Time and Tides Archives

Pink sky by dawn - was that good or bad for sailors? One or the other. After a little consideration. Bartz decided he wasn't a sailor so he didn't care

And after he found himself somewhere completely different? He still didn't care. Because wherever he'd ended up, it was nice. Beautiful. He cared more about getting a better look at the flowers - would they press nicely? - than the idea of there being anyone else around.

Until, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a woman arming herself.

"Hey! Lady, you okay? There's nothing around here."

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A pink sky. For all Squall knew that could hardly bode well. He was fairly certain no one had actually summoned a Lunar Cry, but still it wasn't a good sign by any stretch of the imagination.

Finding himself abruptly in another place only made things worse. It couldn't be Time Compression again... could it? They'd gotten rid of Ultimecia. And yet... here he was in a place that he'd never seen before. A place he couldn't possibly have known, and yet here he was. Quite naturally, he started to reach for Lionheart.

Or at least, he did right up until he spotted a familiar face.

"Bartz?"

Had the cycle started up again?

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And just before she could hear and respond to Bartz, the memory closed around Fang. She straightened up from her fighting stance with a grin, not returning the spear to its holster but leaning on it as though it was a walking staff, squinting just a little in the light of the setting sun to see the figure approaching. "Vanille! Did you find anythin' out there?"

"You better believe it!" Vanille punctuated her statement with a giggle and a jab of her fist into the air, rising up on one foot at the same time - and nearly overbalancing and dropping all the fruit she was carrying. "Whoaaaa!"

Fang burst into laughter at that, setting her spear on the ground and starting forward, stepping around the ring of a campfire that hadn't yet been lit to take some of her burden from her as the younger woman regained her balance. "So that's why you insisted you didn't need the basket, then - you wanted more practice in trippin' and fallin'."

"I did not!" Vanille pouted as the two dropped the findings into a woven basket sitting under one tree, that could be picked up and strapped to their backs. "You know it's early! They shouldn't be putting out so much fruit right now!"

"Yeah, sure," Fang said with another grin, reaching up to ruffle the orange hair. Vanille continued to pout for another moment, then started to giggle herself as she couldn't stop her natural sunny personality finding the humor in the situation. "Come on, I took down a couple things, we can eat well tonight and take the rest of us back with us in the mornin'."

"Got it!" she cheered with another half-hop, following Fang back to their seats by the campfire to get it lit.

Edited Date: 2011-03-13 03:32 am (UTC)

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"Squall! Any clue what's going on here?" Bartz yelled, waving. Everyone but him was waving weapons around, he felt a little left out. "Wait. ...Vanille?" He had head the name before but couldn't quite recall who it belonged to. He certainly couldn't see its owner anywhere.

After a second or so of watching Fang act out the memory, he turned back to Squall.

"Is she...okay? Think we should get help?"

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Any clue? Why would he have any more idea then Bartz did. Yes, he had been in and out of the world more than once, if what he'd been told was any indication. But none of that mattered. He couldn't remember it even if he'd tried. He didn't really want to try, for that matter. So he simply shrugged at Bartz's question. He hadn't the slightest clue what was going around.

Fang's actions as she acted out her memory didn't help matters either.

"Where would we find any help?"

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At least Fang's memory didn't involve her yelling loudly, or running around like crazy or doing any number of other things. If her actions were any indication, it was an experience that any number of people both on and off Gaia were familiar with - outdoor camping, fending for yourself, including locating and taking down your own food. She and Vanille had done this any number of times before they became l'Cie; even after they were, this was frequently how their nights had ended, though with scenes much more tensed and worried. Right now, she was relaxed, more than even Light and Hope had ever seen her, and looked genuinely happy.

Fang set up a pair of small rabbit-like creatures to roast over the fire while Vanille sliced up some of the fruit; they started on that while they waited for the meat to cook. "Hey Fang," Vanille asked suddenly, before she took her first bite. "Do you think one day, maybe... we could take a journey?"

"Hmm? Where d'you want to go?"

"Anywhere!" the redhead responded, smiling. "I want to see everything we can! We have this whole world around us, and now we can go see it since we can take care of ourselves! There must be so much out there." Her tone was almost wistful as she looked up at the sky, hugging her knees to her chest. "So much we can't even imagine. I want to see it all!"

And Fang smiled, muffling a chuckle - when Vanille began acting like this, there was no denying her. And really, she didn't want to. "When we get back to Oerba, we can start planning it out, then."

"Really?!"

"Yeah. Really," she responded with a smile-

-that disappeared suddenly as the memory shattered and released her, leaving her sitting on the ground that was slowly blurring and dissolving around her, out of the familiar area of Oerba to a formless void.

"-That was three years ago!"

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"...what was three years ago? You okay? It doesn't look like-" He paused to look around at the vanishing world. "It really doesn't look like there's an easy way back."

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...Three years ago? What had been three years ago? More importantly, if it had been all that while ago why had they seen what bits of it they had now. It didn't make sense.

Except with time compression, he realized with what was a distinct sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was really not looking forward to that again.

"There never is."

Edited Date: 2011-03-16 12:55 am (UTC)

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"...You know something about this, then?" Fang asked Squall, narrowing her eyes at him a little in suspicion. She'd been let down and double-crossed by so many things in her life that it was, somewhat unfortunately, her instinctive reaction to hearing that someone knew something and wasn't precisely forthcoming with information.

"Better get explainin', or we might all be stuck in some prefabrication of scenes from our pasts for eternity."

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Bartz turned back to Squall, about to say something when the air was suddenly knocked out of his lungs and he collapsed to the ground. The world reformed around them, the inside of a hollow in a great tree with four crystals in the centre. After the world came people, an old man, a woman with pink hair and a man with long purple hair appeared by Bartz' side, all of them in a similar state. Before them towered an enormous man - no, an enormous presence in blue armour. The crystals pulsed with energy, holding them down and slowly crushing them.

They didn't dare move. The slightest movement would shatter the crystals that were being used to torture them and after losing the crystals of the first world, the second world's were worth more than their lives would ever be.

And so they waited to die.

But then there was another presence and the pain stopped. Bartz tried to push himself up but couldn't summon the energy, only managing to look up at their rescuer, a young girl with an expression that was a mess of terror and bravado.

"...he shouldn't be doing anything for a whi-" The sound of Exdeath's armour moving cut her attempts at reassurance short. A circle of fire surrounded her. "Oh-!"

"Impudent little fool!"

Krile started to say something but was cut off as the flames closed in. The pressure returned, forcing Bartz's head back against the ground but he could still hear the girl's screams and the sound of Exdeath slamming her against the walls.

And Galuf stood.

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"Not... this, exactly," Squall answered, mere moments before Bartz crumpled to floor under some unseen weight. "But time being turned into something it shouldn't be, yeah. Only... there's only one person who could do it and she's not here."

Well, technically two, if you counted Ellone, but hadn't she said she could only send people to the pasts of people she knew? Well, that and the fact that from what he could remember, her version of sending people to the past mostly involved putting their physical bodies to sleep.

This? Was far and away from that, at the very least.

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Fang would have asked about that one person, but Bartz went down - and her big sister instincts kicked in. With a quick dash, she'd slid to her knees next to his form, putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking him as if trying to wake him up.

"Hey! Whoever-you-are, what happened?"

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"So certain you want to keep moving, Galuf?" Exdeath's voice boomed. "Try to dispel this power and your precious crystals will shatter!"

Galuf didn't respond to Exdeath, attention only on his granddaughter. "Krile!"

Bratz couldn't see the crystal break. But he could feel it, feel the earth itself crying out in pain and dying. The second world's crystals might have been worth more than their own lives but they were nothing compared to Krile's.

With great effort, Bartz forced his head up to see. Krile lay on the ground, sobbing with pain as Galuf intercepted Exdeath's attack, a ring of flames tightening around him. Ignoring it completely, he gave a cry of rage and flung himself at Exdeath, striking the tree with everything he had. All the strength in his body, every spell he could muster.

Exdeath laughed.

"Now I'll show you my true power. Prepare yourself for the afterlife!"

Flare stuck the old man first. Holy next. Then Meteor. And Galuf still stood.

"Why- why won't you die!?" Exdeath almost sounded afraid.

"Takes a lot more than that... for me to kick the bucket." Galuf answered, amost coughing out the words. "I'll destroy you, Exdeath. Even if I have to take you into the afterlife myself!"

"Fool! All the hatred in the world would never be enough to defeat me!"

"This...isn't anger." Galuf said, trying to muster one last spell. "...isn't hatred. It's-"

And then it faded. Exdeath, Galuf, Krile, the tree, the crushing pressure of Exdeath's magic, all of it. Bartz remained still for a few more seconds before realizing he was being shaken and pushing himself up.

"...huh? What just- what?"

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"You collapsed," Squall answered simply, as if that alone was enough to answer the question at hand. There'd been more to it then simply that, and at least one of the people he'd seen had been familiar (and there was a small voice in the back of his head that was wondering how he could possibly have seen Exdeath) but it didn't make any sense. How could he have seen action surrounding Bartz but not around the third of their party? Did it mean anything?

And, most importantly, where on earth where they, to even make something like this happen?

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