Chapter 12

Grey past

"So, what do you say, Ladies and Gentlemen?" Nonchalantly, Tristan bowed before the group with opened arms.

"I don't know what any gentleman would say, but I'd say that it looks like a normal entrance to some cave." Golbez pushed aside Tristan and fearlessly set some steps into the black tunnel before them. After some minutes his dark figure loosened itself out of the shadows and came into view again.

"And? Does it go farther in?" Leah asked impatiently upon approaching him. On her way, she stumbled over some rock in the dim light of the cave and crashed against Golbez's chest.

The wizard winced.

"Uh oh… She has touched him…" Tristan hissed and theatrically held a hand before his eyes. The times he had just dared to give Golbez a slap on the shoulder had not ended well.

Even Edward mustered the courage to defend the young woman. "Maste--I mean, Golbez, she didn't--"

He fell silent with a gasp, which caused Tristan to look again - Golbez had caught the woman around the waist and neither of the two made any attempt to break the accidentally close position.

Something fiery seemed to flare up inTristan's eyes; something which was proof of an emotion Edward was currently suffering under, himself… Was he really jealous? It couldn't be that. There was nothing he felt for Leah besides sympathy, but still…

"I wish that he wouldn't touch her." Leah's form looked so lithe, so vulnerable. He felt the sudden urge to protect her from Golbez's hand, from this cold grip around her slim form.

"If he hurts her…" Edward's hands did something they had not done for a long time - they balled into fists.

"Can't you be more careful?" Golbez's voice sounded sharp like always.

"Now it starts…" In that moment Golbez's words seemed nearly like the arrows which had plunged his fiancée into the deadly abyss, faster than any word, touch, kiss, any exhibition of the infinite love he had held for Anna that could have caught her fall.

Still, Edward couldn't bring himself to act, the inner strain petrifying him…Then, Leah's quiet laugh shattered part of the tension.

"I stumbled…" she said.

"I did notice that. I was talking about this…" With a nod, Golbez motioned towards her hand on his chest.

"Hadn't he been hurt there?" Edward remembered the strange position they had found the two on the beach. He had felt confused then, the mixture of hostility but also a strange kind of agreement lying in the air, which wasinexplicable to him. It just didn't fit together, just like now, a slight blush was colouring Leah's face, although her voice seemed to be underlined with malicious amusement.

"Does it still bleed? Soon it will stop and heal."

Golbez raised an eyebrow. "I do hope so. Just don't touch it…"

"I don't believe you." Leah poked atthe place of the wound once more. "I think that you don't even want it to heal!"

"Is she mad?" Edward was totally absorbed in what was happening, as was obviously Tristan.

As expected, the eyes of the wizard narrowed, but then there appeared a little smile on his lips. "You know - she could fight like you and was straightforward like you, too…"

It was then that Leah loosened herself out of his grasp. "Really? Many people are that way…" She turned around and winked towards the others. "I bet Tristan knew such women, too."

"What? Err... Yes… Women…" The flaxen haired man had obviously not even heard the question and was looking at his companions with widened eyes. Edward noticed that the fiery burning had left them - as the smile had left Tristan's face.

"If anyone is still interested, the cave does go deep into the mountain. Tristan, King Edward, are you with us?" Golbez asked.

"Us?" To Edward, it slowly seemed like there some kind of game going on between Golbez and Leah, a game he didn't know the rules to…

"Of course we are with you! Riches await!" Tristan was already grinning again, though as they followed Golbez and Leah into the cave, he whispered towards Edward: "I wonder what really happened to them while we were away. I hope Leah knows what she's doing…"

The bard nodded; his hands still clenched.

xOx

"So near…" Once again, Leah had been very close to him and it had felt so…strange…

No, 'strange' was the wrong word. Golbez's ability of self-analysis had pretty well concluded by now that he had actually liked holding her. This woman was so different from other people, so unafraid even in a moment of weakness, so relentless even when concerned about something… or somebody.

"I think you don't even want it to heal…" Maybe this was true - pain was making him feel alive, was making him feel at least something. Though it wasn't the physical pain that did so, but the mental one - the one which hurt heart and soul. In the moment as Leah had struck him with the sword, he had for just the fracture of second believed that she meant to kill him - and where had his thoughts been?

Why must she of all people hate me for what I am?

Why must she of all people betray me?

These details occurred to Golbez as he followed the long winding tunnels into the mountain, with a fire magic ignited stick giving them light.

He tried to ban those thoughts as best as he could, as they were part of a higher truth he didn't want to accept; no, didn't deserve to accept. Besides what had he to do with the girl? Maybe she was Dawn, maybe not, but no matter who she was, he would only bring her sorrow if he got too close. There were more possibilities to hurt a person than raw strength, much more subtle ways: Cecil would probably have a lot to tell about this; Kain, who he had manipulated; Edward who he constantly mocked… Why was she still so bold?

"It's like she does ignore my past."

Then again, she did seem to know him very well… 

"I think you don't want to heal."

He still could feel how she had pressed her hand on his heart, making the cut hurt once more and it involuntarily brought a smile upon his lips.

"This girl is interesting. To say the least…interesting like she was…"

But no - his face darkened and turned bitter once more; no, he didn't want to heal because he did not deserve it - what right had he to find comfort in emotions if all he'd ever given the people was pain and disdain? The line between good and evil wasn't easy to draw, but in Golbez's eyes the linebetween guilty and innocent was--

"You are guilty."

And since no one else was going to sentence him, he had to do it alone as otherwise he would be even less able to bear his very existence…

"Your sentence is to suffer."

Still, right now Golbez wasn't sure if it wasn't just suffering what Leah brought upon him:

Inflicting doubts with her words, inflicting pain with her actions.

Such sweet suspicion… Such sweet pain…

xOx

"I cannot go any further… This cave seems to lead into the mountain forever. Just leave me here," Edward's voice sounded weakly from behind.

"If you wish so," Golbez agreed coldly, not troubling himself with turning around. "As if he would stay here alone in the dark tunnels…"

Leah, in contrast, stopped. "Of course we won't leave you here! Isn't that right, Tristan?"

"What? Yes, yes, of course… Why don't we have a short break?" Tristan said, and without waiting for an answer, he slumped down on the floor with crossed legs. As always, if he had decided on anything, it was clear to the flaxen haired man that the others would follow.

And Leah and Edward only followed him too gladly, sitting down, as well.

With a sigh, Golbez halted and, sticking his torch into the soft ground, he leaned against the wall with folded arms, his usual stature when he wanted to "rest". As he gave an annoyed glance to his sitting companions, he noticed that Leah was grinning at him and whispering something in Tristan's ear, causing the young man to laugh.

"Am I that funny?" Golbez frowned, at the same time wondering about when he had started to care about what other people thought of him.

"Well, at least it's dry in this cave. Still I hope that we'll reach its end, soon…" Edward murmured.

"It's not far anymore," Leah said, and then added quickly, "I think…"

However, Tristan had already caught the hint. "Do you remember this place?"

Leah's blue eyes wandered towards the ground. "I don't know… I mean, it's just a cave - there could be many others like thisone and--" she shook her head, "Sorry, I don't want to talk about it until I've sorted things out… It was just a feeling…"

"Hey - never press on the secrets of a lady!" Tristan smiled and then started to rummage through his pockets. "Are you thirsty, as well? I think I still have--there!" Triumphantly, he pulled a flask out of his pocket, opened the cork and sniffed at it. "Ahh…" A wide, nearly goofy smile spread across his lips. "Here, have a try!" He waved the flask before Leah's eyes.

"What's in it?" Leah regarded the bottle warily.

"It's a secret! But I assure you that it only contains the best ingredients!" Tristan set up his most convincing face.

"I don't know…" Leah frowned. "You look like the type of man who would tryto make women drunk!"

Golbez grinned in his corner.

Tristan feigned innocence, in which he was good at, as always. "What, me? Never! Besides one couldn't fool such a smart girl as you! Here, Edward will take a sip, too, to show you that it is completely harmless!"

The King of Damcyan shifted uneasily. "Well, I don't--"

"Hey - what would Leah think of you?" Tristan murmured towards the young King. "Don't be a coward!"

That did it. Immediately, Edward grabbed for the flask and took a sip.

"Doesn't taste... too... bad…" were his last words before he had a coughing fit.

Leah patted him on the back. "Hey, are you alright?"

"He probably just choked…" Tristan calmed her. "Try it yourself - it tastes good."

He waved the flask for such a long time before her face that Leah started to feel dizzy and nearly fell backwards; a moment Tristan used to get on top of her -- or better, would have used, if Golbez hadn't caught him at the backside of his collar and had pulled him back.

"Stop your silly games," the longhaired wizard said icily, trying to ignore Leah's attentive and slightly amused stare.

"I didn't do anything! Since when are you so protective?" There was an angry undertone in Tristan's voice, which Golbez had never heard before and the dark wizard tightened his grip.

"I'm not being protective; I just don't think that it is necessary to serve chocobo piss or whatever you have in this flask of yours to us in the middle of some strange cave!"

Tristan put the liquid back into his pocket, which was not an easy task in his current position. "Hey - who got drunk in Kaipo? Besides Leah doesn't have any memory she could forget through a hangover, right?"

"Tristan!" Leah reprimanded him.

"Okay, okay… That wasn't a good joke. I'm sorry. So could you stop strangling me now, Golbez?"

"Please, let him go… We all know Tristan's understanding of humour." Leah tried to intervene.

"A lack of understanding, that is…" Snorting, Golbez let go of Tristan, whose first worry was about his looks and thus about straightening out his clothes. He was getting bold again rather quickly.

"All this fuss just about a little liquid… Did you never take a little victory drink after… let's say... a successful destruction of sometown?"

Only Leah's imploring stare was keeping Golbez from grabbing the young man again. By now, the dark haired wizard had long understood that this "fuss" was not about a drink, but of course about her.

It was a game he could not win, did not even dare to win.

"Just take a sip…" Tristan took the flask out of his pocket, again.

But he could make the swindler lose...

Under the lurking gazes of both Tristan and Edward, Golbez was about to reach for the bottle. 

"Will you stop it!" Leah's calm amusement was now mixed with annoyance. "You're behaving like there is a contest going on about me! Past or no past - I may not know who I am, or where I belong, but that doesn't mean that I'm feeling so desperate that I urgently need male company! We should better break up now - we did enter these tunnels for a reason, right? And as far as I remember it had not much to do with me." She jumped to her feet.

Her remark, though spoken out with a smile, made sure that there reigned an embarrassed silence between her three companions as they followed her…

xOx

Leah's former supposition had been right - not too long afterwards, the tunnel led into an oval cave with a strange device in the middle of it.

"It looks like some kind of magical transport… But weren't you looking for a spell, Sir Tristan?" Edward asked.

Tristan shrugged. "The descriptions were rather vague… Then again the cave seems to go in much deeper--" He pointed towards a tunnel at the other end of the cave.

"I don't think that we need to linger here any longer. I should have assumed that the Lunarians would know better than to writedown a teleport spell on a transitory piece of paper. This machine surely stands here for a reason. Now we just need to conclude how it functions." Golbez looked around the room.

"Maybe one just needs to stand on it?" Edward proposed.

"I'll try it."

Leah stepped in Golbez's way. "You don't know where it's gonna take you!"

"No matter where, the most important thing is that it takes me away from… you…" Golbez pushed the woman aside, carefully. Her concern was making him feel sick. Sick and guilty, because he had brought Leah as far as actually worrying about him.

"You shouldn't waste your feelings on me…"

The first of his black boots was short of reaching the circle when suddenly a bright flash blinded him, bathing everything in a radiant white. Golbez had to shield his eyes - a low humming suddenly seemed to fill the air.

"I know this noise…"

The hum got louder and louder, filling every fiber of his body, filling every space in the white around him, still getting stronger and stronger until it suddenly lessened again, becoming quieter, changing…

Changing into a voice…

"Golbez… Finally."

That voice… So old… So wise….

So reprimanding?

"FuSoYa?" Golbez fought against the brightness, not daring to open his eyes.

"Look at me, Golbez. Still afraid of the light, I see. It will not hurt you."

Suppressing a cynical response, Golbez blinked - indeed no light was blinding him. Instead, he beheld a vision of pure white, which seemed to fill the whole space around him.

"Good boy." The figure before him was as Golbez remembered - a short, rather portly old man, who nearly disappeared behind a mass of white hair and beard. His little green eyes were looking as full of knowledge as always -- and as always seemed to pierce through him. Frowning, Golbez noticed that he and FuSoYa were alone.

It was like the Lunarians had read Golbez's thoughts: "Right now I'd prefer to appear before you, only. Before you get impatient, and I know that you get impatient quickly, child, so let me tell you about this place. Have you never wondered how the Lunarians came to the Blue Planet?"

"It is widely known that they traveled in the Big Wha-"

"This was a rhetorical question, boy, let me talk."

Golbez had to admit that FuSoYa did not fail to instill a certain… respect in him. The old man possessed something Cecil had as well - some kind of calm, inner power and in Golbez's eyes strength in any form was a force to respect, although he was always careful not to carry his awe too openly around. Thus, Golbez's forehead laid itself in indignant frowns - as surprising as FuSoYa's sudden appearance was, the development of this dialogue, which had already turned into a monologue, wasn't…

"The old man hasn't changed at all…"

"Of course we used the Big Whale, but in times when the moon and the Blue Planet existed side by side, also this device was built to enable Lunarians to teleport between the two worlds. It functions similar to the Serpent Way, only that it covers a much greater teleporting distance. In time, this location became forgotten, since it was handled by the Lunarians as a great secret: People on the Blue Planet should never find a way to reach the moon, unless they were chosen to raise the Whale."

"Like my brother…" Golbez threw in.

"And like you. This is why I am here. You must go to Mysidia, help me to raise the Great Whale once more and then--"

He was disrupted by Golbez's bitter laugh. "But of course. Uncle, this is starting to sound like a mission. Are you sure that this teleportation device functions correctly? Maybe the one you really wanted to appear before is my brother. You know, the one who has saved the Planet before -- from me. The only place I should go back to is the moon."

FuSoYa frowned. "You have not lost your humour, I see… One human trait more about you, as is your before mentioned impatience. After you have raised the Whale you can return to the moon if you wish so, but don't you know --" he shook his head. "Forgive me, child, of course you do not know why we want to raise the Whale. Sometimes I forget that you are just a Half Lunarian and thus have not the insight of the Lunarian Elders."

"Believe me, when I behold the destructive power I'm able to wield, I sometimes forget that I'm just a Half Lunarian, too…" Golbez remarked darkly.

"You are as bitter as ever. I had hoped that you would use your unwanted stay here on the Blue Planet to learn something from your brother or the people around you," FuSoYa uttered, accompanied by a long, sad sigh.

"When I'm back on the moon you will have all eternity to lecture me. Right now, it would be nice if you would let me into some of your elderly insight, " Golbez snapped. "Can you tell me why the moon has returned? That wasn't the doing of any humans, I suppose?"

"No, it wasn't," the old Lunarian cleared his throat, studying Golbez with a sharp glance. "You see, the Lunarians, the crystals and the moon with its crystal core - they're all connected. That is why only people with Lunarian blood can raise the Whale... And now someone "called" the moon here… The call had an immense strength and--" he suddenly trailed off.

"So it must have been someone originally from the moon - a powerful Lunarian… You don't want to say--" Anger was rising within Golbez. "His soul is still alive and wants to return, right?"

"Listen Golbez, we can only assume that it is Klu Ya's doing--"

"It's my damn father's fault that I'm stuck on this planet, once again?" There it was again - this other flame, this biting, burning, consuming red eating at his soul…

"Child, calm yourself! Or do you want to give the dark power control over you again?!"

"I am no child! My nature is not innocent! The dark power has never left me - and the longer I stay here, the more difficult it gets for me to contain it. Let us bring this to an end -- I'm returning with you to the moon right now!"

"Cecil… Sorry for lying… Leah… Now I'll never know the truth…"

In this moment, however, Golbez's fear was stronger than these regrets, stronger than what he felt for anybody. It was the fear of the rage FuSoYa's words had invoked in him, a rage that was unbearable in its intensity… He wanted to get away, get somewhere, anywhere to escape what was filling his soul right now… 

"You cannot return to the moon this way. Nor can I." FuSoYa said calmly.

"Why?" Golbez thundered.

"Our recent uses of the teleportation device have used it up."

"What?" Slowly, the grey returned to Golbez's soul, and with it the ability of observation. "What do you mean 'our'?"

"Golbez, I fear that you are in danger the longer I use this spell. Someone next to me followed you - a Lunarian named Ko Min, probably inclined on killing you. Be careful, as we do not know if he hasn't already won others for his cause." FuSoYa regarded him thoughtfully. "More explanations have to wait for later. My spell is already weakening. I feel tired and my powers are not what they used to be… "

"Hasn't he slept enough on the moon?"

Golbez's mouth turned into a mocking smile despite the fact that something about FuSoYa's explanation had filled his soul with unrest.

"Others…"

"I know what you think, but I'd like to see you after a decade of sleeping on a hard crystal bunk," FuSoYa went on. "But this is not the place for such considerations, either. More important is that we get to a safer location, quickly. This cave does not only contain this teleport system, but also another one which leads to Mysidia, the point where Lunarians and humans first met. I pray that this device still has enough power to bring you and me to the town. I will await you there at the local drinking establishment."

"Await you at the tavern? Why don't we go together and put this behind us as soon as possible?"

FuSoYa took a deep breath and began to wave a warning finger in front of Golbez's nose. "Don't tell me that you want to leave your companions behind? Have you really learned nothing?"

"I--"

"I'm too old to travel with you all - I have my own pace. It might be good for you to continue your journey with Edward, the young witty man and… what was the name of the girl?"

"Leah…"

"Yes. Very pretty…" FuSoYa smiled. "Reminds me of a young Lunarian I--"

The white light around him turned cold as a cruel thought went through Golbez's head; feeding the former unrest with icy corroboration.

"Didn't you say that I was in danger? There is no time now for romantic memories…" he cut FuSoYa short.

"I presumed that you wouldn't have any sympathy for this kind of subject. But you are right - we should make haste." Frowning, FuSoYa turned to go and slowly the white dispersed. It seemed to Golbez as if the old man spoke some last words to him, before the colours returned to the surroundings, something which sounded full of grief, but he was too deep in thoughts to listen even to his companions, whose voices now reached his ear once more.

"Golbez? Golbez? What's the matter? Why don't you answer? What was this flash just now?" Finally, some words came through clearly to him -- they were Leah's.

"Can it be possible? It all fits together. She knows this island - and the cave. She's confusing you… to kill you?"

/Maybe you are an evil that needs to get eradicated from the face of the planet…/

Any suspicion he had ever held regarding her was no longer sweet pain, but burning, piercing and bitter.

It truly hurt.