The Last part two
I stand and watch the sunset from the porch. The only time I feel even slightly at ease is when the sky turns red, at least that is familiar somewhat. However that time is always short in this alien world. The sky is usually colored with the painful blue light of Gaia. This world lacks the purity of Terra. The water moves, time changes and warps all things and the forests and plains teem with imperfect and worthless creatures. I suppose that that is what the geonomes are now but I refuse to believe it. We are created to be superior, we were created with a goal. The children of these first ones will at least have souls, and we were created to have children; not like the black mages. The imperfect mockeries of the magnificence of a superior technologies creations.
The one at the cemetery said that he could take comfort in the fact that others would remember him and he could comfort them by remembering them. The naive fools, it hurts my heart that I cannot make them understand the hopelessness of this life, that they will not understand the cruel joke until too late. They are asexual, there will be no generation after this one, not without the mist, there will be no more after this batch. I once believed a false illusion, the world is better without them. Yet they are happy in this delusion, I cannot remember ever being happy.
The small one, Vivi has returned. I was waiting for someone else but he has yet to come. Vivi says that he will return later, I guess that means I will wait longer to be happy in this world. Of all the people in this world I think that Zidane would understand me; he is also from Terra, one of three geonomes that has a soul and he seems happy in this world. Perhaps I can learn from him when he does return.
Days and weeks go by, the chocobo chick leaves and rejoins its own kind. Vivi comes and goes from the village frequently; he is collecting the last of the mist. He is wiser than the others, he understands the concept of a generation, but I still don't think he looks far enough to understand the gravity of the fate of his people. I suppose that long term planning is hard for someone who does not know how long his life can possibly last.
Vivi's children grow quickly as all created creatures. While the others are happy Vivi seems more and more withdrawn. Eventually he announces that he intends to travel with his children so that they can see the world and with that he is gone. I had thought that he was naive. These short lived creatures lack far reaching plans, but maybe I, a creature who has lived in a world without time have never understood short times, or a lack of time. I have been used to plans that span centuries. Zidane has not yet returned from the lifa tree. In this world of short times and death, I believe that means he will never return. This thought grows on me as a wander through the village. He is not returning. He will probably never return. I feel a crushing weight of sadness that I don't quite comprehend. Logically this really doesn't change my plans, he was never going to come back to me; he was going to return to that dark haired princess. I don't know why this is changing the way I feel, now that I know that there is no hope. It shouldn't change things when I realize that there never was hope.
However much I feel that there is no hope, I still am troubled by what the elder said at the graveyard. It seems that they have less problems than I do so why am I sad and they are happy? Perhaps ignorance is bliss, or maybe there is something more. I don't think my answers can come from them; so I leave. I am not sure weather it is answers I am seeking or just closure but, I go out to seek grave of the one who would've had both.
The land is emptying of mist generated monsters but the travel is still dangerous. Thirst burns my throat as I travel through terrain that I am ignorant of, a place with no life and burning sun. Finally I reach my destination at the base of the lifa tree.
The first day that I am there I just collapse and stare at it. The mist has cleared from its base and it towers to the sky like a living colossus. Flowers are blooming at its trunk and animals have moved into the numerous nooks and crannies about the area. I spend quite awhile just walking about in silence, it is quiet here. I have gotten use to background noise when I stop to think, voices, the stream by the village, and in Terra the monotonous sound of machines humming. The small sounds of birds echo oddly loud; but I am forgetting why I came here, I think I am deliberately avoiding it. I have lived my life for my duties and for my people. I have never thought about for myself, or, I recall glumly, for myself. I am not sure how I should even begin my task.
I decide that first I should build a grave for Zidane, even though I do not have a body. I leave a note in our native tongue cared onto the base of one of the giant vines, "Zidane, may this world he called home hold him gently for he cam so far to die." This act is another of futility, no one in this world can read our language so how will anyone remember him with this? And he will never appreciate it. He's gone. Gone, somehow that does it. That thought finally brings it home, all the emotions I've been hiding, even from myself, come rushing out all at once and I scream.
I suppose I'm a little mad now, when I no longer had the breath to scream I curled up on the ground and cried. Sometime after that I slept. When I woke up I started wandering again, thinking of him. How he acted, what he looked like, everything that he ever said to me. As the sun begins to dip on the horizon I come to a break in the ground. A burrow is in the ground there, a starved looking fox trots up and drops a mouse for her kits. It looks as though she may die soon but, her kits are almost old enough to wander on their own. It seems to me that he was also this selfless, that he gave up everything for something that he would never see come to fruition, and that he would in the end died for a cause that had nothing to do with outside orders, or greed, or duty. He died protecting someone else because that's just the way he is, the way he was. In his mind there was no other path then the natural one, he rushed to save another as instinctively as one would pull their hand from a fire. That seems to be one thing about this world, people follow their hearts. Even Kuja was affected in this way, so I guess I can't really hate him. He did give one thing to us and our race, hope. He was the first to rebel, he was the one to leave Zidane to this world where he learned the secrets of life here, and so exuberantly flaunted then in his singularly childish manner, that always seemed to radiate a profound wisdom in times of crisis when he was needed.
The sun shines it's last orange rays before dipping below distant mountains. At the same time I rise with a new resolve, I think I finally understand now what he always knew. I feel strength and courage in my heart that I have never known. One pathway is over now, all that I had ever known is gone but, maybe its just the beginning of something new.
The village has not changed much when I return from my travels. They all seems happy to see me, and I am actually delighted to know it. I pay my respects to the graves, the black mages may not live that much longer but, I will remember them, my people will. I can see it in their faces, with each day they learn something new from this place. Its like watching a miracle in the making, they talk more they begin to work and play and take in all the new things that this world has to offer. Kuja, Zidane, the angel of destruction and the angel of death, I am the last of us three, I will be the angel of mercy. I will watch over and protect my people with the newfound courage in my heart.
It has been maybe two weeks. Ignorance is bliss I guess because for those two weeks I was happy. Ignorant of the safeguard that Garland added so that we would never leave Terra without his permission. They are all dead now. No one without a soul can leave Terra for long. Only the three of us. The rest all froze unnaturally one day and then dropped all at once. I ran to each of the bodies, shaking them, calling them by their names and each time I only looked into empty faces and dead eyes. All life, all knowledge, all HOPE gone. Just like everything.
I don't cry as they dig graves for my people, I think I cried my last for Zidane. Their bodies are lowered into alien ground beneath an alien wood in a alien world. Nothing that is here belongs to us, things that belong to this world can live and continue but apparently we never can. Was it all just a lie? I can't stand being here any more, looking at these people. They all will die, they will die and be forgotten like my people. No one will be here much longer! They might still be breathing but they're all dead!
I run from the village. No one makes a move to stop my flight. Before I found comfort by reflecting in the wild like at the lifa tree, but then there was something to go back too. Now I am alone, broken and worthless. I always obeyed my duty, but I am the one who fell short. I can't think of a thing that I could have done to stop this but I do know that I failed them. Kuja destroyed things, and Zidane died and I have not protected anything! What was this for? What can I possibly do now? I trip in my headlong flight and fall to my face. I lay there and just tremble although I still cannot cry. My hand is wet. I lift it slowly to see that has fallen into the water of the pond. I sit up and watch the droplets drip from my fingers in fascination. Still water like home. When my hand dries and dip them both in and watch the water run down my arms. Then my thought interrupt the momentary respite, I failed them. I failed. Failed. All the time that was spent planning the advent of our people, the rebirth of Terra has come to nothing. I have become like the black mages are, genders are useless without another. If only he... but, even if he did return it would not be for me, he would return for that princess.
What can be done with failures? Our people have all died like our world, our plans vanished like unspoken song and all of us will be forgotten within the year when the last of the mages dies. I move a bit forward until my knees are in the water, fan out my arms and turn until I am floating on my back. I stare out a the light filtering through the leaves. Then I duck my head under the water. It is quiet underwater, I can here my heartbeat in my ears and that is all. The light that filters down is blue. I think perhaps that I am crying now but I can't say for sure in all this wetness. My heart is slowing, my lungs burn and I wrap an arm in a root to stop myself from coming up. Darkness is clouding my vision.
Zidane it should have been us.
Well I hope that didn't seem redundant compared to the first one. Please review if you likes it. I'm sorry it took so long but I was depressed that the FF7 story I wrote had so little response. Anyway I'm also thinking of writing a set of POV's for Zidane and Vivi when they return to find the village empty. As a reminder I do not own squaresoft or the quote I borrowed from the song "Darkness".