"And the daughters of the goddess Etro transformed into a great crystal pillar to hold up the planet Cocoon into the sky. Though it lasted many centuries, two hundred years ago, the pillar weakened, and eventually, as the people panicked over what to do, they began to war amongst each other. In the end, all the wars ever did was weaken the pillar further, and it was brought down to the land below. It's crystal sand defiled the land, air, and water, causing many creatures and people to die. Humanity has survived until now, becoming who we are, the final human survivors of the world."
"But there are more people out there, right?" Noel asked optimistically to his grandmother.
"Who knows? Villages are few and far between. It would take much traveling to find the nearest village."
"What was it like?" I asked. "Before the fall of the planet?"
"They say that green plants grew everywhere, and people could grow crops in their villages, the ground covered in fertile land and not the crystal sand we have here today. There were tons of people, many more than in this village, living in big and prosperous cities. There were buildings reaching up to the skies, the sun always shining each day."
We listened to Noel's grandmother day after day, hearing all she had to tell us about. Noel lived with only his grandmother now (as in his mother and father had died), and my dad and I were staying with them, since Noel's grandmother was really nice when she volunteered to take us in.
Yeul stayed with us as well, since Caius allowed her to stay with us as the population of the village shrunk, and Yeul declared Noel's family were trustworthy. We even made an official(ish) declaration that we wouldn't ever prod or use her seeress-y stuff for bad things.
"All right, kids," My dad said. "I thinks that's enough for today. You're grandmother needs her rest, after all, Noel. I think Yanny's coming over soon for your training with Caius. Natarle, you should be heading over to Araea (Pronounced Are-eye-uh) for your archery and weaving lessons. Rigo, James should be expecting you at the forge, no?"
"Yeah, yeah, we're going Papa," I muttered.
We scattered to our respective locations.
Yanny, Noel and I had made a lot of progress over the years in our training. We had long since been upgraded to real swords. I chose two swords, one gold and one silver, about three feet long each, double edged, and a purple ribbon tied around each of the hilts to make sure they were labeled as mine. I could put the two swords together to make then a double-bladed lance, which was pretty useful in quick and rapid attacks. Yanny had more of a katana-like weapon - longer, sleeker, and pretty hard hitting as well as piercing, if a bit slower and harder to swing.
Yanny and I were still competitive, incidentally favoring pretty different weapon styles without even meaning to (we chose to take it as a sign that we were destined to forever be enemies), while Noel seemed to have some kind of conflict with Caius. It was really an on-and-off kind of thing.
With Yanny and I trying to defeat each other most of the time, Noel was the most determined to defeat Caius when he became strong enough. Caius had one of the big and bulky swords, which he swung with ease (easier than Yanny swung his sword, even though his blade was much thinner and should've been lighter, might I add), and as Noel couldn't beat him at his own game, he went with two swords like me, but one of his swords was larger and fancier, while his second sword was downgraded slightly and put into a sheath on his main sword.
Apparently, Caius himself said that Noel was the most likely to surpass him, but Yanny and I weren't so much interested in defeating Caius as we were each other. He said there could only be one Guardian in the end, and once we were all strong enough, we would all fight (though not to the death) to see who would fight Caius (this time, yes, to the death).
We were fully willing to let Noel take the role of the Guardian, but though he was determined to defeat Caius, he wasn't very keen on actually killing him. It was a running argument between the two, though nothing was really done about it, as in, Noel didn't give up trying to become stronger, and Caius never gave a confirmation that there was another way for Noel to gain the power of the Guardian without killing his superior and friend.
And so we grew stronger. Natarle was pretty amazing with her bow, and did use a dagger for close combat as well. Not to mention she could weave like a goddess, and made some awesome tapestries of the things that Noel's grandmother explained for presents, and some cool images of the rest of us, like a family portrait, or some depictions of us fighting each other or ourselves.
Rigo loved to forge all kinds of weapons, learning from the forge, James, going out to the mountains to find the minerals needed. He preferred to fight with his fists and feet, but he did like to use a mace if he had to use some weapon.
Overall, we were becoming a great team when it came to fighting, and so we were trusted to go outside the village more often, and further out for both hunting and just hanging out.
"Hey, check it out!" Rigo called.
He pointed into the distance, where a large monument could barely be seen in the distance, as the land was pretty dark and it was far out.
"That's the Farseer's Relic that your grandma mentioned, Noel!"
We had never been so far out from the main village before, and had never actually been to the monument to see it. Apparently, Yeul went there occasionally and used this thing called an Oracle Drive to record the visions she has of the future.
"Let's go check it out!"
"But Rigo!" Natarle scolded. "Only the seeress and her Guardian are supposed to be allowed over there with the Oracle Drive! Remember the whole "knowing the future can cause dangerous stuff?!"
"Well Rei, Yanny, and Noel are all her Guardian's subordinates, so that means we're all good!"
"But…! Does it work like that?"
"If it does, I'd assume that our job is to prevent him from touching the Oracle Drive," I said.
"Rigo!" Noel called as we hurried after him.
We ran on the long trek to the monument. As we got closer, we saw the monument was three identical women, one standing a little higher than the other (you know, like a family photo or something). Apparently, they were supposed to be Yeul, though they looked a lot older than the pre-teen that we knew and loved. In front of the monument was the Oracle Drive in all its glory.
"Whoa, cool!" Rigo exclaimed.
"Rigo, be careful with that!" Natarle chided.
"I'm not gonna break it," He argued.
"Knowing you, of course you will. You can break things with just a look."
"Oh, I'm offended!" He said dramatically, before grabbing her arm. "How could you be so harsh?! I thought you loved me!"
She shoved him away while rolling her eyes, but a smirk fought it's way across her face, which she tried to hide with a scowl.
"Whatever. Just be careful Rigo, seriously. Even if we don't get in trouble, Rei, Yanny and Noel could for letting you come over here and not stopping you."
"How do you think you activate this thing?" Rigo asked, completely ignoring her.
"Rigo!"
"I think you just, like hold you hand over it and will it to activate?" Yanny offered.
"Yanny!" I protested.
"What? A little curiosity didn't hurt anyone!"
"Curiosity killed the cactuar! What if we see something we shouldn't?! O-Or we see something bad and then know it has to be true no matter what! Prophecies are like that, you know? They're really hard to change, and the whole point is that the seeress has to make sure her visions come to pass! She can't use her ability to alter time and fate or risk creating a worse fate for thousands of others!"
"You're thinking too much, Rei," He assured me. "Besides, prophecies are vague, right? No matter what we see, we can interpret it however we want, and we can just ignore what we see and let whatever happens happen. Come on, aren't you just a little curious about the prophecies and how the Oracle Drive works?"
Before he could give me the chance to answer, he put his hand to the device and it pulsed with energy as it activated. Just above it, an image appeared. Inside, we saw Yeul in some other village, where it was significantly brighter, picking a white flower. From the momentary image, I noticed that the village was buried in the same crystal dust that we had now, and that it didn't exactly look much better than our own village in terms of the quality of the buildings and architecture.
The scene then flipped to Caius fighting a Behemoth, and considering we'd seen demonstrations of his powers before, it wasn't really new. He slashed rapidly with his large sword, even causing the large beast to flinch back under the assault. Then, it held his ground and began to glow with an aura of power, its muscles bulging and shifting before it stood on its hind legs and ripped the sword from the back of its head off with a roar and a surge of energy.
"Ouch," I muttered. "How do those things have swords there?"
"Evolution, my friend," Yanny said.
The monster now had the ability to slash back at Caius with it's own weapon, and having increased mobility. It slashed horizontally, and then brought its weapon down right upon Caius. The Guardian blocked the attack though, throwing the attacking blade away. Caius quickly gained the upper hand, stabbing his sword into the ground to send out a Blast Wave, and while the monster was distracted, he concentrated and then held out the Eye of Bahamut on his sword to release a bunch of little black spirits that debilitated the monster significantly. After that, Caius just wailed on the thing until it was dead.
The Oracle Drive's image blackened before it powered down.
"Well, guess you guys were worried for nothing," Rigo said. "That was hardly interesting."
"If you'd paid attention, you might realize there were tons of things in that vision that we could bring to question," Noel pointed out.
"Didn't you say paying attention to too many things in here could be a bad thing?"
"There are some things to the careful observer," Natarle said. "But best we take Rigo's point of view here and ignore them. We don't want to figure things out that we aren't supposed to, after all."
"I don't know about you guys, but that was boring," Yanny said. "I'm up for a little hunt. Anyone wanna join?"
"I'm game," Noel agreed.
"Whoo! Let's go kill some stuff!" Rigo whooped before hurrying off with Yanny back into the more monster-infested areas behind the village. Noel hurried to follow them, probably to make sure the two didn't go and take on an Adamantoise or something, while Natarle and I hung back and followed at a walk.
"Those two are the very definitions of impulsive and overconfident," I muttered. "I swear, they're gonna get themselves killed at this rate."
"Oh yeah, but no one's allowed to kill Yanny but you, right?"
"Correct."
"Well at least you're both not completely out for each other's blood. Try and keep it that way, will you?"
"Oh, we're not gonna kill each other. At least, not any time soon."
"I'm serious. My uncle went out on a hunt two days ago and didn't come back. Our numbers are dwindling, Rei. And all the women left in the village aren't able to have any children - at least, most are too afraid to since it basically guarantees their death. Noel's mom died in childbirth, Yeul's mother did, and mine. I live with my dad, my big brother, and my aunt, but my aunt's gotten sick, and you know there's little we can do to help her."
"I…I'm sorry, Nat."
"It's fine. But the point is, you and I need to band together to keep those two idiots from getting themselves hurt and killed. We're practically the only sane ones of the group - besides Yeul, of course - and even Noel is getting reckless, going and fighting tougher enemies in order to prove he's strong to Caius, and then barely surviving, only to brag about it as if it were nothing and then being sent to fight worse."
"We can do it together, right?"
"I worry about Rigo, really. He's definitely the worst. Look at how he activated the Oracle Drive without a care in the world. His hubris is gonna get the best of him one day."
"Worry about him a lot?"
"Obviously. I'm the only one left to look after him when you, Yanny, and Noel are all at your lessons with Caius."
"Well, I just think it sounds like you two are close."
She scoffed, suddenly going defensive.
"What are you implying?! Rigo?! That idiot?! What? You think I like him?! As if! I'm just concerned that if he kicks the bucket, Yanny will get all upset and then wreak havoc on he rest of us! And if he gets upset, you end up getting upset because you two are always concerned for each other and consequently end up mirroring each other, causing the madness to multiply exponentially between you two, making Noel's and my life hell in the process!"
"Well, I never said that - the whole you and Rigo thing (at least out loud) - but sure, you two seem nice together."
"W-Whatever! We go just about as well as you and Yanny."
"Oh no. You and Rigo are cute. Me and Yanny are AHHHHH! You know, constantly trying to murder each other?"
"Oh, you know neither of you really mean it, and maybe it did start out as a little rivalry between us as little six-year-olds, but I think that now you're just using it as an excuse to deny your feelings, since you two would sooner lose to a Chonchon than ever admit to something like that before Yanny did. Heck, even if he did, you'd probably still deny it all."
"Are you suggesting I live in denial?"
"Sort of."
"I'm only living in as much denial as you are, Nat."
"I'm not living in denial!"
I shoved her and ran off, laughing.
"Rei, get back here!"
"Hey, Nat!" Rigo called. "Watch this!"
He raised his mace over his head and slammed it down, causing crystal sand to go flying everywhere and causing a shockwave that threw three Gorgonzolas back.
"Ha! Yeah!"
"Rigo! Watch your back!" Noel shouted, but Rigo was already launched forward by a fourth Gorgonzola attacking him from behind.
"Rigo!" Natarle bolted past me and to Rigo while Noel and Yanny dispatched the large gooey monsters.
I moved to follow her, but then my vision began to become blurry. My head didn't necessarily hurt but it blurred and shut down. I couldn't feel anything anymore, and I'm not sure if I continued running or not.
I saw Yanny taking me out on a hunt. I nearly fell down into the chasm leading to the Black Sands. Yanny caught my hand and held me close. He kissed me.
Noel's grandmother smiled to me, pressing something into my palm before her eyes closed. For good.
My father was lying in bed, sickly pale. I was beside him, holding his hand. I was crying. His hand went slack. He took his last breaths before my eyes.
Natarle now laid sick in bed. Rigo was the one with her. She smiled to him. He kissed her. And that was the last thing she ever knew.
Rigo and Noel were arguing. I couldn't hear about what. Rigo turned and ran. He never came back.
Yanny held my hand as he spoke to me. Then he let go. He turned away. He left to see Rigo once more.
Yeul was in Noel's arms at the Farseer's Monument. She smiled, put her hand to his face, made him a final promise. And then she went limp, Noel's tears falling to her still-smiling face.
I fell against the wall in my home, tears falling down my face. I sunk to the floor in despair. I knew it was coming. I was afraid. As I raised my head I opened the Eyes of Etro.
Yeul. "The timeline has been warped. I see the end. The pillar crumbles to ash and sand. We will meet again."
Yanny. "I think…death is the real eternal life. That's why I'm not afraid to die for you. Then I can be with my loved ones forever."
Natarle. "You should take the chance to be happy while you can. Every second could be your last."
Rigo. "I do not like her!"
Noel. "I promise, I won't ever say I regret knowing you. Not anymore."
Rei. "And Noel Kreiss? Don't you ever dare forget about me."