Sun drenched Memories

[Telos]

Telos stepped from the mountain path onto the soil of Madain Sari. It had been two weeks since her visit to Lindblum and she had become restless after meeting Zidane. She wasn't sure why, but she had finally been driven to see her mother's homeland. A slight breeze played with her loose strands of her hair as she watched the dust around the ruins drift around and resettle. She started to walk again and the soft yet gravelly crunch the ground gave off under her boots was loud to her ears. It was so silent here...it went beyond peaceful and serene to dead. This place was dead and it chilled her to the bone.

Sucking it up she squared her shoulders against her own mind and kept walking down the path. Had the place not been filled with the imprints of the past people it might have been pretty...but it was just sad as it was; pieces of their lives left where they had been put. Left to become covered in dust and decay.

Eventually she made her way to the wall of Eidolons. This had been the only thing that her mother ever spoke of in regards to her home here. It had been her favorite place apparently, where she spent most of her time dreaming about a better life somewhere. Telos found an old rock and sat down on it, imagining her mother doing the same thing. Why had she come here to this dead place? Her mother had left it intentionally so it wasn't like she had come to commune with her mother or anything like that. Really she had simply been driven here by her feet and instinct. She sat there studying the wall. It was so lonely here...

[Eiko Carol Fabool]

Hot flames flared in the sky. The frayed edges of her memory curled black and turned to solid ash, the words written on them becoming absolved in harsh white. Her body crumpled and her soul rose up and up and up, carried on wings of colour. Green and blue and purple and red and yellow and orange filtered through her mind, but they carried no meaning, no sense and no connotation, they were pure. Pure absolute colour. Her mind became relaxed, all black thoughts good and bad spilling away from her, the vacuum instead filled with glorious white.

She drifted for some time on the white plain before the soft down pressed against her breast. She brushed her head against it, feeling the pure heat radiating from beneath. Fire filled her lungs and the scent of bonfires made her stomach toss and turn with longing. Her body was burning, ethereal flames brandishing over it until she had no body, no essence, till she become feather and flame and colour.

Minds interlocked. Phoenix was her and her was Phoenix. Oneness filled the expanse of her soul. They spoke then, though she could not tell which words belonged to her and which belonged to the great bird. Memories came back with a powerful shock, Vivi's dying he's bleeding oh please great goddess oh please come back come back you stupid bird! Fix his broken bones does he have bones? fix him he's broken knit him back together. And the breath of her life rose through her, overpowered her as her fingers trembled out the notes upon the flute till finally from her horn shot the beacon and flew the bird.

"You went from us. You little chick flew the nest. Where did you go? Why have you not called us? We have waited and watched, waxed and waned. Summoner, you have grown old and you have grown young, we have grown eternal. I will return to you."[/b]

Her mouth (she had no mouth) formed no words, but her mind cried the screams of praise and thank yous, of sorry's and regret. Then the light faded and she faded with it, suns and moons and stars all being gobbled up. Yet as she ceased to exist, her being felt so lifted, so high, every single second an eternity of soft light.

Then, blue eyes creased open, filled with the harsh sepia tones of the desert. Breath ripped through her quickly, disbelief at the sheer power of the meeting with Phoenix still screaming through her. She raised her hands to her face, laughing a little, "Look what you've made me do, making a little girl cry."[/b]

After having fought that horrible thing in her room, she had become aware at just how weak her magic had become, and how unwilling her summons were to be channelled by her. She was 16 after all, this was when she was supposed to have broken the seal and finally been permitted to leave the village. This was when she was supposed to have perfected her summoning, and yet her peak had ended well over 10 years ago.

She felt a little sad, a little guilty maybe, but all that was shred away by Phoenix's return to her. Her summon's energy was always so much more powerful in Madain Sari. It made sense, she guessed. Shrugging, she stood, dusting her knees and turning away from the summon wall, jumping back when she noticed another there.

She brushed back her hair, eyes widening in shock but her heart going insane at seeing the horn on the others head. She practically ran into the girl, excitement captivating her voice, "You, you have a horn!? You're a summoner?!"[/b] Eiko pointed to her head, "SO am I! But.. But I've never seen you around here, and you're older than me, how did you get away? By boat? What happened to your parents? Did Kuja kill them too?! Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you know anyone else who is a summoner? Why did you come back? What are your eidolons like? Why is your horn shorter than mine? How old are you?"[/b]

The questions just kept spilling and spilling, until she stopped herself, caliming a little and annoucing, "The name's Eiko, Eiko Carol. What's yours?"[/b] And, a little awkwardly, she offered a hand to shake, something her mother had so mentally beaten into her.

[Zidane]

"...actually told her not to worry about it. Can you believe that? After all that trouble! Guess it just means I didn't have to step in..."

Up on one of the Iifa Tree's twisted roots, Zidane idly turned the ankle propped up on the opposite knee and grinned wryly where he was lying back, head cradled in his hands and elbows pointed at the sky.

"Still doesn't make any sense to you, does it?"

He didn't get an answer from the wind that rustled through the Tree's nooks and crannies, and while he hadn't expected one he could feel the emptiness.

For all his traveling, this was the first time he'd come back here to the very precipice of death. But avoiding something like this wasn't like him, so, like most things, he'd just up and decided to face it. And Kuja couldn't hear him. He knew that, but when things got quiet and he talked to Vivi, sometimes he could close his eyes and feel like if he opened them he'd see a tattered little hat and huge gold lanterns riveted on him. Here, there was no such assurance. It bothered him, not because there was a spirit to connect with or address or comfort, but because it meant that even for Zidane, Kuja hadn't left anything behind. He was really gone.

Zidane had been avoiding that realization. After all, it wasn't death he feared, but what came after. For Kuja that didn't amount to much. Only relief and jubilation for everyone who didn't know what that Angel of Death could have been. But maybe he could never be more, and regretting this as one of those Zidane couldn't save only cheapened the true sacrifice, so the second Angel closed his eyes and reminded himself that it was better this way.

"Well." He drew his knees up toward his chest and used his weight to flip back to his feet in one fluid motion. "See you." But when his path turned him towards Madain Sari again, he knew he wasn't coming back.

In the meantime, he figured he'd drop in on a few Moogles since he was in the area. There was also always the chance he'd run into Eiko, but he expected to see her in Lindblum more often these days. It seemed like she got taller every time he saw her, probably because it was hard for him not to see the same boisterous, powerful little girl who ran and fought and triumphed at his side.

Madain Sari was one place that hadn't changed, incomplete yet unbroken over the years, but the silence was a constant whenever he wasn't here with the others. So it surprised him to hear a voice, but it was Eiko's--even if the questions sounded unusual. Maybe she was playing? He'd occasionally caught her doing one or two adorable little girl things like that in the past. "Eiko?" he called ahead of him before he rounded the corner, but when he turned he wasn't expecting to see a stranger. It was more likely that only really good friends of Eiko's (and Dagger's) would have her permission to walk such sacred ground, but after the initial sight of her Zidane realized he recognized her.

Aw man, this is gonna suck--she's not looking for me, is she? Did I promise anyone we'd meet here? When's the last time I was drunk? Did I invite Dagger, too? This is gonna suck.

But realization washed over him in a wave of relief. "Oh, Tya--er--Telos!" That's right, he never forgot a pretty girl's name. "Hey! I didn't know you guys knew each other." Note to self, if she was definitely a friend of Eiko's there was no reason to subject said self to Madeen, so watch it.

[Telos]

Telos blinked and gasped at the sudden appearance of a girl. She certainly had a lot of energy and Telos had barely registered that she was also a summoner before the girl bombarded her with questions.

"You, you have a horn!? You're a summoner?!" Eiko pointed to her head, "SO am I! But.. But I've never seen you around here, and you're older than me, how did you get away? By boat? What happened to your parents? Did Kuja kill them too?! Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you know anyone else who is a summoner? Why did you come back? What are your eidolons like? Why is your horn shorter than mine? How old are you?"

Telos decided to adress teh questions one at a time in the order sprung on her. She had been in far weirder situations before so she simply took it in stride.

"Yes I have a horn, but you saw that. Yes I am a summoner even though I only have one Eidelon. I can see that you are a summoner, you are the first one I've met besides my mother. Sure there is the Queen but I have never personally met her. This is the first time I have been here so that explains why you never saw me, and I seem to be older yes. I do not know how my mother left really, she always left the details vague when I asked and chose to move on with her life and not look back. I imagine it was by boat yes - I think that was part of the story now that I think about it. My father stayed here - at leats I assume so since he was never mentioned and I have no idea who he is. My mother passed away ten years ago now...no I have no siblings. As I sadi before, I have only ever met you. As for coming back....I'm not sure why I did."

Here she looked down at her hands which were resting on her lap still. A faint smile had formed on her lips while answering the girl's questions and she refused to become melancholy now. So she shoved it aside and went back to answering the questions.

"I think I came back simply to see my mother's homeland. Or soemthign like that. My only Eidolon is named Ixion. He's a horse...or maybe a unicorn? My horn is shorter than yours as my mother had to shave it down so that we could blend and hide better in Alexandria. I am 25 years old. Now for my questions. Who are you? Why are you here all alone? How old are you? Where did you popo out of just now?"

Telos looked up abruptly at the sound of a familiar voice. Quickly she placed it even before her eyes landed on him. Zidane. She nodded to him and tilted her head but said nothing. Why was he here as well? Maybe she should have simply stayed home...then again maybe something interesting would happen.