Chapter Forty-One- Dancing Mad: Mog
The freezing winds of Narshe howled as Terra, Celes, and Relm approached the gates of the town. Each girl wrapped in soft fur capes and wearing insulated snow boots, they padded through the snow as the wind whipped through their hair.
"I don't ever remember Narshe being this bad!" Terra cried.
"Look, someone is at the gate!" Relm said, and pointed.
Sure enough, approaching the gate from the inside of town was a tall, lean figure, wrapped in enough cloaks and furs to clothe all the Returners comfortably. However, he had a familiar wolf mask strapped on the top of his head, and Terra recognized him as Lone Wolf, the thief that nearly killed their moogle friend, Mog. At first, Terra thought she was hallucinating. After all, she had seen Lone Wolf go flying off the cliff when she rescued Mog. But, then again...stranger things had happened as of late.
Lone Wolf recognized Terra, and strode right up to her. Gasping out, Terra took a pace back, and Celes and Relm took a defensive step in front of their friend.
"Lone Wolf!" Terra cried. "...What...what are you doing here?"
"I should be asking you the same thing." Lone Wolf grunted. He didn't seem that dangerous anymore. His eyes looked troubled, and his features had been considerably roughened since the last time Terra could remember. "Eh...it doesn't matter anyway. There's nothing left here...except maybe that one moogle...and only a treasure hunter could pick all the locks they've got on the shops and homes."
"What do you mean, everything is gone?" Terra asked worriedly.
"I mean, everything is gone." Lone Wolf replied, sounding a little irritated. "Gods, where have you been for the past two years? Under a rock?"
"Why don't you answer her question?" Celes snapped, and threateningly raised her fists.
"Whoa!" Lone Wolf cried, backing up a bit. "Sorry, General Celes."
Celes growled under her breath. At least the fool recognized her, even if it was her old title.
"Ever since two years ago, Narshe has become like a frozen hell to live in. The city's temperatures dropped even lower than normal, and soon, everything froze over, and it constantly snowed. People would be frozen inside their homes for weeks, and if outsiders happened to come into town, it was only then that the people got their homes defrosted so that they could come out. Some people were smart and moved out right away, before anything really bad could happened, but others stayed, and the Returners promised that they would be there to bail anyone out that was in danger."
Terra bit down on her lip, and Lone Wolf continued after taking a breath.
"But one night...there was a distress call, because a little girl got lost in the Narshe Mines while playing. A huge storm was supposed to be rolling through that night, so the Returners dispatched nearly all their men to go out and look for her. The others remained in town, trying to help people get prepared for the storm. However, whoever predicted that storm did a really bad job, because all of a sudden, ice rain and snow started letting loose on Narshe, and it didn't stop for an entire two weeks. I was out of town at the time, but when I returned...everybody was dead, or missing. The chancellor of Figaro issued a search party in the mines and throughout the city to find survivors, but out of everyone, there were just two men. They were still frozen in their houses. All the Returners perished, including their leaders, Arvis and Banon."
"...Arvis..." Terra gasped. "And Banon..." She didn't quite know what to say. Inside, however, she was screaming.
"For a while, no one was allowed in Narshe because of all the bodies Figaro was recovering." Lone Wolf said. "And after that, someone locked up all the houses and declared the town abandoned. There was no way anyone was going to want to live in Narshe after that horror story, and there hasn't been anyone new here since. Like I said before, there were two survivors, who I think might still be in there somewhere, and a moogle."
"Oh my gods..." Relm breathed, and Celes didn't say a word. Terra looked down, and didn't flinch as Lone Wolf brushed past her. Finally, she sniffled, and raised a hand to wipe away her tear before it literally froze on her face.
"Why...why did this happen...?"
"I don't know." Lone Wolf replied as he walked away. "But it got to be where I was hearing more howls than just the wind...I bet Narshe's haunted now..." With that, he walked away, and Celes and Relm gathered around Terra.
"Are you ok?" Relm asked. "Do you want to go on?"
"....Yes." Terra moaned, holding her forehead. "There might be clues...or something...something..."
"I'll take point." Celes offered. "Just keep your cool, Terra...we don't know what kinds of monsters are lurking around here now."
As the girls entered town, something started to make a crackling noise. It was a radio-like device that Setzer and Sabin, and even Cyan, despite his fear of machinery, had been working on. So far, they only had two, but if it worked on its very first mission, they decided they would make more for all of the Returners to have.
Terra looked down at her belt, and pulled off the radio, bringing it near her lips and pressing in a button. "Terra here." Meanwhile, Celes and Relm started knocking on doors, and trying to open them.
"Terra, can you hear me ok?" It was Setzer.
"Yes, loud and clear." Terra said softly.
"What's wrong? Do you guys see anything?" Terra lifted her head and looked around. Death. Destruction. Ice. Snow. That was all she saw.
"I don't see a thing, Setzer...Narshe...has been abandoned."
"What?! Are you serious?"
"Yes..."
"Hey!" Relm exclaimed, suddenly bending down. "Look what I found!" Celes walked over, and kneeled down herself.
"Footsteps...really tiny ones, at that."
"It looks like a moogle's footsteps." Relm said. "And they must be really recent, for us to still see them with the snow coming down like this. Should we follow them?"
"Sounds like a plan." Celes said, and looked up. Terra was still speaking into the radio.
"Terra, if there is nothing there, I want you girls to head back."
"Terra, we're gonna follow these footsteps!" Relm declared, and Terra nodded, speaking back into the radio.
"We've just found some footsteps. We're gonna investigate."
"Well...ok. Just please, be careful."
"We will." Terra turned off her radio, and hooked it back onto her belt. As she began to follow the others, she felt a creeping, sickly feeling in her stomach. Narshe, essentially, was where her journey as a Returner had begun, even if she didn't know it at the time. The day she woke up in Arvis' house was the day her life had changed forever. She remembered when she ran from the bustling city with Locke to keep from getting recaptured into the Empire. There were so many people, so many footsteps, and so much warmth. But now...
The one place Terra could call a hometown was gone.
The footsteps led away from Narshe and into the mines. And while it was definitely freezing cold out, the stone walls of the mines protected them from the wind, and that was a plus. Relm took out a flashlight, and flipping it on, used it to illuminate the path ahead. Everything here was so familiar to Terra that she immediately took the point, and kept her head down low to watch the footprints. Celes and Relm looked at each other. Since neither had known Arvis or Banon the way Terra did, they could only comfort her and tell her that everything would be ok. However, now was obviously not the time to do that.
The footsteps continued on through an opening in the mines, and Terra stopped. The ground beneath them was covered in hay, some of it wet, but most of it dry. Looking around, she could not see anything out of the ordinary, besides the little white ball of fluff shivering against the back wall of the cave, its eyes shut. When Terra took another step on the crunchy hay and saw no reaction, she realized it was sleeping.
"It's a moogle!" Relm whispered, and Terra nodded.
"The poor thing...it must be freezing to death..." She slowly approached, kneeling down when she got to the moogle's side, and stroking its head gently. The moogle's antenna slowly lifted, the little pink ball at the end bobbing, and it opened its squinty eyes, looking at Terra and letting out a squeal.
"Don't be afraid!" Terra whispered urgently. "You're the only sign of life we've seen around here..."
"Kupo, I'm not afraid of my friend Terra!" The moogle suddenly said, and Terra blinked. Celes' jaw dropped.
"Mog?"
"Yes, Mog is I, Kupo!" The moogle got up on its hind feet and stretched. "Ahhh...what a crappy nap. This cave gets colder everyday. One day I'm gonna wake up a frozen moogle-sicle!"
"Mog!" Terra cried happily, and hugged him tightly. "After hearing the news about Narshe, I thought for sure you were dead!"
"No way, Kupo!" Mog cried. "Moogles do not die THAT easily. When I came home, and found the city in chaos, as the King of the Moogles, I moved all of us out, Kupo! Sent the moogle population to live in a safer environment until we could come home again!"
"That was very good of you, Mog." Celes said, crossing her arms over her chest. "But why did you stay here?"
"Because I knew that if I hoped long enough, you would come back for me!" Mog cried, and Terra sniffled, hugging him tighter.
"Of course Mog, of course...and here we are. The others are all on the airship, waiting."
"Mog is so happy." Mog said, sniffling a little himself, and rubbing his big shiny nose. "Mog is SO happy. I thought you were all feeding the worms!"
"Well, then I reckon we should get the hell out of here, before we become casualties." Relm said, and turned to leave. Mog jumped up, waving his arms.
"No, wait! There is someone else here that can help us!" Terra blinked, and stood back up.
"Someone else?"
"Well, something else, rather." Mog said. "Its name is Umaro."
"It!?" Celes asked worriedly.
"Well, I never really came out and asked Umaro if it was a boy or girl, Kupo." Mog explained. "That is not something you exactly ask...a Sasquatch."
"Pardon me?!" Celes' eyes looked like they were about to bug out of her head.
"But I've always assumed he was a guy, just because of his vocal tone." Mog went on, ignoring her. "But I know that we could definitely use some Sasquatch muscle! Besides, he'd be helpless here without me! Once we find him, I will order him to join us! I know that he is somewhere here in the mines."
"Uh..." Relm looked mildly disgusted, but Terra was all for it.
"Oh yes, we should find your friend, Mog! I'm sure he'd make a wonderful companion!"
"Oh yeah, he's a great fighter." Mog said, gesturing towards the others and he began to lead them through a new tunnel within the cave. As they climbed and crawled, he kept talking. "...And he can actually control the snow with this Blizzard attack...And then there is this neat trick where he throws people into his enemies."
"Ok, never put me with him." Relm grunted.
The now four Returners emerged from the mines, and Terra found herself at the edge of the northern snowfields of Narshe. She could remember when not too long ago, Kefka had challenged them to a battle there, and they had won so easily. How could Kefka had gotten so powerful between then and now? How would the Returners fare against...a god?
Suddenly, a huge gust of frozen wind whipped through, causing everyone to shiver and shout out. Mog flapped his frozen wings and squealed.
"Out here is what helped caused Narshe to freeze over like this in the first place!"
"What?" Celes called over the wind, which was beginning to howl louder and higher.
"A giant dragon lives in these fields!" Mog called back. "It's blue, and its scales are made of pure ice! It has been here ever since the world crumbled apart!"
"One of the eight legendary dragons!" Celes suddenly cried. "And I bet it's the Ice Dragon!"
"One of the eight legendary dragons?!" Terra exclaimed. "What does that mean?"
"I'll explain to you later!" Celes replied loudly. "But you must trust me when I say we should defeat it!"
"If only we could!" Mog cried. "If we defeated this thing...maybe Narshe would return to normal!"
"AHHHH!" Relm suddenly screamed, pointing up towards the sky. "I think we just found our Ice Dragon!"
"WHOA!" Celes cried, and gave everyone a hard push to the ground. "LOOK OUT!" At that moment, the dragon sailed over the Returners, screeching loudly and leaving behind it a trail of sparking snow, ice, and freezing wind. When Celes pulled herself back up, she looked around, but couldn't see the dragon anywhere. The skies had turned even grayer and paler, and the snow was coming down harder. Terra followed, shaking the snow out of her cape, and then Relm and Mog.
"Where did it go?!" Terra cried, and Celes withdrew Atma.
"I don't know...but when it comes back..."
"Celes, look out!" Mog suddenly cried.
But it was too late. Before Celes could turn around, the Ice Dragon opened its mouth wide, and she felt something icy strike her in the back. Letting out a violent shiver and a scream, Celes dropped Atma, feeling a swift numbness run up her body, starting at the tips of her toes and enveloping her entire body, right up to her head.
Terra, Mog, and Relm could only stare in horror, as the Ice Dragon swooped over Celes' paralyzed form and disappeared in the air again, preparing to make another strike. Terra ran up to Celes, running her fingers over her friend's face and chest, which was covered in a blue crystallized substance, like the rest of her body. Her face was locked in a frightened stare, her mouth slightly parted.
"Oh my gods..." Terra gasped, turning to the others. "Celes has been frozen solid!"
The freezing winds of Narshe howled as Terra, Celes, and Relm approached the gates of the town. Each girl wrapped in soft fur capes and wearing insulated snow boots, they padded through the snow as the wind whipped through their hair.
"I don't ever remember Narshe being this bad!" Terra cried.
"Look, someone is at the gate!" Relm said, and pointed.
Sure enough, approaching the gate from the inside of town was a tall, lean figure, wrapped in enough cloaks and furs to clothe all the Returners comfortably. However, he had a familiar wolf mask strapped on the top of his head, and Terra recognized him as Lone Wolf, the thief that nearly killed their moogle friend, Mog. At first, Terra thought she was hallucinating. After all, she had seen Lone Wolf go flying off the cliff when she rescued Mog. But, then again...stranger things had happened as of late.
Lone Wolf recognized Terra, and strode right up to her. Gasping out, Terra took a pace back, and Celes and Relm took a defensive step in front of their friend.
"Lone Wolf!" Terra cried. "...What...what are you doing here?"
"I should be asking you the same thing." Lone Wolf grunted. He didn't seem that dangerous anymore. His eyes looked troubled, and his features had been considerably roughened since the last time Terra could remember. "Eh...it doesn't matter anyway. There's nothing left here...except maybe that one moogle...and only a treasure hunter could pick all the locks they've got on the shops and homes."
"What do you mean, everything is gone?" Terra asked worriedly.
"I mean, everything is gone." Lone Wolf replied, sounding a little irritated. "Gods, where have you been for the past two years? Under a rock?"
"Why don't you answer her question?" Celes snapped, and threateningly raised her fists.
"Whoa!" Lone Wolf cried, backing up a bit. "Sorry, General Celes."
Celes growled under her breath. At least the fool recognized her, even if it was her old title.
"Ever since two years ago, Narshe has become like a frozen hell to live in. The city's temperatures dropped even lower than normal, and soon, everything froze over, and it constantly snowed. People would be frozen inside their homes for weeks, and if outsiders happened to come into town, it was only then that the people got their homes defrosted so that they could come out. Some people were smart and moved out right away, before anything really bad could happened, but others stayed, and the Returners promised that they would be there to bail anyone out that was in danger."
Terra bit down on her lip, and Lone Wolf continued after taking a breath.
"But one night...there was a distress call, because a little girl got lost in the Narshe Mines while playing. A huge storm was supposed to be rolling through that night, so the Returners dispatched nearly all their men to go out and look for her. The others remained in town, trying to help people get prepared for the storm. However, whoever predicted that storm did a really bad job, because all of a sudden, ice rain and snow started letting loose on Narshe, and it didn't stop for an entire two weeks. I was out of town at the time, but when I returned...everybody was dead, or missing. The chancellor of Figaro issued a search party in the mines and throughout the city to find survivors, but out of everyone, there were just two men. They were still frozen in their houses. All the Returners perished, including their leaders, Arvis and Banon."
"...Arvis..." Terra gasped. "And Banon..." She didn't quite know what to say. Inside, however, she was screaming.
"For a while, no one was allowed in Narshe because of all the bodies Figaro was recovering." Lone Wolf said. "And after that, someone locked up all the houses and declared the town abandoned. There was no way anyone was going to want to live in Narshe after that horror story, and there hasn't been anyone new here since. Like I said before, there were two survivors, who I think might still be in there somewhere, and a moogle."
"Oh my gods..." Relm breathed, and Celes didn't say a word. Terra looked down, and didn't flinch as Lone Wolf brushed past her. Finally, she sniffled, and raised a hand to wipe away her tear before it literally froze on her face.
"Why...why did this happen...?"
"I don't know." Lone Wolf replied as he walked away. "But it got to be where I was hearing more howls than just the wind...I bet Narshe's haunted now..." With that, he walked away, and Celes and Relm gathered around Terra.
"Are you ok?" Relm asked. "Do you want to go on?"
"....Yes." Terra moaned, holding her forehead. "There might be clues...or something...something..."
"I'll take point." Celes offered. "Just keep your cool, Terra...we don't know what kinds of monsters are lurking around here now."
As the girls entered town, something started to make a crackling noise. It was a radio-like device that Setzer and Sabin, and even Cyan, despite his fear of machinery, had been working on. So far, they only had two, but if it worked on its very first mission, they decided they would make more for all of the Returners to have.
Terra looked down at her belt, and pulled off the radio, bringing it near her lips and pressing in a button. "Terra here." Meanwhile, Celes and Relm started knocking on doors, and trying to open them.
"Terra, can you hear me ok?" It was Setzer.
"Yes, loud and clear." Terra said softly.
"What's wrong? Do you guys see anything?" Terra lifted her head and looked around. Death. Destruction. Ice. Snow. That was all she saw.
"I don't see a thing, Setzer...Narshe...has been abandoned."
"What?! Are you serious?"
"Yes..."
"Hey!" Relm exclaimed, suddenly bending down. "Look what I found!" Celes walked over, and kneeled down herself.
"Footsteps...really tiny ones, at that."
"It looks like a moogle's footsteps." Relm said. "And they must be really recent, for us to still see them with the snow coming down like this. Should we follow them?"
"Sounds like a plan." Celes said, and looked up. Terra was still speaking into the radio.
"Terra, if there is nothing there, I want you girls to head back."
"Terra, we're gonna follow these footsteps!" Relm declared, and Terra nodded, speaking back into the radio.
"We've just found some footsteps. We're gonna investigate."
"Well...ok. Just please, be careful."
"We will." Terra turned off her radio, and hooked it back onto her belt. As she began to follow the others, she felt a creeping, sickly feeling in her stomach. Narshe, essentially, was where her journey as a Returner had begun, even if she didn't know it at the time. The day she woke up in Arvis' house was the day her life had changed forever. She remembered when she ran from the bustling city with Locke to keep from getting recaptured into the Empire. There were so many people, so many footsteps, and so much warmth. But now...
The one place Terra could call a hometown was gone.
The footsteps led away from Narshe and into the mines. And while it was definitely freezing cold out, the stone walls of the mines protected them from the wind, and that was a plus. Relm took out a flashlight, and flipping it on, used it to illuminate the path ahead. Everything here was so familiar to Terra that she immediately took the point, and kept her head down low to watch the footprints. Celes and Relm looked at each other. Since neither had known Arvis or Banon the way Terra did, they could only comfort her and tell her that everything would be ok. However, now was obviously not the time to do that.
The footsteps continued on through an opening in the mines, and Terra stopped. The ground beneath them was covered in hay, some of it wet, but most of it dry. Looking around, she could not see anything out of the ordinary, besides the little white ball of fluff shivering against the back wall of the cave, its eyes shut. When Terra took another step on the crunchy hay and saw no reaction, she realized it was sleeping.
"It's a moogle!" Relm whispered, and Terra nodded.
"The poor thing...it must be freezing to death..." She slowly approached, kneeling down when she got to the moogle's side, and stroking its head gently. The moogle's antenna slowly lifted, the little pink ball at the end bobbing, and it opened its squinty eyes, looking at Terra and letting out a squeal.
"Don't be afraid!" Terra whispered urgently. "You're the only sign of life we've seen around here..."
"Kupo, I'm not afraid of my friend Terra!" The moogle suddenly said, and Terra blinked. Celes' jaw dropped.
"Mog?"
"Yes, Mog is I, Kupo!" The moogle got up on its hind feet and stretched. "Ahhh...what a crappy nap. This cave gets colder everyday. One day I'm gonna wake up a frozen moogle-sicle!"
"Mog!" Terra cried happily, and hugged him tightly. "After hearing the news about Narshe, I thought for sure you were dead!"
"No way, Kupo!" Mog cried. "Moogles do not die THAT easily. When I came home, and found the city in chaos, as the King of the Moogles, I moved all of us out, Kupo! Sent the moogle population to live in a safer environment until we could come home again!"
"That was very good of you, Mog." Celes said, crossing her arms over her chest. "But why did you stay here?"
"Because I knew that if I hoped long enough, you would come back for me!" Mog cried, and Terra sniffled, hugging him tighter.
"Of course Mog, of course...and here we are. The others are all on the airship, waiting."
"Mog is so happy." Mog said, sniffling a little himself, and rubbing his big shiny nose. "Mog is SO happy. I thought you were all feeding the worms!"
"Well, then I reckon we should get the hell out of here, before we become casualties." Relm said, and turned to leave. Mog jumped up, waving his arms.
"No, wait! There is someone else here that can help us!" Terra blinked, and stood back up.
"Someone else?"
"Well, something else, rather." Mog said. "Its name is Umaro."
"It!?" Celes asked worriedly.
"Well, I never really came out and asked Umaro if it was a boy or girl, Kupo." Mog explained. "That is not something you exactly ask...a Sasquatch."
"Pardon me?!" Celes' eyes looked like they were about to bug out of her head.
"But I've always assumed he was a guy, just because of his vocal tone." Mog went on, ignoring her. "But I know that we could definitely use some Sasquatch muscle! Besides, he'd be helpless here without me! Once we find him, I will order him to join us! I know that he is somewhere here in the mines."
"Uh..." Relm looked mildly disgusted, but Terra was all for it.
"Oh yes, we should find your friend, Mog! I'm sure he'd make a wonderful companion!"
"Oh yeah, he's a great fighter." Mog said, gesturing towards the others and he began to lead them through a new tunnel within the cave. As they climbed and crawled, he kept talking. "...And he can actually control the snow with this Blizzard attack...And then there is this neat trick where he throws people into his enemies."
"Ok, never put me with him." Relm grunted.
The now four Returners emerged from the mines, and Terra found herself at the edge of the northern snowfields of Narshe. She could remember when not too long ago, Kefka had challenged them to a battle there, and they had won so easily. How could Kefka had gotten so powerful between then and now? How would the Returners fare against...a god?
Suddenly, a huge gust of frozen wind whipped through, causing everyone to shiver and shout out. Mog flapped his frozen wings and squealed.
"Out here is what helped caused Narshe to freeze over like this in the first place!"
"What?" Celes called over the wind, which was beginning to howl louder and higher.
"A giant dragon lives in these fields!" Mog called back. "It's blue, and its scales are made of pure ice! It has been here ever since the world crumbled apart!"
"One of the eight legendary dragons!" Celes suddenly cried. "And I bet it's the Ice Dragon!"
"One of the eight legendary dragons?!" Terra exclaimed. "What does that mean?"
"I'll explain to you later!" Celes replied loudly. "But you must trust me when I say we should defeat it!"
"If only we could!" Mog cried. "If we defeated this thing...maybe Narshe would return to normal!"
"AHHHH!" Relm suddenly screamed, pointing up towards the sky. "I think we just found our Ice Dragon!"
"WHOA!" Celes cried, and gave everyone a hard push to the ground. "LOOK OUT!" At that moment, the dragon sailed over the Returners, screeching loudly and leaving behind it a trail of sparking snow, ice, and freezing wind. When Celes pulled herself back up, she looked around, but couldn't see the dragon anywhere. The skies had turned even grayer and paler, and the snow was coming down harder. Terra followed, shaking the snow out of her cape, and then Relm and Mog.
"Where did it go?!" Terra cried, and Celes withdrew Atma.
"I don't know...but when it comes back..."
"Celes, look out!" Mog suddenly cried.
But it was too late. Before Celes could turn around, the Ice Dragon opened its mouth wide, and she felt something icy strike her in the back. Letting out a violent shiver and a scream, Celes dropped Atma, feeling a swift numbness run up her body, starting at the tips of her toes and enveloping her entire body, right up to her head.
Terra, Mog, and Relm could only stare in horror, as the Ice Dragon swooped over Celes' paralyzed form and disappeared in the air again, preparing to make another strike. Terra ran up to Celes, running her fingers over her friend's face and chest, which was covered in a blue crystallized substance, like the rest of her body. Her face was locked in a frightened stare, her mouth slightly parted.
"Oh my gods..." Terra gasped, turning to the others. "Celes has been frozen solid!"
