to explore
them rather thoroughly for a few weeks. It should have been all that, and
more. But still, he couldn't make it feel like it was. And he simply couldn't
figure out what was missing!
And every night the dream. Kuja. Never wholly the same, but
always returning to that last, painful end. Zidane felt torn between whatever
held him down on the earth and his longing for Kuja. His brother. And so
much more.
When Zidane first had heard about their common past, he'd been
shocked and angered. But then, later, it had turned from smothering hate
to stinging pity. As he did not grow to accept his own creation, he could
see the equal frustration in Kuja's outrageous, and futile, attempts to turn
Fate. Or his tries to sway Garland, their creator. The sinister man who'd
inspired so many feelings in the Genomes, both soulless and the ones given
minds.
Of how he managed to get to Esto Gaza, Zidane had
no memory later. He simply remembered sitting in that open space outside,
feeling the cold bite his bare arms and the wind sting the skin of his upturned
face.
"Perhaps, if I look at the stars long enough," he murmured to
the wind, "then perhaps they'll answer my questions."
Far away in the royal blue sky, a star twinkled at him. He sighed.
There would be no answers tonight. Nor had there been any the previous night,
or the night before that. But maybe tomorrow, or the night to come held more
positive results..? Smiling at his own naivete, Zidane shook his head and
prepared to go inside. A breeze, lukewarm and slow, grazed the skin of his
neck. He froze.
Zidane...
Teeth clattering from cold, and maybe a little fright, Zidane
looked around. The name he called his own had been spoken directly into his
mind, and not aloud, yet still he searched for someone who could have said
it. Of course, there was no one there. But the breeze, that warm, comforting
feeling, remained. It wrapped itself around his body, caressing him like
it was a living thing; and where it touched his naked skin, it felt like
silk. Zidane closed his eyes, feeling the wind brush over his face, his
lips.
"Kuja," he whispered in a voice hushed by awe and rapture.
Zidane... He could feel the warmth spread down his arm
and almost taking him by the hand. Come... I am... waiting for
you...
Zidane now felt a definite pulling. "But where are you? Won't
you show yourself?"
I shall reveal myself to you in time... For now...
Please...
Zidane couldn't resist the temptation of the warm wind, the
promise in the voice in his head. He followed to where the warmth lead him,
far past the city of the Gazers and into mountains where he shouldn't be
able to go naturally. Yet guided by this warmth in the middle of the biting
chill of the snow, he felt he could do anything.
Entranced by magic working its ways on him, Zidane could have
walked for ages, or maybe it was only a few minutes. In any case, he barely
noticed moving at all before he had reached his destination. In the middle
of nowhere, standing erect in a field of snow, was a circle of stones, very
much like the ones surrounding the entrance into space back in the Temple
of Memory, just before he'd seen the Crystal for the very first time. They
seemed to be of no hue at all, not even grey, but they sparkled, rebounded
the sparse light that the moon and stars provided between them. Between two
of the pillar-like stones was something like a portal or gateway. It was
open, no door, and behind it; only the snowfields continuing on for ever
and ever.
"What is this place?" Zidane whispered, voice still soft with
wonder.
Come... Please come to me... Zidane...
"But where are you? What do you want with me?"
I need you... Your strength... Please..
"Do you need my help? Kuja? Where are you?"
There was a slight pause before the voice sounded again; and
when it came it was slow, full of terrible sadness. The warm breeze suddenly
disappeared, and Zidane stood alone, abandoned in the center of the stone
circle.
You are the only one who really care... Zidane...
Zidane took a few careful steps forward. He put his hand in
the space of the open doorway, but nothing happened. He penetrated simple
air with his timid motion. "And exactly what is it you want me to do? I can't
help you if you don't tell me."
I want you to... remember
"Remember?" Zidane raised his eyebrows. "But I remember everything
now. First, back at Terra, Garland released the memories for me to find on
my own. And then, at the Iifa Tree, you revealed them all to me. Everything
we were. You and I."
I would like that...
It was the first time the voice had spoken about itself. Zidane
ceased the opportunity. "You'd like what?"
That what you just said. You... and I... Again
"I'd like that too, Kuja. Please, tell me how to help you."
Your canary wouldn't like it if I borrowed you Slight
edge of humor to the voice there.
"My canary? Oh! Dagger!" So easily he'd forgotten about her...
"Nah, I'm pretty sure she won't mind too much. Not if you stay cool."
A hesitation. Zidane... Won't you... take my hand?
And then, everything went up for Zidane. He now realized the
full extent and meaning of his dream. That warmth that was Kuja's touch returned;
and ever so carefully moved over his cheek. Like it took Zidane's chin and
lifted his face a little to look into a face that wasn't there. No perfect
eyes to smile down at him.
"Kuja," he whimpered, feeling on the verge of tears. He swallowed
with hardship. "I..."
Please take my hands
And there was no sound, no flash of light, no nothing. Kuja
was simply there.
Wind tearing through their hair, silver and golden, they stood
with their eyes closed; hands held between themselves as to form a barrier
from the pain that now shot through their minds when they remembered.
They stood so for what felt like ages. Zidane dared open his
tearfilled eyes, finding to his great surprise and joy the same tears in
Kuja's amethyst ones.
"Zidane," he whispered, voice so soft and smooth like a ripple
of silk through the silence. His beautiful face was suddenly made impossibly
perfect by the most divine kind of smiles and Zidane felt his breath taken
away in an instant. Kuja simply looked at him, but not like in the dream.
No sorrow, desperation in his movements now.
He reached out and with those slender hands Zidane had been
dreaming of so long now, for real cupping his face between them. Then Kuja
bent down and kissed him. Rich lips tasting sweet like violets, brushing
against his own, Zidane felt his knees go weak. Impassively he felt Kuja's
tongue enter his mouth, exploring carefully before answering the gesture.
For eternity they stood like that. A kiss that would never end,
but had to. On a piece of welkin far to the east, the sky had started to
blush heavily crimson and orange. The bright colors seemed to enter their
dreamworld of illusions built up around the two. At first, it simply dissolved
the feelings to suddenly shatter the whole perfection with a single blow.
Zidane heard Kuja's scream of agony when they were torn apart, and he himself
saw the world go black.
He never wished to see or hear anything ever again. For the
darkness was not the last thing he saw before unconsciousness; but Kuja's
amethyst eyes were. And the last thing he heard was not the shriek of painfilled
sorrow, but the tender words:
I love you