Recommended reading: Ayrith's "Sum of Memories," because it's a fantastic Freya-centric collection of drabbles that are insightful on an awe-inducing level. It deserves more attention. (It also has a charming little scene between Freya and Zidane, so I could not resist.)
Zidane said that Garland called it "a place of memories," though Freya couldn't say which was stranger: that such a realm could exist suspended on the vestiges of reality, or that they were getting this information second-hand from a man who was supposed to be lying dead at the bottom of another planet. It was easier to buy an explanation from Amarant, who grumbled under his breath that "the damn monkey finally lost his marbles," though sanity was a precious commodity in such a chaotic environment, and Freya preferred to believe everyone's wits intact. If they lost Zidane now, after everything...
It was strenuous enough when Dagger lost her voice, with everyone trying to safeguard Her Majesty from her own clouded, oft-absent mind. If she hadn't fortunately recovered a few weeks beforehand, it was doubtful she would be allowed to accompany the group on this treacherous leg of their journey, much less stand on the front line so boldly as she did now. Freya was not the only one to appreciate the young queen's maturity over these short, tumultuous months, both in mind and spirit--though she might have been the only one to pity the transition, as well.
Admittedly, Freya was no elder, only taking her first steps into her twenties, but she felt sorry for her younger teammates in the way a mother might lament a child's loss of innocence. Even though Eiko was the most precocious six-year-old on the planet and Vivi was incredibly powerful on his own, they were only small children, after all, and neither of them asked to be schooled in the facts of war. Even though Garnet spent her earlier years rigorously preparing for her inevitable responsibilities, that didn't excuse the fact that she was an adolescent attempting to take care of the whole world. Even though his confidence and worldly experience belied his age, Zidane was just an unruly teenager who thought he knew everything, and it seemed only yesterday Freya was chiding him, 'You don't have to grow up so fast.'
Of course, she was not allowed to talk; she had been exactly Zidane's age when she first left Burmecia in quest of answers. Oh, how brash and foolish those days seemed now...
Besides, as Zidane had replied, they all had to grow up. It was curious. Freya couldn't exact when Zidane had stopped following Dagger and she had started following him, much less when everyone else had stopped following the young queen and started following him. It was a strangely natural succession, and not even the prudish Steiner or independent Amarant contested his leadership anymore. Everyone had their own mission and their own motives, but no one could deny that he was the cornerstone to their little band of crusaders--even if no one wanted to admit it.
That was probably why, whenever the boy stopped on their surreal tour to consult whatever spectres were talking in his head, no one in the party said a word. No one had the gall to say they knew anything better about this bizarre non-world.
Despite Garland's cryptic description, Memoria was not some leisurely stroll down memory lane. Though it wasn't as haunting as Pandemonium, that putrid, howling monument to an undead planet, the castle of memories had an eerie charm of its own. It was a mirage on a grand scale, palpable and solid yet shifting and insubstantial. Brick paths twisted and unraveled like tree branches, doors opened to bottomless skies, portraits on the walls faded and melted into inhuman masks, a moon would shine through east windows while a sun beamed through west ones, the climate and decor would alter dramatically from room to room, and every corner was in varied stages of decay and disrepair.
Everything was timeless, clocks ticking backwards while archaic tapestries disintegrated before one's eyes. Tidal waves were frozen on the graves of beaches. There were beautiful gardens and dank dungeons. There were ladders to heaven and stairs to hades. Sometimes inanimate objects would drift through thin air or pass through walls like ghosts. Sometimes the wind wailed and moaned like phantoms through a tomb, and sometimes the grounds were as warm and placid as a cottage on the lake. Sometimes the only things that seemed real were the monsters, the only visible inhabitants of this forbidden realm.
Shrewd, fierce and larger-than-life, the monsters were so formidable that any single specimen was as deadly as a mob of dragons in the outside world. Everyone had to put forth their utmost abilities to simply survive, much less walk through a room unscathed, and Eiko and Dagger's talents in white magic never went to waste. It could have been an exhausting trek if they weren't subsisting on blood-numbing elixirs and they had any sense of daytime or nightfall; much like the architecture, all the hours blended into an incongruous whole. At one point Vivi observed, "It's like I'm dreaming and I can't wake up." Steiner recommended very early on that no one trail behind or leave anyone else's sight at any time for any reason, and that was a sound enough idea for everyone to heed. No one wanted to be left alone in these obfuscating corridors.
Freya had been contemplating that very possibility while her mind wandered ahead of her feet, and by the time she looked up, it was raining.
She spun around, soaking in her surroundings and drinking in her dread; she was alone, her only solace the acutely familiar ambience. The inner courtyard of Burmecia Palace unfolded around her, fog and rain peeling off the giant statues at each end. She stood in the middle of an embossed stone floor, its swirling pattern catching the rain beneath her toes while the circular gallery cut a dark halo high overhead. Bleary grey light poured in through the open dome like a waterfall, and if not for the dull pattering of rain on rock, the chamber would be utterly void.
'This place...' Last she stood here, Beatrix had given her a taste of the knight's blade. Though Freya knew it was all an illusion, she wondered what sort of memories dredged it out of the aether. Was this a device of her own mind--Memoria playing tricks on her psyche? Or had this place--by means beyond her spiritual grasp--summoned her?
"Freya."
Her veins iced over. The hairs on her body stood like blades of grass in a morning frost. Everything ground to a standstill--the rain, the Mist, her heart--and she turned around like a rusty gate, about to fall apart at the hinges with any sudden jolt.
That voice, that voice.
---
"Freya!"
His call batted uselessly off the rubble and cumulus ceiling, like a ball kicked down an empty alley. Zidane dropped his hands and sighed, frustrated with all the fruitless yelling. They had only lost sight of their dragon knight comrade a few minutes earlier (so it seemed), and the Genome had been so intent in his search for her that when he turned around to check on the others (just a second ago!) they had all vanished, too. Now he was marooned in a ruined ghost town, everything the depressing hue of ash and blue copper.
He punted a loose stone, watching it plunge through a pothole in the cobblestone road and into oblivion. "Godsdammit, I hate this place." When he glanced northward, a veil of clouds slunk away into the mountains to reveal a faraway citadel, its massive spires and granite effigies crowned in rain.
A bell rang between his ears. "Hey! This is... Burmecia?" The blonde scratched his head, puzzling over the locale. "What am I doing here? And why am I talking to myself?" He shook himself into focus and headed towards the palace. "I need to get a grip--this place is starting to get to me."
He arrived at the outer wall before even his mind could cross the deceptive distance. The bricks glowed with a rainy sheen in the wan daylight, and every step was dripping with deja vu. The last time he visited Burmecia, it was in turmoil, the dead and dying littering the streets as the city was abandoned. Now the desolation was of a different sort; though everything was intact, not a soul was in sight.
'Geez, where am I going? Did Freya come this way? I wish I knew where everyone else went. Is Dagger all right? I hope she's not stranded like I am. How the hell did I get here, anyway? Why won't Garland give me any straight answers? I really hate this place.'
He methodically followed the path of recent memory, scaling the armored sculptures and stalking through the upper archways until he was on a balcony overlooking a large courtyard. He remembered this area; it was where he had first spotted Kuja and fought Beatrix. Sticking out of the dreary setting like a tongue of flame was a dragon knight in a blood red coat, her stark figure scarcely touched by the downpour.
Zidane leaned over the edge and began to wave down to her. "Hey! Fre--"
When he saw who was with her, his shout got lodged in his throat.
---
"Sir Fratley..." Freya whispered, entranced by the man standing plainly before her. His every thread was defined in rich, sure color, the edges crisp and crystalline, and his posture was as steadfast and unreserved as the midday sun. It took all her willpower not to fall to her knees out of awe, delight and courtesy.
The visitant spoke, his visage obscured by the wide brim of his hat while he studied the polearm in his hand. "I hear there are many fierce warriors out in the world--some more powerful than even I..."
Hadn't she heard this before?
"...Beatrix of Alexandria, in particular. They say her swordsmanship is the best in the land."
No. No. No.
Not again. "I... what?" Her knees wobbled, her vision blurred and her thoughts garbled. She was disconnected from the present, the past, the future--everything that made this moment special and painful was rushing over her like rapids, swift and seizing.
Iron-tail Fratley continued reciting his lines, like an actor in a misbegotten play. "Please understand, Freya. Right now, Burmecia is at peace, while other nations are slowly but surely gaining power. I don't know if my spear alone is enough to protect Burmecia... which is precisely why I must go out into the world."
The next words flowed off her tongue like nimbus-snow--like her own spirit departing her body. "Sir Fratley... I don't..." know what to say, know what I'm doing, know why I'm here, know what's real anymore "...think I can live on my own--not without you."
He looked directly at her, eyes cold coals in the shadowy pitch of his face, and answered with such feathery resolve that it was like a message from an angel. "Freya, you're going to be fine. Trust your strength... and have faith in your destiny. Once I complete my journey around the world, I will return to Burmecia."
---
Zidane wasn't sure what he was watching--a premonition? A glimpse of the past? One big, meaningless illusion? Was that even the real Freya? Or Fratley? The latter was impossible, but he couldn't be positive of anything in this world, where not even the ground he tread was trustworthy.
He was eavesdropping now, too high and removed from their private world to intrude on it, though as he observed their exchange his heart began to sink through his stomach.
Fratley closed the gap between the estranged couple and hovered at Freya's side for some while, his voice too low to decipher through the drizzle. Freya tentatively reached out and touched his arm, as if she were fondling a wraith, and her response was faint and woefully fragmented.
"...promise me... ...return."
"Freya..." Zidane whimpered, his lungs burning with the urge to holler. Though he'd never seen it before, he knew this scene--he knew how it would end. It was wrong. It was like watching her heart break all over again. His hand moved of its own volition, resting on his dagger, and his face flushed with an alarming desire to cut that man into shreds, real or not. He wanted to jump down right away and wreck this twisted delusion, though a tiny voice rooted him to the spot.
'You can't protect her from this.'
---
Fratley stepped back, lending Freya room to admire the gift he just bestowed her: a ribbon, tied in a prim bow to the end of her tail. She held it under her nose and stared, thunderstruck. It was the same. It was the same in every property, light and starchy between her nerveless fingers, and it fit her barren tail as if it had never left--an immaculate memento.
The man she loved turned his back, shouldered his spear and curtly declared, "I promise." Then he walked away.
That was all. She wavered on leaden feet, torn between sprinting after him like a desperate loon and collapsing where she stood. Five seconds and five years later, it all seemed futile. He was gone. Gone.
Again.
The rain picked up to a torrent, blanketing the courtyard with static, and a stupid, cackling sob racked her inadequate frame. What a foolish fancy--her skinny, feeble-minded self posing as a dragon knight--what a scandal. It was a cosmic joke. She didn't deserve the slightest scrap of his affection, and for once it did not dismay Freya to check behind her and find the ribbon disappeared. Gone. Of course.
It was funny. It was ironic. It was fate, laughing at her. She was the joke. It figured that in one of the rare moments she let her guard down, that ribbon would be snatched from her forever. It was that final golden shred of her past, whisked away like a balloon on a careless breeze. All because of...
"Freya!" Him.
Zidane was rushing across the courtyard to meet her, though she wouldn't face him. Why bother? She didn't know where he had come from or how long he had been there, and she didn't care. What did it matter anymore? Why did she care at all? What was the point of the whole spectacle, except to mock her?
What was the point?! She found herself screaming that aloud while jamming the butt of her lance into the ground. Sparks splintered off the stone and ignited the rain in a furious starburst that threw the approaching boy into a skidding halt.
Zidane stood back, cowed by the outburst, his lively vocabulary suddenly lacking. "Freya, I..."
She speared him with a fiery look. Because of him. He shrank before her glowering brimstone, a drenched and wretched-looking sunflower, and ignorantly croaked, "I'm sorry."
Freya's demeanour hardened, cooling like lava in the rain. Zidane didn't know better. He wasn't going to understand, and the last thing she wanted was his gods-forsaken pity. It was time to forget--to bury everything in the pit of her heart--and move on. She hefted her lance and pithily ordered, "Let us go. The others must be waiting."
"Freya, wait," the boy called back, his expression somewhat swollen.
"Zidane, we don't have time," she answered smartly, imploring him to take a hint.
Typically, Zidane was too dense to mind it. "I know, but this'll just take a second." He inched closer, one hand rooting through his back pocket. "Close your eyes and stand still, okay?"
"What? Are you mad?"
He impetuously stamped a foot. "Just do it! Please?"
If only to spur this diversion along, she obeyed. Her ears pricked at the sound of shuffling feet while a glove firmly closed around the charred hide of her tail. Freya swallowed the impulse to flick it away, and readied a stern growl at the base of her throat. "Zidane..."
He handily talked over her objection. "I wanted to give you this later, but in case, uh, I don't get the chance..."
Freya huffed. That was a very trifling way to say, 'In case we don't make it out of here alive.'
"Okay!" he chirped a moment later. "Open your eyes."
Freya immediately inspected herself, and there it was: a bright yellow ribbon. Too bright and too yellow, it bobbed on the end of her tail like a crude fishing lure, clashing with the smoldering browns, oranges and reds of her garb.
Somewhere between the hissing rain and her buzzing shock she saw the boy shrug and explain, "I know it's not as good because he didn't give it to you, but..." and she didn't see or hear anything else because her hands were covering her face and the growl she had been saving for him started boiling into a sopping laugh.
It was funny. So, so terribly funny, she didn't know how to speak. She had spent all those years away from home carefully constructing armor around her heart, so that she would be shielded against the greatest disappointments the world had to offer, yet all it took was one reminder--one fragile little ribbon--to tear it all down. She was a joke.
A gloved hand gingerly settled on her arm, and when she peered down, the rain in her eyes was falling in his hair. "Freya?" Was she the one trembling, or he? "Are you okay?"
She scrubbed her wet muzzle and pieced together her broken composure. Why did Zidane always do things like this, to make her feel silly all over again? "Yes... I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" The boy cocked a sly smirk, eyes glinting blue with red on the fringes. "You're smiling."
Freya gruffly pushed him away. "Oh, you...! I hate you," she snapped, the bite to her words smoothed by a helpless grin. She hated the way he could dispel a sour moment with one wink, and she hated the way she couldn't stop smiling when he looked at her like they were both the joke--because Zidane just couldn't leave her out of it.
He stumbled out of reach, snickering like a lout while his tail flailed for balance. "Ahaha, you're welcome! Geez." He was about to make some gibe on her warped sense of humor when he stopped and tilted a surprised look skyward. "Oh hey, the rain stopped."
She gazed up at the disbanding clouds, the wet courtyard clear and pungent in the fresh light. She suddenly felt refreshed and... warm. "So it has."
"Heh. That's weird." He shrugged, dismissing yet another of Memoria's phenomena. "Com'on, let's go catch up with everybody before we're lost for su--"
It was like watching an air cab crash out of the blue. One moment Zidane was speaking to her, and the next he was knocked to the ground by a huge, flapping, snarling mass. It had a face like a bomb carcass, four stout legs and a gnarled, fleshy pair of wings--though its most distinctive trait was the extra heads: two reptilian ones tacked onto each side of its blunt neck, and another, shriveled one adorning the tip of its tail.
It was a chimera, another mindless demon, and without a thought for the odds of such an encounter or the odds of surviving such an encounter Freya hurled her lance like a javelin, pegging the monster between its lesser heads. It recoiled a step, blood and pus sluicing from its fetid maw, and Freya jumped forward to retrieve her weapon while Zidane rolled out of the way.
She tucked her lance beneath her arm and bounced off the chimera's back, a small, toothy head snapping at her heels while her blade dug a furrow in the monster's flank. She landed on her toes, whirled around and flipped back over its wings, dodging the flood of poison bile ejected from one of the chimera's stomachs. Zidane's daggers raked across one its weal-kissed eyes, distracting the beast while Freya sorted her lance for a critical strike. She skated off the ground on ethereal wings and shredded the chimera from rib to rib, dragons howling in her wake. Both its wings exploded into a hundred shards of bone and bloody leather, like a couple of gory wicker chairs.
The chimera reared onto its hind legs with an injured, dissonant shriek and Zidane pounced on its exposed underbelly, complementing the tear Freya had rendered on its topside. It closed its forepaws as if to trap him, but he nimbly ducked beneath its elbow and skittered away. Freya leveled her lance for another pass while the three front heads chased the Genome. Just as one of her feet left the ground, the rear serpentine head whipped in her direction, a glacial jet spewing off its icy tongue. She twisted mid-leap to avoid the blast, only too late to save her initiative, and Freya hit the floor in a heap.
She began to wiggle for purchase, only to discover her legs useless, and when Freya looked down she saw why: they were encased in a wave of ice. She cursed and lifted her lance, prepared to chisel her way to freedom, but when another small head leaned over the chimera's shoulder and fastened its sharp yellow eyes on her, she realized she had a problem. It opened wide, baring its viper fangs and turgid cheeks, and Freya unpleasantly recalled that this head was the one that could spit venom fifty feet across a room.
Freya held the flat of her lance before her, braced to deflect a shot of poison if she had to, though Zidane had another plan. "Hey you!!" he blustered, commanding the chimera's attention, and everything happened in two seconds. The least of its heads lurched forward to bite him while its heavier base swiped a forelimb larger than a man. Zidane jumped, sprang off the top of its foot, shoved one dagger down the least's throat, planted the other in the chimera's expansive forehead and then swung by the handle onto the monster's neck. There was a startled moment on Freya and the remaining lesser head's behalf while Zidane reached and grabbed the latter beneath the chin, crushing its gullet between his fingers.
The viper-head's eyes bulged as it disgorged its loaded venom sacs straight into the air, showering the chimera and its unwanted passenger with viscous, lime-colored acid. Zidane yelled some uncanny oath and began to slide off one side, his grip slackened as spots burned into his skin. He managed to catch one of his daggers just as the viper-head lunged at him in vengeance, though it was the bulk of the monster that settled the score, pitching the Genome wholly off its back with one mighty heave. The viper-head's slavering fangs grazed his arm in that haphazard stroke, and when Zidane was reintroduced to the ground thirty paces away, Freya glimpsed him bleeding through the sizzling gash.
The boy started up, staggered once and then collapsed, not to move again. The chimera, sensing its quarry immobilized, vacillated between a rat or a monkey meal for a moment before making up its scattered minds and charging at Zidane.
Freya panicked. The ice wouldn't budge and Zidane wouldn't get up and the chimera was going to eat him and then probably eat her too and nobody would ever find their remains since this place was already like a grave for dead people's dreams and she would be worse than forgotten, she'd just be gone, gone like him--
No no no godsdamnit NO! She screamed and burned until the ice shattered around her ankles like Shiva's bath. Precious seconds bowed for her as she stood and jumped, the air screeching as it split by her blade.
The chorus of her brethren was loud and brilliant as the dragons sank their claws in her nerves and eclipsed her spirit, and she breathed, walked and flew in their stead. Her lance was a grand's bolt of lightning, splitting the heavens and shaking the earth, and the chimera's path was broken by an uproar of stone and dirt where her polearm ruptured the ground. Before it could retrace its steps another was flung its way, and another, and another, the dragons' storm of spears nearly infinite. Freya was higher and darker and more terrible than any thundercloud, and the longer her gaze pierced the chimera's back the more she hated it--watching his backside, watching him walk away, hating that back and that iron tail and hating everything precious being taken away from her like she was nothing, nobody, something not even the rain would touch and now that she had even a ribbon worth fighting for he was being taken away from her, too.
This would not be and she let the chimera know it in person, plummeting onto that hateful back and stabbing and shearing and slicing off one head, two, three--the monster had quit bleating by then but she wasn't finished--she wouldn't be done until every stone in that courtyard was caked in its blood and there. was. nothing. left.
By the time Freya's trance ebbed there was no more chimera--just a spattering of viscera, fractions of bones, a slick of blood and grease broad enough to cover an ocean and a handful of miniature icebergs. She stood panting and light-headed at the epicenter of the carnage, washed in Hades' afterbirth, and wondered what in the world just came over her. She had never experienced hate so driving, and it was as frightening as it was cathartic. Was that the true nature of trance? Was that what made Kuja so powerful? It was a concept to be reckoned with.
She would have to ponder it later, when her head wasn't spinning and the odor of four distinct corpses wasn't assaulting her sensitive nose. Freya leaned heavily on her lance and groaned, deliberating over whether she ought to be sick--and then she remembered what was behind this mess.
Zidane.
His still, crumpled form was almost impossible to make out of the demon slag, and her heart wrenched with the thought that he had been consumed in the whirlwind of her trance, as well. It was a relief to pull him from the ichorous debris in one piece, though when she crouched to examine his wounds her hope began to wither.
"Wake up, wake up please..." she begged as she searched for a pulse, some twitch of life. There was an insane amount of blood and other zombie humors, all his cheerful blues and yellows soaked in arcane soot and rust, and it was difficult to discern fresh bleeding from the chimera's soil. Freya couldn't find anything deeper than some superficial nicks and a scrape on his arm, though when she tried to brush him clean with her sleeve, she unearthed a patch of skin that was rapidly turning an inauspicious shade of green.
Freya was forced to admit she knew next to nothing about chimera venom. There were few reports concerning the demons' existence, much less their biology, and as for personal experience, she only knew to avoid their teeth and spittle at all costs. Their team had done so well until Zidane decided to get reckless, and now Freya was left wondering how to treat the toxin that was spidering through his veins like a black web. He lay in silent, clammy pallor, his tail frayed next to him like a dead, kinked weed, and when she held an ear to his chest she heard only murmurs.
His left arm was most discolored, but if the poison spread too far it would kill him, she knew. What she didn't know was how much time he had, or if time necessarily passed in this realm the same way it did in the regular world--or the rest of Memoria, for that matter. All she could see was midnight setting in like blight on his bleached skin, every healthy hue draining from his elbow to his shoulder and now his neck. He needed an antidote, a remedy, a panacea, something--something she didn't have. Freya couldn't believe how careless she was to leave her herb pouch with Eiko, though who could honestly expect a situation like this? Their group had intended to stay together. It was too late to blame anyone's lack of foresight, so Freya concentrated on her last resort: Reis, the patron mother of Burmecia's dragon knights.
The shamans had always been reverent in their adoration of Reis, and Freya was taught that any of her Burmecian daughters who called her name would receive great blessings (regrettably, Freya used her name in vain more often than appropriate.) In all her days as a dragon knight, there had been a few desperate moments where Freya hailed her spiritual mother for aid, and they were always in the heat of battle, when all other resources were spent. Whatever the shamans had promised via Reis, Freya believed it; those few, desperate moments were blessed with more luck and miraculous recoveries than she could attribute to any other time of her life.
Though she was confident in her faith, this would be the first time Freya ever asked for Reis's help to save another--not even kindred, at that. She wasn't sure if this would count as blasphemy, selfishness or both, but right now it was just her and Zidane, and the boy was more important to her than a brother or the shamans. She wasn't going to sit idle and watch him slip away.
Freya took a seat on the floor, gathered the sickly Genome into her arms (gods, he was cold), closed her eyes and prayed. The old, familiar lines squeezed her heart until it wept.
'Hear me Gracious Reis, goddess mother, benevolent heart of dragon. I beseech thee fly to my aid, rend the tongues from my enemies' mouths and breathe peace upon my brothers. I beg thee goddess mother, take this ailing body as my brother, and bless him on my behalf. I beg thee goddess mother, hear my prayer.' Please help...
She muttered in a corporeal afterthought, her voice too hoarse to be a true threat or a real prayer, "Zidane Tribal, if you do not wake up I will never forgive you."
Reis's answer started to trickle down her neck, teasing her hair and filling her chest with tender warmth. The dulcet hand of a goddess traversed her soul with barely a whisper, and Freya was swaddled in a balmy haze from which she almost didn't want to wake.
When she willed her eyes to open, the sensation passed. For a pregnant minute nothing stirred, a divine breeze drifting out of the courtyard. Freya checked the boy in her lap and found nothing changed. She bit her lip and flattened her ears, too sorry to execrate the fates. 'Forgive me Reis, Zidane... It was worth a try.'
"...uhn..."
Her ears popped up so abruptly they nearly knocked her helm off. "Zidane!"
He convulsed and sputtered like a throttled duck, tail flopping over his legs, and Freya held him tightly until the fit was quelled. He looked dazedly in every direction at once and drank air like a starved fish. "I... uh... guh?"
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She kissed his hair. She felt like a shaman, herself. "It's okay. Reis is with you."
Zidane rallied his senses and squinted up at her, all black, white and blue. His voice was a strained wisp. "...the hell?"
Freya cleared her throat, wiped her countenance clean and started over. "It's nothing. A chimera attacked us, remember? It threw you off."
"...oh."
"You were struck down by its venom. I thought you wouldn't wake up. Do you feel all right?"
"I..." He shuddered. "...hurts..." A glint of alarm lit his eyes. "...can't move. Can't breathe."
Freya grimaced. Reis's wind would only help so much... She would have to take whatever small blessings she could get. "It's the venom. I can't do anything about it. I'm sorry."
"Ugh... what... stinks?" Zidane wrinkled his nose and swept a look over the gruesome scenery. "Whoa. What... happened...? You... chase it off... yourself?"
"Actually... this is all that's left," she hedged, uncharacteristically bashful. She wasn't sure if going into a rabid trance was something to brag about.
He blinked slowly. "Holy... shit. Remind me to... never... piss you off again."
She cracked an absurd laugh. "I assure you, if we ever get out of this, I'm going to beat the daylights out of you."
"Mmm. Kinky."
Freya kindly ignored that. Zidane gave a dim, short laugh of his own--even his tongue was a rotten purple color. "Heh... I... really done it now..."
Thinking it over, she knew why he jumped on that chimera's back. He was trying to save her. It was the same stupid bravado that always got him into trouble. She didn't need his help; she could have taken care of it. She could have broken free in time, or used a dragon technique to deflect the venom shot, or maybe--there was a whole other dimension of 'maybe's. Normally she would call him a fool, and perhaps a host of other things. She would have given anything at the moment to make this situation feel normal.
Freya simply hugged him. He was still cold. "You little fool..."
"...m-m-m cold..." he stuttered, labored breaths caught in another shiver.
Zidane wasn't going to get better on his own. Poisons required antidotes, and they were stuck without one. What now? Call for help? Attract more monsters with her shouting (if their awful scent wasn't already)? Come to grips with the fact that this might be a losing battle? The shamans couldn't prepare her for this. "Hang on. The others will find us any minute. We'll get you some medicine and you'll be fine."
She didn't really expect Zidane to buy such shallow reassurance--he was a fool, not a moron. She had no idea, really. The others could be as lost as they were.
...They could even be worse. Freya didn't want to picture it.
The smile he offered was more for her than for him. "...glad you're with me."
She gulped, the squeaky sound embarrassingly mouse-like. "Shush. Save your breath."
Zidane listened, and waited, fingers weakly clasping her coat. They were pathetic and helpless, like a couple of cripples waiting for death.
Death… how quaint, now after everything they've been through. For some reason, Freya had always dreamed of a lonely demise, perhaps off a great height in a rush of glory, or even in a dragon's stomach. This... wasn't what she had imagined at all. She didn't want to leave so much work unfinished, but...
At least she wasn't alone. "...I'm glad you're with me, too."
Zidane sniffed with a dumb grin, a reply trailing into delirium as he buried his face in her shoulder and fell asleep.
It was so peaceful... Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
"Hellooooooo!"
That voice! Freya's chin snapped up, scouring the gallery for the brazen little intrusion. A dainty mop of purple hair peeked over the ledge. "Hey!"
The dragon knight's heart leapt into her throat. "Eiko!"
The girl did a double take, any childish expletive over Freya's unexcused absence aborted at the sight of the monstrous massacre. Riddled with ice, blood, water, grit and thunder-craters, from above the courtyard must have looked like a geographical nightmare. "Holy cow! What happened??"
Freya wasted no time on explanations. "Eiko! Please hurry! We need assistance!"
Eiko hopped to the rescue, scurrying into the background. "Hang on, we'll be right down!"
Freya sighed and rocked the boy in her arms, mouthing blessed relief to the heavens. 'Thank you, Reis.'
The eight regrouped on the spot, boisterous and fussy. Quina was belting out oddball, home-brewed remedies that Steiner hotly disputed, while the two white mages clambered to administer antidotes and Curagas until Freya was dizzy.
"You need only gigan-basted frog skin! Put on tongue, draw out poison!"
"Frogs aren't the cure for everything, you big goof!"
Clank-clank. "This senseless banter isn't helping!"
"...like a bunch of retards at the vet..."
"Shut up, Coral!"
"Guys, please don't shout..."
"Hey, I think he's coming around!"
"Zidane!"
Everyone held their breath and crowded around the Genome, watching his sluggish movements stretch into a fully-fledged yawn. Disoriented from the swarming attention, Freya hadn't found the bearings, modesty or even space to remove Zidane from her lap. She clung to the boy for safety, his back pressed into her breast, so that when he at last opened his eyes his first vision was Dagger kneeling attentively in front of him, her worried hands clapped over his own.
The two teens stared at one another for a fuzzy, blushing spell before Zidane (perhaps still delirious) broke it. "Huh. Heaven."
Dagger retreated with a confused frown, her cheeks burning. "W-What?"
There wasn't another second to analyze his remark, since Freya began to mercilessly box the boy's ears. "You big idiot I can't believe you never do that again you scared the life out of me--"
Zidane tumbled over the sticky floor, thrashing like a beached carp under her matronly battering. "Ow! Ah! No, hell, hell!"
"F-Freya, calm down!" Dagger and Eiko intervened, pulling the wrathful dragon knight away by the arms. The fitful pair caught their breaths while Eiko finished scanning her patients. She nodded brightly at Zidane. "You look a lot better! Can you stand?"
"Uh, sure?" He shakily rose to his feet and flashed a thumbs-up, an encouraging tinge to his pale complexion. The only trace of his brush with the reaper was a neatly hemmed scar above his elbow. It was rather amazing, how inured everyone was to such close calls--such was the miracle of white magic.
"Good!" Steiner determined. "We must be moving on quickly, before more monsters are drawn to this bedlam."
Freya nodded weakly, not about to argue with leaving this accursed place behind. "Agreed. Let us go."
As soon as they began walking, Zidane tipped dangerously towards the ground, suddenly less certain about his stability. Dagger cried half a note of warning and jerked forward to grab him, though in a deft second Freya (who was standing closer) snagged him by the shirt.
"Ahm... whoops," he said lamely. "Oaf," Freya said in kind.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Dagger pried.
Zidane shook off her concern with a sorry laugh while throwing an arm around Freya's back, catching her off-guard and leaning suspiciously into her side. "Haha, oh yeah, just stood up too fast, I guess. Totally fine."
"Hey!" Eiko, already at the gate with the others, turned back to admonish the three. "Nooooo more lagging behind!"
Not fully convinced, Dagger regarded him with a wary, anxious look before shuffling to rejoin the group. Once she was out of earshot, Zidane whispered into the dragon knight's coat, "Hold me up a bit, would ya babe?"
"You fool, if you need to rest you should just say so," she whispered back, preserving his discreet little game nonetheless.
"No, we can't stop now," he insisted, his earnest tone outweighing her sensibleness. "I got a feeling something really bad's gonna happen if we don't hurry up. I can walk it off, really--that antidote is working."
Freya's only dissent was a humming frown. Unfortunately, she had a very similar hunch. "Very well, if you insist."
He winked up at her, looping his other arm around hers for support as they walked together. "Thanks. You're a doll. You almost make as good a crutch as you do a pillow."
"Hrmph! If you can't walk on your own by the time we're back on the road, I'll toss you over the nearest pitfall for that."
"Hehehe."
Meanwhile, everyone hurried out, ready to resume the hunt for Kuja and put an end to all his madness. Memoria had more surprises in store for them, Freya was certain, but there was now one less episode to plague her dreams. Memories were savage tricksters... She would never look upon that rainy day in the same light again.
They had finally departed the fake Burmecia when Freya was jarred from another bitter reverie by something thin and furry. Zidane, apparently fit to carry himself again, pushed away and pressed ahead, his tail ghosting over hers in a furtive caress. It slid from base to tip, broke away at the ribbon and then returned to its owner as if nothing had trespassed. She passed him a startled look, but Zidane had already wheeled to the front of the pack, not even glancing back, and she lost the nerve to interrogate the boy.
Though Freya held her shame by refraining from comments or excuses, Zidane lacked any compunction over divulging the chimera incident to the rest of the group. "Man, you should have seen that monster that jumped us! It was as big as a house," he was already boasting to Dagger.
"Oh really..."
"Yeah, and then..."
While they chattered, Freya's gaze lingered on her tail's replaced ornament, too bright and too yellow and too tainted--and she realized that she had never properly thanked him. She shook her head. Now was not the time.
The dragon knight walked on, wondering what her memories really longed for.
A/N: I've always been a little torn over whether to capitalize "dragon knight" or "black mage." FFIX's strategy guide sez yes and the game script sez no.
...The strat guide is made of arse; I'll trust the game.
Next time: Missing Half. Reviews appreciated!
P.S: Yes, I made a... rather sizable edit to the last scene. I didn't like how rushed it felt. Very naughty of me (plz forgive.)