Chapter Thirty-Three- Love-Heavy Heart: Terra Branford

Author's Note: Check out my reason of absence on my profile, there is no time to put it here, when you could be READING!

PS- Yes, I stole FFX Shiva's ice attack for Celes, but come on, Celes is badass enough to carry it out, right?

Ed: 5/24/03- some spelling errors fixed.

An overwhelming, warm, dank scent drifted into Celes' senses as soon as she entered the house. If she hadn't of been informed that there were monsters waundering the house, she would of been able to tell by the keen rotten smell they were leaving behind. Celes thought back to what the man outside of the home warned her about- how these creatures could turn her into stone. Back when the world was...normal, there were no such monsters. Just what exactly had happened when the world came undone?

But there was no time to ponder these thoughts, and Celes' reality came crashing down upon her again when she heard the sudden outcry of a child- high pitched and laced with pure terror.

"HOLD ON!" Celes cried, cupping her hands over her mouth. "I'M COMING!"

"HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!"

Celes began to run down the first hall of the home, stopping at every doorway, open or not, to glance within and see if there was any sign of life. Eventually, she came to a flight of stairs and proceeded downward, looking back behind her once more just to make sure she did no overlook anything.

The strange thing was, she had not come across one monster.

"Hello?" Celes called as she stepped into the basement of the house. The smell was even worse down here, and it was difficult to see. The carpeted floor beneath her feet made squishing noises with each step, indicating to her that it was soaked. She didn't dare look down to see just exactly what it was soaked with.

"He..llo?"

Celes blinked and looked up, pushing her hair behind her ears.

"Hello!"

"Help, I'm in here!"

"Alright, just hold on!" Celes cried worriedly, narrowing her eyes a bit so that she could peer through the darkness easier.

"I'm stuck!"

So...that was why he couldn't escape... Celes furrowed her eyebrows and felt her fingers brush over a doorknob. Turning it, the door opened with a 'click', and when she stepped inside, she spotted a small blonde haired boy lying on the floor, one of his legs completely overtaken by a knocked over bureau. He groaned as Celes stepped in and tried tugging at his leg again, only to fail and let his upper body collapse back onto the floor.

"Please, help me!"

"Don't worry, you're safe now..." Celes trailed off, and ran the rest of the way in, diving to her knees and with one mighty shove, heaved the bureau up and off of the young boy's leg. Moaning out from fatigue, Celes shoved the bureau away and the pair jumped as it crashed through the wall of the room. The boy reached up worriedly, and Celes scooped him into her arms, saying nothing as they dashed out of the room and back up the stairs to the first floor of the home.

By now, their surroundings were starting to shake and quiver. Collapsing roof patches and ceiling fixtures were crashing down from the sky, smashing into glass vases, other furniture, and often into Celes' path. As she darted down the final hallway with the boy slung over her shoulder, Celes cried out as her foot smashed through some of the weakened floorboards. Quickly shifting the boy to her other shoulder, she managed to change their weight and leap from the hole just before it collapsed any further. The boy merely whimpered and sobbed the entire way, while Celes panted out for breath and struggled to take in the filthy air.

Just as the two reached the doorway, there came a sickening hissing sound, and a group of three withering, shiny, deep gray, scorpion-like creatures fell from the ceilings above and into Celes' path. She gasped out and took a step back, still grasping onto the child tightly. They were like nothing she had ever seen in her life! One of the scorpions spat out a green bile-like substance and reared it's tail back, shooting a large stinger out at lightning speed and striking Celes square in the chest. The child screamed out and Celes moaned as she felt the precise point of the stringer drive into her breast, causing her to stumble back and fall onto her rear. The child rolled out of her arms and screamed louder, crawling behind Celes and clinging to her shoulders.

"Get up, Miss, get up!"

"Uhhh..." Celes gritted her teeth together and clenched her fists. She could actually feel the poison within the stinger starting to make it's way through her system at an extraordinary rapid pace. She felt the muscle and blood beneath her flesh grow cold, and numb, and she realized what was happening...

She was turning into stone.

"No...I can't...I can't die here." Celes panted, and remembering the necklace Sabin had entrusted her with, weakly reached up to the chain and yanked it off of her neck. The feeling of the chain ripping open her skin as she pulled quickly faded away into the painful throbbing of the stringer. Her eyelids already feeling heavy, Celes barely managed to bring her hand up and gruesomely ripped out the stinger, feeling her cold blood begin to drip down her front side. Pressing the jewel of the ring contained on the chain to her skin, Celes let her eyes close and prayed for the best. The healing powers of the jewel turned out to be more than just words- soon, a warm, glittering, healing sensation overtook Celes' body, and the numbness died away. Opening her eyes, she looked across from her to the scorpions, who were trembling at the sight of the gentle light enveloping and healing her body.

"Go to back to the Hell that you came from!" Celes cried, and with that, thrust out her hand, already glowing with the anticipating spell. "BLIZZAGA!"

In a glittering, freezing-cold whirl of snowflakes and deep blue deluge, the scorpions became incased in a solid block of ice together, and at the snap of Celes' fingers, shattered into thousands of particles of nothing. The air of the room once again became damp and hot, and the boy crawled out from behind Celes, staring at her wide eyed. Celes looked over at him, almost afraid he would run away from her, but saw that he had a slight smile set on his lips.

"You...you are amazing."

Celes blushed a bit and shook her head, pulling herself up to her feet and grabbing the child's hand.

"No time! Lets just get out of here!"

With a supreme kick at the door, Celes tossed the child out into the surprised mother's arms and called out to Sabin, who looked as if he were about to keel over at any second.

"Sabin! We're safe!"

"Well it's about damn time!" Sabin squealed, and with that, rolled out from under the house. As Celes ran over to him, the house crashed to the ground and sank deeply within it, more chunks of the roof falling in and outside structures collapsing, sending dust and splinters everywhere. All of the house's solicitors cried out and covered their faces, and Celes and Sabin both buried their heads in their arms on the ground.

A few moments later, the rumbling and crackling from the house ceased, and everyone dared to look up. The woman who's child had been rescued began crying loudly and hugging her son, who was struggling to pull his head out of her cleavage to breathe. The other townspeople began to chatter worriedly, and some began cursing and screaming at the skies.

"We'll get you and your $%#!-ing Light of Judgment someday, Kefka...!!!"

**********

Night had fallen. Being praised as the supreme heroes of Tzen since the world's falling, Celes and Sabin were given the best suite of the town's Inn as thanks. Although it definitely didn't compare to say, Edgar's palace, it was the best the town had, the best any town probably had now...and Celes and Sabin were engrossed in thankfulness.

Sabin had gone out to see if he could find a shop that would sell him tonics to cure Celes' wounds from the house incident, and Celes was undressing, peeling off her filthy leather clothing and setting it aside to clean later. She slipped into a robe that had been given to her by the Inn's manager, and began the painful struggle of brushing out the dirt and dried blood in her hair. The whole time, her mind was swimming with thoughts, about Kefka, the Light of Judgment, the newest monsters, Sabin...

...Locke...

She sighed out and lowered her hand, giving up on her hair for now. Surely, if Sabin was alive and well, he would have plenty of good news to tell her about the others...

Right then, as if on cue, Sabin walked back into the room, his hands full of all sorts of different bottles and patches and wraps. Celes smiled and he smiled back, setting everything down on a table and closing the door behind them. Celes tried to keep her smile on longer, but she just couldn't. She imagined herself cutting the tension in the room with a knife. Before, she had barely spoken to Sabin unless it was necessary, and now he was all she had...Things were just too awkward.

"Celes..." Sabin began, feeling the tension also. However, he felt that it was his job to take the initiative between them. The moment Celes had run up to him when she arrived in Tzen, he had picked up on something that was dramatically different inside of her. The light in her eyes had faded. The determined posture she always carried herself with had somehow slipped out...the way she spoke...it was all different. It was as if something inside of her had died.

"I'm so glad...that you're...alive..." Celes finished for him, and suddenly stood up, throwing her arms around him and pulling him tightly against her. Sabin blinked but immediately hugged her back, slipping his strong arms around her tightly and rocking her, laughing a bit.

"But of course! Did you think a minor thing like the end of the world was gonna do me in?" Celes sniffled, and Sabin's smile faded a bit, making him pull back and look down at her.

"What happened, Celes?"

With that, Celes told Sabin everything, from the island, to Cid's death, to her near suicide, and the realization of hope the little bird brought her from the mainland. While explaining about her escape from the island, Celes pulled Locke's bandana out of her pocket, and handed it to him. Sabin took it and looked it over carefully, nodding with wide eyes.

"You're right, this is Locke's!"

"I know it is!" Celes exclaimed, and then turned somber again.

"I thought everyone was gone. I had given up all hope...But fortunately, I was wrong!" Celes smiled some. "Now I know we're all alive...and we're going to need to find everyone! And then..."

"I know, I know...we smash Kefka, and deliver peace unto the world..."

"But of course." Celes winked.

"But not until after we fix those wounds." Sabin said in a most fatherly way. "We can't do much if our Magitek Knight is down for the count!" He turned to get the tonics, and Celes sat back down again, resting her chin on her hands.

"...I'm not a Magitek Knight anymore, I think."

"What?" Sabin asked, mixing the medicines and not being able to turn to look at her. "Did you lose your magic?"

"No, it's not like that." Celes said. She closed her eyes. "Physically, I am the same. But...I don't know. It's like, when I woke up on that island, I left something behind. I think it might of been the soldier in me." Sabin turned and blinked, reaching down and moving Celes' hair out of the way so that he could rest a tonic-soaked cloth around her neck.

"It's hard to explain..." Celes trailed off. Her fingers gently clutched Locke's bandana. "I..."

"Maybe it's because you're not going on this journey to wage war, like last time." Sabin suggested gently. "Maybe it is because you are going as yourself, a woman looking for her companions."

"...I think that's it." Celes nodded, and looked up at Sabin. "But...I'd rather not think of you as my companion." Sabin pulled back a little, but Celes smiled.

"I'd much rather you be my friend."

Sabin merely smiled back, and nodded. It was what he wanted too.

**********

"So what are we going to do next?"

Celes and Sabin were standing outside of the gates of Tzen that next morning, fully recovered and revitalized. Sabin was fastening on a claw, and Celes was tying Locke's bandana around her forehead. She couldn't help but shiver when his gentle scent hit her senses.

"I've been looking everywhere on this continent since...the incident." Sabin explained. "Well, everywhere meaning 'as far as I could go alone'. It's very difficult to travel by yourself these days, and chocobos are a rare, rare thing. I'm sure nearly all of them got wiped out...I only see one every blue moon, and they are domesticated."

"I'm sure." Celes agreed. "And there has been no sign of anyone?"

"No." Sabin sighed. "The only place I have not been to on this continent is Mobliz."

"Why?" Celes blinked.

"Because...first of all, it is exhaustingly far away...it's totally cut off from the rest of uh...'civilization'. Second of all, I don't think it actually exists anymore. The city supposedly sank into nothing when Kefka struck it with..."

"The Light of Judgment!" Celes hissed. "Dirty son of a bitch, playing God...!"

"I know, I know." Sabin said gently, reaching up and pushing his spiky hair away from his forehead. "Anyway, all I know now is that about once a month, a ship comes to Nikeah and docks for a few days to pick up cargo, and then travels back to South Figaro, which is on a continent across from here."

"Oh?"

"It takes passengers too. The price is kinda steep, but that's only because inflation has been kicking in like crazy...with all the people who died, their family and friends have come upon tremendous amounts of money and have been spending to try to build up what they lost..."

"I see..." Celes nodded, and put a finger to her chin in thought. "So, maybe we should just cross over to South Figaro then?"

"If we are going to, we would have to leave now." Sabin explained. "The ship for this month will be leaving in under two days, I'm sure." He sighed and kicked some dust up from the ground. "It seems like it's nearly impossible to keep time anymore..."

"Sabin..." Celes trailed off, and put her hand on his shoulder. "Come on, we both have to cheer up and plow forward. We shared our tears and fears last night...we should try to put that all behind us. If anything, we've got each other now, and that's twice more than what we had yesterday." Sabin looked up at her and nodded, smiling. She was truly overly wise for someone her delicate age. Her battle armor had worn away to nothing, but the real Celes was becoming exposed, and it was a persona more stunning and aweing than that of the Magitek Knight she once was. He could feel it.

"Lets go...to South Figaro!"

The two began their trip to Nikeah on foot, and the hot sun and even hotter ground beneath their feet became overbearing in just a matter of hours. Nikeah was still a long ways off, and with no more defined roads or even signs to give them direction, the duo found that they were having a rather difficult time. Not to mention, they were both starving, and had a total of about 250 GP between them.

"Look at that..." Celes trailed off, and pointed up a little ways ahead in the horizon. There, staggering against the red-brown backdrop of the sky, was a huge, gray-white tower, crooked and surrounded near the top with swirling smoke and steam.

"Kefka's Tower." Sabin replied dully. "That's where he has been, ever since."

"And I assume no one can get in."

"Nothing that doesn't have the means to scale the top of the tower." Sabin said. "I heard a rumor that there are no exits or entrances except for at the very top, and that it has actually never been opened. No one has actually seen Kefka set foot outside his fortress, but we all know he's there. As you can tell, he likes to remind the people often."

"I can't believe he survived..." Celes pressed her lips together. "Ugh...but then again, I can't believe I did either...there must be something else behind all this."

"Mmm?" Sabin asked, and Celes shook her head.

"Just talking to myself."

The morning dragged into afternoon, but the further the Returners went, the more worried Sabin became. He was starting to become convinced that they were lost.

And like usual, Sabin was right.

A few hours later, instead of coming upon the bustling port town of Nikeah, the two felt their feet start to squish into the ground a bit. Looking down, they saw that the ground here was becoming soaked and was blessed with some greenery, but not much. Anything else that was around was drowning under large, trapped pools of scattered river waters. When Celes looked further ahead, she could see collapsed buildings and homes, their roofs brushing the top of the ground, and the rest of them nowhere to be seen.

"Do you think....that this is..." Celes stopped, and Sabin looked up. A slight barking noise could be heard. A few moments later, two black labador puppies ran up to Sabin and Celes, barking and jumping like wild. A sharp whistle cut through the dead air, and when Celes and Sabin looked up, they just barely managed to spot a corn silk ponytail bounce away behind more rubble. A few moments later, the labador puppies followed after it, still barking and yipping.

"Who was that?!" Sabin asked worriedly.

"Only one way to find out." Celes said, and with that, splashed through some waters and marched ahead.

Turning around the corner where the ponytail disappeared, Celes saw nothing except what she recognized to be the only established post office building in the world, looking ready to cave in on itself. The outside wood was either rotting or already gone, and there was no door. The sign hanging overhead the doorway was half missing, and the posts that held carrier pigeons were either decapitated or beaten into the ground. Celes knew they were definately in Mobliz now, but...who could be there with them? Sabin caught up with Celes, and she looked at him, quitedly nodding towards the post office. Sabin nodded, and together, they snuck up to the doorway, and peeked inside. Nothing was within, except for a few broken crates and scattered, dirtied envelopes and unmailed letters. A tired- looking bookcase was set off in a corner, its shelves empty.

"No one is here." Celes frowned, and stepped inside, nearly choking on the damp air within.

"Or so they want us to think." Sabin grinned, and walked further in, immediately walking towards the bookshelf. Celes blinked, and Sabin put a finger to his lips, gesturing for her to come forward. Looking over, Celes smiled, seeing a little labordor puppy squeeze behind the shelf and disappear. Sabin, easily pushing the shelf further out of the way, revealed a hidden doorway. Celes, going first, felt a strong set of stone steps beneath her feet, and began to descend them, finding that the closer she got to the bottom, the cooler it became, and yet, the more light. When she reached the bottom, with Sabin behind her, she found that she was in a lighted underground room, with a doorway ahead of her, and some barrels and buckets with water set at her feet. At that moment, the doorway ahead of her opened, and the corn silk ponytail came out, wide eyed and pointing to Celes like she was the plague.

"AHH! INTRUDERS!"

"Oh no, is it Phunbaba?!"

"HEY!"

Right then, a blonde boy came up beside the girl, looking to be her older brother (by maybe a year or so), and put his hands on his hips, glaring at Celes and the sheepish Sabin.

"You're gonna have to fight your way in here, chumps!"

"What?" Celes blinked, and crossed her arms over her chest. "I most certainly will not fight a chi-AHHH!" Right then, Celes got a swift kick in the knee by the boy, who danced about gleefully, making the girl giggle.

"We're not going to be fighting." Sabin said calmly, stepping up and kneeling to the boy's level. The boy pulled back and held up his fists, his eyes now more frightened than cocky now.

"Don't come any closer, or I'll..."

"Wait!"

The door opened again, and a figure with long, pale white legs stepped in. Her feet were bare, and her skin was streaked with dirt. Looking up, Celes widened her eyes and brought her hand to her mouth.

"I..."

"Celes." The figure said softly, walking over to her and reaching up, suddenly feeling all over her face and hair, her gentle figures brushing over with a most delicate air of grace. The two children looked at each other and backed off into the doorway, peeking out just incase something exciting happened. Sabin stood up as well, his hands on his hips and his head slightly turned to make sure he was seeing things correctly. Celes bit down on her lip and felt her eyes sting a bit. She blinked them to assure they kept dry, and finally managed to part her lips to speak.

"Terra...is...is that you?"