A/N: sorry for taking a whole year to post the last chapter... :|
"We're gonna need to get you a change of clothes. We'll be stoned to death in some of these smaller villages if you're still wearing that uniform."
"I'll keep it then."
"Do you have a death wish?" Locke stops and turns to look at the girl incredulously.
She greets him with a cool glare. "I was ready to die back there."
"That's great! But you're no longer in a jail cell in South Figaro so you'd better get ready to start living again."
Rachel is thankful for the momentary pause. Having spotted Locke's colorful bandana down in the valley south of Mount Koltz, she'd been running to catch up with them for a couple miles. It's only now that she finally gets a good look at Locke's new companion, a tall and serious-looking young woman. She seems like the kind of person who doesn't normally allow her appearance to become so disheveled, yet her clothing is torn and her long blonde hair is matted and wild.
Upon closer study, Rachel recoils in shock.
That's the girl from the Empire! The one who made ice!
"I risked my life to save you," continues Locke, flustered.
She wasn't a slave, like Terra - she was a commanding officer! What are you doing with her?
Rachel fidgets with her skirts in frustration.
"You don't even know me," says the girl.
"I could get to know you if you'd consent to staying alive."
She looks him straight in the eye, her expression one of genuine curiosity.
"You are really afraid of death, aren't you?"
- x - x - x -
Rachel doesn't like this girl, Celes. She's obstinate and cold, and the way she fights is unnervingly methodical, as though her only specialty is the art of killing. She's a remorseless warrior - unlike the noble Apranik, she prefers to make the first strike. As the days go on, she eventually apologizes for having been dismissive, but she doesn't return Locke's tentative smile.
Celes never stands by his side. As they travel, she trails behind, constantly looking over her shoulder. As they fight, she overtakes him and claims the victory to most of their encounters. She never engages casual conversation, and their journey is largely accompanied by uncomfortable silences.
Rachel isn't sure how much more of this she can bear to witness.
One night, she is pulled from her trance by the sound of a faint whimper. Rachel peers around in the dim light of their dying campfire to find Celes - awake on first watch - hunched over with her back to the embers. She usually sits at military attention while on duty.
Celes fondles an ornate hairpin between her fingers, and her face shows more emotion than she's expressed in all the weeks they've been traveling together thus far. Yet when it's time for her to switch shifts with Locke, she pulls herself together and resumes wearing her stony mask. Only the circles under her eyes might betray her, if he notices. Rachel thinks he probably does.
"Stop being so stubborn," she says as Celes settles down for the rest of the night. "For some reason he wants to get to know you; you can at least show him you're human."
The ache returns to Rachel's heart. She thought before that Locke was only hurting himself; now she fears he's inviting others to hurt him too.
- x - x - x -
Terra blanches at the sight of her. "General Chere!" she gasps, barely above a whisper, and inches closer to Edgar. The others - there are so many others, now! - shift their gazes toward Celes questioningly.
Locke clears his throat. "Everyone, this is Celes; she's defected from the Empire -"
"Step aside!" roars an older man in ornate armor. "I recognize her - she's the General who torched Maranda! You spying dog of the Empire, I'll-!"
"Stop!" Locke shouts, scrambling to place himself between them. Celes holds her head high but says nothing. "Like I was saying, she's defected. Wants nothing to do with the Empire anymore. She's agreed to work with the Returners, and she can be a great help, with her experience..."
Edgar lets out a frustrated sigh. "Cole, a word," he says, his voice low. He leads Locke back outside, where they converse in harsh whispers. Rachel slips through the door before it closes.
"What the hell are you doing bringing an Imperial General into a Returner base? How do you know she isn't, in fact, a spy?"
"When I met her, she was bound with chains on death row for treason! You think she's still on good terms with them?"
Rachel cringes at how desperate he looks all of a sudden.
Edgar shakes his head slowly. "I can normally trust your judgment, but you're making me really nervous this time. You'd better keep an eye on her; if this plan blows up because of her it's all on your head."
Locke mutters a curse under his breath as Edgar turns on his heel. The King gives a curt nod to Celes as she takes his place outside the small house.
"I'm leaving," she announces.
"Celes, please..."
Rachel turns away. He looks too despondent.
"Nobody wants me here. They don't trust me, and they have no reason to. Once a traitor, always a traitor, right?"
She hears him make a noncommittal sound.
"And it's true what the Doman said. I led the destructive charge in Maranda. I was planning to let my execution act as penance."
Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel sees a flurry of movement, and she can't help but turn back around.
Locke grips Celes by the shoulders and looks her fiercely in the eye.
"Does it mean nothing that I trust you? I didn't bring you all the way here just to be ridiculed, and I'm sorry you've been greeted with hate. Yes, I- I rescued you on an impulse but I don't regret it. I'm not asking you to thank me, but if what you really want is to make up for your involvement with the Empire, show it by joining us in our efforts to take them down. Dying in cell in South Figaro would've proven absolutely nothing."
Celes' face is flushed and the air visibly rushes from her chest. Her shoulders slump as the atmosphere around them settles.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I just... feel like a monster." She lowers her head but maintains her distance. "Even Terra's afraid of me. We used to be friends when we were much younger. I don't know if she remembers. They... really damaged her mind."
Locke's hands drop to his sides and he shifts his weight idly. After a pause, he says, "I'm glad you opened up a bit. I can never really tell what you're thinking."
"Why are you so interested in me?"
Her question is so blunt he winces.
"You... remind me of someone," he admits.
Rachel buries her face in her hands with a moan.
"Sounds like we both need to question our motives." Without ceremony, Celes opens the door and invites herself back into the meeting.
The muted rush of the wind that takes her place has an ominous timbre. Locke lingers, dumbfounded, and Rachel gets that feeling once again that he's consciously looking right at her - seeking answers or permission. She simply shakes her head softly in response.
- x - x - x -
This has gone on for too long. I know you're thinking it too.
Your memory of me has become warped - that hurts most of all.
I won't be able to find my own peace. Please just put me to rest.
- x - x - x -
Her perception begins to slow. The world around her appears to move faster than she thinks it should. It becomes more and more difficult to follow other people's conversations. The motion blur that clouded her vision when she first awoke in the Phantom Forest returns, and she once again notices a delay of sound between each of her ears.
It comes in waves. Sometimes she feels relatively normal, but she always knows the next bout of dizziness is just around the corner.
One morning she finds herself unable to unfold her legs, having spent the night in meditative trance. Locke and his companions pack up camp and continue their journey, and Rachel watches, frozen in place, as they leave her behind. Hours later, her joints finally crack and muscles burn, and she gingerly stretches and stands upright.
She takes a deep breath with her first step forward. It feels like walking on shattered glass.
- x - x - x -
It takes her a moment to realize what is happening. A flash of white light leaves her temporarily blinded and a shrill, piercing whine follows a split-second later. The earth beneath her trembles and quakes and throws her off her feet. Trees uproot themselves and topple all around her, and she scrambles dumbly toward a more open and safe space.
Then everything goes quiet. It is the most terrifying silence she's ever heard.
A violent explosion rips through the air and not fifty yards away from her, the ground cracks like ice. Her fingers search desperately for something to grasp, but she is too shaken and weak to stabilize herself. The earth begins to tear itself apart. She stares into the gaping wounds, praying to every god she now knows does not exist that she is spared another fall.
Perhaps her prayers are answered when a giant wave takes her instead. The ocean - just moments before still hundreds of yards away - rises up and carries her into its belly. She is thrown deeper and deeper, blinded by all the debris that was swept up with her, and she finally closes her eyes and lets herself go. Her body floats with the current and time loses all meaning once again.
- x - x - x -
The island is small and desolate. The people all band together for survival but then inevitably fight over what little food they come across. As weeks and months pass, they fall one by one.
Rachel watches a young man take his last breaths. His eyes bulge and the air creaks in his throat. She leans forward, peering with morbid curiosity, waiting for the exact moment of death.
His body stills.
"Hey! Hello! Hello?" she calls. She places her hands on his cheeks - his body is newly solid to her touch - and she searches for a sign of life after death. "Can you hear me?"
Where is the soul? How does it get to the Woods of Passing?
She sits and waits and the sun eventually disappears below the horizon. Her questions are never answered.
- x - x - x -
She'd been taken aback when she first realized Celes was among those cast away on the island. Rachel had followed a man with a long, white moustache into a shanty to find the girl asleep in a makeshift bed. But her nerves softened once she noticed something wasn't quite right - the old man spoke to her as she slept, carrying on his side of the conversation despite her silence. And then he prepared a meager gruel and carefully fed her. Celes wasn't going to wake up any time soon.
It is depressing to watch the handful of survivors cling to life on the island. Rachel thinks of leaving so many times - she could simply dive back into the ocean and let it carry her elsewhere - but curiosity keeps her in place. Every time someone dies, she waits eagerly to see if she can make contact - always to no avail. The population eventually dwindles down to two, and Rachel begins to spend her days at Celes' bedside, taking up the girl's role in the otherwise one-sided conversations with her caretaker.
He refers to Celes as his granddaughter, but Rachel doesn't see the resemblance. He must have a history with her, though, considering the dedication with which he looks after the comatose girl. And the self-sacrifice takes its toll on him as well - he grows thinner and weaker as he gives up his own precious food to keep her alive.
Rachel fears this story can only have an unhappy ending. Yet she cannot tear her eyes away.
- x - x - x -
Rebirth - it's the only way she would describe it. One early morning, just as the sun begins to glimmer over the horizon, Rachel catches a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye. A muscle tics, the usual cadence of breath changes ever so slightly.
"Grandpa!" she calls, forgetting, in her elation, that she doesn't exist in his world. The old man is out fishing again. There hasn't been much food lately.
Her own joints ache and the skin has begun to crack on her hands and feet. Her hair has become thin and brittle, and her vision blurs just a few feet away. But she suddenly feels as though the air is full of life. She can almost remember the warm kiss of the sun's rays on her shoulders and the scent of earth after the rain. After so many months and years of misery, such optimism is brilliantly invigorating.
The old man limps through the door with two terribly small fish in tow. He pays no heed to Rachel's excitement.
"Come look!" she says anyway, waving her hands. "You must see!"
Celes stirs and lets out a small gasp.
Her grandfather turns around absently. Then as realization takes hold he rushes to her side, eyes wide and calling her name. He cups her hands in his own. Celes' eyelids flutter, dancing on the brink of consciousness, but her body ultimately falls still once more.
The man lowers his head and weeps - with what emotion, Rachel can't be sure.
- x - x - x -
Over the next few days, Celes fully rouses, and she and her grandfather celebrate a genuine reunion. The joy they share is brief, however, as Celes comes to understand the bleak world to which she has awakened, and the intimacy between their small island and death. The shadow that encompasses them grows even darker on the day that her grandfather collapses from exhaustion. He then takes up Celes' former place in the makeshift bed.
Rachel watches, weary and weakened in her own right, as Celes struggles to coax her own body back to life. She stumbles out of the cabin toward the shore, supporting what little weight she has left on a twisted staff. For a moment she contemplates the tide, and then unhooks a small hand net from her belt and wades in. The landing waves threaten to knock her off-balance.
For an hour or more, Celes determinedly battles the ocean, sweeping her net through the water after silver-blue fish that prove to be both faster and stronger than the former army General. She falls several times. At last she throws her staff down in frustration and allows the surf to push her back ashore. Rachel cranes her neck to see the girl collapse onto the beach in apparent surrender. Strangled sobs rise over the crash of the waves.
"I can't do it..." Rachel hears her cry. "We're going to starve because of me... he should've saved himself while he had the chance and let me die as I was meant to..."
Rachel turns away from the scene, unable to bear such abject misery. She has long since ceased feeling sorry for herself, but it is the inevitable despair of this solitary island that finally shatters her heart irreparably.
- x - x - x -
The old man's passing comes quickly - it was as though his will to live had lain solely in seeing Celes to her recovery. As expected, Rachel is unable to make contact with his soul either. And then she is left alone with Celes and Celes' sorrow at this last forsaken outpost of the ruined world.
Rachel lies on her back in the middle of the island and watches the sun creep across the violet sky. An entire day passes and she sees no sign of Celes, but she cannot will herself to move. Not until she hears the familiar stilted shuffle of the girl with her walking-staff does she pull herself painfully upright.
She can barely see in the clouded moonlight, but she observes that Celes aims for the northern cliffs. Rachel follows.
It is a steep and rocky climb. Rachel marvels at Celes' willpower, pushing atrophied muscles to their limit and beyond to bring her to the summit. There, they find a small plateau where they sit to rest and gaze out over the ocean.
They stay there for hours, watching the clouds float idly by and listening to the waves crash upon the rocks below. Rachel wishes her vision were still clear enough to see the stars, but she at least feels peaceful for the first time in months.
As the sun begins to rise once more, Rachel catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye - a bird, perhaps, flying by. It doesn't immediately strike her as significant. Celes appears not to have noticed at all.
A moment later, Rachel's heart makes a sudden leap - a bird! A bird! There is life thriving elsewhere in the world! Where did it come from? Has it landed down below? She beams at her companion, who now sits head-bowed, lips moving as she chants inaudibly.
"Celes! Did you see the bird? Celes!" Tears well in her eyes as her voice goes forever unheard. "There is hope, Celes! You just have to see it!" She breaks into a sob, watching the girl slip further into her trance.
Celes' eyelids rise and fall in a slow rhythm, and the space around her appears to distort just slightly. She shakily rises, leaving her staff on the ground, and Rachel falls silent, awe and dread at once overtaking her. Celes teeters to one side, braces herself on the rocks nearby, and resumes her chanting. Rachel strains to listen.
"Sleep…" One of only a few words she can make out. "...nothing left… sleep…"
Tiny flecks of light glimmer about Celes' body.
And in a final burst of energy, she takes two quick steps before launching herself over the ledge as a flash of magic makes her form fall limp and lifeless even before she hits the raging waters below.
Rachel screams.
Without a second thought, she tumbles over the edge after her, body dashing upon the rocks, senses muddled as the tumultuous ocean swallows her for a third time. She begins to sink immediately - limbs nearly paralyzed by the pain of decomposition - but desperation pushes her forward, and she begins to kick and thrust.
In the underwater darkness, the only indication of Celes' whereabouts is the white trail of bubbles that follows her into the depths. Rachel swims toward her, catching up to her quickly. She reaches out to grab her, only to be reminded that they are not of the same world. Rachel's hand passes through her.
"No!" she shrieks. "No! You can't give up when the others may still be out there! Your grandfather gave his life for you!"
Rachel flails about, feeling as though her arms and legs could tear themselves free at any moment. "If you die like this, you'll suffer the same fate as me! Death will not release you!"
Then in an instant, she is sobered. Her hand stops to rest upon Celes' back. She places another hand on her side. Celes is suddenly solid to Rachel's touch.
Frantically, Rachel swims beneath her and begins to push the girl toward the surface. Celes' body grows heavier by the second, and Rachel grinds her teeth with every propelling kick. She feels a crack as her shoulder dislocates. Her fingers snap at the joints. Pressure builds behind her eyes as she strains every fiber of her being to bring them toward the light.
And then her world goes black.
She is vaguely aware of the sensation of lying on solid ground. She can no longer sense the passage of time, but at some point she hears a stirring nearby. A series of choking coughs, retches, gasps. Sobs.
She hears her whisper his name.
"Locke," she breathes. "He's alive… Locke is alive…!"
And she smiles.
- x - x - x -
Warmth envelops her for the first time in many years, but the feeling is immediately familiar. Warmth like fire, like sunlight, like a loving embrace.
Out of the darkness, a writhing shape appears. It dances like a flame, pulses like a beating heart. It cradles her and holds her close. She weeps.
Why do you cry? comes a voice from every direction. It sounds like both her mother and her father.
"I don't want to go back. I never did. If you can take me anywhere, take me to rest."
Our bodies are both too broken for you to return in full. Immortality is not what man believes it to be.
She hears a sound like blood pumping in her ears.
I can grant you but a few heartbeats. Use them to make your own peace. Then we shall leave together.
- x - x - x -
"Nearing six years, now, it is. Had to dress her with lots of makeup; you would be surprised..."
Dust weighs heavy in her lungs. The stone altar is cold beneath her.
The unmistakable energy of life vibrates around the room, and she can sense his presence standing over her. He is trembling; she hears it in every exhale. The seconds tick by as nobody moves or speaks.
She had contemplated this moment many times, on the slim chance it ever came to pass. She could finally tell him how much she's suffered, how miserable and depressed she's been, all for the sake of his own selfishness. She could point out his immaturity and cowardice. You're a fool, she'd thought countless times over. You're not the man I'd believed you to be.
But as she opens her eyes, she sees that he indeed is not the same person. It has been six years since she's seen him through living eyes, and her heart instantly breaks.
She could fall in love with this man all over again, but their time has long since passed.
"Rachel," he says, expression contorting as he reaches to brush her face. "I'm so sorry."
She returns his embrace and finds herself asking, "Why?" even though she doesn't want to hear him say it -
"I was so distraught when you died, I thought I should do everything I possibly could to bring you back… I was completely blinded… And at some point I realized how sick this obsession was, but by then I was too afraid to give up, and…"
"Locke," she says, silencing him, pressing her forehead to his. "I only have a moment. I've wished I could speak to you for years, and after all this time… all I want to say is…" She blinks away tears. "Thank you. You made me so happy when we were together. I am grateful for the time we had, but now you must release the chains that bind your heart and give your love to one who truly deserves it now. I want you to be happy. I want her to be happy."
His body shudders. She runs her fingers over the silk scarves trailing down his shoulder as she catches a glimpse of of a tall, blonde figure lingering in the back of the room.
"We will meet again when the time is right."
"Rachel…!" he cries, clasping her hands as she lies back down.
"My love, my infinite joy - open your heart to the world and let me go."
She feels his lips softly upon her brow as she closes her eyes one blissfully final time.