Evolution Chapter 29: Being and Nothingness
Author: frkmgnt1
Title: Evolution
Chapter 29: Being and Nothingness
Word Count for chapter ~7,000
Word Count for Story: ~232,000
This is actually half of the intended Chapter 29, but for the sake of theme and continuity, I broke the chapter into two seconds. So, the first half may seem slow, but it's full of explanations. The second half--now Chapter 30, will move us back into some action. Okay, here we go!
"Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Beauty is power; a smile is its sword."
-John Ray
-Being and Nothingness-
Taejin's Tower is a bust.
Alright, that's not fair. There are pieces of information she has now that she didn't have before she entered the tower, but they are all square pegs and all the holes are round. She can't figure out how to hammer them in to make them fit, or to turn them into something usable. Her experience in the weeping woman's chambers can't be explained, nor duplicated by anyone else. The woman is silent where Lightning needs her to speak; the memory that she inflicted on Lighting haunts her, but for all that trauma, she believes that there's something that she's missing.
Or maybe there isn't anything at all, and all her dreams have been nothing more than echoes of another person's living nightmares, or projections of her own subconscious. She's not certain if those explanations are more relief or horror.
Lightning rubs her brow, feels a headache forming behind her eyes. All her hopes are dashed; she was counting on finding some sort of miracle in this tower. Something Sazh said to her back on the Archylte Steppe planted a seed in her; something about believing all or nothing, and Lightning believed that there might be a way clear of this mess. The part of her that still believed in 'fair' and 'just' insisted that if she looked and tried hard enough, she would be able to save herself-save them all-from this doom.
She's spent too much time with Snow. That has to be the answer. There's no other excuse for such unabashed optimism.
It's late. Everything is silent but for the steady breathing and soft snores of her sleeping friends. Their ability to sleep is a tease to her. The most irrational, exhausted part of her feels as if they are taunting her with what she desires but can never have. She rubs her eyes and drags herself from her warm bed, determined to get out of the room before she wakes everyone else up out of spite.
Lightning wanders the halls of the tower like disaffected ghost. Her body feels heavy; her mind is dull. She hasn't slept in...forever now, and tonight is the first and last chance she'll have to get a night's sleep in a bed.
She wishes she could sleep-both her body and her mind are begging for respite-but she can't still her mind. It churns around the problems, desperate for a solution she fears she'll never find. But it's more than just her mind that keeps sleep at bay.
She feels wrong-like her skin is too tight, or her organs have all reorganized themselves inside her body. To call it 'illness' would be inaccurate. She isn't sick. There's no malady that she's ever experienced affecting her body. She's not feverish, congested, or even nauseated. It's just unfamiliar.
She turns the word over in her mind a bit, decides that it is both accurate and understated. Her body feels unfamiliar because it is, in fact, altered beyond recognition.
Before she tried settling into a bed to get some well deserved rest, she passed in front of a very dingy mirror and recoiled. Her heartbeat kicked up and her fingers twitched for her weapon before her brain engaged enough to recognize that the strange human-monster hybrid standing before her was, in fact, her.
Lightning runs her fingers through her hair, feels the exhaustion drag at her like an extra bit of gravity. She shuffles along the corridor, head dipping and sagging under the weight of her exhaustion. She stops moving and sits cross-legged on the floor, feels the cold from the strange stone seep into her hips and settle at the base of her spine in a dull ache. She traces her fingers over the floor beside her alien-skinned knee, notes the rough texture, distracts herself with the play of rough stone against the sensitive pads of her fingers and the jagged tips of her nails.
She sighs, leans her head against the cool wall behind her and closes her tired eyes.
Her eyes...
They were the biggest shock of her appearance. The strange patterns and shadings on her skin making a mosaic of her complexion, were disarming, but not surprising. She knew that her skin was transforming. She could see it. What she couldn't see, however, were the changes to her face. The changes to her eyes.
Something Lightning will never admit aloud is that she has a small streak of vanity in her. She's an attractive woman and she knows it. It's not something of which she should feel ashamed, but she somehow still does. Her looks used to irritate her: she felt that being attractive made people-made her fellow soldiers in particular-dismiss her as frivolous, the assumption being that she didn't earn her place, but received it as some token. Part of her knows that this feeling is more projection of her own issues than reflection of any actual facts; but knowing a thing and believing it are two different animals. The result was that she did everything she could to downplay her appearance for the first nineteen years of her life.
Somewhere in her first year of training, a female officer (what was her name?) pulled her aside and explained to her that being attractive was an asset. (Was it Jihl? Impossible! Lightning knows she never met Jihl before this all started. Right?) Whatever her name was gave her a dressing down one day, telling her that 'a wise man once said that 'Beauty is a weapon; a smile is its sword.' You've been trained in how to use blades, Farron, and you're deadly. So what's the damn problem?' She went on to explain that people underestimating her was to Lightning's advantage, and any soldier unwilling to use assets at their disposal was a damned fool.
Never one to disregard advice of superiors, nor one to play the fool, Lightning took the advice to heart. She stopped resenting her looks and starting using them. The transition was difficult. She had no idea how to switch tracks from downplayed to attractive. She was never much for adornment, and as a soldier, it was impractical and ridiculous. Ear piercings always seemed like a vulnerability-something that could catch and tear and cause unnecessary damage.
'What's the problem, Farron? '
The problem was that she spent years flying under the radar and had no idea how to break the habit. Everything she tried felt ridiculous and false, made her feel like she was wearing a costume rather than being true to herself. She toyed with the idea of piercings, and, on a lark, she got one. Ears were out for the sake of practicality; facial piercings were out as they were against regulations. She had a nice, flat tummy, so she got herself a navel ring. The pain of the piercing was sharp and bright, and the tiniest bit nauseating, but afterwards, she admired the delicate ring of silver against the toned, pale flesh of her abdomen. It was absurd and unnecessary, and it made her giddy because it was one hundred percent hers. She pierced herself for no reason other than she wanted to do it; it served no function; it aided no one. It was the first irresponsible, impulsive thing Lightning had done since her parents' death, and it was liberating as hell! The piercing did not belong to Serah's-sister-Lightning, or Cadet Lightning Farron of the Guardian Corps.
It belonged to Lightning, the woman.
She became more conscious of herself and her looks after the piercing. It was amazing how much easier that one tiny step made the entire transition; no more did she hide her slender, toned body in baggy, unattractive clothes, or tie her hair up into knots on her head. Oh, she didn't go crazy with painting her face or anything so obvious; she was still a soldier, after all, and frivolity rubbed against her grain. But the subtle changes she made changed everything. She became more comfortable with herself and that translated into every other part of her life. She had nothing to hide, no reason for shame; she flourished. She took note of the way people looked at her-some with an appreciate eye, some with an envious one. She never paid them much mind, never judged her own worth by her appearance. She was an exceptional soldier, and an attractive woman. She learned that the two were not mutually exclusive.
And she enjoyed being both; didn't see one as a hindrance to the other any longer.
Something she never admitted to anyone, not even herself, is that her eyes were her favorite feature. The blue was the same shade as her father's and the shape was all her mother. After her parents died, she could still see pieces of them every time she saw herself. When their faces would get fuzzy in her mind, all she need do was find a mirror and there they were, looking back at her. It made her feel less alone when the sadness rose up to drown her. Her eyes were a perfect blend of both her parents, and a reminder that they were forever a part of her.
Were. Once.
So when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she was not anywhere near as horrified by her scarred, tattered tapestry of skin as she was by her eyes. The blue of her irises-her father's blue-was gone. They were now a shining, inhuman glowing, gleaming gold. The pupils were elongated-oval-not round.
She no longer resembles her parents.
She now looks like the monster she is.
Lightning wonders how long she's been viewing the world through a stranger's eyes. Her friends must have seen it happen and chose to keep it from her. Part of Lightning is angered by the subterfuge, but most of her acknowledges the logic in the decision. Telling her would serve no purpose but upsetting her to who-knows-what end. Perhaps it would even hasten the transformation.
Still, it would have been nice to get a heads up.
She opens her eyes again and stares at the darkness inside the tower. She listens to the silence. It's all still outside her. She wishes she could steal just the tiniest bit of it, draw it into her like some sort of leech, and just. Sleep.
Home is not a word or a place. It's a feeling, a state of being. A sense of safety, of comfort. It's hot tea in a mug, steam wafting; it's a crackle of fire. It's a soft, hand crocheted blanket wound around cold feet. It's a cool hand on a fevered brow. It's kisses and pillows, hot water and deep sleep.
It is not the smell of exploded gunpowder, nor the touch of antiseptic. It's not the smell of decay and rot, nor the sounds of screams. It is not the sight of blood, nor bloated, fetid corpses.
It is all these things.
The Tower is both home and not-home. It is comfortable and familiar. It is decimated and foreign. The grounds beyond the walls are littered with bodies; the air buzzes with insects feasting on dead flesh. The air is thick with the stink of death, the smell cloying and intoxicating.
Home is not coiled muscles, or cascading blood, but it seems that way now. It is miles of decomposition behind a bright red screen. It is an empty cavern, and an empty vessel. It is empty and complete.
Home is not unfamiliar voices, but it sounds that way now. Voices that scream and whine and cry; voices caterwauling incomprehensible words. Voices loaded with intent like ordnance, aimless and angry; weapons to obliterate, and turn all into nothing.
It is not disembodied hands reaching and grabbing; it is not dismembered bodies rotting in a pile.
It is not strangers uniting in common purpose, joining minds and thoughts. It is not losing bits and pieces of one mind to accommodate and incorporate lost chunks of others. To mix up a sense of all and one; it is not, but it feels that way now.
It is not pain like disembowelment. It is not a blade like a smile carving through flesh and meat and bone strewn about, but it tastes that way...
It is not violence, but it tastes that way now. Blood is sweeter than suspected, tangier than appreciated. Bones crunch like nutshells between massive jaws, break into dust that tickles the nose; flesh is more delicate than remembered as claws perforate and. Just. SHRED. It is a matter of mathematics; a matter of physics. It is energy converting from potential to kinetic, and the whipping of a tail and the beating of wings.
It is metamorphosis. It is being. It is ancient purpose kissed with modern will.
Home is not a downdraft, but when the breeze caresses skin it feels that way. It is flying and floating on currents of air. It is rising and falling. It is bathing in the loving and terrified gaze of observers. It is the roar of a crowd, and the scream of a victim. It is mercy killings and silence. It is rage.
Home is not Vengeance, but sometimes it is both root and cause . Dead eyes and maggots are not admirers, or audience, but they watch all the same.
Two wrongs don't make a right, they say, but what do three, four and five make?
"Trouble sleeping, Soldier?"
Lightning startles and blinks, feels hot tears pour out of her burning eyes and catch on her eyelashes. She didn't fall asleep, but she's hard pressed to put a name to whatever the hell just happened to her. She dashes the tears away with the back of her hand, opens her eyes to look at Sazh...
And stares at the weeping woman instead.
She recoils as if slapped, spins and finds Sazh sitting behind her, back to the wall, lantern beside him, book in lap. She couldn't feel more exposed if she were stripped naked and staked out for the keen edge of a sociopath's blade right now. She's been wandering around, vacant and empty. It's not the first time, but it never gets less disturbing. She's feels hollow, like a plush toy with a hole through which all its stuffing leaked. She wants to search for the lost pieces of her, pick them up and shove them back into the chasm spreading behind her ribs and eyes, but it's not that simple. The pieces are nowhere anymore, and she couldn't reclaim them if she tried. She's being pulled apart and emptied of mind and soul to make room for the monster growing within.
She wonders when that will stop being disconcerting. And when did disconcerting become the proper terminology for unraveling like an old sweater?
Perhaps she should be more concerned that she's not more concerned. Or terrified.
"You alright?" Sazh asks, quirking an eyebrow at her in a strange approximation of concern. Lightning shakes her head then shrugs. "Confused?"
Hell yeah, is what she doesn't say. She says, "Exhausted."
"Join the club. Pull up a piece of the floor, Soldier." He shuffles over a bit in an unnecessary but warming gesture, and pats the ground next to him in invitation. "I could use some company."
Lightning accepts his offer, squats and settles beside him with a groan.
"Still sore?"
"Less than I ought to be considering everything." Sazh nods.
"You know, those scars look lighter," Sazh remarks apropos of nothing. Lightning looks down at her arm and realizes that Sazh is right. The ferning does look like it's fading.
She spends two seconds wondering what that means before deciding she doesn't care. Scars can't matter in the face of mental breakdown.
"And how are you feeling Sazh?" Lightning asks. "I thought you'd be trying to grab some decent sleep. Instead I find you...here. In this creepy room."
"It's not creepy." Sazh sits back against the wall, reaches up and plucks the sleeping chocobo from his hair. It looks bigger, Lightning realizes, and she wonders if it will ever have a chance to grow up big enough for Sazh to ride it for a change. She shakes the thought away. "I think she's sad, not creepy. Kinda tragic, you know."
Lightning nods. She does know.
"And it's peaceful in here for some reason."
She does not agree with that assessment.
"So, you thought you'd hang out in here with her instead of getting some sleep?"
"Nah. I couldn't sleep in this tower." Sazh pets the chocobo and it puffs up a bit at the attention. "It's too loud."
And that? Yeah...that makes no sense.
Taejin's Tower is silent as a tomb, after all.
"This is probably the quietest place we've stayed since...ever. It's pretty much safe." Lightning reaches into Sazh's palm and pets the chocobo with the very tippy top of the pad of her pointer finger. The feathers are softer than silk, gossamer and delicate and she might be starting to understand why Sazh finds petting this strange, fragile creature so cathartic.
"Well, the safe part is debatable. But as for the quiet, I think that's what I mean." Sazh looks up at the Weeping Woman. "I'm not used to it. There's nothing to drown out the noise in my head, if that makes any sense."
It makes plenty of sense. The inside of her head is a scary place-
/home/
-filled with monsters these days. She wonders if Sazh has a similar secret.
"What are you doing here, Soldier?" Sazh gives her a blank look and she knows that the question is loaded. He already knows that she has no idea.
"You hear the call too, huh?" That gets her attention.
"What?"
"This place is quiet except for the...I don't know. The crying, I suppose. I can hear it when I try to sleep. It sounds too much like..."
/...She's sobbing, pleading for death with a wrecked voice. 'I'm ready. Let me go-'
His heart wails 'no' but his lips say, 'Yes.'/
The image leaves her shuddering. It's an eye blink. It's a lifetime.
It's a memory that isn't hers and she'll be worried about that later.
...like when his wife was dying, is what Sazh doesn't say, but after that sneak peek, Lightning hears it all the same. She understands and relates, because there are certain sounds and smells that always drag that final day in the hospital out from the depths of her brain as well, no matter how deep she buries it.
What she doesn't understand is why he would seek out the source of such agony, rather than run from it. She is a strong person, but she can't fathom the depths of Sazh's strength.
"So you came here?"
"I think she knows when we're here. It seems quieter now." The assessment makes no sense, but Lightning can't refute it.
Too many things that are true make no sense these days.
"I don't hear her." She admits. Lightning wonders why that might be.
"Part of you must. You were drawn here, same as me." Sazh slips the chocobo back into its odd nest and opens the book in his lap again.
Part of her...
She feels something shift, like a flutter beneath her skin, inside her chest, inside her brain. There's no pain involved, but it's uncomfortable all the same. She exhales the fear and turns to Sazh to find him watching her with an alarmed look.
She's seen that look before. Back in Mah'Habara. /Did I do something particularly scary again?/ And now she wonders if that might be when her eyes changed color. /Did I sprout horns or a tail?/ Fang laughed the question off, but Lightning can't help but think, in retrospect, that Fang's laughter was more nervous than humored. She feels her face heat. More secrets, she realizes. She feels her face heat. Her blood thrums hard in her temples, in her throat. The smallest movement with throw her off the ledge from pissed off into a full blown fury.
She counts backwards. Exhales.
It doesn't matter.
"Something just transform there?" she asks Sazh. He looks even more surprised. She figures she'll try for humor in a situation which is not funny. "Did I sprout horns or a tail?"
Sazh shakes his head. "Nah. Nothing that dramatic. It's probably my imagination..."
"I don't think so," Lightning insists. "I mean, my eyes weren't." He hides his surprise, but she sees it all the same. "My skin isn't. Want to share?"
"I can't explain it." Lightning feels her frustration ratchet up, feels something twist inside her in answer. Her anger seems linked to the monster inside her. Anger feeds it, and then it stokes the anger. A neat little cycle that she needs to fear.
"It was like a shimmer. Maybe. I don't know. Like you're there, but not really and I can see something else, but it's more like a hallucination on my part than anything physical. It's nothing that a mind can comprehend, if you want my opinion. It's not something that I can see, so much as sense." He purses his lips in frustration. "I know that makes no sense at all." He trails off and shakes his head. "Did it hurt?"
"No." She feels a bit sick and she's not sure why she insisted he describe the sight to her. "I'm running out of time here, Sazh."
"Yeah, I know it Soldier. I know it." Sazh pats her shoulder and then looks back at the book. "We all are, I think."
She realizes that he mentioned noise in his head earlier and never elaborated.
"What's been...have you..." She has no idea what she wants to say. Have you forgotten your son again? seems pretty cold, even for her.
"They're getting more frequent now." She waits and he doesn't seem interested in sharing what 'they' are.
She supposes it doesn't matter.
She stands up and walks over to the Weeping Woman. It doesn't make sense that they'd find this woman here and not find any answers. She's calling to them in one way or another. It's the most logical explanation for how they found the room. The part of her that is no longer her must hear whatever call Sazh seems to hear. So she must want to tell them something.
"Why won't you tell us?" Lightning asks the crystal. She reaches out and-
(Home destroy kill betrayed vengeance failure sadness solitude forsaken villain beast killer Destroyer Home)
"Soldier! Hey, Lightning!"
She's shaking so hard her teeth ache and her head throbs. She feels fingers digging bruises into her arms, feels muscles hardening beneath skin. She shakes her head, shrugs off hands and wipes at wetness on her face. Her hands come away with streaks of red and she wipes under nose. There's no blood and she can't figure out what the hell...
Sazh wipes under her eyes with a soft, damp cloth. "It's alright now," he mutters, but she can hear the tremor in his voice, feel the trembling in his fingers where they brush against her cheek. She reaches up and takes the cloth, looks at the blood smears on it. She wipes under her eyes, down her cheek and the cloth comes away warm and wet.
Tears of blood. She's crying blood now.
"That's different," she murmurs through numb lips.
Sazh grabs her by the arm and drags her away from the crystal. He presses her against the wall and leans next to her. He places a shaky hand over his eyes and slides down to the floor. She decides that's a great idea and follows suit.
"I'm too old for this," Sazh mumbles into the hand still over his face. Then repeats it louder. She waits him out because she knows she's managed to outdo herself this time, though she's not sure how. It was a split second. She never even touched the crystal.
"So, did that make you feel better?" Sazh asks, voice tinged with anger. "Why...I mean, seriously...what in the name of...WHY did you touch that crystal?"
She didn't. Except she did, and she doesn't know why... Except: "She's got answers."
"Answers..." Sazh repeats then asks, "Well? Any ideas then? Now that you've managed to brain damage yourself even more. Did you get any answers, Soldier?"
He's angry and she isn't in any condition to debate with him. She decides to let him be angry and just says, "No."
"What a surprise!"
"You said yourself, that you can hear her. That she's sad."
"Yeah. But I didn't touch her."
"If she's speaking to you, maybe you should have."
"No thanks, Soldier. I have enough problems right now without letting some ancient, tortured soul wreak havoc with my mind."
"Well someone had to," she declares, defiant.
"No. Someone did not have to!"
"I came here for answers, Sazh. If we leave without them..."
"Alright, fine. You need answers. Do you have to die in pursuit of those answers?" He waits a beat before saying, "Don't do it again, alright? It was...It was horrible." Sazh shakes his head. "I could hear it, and I could see it. I could feel it. My ears popped like they do in a rapid depressurization. It hurt! Don't be surprised if everyone comes running."
That he could see it doesn't shock her. Hear it? Alright. Confusing, but alright. But the idea that he can feel it too? That THEY can feel it too? She never thought of that. It never occurred to her that the things that happened to her internally were affecting her environment; affecting the others.
She spends a moment turning the knowledge over in her mind before deciding that she's stupid. They all share a focus, after all. They are all in this together. She's dealing with magic that they don't understand and can't comprehend. For all she knows, her own transformation is hastening the others along their paths too.
Welcome to a whole new nightmare! She feels like she might throw up, except she hasn't eaten anything in...she can't remember how long anymore. That doesn't seem to stop her stomach from churning around itself, gearing up for an explosive show.
"I don't know why she won't answer," Lightning whispers. She feels frustrated and helpless, and vents them as petulance. "We need answers and she has them. Why won't she help?"
"I don't think she can." Sazh sighs and puts a clammy hand on the back of Lightning's neck. It's reassurance for the both of them. "I think she's lost in a hell of her own making, and all she can do is shout into the darkness, and hope someone hears."
Sounds familiar; sounds right.
A hell of her own making. Is that what being a crystal means? Trapped between worlds in a lucid dreams, reliving worst mistakes and regrets? Is that what his son and her sister are living through?
Is that the definition of 'Eternal Life?'
She shivers and pushes the thoughts aside. She can't deal with them right now.
"We hear it. Why can't we help her?" She looks around and spots the shining eyes of the strange statues. "And they hear her too." Vulnerability morphs into outrage. "Bastards. They have answers and they won't tell us."
"Uh. I don't think cursing at them is such a great plan there Soldier."
"Whatever," she snipes, sounding all of thirteen. She feels it right then-like a defiant, rebellious teenager trying to get under her parents' skin. She has a new appreciation for Hope and his antics. It doesn't mean that she's not going to want to smack him in his smart mouth ever again, but it might help her continue to resist the urge when he's being bitch-faced with her.
"Alright then. So if they didn't help at all, what did they say?"
"Nothing that made any sense." Riddles and nonsense. Backwards speak that meant nothing to her, but teased her with possibilities. "Does the book have anything useful to say?"
"Same story, I'm afraid. There's not much I understand. Here: this part keeps talking about 'the doom of the powers.' It reads like some backwards poetry.
'Neither love nor pity nor regret,
Nor empathy did they feel.
Fearing the fruits of disdain, she created their doom;
A Beast of Earth and Water, and Fire and Air
A gift to Humans, to the First's despair.
A wandering spirit; to Human's call
Only it come; and bring death to all.'
"That's not very helpful, is it?" Sazh finishes and then grouses, "Tired of this nonsense."
She is too; but in the lines of that nonsensical ditty is something familiar. Something...
/Ragnarok is her Gift to Humans...The bane of fal'Cie./
"Wait. These statues said something that made no sense to me at the time. They said that Ragnarok was 'Her' gift to humans." Sazh stares at her for a long moment, then rereads the passage in the book. Then looks at her again.
"If this is about Ragnarok, then that's what this says too, I suppose. That mean something to you?"
"Maybe." The answer is flirting with her like some coy little tease. She keeps getting hints and flashes, but never enough to get an actual look. Never enough to pin it down. "That must burn Barthandelus. That the Maker gave humans something."
"Wait a second," Sazh says like he's had the revelation. "Not just gave us something, Soldier." He reads the passage again and mumbles, "that's it. According to this, The Maker created Ragnarok for Humans to use to defend themselves against the fal'Cie."
A watchdog of sorts. A weapon to keep them in line. She remembers the carvings in the library, remembers something about creating Humans to teach love to the First. It seems the Maker knew that the fal'Cie were flawed, and far too powerful. So, She made Ragnarok to protect humans. Which means...
"We were never supposed to be under their control." All the scraping and begging; all the obedience and worship. It was all an illusion. It was a damnable lie. "That was never the intention."
Sazh shakes his head. "I guess. It seems that way, now that you mention it."
"But the Maker left, and the fal'Cie decided that they didn't like humans having anything that they didn't have. "
"Not all of them-"
"No." Dahaka, for all its flaws, was trying to kill the l'Cie created to destroy Cocoon, and from what Lightning understands, none of the fal'Cie of Pulse are all that involved in the day to day lives of humans. "Not all of them."
"So, they make l'Cie to control us as…what? Punishment?"
"Maybe," she says, unable to quite fathom the thoughts of the fal'Cie.
/Abomination... desecration of the song...Anima...betrayed the design/
Perhaps that is what the statues meant by abominations and traitors. Perhaps the creation of l'Cie was outside of the natural order; contrary to the Maker's plans.
/You are unclean and unintended/
As 'abominations' outside the natural order, there is no place for them in either world; in either life. As walking, talking 'disharmonious' things, the fal'Cie might just feel obligated to destroy l'Cie. If most of the fal'Cie believe in the so-called 'Design,' then it would be their duty to defend it.
Wouldn't it? It's possible, if difficult to grasp.
"Or…you know the more I think about it…the more I think Barthandelus created Cocoon as his own little miniature world."
A microcosm of sorts.
/Hubris and blasphemy!/
"Maybe it even started as a tribute to the Maker," Sazh continues.
He's lost her. She takes a moment, turns the statement over in her head to look at it from all angles and still comes up blank. "What do you mean?"
"I'm just thinking...after my wife died, Dajh spent a lot of time doing things that his mama used to do. He'd clean his room, pick up his toys. He'd even pretend to cook dinner; or mime vacuuming by running his toys over the carpets to make the lines like a vacuum cleaner. I guess he thought if he did well enough, his mama would come home," Sazh chokes on the last syllable and covers his eyes. Lightning feels her own eyes sting.
Bargaining. She remembers going through that phase after her parents died. It was nothing quite so simple with her since she knew her parents weren't coming back. Still, she couldn't help wondering if they would approve of how she handled the deaths; if they were proud of her. If she was failing them by not doing a good enough job taking care of Serah.
The dark is a bad place to think such thoughts. Something about the middle of the night brings grief nearer, makes wounds fresher. She dashes tears from her eyes and waits for Sazh to pull himself together.
He takes another moment, clears his throat and starts again. "Maybe designing Cocoon was his first try to get his lost mother's attention. As his way of making Her come back. It's a child's logic-if his Maker was proud of him then she'd return. But when she didn't, he got angry and he decided to get her attention another way."
She picks up the train of thought. "By killing humans."
"Not just some either. Lots. All, maybe." Sazh pauses, considering. "But there was a fly in the ointment."
"Ragnarok," she's almost thrilled at the prospect of finding some elusive answers, even if it is all conjecture and assumption. It's more than they had yesterday, and something about it smacks of the truth, even if it's not absolute.
"Right," he agrees, eyes alight. "So, being a pissed off, too powerful maniac, he decided to make himself his very own human slaves. Something that would have to obey him. Something that was capable of controlling 'The Doom of the Powers.' Something that would give him more power than other fal'Cie. A very creative answer to a seeming no win scenario, if I do say so myself."
Lightning thinks about it. She thinks about Barthandelus's near tangible rage, and the cold and callous way he murdered Jihl. Beneath his desire to be reunited with his 'Maker' lurks a burning hatred for humanity. It seems probable that he would garner great pleasure from using humans' weapons against them, just as he derives joy from dominating and terrorizing humans. Sazh may have hit closer to the mark than he thought or intended. "Makes sense. I have a feeling that didn't go over too well."
"Yeah, that might go a long way towards explaining the longstanding feud between Cocoon and Pulse. If most of the fal'Cie weren't on board with Barthandelus's plan, they'd try to fight him."
"The War of Transgression," Lightning mumbles. She'd always wondered at the name given to the ancient war, but like most other things in her life, it hadn't mattered. Information was doled out by the Sanctum-by Barthandelus-and she accepted it like a good little soldier. Pulse was the enemy, had always been the enemy and always would be the enemy. "They told us what it was all about in the name."
"Yeah, we'd always just assumed that it was Pulse's transgression, and I suppose it was in some ways. It seems as if Anima was allied with Barthandelus. "
"So it was Barthandelus's transgression." Traitor, floats through her mind. "And Anima's. And for all we know, all the other fal'Cie on Cocoon." The thought makes her see red in a very literal sense, causes a strange shifting beneath her skin again, kicks up a monstrous growl in her throat. "They were trying to defy the natural order of things. They used us as pawns in their own stupid war. They manipulated humans into fighting each other."
"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Sazh nods once, a slow deep thing, then shakes his head. He stays silent for a moment, considering. "I'm sure there's more to it than that. It feels a bit simplistic, but I'm guessing we're on the right track."
"It's close enough, Sazh. It fits all the evidence we have, at least."
"Does it help us any?"
Does it? The landscape of her mind is far too treacherous and confusing right now to make necessary connections. No food and no sleep add up to subpar thinking, it seems. Still, she decides that Sazh's insights must help. She only needs to figure out how. "I'm sure it does. I just have no idea how yet."
Sazh laughs. "Yeah, I think we could both use a bit of sleep before tomorrow. Fang said that Oerba's just on the far side of this Tower." He attempts a crappy imitation of Fang's accent: "A quick jaunt."
Oerba. They've been walking forever to get there, and now that they're a few hours from reaching their destination, she wants to turn around and run. Nothing good can exist in Oerba. If they're just a few hours away, they should see signs of life. There should be sounds of human life on the breezes; there should be smells of machinery. There's always smoke where there is fire, after all. There should be something to indicate that everyone isn't dead. She knows that Fang and Vanille are bracing themselves for the worst-she can see it in their eyes and in the tense lines of their posture. "I have a bad feeling about what we're going to find."
"That makes two of us," Sazh says.
"Tomorrow's going to be a bad day."
"Like that's a change. Every day sucks these days, doesn't it?"
Lightning hums a noncommittal sound. She's not sure right now. Some days have been pure terror. Others have been hodgepodges, filled with laughter, and horror, warm smiles and agonizing wounds.
Filled with friends, and she's not sure she'd give those days up to spare herself the uncertain future.
"Let's go, Soldier. I need some sleep and there's nothing more that this Weeping Woman can tell us."
She lets Sazh pull her up from the floor as she stares at the crystal woman. Sazh holds her hand a second longer than necessary, squeezes it to redirect her attention, and gives her a small but genuine smile before dropping her hand and walking out of the room.
Lightning takes a quick glance around, feels sad and relieved at once because she knows that she will never return to this room. She says a silent farewell to the woman, and leaves her to her eerie, silent guardians. She whispers "Thank you" to the stone gods, and can almost feel the disapproval from earlier melt away.
Perhaps it's wishful thinking. She seems to have developed a knack for lying to herself.
TBC...
There are people who may disagree with my characterization of Lightning as a woman who is proud of her looks-You know who you are! :D I personally believe that Lightning is beautiful and strong, and that both traits can exist in a woman at the same time. I find the idea that a woman can't be taken seriously if she is proud of her beauty absurd. It's a dangerous trap we fall into-believing that the beautiful are frivolous, and that femininity must be subverted in order for a woman to be serious. I know women who are police officers and paramedics in some of the roughest neighborhoods in NYC (who have been held at gunpoint, shot at and assaulted), not to mention a friend is who is a soldier-all of whom are serious, strong. intelligent women AND who are beautiful and feminine. I decided to address the matter since I see Lightning's confidence as a result of being accepting of herself as both woman and soldier. Sorry if you disagree; you are certainly entitled to your opinions.
Title: Evolution
Chapter 29: Being and Nothingness
Word Count for chapter ~7,000
Word Count for Story: ~232,000
This is actually half of the intended Chapter 29, but for the sake of theme and continuity, I broke the chapter into two seconds. So, the first half may seem slow, but it's full of explanations. The second half--now Chapter 30, will move us back into some action. Okay, here we go!
"Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Beauty is power; a smile is its sword."
-John Ray
-Being and Nothingness-
Taejin's Tower is a bust.
Alright, that's not fair. There are pieces of information she has now that she didn't have before she entered the tower, but they are all square pegs and all the holes are round. She can't figure out how to hammer them in to make them fit, or to turn them into something usable. Her experience in the weeping woman's chambers can't be explained, nor duplicated by anyone else. The woman is silent where Lightning needs her to speak; the memory that she inflicted on Lighting haunts her, but for all that trauma, she believes that there's something that she's missing.
Or maybe there isn't anything at all, and all her dreams have been nothing more than echoes of another person's living nightmares, or projections of her own subconscious. She's not certain if those explanations are more relief or horror.
Lightning rubs her brow, feels a headache forming behind her eyes. All her hopes are dashed; she was counting on finding some sort of miracle in this tower. Something Sazh said to her back on the Archylte Steppe planted a seed in her; something about believing all or nothing, and Lightning believed that there might be a way clear of this mess. The part of her that still believed in 'fair' and 'just' insisted that if she looked and tried hard enough, she would be able to save herself-save them all-from this doom.
She's spent too much time with Snow. That has to be the answer. There's no other excuse for such unabashed optimism.
It's late. Everything is silent but for the steady breathing and soft snores of her sleeping friends. Their ability to sleep is a tease to her. The most irrational, exhausted part of her feels as if they are taunting her with what she desires but can never have. She rubs her eyes and drags herself from her warm bed, determined to get out of the room before she wakes everyone else up out of spite.
Lightning wanders the halls of the tower like disaffected ghost. Her body feels heavy; her mind is dull. She hasn't slept in...forever now, and tonight is the first and last chance she'll have to get a night's sleep in a bed.
She wishes she could sleep-both her body and her mind are begging for respite-but she can't still her mind. It churns around the problems, desperate for a solution she fears she'll never find. But it's more than just her mind that keeps sleep at bay.
She feels wrong-like her skin is too tight, or her organs have all reorganized themselves inside her body. To call it 'illness' would be inaccurate. She isn't sick. There's no malady that she's ever experienced affecting her body. She's not feverish, congested, or even nauseated. It's just unfamiliar.
She turns the word over in her mind a bit, decides that it is both accurate and understated. Her body feels unfamiliar because it is, in fact, altered beyond recognition.
Before she tried settling into a bed to get some well deserved rest, she passed in front of a very dingy mirror and recoiled. Her heartbeat kicked up and her fingers twitched for her weapon before her brain engaged enough to recognize that the strange human-monster hybrid standing before her was, in fact, her.
Lightning runs her fingers through her hair, feels the exhaustion drag at her like an extra bit of gravity. She shuffles along the corridor, head dipping and sagging under the weight of her exhaustion. She stops moving and sits cross-legged on the floor, feels the cold from the strange stone seep into her hips and settle at the base of her spine in a dull ache. She traces her fingers over the floor beside her alien-skinned knee, notes the rough texture, distracts herself with the play of rough stone against the sensitive pads of her fingers and the jagged tips of her nails.
She sighs, leans her head against the cool wall behind her and closes her tired eyes.
Her eyes...
They were the biggest shock of her appearance. The strange patterns and shadings on her skin making a mosaic of her complexion, were disarming, but not surprising. She knew that her skin was transforming. She could see it. What she couldn't see, however, were the changes to her face. The changes to her eyes.
Something Lightning will never admit aloud is that she has a small streak of vanity in her. She's an attractive woman and she knows it. It's not something of which she should feel ashamed, but she somehow still does. Her looks used to irritate her: she felt that being attractive made people-made her fellow soldiers in particular-dismiss her as frivolous, the assumption being that she didn't earn her place, but received it as some token. Part of her knows that this feeling is more projection of her own issues than reflection of any actual facts; but knowing a thing and believing it are two different animals. The result was that she did everything she could to downplay her appearance for the first nineteen years of her life.
Somewhere in her first year of training, a female officer (what was her name?) pulled her aside and explained to her that being attractive was an asset. (Was it Jihl? Impossible! Lightning knows she never met Jihl before this all started. Right?) Whatever her name was gave her a dressing down one day, telling her that 'a wise man once said that 'Beauty is a weapon; a smile is its sword.' You've been trained in how to use blades, Farron, and you're deadly. So what's the damn problem?' She went on to explain that people underestimating her was to Lightning's advantage, and any soldier unwilling to use assets at their disposal was a damned fool.
Never one to disregard advice of superiors, nor one to play the fool, Lightning took the advice to heart. She stopped resenting her looks and starting using them. The transition was difficult. She had no idea how to switch tracks from downplayed to attractive. She was never much for adornment, and as a soldier, it was impractical and ridiculous. Ear piercings always seemed like a vulnerability-something that could catch and tear and cause unnecessary damage.
'What's the problem, Farron? '
The problem was that she spent years flying under the radar and had no idea how to break the habit. Everything she tried felt ridiculous and false, made her feel like she was wearing a costume rather than being true to herself. She toyed with the idea of piercings, and, on a lark, she got one. Ears were out for the sake of practicality; facial piercings were out as they were against regulations. She had a nice, flat tummy, so she got herself a navel ring. The pain of the piercing was sharp and bright, and the tiniest bit nauseating, but afterwards, she admired the delicate ring of silver against the toned, pale flesh of her abdomen. It was absurd and unnecessary, and it made her giddy because it was one hundred percent hers. She pierced herself for no reason other than she wanted to do it; it served no function; it aided no one. It was the first irresponsible, impulsive thing Lightning had done since her parents' death, and it was liberating as hell! The piercing did not belong to Serah's-sister-Lightning, or Cadet Lightning Farron of the Guardian Corps.
It belonged to Lightning, the woman.
She became more conscious of herself and her looks after the piercing. It was amazing how much easier that one tiny step made the entire transition; no more did she hide her slender, toned body in baggy, unattractive clothes, or tie her hair up into knots on her head. Oh, she didn't go crazy with painting her face or anything so obvious; she was still a soldier, after all, and frivolity rubbed against her grain. But the subtle changes she made changed everything. She became more comfortable with herself and that translated into every other part of her life. She had nothing to hide, no reason for shame; she flourished. She took note of the way people looked at her-some with an appreciate eye, some with an envious one. She never paid them much mind, never judged her own worth by her appearance. She was an exceptional soldier, and an attractive woman. She learned that the two were not mutually exclusive.
And she enjoyed being both; didn't see one as a hindrance to the other any longer.
Something she never admitted to anyone, not even herself, is that her eyes were her favorite feature. The blue was the same shade as her father's and the shape was all her mother. After her parents died, she could still see pieces of them every time she saw herself. When their faces would get fuzzy in her mind, all she need do was find a mirror and there they were, looking back at her. It made her feel less alone when the sadness rose up to drown her. Her eyes were a perfect blend of both her parents, and a reminder that they were forever a part of her.
Were. Once.
So when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she was not anywhere near as horrified by her scarred, tattered tapestry of skin as she was by her eyes. The blue of her irises-her father's blue-was gone. They were now a shining, inhuman glowing, gleaming gold. The pupils were elongated-oval-not round.
She no longer resembles her parents.
She now looks like the monster she is.
Lightning wonders how long she's been viewing the world through a stranger's eyes. Her friends must have seen it happen and chose to keep it from her. Part of Lightning is angered by the subterfuge, but most of her acknowledges the logic in the decision. Telling her would serve no purpose but upsetting her to who-knows-what end. Perhaps it would even hasten the transformation.
Still, it would have been nice to get a heads up.
She opens her eyes again and stares at the darkness inside the tower. She listens to the silence. It's all still outside her. She wishes she could steal just the tiniest bit of it, draw it into her like some sort of leech, and just. Sleep.
Home is not a word or a place. It's a feeling, a state of being. A sense of safety, of comfort. It's hot tea in a mug, steam wafting; it's a crackle of fire. It's a soft, hand crocheted blanket wound around cold feet. It's a cool hand on a fevered brow. It's kisses and pillows, hot water and deep sleep.
It is not the smell of exploded gunpowder, nor the touch of antiseptic. It's not the smell of decay and rot, nor the sounds of screams. It is not the sight of blood, nor bloated, fetid corpses.
It is all these things.
The Tower is both home and not-home. It is comfortable and familiar. It is decimated and foreign. The grounds beyond the walls are littered with bodies; the air buzzes with insects feasting on dead flesh. The air is thick with the stink of death, the smell cloying and intoxicating.
Home is not coiled muscles, or cascading blood, but it seems that way now. It is miles of decomposition behind a bright red screen. It is an empty cavern, and an empty vessel. It is empty and complete.
Home is not unfamiliar voices, but it sounds that way now. Voices that scream and whine and cry; voices caterwauling incomprehensible words. Voices loaded with intent like ordnance, aimless and angry; weapons to obliterate, and turn all into nothing.
It is not disembodied hands reaching and grabbing; it is not dismembered bodies rotting in a pile.
It is not strangers uniting in common purpose, joining minds and thoughts. It is not losing bits and pieces of one mind to accommodate and incorporate lost chunks of others. To mix up a sense of all and one; it is not, but it feels that way now.
It is not pain like disembowelment. It is not a blade like a smile carving through flesh and meat and bone strewn about, but it tastes that way...
It is not violence, but it tastes that way now. Blood is sweeter than suspected, tangier than appreciated. Bones crunch like nutshells between massive jaws, break into dust that tickles the nose; flesh is more delicate than remembered as claws perforate and. Just. SHRED. It is a matter of mathematics; a matter of physics. It is energy converting from potential to kinetic, and the whipping of a tail and the beating of wings.
It is metamorphosis. It is being. It is ancient purpose kissed with modern will.
Home is not a downdraft, but when the breeze caresses skin it feels that way. It is flying and floating on currents of air. It is rising and falling. It is bathing in the loving and terrified gaze of observers. It is the roar of a crowd, and the scream of a victim. It is mercy killings and silence. It is rage.
Home is not Vengeance, but sometimes it is both root and cause . Dead eyes and maggots are not admirers, or audience, but they watch all the same.
Two wrongs don't make a right, they say, but what do three, four and five make?
"Trouble sleeping, Soldier?"
Lightning startles and blinks, feels hot tears pour out of her burning eyes and catch on her eyelashes. She didn't fall asleep, but she's hard pressed to put a name to whatever the hell just happened to her. She dashes the tears away with the back of her hand, opens her eyes to look at Sazh...
And stares at the weeping woman instead.
She recoils as if slapped, spins and finds Sazh sitting behind her, back to the wall, lantern beside him, book in lap. She couldn't feel more exposed if she were stripped naked and staked out for the keen edge of a sociopath's blade right now. She's been wandering around, vacant and empty. It's not the first time, but it never gets less disturbing. She's feels hollow, like a plush toy with a hole through which all its stuffing leaked. She wants to search for the lost pieces of her, pick them up and shove them back into the chasm spreading behind her ribs and eyes, but it's not that simple. The pieces are nowhere anymore, and she couldn't reclaim them if she tried. She's being pulled apart and emptied of mind and soul to make room for the monster growing within.
She wonders when that will stop being disconcerting. And when did disconcerting become the proper terminology for unraveling like an old sweater?
Perhaps she should be more concerned that she's not more concerned. Or terrified.
"You alright?" Sazh asks, quirking an eyebrow at her in a strange approximation of concern. Lightning shakes her head then shrugs. "Confused?"
Hell yeah, is what she doesn't say. She says, "Exhausted."
"Join the club. Pull up a piece of the floor, Soldier." He shuffles over a bit in an unnecessary but warming gesture, and pats the ground next to him in invitation. "I could use some company."
Lightning accepts his offer, squats and settles beside him with a groan.
"Still sore?"
"Less than I ought to be considering everything." Sazh nods.
"You know, those scars look lighter," Sazh remarks apropos of nothing. Lightning looks down at her arm and realizes that Sazh is right. The ferning does look like it's fading.
She spends two seconds wondering what that means before deciding she doesn't care. Scars can't matter in the face of mental breakdown.
"And how are you feeling Sazh?" Lightning asks. "I thought you'd be trying to grab some decent sleep. Instead I find you...here. In this creepy room."
"It's not creepy." Sazh sits back against the wall, reaches up and plucks the sleeping chocobo from his hair. It looks bigger, Lightning realizes, and she wonders if it will ever have a chance to grow up big enough for Sazh to ride it for a change. She shakes the thought away. "I think she's sad, not creepy. Kinda tragic, you know."
Lightning nods. She does know.
"And it's peaceful in here for some reason."
She does not agree with that assessment.
"So, you thought you'd hang out in here with her instead of getting some sleep?"
"Nah. I couldn't sleep in this tower." Sazh pets the chocobo and it puffs up a bit at the attention. "It's too loud."
And that? Yeah...that makes no sense.
Taejin's Tower is silent as a tomb, after all.
"This is probably the quietest place we've stayed since...ever. It's pretty much safe." Lightning reaches into Sazh's palm and pets the chocobo with the very tippy top of the pad of her pointer finger. The feathers are softer than silk, gossamer and delicate and she might be starting to understand why Sazh finds petting this strange, fragile creature so cathartic.
"Well, the safe part is debatable. But as for the quiet, I think that's what I mean." Sazh looks up at the Weeping Woman. "I'm not used to it. There's nothing to drown out the noise in my head, if that makes any sense."
It makes plenty of sense. The inside of her head is a scary place-
/home/
-filled with monsters these days. She wonders if Sazh has a similar secret.
"What are you doing here, Soldier?" Sazh gives her a blank look and she knows that the question is loaded. He already knows that she has no idea.
"You hear the call too, huh?" That gets her attention.
"What?"
"This place is quiet except for the...I don't know. The crying, I suppose. I can hear it when I try to sleep. It sounds too much like..."
/...She's sobbing, pleading for death with a wrecked voice. 'I'm ready. Let me go-'
His heart wails 'no' but his lips say, 'Yes.'/
The image leaves her shuddering. It's an eye blink. It's a lifetime.
It's a memory that isn't hers and she'll be worried about that later.
...like when his wife was dying, is what Sazh doesn't say, but after that sneak peek, Lightning hears it all the same. She understands and relates, because there are certain sounds and smells that always drag that final day in the hospital out from the depths of her brain as well, no matter how deep she buries it.
What she doesn't understand is why he would seek out the source of such agony, rather than run from it. She is a strong person, but she can't fathom the depths of Sazh's strength.
"So you came here?"
"I think she knows when we're here. It seems quieter now." The assessment makes no sense, but Lightning can't refute it.
Too many things that are true make no sense these days.
"I don't hear her." She admits. Lightning wonders why that might be.
"Part of you must. You were drawn here, same as me." Sazh slips the chocobo back into its odd nest and opens the book in his lap again.
Part of her...
She feels something shift, like a flutter beneath her skin, inside her chest, inside her brain. There's no pain involved, but it's uncomfortable all the same. She exhales the fear and turns to Sazh to find him watching her with an alarmed look.
She's seen that look before. Back in Mah'Habara. /Did I do something particularly scary again?/ And now she wonders if that might be when her eyes changed color. /Did I sprout horns or a tail?/ Fang laughed the question off, but Lightning can't help but think, in retrospect, that Fang's laughter was more nervous than humored. She feels her face heat. More secrets, she realizes. She feels her face heat. Her blood thrums hard in her temples, in her throat. The smallest movement with throw her off the ledge from pissed off into a full blown fury.
She counts backwards. Exhales.
It doesn't matter.
"Something just transform there?" she asks Sazh. He looks even more surprised. She figures she'll try for humor in a situation which is not funny. "Did I sprout horns or a tail?"
Sazh shakes his head. "Nah. Nothing that dramatic. It's probably my imagination..."
"I don't think so," Lightning insists. "I mean, my eyes weren't." He hides his surprise, but she sees it all the same. "My skin isn't. Want to share?"
"I can't explain it." Lightning feels her frustration ratchet up, feels something twist inside her in answer. Her anger seems linked to the monster inside her. Anger feeds it, and then it stokes the anger. A neat little cycle that she needs to fear.
"It was like a shimmer. Maybe. I don't know. Like you're there, but not really and I can see something else, but it's more like a hallucination on my part than anything physical. It's nothing that a mind can comprehend, if you want my opinion. It's not something that I can see, so much as sense." He purses his lips in frustration. "I know that makes no sense at all." He trails off and shakes his head. "Did it hurt?"
"No." She feels a bit sick and she's not sure why she insisted he describe the sight to her. "I'm running out of time here, Sazh."
"Yeah, I know it Soldier. I know it." Sazh pats her shoulder and then looks back at the book. "We all are, I think."
She realizes that he mentioned noise in his head earlier and never elaborated.
"What's been...have you..." She has no idea what she wants to say. Have you forgotten your son again? seems pretty cold, even for her.
"They're getting more frequent now." She waits and he doesn't seem interested in sharing what 'they' are.
She supposes it doesn't matter.
She stands up and walks over to the Weeping Woman. It doesn't make sense that they'd find this woman here and not find any answers. She's calling to them in one way or another. It's the most logical explanation for how they found the room. The part of her that is no longer her must hear whatever call Sazh seems to hear. So she must want to tell them something.
"Why won't you tell us?" Lightning asks the crystal. She reaches out and-
(Home destroy kill betrayed vengeance failure sadness solitude forsaken villain beast killer Destroyer Home)
"Soldier! Hey, Lightning!"
She's shaking so hard her teeth ache and her head throbs. She feels fingers digging bruises into her arms, feels muscles hardening beneath skin. She shakes her head, shrugs off hands and wipes at wetness on her face. Her hands come away with streaks of red and she wipes under nose. There's no blood and she can't figure out what the hell...
Sazh wipes under her eyes with a soft, damp cloth. "It's alright now," he mutters, but she can hear the tremor in his voice, feel the trembling in his fingers where they brush against her cheek. She reaches up and takes the cloth, looks at the blood smears on it. She wipes under her eyes, down her cheek and the cloth comes away warm and wet.
Tears of blood. She's crying blood now.
"That's different," she murmurs through numb lips.
Sazh grabs her by the arm and drags her away from the crystal. He presses her against the wall and leans next to her. He places a shaky hand over his eyes and slides down to the floor. She decides that's a great idea and follows suit.
"I'm too old for this," Sazh mumbles into the hand still over his face. Then repeats it louder. She waits him out because she knows she's managed to outdo herself this time, though she's not sure how. It was a split second. She never even touched the crystal.
"So, did that make you feel better?" Sazh asks, voice tinged with anger. "Why...I mean, seriously...what in the name of...WHY did you touch that crystal?"
She didn't. Except she did, and she doesn't know why... Except: "She's got answers."
"Answers..." Sazh repeats then asks, "Well? Any ideas then? Now that you've managed to brain damage yourself even more. Did you get any answers, Soldier?"
He's angry and she isn't in any condition to debate with him. She decides to let him be angry and just says, "No."
"What a surprise!"
"You said yourself, that you can hear her. That she's sad."
"Yeah. But I didn't touch her."
"If she's speaking to you, maybe you should have."
"No thanks, Soldier. I have enough problems right now without letting some ancient, tortured soul wreak havoc with my mind."
"Well someone had to," she declares, defiant.
"No. Someone did not have to!"
"I came here for answers, Sazh. If we leave without them..."
"Alright, fine. You need answers. Do you have to die in pursuit of those answers?" He waits a beat before saying, "Don't do it again, alright? It was...It was horrible." Sazh shakes his head. "I could hear it, and I could see it. I could feel it. My ears popped like they do in a rapid depressurization. It hurt! Don't be surprised if everyone comes running."
That he could see it doesn't shock her. Hear it? Alright. Confusing, but alright. But the idea that he can feel it too? That THEY can feel it too? She never thought of that. It never occurred to her that the things that happened to her internally were affecting her environment; affecting the others.
She spends a moment turning the knowledge over in her mind before deciding that she's stupid. They all share a focus, after all. They are all in this together. She's dealing with magic that they don't understand and can't comprehend. For all she knows, her own transformation is hastening the others along their paths too.
Welcome to a whole new nightmare! She feels like she might throw up, except she hasn't eaten anything in...she can't remember how long anymore. That doesn't seem to stop her stomach from churning around itself, gearing up for an explosive show.
"I don't know why she won't answer," Lightning whispers. She feels frustrated and helpless, and vents them as petulance. "We need answers and she has them. Why won't she help?"
"I don't think she can." Sazh sighs and puts a clammy hand on the back of Lightning's neck. It's reassurance for the both of them. "I think she's lost in a hell of her own making, and all she can do is shout into the darkness, and hope someone hears."
Sounds familiar; sounds right.
A hell of her own making. Is that what being a crystal means? Trapped between worlds in a lucid dreams, reliving worst mistakes and regrets? Is that what his son and her sister are living through?
Is that the definition of 'Eternal Life?'
She shivers and pushes the thoughts aside. She can't deal with them right now.
"We hear it. Why can't we help her?" She looks around and spots the shining eyes of the strange statues. "And they hear her too." Vulnerability morphs into outrage. "Bastards. They have answers and they won't tell us."
"Uh. I don't think cursing at them is such a great plan there Soldier."
"Whatever," she snipes, sounding all of thirteen. She feels it right then-like a defiant, rebellious teenager trying to get under her parents' skin. She has a new appreciation for Hope and his antics. It doesn't mean that she's not going to want to smack him in his smart mouth ever again, but it might help her continue to resist the urge when he's being bitch-faced with her.
"Alright then. So if they didn't help at all, what did they say?"
"Nothing that made any sense." Riddles and nonsense. Backwards speak that meant nothing to her, but teased her with possibilities. "Does the book have anything useful to say?"
"Same story, I'm afraid. There's not much I understand. Here: this part keeps talking about 'the doom of the powers.' It reads like some backwards poetry.
'Neither love nor pity nor regret,
Nor empathy did they feel.
Fearing the fruits of disdain, she created their doom;
A Beast of Earth and Water, and Fire and Air
A gift to Humans, to the First's despair.
A wandering spirit; to Human's call
Only it come; and bring death to all.'
"That's not very helpful, is it?" Sazh finishes and then grouses, "Tired of this nonsense."
She is too; but in the lines of that nonsensical ditty is something familiar. Something...
/Ragnarok is her Gift to Humans...The bane of fal'Cie./
"Wait. These statues said something that made no sense to me at the time. They said that Ragnarok was 'Her' gift to humans." Sazh stares at her for a long moment, then rereads the passage in the book. Then looks at her again.
"If this is about Ragnarok, then that's what this says too, I suppose. That mean something to you?"
"Maybe." The answer is flirting with her like some coy little tease. She keeps getting hints and flashes, but never enough to get an actual look. Never enough to pin it down. "That must burn Barthandelus. That the Maker gave humans something."
"Wait a second," Sazh says like he's had the revelation. "Not just gave us something, Soldier." He reads the passage again and mumbles, "that's it. According to this, The Maker created Ragnarok for Humans to use to defend themselves against the fal'Cie."
A watchdog of sorts. A weapon to keep them in line. She remembers the carvings in the library, remembers something about creating Humans to teach love to the First. It seems the Maker knew that the fal'Cie were flawed, and far too powerful. So, She made Ragnarok to protect humans. Which means...
"We were never supposed to be under their control." All the scraping and begging; all the obedience and worship. It was all an illusion. It was a damnable lie. "That was never the intention."
Sazh shakes his head. "I guess. It seems that way, now that you mention it."
"But the Maker left, and the fal'Cie decided that they didn't like humans having anything that they didn't have. "
"Not all of them-"
"No." Dahaka, for all its flaws, was trying to kill the l'Cie created to destroy Cocoon, and from what Lightning understands, none of the fal'Cie of Pulse are all that involved in the day to day lives of humans. "Not all of them."
"So, they make l'Cie to control us as…what? Punishment?"
"Maybe," she says, unable to quite fathom the thoughts of the fal'Cie.
/Abomination... desecration of the song...Anima...betrayed the design/
Perhaps that is what the statues meant by abominations and traitors. Perhaps the creation of l'Cie was outside of the natural order; contrary to the Maker's plans.
/You are unclean and unintended/
As 'abominations' outside the natural order, there is no place for them in either world; in either life. As walking, talking 'disharmonious' things, the fal'Cie might just feel obligated to destroy l'Cie. If most of the fal'Cie believe in the so-called 'Design,' then it would be their duty to defend it.
Wouldn't it? It's possible, if difficult to grasp.
"Or…you know the more I think about it…the more I think Barthandelus created Cocoon as his own little miniature world."
A microcosm of sorts.
/Hubris and blasphemy!/
"Maybe it even started as a tribute to the Maker," Sazh continues.
He's lost her. She takes a moment, turns the statement over in her head to look at it from all angles and still comes up blank. "What do you mean?"
"I'm just thinking...after my wife died, Dajh spent a lot of time doing things that his mama used to do. He'd clean his room, pick up his toys. He'd even pretend to cook dinner; or mime vacuuming by running his toys over the carpets to make the lines like a vacuum cleaner. I guess he thought if he did well enough, his mama would come home," Sazh chokes on the last syllable and covers his eyes. Lightning feels her own eyes sting.
Bargaining. She remembers going through that phase after her parents died. It was nothing quite so simple with her since she knew her parents weren't coming back. Still, she couldn't help wondering if they would approve of how she handled the deaths; if they were proud of her. If she was failing them by not doing a good enough job taking care of Serah.
The dark is a bad place to think such thoughts. Something about the middle of the night brings grief nearer, makes wounds fresher. She dashes tears from her eyes and waits for Sazh to pull himself together.
He takes another moment, clears his throat and starts again. "Maybe designing Cocoon was his first try to get his lost mother's attention. As his way of making Her come back. It's a child's logic-if his Maker was proud of him then she'd return. But when she didn't, he got angry and he decided to get her attention another way."
She picks up the train of thought. "By killing humans."
"Not just some either. Lots. All, maybe." Sazh pauses, considering. "But there was a fly in the ointment."
"Ragnarok," she's almost thrilled at the prospect of finding some elusive answers, even if it is all conjecture and assumption. It's more than they had yesterday, and something about it smacks of the truth, even if it's not absolute.
"Right," he agrees, eyes alight. "So, being a pissed off, too powerful maniac, he decided to make himself his very own human slaves. Something that would have to obey him. Something that was capable of controlling 'The Doom of the Powers.' Something that would give him more power than other fal'Cie. A very creative answer to a seeming no win scenario, if I do say so myself."
Lightning thinks about it. She thinks about Barthandelus's near tangible rage, and the cold and callous way he murdered Jihl. Beneath his desire to be reunited with his 'Maker' lurks a burning hatred for humanity. It seems probable that he would garner great pleasure from using humans' weapons against them, just as he derives joy from dominating and terrorizing humans. Sazh may have hit closer to the mark than he thought or intended. "Makes sense. I have a feeling that didn't go over too well."
"Yeah, that might go a long way towards explaining the longstanding feud between Cocoon and Pulse. If most of the fal'Cie weren't on board with Barthandelus's plan, they'd try to fight him."
"The War of Transgression," Lightning mumbles. She'd always wondered at the name given to the ancient war, but like most other things in her life, it hadn't mattered. Information was doled out by the Sanctum-by Barthandelus-and she accepted it like a good little soldier. Pulse was the enemy, had always been the enemy and always would be the enemy. "They told us what it was all about in the name."
"Yeah, we'd always just assumed that it was Pulse's transgression, and I suppose it was in some ways. It seems as if Anima was allied with Barthandelus. "
"So it was Barthandelus's transgression." Traitor, floats through her mind. "And Anima's. And for all we know, all the other fal'Cie on Cocoon." The thought makes her see red in a very literal sense, causes a strange shifting beneath her skin again, kicks up a monstrous growl in her throat. "They were trying to defy the natural order of things. They used us as pawns in their own stupid war. They manipulated humans into fighting each other."
"Seems that way, doesn't it?" Sazh nods once, a slow deep thing, then shakes his head. He stays silent for a moment, considering. "I'm sure there's more to it than that. It feels a bit simplistic, but I'm guessing we're on the right track."
"It's close enough, Sazh. It fits all the evidence we have, at least."
"Does it help us any?"
Does it? The landscape of her mind is far too treacherous and confusing right now to make necessary connections. No food and no sleep add up to subpar thinking, it seems. Still, she decides that Sazh's insights must help. She only needs to figure out how. "I'm sure it does. I just have no idea how yet."
Sazh laughs. "Yeah, I think we could both use a bit of sleep before tomorrow. Fang said that Oerba's just on the far side of this Tower." He attempts a crappy imitation of Fang's accent: "A quick jaunt."
Oerba. They've been walking forever to get there, and now that they're a few hours from reaching their destination, she wants to turn around and run. Nothing good can exist in Oerba. If they're just a few hours away, they should see signs of life. There should be sounds of human life on the breezes; there should be smells of machinery. There's always smoke where there is fire, after all. There should be something to indicate that everyone isn't dead. She knows that Fang and Vanille are bracing themselves for the worst-she can see it in their eyes and in the tense lines of their posture. "I have a bad feeling about what we're going to find."
"That makes two of us," Sazh says.
"Tomorrow's going to be a bad day."
"Like that's a change. Every day sucks these days, doesn't it?"
Lightning hums a noncommittal sound. She's not sure right now. Some days have been pure terror. Others have been hodgepodges, filled with laughter, and horror, warm smiles and agonizing wounds.
Filled with friends, and she's not sure she'd give those days up to spare herself the uncertain future.
"Let's go, Soldier. I need some sleep and there's nothing more that this Weeping Woman can tell us."
She lets Sazh pull her up from the floor as she stares at the crystal woman. Sazh holds her hand a second longer than necessary, squeezes it to redirect her attention, and gives her a small but genuine smile before dropping her hand and walking out of the room.
Lightning takes a quick glance around, feels sad and relieved at once because she knows that she will never return to this room. She says a silent farewell to the woman, and leaves her to her eerie, silent guardians. She whispers "Thank you" to the stone gods, and can almost feel the disapproval from earlier melt away.
Perhaps it's wishful thinking. She seems to have developed a knack for lying to herself.
TBC...
There are people who may disagree with my characterization of Lightning as a woman who is proud of her looks-You know who you are! :D I personally believe that Lightning is beautiful and strong, and that both traits can exist in a woman at the same time. I find the idea that a woman can't be taken seriously if she is proud of her beauty absurd. It's a dangerous trap we fall into-believing that the beautiful are frivolous, and that femininity must be subverted in order for a woman to be serious. I know women who are police officers and paramedics in some of the roughest neighborhoods in NYC (who have been held at gunpoint, shot at and assaulted), not to mention a friend is who is a soldier-all of whom are serious, strong. intelligent women AND who are beautiful and feminine. I decided to address the matter since I see Lightning's confidence as a result of being accepting of herself as both woman and soldier. Sorry if you disagree; you are certainly entitled to your opinions.