Title: Final Fantasy: Sighs from Heaven
Author/s: AsianScaper
Summary: Memories of Gray, Gaea, and a few other elements that make my story weird...and well worth the read. (I hope...eh-heh) Please read and review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy. No infringement is intended.
Rating: G
Category: Drama
Feedback: Send your criticism, comments, or insights to asianscaper@hotmail.com
Archiving: Put it anywhere you wish, just email me the URL.
Spoilers: None
Dedication: Once more, to the people who actually made Final Fantasy possible and to Elliot Goldenthal, for creating such a wonderful soundtrack!
Author's Note: Again, this was also done posthaste. Actually, all the stories I wrote under the Final Fantasy movie are related somehow (I wrote them while listening to the soundtrack). =P This is the fourth installment. Cheers!
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If tears had not spilled from the clouds, then perhaps, her compassion for the heavens would have ceased yet now, such liquid bore misery from the chalice of an ailing god and the woman could not find the strength to halt such anguish. She stood like a pillar resisting a mob of sorrowful people who ululated from their ebony veils, speaking with the authentic, broken wails from heartaches, that she felt as if her own heart had melted to join the tumultuous river of their grief.
The clouds looked upon her in their languor; sighing their complaints with gusts of cold wind. This breeze forced its miserable hands to touch her skin that she could feel the whisper of fall in its coolness. A tide had cast its fearful arms above the world's head that it may devour the sweet life of summer; it leaves the frigid waters of autumn.
Oh, such loneliness was known to her; the same kind of forlornness a leaf must endure as its hue changes from life to death that it may join its brothers on the ground to suffer the fate of minerals and forsake the parenthood of the tree.
If her heart had not spilled with favor for the water now seeping past the enclosure of her collar, she would have fled from this place and forsaken the pleading sighs escaping from heaven. Order was all that left her where she was for chaos scrambled to great feats around her, as rain dropped horizontally, emulating swords as a warrior tilted it for the kill. The ground gurgled in pleasure and melted in their esteem as rain upon torrents of rain shielded them from the tyranny of the sun.
Indeed, nothing was out of place as she stood amidst precipitation of heaven's expression and bathed in the soft flow of liquid diamonds, hoping that the purity within would free her soul and purge her essence of every known guilt she had taken to feeling. As water from the drenched raiment of the stars poured unto her skin like wine against the silver cup, she felt dirt slip past the wonderful mist, melding with air that it may flee upon chariots of wind. Purity had lost its meaning to most men and now they drowned in their own smiles of pride.
Her test lay not on that. Sweet heavens thought that she stood in repentance for such pride and the rain lashed at her with more fury than whips against the backside of the thief. The test of punishment was undeserving of her feeble heart made her stronger yet still, she dared the heavens to plague her with its sorrow.
And it tried.
And rain fell all the harder…
"Clever girl," a voice behind her intoned; it was heavy with the burden of any man, a burden of sin that all scientists seemed to bear despite their well-intended creations. "Come inside, Aki. You don't have to catch a cold."
"I know I don't have to." Aki Ross blinked and despite of her heart's strength, she felt bile rise in her throat and in that momentary lapse, her wall crumbled and a single tear sought to walk down the road of her grief. With a hand that spoke of days wandering within the wastes of her empty soul, she wiped it that the man behind her would not see and that she herself, as well as the cruel heavens, would know of her pain.
The old man, his beard moving to those lips that uttered compassion, silently nodded his understanding. "Get inside, Aki."
Her silence was enough of a refusal that Sid stepped from his place to join her.
His feet crushed the soil beneath him with finality that Aki fancied the ground had cried out, running from their hiding places to float into the wind. Dust rose from his feet and he ignored it as he pompously slid past grime. Yet as he drew closer to her, there was an unmistakable barrier which spoke its presence; he dared not step any farther. He merely watched her delicate back as muscles beneath her uniform undulated with a variety of emotions. Sadness, in the heave of one; regret, in the regression of the other; joy, in that painful excuse of a smile.
"You have been so contemplative, lately, my child."
Aki Ross' smile widened even as tears sought to impede her progress to mirth. "I have to be. There have been…so many things do to."
"And you're doing them, little one, with so much heart that in the face of failure, you take it personally. I think Gaea feels your scorn and your love despite her lack of cooperation," Sid interjected carefully, looking at her with the soft eyes of a keeper. Such merry eyes pursued the thought of a sweet embrace that, of course, would never come. "I can see…that you have lost the ability to feel as you once had." And the words flew like arrows upon the winds to attack her seemingly unassailable wall.
The smile was wiped from her face and Sid, joyful from the triumph of her earlier delight, was plunged into the familiar sadness that was her already burgeoning trade.
The woman was silenced by the rude implication of his words yet she did not peruse the harshness in them; she did not seek an answer to satisfy him, for she had none. She merely sat within this noiseless room, unknowing, and did not endeavor to meet his eye for her sight bore all her feelings and she did not wish for an old man to know the pains of a child. After all, there were so many things to do.
But the heavens knew such excuse and would not accede to her treachery. Rain fell in furious torrents and her flowing hair grew heavy with the morose actions of the clouds, sticking to her skin with determination, embracing her as if in fear of her escape.
"Your roses have been disposed of. I am sorry that the experiment failed." But of course, there was more than regret to Sid's lilting voice. He was utterly ruined at the fact that this attempt to bring life to their planet was failing and that the frenzied appeal of earth to nourish her grounds, grew louder and louder still, despite their failure. He, as she did, knew all too well the pain of the planet and reflexively, knew hers as well…to their very roots.
He had witnessed all that had to be witnessed to know the Aki faltering beside the light of triumph. She was broken and whole. Broken, because her love had been pilfered from the comforts of her heart and whole, because such pain made her visible to the roving eye of strength. It was this strength that filled her empty cup that she may drink from its rim once more. It was this strength that lighted the candle to her genius that she may save the planet, which cradled her feet, every step of her way.
"You will come inside, won't you?" he finally pleaded, knowing that his voice would perhaps fight its way to the haze that was her mind.
She did not seem to hear him yet in the facade of indifference; she had, and was listening with every inch of her soul. At once, another tear graced her cheek for she felt the sympathy of another human being in his voice. She found a companion in it, a companion who stood by her side to wipe her sorrow from her cheeks and she shifted her eyes only to find the emptiness of a horizon before her. It was the wind that had dried such saltiness from her face and in the sea's mockery; the ocean laughed at the wind's unsullied intention. She, on the other hand, thanked it, that it may condole the ever-changing climates of her heart.
"I'll have Wedge make you a cup of coffee. Meet you in the mess." Sid left. His footsteps were a strange song that played soft ballads to her fear of desolation.
His feet dipped into pulpous mud that protested against his boot as they wrapped it, suffocating the foot within. But Sid knew this vicious cycle and lifted his feet, for he was the greater creature and mud was mud. Certainly, it was the material he had sprung from, yet something that did not think or feel, but was part of something that did. A mere raiment to the breathing being, who cried and smiled, who laughed and lamented. Gaea.
He left the woman where he had found her, offering a last glance, taking in the water that dropped from her soaking outfit and smiling ruefully at the way the sun was starting to peek its last cerise eye from a break in the sky. He offered a silent prayer that this fiery god would comfort his pupil and would give her what he could not…warmth and relief.
So much had been stolen from this awesome youth and one of these was a person so dear to her that he simultaneously ripped her heart to shreds and mended her soul that it may live to serve this healing planet. He, too, served it with his essence as his eyes shimmered past the light of the sun, as his breathe caressed her cheek in the deeds of the wind, as his tender smile was emulated by the elated caper of water tainted in the brown cast of mud.
Gray…
Whispers upon cold, senseless breezes contrasted to the sun that now gave birth to such exclamation of light and in this symphony of colors, Gray's living memory withstood the onslaught of senses and remained, still, within the favor of her eye.
Oh, the clouds had moved from their place now, and were embarking to another horizon that dawn may grace the stage with her presence. The bright violence of orange and red splashed their hues upon the curtains of a fleeing cloud and peered behind the eye of the sun, seeking battle with the darkness of crepuscule. The might of heat perforated beyond the frigid cast of an approaching twilight and despite its last cry upon the skyline, it left a lasting impression as it hid beneath the mountains starved of worth.
Barren as the landscape was, even as strange figures in bent and haggard frames glared their muted colors against her eyes, it provided kindness seen in every offspring of nature for even they preserved humanity. Blissfully swaying against the colors of the sunset, tall spires sculpted by claws of cruel winds smiled grimly at her that she might feel the solitude of their lasting ecstasy against the fading sun.
Elements were laughing blatantly at her for the shades of light shifted, as if shadows of dancing people were playing against the backdrop of this scenery, where the sun dropped past the skies to bid farewell as it travels to the dawn of another day, as the first stars popped from the curtain of night that they might perform a play well-staged. Aki restrained a small laugh, a laugh that echoed memories of times long past, when lives had not been sacrificed for her beliefs, for her conversations with the voice that offered revelations revealed at the doorsteps of her ears. She had ear to Gaea's thoughts, to her emotions as she expressed them in the way roses died, in the way the sky glittered with tears unshed, in the way the sun muttered thanks as it rose form the horizon, only to come down again.
Such purpose was unknown to many, though it was wholly familiar to Aki's science, to her beliefs, to her explanations. She had nothing to give to this earth but what it had given her, and it filled her with such helplessness that strength left her legs and she paused to sit upon a rock not far away. Indeed, cold was crawling up the warm skin of her arms, embracing it, feeding upon it that it may spread the gospel of humanity amongst its inorganic companions. Aki's melancholy grew then, covering her that she saw light in a different manner, a messenger to the night; that she saw wind in a whole new light, as an escort for every season that knocks at a continent's door.
Laughing at the magnanimity of it all, she also saw the strange lights of a human being stream past every scene of this wonderful spectacle. It was irony that humans fought with their mother with such ferocity that her rivers ran dry and that her soil remained contaminated to poison every plant of man's making. Humans went through such pain to destroy only to save Gaea through the deeds of one who knew nothing of her.
Gray…
The memory was plain to Aki's ears and Earth sang sweet melodies to his tombstone that yes, another solid tear penetrated past the frailty of her heart. The Earth knew him well for his life had been taken to the altar as sacrifice to spare her life as well as the planet's for sacrifices then had been rampant, yet no one had enough faith to offer his soul. Duty and honor, before anything. Such was his loyalty to his cause and such was his passion for Aki, that he trusted in a planet he had only learned to respect and not love.
Why me? Why him? Why must I go on when I know that you will not listen to me, when I know that you will not heed my prayers?
Aki's question did nothing to hamper the beauty of a rising blanket of stars and the trumpets which sounded the entrance of a king of mirrors, the moon. It rose with majesty against the river of stars, having the heavens bow before it that it may shine past the clouds and leave silvery impressions upon the ground. And softly enough, it spoke to her.
It spoke to her as an eagle screeched into the night, carrying the message of a convalescent earth where grass began to grow and where offspring began to feed upon the fruits the earth provided.
Such impatience, little one…Gaea seemed to tell her as crickets began beating their drums to an invisible conductor of nature's recruitment.
"Aki!" Sid's voice called, his voice insistent, bidding the moon halt from its course that he may converse with the little girl who sat in wonder of the heavens.
Bowing her head, willing the moon to bide her time traveling across the crossroads of the sky, she felt silvery fingers upon her hair, stroking with the likeness of a child. The innocence within filled her with hope.
A sigh…
…escapes from Heaven…
Hope…little one…believe…
Standing, the moon acknowledged her bravery and sacrifice, and hid beneath the clouds to blush its shame from disbelief.
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-The End-