It had been almost a month since Celes had awoken to this strange, new world. It had been a month and still, the dream had not come to an end.

The world that she knew was shriveled, burnt, and dead. On her world, there was nothing more dangerous than sleeping alone at night. On her world, one always kept an eye on the sky and that great, terrible tower standing like a monument to destruction in the distance. But this was not her world. And her reality had still not returned to her.

Instead, this was a world of pristine towns and high technology. It was a world of complacent civilians who did not fear for their lives. It was a world, in other words, that Celes did not fit into. So she had strayed from it. If there was anything the incident in Provo had proven, it was that Celes could not trust herself in a world like this.

Celes had once been a general, and then a traitor, and then a freedom-fighter. Now she was a survivor. Any hope of finding her friends (or indeed, ever returning to where things made sense again) had long since failed her. All she could manage now was to survive.

The moon shone brightly that night above the cover of the trees. With the stars above her, it might have almost felt like home, but for the  hums of late-night crickets and shadows of silvery-green underbrush. The wind brought with it a kind of harsh chill, but her arms did not prickle. Compared to her own magic, the cold was nothing. Celes had grown used to ice.

It was as she passed by the river with her tent that she smelled it -- smoke. The smell curdled heavy in her stomach. Smoke meant fire and fire meant...

Honestly, Celes wanted to say "Kefka," but she had the feeling that that wasn't right here.

With a hand on her sword, Celes crept towards the smell. In all likelihood, fire meant people, but she hadn't had the best luck with that lately. Would it prove to be another wayward idiot like that Douken? Or would it be another soldier sent to harass or attack her? Then of course there was always the first possibility, but she found that option unlikely. If Kefka had appeared on this strange not-world, then there wouldn't be much wood still left to burn.

First there was light. Then there was heat. As Celes came closer, she crept further in the darkness of the underbrush like a monster lying in wait. Before her was a clearing and inside that clearing, there was fire. Celes ducked behind a tall oak tree and pressed herself against it. The brambles caught at her cape, but she was careful not to crack the dried bark beneath her. As she peered around the corner, she caught a glimpse of a feminine figure. It was a small woman in a short, strapless dress. Her cape wrapped around her to mingle with beads and silken scarves. As the woman turned to face her, Celes almost thought she saw...

"Terra?" The word left her before she could stop herself. There, in the shadows of firelight, Celes could have sworn she saw her former friend, the half-esper Terra standing in the cold of night. There was her pointed face, her long sleeves, and ribbon tied hair. "Terra, is that...?" Celes stepped forward and felt her boot catch on the thorny vines beneath her. Branches cracked and she pitched forward, stumbling into the clearing with her hair in shambles and a hand on her sword. "Ah! Son of a-!"

As she straightened, she turned to appraise the woman beside the firelight. Yes, there was no mistaking it. This was Terra. Her Terra. The Terra she'd known since her days in the Empire and the Terra which had met her upon her first introduction to the Returners. Though she and Celes had never overly talked (Celes had preferred to spend her time among the men, particularly Edgar, Setzer, and Locke), the sight of someone real was enough to flood her in hot relief. 

"You're here," Celes said, "It's really you."

Celes didn't know what to say then. Between her fears for her own sanity, her foggy memories, her altercations in Provo, and the general loneliness of it all, Celes simply felt too much. As it threatened to overcome her, Celes could only turn slightly away, place a hand against her mouth, and mutter, "Thank god."


OOC: ((Not my best post, but oh well. xD Eh, I'm not great at inner narration. *pokes beginning* But it gets the job done.))

"By god, it is you. I am no.. longer alone out here…” The words came quiet, trembling. Celes thought to ask if her former-friend was alright when suddenly arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Celes stiffened at the touch and suppressed the urge to grab for her sword. Terra kept her pinned there for some time as the crickets chirped about them and the fire crackled at their side. Terra's shoulders jerked violently and then Celes felt something wet on her shoulder, close to her neck. Celes bit her tongue and patted Terra's back awkwardly.

"Ah, yes. It's me," she said because she couldn't think of anything else. Not a moment before, Celes might have grabbed the woman as a sign of her own relief (that was assuming that she'd lost all dignity). But now that Terra had her and didn't seem keen on letting go, Celes hadn't the slightest idea what to do. Emotional interaction hadn't exactly been on her childhood schedule between weapons practice, military drills, and periodic trips to the Gestahlian laboratories. After Kefka, there weren't exactly many in the mood for hugs.

When Terra finally ended the emotional torment, she at least seemed embarrassed about it. “I am so sorry for that Celes. It-It just has been a trying week since I appeared here."

"A week?" Celes echoed. So Terra had only been stranded here for a week compared to Celes' near month of solitude. That was assuming, of course, that Terra was not some magic-induced hallucination of her own diseased mind. Celes placed her odds at about fifty-fifty.

"I-I just have no idea how I got here. I was outside of Mobliz as I heard the howls of some of the wild Lobo’s… And suddenly I was here after being attacked…”

Well, that certainly sounded like Terra. But when was the last that Celes remembered her? Celes couldn't be sure, but the last she knew she remembered had been sometime aboard the Falcon. Terra had promised to leave Mobliz behind.

"Oh. Well. I woke up here -- in this forest, actually -- about a month ago, I think. I'm still not sure I haven't gone insane." She gave Terra a wry smile. That theory was old to her now -- less terrifying and more of a bitter joke between herself and her subconscious. "None of this should be real. There shouldn't be trees or people or...have you spoken to anyone, Terra? No one here has heard of the Empire or...or Kefka." She spat the last word as though she couldn't wait to rid it of her tongue. "I've either gone insane, or this is something of a different world. It sounds crazy, but..."

And here she was, rambling again. It wasn't like her, or at least it hadn't been. Before this. Before reality had shifted. Now she'd spent too long alone. Celes didn't do well alone. 

"Anyway. I'm glad to see you," Celes ended stiffly. "Wherever this is."

"A month? It was longer than that monk said."

Celes frowned. Monk? She'd only heard that title once before, and the connotation hadn't exactly been positive. She tried to insert herself into the conversation with a short "I'm sorry, who-?" but Terra was talking faster than she could interrupt. The girl didn't want to be stopped, it seemed, and Celes was not in the kind of mood to reign her in. 

"I cannot believe you have been here an entire month. It has been too long, then, to not have anyone at your side. I wish I could have been here with you. What about anyone else? Have you run into anyone else from the group? And I doubt you have gone insane. Because if you have, then I have joined you inside of this delusion."

Celes could only stare. She hadn't heard anyone speak so much in a very long time.

"Ah, no. You're the first," Celes said slowly. "Quite honestly, I thought that whatever had happened had only happened to me. Though I have met others. They speak of places different from this."

As for the group insanity, Celes didn't bother to comment. Whether she was hallucinating or not, Celes found that she didn't much care anymore. If she had gone so insane, then there was no going back at this point anyway. She mostly kept it as a piece of dark humor to bitterly mock whenever she felt too overwhelmed.

Mostly. 

"I think that you may be right. This is like the World of the Espers, only it is not the same."

Celes blinked. Terra had placed the whole situation in a perspective that, for the first time, made sense. Could this place be like the Esper World? A gated off other dimension that she had somehow slipped into without realizing it? The thought gave her hope (though she lost it the moment she remembered that the Esper World had been gated off for a reason -- how was she going to get home now?), and she would have very much liked to discuss the ramifications of such an idea if the girl had not run away with her own tangent before Celes had the chance.

Celes was beginning to remember why she'd never much liked talking with Terra.

"Magic flows so freely here. It feels strange to finally have magic back -- after we killed the clown and fell the god. Losing all my magic hurt, I have to say. I barely hung on to the world as I lost that half of myself. Yet you were there and helped me back to my feet and dusted me off. Right there, on the deck of the Falcon as we soared in the sky, that seemed to even be repairing itself only a little while we flew..."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Speaking with Terra was like speaking with anyone else from this strange world. Though the words made sense, Celes couldn't understand a single other sentiment coming out of the girl's mouth. "To finally have magic back?" "After we killed the clown?" "Lost that half of myself?"

Celes didn't know what to make of it, and she told her so.

"Terra, slow down. You're not making sense." Perhaps it was the girl's excitement that caused her to babble into blithering delusion? Or perhaps the process of shifting dimensional spaces had done a number on the poor girl's head?

Or perhaps Celes' own hallucinations weren't the most coherent. That was always an option.

"Yes. Please, let's just sit." Celes felt a tension building at her right temple and touched it soothingly. "Here. Just, right here." Celes made her way towards the fire (she appreciated not having to make one from scratch -- she had lost all of her fire magicite, after all), and sat beside it over the dirt and splayed grass. The smoke kept the insects at bay, and she welcomed it.

"Terra, it's good to see you. It really is, but I don't know what's going on anymore than I know what became of home." Home. It was such a silly word for the wasted world she'd left behind. But there was no other world for it, at least not for now. "So please, slow down? I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about."

There by the flickering firelight, it felt almost like home -- but it was the home that she had almost forgotten. How many times had she and the returners pitched their camp by firelight in some secluded, monster-infested wood? Perhaps Celes hadn't done it so much as the others (Kefka had made certain of that when they'd captured her in Vector), but the sentiment still felt familiar. On nights like these, the flames seemed to have a mind of their own -- crackling and jumping as though alive. She would have liked to have watched it, to have listened to the sounds of the forest, and to let its warmth seep deeply into her chilled muscles. 

But that was not an option this time. Because this time, Terra decided to speak nonsense.

“Yes, we killed him Celes. We took him down from on high and cast him off his tower to his death. There was no magic to save his life as his tower collapsed back onto the plains below. The Light of Judgement is now forever silent and the Warring Triad shattered. We did it at the cost of all magic in our world. It all vanished, piece by piece and bit by bit. First it was the Magicite we all carried to help. Then even I felt it drain. The draining of my Esper half hurt like a pain I cannot describe. I was lucky that Setzer was there to catch me and that you and Locke were there to help me get back on my own feet.”

This time, Celes had nothing to interrupt her with. For what could she say, really? She responded with only a deep furrow of her eyebrow, mouth slightly aghast, as she gave Terra a simple look which expressed what she herself could not.

"Terra, what in the world are you-?" But no. Words failed her. After all of this time, worrying and wishing to not be alone, and this was what greeted her. A bunch of nonsense and lies. Celes touched her forehead and tried to quell the pain there. It was all ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. She could have laughed if her throat had still felt like cooperating.

"This is..." Insane, she wanted to say, but didn't. Was this all just a product of her imagination? With everything she'd been through, she wouldn't doubt it. The trauma. The confusion. The magic in her blood. Celes felt normal, but that wasn't a safe-guard from insanity.

Kefka had once been normal too. The same magic flowed through both of their veins.

“I am sorry I just.. unloaded onto you like that Celes. It is just good to see someone that actually can relate to what I know of.“

But Celes couldn't relate. Not at all. This whole thing was insane and it made the fog in her head pound. What was it that she saw from beyond the maelstrom? Images. Shapes. Vague feelings of dread. She didn't want to pick them out, so she didn't. What would she remember if she lifted the veil? Perhaps this reality was not what it seemed.

“C…Can I ask what the last thing you remember was?”

Celes tilted her head to look at the girl from beyond the shade of her hands. Terra still sat there, dwarfed by her own pauldrons, cape, and the curls of her hair. So small, she looked as though the night might take her and devour her whole. Then there were those eyes -- concerned. Uncertain. Celes rubbed at her temples and bit back pain.

"I was on the Falcon." There was no emotion in her voice -- only a dull sense of exhaustion. "We'd just found Locke. He'd been looking for some way to save Rachael. But he failed." The fire crackled as the last log broke into embers. They would need to replace it soon. "We talked about going to that Tower. Locke said he might as well. He didn't have anything left to lose."

She'd watched him waiting by that girl's side. The grief in his eyes had been like a physical pain. Would he ever look at her like that? But no. That was unfair.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Terra. Because I don't recall having much left to lose either."