Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Path of Seduction ❯ Chapter Fourteen ( Chapter 14 )

Path of Seduction

Chapter Fourteen

"Buge- Bugenhagen!" There was a loud rap on the door. "Bugenhagen! Open up and come outside!" The speaker was urgent and excited. Inside his slightly cluttered quarters, Elder Bugenhagen of Cosmo Canyon grinned and took his time activating his transport platform. It was not smart to get too excited about anything at his age. "Bugenhagen!" The voice grew more impatient. "Get off your leathery old behind and come outside!" That got the old man's attention.

"What's the fuss about, Bugah?" he asked as he swung the door open. "I'm an old man, you know." He waggled his eyebrows at his childhood friend. "I need my beauty sleep."

"No time for joking," Bugah exclaimed. "Nanaki's back! He came home!" This got the Chief Elder's attention at last.

"My little Nanaki? He's home?" The man's eyes grew wide and he flew out the door. Bugah had to step back out of the way. "Where is he? Where was he? How did he…oh, never mind that!" He raced down the stone corridors so quickly that the torches flickered as he passed.

Bugah could only follow as best he could once the initial shock had passed. He got outside just in time to see the other man almost get bowled over by a huge ball of red fur. Bugah stayed in the shadows of the stone tunnel and smiled. There was more he needed to talk to his friend about, but it could wait. Bugenhagen would see soon enough.

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It was hours later and completely dark when Bugenhagen finally sought out his fellow Elders and friends. Bugah and Hargo were painstakingly transcribing old texts onto fresh paper by torchlight when they heard the hum of the Chief Elder's transport platform. They turned to see the bright light of a torch moving up the tunnel towards the small study. Bugah had to smile when he saw his old friend. The Elder looked years younger. Nanaki's disappearance had weighed heavily on the man.

"So the little furball's okay, right?" Hargo smiled. Bugenhagen returned it, though there was some heaviness in his brow that only old friends would notice.

The Chief Elder hovered in the doorway. "Shinra kidnapped him when he went out for a run. They sent him to Midgar and kept him as . . ." the man shuddered, "a research specimen."

"That's terrible!" Bugah had not suspected that it was something like that. Shinra usually left the supposedly barren Canyon to its own devices. "Those people he came with, he said they helped him."

"So I heard," Bugenhagen nodded. "It's good that they were let in for the night, even if we are pressed for space to put them. They helped my Nanaki." He frowned. "I owe them so much for rescuing him. I wish they didn't have to stay in the inn. Guests deserve better than that."

"Will they be staying long, you think?" Hargo's brow furrowed as he considered it. "The traveling musicians will be moving on in a day or two. That should free up some rooms." He stretched. "Of course, there is still that one big room." Bugenhagen looked away. "Come on, now," Hargo pressed. "It's been empty for years."

The Elder was silent for a while. His expression was nearly impossible to read in the flickering firelight. "I can't."

"Bugenhagen."

The Elder cut off the other men's protests. "There's still too much of her in there. Everything in that room was hers, the way she wanted it. For all that we know, what's in that room is all that's left of her." His head fell forward. "I know it seems silly after all this time."

Bugah shook his head. "No, you're right. Even if she hadn't been your, well, you know, the tomes she left behind there are priceless. It would be a shame if anything happened to them, even by accident."

Enough time had passed that Bugenhagen no longer felt the aching loss he once had. The wispy ghosts of might-have-beens had grown easier to ignore. It would not have mattered if not for the living reminder that had come into the small, cliff-dwelling community this evening. He sighed.

"This evening, you saw her too, didn't you?" Hargo asked. "The girl in pink?" The Chief Elder's silence was answer enough. "You think maybe… I mean, the resemblance is just too close for it to be coincidence."

Bugenhagen turned towards the doorway of the small cavern. "The possibility is there. If that girl is her child…well, I'm glad she got what she wanted after so long."

"If the girl is her child," Bugah insisted, "she could finish the translations of the writings. She could explain what you've heard from that machine of yours."

"She could tell you where her mother is, if you care to visit, for old time's sake," Hargo broke in. "Maybe you should clean up first, though." He grinned and slapped his knees. Bugah began to laugh. Bugenhagen smiled along with them.

"That was a very long time ago. Things happen. People change." He floated out of the study but turned back before he was completely out of sight. "I'll talk to the young woman tomorrow. It can't hurt to find out what she knows."

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She knew nothing. If the years had not taught Bugenhagen strength, it might have broken his heart. He noted the way she watched the swirling planets in his observatory as they dimmed and stilled. The familiar green eyes were wide with childlike delight. Bugenhagen's heart sank like a stone.

The young woman before him was the spitting image of the one he had known before, but there had been nothing childlike in her eyes. True, this one, Aeris, she understood all about the spirit energy and the Planet and the connectivity of it, but Bugenhagen could barely see anything else in her. He shook his head.

The girl was young, that was all. She had not had the years, the decades for her eyes to turn to chips of flint. She still stepped lightly. She did not have the weight of the world inside her. She had a sweet, gentle smile that she shared freely; one smile for Nanaki, one for the blond SOLDIER, Cloud and one for Bugenhagen himself as the little group filed out of the room.

"Thank you for showing us your observatory," she said. Her voice was like a melody he had long forgotten. "I didn't know anything like this existed."

Bugenhagen felt himself sinking towards her. He shook his head rapidly to clear it. Perhaps he was not as old as he thought. "It's no problem, dear," he replied. "It's always a pleasure to share this knowledge with others." The others in the group walked on ahead but Aeris stayed behind as if she actually was interested in what an old man had to say.

"I was wondering…" she nibbled at her lower lip as she tried to gather the words. Bugenhagen was sure it was unconscious but it drew his eyes nonetheless. The thought that he should step back a bit crossed his mind. "Could I speak with the rest of the Elders about the study of Planet Life? There's a lot I want to know." Bugenhagen sincerely hoped she had not seen how his eyes had been fixated on her lips.

"Other Elders, yes," he mumbled, nervous for no reason. "Yes, Hargo and Bugah have all the information, that is, all that is left over from the Cetra."

"The Cetra?" Her emerald eyes widened at the word. "Oh, I need to know more!" If Bugenhagen had not been standing on his transportation platform he was fairly sure he would have fallen right over. The shade of her eyes was so familiar. If he'd had any doubts about Aeris' heritage, they were all gone now.

"Ho ho hoo," the old man laughed with his eyes closed to avoid the view his higher position afforded him. "Follow me, dear, I'll show you the library. That would be the best place to begin explaining things to you." He turned his back on her and zipped outside, all the while reminding himself that he was old enough to be her great-grandfather. "Tell me about yourself, dear. Where are you from?"

"Midgar." She turned to go down the ladder that led from the Chief Elder's dwelling to the rest of the community. Bugenhagen kept his head down, plotting his progress and he floated down the tunnel. He could not be too intrusive. Heaven forbid she think he was prying. The situation called for caution but he had to know. He needed to know about her life, her family and especially her mother.

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The library was dusty, but most places were here. The youngsters of Cosmo Canyon took turns dusting the shelves each morning. The older students transcribed the faded scrolls onto new parchment in the course of their studies. There were books and fragments of books from cultures old and dead, civilizations that would have been bare myth if not for the painstaking labor that went into preserving their memory in this place. Some of the oldest knowledge in the world lay within these dusty walls.

The Elders guarded the ancient records fiercely. Very few were ever allowed access to the original copies, these fragile folios with ink that faded faster than copies could be made. Bugenhagen often feared that what little knowledge of the Cetra the library held would crumble to dust before anyone could make use of it. He did not fear so much anymore.

She was here, the last Cetra, final descendant of that noble race. The Elder tried not to stare at her, but he could not help looking every now and then. She sat at the sturdy table, leaning eagerly over one thick book. More than a few of the older students - male students, Bugenhagen noted - had offered her their candles to light her work, so she would not strain her eyes in the dark. Some had even offered her their seats in the sunlit main reading hall, but the books she was here to read were not to be carried out into that open space, where they could be exposed to the elements. The candles lit her familiar features with a golden glow.

She looked very much like her mother. Her dead mother, the Elder reminded himself. It was worse than he had feared - Ifalna dead, shot down by Shinra grunts, the child she had wanted for so long left had been left to depend on the welfare of a stranger. The wisest, noblest of women had died a broken husk of herself in the cold streets and her precious child, the last Cetra, had been raised in ignorance of her own people's history and lore. Bugenhagen had to turn away for a while.

It was not Aeris' fault that she did not know certain things about her race, but it was in her best interest to learn, if the inordinate amount of attention she was attracting was any indication. She was only twenty-two. That age seemed so far away to Bugenhagen. It would have seemed even further away to the girl's mother.

His train of thought was interrupted by the entrance of one of the older students, a young man, unsurprisingly. The brown-haired youth stood shyly in the entrance for a moment. Aeris looked up and gave him a small smile before turning back to her reading. Her smile was just a hollow echo of what it had been earlier, but the boy's face lit up like a torch. He crossed the floor hurriedly, exchanged the book he was carrying for another and left with a long backward gaze at the Cetra girl.

Bugenhagen sighed. The girl was barely out of childhood, but clearly she was woman enough for the Planet's purposes. He had felt it himself earlier, the inevitable pull resurrected from his distant memory. He crossed his arms as he fought the urge to look at Aeris again. He wondered if she knew what was happening. From the unguarded way she dealt with all the attention she was getting, she did not really seem to. She had not had her birth mother to explain certain things to her, to explain what undoubtedly was happening to her now.

Bugenhagen smothered a grimace in his sleeve. It had been so long since Ifalna had told him and yet he still felt the blush rising to his cheeks and the pain deep inside at the memory of how she had brushed aside his feelings. "Just the Planet tugging your blood," she had said. That same Planet had driven Ifalna to sheer recklessness in her attempts to satisfy it. The Elder sighed. He and Ifalna - they had simply not been meant to be.

"But it wasn't just the Planet, Ifalna, it wasn't."

Aeris looked up. "Did you say something, Elder?"

"What?" Bugenhagen looked up. "It's nothing, dear. How's your reading coming along? Are you finding everything you needed?"

"Oh, yes!" Her eyes lit up. "There's so much in this one alone. There are even some old stories I've heard from…from a friend." She pointed to the picture she was staring at. "This one is all about the maps of the night sky. The Cetra certainly did a lot by the stars."

The Chief Elder was delighted at her enthusiasm for the old books. "Ah, they did travel the stars, didn't they? They settled planets and cultivated the life there and when the time came, they moved on."

Aeris studied the picture one moment more and brushed her hand against the dark shape in the star-riddled sky on the page. "I wish I knew how they did it."

"Ho ho, so do I, so do I. They knew many things, your people did." Bugenhagen's sharp eyes took in the titles as he floated past the bookshelves. "There's so much they had to tell us. If only we'd known how to listen."

Aeris stood and clutched the thick red book to her chest. The way she kept her head bowed in thought was terribly familiar. There was far too much that was familiar about her, now that Bugenhagen had become used to looking. The way she stood, the tilt of her body as she teased and especially her boundless thirst for information. She could be as knowledgeable as Ifalna had been, given time and the opportunity to learn. The Elder was sure of it. In fact, he would insist that she…

He brushed the thought aside. No one would object if she wished to stay and begin studying Planet life, but ultimately that was her decision to make. Her gaze flitted about the room as if she were considering something. Staying on, perhaps?

"Is there anything else you would like to know, Aeris?" Bugenhagen asked gently. He wanted to pretend that the way she drew breath before she answered did not hurt his heart at all. He almost turned away. He could hardly take much more of this at his age.

Aeris spun around slowly, considering the question. "There are some things…From what I've read so far, the Cetra could actually speak with the Planet. How did they do that?"

"I thought you would know better than any of us." Bugenhagen was not sure what she was asking. "Don't you hear the Planet?" How could she be a Cetra if she did not?

"I hear it," Aeris said, shaking her head. "That's not really what I meant, though. I can hear the Planet's voice. I know what it feels. I just don't know exactly what it's saying. Did the other Cetra understand it?"

Bugenhagen took a deep breath. "From the little I know, I mean…" He coughed. He did not know how to tell her. "The Planet doesn't speak any language that was meant for mortal ears to understand." He closed his eyes and tried to think clearly. The image of a beautiful woman with flowing dark hair darted through his mind. "Did you find anything that mentioned Planet Readings?"

Aeris put the book down and flipped through it to find the page. "There was something here. I didn't really understand it. Was it some kind of ritual?"

"No, not really." Bugenhagen shook his head. If only he had been able to witness such a thing. He might have been able to describe it better then, but from what he knew, such a thing required at least a few Cetra. He had known only one. "Let me see…No, I'm sorry. I can't really say for sure how its done." He rose to the ceiling for a slow, thoughtful look at the books on the higher shelves. "I once knew someone who would have been able to make it sound so simple."

That was it, the opening gambit. Let her ask about this person, let telling her be easy. She needed to know, had every right to know and she would have to know soon for her own good and for the sanity of every man around her. It did not matter if dredging up the past hurt him. He was almost on his way out of this life. What mattered was that Ifalna's daughter was here and there was much she deserved to know.

Aeris slumped back into her seat. "It's something only another Cetra could explain, isn't it?" The lump in the Elder's throat hardened. The girl read into his silence. "There really are no others, are there?"

Bugenhagen did not have the words to describe the tightness inside at the shadow that grew from inside her and enveloped her. It was like the petals of a flower drawing closed, not dead, no, but seeking to protect itself from the harsh night. In the space of a breath, it seemed as if she had taken the weight of the Planet upon her shoulders. The darkness in her eyes aged her in the Elder's mind. He reached out a hand to touch the apparition from the past.

The young woman looked up again and the image slid away. Bugenhagen's hand fell. He shook his head at himself. There was not much time left for him, he supposed, if ghosts of his past had decided to surround him now. It seemed Aeris had come to them just in time.

He caught the girl's patient, questioning gaze and shook his head. "I'm sorry." He had to tell her, he had to, he knew it, but his heart trembled against the surge of memories and failed. He turned away, barely able to speak. "There were very few Cetra left even before I was born."

"There are no more anywhere at all?" The question was barely audible but the Elder could have sworn he heard Aeris' hope die.

"There are none left but you." Bugenhagen turned around. Aeris was standing again and staring at the words on the yellowing page. The Elder had half-expected tears from her but instead, there was dry-eyed solemnity and a cold acceptance that was heartbreaking in its familiarity.

"I knew," she said, her voice hardly trembling. "I always knew, but still…" Her shoulders shook slightly. "It's hard, you know, finding out for sure." She took a deep breath to get herself under control.

Bugenhagen lowered his platform to the floor level. He suppressed the urge to reach out and hug the girl, sure that it would only lead to both of them making blubbering fools of themselves. "Come with me." He spoke to break the moment before it could grow too uncomfortable. "There's something I'd like you to see."

He thought carefully as he led her through the maze of tunnels, pausing only once, to grab a torch from its sconce. The destination was not very far from the library but the narrow corridors had barely been used in recent years. As far as most people of Cosmo Canyon knew, there was nothing beyond them. Bugenhagen himself had not passed this way in years, though barely a day passed by when he did not remember how it had looked long ago.

He traveled slowly, looking behind every now and then to be sure that she kept up, but neither of them said a word. The silence between the Elder and the girl grew heavy with expectation. Bugenhagen was almost relieved as they neared the little opening, the long upward column of space that seemed to be a dead end. "Wait here," he told her and floated up to the ceiling. He watched her from his high vantage point for a moment.

Aeris spun around to look at the rough walls of the circular space in the dim light. There was only one entryway, the one she had just come in, and there seemed to be nothing at all to find, other than a strange rope and pulley system against one part of the wall. She followed the rope upwards. She had to crane her neck to see how far up the column it led. Bugenhagen floated at its end near the top with the torch. The Cetra was amazed at how he could stand the dizzying falls and rushes he made with that platform of his. It was certainly better than a wheelchair.

"Just a minute, dear," the old man called down. "The equipment's a bit stubborn." He set the torch somewhere out of sight. Aeris could tell from the way the orange glow spilled out into the column that there was another tunnel at the top, perhaps another room. "Aeris, stand back! I'm letting a ladder down!"

Aeris flattened herself against the opposite side of the wall, half-expecting the thing to come crashing down. Instead, there was the sharp clatter of wood knocking stone as a rope ladder was lowered down the wall for her to use. It crawled downwards in fits and starts as Bugenhagen struggled above with whatever mechanism was involved. Aeris smiled. There was so much done in this place without harnessing the power of mako.

"Is it down far enough yet?" Bugenhagen's voice echoed down the column.

"Not yet. A few more feet!" Aeris heard the creak of old machinery as the ladder was sent down far enough for her to start climbing. "That's fine. Thank you, Elder!"

Bugenhagen turned to face the room he had not visited for years. "Don't thank me yet, little one," he murmured. He stayed right where he was, unable and unwilling to move further inside.

Aeris climbed nimbly up the ladder. It did not sway as much as she thought it would, but it was a long way up and the sensation of so much wavering rope below her made her nervous. She was relieved when she reached the top. The entryway was perfectly suited to the ladder, with a wide protruding ledge for her to step onto and plenty of niches in the rock to act as handholds. She stepped inside hurriedly, eager to be away from the open ledge. The people who designed and used that room must have had nerves of steel. The rope had been attached to a simple hand-operated axle so it could be lowered for use or taken up for security. Aeris leaned heavily against the stone doorway and studied the rope and pulley that had attracted her attention earlier. There was a strange sort of container attached to the top.

Bugenhagen saw her look. "That's to send a torch up so your hands will be free for climbing. Clever little thing, isn't it?"

Aeris nodded and looked around the room. The room inside was full of shadows from the flickering torch. It was spacious, if a bit dusty, and like most of the rooms in this network of man-made caves, there were no sharp corners. The roughly hewn walls curved around in a large ovoid, like an egg, and the ceiling above was almost a perfect dome. Only the floor below was smooth and level, and below the dust, there seemed to be intricate patterns etched into the surface, a sinuous mass of lines with no apparent pattern or meaning. There was a bed in the center, where the lines seemed to lead, a narrow bed with faded blue covers and a bed-frame held together by old grey rope. There was an elaborately carved chest at its foot. Aeris took a tentative step towards it. She could not explain what she felt, but something was drawing her to it.

"Why don't you open the windows?" Bugenhagen suggested. "It's quite bright outside."

Aeris nodded wordlessly. She crossed the dry stone floor to the nearest set of slatted, wooden blinds and reached for the woven cord. It was stiff to the touch, hardened with age. Aeris gave it a sharp tug and the blinds flew up to let in a flood of brilliant sunlight. "Oh!" She stepped back and blocked her face with her hands. It was almost painful to eyes that had spent the morning in darkness. Aeris turned away, blinking.

Bugenhagen had not moved from his place. The girl was a shadow against the white light. He could not see her features clearly. She was just a dark shape in a familiar room. Her form was familiar as well. Her height, her curves, they sparked the old memories in the Elder's mind and threatened to start a blaze that would consume him. Slowly, his eyes grew accustomed to the light. Color seeped back into the girl's form and he saw her again, truly, not the shade.

"Might as well open up all the windows, dear." More light meant more color, more detail, and fewer deceptive memories.

Aeris nodded hurriedly, surprised that the thought had not hit her sooner. She made the rounds, letting the blinds up. There were three windows in all, carved at even distances around the narrow end of the room. The light flooded in and brought fresh air with it. The torch Bugenhagen had brought with him flickered weakly in its sconce near the entrance as if it knew that it was unnecessary now.

Aeris paused at the center window and looked outside. She stepped back hurriedly with her heart in her throat and gripped the wall for support. She had expected a view of the community, the stilt-legged wooden annexes to the cave network and the ladders that led to them, the sun-bronzed locals, even the Cosmo Candle, the bonfire that protected the Canyon and was never allowed to go out. Instead, the room overlooked a deep crevice. She had leaned right over the gaping crack. This room was the perfect place for a suicide leap.

"Oh my, I'm sorry, Aeris," Bugenhagen bobbed up and down in the doorway. "I should have warned you about that. We're on the opposite side of the rest of the community." He hovered over slowly, careful to stay as close to the wall as possible. "What you're looking at there is the deep end of Cosmo Canyon itself."

Aeris breathed deeply and grinned at herself. "I had no idea." She looked at the dusty trails her feet had made. "What is this place?" It had obviously been someone's bedroom and quite possibly that someone had been important to warrant this amount of space, but that person was long gone, judging from the air of disuse that still hung thick in the air. Years of stagnancy would not be blown away by a few minutes of sunshine.

Bugenhagen did not know exactly what to tell her. For what felt like the millionth time that morning, he reminded himself that she, of all people, had a right to know that this had been her mother's room, for the few months each year that the woman stayed at Cosmo Canyon. His heart fluttered in his chest and he had to lean on the wall behind him for support. He cleared his throat.

"Right now it's where we keep the bulk of the Cetra literature that has come into our possession. There's much more than we can translate at the moment and we've mostly been too occupied trying to preserve the little we had downstairs." He motioned to the chest in the center. "Feel free to take a look around. I'm sure what's in here will be of more use to you than to any of us at the moment."

The girl approached the bed a bit timidly and walked around it. The way she stood in the pool of light from the window nearly brought tears to Bugenhagen's eyes. He straightened and tried to steady himself, but his heart was racing. He felt a great need to be away from her, from this place, from anything that was too much of a reminder. "You can use this room anytime you like during your stay here, Aeris." He knew he had made the right decision even as he turned to leave.

"I can?" She seemed surprised.

"Of course, dear. You're a born Cetra even if you weren't raised one. You have every right to be here." He ducked out of the doorway, cursing his weak, old heart.

"Elder Bugenhagen! Where are you going?"

Bugenhagen thought quickly. "I promised Nanaki that I would tell him everything that happened around town while he was gone."

"Oh," Aeris said shyly, embarrassed that she had kept the man from time with his adopted grandchild. "I'm sorry if I've held you back from other things."

"It's no problem, dear. It's my pleasure as well as my duty to help." The words left the man's mouth mechanically. She belonged in this place. Perhaps some time alone here would show her that. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

He looked at the girl one more time as he left the room. The image of her standing near the bed stayed with him as he floated down the tunnels in search of rest and peace. His chest hurt a bit, but he knew the ache was more than physical this time.

"You should have been my daughter," he murmured as he went. "You should have been mine.

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Aeris watched wordlessly as the Elder zipped out of sight. The silence he left her in seemed heavy and strangely turbulent. This room had a meaning and a history that she could barely begin to imagine. There was no need for guessing though. Bugenhagen had given her permission to look around, permission for more than that. There was one obvious place to start. She tiptoed towards the trunk at the foot of the bed.

It was very large, made of dark wood, and though there was a dull brass loop at the front of the lid, there was no lock. Aeris knelt before the chest and ran her fingers lightly over the dusty surface. In the trails her hands left behind she saw carving that was breathtaking in its detail. She dusted the chest down the best she could with her bare hands to free the images from their fine, grey prison. Fine vines worked their way along the edges. Flowers bloomed among the curls that framed a forest scene. Each leaf on the slender trees was clear to the eye. Shy animals peered out from behind foliage and the moon hung gracefully among tiny, swirling stars.

The scene swallowed her senses the longer she stared. Aeris could have sworn that what she felt was fur and delicate petals instead of solid wood. The sky and trees at her fingertips became imbued with soft color. The birds that rested in the trees seemed to blink at her. She let her hands run over the cover and watched how the animals darted out of the way, how the leaves rustled in response. She felt the grass give way to her touch. Her fingers ran upwards to the sky. She wanted to touch the stars, to see if they moved in response. Her hands ran across the sky, but she felt nothing, saw nothing. Perhaps stars were too far away. She pressed harder but nothing happened. She laughed a little at herself. Her hands were too small to make the stars move.

There was a swift, soft flare and some of the stars suddenly stood out in sharp relief to her eyes. The patterns were eerily familiar, the shape of a proud woman with flowing hair and a regal man at her side. The figures were here in greater detail than she had ever seen them before and they moved, ever so slightly. She saw the folds of their robes, the expressions on their faces. The king inclined his head at her with a smile that would have warmed her heart if not for the icy presence of the queen, who caught Aeris' eyes and studied her. It was a measuring look, not a malicious one, but the girl's heart raced at it nonetheless.

The spell was broken. Aeris breathed again. The wood beneath her hands was just wood now. The scene was no less magnificent, but the color she had sworn was there had been replaced by the dark luster of polished wood and no matter how hard she looked, there was no trace in that carved night sky of the constellations she had seen. Aeris slumped to the dusty floor, unsure of what she had seen or what it meant. Her hands fell to her side and trailed limply along the floor. She felt the lines that were etched into the smooth stone. Aeris wiped her dusty hands off on the hem of her dress and wished that she knew what the lines and symbols meant, what magic her people had been able to impress upon the simplest objects. A few minutes passed by before she tested the lid of the chest. It was surprisingly light. The hinges did not even creak as she swung the lid up. Aeris leaned over and looked inside, not sure what she would find.

The inside was remarkably dust-free, a testament to the skill that had gone into the coffer's making. There were thick books and scrolls, perfectly preserved. Aeris reached in and paused with her hands above the books. She did not know what to look at first. She was seeking answers, but she did not really know what questions to ask. She made a small sound of amusement and let her hands sink slowly to one large tome with a deep blue cover. If she had no idea what she wanted to know, anywhere at all was a good place to start. She pulled the book out and leaned sideways against the trunk. Eagerly, she opened the book to the first page, then let out a cry of disappointment.

She could not understand the words, or even the letters. The book was in the Cetran tongue. Aeris set it aside and chose another, a slimmer one with a cover of silvery-green velvet. This too, she had to set aside. One by one, she removed the contents of the chest and each thing left her more frustrated than before. The books piled up around her. The scrolls rolled slowly away. She leaned back against the chest and choked back a scream.

It was unfair, to have her people's knowledge at her fingertips and still be unable to understand a single word of it. The strange symbols that made up the Cetran alphabet were completely foreign to her. She wished the Cetran Elders who sometimes contacted her had thought to teach her how to read. What few words she knew were only from constant contact with the fainter voices that guided her. She was an illiterate simpleton before her own people. She closed her eyes against the clutter in despair. There were no answers for her here.

A warm feeling stirred inside her. The Planet was reaching out to comfort its last Ancient child. She felt the tendrils of that greater awareness wrap firmly around her trembling mind and embrace her. The fine threads of it shored her up against what little she had learned this morning. She almost swore that she could feel it patting her back as the warmth spread up to her shoulders and soothed her frayed nerves.

It was not enough. She wanted it to be enough, but it was could not be, now. She felt more alone now than she ever had before, last scion of a dead race, unable to truly understand the one presence that had been a constant companion all her life. Sometimes, when the night was very still, she could almost hear words in that great voice, but the harder she listened, the more fractured they became and eventually the fragments would slip away, as if purposely eluding her. Not for the first time in her life, Aeris wished she was not so alone.

She looked around at the shaky piles of books around her. If there were at least a few more Cetra in the world, older ones who could explain to her the workings of Planet, lifestream and soul, then perhaps she would not feel like one of those books herself, a useless relic, a reminder of something that no longer had a place in the world. The only place for her now was the Promised land. She wished someone could help her find it. The time of the Cetra had passed.

The thread of the Planet's awareness inside her surged against her own and nearly battered her with its force. The voice howled past her and she felt it wrap around her. The presence flowed into every empty crack of her psyche and filled her head with its fierce insistence that the end had not yet come. Aeris gripped the side of the chest for support and steeled herself against the intrusion.

"Stop it, stop it!" She grated the words out between clenched teeth. "It's over for us. There are no more Cetra here. Accept it and leave me alone!"

The Planet relented. It pulled away quickly from the dark corners of Aeris' mind, aware that it had crossed a line. The trails it left behind radiated shy regret as they vanished into thin nothingness. Aeris slumped against the trunk, weary and breathless. The weight of her forehead squeezed her fingers bloodless against the wood. Her breathing was ragged and her chest hurt from the pressure of cries she was afraid to let free. She did not know if they would be sobs or bitter, helpless shrieks. Her entire body shook.

The shy presence at the edge of her being offered her a tentative caress. Aeris lifted her head and took a deep breath. She wanted to scream at that presence some more, tell it to go away and let her be like everyone else. She did not want it hanging around to remind her of her shortcomings as the Planet's last true-born companion. She did not want it reminding her that she was terribly alone. She let out a muted cry of distress.

The Planet could no more leave her mind than she could change her blood. Aeris felt it turn in on itself at the boundary of her mind as it attempted - and failed - to hide its own shame and loneliness. The girl fought back the tears that burned her eyes. She knew she was being unfair. "I'm sorry, friend. I know there's no one else for you." Without each other, they were both lost and helpless. Fuzzy waves of emotion rolled gently over her, comfort, forgiveness, contrition, understanding. "There's no one else for me."

The Planet grew firmly defiant at that. Aeris felt it envelop her. Its soft folds wrapped her in hope and a nearly blinding reassurance that she would not always be alone. It brought memories, very recent ones, to the surface, memories of feverish kisses and eager caresses, of shining eyes and long, pale hair. Aeris smiled. She stretched her legs out and leaned back against the solid chest. She closed her eyes and let herself sink into the warmth. Memories were nice. Not wonderful, just nice. Nothing could compare to the real thing. "Thank you," she whispered.

The great being in her mind knew what she craved. It ebbed and flowed against her like a gentle tide, not intruding now, only comforting. The Planet knew how she felt, knew what she wanted and needed, perhaps better than she did herself. Aeris could have it easily, if she would just let go. The Planet would see to all her needs. Aeris wanted someone to hold her and stay with her. She wanted something to keep her safe and offer her respite from lonely existence. What Aeris wanted, the Planet wanted for her and what Aeris wanted was a tangible love.

Aeris let her body relax as the Planet began to hum an ancient melody to her. She smiled and was unconscious of it, of how her breathing slipped to match the rhythm of the quiet music in her mind. Slowly and shyly, she began to hum along. She caught the fragments of the melody as best she could and did not mind how the many layers of it engulfed her.

She felt the wind stir around her and heard the clatter of the wooden blinds against the stone, but she kept her eyes closed, surrounded by soothing sounds. She did not see the way the edges of the room began to glow with light the color of the lifestream, how the green shining flowed through the mystifying lines on the floor. Aeris kept humming, unaware that the Planet, her friend, had her completely in thrall.

The lifestream glow lit the sinuous patterns to thin lines of green fire that slowly, steadily blazed their trails towards the center of the room, to whatever arcane sigil lay hidden beneath the narrow bed. A cold white light ignited there. It spread out from the center of the room and enveloped everything in its path, including the girl who lay surrounded by books, mindlessly humming.

Aeris opened her eyes. She saw nothing but a field of white light and heard nothing but music all around her. She smiled calmly into the bright void. The Planet was all around her and it brought her love. Her eyes slid closed again, conscious only of the vague feeling of weightlessness. The music flooded slowly through her body. She did not have the presence of mind to attempt to understand what was happening, lulled by deep harmony that seemed to seep from her pores. Brief flashes of color, whites, silvers, lifestream hues, swam before her eyes as she sank further into the Planet's embrace. Time slowed for her and all around, the Planet's force swirled, then grew still.

When she returned to awareness she thought she had fallen asleep on the floor. Aeris sat up and stretched the kinks out of her neck and arms. The sky was still bright and the wind had picked up a bit. The blinds were clamorous against the stone. Some of the books had blown open and the wind played mercilessly with the pages.

Aeris went to her knees in alarm. She had to pack them back before the elements could do any serious damage. She began to pile the tomes and scrolls into the chest, carefully checking each cover for dust and rolling each scroll neatly before she put it in place. The books had remained unharmed in their brief sojourn outside the chest. They were good as new, untouched by dirt or harmed by the wind. It was a pleasant surprise.

If Aeris had not been made so unwary by her deep communion with the Planet, she might have noticed that cords for the wooden blinds now whipped with serpentine suppleness in the wind. She might have noticed that the ropes that bound the wooden bed-frame together was no longer quite so grey, that the covers that had lain on the bed for however many years were a bolder shade of blue than she first remembered. She might have seen that the once dull floor now bore a faint sheen. She might have sensed the restrained power that had just rushed through the arched room, felt the renewal of purpose in this repository of Cetran antiquity. She had a purpose herself, though she was not sure what it was or why it was hers.

It did not matter.. She felt refreshed, more alert than she had been in a long time. The air she breathed seemed more fragrant. Her heart fluttered and her skin tingled. She had the sense that things were falling into place, but could not tell if the sentiment was truly hers.

Aeris paused. The Planet brushed reassuringly against her. The girl smiled and continued to stow the books neatly away, humming an intricate melody all the while.

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A/N: A teensy bit late for an April update, but hopefully long enough to make up for it. Thanks to Noacat for beta-reading and Akira Majere for encouragement. I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere with this fic. Thanks for reading!