"Crazy..."

"I'm crazy for feeling so lonely..."

"I'm crazy,,,

"Crazy for feeling so blue..."

Four hours of walking.

Four long, long hours.

Quistis wanted some water and a friendly bench. It didn't even have to be in a shady spot. She just wanted to take off her boots.

A stone, likely picked up along the trail leading away from the small port, was boring a hole through Quistis' sock. Sweat trickled along her spine, licking just between her shoulder blades, yet she didn't move. She couldn't. Edea stood between her and the sun, her form a hazy silhouette against the late-morning light. A chorus of bees hummed along with her, though they zipped about unseen, content to let their star have her stage.

After walking for those four hot hours, trying to beat the sun and the midday heat to the cottage by the sea, all she could do was listen to her mother sing as she tended the garden and the hives. It might have reassured her to say that she was frozen to the spot from exhaustion, too tired to go on, but she knew better. She was nervous, almost frightened. What could she say to Edea? What would she say to her?

"I knew..."

"You'd love me as long as you wanted..."

The lyrics fell from Edea's lips like honey poured from a pitcher. It seemed to Quistis hat she had always loved to hear her sing, but had forgotten it somehow. Perhaps it could be blamed on junctioning, but she didn't think so. Listening to the low crooning in the crooked little garden, remembering how much she enjoyed it, Quistis realized that she had began trying to forget long before she left the island. It had been a childish pleasure, one that she was eager to outgrow and forget.

"And then someday..."

"You'd leave me for somebody new..."

Gray dust wafted up in tiny clouds as Edea moved among the flowers and herbs, dimming the bright indigo hem of her skirt. Quistis wondered if she dyed it herself. There was an uneven, homemade look to the fabric, as if someone had lost patience with the dye and pulled it from the vat too soon, before the pale evening violet could seep into the heavier blue of night. Even though she wasn't close enough to see Edea's fingertips, she caught herself looking for them to see if they might match the mad purple swirls in her skirt.

"Crazy..."

"I'm crazy for feeling so lonely..."

Quistis leaned her elbows against the garden wall and watched her bustle among her flowers, like she used to when she was still that old woman trapped in a child's body. The others played in the flowers or chased butterflies, but not her. No, never Quistis. She watched and she learned. It had been at her suggestion that the hives along the border of the garden were constructed, as it would be a good way for them to save on sugar, as well as giving Quistis something to study. The books weren't enough and Cid's stories had lost their luster. She needed more. She needed to create something of her own, to watch it and learn from it. An apiary seemed perfect and Matron had been eager to agree, so Cid hammered some boards together from diagrams Quistis had found in a dog-eared almanac.

"Worry..."

"Why do I let myself worry..."

The long hike from the sea was forgotten. Four hours of slipping on the layer of powdered shale that seemed to cover the entire island, the sweat stinging her eyes and the sand in her boots, the burrs on her clothes from waist-high coastal grasses-all were forgotten. She was six again and Edea was singing to her because the others didn't understand.

"Wondering..."

"What in the world did I do..."

White flowers shone among the grasses and weeds scattered throughout the garden, all star-bright asters and daisies. Edea once insisted that her children pick those for the vases in the house. They were the brightest, she used to tell them, and their white petals might glow at night. If the sun had flowers bearing his name and the summer storms had their blood red poppies, then why shouldn't the moon have her own fairy bouquet? The moon loved her white flowers, after all.

"Crazy..."

"Crazy for feeling so blue..."

Quistis hated her for lying, even as a child. The darker-hued flowers were favored by honeybees, but the white asters were crowding out the blue sea hollies. Everyone else believed her, but Quistis had done her research. Blue and purple flowers attracted more bees because of ultraviolet light patterns, thus a healthier hive and better honey. She hated Edea for lying to them, for telling them that the moon wanted to share her light with them, but she hated herself even more for wanting to believe her. The desire to grab a handful of white flowers was still so strong that she had to remind herself that she wasn't a child anymore.

She almost laughed at that. It wasn't as if she had ever been a real child in the first place.

The stones on the wall were digging into her arms, so Quistis finally shifted. Her supplies rattled in her pack, startling her.

Edea's body turned at the sound, slowly, like a ballerina in a music box. She didn't seem surprised to see Quistis watching her.

"Hello, Quistis."

Quistis was suddenly very thirsty, but no longer for water. Her voice cracked, though she swallowed hard and croaked a weak greeting. "Hello, Matron."

Motioning for her to enter the gate, Edea set her basket to the ground and held her arms open for a hug. Hundreds of bees rose above her and circled around her, a dark halo purring with a single mind. "Come here, darling. It's been far too long."

Run to her? Run from her? Quistis hesitated at the gate.

"Don't worry, Sweetness. They won't sting you." She smiled and the humming grew louder. "They wouldn't dare."

Bees could sense fear, just like any other creature, so all she had to do was banish it, send the fear away. It seemed simple enough, but the bees weren't what frightened her. Even if they attacked, she had enough potions to counter their venom. What frightened her was the pull she felt, the sensation of falling and falling until she found what she wanted, what the hive told her it held. The hive held secrets and it would share them with her, if only she would sing to them like Edea. She had felt this fear with marlboros and behemoths, but those were fierce creatures. She had always known the bees. They were old friends.

Misunderstanding her hesitation for fear of the swarm, Edea stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her daughter. "My pretty, pretty Quistis. Why has it taken so long for you to come see me?"

Vanilla and sun and rainwater. Edea's hair held the scent of early summer. Quistis buried her face into her shoulder and breathed deeply, trying to forget another past that had seen them both try to kill the other. It seemed so far away, now that her mother was holding her in their garden again. Had it happened at all? With this woman? "I'm sorry. I've been very busy lately."

"I'm not surprised. That's the only way you know how to be, my busy little bee." A quick kiss on the cheek and Edea pulled back, pretending to not notice how Quistis stumbled when she stepped away. For all her childhood insistence that she was so independent, it amused Edea to see her oldest child act like the baby. "Come, come. Let me show you the work I've done for your old hives, yes?"

Holding her hand, Edea dragged Quistis to the far edge of the garden, past the herbs to the white-washed wooden boxes perched on bricks. She wrenched open one of the hives and smiled at the activity within, humming to remind the bees that it was just her and her guest. Their brown bodies vibrated with anger at first, crawling over one another to shield their precious wax combs from the eyes of the intruder, but they soon settled when they heard her sing her greeting.

Edea's hand dipped into the hive, allowing the bees to slink along her wrist, between her outstretched fingers and over her palm. First one, then a dozen, then more and hundreds more until her arm was covered with tiny bodies. Quistis shuddered when she lifted her arm, now heavy with hundreds of insects, and waved as if they had just seen each other across a crowded restaurant. She thought it looked as if Edea had been burned and the blackened skin was moving in an effort to close itself again.

A witch on the stake, but she's laughing as if the flames tickle instead of burn...

"See how they scamper about? All for their queen while she lies inside the hive. Just waiting..."

Quistis felt her stomach lurch when she looked into the hive. The queen was indeed lying inside, just as Edea said, throbbing like some bloated artery. Heat rose from the wax in a damp cloud, bringing the scent of honey to her nostrils.

"Look at her."

Quistis felt so small. "I see her."

"Almost a monster, isn't she? Lazy and ugly, but they prance about like so many chained fairies for her. Isn't she delightful?"

The bees began to lift from her arm, flying in slow circles around the voyeuristic pair, then speeding off in search of more pollen. Quistis could only stare as Edea waved to them.

"Iron burns, doesn't it, my little ones? Fly faster and faster. Break your chains and fly away. You'll burn, burn, burn and then someday, you'll leave me for somebody new..."

The lid was replaced and settled with a solid thunk, then Edea tapped it once and turned back to Quistis. It seemed to fit securely, so that last thump seemed unnecessary. Quistis wondered if Edea struck the hive as a challenge to the queen, then dismissed the thought as silly and childish.

"Do you think she sings to them?"

The question surprised her. Confused, Quistis shook her head. "I wouldn't know, but Seifer once told me that..."

"Pity." Edea's lips pulled back in a narrow smile at the mention of Seifer. Honey and broken wax dripped from the very tips of her fingers. She held one finger to her lips, then met Quistis' eyes and loudly sucked it clean. "A pity indeed. They really are such peculiar creatures to dance without a song."

She stepped closer and dabbed the other fingertips on Quistis' lower lip, leaving a small amount of sun-warmed sugar behind. "Here. Taste."

Quistis licked the droplet of honey, fearful that if she didn't, she would soon find Edea's sugared fingers crammed down her throat.

"An entire generation is enslaved to produce that honey. Delicious, isn't it?"

Matron has lost her mind. What the hell am I doing here?

"It's..."

Edea didn't wait for her response. Her skirt snapped around her ankles as she collected her basket and the now-wilted flowers, then drifted off towards the house, singing once more.

"Crazy for trying..."

"And crazy for crying..."

Quistis watched her leave the garden, weaving between clusters of lavender and sage. Perplexed, but left with no other options, she followed.


The cottage looked much as it always did, though the walls seemed a bit more sound, shored up as they were with heavy gray bricks. It looked to Quistis as if the roof had been repaired recently as well. The old slates had been replaced and there was an attractive gutter system installed. Quistis wondered how much of it had been done by Cid and how much of it had been done by Seifer, as none of it had been completed the last time she visited with Selphie. Cid had great plans, of course, and talked about them constantly, but never was able to tackle anything more difficult than hanging a picture frame.

Evidence of home repairs littered the yard: a plank here, a few fence posts there, a stack of pipe just outside of the western wall. Chaotic as it seemed, Quistis could sense Seifer's particular brand of organization in the arrangement. It all seemed to say, Do not touch. I'm fixing what you've fucked up, so don't mess with anything.

Everything was familiar and simple. No bees, no garden, and certainly no more singing.

Sniffing at the scent of garlic wafting from the open doorway, her stomach started to growl. Just like Pops had warned her, the sea was a bitch around Centra. After the third or fourth time vomiting into a bucket, she had sworn that she would never touch food again, but the sweet scent of basil and red pepper was making her reconsider her earlier position.

She ducked into the dim kitchen, ready to head up the hall and kick off her shoes, then take a shower before getting down to business, but...

"Mind your head!"

Blinded as she was by the sudden darkness, Quistis was nearly decapitated by a whirring set of blades. She fell squarely on her ass when Edea shoved her backwards, knocking over a couple of chairs in the process.

"Hello, Quistis! Are you hungry?" Cid waved from behind a curious metal contraption, slinging spiced tomato sauce on one wall from the spoon in his hand. Burnished copper coils rose from a kettle suspended over the old-fashioned wood stove, winding over half the kitchen and eventually leading to a heavy glass bottle that was collecting a mysterious clear liquid. Cid's cheeks were so red from the heat that he appeared to Quistis to have been boiled alive. "I have sauce! Made it myself! I hope you like it hot!"

Sauce.

She nearly had her head lopped from her shoulders and he was worried about the sauce?

"Bum-be-dum-dum..."

The heat from the stove was nearly unbearable, but the noise from the machine and Cid's incessant humming was even worse. Occupied as he was with preparing lunch, he missed Edea's look of haggard dismay.

Quistis blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Steam rose to the ceiling with a loud hiss, causing three blades to rapidly rotate in what looked to be a poorly-rigged cooling system. They looked suspiciously like those from an outboard motor, not something that belonged in a quaint kitchen. Metal clanged and rattled, making it seem as if a very nervous knight in very rusty armor was hiding in the broom closet.

Hands over her ears, she yelped, "What the hell is that thing?"

Edea shouted over the racket, "Cid has made this wonderful little machine that distills sea water, so we have a back-up system in case the well goes dry."

"What?"

"Sea water!"

"What?"

The machine gurgled, then fell silent. Edea grabbed a pot lid and hid behind it, but after a moment the hissing and moaning resumed, though one of the jointed seams had started leaking. Quistis assumed this cacophony was normal after seeing Edea sigh in relief.

Cid shoved the kettle off the heat and the noise reluctantly lessened, bubbling away to a sullen whisper. Leaning down so she could speak without screaming, Edea explained, "We had a very bad summer a couple of years ago, very dry, you see, so he went to the shed out back and constructed this..."

Quistis squinted. "This abomination?"

Edea's eyes cut to her husband, who was happily humming his little cooking song as he stirred the tomato sauce, oblivious to her displeasure. "This clever machine."

Quistis decided that they had very different ideas on what defined the word 'clever', but she kept her mouth closed. Judging from the way Edea's eyes narrowed, she had a feeling that someone, likely Seifer, had already argued the definition with her.

Edea helped her to her feet, then righted the chairs around the table. Quistis took a seat, her mind already spinning with ways to improve Cid's distillation apparatus. All she needed was a blow torch, a few pipes, and a free afternoon...

Edea fell into a chair next to her and massaged her temples. "Make some tea, won't you?"

Her words were clipped and short, but not harsh in the slightest. Quistis was relieved. This was the voice she recalled telling them to wash their hands for dinner, to clean the windows or wash the dishes or to stop fighting for Hyne's sake. This was her mother's voice, just Matron and nobody else, much different from that...that woman in the garden. Tea. Yes, tea was a wonderful idea. She needed something boring and mundane to remind her that she was having a perfectly normal tea with her mother instead of trying to keep madness at bay with a potion concocted from dried leaves.

Carefully avoiding the homemade fan, she moved to the cupboard that stored the cups and saucers. Choosing two that were chipped less than the others, she set them on the table and added sweet-smelling leaves to the teapot. The clatter of china on saucers was as familiar as the sound of her footsteps on the floor.

Cid already had water boiling for his wife's afternoon ritual. He moved to the table and filled the pot without a word, then returned to his sauce, humming all the while. Quistis thought she heard snatches of the song Edea was singing in the garden, but it was hard to tell. He had noticed that there were only two cups. Quistis wanted to feel guilty about excluding him, but she couldn't. Not yet.

While they waited for the tea to steep, Quistis took a long look at Matron. Her skin was far too pale to have spent all morning outdoors in the Centran sunlight. Given that her memories were so fractured, Quistis couldn't remember if those twin white streaks had always been in Edea's hair or not, but she didn't think so. She looked exhausted. And those smudges beneath her eyes. Was she sleeping? Did she have a vitamin deficiency? Was she suffering from some sort of disease? Had the witch's presence in her mind taken a greater toll on her than anyone had thought? Why were her...

Edea chuckled. "I hope I don't look all that old."

"I didn't say...I was just...I'm sorry, but..."

She waved off Quistis' apology. "Oh, you didn't have to say anything. You have the same look on your face that Seifer did when he came home."

Quistis raised her eyebrows. "The same look?"

"You're both painfully obvious sometimes. You both could take lessons from Zell. That boy is a mystery to me." Edea cupped Quistis' face in her hands, then ran her thumbs along her cheekbones and brushed her hair to either side of her face. "Closer, darling. Let me look at you without the sun lying to me. I had to...get out of the garden."

Were those lines around those pretty blue eyes? Surely not. Quistis had always been confusing to her, very much an adult in miniature instead of a little girl. The others had grown up, but she was a woman from their first meeting, no matter how small she was.

Hello, Quistis. It's very nice to meet you.

It's nice to meet you too. Thank you for having me.

My! Aren't you well-mannered!

Thank you, ma'am.

I think you'll like living here. We play games and pick shells from the sand and sing and...

I'm not much of a singer.

Well, I'm not either, but it's fun to sing anyway, isn't it?

Yes, I guess it is, ma'am.

Would you like to meet my husband? He's making waffles for us.

Yes ma'am.

Then let's walk to the house and I'll introduce you to each other.

To see her face catch up with her ancient eyes saddened Edea more than she care to admit. She was going to say as much, since she had never been able to lie to her, but a pot clattered to the stone floor before she could speak. Cid yelled an apology, but she ignored him. "You are absolutely filthy today. How long have you been walking?"

"Not all that long. Just a few hours."

"In this heat?"

"It's not that bad."

Edea squinted, halfway considering tossing Quistis into the tub like she used to do with Selphie. Of course, Quistis had always been a neat child. She had never argued about bath-time, nor had she ever tried to use moves inspired by too many nights watching ninja movies and documentaries about spiders. Edea's back ached just thinking about it. "Not that bad...look at yourself. You look like a tiger with all those streaks of sweat on your face. What on earth do you mean by coming here?"

Quistis laughed. I'm worried, I'm scared, I'm having terrible nightmares, I can't control myself, I want my mother, I had to get away from the people that love me, I want to run, I need to talk to Seifer, I want to run, want to run, want to run...

"I honestly have no idea, Matron."

Edea rubbed the bridge of Quistis' nose. A bit of burned skin rolled off and fell to the floor. Seifer had told her the same thing, with the same flat laughter in his voice. Both of them were terrible liars.

And then someday...

You'd leave me for somebody new...

Suddenly dizzy, Edea shook her head. The heat had gotten to her in the garden. Yes. That was all. She smiled when Quistis drew her eyebrows together in a concerned frown. "No idea, eh? Well, before you go back into the sun to find this idea you don't have, I want you to find a hat. You're going to be more wrinkled than I am if you allow yourself to get burned again."

"Yes ma'am."

Edea wanted to scream. Her eyes were too old and her voice was pleading just as it had when she was that peculiar child.

"Eat some lunch with us first, then I'll tell you a good spot to...find ideas."


Note: Song lyrics: Crazy, written by Willie Nelson, though made famous by Patsy Cline. I just think the lyrics work for Ultimecia/Edea in some insane way.