Chapter 5

As far as Ifalna knew, she was the last.

Her father had died young, his health too fragile for the Knowlespole's harsh winters. Grief had taken her mother a few short years after. Her uncle had raised her, and, having no children of his own, he'd passed everything he had on to her. She'd consigned his body to the ground little more than a year ago, and she still heard his voice.

Still, it was lonely. The humans she lived among were good, kind people, but they weren't her people. The villagers came to her for her quilts and her embroidery. Quietly she stitched the stories of her people into strangers' garments, and she thought that probably, they would outlast her. She didn't know if that gave her comfort. A final record of her people, meaningless without anyone left to interpret it.

She did talk with them sometimes. They knew what she was, though they probably didn't realize she was the last. She would tell them things about the Planet, and the Lifestream, and the dangers of the great northern crater that she had never seen herself. Ifalna had seen more than one expedition make its way into the north beyond Icicle Inn. They worried her.

The Planet hadn't fully healed itself, even after all this time. She wondered if it was at all stronger than it had been when the Crisis had first struck.

Sometimes, in the privacy of her home, she would sit with the White Materia heavy in her palms and wonder. Was she meant to use it? Was it time? Was it too late?

The Planet's voice was never clear enough. Her ancestors didn't push her. Her uncle didn't know.

Maybe they were still waiting.

At the end of every summer, she made the journey across the snowfields to the City of the Dead. Her ancestors had dedicated themselves to its preservation, but Ifalna could give it only a few weeks out of the year, and she could do little more than bear witness to its continued decay. Collapsed buildings told her of heavy snows in decades past, where the roofs had given out under the weight, and of springs where the snow melt from the mountains had flooded the valley, crashing against fragile walls.

Her brother was buried here, only nine when the wolves had taken him. He had been her elder, and this burden would have been passed to him. There was no blame she could place on him, only a regret that they couldn't have shared it. His voice had diffused into the Planet years ago; he had never had the chance to grow into himself, and the Lifestream was no opportunity.

As she made her way down the familiar path into the valley, an unexpected unease greeted her. The voices of the dead were agitated—not quite alarmed, but uncertain.

There was someone else in the City.

Her heart leapt, but in an instant she realized: if it had been another Cetra, they would have known. She would have known.

Someone human?

Another sort of expedition, she reasoned, her mouth twisting as she wondered whether they would show respect or simply search the place for treasures to loot. The Planet's tears were of little use as materia, but some wealthy collector might find them interesting baubles. Her hands clenched into fists as she imagined her ancestor's memories sitting pretty on someone's mantle.

The voices led her to the theatre, where she found a lone man on hands and knees at the base of the crystal projector. He didn't notice her as she approached, and she was able to draw near enough that over his shoulder, she could see him carefully copying down the glyphs etched into the stone.

It wasn't what she expected. He still hadn't noticed her, which gave her all the time she wanted to find her words.

"...do you expect to read them?" she asked at last.

"Oh!" He started, dropping his pencil, which rolled dutifully into the center of his notebook. He twisted to stare up at her through his glasses. "...hello," he said cautiously.

"Hello," she replied.

After staring for a moment longer, he adjusted his glasses, gathered his notebook, and climbed to his feet. "You surprised me," he said. "This isn't the sort of place one expects a chance meeting."

Ifalna offered him a tentative smile. "No," she agreed. "It isn't."

There was a pause, and then he seemed to remember her question. "Oh! I mean, one would hope, eventually, that we might interpret whatever the Ancients left behind for us. A few of these bear some similarity to early human writing, so it's at least something to start with." Eagerly, he opened his notebook and took a step closer to point out one of the glyphs he'd recorded. "This might be 'sun,' for example, or perhaps 'light.' That's something, isn't it?"

"...I suppose it is," Ifalna agreed. She herself only knew a few of them. It was lost knowledge. "Are you a scholar, then?"

He nodded, and shuffled the notebook around again so he could offer her his hand. "Gast Faremis," he said.

Ifalna took the hand. His grip through her glove was firm, but gentle. "Ifalna," she said.

"A pleasure to meet you," he said. "A fellow scholar?"

"Not exactly," she said. "I do know some of the lore about this place, but... My family used to visit it, and coming here helps me to feel closer to them."

It was better to be cautious, she thought, no matter how warm the smile behind his moustache at her answer.

"Then perhaps you could tell me what you know about it?" Gast wondered. "If that's all right."

"...I think I'd like that," Ifalna decided.

She was the last, after all. This might be the only way the things she knew, the legacy of her people, could carry on. She could tell her stories to this scholar, and he could write them down in his little book, and maybe they would last another two thousand years before someone sat squinting over them in hopes of making out a single word.

And for a little while, she could keep the loneliness at bay.

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