Song of Paws
Disclaimer: Liberal use of the word 'bitch' in reference to something other than female dogs. Deal with it.
Stupid rock. Stupid song that binds itself into my head even as it binds my body to this hunk of stone. Normal rocks don't sing. Normal rocks don't turn a man into a statue, and I wonder why I even bothered with this. Let the old men take up this job, or the useless young women, or a crippled soldier incapable of fighting in a real war. Just don't give this demeaning task to an able-bodied warrior.
Even if he had consented, and volunteered in a voice so loud that even the sound of an island storm was drowned out, they had no right to give this burden to him. I was heartbroken then, and my mind was like that of an animal, only thinking of the present.
Even now, I don't particularly care about defeating Sin. Strife always happens, and regardless of whether it's at the hands of a sea monster, an enemy army, or a lover, so why should we worry about defeating one monster, when others lurk in the shadow, waiting to take the fallen monster's place?
I'm a fighter, and I'll fight anyone, anything, anyhow. On the battlefield, in the blitzsphere, and especially in the bedroom, I'll take on all challengers, and I'll emerge victorious. Like I have all the times before, except once.
That one loss. That one aching defeat haunted me ever since I entered that doomed battle with her, and now it forces me to march toward into this makeshift temple and begin my transformation from a simple man to something so much less and more.
I have to remember that defeat now, and how it was more than just a defeat. No one wins all the time, not even a warrior as wonderful as me. Ever since my return to warm Kilika, I employed all the tricks to force her from my mind. Volunteering for Yunalesca, the talented daughter of Zanarkand's legendary summoner and a gorgeous lady besides had been part of that revenge.
After all, what is my pride compared to sacrificing myself? I gave that bitch my pride, and she wasn't particularly lovely or talented. So, here I would give Yunalesca, a much more worthy lady, the rest of my being for her mission just to prove that there was something more important than her. Except--and this is where the situation stings the most, like the thorny vines that cut through the jungle paths--that the statue is bringing out what I wish would remain hidden and forcing me to confront the truth.
"Remember, when you enter the chamber," Yunalesca's voice rang in my ear clearer than a newly formed sphere, "you won't be able to hold back anything. Everything important that you wished to forget, you'll have to remember one more time."
Even with that dire warning, I refused to turn back. After all the insults I'd been thrown lately, the one I refused to be labeled with was coward. So now, I offer this statue my memories in return for an end to my excruciating defeat.
She wasn't beautiful, that woman from the north. I almost wish she had been. Somehow, this whole ordeal would have been less excruciating had the world been able understand this obsession with her. Had men gathered at her heels like a pack of dogs around their master perhaps my pride could be salvaged and I could walk away knowing that all men had been defeated, not just one.
No, this woman who lodged herself into my mind was plain, not really ugly, just not someone who captured the attention of everyone when she walked into the area, just one ordinary soldier from far south, looking forward to fighting some new battles.
During the great war, the sides were divided between Zanarkand and Bevelle. Macalania was a fairly small city outside of Bevelle. They weren't much of fighters by any means, and so close to one of the centers of war, they needed and hired themselves some protection. How their patronage came all the way to Kilika, who knows? Government bureaucracy or fate, it only matters that a legion of Kilika soldiers, myself included, made that journey to a cold northern city, where she lived.
Of all the women, I have known, with only her can I say that I kissed her before I'd ever seen her face clearly. In the daylight, I would have known better. Had I seen her in the light of a pale and unforgiving sun, I could see her for what she really was. In the glow at the fringes of a ring of fire though, all I knew was that she attracted me and that refusing the pull would have killed me sooner than any blade.
A lady, a beautiful, willing one, had attached herself to my hand and was even then dragging me off into the forest for a lover's duel when I first caught the glows and the shadows of her face. Oddly, all I remember of that lady before her was that I had managed to make some pathetic excuse to my companion before I abandoned her to the vague land of passing somebodies, those people who flowed in and out of my life and never left anything more than a mark that any force of time and any element could erase.
For that moment, I felt as nervous as a boy having his first encounter. We might have traded names, a few lines of conversation in that orange glow, but the first thing I really remember about Macalania was our kiss. Her lips were cool against mine, as if the warmth generated by her body was insufficient against the chill northern air, but they were soft, and melded to mine so easily that I'd imagined that after only a few moments our kiss had melted us into one being.
With my own warmth, I fought the natural coolness of her lips and skin, vowing to myself that I'd warm her up before the kiss ended, and the way she fitted herself to my arms, I swore she knew and agreed to my plan. Our first encounter lasted exactly that long, long enough for my southern heat to subdue that stubborn northern cold that lingered in her. Whether that was seconds, or minutes, or hours, I couldn't tell you, just the measure of temperature from cold to warm and from hot to cool.
I tried to ask her questions, who she was, where she lived, when I could meet her again, but as quickly as she landed into my arms, she slipped out again, leaving lingering traces of her scent and her touch, but nothing that I could follow.
That woman had always been the smart one. How else to explain her avoidance of me, if she didn't already know that we were doomed from the start? In the coming months we'd meet again, under the cover of darkness, a kiss there, a touch there, little points of battle that lighted up the horizon before things grew calm again. But never once did she give me a name or a face to track her by. To be honest, I never gave her mine either. We could love each other, worship each other, do anything we wanted, as long as we knew nothing of the other.
No one person had forbidden anything, like I would have listened had they ever dared. Soldiers were soldiers were men were men, and being men, they liked women, or at least their companionship. Simple enough, right? It was our contrasts that compelled us to keep our battles confined to dark corners: my hot, her cold. I refuse to be considered a timid man, but of all endeavors, I allowed myself to be cautious in just this one.
Fire and Ice oppose each other. Every infant from his cradle knows this. Anyone who had ever studied with a black mage learned this, even if intuition hadn't guided the vast majority of our people to this truth. And now, I learned this lesson anew every time she and I touched. I could melt her, warm her a bit, just enough to produce a lovely steam, conquer little parts of her, but if I went to far, she'd put out my flame.
Stupid metaphors aside, unmasking my opponent would weaken me, as it finally did when identities could be hidden no more, and volunteering the same type of information about myself would weaken me as well, although sometimes, the way that she smiled against my lips or a stray word whispered into my ear hinted that she knew exactly who I was. We would know soon enough, she might have been the only person in Macalania to me, but she was hardly the only person.
Fellow soldiers noticed me slipping away to the other battle fields, nurses and ladies whispered as I went by. My comrades flirted, conversed, and courted these jewels of females; I remained as oblivious to them as I did to what my mother called 'manners' back on Kilika. Rumors flew through the crowds of families, refugees, combatants, priests, everyone, and all of them said the same thing: "That man, the man who was once so strong, has lost himself, to nothing else but a woman." Pride flared the rage in me, but I could hardly protest; my voice was too weak, and my thoughts on where I could meet up with my captor again.
At the same time, a woman always appeared on the fringes of my vision: a nurse, clad in heavy robes and carrying a basket of medicines through the battlefield. Her treatment of patients was always known to be rough, her manner the haughtiest, as if her unremarkable features had to be made up for by a self-superior attitude. To the masses, her gaze filtered through an upturned nose, proud and indifferent, her every motion conveying that she was above them. To me, she showed a particular malice. One injury after another, she'd step over me if I were sitting, refusing to acknowledge my presence. More than once, she'd refused me treatment, preferring that I wait. Those eyes, that never looked at another directly caught mine countless times, freezing me in place and sending a frosty feeling up and down my body.
My instincts screamed to find a way to escape her, like one might escape an erupting volcano or, in this cold land, a glacier. If I remained in her path, she would destroy me, they screamed. True enough, but I would never run. The hatred she showed me, I could show back in full-force. For every icy glare sent my way, I returned one of burning anger. Every injury I obtained, I mended or had an obliging nurse tend to before she ever had the chance to reject me.
Between my lover and I, every behavior began to change as I started the personal war with that bitch. No longer did we dance carefully around the other, looking to blend our contradictory natures; we let them clash in all their discord, breaking down the barriers to the parts of each other that we kept back. At least she broke down my barriers, hers remained solid and frigid, despite my best efforts to penetrate it.
She enjoyed making a fool of me, because that's what I did when I was alone with her. Like an adolescent pleading for his lady's love, I begged for every kiss, for any reaction that she wanted or needed, an acknowledgment that my blows were hitting home. None came.
Surrendering was an option, I suppose. In hindsight, I should have walked away when the changes happened. I should have put my foot down and let her know that this soldier would not fight a desperate losing battle with nothing to gain. In hindsight, I should have taken my pride there and claimed a victory then, telling her that I was a man who would not be stepped on and used. In hindsight, I was and still ama hopeless fool.
Finally, the time came for us to return to Kilika. The war was lost, by all sides save for the one with the sea monster. My war was lost as well. Macalania, so far from the coast, knew little danger; it would survive. My home, on the other hand, had already been attacked two, three times. Home needed us, much more than this snowy hell did.
I received the order at a particularly bad time. Our last skirmish left me with a nasty gash on my arm. Hurt like nothing else, although with time and attention, it would heal. Nurses everywhere were busy. The wounded were piled up, and those with lovers among the ranks were busy having one last good time together. The only person who could treat me was the bitch, and although she did, her eyes were cold and disdainful as she cleaned out my wound. I swear she made it hurt as much as she could; that was just the type of woman she was.
Under all the glaring and the abuse of my poor right arm, I finally cracked. Happy now? I asked her, as she continued her torture. Finally, I return to Kilika and you shall be free of my loathsome presence. Just as I'd be free of hers, I'd wanted to add, but she still had a needle in my skin, and that put me at a disadvantageous position.
The bitch started insulting me then, as if she knew my activities with my mystery lover. Animal, she called me. A rutting animal, a desperate dog, a dumb ass. Her voice shrilled like a shrew's, and I swear I knew a different form of it from somewhere else. The memories that it evoked reminded me of other things, a curve of a jaw in the firelight, a certain shade of pale blue in her eyes, the fullness of a pair of lips under mine.
The shame of that moment, when I found out who my lover was. How much rage I had at that moment and how much I couldn't let it go, despite how much I wanted to. That next chance with her meant too much for me to ruin it at that moment. Next chance with her, I would do what I needed without fear, with all the courage of a warrior going into his last battle and knowing that glory in death is all he can hope for.
No more chances. We leave tomorrow. My next chance was then. My last chance. My best chance. Doing my best to make my expression glassy, I let her wrap my wounds in bandages, as I waited for my moment. It came, and I wanted it more than anything else right then.
Pulling her close to me, no longer afraid of hurting her or being hurt, I kissed her roughly. We never should have been, but we were. Even with all the humiliation I suffered and the pain of defeat, I'm glad to have fought this battle. Determined to walk away a winner, I pressed into her, longing for her to warm to me, and in my desperation, I imagined that her lips softened beneath mine, if only slightly.
I could have imagined that softness beneath my lips, the same softness of our first kiss before we started our terrible intense war. What was beyond my imaginings were the tears that ran down her cheek, touching my skin and tainting our kisses. That broke me. When I thought I could be strong and finally see your weakness, I finally received what I was looking for.
At that moment, I wanted to hate her. That bitch thought she could scorn me even as she took me as a lover, and she did for the long months I spent in those woods. In the end, I could never hate her, because as much hell as she'd put me through, leaving me with nothing but bittersweet memories. Closing my eyes, I clutched my adversary close to me, feeling her soft body beneath mine and smelling her intoxicating scent. Damn it! Why did she have to be so appealing, even as she was the haughty merciless bitch I'd hated.
Our last kiss ended with me a little surer of my defeat. Her eyes, when the opened were filled with the contempt I expected from a frigid like her as one of her tapered fingers pointed to the exit of the tent. And I walked out then, not even pausing for a last look. That frozen glance and that pointed finger was my last mental image of her.
We were doomed from the beginning, I knew that from our last kiss. Still, I want a rematch more than anything. I want to hold something from our times together other than nothing. The stone is squeezing truth from me. No longer can I pretend that I'm not doing this so I can see her somehow again.
I hope she's happy, that bitch, as I transform into what she always saw me as. Nothing more than an animal. Brute strength, with no brain but my instinct. Right now, that sounds good. No more worries about fighting and winning. Just fighting until my muscles are sore and the flames of temper cooled.
I will change. I will fight. My enemies will cower before me, that which is known as Ifrit.