Title: Final Fantasy: Liberation from the Front
Author: AsianScaper
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy. People who deserve it do.
Rating: G
Category: Drama
Spoilers: None at all...so watch the movie!
Feedback: Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to [email protected]. Advice is highly sought after!
Summary: A continuation for "Salvation Begins" but something that truly stands alone. Truth, always prevails...and it sets you free.
Archiving: Just email me the URL to allow me a peek.
Dedication: To Enya, for her powerful music. To my friends in school, and to those who seek to fight for truth beyond measure of earth's limited sight.
Author's Note: Hope you get something from this.

__________

Days began their slow journey down the well-traveled road of time when happiness fades beneath their trail like a blinding light never again seen, replaced instead by something more mundane, the blatant darkness of a frowning cloak and the mindless eye of the sorrowful. It had never been easy for days to walk a path of brambles, nor a complete blessing if it were polished clean that their wheels would travel like leaves upon the wind. Oh, emotions made days what they were and today was blanketed in dew from tears not shed long before, as if the clouds had stepped from the heavens to bend to the needs of the earth, laying tears upon the tall sentries of grass. It was a melody played from the lute of the messenger. Once played by the master, the human being weeping at the other end, to be conveyed to the casualty of the thorned secret, the glaring eaves of a moving sky and the sighs of early morn.

"I feel empty," the girl replied just as the sky resounded with the great symphony of a rising sun. Her lips moved unwillingly against the wind, as if seizing words from it, fleeting in context, neither breathing nor alive but enthroned as a powerful god of nature.

There was a powerful sense of strength that fluttered and danced to the scepter of Aeolus, the king who blew winds from east and west. A strength that misplaces sands and waters; its puissance a contending virus that ails for a time yet rides the chariots of the gods to flee for all eternity. A steady train that milks a shell of its contents with every shivering breathe.

What is loss but that which seizes the contents of the human shell? What is it, but the great tide that washes across the shoal, beating at the sands of a mind like a relentless brute and oft stealing these golden jewels from their place, that they may roam free in the great wilderness of the blue? Does it not cause madness that the eyes flood with liquid of the sea's taste and the throat moans like a bear overwhelmed?

Did it not suffer to see a laugh? Did it not frown at every word of valor that escapes the lips of the commoner? Did it not raise arms to halt the words from the merchant's rich tongue? Indeed, it had done all, and been everything that the mind perceives. Yet, it is more than that. It is pain. Such searing pain that its memory is the murderer's reluctant knife in your belly, begging that life be spared because of its greatness but acting against that plea, a contradiction! It is the lover's harsh death upon the hands of the father, that the starry-eyed maiden may be spared the putrefaction of her house. Yet above all, it is that which steals a flower from its place, kills a star from its mighty sky, pilfers the sun from the horizon's embrace. Oh yes. It is all that…and great is its power that a few meddle with the lunatic dancing within its jar. Many flee from it and they are overrun by the stampede of hungry lions.

"We are forever bound," the girl was saying, her mouth moving yet her words neither synchronizing nor beating to the rhythm of her tiny rose lips. The translator had begun his work, talking into the ears of others staring through the glass, bidding them listen to a language yet unknown. "Forever bound to that which lives and bound to falter like the rotten berries of the earth."

"Yes, that's her." Friae told his companion from behind the glass. "Can you feel it?"

The woman beside him merely nodded but offered him a rather sardonic, "You needn't feel it, Friae. Her words speak louder than the language she speaks." She turned to the translator who had uncaringly said everything the little girl had uttered without care for the compensation of the two people beside him. "Ask her to stop. We've heard enough."

The translator stood from his place, his skeletal hands dangling from the sides of his body, and he moved with resemblance to an ape as his hunched figure opened the door to talk to the girl in the other side.

Illia stood from her place, glaring at the glass and the small figure who sat warily at the other side, those blue eyes dancing uncertainly against the dim light of the cell. The blond hair did not dance with the sudden wind that blew against the small windows lined with stainless steel and her words came hauntingly close to every truth that crawled upon the surface of lies. The translator was rudely taken down by a potent, poisonous gaze that was undeniably blue in hue. The little girl wasted no time walking to her mirror or to what was known to Illia, as transparent glass. She placed her small hand that left the mark of its pulsing, living heat.

"Speak, Old Lady of the Glass," the little girl had said, that tiny head of hers inquiring to what was to her, a mere mirror but to the two people at the other side, a means to sidle behind trenches of lies. "Don't hinder my words."

The blue within her eyes lurched violently against the verdant green of Illia's own and, as if aching to swallow the meadow of Illia's sight, the girl's sapphire sea seemed all the more threatening in its knowledge and non-starvation from power. There was innocence there and wisdom untainted from the wiles of the world. Ironically, it was wisdom entrenched from lessons learned from blundering fools and those blue eyes willingly saw this unhindered, like a looking glass that bade all light enter.

"Are you ready to speak to her?" Friae dared to ask, handling his data pad in one hand and helping Illia from her seat with the other.

"She called me Old Lady of the Glass." The whisper was audible but Friae was prudent enough to keep words from straying. "Ah," Illia said, louder this time, "I will speak with her, when she identifies herself."

Chuckling softly, Friae said, "She already has." Illia presented a formidable frown that drew questions from every word Friae had spoken. The man conceded, "Her name is Anicham. She was under the care of Doctor Aki Ross."

"A spirit, you believe."

"Not just a spirit, Doctor, but a talking one with more life to her than the cancer-ridden patient Ross attended to not long before." Friae's frown was full of dislike. "That woman had always been so impulsive."

"We will talk to…Anicham." She did not know the hesitation in her voice and her mouth moved to a part that tormented but a dark side of her brain. Reluctance was there, as it so seldom had come to visit her, yet when it did, it was there for good reason. This little girl may have been a child but the light behind her eyes told her that certain faculties had been matured to adulthood, that it may carry knowledge so vast and encompassing yet so deceivingly simple that a child had power to carry it. This was the danger to innocence once given knowledge beyond the grasp of power or greed. She would be using it for the good and that scared even the leaders of the Consolidate. "She seems very…interesting."

"Youth will always be interesting," Friae said, his data pad protectively kept between his hands. Protection, for Friae, had been something he had never had the luxury of having and he gave to everyone, and to everything. This little girl had been under his care and he had treated her with respect befitting a child who knew everything and, oddly enough, nothing.

Another danger from this child was the she was a child and men, no matter how dedicated, knew no better than to treat her as such.

The lady's lips were drawn into a smile, a smile that spoke of ages caged within the confines of truths, truths that hungered like lions for the meat of human flesh. For what were truths to human beings if none were there to hear them, to be devoured by them, to see them that they be freed from the material world? Flesh, indeed.

"You have forgotten your own childhood, Friae."

The younger man was not moved and he coldly replied, "As have you, Doctor."

"Touché."

There were no companionable smiles exchanged then nor was there a congenial silence to ease the tension of half-spoken insults. Truth devoured, and it consumed the temporal quality of a small room, where a woman stood amicably close to sharing a piece of herself but had been restrained like a dog against its chain when the friend had spoken harsh words to deplete her tongue of speech. Was it so hard to be so…human?

The little girl answered for her, her fingers playing with her golden tresses, her dress readily wrinkled by agitated hands. "Speak to me, Old Lady of the Glass. Are you so human as to fear truth yet look for it?"

It took little persuasion for Illia, the old doctor, to once more look from behind the glass and leave without a hint of good bye.

__________

"They sent her to a mental institution, if I remember correctly," Mikail said softly. "She was such a sweet little girl."

There was no blame to be wrought at the huge scientist silently mourning in front of her. There was no need, either, for something worse than punishment that the big man had succeeded more than he had failed. It was enough that he had taken whips to scourge himself him with and every bite from sickly thorns shown evident at the way he sat with nothing more than regret. His shoulders hunched, it seemed that despite his ability to carry loads of unprecedented weight, Mikail could not take the burden that had so easily toppled his defense. Sorrow was such; regret was such, but it had greater efficacy as it ate at the soul for every night and day spent in conquered silence.

"You did the right thing, Mikail." Oh, she choked on her words then. Love spilt had little to do with silence and acceptance. "I'm waiting for Farrell's call. Her assistant promised that I could visit her."

"Well, he should," the big man grunted, covering his face with his hands and breathing deeply, as if gathering strength from the surrounding air that bit more than it warmed.

Winter had taken to coming as early as it could and it sent every man to hide from the elements of the sun for it was now a herald to ice and sheet. The winter lady's cloak fluttered audibly against the wind, howling like a wolf yearning for the full moon. If the sun shone, cold followed it like its hounds, barking their insult against warmth. There would be no moon tonight for the cloak plundered all that crossed her path, heaven's jewels and otherwise. Nights were spent in quiet repose and the deadly wait for rebirth. Spring had a long path to take and Aki had been more than ready to shower petals along her path.

Now though, was an aching repeal to that day of growth for she longed for little hands to once more grasp her palms and longed for little words to whisper into her ear, "Please Aki, please don't cry." Oh, heavens! Why had she been taken away by the chariot of those who wished to progress? Why was irony so cruel to her?

Winter would share her bed for days to come, even if spring decided to shout from the wilderness to herald its gracious arrival.

Perhaps there were poems to tell of foolishness, men and nature's, that she would be lifted from this terrible cold of loneliness. Yet compressed words that conveyed more than it uttered, that gave more than it pretended to give, were tiny capsules to the ill's eyes, a temporal relief that flowed with the being's living river, its blood. She would heal, in time, and poetry would not sweep her off the cliff like an eagle but lay her to rest instead, against blankets of cold that she may be warmed by them.

Irony! Such cool, soulless irony.

"We better get back," Aki told the towering human beside her.

He paused from his sad work, seeking to dry tears that flowed in tiny rivulets down the gray of his eyes. "Will you talk to her? She can…hurt herself, you know."

Aki Ross stood, holding out a hand for Mikail to take. The big man did and for an instant, two vestibules of sorrow melded to create a vial of endless hope. Hope sprang from anything living and as Mikail's hand enclosed Aki's in its warmth, she was aware of a rising feeling, of a working verb that would flee from the confines of tears.

"You'll be okay," Aki said, lowering her voice to sooth him. "I'll tell her you said hi."

"Thank you," Mikail muttered. He raised his head and even as he stood at least two feet taller than she did, he carefully looked down, those gray eyes churning against a grief-sickened tempest. Then, from the depths of all that was deemed to be good, a smile, though small, touched his trembling lips and he sought to embrace her with warmth from it. "Thank you," he repeated, stronger this time, with a hint of reliance and unerring faith.

"No, Mikail. Thank you. Now, go. You have important things to do. I'll be sure to check on her."

Nodding, the big man left, leaving Aki to her devices and to her already harrowing tale.

Then, with strength she did not perceive two words emerged that summed up all that she had to feel, "Damn the world."

__________

There was laughter beyond the gate, a sound that tilted to emotions like a stem against the glory of the sun, seeking glory and for a gift called life. Ani's eyes remained dulled to all, like a blade dropped from the warrior's hand for he had found the wonders of farming to be of greater worth than dying. Her blue eyes did not have the luster of yesteryear but it did hold burden of what was, and what would ever be.

She was sure to touch the glass which separated her from the beings beyond, merely a barrier to keep her from physically being there but she knew that the old lady had seen her, had feared her. If they could but hear Ani laugh! Yet they prevented a predicament by allowing her nothing, and Little Ani knew that if she were to utter the hearty melody of joy, it would spread as wildly as wildfire and faster than any disease the world had known.

Truth, after all, had been used to being a source of disconsolation and if it did raise its delirious voice to laughter, it would be limitlessly harmful. It did little to mock the people beyond the glass but it did to great amounts. She heard voices beyond and even the translator was crookedly smiling to every word uttered from behind the glass. Anicham heard tension, fear, and apprehension. What was there to fear? Nothing! There was nothing to see but her own reflection though there was something to talk to. There were ears that remained open to her tight melody. So Ani chose to sing and all conversation halted like a bee's sting, ultimately more powerful yet the source of a lasting sleep called death.

And her melody worked its enchanting magic.

Friae emerged from the door, silencing her as he took her up in his arms and told her quietly, "Ani, you'd better keep quiet. I'll take you to your room now, alright?"

"Okay."

"Listen, Doctor Farrell would like to talk to you later this afternoon." Friae's eyes shimmered as if offering a beacon to the legitimate location of a secret yet it disappeared, fearing discovery from the old lady who stood beyond the glass.

"You're trying to tell me something, Friae," Ani chided, burying her blonde head into the warm sweater the man wore. He had always worn this knitted sweater that smelled of toil and sweat. Oh, not of the wearer, but of the maker, for Friae wore a rather endearing scent of pine. Pictures flashed across the little girl's head. Sun. Snow. Trees.

He must have thought she was afraid for he pulled her closer to him, protectively, his data pad forgotten. "Promise me you'll be honest to Illia."

"How could I not be? She's so scared of it that I'm afraid she'd scold me for actually telling her the truth."

"That's true. You learn fast, Ani. Keep what you just said inside your head and don't forget it when you're talking to her. I don't want to see you hurt."

"Okay." She burrowed even deeper into his shirt and he sighed heavily, seeing her tremble with anticipation. He carefully untangled her locks as he caressed her head and took her from the room.

Her tiny body heaved up and down as he carried her down the hallway and it reminded her, quite oddly, of seas and rivers. What were these pictures inside her head that other people did not see? What were these words that were entirely her but had nothing to do with the situation of a healing planet? She knew that Gaea was ailing beyond her means and that certain people…oh yes, certain people like Aki Ross, had tried to see to her salvation. She had found the answer in little Ani, but at the time of discovery, Ani was lost to her.

Illia Farrell had taken her from Mikail, from Aki because Anicham had something everybody else did not: knowledge with the gift of innocence. To Ani's ruin, Ani had spoken because she had never been capable of deceit. She could still remember her words to the young doctor, "Please Aki, please don't cry."

To her child-soul, it resonated with the depth of a child's heart, fully and wholly, without treachery or compensation.

"Friae," she whimpered. "Where is she taking me?"

The heave of his movement stopped and once again, there was that sigh. "I don't know. I really…don't know. I'm so sorry, little one. You did not have to go through all this. I'm so sorry."

"Don't apologize for something you didn't do. I am what I am and I can't help it if the old lady wants something I can't give her." Anicham sobbed against Friae's sweater and the doctor felt those salty stains like a knife through the heart. "I want something before I go."

Friae laughed sullenly, resuming his walk towards her quarters. "I'd give you anything, little one, if the world allowed it."

"I wish to see Aki Ross."

And indeed, the halt from the journey was almost final in its echo. Friae stopped abruptly, almost dropping the little girl, his stroking movements restrained as he sought to comfort the little head of its anxiety. Yet with his subtle movements of comfort, he sought to calm the seas of his own soul as he spoke with as much placidity as he could possibly muster.

"She…she's coming for you."

Ani lifted her face that it may be glanced upon by the doctor. Her blue eyes were never scarce in telling and it told tales so peculiar that somehow, they must have been tears from the eyes of the Ultimate End.

"So that was what you were trying to tell me earlier…" she whispered. Her words were enough for Friae's soul to fill to its brim and his heart sung melodies of triumph. "It wasn't so hard, was it? I'll see her soon, before I go."

"That you may, little one."

__________

She stood no higher than her waist her there was dignity there, as all men have dignity. But this was not a man nor a woman of stature and belief. She was a child, a little girl who spoke of things that men and women dared not utter in this age of madness. It did nothing to Illia to graciously allow her to sit but she noticed the lingering hope there, as if words had escaped the perusing eye of the liar.

Sitting and easing the folds of her dress, Anicham was never short of breath as she climbed the chair to doom. Aki Ross was coming, after all, and it was to her that she was to give her gift.

"Well.," Illia began, "I would have your whole name young lady while we record this conversation." Illia's weather beaten hand emerged from the folds of her cloak and she paused to press the recorder's button.

"My name is Anicham Larraine and I would have your name, too, Old Lady of the Glass. This conversation is between you and me."

Illia ignored the sense in her tone. Such hauteur!

The crest of a wave sought to hide but Anicham had sided with the sizzling liquid of anger and she barely had time to express it when Illia began.

"Who are you and why are you here?"

"Is it so easy for you to ask and me, to never be answered?" the little girl asked at the same time, her tiny hands clasping the arms of the chair until they hardened into an ivory color. She was leaning forward now, her little voice seeking to break the barrier of big and small. Indeed, the passion in what she was to say was enough to summon equality in stature and belief that Anicham was not a child nor Illia an old lady. They stared into each other's eye and it was Illia who lowered her gaze against the raging ocean of Ani's own.

"My apologies, spirit."

Ani's face twisted disagreeably and she intoned, "Don't call me that."

"Well then what are you?" the woman demanded, standing and staring down at the child as if it would suffer a sense of inferiority.

It did not. Anicham's lips churned and blended with the silhouette of a crescent moon, a smile from the depths of a disturbing winter.

"You're so complicated, Doctor Farrell. Maybe you should try to be the Old Lady, and not of the Glass. It would be easier for you and so much harder for me."

Illia frowned. "How so?"

"Because I wouldn't be able to give you something that you already have. I won't have to give you medicine for a disease you have already healed." Her shoes clicking against each other in impatience, Anicham was silent as she studied the old woman.

"So you claim to be a vaccine? Ha! What would you know of the world?"

Illia would have berated herself for her words for the child's eyes dropped and suddenly, a dark cloud sought to keep the child's spirit soaked in bitter sadness. But it was there for a time and the little girl spoke more, this time with the tone of a creature who had been torn from her native land, never to return, forever seeking repose in the confines of concrete and stone.

"There was a time when I would think under the moon. There was a time when a woman would carry me from this place and kiss me. There was a time when she would cry and I would tell her, 'Please don't cry' and she would stop, as if she remembered more wonderful things when she heard me. There was a time when it was her who offered me medicine when I had no need of it, only to learn that I lacked in more ways than she." Anicham's eyes emerged from the gray blanket. "I'm not the only one who knows…I'm not the only one, Illia Farrell. You have it, too. I just happened to pass by, like a statue made entirely from the material of truth and never swallowed by lies. And do you think it's easy? It's not easy to see good men die while they live and breathe because a death worse than death took their place…and I could only watch as they die, as they wither like clothes when I travel."

There was a silence so palpable that it rippled against their breathing. Something glittered from the side of Ani's face and it was a diamond from the mines of sorrow, picketed from unyielding stone, secreted from the unassailable walls…but a tear nonetheless.

Illia's hands quivered, as if seeking comfort in providing solace for those trembling eyes of watery sapphire.

Somehow, the gates of the underworld that so composed her heart, collapsed under the weight of this outstanding statement that stared and glared till it had turned her to stone. It was permanent in quality and never fleeting. "I…understand."

"You always have, Illia Farrell. You just had to learn."

Once more, there was silence but it was wonderful in essence. "Aki Ross will be coming to fetch you, Anicham. She…wishes to see you."

Anicham smiled and quietly, as if walking on water, she lifted herself from the chair and approached the woman. Then, her tiny arms sought the warmth of the old woman's embrace.

The old woman's weary joints melted against the enchanting grip of youth and she felt, more than heard, the little voice who spoke, "Old Lady…from Beyond the Glass."

Gaea offered a song…a song that breathed through the arms of the child and into the woman's.

Nails interred in fingers of the playwright's faculty
Writhe 'gainst the incipient putrefaction of
The feather's withdrawal from the parchment.
E'en lips speak not of this frilly ambuscade
That, all who read, read not instead and flee to a world
Which supports not their feet.

Incomprehensible laughter that seeks passage to the gates
The ears of mortal cause which sprouts tales
Through the whispering chasms of the mouth
Where the tongue flails like a child unknown
Bidding all who bear its noisy burden, "Listen to Me!
Listen to Thee!", and all who read, read not instead lest
They float and never rest
They flee and never drink
Of reality

And from one end of the earth to the other, the spirit spoke and offered salvation as it always had.

A citizen of the soil.

A beloved of the earth.

And soil rejoiced beyond their tanned grains as another unified with those who stripped the front of its facade.

__________

-The End- (maybe...)