Matt told her about the contents of some madwoman’s journal before ripping a page out and standing. She’d been right then. This entire pitstop had been a complete waste of time.

But he was done at least, and she’d indulged his delusions long enough. She eyed the tunnels again, trying to figure out which ones would lead them out of here and which ones would only lead them in circles. It was impossible to guess, but she’d choose the one without the fork if she had to. Countless months of experience with these kinds of places told her it might lead to an entrance.

Matt offered to beat monsters with his staff, but Celes just smirked and shook her head. ”Leave that to me,” she said. ”Though I appreciate the offer.” It was something, she supposed. Just the will to act rather than be entirely taken care of. The longer she was forced to stay beside him the more she disliked him immensely, but there were a few qualities here and there that she could appreciate. She tried to focus on those to avoid snapping at him.


"I follow your lead, but I suggest we head upwards. Who knows what lies in the heart of this mountain? I don't care to find out, do you?"

”Not really.” It felt odd to agree with him. They’d both even decided on the same path. ”I’ve gone through tunnels like this before -- and in the middle of an icy mountain range no less. Stay behind me and try not to get in the way if we’re attacked. If you get hurt, I can heal you, but I’d rather conserve my magic for fighting if I can.” And for giving them light. And warmth. Really, exhausting her magic would mean death for both of them. ”Try to keep up.”

Her back straightened as she started forward and her voice carried with it a stern edge. Now that there was a battle to be one and a sword in her hand, there wasn’t any room left in her for self-doubt. She slipped into her old general’s confidence with an almost alarming ease. This was where she felt the most comfortable, not with conversations or arguments, but trekking through a dangerous mountain pass on guard for hideous monsters. Her hand never left the hilt of her sword.

And it didn’t have to. Past that opening cave, the place was crawling with all kinds of snarling beasts. She struck down bat-like creatures with single, protruding eyes, skeletal beasts which looked almost human, and strange reptilian creatures with sharpened horns. More than any of that, however, were the wolves. They came primarily in white with glassy eyes and tails that bristled wildly, but they were at least twice the size of any she’d seen before with bulging muscles criss-crossed in broken scar tissue. None of them were particularly dangerous to her, but their persistence was like a gauntlet for her magic, stamina, and patience. She found herself wondering where they’d all come from and if they’d managed to coexist peacefully before she’d stumbled into their lair.

It became a regular pattern. Strike down a few monsters, take ten steps of peace, and then be assaulted by another group so suddenly that it came like the shrill of a musician’s strings. Celes was more than used to it.

The journey didn’t offer much of interest. The tunnels were of the same general make, all gray, damp, and dreary. Sometimes the path would fork into two, but the second fork never lasted long and almost always ended in another carefully placed trunk with gil or a potion inside -- exactly what she’d expect to find in a remote mountain cave system. It was so mundane that her mind started to wander as she struck down her fifteenth deformed bat of the day. She felt as though her limbs were on auto-pilot -- attack, attack, use a potion, attack -- until everything in front of her was dead. For the longest time, she simply moved forward without much thought, tactics, or care.

At least, not until she heard the roar.

It came like thunder through the open chasms, reverberating off of empty stone walls. Celes stiffened and waited for it, eyes searching the darkness. She didn’t notice the hole in the ceiling until there was a whistling sound above her and she dodged back, grabbing at the back of Matt’s robe just in time to drag them out from under its shadow. The cave trembled as the thing before them landed -- a twisted mass of muscles and thick white fur. Celes raised her sword and pushed the man back as it straightened itself to its full height.

It was a yeti. Seven feet tall. At least four times her weight. An angry red burn twisted the left side of its face. The same one from before. Had it followed her here?

”Stay back.” She didn’t bother to look at Matt, but trusted that he’d at least try to stay out of the way. She sidestepped until she stood between them, sword raised and magic ready.

When she’d fought Umaro, it had been four of them against him. Even then, he’d looked smaller than the yeti before her now and at least ten times less angry. Could she do this by herself?

It didn’t matter. She’d either manage it or die.

The yeti spread its arms out and roared its fury. And then it charged.

The battle was tense and unrelenting. The yeti attacked with every ounce of its rage, all screaming, pummelling fury. Celes could barely lift her sword against him, too concerned with dodging and blocking to strike it often and when she did, her sword barely seemed to bother it. Even as the blood stained its fur in red, it still refused to recoil and give her space to breathe. Spells were beyond her when they needed at least a few seconds to recite. There was only her, the yeti, and her sword and if that creature struck her head-on…

The first time had been enough to dislocate her shoulder. What could it do now that the beast was enraged?

She played defensively, nearly dancing around the beast to try to catch an opening that would never come. Perhaps that was her downfall in retrospect . She’d been too safe -- took too long. She’d failed in some fundamental way to keep the beast’s interest, and so as she slipped to the side once again to avoid the yeti’s grasp, its eyes caught instead on the man behind her. It lunged.

Celes moved before the thought had fully landed, throwing herself forward and thrusting her sword down through the beast’s outstretched arm until she saw metal glint through the other side. The yeti screamed, but she just clung tighter to its fur, pulling the sword from its fleshy sheathe and bringing fire to her hands. It flared into the beast’s yowling face and burned so hot that its fur was quickly overtaken. It swung at her again and this time it didn’t miss. The blow was like a freight train. She flew nearly three feet back until the stone wall connected hard with her back and she felt her legs collapse beneath her.

The ground was sharp against her cheek. Celes thrust herself onto her elbows and brought her hands together, muttering words of power under her breath like a mantra. She beast was too distracted to notice her and too far away to stop her if it had. In seconds, there was a crack like an airship ignition and then flames engulfed the yeti like an inferno. She launched another firaga spell for good measure until their tunnel was ripe with the stench of burning fur and she heard the creature’s scrambling footsteps -- its howl growing fainter by the moment.

Eventually, the sounds were nothing but echoes in a far-off cave. Celes let out a breath and felt her arms give out beneath her. The ground was like ice against her battered body.

”I need…” she started but the words wouldn’t come out right, and what was it she needed again? Her head was swimming. ”Locke…” Yes, he’d know what to do to bring her back to her feet. Something...Something...Anyone would have helped her if she hadn’t been fighting alone. ”Someone…”

ulla

It quickly became apparent that Celes had misjudged the man behind her. He wasn’t an egotistical nobleman too caught up in his own desires to consider anyone but himself. No, he was far worse.

He called his world by the name of his kingdom. He spat out the names of other nations like they were poison on his tongue. He called himself an emperor from “a lineage proud and bold and as old as the earth itself.” Celes had known his type before. She’d nearly been killed by his type before, and she’d watched imperial ambitions burn the world to dust. To say she found it distasteful was an understatement. Disgusting would have been a far more accurate word.

He went on about his experience defending himself from traitors, and Celes could only give a wry smirk into the darkness. ’Good luck with that.’ It certainly hadn’t done Geystahl any good -- not from her or Kefka. But she supposed this man had already shown more restraint than Geystahl ever had. Hadn’t Matt already questioned the sanity of a leader to give anyone the power of magic? And apparently he had once learned the power of magic for himself anyway.

Not that it did him much good here. From his answers, Celes could only conclude that he was exactly as she’d assumed him to be -- completely and utterly useless.

"Now that you've heard my tale,” Matt continued after finishing his diatribe on the finer points of leadership. ”Perhaps, I could listen to yours." He made it sound like a generous offer -- a rare and significant opportunity for her. Celes glanced back at him but couldn’t see much more than shadows and a touch of messy blonde hair.

”If you want to hear it,” she said and then winced as her hand scraped a particularly jagged slab of stone. She could already feel her thumb wet with blood. ”Like I said, I used to be a general. I was raised into it, actually, by the Geystahlian Empire.” She let the name burn from her tongue with all of the bitterness she felt for it. ”I used to believe everything they said about us. How we’d unite the world and bring our power to all of the lesser kingdoms, but then I spoke out against the slaughter of civilians and the Emperor tried to have me killed for it.” She laughed dryly, a single hmph that carried every inch of disdain she felt for the whole situation.

”So that was enough of that.”

Part of her wondered what the self-proclaimed emperor would think of that, but another part of her (a much larger part) didn’t care in the slightest. He’d make whatever he would of it, and if she’d somehow affronted him then all the better.

”I don’t have anything against royalty, you know.” She didn’t know why she kept talking after that. Maybe she just hated the silence in this miserable tunnel. Maybe he’d struck a chord with her. ”Back home, I had a…” She searched for the word. Ally? Accomplice? ”...Friend who was the king of a place called Figaro. He was a strong-willed man who never let any of it get to his head. Or...Well, not as much as he could have. He cared about his people more than anything. Even when everything was lost, he would have done anything for them. He never made it about himself. It was just...a burden for him. Something he did for their sake.”

”But you’re not like that, are you?” She was talking more to herself now than anything. It was everything she wished she could have said then and more. Why had she let them talk her into their schemes? ”I don’t know you, and I won’t pretend that you care what I think. But my world was driven to ruin because someone like you wanted everything, and then he died for all the good it did him. Power only breeds war. It’s something we’d all be better off without.”

It was like the words themselves carried a certain magic to them. One minute Celes was deep in conversation, and the moment she’d finished the last word, her hand slipped as the tunnel suddenly dropped out from under her, and she was sent toppling forward.

She muffled a cry of surprise as her arms scrabbled against rock and she landed in a heap about two feet from the tunnel’s exit. She took in a sharp breath to steady herself and then took stock of her condition -- some scrapes, some bruises, nothing broken, and completely in the dark. She cursed under her breath before carefully untangling herself from the rocky overhang.

”There’s a drop,” she told him in case he hadn’t inferred that by now. Then she raised her hand and brought fire to it again. They’d been brought to a small cavern deep in the mountains with a ceiling so vast that her light couldn’t reach it. Still, it was a narrow enough cavern with only a few points of interest in sight -- namely a rocky ledge with a trunk and several odd symbols painted on the wall. Celes stood and dusted off her clothing before turning to Matt. ”It looks safe enough,” she said. ”Just watch your landing.”

ulla

’How desperate am I?’ The thought struck her as she laid vulnerable in the hands of a man she could most generously call “seething with conceited ill-will.” Was she really going to trust him with her well-being, even if only for a moment? Celes opened her mouth to object -- to tell her she’d changed her mind and that she’d manage on her own, when he knelt beside her.

”When one leads an army, you find you learn how the body ticks, and moves, and most importantly, is broken. If you're ready?"

”What?” Celes’ eyes darted to him, eyebrows furrowed. ”’Leads an army?’” But this wasn’t the time for that, was it? She’d sort out exactly who he was when she could move her arm again. ”Oh, fine. Do it.”

She braced herself for what she knew was about to happen, teeth grit, jaw set. The man -- what was his name again? Matt? -- showed her his hands and then grabbed at her elbow. She let out a long breath and watched the ceiling, suddenly far too aware of her heartbeats, of the churning of her stomach, of the thick silence between them. She slammed her eyes closed, waiting, dreading.

And then he pulled.

It wasn’t the worst pain she’d ever felt, but at that moment, it was hard to remember that. It shot through her shoulder in bullets as he twisted her arm like a cinch. She didn’t cry out -- she didn’t -- but only because her jaw was too clenched to let any sound go unmuffled. Her other hand tightened with the pressure, and she fought the urge to punch him and stop the pain, but just as quickly as it started, she heard a sudden crack and the worst of it was over. Celes let out a groan of relief and let her neck fall slack. The pain still came over her in waves, but it was better. So much better than it had been before. She hardly noticed the man straighten himself and move away from her as she breathed slowly, savoring every second.

"Now then. I'd say I've done you quite a number of favors thus far."

Celes made a pained noise. One. He’d one her one favor, but she wasn’t in the mood to correct him. Not when her breaths still came so labored and she still winced every time she moved. Celes braced herself before pushing herself upright, frowning as her hand met resistance. She looked down to see that it had frozen to the couch, immobile and still oozing with magic. Celes pursed her lips and tried to pull it away, but it wouldn’t budge. Had she done it in her haze to keep herself from hitting the man or was it simply a case of rogue magic? Either way, it was inconvenient at best.

"If you've come to your senses, I but have one question to bother you with, now that we've come to help each other so."

Celes eyed him carefully as she sat up straighter, trying to melt her fingers with a fire spell without catching his attention. She’d managed to thaw half her hand with only a slight scorch across the couch’s surface to show for it.

"If what you say is true, your prowess in magic to be exact, were you forced to recommit to your training of it upon entering this land? Or, does your power derive from your own innate talent?" The man stood with his back to her, watching the fire. Celes considered her options before shaking her head.

”Neither, really,” she started as the man turned and started pacing to the window. ”I wasn’t born with it, but I’ve-”

CRACK.

The man let out a cry as he was suddenly sent toppling forward, face-planting into the floor and skidding spectacularly with the momentum. Celes stared at him, mouth open, still halfway through a word as she processed the man, tangled up in a heap with his hair splayed out over him like water. ”Oh.” It was all she could get out as she watched the man hurriedly try to collect himself. It was just about the least dignified thing she’d ever seen.

And he’d deserved every second of it.

His face was a blazing red as he straightened. Embarrassed. Celes had wondered if he was capable of it, but that seemed to do the trick. He turned away from her quickly and studied the point where he’d fallen. ”Oh what have we here?" he mused with the same lofty air as before. "Maybe a better storage of rations, so we might dine like our ranks should not have to deign too." Celes paused. She didn’t know what to make of that from his tone (had he already forgotten completely wiping out half-naked in front of her?) to whatever he thought “their ranks” should deign to do. Instead, she chose to correct him as simply as she could.

”Ex-ranks, actually. I’m not exactly a general anymore and I doubt you’re...Well. You’re here now, aren’t you?” That was the most delicately she could possibly phrase it, and she wondered if it was enough even then. Maybe not, but then, she didn’t need to make friends so long as they both made it through the night without killing each other.

The man touched at the floor before something must have changed his mind because he pulled back just as quickly. ”Perhaps when your strength has returned, you'll help find the answers lying in our mysterious hollow?" The words came rushed off his tongue as he quickly pulled away and settled himself in front of the fire again. Celes just stared at him before slowly raising an eyebrow.

”Did you touch a spider or something?” she asked, careful not to tell him what exactly she’d think of a man who couldn’t deal with that himself, but all too aware that her tone dripped with the implication. She let out a long breath through her teeth to steady herself before finally standing from the couch. Thankfully, her magic had already melted away.

”Alright. Let me look.” She approached the point he’d been expecting and kneeled down heavily beside it. It was just a normal slab of wood except that his foot had cracked it down one side. It sat there off-kilter, a little uneven. She gave it a skeptical look before prying at its loose side.

It budged almost immediately. It was a little difficult with only her one good arm, but with a few repositions of her grip and some extra effort, she managed to get it up before long. She didn’t even know why she was bothering -- what did she really expect to find? -- but she thought she might as well prove a point. Even injured she could manage what he’d shied away from. With the board up, she set it aside and looked at him pointedly. ”Were you looking for anything in particular or just trying to dismantle the house?” She looked into the hole, but it was too dark to really make anything out. With a sigh, she muttered a spell and brought a small flame to her fingers. It cast a ghostly shadow on the crawl-space beneath. It was exactly as pleasant as she’d imagined it would be.

”Well, if you didn’t see a bug before then you will now.” Celes spied the scurrying shadows beneath her distastefully. The blizzard had come on rapidly enough that they must have scuttled underneath the cabin for warmth. As much as she hated them, she could at least relate to that. ”There’s nothing but pests and cobwebs under here. It’s filthy.” Celes glanced at the man by the fire and smirked at the thought of him getting anywhere near this kind of dirt. She was about to pull away from it when something glinted off of her firelight, just a little beyond her vision. Celes paused, leaning into the hole she’d made to peer at it. She couldn’t tell what it was, but another pulse of fire lit up the entire crawlspace. It was horrible with all of its dust and debris and the rotting remains of whatever all had died under it. On all three sides there was nothing but wooden foundation, but then on the fourth...darkness. Celes blinked and then frowned. ”It goes somewhere.”

She pulled herself out and looked at the other man. Her cheeks were already chilly from her time away from the fire. ”There’s something there,” she said. ”A tunnel I think. Into the mountain.” She paused, glancing at the door for a moment before taking a breath. ”It’s something. Maybe it doesn’t go anywhere, but if I try to melt that snow tomorrow, it could very well collapse again. We’re at a loss either way.” Celes glanced into the hole again before squaring off to face him, arms crossed.

”Well? What’ll it be? A freezing tunnel covered in spiders and cobwebs or who knows how long trapped in here with me?”

ulla

"As a matter of fact, I have, miss Branford in a little beach town where I washed up.” Celes straightened, looking at him. - Terra. Then she hadn’t imagined it? Or at the very least this was all a part of the same delusion. He didn’t give her long to contemplate it. Not when he had his own thoughts to contemplate, but Celes bit her tongue from that information. She didn’t know what to think of Terra -- something between guilt and hope, she thought. But then, what was really new?

”As much as I'd love to see everyone again, I don't see any reason to assume the others are here as well,” Edgar continued. ”Surely you'd have heard if Setzer was about if he were anywhere near here, and I'm certain Locke would be scouring the country looking for you if he were here.”

”Maybe.” It was all Celes could add. Maybe they were here. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe none of this was even real but she found that harder to believe by the day. Maybe Setzer would have been dramatic, but then -- he hadn’t been when she’d found him last, had he? Just miserable and drinking himself to death in a musty bar. And Locke…

Well. He certainly hadn’t been concerned with finding her before. Her lips pursed at the thought of him -- Locke -- the one she cared most about off on some quest or another without even giving her a thought. Of course, there wasn’t really a reason he shouldn’t. It wasn’t as though they were a couple or something. And she certainly wasn’t Rachel.

Edgar was less concerned with the “who” than the “why,” it seemed. Not so much with who they could find than with what they could discover. As he went on about the ruins and magic and his own theories, it was all so very Edgar that Celes couldn’t help look at him at least a little fondly. She’d always suspected his mind was made more of machine cogs than flesh, at least when he got like this. So caught up in some problem or another. Invigorated by the very act of solving it.

”Hah, but I suppose it can't be any more difficult than what we've faced already!” Edgar went on with a surge of renewed optimism. ”Between the war and the jester I'd say we should be more than equipped to handle whatever this world has in store for us!” Celes glanced at him, frowning at first. That was an odd way to phrase it, what with how everything turned out, but she guessed she couldn’t really argue. They’d both managed to survive a lot worse than this, after all.

”I believe time must move differently here than it does in our world; by my reckoning it's only been a few months since I last saw you and Terra both, yet to you it's been years..."

”Months?!” Celes mouth fell open, gaping at him. ”Really?” Then they weren’t all here, dragged at the same time. It had Celes and Terra alone and now...Edgar. She stared at him without comprehension, the horror of it all slowly dawning on her. What had changed then? Why her? And why Edgar now? No wonder he was the same as she remembered! Hardly any time had passed! But still her gut churned with the question she always come back to -- the one that mattered most.

How was this even possible?

Maybe Edgar had noticed her alarm or maybe he just couldn’t drag his mind away from their initial meeting, but when he turned to her, his eyes were filled with the same concern from before. Celes gave him a sharp look before he could even start. ” "... and, aside from all of that, I'm still not convinced you're as fine as you say. I won't press you, Celes, you're as stubborn as I am, but if you have need of it you can talk to me. I won't even tell Locke if you ask nicely,” he said and then winked at her. It was that wink that most threw her off guard. It was the kind of thing that she didn’t know how to interpret it, and with all of the impulses fighting within her, she didn’t couldn’t decide whether to yell at him, ask him what he’d meant, or pretend nothing had happened.

Instead, she just groaned. ”Do you have to be like that?” Always so flippant. So charming, at least when he wasn’t going on about some invention or another. Still, he’d made an effort, hadn’t he? ’If you have need of it, you can talk to me.’ It was...nice, she supposed. Something friends did. The thought warmed her just a little, and she glanced at Edgar again before shaking her head.

”Somewhere else, maybe. Not now.” Celes crossed her arms and looked away. It wasn’t that this was the wrong place, exactly, but the wrong time. She needed to process this. To gather her thoughts. And she certainly didn’t plan to leave him now that they’d found each other again.

And after all that she’d seen, where would she even start?

”No one here’s heard of Kefka.” Celes frowned as soon as the words had left her mouth. It came so suddenly and unprompted that it had surprised even her, but maybe this was she needed. Yes, if she had to confide about anything, it would be this. The very thing haunting her mind since the start, and the one thing no one else here could ever understand. ”They’ve never had to live like that. No one here understands, and this place!” She gestured at the grass around them, at the trees and the people and the soft twittering of birds not so far away, and she laughed. A dry, humorless laugh that she’d grown quite accustomed to in the past three years. ”How is this even possible? You know what happened to the world. There shouldn’t be places like this. But there are. And cities -- real cities -- full of people and food and it’s just like-...!” Celes’ throat closed on the words, and her eyes darted towards the ground, unable to look at him. ”Like before.”

Of course, it wasn’t the same -- not really. She didn’t know these places. There wasn’t a Vector or a Figaro or a Narshe, but it was close enough in all the ways that mattered. In the fertile plants and the hopeful people. In the general sense of calm and the ease of everything. It didn’t make sense. None of it did.

”Do you think it’s real?” The words came quiet. Not weak, just quiet. She couldn’t manage them any louder, not this secret question burning in her for so long. ”It couldn’t be, could it? And in the forest...I could have sworn, I saw…” But no, that was too much. Celes touched at her lip, eyebrows furrowed at the thought of it. Of what she’d seen there. Of the world she’d left behind and that chilling laugh.

She shook her head. No, she wouldn’t let this be like her meeting with Terra all over again. She wouldn’t let it break her. ”It’s been a long time,” she said as though that would explain it. She shoved a handful of loose hair behind her ear. ”A lot of time to think.”

ulla