Author's Note: Sorry for the delay of this fic. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you expect. This section is short, but I wanted to get it up so I'd keep progressing with the rest.
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It is snowing sand. The grit is cold as ice, I know, but when it touches my skin I sense only faint prickles. Discomfort is a level long passed. I am a creature become of snow itself, and so I feel nothing.
"Gonna die like that."
For an instant, I think that the speaker means that the sand that surrounds me will kill by contact. It pours down in endless waves of gold, glittering as it tumbles grain-by-grain through the air. The innards of an hourglass would be lucky to have such grace as this.
How could something so beautiful destroy me?
I turn my head away from the haze of hypnosis; sand is all around me, hissing and humming, but I search for the source of the comment.
Gippal is standing just a short distance away from me. This makes perfect sense in a world of hourglass blood, where I cannot see the sky clearly, and yet I can inhale dirt-mist without a qualm. The sandflakes are whispering around us both in eternal descent. Embers might crackle together in similar conspiracy when a fire has burned down low enough to hide them.
He sees me looking at him and grins back. I am lucky to not be in his blind spot.
"Get so cold, you get warm before you die 'cuz you just don't feel it anymore." Calloused fingers fiddle in the air. The gesture is one I am unfamiliar with; Al Bhed body language has not been a tongue I have been exposed to for the last few months. "That's what happens when you're stuck in snow, yeah?"
"That's right," I admit, the realization warning me with a sigh all its own. "Or so they say. Have you ever had that happen to you?"
"What do I look like," Gippal snorts. "A Ronso? Mr. Big, Blue and Furry romping about on the slopes of Gagazet? Gimme a horn, I'm gone." The blonde brings up a hand to his brow, flicking out his fingers for emphasis. His arm crooks like the neck of a swan. "I've never seen snow in my life, man. 'Cept in spheres."
The salute reminds me of Ixion. A very blonde, very swaggering Ixion, one that jangles rein-bells when he walks, and rings brass hoofbeats on the floor of his temple. Djose must be wondering at the lack of Fayth in their Chamber right about now.
Then I remember that the Aeons are all dead.
"Gippal," I begin, "are you--"
"Thought about getting Rikku something while I was out on the move," the Al Bhed is saying, speaking over my interrupted question as if he heard it not at all. He reaches down to scratch at his ankle where the sock has bunched up in his boot. "Turns out, she's not here anymore. Got killed when Home got attacked." The single-eyed smile turns to me, lopsided. "Can you just believe that?"
With that, I understand why it is fitting for Gippal to play at resemblance of an Aeon deceased. He must have been caught in the fighting as well.
"Gippal--" I try again.
"Guess I'm gonna have to wait to see everyone. Maybe hold a huge party for it, catch up on old times. It'd be nice to see Buddy n' Brother again, except when they drink the place dry." Notes clang dissonant when Gippal hooks his thumbs into his waistband. His arms are decorated with woven bracelets, miniature bells clustering at his wrists like migrant locusts. Yevon's temple script is stamped on the metal of every single one.
I read the prayers of a liar's religion twined around Gippal's muscles.
"When we can get everyone together, I mean. No rush. You going to show up for it, Baralai?"
My eyes must be playing tricks on me. Every time I get a good look at the Al Bhed through the sandflakes, Gippal seems to be wearing more and more reins. Temple chimes weigh on his body. Even though I squint, the blonde refuses to come fully into focus. He blends into the shimmering air so well that it is a wonder I can see him at all, distinguish his hair from the color of the dunes.
I reach out towards him. My palm, upwards, catches the grains pouring down and begins a miniature desert kept within the scale of my hand.
Arrested by this wonder, I stare at the world slipping out between the cracks of my fingers.
"I said, you coming, Baralai?"
In doing so, I forget about Gippal.
"Hey, what're you doing over there, man?"
Now the sand has begun to pile on my arm. It seeps in a silt-river down my sleeve. I didn't notice it, am not sure how I missed the realization. Fascination keeps me transfixed.
By the time that my elbow is being devoured, I remember that I should reply to the Al Bhed. Ignoring him is only an accident. "I'm just…" I start, before the smell of fresh dirt suddenly invades my nose.
The storm terminates. A rush of wind billows like a tsunami fit to split the sky; the flake storm divides itself around us and is banished beneath invisible rage. Instinctively, I throw my arms up to shield my face. Grit stings my exposed skin, but I inhale no sand, find no specks invading my lungs.
Gippal has not moved to protect himself. The bells now attached to every inch of his clothing jangle in inanimate protest as the gusts toll them, ringing their knells out in a disorganized clatter. The Al Bhed is watching me, looking at me, face empty of his usual jubilance.
The sky clears above us both, and I realize we are standing in Bikanel.
"I'm..."
My voice is a paltry pup left to whimper in the desert, abandoned to waste away from exposure with no one there to mourn. Horizon lines bend into curves around us. Distances flex; the endless blue swath of the sky mates with the gold of the land in a circle too vast to measure.
Gunfire splays its ricochet call; I cannot tell the direction where the fighting is coming from. Soil changes itself on the breeze to the crisp stink of machina powder. We are in Bikanel. We only thought we escaped its trap.
Gippal is staring. His single eye holds no emotion as he traps me beneath its Al Bhed swirls.
"I'm..."
Unable to breathe.
I wake, and my face is covered with a shroud.
First reactions are to freeze; reality dips as I struggle to move through the stickiness of dreams to full alertness. The fabric against my skin is dark. Plain. It lacks the brash embroidery of Yevon's script; by this, I understand I am not swathed inside a Sending cloth.
I am not dead.
Desperate to be free of this burden, I reach up and claw the blanket away. Sitting up in the same motion is an exercise in stiffness; all my muscles protest from being forced to sleep on the floor.
As I struggle to get up, a sore pang lances through one of my wrists. I look down. My hand is crooked; all through the night, I have been cradling the Crimson Sphere protectively against my chest. The surface is still warm inside my palm. The sphere has absorbed my body heat all through the winter night.
"Awake at last, are you?"
Instinct causes my hand to clench around the sphere, tighten it against myself lest someone snatch it and the memories it holds away. It hurts to move so suddenly. I ignore the ache and jerk my head to the side, looking for the danger of an intruder.
Gella is watching me from where she is sitting on the bed. Her gaze is sympathetic, in the country-hard way of the stoic.
"Bad dreams?" she asks, and in the confusion of broken sleep, I think her voice is made of burlap. Rough, rougher than the blanket placed over me to keep me warm, but welcome.
I manage a nod.
"Y' get 'em." With that, Gella pushes herself up off the bed, a palm slapping out the imprint that her weight left behind. "I know. Now get y'self up. I brought you breakfast. Better eat, if you want to get your strength back enough to live."