...aaaand we're back! 5 years later and I'm still working on this story. This particular chapter has actually sat half-finished in my documents for years... very difficult to pick off from the middle when I had literally no notes indicating where I was going with it. Ah well, hopefully no one will be able to tell!

At twenty years of age, Terra laments never having the chance to be a rebellious teenager. (Bad Terra is way more fun to write than good Terra!)

Teenage Terra-way

THE GREAT HALL of Figaro Castle was laden with brightly-coloured trimmings and flourishes. Red and lilac bunting trailed from the minstrel's gallery, down to the arched double doors. Vases of violets, junipers and sweet peas embellished every window-ledge, while a towering bouquet of lilies and roses intimidated the central banquet table. Surrounding this mass of flora were dishes piled with finger sandwiches, legs of cold meat, mini pies and quiches. Elegant cake stands towered with savoury and sweet pastries, miniature éclairs and pastel macaroons. There were plates of sliced cheese, bowls of fresh fruit and baskets filled with freshly-baked bread rolls. Servants flitted between the hall and kitchens, bearing great jugs of red wine and ice-buckets filled with bottles of the finest, provincial champagne.

Amidst the colossal platter of food sat a gigantic four-tier cake. The delicate layers of sponge were supported by pillars of solid chocolate, and intricately-decorated with curls of piped frosting. Across the very top tier, a message had been iced with the awe-inspiring skill of an esteemed calligrapher:

Happy 20th Birthday

To The Most Incredible Girl in the Whole, Wide

world

"Do you think it's enough?" asked Edgar, hands clasped to his face. His twin glanced sceptically between the table, which was threatening to collapse at any given moment, and his brother's apprehensive expression.

"Oh, it's enough to feed the five thousand alright." Sabin clapped a firm hand upon his brother's shoulder. "Enough to make her fall for you though? We'll have to see!"

~̃*~*~̃

Terra had been absent from the morning's proceedings, having chosen to spend some time at the orphanage in Mobliz. Since the reappearance of magic, the former Magitek Knight had been nervous about attempting to morph into her Esper form, leaving Setzer to reluctantly paddle them both overseas in his broken hulk of an airship. Their voyage had, at the very least, granted the remaining Returners with a few precious hours to finish decorating the hall and lay out an abundance of birthday gifts.

While the others were busying themselves with birthday-related tasks, Edgar stood engrossed before the hallway mirror. The King was teasing a few strands of blonde hair from his plait to achieve his classic 'just rolled out of bed this gorgeous' look, when he froze suddenly at the distant echo of voices. Edgar's pale brow furrowed as he strained to listen over Locke's tuneless rendition of the Spinach Rag. Then, his misgivings confirmed, the King uttered an effeminate yelp.

"Presents! Then everyone in positions!" He waved frantically to a small space which had been cleared at the end of the banquet table. Kefka watched, visibly nauseated, as Celes and Sabin obliged. Locke leapt down from his stool, clapping his hands together in satisfaction.

"Do I have time to put my name on ours?" he whispered, with a sly side-glance at Celes. His creeping grin faltered as he caught her eye, for a faint frown-line was beginning to form above the bridge of the ex-general's nose.

"What do you mean by 'ours'?" she asked, puzzled.

"Our present." Locke rocked back onto his heels, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. "I figured this was the easiest way of letting everyone know about us and our…" He glanced about himself, before dropping his voice conspiratorially. "…fresh start."

Celes stared wordlessly.

"I did bring the sheet music for our song too," Locke continued, "So, if the band-"

"Our song?"

"Yeah. Aria di metro carrot… carrier…" Locke scratched the back of his head. "That opera one."

With a firm grasp on his arm, Celes steered the adventurer out of the others' earshot. Once safely at a distance she drew a breath, weighing up her choice of words carefully. Fearing that the conversational path which lay ahead was paved with eggshells, Celes attempted to tread with feather-light care.

"Locke, about what I said the other day… I didn't mean, you know… joint gifts and… er… love songs…"

"Hurry up and hide you two!" an angry voice hissed suddenly from within a large, terracotta urn behind them. Locke and Celes just managed to disappear beneath the tablecloth in time, as two shapes emerged in the doorway.

"…and everything was yellow for some reason. Then I woke up. It happens every time I fall asleep-"

"SURPRISE!" exploded a tumult of voices. Kefka, who had leapt onto the table to seize the closest present, jolted so violently that he fell to the floor. With a startled scream, Terra spun around to her companion and gripped him by both arms.

"Setzer! I had no idea it was your birthday!"

~̃*~*~̃

Once everyone had materialised from their hiding places, Terra was forced to quickly repair the anticlimactic atmosphere of the failed surprise party. She assured all her guests that she did indeed remember her date of birth, and of course she could recall celebrating it each year. Terra insisted that this wasn't her first memory of a birthday with cake and gifts and friends… despite her voice tightening with emotion at each syllable. By the end of her explanation, Terra's proximity to tears made it too dangerous to speak; she simply gestured at her enormous birthday cake and whined like a strained violin string.

"…and this is why we never celebrated her birthdays," Kefka muttered darkly. "Any more sickly-sweetness and I'm gonna need an insulin shot!"

It mattered not whether Terra was emotionally-equipped to deal with the onslaught of generosity, for the party was soon back on track. The Returners seated themselves at the banquet table and, as the band played on and drink flowed freely, Terra began opening her gifts. Much like a pent-up house cat, Kefka had shredded the paper from the first, exposing a case filled with different flavour tea leaves from Sabin. A second parcel revealed a tinted visor from Setzer.

"For poker," he added helpfully, pointing to the tiny mirrors which had been installed within the very corners of the glasses. "Offers a certain peripheral advantage."

As Terra moved on to a long, cylinder-shaped parcel, Edgar scraped his chair back noisily.

"Sorry Terra, but I had to save my present until last," he announced with a grandiose wave of his hand, "it will take a few minutes to… get ready." He raised his eyebrows, allowing the air of mystery to settle upon his audience, before creeping theatrically from the hall. Having barely looked up, Terra was now extracting a piece of parchment from the tube and unfurling it across the table.

"This is…" She uttered a gasp. "My family tree!"

"It's from me and Cid," Celes explained, "we used his research notes on your father, Maduin, and a few other accounts from the lab specimens to trace your Esper bloodline back six generations!" She looked down at the manuscript with a wan smile.

"You and Cid," Locke gaped incredulously across the table at her.

"Yes, Cid and I decided to make this together." Celes carelessly tossed a sheet of golden hair over her shoulder. "Don't look at me like that, Locke, the man is practically family. I'm sure whatever you've got for Terra will be just as thoughtful." She turned her head, too late to see that the quiche which Locke had lifted to his lips had now crumbled between his clenched fingers.

Quite oblivious to her friend's outrage, Terra was poring over her family tree; her eager fingertips mapping the great web of lines which connected her kinsmen.

"My great grandmother was called Terra!" she cried out suddenly. "Oh, I always wondered whether it was a family name!" Kefka, who had been scrutinising Sabin's case of tea leaves with barely-suppressed disgust, glanced over coolly at her.

"No, Gestahl named you himself." He turned the box over, frowning at the lists of flavours. "It means dirt."

"Oh…" Terra managed in a small voice. She gazed down sadly at the parchment. "Hey, a lot of my relatives seemed to die quite recently… In fact…" Terra hesitated, then glanced slowly upwards. "…they died last year…"

"Thamasa!" Locke blurted out suddenly. He clapped a hand to his mouth, only chancing a brief, fearful look at Terra.

"What's up with you?"

"Nothing!" he spluttered, "I mean… what's Thamasa with you, huh?" Locke's mouth twitched into a nervous grin. Somehow the sizzle of desert heat and distant echo of cricket chirps seemed to intensify. It was quite a welcome relief when Sabin spoke.

"There's one last parcel here…" He lifted a small box which looked as though it had been wrapped by a young child. The label was smeared with ink and lumps of glitter glue were dripping from its corners. Terra received the present warily and, having torn away at the soggy strips of paper, lifted the box's lid. What she saw made her face turn to stone.

"Is this meant to be funny?" Terra's fierce gaze was directed at Kefka in particular. In her hands sat a jewellery box, bearing a dainty tiara which had been embedded with glittering diamonds. Kefka sighed loudly and uncrossed his feet from where he had been resting them upon the banquet table.

"Firstly, I'm not funny. I'm hilarious." He gave a great yawn and hurled the case of tea leaves behind him, where the tin clattered loudly against the castle's flagstones. "Secondly, do I really seem the type to skip around town giving dim-witted blondes pretty tiaras to wear?"

"Yes you do!" Terra exploded, rising from her chair. "You did this before – and now you're trying to trick me again!"

"Oh yeah? Who says I need a tiara to do that?"

"Why do you have to go and ruin everything?!" Terra cried. She turned on her heel and marched out into the corridor. A steady thud of footsteps echoed up the spiral staircase. Kefka stared resolutely after her; arms folded.

"That's right missy. Go to your room or I'll put you over my knee, ya hear?" He slapped his thigh with the back of his hand, leering nastily at the space Terra had just vacated.

"Honestly Kefka!" Celes gasped, shaking her head in disbelief. "Someone ought to go after her…"

"I guess you're right. And I suspect-" Kefka seized Locke by the arm (who had begun to rise from his seat) "-that 'someone' ought to be me!"

~̃*~*~̃

The first few attempts to gain access to the castle's guest room were unsuccessful. Kefka tried bargaining, bellowing, kicking, shoving obscene notes under the door, and, when all else seemed to have failed, he asked nicely. None of it worked.

Threatening to blow the door off its hinges did.

"I don't want to see anyone," Terra moaned as the door creaked open. Two reddened, puffy eyes glared back at him with more hellfire than Ifrit himself could have boasted. A clump of her green hair was matted on one side from where she had presumably just withdrawn her face from her pillow. Kefka edged a glance over her shoulder, where the tell-tale mascara stains against the white cotton of the bed-spread confirmed his suspicions.

"Luckily for you I'm not just anyone then, isn't it?" Kefka firmly planted his boot between the door and its frame. "Move it, will you?" Scowling, Terra stepped back to let him pass through. She drew a corner of her pillow-case to dab at her eyes while Kefka threw himself in the armchair opposite.

"Decided to throw yourself a pity party, huh?"

"I just… I…" Terra gestured silently for a moment, struggling to convey the immense chasm of grief within. Kefka widened his eyes in exasperation and began to wring his hands mockingly back at her.

"Cut it out!" she snapped. "I'm angry, okay? The Empire stole my childhood! I have no memories before I turned eighteen… then I had to spend the last two years of my teens fighting you." She gave a great noisy sniff and wiped her nose with the crumpled pillow-case. "I've never known what it's like to be free to enjoy my life, a-and then you go and give me that- that crown and-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the mage cut in with a wave of his hand, "you're done, right?"

Affronted, Terra gaped speechlessly at him

"Good. Now, the way I see it, you can either sit here and cry like a baby, or… ..." Kefka drew the note out playfully, grinning more broadly still as Terra's expression passed from livid to downright murderous, "... you could start living your life the way you want to right now!"

Terra's mouth closed in surprise.

"That's… actually advice," she acknowledged slowly.

"Of course it is. Like everything else about me, my advice is the best," Kefka nodded solemnly. "Take me for instance… do you think I ever hesitated when it came to doing what I wanted?"

Terra's eyes travelled upwards as she thought back. For a man who had amassed the powers of the Warring Triad, constructed a tower full of worshippers and transformed himself into a winged God with the physique of a Tzenian adonis… she could honestly say that, at the very least, he had not hesitated.

Terra sprang to her feet.

"I want to start today!" she cried. "I want to… to…" She gave a gasp and, with an elaborate twirl, Terra faced Kefka with a triumphant click of her fingers.

"I'm twenty today, so… I want to make up for lost time! I want to be a teenager for a day and just let loose, you know?!" Kefka clapped his pale hands together and gave a great whoop of laughter.

"I'll get the lighter fluid!"

~̃*~*~̃

Back in the Great Hall, the tension in the air was quite palpable. Sabin had just finished scooping up the spilt tea leaves while Locke was still glaring over at Celes and Professor Cid. Taking pity on the young adventurer, the doctor sidled over to him.

"Stomach ache?" he chuckled sympathetically, "I've got a remedy in my coat pocket, although I suspect you may need to go easy on those mini quiches."

Luckily Locke's obscene response was lost in the commotion of Edgar re-emerging into the hall. The young king half-collapsed against the wall, gasping for breath while the leather leash wrapped around his wrist was pulled tautly behind him. His blonde hair was dishevelled while his face was streaked with specks of sand.

"He's a handful, this one! I hope you like him… Happy Birthday Terra!" Edgar turned, flashing his most charming smile at the assembly. Noting Terra's absence, he frowned.

"She's upstairs with Kefka," Sabin explained then, hearing the words out loud, he grimaced. "Oh no."

"You left her alone with him?! What is the matter with you all!" In his surprise, Edgar's grasp on the leather lead slackened; whatever was on the other end made a run for it, dragging the young king off his feet and out through the door.

"Gahhh!"

"Oh brother!" Sabin cried, leaping up to follow. Locke, Celes and Setzer sprinted the other way and up the stairs to where the door of the guest room now stood ajar. Locke nudged it open with his foot. Inside the room was cool, empty and still apart from the flapping of the curtains. Setzer crossed over to the open window, staring down into the expanse of the desert as though expecting to see two retreating forms. All he could make out was the silhouette of an enraged chocobo dragging a man face-down through the sands by the arm. The hulking form of his twin brother wheezed behind them both.

"No sign of Terra and Kefka… where do you think he's taken her?" The pilot turned to glance at Celes, who was watching him with pursed lips.

"That's if he's taken her somewhere. Terra might have left by choice. And when that girl ventures off alone, she ventures to Zozo."

~̃*~*~̃

Night had fallen by the time Celes, Locke and Setzer had arrived in Zozo; not that one could tell as the slum was perpetually shrouded in darkness. Rain pummelled against storefronts and drummed down upon the rusty, twisted gables that hung overhead. With capes and coats flung over their heads, the trio sloshed their way down the main street, taking care to avoid overturned bins and the body of a young man who had collapsed face-first into a brown puddle. Locke gave the man's foot a nudge with his own as he passed; he did not stir.

Around the corner, the air hung heavy with the fumes of smoke and tang of stale beer. A cacophony of raucous laughter rang out from the doorway of one of Zozo's pubs. Celes had to assume the building fitted this particular description anyway, for its sign was hanging haphazardly above the doorway and was smeared with too much graffiti to remain legible. That, and part of its roof was steadily being consumed by flames.

"Excuse me?" she inquired, removing her head from her white cape and wiping her sodden hair from where it was plastered to her face, "have you seen a girl pass through here?" The man cracked into a grin, revealing a multitude of broken teeth.

"Girls? No girls here." Despite his insistence, a high-pitched scream sounded several floors above them, culminating in a tinkling of laughter.

"Even so…" Celes continued resolutely, "she may have passed through here earlier-"

"It is early!" the man's companion joined in, grabbing onto the gap-toothed individual and hawling himself upright. "It's always 20 minutes past the hour." Both fell against the doorframe, giggling stupidly.

"I didn't ask for the time," Celes snapped. She elbowed her way past them and, no sooner had she rounded the corner, when Terra's crumpled form came into view. The former Magitek Knight was lounging in the stairwell; her tousled, peppermint hair looked wild in the flickering candlelight and she had somehow lost one of her red boots. A few stairs above, Kefka was stumbling down towards them, singing at the top of his lungs. He was naked from the waist up and had tied his patterned shirt around his head.

"AND NOW… THE END IS NEAR!"

Upon this screeching, Terra made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a hiccup, then lifted her head. Her face was barely recognisable beneath a sheen of heavy eye makeup.

"At least that explains the screaming…" Locke stepped forward and knelt down beside her. "Terra… What are you doing?"

"My hero!" she slurred, flinging an arm around the adventurer's neck. She twisted around to face Celes and raised her pale eyebrows, "you know he awlways comes to save me?"

"Lucky you," Celes replied then, with a renewed whiff of smoke from upstairs added shortly, "it's time to go." She stooped and attempted to place Terra's other arm around her shoulders, but the girl recoiled from the young general's touch.

"Eww, no!" Terra grabbed both of Locke's shoulders and, wobbling, made an ungainly attempt to stand. The remaining contents of the bottle she was holding spilled down the back of Locke's shirt.

"Urrgh, how is that warm?!" he yowled, "and anyway-" Locke backed into the wall of the stairwell, trying to reposition Terra's arm around his shoulders. "What do you mean "lucky her"? I've saved you plenty of times, Celes!" The Runic Knight didn't answer, for she was scrutinising the label of Terra's drink.

"Thaz apple joos," Terra informed her, swaying perilously next to Locke. Above them, Kefka uttered a chilling, soprano giggle and lifted a red boot to his lips, tipping the remaining contents into his gaping mouth. From somewhere above them came the crash of timber beams as the roof presumably had started to collapse.

"Jealousss much?" the mage sneered, nodding towards the doorway and hurling Terra's missing boot behind him. Celes glanced to where Locke was gingerly manoeuvring Terra out of the pub. The Magitek Knight's limp form sagged, her arms clasped tightly around Locke's neck. Then her fingertips found Locke's chin. Gently they tilted his head so that her mouth reached his own.

"Terra!" he cried, affronted, "what is with you?!" Even though he had pulled away, just in time, Terra's hand was still warm against his cheek. She gave a small shake of her head, as though in denial of what had almost just happened. Locke stared back, breathless in horror.

"We need to get you home!"

"Soundsss good. My place or yours?" Terra murmured, a sly grin slowly spreading across her features. "The hour is four, boys!" she cried to the group of young men at the pub's entrance, all of whom cheered the announcement. Celes' eyes were granite.

"For the love of Goddess, why is everyone in Zozo so obsessed with time?" she seethed, before starting as an unwelcome hand clasped her shoulder.

"Zozo? Never been," Kefka slurred, wobbled and then tripped down the final three stairs, dropping a potent-smelling cigarette upon the ground. Having remained motionless throughout almost the entire exchange, Setzer plucked the joint from the patterned carpet and took a long, soothing drag.

~̃*~*~̃

With a little medical intervention from Professor Cid, the party were soon back to their old selves. After a thorough stomach-pumping and several pints of water, Terra was able to apologise to the Returners for her lewd behaviour. She urged them to take pity on her for never having enjoyed the freedom of youth and hoped they would understand her attempts to rectify this. As Celes acidly pointed out to her, it was probably unadvisiable for any individual to try to relive the entirety of one's youth in a single evening. It could only ever result in the consumption of a cask of cider followed by an eighth of gysahl greens in a dirty stairwell.

The party was also reunited with the Figaro brothers. Professor Cid set Edgar's arm in a cast while Sabin recounted the tale of their wild chocobo chase through the desert. The beast had sadly been lost to the sandy planes, but Terra assured them that it was the thought which counted. Even Kefka's 'present' to her - a bizarre night of illicit substances, ear-wrenching karaoke and a little arson for good measure, was in its own way, a heartfelt gesture.

Little did they know that, just within earshot, Ultros was sickening at every gooey, soppy word. Snarling, he slithered down the castle's sandy banks until he emerged at the riverside to wash the glitter glue from his tentacles. Perhaps not today, but soon, very soon… sweet vengeance would be his.

Setzer's Airship Repair Fund: 800 gil