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It’s been a long time since I last had this dream.
I reached out for a piece of scrap metal, and then I fell into the ground.
Sand. Sand? Was I dreaming? It comes slowly, then all at once. Egil. Fiora. Mechon. Falling. Dead. Shulk picks himself up off the ground, and takes in his surroundings. Sunset on a strange beach littered with unidentifiable Mechon parts. Fiora must be around here somewhere.
And in the water, wilted and bent over and glowing red like a beacon, drowns the corpse of Fiora’s Face. With renewed hope and terror building in his gut, Shulk rushes over to it, praying to all the gods who would listen that may she not have died in a machine a second time. At least one god must’ve heard him, because here she is, unconscious and mechanical and cold and alive.
Shulk drags her body out of the wreckage of her old husk, as he had in every dream every night since she died on Colony 9.
She is so heavy (just dead weight, as it was meant to be the demon in his brain said), but Shulk trudges through the water anyway, carrying her with all the gentle urgency one might carry a lost baby bird, or a broken ether lamp. He lays Fiora on the sands, pressing his ear to her mouth to calm his treacherous thoughts, and yes, she’s still breathing! He catches sight of the emblem on her chest, pulsing a quiet red, and the curious mechanic in him wins out over reason. But the more he tugs, the stronger it glows, as if resisting, or begging to come free. In a stroke of madness, he shakes her, begging for her to awaken. No time for losing your head now is it? comes the voice of Reyn in his head, for Fiora needs water.
There must be fresh water where there is life, so Shulk ventures up the beach to the greenery, and sure enough, there flows a spring (from where, he didn’t know, and he didn’t much care). He gathers as much as his canteen would allow, and rushes back to the girl-machine in the sands.
He moves Fiora so she is propped up on a sturdy piece of Mechon debris so she can drink easier, but even as he brings the cap of his canteen to her lips, she turns away. Even unconscious she’s stubborn as an Eks, which under normal circumstances Shulk would’ve found charming, but now, with her so close to death and so close to life, he needs her to cooperate.
So, his stupid, desperate brain comes up with a stupid, desperate plan. Shulk brings the water to his mouth without swallowing, cradles her head, sends up a prayer to the god that saved her, and sets lips upon hers, open-mouthed. The thoughts are traitorous in a time such as this, but he cannot believe he is kissing his childhood best friend. Perhaps if she were not unconscious on the verge of death on a foreign shore, they (they, she had to be fully awake) would’ve had their first kiss on his bed, in his room, back at Colony 9, after he saved her from Metal Face. Or perhaps she would have made the first move, up on Outlook Park.
Fiora swallows, and the spell is broken.
He draws back (reluctantly, how evil he was) just as her eyes open. Great; because of a stupid, desperate decision he made, their friendship will be ruined, and her first waking moments will be tainted. So Shulk makes to ask if she remembers, which really means if she wanted him to kiss her, if she liked it. If she remembers herself, if she remembers him, if she remembers them.
“Fiora! You’re awake! Um…(wow, aren’t you smooth? chides Dunban) do you remember?” He’s been practicing his reunion lines in his head, and come on, they aren’t supposed to sound so fumbling. “My name is Shu-”
“I can’t believe it. My first kiss…” comes Fiora’s delicate, strong voice to interrupt his babbling, and Shulk could expire from happiness. Her cold, golden hand comes up to his face, and he’s never loved the touch of a Mechon more.
His hand shoots up to meet hers, to press it to his face so he never has to not feel it again. “You do remember me, Fiora!” I never forgot you, even when you were dead, even when you weren’t you, even when I had to fight that Face of yours which really felt like fighting myself. I cried for you, even when Dunban refused, even when Reyn suffered in silence, even when the others tried to sympathize but couldn’t, not quite.
“Of course I do, Shulk.” Of course? How foolish he was to believe she would have forgotten anything. Fiora’s brilliant; she wouldn’t forget a single thing unless she wanted to. Foolish Shulk.
And he is so overcome with joy and relief and love and every other positive emotion that he can’t think of right now that all he can do is hug her. Crush her to him desperately, stupidly, as he’s wanted to do since...ever. She is alive, and the beach and the sea and the Mechon and Egil and the giant fighting titans above them do not matter.
He needs to set up camp, to find food, to find the others (the others! Gods, how had he forgotten?!), but for now, Fiora is alive, and she is hugging him back, and Shulk is alive again, too. All because he reached for a piece of scrap metal, and fell into the ground.