Time Passes
-Summary- ... and Chii wishes for the return of the lost precious moments. Bittersweet fluff that experiments with a... more controversial pairing (FxC) in as accurate a manner as possible. Enjoy.
A/N - Been working and working this one out for a long time now, trying to get it right. Dratted perfectionism. It's still probably not as good as it could be, but for those of you who like Fai/Chii, hopefully it will be good enough. I took some liberties with the conversation at the end, the one that takes place right before Fai leaves. Forgive me. I couldn't remember the actual dialogue, and I have no references.
If Chii seems out of character, again, I'm sorry. It's very difficult for me to write a simple character who doesn't understand a lot of what's going on... I gave her perhaps a few more smarts than she may actually have. I don't know any more.
I wrote this before seeing episode 32, or anything other than that first bit in vol.1. Not that anyone's seen any more... (grumble, grumble). Seeing as there are so few facts about their actual relationship, I had to resort to the time-honoured fic-writing process of Making Stuff Up. I made events purposely vaguer than usual, one because it's from Chii's POV and Fai doesn't even like to tell her all that much; two, because I was lazy. And it's got bittersweet fluff right up the wazoo. (Heh, heh... she said wazoo... huh, huh...) Sort of like... bunny-shaped cotton candy laced with arsenic. Or not...
Disclaimer - When have I ever owned it? Wait! Here goes! I own TRC! Yeah! That's right! For the 2.5 seconds it took you to read that, I owned it!
... Now I don't any more.
-
Time passed, which has always been its purpose, and it passed in the slow, endless way of eternity within the sanctity and silence of a virgin cavern. A drop of water, falling into the still, still waters from the tip of a stalactite, formed by millions and millions of years of water doing just that, as it always would, rippled the surface into darkness and shadow. Every moment ended with that quiet sound, and the slow, smooth ripples in the pool.
Time passed, and Chii found herself wishing that it would not. Somewhere in the back of her head, the implacable plink... plink... of water marched on, a natural clock counting down the moments, each one lost, irreplaceably.
She had treasured the early time, and her first coherent memory. One moment she was not, and the next moment she was opening her eyes, thoughts and words and feelings eagerly bubbling up from within. She stared at her hands, small but long-fingered and slender, and laughed, unable to pinpoint why. Amazement? Joy, to be... what was the word, alive? Amusement at such odd appendages?
And someone else had laughed with her, real delight in that voice, and then a strange pair of hands reached out, took hers. Her eyes had risen, startled, up the lines of his arms to his face, where a sweet, gentle smile glowed in such a way that it made her want to smile back. "Hello," he'd said quietly. "What's your name, my dear?"
It did not occur to her then nor later that it was odd to come into being knowing speech. "Chii?" she squeaked, blinking in surprise, the confused noise the only sound she could make in her understandable bewilderment. Who was this person? Never mind that, who - or what - was she?
He'd laughed again, chuckled with amused affection. "Chii, then? If that's what you'd like to be called, then that is what I will call you." His blue, blue eyes smiled at her. "My name is Fai... Chii."
"Fai." She tried it, found that she liked the sound of the name.
"Yes, that's right." A brighter smile; Chii was dazzled by it, and the part of her mind that had astonished her with words and the fragments of an identity told her that this smiling was a good thing; it was done when people were happy. This Fai must be a very happy person - and 'happy' was also something that Chii could understand. "I hope we shall be friends?"
"Chii?" It took Chii some time to make the connection to the new word. Then she smiled, pleased. "Yes. Chii... hopes so too!"
There were many moments like this to start with, smiling, happy moments together where Chii felt a warmth inside whenever she managed to make Fai laugh. He seemed content to show her around the 'palace' that was the only place safe from the freezing, howling storms outside. There was much to explore, but sometimes Chii felt that she would like to see what was outside; but when she asked, Fai always turned aside her question by saying, 'perhaps when the snow stops'.
The snow never stopped.
It was 'cold' outside the palace, freezing cold and blowing ice; Fai did not like to go out in it, but Chii did not know why. To her, to be in the centre of such elemental fury was an exhilarating thought. She did not understand why Fai always wore several thick layers of clothing. He spoke of 'cold', of 'hot', but she did not understand. She couldn't feel them.
Perhaps when she admitted bewilderment to that - perhaps that was when the odd, thoughtful looks started.
Because, as time passed... Fai seemed to withdraw into himself. He still smiled, occasionally laughed, but Chii was a little more canny about, if not the ways of the world, at least about the ways of Fai. She'd watched him - and only him - for over a year, listening to him explain things so patiently to her, having him teach her to read, and finding out, from the few books in the enormous library that she could understand, that this was not a normal state of affairs. That there should have been other people. That this world was very different from the way that things should have been; that there should have been seasons other than winter, days where the snow would melt away, and she could go outside, and discover the rest of this world -
And there was the problem of Fai and his smiles. Chii could see now, hear now, what she had been unable to before. There was a sadness in Fai's smiles, a distance in his voice even when he spoke most kindly and affectionately to her. It hurt; in a world where Fai appeared to be one of the only people left, and Chii's only companion, it hurt not to be completely acknowledged as such back.
And why was there no one else?
"The city... has no people," Chii said one evening, the pair nestled in a window seat overlooking the buildings covered in drifting snow, far, far below. "Why?"
Fai was silent for a long time. "This used to be a city with people," he said slowly. "A bustling city, with more people than the eye could stand to take in at a time. But that ended... two years ago. In the fighting. That's why the city looks so broken. Battle destroyed it, people fled, or died... and now, while it is still a city, it is a city with no people... or as close to no people as makes no difference." He stared out over the world blanketed under snow. "All that's left," he said softly, in a voice so low that Chii could barely hear him, "are the empty shells... of the life that was. Lost souls... crying on the wind..."
"Why was there fighting, Fai?" she asked after a pause.
"It's a long story, my dear. And not all that interesting." He was gently pushing her questions, her concerns aside, all the while reassuring her with the touch of his hand on her hair. Chii's heart hurt. For a moment, all she could see in her mind's eyes was that image of water dropping into a deep, still pool, eroding minerals, building, building, even as it destroyed... time lost.
"Chii wants to know," Chii persisted. "If it bothers Fai, Chii wants to know... what is hurting Fai. Chii likes long stories," she added, almost a little defensively, as though he might not believe her if she did not add this protest.
She watched him anxiously for a long moment, watched him close his eyes, inhale, exhale, then open them briefly to stare down at the ruined city once more.
"Once upon a time, in a land where magic reigned..." he began softly, telling a story of love, and death, friendships, and betrayals, war that tore the land to pieces because of it, and the winter that had stopped the fighting... for now. Chii did not understand what this had to do with what she had asked, but she listened, enthralled, all the same, to his words. She had wanted to know what happened, rather than to simply hear a mere story, albeit such a powerful, strange, and heartbreaking one such as this. Fai was an excellent storyteller, and Chii had always loved his tales, but it still left a question: How could he have avoided the subject so easily, pretended not to know the answer? Surely Fai could trust her with the reason for the darkness behind his sunny smiles.
Couldn't he?
But the story was a good one, despite the fact that it made her cry in the end.
"Why did the magician lock himself in the castle? Why did he want to be alone? Wouldn't he be lonely... so lonely?" Chii asked when Fai had finished, eyes bright and shimmering.
"Of course," Fai said vaguely. "He was lonely. But better alone than being the cause of more deaths... more deaths of people that he had cared about. Don't you think?"
"But being alone is horrible!"
"Being alone by choice is better than being alone because you did nothing to stop it," Fai said gently. Then, again in that voice so low that Chii could barely hear him: "At least... that's what I have to believe..."
"Chii?"
Smile. "Nothing, my dear."
She would ask now and again for him to tell the story again, pressing for details of what happened to certain characters. Fai's eyes always darkened when she asked, but he answered them all with a tired smile. He seemed to know the tale as well as he knew himself.
Slowly, Chii began to guess that maybe, just maybe, Fai had answered her question that one day after all. Story as truth was a new concept for her... a frightening one. The events he had spoken of as though they were happening to a distant stranger... had they happened to him? Was the lonely magician who had locked himself in the castle and cast a spell of winter over the country... was that this place, was that magician Fai?
It was when she saw the dark stains on the pure, white marble on the main floor that she became utterly certain. Those had been in the story. It was on realizing that the people Fai had told her who had been killed on that spot were once real, living people that Fai had cared about, that she finally saw how it was possible to feel the hurt that she sometimes saw in Fai's eyes, how it was possible to become so sick of tragedy and death, of loneliness and betrayal, that sanity itself betrayed a person and left them floundering desperately, alone. And sometimes Chii could hear the echoes of what had forced her own creation in Fai's voice, when he thought he was alone. The ache of that loneliness like a steel bolt through his breast... The king he had spoken of, the one that had forced him to this loneliness, had been merely pushed aside by the storms of endless snow; when the snow lessened, unless time had eased his own grief and rage... he would return.
Echoes in an empty palace... blood staining the pure marble, blood that had been spilled because of Fai and what he had - and had not - done. Ghosts haunting every corner, some locked in a struggle of death, others that remembered the peace of the time before the fighting. Looking out over the empty city, where snow swirled and blew across broken homes and rubble, knowing that destruction was partially his fault. Knowing that somewhere out there, past the shroud of snow that Fai had buried the dead city beneath, somewhere out there was Ashura, his king... waiting, watching, for the time that both men knew had to come.
To be alone in a place like that where the only possible relief would come bearing a bright blade and the gift of death. Alone with his thoughts, and the whispering voices that blew across the dragon's wings arcing over the city. Time passed... time drained away all hope. Chii could not hope to express all of this in lucid words, but the images that she thought she could sometimes pull from Fai's expressive, soft voice, were clear enough. She could see herself, born out of something like madness, birthed of fears, of growing paranoia, out of that terrible ache of loneliness...
Fai needed her; that much was clear, though she did not think she could explain her reasoning why in so many words. But then why was he pushing her away?
"If a person is real, does that make them better, to hold off loneliness?" Chii asked suddenly, one night.
Fai smiled. "Now why would you say that?"
"Because... because... Chii is not real. Chii is made of magic... made by Fai. Chii knows this. Fai told Chii. Chii... thinks that to help Fai, Chii needs to be real."
"But you do help me." Fai spoke earnestly, catching her under the chin with one gentle hand; he tilted her face up so that he could meet her eyes. His own expression was half-solemn. "You help me very much. Don't worry about... not being real, my dear."
"But a real person would be better than Chii? To have been born, to feel hot and cold, to understand person-things without having to be told - would that be better?"
Fai laughed softly, almost cynically. "And what is real?"
"Chii is not. Chii was made by Fai."
Fai sighed. "Chii is real enough for me." He smiled, suddenly, swiftly, patting the top of her pale head affectionately.
"Then why is Fai still so sad? Fai is not... still lonely...?"
His eyes flickered away. "It's not your fault, dear one."
Frustrated, Chii could not find the words to say what she wanted; some part of Fai had accepted her as real, that was true, and she did not want to question this belief, but it was tied intimately to the thing she had been thinking of for the last week. It was so hard to articulate things sometimes, but it must be said.
"If... if it is not Chii... then... is it somebody that Chii is not?"
She saw something flicker in his eyes; his hand faltered and stilled momentarily. Chii felt her throat close up at the look on his face. What was this sudden shortage of breathing, this moment of freefall in her stomach, the dull ache in her chest?
"Sorry," she whispered, eyes stinging, though she was not exactly sure why. "Sorry. Chii... doesn't know who Fai misses... but Chii knows Chii is not that person. Chii... is Chii. Fai made Chii to be Chii, so Chii cannot be anyone else, not even if Chii tries. Chii... can only be this person, as hard as Chii can. Chii... Chii hopes... that that might be enough to make up for not being that person... who was so special to Fai."
She squeaked a bit when Fai drew her close and hugged her hard, silently, as he had not hugged her since he'd first made her. "I wouldn't ask you to be anyone else," he said finally. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?..." She didn't understand; but he would only smile.
He would not tell her why.
-
When it had come - the moment that Fai had tried so hard to push aside, the moment that Chii had wished away with a sort of vaguely unformed, worming feeling of dread - there was only the silence there with her.
- The snow had stopped.
The sky was clear and unclouded.
A deep, deep blue hemisphere hung overhead, millions and millions of tiny points of light scattered across it; a large, round, glowing orb hung suspended in midair, shedding pale light on the steep rocky slope that the palace perched atop. The slope was part of a great, tall island, hanging in the air; far below were even more points of light, clustered closely together like the constellations condensed. The light of the glowing orb shimmered on the crystalline beauty of the enormous, delicate, protective dragon wings spread out about the palace, arcing over the city below.
Fascinated by this strange new, beautiful world, Chii at first did not notice the six men struggling up the pathway towards the palace -
She waited now, shivering slightly, and trying not to look at the bodies of the dead guards; waited while those two sunk deeper and deeper beneath the water...
There was only silence in the enormous chamber. The sound of her breathing was caught and sucked away by the hugeness of the space. The silence seemed to speak of horrors, of fears that she had not even dreamed existed until now. Her eyes flickered back to the still, still bodies that lay thrown haphazardly over broken pillars and stone blocks. Fai had used magic against them... Fai had made them 'dead'.
- What is death, Fai?
Death... is like... the darkness before you came to be. Do you remember that, Chii?
No.
It's... when everything stops. Everything wears out or breaks. There's no more movement. No more breathing. No more thinking, or dreaming. No more words to be spoken. Your heart just... stops. And none of it can be made to start again -
Chii felt something in her chest constricting, constricting her heart as though it wanted to squeeze the life from her. This was wrong. To take life... even to protect another -
- Men grasping at her arms, a blade at her throat - a blast of... something like air, but not quite air, for it was not wind that formed in its wake - and suddenly she was free, the bodies tumbling away from her - she'd turned instinctively in the direction the strange blast had come from, and seen Fai standing there, hands outstretched, staff gripped tightly between them, a terrible look on his face that made Chii's mouth go dry...
"Ashura-ou will pay for that," he'd said quietly, then turned and stalked away...
- was wrong.
She had never seen dead people before. Their stillness made them seem more like objects, like toys tossed aside by a temperamental giant, than human beings who had only moments ago had life of their own. That thought was somehow very chilling.
And then the slap of a hand against the edge of the pool was startling her, and Fai was vaulting up out of the water, half-naked and sleek as a seal. Chii was there in an instant, wrapping his coat around him as he slid himself up onto the marbled floor of the chamber, knowing in a moment that he would start to shiver fiercely. Her heart soared up around the vault of the roof with relief as she looked up to meet his eyes, crinkled with a look that was not quite sadness, not quite relief, not quite happiness, not quite regret.
She would not have known what to do if it had been the other one who had risen back out of the depths. If it had been Fai who had lost, if Fai had been killed...
"Is he asleep?" she asked quietly.
"Yes." Fai stroked her hair. "He's asleep."
"What will Fai do now?" The question was out almost before Chii knew it had been said. It was a question worth answering; Fai had never spoken of anything beyond the end of the imposed winter, and the coming of the king. He had admitted, not that long ago, as the winter broke, that he did not have the slightest idea of what he was going to do even about his king.
"I can't stay here," he said. His eyes flickered away. "I have to run. I have to run to a place where there is no King Ashura. Maybe even to other worlds..."
"Chii does not understand," she said. His words, individually, made perfect sense. It was the overall impact that had not yet hit home. She simply watched him, eyes huge and solemn. In a moment his words would come clear.
Fai smiled, a sweet, gentle smile that made Chii suddenly think back to the first time she had ever seen him. That smile had seemed to light up the room. "That's all right, my dear. For you, that's all right."
Chii closed her eyes and snuggled up against him, smiling softly. He patted her hair, then rose, pulling his clothes back on.
"Where is Fai going?" Chii got more slowly to her feet.
"I don't know. First, I need to see the Dimension Witch..." He paused, set down his staff for a moment, turned to look at her staring wide-eyed at him.
Leaving. Fai was leaving. He was going away and he was going to leave her here behind in this city with no people. Something hurt inside Chii. Leaving. Leaving her alone...
"And before that... Chii...? Would... it be all right if I changed you a little?"
Chii said nothing for a moment. She had half-expected the emotion behind his words, once his decision had hit home with her; almost business-like, seemingly indifferent. Of course she didn't mean all that much to him. It was only real people that mattered. The man now sleeping beneath the water had said so.
- Golden eyes flashing disdainfully. "Tricks like these... what have you fallen to? Trying to create life? You of all people should have known that life once taken cannot be returned. So this copy, this person with the false heart... is only a puppet for your own entertainment. Would it matter if I killed her?"
"You cannot kill something that is not alive." Blue eyes cast at the ground, dark and troubled. "But yes. It would matter..."
You cannot kill what is not alive. "It's all right," she said, thinking of this, and managing to summon up a sweet, innocent smile. "After all, Fai made Chii."
From anyone else the words would have been bitter and sarcastic; but Chii did not know about sarcasm. It had been odd enough to smile even when she did not really feel like it. One more thing she had learned from Fai...
It was important to Chii that Fai not worry about her. After all, it was he who was in trouble, who would be in serious trouble when the spell he had placed on his king ended. Not her. It was important that he not worry. It was important that he should remember her smiling like this.
It was important that he should smile back, as he was smiling now, gently, a little wistfully, as his staff erupted the golden light of his magic into the air; it swirled around Chii, rising higher, and Chii felt her body stretching, changing, lengthening, widening -
Felt the person she had been with Fai, when she was, drifting, drifting away like nothing more than a pleasant memory, a dream that the mind she possessed examined curiously, fascinated, and then let go of to drift in the corners of her mind.
Sensed more magic coruscating into life, felt a vague feeling of loss, malformed and uncertain, pass across her mind briefly, then dissolve into nothing. The magic was gone. The chamber was silent, empty of all signs of life.
Time passed... which has always been its purpose.
Glittering like a precious gem, water that had collected near the centre of the strange, crescent-moon net stretched over the pool pulled in on itself, wavered...
Plink.
A single drop of water fell, shaping itself into a sphere that caught the moonlight as it tumbled down and struck the water, exploding into a million tiny, tiny molecules that in turned sparkled in the light. It sent out tiny ripples, that disappeared long before they hit the edge.
Time passed. And the water on the surface of the pool was still and undisturbed.