Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Rebirth Flame ❯ One-Shot

Rebirth Flame

Disclaimer: Oh geez. Phoenix and all the other characters are not mine, blah blah blah. The events are a little mixed up in my head, so the story might be slightly weird.

Let me free! Please, let me free.

It is agony, being an eidolon. At least, for me it is. I have communicated with the other three. Indeed, I understand something of what they feel. Madeen, most powerful of us all, has been linked by fate and friendship to Eiko ever since this little girl was born. Fenrir has known few other hosts, and he too has been with her for her entire life.

But Carbuncle…Carbuncle knows the same desire. To be free, not bound for life to this little girl's soul.

Strange how it happened, really.

*******

I am one of the few who has never been bound before. I flew around the worlds of Gaia, of Terra, knowing nothing but the joy of life and fire and freedom.

I only ever descended once.

It was in a Gaian village that I found her, a mere babe among the ruins of the destroyed summoner's village, Madain Sari. I could only sense two sparks of life in the village, two little sparks of the inferno that had once burned there.

One, an old man, lying unconscious. The other, a tiny infant child, burned horribly by the ravaging explosion that had destroyed the village. The man would live, easily, he was strong. But the babe…even as I folded my wings and leaned over her, her tiny flame of life was burning down to ashes.

And I will never know why, but two feathers detached from my folded wings and fell gently on the child's face.

One, nothing more than downy fluff, disappeared in a sparkle of orange magic. The wounds disappeared even as I watched, and the babe yawned and stretched.

She opened her eyes.

And, my brilliant black eyes gazing into those pure orbs of blue-gray, something told me this child was a danger to me.

I could have snuffed her life out, but as she yawned and closed her eyes again, I realized that I could not, WOULD not kill her, one who I had just revived, one who was so helpless and innocent.

Instead, I winged off into the night sky. I turned to look back only once. She had rolled over in her blankets, and one chubby hand was gripping the Phoenix Pinion I had left for her.

And I was bound to that child, in some way I could not fathom.

*******

It was more than six years later when it happened.

I was winging over Gaia, once again, when there was a tug. A soul-wrenching pull that guided me to a strange scene.

Four beings fought a massive ogre, a Hilgigars I loathed. Even as I watched, it swept one mighty hand out, smashing much of the life from three of the party. They lay there, tiny candle-embers of existence very near to flickering out.

Yet…one had not been struck. And, staring at the Pinion that she held tucked in her hair-ribbon, my mind flew to the babe I had left in the ruined village those few years ago.

I do not truly know what happened next, but I pushed at the child's mind and said, simply, DO IT.

She screamed "Rebirth Flame!"

I could no longer control myself. Bursting into the air in a magnificent display, magical flames raining down on the five beings below. Healing to the three near-dead, who now groaned and staggered to their feet, but massively destructive to the ogre, who gave a roar and toppled over, life completely snuffed.

And then…blackness. I was in Eiko Carol's soul, and there I had to stay.

For as long as this young Holy Summoner lived.

*******

There is no more freedom, there is no more flying, but for the rare times she summons me. Then I take a few precious seconds of freedom, before my magic takes effect, and then, it's back to her soul, that glowing cage I cannot break.

So it shall be. I have accepted imprisonment.

But only for a human lifetime.