Epilogue

 

Dawn was breaking over the ruins of Treno, most people had been evacuated from the city and despite the recovery teams best attempts there were still corpses lying broken in the rubble, the crows and other carrion birds circled and cried to each other.

Rhiana stepped lightly over the corpse of a young girl, and leant down to gently stroke her face. She had never before witnessed such brutal, widespread devastation...and the sorrow she felt in her heart at what she saw around her was not eased by the constant reminder that she had sided with the man who had destroyed the once proud city.

The wind howled through the remains of a tower beside her, one part of it taller than the rest, looming over her and blocking the dawning sun. She stood up from the side of the girl and walked forward, climbing up a mound of rubble until she stood at the top of it, overlooking the river near the tournament hall, the hall itself was suprisingly largely intact, and seemed to be the focus of a group of people who huddled around it. She turned and beckoned to her brother, Ilvian who put down a section of wood that he was examining and climbed up beside her. He held her arm with his metal hand, a physical reminder of what they had been through. He looked across to the tournament hall and then back at her, and nodded...nothing was said, nothing need to be said.

Rhiana felt that they had moved beyond the boundaries of brother and sister, a term they had endowed upon themselves after being abandoned on Terra all those years ago, they had bonded at a level of emotion they could understand, mentally they were only children...thus allowing themselves to be drawn into the web of hope that Fury had carefully made...his words and promises had filled them with a sense of purpose, with a new meaning...but those words were empty and the promises as broken as the city around them...but the crisis they had faced, the trials they had been put through...it had only brought them closer together, so close that Rhiana no longer thought of Ilvian as a brother...but something closer...and she was fairly sure that he felt the same way too.

But for now, such thoughts were far away in their minds as they vowed upon leaving Alexandria, bidding a tearful farewell to Domino and her companions, to help in whatever way they could, the inhabitants of Treno to rebuild their homes and their lives.

"One day," Ilvian had said "We'll build a house...just over there." he had pointed to a hillside overlooking Treno, near a network of caves.

"A house?"

He had nodded as they walked, the eastern sky turning lighter.

"Yes...just me and you...we'll build it ourselves...no more wars, no more lies...just me and you."

And she had looked into his eyes and held his hand.

"Yes Ilvian...I'd like that very much."

She smiled at the thought, she had heard of a creature called a Chocobo, and that people reared them and kept them as pets and riding creatures...one day she pictured herself in the back garden of their home, feeding chocobo chicks. There'd be flowers, and birds singing on the breeze, and below them Treno would be rebuilt, bustling and better than before.

They approached the group of people, nearly a hundred or so, some of whom were arguing, others were crying...it seemed as though the survivors were still in shock.

Ilvian looked at them for a long time, he looked at every last one of them, then he climbed up onto the roof and pulled out his particle pistol, a momento from Fury's campaign, and fired it once into the air, the report echoing around the ruins. The hubbub of conversation ceased suddenly and everyone was looking at them, someone screamed but Ilvian put the pistol away and held his hands in the air in what he hoped was a non-threatening kind of way.

"People of Treno...it's time to move on..."

Silence greeted his words and a few confused looks followed the silence.

"Many have died here...and many may die hereafter, but let us not let Treno die...let us rebuild the city we all held dear, revive it into something the people who died here can be proud of!"

"How the hell are we going to do that? We have nothing!" yelled a young man from the front of the crowd.

"We may not have tools...we may not have money...at the moment, I dare say that many of us don't have a home...but...we do have one very important thing...we have each other. We are the survivors...we can either rebuild our lives, or we can mope around here and die...and let Treno die with us."

There was another long pause, then an old lady from the back of the crowd spoke, or rather croaked up.

"Where can we possibly hope to begin?!"

Ilvian looked around and his eyes fell on the tournament hall behind them. He smiled.

"Let's make this tournament hall our base, let's make this place safe to live in and rebuild the city around it. We'll have help from Alexandria and Lindblum I expect...and we will survive...we will all survive. I've lost one home, and I don't want to lose another."

Someone in the crowd clapped, and others took that person's direction and started clapping too. Rhiana walked up beside him and kissed him on the cheek, he turned and smiled before kissing her on the lips briefly. They held hands as the people of Treno started talking loudly amongest themselves, some were heading up into the tournament hall, to see for themselves how bad the damage was, and whether they could make it their home.

The suns rays cut through the air above them and a flock of birds flew past, crying on the breeze...and as Rhiana looked down, she saw an amazing sight underneath a fallen window pane, she jumped down and lifted up the pane, underneath it was a solitary flower, simple and yet so utterly beautiful, and a symbol of everlasting hope...a reassurance that whatever had happened, they would survive.

 

Meanwhile in a dimension of time and space that was so utterly seperate to Gaia and yet so untwined as to be unremovable. A silver genome and a brown haired man sat cross legged in a circle of crystals.

"I couldn't save her...after all this time...when she needed me the most." said the man, as he stared at the fallen leaves on the ground in front of him.

"Don't you think you're being a little harsh on yourself...no-one could have saved her...it was her time to die."

"Why does everything I cherish die?"

"Yugami is not dead."

It was a simple statement but one that made the man cry openly, sobbing like a child.

"You must come back...Tell me...what is your name."

"My name?"

"Yes..."

"My name is Thunderchild..."

Reiganna held out her hand and he took it, she stood up and he followed.

"Come with me Thunderchild...and I will tell you just how to control what you have become."

"Please...I can't bear this torture any more."

He hugged Reiganna and she hugged him back, massaging his hair with her free hand.

"All will turn out as it should." she whispered as he cried on her shoulder.