Thank you so much as always to Poisonberries, Glynnis and Apathy for all their help and beta efforts!
NOTE: This chapter is why it's rated M: some sex, some violence, and Cecil fans may find it a little upsetting
Kain knew he'd find the Warrior of Light within this gateway. It was one of the few that remained uncleared on the southern continent, the manikins repelling every attempt with the sheer weight of their numbers. It had bothered the Warrior that there was such a nest of them so close to Cosmos' throne, but every time he'd suggested going to clear it out, he'd come up against Lighting's belligerent refusal.
Are you insane? she'd asked, eyes blazing. Learn when to beat a tactical retreat, for fuck's sake.
If he'd been in a better mood, Kain might have smiled at the irony.
He hated these strange spaces within the gateways; familiar and unfamiliar both, they unnerved him. He assumed they were all facsimiles of places from his comrades' and enemies' homeworlds – not, he supposed, that he could call the Lunar Surface his home. With a cold stab in his heart, Kain wondered if he would have preferred to see the clear, blue sky of Baron, even if he knew it would be no more than an illusion. He wondered if he would ever see it again.
Occasionally Kain would watch Cecil gazing across the Lunar Surface's grey and white planes, and he wondered if it recalled any of his friend's lost memories to mind, this place where his father's people had entered their ancient slumber. Kain didn't know what reason the gods had for creating duplicates of these places, but to him it felt like one further mockery, to find themselves suddenly hopeful, in a place that was home and yet not home...
This world was a place where hope felt like madness half the time.
Kain grit his teeth. The air here was stale and smelled filthy, with a strange metallic tang. It reminded him all too much of the Towers, the scenes of his other betrayals. The atmosphere here felt just as unnatural, and it reeked of unsavoury things.
Kain had known the Warrior of Light would not take the group's refusal to follow him into the gateway as a good enough reason to stay away from it. And sure enough, he had found him here, wandering the strange metal corridors, alone as he always seemed to be when he was not travelling with Kain.
"My friend. You're unscathed." Kain hadn't been able to keep the tinge of relief from his voice. Golbez had told him to choose his allies; Kain wondered if he had realised as he said it that the choices were far from open. In the end, it was not really a choice at all. There was no-one else Kain would want by his side in this. And – the thought came to him unbidden and more cruelly than he wanted it to – no-one else who might view what he had in mind as an acceptable price to pay for victory.
Kain had thought about what he would say, how he would attempt to convey Golbez's words. The Warrior had listened to him in silence, as he had known he would. Kain could almost see the Warrior turning the words over in his mind, coldly analytical, almost to the point of brutality. Who were you? Kain thought, not for the first time.
"How did you discover these… cycles?" he finally asked, his eyes flicking back to Kain's face.
Kain swallowed. "Golbez told me it was so." He watched the Warrior of Light's eyes narrow. "I knew him… before," he said.
The Warrior looked at him and blinked. "You trust him?"
Kain almost laughed, thinking of the tangle of history that bound them together, the debt they owed Cecil and the redemption that they both sought. Trust did not come into it. "The man is Cecil's brother. I find it hard to believe he wishes him any harm. It's mere chance that they find themselves on opposite sides of this conflict." It was not a lie. Not wholly.
A small furrow appeared between the Warrior's eyebrows, and he turned away slightly as if in thought. Kain wondered if brotherly bonds were a convincing argument for him. The loyalty he knew of was related only to Cosmos and Chaos. The idea that a warrior of Chaos may aid the enemy for the sake of familial love… Kain wondered what the Warrior made of the idea.
With bitter clarity, Kain realised that love was not something he was convinced the Warrior understood at all. The things it could drive a man to do or, similarly, what its absence might cost. Beneath his helm, he blinked his eyes ruthlessly shut. What it had cost him, in the end.
Kain swallowed, feeling his mouth move and the words he had rehearsed leave his throat. The words were heavy in his mouth and hollow in his ears, as if the weakness he feared had always ringed his heart was obvious in every syllable. Even so, the underlying substance of the matter was the same. Join me. Or tell me that I am mad.
Kain honestly couldn't tell if whatever rationale he was spouting was some form of confession or not, only that he found himself taking seriously the idea that this could be something they shared. If love did not drive the Warrior, then perhaps common purpose would. Perhaps the light the Warrior so often spoke of could come to rest on this proposal – perhaps he would see bravery and not cowardice; strength, and not the weakness that haunted the edges of Kain's life, poised to strike.
Join me.
This is a choice between dark and utter dark, Kain kept thinking as explanations coursed through the air, not wanting, necessarily, to think of what type of man it would make him if he were wrong.
Or tell me that I am mad.
Of course, the real question was: do you trust me? It was this answer, more than some weighing of tactical advantage, that made his tongue seem to swell in his mouth.
Kain had no doubt he would remember the way his last question coated his tongue: final, punctuated, thick-tasting. "What say you, friend?"
The Warrior's answer surprised him.
"Yes, Kain," was all he said.
The wind caught them in its teeth as they emerged from the gateway, piercing through armour and clothing, sending needles of rain straight down to the skin. The river churned white against the shoreline, sending salt spray into the air; the Warrior gestured at Kain before turning to lead the way to the lee of the grey corridor of the mountains.
Kain pulled his head down towards his chest against the storm. His eyes stayed steady on the hem of the Warrior of Light's cape where it whipped the back of his legs, weighed down with mud and rain, the material dented against the heavy Barbarian's Sword the Warrior had taken to carrying strapped to his back.
He realised, there in the dim light of the fading sun, that he'd almost been wanting the Warrior of Light to tell him that Golbez's words could not be believed, that Golbez was an agent of Chaos and Kain was a fool to place any trust whatsoever in anything the man had to tell him. The Warrior had not demurred when Kain had suggested that he be the one to put their allies to sleep before the manikins could hunt them down. Again, Kain thought of that quick nod, the gaze that held his without sign of misgiving or doubt. If you think that would be best.
Away from the wind, the rain lost its sting, petering out almost to nothing. The rocky ground finally gave way to earth.
The Warrior turned to face him, and for once, Kain found his face totally unreadable. "We should pitch a tent."
Kain swallowed, the familiar warm coil already beginning to wind in his belly; he knew there were things to discuss, a conversation that should not be delayed, but he could not bring himself to think on them right now. He did not respond to the Warrior of Light's suggestion that they make camp; he did not want to talk anymore or formulate plans or think about what lay ahead of him. I'll do it. It should be me. He had said it, and he could not take it back. In his mind's eye, he could only see the Warrior nodding and saying, If you think that would be best, his eyes steady, not betraying even a glimmer of uncertainty. Kain almost raised a hand to his face as if to wipe the image away, but in the end he simply closed his eyes.
"Kain?"
Kain hauled in a breath and opened his eyes. "I heard you."
The wind, weaker than it had been, whipped his hair over his shoulder when he removed his helm, tangling it with grit.
The tent did not do much against the wind, but at least it kept the sand and the salt out. The darkness was quick to descend, and if the Warrior was concerned about manikins or Chaos warriors finding them here in this isolated place, Kain didn't intend to give him the chance to say so.
The Warrior had never seemed to mind anything that Kain had asked of him; now, as Kain wound his fingers around the Warrior's wrist and pushed him onto his back, he barely made a sound, even when his head knocked against the floor of the tent. Kain had learned that was simply his way; in spite of his seeming passivity, his hands when they came up to pull at the straps of Kain's armour were impatient to get it off him, and his mouth opened to Kain's ungentle kiss.
Kain could taste the river's salt and sandy grit on the Warrior's lips, cold from the freezing wind that still chilled him to the bone. His mouth was warm around Kain's tongue, though, and he tasted as clean as he always did, as if the dirt of the outside air couldn't touch him. Kain opened his mouth wider, his fingers tangling in the Warrior's damp hair and his thumb running over his jaw.
His own heartbeat rang loud in his ears, loud enough for once to drown out his thoughts, to clear his head of everything but this. Kain's fingers never shook before a battle, but they shook now as he began the process of unbuckling the Warrior's armour, tearing it off him, as if by removing it he could strip away whatever wordless gulf lay between them, make the Warrior understand him in the way that Kain suspected – perhaps feared - he never truly had.
In the end, he thought bitterly, the Warrior was too assured of his place in the world, too convinced of what he had to do, to ever understand. It had been the same with Cecil, for all Cecil's doubts and uncertainties. They had never been lost or lonely in that way; Cecil may have needed the push of the disaster he had caused at Mist to find his way, but he had found it all the same, effortlessly moving away from who he had been in the past and the role he had played.
If the Warrior of Light was surprised by the anger in Kain's touch, he didn't show it. The cold was cutting, but Kain realised that he wanted him naked; he wanted to see him laid bare before him. Usually there was no time, no chance for such things, and even now the cramped space of the tent did not make it easy. Kain could not explain the impulse to himself, except that if he was going to give his life away for this man's goddess, then he should at least be granted this.
No, he told himself as he released the Warrior of Light's wrist long enough to pull his black tunic over his head before allowing him to fall back against the ground, not for her. For him. But in the moment that followed, he realised he didn't know exactly whether him meant the Warrior of Light or Cecil Harvey, and the realisation made his breath stall in his throat. He closed his eyes, desolation sweeping up his chest, all but killing the desire that had burned so brightly in him just moments before.
It was better not to think. It was better to bury himself in heat and movement, and to pretend everything was as simple and easy as this, to watch the soft corrugation of the Warrior's ribs rise and fall with his breath. Kain moved his eyes over him, the curve of his stomach muscles and the dip below his hipbones, as if trying to memorise everything. He could not help but sit back for a moment and wonder what the Warrior saw when he looked at him: a friend, or simply another instrument in Cosmos' war? Despite everything, he could not bring himself to believe that all they had done meant nothing to the Warrior, and he wondered if, truly, the Warrior believed he was being altruistic in allowing Kain to take on the task of executing their friends.
After a moment or two, the Warrior opened his eyes and sat up. He slid himself up from between Kain's knees, his hands going to Kain's tasset, his eyes lowered. Kain sucked in a breath when he realised what the Warrior intended – perhaps he'd misunderstood Kain's hesitation and thought that this was what he had been waiting for. The Warrior pushed him back, removing the last of his armour. Kain barely had time to register the cold on his skin before the Warrior dipped his head and his mouth was on him, encircling him in heat and softness. Kain grit his teeth and threw his head back with a low groan, letting warmth claw its way up his spine, soft but brutal, and almost too much to bear. Swallowing, he forced himself to open his eyes, to look down at the curve of the Warrior's spine, the skin of his back white against the darkness, the rise and fall of his head, the sound of his lips against Kain's skin.
Unable to stop himself he thrust up, breath hitching, feeling the warm, yielding press of the Warrior's throat against him. Cold air filled his mouth as he struggled for breath, feeling that familiar bloom in his groin as the Warrior dragged his mouth back up along him, his tongue trailing his lips. The Warrior glanced up at him then, as if to gauge if this was what Kain wanted, and for some reason the sight of his eyes, so clear and so steady, was more than Kain could bear.
Reaching down, Kain put his hands on either side of the Warrior's face and pulled him up before he had the chance to slide back down. He could taste himself in the Warrior's mouth, and his fingers still shook as he unlaced the Warrior's tasset, pulling the heavy sheets of armour away from him. As good as it had felt, finishing in the Warrior's mouth was not what he wanted from him. It would not be enough this time.
The Warrior drew a sharp breath when Kain pushed him back, running the tips of his fingers over the groove where thigh met hip; Kain could not suppress a shudder when he finally raised his eyes to the Warrior of Light's face and saw the same blank acceptance he always saw there. Just this once, it was of no comfort to him – he would have found it better to know that the Warrior of Light shared, or at least understood, the clawing desperation that had settled in the pit of Kain's stomach, his fear and revulsion at what he must do. But it was simply not there, as Kain had known it wouldn't be – he doubted it would be there even if their roles in this scheme were reversed.
He could not look at him anymore; within the confines of the tent, Kain crawled over him, hooking the back of the Warrior's knee into his elbow. The Warrior hissed out a breath when Kain pushed into him, arching his back against him, but Kain could not bring himself to stop or slow his pace once he had started. He could feel that warm, insistent ache already beginning to pool in his groin, his nerve endings already overwhelmed by the throb of the Warrior's body around him, seeming to try to pull him in deeper with every thrust. The Warrior's breath, warm against Kain's throat, hitched as he changed angles, deepening his strokes, and he felt the Warrior's hands come up, digging into the coiled muscle of his back, his short nails cutting stinging crescents into his skin.
Kain buried his face against the Warrior's throat, feeling his pulse fast and strong against his lips, and closed his eyes, trying to block out everything but the tight heat that held him and drew him down, the warmth of the body below his, the soft song that ran down the network of his nerves. Despite himself he quickened his pace once more, wanting this to last but wanting it to be over, and felt the Warrior tighten around him in response. The sensation shot through him and he groaned, unable to stop himself, lifting his head from where it rested and finally looking the Warrior of Light in the face: his eyes were closed, his bottom lip drawn back into his mouth, the muscles of his neck cording against his skin. He let out a ragged groan every time Kain sank into him, every one driving Kain closer to the edge, until finally he felt that all-too-familiar pull gathering behind his groin, the dull roar in his ears that seemed to cut off all his other senses, overwhelming him, shaking him down to his bones.
Kain lay against the Warrior's chest – he wasn't sure how long. The cold on his back had become almost unbearable by the time he moved again, curling against the Warrior's back, realising he'd been selfish and sliding his hand over the curve of his stomach, reaching between his legs.
The Warrior turned his head, his lips grazing the side of Kain's face. "Don't," he said, catching Kain's hand. "It doesn't matter."
Kain felt the Warrior begin to move away and tightened his grip around his waist, almost saying Don't go, before swallowing the words back down, closing them into his heart.
Despite Kain's hold, the Warrior of Light sat up, and Kain heard him rustling through a pack before feeling the drape of a blanket over his shoulder.
"I'll take the first watch," the Warrior said, and then he heard the clink of armour as the Warrior began to dress.
"Wake me," he muttered, not opening his eyes, before hearing the flap of the tent being drawn back and the Warrior moving out into the night.
The dawn was only just breaking across the sky when Kain awoke.
He blinked in the half-light, the freezing air dragging him from his sleep. When he inhaled, he felt the ice in the air crawl its way through his lungs. The cold was merciless, beyond anything he could recall having experienced before.
Even the daybreak appeared a pale imitation, a feeble white light in the greying sky, too weak to burn away the mist that hung over the mountains and the deep black river.
Daybreak…
The sudden pulse of adrenaline as he realised the hour was enough to drive him to his feet, grab his lance and crawl quickly from the tent. He had not meant to sleep the whole night. He'd missed his watch….
"Did you sleep your fill?"
Kain swallowed at the sound of the Warrior's voice, the tension leaching from his muscles, replaced with the slow burn of anger.
"You were supposed to wake me for my watch."
"You required the sleep."
Kain snorted derisively, but his anger was already beginning to turn inwards – all his years of sleeping in shifts and he had still managed to sleep the whole night through. His anger died in his throat, and the rebuke that left his lips sounded sheepish and half-willed. "And you didn't?"
The Warrior of Light didn't reply. Kain turned towards where he sat, arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked under his cloak, his sword in front of him. There was frost on the blade, beginning to bead into dew in the growing light. Despite the fact he was evidently awake, his eyes were closed, and Kain could see the dark rings that seemed to hollow the skin below them.
"And you expect me to carry you back to Sanctuary while you doze on your feet?" Kain asked, feeling cruel even as he said it but too angry with himself to care.
The Warrior opened his eyes, blinking in the grey light. "I expect nothing –"
Kain stopped him with a wave of his hand. "Forgive me. I spoke harshly," he muttered, cold and exhaustion making anger impossible to sustain, even if he had wanted to. Instead, he exhaled, watching his breath escape him, white in the freezing air. "I'm afraid I am… ungracious this early in the morning."
The Warrior of Light simply blinked at him again, seeming neither hurt nor angered by his words, nor at his hollow attempt to diffuse them. "Don't let it trouble you. You need the rest. You'll be thankful for it."
The weight of what the Warrior had left unspoken seemed to bend the air between them. "I know," Kain muttered, turning his face away and looking out to where the sun had finally broken free of the horizon, turning the deep water of the river from black to grey.
No amount of sleep ever seemed enough in this place – his eyes felt bleary and he thought his face must look haggard. Without another word to the Warrior, Kain jerked his freezing muscles to action, walking down to the river where it rose and fell against the shore. The shallows, at least, were crystal clear, washing fragments of rock and grains of sand against one another.
He dipped his hands into the water, lifting it and running it over his face, scrubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes and brain. The Warrior of Light had been correct, as he always seemed to be in his inexorable way – he would need all the rest he could get for the upcoming task.
There were not so many of their comrades; they trusted him and were not likely to be on their guard. To strike from behind, that should be the way of it – it might even be kinder to them in the end to spare them the knowledge that they had been betrayed. Kain had had a lifetime to harden himself to the idea that in war, soldiers die, every day and in great numbers, and that as their commander, it was his duty to send them to their deaths. In the past, Baron had never flinched from throwing its peasantry into the rank and file of its armies when the need had arisen, people who didn't know and cared less about what they were fighting for. Neither Cecil nor Kain had ever commanded any section but the professional army the castle kept, but it still did not change the fact that men had stood and died on his word. What were a few more?
He had seen friends die before.
Turning, Kain looked back at the Warrior – he had not risen, but Kain could feel his eyes on him, and he wondered briefly if he truly believed this was the correct path. If Golbez had told it true and the battles were a cycle, he wondered how many other comrades the Warrior had seen come and go over the course of the cycles, so infinitely replaceable, and he wondered how much of his faulty memory was an entirely subconscious defence mechanism. He wondered again at the girl the Warrior had told him of, whom he now seemed completely unable to remember – who she had been and what role she had played in the Warrior's life, that she had been the only fragmentary memory he had left of anything that had gone before.
Perhaps it was that which made him so placidly able to accept everything that Kain had told him – perhaps it was that which had prevented him from even attempting to dissuade Kain or to suggest they find another way. Kain closed his eyes, feeling the sunshine on his face. For a moment, he allowed his mind to wander towards other possibilities.
Kain, no. I can't let you do that. I need –
Kain shook his head. Better not even to imagine such things – that way lay madness, as he was only too aware. If did not exist: things either were or they were not, and the Warrior of Light would have had to be a very different man to ever have spoken to Kain in that way. He had never given Kain any reason to suspect that Cosmos and his duty to her were not first in his thoughts at every turn. He could hardly accuse the Warrior of having misled him.
Looking back at him now, Kain watched the Warrior stand and begin to walk down towards him. He wondered how they had come to this point. Snatches of memory often drifted unbidden to the surface of his mind, nothing more than a whispered word, a small conversation, or one of the Warrior of Light's extremely rare smiles. They seemed to play on an endless loop, never failing to send a sharp shock of pleasure straight to his groin, but when he tried to place these memories they simply would not fit. He saw them so clearly that he could not believe they hadn't happened. If these battles were a cycle, this had all happened before. Kain wondered how it had ended then – or if he had managed to be happy in whatever time they'd had, and, moreover, why it had been him, of all people, the Warrior of Light kept returning to.
He turned away slightly as the Warrior reached his side, feeling suddenly like he could not look at him.
"Kain." He closed his eyes at the sound of the Warrior's voice, almost wishing he had slipped away during the night. "I apologise for not waking you."
Kain had to smile, though there was little humour in it. The Warrior of Light was getting better at form, if not content, and for a moment he was almost overwhelmed with the kind of dangerous, inexplicable affection he'd spent a lifetime trying to bury within himself.
"I appreciate the thought," Kain said, knowing that, if nothing else, the Warrior had meant it kindly. "And you were right. Evidently, I needed the sleep."
For a moment, Kain watched the small waves break on the shore, knowing that they could no longer delay the conversation. If they had decided last night inside the gateway that he would be the one to take their friends down, that was as far as they had gotten before Kain had curtailed the discussion. The wind blew his hair back from his face, the cold air stinging his eyes. He heard the clink of the Warrior's armour as he shifted slightly beside him.
"Kain –"
Kain closed his eyes and almost answered him, before turning to him, willing him to be silent and pressing his mouth to his lips. He pushed his hands into the space between the high neck of his armour and the back of his head, coiling his fingers through his hair. The Warrior's armour was hard and freezing cold against his chest, but his mouth, when he opened it, was as warm as it had been the night before, his tongue soft as it moved against Kain's own, drawing Kain out of himself and tightening his chest with longing. He found the small space above the Warrior's hip that was not covered by his armour and pressed his fingers into it, pulling him closer and ignoring the sharp edges of his cuirass digging into his skin.
Don't say anything, Kain almost wanted to tell him. We need not speak of it. We can find another way. But in the end, he knew it was futile, and the Warrior of Light shifted away from him, giving him a mildly puzzled look before running a gloved hand over his shoulder, as if in a gesture of comfort.
"Kain," he said, half-turning away and waiting for Kain to follow him back up to the tent. "I don't want to delay you."
In the end, it was relatively simple – Kain would hunt their allies while the Warrior moved slightly ahead of him, clearing a path through the manikins that might hinder him, distracting any Chaos warriors that might pick up his scent and give chase. It would be exhausting work – the manikins could never entirely be disposed of and Kain would have to contend with them, no matter how many the Warrior of Light removed from his path.
They would catch up with each other in two days' time in the ruins of the castle in the Melmond Fens, in the hope that the marshy ground would deter either their allies or their enemies from venturing too deep to find them. They knew the places in which their allies tended to camp – against all of Kain's and Lightning's exhortations that they move around more so as to not provide easy pickings for their enemies – and where they were most likely to be, near uncleared gateways and easy shelter.
"I can cut back through the Cornelia Plains," the Warrior said, looking up from the miniature sketch of the continents that Kain had drawn in the earth between them. "If the path is clear, it will be easy to circle back to Order's Sanctuary."
Kain looked up sharply and was unsuccessful in suppressing his short, surprised breath.
"I would need to explain to her what we are doing," the Warrior of Light said in response to the unasked question, his eyes not leaving Kain's face. "Otherwise she may think that we –"
The Warrior cut himself off there, and Kain completed the thought himself - that we have betrayed her - and realised that the Warrior had blanched from even suggesting the possibility of such a thing aloud. Lowering his head, he nodded, not trusting his voice enough to speak.
It could be laid out like this, as a cold-blooded strategy of war, and Kain could almost make himself believe that was all it was – just another plan that he could enact the same way he had so many times in the past, for men he did not trust and in the service of causes far less worthy than this. They sat in silence for a short time once the planning was done; Kain could not look up for fear of the expression – or the lack of one – he would find on the Warrior of Light's face, the air between them thick.
"I should go," he eventually said, suddenly desperate to be on his way. If he were to do this thing, it would be better to get it underway sooner rather than later; every second they delayed was one second more an ally could be lost. One second more in which he might lose his nerve.
He half-stood, already turning to go, when he felt the Warrior of Light's gloved hand close around his wrist. "Kain. Wait."
Kain turned in surprise, his heart thumping in his chest. The Warrior was looking up at him from where he sat, and Kain could see the line of thought creasing between his eyebrows. "I wanted – " The Warrior cut himself off, swallowing. Kain turned to face him fully, crouching down before him.
The Warrior blinked, and Kain could see something akin to confusion in his eyes as he looked up, turning Kain's hand over in his own. Kain's first instinct was to curl his fingers closed, to hide the mark that Cecil had made on his hand all those years ago, but with effort he resisted, allowing the Warrior to run his fingers over the pale scar on his palm.
"I know it's no easy thing you do," the Warrior began, his voice sounding so uncharacteristically hesitant that Kain almost drew back. "But you do it for good reasons, Kain."
Kain's first impulse was derision, but he found that anything he might have said died before it ever left his lips. Instead, he sat as if frozen, allowing the Warrior to continue moving his fingers over his palm in a way that somehow suggested both tenderness and detachment, like a scientist studying a treasured specimen.
"You told me that you got this swearing an oath to someone once," he finally said. "I don't remember if I ever did likewise, to anyone. But to swear to see this through – I'd give you my oath for that," he finished, looking up into Kain's face.
Kain's throat went dry, his mind unable to form the words he knew he wanted. The hard wall he'd decided that he must build between himself and the Warrior if he was to remain sane throughout this endeavour chipped slightly. Was it possible, after all, that the Warrior did understand? That he wore his mask so completely that even Kain had been unable to penetrate it? He swallowed and ran his tongue over his lips. "What oath would you swear?"
He watched as the Warrior's forehead creased a little. "To be your shield," he eventually said. Kain closed his eyes, his breath sounding very loud in his chest. "To protect you while you end this. I swear that I won't fail you."
"So sworn." Kain completed the oath-taking words automatically, even though he knew there was no way the Warrior could know how to complete the phrase.
The Warrior paused, blinking through a flash of confusion. "So sworn," he repeated, and Kain almost winced at the incorrect response.
So witnessed, he mentally corrected, but the words were close enough, perhaps, for now.
He could not bring himself to look up at the Warrior's face as he slowly slid his glove from his hand.
The Warrior didn't make a sound as Kain pressed the blade of his lance down on his palm, hard enough to break the skin but gently enough so as not to leave a gash. Kain hesitated a moment, his left hand hovering over the blade, before passing the lance across and curling his right hand around it, just above the white scar that still remained from his stupid, childish oath to Cecil. Ironically, the oath he swore now, not to falter while he methodically removed his friends from battle, was far closer to the principles he had thought he would be upholding the day he had become a dragoon and Cecil a Dark Knight. Laying his lance to one side, he pressed their palms together, interlacing their fingers and watching the thin ribbon of red that ran down his wrist.
Kain closed his eyes, feeling the Warrior's pulse throb against his palm. For a moment, he imagined that he was back in the forest where he had been that day with Cecil and that this was the beginning of his life, his choices not yet made. Perhaps this would be different. Kain allowed himself an indulgent flash of hope. Perhaps…
When he opened his eyes again, the Warrior had the beginning of a smile on his face, something so rare that for a moment Kain was startled, before almost smiling back.
"For Cosmos," the Warrior said, looking up at Kain, the smile finally breaking the surface.
It was Kain's turn to repeat something he didn't quite believe. He tried to keep his voice as level as possible over the sudden rush of blood in his ears. Without mercy, he crushed a bitter laugh that threatened him from whatever mixture of apprehension and duty swirled in his stomach.
"For Cosmos."
The cold had lifted somewhat, but the rain, it seemed, had settled in for the long term. The earth turned to mud beneath his tread, slowing him down but at least making tracking easier. Occasionally, Kain passed the shattered remains of manikins, still smoking and sizzling in the rain. Whatever the Warrior of Light did, he did thoroughly, and more often than not the shattered pieces were completely unrecognisable as something that had once looked roughly human.
Sometimes Kain would come across half of an expressionless, crystalline face, white eyes staring blankly at the sky, filling with rain. If he recognised them from what was left, he would name them - Yuna, Bartz, Lightning, Cecil - and move on. At first it had been unnerving, fighting these inhuman facsimiles of friends and allies, but they all had eventually learned to close their hearts to it. Now, even as he put their names to their faces, it was as if he did not see them; with every face and every name, Kain retreated further from them, and eventually it seemed that he was doing nothing more than reciting nonsense words without meaning, without attachments.
The rain may have fallen steadily, but the mud was thick enough that footprints held their shape for some time after they had been made. The path he had chosen would take him around the mountain range and through the marshy outer land of the fens. There was only one set of tracks, discounting the Warrior of Light's – the stride too short and too light and the pace too fast to be Firion, weighed down as he was with every weapon he could get his hands on; too big to be the Onion Knight; and he knew that it would be a rare thing to find either Bartz or Zidane on their own. Squall wore boots with a tread that Kain had never seen before, and this was not it. Lightning was too fast and too light to have made them, Yuna too slow and her step too delicate.
There was detachment in these guessing games; he knew to whom the tracks belonged, had known from the first minute he began following them through the dark morass of the mud. It couldn't have been anyone else. Kain was too familiar with everything about Cecil to ever have mistaken his footprints for anyone else's; they had trained together since they were boys, following each other through the woods that surrounded Baron Castle, when the sunshine trickled down between the needles of the pines and everything had seemed green and gold.
Despite the fact that Kain had been taller and stronger than him for as long as he could remember, Cecil had almost always won the arm wrestle to determine who would be the deer and who the hunter, and Cecil had always chosen deer. Kain could not have mistaken his tracks for anyone else's, even in this desolate place that was as far removed from the forests of his home as the moon was from the blue planet. Cecil had been too good at the game, and more often than not it had ended with him emerging from the ferns, laughing at Kain for failing to find him within the time limit and picking dried pine needles out of his hair.
Kain wondered if it would be the same now and he would fail to find him and would return to the Melmond Fens with nothing to report. But the rules of the game had changed now. In those days, Cecil had known Kain was hunting him.
"Kain?"
He heard his voice before he saw him. Twilight was only just beginning to descend, the last of the sun's red glimmer dying on the horizon. Kain closed his eyes, letting the ice that he had been steadily collecting in his heart spread throughout his body, freezing out emotion, freezing out memories.
"I knew someone was following, but I didn't realise it was you," Cecil said, emerging from the growing darkness, looking as bedraggled as Kain had ever seen him, mud spattered across the gleaming white of his paladin armour and his hair damp from the rain.
"Cecil," Kain said, and, somehow, even as it left his lips, it did not sound like a name at all. "Are you alone?"
"I was with Firion, but he wanted to go and explore the snowfields," Cecil said, waiting a moment for Kain to draw level with him, before turning and continuing on his way.
For a moment, Kain narrowed his eyes – Cecil was leaving himself so open to an attack that he was momentarily suspicious, until he remembered that Cecil had no reason to suspect him of anything; even if he had had his memories, he had easily trusted Kain again even after two betrayals. There was no reason that he would be any different now.
A part of Kain had always cleaved desperately to the notion that Rosa belonged more with him than she ever had with Cecil. Cecil would be a fine man regardless of Rosa's presence in his life, but Kain had needed her – if only she had chosen him, he would never have been capable of such things as he had done.
Kain had always thought, privately, that he had had more faith in Rosa's strength than Cecil ever had. While Cecil had never stopped short of actually ordering Rosa to remain behind when he went to fight, Kain remembered her putting arrow after arrow into the dead centre of her target, moving or still, and watching the almost liquid tendrils of magic that moved between her fingers when she healed, a skill invaluable on the battlefield.
Perhaps, in the end, that had been where the problem truly lay - Kain had seen it in her eyes after the Tower of Zot; where Cecil had flatly refused to believe that Kain, having broken free of Golbez's influence, could possibly betray them again, Rosa had watched him, her mouth repeating Cecil's words, but her eyes so sad that Kain could scarcely stand to look at her. Kain had realised much later that again it was his weakness that had betrayed him – whatever Rosa's inclinations might have been, making him a good man was not her charge; her strength could not compensate for his weakness, nor should it. With Cecil, she could be weak; she could be exhausted; she could be human. With Kain, she could only ever have been a goddess.
In his dreams, he watched himself strike Cecil down over and over again. But at the last minute, his hand always faltered, unable to deliver the killing blow. Meagre though it had been, he had always comforted himself with the thought that, at least, in the end, he had been unable to do that.
It seemed so far distant, and yet it all seemed so familiar.
The air was so thin, it seemed, almost too thin to breathe, and his vision narrowed, tunnelling down to the slice of throat between Cecil's jaw and the neck of his armour. Kain had done it a hundred times before - a short, quick thrust there was the easiest way to kill a man, provided that your blade did not get stuck in the bone of his spine and you drew back quickly enough to face the next enemy. But here, there was no one else, only him and Cecil, surrounded by the deepening shadow of the night closing in around them.
Get it done. Better that it's done quickly. He knew, if he allowed himself to think any further, his nerve would fail him, the dreamlike state he'd drifted into lost.
Kain's left arm felt heavy, as if it were being weighed down by the lance in his hand. Cecil was still talking quietly, seeming totally oblivious. As his lance shot forward, Kain had time to think, You never do know when to shut up, do you, Cecil?
He had been expecting to feel the sickening resistance of flesh and bone jolt down his arm. It was almost a worse shock when his lance sliced through only the empty air, as Cecil, perhaps intuiting something or perhaps simply by chance, moved his head aside at the last moment. The blade of Kain's lance shot through his hair, missing the side of his neck and the artery therein by the merest of margins.
In the darkness, Cecil stumbled back, shock making him clumsy; it was the only time Kain could ever remember him actually clumsy. "Kain? What – "
Even if he had been inclined to answer him, Kain found that he had no voice and no thoughts to form the words. There was only the lance in his hand and the shortest trajectory it would have to take to hit home.
It had always been like that, when they were sparring as children and later as soldiers. If Cecil had always found a way to interplay the dark magic he commanded and the strike of his sword, for Kain, there had only ever been a series of short, sharp lines for his body and his blade to follow.
Kain knew Cecil well, knew that he always seemed to have a blind spot for low hews to his left side and that an elbow injury had made him weaker to overhead strikes. He'd used them to his advantage so many times when they were sparring, to the point that Rosa had only half-jokingly accused him of bad sportsmanship. Kain remembered he'd laughed at that, as if there could be any such thing in a standing fight.
He watched for those signs even now, as he felt his muscles coil like a spring, ready to strike while Cecil was still off his guard. This was all a game, after all, wasn't it? They had fought like this a thousand times, fought to exhaustion, too breathless even to laugh by the end. Then they'd sat back-to-back in the fading sunlight, talking about what they would do when their battles were real.
"Kain," Cecil's voice cut through the haze of his memories, and in the moment before he struck forward again, Kain saw a thin trickle of blood down the side of his face, where the blade of his lance had landed a glancing blow in what should have been Cecil's neck. First blood, he could not help but think. I've won.
"Kain, I don't understand. Listen to me – "
Kain didn't answer him – what was there to say? – and Cecil was only just fast enough to parry his next blow. Kain could feel the weakness, the hesitation behind it. He was expecting a riposte, but none came. He stepped back, thrown off his guard: Cecil had always been quick, far quicker than Kain, but now his movements seemed almost sluggish. When Kain pressed forward again, he could feel the fragility of Cecil's guard.
Fight, curse you, Kain wanted to scream at him. Again, Cecil parried weakly, letting Kain close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead, failed to close fast enough to prevent Kain from sweeping through the opening, and moved only just quickly enough to evade what would have been a killing thrust.
Cecil had never, ever let him win their sparring matches – it had always been a tacit agreement that they would not hold back, and Kain could not understand why Cecil would not meet him blow for blow now, as he always had done in the past. They were evenly matched, the two of them. Cecil was always fast and elegant, his parries and ripostes balanced and deft. He had admired the way Cecil used a sword, but Kain knew that he could not be matched with a spear and had come to favour of it over anything else, as cumbersome as it could be in close-range combat. Kain had overcome the lance's limitations and made the weapon his own. Cecil could keep his elegant swordplay.
Now, Kain could barely believe he was fighting the same man. Cecil was giving ground so easily, his face only just now beginning to harden into the mask of concentration that Kain knew so well.
The marshy ground was slippery below him, but he was sure enough on his feet not to mind; he watched as one of Cecil's feet slid out from under him, and he pressed the advantage with a vicious overhead blow to Cecil's weak side that almost crumpled his arm, Kain's blade coming within inches of his face.
I drew first blood. I've already won.
"Please, Kain." It may have been mistaken as a plea coming from someone else, but Kain could hear the warning behind Cecil's words. Perhaps now the match can truly begin.
And sure enough, there it was – Cecil's next block had none of the feebleness of his previous ones, and the shock of hitting it sent unpleasant reverberations up Kain's arm and into his shoulder. Cecil parried with the swiftness Kain had always seen in him before, and he swung low with a blow that would have caught Kain in the thigh had he been a hair's breadth quicker.
A smile twitched at Kain's lips. This was what he knew, what he remembered. The rules of this game were clear and easy. His pride in the knowledge of what he had always suspected – that Cecil was good, but he was better – surged through him, strengthening his arm and steeling his resolve.
Despite this, the next swing that Cecil made sailed over his guard, the edge of his sword embedding itself in the leather of the high neck of his armour, catching in the mail beneath. It would have been mortal had the angle been just slightly higher, the blow slightly stronger. For half a moment, Kain looked up, Cecil's face close to his own, his forehead creased in concentration, his eyes seemingly empty. It was not the familiar blue eyes of his friend that Kain saw, but the cold, almost distant expression of a capable and experienced killer.
The dull ache of the blow spread slowly down through his neck and shoulder, and Kain knew this would have to be finished quickly. Cecil tried to draw his sword back, but the teeth of Kain's mail held it tight, and in the moment's hesitation it caused, Kain lifted his lance and struck Cecil in the centre of his chest, knocking him back.
Cecil was struggling to find his balance, but it was futile; his heartbeat singing in his ears, the refrain I've won repeating itself in his brain, Kain swung around, brought his spear low and thrust forward before Cecil had the chance to lower his guard.
You always have a blind spot on your left, Kain could remember telling him, time and time again after tapping him there, gently or not depending on what rules they were using, and Cecil had always laughed and said he knew and that he would work on it.
He almost opened his mouth to say it again now – more than anything, he wanted to hear Cecil laugh and promise to work on it and tell Kain that he wouldn't beat him so easily next time. It was just a game, after all – there would always be a next time.
Now, he wondered why he saw surprise in Cecil's eyes in the moment before his head dropped forward, his hair covering his face; it was an easy move, one that Kain had beaten him with in the past. It wasn't until he withdrew his lance and watched the blood spatter redly on the muddy ground that he remembered why this time was different.
Kain's breath shook in his chest as he peeled off his helm. "You can get up now," he said, waiting for Cecil to stir. He swallowed. It was beginning to rain; the first fine, frigid drops were stinging his face, growing stronger and heavier with every passing moment. His limbs felt utterly without strength, and he half-sat, half-dropped to one knee. "Please."
But Cecil, just for once, did not get up and give Kain the kind of easy smile that Kain knew made people love him, just as he'd always loved him. No, he thought suddenly, letting his helm drop to the mud. I always loved him best. No one else knew him well enough to love him like I did.
The problem, it seemed to Kain, was that love had always sat so perilously close to hate in the spectrum of his emotions that he had never been able to keep them straight in his heart. He had always loved too strongly, too dangerously, too all-consumingly. It frightened him, how much and how desperately he had loved Cecil, and consequently, how much he had hated him when the scales were just slightly tipped.
Now, as he sat in the mud and waited, Kain found his breath was choking him, thickening his throat like something living, sliding down inside him and settling there.
The rain began to beat down, swallowing him in sound. It crept over his scalp and down the back of his neck, and he slowly leaned forward and then crawled to where Cecil lay. The mud was soft, so soft, beneath his hands, seeping below his fingernails and into the joints at the knees of his armour. Cecil rolled back when he touched him, the rain washing the muck off his face when his slack neck dropped backwards, his head settling into the crook of Kain's arm.
Kain had no idea how long it was until he moved again – long enough that the rain had settled into a steady, soft drizzle when he lifted his head to it, his mouth parched. For a moment, he looked down at his hands and realised they were shaking, before he balled his fists, refusing to allow them to shake anymore. He had far to go before he could rest, before he could allow himself to think about what he had done.
They had decided that the safest place for their friends would be the Mirage Sandsea; it was isolated, empty, the terrain unfriendly and ringed by mountains. Kain's neck and shoulder ached where the sword had bitten into his mail, but he forced himself to ignore the pain as he lifted Cecil in his arms and shifted him over his shoulder, the dull red smear over the back of his hand. His knees creaked when he stood, his fingers almost refusing to curl tightly enough to hold his lance.
Despite this, as he took the first few stumbling steps forward, his thoughts rose unbidden in his mind. Even in this place, separated from Baron, from his life and circumstances there by the gods alone knew what, he knew now that the man he was – the man he had always been – was truly the only thing he was capable of being, and this was what Mount Ordeals, with all its trials, had been showing him all along. He had done the very thing he had been so unable to do before, and killed his friend.
The only thing he could be thankful for was the fact that Rosa was not here to see him now, walking alone with dark mud and Cecil's blood under his fingernails, the sweat of the fight still fresh on his throat. He could not even imagine what she would say to him – perhaps nothing. Perhaps her face would say it all.