3. Dystopia


"Well, this isn't turning out quite the way I'd hoped." Lucca sighed as she dumped dirty dishes into the sink. "I wonder where Marle ran off to."

"Ayla sitting out front, when sun higher in sky...um, earlier, is your word," said the cavewoman, carrying a pair of empty glasses over from the kitchen table. "See Marle walk away. Not look so good... What happen?"

"Well, we sort of...exchanged words. Over Crono. I wouldn't call it a fight, exactly, but..." Lucca grimaced as she cleaned away the last vestiges of the evening's dinner. "She thought he was silly for acting depressed, so I stepped up to defend him... I told her she should stay away from him if she was gonna be so uncaring about what he's going through... Well, that was sorta what I said. But anyway, I think the whole bit about staying away really pissed her off. Either that, or she got my point. Maybe both." The young inventor plopped down in a kitchen chair and shook her head wearily. "I wish she wouldn't be so uptight about everything."

"Mm." Ayla nodded slowly. "Me think she... get point, like you say. She...crying when leave." The cavewoman sat down beside Lucca with a small sigh. "Marle love Crono, very obvious to see. But Ayla no think Marle understand Crono."

"I'll second that," said Lucca emphatically. "Wonder if there's anything we can do...?"

* * *

"There's nothing you can do, you know."

The moon was a wide crescent, and it provided just enough illumination to make the confusion on Crono's face visible as he looked over at Magus. "What?"

They were sitting together on Lucca's doorstep, side by side, watching the stars. Or more accurately, Crono had been watching the stars. Magus had leaned back against the siding of the house, set his gaze on the youth sitting beside him, and never moved it an inch. The feel of those eyes on the back of his head made Crono's heart beat faster--and not entirely, he was sure, from nervousness. He didn't mind, though. It made him feel almost... alive.

"There's nothing you can do," the wizard repeated tonelessly, leaning forward now, crimson eyes coming to meet Crono's blue ones. His face, as usual, was quite devoid of emotion. "Your window of opportunity just passed. Your friends have noticed you're not quite right... They'll be watching you like hawks. I'd say you're going to be among the living for a while longer."

Crono stiffened, and forced his expression into a scowl. "I don't know what you're talking about," he lied, looking down at his shoes.

"Don't bother to deny it, boy." Magus turned his scarlet gaze on the moon. "I know a death wish when I see one."

"And... stop calling me 'boy'." He glanced over at the sorcerer with irritation on his face. "You can't be that much older than me. I mean you-- er-- Well... we're about the same height... And you... you don't look that much older than me!" he finished irately, folding his arms over his chest.

"How old are you?" came the disinterested question.

"...Seventeen."

"I turn twenty-six next month." Magus brushed a stray lock of hair away from his face, eyes still turned toward the sky. "I'll call you what I like."

Surprise overcame Crono's indignation. "You're only twenty-five?"

"Why so shocked?" A raised eyebrow was the sole indicator of the wizard's amusement. "First I was young, now I should be old?"

Crono shrugged slowly.

"Wasn't thinking, I guess. But it's just that you... act a lot older than twenty-five."

Magus cocked his head slightly to one side, as though the thought had never occured to him. "I suppose I probably do."

They looked up at the stars again, and there was silence for a while.

"How do you do it?"

The crimson eyes glanced toward Crono once more. "...Do what?"

Crono hugged his knees against his chest, resting his chin upon them as he looked out toward Truce Village.

"How do you make yourself... keep on living?" he asked softly. "After everything you've done?"

Magus watched him silently, expression unreadable.

"Or is it just that you don't feel any guilt at all?"

The sorcerer seemed to consider his question for a moment.

"I don't suppose I would call it living," he finally murmured, glancing away. The pointed ears twitched once. "More like...existing. But I must continue to exist, until I obtain my vengeance. If I should die before my task is finished... Lavos would win." He shook his head faintly. "That is the one thing I can't allow to happen."

"Why do you want to kill Lavos so much?" Crono asked quietly. "No offense, but... I'd think you would get along with a creature like that..."

There was silence once more, for a very long while. Crono turned to look at the sorcerer, wondering if he'd said something wrong.

For the first time since he'd met Magus, the dead look was gone from the wizard's face. What replaced it as he stared up at the moon was a pain so all-consuming that it made Crono's own heart ache in sympathy, and a hate that filled those blood-red eyes with an intensity he could barely fathom.

"For Zeal," the sorcerer whispered. "For Schala. For taking my life away."

He blinked slowly, and expression vanished from his countenance once more.

"I was already dead, you see," he continued in a quiet monotone. Crono wasn't sure if Magus realized he was still there. "Janus Zeal died when he was sent to the future, and he left only his ghost behind. Death is all I have...my only wish, to share it with Lavos."

His soul was crying as he listened to the words; but perversely, Crono's first thought was, Janus... that was you? The scrawny, bratty, magicless little prince? Second came a crazy desire to immediately take the sorcerer in his arms and do--anything--to make the pain go away, but he really didn't want to examine where that idea had come from. He settled for staring, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks, emotions chasing each other in a confused mess within his mind.

Magus started slightly after a moment, almost as though he'd suddenly awoken, and he met Crono's stare with a wide-eyed gaze of his own.

Looking away, he murmured shakily, "What is it about you that makes me talk so much?"

'I think... I am growing fond of you. What a remarkable thing.' The words came back to Crono suddenly. He sounded so detached, so... dead... when he told me that back on Death Peak... But now here, he's telling me how he already died, yet he's sounded more alive tonight than I've ever heard him before.

More alive than me at the moment, if I'm perfectly honest.

"Guess I've just got a charismatic personality," the youth replied with a weak smile.

Without further words, Magus rose and opened the door, heading inside. Crono watched the sorcerer's former place for a long time.

* * *

"Oh, there you are." Lucca was sitting on the couch, and she smiled toward Crono, raising her hand in greeting as he closed the front door. "What've you been up to, huh?"

He shrugged. "Just sitting outside. It's nice out tonight." Glancing around, he wondered, "Where's everyone else?"

"It's eleven o'clock, Crono! They're in bed!"

"That late?" He looked a little surprised as he walked over to her. "I didn't realize we'd been out there so long. Um," and he pursed his lips slightly, sitting down beside her on the couch, "did you by any chance see where Magus went?"

"Upstairs." Lucca shrugged, and set the book she'd been reading down on the coffee table. "He looked a little upset... I suppose this sounds mean," she continued wryly, "but it's a refreshing change to see him acting like he actually cares about something for once. Why d'you ask?"

"Well, I sort of..." Crono glanced down at the floor. "I asked him something that upset him."

"Oh." The word was flippant, and Lucca turned to reach for her book again. Halfway to it her eyes widened and her head whirled back toward Crono. "...OH."

The youth nodded slowly.

"So, he told you about... his past?"

"The short version." Crono shrugged. "I take it that you guys knew already?"

"Yeah. He told us when he first joined up."

"Joined up?" Crono almost smiled. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

Lucca laughed. "Well, what d'you want me to say? Should I call him the new recruit or something?"

Crono shook his head ruefully. "I don't know. It's just that makes us sound all... official."

"Well, what's more official than a group of heroes trying to save the world?"

For a moment, Crono said nothing.

"What's less official," he said quietly, tone cynical, "than some teenagers, a cavewoman, a defective robot, a guy with a curse, and a wizard who got defeated by said mere teenagers, going up against a creature that lives millions of years and can eat entire worlds?"

Lucca sighed, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Little late to start doubting ourselves now, isn't it?"

"Who said I just started?" he replied softly, still looking down at the floor. "It's the same thing I've been thinking since we set out on this crusade. I just haven't been brave enough to say it until now."

"Or you haven't felt depressed enough." She raised her hand to give him a reassuring pat. "I know it can't be easy--"

"I don't think you know very much about it," he muttered bitterly.

"It can't be easy," she repeated slowly, watching his face with concern, "having come so close to giving up your life. I was there too, remember? I remember how scared I was; I remember thinking we were all going to die..."

"You don't understand," he whispered. An expression of pain twisted his face and he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head.

"I was ready." His whisper was filled with tears, voice just on the verge of cracking. "I wanted to save you all and I wanted to die to do it...I was gonna go down fighting...I was gonna see my dad and everything here for me would be--would be over--" He shook his head again, teeth clenched vehemently as though he strained under a great weight.

"But it felt so good, and peaceful, and right and--" The faltering whisper stopped entirely for a second as he choked back a sob. "And I don't know if I can live like this, after feeling like that."

Lucca just stared at him.

"It was supposed to be the end." His wavering voice rose in a tone both bitter and plaintive as he opened his eyes to stare toward the carpet once more. "The main character dies to save everybody and they all live happily ever after, the...fucking...end." He placed his face into trembling hands, shaking his head again.

She sat beside him silently while he cried.