She cradled her legs in her arms and put her hair down so her shoulder-length hair brushed against her cheeks and hid her face. She remembered the time she had been in Alexandria Castle, and she cried again for the people...person there. But she wasn't a kid, and crying, she told herself, was for babies. Looking out over the cave she was sitting in, she saw the sunset and wondered if he was looking at it too. And then she remembered all the other things she left behind and she came away from the cave opening and into the darkness, finding the things she had now.
But the memories kept haunting her...
I left the note, my head full of memories I did not want and words I could never say. I looked at Steiner sleeping peacefully next to Beatrix and suppressed a whimper. Why couldn't we still be like that? But alas, I thought I could change him... I thought he had changed. Shows how much I knew. I didn't want to hurt him, however much he wanted to hurt me, so I gave him the one thing I see he wanted most. Power.
I should start at the wedding really, the day where I supposed to be happy. I was, in a lifted kind of way. The whole thing had been such an effort for me. Zidane, as always, didn't do anything to help, just said maybe be should postpone it for a bit? Postpone the wedding of the century? I couldn't, so regardless to how much I had to do on my own, I did it all.
However, Zidane did seem to perk up in the reception after I had talked to him for a bit. He was enjoying himself so much, I didn't want to tell him about all the hard work being ruined by people taking flowers to give to others, about the kids of the guests running amuck in the garden. I watched those kids for a bit actually, how I would have loved to have a kid of my own.
After the wedding, we settled down to sort out the kingdom so we could both run it. Zidane was very enthusiastic and happy and pointed out things that scared me but I didn't want to let him know that, so I smiled at him. Smiled and smiled and smiled.
Soon Zidane was getting jobs that meant he had to go and do other things, away from me. And I saw him less and less, until we would wake up in the mornings, put on our clothes, both go out the door at the same time and turn in completely different directions. At first I missed him, then I was a little subdued and finally I was angry at him, just going when I needed him to run the kingdom with me.
I began to get depressed.
Then the subject of children came up, and I didn't want one, but how could I tell Zidane that? And anyway, I had seen another side to him now. He used to be a thief, and a thief steals gold, which is a kind of power. Zidane was a thief; he stole my kingdom, a supreme power. Having a baby would only make him more secure in getting his filthy hands on the rest.
Needless to say, I got pregnant, and suddenly, a child seemed like a new opportunity for me. A built a bond with it, like mothers do; I lay there smiling to myself and thinking of how beautiful it would be. Zidane and me would feel for kicks, though I was sure Zidane was just doing that to feel his new power fighting.
I woke up that night, and I couldn't feel the bond, and I knew that that was it, the baby was dead. I don't remember waking Zidane, but I was shocked, I just remember him being there. That was the thing about Zidane; he was always there but never completely. He was always busy doing something else but would still be there.
Zara Looked like a little me, with Zidane's blond hair. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Neither me nor Zidane fell asleep that night, we just looked at her throughout and I cried because she was gone and my hope died then, I knew I had lost and Zidane was the supreme being and I handed over the kingdom to him
Zidane was by my side, he helped me with my work, but he was always calling up people. Telling them they needed to do this or that. And then he started to go away again, until it was ten times worse than what it had been originally. I thought I could live with it...
Running away without a theatre ship there was hard. I got up at dawn, got dressed in the most practical clothing I had for running away in. They weren't my clothes; Zidane's thief clothes were surprisingly comfy. I didn't want to take a reminder of him with me, but it didn't seem like I had any choice. Then I took out the letter I had been writing for days and crept into Steiner's room, left the note, climbed out the window onto the balcony and summoned Ifrit to take me away. Which he did once I had given him a few treats.
It was hard because of all the guards. There are ten scattered around the hall outside my door, I got past them with a sleep spell on each of them. Then there were the knights that were wandering around, they were paralyzed. And the last bunch, the ones that saw me, were silenced, stopped or petrified.
It was easy to see I was running away, I wasn't wearing a flowing nightdress, dinner dress or anything formal and on my back was my staff, a backpack with a tent, potions, ethers, a few elixirs and remedies in it. It wasn't so easy to tell someone I was running away if you saw me though.
Zidane parked the ship down on some grass on the lost continent. Getting out, he saw that the sun was setting. He had been travelling all day. He wondered if Steiner had sent out a search party for him yet, but what could they do? He was the king and they had to follow his orders, and they would be to turn around and go away.
Pulling it gently, Zidane dislodged Ultima Weapon from its bindings and carried it down into the grass with him. It was times like this that he wished there was still some mist around and monsters left, right and centre. Sighing, he swung the mega-weapon round his head a few times and brought it down in the soil. A sand lizard started to scamper away but Zidane swung round and pushed his weapon through its tiny body with one move. A flock of birds, hearing the lizard's final squeak, cried out themselves and started to fly across the water. Zidane stood next to his weapon and watched as they flew so gracefully over the water and remembered her again.
They had been lying on the grass, a few days before their marriage, Garnet in Zidane's arms as she pointed to birds and clouds laughing while Zidane played with her hair gently. A whole flock of birds had flown overhead and Garnet had sighed deeply.
'I wish I could fly away whenever I wanted...' she had muttered and Zidane had looked at her concerned. 'Not from you, just...oh never mind. It's just that I wish I could fly without any airship or anything.' Garnet had smiled at Zidane and Zidane had ignored the remark, but now, it seems, that she meant it. But she had wanted to get away from him as well...
Zidane went into the engine room. There he sat down next to the engine's purring body and closed his eyes. The engine was very hot and condensations stuck to its sides. Zidane wiped away some of the condensation, which was also hot water, with his hair and drew in another patch with his finger. He was just doodling but he noticed the thing he drew when he finished. Garnet looked back at him with her short hair and wonderful brown eyes.
She had cut her hair the night Zidane had come back. She had taken Zidane's dagger again and run to the balcony, while Steiner ran after her, thinking she was about to kill herself, Freya, Vivi, Eiko and Amarant standing there watching horrified, Quina looking at the beautiful array of food on the table and Zidane standing next to Garnet as she looked into his eyes, lifted up her hair like she had done before and slid the dagger through her hair again. Then she hugged Zidane tightly and looked out above Alexandria, throwing her hair over the whole city and watching it float away.
Eiko ate on her table in Madain Sari and smiled to herself. She had seen Zidane land on the Lost Continent and tomorrow she would board his ship and search for Garnet with him. But today, she had to talk to her moogles and pray to the Eidolons for she hadn't used them for so long that she needed to get them on her side again.
Garnet had summoned all of hers at least once every day to circle Alexandria for a bit of exercise and to scorch any nearby monsters in the grasses if they wanted. It had become a daily spectator's sport to see who could see which Eidolon first. People would stop what they would be doing and watch as Shiva came down and bowed to a small girl who would bow back and smile up at her, to watch as Ifrit pick a boy who was walking along aimlessly and give him a ride, but the one who got the most cheering, (apart from Alexander who was cheered for protecting Alexandria) was Bahamut. Bahamut would swoop in and out of alleyways, roar at dogs and chase cats around the square and breath fire into the air while doing back flips and messing about in the air.
Eiko walked to the eidolon wall and looked silently at the girl wearing Zidane's clothes prayed to the wall silently with her head bowed and her eyes closed. She had hair that was unevenly cut from being sliced off by a dagger and mud was on her fingernails, dried in her hair and slipping down one side of her face. Eiko was too shocked to even walk one step, she leant against the wall and watched as the girl finished her prayers, got up and turned round, her eyes suddenly on Eiko who was standing in the door.
'Dagger?' Eiko managed to cry and walked a step forwards.
'Don't come any closer.' Dagger whispered fiercely and shot a stop spell at Eiko's feet, who dodged it and fired a spell she had learned long ago, one that clogged up people's magic for a bit. It hit Dagger right in the chest, and Dagger, knowing what spell it was, collapsed onto the floor crying. 'Don't make me go back, I won't go back.' Eiko went and sat ext to her, rubbing her back, Eiko looked forwards and not at Dagger.
'I'm not going to make you go back. You wouldn't have left Alexandria without a bloody good reason to.' Eiko never swore unless she meant it and this time, she meant it with all her heart. Dagger looked up at her and wondered how this kid was so mature for her age, and then she remembered what this girl had had to go through.
'Did you do as I said?' Dagger had to ask, and Eiko bit on her bottom lip hard, and nodded her head. Her face had gone white and she suddenly stopped rubbing Dagger's back. 'Eiko, I'm so sorry, but you had to do it.' Eiko nodded again and closed her eyes. She forced herself not to cry as she relived that moment. The moment where she read her part of the letter. No one else had read it because they knew Eiko liked privacy of her things. She had never told anyone about it either, her bit had been at the bottom of the page, maybe for this reason, so she ripped it off and put it in her pocket.
Taking the piece of paper out now she looked at it again, the folds so used that they were falling apart and the letters so smudged from obvious tear marks. Dagger and Eiko sat there in silence as they each read Dagger's smudged hand-writing again and remembered different things about those words. There had already been tear marks on the paper when Eiko had taken it, from Dagger as she had been writing it. Dagger remembered writing it and watching as tears fell on the paper, hoping Eiko wouldn't mind. Eiko remembered reading it over and over and finally, acting upon it.
Eiko had had to take Dagger's necklace from Alexandria. Dagger had wanted no trace of her left at the castle, and, although it was 'Alexandria's stone', everyone had always, and would always, remember it best as the thing Dagger took from the castle when she ran away. She didn't want people to remember that time, for it made her think of it too and that lead her to thinking of him. Eiko had taken it and hidden it, the whole world was looking for it, to try to get it back. Only a few, select moogles knew where it was…
For the rest of the time, they sat there and Eiko told of her acting upon the words, doing the best she could as Dagger thanked her over and over for doing it. As the conversation was dying down, Dagger suddenly got up and started to walked away. At the opening to the Eidolon wall, she turned round.
'Eiko, please don't tell Zidane where I am. I don't want him to find me.' And with that, she was gone. She waved as she was about to go out of site and then walked off, out of Madain Sari and away to another place.
Eiko sat there for a while and watched the same space where Dagger had been only a few minutes ago, then, as if coming out of a trance, Eiko turned round and prayed...