Hello! I'm back :3

FIRST OF ALL, Georgia, thank you for your long and detailed review! It makes a lot of sense to me and got me thinking about this next part, so... I guess it's not quite at the point in the game that you wrote about, but I'm keeping it in mind, to be sure. Again, thank you.

So one thing I forgot to mention about this story: all the chapter titles are phrases from songs. I'm not gonna give away what songs, because that would spoil it, but if you think you know where one is from, go ahead and mention it somewhere.

This part is mostly invented - a flashback, not part of the game at all... We'll get back there in the next chapter. :3

Chapter Two: The Memory Now

One year ago…

Yeul ex Vitae stood at her window, the drapes billowing around her in the breeze, her blue-silver hair floating on drafts of wind. She stared beyond at the city of Paddra. She knew the city well, like the back of her hand: a city graced by technology and nature, a city formed by the rise and fall of the rooftops against a gradient sky. A city presided over by a ruling body and a seer. She also knew this seer well: Caius Ballad de Canor, she two years his senior and yet he superior to her in every way.

She lived miles away from the capitol building, where Caius stayed, but she walked faithfully there almost every day. That was exactly what she prepared to do now. She closed her window, fastening the locks and pulling the curtains over the glass. She descended the stairs of the house and stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She walked onto the dirt road that would lead her to the capitol building, to the Council and to Caius.

The ruling body, the Council, respected but ignored her. Sometimes one of them smiled at her when she passed, or acknowledged her presence with a nod, but the recognition was scarcely more than that, if any. Yeul had grown used to it over time, though the lack of communication had startled her early on.

Caius, however, was a different story. He watched her like he didn't know how to look at anyone else.

Or, at least, that was how it had used to be.

Yeul arrived at the gates of the capitol building. A quad of guards stood in front of it, their stances straight, their hands locked on the hilts of their swords. One of them jerked his head at Yeul, gesturing for her to go in. Another one snapped his fingers. The gates slid slowly open with a sickening grinding noise. It had used to make her flinch, but now she just stood and watched them, waiting for her chance to step inside. Of course, the gates finally ceased in their movement, and Yeul walked through them and up the walkway to the building. She never once dared to cast a glance at anyone to either side of her.

The front room of the building, a huge, drafty room made of stone and dotted with pillars, was deserted. Yeul continued through the room, making a right turn and ascending the staircase to the second level. She knew the way by now—she had walked this path for nearly ten years. Without so much as a knock she pushed open the large double doors to the room at the top of the stairs and entered.

The Council and Caius awaited her inside the room. Most of the Council hovered near the head of the room, while Caius sat in a chair off to the side. In the very center of this room, there was a recording device—an Oracle Drive. Yeul eyed them carefully, staying vigilantly silent as she awaited her permission.

"Yeul ex Vitae of Paddra," one of the Council members said. "Welcome. Please step forward."

"Thank you," Yeul said. She moved closer to the device in the middle of the room.

"Caius Ballad de Canor, Seer of Paddra," the Council member continued. "Please step forward, as well."

Caius rose from his seat and walked toward the device, slowly and with measured steps. He stood beside Yeul, close enough that their shoulders touched, and laced his fingers between hers. She hoped the Council could not see the simple but weighty gesture.

Caius did not need further instructions. They could both hear the question that the Council asked him every time, ringing unspoken in the air: "What have you seen?" He stood in silence for a few seconds, keeping Yeul's hand in his, before he tugged his hand gently from her grasp and reached for the Oracle Drive. As soon as his hand neared the device, it began to glow with a strange green light.

He closed his eyes as the image began to take shape above the device. It showed the same six fighters they had all seen for the past few weeks: a young boy with whitish hair; a young girl with pink hair; a tall, slim woman with dark hair; an older man with dark skin and big hair; a younger man with a bandanna tied around his mop of blond hair. And finally, as always, the stunning young woman who had pink hair and wore the uniform of a soldier, the woman toward whom Yeul always felt a twinge of hatred. Caius had spent meeting after meeting revealing these visions to the Council, and Yeul was certain by the way that he watched the pink-haired woman that over time, he had become unconditionally enamored with her. She always watched these visions play out with held breath and clenched fists, but the Council never seemed to notice. Nor did they notice Caius's reaction. Before she even had time to glance at the distorted images in the air above the device, they disappeared, and the Council's meeting commenced.

"These six individuals," one of the Council members said, standing up, "they have been changed into l'Cie by the powerful beings that watch over their world, and they think that they can change their fates, is that correct?"

Murmurs of agreement spread throughout the room. Yeul pressed her lips together, saying nothing.

"But do you really believe that they will succeed? All the odds are against them. The only thing they can do is hope." The Council member brushed his hands against the white robe he wore. "And keep hoping, up until the very moment when they are changed into Cie'th."

The other Council members began to speak amongst themselves again, and Caius and Yeul stood in silence at the center of the room. After a minute, the Council member who had risen from his seat clapped his hands, signaling that he wanted quiet. "Caius, thank you. We have no need to discuss these visions, for they are highly similar to those you have shown us in the past."

Caius nodded and turned away, taking Yeul's hand in his and pulling her out of the room after him. Together they began the trek out of the capitol building. She kept her fingers intertwined with his, but she recognized the look in his eyes. It was the look he got whenever he had those visions, whenever he watched the pink-haired soldier in them.

Yeul allowed Caius to hold her hand until they had stepped free of the building's gates and rounded the corner, and once they were out of sight, she spun around, wrenching her hand out of his grasp. "Caius," she exclaimed, rounding on him.

"What is it?" Caius questioned, studying her with concerned eyes.

"Why do you pretend with me?" she demanded. "And when we are in the presence of the Council!"

"I do not pretend, Yeul," Caius answered smoothly.

"Yes, you do. I have seen the look in your eyes when you watch that soldier in your visions. She is the one you want, not me, and that is disregarding the fact that you should not harbor feelings for anyone in the first place."

"Yeul, you misunderstand." He stepped forward, his hand brushing hers again, but she flinched back at the gesture. His tone sounded unwaveringly sure, but his eyes betrayed a different story.

"And what is it that I misunderstand?" she demanded. "Go ahead, tell me, Caius." His name left her lips like a curse, and she stared him down with unfeeling eyes.

He opened his mouth to reply, but just as he did so, he paused. She watched his eyes glaze over, take on a vacant look, and then a strange sigil appeared against his irises, glowing with an unearthly light. Yeul's own eyes widened. She knew what it meant—another vision. Another vision which Caius was not yet supposed to experience.

"Caius," she said. This time her tone sounded surprised, softer, even desperate. "What is it? What's happening…?"

This time he did not answer. The sigil flashed in his eyes and then disappeared, and he collapsed to his knees. Yeul moved to catch him before he hit the ground, holding him by the shoulders at arm's length at first, and then shifting to his side and cradling his head in her lap.

"Caius, please," she whispered. "You cannot do this to me."

His eyes fluttered closed, and she pressed a hand to his cheek to find that he already felt cold. She shook her head, repeating his name.

Slowly he blinked, meeting her gaze briefly before letting his eyes close again. "Yeul," he whispered, his lips scarcely moving, his voice hardly audible.

"What is it, Caius?" she demanded in a fervent whisper. "What did you see?"

He said nothing. She worried that he was already gone, and moved to shake his shoulder, but he continued, his hand extending from his side to clasp hers. "The six fighters, the six l'Cie," he whispered hoarsely. "Their fates changed. They did not become Cie'th. Instead they destroyed Orphan. They… changed their own futures."

"That is… not possible," Yeul insisted. "What do you mean, Caius?"

"This future is different," he gasped.

"What do you mean?" Yeul exclaimed. His hand went limp in hers, and his eyes closed a final time. He slipped completely to the ground beside her, and she crouched over him, still clutching at his cold hand.

This future is different.

Those were his final words.

Yeul felt her anger consuming her; she felt the adrenaline of it rushing through her veins. An idea came to her, and she hated herself for even thinking of it, but she knew it was the only way. She let go of Caius's hand and stood up from the place where she had knelt next to his lifeless body. She took one last glance at his face, silent and emotionless in death. She had wanted to be the last one to see it, but that could not be so. This was the only way.

She had to leave this place before the members of the Council showed up.

"My deepest apologies, Caius Ballad de Canor," she whispered, and she turned on her heel and ran away, running to the horizon, running to nowhere, running to find something which she did not know if she would ever reach.

A time gate.