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Tseng had spluttered his last laboured breath on that sacred
altar, his life ripped away from him cruelly at the blow of one
sword-stroke.Ê A sacrifice,
perhaps?Ê Aerith did not know.Ê She gazed down into the pallid, wavering
reflection of herself on the watersâ surface, the image scattered now and then
by the ripple of windswept waves.Ê She
thought a lot of Tseng these days and of Zack; dead remnants of her childhood,
and of the days when her reflection had spoken differently to her.Ê In those days, blood had not stained her
mind.Ê The eyes that stared so vacantly
back up at her now had seen Death, and now·Death was everywhere, Death was
everything.Ê He, it ö whatever it was ö
it came to her at night, in her dreams.Ê
He clutched at her heart with spindly fingers, crept along the contours
of her flesh as though to wilt it away from her, played against the shadows of
her mind.Ê He was close now; Death was
staring over her shoulder and at her own reflection, his smile wicked.Ê The holy light of the ancient city could not
dispel her shadow from her side.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ And now her human body, so young, so
fresh, and once so eager, it seemed useless.Ê
The legs she had used to run, to seek, to wander in childhood felt limp;
the feelings that had first stirred within her breast when Zack had touched her
lay dormant; the cries of pain and hurt and rejection had worn themselves into
incessant whispers now, that scrabbled at the base of her brain.Ê Only moments left to live, and now how
ironic it seemed ö she was dying already.Ê
Inside her soul.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ She stood there a moment, abstractly
studying her reflection in the water, with the distracted kind of interest
shown by those deep in thought.Ê It was
quite by chance that sheâd caught the sight of it; had it been the glistening
leap of light as it had played on the water, the sudden flash of her golden jewellery in the crystalline luminescence?ÊÊÊ Or had it simply been the realization that this would be the time
sheâd get to see herself?Ê Her mind
flitted over the set of possibilities like a butterfly on the summer
breeze.Ê They meant nothing to her, but,
in a disconnected sort of way, they felt achingly important.Ê She could not think why.Ê She felt exhausted just trying to work it
out.Ê Mother, father, she
thought.Ê Elmyra, Tseng, Zack.Ê Where are they now?Ê Where have they gone?Ê Oh childhood, I want you back.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ She turned away from the staring green eyes, and to the stepping-stones that led to the altar.Ê Her feet, unbidden, followed.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The steps, upwards, they seemed
never-ending.Ê They represented a time
of carefree joy and laughter, a span of her life that had seemed to defeat the
possibility of this moment she was living now.Ê
Somehow, her real motherâs warm arms comforted her, though she could not
recall such an event. ÊThe voice of
Ifalna had spoken to her instead, had reassured her in a way Elmyra could
not.Ê Elmyra had watched young Aerith
grow, a gawky, skinny child into a rarely beautiful young woman.Ê And Zack, whoâd first noticed her, whoâd
first touched that rare beauty and claimed it as his own.Ê Naive, young love had filled her, she should
have known it would not have lasted.Ê
And Tseng, heâd loved her too, but she couldnât have returned it.Ê For all heâd once said heâd give her, there
had been too much pain and fear for her to feel for him.Ê She did not regret.Ê She cared for him deeply.Ê But that was all.
*
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ For a long time at first, he had
shocked her.Ê The blood on his sword, on
his hands, the fearlessness on his face; the way he killed without a momentâs
thought.Ê His unearthly blue eyes, so
cold, so distant, so inhuman, so brave: he was an enigma, a mystery to be
solved.Ê He was all the things she was
not; he was a ghost from her past, a ghost who bore the lifeless name of
ÎZackâ.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Oh Cloud·And now the name drifted
on her subconscious, sole and precious.Ê
Oh Cloud·But more than that she did not know what to say.Ê The price of knowing him, of feeling for him
had been too great, and now·words failed her, even in the great expanse of her
reeling mind.Ê In the face of all that
had happened words seemed barren and insignificant, as small as the dust that
swept from under her feet.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ He had sat there, beside her ö this
was much later.Ê He was not so much of a
mystery then.Ê He looked at her with a
mixture of admiration and tenderness, but not love.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ ãThere is no need to be afraid.ä he
had told her ãI will protect you, you know I will, I promised I would be your
bodyguard.ä
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The promise seemed so far away now,
a contract of innocence that had in reality signaled the darkness of the coming
days.Ê They had sat there feeling the
swell of the breeze as it lifted from underneath the Da-Chao statues and
against their hair and legs.Ê Down below
the picturesque town of Wutai had twinkled up at them, the lights of the houses
somehow watchful, and knowing.Ê His
promises, though sincere, were only words, and words, she reminded herself,
were barren, as empty as the feeling in her querulous heart.Ê For not long after his promises had proven
themselves fruitless ö for even they could not stop him from succumbing to
Sephirothâs powers, and striking out against her, his self-professed ward.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ She stopped in the center of the
altar, her face illuminated by the dappled prisms of light that danced across
her soft cheeks as they played off the water.Ê
To some outsider she would have seemed to be an ethereal vision, some
angel clothed in sunbeams sent from the heavenly host above.Ê The green eyes dimmed for a moment, a tender
smile touched the lips.Ê For all her
divine serenity, there was still something inexplicably human about her.Ê Even in the welcoming arms of the Cetra,
those long-lost angels, she still held on to mortal life, grasped on with two
trembling tiny hands.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Magnificent and empty, the memories
were, like sand through an hourglass, leaking away, being discarded in the face
of certain death, the only certainty in the world.Ê Elmyra would have laughed at her for being so na•ve, after sheâd
been hurt so acutely once before.Ê When
Zack had left and she had waited for his return, for six months she had wept
without stopping, wept as though she could not stop.Ê Now, like words, she could not cry.Ê The tears were stagnant within her, she was numb with pain, it no
longer moved her.Ê The rivers within her
had run dry, she had nothing left to cry.Ê
Through her sadness, she felt happy in a vague, unfocused kind of way,
for here she was nearing the end of her purpose, the end of her journey, and
that of her ancestors.Ê And the
memories, they would dissipate, disintegrate on the tides of irrevocable time,
never to return.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ His kiss had owned her, had made her
feel alive.Ê She could remember, how he
had caught the breath that had quivered in her throat and how they had known in
that single, insoluble moment that it was going to happen.Ê In the lunatic madness of their exchange,
some measure of peace had filled them both; and his mouth, warm and wet on
hers, had sought the secret whispers that only she could hear.Ê Words she had given him in dreams had slowly
merged into reality, the manic workings of Fate had struggled to bring them
together on to this unknown plane.Ê She
had felt it in the urgency of both their actions ö an unbreakable, irresistible
force propelling them together, a collision of minds, bodies, souls.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Hopeless, desperate, hungry.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ She had not dreamed it would be like
this.Ê Eyes closed, mouth open, her face
to the heavens, she had shuddered at the blatancy of his eager touch.Ê For all her nakedness she felt shielded,
covered in some way, by something; his hands caressed the silken waves
of her long auburn hair·The wonder, speculation on his face as he ran his
fingers through it, and as she lay quite still and watched, and slowly uncoiled
herself from her old skin and into the new.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ He had never said to her: ÎI love
youâ.Ê He had only said: ÎI will protect
you.âÊ She pictured the bloody sword,
and the fierce gleam in his eyes as he defended her, and it was not what she
wanted.Ê She wanted his love.Ê It was not enough to have his essence inside
her, she wanted him to see her, to see her.Ê And now what they had shared had shattered within her, shattered
like shards of broken glass that now only caused her pain.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ She knelt, her fingers clasped in
prayer, her knuckles white.Ê Who can
say how this chapter ends but Fate, she thought, who can say but
destiny?Ê She thought of her brown
and naked knees, buried in the soil of her homely little garden in Midgarâs
Sector Five.Ê Above the knees rested the
hem of her dress ö green, vividly so, she could remember.Ê Her heart leapt at the memory, the sudden
inexplicable memory.Ê The flowers of her
childhood danced before her mindâs eye ö the yellow primrose petals, the azure
of the blue forget-me-nots, the crimson of the rare red rose.Ê The little girl in the muck and filth held
on to the rose, blood, bright red in the scarce sunlight, held it to the green
of her dress.Ê Now prayers were all that
little girl would hold on to ö prayers to save the world.Ê One by one they would rise, and touch the
sky, and bring salvation.Ê Life and love
and pain; all the friends that had made her laugh and smile·up theyâd float
with her prayers, higher and higher, into the blue.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Oh!Ê Oh!Ê It seems so near, I
can almost touch it·!
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Ifalna, warm and ghostly, emerged from the shadows, her arms, dead and transparent, closed around her kneeling daughter as she prayed on that altar.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ ãMother,ä came the timorous voice
into her mind ãis that how it ends?Ê Is
this how the story folds?ä
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ The borderline between life and
death, so impenetrable, so cold, now blurred as the words rushed between this
world and the next.Ê The ghost of Ifalna
smiled.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ ãNo ö this is not how it ends.Ê Nothing ends.ä Her voice, placid, gentle,
was rich and vibrant ãThere is no ending in death.Ê There is only new life.ä
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ And then, softly, the last memory burned
into existence, a memory that was a beacon in itself, a light into an unknown
world.Ê She held the torch in front of
her, as though afraid to see what lay behind the curtain folds of darkness.Ê Her eyes raised; she was eighteen again, and
in the ruined church, her face contemplating the life-sized crucifix before
her.Ê The man that stared back down at
her in agony, the unknown god who suffered, whose ravaged face spoke out to her
with brazen and tortured humanity.Ê Who
was this dying god?Ê Why was he
dying?Ê For us?Ê For humans?Ê
Why did he look so human?Ê She
gazed up at him, awed, moved to tears by this human god.Ê In her young mind had awoken the desire to
absorb that godâs pain, to share in the great sacrifice she was somehow certain
heâd given to them so that they may live.Ê
In silent supplication she had begged to be shown the way, to inspire
others in the way this god did her.Ê
That was why she loved the church ö not only for her flowers, but for
him.Ê And the church was where her quest
had begun.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ And ended here, now, on this altar.
ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.Ê Scattered on the wind, these secret whispers
of her life, she would leave them behind now, for the others to catch.Ê She would follow the unknown god, into the
abyss of death, and then into the light.Ê
She wondered, fleetingly, whether that unknown god had ever been reborn,
and walked these well-worn roads again.