Our journey was long and labourious. The Cetra had some large green feathered birds to carry most of their supplies but there was still a heavy pack on every back. I looked ahead in thought, and decided to ask a couple questions.
"So, these 'chocobos' as you call them," I began. "They are trained?"
"Trained? What for?" Ifalna's bright green eyes met mine, kind though confused.
"How else do you get them to follow you? To carry your things?"
Ifalna pursed her lips in thought. Not so much in confusion as choosing her words, I found out. "They simply... Do. It's hard to explain. There is an understanding." She breathed loudly, a sound of mild frustration. "They hear the Planet as we do. What the Planet needs them to do, they do. The Planet needs us, so it needs them to help us."
"I'm not sure I follow, though I think I know what you're getting at," I said. It was still difficult, at times, to fully grasp that this Planet and it's inhabitants shared a deep symbiotic bond, between itself and humans just as much as it to plants and animals.
Ifalna laughed then. "Hopefully it's not as hard to explain recent events at the meeting, hmm?" She gave me a playful nudge, then looked at me, curious. "Isn't it hard?"
"Hard? To do what?"
"Talk without the mind," she said. "With my people I can simply project a feeling of my intent, and everyone understands. I take it it's not the same where you come from?"
"Not at all. Words do get in the way. I admit, it'd be much less complicated to share ideas directly than muddle it up with words."
Ifalna scanned my face curiously as I looked blankly at the path ahead. I had no choice but to focus my eyes away from hers; Talking about my people reminded me more and more of my loneliness and regret. Ever more aware that I hadn't done much to mourn them or honour them. Her big green eyes explored every inch of my expression for the emotions that I felt, and then slowly, gently, I felt her probing my thoughts to find the answers there. So subtly I almost wouldn't have noticed it, until...
I awoke half-blind and wet and cold and afraid.
At first I was so incredibly weary, I could barely move at all. I looked around me, trying to gather as much information as I could. In the distance, there were shapes I could make out beyond an intense fog, it seemed, until I realized it was some kind of fluid. Over a short amount of time, the blur started to clear, and I saw two Cetra standing infront of me, and standing on the floor several feet below me.
This can't be happening, I screamed in my mind. I... Sealed, I had to... Oh no.
The two Cetra were men, both dark of hair and wearing long white cloaks, sewn together and much more modern than I would've expected... Unless. Unless they aren't Cetra at all. One was short and skinny, a younger man with longish black hair, that slowly approached my feet curiously. The other looked older, shadows at the corners of his eyes, and facial hair, trimmed as short or shorter than the hair on his head, and he looked shocked, afraid.
Slowly, very agonizingly, I had to move my left arm forward to try and reach toward the younger man, to warn him. My hand slid against a solid transparent surface. Glass. The older one jumped back, and turned to shout, though I didn't hear his words. Neither by my ears nor my mind. A woman ran to the older one's side, with bright green eyes and long brown hair...
Ifalna. It can't be.
My attention turned to her at once. I reached again for the glass, with more resolve than before. Reaching for her. I hit the glass, then again, and again, each blow with more force than the last. I felt so weak, but I had to do something.
I broke through just as more figures showed up with weapons, I presume, forming a circle around me. My arm was cut on the glass, and on contact with the air and with the fluids draining from the tank I slowly started transforming back to my original, alien self. I had gone in still disguised as a Cetra, but now my body needed to rest. My hand took on it's more wolfish, claw-like appearance, and my shredded wings began to reform, ever so slowly and gradually. As I reached for Ifalna, the younger man from earlier was too close, and I accidently cut his face. At that, the armed men attacked me.
I was swarmed and brutally beaten immediately, but before I lost consciousness again I managed to chortle out three words in the Cetran language.
"Unsealed. Planet. Death."
Through the mayhem I saw Ifalna's mouth drop open in surprise, then turn away, and I felt her agony. Then the painful memories consumed me again.
"What's wrong, Jenova?" she asked gently, green eyes inquiring.
"I was just thinking of my own world," I said honestly, running my fingers through a lock of silver hair.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you distress..."
"It's okay. Not like that. I was just thinking again... About how different things are here." After a moment's silence and morbid reflection, I added: "I hope they never change."