and now to de-anon my Yuletide fic
Jan. 4th, 2012 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lirillithTitle: Diamond Dust
Fandom: Final Fantasy VI
Pairing: Celes/Locke
Length: 5660 words
Rating: PG at most
Summary: Celes understands Locke more easily when he's not trying to speak to her.
Notes: Locke sings a version of an English traditional song that was apparently written for the Sharpe movies, while Celes sings the Confederate version of a Civil War-era song. The Siren idea originated with this fic bysemisweetcj which I didn't feel I could credit without de-anoning, since I commented on it and it was written in response to my prompt; I hope I put my own spin on it! I'm also deeply indebted to![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/546779-38354/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
Quicksilver_ink for beta assistance.
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When Celes saw her again, in Narshe, Terra had been wearing a ribbon. She hadn't had it when Celes had last seen her in Vector. She'd been wearing the slave crown, and her pendant. Celes had clasped it herself around her friend's neck, and hurried away, wondering if Terra could hear her the way they said the comatose could, but unable to face her dead eyes and eerie physical stillness. Terra had had her hair pulled back with a gilded comb, then, the sort Kefka favored. She hadn't been wearing the ribbon, a deep maroon, which must have been given to her later. When she'd approached the Esper on the mountain, the loose ends of the bow had blown back from her head as if she were facing into a stiff wind, had streamed back like banners, then blown away as the lightning began to crackle around her.
Locke had gone to her, had placed himself between the girl and the Esper, and been blown half off the cliff. Celes had run to help him, pulled him up, and they'd both been crouching in the snow, watching as the light subsided around a very different figure. Celes remembered the tales she'd heard after that incident in the lab – that Terra had changed shape, that there had been lightning, wild magic that had injured the scientists and a handful of students and permitted the escape of Espers in the chaos. Kefka's charge was that it had been deliberate sabotage. Celes had questioned it even then. The unearthly scream, the sight of Terra levitating, then shooting upward like a rocket, had given her an inkling of what what had happened in the lab, but it was an answer that only brought more questions.
Terra looked like an Esper.
Celes had seen them herself. It hadn't been long after that incident in the lab, when four of the Espers had escaped and others had been injured, when Terra's life had suddenly been handed over to Kefka and Celes had still been grateful that it wasn't an execution. She'd been taken down alone, given a quick, somber tour by Cid, shown the alien creatures, some human-shaped, others like animals; a whale not much longer than a man was tall, a small creature that looked, a bit, like a rabbit, a tube she thought was empty at first until she saw the coherent, wraith-like figure that seemed to be made of light. Most, though, were humanoid; humans with claws, with skin blue or russet or unearthly pale, humans with abnormally large, wide-spaced eyes and animal-like noses, but still with two arms, two legs, one mouth, human enough that the wrongness of imprisoning them broke through the surface to her perception for the first time
"Are they conscious?" she'd asked Cid, uncertain whether that would be better or worse, and he'd said "We're still not sure." She'd thought – privately, she'd never speak or write these thoughts, she'd normally have throttled them ruthlessly – that she could see why Terra would have sabotaged the place, even if Celes still maintained she hadn't done anything of the sort.
But now Terra looked like an Esper. Celes watched Locke pick the ribbon up out of the snow, and she wondered about what had really happened in the lab. She saw him stagger, reached to steady him, and found herself, suddenly, supporting all his weight as he pitched forward, unconscious.
Celes had thought it was a waste for a single night's stay, but Edgar had insisted on renting a suite at an inn in north Jidoor. Two rooms, a private bath, and a sitting room. Rather than staying in it for the evening, he'd already departed, either to find out more about travel to Vector, or to continue his inveterate skirt-chasing, depending on whether you relied on his own account or Locke's. He'd left his magicite on the table, along with his crossbow.
"Good idea," Locke said, placing his magicite next to it. "We don't want to lose these."
"This device is not... armed, is it?" Cyan asked, keeping well away from the crossbow.
"Completely harmless," Locke said absently, depositing his bag in the room the men would be sharing. Celes wasn't sure he'd even looked, but the crossbow wasn't loaded. She held her own magicite in her hand, watching Cyan place his with the other two. "Celes, I'd been wondering," Locke said, returning from the bedchamber. "Is this at all like your magic?"
"This," she repeated.
He caught her meaning, and gestured vaguely. "Magicite," he said. "Magic. I don't know how to describe it. How it feels when you cast a spell, or... learn a spell. Since I can't cast any yet."
"It's not quite the same," she said, seating herself in one of the spindly, elegant chairs. "With the magicite, I feel a faint presence. A personality, almost. My own magic is a part of me. The difference between your own memories and a story someone else told you, perhaps."
"So it's not just me," Locke said, as he pulled out a chair and sprawled across it.
"Aye, I have felt it as well," Cyan said from the next room. "Though not at all strongly."
"Well, no wonder," Locke said, passing his hand over Cyan's magicite. "Ramuh's just like you." Cyan had come to the doorway, and stood there, frowning, arms folded. "Older," Locke amended. "But, you know. Stern. Severe. Uptight."
"Upright," Celes corrected, not that she expected either of them to ever secure the samurai's goodwill. "Harsh, but fair."
"Perhaps," the older man said. "I take my leave of thee. I hope to assist his Majesty in his efforts." His footsteps thumped more than she thought entirely necessary as he passed through the sitting room.
"Good luck," Locke said agreeably, waving at the man's departing back. "It's true, though," he added, after the door had closed.
"Of course," she said. "Siren's different from me, though. All she really seems to want is to sing."
"And lure sailors to their deaths?"
"You know that story," she said, trying not to sound surprised. Sometimes he seemed to play the streetwise rogue, and others he'd surprise her with a knowledge of history, or legend. She didn't really sense the sea, though. Siren just wanted to draw people to her, with her voice and her beauty. To be the center of attention.
"Yeah, but that's all I know about it." He rolled his own between his palms. "My little stray cat just gets bored. Wants to joke around, play pranks on people. It's just weird to feel that around you. I was wondering if you were used to it, that's all."
"No," she said. She placed Siren with the others, and felt the presence recede as she drew her hand back. "No more than you are."
He reached out and touched the crystal. "I can feel that," he said, and then he surprised her again, lifting his voice in song – wavering at first, but growing confident within a few words. "Here's forty shillings on the drum, for those who'll volunteer to come, something fight the foe today, over the hills and far away." He broke off, ducking his head as if embarrassed. "You can tell I'm not much of a singer."
"Your voice sounded... fine. I'm no judge of music." His voice had sounded beautiful – rich and smooth.
"I meant how I forgot the words," he said. "But that was better than my usual voice."
"Hmm," she said, reaching out to touch the magicite herself. The words... "Our flag is proudly floating on the land and on the main, Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom! Beneath it oft we've conquered, and we'll conquer oft again!" She broke off, herself, surprised both at her voice and at the words. She'd never sung marching songs, just barked them out with her men. The voice she'd found with Siren was a soprano, clear and confident. "Sorry," she said. An imperial marching song, in front of Locke of all people. "Freedom indeed."
"First thing that popped into your head," he suggested, then pushed his chair back. "I should go make some enquiries. I think I'll fit in a bit better than the other two in some of the seedier places at the south edge of town."
"Locke," she said, before he reached the door. He halted and half-turned. "When you freed me, you said I reminded you of someone. Who was it?"
He rubbed his face. "I think you already guessed."
The face had been slack with sleep, devoid of traces of waking personality, framed by dark, slightly curly hair, and a pair of blue ribbons. A small button nose. Full lips. Hard to tell the shape of the eyes, though. "I've never seen her awake, but she looks nothing like me."
"Her eyes were blue. Are blue," he said. "And it was just... when I see a woman in trouble, she's the one I think of. So it was mostly that. But now I know you more, I was right in other ways."
"What? What was she like, then?"
"Heh. She wouldn't have let it drop either." He looked at the door, maybe a bit longingly. "People thought she was standoffish, but she was just shy. I don't think you're shy, but you stay reserved for other reasons. It's not that you don't like people."
She looked at her hands. At least he wasn't completely wrong-headed and presumptuous in his conclusions, like Edgar had been, but she still didn't think she cared for this sort of analysis of her character. "You couldn't tell that at first glance."
"No," he agreed, and then he opened the door and slipped out.
Left alone in the room, Celes found it easy enough to imagine her. A shy, bookish young woman, slowly opening up in the face of Locke's charm. Not a fashionable girl, not in a small, backwater town like Kohlingen, but someone who'd shop for ribbons and hats and new dresses when she went to Jidoor or Figaro. Ladylike, or trying to be, but happy to try new things that let her spend time with her young man. With Locke. What had he been like, five years ago?
In the end, they'd stumbled over what they needed. When Celes went in search of coffee, the young woman who served it to her commented on her resemblance to an opera singer, and imparted some juicy gossip about the diva's affair with a man named Setzer Gabbiani, the owner of "The Airship." Celes mentioned the airship, the only part of it she considered relevant, and regretted it once Locke and Edgar began spinning out their plan. When he'd managed to herd them all to the opera house and explain the plan to the impresario, she protested "I can't even sing!"
"Siren," he said to her, with a wink, and returned to browbeating the impresario. He was right, she thought, though she couldn't abandon her protests. She wasn't Siren. She didn't want eyes on her; she didn't want admirers. But she had to resemble someone who did, and for one night, resemble her very closely.
Locke had joined her in the wings, after she'd been dressed and painted and coiffed and transported to the chamber just offstage. "Celes?" he'd asked, his voice sounding odd, surprised and a little strangled. "Wow." His face had been red. Her heart had been beating fast, and her hands had trembled a little as she set the script notes down on the table. She'd stared at him, not sure how to look away, and after a moment he'd said, oddly stiff and formal, "That ribbon suits you." The rest had been a blur. He'd talked about her big scene, parroting lines the opera impresario must have been saying to him. He'd said "Break a leg!" and they'd both laughed awkwardly, and she'd gone out, and she'd been sure no one took her for Maria. But it was finally done, and she could take a moment, between scenes, to breathe and to hear his voice, again, repeating over and over, "wow," and "that ribbon suits you."
Setzer had stolen a kiss – her first, though she didn't care to make much of that – and there'd been the desperate bargaining on board the ship, and Locke's loud objections when she offered to marry Setzer, though perhaps she shouldn't make too much of those either. Cyan had objected, too. And finally, finally, in the cabin Setzer had shown her to, she'd been able to lock the door, take one last look at her stranger's face framed by the elaborate coiffure and the lacy collar, change out of the voluminous skirts and scrub off the makeup. Finally, she'd wound the ribbon around one of the silk roses and tucked it into a side pocket of her bag.
Blue ribbons, tied in bows on either side of her face. He must have given Terra that ribbon she'd worn, as well. Did he even know he was doing it? Did he realize what he was doing? Why should she be happy that he thought a costume that didn't suit her at all had suited her?
And why had she sacrificed herself for the rest of them, protected Locke after he'd doubted her? Kefka merely insinuated, addressed her in familiar tones – he wasn't even openly lying, but he welcomed her back, asked if these were her troops, implied she'd been on a mission as a double agent. Locke was the first one she looked to, and she saw suspicion and distance in his face, as if he hadn't seen her shackled and beaten in a basement cell. As if he hadn't seen her struggle with her decision before she chose to accompany him to Narshe. As if he didn't know her at all. Why did she warp herself away with Kefka and the others, instead of attacking them all? It would have been no less suicidal. Why hadn't she at least raged at Locke, said something to him beyond telling him she was protecting him?
The next time Celes saw him, they were in Albrook. She was standing on the bridge, looking at the way the gaslights reflected off the dark water below, just delaying her return to the inn by a few minutes, when she heard footsteps. She looked up, saw a male form, and guessed by the walk and the carriage who it would be, but she wasn't going to run away. She had nothing to be ashamed of; she was the one owed an apology. "Celes?" he called, his voice low but carrying in the quiet of the street, and she raised her head slightly, and then her hand, by way of acknowlegement, but she didn't look away from the water. She waited until he joined her at the bridge rail. "Celes," he said, and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I may have doubted you, but I'm still your friend."
Still your friend. As if it were a favor. As if he were extending friendship to her, despite some transgression or failing on her part. At least he'd said he was sorry, perfunctory though it was. Good of you, she thought of saying, but she kept her lips shut against the bitterness. She pushed herself away from the rail and took off, away from him, away from the inn, walking quickly, her bootheels staccatto against the paving stones. She'd regretted wearing them for a walk on city streets, but now she was glad of the effect. "Celes!" he called behind her, but he didn't follow her, and she was glad of that as well; she'd feel foolish shaking him off if he persisted, and she didn't want to listen to him further, or return to the inn with him.
The voyage to Crescent Island felt like a bad dream. She tried to avoid the times the other two ate their meals, but hated herself for doing it. Terra seemed to be in the same places as she was quite a bit, and a few times she seemed as though she wanted to speak, but she never said anything of consequence – comments on the weather, on the food – and Celes thought it could all be written off to the close quarters of the ship. There were only so many places one could be, after all. Locke never sought her out at all, and seemed perfectly content not to be around her. And she had no objections to that whatsoever. Best to avoid friction, especially under the circumstances; she didn't want to seem unprofessional in front of Leo, or the soldiers who likely saw her as a traitor. Or, for that matter, Locke and Terra and the ninja Shadow.
But on the morning they made landfall, they were all on deck at the same time, and unaccountably, impulsively, she called out to Locke. She hadn't planned this, she had no idea what she wanted to say, but she couldn't turn back after that. He paused, she saw his head lift – he'd heard her – but he just turned to Terra, off to his side, and said "we should go get ready." She watched him walk away without even looking at her, and felt like her heart was being crushed. Terra turned to her, opened her mouth as if to speak, even took a step toward her, but Celes couldn't seem to move or speak, and Terra turned and followed Locke, threading her way quickly through the press of sailors and soldiers and vanishing in the crowd.
After a week on shore, when they met at the rendezvous point, the ninja was gone, Terra was beaming, and Locke still wouldn't meet her eyes. Locke led the way back to town. Terra fell in beside her, smiling but not saying much. "Did something happen with the Espers?" she finally asked, to take her mind off her own agitation. She didn't like to even think about it, let alone put a name to it; all she could do was tell herself not to get a crush on him, not to give in, not to let herself fall for someone who didn't even trust her. She wouldn't be thinking this way if it weren't too late, yet she couldn't just bring herself to wish for a chance to speak to him again, either.
"They spoke to me – they knew I was like them. It makes me happy for some reason."
"Any relatives?" she asked, half-teasing, but Terra looked thoughtful.
"I'll try to find out. At least one of them mentioned my father's name."
In town, Locke made the introductions, to the village chief, to an elderly man named Strago, and the man's little granddaughter, who'd inserted herself into the proceedings. Strago and Leo fell into conversation. She watched Terra go over to one of the Espers – an androgynous being that Terra had pointed out to her, as they entered town, as Yura – and lead the individual over to Strago and Leo. Locke drifted over to Celes, or tried to make it look like a drift. "Well done," she said, stiffly.
"Mostly Strago's doing," he mumbled. "I, uh... I'd like it if we could start over."
"From what point?"
"I don't— If I knew— Listen. Can I have a minute?"
"I'm not preventing you from speaking."
He sighed noisily. "Just before you left, we got this Esper. Magicite. Shiva. You remember, we fought her and Ifrit, and— anyway. We've had Shiva with us, all this time, and it's been... I've been worried about you, but having Shiva there felt a little like you weren't completely gone," he said. "Like you were with us. And I was going to offer her to you as a peace offering, but little Relm over there has her right now, so I had to start out by talking instead, and of course that never works." She couldn't help smiling at that, though she tried. "I owe you an apology," he continued. "I just don't know where to start. I'm sorry."
She shook her head. She was tired of being angry. "Don't," she said. She didn't want to think, anymore, about the look on his face in the lab. She just wanted to stop being angry at him. It was clear enough to see that he knew he'd been wrong, even if he couldn't explain exactly how, and she wanted to keep seeing that. She didn't want him to cloud her sight with more botched explanations. "Don't say another word." Her eyes met his, and they stayed there. Her heart was pounding again, and they were standing close together. Close enough to touch. Close enough that reaching through the space between them seemed possible. Then she heard the little girl's voice piping up behind her, though she didn't catch the words. Locke flushed and looked down. Had she said something about them? She looked away as well, toward Leo and the others, and then they all heard that laugh. Terra turned white, her eyes wide and frightened. She saw Leo stiffen, and she reached, instinctively, for her sword. Too late.
After they'd buried Leo, and boarded Setzer's airship, and seen the wreckage of Thamasa from the air, and she'd faced them all – Edgar's determined efforts to kiss her hand and express his welcome, Sabin's smile, Cyan's scowl, Setzer's sardonic salute – she found her way down to the lower deck. They seemed to have maps laid out on a roulette table on the upper deck, and perhaps she should go up there, make sure they didn't leave her out of the planning, but she was weary, and heartsick over Leo, and unsure where she even fit in this organization of theirs. They'd found a moogle somewhere, while she was gone. What else had changed? She sunk onto a couch, sighing.
She'd scarcely relaxed when she tensed again at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "Just me," Locke called out, and she hardly felt the tension abate at all.
"Locke," she said, neutrally. Perhaps she should have said hello, she thought.
"Here's that peace offering," he said. "Better late than never, right?" He held it out, then deposited it into her cupped hands. Her fingertips brushed against the leather of his gloves. It was the size of a hen's egg, slightly faceted, with a small fire burning inside the cool green crystal. She thought the fire burned a little brighter in this one than in others. The presence in it felt familiar, soothing. She thought of cool water and the snow-capped mountains around Vector. "I thought so," he said. "It's brighter when it's with you."
"She," Celes corrected him. Shiva. "She's brighter."
"Right. Sorry." He hunched his shoulders defensively.
Not sure what she could say, she looked down at the magicite. "I didn't— I know her somehow, that's all."
"I guess so," he said. "I gotta go." He turned before she could speak again, and she heard him climbing the steps, but she couldn't just let him go. She raised her voice to say "Locke?" The footsteps paused. "Thank you."
"I just wanted to make sure you had that," he said. "Had her, I mean." She heard the footsteps again, faster than before.
The sky was empty, the sun low and sullen to the west. She'd spent most of the day digging Cid's grave, after weeks of trying to heal him, catching fish for him in a net made of what used to be her cloak, sleeping on a pallet so he could have the only bed. Her magic hadn't worked properly since she'd awakened; she could manage a few sparks, no better than a flint and steel, to revive the fire, and she'd managed to create enough ice to keep fish cold overnight. But when she'd cut her foot on some debris on the beach, she couldn't even close the wound; she'd had to wash it in seawater and wrap it in strips torn off one of the sheets.
She'd buried Cid, wrapped in the last of the blankets so she wouldn't have to throw dirt in his face. She'd gone back to the empty house, looked at the bare bed, the sand on the floor, and she'd stepped back outside and turned north.
There had been others, before she awakened, Cid had told her. They all gave up. He'd kept going because of her, and she'd kept going because of him, but there were no reasons left. This tiny island was all that was left, and she was all that was left on it, save for the fish and the scrub and the tiny rodents that fled before her steps. There was no point, and she was alone. She would have died back in South Figaro, if not for Locke; she'd already had more time than she was meant to. Her eyes felt raw.
At the top of the bluff, she found a bird. A gull, one wing extended and dragging. She knelt by it, extending a hand, reaching again for a cure spell, but it stayed just out of her reach. The magic flared and then died, and the bird hopped away from her. She rested her hands on her knees. She couldn't even do one last good thing. Should she put the bird out of its misery? But she'd come unarmed. She couldn't bring herself to stalk the creature just to wring its neck. Maybe given time it could heal without assistance, unlike herself. She stood, and walked to the edge of the bluff. The tears burned her eyes; she hadn't thought she had any more to shed.
The cliff was steep. She doubted she'd hit anything on the way down. Would the water be as hard as stone and kill her on impact? Or would she have to drown? She turned her back to the edge. She was alone, and everyone she'd ever cared about was gone, and staying alive would serve no purpose, and do no one any good.
She stepped backward, into nothing.
When she woke, she was drenched, freezing, stiff, and lying uncomfortably on sand. The sky was dim, but she could see.
She'd been warm, comfortable, curled in a bed, safe from harsh weather. She'd been dimly aware of someone reassuring her that she wasn't alone, that she'd be all right. Someone keeping watch. She lifted her head, and saw something move. "Were you watching over me?" she asked, her voice rasping painfully in her throat. "Why would you bother?" She forced herself to sit up, and blinked her eyes into focus.
It was a gull. The same one as before? She'd been dreaming. The bird was... wearing something, she saw, and she blinked again, wondering if she'd fully come out of the dream. It hopped closer to her, haltingly. One leg was splinted, and wrapped with a strip of blue fabric, and around its neck, like some kind of collar or scarf, was a piece of cloth of a similar blue. Patterned blue cloth. She pounced, catching the bird and pinning its wings to its side. As it tried to struggle, she slipped the collar off its neck. Then she released it, and it hopped a few steps away from her and then took flight. She heard the rustling of its wings, but her eyes never left the strip of fabric in her hands. It was paisley on a blue background. Parts of it were bleached from sun and seawater, but as she smoothed it out on her knees, the inner creases that had been shielded from the elements revealed the richness of the colors. Maroon, green, gold. One hem was missing, the edge ragged; he'd torn a strip off of it to splint the bird's leg, then tied the rest the way she'd seen, around the bird's neck where it would be visible, like a message in a bottle.
He was alive. He was alive, and if his magic no longer worked, he'd helped an injured creature another way.
How far could a gull really fly? This island couldn't be that remote. If she could leave it, she'd find land. And then she'd find him, no matter how long she had to search. Maybe she could build a boat. Cid had said that some of the others, before they gave up hope, had tried to sail off the island, but had no luck; but maybe her magic could help her do what they couldn't, if only she could harness it. Controlling ice wasn't far from controlling water.
She stood up, shivering. She'd have to investigate the house to see what she could salvage. She'd need to be able to gather or distill fresh water. And she'd need to make sure she had at least some control of her magic, before she set out. The gull, she thought. The one on the shore hadn't been the same as the one she'd seen on the bluff – an injured or broken wing couldn't have healed in so short a time. Or rather, she couldn't have drifted, alive, at sea, for the time it would take a bird's wing to heal. She could go find that one, and practice her healing magic on it until it worked. The rest would follow, just as it had in her childhood.
The sun would be up soon. She made her way to the house, still favoring her foot slightly. She should heal that, too. In the house, she found a crate in one corner; she'd been so busy trying to keep them both alive until now that she'd never had daylight hours to waste investigating the interior. She pulled it to the doorway, to make the most of the light, and began sorting through the contents. Clothing and blankets – she took the time to peel off her drenched clothes and pull on a pair of trousers and a shirt she'd found – some pieces of paper bearing sketches of rafts and boats, with notes in Cid's handwriting about construction, and beneath those, a bag she recognized. It had been her pack, and as she rummaged through it, she found a few potions. And the rose. The silk rose, its stem twined with that green silk ribbon, just as she'd placed it in there in another world. "Foolish," she murmured, but she set it aside gently.
Beneath that, she found more items she'd had on the floating continent: her armor, though no helmet, and two small canvas bags that clinked as she picked them up. One was full of gold coins. She must have forgotten to remove it from her bag, she thought; she'd hardly have needed it in battle. It might come in handy now, if enough of civilization had survived for people to still bother buying and selling. She realized from the feel, even before she opened it, that the second bag contained magicite.
Ifrit. Catoblepas. Phantom. Bismarck. And Shiva.
She'd immobilized the bird's wing and taken it back to the house, before she found the raft. At first she'd had some thought of attaching some token of her own to the gull before she let it go, but she had nothing as recognizable as Locke's had been. And then she'd found Cid's note, and there was no reason to delay, to waste time sending out messages and clues. He'd used the last of his strength to build her this ticket off the island, so the least she could do for him was use it. She'd do what she could for the bird, and leave it to go free. She could carry any message to the rest of the world herself.
As she hauled on the raft, the bird watched her warily from the bare bed. Her hair, still tangled and stiff from the saltwater, kept falling in her face, so she used Locke's bandanna to tie it back. Ribbons, she thought. Once she had the raft onto the beach, well above the tide line, she went back inside.
Healing magic had been the first kind she'd learned, and with her new determination, it had come back readily, especially when she had Shiva with her. Her foot had been effortless, this time; the bird's wing only a little more complex. She untied the bandage around its body now and stood back. It waddled out the front door, stretched first one wing and then the other, and then made a short, flapping leap, as if experimentally. "I know how you feel," she told it. "But there's nothing here. I'm leaving too." It paid her no heed, of course. She went back inside to gather her things from the crate. As she settled them on the raft, she heard the sound of wings, and looked up to see the gull taking flight.
She rolled up the legs of her trousers, suspecting she'd get them soaked anyway, and began pushing the raft into the water. Once it was afloat she scrambled on, and for a heart-stopping moment was in danger of tipping everything into the water. This would be easier with two, she thought, crouched in the middle of the boat. Cid should have been with her. Why had desperation pushed her magic away while hope beckoned it? It seemed unfair. But so was nature. She pulled Shiva from the bag with the others. The stone felt warm. Nature wasn't unfair, it was impartial, and magic was just the forces of nature rearranged. Was the thought Shiva's or her own? She knew Kefka had thrown the world out of balance. No wonder it had taken time to find her footing.
But now she needed to get out of the currents around the island, the ones that had put her back in front of Cid's house after her leap. She held the magicite in her cupped hands, the way she had when Locke handed it to her in another world, and asked Shiva to show her what to do before the water froze.
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Fandom: Final Fantasy VI
Pairing: Celes/Locke
Length: 5660 words
Rating: PG at most
Summary: Celes understands Locke more easily when he's not trying to speak to her.
Notes: Locke sings a version of an English traditional song that was apparently written for the Sharpe movies, while Celes sings the Confederate version of a Civil War-era song. The Siren idea originated with this fic by
semisweetcj which I didn't feel I could credit without de-anoning, since I commented on it and it was written in response to my prompt; I hope I put my own spin on it! I'm also deeply indebted to****
When Celes saw her again, in Narshe, Terra had been wearing a ribbon. She hadn't had it when Celes had last seen her in Vector. She'd been wearing the slave crown, and her pendant. Celes had clasped it herself around her friend's neck, and hurried away, wondering if Terra could hear her the way they said the comatose could, but unable to face her dead eyes and eerie physical stillness. Terra had had her hair pulled back with a gilded comb, then, the sort Kefka favored. She hadn't been wearing the ribbon, a deep maroon, which must have been given to her later. When she'd approached the Esper on the mountain, the loose ends of the bow had blown back from her head as if she were facing into a stiff wind, had streamed back like banners, then blown away as the lightning began to crackle around her.
Locke had gone to her, had placed himself between the girl and the Esper, and been blown half off the cliff. Celes had run to help him, pulled him up, and they'd both been crouching in the snow, watching as the light subsided around a very different figure. Celes remembered the tales she'd heard after that incident in the lab – that Terra had changed shape, that there had been lightning, wild magic that had injured the scientists and a handful of students and permitted the escape of Espers in the chaos. Kefka's charge was that it had been deliberate sabotage. Celes had questioned it even then. The unearthly scream, the sight of Terra levitating, then shooting upward like a rocket, had given her an inkling of what what had happened in the lab, but it was an answer that only brought more questions.
Terra looked like an Esper.
Celes had seen them herself. It hadn't been long after that incident in the lab, when four of the Espers had escaped and others had been injured, when Terra's life had suddenly been handed over to Kefka and Celes had still been grateful that it wasn't an execution. She'd been taken down alone, given a quick, somber tour by Cid, shown the alien creatures, some human-shaped, others like animals; a whale not much longer than a man was tall, a small creature that looked, a bit, like a rabbit, a tube she thought was empty at first until she saw the coherent, wraith-like figure that seemed to be made of light. Most, though, were humanoid; humans with claws, with skin blue or russet or unearthly pale, humans with abnormally large, wide-spaced eyes and animal-like noses, but still with two arms, two legs, one mouth, human enough that the wrongness of imprisoning them broke through the surface to her perception for the first time
"Are they conscious?" she'd asked Cid, uncertain whether that would be better or worse, and he'd said "We're still not sure." She'd thought – privately, she'd never speak or write these thoughts, she'd normally have throttled them ruthlessly – that she could see why Terra would have sabotaged the place, even if Celes still maintained she hadn't done anything of the sort.
But now Terra looked like an Esper. Celes watched Locke pick the ribbon up out of the snow, and she wondered about what had really happened in the lab. She saw him stagger, reached to steady him, and found herself, suddenly, supporting all his weight as he pitched forward, unconscious.
Celes had thought it was a waste for a single night's stay, but Edgar had insisted on renting a suite at an inn in north Jidoor. Two rooms, a private bath, and a sitting room. Rather than staying in it for the evening, he'd already departed, either to find out more about travel to Vector, or to continue his inveterate skirt-chasing, depending on whether you relied on his own account or Locke's. He'd left his magicite on the table, along with his crossbow.
"Good idea," Locke said, placing his magicite next to it. "We don't want to lose these."
"This device is not... armed, is it?" Cyan asked, keeping well away from the crossbow.
"Completely harmless," Locke said absently, depositing his bag in the room the men would be sharing. Celes wasn't sure he'd even looked, but the crossbow wasn't loaded. She held her own magicite in her hand, watching Cyan place his with the other two. "Celes, I'd been wondering," Locke said, returning from the bedchamber. "Is this at all like your magic?"
"This," she repeated.
He caught her meaning, and gestured vaguely. "Magicite," he said. "Magic. I don't know how to describe it. How it feels when you cast a spell, or... learn a spell. Since I can't cast any yet."
"It's not quite the same," she said, seating herself in one of the spindly, elegant chairs. "With the magicite, I feel a faint presence. A personality, almost. My own magic is a part of me. The difference between your own memories and a story someone else told you, perhaps."
"So it's not just me," Locke said, as he pulled out a chair and sprawled across it.
"Aye, I have felt it as well," Cyan said from the next room. "Though not at all strongly."
"Well, no wonder," Locke said, passing his hand over Cyan's magicite. "Ramuh's just like you." Cyan had come to the doorway, and stood there, frowning, arms folded. "Older," Locke amended. "But, you know. Stern. Severe. Uptight."
"Upright," Celes corrected, not that she expected either of them to ever secure the samurai's goodwill. "Harsh, but fair."
"Perhaps," the older man said. "I take my leave of thee. I hope to assist his Majesty in his efforts." His footsteps thumped more than she thought entirely necessary as he passed through the sitting room.
"Good luck," Locke said agreeably, waving at the man's departing back. "It's true, though," he added, after the door had closed.
"Of course," she said. "Siren's different from me, though. All she really seems to want is to sing."
"And lure sailors to their deaths?"
"You know that story," she said, trying not to sound surprised. Sometimes he seemed to play the streetwise rogue, and others he'd surprise her with a knowledge of history, or legend. She didn't really sense the sea, though. Siren just wanted to draw people to her, with her voice and her beauty. To be the center of attention.
"Yeah, but that's all I know about it." He rolled his own between his palms. "My little stray cat just gets bored. Wants to joke around, play pranks on people. It's just weird to feel that around you. I was wondering if you were used to it, that's all."
"No," she said. She placed Siren with the others, and felt the presence recede as she drew her hand back. "No more than you are."
He reached out and touched the crystal. "I can feel that," he said, and then he surprised her again, lifting his voice in song – wavering at first, but growing confident within a few words. "Here's forty shillings on the drum, for those who'll volunteer to come, something fight the foe today, over the hills and far away." He broke off, ducking his head as if embarrassed. "You can tell I'm not much of a singer."
"Your voice sounded... fine. I'm no judge of music." His voice had sounded beautiful – rich and smooth.
"I meant how I forgot the words," he said. "But that was better than my usual voice."
"Hmm," she said, reaching out to touch the magicite herself. The words... "Our flag is proudly floating on the land and on the main, Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom! Beneath it oft we've conquered, and we'll conquer oft again!" She broke off, herself, surprised both at her voice and at the words. She'd never sung marching songs, just barked them out with her men. The voice she'd found with Siren was a soprano, clear and confident. "Sorry," she said. An imperial marching song, in front of Locke of all people. "Freedom indeed."
"First thing that popped into your head," he suggested, then pushed his chair back. "I should go make some enquiries. I think I'll fit in a bit better than the other two in some of the seedier places at the south edge of town."
"Locke," she said, before he reached the door. He halted and half-turned. "When you freed me, you said I reminded you of someone. Who was it?"
He rubbed his face. "I think you already guessed."
The face had been slack with sleep, devoid of traces of waking personality, framed by dark, slightly curly hair, and a pair of blue ribbons. A small button nose. Full lips. Hard to tell the shape of the eyes, though. "I've never seen her awake, but she looks nothing like me."
"Her eyes were blue. Are blue," he said. "And it was just... when I see a woman in trouble, she's the one I think of. So it was mostly that. But now I know you more, I was right in other ways."
"What? What was she like, then?"
"Heh. She wouldn't have let it drop either." He looked at the door, maybe a bit longingly. "People thought she was standoffish, but she was just shy. I don't think you're shy, but you stay reserved for other reasons. It's not that you don't like people."
She looked at her hands. At least he wasn't completely wrong-headed and presumptuous in his conclusions, like Edgar had been, but she still didn't think she cared for this sort of analysis of her character. "You couldn't tell that at first glance."
"No," he agreed, and then he opened the door and slipped out.
Left alone in the room, Celes found it easy enough to imagine her. A shy, bookish young woman, slowly opening up in the face of Locke's charm. Not a fashionable girl, not in a small, backwater town like Kohlingen, but someone who'd shop for ribbons and hats and new dresses when she went to Jidoor or Figaro. Ladylike, or trying to be, but happy to try new things that let her spend time with her young man. With Locke. What had he been like, five years ago?
In the end, they'd stumbled over what they needed. When Celes went in search of coffee, the young woman who served it to her commented on her resemblance to an opera singer, and imparted some juicy gossip about the diva's affair with a man named Setzer Gabbiani, the owner of "The Airship." Celes mentioned the airship, the only part of it she considered relevant, and regretted it once Locke and Edgar began spinning out their plan. When he'd managed to herd them all to the opera house and explain the plan to the impresario, she protested "I can't even sing!"
"Siren," he said to her, with a wink, and returned to browbeating the impresario. He was right, she thought, though she couldn't abandon her protests. She wasn't Siren. She didn't want eyes on her; she didn't want admirers. But she had to resemble someone who did, and for one night, resemble her very closely.
Locke had joined her in the wings, after she'd been dressed and painted and coiffed and transported to the chamber just offstage. "Celes?" he'd asked, his voice sounding odd, surprised and a little strangled. "Wow." His face had been red. Her heart had been beating fast, and her hands had trembled a little as she set the script notes down on the table. She'd stared at him, not sure how to look away, and after a moment he'd said, oddly stiff and formal, "That ribbon suits you." The rest had been a blur. He'd talked about her big scene, parroting lines the opera impresario must have been saying to him. He'd said "Break a leg!" and they'd both laughed awkwardly, and she'd gone out, and she'd been sure no one took her for Maria. But it was finally done, and she could take a moment, between scenes, to breathe and to hear his voice, again, repeating over and over, "wow," and "that ribbon suits you."
Setzer had stolen a kiss – her first, though she didn't care to make much of that – and there'd been the desperate bargaining on board the ship, and Locke's loud objections when she offered to marry Setzer, though perhaps she shouldn't make too much of those either. Cyan had objected, too. And finally, finally, in the cabin Setzer had shown her to, she'd been able to lock the door, take one last look at her stranger's face framed by the elaborate coiffure and the lacy collar, change out of the voluminous skirts and scrub off the makeup. Finally, she'd wound the ribbon around one of the silk roses and tucked it into a side pocket of her bag.
Blue ribbons, tied in bows on either side of her face. He must have given Terra that ribbon she'd worn, as well. Did he even know he was doing it? Did he realize what he was doing? Why should she be happy that he thought a costume that didn't suit her at all had suited her?
And why had she sacrificed herself for the rest of them, protected Locke after he'd doubted her? Kefka merely insinuated, addressed her in familiar tones – he wasn't even openly lying, but he welcomed her back, asked if these were her troops, implied she'd been on a mission as a double agent. Locke was the first one she looked to, and she saw suspicion and distance in his face, as if he hadn't seen her shackled and beaten in a basement cell. As if he hadn't seen her struggle with her decision before she chose to accompany him to Narshe. As if he didn't know her at all. Why did she warp herself away with Kefka and the others, instead of attacking them all? It would have been no less suicidal. Why hadn't she at least raged at Locke, said something to him beyond telling him she was protecting him?
The next time Celes saw him, they were in Albrook. She was standing on the bridge, looking at the way the gaslights reflected off the dark water below, just delaying her return to the inn by a few minutes, when she heard footsteps. She looked up, saw a male form, and guessed by the walk and the carriage who it would be, but she wasn't going to run away. She had nothing to be ashamed of; she was the one owed an apology. "Celes?" he called, his voice low but carrying in the quiet of the street, and she raised her head slightly, and then her hand, by way of acknowlegement, but she didn't look away from the water. She waited until he joined her at the bridge rail. "Celes," he said, and cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I may have doubted you, but I'm still your friend."
Still your friend. As if it were a favor. As if he were extending friendship to her, despite some transgression or failing on her part. At least he'd said he was sorry, perfunctory though it was. Good of you, she thought of saying, but she kept her lips shut against the bitterness. She pushed herself away from the rail and took off, away from him, away from the inn, walking quickly, her bootheels staccatto against the paving stones. She'd regretted wearing them for a walk on city streets, but now she was glad of the effect. "Celes!" he called behind her, but he didn't follow her, and she was glad of that as well; she'd feel foolish shaking him off if he persisted, and she didn't want to listen to him further, or return to the inn with him.
The voyage to Crescent Island felt like a bad dream. She tried to avoid the times the other two ate their meals, but hated herself for doing it. Terra seemed to be in the same places as she was quite a bit, and a few times she seemed as though she wanted to speak, but she never said anything of consequence – comments on the weather, on the food – and Celes thought it could all be written off to the close quarters of the ship. There were only so many places one could be, after all. Locke never sought her out at all, and seemed perfectly content not to be around her. And she had no objections to that whatsoever. Best to avoid friction, especially under the circumstances; she didn't want to seem unprofessional in front of Leo, or the soldiers who likely saw her as a traitor. Or, for that matter, Locke and Terra and the ninja Shadow.
But on the morning they made landfall, they were all on deck at the same time, and unaccountably, impulsively, she called out to Locke. She hadn't planned this, she had no idea what she wanted to say, but she couldn't turn back after that. He paused, she saw his head lift – he'd heard her – but he just turned to Terra, off to his side, and said "we should go get ready." She watched him walk away without even looking at her, and felt like her heart was being crushed. Terra turned to her, opened her mouth as if to speak, even took a step toward her, but Celes couldn't seem to move or speak, and Terra turned and followed Locke, threading her way quickly through the press of sailors and soldiers and vanishing in the crowd.
After a week on shore, when they met at the rendezvous point, the ninja was gone, Terra was beaming, and Locke still wouldn't meet her eyes. Locke led the way back to town. Terra fell in beside her, smiling but not saying much. "Did something happen with the Espers?" she finally asked, to take her mind off her own agitation. She didn't like to even think about it, let alone put a name to it; all she could do was tell herself not to get a crush on him, not to give in, not to let herself fall for someone who didn't even trust her. She wouldn't be thinking this way if it weren't too late, yet she couldn't just bring herself to wish for a chance to speak to him again, either.
"They spoke to me – they knew I was like them. It makes me happy for some reason."
"Any relatives?" she asked, half-teasing, but Terra looked thoughtful.
"I'll try to find out. At least one of them mentioned my father's name."
In town, Locke made the introductions, to the village chief, to an elderly man named Strago, and the man's little granddaughter, who'd inserted herself into the proceedings. Strago and Leo fell into conversation. She watched Terra go over to one of the Espers – an androgynous being that Terra had pointed out to her, as they entered town, as Yura – and lead the individual over to Strago and Leo. Locke drifted over to Celes, or tried to make it look like a drift. "Well done," she said, stiffly.
"Mostly Strago's doing," he mumbled. "I, uh... I'd like it if we could start over."
"From what point?"
"I don't— If I knew— Listen. Can I have a minute?"
"I'm not preventing you from speaking."
He sighed noisily. "Just before you left, we got this Esper. Magicite. Shiva. You remember, we fought her and Ifrit, and— anyway. We've had Shiva with us, all this time, and it's been... I've been worried about you, but having Shiva there felt a little like you weren't completely gone," he said. "Like you were with us. And I was going to offer her to you as a peace offering, but little Relm over there has her right now, so I had to start out by talking instead, and of course that never works." She couldn't help smiling at that, though she tried. "I owe you an apology," he continued. "I just don't know where to start. I'm sorry."
She shook her head. She was tired of being angry. "Don't," she said. She didn't want to think, anymore, about the look on his face in the lab. She just wanted to stop being angry at him. It was clear enough to see that he knew he'd been wrong, even if he couldn't explain exactly how, and she wanted to keep seeing that. She didn't want him to cloud her sight with more botched explanations. "Don't say another word." Her eyes met his, and they stayed there. Her heart was pounding again, and they were standing close together. Close enough to touch. Close enough that reaching through the space between them seemed possible. Then she heard the little girl's voice piping up behind her, though she didn't catch the words. Locke flushed and looked down. Had she said something about them? She looked away as well, toward Leo and the others, and then they all heard that laugh. Terra turned white, her eyes wide and frightened. She saw Leo stiffen, and she reached, instinctively, for her sword. Too late.
After they'd buried Leo, and boarded Setzer's airship, and seen the wreckage of Thamasa from the air, and she'd faced them all – Edgar's determined efforts to kiss her hand and express his welcome, Sabin's smile, Cyan's scowl, Setzer's sardonic salute – she found her way down to the lower deck. They seemed to have maps laid out on a roulette table on the upper deck, and perhaps she should go up there, make sure they didn't leave her out of the planning, but she was weary, and heartsick over Leo, and unsure where she even fit in this organization of theirs. They'd found a moogle somewhere, while she was gone. What else had changed? She sunk onto a couch, sighing.
She'd scarcely relaxed when she tensed again at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "Just me," Locke called out, and she hardly felt the tension abate at all.
"Locke," she said, neutrally. Perhaps she should have said hello, she thought.
"Here's that peace offering," he said. "Better late than never, right?" He held it out, then deposited it into her cupped hands. Her fingertips brushed against the leather of his gloves. It was the size of a hen's egg, slightly faceted, with a small fire burning inside the cool green crystal. She thought the fire burned a little brighter in this one than in others. The presence in it felt familiar, soothing. She thought of cool water and the snow-capped mountains around Vector. "I thought so," he said. "It's brighter when it's with you."
"She," Celes corrected him. Shiva. "She's brighter."
"Right. Sorry." He hunched his shoulders defensively.
Not sure what she could say, she looked down at the magicite. "I didn't— I know her somehow, that's all."
"I guess so," he said. "I gotta go." He turned before she could speak again, and she heard him climbing the steps, but she couldn't just let him go. She raised her voice to say "Locke?" The footsteps paused. "Thank you."
"I just wanted to make sure you had that," he said. "Had her, I mean." She heard the footsteps again, faster than before.
The sky was empty, the sun low and sullen to the west. She'd spent most of the day digging Cid's grave, after weeks of trying to heal him, catching fish for him in a net made of what used to be her cloak, sleeping on a pallet so he could have the only bed. Her magic hadn't worked properly since she'd awakened; she could manage a few sparks, no better than a flint and steel, to revive the fire, and she'd managed to create enough ice to keep fish cold overnight. But when she'd cut her foot on some debris on the beach, she couldn't even close the wound; she'd had to wash it in seawater and wrap it in strips torn off one of the sheets.
She'd buried Cid, wrapped in the last of the blankets so she wouldn't have to throw dirt in his face. She'd gone back to the empty house, looked at the bare bed, the sand on the floor, and she'd stepped back outside and turned north.
There had been others, before she awakened, Cid had told her. They all gave up. He'd kept going because of her, and she'd kept going because of him, but there were no reasons left. This tiny island was all that was left, and she was all that was left on it, save for the fish and the scrub and the tiny rodents that fled before her steps. There was no point, and she was alone. She would have died back in South Figaro, if not for Locke; she'd already had more time than she was meant to. Her eyes felt raw.
At the top of the bluff, she found a bird. A gull, one wing extended and dragging. She knelt by it, extending a hand, reaching again for a cure spell, but it stayed just out of her reach. The magic flared and then died, and the bird hopped away from her. She rested her hands on her knees. She couldn't even do one last good thing. Should she put the bird out of its misery? But she'd come unarmed. She couldn't bring herself to stalk the creature just to wring its neck. Maybe given time it could heal without assistance, unlike herself. She stood, and walked to the edge of the bluff. The tears burned her eyes; she hadn't thought she had any more to shed.
The cliff was steep. She doubted she'd hit anything on the way down. Would the water be as hard as stone and kill her on impact? Or would she have to drown? She turned her back to the edge. She was alone, and everyone she'd ever cared about was gone, and staying alive would serve no purpose, and do no one any good.
She stepped backward, into nothing.
When she woke, she was drenched, freezing, stiff, and lying uncomfortably on sand. The sky was dim, but she could see.
She'd been warm, comfortable, curled in a bed, safe from harsh weather. She'd been dimly aware of someone reassuring her that she wasn't alone, that she'd be all right. Someone keeping watch. She lifted her head, and saw something move. "Were you watching over me?" she asked, her voice rasping painfully in her throat. "Why would you bother?" She forced herself to sit up, and blinked her eyes into focus.
It was a gull. The same one as before? She'd been dreaming. The bird was... wearing something, she saw, and she blinked again, wondering if she'd fully come out of the dream. It hopped closer to her, haltingly. One leg was splinted, and wrapped with a strip of blue fabric, and around its neck, like some kind of collar or scarf, was a piece of cloth of a similar blue. Patterned blue cloth. She pounced, catching the bird and pinning its wings to its side. As it tried to struggle, she slipped the collar off its neck. Then she released it, and it hopped a few steps away from her and then took flight. She heard the rustling of its wings, but her eyes never left the strip of fabric in her hands. It was paisley on a blue background. Parts of it were bleached from sun and seawater, but as she smoothed it out on her knees, the inner creases that had been shielded from the elements revealed the richness of the colors. Maroon, green, gold. One hem was missing, the edge ragged; he'd torn a strip off of it to splint the bird's leg, then tied the rest the way she'd seen, around the bird's neck where it would be visible, like a message in a bottle.
He was alive. He was alive, and if his magic no longer worked, he'd helped an injured creature another way.
How far could a gull really fly? This island couldn't be that remote. If she could leave it, she'd find land. And then she'd find him, no matter how long she had to search. Maybe she could build a boat. Cid had said that some of the others, before they gave up hope, had tried to sail off the island, but had no luck; but maybe her magic could help her do what they couldn't, if only she could harness it. Controlling ice wasn't far from controlling water.
She stood up, shivering. She'd have to investigate the house to see what she could salvage. She'd need to be able to gather or distill fresh water. And she'd need to make sure she had at least some control of her magic, before she set out. The gull, she thought. The one on the shore hadn't been the same as the one she'd seen on the bluff – an injured or broken wing couldn't have healed in so short a time. Or rather, she couldn't have drifted, alive, at sea, for the time it would take a bird's wing to heal. She could go find that one, and practice her healing magic on it until it worked. The rest would follow, just as it had in her childhood.
The sun would be up soon. She made her way to the house, still favoring her foot slightly. She should heal that, too. In the house, she found a crate in one corner; she'd been so busy trying to keep them both alive until now that she'd never had daylight hours to waste investigating the interior. She pulled it to the doorway, to make the most of the light, and began sorting through the contents. Clothing and blankets – she took the time to peel off her drenched clothes and pull on a pair of trousers and a shirt she'd found – some pieces of paper bearing sketches of rafts and boats, with notes in Cid's handwriting about construction, and beneath those, a bag she recognized. It had been her pack, and as she rummaged through it, she found a few potions. And the rose. The silk rose, its stem twined with that green silk ribbon, just as she'd placed it in there in another world. "Foolish," she murmured, but she set it aside gently.
Beneath that, she found more items she'd had on the floating continent: her armor, though no helmet, and two small canvas bags that clinked as she picked them up. One was full of gold coins. She must have forgotten to remove it from her bag, she thought; she'd hardly have needed it in battle. It might come in handy now, if enough of civilization had survived for people to still bother buying and selling. She realized from the feel, even before she opened it, that the second bag contained magicite.
Ifrit. Catoblepas. Phantom. Bismarck. And Shiva.
She'd immobilized the bird's wing and taken it back to the house, before she found the raft. At first she'd had some thought of attaching some token of her own to the gull before she let it go, but she had nothing as recognizable as Locke's had been. And then she'd found Cid's note, and there was no reason to delay, to waste time sending out messages and clues. He'd used the last of his strength to build her this ticket off the island, so the least she could do for him was use it. She'd do what she could for the bird, and leave it to go free. She could carry any message to the rest of the world herself.
As she hauled on the raft, the bird watched her warily from the bare bed. Her hair, still tangled and stiff from the saltwater, kept falling in her face, so she used Locke's bandanna to tie it back. Ribbons, she thought. Once she had the raft onto the beach, well above the tide line, she went back inside.
Healing magic had been the first kind she'd learned, and with her new determination, it had come back readily, especially when she had Shiva with her. Her foot had been effortless, this time; the bird's wing only a little more complex. She untied the bandage around its body now and stood back. It waddled out the front door, stretched first one wing and then the other, and then made a short, flapping leap, as if experimentally. "I know how you feel," she told it. "But there's nothing here. I'm leaving too." It paid her no heed, of course. She went back inside to gather her things from the crate. As she settled them on the raft, she heard the sound of wings, and looked up to see the gull taking flight.
She rolled up the legs of her trousers, suspecting she'd get them soaked anyway, and began pushing the raft into the water. Once it was afloat she scrambled on, and for a heart-stopping moment was in danger of tipping everything into the water. This would be easier with two, she thought, crouched in the middle of the boat. Cid should have been with her. Why had desperation pushed her magic away while hope beckoned it? It seemed unfair. But so was nature. She pulled Shiva from the bag with the others. The stone felt warm. Nature wasn't unfair, it was impartial, and magic was just the forces of nature rearranged. Was the thought Shiva's or her own? She knew Kefka had thrown the world out of balance. No wonder it had taken time to find her footing.
But now she needed to get out of the currents around the island, the ones that had put her back in front of Cid's house after her leap. She held the magicite in her cupped hands, the way she had when Locke handed it to her in another world, and asked Shiva to show her what to do before the water froze.
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