NEW VERSION: [Final Fantasy VI] Fic: The Sleeping Beauty (Part 3 of 13)

[flonnebonne]

Title: The Sleeping Beauty
Fandom: FF6
Characters: Celes, Terra, Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Shadow, Cyan, Gau, Setzer, Relm
Genre: Drama, AU
Wordcount: 11,975
Summary: What if, after one year asleep, Celes still does not wake?

Important Note: This is a revised version of the story I posted on April 2.
The main changes are:
1) New material at the beginning and end of the story, with significant changes to the plot;
2) Removal of unnecessary lines to promote clarity and better flow, hopefully, throughout the story;
3) Splitting up the story into thirteen sections instead of two, because I realize this is a damn long story;
4) Chapter titles.

Hopefully the story is better now! I am leaving the old version up for posterity's sake, if you'd like to compare. Comments and criticism are welcome, always.

 

Part 3: Forever Rachel

(The scent of desert sand.)

(Pressing heat and air so dry, it used to suffocate her.)

(Back when she still remembered how to breathe.)

You have a lot of nerve, Gabbiani.

Thank you, Your Majesty.

This is what you wanted to show me? An opera star? I can't believe you'd build an airship for a kidnapping - again! - and not when I asked you a month ago. And how on earth did you build it so fast?

(She is still cold, in the desert.)

Oh for - will you look at her up close? Really look at her, and not the dress.

So you can gloat? Or so you can...wait. Is that...Celes?

Yes, Celes.

Is she...

She's alive. In a sense. Not breathing though. And none of the spells or potions I tried on her did a thing.

We should let my doctors look at her. Where on earth did you - and why is she in that dress?

The family that found her said she washed up on a beach near that new Colosseum. She was tied to a raft - no idea who did that. The family brought her to their decrepit little shack, put a white dress on her and started billing her as Maria Cataldi, the Sleeping Beauty. The real Maria and her family haven't been seen since the ruin, so it was a safe bet for them.

The new colosseum...that's near Kohlingen.

Yeah, that's why I heard about it.

Funny, that. There's a girl in Kohlingen who...have you heard about Rachel?

(She has.)

No. I didn't talk to people there.

She was Locke's girl. He loved her. Still does, I think.

(He does.)

She died when the Empire attacked six years ago. But Locke somehow had her put to sleep, with an old man's help. Maybe he knows -

(Maybe he knows nothing.)

Well, we don't know where Locke is.

Then I suppose we should go see the old man. And Rachel.

Yes, I suppose we should.

(The cold presses deeper.)

---

(The stench of roses lingers.)

(Decaying, cloying, still.)

(Wrapped around her skin.)

Well, that was a creepy old pervert if I've ever seen one.

Takes one to know one. I'm not the one who insisted on leaving her in that dress.

You want to be the one to undress her?

...We should have asked one of my maids at the castle to do that.

Too late for that now.

Never mind that. We need to figure this out. The old man says it's magic that's keeping her asleep.

Of course it's magic. Remember as we were leaving the Floating Continent? When that ray of light came at us...Celes used her Runic blade and it came to her instead of hitting the Blackjack.

Yes, I remember now...it was all so fast. It looked rather like the Light of Judgement, didn't it? I think she actually did absorb some of it. She seemed to be struggling to contain it. But the ship was struck anyway.

Don't fault her for that. She tried to protect us all.

And this is what it cost her.

(Like living death, this.)