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(two fics) Celes Finalfantasy should kiss everyone, actually
Finally remembering to crosspost fic from the past few months, and I realized I never archived my fills from the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle this year or last.
Feb 2023: Celes/Sabin, "end of the world"
Sabin cares, sincerely, about everyone he's ever met. This was evident on meeting him. It made Celes uncomfortable.
In some ways it still does. She's never been like him - she was trained to see people as resources, unit numbers, field positions, and that training didn't break until Maranda. But in Tzen, Sabin held up a falling building and waited, like it'd never occurred to him that she wouldn't get involved. He would and did risk his life for a stranger, and assumed she would too. As if he had no concept of not being that dependable, or not being good.
Most days, traveling with him, she doesn't even want to die anymore. That's not something she can tell him, because she can't tell him that she tried. But she tries to pay him back, for the way he's wordlessly taken over foraging and cooking duties, and the way the his huge warm bulk shields her from the wind howling down the Serpent Trench. She builds the fire every evening. She kills or runs off any monsters that get too curious about them. She uses white magic to an extent she would once have considered prodigal - every night healing every trivial bruise or abrasion, every blister, every stiff muscle, for him and herself and (with mixed success) their chocobos.
She mends a cut on his temple, once, and as she withdraws her hand he catches her wrist. "Hey. Don't wear yourself out on this, okay?"
"I need to get back into practice," she says, not quite meeting his eyes. "Anyway - the world is sick. Open wounds risk infection."
"Okay," he says, like he's not convinced, but doesn't know enough to argue. But then he smiles. "Open wounds, sure. But if I keep letting you fix everything else, I'm just gonna get spoiled. I mean - I'm grateful. Really! I just don't want you to... you know..."
He fails to elaborate. She says, "I don't think I do know."
He looks serious. "Celes, you don't have to prove anything to me."
There's nothing she can say to that, or at least, nothing she wants to. After a pause, she says, "I'll start the fire," and he lets go of her hand.
Later, while he's skewering pieces of nondescript lizard meat for roasting, he says, "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."
"Did you think that was an imminent danger?" she says, and then stops, wondering if that came out chillier than she meant it. Friendly conversation: another area where she needs to get back in practice.
But he laughs. "Nah, with you, I guess not. I just wanted to say... and this is the only time I'm gonna say it, because I don't wanna pry... I know you've got some stuff going on. And I'm here for you, if you want."
Does he not realize? He's already done more for her than she would expect from anyone, and he does it as easily as breathing. "Thank you," she says.
"Any time." He balances the meat skewers over the fire. It's getting dark, in a streaky orange and purple sunset that would have been rare and beautiful before the world ended. Now it's always like that, and hard not to take as a corruption in the atmosphere.
Maybe it isn't. Or doesn't have to be. "It's a shame," Celes says. Sabin pretends to be fully absorbed in apocalypse cookery, but she can see the flash of his eyes as he glances up at her sidelong. "That it took the end of the world to bring us together."
He says, "I don't think of it like that at all." He looks terribly earnest and, despite two weeks' worth of beard, boyish. "You were one of the people I really wanted to find after the crash." (This list of people, she's certain, was long. He cares about everyone.) "I always liked you. And I still do."
"You're a kind person."
"I try," he says, with a dismissive shrug. "And, I mean" - a strange, crooked, sheepish smile she's never seen from him before - "I hope that's part of it."
She frowns. If kindness is only part, then what...
...All this time she's told herself, He's sticking close to you because you're both safer that way, and because he's nice. But what if - just suppose - he also did it because he wanted to?
"If this is weird, we can forget about it," he says. "No hard feelings."
"No. It's... not weird." Or it's mutually weird. "I had other reasons for treating your injuries."
He laughs. "Y'know, I wondered, once or twice." Seeing her stiffen, he backpedals: "Hey, hey, no, I'm not trying to embarrass you. I'm happy, is all."
Happy, in a time and place like this. He's remarkable. He is, possibly, a good influence.
But there's a faint luminous eyeshine off in the dusk, behind him, and this conversation can't continue until she knows their camp is secure. And maybe she doesn't know how to continue it anyway, without more time to think. She gets up, loosening her sword in its scabbard. He looks where she's looking. "Ah," he says, "yeah, we better deal with that."
"You're busy. I'll be back." She walks around the fire, to where he's sitting. But she pauses before setting off in pursuit. She wonders what it would feel like to...
But why wonder? What's the worst that could happen? The world already ended. She leans down and kisses his forehead. He's warm. Gritty particles of sand from the trench floor are stuck to his skin, and she's sure she's no better. He angles toward her and puts a hand on her hip - and doesn't pull her closer, although he could, and she would let him.
When she steps back, he smiles up at her. "Go get 'em. You know where to find me."
Feb 2024: Celes/Esper!Terra, "sharp teeth"
When they were children Terra's shadow haunted the training grounds. Everyone knew there was a girl, the Emperor's pet or Kefka's, with more power in her little finger than any of the Magitek cadets would ever touch. She was trotted out and put on display sometimes, so all could see the way fire danced for her and die a little with envy, but she did not train with them and she was never seen in the laboratory. More power with less effort, but - Celes pieced this together in glances stolen across courtyards and parade grounds - no killer instinct. Celes would do better. Celes would simply be meaner. On days when the infusions left her shaky on her feet she would remind herself of that shadow girl, that ornamental bird, her grace and her heat, and tell herself I'll still be a better soldier because I want it more, and liven up sword drills by kicking her opponent in the balls.
But that was years ago, and Celes has proven herself wrong about a lot of things. Terra is only nine or ten of those. It was never that Terra lacked will to fight, only that she had the sense not to do it without a reason. It was never that Terra was weak, or lacking her own sharpness. And she was never as remote or untouchable as she seemed. Celes swallows down a half-hysterical laugh at the thought, and Terra, sitting astride her hips on one of the Falcon's bunks, gives her a worried frown. Yes, this is that Terra, the unattainable, the resented. And it also isn't: she doesn't remember who she was when Celes hated her. She doesn't know about the silk dress she wore in the gardens that day when they were thirteen, and it would mean nothing to her if she were ever told how often and how angrily the adolescent Celes had thought about that dress to get herself off. It is that Terra, and it isn't. Her thighs are as warm and soft as an overheated teen soldier could have imagined, and they are densely furred in pink. Celes puts a shaky hand on one of them, squeezes, thinks Oh thank fuck I didn't kill myself, and again has to fight not to start laughing.
"Celes," Terra says. "Are you afraid of me like this?" Her eyes are big and yellow, and the light glints strangely on her slit pupils. But she's Terra, and that look - guarded, resigned to bad news - needs no translation.
"No. Terra - of course not, no, never. You're beautiful, you're -" There's no way to say it. Babbling is beneath her dignity. She shuts her eyes and draws in a long, measured breath. When she opens her eyes, Terra is, incredibly, still there. Still glowing with unworldly light, still clawed and fanged and looking deeply concerned, and, though the fur keeps her approximately decent, still naked. "I want you."
Terra nods once. Light shatters in her mane. She leans forward slowly, terribly slowly, her belly and then her chest coming inch by inch into contact with Celes and pressing her down into the bunk. Terra slides a hand down Celes's arm, careful with her claws. Yet again, there's some instinctive grace to her, like she has always known how to do things, with her magic, with her body, that people like Celes have to sweat and struggle for - the casual way she pins Celes's wrist, making the needle-points of her fingers felt without breaking skin. But she's left Celes one hand free. So Celes can finally do the unthinkable, push her fingers into the thick fur at the back of Terra's neck, and pull her the rest of the way down. Finally get to know Terra's sharp edges. In her haste she nicks her tongue on one of Terra's razor teeth, a little shock that blooms into her mouth like a blown rose.
Terra pulls back at the taste of blood, but Celes smiles up at her. "It's fine." She remembers looking at Terra all the time, when they were children. She remembers that looking hurt; she remembers being furious that someone so small and fragile could do that to her; she remembers above all that she kept looking, and looking, until her chest ached and her arms and legs felt like lead. She's beginning to understand what it meant. How stupid that it took so long - how lucky she got the chance. She says, "No need to be gentle with me." Of course, Terra will be gentle anyway; that's how she chooses to be. But it is a choice. She's always been dangerous.
Celes lets down her guard.
Feb 2023: Celes/Sabin, "end of the world"
Sabin cares, sincerely, about everyone he's ever met. This was evident on meeting him. It made Celes uncomfortable.
In some ways it still does. She's never been like him - she was trained to see people as resources, unit numbers, field positions, and that training didn't break until Maranda. But in Tzen, Sabin held up a falling building and waited, like it'd never occurred to him that she wouldn't get involved. He would and did risk his life for a stranger, and assumed she would too. As if he had no concept of not being that dependable, or not being good.
Most days, traveling with him, she doesn't even want to die anymore. That's not something she can tell him, because she can't tell him that she tried. But she tries to pay him back, for the way he's wordlessly taken over foraging and cooking duties, and the way the his huge warm bulk shields her from the wind howling down the Serpent Trench. She builds the fire every evening. She kills or runs off any monsters that get too curious about them. She uses white magic to an extent she would once have considered prodigal - every night healing every trivial bruise or abrasion, every blister, every stiff muscle, for him and herself and (with mixed success) their chocobos.
She mends a cut on his temple, once, and as she withdraws her hand he catches her wrist. "Hey. Don't wear yourself out on this, okay?"
"I need to get back into practice," she says, not quite meeting his eyes. "Anyway - the world is sick. Open wounds risk infection."
"Okay," he says, like he's not convinced, but doesn't know enough to argue. But then he smiles. "Open wounds, sure. But if I keep letting you fix everything else, I'm just gonna get spoiled. I mean - I'm grateful. Really! I just don't want you to... you know..."
He fails to elaborate. She says, "I don't think I do know."
He looks serious. "Celes, you don't have to prove anything to me."
There's nothing she can say to that, or at least, nothing she wants to. After a pause, she says, "I'll start the fire," and he lets go of her hand.
Later, while he's skewering pieces of nondescript lizard meat for roasting, he says, "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."
"Did you think that was an imminent danger?" she says, and then stops, wondering if that came out chillier than she meant it. Friendly conversation: another area where she needs to get back in practice.
But he laughs. "Nah, with you, I guess not. I just wanted to say... and this is the only time I'm gonna say it, because I don't wanna pry... I know you've got some stuff going on. And I'm here for you, if you want."
Does he not realize? He's already done more for her than she would expect from anyone, and he does it as easily as breathing. "Thank you," she says.
"Any time." He balances the meat skewers over the fire. It's getting dark, in a streaky orange and purple sunset that would have been rare and beautiful before the world ended. Now it's always like that, and hard not to take as a corruption in the atmosphere.
Maybe it isn't. Or doesn't have to be. "It's a shame," Celes says. Sabin pretends to be fully absorbed in apocalypse cookery, but she can see the flash of his eyes as he glances up at her sidelong. "That it took the end of the world to bring us together."
He says, "I don't think of it like that at all." He looks terribly earnest and, despite two weeks' worth of beard, boyish. "You were one of the people I really wanted to find after the crash." (This list of people, she's certain, was long. He cares about everyone.) "I always liked you. And I still do."
"You're a kind person."
"I try," he says, with a dismissive shrug. "And, I mean" - a strange, crooked, sheepish smile she's never seen from him before - "I hope that's part of it."
She frowns. If kindness is only part, then what...
...All this time she's told herself, He's sticking close to you because you're both safer that way, and because he's nice. But what if - just suppose - he also did it because he wanted to?
"If this is weird, we can forget about it," he says. "No hard feelings."
"No. It's... not weird." Or it's mutually weird. "I had other reasons for treating your injuries."
He laughs. "Y'know, I wondered, once or twice." Seeing her stiffen, he backpedals: "Hey, hey, no, I'm not trying to embarrass you. I'm happy, is all."
Happy, in a time and place like this. He's remarkable. He is, possibly, a good influence.
But there's a faint luminous eyeshine off in the dusk, behind him, and this conversation can't continue until she knows their camp is secure. And maybe she doesn't know how to continue it anyway, without more time to think. She gets up, loosening her sword in its scabbard. He looks where she's looking. "Ah," he says, "yeah, we better deal with that."
"You're busy. I'll be back." She walks around the fire, to where he's sitting. But she pauses before setting off in pursuit. She wonders what it would feel like to...
But why wonder? What's the worst that could happen? The world already ended. She leans down and kisses his forehead. He's warm. Gritty particles of sand from the trench floor are stuck to his skin, and she's sure she's no better. He angles toward her and puts a hand on her hip - and doesn't pull her closer, although he could, and she would let him.
When she steps back, he smiles up at her. "Go get 'em. You know where to find me."
Feb 2024: Celes/Esper!Terra, "sharp teeth"
When they were children Terra's shadow haunted the training grounds. Everyone knew there was a girl, the Emperor's pet or Kefka's, with more power in her little finger than any of the Magitek cadets would ever touch. She was trotted out and put on display sometimes, so all could see the way fire danced for her and die a little with envy, but she did not train with them and she was never seen in the laboratory. More power with less effort, but - Celes pieced this together in glances stolen across courtyards and parade grounds - no killer instinct. Celes would do better. Celes would simply be meaner. On days when the infusions left her shaky on her feet she would remind herself of that shadow girl, that ornamental bird, her grace and her heat, and tell herself I'll still be a better soldier because I want it more, and liven up sword drills by kicking her opponent in the balls.
But that was years ago, and Celes has proven herself wrong about a lot of things. Terra is only nine or ten of those. It was never that Terra lacked will to fight, only that she had the sense not to do it without a reason. It was never that Terra was weak, or lacking her own sharpness. And she was never as remote or untouchable as she seemed. Celes swallows down a half-hysterical laugh at the thought, and Terra, sitting astride her hips on one of the Falcon's bunks, gives her a worried frown. Yes, this is that Terra, the unattainable, the resented. And it also isn't: she doesn't remember who she was when Celes hated her. She doesn't know about the silk dress she wore in the gardens that day when they were thirteen, and it would mean nothing to her if she were ever told how often and how angrily the adolescent Celes had thought about that dress to get herself off. It is that Terra, and it isn't. Her thighs are as warm and soft as an overheated teen soldier could have imagined, and they are densely furred in pink. Celes puts a shaky hand on one of them, squeezes, thinks Oh thank fuck I didn't kill myself, and again has to fight not to start laughing.
"Celes," Terra says. "Are you afraid of me like this?" Her eyes are big and yellow, and the light glints strangely on her slit pupils. But she's Terra, and that look - guarded, resigned to bad news - needs no translation.
"No. Terra - of course not, no, never. You're beautiful, you're -" There's no way to say it. Babbling is beneath her dignity. She shuts her eyes and draws in a long, measured breath. When she opens her eyes, Terra is, incredibly, still there. Still glowing with unworldly light, still clawed and fanged and looking deeply concerned, and, though the fur keeps her approximately decent, still naked. "I want you."
Terra nods once. Light shatters in her mane. She leans forward slowly, terribly slowly, her belly and then her chest coming inch by inch into contact with Celes and pressing her down into the bunk. Terra slides a hand down Celes's arm, careful with her claws. Yet again, there's some instinctive grace to her, like she has always known how to do things, with her magic, with her body, that people like Celes have to sweat and struggle for - the casual way she pins Celes's wrist, making the needle-points of her fingers felt without breaking skin. But she's left Celes one hand free. So Celes can finally do the unthinkable, push her fingers into the thick fur at the back of Terra's neck, and pull her the rest of the way down. Finally get to know Terra's sharp edges. In her haste she nicks her tongue on one of Terra's razor teeth, a little shock that blooms into her mouth like a blown rose.
Terra pulls back at the taste of blood, but Celes smiles up at her. "It's fine." She remembers looking at Terra all the time, when they were children. She remembers that looking hurt; she remembers being furious that someone so small and fragile could do that to her; she remembers above all that she kept looking, and looking, until her chest ached and her arms and legs felt like lead. She's beginning to understand what it meant. How stupid that it took so long - how lucky she got the chance. She says, "No need to be gentle with me." Of course, Terra will be gentle anyway; that's how she chooses to be. But it is a choice. She's always been dangerous.
Celes lets down her guard.