It felt like forever, but we're here. Now I get to watch people shiver from the cold. Lucky me. I, however, cannot feel cold because of the ice magic implanted in me forever ago. Locke practically busts into a house and I follow, unsure exactly what we're doing here.
Suddenly, a man with a ponytail of black hair held by a blue ribbon approaches me, sword drawn and pointing at me. "This woman is an Imperial general! She murdered my entire kingdom. Kill her now, while you have the chance!"
Locke jumps in front of me. "Don't kill her! She's with the Returners now."
I look down. Someone from Doma… I thought everyone died? But I didn't stop Kefka. I'm as guilty as anyone else. Then I look up again, and for the first time I notice someone I didn't before. An all-too-familiar woman with green hair and red clothing. Terra!?
Suddenly, a guard slams the door open. "Kefka's here, with Imperial troops! He's trying to take the frozen esper!"
One of the two older men in the room leads us up a cliff. We talk amongst ourselves, and I tell Edgar that I'm not a love-starved twit. I can feel magic emanating from a higher elevation to the east. That must be the esper.
"Don't let the soldiers reach me, or we'll be in quite a pickle," the man who led us here says as he positions himself in front of an entryway to a bridge leading east. I suppose we could have changed groups if we wanted, but everyone seemed comfortable enough with the group they came with.
Manic laughter comes from below us. "Get the esper!" Kefka notices me. "Ah, General Celes, the traitor! This'll be fun!"
I briefly close my eyes. I open them and draw my sword. "Let's go," I say, neither willing nor needing to say more. The three groups split apart (Locke and me, Terra and Edgar – who I know because he's the king of Figaro – and his brother, the Doman, and a teenage boy) and I follow Locke to the lower part of the cliff. We reach a group of soldiers and fight them. They are beaten fairly easily, although both of us sustain injuries that need to be healed. We'll run out of healing supplies eventually, though, and that's what I'm worried about. If I run out of magic, and we run out of potions and tonics, and if we get really desperate, elixirs, if we still have to fight, there will be no chance. Absolutely no chance.
As it turns out, we do not run out of supplies. The snow is glistening mahogany from blood, both theirs and ours. The only people left are a soldier infinitely pacing, as fast as a sprinter that someone cast Haste on, and Kefka who is of course waiting there so he can kill us to death. I'd be more specific if I could, but he is very versatile in how he kills people. His only rules are that it's inhumane and that he can get away with it, so only one rule because he can always get away with it. I notice the man from Doma glaring at me, with both groups standing next to him, other than mine.
"Well," I say, looking at Locke with my arms crossed, "evidently you telling him not to kill me means we have to fight Kefka." I would say kill, but that is a lot harder than anyone else probably thinks it is.
"Let's go kill him then," Locke decides, apparently not catching what I said. "He probably killed her anyhow." "Her" is apparently unimportant to me specifically, because he doesn't explain. Or it just hurts. It's probably the latter, actually…
We fight the sprinting/pacing soldier who proves to be as strong/weak as the other soldiers, but a miniscule bit stronger. Then we, of course, have to fight Kefka. I draw my sword.
"Kill my childhood friend. At this point, I couldn't care less. Well, I do care. But kill him because I would be mad if you didn't." I say this because it feels like I should say something, but what is there to say? So I draw my sword and point it at him. "It's your last chance to run away, Kefka. Or did you change your mind about the taste of your own blood?" I taunt him, but it has no effect. Locke disappears. Then Kefka screams.
"How dare you stab me! YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!" Kefka screams at him, obnoxiously loudly. Locke is just standing there, blood on his dagger and a smile on his lips.
"I've wanted to do that for five years," he says, grinning.
I grip my sword tighter. Kefka lunges for me, and I dodge him, but barely. I have to focus on runic, otherwise we'll all die in, at most, ten seconds.
"What are you-" I raise my hand to stop Locke from talking.
"Don't waste your breath," I growl. He knows what I'm doing. Kefka stabs at me again, and this time I don't dodge. Blood pools on my arm, but I don't care. He casts Thundara, and, of course, fails. I notice everyone staring at me, but it doesn't change anything. When I fight against entities that use magic, my combat generally involves standing still and waiting, always waiting, for a spell to be cast. Absorbing anything, whether cast by friend or foe. Locke is stabbing Kefka, but I'm not paying attention to the combat, my focus absorbed in the sword, in runic, and nothing else. I am stabbed again, and I crumple to my legs, still completely focused on the magic, except for a tiny part that is paying attention to whether or not Kefka has run away.
He runs away, and I sheathe my sword. I close my eyes for a moment, then open them. I quickly cast Cure on myself and stand up. Locke looks at me for a second, then walks away to join the others. I follow him. There are splotches of snow stained crimson, along with the corpses of Imperial troopers and their dogs. Terra looks at me sideways, but says nothing. The man who led us here walks into the passage he was guarding, and we all follow him. There is an esper encased in ice that looks a bit like a duck. Terra steps up to the esper. Something flashes, and we all almost fall off the cliff, except for Terra, that is.
"Terra, step away from the esper–" Edgar says. I'm struggling to see what's happening, and from what I can see, she doesn't seem to hear him. Suddenly her appearance changes, and she is a white, furry, humanoid creature with pink hair. She rises up into the air and glides away with a petrified look in her eyes, as though she doesn't have control of what she's doing.