Ifalna - 1998
The children darted in and out of sight as they played tag among the trees. It was hot and muggy, but they didn't seem to mind. The dense canopy kept the sun off their backs, and they laughed as they ran.
It felt very far from anything Ifalna had ever known--far from the cold of the Knowlespole, the sterility of the lab, and the isolation of their lives since their escape. Here in Gongaga, they had dared to show their faces undisguised. It was far enough away from Shinra, she hoped. An ocean away.
When the war ended, Shinra had finally relaxed its grip on the ports. They'd made their way west, from one tiny southern harbor to another, unnoticed by a Shinra navy no longer on the lookout for Wutain spies.
Shinra still had influence in the Western Continent--Lucrecia's history was proof of that--but the people in its southern reaches seemed to think very little of it. Very few from Gongaga had felt called to the war effort. Few seemed troubled by Shinra's defeat. It felt alluringly safe.
Lucrecia sat beside her between the roots of one of the more ancient trees. Sephiroth stood leaning against another. He had turned 20 in the fall, a little old for tag, but that didn't stop Aeris from running up to him and pulling him into the game. He'd grown so tall there was nothing fair in him joining, but he'd had years of practice slowing himself for his sister. He matched the children's speed, letting them outrun him, until a lanky black-haired teen stumbled over a root and Sephiroth tagged his arm. Aeris whooped, as though he'd been her particular target.
"Maybe we could stay here," Lucrecia said. They'd been camped nearby for almost two months, and it was the first time either of them had risked voicing it. "They could make friends... be normal."
"...maybe," Ifalna said.
She wanted it for them. Aeris had been readily accepted by the village children, and she looked so happy among them.
"I know it's not as obvious as with Aeris," Lucrecia went on, "but Sephiroth likes it here, too. He gets to be himself, for once. I don't want him to have to hide that his whole life."
Ifalna shook her head slightly. "I don't want that either."
"We've been so cautious... Maybe too cautious, anymore."
They certainly seemed that way to the villagers. They were within shouting distance of the village, and none of the other parents had felt the need to keep watch over a simple game of tag. These children were old enough to venture farther than this on their own. Ifalna had, at their age.
"This town is a backwater," Lucrecia added. "It wasn't even on our map. And we haven't seen any of those wanted posters in years."
It would be easy to think the world might pass them by here. The village was in the middle of nowhere. Shinra had no foothold here, and Gongaga had no strategic value even if the war were to resume. Ifalna could feel the Lifestream pulsing strong beneath it, but... Shinra wouldn't know unless they came looking, and what pretext would bring them?
What pretext...
Gongaga wasn't isolated, even so. They traded to the west and as far north as Corel, and merchants passed through from other places in turn, carrying news with them. They could carry news on from Gongaga, too.
Faced with her silence, Lucrecia leaned towards her and added, "We'll still protect her. We won't let anything happen to her."
"No, I know," Ifalna said. She shook her head and looked back at Lucrecia. "I'm sorry. You're making some good points and I promise I'll think about it. I'm just preoccupied."
"Did something happen?"
"A traveller came through today. From Cosmo Canyon."
"...oh."
Lucrecia was probably the only one who would have understood just from the name. Ifalna had never even been there herself.
Gast had.
He'd talked about it, from time to time. He'd had some very good friends there, scholars who shared his academic interests.
"...it isn't so far, if you wanted to make the trip," said Lucrecia.
"What?"
"That's what you're thinking about, isn't it?"
Ifalna drew in a long breath and let it out. "I'm not sure. I... I don't know what I'd find there. I'm not even sure what I'd be looking for."
"Memories, I suppose," Lucrecia ventured. "I've thought about it, too, since we came here. I went with him a few times, so I... don't think I need it for myself. But those people were better friends and better colleagues to him than I ever was. Maybe they should know what happened to him."
"It isn't any gift to leave them wondering, is it?" Ifalna reflected.
Seeing Gast murdered in front of her had left her with nightmares that haunted her sometimes even so many years later, but it had left her with no uncertainties. Lucrecia's perspective was different. People had vanished from her life, leaving her years to imagine one horrible possibility after another. In Vincent's case, she would probably never have answers.
"We can all go together," Lucrecia proposed. "Aeris can meet other people who knew her father. I think... Sephiroth would like that, too. You know he thinks of him that way, even if he'll never ask."
When Lucrecia had first wrestled over what to tell Sephiroth of his father, Ifalna had come close to giving her permission to lie: to tell him it was Gast. Ultimately, she hadn't thought it would be any more of a kindness than letting him believe he was a Cetra. It was better that he knew his blood didn't define him.
If he wanted to imagine Gast in the role of his father anyway, that was all right.
"And how long will we stay there?" Ifalna wondered.
"As long as we need to," said Lucrecia. "And then we'll come back, won't we? Or..."
"It's not a bad idea," Ifalna affirmed. "They do like it here. I'm just...... scared."
"...you've thought you were safe before."
She'd been so much younger when she'd met Gast. Her family had cautioned her against growing too close to humans, but they were long gone, and she'd been lonely. She'd never dealt with Shinra before. When Gast had promised to protect her from them, she'd believed he could.
"Tell me," she said, looking Lucrecia in the eye. "Do you really think we'll be safe here?"
Lucrecia looked back at her, expression sober. Ifalna imagined her doing a sort of mental calculus, weighing probabilities. What were the actual chances that Shinra would find them here? What were their chances of escape?
"...I can't guarantee you that Shinra will never come here," Lucrecia admitted at last, "or that we'll never deal with them again. But I can promise you one thing: I'm not Gast. If they come, I'll tear them to pieces."
Ifalna relaxed. With Lucrecia's strength, she knew it was no idle threat. Ifalna settled against her, leaning her head on her shoulder. "Is it strange how reassuring I find that?"
"I don't know," said Lucrecia. "We're not very normal people."
"I guess not." Ifalna let herself stay that way for a long moment before peeling back. "Ugh. What I don't know about is this humidity. Every time I sit still for a minute, I wind up stuck to something."
"Just wait, in another few months it'll be the rainy season."
"So we'll be even wetter...?"
"It might be refreshing," Lucrecia proposed, and Ifalna gave her a skeptical look. "Have you never been skinny-dipping?"
"I... don't think I know what that is."
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You'd have frozen your ass off." Lucrecia got to her feet and, taking both of Ifalna's hands, tugged her up after. "Come on. It's not far to the river. I'll show you."
Ifalna threw a last look at the children. They'd be fine, she told herself. "It's some form of swimming...?" she asked.
"Sure," answered Lucrecia, giving her a flirtatious waggle of her eyebrows. Letting out a huff of amusement, Ifalna let her lead the way.
The world shifted dramatically as they travelled west. As the vegetation thinned, the humidity went with it, but it was no cooler in the daytime. Instead of sweat plastering her clothes to her body, the air seemed to sap every bit of moisture out of her.
Lucrecia called it a 'dry heat,' and Ifalna didn't like it any better.
At night, though, the temperature dropped sharply. Lucrecia curled against her for warmth, and lying on her back looking up at the sky, Ifalna realized she missed the snows. Unhindered by light pollution or foliage, the stars overhead were as clear and bright as the Knowlespole. Just once, she thought, she would have to make it back home again. Aeris ought to see the north. The land of her birth, and the last remnants of her heritage.
They received a cautious welcome on arriving at Cosmo Canyon, and Sephiroth was asked not to carry his katana within the settlement. Lucrecia squeezed Ifalna's hand, tacitly reminding her that they had more ways to defend themselves than with a simple blade, and Ifalna made herself relax.
They found lodgings at the inn and asked after Gast's old friend Bugah, now one of the canyon's elders. Sephiroth elected to split off on his own, and Aeris wavered, but she joined them as they made their way up to the observatory, where they'd been told they could find Bugah helping Bugenhagen with something.
"Hello?" Aeris called as they stepped inside the structure that sat at the canyon's peak.
"With you in a minute!" a man's voice called down from somewhere above. "Make yourselves at home."
It was as warm as the rest of the settlement, walls wood-paneled and floors strewn with colorful rugs, but Ifalna made out the faint hum of electricity. She traced the path of old-fashioned electrical wiring into a circular room outfitted with various equipment.
"...these look like the machines Gast brought to Icicle Inn," she remarked softly.
"That's probably because it was Gast who purchased these," said Lucrecia. When Ifalna looked at her curiously, she went on, "No one ever took him for a devious man, you know, but he siphoned funds from the Project to get equipment for his old friend."
"Shinra didn't notice?" Ifalna wondered.
"He commissioned them from another company, so he could lie about it on the receipts he passed to Shinra. Vincent could have reported him, but it didn't threaten the Project. I persuaded Hojo it wasn't a bad thing to pad our budget."
Aeris pushed past them to get a closer look at a strange projector in the center of the room. "So Dad had machines like these...?"
"Ho... You're familiar with this equipment?"
The three of them turned as an old man floated into the room on some manner of contraption. A second man in his middle years walked in behind him.
"Not exactly," Ifalna said cautiously. "My late husband had equipment that must have been manufactured by the same company."
"It's something of a rarity these days," the old man remarked. "Shinra bought out and dismantled that company years ago. A shame, because it's really quite dependable."
"I'm not surprised," said Lucrecia.
"I don't suppose you still have your husband's equipment...?" the other man wondered.
"...no. I... don't really know what happened to it." Ifalna hesitated. "My husband was Professor Gast Faremis."
A spark of recognition crossed both of their faces, and soon folded into something more solemn.
"I see..." said the old man.
"I'm sorry. It is why we came here. You were friends of his, weren't you?"
"Don't apologize," said the other man. "We wondered what happened to him... May I ask... how?"
Ifalna faltered, and Lucrecia stepped in for her. "He tried to leave Shinra to protect his family," she said, "but his subordinate tracked him down and... had him killed."
"That's..." The man glanced at Aeris. "...I'm very sorry."
"I was just a baby," Aeris said with a shake of her head. "I don't remember it."
"Then I'm sorry you didn't get to know him. Your father was a good friend of mine."
"You're very welcome here in Cosmo Canyon," added the old man. "Stay as long as you like. My name of course is Bugenhagen, though I've been known to respond to 'that old man.'"
"And I'm Bugah," said the other man, offering his hand to Ifalna.
"Ifalna," she said, hoping he missed her hesitation over taking his hand. Their time in Gongaga had eased her discomfort over meeting new people, but she was still out of practice. "This is my daughter Aeris."
"Lucrecia Crescent. My son Sephiroth is around somewhere, if you see a very tall young man."
Bugah exchanged glances with Bugenhagen. "Crescent? You aren't the same Dr. Crescent who worked with Gast on the Jenova Project, are you?"
"I... Yes. I'm surprised you remember that."
"I think we met once, didn't we? You don't seem to have aged a day."
Lucrecia shrugged. "Only on the outside. It's been a long time. I don't work for Shinra anymore."
"There's clearly a much longer story here," Bugah observed. "Whether or not you want to share it, I'd be happy to reminisce about Gast."
"Could you show us how these machines work?" Aeris interjected, gesturing to the projector.
"Ho ho hooo... I'd be delighted to, young lady." Bugenhagen's face crinkled as he smiled. "A scientific curiosity like your father's, perhaps?"
"Aunt Lu's the scientist. But they look neat."
Aeris had seen very little in the way of modern technology outside of the lab, and Ifalna couldn't help smiling softly, glad that she could look at this room with curiosity rather than dread. She'd been too young for Hojo to subject her to much testing, but she'd seen its effects on her mother and known somewhere outside of their room were awful machines used in her torment. But this room had no connection to that nightmare.
Ifalna hadn't expected it to conjure anything for her either, but at the soft click of something switching on, a jolt ran through her ribcage. It wasn't the sight but the sound--the same click that had summoned her to where Gast had been fiddling with his video equipment, just before Hojo had found them.
"I'm... sorry," she fumbled, moving towards the door. "You all go ahead, I think I'd like to check on what Sephiroth's gotten up to."
It was a flimsy excuse, as everyone's expression told her, but no one questioned it. Lucrecia held her gaze, tilting her head in silent question, but Ifalna shook her head. It was a small thing. She'd be fine.
Ifalna excused herself from the room, closed the door behind her, and went on outside where the electric hum was too faint to make out. Better. That was better.
She walked to the railing, leaning against it to look out over the canyon. Warm rock stretched out to the horizon, flat plateaus carved through with a labyrinth left by long-dry rivers. The heat made sweat prick beneath her clothes. Lively, indistinct conversation drifted up from below. Nothing here was anything like that day in the north.
She let her gaze scan downwards into the settlement below. Strangers moved about their daily business, stopping to chat here and there. Even this far up, Sephiroth was easy to pick out, seated near the bonfire in the company of some large red-furred dog. Had he become overwhelmed by people so quickly? Or maybe just distracted. They'd never kept a pet, but they'd had a chocobo for a few years, and Sephiroth had spent more time with the animal than any of them.
Ifalna started down from the observatory, deciding she may as well put truth to her excuse and check on him for real. She had stepped out onto the landing above the last stairway when she came across another of the red-furred creatures and realized 'animal' was only as accurate a term as it was for humans or Cetra.
"Don't mind me," said the beast pleasantly, flicking her tail. Her attention, too, appeared to be on the bonfire.
"Is that your...?"
"My son, yes. Nanaki." The beast glanced up at her. "Is that yours?"
It struck Ifalna as a strange question--she and Sephiroth didn't look alike--but then, that was her own perspective. "Not quite," she said. "His mother is up at the observatory, with my daughter."
The beast tilted her head thoughtfully, but rather than asking, she said, "Welcome to you all the same. I am Sebuna, guardian of this canyon."
"Ifalna. Just a visitor, I suppose."
"It is good to see more of those. We have only just returned home ourselves."
"Oh?"
"We've been journeying," Sebuna explained, "as far as the Nibel mountains."
"Nibelheim?" Ifalna wondered uneasily.
"You know it?"
"...I know of it. My husband and Sephiroth's mother both worked there, once."
"...are you speaking of Professor Gast?"
Ifalna blinked. "You knew him?"
Sebuna shook her head. "I have heard of him. We were not acquainted. He was Bugenhagen's friend, his last connection to Shinra. Though I heard Gast left the company as well."
"Yes. They didn't much care for his departure."
Sebuna caught her tone, and didn't ask for clarification. "I am sorry," she said. "I know the pain of losing a mate."
Ifalna gave her a rueful smile. "Then you have my sympathies."
"I worry for Nanaki more than anything," Sebuna said, looking down at the bonfire. "He has only me to guide him."
Ifalna moved closer to the ledge and settled herself beside Sebuna. Both sons looked relaxed in the light of the fire, talking easily. She wondered what they spoke of. It struck her that not only was Sephiroth sitting in plain view of a community of humans, with his strange eyes and strange hair, but Sebuna and Nanaki lived their lives comfortably among them. It had come to feel like such an alien notion, and yet, Ifalna had made no secret of her heritage at Icicle Inn. People had known her, and her family.
Or perhaps their paths weren't different at all. She wondered what had cost Sebuna her mate. Had Nanaki had the chance to know him?
"...I suppose that's part of why we came here," she said at last. "Aeris never knew her father. But people here did. It's a part of his legacy that isn't mine to share with her, but it's... safe to share with her."
"Unlike Nibelheim?" Sebuna wondered.
Ifalna glanced at her. "What do you know about it?"
"Nothing. Only that the name makes you uneasy."
Ifalna looked back at the bonfire, quiet for a moment. "I didn't know him in those days," she said. "I don't like to think of who he was with Shinra, the things he did."
"Were they so terrible?"
"Perhaps they weren't," she had to admit. She could not say Sephiroth was terrible. "I know he helped to raise Sephiroth when he was young, and Sephiroth thinks well of him."
"Not quite your son," Sebuna reflected.
Ifalna nodded. "But it isn't the man I like to remember."
"We like to dwell on what we loved most about them," Sebuna agreed. The glowing tip of her tail swung lazily over the edge of the landing. "I have only heard well of him here. I don't think you'll find bad memories."
"It seems that way." Both Bugenhagen and Bugah seemed to hold him in high regard, eager to share stories. "I thought it would be easier to hear, but... it makes me think about all the time we didn't have. I didn't know him here. I had him for such a short time, really."
"It was a period of your own life cut short."
Ifalna shook her head. "But it seems silly to dwell on it now. So much time has passed. I've moved on."
She didn't miss Gast's presence as a lover. She didn't long for his arms around her or for his voice to reassure her. She could have done with more of those moments in her memory, but now it only felt unfair that he wasn't here to be a part of this. Over the short years that she'd known him, he'd begun to grow into someone new. He'd so looked forward to fatherhood, and it had been stolen from him. Shinra had stolen from her the chance to see what it made of him.
She had Lucrecia. Aeris had Lucrecia. It was enough, but it could have been more.
"It's been 34 years since my mate returned to the Planet," said Sebuna, watching her. "I have had many good days in his absence, but I think it honors him to imagine at times what they might have been with his presence. It isn't silly."
"...he would have loved to come back here with us," Ifalna reflected. She could imagine him proudly introducing Aeris to all his old friends. Sephiroth, too. "Maybe I've been thinking about this the wrong way. This place isn't only his past. It's part of a future he would have wanted."
Sebuna nodded placidly, and Ifalna smiled. She gestured towards Nanaki.
"Is journeying a part of the future your mate would have wanted?"
"...I couldn't say for certain," Sebuna admitted. "But I know he would not have wanted me to shelter Nanaki so close that he grew stunted. It is good for him to see more of the world."
"You don't worry about Shinra?"
"I am wary of them. But I remember centuries before it was a name anyone spoke. It is a transient thing, and I ought not teach him to fear ghosts."
Ifalna sat back. Centuries, she reflected. But even she could recall the first time she had heard of Shinra. It had become so omnipresent, and yet... "I don't often find it reassuring," she said, "the way things don't last."
Sebuna looked at her, whiskers forward in a knowing expression. "Entropy is impartial, you know. Our time comes to an end, but so does everything."
Ifalna didn't have to ask to know that Sebuna's people faced their end just as the Cetra did. Both of them saw it ahead of them, but Sebuna had had longer to make her peace with it. It was natural that everything should end. One day, even the Planet would, though Ifalna hoped to have returned to its embrace long, long before that.
In the moment, the important thing was that Shinra wouldn't last either. She wanted to think that it wouldn't outlast her, but she felt certain it would not outlast their children.
Sitting beside someone so much more obviously inhuman than herself, seeing villagers walk past with no more reaction than a friendly hello, it made Cosmo Canyon feel safe, too. It would be nice if her fears, too, came in time to an end. Nice to believe in that safety. Maybe one day, she could.