A soft but cloudy sky above an endless field of yellowing grass, devoid of trees, flowers, animals...It was a depressing picture.

Lovely is the light of dawn...

Dawn. Was it dawn? A gray haze hung in the sky. Mist drifted through the air, nearly silent in its passing. Perhaps it _was_ dawn...

Noble is the heart of man.

Yes, the warrior lying on the ground had a noble heart. But _all_ of mankind...?

King Cyan Garamonde of Doma heaved a sigh as he returned to consciousness. His eyes half-open, he slowly sat up. His hand fell at his side.

"Sky Render!" he exclaimed. His fingers clasped nothing in his sheath; the blade was gone, and so was his armor.

This discovery was enough to fully awaken Cyan. He jumped to his feet and took in his surroundings. The barren land stretched out all around him. "Keyla!" he called out. "Keyla! Captain Brillare! Keyla?" In desperation, he added, "Butz! Butz Klauser!" He waited. Nothing; not even so much as the echo of his own voice.

Cyan took his backpack off the ground. He didn't recall that he had been wearing it. But it wasn't of any use. The entire bag was empty. "I'm certain I kept something in here," he grumbled. On closer examination, he discovered that it wasn't his backpack; just similar. He took it as a sign that there were people nearby, and slung it over his shoulder.

"Where am I?" he asked the clouds. Though not usually one to talk to himself, Cyan found any noise a comfort in the quiet void. "This does _not_ look like South Figaro," he muttered, then shook his head. "Of course it doesn't! What did I even say that for? I shan't allow myself to lose my sanity as well as my belongings!"

He began to trek across the field. There seemed to be a familiar scent in the air, and the ground, as well, slowly became recognizable. He knelt down to sift through a handful of dirt. "Doman soil," he declared thankfully. He was back home...somehow. But what had happened in South Figaro? How had he ended up here?

Coming up over the horizon, Cyan sighted a small hut. "Who would live out here?" He headed towards it. As he came nearer, the smell of cooking meat became stronger in the air. It reminded him of how starved he was.

At last he made it to the hut. The door was open halfway, and part of a wall had a huge burning hole in it, but he politely knocked despite it all. Since birth, he had been taught to be a gentleman; to bow and kiss the ladies' hands when he was introduced, to keep his elbows off the table, to name people in the most respectful manner, and above all, to speak like a gentleman. That was what had caused him the most trouble in the past few years. Too many of those he had teamed up with in the war against Kefka were not impressed by his manner of speech; rather, they thought it was a great joke. He still heard the mocking words of one mischievous delinquent echo in his mind: "Thou! Thou!" Cyan had come to learn to decide from the beginning whether or not new people he met would choose him as an object of ridicule because he said "Thou art," instead of "You are."

"Door's open, idiot! What are ya, blind or som'thin?"

Cyan immediately chose to dispose of the "thou"s.

He stepped inside carefully. The interior was in a state of disarray. Tables lay in pieces, chairs rested upside down, and soot coated the carpet. The two occupants stood up to stare at him.

One was a woman, probably in her early thirties, with a dirty, battered face and dark, angry eyes. Cyan was instantly startled by her hair, a thick, spiky mass of a rainbow of colors, with sticks and twigs poking out here and there. The other, a man, looked younger than his companion, with blond hair that brought to mind Sabin with a bad haircut. He had a cleaner face, and was somewhat muscular, although Cyan suspected the woman could beat him in a fist fight with no trouble. Both wore ragged clothes and tattered boots, and gave off a faint but noticeable stench. The fireplace was as black as the carpet, which was where the meat was roasting.

The woman glared. "The fireplace is busted. So we dumped the logs on the carpet. Who cares about it, anyway?" After receiving an odd look from Cyan, she continued. "Ain't our house. We found it abandoned when we got here two days ago. Figure some soldiers blew a hole there and made off with the sap who lived here..."

"Eh." Cyan couldn't think of how to respond, and then asked, "May I introduce myself?"

"Ya might as well. Don't look like a thief to me, with that fancy garb. Ya smell too clean, besides. I'm Mehnka Biffen, and this dork is my brother Jeff."

Cyan made a sweeping bow. "I am King Cyan Garamonde of Doma." He began to reach for Mehnka's hand, but decided that would be a serious mistake.

"King?" the "dork" spoke up incredulously. "Well...you look the part. But I thought you all deserted Doma. I mean, how else would the Emp--"

"They did, idiot," Mehnka snapped, cutting him off. "Well." She turned to Cyan. "Don't expect us ta bow and scrape and call ya 'your highness' cause we ain't gonna. We're just a couple of travelers from Zozo, and we didn't come all this way to give anyone respect."

Zozo. Cyan instinctively put a hand to his sword, then remembered he didn't have it anymore. But the name of the town had quickly conjured up the image of drunken liars slumped in the street, hideous monsters lurking in the shadows, and tall, crumbling buildings, all pattered on interminably by a dreary, dismal shower. But recalling his manners, he eased up and said, "Do not worry. I don't expect any extra respect--"

"Try saying _that_ five times fast," Jeff murmurred.

"--nor do I ask for it. I am hopelessly lost. Only a half-hour ago I was in South Figaro with my people, preparing for the assault against King Edgar. Then I was fighting a group of demons who attacked us... After their defeat, my friend Butz disappeared into the portal they had been issued from, and then..."

*-*-*-*

"TYPHON!"

As Butz's mighty call faded away, the portal sealed and disappeared.

"He's...gone..." Keyla whispered.

Cyan stared in disbelief. "He deserted us... He took the Espers with him!"

Keyla and Cyan stared at the empty air where the portal had been, and acted as though they had been betrayed. But inside, they both felt that Butz's first duty had always been to his friends and family. Butz had seen faces he knew, and if he intended to rescue his old acquaintances, they determined they shouldn't intervene. It was too late for intervention anyway.

At last Keyla spoke up. "Well. It's dark..."

"Yes," Cyan mumbled. "We need rest..."

Abruptly, the ground beneath them began to shake. The spasms of the earth knocked both to the ground. It cracked and shifted until a deep pit opened up. Cyan and Keyla struggled to find their footing. It was futile, for a wind began to suck them downwards.

Keyla looked around in shock, clinging to a thick group of exposed tree roots. "Why isn't there anyone else out here?!?"

Cyan, grasping the edge of a newly formed cliff, called out to the houses and barracks he could see from where they struggled, at the limits of the town. No one seemed to hear. The ground continued to crumble into the growing canyon. The tree Keyla now clung to broke away and fell, and she landed harshly in a violent whirlpool forming at the canyon's bottom. In moments, Cyan was at her side.

"How are we going to get out of this one?!" she cried.

Cyan coughed as the tree came closer and closer to the center of the whirlpool. "We can't swim against this current! And we have no rope--if we could climb onto those chunks of rocks and jump to the edge--that's all I can think of!"

The two thrashed through the water and tried to reach a large grouping of cracked boulders that had fallen from above. They dragged themselves onto the rocks, which shook and spun from the water's force. But the instability only sent Keyla further towards the center. Cyan grabbed a tree branch and sent it out her way. She pulled herself through the raging water and clasped his arms. "How did this happen?" she choked out.

"The demons? Did we miss one?"

"I hardly think that's possible!" With his help, she pulled her drenched body from the current. "And South Figaro doesn't usually have earthquakes--not to say that this is your run-of-the-mill earthquake!"

"Some other force?" A large clod of packed sediment crashed into the spiralling rapids, hurling both of them almost directly into the center. The turmoil caused such noise that they could barely hear each other. Finding her hand, Cyan yelled, "But no time to speculate!"

"No time... No time to survive!" Keyla shrieked.

In a tornado of propelled liquid, the king and the captain were pulled down, and the world, shaking and throbbing around them, faded into darkness.

*-*-*-*

"And somehow, I awoke here," Cyan finished, wondering if the water had taken his sword and armor. "I have to return to South Figaro, find Keyla, and continue to ready my people for the attack on Edgar and Figaro."

"Edgar?" Menhka said. "Sorry, bub, but you're a little late if ya wanted vengeance, or whatever. Because Eddie's long gone."

"Gone?"

"Dead," Jeff put in. "King Edgar is dead."

"Dead," Cyan repeated. 'Is it true? Edgar has been killed... in my absence? But then... they come from Zozo. They could be lying.' "How do you know this?"

"Nikeah. A soldier there told us," Jeff said.

"We left Zozo a long time ago," Mehnka explained. "When Kefka was killed we heard that there was some good junk in what was left of his tower. So we headed there. Didn't find much, though. Guess it all had already been purged. Crossed over the land to this settlement near that creepy Cultists' Tower. Got ourselves a boat, floated up to Nikeah. It was taken over already, and they were gonna capture us or som'thin."

"They changed their minds," Jeff told him. "They said, 'Oh, they're just a couple of thieves. Who cares about them?'"

"But we _aren't_ just a couple-a thieves. Boy, the things we got 'em ta tell us! Huh! They've been fried for sure!"

"Who is _they_?" Cyan asked. "Er, that is, who _are_ they?"

"The Imperial troopers. Duh."

"What?! But the Empire fell apart! It doesn't exist anymore."

Mehnka shook her head. "I dunno how long ya were lying out in the fields, bub. I'm talking about the _new_ Empire."

"NEW Empire?!" Cyan exclaimed. "Who is the leader?"

"Akfek. Sascha too, really. Geez, I thought kings were supposed ta get around more," Mehnka chided.

"Yeah," Jeff agreed. "Especially since they took over Doma, too. You ought to know that much!"

"Doma too?!" Cyan suddenly felt furious. Anger welled up inside him; hatred toward Akfek and Sascha... 'Akfek...' Cyan gasped. 'Akfek is Kefka spelled backwards!'

"Ya got a throat problem?" Mehnka asked warily.

"No, no... They took over Doma?!"

"We said that already! Take a breather, will ya? Cool off."

Cyan listened to Mehnka's advice and breathed in deeply, calming down as he exhaled. He realized that he must have been unconscious for a very long time. Either that, or news of Edgar's death and the second rise of the Empire had completely eluded South Figaro. But he found that to be very unlikely. With an inward groan, he accepted that Mehnka and Jeff were his only hope of finding out the truth. 'How awkward...my only hope for truth, two citizens of Zozo.' He picked a chair up from the corner and turned it over. He placed it by the carpet fire and sat on it. Mehnka and Jeff sat back down on their stools. "Now," he began, "please tell me more."

Mehnka nodded. "That's what they call 'em."

"They have taken Albrook, Nikeah, Zozo, and Doma Castle?"

"I think that's it," Mehnka confirmed. "But I could be forgettin' som'thin."

"Wait!" Jeff piped up. "Kohlingen!"

"No, dolt! They lost Kohlingen!"

"But they took it back! The soldier said so!"

"No, the soldier said they were _plannin'_ on it."

"No, he said they DID!"

"Arrgghh! I ain't arguin' with ya anymore! Now, there was also Thamasa."

"Yeah, they took Thamasa!"

"No, they were fought off!"

"Nuh-uh! They won in the end!"

"No they didn't!"

"Yes they DID!"

"Wait--Tzen, too. Didn't they take that?"

"That was destroyed...I think..."

"Moron! No it wasn't!..."

Cyan sighed. He wasn't going to get completely concrete information from the Zozoan pair. "What of South Figaro?" he asked, putting an end to their argument.

"Dummy!" Mehnka huffed at him. "_You_ oughtta know that it's Doma's!"

"I meant, was it attacked? Are the citizens--"

"No idea. Just heard it was controlled by Doma."

"They built a big wall around the town, or at least they planned to, was all I heard," Jeff offered.

Mehnka snorted. "Plannin' never means doin'! ...But y'know, maybe it isn't Doma's anymore...I dunno..."

"Then the New Empire is the new threat..." Cyan pondered. He felt torn. Should Doma attack Figaro as was originally decided, or should Doma's strength be saved to fight the Empire... and take the castle back? 'No,' he thought. 'Figaro must pay! But... was Figaro truly responsible for what happened, or was it only... Edgar? If so, an attack on Figaro would be an attack on innocents.' "Edgar has fallen, and now the New Empire has risen," he observed. "Thus I shall return to my people..." 'And do what? Redirect the fight to launch in opposition to two powers? Ignore one and battle the other? If only I knew how many were guilty of the destruction in my kingdom...But I do know of those who are guilty of its takeover.' "I... shall return to my people..." Cyan stated again, as though it would help him sort out his troubles.

"Before ya do that, ya might want som'thin to eat," Mehnka suggested, turning the slightly charred carcass over the fire.

Cyan glanced at it. "May I ask of what species..."

"Beats me. I found it runnin' around in here, so I squashed its head. Probably worse than the stuff kings usually eat, but better than nothin'."

Cyan cringed. He was hungry...but not _that_ hungry. "And, eh, speaking of what kings eat, I've had enough of it to tide me over, but thank you for your generosity."

"Yeah, yeah." Mehnka lifted the pole up. "I think it's done." She took out a small knife to slice through the blackened flesh.

Cyan wondered out loud, "If there is a new Empire, then perhaps there are new Returners, too?"

"I hope so. It would be so neat to join them and get to fight. With real weapons!" Jeff bubbled as he chewed. Cyan pretended to be preoccupied with something on the wall so he wouldn't have to watch half-eaten food fall out of Jeff's mouth.

"Yeah, kick some Imperial butt," Mehnka chimed in. "Hey..." She looked at Cyan. "Yo! Garamondo!" He quickly looked back. "I bet YOU wanna go out right now and kick some Imperial butt, right?"

"I wouldn't put it that way," Cyan admitted, nearly wincing at her words. "But yes... although I should like to know what happened to my sword, my armor, my provisions..." 'Keyla, Butz, the Nautilus, South Figaro, my people...' his mind went on.

"Oh, yeah. Well, there are other thieves around here. They probably stole your stuff. We can slash 'em up good on our way to Doma!"

"Our way to Doma?" Cyan wasn't sure whether he had put the emphasis on "Doma" or on "our."

"Yeah! We'll come with you! To spy on the enemy! We'll start up a Returner group! Just think of it! Jeff Biffen, Great Blitz Master of the Returners!"

"Shaddup," Mehnka growled, smacking him on the head. "Ya don't know ANYTHIN' about blitz technique. Ain't impressing nobody..."

"I do too! I read all about it in Jidoor!" Jeff declared angrily. "When we were growing up. I read everything they had about it, every single day."

"Growing up... You grew up in Jidoor?" Cyan asked Jeff with surprise.

"Yeah, we ain't the usual Zozo batch. We lived in a middle class family. We're talking _borderline_ middle class. On his fourteenth birthday, these upper class cretins come force us to move out. They say we're too poor to live in Jidoor. I say, 'Up yours, pigface!' And they call all these buff guys to move our stuff onto a wagon and send us packin'. So we go the only place you _can_ go... Zozo. But keep this in mind, bub. We had a clean, healthy life once. We ain't the drunken liars that the rest of the townsfolk are." With that, Mehnka fell back onto her stool, with a "so there" look on her face.

Cyan thought about it, and realized that he wasn't quite as surprised as he had acted. Mehnka and Jeff having their childhood in Jidoor would certainly explain why Mehnka had such an odd, mixed accent, and Jeff didn't even sound the least bit like a Zozoan. At last, Cyan spoke. "Thank you for clearing that up," he started. "Em...about our traveling to Doma together... actually, I had in mind a more, eh, well- rounded warrior ...a more _seasoned_ type..."

Jeff jumped up. "Hey, I'M seasoned! I'm as spicy as can be!" He slammed his foot into a toppled table, then cried out in pain.

Mehnka rolled her eyes. "Ignore Beetle-brain. But watch this, and _then_ tell me I ain't no good!"

"I wasn't implying--" Cyan stopped short as Mehnka kicked out her foot into the stool, leaving it in two pieces, then broke the legs off with her bare hands.

She looked up at the speechless man with the empty sheath and grinned. "Gimme a sword, an' I'm a wreckin' machine."

*-*-*-*

Cyan glanced back over his shoulder as the three trudged across the open fields of Doma. The hut had long since passed out of sight. He glanced at Mehnka. "Are you certain of--"

"Look, we've been to the castle, alright? Just two days ago!" she snapped.

"Pardon me," he replied. "Say... you were in that house for two days. How did you cover so much ground in just--"

Jeff chuckled. "We, uh, _borrowed_ one of their weird contraptions." He and Mehnka laughed. "It fizzled out somewhere. We'll probably find it along the way. Hey, you're a king... maybe you could fix it!"

"Uh..." Cyan flushed a little red. "Actually, I'm not exactly a wizard when it comes to machines..."

"I know the feelin'," Mehnka sighed. "I remember the first time I got to use a chainsaw... my third birthday party..." She drifted off into a memory.

"I'm good with them, though. I read all about them in Jidoor," Jeff said.

Mehnka pulled out of her thoughts to put in, "Yeah, Jeff is sorta an _aspirin'_ wizard..."

For a while, they walked together in silence. Jeff finally broke it. "There it is!" He darted towards a heap of metal.

Cyan and Mehnka quickly caught up. They came to the huge, olive green set of armor which lay motionless in the dirt. Cyan gasped. "Magitek armor!"

"Oh yeah, THAT'S what it's called. Now I remember," Jeff said, trying to push the mass to its feet with no success.

Cyan looked at it hopelessly. "I'm afraid I can't be of any help in its repair. But... how could you simply steal something of such great size without being noticed?"

"Well, first we stole _little_ sets of armor, like the soldiers wore. Then even though we got suspicious looks, we managed to hop into this baby and clang outta there. Good thing, too, cause at Doma they don't take as kindly to thieves as they did in Nikeah."

Jeff reached into the armor and pulled out the outfits from the troopers. "I bet these'll come in handy when we get to Doma, huh?"

Cyan nodded. "We certainly can't attack. I am unarmed, and we're all unprotected. Infiltration, though, sounds like the beginning of a plan."

"I _hate_ plannin'," Mehnka groaned.

"It's worth it," Jeff reprimanded. "Once we get inside, we can take over. Then we'll be known all over the world as the Returners who saved Doma from the Empire!" He threw his hands up in triumph. "Boy, if my friends could see me now..."

Cyan didn't hear Mehnka hiss at Jeff, "You don't have any friends." His thoughts were drifting back to the airship ride after Kefka's defeat. When the Falcon had crashed into the sea, he had been lucky to wash up right near Doma. The helpless people immediately looked to him as a leader. But even as he was coronated as the new king of Doma, he kept worrying about what had become of his friends. The little band of fourteen that defeated Kefka and gave new life to the Earth. How had its members been scattered? Had all of them even survived? And why had Edgar changed? This question plagued him constantly. Edgar had always seemed intrusive, but good-natured. Was he the only one of them who had been twisted to the side of evil?

Cyan stared at the two bickering Zozoans, Mehnka with the wild hair and wild fury, and Jeff with the racy determination. So unlike Keyla and Butz, both of whom he worried about as well. Keyla could still be in South Figaro. But she might have ended up as far from it as he was. Granted, it wasn't much of a distance, but if she had been thrown into danger, who had been at her side? Slowly, Cyan realized that at last, he fully and unquestionably trusted her. Celes had tried to teach him about trust. But judging from how he had treated Keyla, she had failed.

Cyan's father had ingrained principles of distrust in his son. Anyone could stab you in the back; therefore no one should be trusted. Trust is to be built up to; not built upon. Keep your enemies at a distance and your friends even further away. "Principles to uphold and preach, dear son," his father once said. "By trusting all, one is like a knight without his armor in the heart of a battle. By trusting a precious few is the knight protected."

"But Father," the young Cyan responded, "a knight must put his trust in his liege and his fellows. Surely he cannot succeed alone, trusting no one."

"Exceptions to the rule, Cyan, and some endure. But do not think a friend is among these; no, a fine art exists known as double crossing..."

Cyan then snapped back, "And trust is so fragile, I shan't ever be able to place it anywhere but in my own care, eh, Father?"

His heart suddenly filled with a longing to see his old friends again. To have a round of poker with Setzer, or tell the children a story, or have a harmless duel with Locke, or have a comforting talk with Terra, or hear Celes sing. As much as some of them had gone out of their way to get on his nerves, he fiercely desired to see them all again, if only just to make sure they were alive and well. Edgar... was gone forever; the Edgar he had known and fought with. But he felt sure that somehow, someday, the Light Warriors would come back together once more. They might be destined to meet in the fight against the New Empire. Cyan decided that as soon as his homeland was secure, he would leave to search for them...and for Keyla.

'If my friends could see me now...'

Cyan only wished they could.

Jeff walked around the heap, studying it carefully. "Yes...I can see it... Just a sec." He took his backpack off and pulled out a sledgehammer.

Astonished, Mehnka asked, "What th' heck ya got that for?!"

"This." Jeff slammed the hammer into the armor. Bolts, gears, and sparks flew. "I can tear it apart and build us a handy little vehicle."

"You... can?" Cyan already felt uncertain.

"Sure. But don't watch!" Jeff grinned. "I want this to be a surprise!"

Cyan found himself a semi-comfortable rock to sit on, put his back to Jeff, and covered his ears to wait.

*-*-*-*

"It's done!" Jeff shouted gleefully. Mehnka and Cyan rose and turned to see Jeff's creation.

It looked somewhat like a three-wheeled wagon, with short, twisted sides, irregularly shaped wheels, and what appeared to be a large metal fist poking out from the base inside the contraption. Every metal piece had strange engraved patterns that insisted it wasn't ordinary scrap. The parts were so formless and dented it appeared as though a six-year-old had taken a hand at the toolbox.

"This...?" Mehnka waved at it. "This... is... it...?"

Jeff beamed. "Isn't it great? I made the wheels by pounding the teeth on gears. The big piece that constitutes most of it is made from the back and breastplates. The steering is part of the arm. The axel is--"

"Whaddya think, Gary?" Mehnka asked Cyan, with a look that said, "_You're_ the king, _you_ approve this whatever-it-is."

Cyan stepped forward, though he kept his distance from the vehicle. He slowly circled it like a camper checking to make sure a poisonous snake was still asleep, while Mehnka and Jeff anxiously awaited his decision. He stared up at Jeff with an arched eyebrow and asked, "Is it... safe?"

"Sure it is, your kingliness! I built it, didn't I?"

"That's what we were afraid of," Mehnka mumbled.

Jeff glared at her. "Don't you remember Rodge, Mehnka? Gave me that beginner's lesson in machinery? Didn't you see how well I piloted--"

"Almost killed us that last time, ya ego-pumped punk!" she interrupted.

Jeff turned his attention to Cyan, who continued to look upon the craft as though it were a contagious disease. "You have to trust me, King Cy! I can take us to Doma easy!"

"Easily," Cyan corrected reflexively. "Well..."

Mehnka shook her head at him frantically. Jeff hopped up and down as he bobbed his head to indicate his enthusiasm, appearing to be dangerously spastic.

"Well..."

"Yes? YES?"

"Yeah? Well what?"

Cyan sighed. "Yes. Take us to Doma, Jeff."

"WAAAAA HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Jeff whooped with joy.

"Yippee skippee..." Mehnka spat sarcastically. "Way ta _go_, Garamondo."

"All aboard the Biffen Express!" Jeff called, jumping into the wagon, which shuddered slightly. Reluctantly, Mehnka climbed in. Cyan followed. "Now see that lever?" Jeff asked, pointing to a rod sticking out of the base between Cyan and Mehnka. "Pull it back and forth, and it'll speed us up. We're at the top of a little hill now, so I'll just get out and..."

"Let gravity be our mistress," Cyan finished with a weak smile.

"SO, Jeffie, just who's gonna pump this thing once gravity goes an' bees someone else's mistress?" Mehnka hinted.

"Uh, well..." Jeff looked at Cyan. "I was sort of thinking _you_, King Cy...I mean, you got such big muscles and all..."

"Yeah? Whatever happened to the Great Blitz Master of the Returners?" Mehnka demanded.

"I can't steer _and_ push!" he whined.

"It is not a problem, Mehnka," Cyan advised her. "I will accept the job." 'Whatever it takes to hurry this journey along...'

Mehnka raised an eyebrow. "You call the shots, Gary. Oh, and ya might wanna try usin' more contractions."

"Here we go!" Jeff slammed his body into the back of the wagon, and jumped in as it began to roll down the hill.

Mehnka whispered to Cyan, "You're gonna regret this."

"I'm beyond regretting; I'm into the stage of repenting," Cyan replied smartly.

"Isn't this fun?" Jeff prodded them, as the little cart coasted across the grass, headed straight for a gathering of small rocks.

"Yeah, I'm jus' havin' a picnic here!" Mehnka trumpteed. "In fact, I think I'm gonna lay out the checkered taAAbLeCLOoo..." The wagon clumsily scuttled over the stones. "JeEeFff, yOuOu'RrrEeee aAa loUSyy steeRErrerer!"

After clearing the sediment impediment, Jeff tapped Cyan. "King Cy, we're getting near flat land. Better start pumping."

Cyan nodded, firmly placing his hands around the lever. "I pull this..."

"Just back and forth, back and forth, and Doma will be in our sights!" Jeff smiled.

Heeding Jeff's directions, Cyan yanked the lever towards him and away from him, several times, until they began to notice they were accelerating quickly. "Yo, Mo, slow it, will ya?" Mehnka begged, gripping the side of the wagon.

'Mo? Now where did she come up with...Oh, Garamonde, Garamo, Mo...I wish she would stop calling me such idiotic nicknames...' Cyan eased up on his pumping.

"Hey, we're slowing down too much, King Cy," Jeff told him.

"No way, we're too fast!" Mehnka argued.

"Too slow!"

"Too fast!"

"Slow!"

"Fast!"

"King Cy!"

Cyan sighed and pumped harder. Mehnka promptly punched him in the shoulder. "Don't listen ta him! I'm the one with the sense of motion here!"

"Truly?" Cyan muttered, staring straight ahead. He was despising every second of the ride. Flying at augmented speeds in a steady airship was one thing, as was a brisk trip on a chocobo's back, but crashing over rocky plains in a makeshift wheelbarrow was entirely different. He was starting to feel slighty nauseated, and Mehnka apparently could sympathize. But his thoughts about the slight headache he was developing were jarred by a frightening noise, and the erruption of white-hot sparks from the disheveled circuitry grating against the metal. He dived back.

Mehnka gasped. "Alright, Jeffie boy, what the hell was that?"

"Uh, nothing, I'm sure. Go ahead, King Cy, we gotta maintain a good velocity."

Cyan cringed like he had just watched someone drink sour milk. "No! I demand to know what just happened!"

"Doesn't matter. Come on!"

"He's bein' sensible, ya dork!" Mehnka raved. "I ain't touching that thing either! Those sparks hurt!" She rubbed her half-bare thighs, which had slight burn marks from where a few of them had landed.

"Look, it doesn't mean anythiAAAAHHHHH!!!" Jeff almost flew out of the wagon, trying to dodge a second spray.

Mehnka looked over the edge, then slunk past the lever, which spat a third pattering, and grabbed Cyan's shoulders. "Do ya realize we AIN'T SLOWIN' DOWN?!"

Cyan twisted his head, and in horror, discovered she was right. "No... Our speed... is INCREASING!"

"WHAT?!" Mehnka bellowed. She tossed her head over the side, as more sparks spattered from the lever. "Oh SHI-- YAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" The wagon was headed straight for a maze of small boulders. "How do you STOP THIS THING?!"

"Uh..." Jeff looked sheepish. "You push the lever back and hold it down..."

All three heads turned to stare at the lever, protuding from what was now a constant source of burning discharge.

"Ya couldn't BRIBE me ta touch that!" she roared. "Idiot! Isn't there another brake?" Jeff shook his head sadly. "Well, whaddar we supposed ta do, JUMP OUT?"

He shrugged. "Either that, or just go along for the ride..."

"DID YOU HEAR HIM?" Mehnka shook Cyan furiously. "He said we should GO ALONG---"

"PLEASE!" Cyan stopped her. "Jeff!" He waved wildly at the upcoming boulder field. "For the Goddesses' sake, STEER!"

"Okay, hold on to something," Jeff advised them, unusually calm for such a situation. Cyan struggled to grasp the wagon's side. Mehnka reached for the closest stable mass.

Unfortunately, that was Cyan's neck. He coughed. "Mehnka... you're _choking_me!!_"

"Sorry, Gary," she said, loosening her grip.

"'Tis alright," he wheezed.

"Weeee!" Jeff warbled, swinging the wheels left and right and scraping every rock in sight. "This is fun!"

"FUN! Ya demented reckless little---"

"Settle down! You're both safe. I have everything under control."

Mehnka lurched for Cyan. "We're DOOMED! Forget about South Figgy, we ain't gonna make it past that next--HILL?! OH--"

Cyan blocked out the string of profanity that followed, and made it cease by crying, "JEFF! LOOK ALIVE!"

"Huh?" Jeff didn't quite comprehend. "Well I don't exactly look _dead_--Oh, I get it!" The wagon swerved, just in time to miss slamming into the last obstacle. The sparks slowly died down, and the world that had been flying past them adjusted its speed accordingly.

The cart neared its original, non-dramatic velocity, and Mehnka raised her head, no longer worried about the harmless hill they were approaching. She turned to Cyan, whose arm was desperately rushing to reshape itself after the abuse of Mehnka's circulation-impeding clutch, and said slowly, regaining her breath, "I think... it's... safe... now..."

Of course, the wagon proceeded to descend rapidly down the hill, which turned out to be steep as to make a right angle with the ground. At least that's how it appeared to two terrified travelers and one shaking engineer, who continued to look cool under pressure.

A gut-melting metallic crunch broke its way through Mehnka's cries of "YAAAAH!" and "Idiot!" Three hearts skipped a beat. "We're dead," she choked.

"Fear not," Cyan spoke in a hollow tone. "We shall survive."

"As I lay me down softly to sleep, I pray the Godesses my soul to keep..." Jeff had buckled in. "And if I die before I wake--" He paused to contemplate. "For Heaven's sake... don't kill me!" he wailed.

"Yeah, for Heaven's sake!" Mehnka growled. "It's _your_ fault we're gonna die!"

"No way! It's _your_ fault!"

"Yeah, why?"

"Uh...um...cause I say so!"

" 'TIs nobody's fault!" Cyan argued. "We must abandon this vessel or be severely hurt when we crash at the base of the hill!"

"If you'd shorten ya sentences, we could be outta here quicker!" Mehnka slinged.

The metal shifted beneath them, as Jeff's handiwork prepared to give out completely. "I'd give us five seconds to crashing!" Jeff shouted.

"JUMP!" Cyan commanded. He waited for the siblings to hurl themselves out, and he dived out after them. The last sight that passed his eyes was the wagon breaking into three pieces and crashing into a ravine. Then, darkness.

"King Cy? King Cy!"

Cyan slowly opened his eyes for a dizzying view of the Zozoan siblings leaning over him. He moaned at the sudden awareness of a throbbing in the back of his head, and pulled up to a sitting position. Mehnka and Jeff plunked down next to him. "What was with you?" Mehnka asked him. "You just waited for us to bail, and almost got yourself crushed!"

"I had to make sure you evaded the danger safely," Cyan replied in a pained murmur, rubbing the bruised spot.

"You're hurt!" Jeff exclaimed. "Let me see. It could be serious. You could die if you don't get proper treatment. I read that in Jidoor."

"Ya got a scratch on ya cheek, Jeffie. Think it's gonna kill ya?" Mehnka asked skeptically.

"Fear not, 'tis no more than a minor injury; it needs not medicine but simply time to heal," Cyan assured him.

"Gosh, you're good," Jeff said, shaking his head in awe.

"Eh? I... I'm afraid I don't..."

"'It needs not medicine but simply time to heal...' I bet even Ajinne Ataya couldn't come up with that on the spot!" Jeff declared.

Cyan blinked in disbelief. Ajinne Ataya played to a very educated audience. But they _had_ grown up in Jidoor... "You've read Ajinne Ataya's work?"

"Yeah, I read all her stuff. Plus I looked at her most famous paintings. She's really good, huh?"

"'Really good'? I daresay you underestimate her, Jeff. Lady Ataya is but one of this world's most eloquent authors. She is so eminent, any fiction collection claiming importance should have a torch taken to it if it lacks her offerings."

"Oh yeah! Are you a fan?"

"If anyone in this world is! And you, truly, have read her novels? At the age of fourteen?"

"I started when I was thirteen... Is that bad or something?"

Cyan smiled and shook his head. "No, 'tis rather impressive, I'd say."

"When did you start?"

"Well... the same age as you... but I grew up in a castle; I would think my schooling would place me more advanced at thirteen than you; not to cause offense, though--"

"Nah, none caused," Jeff grinned. "I had some trouble reading it then, yeah, but I got through. Did you ever read the one about the--"

"Uh, I hate to break up the literary discussion group here, but we sorta have a MISSION TA GO ON!" Mehnka loudly reminded them. "C'mon, Gary. Ya gotta see what happened to Jeff's rolly-thing." She dragged him to his feet, then to the ditch which was to be the final resting place of the wagon. Cyan looked down to discover a sizeable scrap heap. Mehnka tugged on Jeff's arm. "So, Mister Blitz Master, just what was all that with the sparks, huh?"

"Um, beats me. I don't know how these things work." He turned his head to Cyan. "Do you?"

"Machines and I lack a certain trust, Jeff. We fail to maintain good terms with one another. Thus knowing that Mehnka and I haven't solid ground on which to prove your theories incorrect, feel free to hypothesize."

"Huh?"

"Make a wild guess, idiot," Mehnka translated.

"Oh, okay." He srugged. "Well, I guess whatever powered the thing starting spitting."

Cyan felt like asking him if he was positive he had read Ajinne Ataya's novels, and then it occured to him that Jeff had said he _read_ them; he never claimed to _comprehend_. "Assuming we haven't deviated from a direct route to Doma...I believe we should start walking."

*-*-*-*

"...so they took the library paste away from me. And that's why that same guy's always in Jidoor's auction house," Jeff summed up.

"Gary," Mehnka started, sick of hearing Jeff retell every second of their early lives. "So you know Pete, huh?"

"Pete?" Cyan thought for a moment. "Who is Pete?"

"C'mon. At the Coliseum. In charge of all the wagers. Ya know him. I'm sure ya do. He told us about ya, and the other people..."

"Yeah, he said you were with King Edgar," Jeff said. "He said you fought Siegfried... Did you know I know Siegfried?"

"I wasn't the one in our party who fought him... if anyone did..." Cyan tried to remember exactly who had done what in the days they'd spent in the Coliseum before defeating Kefka. But with fourteen people all with their own intentions, even those too young to carry them out...

Mehnka recalled, "We spent a couple months there. Pete's a friend of mine."

"And Siegfried is a friend of mine!" Jeff proclaimed.

"Ziggy ain't your friend just cause ya held maybe two conversations with him," Mehnka challenged.

"Hey, who died and made _you_ a Goddess?"

For what felt like the umpteenth time, the siblings went back to quibbling, and Cyan blocked the altercation out. When they ran out of applicable insults for each other, Mehnka and Jeff fell silent.

Cyan had them to thank for generally distracting him from the torment of his own mind's worry, but now, with a quiet taking hold of the pair, he was drowned by a flood of anxiety and confusion. Edgar's death, the new Empire, Doma's takeover, his unconscious voyage... So many questions, and none with easy answers. All that he had been told about the time he awoke in seemed to consolidate into a myriad of names and places, lacking order and losing meaning. He lifted his hands to his head, for he felt as though it would explode from the mass, leaving him numb and limp in a pool of words separated from their essence...

"What's your favorite color?" Jeff asked.

Cyan nearly jumped. "Jeff!" he cried, in a relieved tone. "Oh, the gratitude I owe you...! Blue! Blue and purple, Jeff..."

"Um, som'thin' wrong, Garamondo?" Mehnka asked, with a ring of concern that suggested she felt his mental health was slipping.

"Nothing, nothing. And what's _your_ favorite color, my friend?"

"Are you loopy?... I don't play favorites with colors, just as long as they ain't pea soup green or som'thin'."

"Mine's yellow," Jeff fluted, feeling proud that he had somehow done something right.

As Mehnka darted her eyes warily between the two men, Cyan decided he needed to save dealing with his mixed emotions for the voyage to South Figaro. The gentle rocking of the waves and the soft touch of the sea breezes would create just the right environment for meditation. He suggested hastily, "Let us talk about something rather involving, shall we? Jeff, do tell that story about the large moogle in the small bucket again."

"Oh boy!" Jeff whooped.

"Hurrah," Mehnka snorted, continuing to stare at both of them as though they were one crystal short of a moonpath.

The king just smiled.

He trained his ears on Jeff's babbling.

He closed his eyes.

And let his remaining senses guide him towards home.

"No," Cyan moaned, "not this hill, Jeff."

"That's the _fifteenth_ time ya said that!" Mehnka seethed at her brother. "One more time, an' I'm gonna whap ya so hard y---"

"STOP," Cyan spurted at her. "We'll not go far if you two intend to bicker!"

"I ain't gonna bicker, I'm gonna whap him---"

"AND no fighting," Cyan ruled with a quick and harsh tongue.

"Well, we're close, aren't we? Aren't we? Huh? Aren't we?" Jeff demanded, shifting from one side to another in an attempt to control his energy.

Cyan gritted his teeth. "Yes, close."

"I'm runnin' up ahead... Gonna see what I can see," Mehnka told them, and darted away.

"Ha, now that she's gone, we can play Guess Who again, right? Right? Right?" Jeff pleaded, hopping around like an amateur gymnast with a terrible routine.

Clenching his fists to help compose himself, Cyan answered, "Again? Very well."

"Yay!" Jeff's hops became higher. "Okay, I'm thinking of a person."

"Man or woman?"

"Woman."

"Mehnka."

"How'd you know?"

Putting on the gentlest smile he could stand, Cyan suggested, "Try another one."

"Okay, got it."

"Man or woman?"

"Man."

"Me."

"How'd you know?"

Cyan could suffer no more. "Will you _please_!" he cried at the bouncy Biffen.

Jeff seemed to have no idea of what Cyan could possibly be referring to. "What, did I do something wrong?" he asked amicably.

"End your hopping at once! I fear I'll lose my mind!" Cyan bellowed, his fingers twisting around his head in demonstration.

Jeff, springing ever higher, responded innocently, "What hopping?"

Thankfully, Mehnka returned at that moment. "Guess what. Doma ain't far; I could see it from... Let me show you." She motioned to them and started heading away again.

They followed her to a steep precipice. Slowly, the castle rose above the impediment that they ascended. Cyan could feel it rise inside himself as well, lifting his hopes to reclaim his home. A dark fog settled over it; not one he could see with his eyes but could feel with his heart.

"Well, Gary?" Mehnka prodded. "Don't look half as busted up as you said it used to be, huh? Told ya it looked like new."

Cyan shook his head. "The reconstruction of the damage from the Light of Judgement was a fine performance. The scenery was perfect, the actors were trained, and the directors obviously knew how to make them pay strict attention to deadlines. But for me, this production is hollow. Gone are our ancient stones that had survived the centuries; their replacements are modern and contemptible...When we take back our homeland, I shall tear it all down...Perhaps by piecing apart the dungeon, we could allocate all we need to truly restore our castle..."

Even as he spoke, Cyan knew it was no more than wishful thinking to reconstruct the reconstruction, at least not within the following year. Doma had enough troubles. All the efforts that had been made to recreate the hierarchy and to designate new officials, all the work to give counsel to the people who had lost their families and their world, all the time put in to bring Doma back to its original splendor...All had been shattered by one blinding white blast. As though the blast had shattered time itself as well, the state of the castle retrogressed to a saddening shell of what had formerly been accomplished, and the Domans were reduced nearly to autism in their fright. The sight of the fragile binding holding their lives together destroyed again was a wound that now, opened a third time, would never heal for some.

Cyan had the fortitude to survive only because of the long, cool months he had spent on Mount Zozo when the world lay in ruin at Kefka's feet. High above the storm clouds that tormented the town that was the mountain's namesake (or perhaps vice versa), he was alone with the sorrow of the losses he had suffered. The serenity of his sheltered summit coaxed his recovery, and he came to see that there still was beauty in the life he had yet to live.

From the experience of having all he held dear taken away, Cyan had felt the desire to prevent more from knowing his pain. In traveling to Maranda before the world's collapse, he and the accompanying assortment of heroes and heroes-to-be had met Lola Amorante, a young woman with a sweet smile and a kind heart. And a wounded love, a soldier left in Mobliz, with the carrier pigeons serving as their only means of communication. They had been quick to give financial aid to the pair. When the news of the the soldier's death came to Cyan, he felt a sudden calling to prevent Lola from finding out.

From the very beginning, he knew what he did was wrong. He felt it as he started each letter with "Dear Lola," he felt it as he invented tales of the goings-on in Mobliz, he felt it as he elegantly fashioned the name Lucas at the end. Still, there was a voice telling him he was right; that Lola, being young, was delicate, and needed to be protected from the pain that life brought. That voice had dominance for many months. It instructed his hand to lace paper with ink. No other part of him could interfere with the daily meeting of quill and parchment. As the ache in his heart from the tragic year before depleted, so did the guilt grow. Sometimes he could force himself into a state of delusion, in which he sincerely believed it might be possible for him to continue all his life, writing letters to Lola with the promise that one day she would see Lucas again... thinking that he should live until the day Lola died, and then his promise would be fulfilled; for shortly they would both meet Lucas beyond the world of the living, where Cyan's abundance of lies from the passing decades would be immediately discarded.

There came a day when at last he took control of his sinful actions, and wrote one final letter to Lola, a plea for forgiveness and an impart of what he had learned: "It is time to look forward, to rediscover love, and embrace the beauty of life," he swirled across the page. In his shame, he signed the letter without a closing, without his title, without even his surname. Simply... Cyan.

And now, simply Cyan stood overlooking the palace. He was the only survivor of his family; how could he be a Garamonde? He had no castle, he had no throne room, he was split from his people; how could he be king? He had abandoned that which he named his homeland so many times; how could he be of Doma?

"It is time to set forth; to search for answers," Cyan told his companions. "We are now but a step away from that which I seek; a sojourn in Castle Doma. Inside, we shall find the way to secure Doma for its native people." Cyan folded his arms, as though such an act would fortify his beliefs. Jeff and Mehnka just stood idle. He glanced at them. "Well?"

Mehnka's smile was unlike any he'd yet seen pass her face; it was almost gentle. "Jeff, I think we know who ought to put the first foot forward, right?"

Jeff signaled his agreement. "Go ahead, King Cy."

Cyan took a step.