Deus Ex Machina – introductions, part one
Circles and circles and circles.
Life, they say, is a cycle. All souls, human or otherwise, are as old as the ground from which they spring, on which they walk, into which they return. Life is never truly over, they say. Everyone, everywhere, we're all a part of the same consciousness. The same Lifestream. Its tributaries run through the cores of all its children, listening.
In death, secrets are hushed. Unions are broken and joined again by an emerald thread, warm to the touch and weightless in the palm. Lifetimes become stories, stories become legend. Rust turns to green and the world heals its wounds, wiser for its scars...
In the North, a long, rocky beach lay under a grey sky, grey birds pecking at the sand, grey waves crashing at their bony little feet. The ground rumbled, causing the birds to scatter, a chorus of squawks echoing off a wall of dangerous bluffs.
Boom, boom, boom.
Deep prints followed the beast as it trudged along the shore, water pooling in the sand-bowls. For such a massive beast, its limbs were uncharacteristically thin, barely supporting the weight of its body, wrinkled skin hanging from its bones. With a pitiful whine, it sank to the sand, bathing its wounded claws in the tide. The waves brought only cold comfort, a numbness for the pain. An emptiness. The beast felt it and gave in, too weak to protest. The chill spread through it, stealing into the tide any lingering life from its bones. Sleep, it said. We will keep you...
We will watch your bed...
The tide brought the message, whispering on the foam of the waves, sliding on the breeze, pricking the ears of gulls. And the rumors spread through the rocks and rivers, whispered in the wind and rumbled deep, deep under the ocean...
We are waiting...
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"Stupid fuckin' bird! Move yer scrawny ass!"
Jimmy slammed his fist against the wall, a race ticket crushed in his sweaty fist. On the jumbo-screen above his head, a camera focused in on the four leading chocobo: a gold and a white flying by, neck-and-neck, two greens rapidly falling behind. The gold chocobo, its lustrous feathers flashing under a holographic sun, bolted ahead a yard or so, the white chocobo hot on its heels.
That's all Jimmy needed to see. Cursing, he kicked the wall and ripped up his worthless ticket, scattering the pieces on the floor.
"Excuse me, sir."
Jimmy spun around to face a cute girl carrying a drink tray, a tight-lipped frown on her heavily painted face.
"You can't litter in here."
"What was that?" Jimmy hissed, his face reddening either in rage or embarrassment. The waitress scowled, taking a breath before repeating, her plastic nails clicking on the underside of the tray.
"You can't litter in here, sir."
Jimmy's expression darkened for a tense moment, then eased into a yellow grin, his breath, sour with rot and booze, wrinkling the girl's nose as he leaned close to her.
"Listen, bitch, why don't you put that pretty little mouth a' yours to some use?"
The girl recoiled, nearly dropping her tray as she backed away from Jimmy's pursuing hand. Her left fist was balled, as if ready to break some teeth, her own pearly whites bared in disgust. If looks could kill…
"I'm getting the manager," she hissed, adding a colorful insult or two under her breath as she stalked away.
Jimmy didn't wait to for her to return with her superior, instead choosing to head back to the Haunted Hotel's rather expensive and, unfortunately, solitary bar. Had he stayed a moment longer and kept his eye on the jumbo-screen, he would have caught the bulk of an interview with the race's winner.
"…do with the prize money?" asked a perky, off-screen interviewer.
The woman in front of the camera flashed a toothy grin, raking a gloved hand through a shock of frizzy red hair. Her face was flushed enough to hide the splash of freckles across her nose, but the jumbo-screen's reception gave her the unflattering appearance of an exceptionally red beet. A snowy white mass pressed against the woman's shoulder, chirping happily as its head bent to nuzzle the woman's cheek.
"Well, Ah dunno," she replied, her voice full of a twang characteristic of Kalm natives. "Find mahself a better apartment, Ah suppose."
The interviewer replied with a plastic chuckle, but the wild-haired woman flashed another grin, absently fiddling with the goggles hanging around her neck.
"Of course, of course, and aren't we all looking for a better apartment?" An awkward pause followed as the woman slung an arm around the chocobo's neck, her grin faltering a little.
"…Ah-ha, yes. Yes. Well, once again, Syd, congratulations on your seventh straight victory!"
"Thanks--"
"This is MEEchelle O'Hara with Sally Sydney, live from Chocobo Square. Goodnight, Gold Saucer!"
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Several hours and many miles away, the sun set over Cosmo Canyon. Bathed in rose and gold, its rocky towers reached towards a sky slowly fading into indigo, little stars peeking out from behind the blanket of approaching twilight.
The stars were many above Cosmo Canyon, the clearest and brightest of any sky over the whole Planet. Hateya knew this; since he was just a baby, his mother had sent him into the realm of dreams with stories of the sky over Cosmo Canyon.
"Each star is the soul of one of your ancestors," she had said, stroking her son's night-black hair with a gentle hand. "They watch over you from way up in the sky. They can see the whole Planet; the Cosmo Candle reminds them of where their children sleep." She had smiled then and pulled the covers up under Hateya's chin, laying a kiss on his forehead.
The Cosmo Candle. Hateya glanced over his shoulder, the ever-burning flames casting dancing shadows over the cliffs, over the wise and wrinkled faces of his village's elders. They were chanting very softly, their prayers no more than a hum. Hateya knew as well as anyone else in Cosmo Canyon that this ceremony was a sign of the coming of a great change, though no one mentioned it aloud.
They're afraid, he thought, uncomfortably conscious of the fact that he shared their unease. He felt how the wind blew differently. Even at the tender age of fifteen, he could feel with the hearts of his people. It would be several decades before he could speak with the Planet as his elders did now, but its whispers reached his young ears.
Hateya took a long look at the sky, now a blanket of deep blue velvet, and set off, staff in hand, down a well-trodden path into the canyon, sacrificing a night of restless sleep for a chance to test his skills. A chilly breeze lifted the hair from his neck.
It whispered such unsettling things these days…
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Sally lay back contentedly in her booth, chewing on a toothpick. A nice, big, juicy cheeseburger and a baked potato – that really hit the spot.
"Will that be all, Miss Sydney?"
Sally thought for a moment, the toothpick hanging from the corner of her mouth.
"Y'know, Ah think Ah'll have a little dessert. Got'ny apple pie?"
The waiter smiled. "Best on the whole Planet. Comin' right up!"
Best on the whole Planet. Yeah, Sally liked the sound of that. Racing S-Class at twenty-four, ranked in the top ten, and the only woman in her class. At this rate, she'd be on the cover of Chocobo Planet by the end of the professional season. She'd own a nice villa in Costa Del Sol, her own line of jockey gear, hell, her own airship!
A wide grin spread across her freckled face as the waiter delivered her dessert. Imagine, she could be eating this pie in the finest restaurant in Rocket City! Not some hokey little diner in Corel…
"Gonna get a little soft around the edges, ain'tcha, Sally?"
Sally turned and quickly wiped some ketchup from the corner of her mouth. A rough-looking man in his mid-thirties was approaching, a mischevious gold-capped grin on his unshaven face, hands in his pockets.
"Ah should say the same for you. Maybe if you trained once in awhile, you wouldn't have that pot belly, eh, sug'?"
The man sat down in the booth opposite hers and slid her plate over to his side of the table.
"You're jus' jealous 'cause it looks better on me than you."
Sally scowled and crossed her arms over her (granted, heavy) chest. "Shut your mouth, Jack."
Jack held up his hands in surrender, supressing a smile.
"I'm jus' pullin' your leg, Sally," he said, and winked, letting the grin slip back on to his face. "You know I like my ladies curvy. Ain't any fun if they jus' blow away in the wind."
"Ain't nobody gonna be your lady if you harp on 'em like that," Sally scolded, smiling in spite of herself. She speared a piece of pie with her fork and gestured to Jack with the morsel before consuming it. "You see the race?"
"I did. Ain't doin' so bad, are ya?" Seeing the red-haired woman grin, he added, "Don't get used to it. I'm in your group next week."
"You'd better get some rest, then, darlin'. Ah don't want you gettin' sick from all the dust you'll be eatin'." Jack opened his mouth to spout a come-back, but Sally shoved an apple chunk in it before he could get a word out. "Stayin' at the Haunted Hotel?"
"Yeah," Jack said while chewing, "but they've got the whole place blocked off. You know that creepy doll that swings down when you ring for service? Some guy went and hung himself with the noose."
"Lawd."
"Uh-huh. Guy was harrassin' Jeanie – you know, from Chocobo Square? – harrassin' that poor girl earlier this evenin'. She said he was throwin' a fit during the race, drunk off his ass."
"Dead drunk."
"Yeah, well, it seems that way now, don't it?" Jack exhaled sharply and rubbed his eyes. "You stayin' in Corel?"
"Just for tonight." Sally paused, concern knotting her brow. "You wanna sleep over?"
Jack didn't reply immediately, instead taking Sally's hand in his own, stroking her palm in slow circles. Sally blushed, hooking a stray curl behind her ear.
"Look, Jack--"
"Why, Miss Sydney! I do believe you are tryin' to seduce me," Jack sang, fanning himself with the other hand. He flashed a devilish grin as his companion snatched her hand away, glaring.
"You're horrible," she muttered.
"I know. Want to get a drink?"
Sally hesitated, then slapped some gil on to the tabletop. "You're payin, sug'."
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Well, that's the first chapter. I hope to introduce some more new characters (and maybe even some old ones) in the second chapter. Just so you know, this takes place about 60 or so years after the game. Good luck with those old characters, right?
-- ET