"Celes to me. Those events happened months ago."

Months ago. Exactly as she'd described. Saving Locke. Rachel. Then a plan that Celes had no recollection of. Figaro was failing. Well, that came as no surprise, at least. Terra hadn't seen it, but Celes still remembered how she'd found Edgar trying to regain access to that hidden city. It had been trapped under the desert for months before they found it. She was surprised there was still anyone there to meet them. 


"You led one group and I another. We fought through the tower and then defeated him… Wait could…” But whatever Terra had been about to say, it left her as quickly as sand swept across the desert. What Terra said sounded plausible. Celes certainly would lead a group up that damned Tower. For ages, she'd wanted to confront him. She'd wanted to end the destruction that she'd had a hand in creating (Blood, oozing out over the blade of her sword. The resistance of flesh and the rip of brightly colored silks. Then madness). It didn't matter if they had a chance against him. She'd just wanted it to end -- one way or the other. 

But she hadn't made it that far. Now she was here, and Terra was speaking insanity.

Terra grabbed one of the remaining logs and tossed it onto the flames. It crashed into the embers with a puff of smoke and ash. 


“Celes, what if this place is like the World of the Espers except for one fact. What if it pulls us in at random intervals? Instead of one point, it could have pulled me in from after the fall and you from before the fall?”

Celes paused. For the first time, something made sense. It still sounded insane, but compared to her other options...

You think that we were both called to this other...this other world, then?" It was still hard to say without derision, and she didn't try to keep it from her voice. Celes had never been one to blindly accept ridiculous notions. "And you think we might have been split by, what? Time?" Maybe it didn't make as much sense as she'd thought. She felt suddenly tired. "I don't know, Terra. This is all just..."

Maybe it would be better to leave now, before she could confuse herself any longer. Celes had already lost much of the relief that came with meeting someone familiar. 

Perhaps she would work better alone.

"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."

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.))

Despite the uncomfortable topic, Celes had found conversation with Ruby far more pleasant than she would have expected. It was true that Celes was desperate at the moment, and that a single friendly face was more than appreciated after she'd gotten herself into such trouble. However, Celes thought it might have been more than that. It was nice, she thought, to be able to talk to someone about her thoughts and concerns. Celes had never had many allies to share such things with, and none of them had been women. Even after leaving the Empire, the only other woman in their group was Terra and, well, there hadn't been much time to converse between Terra's esper transformations and Celes' capture and subsequent re-implementation into the Empire. After Kefka's ascension, Terra had become even more reserved and talked mostly about the children of Maranda. Celes had spent most of her time on the Falcon playing cards with Setzer, Edgar, and Locke. Between it all, Celes had never really socialized with other women, and despite the circumstances, she found this odd chance a little refreshing.

But that was a silly sentiment meant for school girls, bar maids, and house wives. She shoved it aside as quickly as it had come. There were more important matters to attend to than a half-dead social life, after all, and Ruby was quick to tell her so. 

The woman suggested that Celes use her time to clean up in the bathroom while waiting for the soldiers to pass.  "Ain’t gonna do you any good to stay here longer than necessary, what with the soldiers combing the streets, dig?” Celes didn't quite know what that meant, but she got the general idea. It would be best that Celes leave Provo, and quickly. She had thought the same after she had started her altercations with the city guards. This didn't overly bother Celes. Celes would do better beyond civilization. Compared to the wastes that she was used to, surviving in these wilds would prove almost easy. 

Still, she couldn't deny the opportunity for a bath when it presented itself. Celes nodded at the woman's words and slowly stood. "You're right. It's best that we not waste time." Celes gathered her discarded bracers from the bed and started towards the bathroom. She paused with one hand on the door-frame. "Thanks again," she said before disappearing inside. She really couldn't say it enough. If that woman hadn't decided so arbitrarily to help her, Celes would have...

Well, there had been only two options, hadn't there? Would she have stood and fought the next wave of enemies, or would she have...not? It was an impossible question to answer, so far away and removed from trouble, yet she could not rid herself of it. Cornered and alone, what would she have chosen if left to her own devices?

Celes fumbled with the room's many knobs and dials of this technology that was very different than from what she knew. She unzipped weathered boots, removed the straps from chipped pauldrons, and slid off the circlet which held back tangled locks of blonde hair. It had been some time since Celes had last seen a mirror, and she paused in front of it now. She remembered when her face had been fuller, when her hair had been glamorous, and when she had drawn the eye of every Imperial soldier -- whether she wanted to or not. Yes, she had once been the beautiful, unapproachable General Celes Chere -- a woman as stunning as she was capable. Celes hadn't noticed when she was surrounded by worse misery than her own, but she looked tired now and almost wild. Celes soaked her body in warm water. She let it wash over tired muscles, ratted hair, and the stains of blood. Her thoughts muddled with the scent of lilacs and shampoo.

Celes had never told her friends what had happened on the island cliff-side. Back then, she had found herself alone. She remembered the trembling of the Earth, the shattering of the Floating Continent, and then the fall. Celes had never been one for needless socialization, yet at the end of the world, it was loneliness which had nearly destroyed her. She thought that she had moved past that. She thought she had found something worth living for. Yet here she was, alone again, and she couldn't help but wonder...

When Celes emerged from the bathroom, her hands were clean of blood. Her hair shone with the softening touch of conditioner. She checked the window, but no longer heard the tell-tale sounds of sirens. The soldiers had left this area, and it was time to go. "Ruby?" Celes called, scanning the now empty room. She approached the door and edged it open. "Are you there?"