It didn't take a very hard look to see that something ominous was going on at the Iifa Tree.

The arborescent colossus was wreathed in Mist so thick it was nearly tangible, and from the mountain path all travelers could see was a maelstrom of virulent clouds billowing around a giant, dark mushroom. Perpetual neon dusk tainted the obscure horizon, its netherworldly palette steeped in purple shadows, though whether the foul ambiance was lit by a hellish moon or a dying sun no one could descry.

The group had intended to scour the tree the same way they had before, from ground to roots to canopy, and with any luck Kuja would be lurking somewhere along the way. No one expected this to be anything like the last time, however. They had already watched the wizard single-handedly defeat an armada, level a city and tear a whole other world asunder, so what was left? After everything was laid to ruin behind him, they didn't know what Kuja was after anymore, and that unknown was most frightening of all.

At least a few variables were in their favor, however bleak. A fleet of warships wasn't bound to intervene (as far as anyone knew), and the Invincible was now in Garnet's possession. It wasn't viable to pilot an airship half-blind into those branches, however, so the expedition would have to go on foot.

It took a day across the desert before the anomaly that painted the landscape in blood was visible through the Mist, and by then both their destination and problem became evident: it wasn't within the tree--it was far above it, on heights impossible to reach hand-over-foot. At first the demonic eye nestled in the clouds was a terrifying sight, too familiar for the summoners in the party to bear. Dread allayed into anxious speculation as everyone debated the best approach to the portal over the Iifa Tree--if that's what it even was.

They inevitably concluded, "We need an airship." The next problem wasn't procuring one; Terra's greatest battleship was already at their disposal. The issue was...

"So what exactly are we going to do? Fly straight into it?"

Amarant crossed his arms and lowered a censorious look at Zidane, who simply shrugged. "Worked at the Shimmering Island, didn't it?"

Dagger shook her head, transfixed by the unholy star in the distance. "I'm not sure this is quite the same..."

Eiko hopped in place and flapped her arms like a detained chocobo. "We've got to try!"

The bounty hunter was less enthusiastic. "We have no idea what that is up there. It could be a big, pink, fluffy ball of death."

"No can eat, then?" Quina interjected. S/he was ignored out of habit.

Zidane was not deterred by the skepticism. "Whatever it is, Kuja's gotta be behind it. It's the only thing that makes sense. If we follow him, we're sure to figure it out."

The dissenting, disdainful drop in Amarant's tone bordered on a challenge. "That's the worst logic I've ever heard. I can't tell anymore if you're crazy or just stupid."

Not standing for any squabbling in the ranks at this juncture, Freya jumped in. "Well we won't get anywhere by standing around and staring at the sky, Coral, so we might as well get back to the ship and see what we can do from there."

At this point Vivi objected in a tired whimper, "We have to walk all the way back now? It's getting late..."

Steiner cupped a hand over his eyes and panned a look across the clouds, noting the sinking indigo hues. "Master Vivi is correct. Soon it will be too dark to traverse the Mist."

Zidane ticked his tail and clicked his tongue, unable to argue with an invisible sunset. "Tch, I guess... I'd rather not camp out here, but I guess we have to. We can start heading back in the morning."

Thus the group cooked up a campsite, no one daring too far into the malevolent fog on their own. Quina helped catch and roast the nearest piece of meat with legs (that wasn't a goblin--not even Qus found goblins appetizing), and after a brisk, nerveless supper tents were pitched. Though the stretched canvas couldn't ward against the profusion of Mist, it was at least enough to blot out the ghastly view outside. The lurid globe hanging over their heads wouldn't be conductive to sleep, much less pleasant dreams, though everyone did their best to cling to safe, normal thoughts--even if it meant clinging to their tent-mates.

("I'm a big girl and I don't need anyone to hold my hand, no matter how scary it looks out there! But I can see you're still a big baby, so don't worry kid, I'll protect you.")

("What? But I'm not... Oh, never mind...")

Freya chuckled as she overheard the children in the neighboring tent. She was almost content, armor and helm stacked in the corner while she made her bed in coat and blanket, though her companion's fidgeting was about to muss up her tidy niche.

"Zidane, would you settle down?" she snipped.

The boy quit turning in hunched circles like a dog and threw her a perplexed, "Huh?"

She regarded his ridiculous manner with a cocked brow. "Are you all right?"

"Oh." An impertinent grin split his muddled expression. "I'm okay."

"You smile the most when you're lying," she observed curtly.

He tittered and then affected a mocking scowl, nose stuck in the air. "I shall be fine, madam--how's that?"

Freya reached out with her foot and bestowed him a compulsory kick in the side, which the boy absorbed with a chortle. "Cheeky dog."

"Woof woof," he chimed, and stuck out his tongue. His tail reared over his head and his eyes shone like eidolon stones, inviting her to play, though Freya would not be provoked like some child at a school yard. She clucked and turned back to her flimsy bedding, letting him have the immature last word.

"Aww, you're no fun," he grumbled and left her alone. At least they were both in a good mood, circumstances considered. Freya would rather endure his silly banter than any sulking, especially on such a precipitous night as this. Tomorrow, after all, they would be flying headlong into...

Her tail flicked irritably. No, Freya would not think about it now. It was time to rest. She lay on her back and closed her eyes, ears swiveling at lazy attention while her mind indulged in blissful repose. Meditation was a cornerstone to the many skills Burmecian shamans taught their dragon knights, and Freya often found recourse in its relaxing embrace. Soon sleep would cull her senses, if only--

She jerked forward with a furious start when something trod on her tail. "Ouf! What the--you clod, watch where you're going!"

Zidane made no apologies in his clumsy crawl towards the flap of the tent. "'scuse me! I need to go clear my head."

She furrowed her muzzle, concern ousting irritation. "Are you sure that's wise? Our camp is swamped in Mist. It could swallow you if you stray too far."

"Oh yeah, I can take care of myself," he quibbled, and before she could say better the flap shut after him.

Freya wrapped back up in her blanket, refusing to pursue the careless thief. "Hrmph, stubborn fool."

She was barely dozing by the time Zidane returned. He shuffled into place beside her and reclined on his arms with a complacent sigh. Freya peered quizzically at him through a cracked eyelid. "You're back already? I thought you went to 'clear your head'."

"Mmm, I did."

"Well that was awfully quick."

"Heh, I used a guy trick."

"There really isn't much up there to clear out, is there?"

Zidane scratched himself and yawned. "Depends on which head you're talking about, babe."

Freya rolled over with a disgusted grunt. "Ugh, suddenly I get the picture and I don't want it."

"Heheheh." He spent a second gauging her drowsy temperament before launching a banal narrative. "Hey, what's the matter? You need a bedtime story, too? Let's see, once upon a time..."

"Zidane..." she growled, barely humoring his teasing.

"A rat and a monkey laid down in a field..."

"Zidane!"

"...and had a very, very good night's sleep. The end."

"That was atrocious."

"Mmmhmm."

They were both asleep before the irony could hit them.

---

Zidane was not a light sleeper.

Once he crashed it was virtually impossible to rouse him at a decent hour, for as Blank once related to the group, the boy could sleep "like a dead bear in winter." One would surmise that he scarcely moved all night, though the truth, Freya learned after much study on the road, was that Zidane was not a light sleeper--just a lively one. He was prone to flop around and change positions several times a night, and if he ever turned up at dawn the same way he was facing at dusk, something was probably wrong (this was indeed the case following the attack on Alexandria, when the boy spent three unflinching days in a row on the same pillow--unsurprisingly, given his injuries.)

Unfortunately for Freya, she was a light sleeper, and often her companion's nighttime stirrings would rustle her out of dreams. She would usually fall right back to snoozing, any misgivings relinquished to her subconscious, though tonight would not be usual at all.

A sickly, subtle sound rang in her ears--a hiss, as through clenched teeth. She opened her eyes and looked for the source, languidly focusing on the tailed boy through the fuzzy, accursed black light. His back was bowed stiffly, knees in the air and shoulders braced on the ground. A hand was pasted at his side where a dagger was typically sheathed, and his breath was gritted and stumbling.

This looked familiar, Freya realized. Unless he was deliberately milking sympathy (which he thankfully refrained from doing while Eiko was around, lest he get her unwarranted attention), Zidane could be painfully stubborn about--well, pain. Over the course of their journey Freya had become his hapless confidant when it came to scrapes, sprains and bruises, though he was still more inclined to put up a "manly" front and feign wellness than admit any discomfort to anyone. Sometimes Freya wanted to remark that he was too much like Amarant, aspiring to banish any weakness from his image, though the vital difference was that Zidane had to act at it, while Amarant could really pull it off. The salamander man seemed impervious to every element, even pain.

As for Zidane, Freya knew better, though the only time he let his guard down--the only time he ever showed the slightest twinge--was first thing in the morning, on that narrow bridge between vulnerable dozing and cheery consciousness. She was just never intrigued enough to ask, until now. "Do you have a problem?"

Zidane froze, suspended in that awkward position with his breath hitched in his chest as he twisted a bewildered look her way. He responded in slow, cautious deadpan, "Yeah, I've... got a problem with really vague questions that come out of nowhere."

Freya shook her head and propped herself on her elbows, lending herself a better position to rephrase her question. "No, I mean, are you hurt?"

"Hmm?" He relaxed with a huff, back flush to the ground and tail swinging out from under his legs. "Oh. Uh, it's nothing, just, ah..." He grabbed his thigh with another wince. "It's kinda embarrassing..."

"What?"

He rubbed his nose and cast an evasive look up to the ceiling of their tent. "Well I, uh, slept on my tail wrong, and now my hips are killin' me."

Freya drew her lips into a long, flat line, teetering between incredulous and sympathetic. She wasn't aware that there was a "wrong" way to sleep on one's tail, and she would know, being the only other member of their party to own one. "You are kidding."

Truth be told, the long road did such things to a body, and everyone had their own method of "shaking it off" in the morning. While Freya preferred to warm up with a cup of hot tea, Zidane spent his waking routine flexing and rolling until he was limber enough to cartwheel through the whole day. Never had her mind connected this habit with the low-key grimaces and stuttering for air, but suddenly it made sense that he had to stretch the aches away.

"Heh, I wish. Happens to me a lot, actually. Man, it's the only thing I hate about camping out. I was okay with the straw and stuff I got to sleep on back at the old hideout, but it's hard to get comfy out here on the hard ground, you know?" He snickered wistfully. "I used to fight with Blank over pillows."

So, that was all. Freya hummed and lay down again, disinvested with his little dilemma. "There are no pillows here, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, too bad. Alas, I am doomed to be uncomfortable," he glibly moped, one arm draped over his forehead.

"Can't you just sleep on your side?" she suggested, unsure whether to sound helpful or critical; she was still boggling over the technical aspect of this foible.

"Nah, that's not any better," he said. "There is one thing that can help, but I don't have a pillow." He pinned her with an artful leer. "Unless you want to volunteer..."

She didn't trust anything Zidane said in that slick tone. "Forget it."

"Aww. I see how it is, letting your poor friend suffer..." He sniffed, rolled onto his belly and buried his face in his arms.

"Not falling for it. Go back to sleep."

"Spoil'sport."

---

She was dreaming of hot tea--tender, delicious tea leaves, burning in a gale of cinders over a city washed with red rain and grey fire. The monotone bricks sifted to ash and the palace crumbled with thunder and the tolling of sorrowful blue bells. Mist burned her eyes like smoke but she couldn't scream or cry or look away...

That was when he bolted up with a harsh gasp, quick and sharp and tearing her into the present with him. He sat up while she lay paralyzed, clutching solid ground and combing her drifting brain for a single thread of reminiscence. However, by the time she realized she was awake her dream had receded to the scorched wastes of her heart. She melted into her coat with a tired sigh and raked her surroundings, gaze resting on the boy who had once again broken her sleep.

Zidane was doubled over, scrubbing his face with his hands while his tail wrapped twice around his waist in a bizarre self-hug. "Oh man..." he groaned under his breath.

"What is it?" Freya whispered, latching onto any diversion from her own ravaged dreamscape.

"Huh?" He flashed her a vaguely guilty look. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to wake you up. It's nothing."

She snorted at the dismissal. "Huh! Your nothings are awfully blatant. If you were sleeping on your tail again--"

He chuckled mirthlessly at his knees. "Haha. Nah, it was just a dream."

"I see." Not wanting to seem insensitive after going so far to ask in the first place, she pressed, "Do you wish to talk about it?"

"Not really..." he glumly refused. Silence seeped in with the Mist, and neither moved to speak or go back to sleep for a discomforted while.

Then Zidane said something that surprised her. "I think I get why Kuja might've done what he did back there, on Terra."

She wasn't sure which deed he was referencing, but she hardly had to ask. "Oh?"

"He was scared to die."

The dragon knight lay still, contemplating the pall that settled over the tent. Kuja? Afraid? So what if he was? Was that supposed to excuse him? If anything, it rekindled her resentment, her claws digging into her calloused palms. How dare that scourge--that pasty slip of a man--commit such sweeping destruction in the name of cowardice.

Something strange in Zidane's voice curbed her rage, however. "I just keep thinking, what would I have done if I were in his shoes? You remember what he said--that he was just like the Black Mages? He could be running out of time. I don't know if I could..." He didn't finish his thought.

Freya couldn't even begin. She hadn't considered the devil's motives beyond "what will he do next?" so it was difficult to digest such pathos for a man who had all but destroyed their homes and lives.

She couldn't yet voice her consternation, so the boy kept talking, filling the void with solemn musings. "Maybe it's not just Kuja. What if that goes for all of us Genomes? What if having a soul doesn't matter? Maybe I don't have a lot of time in this world, either." He leaned back on his hands and stared into space with thoughtful sobriety that didn't suit him. "...I wonder if this is how Vivi feels."

Despite all her melancholy, Freya had never before registered that grim idea. Zidane was one of the very few and precious constants in her life; she would look at the vivacious youth and assume he'd last forever, never giving it a second thought. He was a sprite--boundless, resilient, stupid, invincible. Even once she learned about the Genome project, what exactly Zidane was and how close they all were to losing him, a comparison to the Black Mages had not occurred to her. It was heart-wrenching enough to count Vivi--poor, innocent Vivi--among those designed to "stop" like spent wind-up dolls, but now she had to contend with the impossible notion that some day--some day perhaps sooner than anyone wanted to imagine--Zidane would be gone, too.

For once in her life, the eloquent dragon knight was at a loss for words. "Zidane..."

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't seem to hear her anyway, until she gently announced, "You can have your pillow, if you like."

The boy glanced back at her, nonplussed; veered away, did a double take, and then gave a subdued laugh once he finally got the joke. "Hey now, I don't want no pity pillow."

"You'll have no pillow at all, then!" she threatened mildly, not even sure what she was offering in the first place. She just wanted to lift the ponderous weight off her stomach.

"Ah, well..." Zidane yawned and stretched across his half of the tent, slipping back into his casual nature and slaying the uneasy moment. "Thanks anyway. Let's try to get some more sleep."

---

The desert fired to life like a boiler room, Mist steaming off the parched earth as a hidden sun set the cumuli ablaze. The sultry air was first to greet Freya that morning, though before she could properly get up and dressed, she grew aware of... something heavy bearing on her middle, like a sack of grain.

When she opened her eyes she beheld a pair of feet. She twisted a weary look over her shoulder, following the legs thrown across her body until she discovered her tent-mate, snoring merrily and apparently satisfied with the arrangement.

"Oh, you little..." Freya muttered, preparing to scold the overbearing boy, though the longer she stewed under his slumbering form, the less she minded him. If not for the already stifling warmth of their tent, she would be cozy enough to go back to sleep... Nonetheless, the day had to begin eventually.

Freya shoved her blanket aside, and Zidane with it. A furry limb wiggled out from the discarded heap of boy and linen and curled like a scorpion's tail, the only sign that Zidane was agitated by the jostle. "Mmm," he purred. "I slept great. I'm gonna use you for a pillow more often."

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

He inertly tumbled backwards, shedding the blanket and getting oriented while Freya assembled her costume. "I had a sexy dream," he drawled while scratching his rump.

"I'm not listening."

He elaborated anyway, his sleep-drugged countenance smeared with a lewd grin. "Heh, she flipped me over and milked me like a prize cow."

"Disgusting."

---

The party departed for the Invincible after a cursory breakfast, grateful enough not to have their night's rest interrupted by dracozombies or mistodons (although they did encounter two of each on the route back.) Though the trail was dangerous and the skies worse, a sense of optimism bonded the group, keeping their conversation lighter than the Mist that mired their progress.

"Hey, Freya?"

However, something was bothering him, holding him back. He called her out during a lull in their hike, and Freya slowed her pace, allowing some distance from the rest of the group while Zidane caught up.

"What is it?"

He spoke with close, hushed confidence, an uncharacteristically troubled slant to his wide, honest eyes. "Just, what you said last night... Did you really mean that? That I smile more because I'm lying?"

She recoiled a notch, struck by the question. Freya barely recalled the remark--she hadn't thought much when she said it and didn't know why he'd think much of it now, especially when he'd brushed off greater blows to his ego with hardly a wink. It was rather as if he were genuinely grieved by her off-handed comment and wanted her reassurance. Why?

It was so sincere and not like him at all that it was going to bother her for a great while afterwards, but for the time being she was so charmed to see him ruffled by what she thought of him--Zidane of all people, who professedly never gave a damn what anyone thought of him--that Freya was almost speechless.

She smiled herself, just a little. "No."