Chapter Sixteen: Kalm
by thelittletree
'Oh, not again.' Elira felt her face contort with the urge to give yet another yawn and she eventually gave in to it, breathing in a chill lungful of the still night air. Then, blinking gritty eyes, she shifted her fingers on the unfamiliar weight of Vincent's gun and continued peering blindly out into the darkness.
She wasn't sure why she had put herself on point; it wasn't like she could really see anything, and she was so tired and sore her aim would undoubtedly suffer if she tried to fire a bullet. But Vincent had seen a need for putting himself on watch, so she was uneasy about just leaving him asleep on the ground completely unguarded. A bullet in the air, she'd decided, would probably be enough to scare an animal away. But not if she was yawning every other minute instead of paying attention. Resolutely, she shook herself and, after fussing for a moment with the blanket she'd thrown over Vincent, stood to walk around the camp.
The moon and stars were out, but, despite their light, shadows were still indiscernible blobs in the distance. She was fairly sure she wouldn't have been able to tell a monster from a rock even if it was moving toward her. With a sigh, she shrugged further into her coat and began to rub some warmth back into her right hand around the gun.
It was a gibbous moon, and she could make out some of the more familiar constellations -- like the warrior-hero, Cletus. The sight reminded her of something her father had said a month after the funeral when she was deciding to move back to Neo-Midgar: 'Elly, remember to look at the stars any time you feel trapped in the city. They'll remind you that freedom is never very far away.' She'd supposed at the time that he'd meant for her to remember things like that night on the shore a mile out of town when he'd taken her to watch a meteor shower, smelling the salt of the ocean and feeling the wind in her hair. But now his statement seemed a trifle trite. Why did everyone think of freedom when they looked at the stars?
Cletus had been a real warrior once, if legends were true. He'd been fierce and brave and full of life. He'd felt love and pain the same as anyone else. But now he was a constellation, forced to stare down for eternity on a humanity he could never rejoin. What kind of reward was that? Sure, stars were beautiful and they stayed beautiful for a long time, but what was it like to stay young and bright while the humanity you remember grows old and dies around you? She imagined it was very depressing.
"Elira."
She started and turned to see Vincent's red eyes glowing out of the darkness. "You're awake," she observed unnecessarily.
He stepped up beside her and glanced at the sky. "What are you looking at?"
She looked back at the stars and chuckled a little. "Nothing, really. I think I was starting to fall asleep on my feet. Oh." She held his gun out to him. "Here."
He took it from her and blinked. "Were you on watch?"
She shrugged, smiling. "One of us had to be, right?"
His lips twitched. "I suppose I did say that." Deftly, he holstered the gun and Elira saw a twinge of something cross his face. Then, carefully, he lifted the prosthetic and began to knead his right shoulder with the fingers. She had to clench her teeth to keep herself from offering to help. Instead, she turned to the matter at hand. "Vincent, what happened? I didn't see anything out here. What made you transform?"
He stopped working at his sore muscle and gave a sigh. Inevitably, those gloved fingers came up to slip under his bandana, and Elira knew something was troubling him. "Nothing," he answered after a moment. "Nothing happened. Chaos simply..." He dropped his arm and made an expanding gesture with his hands.
"You mean there was no warning or anything?"
He paused again before speaking. "No, there was nothing. Perhaps you should go back and get some sleep, Elira."
She had the distressing feeling that he wasn't telling her everything. "But...you weren't angry or anything. It just...?"
"Yes."
"But, what does that mean?"
Vincent shrugged. "He's stronger than I thought."
Elira frowned. "He?"
"What?"
"You said 'he'. Every other time, you've said 'it'."
Vincent's eyebrows twitched downward. "I think you should go back to sleep, Elira."
She wanted to ask some more questions, but he didn't seem in the mood to answer them. "Are you sure you're all right?"
He nodded without looking at her. "Good night."
"Good night, Vincent." She made her way to the tent and couldn't help turning to look at him once before heading inside. She was surprised to find him pacing, the glint of the moon on his prosthetic giving him away in the darkness.
By the late afternoon, Elira could see the profile of Kalm up ahead of them, only a couple of miles away, dipping in and out of sight as the terrain sloped and climbed. The first glimpse of it put a lump in her throat, the same lump she'd gotten when the salty flavor of the ocean had come up and tweaked her nose like a familiar friend. This was home. Neo-Midgar was where she had lived for four years, but Kalm would always be home. She wondered what her father was doing this very moment.
Vincent wasn't looking at the approaching town. It almost seemed like he wasn't looking anywhere.
He hadn't said more than a few words all day. Elira didn't mind that. She wasn't the type of person who needed conversation to feel comfortable around someone. But something about his silence this time said more than anything spoken would have. It was something in the way he was walking, the chiseled expression on his face, as if he had backpedaled behind another wall.
She'd been thinking as they went along about what he'd said the night before. Stronger than he'd thought. 'He' was stronger than he'd thought. Vincent hadn't been off his guard, and yet Chaos had managed to break through. What did that mean? Did it mean they were going to have to be ready at all times for 'surprise' transformations? The thought unsettled her, but she had the gun within reach and she could keep it close at hand when she slept. It didn't change things all that much, did it? What could be bothering him so much?
A faintly acrid odor in the air suddenly attracted her attention and she had the strange feeling that it had been there for awhile, familiar enough to have stayed in the background until now. She frowned, trying to place it...
'Do you sssmell that? Think of all the rotting metal, all thossse decomposssed bodiesss. Delightful.'
Vincent kept his mind carefully void of thought. Chaos laughed, and the sound was like water scissoring across a hot burner. 'Are you sssuprisssed that I know about Midgar? I wasss there, you know. I remember watching it through your eyesss.' There was a pregnant pause. 'I have ssseen other thingsss, too, Vincsssent. I remember her. Ellllira.'
Vincent was startled by this and had to fight against a surge of violated anger.
'Ssso lusssciousss and young and fragrant, all ssskin and curvesss...'
Vincent struggled against the memory Chaos' words were threatening to reanimate and eventually forced it to the back of his mind. 'Leave me, damn you!'
Chaos laughed again. 'Thisss isss very entertaining. After ten yearsss of nothing but sssleep, it isss nicssse to have sssomething amusssing to do.'
Peripherally, Vincent saw Elira lift her head and he could hear her sniffing the air. "What is that?" she asked suddenly.
He wasn't sure if she'd aimed the question at him. "It's Midgar," he answered quietly. Chaos said nothing. Vincent wondered if the demon had finally tired of his -- its -- game.
Comprehension dawned on her face. "That's why I recognized it. We used to be able to smell it during the summers. I wonder why no one's cleaned it up."
Vincent didn't know. But Midgar had not been a good place, and he doubted anyone wanted to risk disturbing its ghosts, even to bury them.
They hadn't spoken in hours. He supposed it wasn't surprising that she might want to talk. Looking thoughtful, she turned to him. "Vincent, if Kalm does have a ferry port now, I'm thinking that it might not go to the Northern Continent. That's a long way, and I doubt the Forgotten City is a big tourist attraction."
And that's when Vincent realized his mistake. Chaos was not gone, just listening. And Elira couldn't have known. He hadn't told her to watch her words because Chaos could now enter his conscious mind. With a simplicity that shamed him, she had just given away his secret to the demon.
And Chaos screamed with frenzied rage. Vincent cringed at the sound and stumbled, putting his hands to his ears though he knew it wouldn't help.
'Vincsssent! You're taking me to the Ancsssientsss! Death to you! Hell take you! Madnessss find you!!'
This time, the pain wasn't unexpected, but it was still debilitating. One of his knees gave out and he dropped clumsily to the ground, trying with all of his might to counter the changes that had already started with his ears and teeth. But, as before, he could only offer token resistance. He hoped Elira was ready...
Elira was so startled by Vincent's reaction that she couldn't move for a few seconds. And then she was grabbing frantically for the gun on her pack. "Vincent, hold on!" Dammit, what was it caught on? Without trying to find out, she continued to yank as hard as she could, breathing in short, panicked gasps through her teeth. Was she going to be ready in time? He was crouched on the ground a few feet away from the path, twisting and shuddering with the pain, only stopping his half-muffled screams to draw breath, and this was only so he could scream again. Then he arched his back with a sudden sob and the wings burst like great dark shadows from his shoulder blades.
Too late, too late! She glanced desperately at her pack and turned awkwardly so that she could fiddle with the straps. There! One of them was caught in the zipper! She hastily tugged it free and pulled the gun into her hands.
But Chaos was already getting to its taloned feet and scenting the air. When it turned to her, the leer on its face reminded her of the day in Odriam and she trembled. She could almost sense its desire to rip into her flesh and taste her blood...
Despite her shaking arms, she raised the gun and aimed for the thing's heart, or where she assumed its heart would be. The dart flew into its shoulder. No more than a moment after it had entered, however, the demon swiped it from its skin and she heard the needle break with a *ping*. And then, she was almost sure she saw that horrible mouth grin.
Elira stared for a second with wide eyes, torn between fight and flight. And then she turned and fled. 'Dear God, this is it,' she thought, feeling a stone of dread settle in her gut. 'I'll never outrun it.' But after what might have been a hundred yards with no sounds of pursuit, she dared a glance over her shoulder.
The demon had lifted into the air, but instead of swooping toward her it was riding the air currents northward, approaching Kalm and the ocean. Elira jogged to a halt, confused as she watched it move further and further from her. But then she thought she saw it shake its head as if trying to rid itself of something. Was Vincent fighting it from the inside? She followed it anxiously with her eyes, holding her breath.
It drifted along with a deceptive serenity, as if it might have been a bird stretching its wings. And then it dipped clumsily about twenty feet before stabilizing. Elira felt a surge of hope. Some of the drug must've gotten into its system. She began to wonder suddenly if Vincent knew how to swim.
With purpose, she began to run.
She chased it until her lungs were wind-burned and the muscles in her legs were threatening to buckle, and then she dropped to the grass, gagging and coughing as her exhausted body tried to retch. When she could finally raise her head, it was to see the demon descending, not into the ocean, but into the heart of Kalm. Before it disappeared behind a building, however, she thought she saw a telltale flutter of black hair.
It felt like it took her a long time to reach the town. And, instead of spending a few minutes just looking around at the place she had grown up, as she might have had they just walked in, she continued running through the streets, looking for any signs of Vincent or the milling confusion of a crowd. When she hadn't seen anything by the time she came to the town square, she stopped to catch her breath and get her bearings.
Two men were talking nearby and, as she spent a few moments just gasping and looking around, she couldn't help but overhear them.
"Right there, almost right on top of Dan Crossman's wife, and she screamed like you wouldn't believe."
"But what was it?"
"Hell if I know. Just a monster, I guess, though I've never seen one that could turn into a human before."
Elira turned to stare at them and was almost surprised when she recognized one of them, a short wiry man with brown hair and lined features that looked like they were used to smiling. The second man she didn't know, though the long white scar from his ear to his chin made her sure she could pick him out again. Quickly, she approached them. "Mr. Blackfield? Excuse me, Mr. Blackfield?"
The two men looked at her and the shorter one raised his eyebrows suddenly. "Hey. Aren't you Davis Maddison's daughter?"
"Yes, hi. It's been a long time."
"It sure has! Aren't you living in Neo-Midgar now?"
"Um, yeah, but listen. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure. Shoot."
She glanced at the other man, feeling his eyes on her. The way he was staring was making her uncomfortable. "You're talking about the..." She faltered a moment. "...the stranger who just landed in town, aren't you?"
"Stranger?" Mr. Blackfield chuckled a little. "I'm not sure it wasn't more monster than stranger, but, yes."
"Well..." She smiled a little helplessly. "I was just wondering where he went."
"Oh." Blackfield grinned at her comfortingly. "Don't worry about that. Someone's already taken care of it."
Elira felt her blood run cold. "What?" she whispered.
"Yeah, we've got a guy here in town who takes care of all of the monsters who venture in."
"Take...takes care of them?"
Mr. Blackfield didn't seem to notice her distress. "Uh-huh. Usually he just kills them where they are, but this one he threw a blanket over and pulled into his house. He's a strange one." He laughed a little, but stopped when he realized that she wasn't smiling. "Is something wrong?"
Elira knew she was trembling but she couldn't stop herself. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be. He'd survived a shot through the heart once. "Where does this man live?" she asked, faking a calm she didn't feel.
Blackfield frowned, looking confused. "Well, right over there, actually. The thing practically landed on his doorstep."
Elira nodded. "Thanks." She started dashing across the square, but then turned. "It...it was good to see you again."
"Oh, um. You too."
She knocked fiercely on the door and then, when she didn't get an immediate response, she knocked again. After a few seconds, she could hear the sound of footsteps, and then the door opened to reveal a tall, attractive woman in her mid-thirties. In fact, Elira was momentarily taken aback by the woman's beauty. Not everyone was blessed with those kind of looks, and the river of brown hair she wore to her waist looked like it had never seen a tangle. "Yes?" the woman asked.
Elira took a breath. "I need to know what...what your husband did with the man who landed in town earlier."
The woman's face relaxed into a smile and she began to talk placidly. "I wouldn't worry about it. My husband's taken care of it. He won't be a danger to anyone."
"He hasn't..." Elira swallowed with a little difficulty. "He hasn't killed him, has he?"
The woman seemed surprised by the question. "Well...he's taken care of everything. Just, please, go back about your business..."
Elira was losing patience. "Look, can I come inside? I'm with the man your husband brought in."
The woman stiffened suddenly. "You're with Vincent?"
Elira blinked. "You know Vincent?"
"Tifa, who's at the door?"
The woman's curtain of hair swayed gently as she turned to the man, presumably her husband. Fairly tall and slim, he was about the woman's age with unruly blond hair that, in contrast to his wife's, looked like it had never seen a brush. His eyes, however, were the things that caught and held Elira's attention. They were almost too blue to be believed.
"She says she's with Vincent," the woman, Tifa, said.
The man frowned and stepped up beside his wife. "Who are you?"
Less afraid than she'd been moments before, Elira was starting to regain her composure. "My name is Elira Maddison. I know Vincent from Neo-Midgar."
The man stared at her with obvious suspicion. "Tell me something about him."
Elira was caught off guard by the request. "Well, he's good with guns, he..." She wondered for a second how much she should say, but then realized that they probably knew it all already. "He transforms into a demon called Chaos, he was once in love with a woman named Lucrecia..."
Tifa turned to her husband. "I think she's telling the truth."
The man's expression lost some of its hard edge and he nodded, opening the door. Elira stepped inside. "Thank you. Is he all right?"
"That depends on what you mean by all right," the man called over his shoulder as he walked away from the door and down a hallway to his left.
It wasn't a large house, but it was well kept and comfortable. Elira took her sneakers off before stepping into the living room. Tifa closed the door behind her and smiled a little. "Sorry to give you the third degree, but Vincent's a friend of ours and we don't want anything to happen to him."
Elira nodded. "I can understand that." She started toward the hallway and Tifa accompanied her to a lighted room.
Still unconscious, Vincent had been settled comfortably on a bed and Elira noticed that all of his traveling gear, plus his coat and boots, had been piled on the floor. She moved to his side and stared down at him. A strand of hair had fallen across the bridge of his nose but she didn't move to push it away, not sure how his friends would construe the gesture.
The man stood to her right, looking thoughtful. And then he glanced at her. "My name's Cloud Strife, and this is my wife Tifa." And then he began as if continuing a previous conversation, "So, I don't know what's wrong with him. We've tried to wake him, but he's out like a light."
"That's because I used a tranquilizer dart on him." She indicated the gun she'd strapped back onto her pack. "It's the only way to control Chaos." Then she pursed her lips, remembering something. "He might actually still have the needle of the dart in his left shoulder."
"The needle?" Cloud stepped up and, with a brisk efficiency, undid the first four buttons of Vincent's shirt to expose his shoulder. A small, irritated circle showed where the piece of metal was lodged beneath the skin. "How did that happen?"
"Oh." Elira felt a bit flustered at having to explain. "Chaos brushed the dart away and the needle broke off inside." She glanced up in time to see the tail-end of a glance shared between the married couple. And then Cloud sat on the edge of the bed. "Tifa, will you get me something sharp and that small set of pliers?"
Tifa nodded quickly and disappeared out the door.
Once his wife was gone, Cloud sighed a little, staring down at Vincent. Then he looked up. "So, you're with Vincent?"
She nodded. "I have...had a weapons shop in Neo-Midgar, and he was one of my employees."
He flicked his eyes over the tent and packs on the floor. "What's the gear for?"
"We're traveling to the Northern Continent." Elira pursed her lips. "Do you know anything about Chaos?"
Cloud shrugged. "A little. I saw it a few times when we were fighting together."
Elira realized she might have a chance to get some of her questions answered. "In Avalanche?"
Cloud nodded.
Elira smiled. "So he was in Avalanche."
The man glanced up and then looked at her shrewdly. "You shouldn't do that. I didn't know he hadn't told you."
"Well, you couldn't have known. He must've been pretty young then, huh?"
Tifa entered at that moment. "Here you go, Cloud. I ran them under hot water. Do you want us to hold him down in case he wakes up?"
"Please."
Tifa had brought him a thin, sharp instrument that looked like it might have once been a part of something else. Carefully, Cloud inserted it as close to the original wound as he could and began to worry at the lodged needle. As if he'd been put out under anesthetic, Vincent didn't move or make a sound.
Eventually, the tip emerge far enough for Cloud to grasp it between the prongs of the pliers. Slowly, he removed the metal splinter and looked for somewhere to put it. Tifa grabbed a tissue and put it beside him on a desk. He set the needle down and Elira could see the tinge of blood on it.
"There." Tifa stepped out for a minute and then came back in to hand him a cloth. "That should do it." He wiped the wound and proceeded to close Vincent's shirt back up. And then he turned back to Elira. "So why are you and Vincent going to the Northern Continent?"
"He wants to get rid of Chaos and we found some clues that point to the Forgotten City as a place that might be able to help us...help him."
Tifa was gazing at her speculatively. "How well do you know Vincent?"
"Oh." Elira shrugged a little with a self-conscious chuckle. "We're just friends."
Tifa nodded but Elira thought she didn't look convinced. Then Cloud stood. "Well, I don't care how well you know him. It's none of our business." He seemed about to leave the room, but then he hesitated. "If you need a place to stay for the night, this is a spare bedroom and there's a couch in the living room."
Elira was surprised by the offer. She smiled. "Thanks."
"No problem. Anything for an old friend and his...friend. C'mon, Tif." He touched her elbow and they both left. One of them pulled the door until it was just sitting ajar.
Elira sat wearily on the bed. "Oh Vincent." She took the opportunity to brush the strand of hair away and cupped his cheek with her hand. "I'm sorry I wasn't quick enough. I'm sorry you're going through this." She swept his face with her eyes and then found her gaze lingering on his lips. After a moment, she looked away resolutely.
A sudden creak made Elira look toward the door. She couldn't help but smile when she saw a young face peering at her. "It's all right. You can come in."
The girl entered and a smaller girl, her younger sister Elira surmised, shuffled in behind her. Both of them were good-looking children: the older had long, brown hair, like her mother's, and all the appearance of being sharp and inquisitive; the younger had tousled blond curls and seemed ready to follow her older, braver sister around as long as she could suck noncommittally on her thumb.
"Who are you?" the older girl asked.
"My name is Elira. What are your names?"
"I'm Aeris, and this is Doria. She's only five, and I'm eight." The girl's eyes turned to Vincent. "What happened to that man?"
"He..." Elira glanced at him. "He's sick. I'm trying to help him get better."
Aeris seemed to think about this for a moment. "When I'm sick, my mom gives me soup."
Elira smiled. "I've tried that already."
The sound of footsteps coming down the hall made both girls turn toward the door. Then Tifa was looking in. "Girls, what did I tell you about this room? Off-limits, remember? Our guest needs his sleep." She herded her daughters out into the hallway and then smiled apologetically at Elira. "I'm sorry. They're just curious."
"It's all right. I was like that at their age."
Tifa's smile widened a fraction. "You know, we're about to eat. Did you want to join us?"
Elira considered the offer, but then shook her head. "No, thank you."
"All right. Well, in any case, I hope we can talk to you a little later. You can tell us what Vincent's been up to. We haven't seen him in a long time, and he's not always forthcoming with information."
Elira laughed suddenly. "That's very true." She stood from the bed and Tifa left the door open for her. Elira made sure to turn off the light before she stepped out.
The sun was low in the sky when Elira walked out into the peace of her old town. She was gratified to see that things hadn't changed all that much. Almost of their own accord, her feet began to lead her down the familiar sidewalks.
It wasn't long before she was standing outside of a squat, two-story house, staring with fondness at the weathered brown bricks and the black-shingled roof. After a minute or so, she followed the flagstone path past the front porch and around to a side door. From here, she could catch glimpses of the tiny, fenced-in back yard. Without knocking, she turned the doorknob and a bell sounded overhead.
The room inside was made up like a parlor with sinks and reclining chairs. Two men looked up as she entered. One, an older man, was sitting back in a chair with his cheeks and chin liberally slathered with cream. The other, not much taller than Elira herself, was black-haired and balding with a pair of glasses perched on his nose. His eyes widened as he recognized her.
Elira grinned at him, but her mouth contorted as she realized that she was about to start crying. "Hi, Dad."