Disclaimer: Moogles will rain from the sky before I own this game.
Hey! I'm alive! I've been busy with school, not to mention a severe attack of laziness and writer's block. But, World of Ruin finally! I'm still crafting the whole plot sequence, but so far it looks as though there will be nine more chapters after this one.
Admittedly, a few lines here are a repeat of my one-shot Setting of Two Suns. There is another Lord of the Rings line in here, and some stuff from Buffy. I'm sad, I know. There's also a near-direct line from T. S. Eliot's poem I posted in the first chapter.
Chapter Nineteen: Solitary
Every day was the same. Not that Cid could distinguish between the days anymore. There was light, and there was dark. Time no longer had meaning. Almost like a dream. Or perhaps like death would be more accurate.
Everything was dying. A veil of murky haze deprived the land of the sun's light, and the oceans were turning toxic. Plants withered. Animals collapsed and rotted. Maybe even she was dead.
But no. She still breathed. Her heart still beat. Every so often, her eyelids would flutter as if struggling to open, though they never did. No. She had to be alive. It was the only thing keeping him sane. The only thing keeping him from the cliff his one-time companions had so eagerly embraced.
"The sleeper will wake," he muttered as he puréed a fish with seawater for the umpteenth time. A fit of coughs wracked his ailing body. He ignored the blood that painted his lips. "The sleeper will wake."
Cid gingerly scooped a bit of the fish paste onto his finger and passed it through the comatose woman's lips. Closing her jaw around it, he gently massaged her throat until her swallow reflex kicked in. Removing his finger, he dipped into the fish once again, and for hours, the tedious feeding continued.
"The world bleeds, but the sleeper will wake."
((ooo))
The swirling blackness slowly melted to soft grays. Eyes moved under closed lids. Fingers twitched.
Sound began to register: the distant swish of water. The bitter tang of a dry mouth, tainted by the lingering taste of sickly fish, served to draw her farther out of the monotonous nightmare.
A dry hacking cough breeched the near silence, followed by the clatter of some unknown object and a body crashing into a piece of furniture before collapsing to the floor. The coughing ceased, a door creaked shut, and her eyes flew open.
She couldn't see more than a light blur.
Panic set in.
She closed her eyes and rubbed at them instinctually. Reopening them, the blur slowly became more in focus. Against the complaints of her weak and stiff muscles, she struggled into a sitting position and looked around. She was in a small cottage, or shack, as would be more precise. The roof was partly caved in. The windows were broken. The northeastern corner of the wall was missing.
She pushed blonde hair out of her face, hair that was much longer than she remembered. Swinging her legs over the side of the cot, she planted her feet on the cold floor and stood up. Her legs nearly gave out, and she had to lean against the cot for support.
It was then she saw the fish.
Nearby, a crude platter of fish lay strewn across the floor. Amidst them, an arm. The arm led to a torso, the torso to legs, and also a head. A head with a face. A familiar face. A deathly gray face.
"Cid?" she croaked. With shaky steps, she drew closer. "Cid?"
She let the weakness win and sank to the ground, staring at him. Hesitantly, she reached out her hand towards the body. Inches away, she stopped. The hand dropped back to her side. Dazed, she pushed herself to her feet, wobbling unsteadily for a moment as she looked around. On the small desk, she saw a tattered parchment. Though her vision was still a bit blurry, she could still make out the words written in charcoal from the fireplace.
My dear Celes,
As I write this, you're sleeping. You've been asleep for, as my best guess goes, about a year, and I'm not sure when or if you'll ever wake up. If this letter finds you, then my heart would fill with joy that you found you're way. But, it also means that I'm gone, and you'll find that the world has gone and changed on you. I wish the world was a better place for you to wake up in. By now, I'm sure you feel very much alone. But remember that you're never alone. You'll always have me. And the item I've been working on in the cellar. If I ever get it finished, you'll have your chance at freedom from this wretched island. If not… There were several others who washed up on shore here. Nearly driven insane, they made their peace up on the cliff on the north side of the island. A leap of faith. Perked 'em right up! Maybe I'm a little insane, too. But you kept me going this last year. And I can only pray this letter finds you someday, and finds you well.
Love always,
Cid
She dropped the parchment as she backed away, turning to stumble out the door. Walking aimlessly, she saw what the world had become. Dried. Poisoned. Dying. A wasteland and deathtrap to all living things. Except the cockroaches. Immune to the poison, they thrived on the dying. Colonized the waste.
"Is this Hell?" she asked numbly.
No. But you will know it before the end.
Her shoulders sagged in disillusionment. "What end, Shiva?" There was no response. "Answer me!" The only sound was of the waves crashing into shore. "You were always there before!" She let out half a sob. "But now you are silent…"
Looking up, she saw she was at the base of the cliff Cid mentioned. A bitter laugh escaped her lips. Wearily, she followed the steep path to the top, thinking it would give her a different perspective of the world.
It didn't.
Aside from the small cay she was stranded on, there was nothing but brown ocean in sight, reflecting the endless brown sky. Another chuckle broke through the thick air, one that anyone watching would call insane, until it dissolved into sobs of despair. It quickly turned to anger.
"WHY?" she screamed at no one. "WHY MUST YOU TORMENT ME? WHY MUST I BE MADE TO SUFFER?" Her voice dropped to a choked whisper. "To suffer alone?"
A cold breath of wind caressed her cheek, lifting her eyes to the edge of the cliff.
"Leap of faith… Is this the answer?" She looked out over the desolate island. "The world's slowly ebbing away… Is this the way the world ends? Not with a bang, but a whimper…?"
She closed her eyes. A year. A year had passed since Kefka rose to godhood. A year since she failed. Failed to be a general, failed to be a rebel. Leo and Gestahl were dead. Who knew if Terra or Locke or any of the others had survived. Even Cid was gone. What was left for her now if not death? She already suffered lifelong torment, so if she truly was still alive and not in some hell dimension, how different could death be?
Unaware of the mournful tear that streaked down her face, she allowed herself to lean forward, feeling her feet leave the safety of the solid ground as her body plummeted. As she fell, she felt a strong zephyr of wind sweep past her.
((ooo))
A sweet melody caught Celes' ear, the gentle plucking of a harp pervading the ethereal mist. It took her a moment to realize the voice humming the melody of the strings was her own. The reflection in the mirror mocked her as she tied a ribbon in her hair, but when she looked up, it wasn't her face she saw. A tower rose before her.
A breeze caught her gray cloak as she looked down on Thamasa. The village was rebuilt, but the specters of flames raged on. The crackling of burning wood grated against her ears, turning to a high drone. A beam of black light leapt from the tower, scorching the land, and the buzz grew shrill. Her fingers rubbed her forehead in an attempt to appease the static noise. When two hands came down onto her shoulders, an image of Kefka's face flashed in her mind, and she jumped. At Locke's touch, the buzzing dissipated, and the flames evaporated, but the ache still remained.
"Are you all right?" She mumbled an incoherent response to the man behind her, and the thief leaned over her shoulder to peer into her face. "Celes, you're shaking."
Even as his breath tickled her neck, she looked down to the sword in her hand, the obsidian blade reflecting flames that were not there.
"It's the Ragnarok."
A prick in her arm drew her attention. Looking down, she saw the sixteen-gauge needle disappear into her limb. As the fluorescent blue liquid seeped out into her vein, she grew cold.
Looking up, Celes watched as a gold circlet descended down on a girl's head. The young one struggled against the restraints imprisoning her in the chair, but the hand holding the crown just laughed. One the metal came to rest across her forehead, the girl's emerald eyes blazed crimson.
Another sharp pain made itself known. Dropping her gaze from Terra's flaming eyes, Celes was hardly surprised to see the arrow sticking out of her chest. The sunlight wavered, and the chill spread. Her rapidly clouding eyes lifted to the sky to where a form in black stared down at her over his crossbow. She visibly flinched in recognition of the assassin and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came as she fell.
A man stumbled and fell face first into the snow. His crude Narshe Guard uniform did little to protect him against the freezing powder as he desperately reached for his rifle. The iron beast behind him neither slowed nor changed course, and the ground trembled. The man looked over his shoulder and saw the beast overhead. Just as his fingers touched the cold metal of his weapon, all went black.
Her vision faded as her head hit the brick wall. Her chains held pulled taut, and the guards sneered. She tried to whisper an incantation, but found she had no voice. Outside, a hailstorm battered the rooftops and pavement, each frozen stone sending a spectrum of sparks dancing over wet stone. A shadow fell across her, and her manacles dropped from her wrists.
Columns of smoke distorted the red sky, rising above the web of iron and steel of an industrial metropolis. The drone of an airship in the distance permeated the smog, and from amidst the dense pillars and steel jungle raced the blimp-shaped vessel, pursued doggedly by several smaller crafts. Without taking his eyes off the horizon ahead of him, the silver-haired pilot withdrew a trio of razor-sharp metal cards from within his trench coat. The scout ship closest to the deck combusted as the projectiles struck one of its twin engines with flawless accuracy.
The aerial chase slowed to a crawl, and the columns of steam turned to white marble, the billowing pollution hardening to accentuating streaks of gray. An all-encompassing glow radiated from a seemingly unknown source, bathing the entire white hall in the purest of light.
Celes blinked. "Am I dead?"
Squinting through the brightness, she spotted a familiar silhouette. His back was turned as he appeared to be looking for someone, but the careless blonde hair and travel-worn jacket were unmistakable. She almost called his name but stopped.
His bandana was missing.
Hearing a quiet rustle behind her, Celes turned, shocked to see herself standing mere steps away at a floor-to-ceiling window, the operatic ball gown gracing her figure. The doppelganger stared out the clear glass, simply waiting.
Footsteps echoed in the hall.
The soprano turned towards the approaching thief, and the vision of the gown faded. Celes threw herself into Locke's arms, and a warm gust of wind stirred the Thamasan mist, whipping her cloak around the two of them.
A rumble shook the ground.
Celes lifted her head from the thief's chest, her eyes focused on the tower in the distance. Two gods rose up from the structure, the smaller a mere fly to the gargantuan titan.
"Locke…"
Noting the worry in her voice, Locke turned his attention to the horizon, though still holding her close. Seeing just empty plains under the darkening sky, he turned back to her, close enough that his nose brushed against her cheek.
"There's nothing there."
His whisper did nothing to calm her, and Celes' eyes remained locked on the vision. Beads of sweat lined her brow, and her breathing increased. All of her stress and anxiety collected and pooled and dropped so that her stomach lurched. Locke pressed his lips to the flesh just beneath her ear, and the built-up tension released as the tower exploded in a column of light.
((ooo))
Her eyes flew open. She coughed and gagged, forcing the fluid out of her lungs. Sobbing in despair and wincing in pain, she started to crawl out of the water and up the sandy bank, but she collapsed onto her stomach. Salty waves of water rushed up and around her, stinging, biting, and burning her open wounds, compelling her claw her way forward, reminiscent of when she suffered the Gauntlet.
Just when the pain was becoming too much to bear, Celes felt a cool hand lift her chin. A strangely revitalizing chill ran through her body, and the pain subsided. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a familiar figure of iridescent blue kneeling next to her.
"Why can't you just let me die?"
Your destiny awaits you.
"You speak of my destiny, but I failed! I failed everyone. I failed Leo, I failed Cid, I failed Terra and Locke…I failed you… Why does everyone always abandon me when I need them most?"
No one abandoned you.
The image of the ice goddess faded to the form of a seagull. A discolored piece of blue cloth was tied to its leg.
You took your leap of faith, Child. Now you must choose to be reborn.
"This… This is my rebirth?"
Put aside the general. Become who you were born to be.
((ooo))
The last of the dirt was shoveled back into place over the fresh mound. The shovel, earlier found in the cabin's cellar, dropped to the ground with an audible clang against the dry cracked earth. A crude headstone sat at the top of the mound.
Celes stared at the grave, her face void of expression. For a moment, her eyes shifted to the second, shallower hole she had dug. Holding back a sigh, she put her Imperial uniform on the floor of the hollow, and, with a more notable hesitation, she laid her Rune Blade almost reverently across the black armor. Sweeping the dirt over the items with her hands, she stood, her dagger in hand—the only personal belonging left unburied besides her pendant, a silver ring, and a simple tunic.
Wordlessly, she turned to the base of the northern cliff, just paces away, and once again began the climb to the top. At the summit, she looked out over the endless ocean.
"I'm sorry, Shiva. I'm not sure I can be that person…not yet…"
She looked down at the dagger in her hand and then reached up to pull her hair back. With a smooth stroke, she sliced through the golden tresses, letting the remaining fall back to just above her shoulders. The cut strands dropped out of her hand, carried out to sea by the wind.
Making her way back to the beach in front of the shack, Celes pushed the raft Cid had crafted into the water. With a final glance over her shoulder at the solitary island, she gave a final shove and lifted herself onto the raft, surrendering her fate to the ocean currents.
Author's notes: Confusing? Good. It should be. I was watching the FMV "For the Lovers" from the FF Anthology, and this just sort of came to me. After jumping, Celes enters a delirious state and sees both the past and what she perceives to be the future. FYI, a 16-gauge needle is traditionally used in horses and other large animals—it's thick.