Chapter Text
A devastating earthquake shook the Crystalline Dominion and the lands beyond. It was followed by a terrible darkness that hung like a pall for an entire day. When it lifted, Drake’s Tail shattered, and a second sun formed above the highest spire of Twinside.
Those in Twinside who had survived the upheaval of the ground beneath them—most of the population, though far from all—didn’t know what to make of this. The blessing of the Mothercrystal was gone, but it had been replaced by this second sun which gave them warm light at every hour. The people healed quickly, and their hearts were soothed. Even the plants within the city seemed to revel in the benevolent flood, growing faster and fuller than their tenders had ever seen. Their precious remaining crystals worked better and longer, too.
Whispers started on the fifth day of neverending light: the blighted deadland around Dzmekys Falls had begun, impossibly, to recede.
An intrepid soul climbed the spire—illegally—and drew as close to the hovering light as he dared. When he dropped back down into the waiting custody of the authorities, his eyes were wide. “A man!” he cried even as chains were put upon him. “There’s the form of a man at the center of the light! It is a god!”
Shrines quickly formed to this new god. The name Sol was soon adopted by the people. Offerings were given, reverent, especially by gardeners and herbalists. The Bearers followed suit, though secretly, and a second name was given: the Cursebreaker. For, though it took a great deal of time before the non-Bearers noticed, the light of this god reversed the stony affliction of the curse.
And it was this fact, in particular, that drew one Cidolfus Telamon to Twinside.
Security had tightened considerably, but security had never been something that could stop him. He stayed nearby for a few days with Gav, testing the claims on himself. With cursed arms and torso bared, he sat and worked on his papers while bathed in the unending light.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he murmured, watching as the hardening curse on his arms slowly receded away from the ink marks he’d drawn to make sure he wouldn’t believe a trick of the light.
This development threw everything he thought he knew into… well, if not doubt, then at least chaos. What was this light—this new god? Why hadn’t Ultima destroyed it? Was it restoring the land, or was the destruction of the Mothercrystal enough to do so? Cid was more inclined to believe the former than the latter, at this point, but…
He had to know. He had to speak with this ‘god.’ And that meant climbing the spire himself, which would not be easy.
“Are you sure about this, Cid?” Gav asked uneasily. “There’s no way you can get up and down without someone noticing. And Sol might not even be friendly if it does talk.”
Cid waved him off. “We have to know one way or another. And with any luck… it’ll be willing to follow us home and do a little more healing for those who need it.” He nodded his chin. “Now go cause a distraction for me.”
Gav sighed and jogged off to sow some much-need chaos.
Of course, even with a rousing distraction getting in and up was not easy. Cid tried not to kill anyone, since the poor sods weren’t actually doing anything wrong but getting in his way. Tried. Mostly succeeded, even. And when he finally hauled himself up into a precarious position close enough to yell at the new god, he made good use of his efforts.
“OY!” he shouted, squinting into the light for as long as he could bear it. There truly was an image of a person at the center. The silhouette was difficult to make out, but it was a tall and well-built man. Cid thought he could make out wings behind him. Six of them, or perhaps two that moved in and out. “OY! WHO ARE YOU?”
Unbelievably, his shouting actually worked. He didn’t even need to lean on Ramuh’s power to try and catch the being’s attention; it settled on him as soon as he’d asked his question.
Hello.
The word wasn’t physical, but mental, and it was spoken in a male voice. If Cid had been any easier to startle, he might have lost his grip and fallen. But he didn’t—he just sucked in a sharp breath and held on tighter.
“...hello,” he returned cautiously. When he squinted into the light again, he thought the silhouette was looking at him.
Who are you?
The voice sounded… dazed, almost. Dreamlike and disconnected. Cid wondered about that. “The name’s Cid. I was hoping to ask who you are.”
Hmm. The head tilted. I… don’t remember.
Well, that wasn’t the answer he’d expected. “Alright…” he said slowly. “Do you remember why you’re here?”
The being was silent for a long, long moment. Just when Cid was opening his mouth to repeat the question, though, he got an answer.
Yes. And no. I don’t know where ‘here’ is, only that I was fighting Sephiroth. We landed ‘here,’ and there was another creature that rivaled him in strength and will. It was… dark. Hungry. Vile. It wanted Sephiroth’s power very badly, and Sephiroth wanted its. They attempted to subsume each other, so in turn to subsume this planet. They failed. Then I subsumed them both, and they are no more.
The light seemed to brighten and warm. Cid had the impression of a beaming smile. No more, no more, after so very long. Isn’t that wonderful?
Cid’s thoughts condensed into a single What? It took him a moment to move past the mental freeze, long enough that the being asked a question of its own.
Is your name really Cid?
“Aye,” he said. “It is. Why?”
I had a dear friend named Cid. Sephiroth unwrote him from reality, just like the rest of my family. The light dimmed. Cid could taste a vague melancholy on the back of his tongue. He liked to fly planes. And smoke. Hmm… I miss him.
There were a couple alarming things in that statement, but Cid wasn’t quite sure how to unpack them. “You remember all that, but not your name?” he settled on asking, adjusting his grip. His hands were starting to get dangerously sweaty within his gloves.
Oh. You’re right. I remember now. My name was Cloud.
“Was?”
Is, I suppose, even though I am not human now. I haven’t felt like Cloud in a long time. I think he died when Sephiroth won.
“Well, you can always pick a new name,” Cid offered. “Why, eh… out of curiosity, if you won your battle, why are you floating up here? By all accounts it’s been weeks and you haven’t so much as shifted.”
I’m floating? The possibly-formerly-human sounded genuinely surprised.
“Aye. Must be tiring, even for a god. You can always come down, you know.” He adjusted his grip again. This was reminding him, almost comically, of coaxing Mid down from some of her more dangerous perches in the hideaway when she was a wee lass. “Maybe dim the lights a little, first. You’re… blinding.”
Am I? His silhouetted head tilted again. Ah! I see now. I wonder where my physical body went…
This time the light dimmed dramatically. Cid was finally able to blink away the splotches in his vision and look fully at ‘Cloud.’ The god’s form had become much clearer, revealing a man formed from molten gold, clad in a strange, simple uniform. His hair was spiky, dissolving into flame as it floated around him. He truly did have six wings, and they looked almost crystalline as they flared out behind him in a halo.
His eyes were solid white lights, but they met Cid’s gaze directly. He smiled. “Is that better?” he asked, both mentally and aloud.
“Much,” Cid agreed, pleased with himself. “I don’t suppose you could help this old man down instead of making him climb, eh?”
The god looked around, seeming to take in the city for the first time. “It is high,” he agreed, swooping in and grabbing Cid by the arms. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”
“Well, had to talk to you, of course,” he said, sighing in relief as he let go of the spire. He was going to pay the price for that exertion later. Although… an almost healing warmth was seeping into him and spreading from the places the god held his arms. Maybe he wouldn’t pay anything at all.
He glanced down between his boots. A sizable crowd had formed below. “There may be a few… angry guards down there, waiting. Perhaps you could take me elsewhere, Cloud?”
“If you like,” his new god friend said affably.
Cid gave him directions and was promptly startled out of his skin when they didn’t fly, but instead instantly teleported into his rented rooms. His stomach lurched at the sudden shift, and he swore colorfully. At least he got to put his feet on solid ground.
“That'll be a surprise for Gav,” he commented, dusting off his coat. He eyed the glowing man, who was comically out of place as he hovered in the rundown room. “And you can do that at will, can ya?”
Cloud blinked. “Do what?”
“Teleport, lad.”
“Ah, yes. Should I not?”
“No, no, it's quite useful.”
They wouldn’t be hidden here for long, since Cloud was still glowing like a star. Fortunately, all Gav had to do was get there before anyone else and apparently their new god friend could just… whisk them away. Convenient, that.
“So, ah…” Cid rubbed his arms as they waited. “I take it none of the healing and such has been conscious on your part?”
Cloud was staring at nothing in particular. “Healing? I don’t remember healing anything.”
“That’s a no, then.” He took out a cigarette and lit it. “Well, plenty of time to figure out the mystery.”
“Do you need healing? I… think I remember how.”
Now that was something. “You could heal when you were human?” Cid asked with interest.
“Of course. I wasn’t the best, but I was passable enough. Genesis is the one who heals me when I don’t manage to sneak away in time. He’s very good at it.”
Cid paused, brows drawing together. “Sneak a—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish, because Gav burst into the room and shrieked like a startled chocobo when he saw them. “Wh—how!” He waved his hands. “No, never you mind, we have to leave right now. Twinside wants your head for taking their new god. Everyone heard Cloud’s side of the conversation. And your name.”
Not good, but also not the end of the world. “Not to worry, Gav,” said Cid, striding over to clap him on the shoulder. “Our new friend here can teleport us.”
“Wh—is that how you two vanished?”
“Indeed it is. Cloud, if you wouldn’t mind taking us due west, about…” He thought for a moment and rattled off his best estimate for reaching the general area of the hideaway. Hopefully he wasn’t too far off—it wasn’t often that he estimated as the crow flies.
“Okay,” said Cloud, reaching out to touch both of them. Then, suddenly, they weren’t in Twinside anymore. Gav swore. Cid grinned.
“What a way to travel!” he said, looking around. “And we’re not too far off. Gav, if you could run ahead and warn everyone…?”
His scout grumbled a little, but broke into a jog and headed across the deadlands for the hideaway. Everyone there could do with a few spare moments to prepare for the arrival of a friendly god.
“We can walk,” Cid told Cloud, who hadn’t moved. “And you can float, I suppose.”
“If you’d like.”
Cid side-eyed him as they set out. The easy agreements were starting to bother him, a little. How could a being with such power, who had evidently ascended to such great heights from the lowly stature of the rest of them, just go along with the first friendly suggestions offered? He acted more like an aimless tyke than a triumphant deity. “Lad, were you this… agreeable when you were human?”
Cloud paused, naked surprise on his glowing face. Then, he burst into laughter. And he didn’t just laugh—his sudden mirth swept over Cid like a tide, making him feel giddy. He laughed too, then pressed a hand over his chest in mild alarm.
“No!” the god said, as gleeful as a child. “I wasn’t at all. I was a stubborn brat. I fought them every step of the way, when they were just trying to help. I agreed to nothing at all.”
“Were ya?” Cid started walking again, pace slow. He realized that Cloud’s earlier dazed tone was gone and had been for a while. He sounded far more… aware. Connected. “What changed, then?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I suppose being nothing but a disembodied will to fight for a few thousand years is to blame. I don’t mind. It was all worth it to make sure they survived.”
Cid cautiously reached out to tap the back of his fist against Cloud’s arm and tactfully skipped over the heavier parts of that statement. “Well, you’re not so disembodied now, lad. I don’t suppose you could embody slightly more, eh? The glowing and wings and such might alarm my people a bit.”
“Wings?” He turned and looked over his shoulder, surprised. “Oh! There’s six now! Yes, I can see how that would be alarming. Give me a moment, I think I remember how to find my body now.”
They stopped again. Cloud’s eyes closed as he floated in place, utterly still. The glow of his skin flared, then faded until he was no longer gold, but instead a fair-skinned man with pale blond hair. His uniform was black, and dark brown boots came to rest upon the ground.
He was also missing part of his right arm, which was suddenly gushing blood onto the black deadland sand.
“Huh,” said Cloud thoughtfully, red bubbling from his lips as he looked at his missing hand. Then he collapsed.
“Shit!” Cid cursed, fumbling to catch the man. He was so unexpectedly heavy that Cid went down with him. “Cloud!”
The god didn’t respond. His eyes were still solid lights, which made it difficult to gauge how aware he was. His bloody lips moved like he was trying to speak, but nothing came out. After another moment, he went limp, though his eyes remained open.
Cid swore colorfully and used his belt to fashion a tourniquet around the bleeding remnants of the arm. There was no time to wait for Gav, and though he didn’t think Cloud would (or could) die, he also wasn’t going to leave him behind to run and get help. There was nothing for it: he’d just have to punish his old joints and haul the lad.
“We’re both lucky you cured my curse,” he muttered, straining to maneuver Cloud onto his back. When he stood, he wheezed under the weight. The god wasn’t anywhere near Goetz’s size, but it felt like he was. “What are you made of?” he asked incredulously, taking a laborious step forward. “Metal?”
Cloud did not answer.
Cid was sweating buckets and contemplating the wisdom of semi-priming to bolster his strength by the time the entrance to the hideaway came into view. Fortunately, Gav had figured out something was wrong. He came running with Goetz and Otto at his heels.
“Cid, what the hell!” said Gav, eyes wide as he witnessed the semi-literal bloodbath. Even with the tourniquet, Cloud’s bleeding seemed endless.
“Not my fault,” Cid grunted, pathetically grateful when Goetz took Cloud. He put his hands on his knees and took some deep breaths. “He was like this under all that…” He waved a hand. It flung blood across the dirt. “...godliness.”
Goetz whimpered. “I-I’m takin’ him to Tarja!” he said, and hurried into the hideaway. Gav and Cid made to follow.
“I didn’t know this is what they needed warning about,” said Gav.
“Well.” Cid tried to straighten out his coat. It was going to be hell getting it clean. “Neither did I.”
“Cid,” said Otto, who was looking the way they'd come, and something in his tone made both of them stop. They turned and it was immediately apparent what had caught his attention. Everywhere Cloud had bled—a wavering trail leading back to their arrival point—vibrant green plant life had begun to spring up. Even under their feet, tender green shoots had already begun to poke up out of the bloody soil.
“Fuck me,” Gav breathed, which summarized the situation nicely. “It really was him.”
Otto grunted in agreement. “I thought you might be playing me for a fool, when I saw him bleeding on you like any mortal man,” he told Cid. “Guess not.”
Cid clapped him on the shoulder, smirking despite the way he felt shaken to see such a powerful reversal with his own eyes. “He’s exactly what Gav told you, my friend, and we’ll be glad to have stolen him from the Dominion. Now let’s go make sure the poor lad’s bleeding isn’t turning the infirmary into a garden. I don’t think Tarja would be best pleased with that.”