Chapter 18: Vivify
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Jackie sat quietly for a long time, trying not to ask questions, while Cecil and Yang explained how they knew his family, from when Cecil had ended up in Mysidia to late November when they had last seen Rai and Mira in Baron. It seemed like so much had happened, and only recently. He felt a horrible guilty feeling; even though he didn't know his children at all, he felt like he should have been there. Maybe they wouldn't be…
"He always said that he wasn't a summoned monster or a summoner," Rydia added, "but I was never really able to understand it. Guess I was pretty wrong, huh?"
"I'm still not exactly sure how I got here to begin with," Jackie said regretfully. "I was on a ship headed for Baron; I've always been more of a trader and businessman than a scholar. Then our ship was caught in a storm and completely destroyed. I remember falling into the water and blacking out. The next thing I remembered was waking up here, in this house, and I've been stuck here ever since."
"You never tried to get away?" Yang asked.
"Sure I tried. But my magic is terrible and I can't summon any of the friends I've made to help me. I can't get up the tower of Babil on my own either. Shoot, I can't get safely across the lava oceans without help. There's just been absolutely no way out. But believe me, I've been plotting for a long time; almost 20 years have gone by down here."
"And only six up there," Rosa added quietly. "Time certainly does pass differently here. Why haven't you aged as fast as Rydia?"
Jackie thought about this, not for the first time. He had noticed that he remained surprisingly young as the years passed, while Rydia continued to blossom like a flower.
"I'm... not sure. Maybe because I'm not a summoner?" he suggested with a shrug. "Say, you guys got down here somehow. Think you can take me back the way you came in? I don't know much about magic, but I don't think they can complete the rite and bring the children back to life without me."
Cecil tilted his head slightly. "Why's that?"
"Rites like this require blood, as a sign of self-sacrifice. And I'll bet that it requires the blood of the parents."
"They don't have both the parents," Yang said slowly, realizing the significance of Jackie's message. "They'll try to substitute Elder Rai's blood for yours..."
"It might not work. You need to get me to Baron as fast as you can."
Cecil nodded. "We can do that."
"When?" Rydia asked. "We still need the last dark crystal."
"We can send Kain with him," Yang suggested. "He's not interested in the mission; he'll be happy to get away."
"Good idea," Cecil agreed carefully. "Let's finish up here and then get back out."
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Rai stood menacingly over the cast iron cauldron, mumbling the incantation in the book over the self-simmering mixture in it. Mira stood by, nursing her slit palm. Of course, a restoration rite of this magnitude required a lot of blood on the part of the parents. However, in absents of the father, Rai stood in Jackie's place.
"I don't think this will work," Mira said slowly as Rai waited for the concoction to do something.
"Of course this will work," Rai insisted. "We've done exactly what the book said."
"Not exactly."
Ra sighed, exasperated. "I know it called for the father's blood, but I'm just as much a part of them as Jackie was—"
"Is."
"Mira, it'll work. Trust me."
Mira doubted it would work. And sure enough, nothing happened. They waited for several minutes before Rai checked nervously over the book, repeated the incantation, and waited some more. He did this four times before making an annoyed noise.
"I had done my research," Rai insisted, pacing the floor. "The substitution should have been sufficient; I don't understand it…"
Mira felt despair wash over her. It had nothing to do with the concentration of genes in the blood; it was the principle of it. If the rite called for the blood of the mother and the father, it meant the mother and the father. Not the brother, not the uncle, not the grandfather, the real biological father.
But where were they to find it?
"Why won't it work?" Rai demanded quietly.
"Because you've abandoned the whole point of the blood sacrifice," Mira answered. "We may have raised the twins, but we're still only half of what they are."
"Where do you intend to find the other half, Mira? Jackie's gone, his parents are dead, and he had no siblings. I'm all we've got. I can make it work."
"You've been trying for two and a half months, nonstop, since we got here. We've both given so much blood to this thing, I think I might faint. And Jackie is alive."
"Then why hasn't he come back yet?" Rai demanded, raising his voice.
There was a knock on the door and Georgette stuck her head in the room, trying to look straight at Mira and not at the statues.
"Um, Mira? Something strange has happened. Kain's returned, and he has someone with him asking to see you. He said that his name is Jackie; does this mean anything to you?"
Mira couldn't believe what she had just heard. Georgette must be pulling a prank on her or something. Jackie couldn't have just reappeared out of the blue!
Or... could he?
She ran wordlessly past Georgette and out the door into the courtyard. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself against the late January chill. Snow had fallen early in the month, and replenished itself on a daily basis. Every day, Cid's drones, a pair of doltish red-headed brothers, cleared the snow out of the walkways to be melted and used for cooking and cleaning before they resumed the work their boss had left for them. Something about steel plating and extra guns or something like that, she thought.
Near the gate, two men stood solid against the cold in thick warm jackets. The taller one was definitely Kain, wearing his jacket over his shiny dark purple armor, with his helmet defensively masking his face. The other was dressed mainly in brown and white: brown pants, brown boots, brown jacket over a brown vest and white shirt. His brown hair was shaggy but neat and reached his shoulders, and his intense brown eyes shown out against his light complexion.
The next thing she noticed about him was that, up close, he looked enough like Porom to send another shiver down her spine. It really was Jackie!
There really is light at the end of the darkness, she thought, feeling dizzy and faint, for those who have faith.
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If he could have described it, he would have said that it was like floating in an empty, eternal, never-ending space which kept a constant temperature of 78 degrees. If he could have spoken or remembered words, he would have said that it was like standing in an open field, or on the shore of the ocean, on a sunny, breezy day in early summer or mid-autumn with his eyes closed.
It remained this way for an indefinite period of time; he had no concept of time. In fact, he no concept of anything. Then, all of a sudden, it felt like a rope was lassoed around him and was dragging him down out of the empty space he had been floating in. It felt like he was floating back into consciousness from the blackness of a dreamless sleep, returning to a cold shell. Colder than it should have been. Why was it all so dark and cold, even though he was waking up?
What's going on? He felt himself think, though it felt strange, as if the concept of thought was foreign to him. Foreign but somehow comforting and fun. He began thinking all kinds of thoughts:
Why is it so cold? What is cold, anyway? And who am I?
It was growing warm, at last. And his memories began returning as if they had been frozen in a glacier and were returning as the ice melted and flowed down into the ocean of his mind.
Oh yeah…My name… it's Palom, isn't it? And I have a sister, don't I? A twin sister…? What was her name? It was like mine, wasn't it…? I think it was…
Porom! Where is she? She was right beside me! We were…
He remembered everything. Everything that had happened to him since a few weeks after he was born came crashing into his skull, like having freezing water dumped suddenly on his head. The last thing he remembered was Porom agreeing that she was ready to cast her half of the Twin Cast, and then the spell, and then his limbs going cold and numb, and then the whole world had gone dark… until now.
Maybe that wasn't the best idea in the world, he thought, feeling disturbingly normal. It felt like he had only just woken up from a long dreamless nap, perhaps after being beaten up by some middle school kids. All his joints felt stiff and sore, and his head was throbbing with a headache. Through the aches and pains all over his body and the pounding in his head, he heard someone calling his name; it sounded far off, like an echo. He wanted to open his eyes and look, but his eyelids refused to comply.
He suddenly felt himself falling backwards and tried to catch himself, but his body refused to do anything he told it to. He was terrified for a minute that he would hit his head on the stone floor of the hallway and lose consciousness again, but he fell into something soft and warm; it felt like skin and soft woolen fabric wrapping around him.
"Palom, can you open your eyes?"
It sounded like Rai's voice, and he wanted to yell his name, but once again his body failed him. He put all his strength into forcing his eyes open. He finally succeeded in opening his eyes enough to see the faces of his mother and uncle above him, as well as a stranger that he didn't recognize. But he didn't see Porom anywhere, and it worried him. As ashamed as he was to admit it, the only person he really wanted right now was his sister; if only to see that she was also okay. He struggled to speak a few words with his reluctant tongue.
"Ssssisssster…" he whispered. He wished that he could pull himself together enough to say some, but it wasn't working. As well rested as he was, he realized that he still felt like someone had beaten him up. He couldn't keep his eyes open much longer either. In fact, he felt like he could take a long nap and not wake up for a few weeks.
"He has a good point," Rai agreed, disappearing from view. "Take him down to the infirmary while I get started on Porom's treatment."
"I'll stay here with you, Rai," the stranger offered, also disappearing to join Rai across the room.
"Nonsense. You stay with your son, Jackie. I'll rejoin you with Porom in a little while, but you all go on."
Palom wasn't sure what that meant, and he didn't get to think much about it. His eyes fell shut again and he was dreaming.
When he came to again, he felt so much better that he wanted to jump up and run around. He even found that he could open his eyes without trouble now. He was in a bed, under a white blanket. And beside him, to his utter joy, was his little sister.
Good; she's alright. I would have thrown myself off a bridge if she had died. Well, maybe not a bridge…
He pushed himself up a little and looked around. The standing clock on the other side of the room read 12:34 in the afternoon. He didn't see anyone else in the room, and he felt like getting up to look for Mira and Rai. He also wanted to speak to that other guy that he hadn't recognized.
Didn't uncle Rai say that his name was Jackie? He remembered. Before, he had been too exhausted to think much about it, but wasn't that the name of his long-lost dad? And now that he thought about it, Porom would have looked a lot like that guy if she were grown up.
Porom stirred suddenly, and Palom got back down and pretended to be asleep as well, though he watched her with one eye slightly open. She slowly opened her eyes and stared at him softly for a moment.
"I know you're watching me," she whispered.
Palom opened his eyes and smiled sheepishly at her. "Sorry," he whispered back.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I'm not sure. We were stone, because of the Break spell—"
"I remember," she agreed. "But how did we wake up? The magic that cured us must have been really strong."
"Did you see that guy?"
"What guy? There was only uncle Rai."
"There was a guy there when I was cured. I didn't see him too good, but he looked sort of like you. And uncle Rai called him Jackie. I think he might be… dad."
Porom furrowed her brow. "How's that possible?"
"I'm not sure…"
Palom felt his sister take his hand underneath the blanket. Her hand was clammy and lukewarm, but still comforting.
"Did we do the right thing?" she wondered.
"I hope so."
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Three days passed and the twins remained reluctantly in bed. Porom could tell that it annoyed her brother to no end, and it made her antsy too. She felt recovered enough to run around, fight monsters and cast spells, just like before. Despite their protests, Mira, Rai, and Georgette insisted that they stay in bed and continue to heal.
To their confusion, the stranger, despite his seeming curiosity, remained distant from their room. Once or twice he appeared at the door to ask if he could help somehow, and Porom had caught him watching them late at night as they slept. As soon as she had sat up and addressed him, he vanished into the darkness.
"Think he's shy?" Palom asked her.
"Why would he be shy? He's our dad. I wish he would come and talk to us," she lamented.
"What would we talk about? He's been gone for six years, and we've never even met him."
"I want to know where he's been and how he got back."
Palom sighed and leaned back into his pillow. "I've always wanted a dad," he said. "I've always wondered what it's like; now I've got one and I'm not sure what to do. I never planned for what to do after he got here. I... didn't really think that he was still alive."
"Neither did I."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, and during that time, Porom kept thinking that she was forgetting something important. She scrolled through her memories, trying to remember, but the last thing she could remember was casting the Break spell and thinking that she was never going to see Cecil or Tellah or Yang ever—
"Oh my gosh! What happened to the others?" she shouted. "We never found out if they're okay!"
"You're right," Palom agreed, sitting back up. "And what about Rosa? Do you think Cecil found her yet? Oh, I hope they're all okay..."
"Trust me, they're all fine," informed a voice from the doorway. They both turned to look and saw the stranger, Jackie, standing there, leaning against the doorpost. He slowly walked into the room and stood beside the bed.
"I saw them just two weeks ago. Cecil and his friends were the ones who found me and got me back here."
Porom felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders, and she and Palom sighed in unison.
"Did they save Rosa yet?" Palom asked.
Jackie grinned. "They sure did. She was there."
They all remained in awkward, gratified silence for a moment, and then Jackie cleared his throat.
"Um, I haven't introduced myself yet; I guess that was kinda silly of me," he said with a nervous laugh. "My name is Jackie Ross."
"Hi. I'm Palom Faraxhae, and this is my twin sister, Porom."
"Hi," Porom said shyly. "So, I guess that our last name is Ross now, huh? Now that you're back and all."
"Well, yes," Jackie agreed. "Your mother and uncle told me that you're both very smart. They told me that you're prodigies."
Porom waited for her brother to say something vain, but all he said was, "Yeah; we're pretty good, I guess."
"You're both six now, right?"
"Yes, we turned six back in September. What month is it now, again?"
"It's late February, about ten days before March," Jackie informed. "You petrified yourselves in late October and stayed that way until three days ago, almost exactly five months. Sorry it took so long for the rite to work properly; your uncle convinced himself that he could substitute his blood for mine, and then when I arrived the rite finally began working correctly. Even so, it refused to cooperate for another month and a half."
The twins were awestruck; petrified in October, revived just before March? That's a long time to be under hibernation.
"I had been trapped in the Feymarch, the home of the summoned monsters in the Underworld, unable to escape on my own. Cecil and his friends found me there and sent me back here with their dragoon friend, Kain."
"The Feymarch..." Palom said quietly. "Wasn't that little girl Rydia a summoner? The one who was lost in the shipwreck?"
Jackie laughed. "Oh, she's alive," he informed. "And with Cecil right now. She's the one who led them there, to ask for king Leviathan and queen Asura's help."
The twins gasped with delight. "She's really alive?" Porom cried. "Will we actually get to meet her? Cecil said that she's only a year older than us."
"Oh, she's much older now; time passes differently there, so she grew up while the rest of us didn't. She's 17 now."
"Whoa... That's so cool! Maybe I should hang out there for a while," Palom thought out loud.
"You saw them only two weeks ago," Porom said. "How are they all?"
"Doing very well. Although, Cecil still seemed depressed about October. In fact, they came here several weeks ago on an errand. They had their airship upgraded by those red-heads in the ship yard, but then they left urgently."
"What about uncle Tellah? How did he take it?" Palom asked.
"Oh......" Jackie said slowly, rubbing his neck. "About him..."
"Did something happen... dad?" Palom asked nervously.
"Kids, Tellah... died in November. He casted the Meteor spell, and it killed him."
"No!" they cried together.
"He knew it would kill him! Why did he do that?" Porom demanded, feeling not only devastated to have lost her uncle, but angry at him for being so foolish.
"He wanted revenge on Golbez. From what I understand, he craved it for quite some time. I know that you both were very close to him; he was an old friend of mine. I wish I could have gotten the chance to apologize to him."
"What for?" Porom asked.
"I did something horrible to him a long time ago. It hurt him enough to drive him out of Mysidia, and we never heard from again after that. I never got to say that I was sorry."
"That was when you told everyone that he and Sammy had cheated in the tournament," Palom guessed.
"Yes," Jackie agreed. "I've spent many years, both in the Overworld and Underworld, regretting what I did. He probably died thinking of me as a traitor. They told you the story?"
"Hey, for kids, we know a lot," Palom insisted, grinning impishly.
"I can tell. You're both awesome kids, and I'm so sorry that I haven't been here for either of you. Even though we don't know each other very much, I hope that we can start now. There's nothing I want more in the entire world than to finally get to be your father."
The twins both smiled.
"We can't wait," Palom said decisively.
"We want you to be our dad too," Porom agreed.
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Another month passed, and it was April. Everything was growing, from grass, moss, and weeds to flowers, trees, and produce of various kinds. There was color around Baron like the twins had never seen before: in place of the bright tropical colors of Mysidia, there were soft, pastel-colored flowers blossoming against backgrounds of lighter green trees and grass.
Porom had invented a new game based on a lively cherry tree on the other side of the castle wall. The tree was so large and had such long branches that it spilled over the wall, and the wind blew the pink-white flower petals off the tree whenever it blew. The object of Porom's game was to stand beneath the cherry tree and catch as many petal as you could without leaving the shade of the tree. When the wind was strong and blowing high above her head, the game could become tricky indeed.
It so happened that she was playing this very game, on one of the rare occasions that Palom decided to join her, when Rai approached them looking stern.
"You two had better come on in; something strange has happened."
Used to strange things happening, they both followed Rai into the castle, where they joined Mira, Jackie, and Georgette in the white magic lab.
"Here we are; what's going on?" Palom asked.
"I've been keeping an eye on Cecil and company with this seeing-stone," Georgette said, indicating the large sphere of black onyx supported on a special stand.
"You've showed us how you use it before," Porom agreed." Have you seen something? Is someone else hurt?"
"Not since Yang and Cid," Georgette informed.
The twins sighed with relief; when Georgette had told them that Yang and Cid had sacrificed themselves to help the others escape, they had been crushed. But when both of them had turned up again in different parts of the Underworld a few weeks after their revival, they had been so relieved that they had been dizzy.
"However, Cecil and his friends are on their way back to Mysidia now. They've been successful in drilling out of the Underworld, and now they're on their way to talk to you about a new ship," Georgette said to Rai.
"Me? I don't have another ship to give them," Rai pointed out.
"They've found out about the Whale," Georgette informed.
Rai seemed to realize what she meant. "Ooooh..."
"They're figuring out the prophecy on his sword," Mira added, sounding awestruck.
"They are? Great!" Palom said sounding pleased. "Um, wait... what prophecy?"
"There's an inscription on the flat of Cecil's sword," Rai explained. "It's an old Mysidian poem, and I think that you may recognize it. It goes like this:"
On born of a dragon, bearing darkness and light, shall rise to the heavens over the still land. The moon's eternal light brings a promise to earth, with beauty and grace.
"We do know that poem," Porom agreed.
"Mom made up a tune for it and used to sing us to sleep with it every night," Palom added.
"It's an old prophecy, and it's lost some of its meaning over the years; it's been drilled into our people for long, it's more like habitual repetition. We've waiting for the prophecy to come true that no one's really thought about the meaning in several hundred years," Mira explained.
"However, when it showed up on Cecil's sword when he returned from the mountain, we all couldn't help but wonder if it meant something," Rai added.
"There was more to that legend, right?" Jackie asked. "It had something to do with the Lunar Whale, didn't it?"
"Yes..." Rai said slowly, lost in thought. "I ought to get back to Mysidia and meet them."
"That's a good idea," Mira greed. "Take Devil's Road. The four of us will get everything to gather and meet you there in a few days. Maybe we can even be there in time to see everyone again."
"Excellent. I'm off then," Rai said and dashed out of the room.
The twins looked at each other, excited about everything that had just happened.
We'll get to see them all again! Palom said silently.
They'll all be so happy! And we'll finally get to meet Rosa and Rydia! Let's get packed quickly, so we can go! Porom suggested.
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Oh... sweet! It's finally Christmas break, and there are only three chapters left! I'm gonna make my deadline with time to spare! XD
How's about some previews?
In the next chapter...
The Giant of Babil has awoken, and Cecil and company are off to fight it. But they can't do it alone! It's time to rendezvous and fight the monster, and time for Palom and Porom to fly for the very first time!
Even from a distance, it was great to see Cecil again; at least he was alive. They didn't recognize anyone else in the large window of the Whale, though. There were two women in the window, one of whom had blonde hair, and the other of whom had wild green hair. They knew instantly that the blonde woman must be Rosa, and they wondered briefly if the green-haired woman was Rydia.
Apparently, the giant window was open, because they both heard Cecil yell their names. Their hearts jumped into their mouths; he saw them!
"Cecil, Cecil! Look! They finally revived us!" Palom yelled back, hoping his voice would carry across the distance.
"We're gonna help you beat that monster!" Porom added "Just like before! We're gonna do it together!"
With the Giant defeated and Golbez brought to his senses, it's time to take a well deserved break, reunite with old acquaintances, and meet some new allies.
"I've heard a lot about you," the green-hair woman said good naturedly. "You're Palom and Porom, yes?" she asked, pointing to each of them in turn.
"Yep; that's us," Palom agreed. "You're... you're Rydia, right?"
"Summoner extraordinaire, that's me," she said with a grin. "I've been waiting a long time to get to meet you two."
"So have we," Porom said shyly.
"Yeah.... You're a lot older than we thought you'd be," Palom added.
But Cecil's battle isn't over yet! And this time, there's nothing that the twins will be able to do for him!
"All we can do this time is...pray, I guess," Palom said, once again remaining as calm as he could.
Porom stomped her foot angrily. "No! We can help him more than that!"
"He told us to stay here. It's not we were the only ones we won't take with him," he pointed out.
"It bugs us too," someone behind him said. He turned to look and saw Rosa and Rydia standing over him.
"If Cecil thinks he can beat Zemus with only Edge and Kain, he's dead wrong," Rydia said stoutly.
"Oh," Palom said, noting the full backpacks both woman had slung over their shoulders. He rested his hands casually on the back of his head and grinned mischievously. "Sneaking off, huh?"
"Stowing away in the cargo hold, to be exact," Rosa added. "Don't tell anyone, okay?"
"Sure thing, Rosa."
Stay tuned! The Faraxhae Family Circus will return after this very short break!
Brought to you in pat by...
Final Fantasy XVIII, the 18th installment of the extensive Final Fantasy series! Relive the excitement of the classic RPG gameplay as ever before, with bold new graphics, new weapons and armor, and 400 new monsters to slay! Not coming in fall of 2010!