A/N: Inspired by a comment ixieko left on Symbiosis on Ao3.
You heard the story of the witch growing up just like everyone else. It was a popular story, evocative, imaginative, pleasing. The witch with the castle that would never stay in one place for long. It roamed; turning up here, there and everywhere. The witch had enchanted her castle to stalk across the landscape, striding over hill and dale. She was not a cruel witch like in other stories; she was kind and beautiful. It always struck you as a little odd that they called her a 'witch'. It never seemed quite the right word, but no story-teller was ever able to offer something better. Or her name. She had one once; both she and her two constant companions. The two warriors who lived with her in the castle - all three of them nameless in the story.
You almost forgot the story after childhood, when you threw away dreams and storybooks. You stopped thinking about the moving castle and the beautiful witch who ruled it years ago. Or at least that's what you tell yourself. There's something about the tale you can never quite forget. Some days you find yourself imagining the castle and what it would be like to travel inside it.
It is twenty years later and you hear the rumours. There are always rumours, always something weird and new in the landscape. Some leftover from one of Shinra's projects in the past, sometimes something from the Planet. Your ears prick up at the words 'castle' and 'moving'. You left your hometown long ago, leaving the village that seems to be behind everywhere else. Or was it further ahead? They abandoned Mako power long before the red star and the end of Shinra. The moving castle; you never expected to hear the story again. Perhaps it is more universal than you imagined - part of almost everyone's childhood. Maybe it has an older origin, a root way back in the past, before Shinra. You just smile into your drink and take no more notice.
The rumor seems to pursue you. Someone sights the castle near the Gold Saucer, reopened just two years prior. There's a curiosity there. A desire to see if it can be that castle. But you fear someone exposing you as gullible - or worse - still believing in those fairy tales you loved so much in childhood. It cannot be the castle you dreamed of once. There is no mention of it striding across the land. Instead it is as if it appears in different places, the movement and method of locomotion secret. Maybe it rolls across the grasslands on huge wheels. Maybe it flies. Yet there are other rumors surrounding the ones you hear first. Glimpses of something stumbling, staggering, lurching in the night-time. The creak of ropes and wood and metal as the ground quakes in the wake of something so huge.
You resolve yourself to waiting. The castle is coming towards you. Outside Costa del Sol, near Junon, at Fort Condor, near the Chocobo Farm. It is coming here. And so you wait, the pause too long. It is like trying to sleep before your birthday, before Yule. But there is no clue on how long the wait will be. And nothing to do but wait. And then, one day, you wake up and see the castle.
It is the centre-piece of your dream given form. Every part is as you imagined. The long metal chimneys, the slight top-heavy construction. There is something at the centre, something you cannot quite make out that everything connects to. It distracts only for a moment, there is so much to see here. A greenhouse perches on a high ledge and a balcony on the opposite side. There are two shops below; one that sells flowers, the other serving food, coffee and later alcohol.
You stare at the structure, noting the ropes connecting every part of it to every other part. The awkward brackets, planks and chains looped and hammered into place. It does not look capable of movement, but you know it was not here yesterday. The thrill builds as you approach. But it is not to be. There is no one here and the doors will not open. A passerby takes pity at your crestfallen expression. The witch is out she says.
Where you ask.
The graveyard is the unexpected answer. Took her two companions with her. The passerby looks side to side as she leans in closer. Visiting the castle's original owner, she says as if imparting a vital secret. It feels off somehow. How could this castle have had an owner before the witch? The castle is the witch's - her mother is never in the stories. You try to go about your normal day, always circling back to check on the castle. You do not catch sight of the witch or her companions, but you know they have returned home when smoke rises from the chimneys.
You go to bed that night hoping to see more the next day, fearing the castle will have already gone.
Unable to hold yourself back, you rush to see it again the next morning. You feel elated; the doors at the base of the castle are open. A man with silver hair in spiky tufts is poking, prodding and repairing the walls, his hammer loud in the early air. He glances around at your approach, unconcerned about your presence. It seems obvious he is one of the people living in the castle, but can this man be one of the warriors? In your mind's eye, he is always young, his skin smooth, his hair blonde and his body rippling with muscles. The man is fifty years advanced from the image you once held, time ravaged everywhere but his eyes.
His eyes are a brilliant blue, the irises encircled with a glowing green. That used to mean something. There is something specific about someone who has eyes like that; but you can not recall it. He glances at you again as you watch him and smiles. They are both open for business he tells you, gesturing to either side. He advises breakfast before flowers. Questions about the witch die on your lips as he turns back to his handiwork.
You pause, wondering. Through each door you can see an elderly woman working. In the flower shop, the reflected sunlight obscures her, but there is a flash of pink as she moves. Through the other door you can see a woman with silver hair behind a bar, busying herself with glasses, cups, saucers and a hob. The man's words echo through your head. You look around. No one else has ventured into the witch's domain yet.
The other woman smiles as you step through the door, the scents of fried oil and toast and meat and the sticky sweetness of jam hang in the air. Hunger gnaws at your stomach as you approach the counter. The woman has eyes the colour of wine and greets you with warmth, gesturing to one of the stools at the bar. You order, the smell making the idea of one of everything far too tempting and as she turns to sort the hob, you glance around the room. There is a wall full of photographs nearby, different places and different people. The locations are not hard to place, but there is something familiar about so many of the people. You feel you should recognize them; they are important. But before you can focus the woman places a heaped plate of food before you.
It tastes good, and you dismiss a momentary thought of tales where witches drugged their prey before feasting on them. The woman bustles and you feel nervous as you ask her about this place. She looks at you with care, relating that she has taken care of this place - the Seventh Heaven - for a long time. That strange sense of familiarity once again. There is something significant about that name and how it relates to other elements, other stories. The memory is too weak and you let it lie, instead asking your most vital question: how does the castle move?
The woman blinks for a moment and chuckles. She advises that the answer should come from her companion in the flower shop. So. Only the witch can answer your question. You eyes wander as you eat, between the small talk as the woman cooks. You look past the photos, through the doorways, seeking out the secret of this place. It continues to elude you. There are oddities though; behind the bar you can see what looks like the exterior wall of a house, surrounded and built upon. It almost looks like it is what lies at the centre of the mass, but with this structure how could anyone tell. Odd. You pay for the meal; it is neither cheap nor expensive, but feels an appropriate value. The woman smiles as you leave, and says you are welcome back anytime.
Outside the man is still tending to the exterior of the castle. He hammers on nails and hooks linking the chains and the ropes and the structure into one confused mass. He nods at you, soon turning back to what he is doing. You lick your lips, eyeing the shape that moves in the other shop. There is no avoiding it now; to find the answers to your questions, you must ask the witch.
A bell jingles as you push the door open, the witch looking up as you enter. Her eyes are emerald green and like the other woman her hair is grey. It is short, but tied back with a pink ribbon. You look away as she watches you, your gaze roaming around the shop. The interior is bright and filled with a rainbow of petals. You shake your head, trying to pull your gaze away from the flowers. You have never seen so many like this. No. You cannot let yourself get distracted. You wanted the answer and the witch is the only one you can ask. You step closer to the counter and look into her eyes again.
She offers you a flower. You take it, and she asks only a single gil in exchange. You try to give her more, it must be worth more, but she refuses the extra coins. Your questions dry up in your throat as she talks about talks. Later you remember little of what she said but you never felt bored. You thank her for the blossom and exit, walking away from the castle, back to your home, trying to make sense of it all. Only the do you realize; you never asked the question. You still do not know how the castle moves. It does not feel right to return the same day though. Maybe tomorrow?
By then it is too late. The castle is gone the next morning, nothing but grooves in the mud and flattened grass to show it was ever there. Where it will go next? A memory surfaces and you wonder about the graveyard. It does not feel right to pry like this, but it is not as if you can ask the witch. Maybe whomever they visited will offer a hint? It is not hard to find the relevant grave; the beauty of the bouquet set atop it marks it out from the others. But the name is a surprise. You know the name; an off-hand mention, a lesser character in a drama of many. There are other explanations, but somehow you know this is the witch's mother's grave. And thus you know the witch's name.
Which is impossible. She died. The witch, no, the Cetra, died. It is the pivot point of the story, it is the villain's undoing. She died. She dies. Every time and in every variation. She cannot escape it. But she has. The identities of those with her are now obvious. Blue eyes and red eyes. The Cetra's friends. And now you need to know. Something more, something greater than a trivial matter such as how the castle moves. How did she survive? Why is the story so exacting about so much when that element is untrue?
You want to pursue, but somehow you know it would not be possible to catch the castle. You hear of it stopping at Edge. They have several visitors; the former head of the WRO, a man and a trio of close friends - a little wary around each other even after so long. The castle vanishes into the North and it is almost a year before you hear of it again. The Empress of Wutai greets them at that time, bids them stay. A man in a red cloak visits before they move on to Rocket Town and have tea with an elderly couple; the pioneers of space-flight. All these people, all connected by the same thread. The witch and her friends know them all.
The castle never stops in Nibelheim. The ghost town that has persisted against the elements all these years is one of the only places it avoids. They stop in Cosmo Canyon, greeted by a young woman and Elder Nanaki. He you recognize, her you're not sure about, but even now you're still railing against the impossibility of it all. At North Corel they visit another grave, another friend now gone, and move on. They come closer. And now you can speak your mind. You need to let them know. You are not completely certain of the idea; the connection is there, tangential, but important. You do not want to write yourself into their story, but in a way you already have been. You just never expected to meet your heroes. Particularly not her. Not the witch.
Your heart skips a beat when the castle appears in Kalm once more and it is hard to resist going there straight to them. To talk to them. But you force yourself to wait a day - let them visit the grave again, let them have their moment alone. You wander by as soon as it feels right, not too early to find the castle closed, but not too late that there will be anyone else around.
The man nods to you as you wander up. It feels like he remembers you as does the woman with red eyes who has the same order of breakfast ready when you approach. You smile, not needing to question how she could have remembered. It is a repeat of your first visit, a deliberate delay until you feel able to approach the witch. To tell her the last of it.
The witch watches as you enter, smiling. Like her companions she repeats her actions, but when you take the flower you decide to introduce yourself. Her eyes widen at the sound of your surname, and her smile falters. She looks at you with more curiosity and asks where your parents originated. She nods at the name of the village, expecting it. You cannot resist anymore and blurt out the new question you need to have answered. How did the witch survive? Why is the story wrong?
Her smile returns, the movement making the skin around her eyes crinkle further. It was necessary she says. She never wanted to be a savior; she did only what was necessary to keep the world alive, keep her friends alive. And the world could not move on otherwise, always waiting, always needing the last Cetra when something was awry. Her people's time was over, the planet belonged to humanity. So she hid in plain sight, no one looking for her, no one thinking to try.
It is simple, mundane, understandable. The witch's secret is somehow disappointing. The emotion must register on your face as she is quick to speak again. She asks that you not tell anyone of this revelation; she has managed this long without recognition. And you almost protest. You cannot even think of letting all this slip. You ask why she would trust you at all and she reminds you of the familial connection. Your story connects into hers at a crucial point even if to some it might seem tenuous at best. You make the promise and the witch says something surprising in response. Would you like to see how the castle moves?
The offer catches you flat-footed for a moment before you register what she is offering. You nod, and she smiles. The witch bids you return in the early hours tomorrow to find out, and you never even entertain the thought that this could be a trick.
The day does not pass fast; each second a minute, each minute an hour, each hour a day. But night falls at last, the populace of Kalm quieting and succumbing to the lure of sleep. You make your way back to the castle though deserted streets. It is still lit up, the man shifting cartons and produce inside. The door to the bar is open and you see oddities. Tables and chairs lashed together with rope and tied to the walls. The witch calls your name, the man pausing in his task to turn and stare at you. He murmurs something about why he did not realize before, and he is soon joined by the other woman. They are smiling yet nervous when talking to you, regretting that they cannot stay longer but that you are welcome at any time to visit. It is the least the can do.
The trio step through the threshold and into the bar, staying close to the door, looking back at you. You expect to see the castle vanish, confused when it remains visible, solid, real. The witch ventures further in and moves her hand. There is a rumble, the suggestion of a growl and now you realize you are outside the town and there could be monsters here. But the growl came from within the castle. The structure shudders and lurches as the witch and her companions brace themselves in the doorway. The castle sways for a moment as it rises.
For a moment you think it is flying, that the castle drifts and moves between settlements in the darkness. Then you see the skeletal legs emerging from the base. The castle has legs. The castle wavers for a moment and as the trio wave it begins striding away, vanishing into the night. You watch until it is no longer visible, until you can no longer feel the tremors of it's footsteps. The castle is gone again. You return home, smiling. You have seen something impossible and the witch chose to share her secret with you. And now you look forward to next year; your next visit to the witch's castle.