Chapter Three: Stardust and Blood
Teaching Kairi to walk seemed harmless. No one expected her to climb trees so soon after. Shion regretted her part in helping her infant sister take her first steps as she found herself hanging upside-down between two narrowly forked branches by her prosthetic leg, reaching in vain for the red-headed sixteen-month-old seated comfortably another branch away. With her skirt upended and her buttoned blouse partially so by gravity's pull, Shion was at least grateful she'd chosen shorts for underwear that day.
With Cid at work, Squall—now the first teenager among his peers and growing his hair out in accordance with the experimental counterculture mindset that came with his age—was now the eldest of the group, though only with one year ahead of Shion. And as such, sibling-retrieval duty fell upon him when the others found Shion attempting to subdue tree-climbing Kairi all by herself, and he accepted this burden with equal parts annoyance and alacrity. So, he set off climbing the imposing tree beside a rustic house in the burgs with ten-year-old Aerith, seven-year-old Ienzo, four-year-old Yuffie, and Grandmother Hikari anxiously cheering him on and encouraging Shion that help was on its way. Things would've gone much smoother and quicker if Squall wasn't secretly scared of heights, or if the owner of the house would notice the commotion and run outside with a ladder. Grandmother Hikari rushed to the door and knocked on it with all her might, pleading for the seemingly-absent homeowner to answer and procure such a ladder.
Naturally, Kairi found this all hilarious.
Upside-down Shion raised an unamused eyebrow at her toddler sister, her shoulder-blade-length raven hair hanging like a graceless curtain about her head. "You're really getting a kick out of this, aren't you?"
The toddler squealed with delight in reply.
Annoyed, Shion reached for the joyful bundle of agony again. "Now, how about you come just a little bit closer…"
She realized the error of her judgment when Kairi did exactly that. The toddler leaned forward from her branch to grab onto the ravenette's finger, and though she formed a grip, she lost her balance and fell heart-stoppingly off the tree limb. Shrieking, Shion caught her sister by the leg mid-fall, leaving the pair hanging upside-down: Shion by her prosthetic leg betwixt the forking branches, and Kairi by her protector's grip just above her ankle.
Everyone's efforts intensified on the ground-level to adapt to the unfortunate new development. Squall, meanwhile, only froze in terror and became unable to climb any higher.
"Squall, keep climbing!" Aerith tried to urge him.
Petrified but too proud to show it, the scarred brunette briefly overrode fear with anger and shouted back, "I can't! There's nothing to grab on!" A lie, but one no one could object to in the frenzy of the moment.
By then, Shion had begun pulling Kairi upward to better secure her in her arms. And once her little sister was hugged against her torso, Shion took another look at the awkward positioning of her false leg and committed to what she knew was a gamble. With the blood rushing to her head, she attempted a sit-up to reach the branch with her hands and pull herself upward. But with her own immature muscles and the extra weight of Kairi's twenty-five pound body, she couldn't even pull herself up halfway, and the strain this caused where her flesh met her metal knee—
SNAP!
Everyone's hearts stopped as the locks to Shion's prosthetic broke off from her foreleg and the two sisters fell from the tree—Shion with her back to the ground and pulling Kairi instinctively closer against her chest for protection—and crashed through the rotting shingles of the roof, into the sagging mattress directly below, and were jolted from the weary springs three feet into the air until they crashed and rolled onto the hard floor only half a second before the piles of roof material collapsed onto the now-broken bed. Shion had dutifully used herself as a shield for Kairi, taking the brunt of the damage and left motionless as she finally ceased rolling on her side.
A sickening silence passed, but her family soon rushed to the locked front door and pounded even harder, hoping against all hope that someone would answer and help the two sisters lying prone on the living room floor. They knew at least Kairi was fine because of her loud crying, but Shion was completely silent and motionless. Only Squall was unfortunate enough to have a perfect view of his sisters' violent descent and Shion's unmoving body. His heart broke at his own inability to save them.
"Let me through!" Aerith's young voice commanded her family members with unexpected authority. They immediately did so, and Aerith had just as quickly reached the door and was attempting to pick the lock with a pair of bobby pins from her hair.
Silence washed over the family yet again, but this time for a different reason.
"Aerith," Grandmother Hikari gasped in almost tangible distress but with no intention to stop her, "where on earth did you learn something like this?!"
"Cid taught us," the sundress-wearing ten-year-old briskly answered, never once taking her focus off the objective at hand.
"Taught us?" Grandmother breathlessly repeated, realizing then that every one of her precious children—save for Kairi—probably knew how to pick a lock. She would scold Cid for this later, but now she was only too hopeful that these criminal skills would save her daughters' lives.
"Almost got it," Aerith assured her family, but then yelped back in shock as the glass in the window pane beside her suddenly exploded from an unseen impact.
All heads were turned to Ienzo, who'd thrown a fist-sized rock through the window without any thought for how he could harm Aerith or the two girls inside, and then he wordlessly reached a hand through the new opening to unlock the door. As soon as he finished and brought his arm back outside, Grandmother Hikari dashed through the now-unbarred door and ran to the two sisters lying on the floor. Yuffie, a toddler still impressionable to the examples set by her silver-haired stepbrother, threw her own, smaller rock at the window pane next to Ienzo's. She only managed a sizeable crack, but was pleased with herself all the same.
None had bothered to notice that Squall was still in the tree, climbing down as fast as he was able, but far slower than he wanted.
"Shion, honey, are you alright?!" Grandmother pleaded at the girl's side. She turned her over on her back and quickly but gently picked Kairi from the prone girl's arms and handed her to Aerith. From there, she used one hand to raise the ravenette into a reclined sitting position and the other to check her pulse.
Nothing.
By then, Squall had descended the tree and sprinted to the wide-open door, panting and speechless at the scene before him—four of his siblings gathered around Shion's unmoving body, and his elderly guardian gazing at him with tear-soaked eyes. "Squall," she choked, "find a healer! Hurry!"
He already failed everyone when he let his fear of heights prevent him from reaching his sisters. He wasn't about to fail them again. He took off running at once further into the burgs, shouting for a doctor of any sort to come to their rescue. He didn't make it very far before what appeared to be a deluge of multicolored stars sped through the air in a concentrated torrent from the horizon to the house's doorstep, then began its skidding halt as it screeched towards the grieving family. Yuffie shrieked and threw an instinctive fist at the star-wave, halting it with her knuckles and prompting a pained "Oomph!" from the cosmic cluster. In the nanoseconds that followed, the stars yielded the form of a scarecrow-thin, cartoonishly long-bearded elderly man in a red, yellow, and blue striped shirt, palm-tree-themed swimming trunks, red sneakers, a baseball cap, and a large pair of yellow-rimmed sunglasses. The aged tourist—obviously just returned from his vacation—was doubled-over and staggering in pain, as Yuffie had punched him in the groin.
"Dash it all!" He blurted in fluctuating octaves as he stumbled around with his hands on his bruised crotch, "Why am I being assaulted in my own home?!"
"I punched his balls!" Yuffie announced more declaratively than anything else.
Ienzo patted her head. "Yes, good job Yuffie."
"Sir, we need a doctor!" Grandmother pleaded with the old man now writhing on the floor. "Do you know of any nearby?!"
When he was capable of lifting himself to a kneeled position, the bearded elder replied, though not without some lingering pain, "I—I may be able to help with that. Who needs to be heal—?" Then he saw the unconscious raven-haired girl in the old woman's arms. From there, he saw the pile of rubble on his collapsed bed and the gaping hole in his roof. His breath hitched and he muttered in silent bewilderment, "Oh dear…" Then he shook his head and moved closer. As he did, his tacky tourist clothes were transformed by a gust of magic into a long blue wizard's gown and cap, and his sunglasses into a much smaller pair of clear-glass spectacles, shocking everyone in the vicinity, but also giving them a strong new sense of hope against the dread they'd thus-far experienced. If anyone could save Shion, that someone was a wizard.
Merlin pressed a hand against the ravenette's bleeding temple, opening himself for a discharge of restorative magic, but in a span of what the others perceived as mere instants, a metaphysical pull from Shion's heart seized the old wizard and dragged his consciousness to meet her own.
In a plane unfathomed by the girl's worried family, Merlin fell through what seemed an expansive pool of water that shattered like glass and continued his descent through a sunset sky. In all his years of wizarding, he'd never experienced a phenomenon such as this. What in heavens…? Where am I…?
And as the wind rushed him by, his surroundings quickly became pitch-black, the only light coming from the trail he descended, and his destination became clear: a vast, circular, stained-glass surface some hundred yards below, depicting the image of a teenage boy with spiky brown hair and wielding what the old wizard recognized right away as a Keyblade. But something was wrong—the boy's peaceful face was horribly marred by dozens of sprawling cracks upon the glass that his image was imprinted on, leaving what may have once been a beautiful work of art a corrupted mess. Beside the gargantuan image of the enigmatic young man and his shattered mind were four smaller portraits, yet most of these were damaged beyond all repair as well. A humanoid dog and duck comprised two of the images at the boy's side, yet the glassy surface that their faces—their entire heads, in fact—were painted on were just as cracked as the boy's. What had happened to these three, that their crania—the haven for their thoughts and memories—was so irreparably damaged?
Directly beneath the dog-man's likeness was a circular frame identical to the other lesser portraits, but its contents were pitch-black—obscured by shadow and leaving no trace of who occupied that space, if anyone ever had at all.
But near the center of the stained-glass platform was the face of a red-haired girl somewhere in her early teens. Hers was the only portrait unmarred by whatever forces had devastated this mindscape, and it was on her face that Shion laid unconscious.
Merlin's feet softly touched the ground soon enough and he ran to the girl's side. Just as in the physical realm, she bore every injury inflicted from her fall and wasn't breathing.
Merlin sighed. "A lot of trouble you're giving me. Now, just hold a moment and I'll have you all fixed up."
"SHE MUSTN'T LIVE!" bellowed a deep, unearthly voice—no, two voices speaking from one body—and the wizard hastily spun around to face the new arrival. But as he turned, a legion of squawking ravens bolted from the floor, scattering shattered glass of the now-ruined surface of the platform all around, forcing Merlin to throw himself over Shion to shield her from the spray of jagged projectiles and the momentous rush of obsidian birds. The unending maelstrom of their ebony forms and ear-splitting cries blocked out the last of the dreamscape's light source, leaving all in shadow even after the last of their squawks ended and the last of their feathers fell.
"Stand away from the wretch, intruder! You know not what she's done!"
Merlin returned to his feet, and a flicker of light emanated from the tip of his wand, a conservative radiance that only barely illuminated his upper body. He'd chosen to keep his light-source scant so that this new presence wouldn't see the girl lying behind him. Of course, he must've known where she was, but there was a desperate peace in knowing this fiend couldn't physically see her.
The ancient wizard bravely defied the conjoined voices from the darkness, "Sir, this girl is a guest in my home, and I'd rather not have anyone dying on my nice, clean carpet!"
He considered turning the fiend into a newt, himself into a germ, or Shion invisible, but decided against making any moves until he gauged what this being was capable of. Without knowledge of the situation, fight and flight could equally backfire. He could see just a faint outline of the enemy's humanoid frame now, at least three yards away.
"You old fool!" the dark fiend thrust an accusing finger in his direction, "Trillions of lives have ended by the terror her existence has wrought! The worlds themselves are torn asunder by the Heartless armies her actions have unleashed, and our only savior rots in eternal slumber so long as this girl lives! Have you not seen the state of the worlds in these past twelve years?"
Incredulous, Merlin glared at the shadowy accuser, now seeing the folds of a tattered cloak and wisps of long hair about his hood. The wizard retorted, "Sir, I have seen the other worlds—I traverse them quite frequently. But nowhere in my travels have I ever seen any such 'Heartless armies' as you claim, let alone any under this poor girl's command. There is no suffering in the worlds save for that which they commit by their own hands. I ask that you cease antagonizing this child for whatever crimes you imagine she's committed."
"SHE MUST DIE!" and the insidious fiend was upon Merlin in that instant, his gnarled, gloved hands clenching the life out of the old wizard's throat and forcing him, gasping, to his knees.
Merlin's physical strength was nothing to his oppressor, and in the following seconds, all his rushing mind was capable of was staring into the black abyss that was this hooded specter's face. Desperate and gagging, the wizard pressed a frail hand into that hooded void to learn something, anything, about his murderer. That's when he felt it, running across the madman's eyes…
A blindfold?
Epiphany struck him, and Merlin tore the cloth sash from his strangler's face and thrust his wand between them, intensifying the light discharge a thousand-fold and sending the villain reeling, screeching from where he stood, releasing his stranglehold and haphazardly bringing his arms to shield his face as he cowered from the wizard's light. In the moment of his release, Merlin saw just enough of the enemy's face: the decrepit and decaying visage of a corpse reanimated from its grave, ghostly pale eyes with hints of their former light blue color, and a straight but greasy mane of long silver hair.
Merlin noted how the dark-man cowered and writhed in the presence of the light. Looking back to the stolen blindfold in his grasp, the learned wizard confidently returned to his feet and slowly advanced toward his cloaked enemy. Holding high the blindfold in one hand and his light-discharging wand in the other, he bellowed with a powerful voice that belied his elderly human frame, "Do you fear the light, creature of darkness?! Be gone from here, and torment this girl no longer!"
The fiend screamed and stumbled back with every step the wizard gained on him. Even the thus-far reposed ravens surrounding them had panicked and scattered in a second maelstrom of their terrified forms. Cracks of light from above gradually returned without the obsidian birds to impede it. Soon, the congregation of ravens was completely dispersed, and the light from above returned as greatly as it was able to reach in these depths.
But the writhing, sightless villain screamed to the black horizon surrounding them, "COME, DARKNESS! COME TO YOUR MASTER'S AID!"
At his words, a vast legion of shimmering, malevolent golden eyes opened all around them, each set varying extremely in size, and the sudden appearance of these grumbling shadow-titans instilled a new wave of fear through the scholarly wizard's aged heart. He gasped and staggered back, closer to Shion's body—his stumble deactivating the light from his wand and prompting him to drop the stolen blindfold—and he beheld an army of darkness wholly beyond his power to banish by himself. He knew then that retreat was his only option.
The titans' collective roars thundered throughout the area, their reverberations testing the wizard's balance until he could only collapse forward at Shion's side. As the limbs and fangs of the dark giants drew closer, the ancient wizard placed his fingers over the girl's bleeding temple, hastily muttered his healing words, and—
Merlin's eyes shot open and he gasped for air as he found himself back in his crowded living room in the exact same position he was in before being pulled into the girl's subconscious.
In his mind, Merlin knew it was only mere instants that passed in the mortal plane. But that other world…that "dive to the heart"…that "station of awakening"… It had left him completely breathless.
But as he fought to catch his breath, Shion gradually regained hers. All lacerations had been sealed, all welts had been suppressed, and all disturbed bones that she'd suffered from the fall had been reset. Her young, cerulean eyes slowly opened, her breath returned, and the first thing she saw was the winded wizard too disturbed to express relief that she'd survived.
She wanted to ask, "Who are you?" when enough energy returned, but she was hugged tight by Grandmother Hikari in the next second, and all of her family members cried with unbridled joy at her return to the land of the living.
All of them except for Squall. He stood some feet away, frozen with regret and wonder at everything transpired. First he couldn't rescue Shion and Kairi from the tree, and then a random wizard appeared before he could find a doctor for his sister. This was the second time in one incident that he'd failed his family.
"Thank you so much for saving her!" Grandmother praised the wizard for his heroics.
It took a moment for him to clear his thoughts and understand what she'd said. "Hm? Ah, yes—yes, of course. Anytime, madam."
Shion's metal leg finally fell from the tree and clattered onto the mountain of rubble on Merlin's bed.
The wizard explained everything to the sage-king and his scientist by the manor's fireplace after the children's bedtimes. In turn, the two royals shared every apocalyptic secret they felt he needed to know given the circumstances. Even Grandmother Hikari was present, stoking the hearth to keep the embers strong.
"Is it possible that the one you faced was the Dark Seeker?" Ansem inquired after the wizard finished his testimony.
Merlin blew the smoke from his pipe before answering. "I very much doubt that. The Seeker you speak of must have been an intelligent, methodical man if he ran an entire nightmare facility under your noses for nearly a year. The man I faced in Shion's heart was clearly insane. He spoke of the worlds being destroyed by armies of darkness as though it already happened. I can verify this is not the case. No, these are two very different individuals we speak of."
Even voiced his concerns next, "I still find it astounding that myself and the other top scientists in the kingdom have been hard at work attempting to pierce the ether for nearly a year, yet you traverse the universe as though it's nothing."
"It's a skill that's taken lifetimes to perfect," the wizard replied, "and not one I'll divulge to warlords so readily."
Even's features tightened and he seethed in a heavy tone, "Watch your tongue, sorcerer! Do you dare insult your king like this?"
"Even, that's enough," Ansem calmly reproached his apprentice. The blonde scientist withdrew, but not without visible ire. The sage-king continued, "Merlin, I understand your caution in using your magic to aid a ruler who's made a militarized hell of his kingdom, but if you can offer an alternative that will spare my subjects' purses and peace of mind, I will pay you any sum you see fit for your services."
Grandmother Hikari returned to her seat by the men and poured herself a cup of tea from the near-empty pot on the table.
Merlin grunted disapprovingly at his king's request. "With all due respect, your majesty, it is not a wizard's place to meddle in the affairs of man. Not until man proves himself ready for the tremendous responsibility. How many conquests across space and time could I have played God for if I used my powers so irresponsibly? All rulers believe their cause is just, so why should I favor yours over the next king's?"
"But these are not political enemies we face," Ansem rebutted. "This is a literal war of light versus dark, of good versus evil."
Merlin raised an eyebrow as he exhaled another puff of smoke. "Do you believe darkness is evil? Do you claim that any force you do not fully understand is a one-sided abomination that must be destroyed?"
Ansem's tone just slightly rose, "That is not what I meant."
"No, no one means that their 'pure evil' enemy can be just as morally complex as themselves. The fact of the matter is, while these creatures of darkness are frightening and have been used for harmful purposes, we know virtually nothing about them. Are they sentient? Are they truly alive? Do they know they are harming us? Do they have hopes and dreams, just the same as you and I? What do they believe in? Have they any gods? Why are they attacking us? That's the question of it all: Why?" He paused to smoke again, then resumed, "Lord Ansem, you have my sympathies for the hardships you've endured in preparing for this 'Armageddon' your visions have warned you of, but from what I've seen of your kingdom, how not even the sky itself is free from your war-machines' grasp, I question if you are indeed the champion of peace you presume to be, or if your enemies are as malevolent as you claim."
Ansem sighed, knowing the drastic measures he'd taken made his case much more difficult to argue. "My friend, you were wise to pursue a vocation in wizardry and forsake all governmental ties. In the path you've chosen, I very much doubt your conscience is weighed down by any nation's creed or philosophies, and that you follow a moral code based on what your own experiences have taught you to be true. For this, I envy you. But I implore you to understand: most living souls cannot forsake their governments. They cannot embrace true freedom as their hearts yearn. We cannot shirk the earthly ties that bind us in favor of discovering the secrets of the universe and of ourselves. For our own mortal coils, we are bound to the systems of government that we happen to be born into, and in my people's case, they face total annihilation at the hands of an unknown threat they never chose to make an enemy of. They cannot ignore the approaching danger and pursue a wizarding path as you have done. Believe me, I desire nothing more than to return to the idyllic life we cherished before all this, but we are not fortunate enough to be as free and idealistic as you."
Merlin briefly chuckled. "Idyllic? Is that really how you imagine your kingdom was before this mess?" He shook his head wearily. "My friend, no system created by mortals can ever be 'idyllic.' At best, we are ignorant of the troubles that surround us, and that is hardly a scenario worth aspiring towards." He paused to smoke again, then resumed, "Tell me, do you know why I stayed?"
"To ensure Shion made a complete recovery, I assume."
"You assume correctly. I'm not in the business of war, Lord Ansem. I'm in the business of saving lives. That can mean many things to many people, but from what I saw in Shion's heart and from what you've told me of all these children being unnaturally infected with at least some sort of darkness, it would be impossible for me to simply walk away."
Even asked, "Are you saying you're going to help us?"
"Not you, no," the wizard replied. "But I'd like to help the children however I'm able."
"A cure, then?" Even asked again.
Merlin shook his head. "I'm afraid darkness of this sort is beyond my ability to mend. In the children's state, this darkness appears to require a scientific answer more than a magical one. I may not be able to sever the foreign bodies infecting these young ones, but I can give them the next best thing: an education."
At this, Even scoffed and Ansem raised a perplexed but expectant eyebrow.
It was Grandmother Hikari who spoke next. "I believe I understand your meaning, Mr. Merlin. If the children can't be cured of their condition, they can still be taught how to live with it. A missing cure doesn't have to be the end of the world for them. Is this correct?"
Merlin's face lit up at hearing the caretaker's extrapolation. "Precisely, madam! An education in all the relevant knowledge and life-skills is exactly what the children will need if they're to be burdened with the aftermath of that death-camp for the rest of their lives. Instead of fearing the darkness inside them one day awakening, I can teach them to coexist with it. The circumstances that brought them here are tragic, but it has also granted them extraordinary potential just waiting to be harnessed."
Ansem appeared disturbed by the implications, but kept himself under control. "Are you saying you want to teach them how to use this…dark power they've been infected with? This is the very thing I've sworn to protect my kingdom from, and you plan to encourage the children to embrace it?"
"Not embrace it, your highness," Merlin replied, "but coexist with it. What they choose to do with what they learn is entirely up to them and completely within your authority to regulate, and I've no interest in teaching them how to use their second natures for violence, so they won't become a threat to you. Sir, this is a golden chance for you and your people to better understand the darkness you're so afraid of. If these children prove to be healthy, functional members of society in spite of or because of the foreign elements afflicting them, you only stand to benefit from whatever breakthroughs of knowledge their lives will yield."
Grandmother Hikari refilled Even's cup. He quickly thanked her and returned his attention to the conversation.
"And if their darkness proves to be malignant?" the sage-king queried. "What do you propose then?"
The old wizard sighed, weary at the thought of it. "Then you will have proven you were right to fear the dark. But you will never be certain unless you grant these children the chance to prove otherwise."
Even interjected, "You're requesting that we reveal to the children the true reason we took them in. If we do so, then we risk shattering this illusion of a loving home we've worked so hard to maintain. Can you imagine the betrayal they'd feel if they learned they were only time-bombs and we're the disposal team just waiting for them to start ticking?"
Merlin shrugged. "Then don't tell them you knew all along. Pretend you just found out. You'll keep your lie and give them a chance to improve themselves at the same time. Everybody wins."
Even asked, almost accusingly, "And what do you get out of this?"
"Me?" Merlin cocked an eyebrow. "Why, I get to bestow knowledge upon the next generation and save them from ignorance. What more could I want?"
The scientist persisted, "I trust that you won't push any beliefs upon them that conflict with our own?"
The wizard waved a dismissing hand. "At worst, I'll teach them to be more open-minded and form their own beliefs. If freedom of thought is against your society's values, you may want to rethink some things."
Even nearly snapped back at the insult, but Ansem spoke over him, "You certainly have my interest, master wizard. Had I known such a valuable mind resided in my kingdom all this time, I would've consulted you for this concern long ago. Seeing as how we currently have no alternatives for the children's condition, I'm strongly considering your offer. What sort of compensation would you require?"
"Only food and lodging, if you can spare it. I'll stay out of your hair as much as possible while you and your colleagues run the kingdom."
Grandmother answered, "We have a spare room available, and there's always room for one more at my table."
Merlin beamed joyfully, "Madam, you are a godsend."
But the sage-king raised a hand, "Before we finalize any arrangements, there is one last concern I need answered." His eyes grew hard, and his features solemn. "How is it that you are such an authority on darkness? From what I've heard thus far, you may very well be an agent of the Dark Seeker come to infiltrate my kingdom."
The question irked him, but Merlin understood the king's shrewdness. "Your majesty, if I was in the Dark Seeker's employ and you were my target, this kingdom would be conquered by now."
The answer seemed to ease the king's fears, but he still waited for the rest of his question to be answered.
Merlin did just that. "But I confess, I'm not quite so knowledgeable of darkness as you may believe. Much of this will be a learning experience for me as well, and I'll need to pursue further reading to understand the specifics. But I have used my talents and wisdom to help many people across countless worlds realize their full potential and grow into extraordinary individuals. One of them even became a legendary king on his home-world, if you can believe that. And though these children's predicament is unique, many aspects of it are universal to all young people enduring great struggles in their lives. I may not be able to do everything, but I can do more than most."
At last, the sage-king was satisfied. For the first time in far too long, a genuine smile graced his weary features. "When can you start?"
The level roof spanned a dozen feet on each side before the tiles sloped into the seven-story drop, a stalwart gargoyle twice the size of a grown man stationed every several feet to ward off evils centuries gone by. And yet, every step seemed a deathtrap just waiting to hurl Squall to his doom.
He trembled inside his heavy jacket as he stood behind the precipice separating the door from the long, treacherous roof that appeared both eerie and inviting under the glimmering moonlight. A cold sweat threatened to overtake him, to give him second thoughts about confronting this demon which plagued him ever since his airship crashed when escaping the death-camp sixteen months ago.
Nerves and limbs still shivering from terror, the scarred brunette boy reached a trepid hand inside his coat pocket and produced a pair of yellow earbuds in his grasp.
I can still turn back… No one has to know…
But he squeezed his eyes shut and gulped to repress the petrifying feeling threatening to overtake him.
No. I have to do this. What good am I to this family if I can't even conquer this fear of heights?
Eyes still closed, he placed the miniature headphones inside his ears, reached inside his coat pocket yet again, and pressed the "play" button on his miniature cassette player. With a final click and the subsequent whirring of three-millimeter film spun by the twin spools in its plastic cartridge, the sound of artificial stars shimmering graced his ears, followed seconds later by the mellow strumming of an electric guitar.
Squall released his breath, visible in the night's chill air, and opened his eyes with newfound serenity and resolve.
As he took his first step across the daunting expanse, the smooth, haunting voice of a male rock n' roll singer began his soft tune.
I'll never close my eyes again
He took my hand and opened up the radio
Saw there weren't no wires, only stardust and blood and then
The weaver was gone, lost in the fade of yesterday
But I look up, see the sky, and I know
We couldn't have won this any other way
Thirty feet across the great expanse. Only twice did his knees buckle under pressure or the cold make him shiver, but Squall soldiered on, baring his tenacious, scarred face to the night. He shone like a star in the moonlight, bold and flickering, but unwavering in his resolve.
He saw the rising steeple only some thirty feet ahead, a fearsome gargoyle posted on each of the four corners, and as the spellbinding tempo slightly quickened and the chorus kicked in, he bolted into a sprint across the tiled roof to conquer his destination.
Ohh, star weaver watching in the skies
Won't you find your way back to us
And breathe life back into the night?
He crossed the threshold and leapt onto the bulwark of the tower wall, securing a grip in its various architectural protrusions. Slowing down only for a second, he forced himself to begin climbing—no matter how slowly—and the chorus continued.
Ohh, star weaver watching in the skies
Seize the strings that bind you
And make the suns afraid to rise
Ten feet up. He regretted not bringing gloves.
So we can fly
The next handhold was mere inches beyond his reach. He clenched his teeth in spite.
O'er the barricades before us
With a sudden thrust of his upper leg, he leapt some inches upward, fingers outstretched to reach the gargoyle's base…
Burn the skies and sing that chorus
…only to miss entirely. He hit his jaw on the way down and plummeted uncontrollably backward for the roof. And as his vision refocused midway through his descent, he saw a figure near the doorway, watching him with terror and concern visibly exposed on her face. Squall's heart stopped. Shion…?
Until the day we die
He crashed shoulder-blades-first onto the pearl tiles, the earphones dislodging upon impact.
"Squall!" the ravenette wanted to scream with every ounce of force her lungs were capable of producing, but the unspoken pact among the older children to never tell on each other—including never drawing attention to each other's crimes—killed her voice before conception for fear that a patrolling guard would hear her and punish them for being out so late, let alone on the roof. But that was hoping Squall was still alive and capable of being punished. After her plunge from Merlin's tree earlier that day, her mind instantly assumed the worst about her step-brother's fall. Still hugging tight the quilt draped around her for warmth, the twelve-year-old sprinted across the palace roof to Squall's side, her metal leg clanking and just slightly limping all the way.
Her greatest fears relented halfway across, when she saw him groaning and rolling over. Before he could sit back up, Shion knelt by his side, hands inches away from him for fear of disturbing an injury.
Her words came out sputtered and breathless, "Are you hurt? Is anything broken?"
Squall answered her with a grunt and a look somewhere between spite and bewilderment. He turned away, a hand held against his aching shoulder blade.
Shion probed worriedly again, "What are you even doing out here?"
"Nothin'," he snorted. "Leave me alone."
"Squall, were you…" her breath hitched, pupils shrank, and her eyes watered as the thought crossed her mind, "…trying to kill yourself?"
Alarm sprawled through the boy's sore body, contorting his face as he turned back to face her. "What?! No! Why would you even—?"
She embraced him in an anguished hug from behind before he could finish, wrapping him in the quilt covering they now shared. She was sniffling now, burying her tear-drenched eyes at the back of his neck. Squall had winced at the initial soreness of her hold—and it did still hurt—but his greatest concern became whether or not she would begin bawling and attract the sentries.
"Squall, don't do this to us…"
From his seated position, he turned around just enough to grab her forearms and hold her at half-arm's length, removing the quilt as a result. "Shion, I'm not—!" He hushed himself then, mindful of the noise. "I'm not trying to kill myself. That's not why I'm here."
There was no easy way for weeping to end. Once begun, it had to peter out until the mourner's eyes were capable of retaining fluid again. As such, the droplets that became small streams remained as the girl's anxiety turned to confusion. "It's not…? Then…why—?"
"This doesn't concern you." He tried to be firm with her, but no attempted callousness of his could go without at least the slightest bit of wavering in his tone when faced with his sister's weeping face. But that's when it finally hit him: My sister… For the first time since the adoption sixteen months ago, he finally saw the strangers he was forced to live with as his family.
"Of course it concerns me!" she retorted more passionately than angrily as she broke free of his grip. "Squall, this family is all we have! If we lose you—!" She paused then as realization settled in. He came up to the roof…he's trying to climb the steeple… She calmed down and asked almost in a whisper, "Is this about the tree?"
The shock on his face couldn't have been more transparent.
She probed again, "Are you scared of heights?"
He tried to subdue the rising humiliation of exposure with simple anger. "Will you just go back inside?"
She ignored him, "Squall, I don't blame you for what happened."
"I didn't ask for your approval!" The stubborn blush couldn't have been more obvious.
She snapped back, "So stop trying to earn it!" The boy froze, astonished at her riposte. She resumed in a quieter voice, "I get that you're the oldest when Cid's not around, but you don't need to prove yourself for us to respect you. Being older doesn't mean you're not allowed to ever screw up."
He sneered, "Please, how would you know?"
She answered without missing a beat, "Because I'm raising a baby. How do you think I feel every time I make a mistake or can't get her to stop crying?"
He bumbled back, "So what? You have everyone else to help you."
Her voice became firm, "Yes, I do. Grandmother taught me how to change Kairi's diapers and how to calm her down. Aerith taught me how to sing to her, Ienzo and Yuffie taught me how to play with her, and Cid taught me how to make her laugh. It's okay to not be perfect at things just because you're older."
He was too stubborn to answer that directly. Instead, he averted his eyes and mumbled, "How the hell'd you climb a tree anyway?"
She snickered and wiped at her eyes. "The better question's how'd I get stuck like that?"
Squall couldn't help but titter a little at her reply.
She was smiling now, satisfied with making him giggle, and only traces of her tears remained. She resumed, "But you know what amazed me even more? Even after Merlin fixed me up, Kairi was so worried about me. She kept kissing me to make the 'owies' go away, she never left my side after we got back, she tried spoon-feeding me her dinner so I would feel better, and she refused to go to sleep unless she watched me sleep first." Her smile became so serene and the glimmer in her eyes so amorous at the thought of her baby sister's love for her. "It just goes to show the big siblings don't always have things under control. Even the smaller children can look out for you sometimes."
That's when Squall realized he'd been on this seventh-story roof for over a minute without his headphones in and forgot all about the fatality of his current altitude. Talking with Shion had distracted him from the crippling fear he'd otherwise have of being so high up. And now that he was aware of this and found himself over a hundred meters in the air…
"It's actually kinda nice up here." His voice was a breathless hush that Shion might not have heard had there been any other noise. But now that she followed his gaze and looked to the horizon, she found herself stunned at the majesty of Radiant Garden's cityscape under the serene moonlight. The first glance was overwhelming in itself as her field of vision sought to absorb every monolithic structure from the modern century and those long gone by that defined this city as an urban marvel, but there was far more than that. Beyond the intense realization of the city's vast size, the megalopolis gradually registered as her home as she located every familiar place she'd discovered since moving here—every statue and landmark she was ever captivated by, the glowing avenues where she would implore Cid to push her wheelchair like a racecar and he would always gleefully oblige, the grand fountain where Ienzo illegally tried teaching Yuffie how to swim, the mile-long central park where she had often watched Kairi play and even saw her climb a tree for the first time, the arboretum and the flower shop Aerith was absolutely enamored with, the music store and arcade that Leon frequented, the auto shop where Cid worked, the burgs where Merlin's house was—and there was an uplifting rightness in seeing from a bird's eyes how all of these things were connected. She could even see the coast from here. All of it was coated in the moon's radiant sheen.
But then, there were also the zeppelins and their searchlights, the militarized sentinels and mecha-tanks making their unending rounds throughout the city, the glowing signs and posters warning citizens to be on the lookout for suspicious activity and to trust their guards and troubled king, and the realization that theirs was a kingdom preparing for what could be its final war brought a somber disillusionment to the previously-captivated girl. All those familiar places she knew and loved could be wiped out by an invasion from a faceless enemy that could strike at any day, was just as likely to have struck for the last sixteen months, and remained indefinitely to destroy their lives at some unknown point in the future.
She answered Squall bitterly, "It'd be nicer without the paranoia."
He replied, "I don't think the Seeker's coming back." She shot him a quizzical look and he elaborated, "The military chased him out of Camp Tenebrae over a year ago and he still hasn't come back. I'm betting that hellhole was his only base and he lost everything when Ansem stormed the place. We're all just waiting for a war that'll never happen, and it's gonna be like this forever."
When the insight of his words settled in, Shion's confusion turned to visible gloom. "I never even thought of that."
He didn't face her, his eyes locked on the militant horizon. "Well, that's the way it is. That's how it's gonna be. We'd better get used to it."
Quiet alarm settled on him when he felt Shion's arm drape just over his still-aching shoulder. He realized in the next second that she was wrapping her quilt around him too so they would both be covered by it. By then, she'd withdrawn her arm and scooted closer to him to maintain their shared warmth. "It's too late for this depressing stuff," she responded. "I'd rather worry about it when we're more awake."
He didn't answer with words, but his silence suggested he agreed.
Barely a minute passed in their peaceful togetherness when Shion reached for something at Squall's side. It was one of his dislodged earphones. "What were you listening to?" She asked with some interest.
Squall was surprised. This was the first time someone had shown genuine curiosity for the things he liked. And as he saw the raven-haired girl insert the lone earbud into her lobe, he allowed a light smile to soften his world-weary face. He put the other headphone into his own ear and reached for the cassette player in his pocket, "It's Kings of Demeter. They've been around since I was little, so I grew up listening to them."
The smile faded when he found the portable tape-player irreparably fractured from the fall.
Author's note: The song featured in this chapter is a fictional one I "spliced" together with elements from David Bowie's "Starman" and Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver," though with obvious creative license to avoid using copyrighted lyrics since FanFiction frowns upon that (and because those artists wouldn't even exist in Radiant Garden). I dunno, I just really like the idea of Squall listening to '70s soft rock as a kid to mellow himself out whenever he's feeling angsty.
On a final note, Yuffie punching Merlin in the groin was admittedly inspired by a similar scene from Team Wingless' Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core: The Novel, which is a really good fic from the eight chapters I've read so far, and I recommend for any FF7 fan to give this creative novelization a read if they haven't already.