Forgetting
by melusine


She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him. . .
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson “Eros Turannos”

There was a theft.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and I forget who I am.
-- Anne Sexton “Briar Rose”


Terra sat in one of the window seats of the Blackjack, looking out into the night sky. She hadn’t slept at all that night as well as last night and the one previous to it. Being half esper, she could do with less, but she knew only a few hours every few nights would take its toll on her eventually. But the rest of the utterly exhausted was different from normal sleep: it was deep and dreamless. She felt her eyelids closing and quickly bit the tender skin between her thumb and her index finger, the pain jerking her body into wakefulness. If she slept now, she feared she would dream. . .and there was so much she didn’t want to remember.
Her muscles tensed as she heard someone descend the stairs into the room, a chill running down her spine. She calmed when she saw the reflection on the glass. Setzer. “You too?” she asked quietly.
“Bad dreams,” he answered, sounding distant. Shaking his head, he walked to one of the nearby tables and sat down. Like Terra, his worst scars were the ones that couldn’t be seen. He placed his face in his hands and rubbed his fingers against his forehead, tracing the scars there. “Do you know any card games?” he asked, voice muffled. Setzer lifted his head and turned towards Terra.
“No,” her voice was barely above a whisper, choked with tears. The beginning of a sob followed it, causing her already trembling body to jerk slightly.
“What’s wrong?” Setzer asked, puzzled. He remembered when he had first seen her, laying unconscious on a bed in esper form. She had looked so frightened when she had awoke; her eyes wide and her breathing frantic. Although the others seemed used to her sometimes unusual mood swings, he hadn’t known her as long.
“Ever since they removed the slave crown, I’ve been remembering things,” Terra took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shudderingly. “Things I wished would stay forgotten.”
The gambler nodded, reminded of his own memories of Darryl. His mind replayed the awful moment when he found his friend’s remains in the wreckage; the look of horror on her face. “Bad memories have a way of sticking around,” he said as he tried to banish the image from his brain. “The worse it is the more it wants to stay.”
“Like my entire existence,” Terra murmured, then turned towards him, holding out her arms. “Look at me.”
Setzer stumbled for words, confused. “You look fine. . .a little sleepy, but fine.”
“Look closer,” she insisted and Setzer cautiously complied.
How could I have missed this before?! the gambler thought, horrified at what he saw. Tracks from needles and shiny burn scars dotted her arms, intermixed with long, terrible scratchmarks. He looked up at Terra’s face; her eyes were raw from tears.
“They. . .” she started, avoiding his eyes. “He used me.”
“What did ‘he’ do to you?” Setzer asked gently.
“Horrible things. . .” Terra trailed off, biting her lower lip. She opened her mouth, about to say more, then shut it again. Fresh tears trickled down her cheeks.
“What?” he inquired further, already wishing he hadn’t.
“They. . .he wanted --” Terra started, hands reaching up to grasp the small vial of magicite that hung around a chain on her neck. “I was the only one --” Setzer reached out cautiously to put a hand on her shoulder as she began to cry. Terra shrank away from his touch, sobbing openly and helplessly. Hurt, Setzer drew his hand away, watching her curl up on the window seat. “Ever since they took the slave crown off, I’ve been remembering things,” she looked back at him for a moment before burying her face in her hands. “I just want the slave crown back. . .” a sob wrenched her. “So I can start forgetting again.”

The wind howled outside, making raindrops clatter angrily against the windowpanes. The hazy halflight illuminated a young woman, no older than sixteen, curled up in a ball on her bed. The rich furnishings of the room marked her as either the wife or daughter of a noble, or the favorite of one. She was crying softly, her tears reddening her cheeks. A thin, unhealthy looking man with stringy blond hair was sitting at the foot of the bed, pulling on a pair of high heeled boots. Frowning, he looked up at the clock on the wall. “I know you’re awake,” he whispered.
The girl squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She cringed as the man lay down beside her, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Terra,” he murmured, brushing aside her hair to kiss her neck. “Cid will be cross if we are late.”
Terra swallowed hard, pushing back the sickness in her throat. “Then go, Kefka,” she managed. “Cid doesn’t want me to come along.” He knows I can hear the Espers crying.
“But I want you to come along,” Kefka whispered insistently in her ear, voice as cold as icewater. “And you will do what I want.” Terra could feel him smiling as he said this, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling up. “Whatever I want.”
“Please. . .” she whimpered as his lips brushed her cheek; his nails finding familiar scratches and reopening them. “I’ll go, just stop. . .please stop.”
“As you wish,” Kefka purred, kissing her before climbing out of her bed. “You are coming along, aren’t you?” he asked, his tone indicating that it was more of a command than a request.
“Yes, of course,” Terra swallowed again, biting back pain and disgust. Shivering, she slid out of bed and pulled on a dress. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him watching her as she dressed, smiling slickly. Terra felt her skin goosepimpling again: something about those eyes. . .
“Hurry,” he told her, pleased at how obedient she was. Kefka’s smile widened. “Terra dear, we mustn’t be late.”
“I know, I know,” Terra mumbled as she joined him at the door. In all her years under Kefka’s “care,” he had done everything in his power to break her, through every form of abuse.

Fourteen years old, Terra sat on one of the gurneys in Cid’s lab, watching as Kefka greeted the aging scientist. Although unyielding and abusive towards her, he was almost pathetically eager to please the old man. Or maybe it’s just an act, you never can tell with him. Cid’s adopted daughter, Celes, came in to sit beside her; picking idly at the bandage on her arm. Terra shivered, recalling that the girl had undergone her first infusion earlier that day. She looked back at Kefka, then at Celes, hoping for all the world that the pale, quiet girl wouldn’t end up like the chaotic madman.
Cid sighed as Kefka plucked the lab coat from his body and put it on, laughing at the sight of his thin hands and wrists poking out through the ends of the sleeves. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it Papa?” Kefka smiled charmingly at him, using an old petname. “So many infusions and still not perfect yet, at least in the eyes of his excellency Ghestahl.” The brightly dressed man shrugged off the coat and handed it back to the scientist before removing his long tunic and sitting down on the examining table.
He isn’t too much different from when they found him, at least in appearance, Cid thought as he looked at Kefka. The emaciated street child had grown into a tall man with a ravaged, addict’s body. With his painted face and slightly feminine features, Kefka reminded the scientist of some bizarre, expensive china doll: the Emperor’s toy.
“So what’s on the menu for today?” Kefka asked as Cid pressed a stethoscope to his bony back, listening to his heart. “Lightening? Ice? Wind? Recovery? Defense? Biological? Fire?” he licked his lips and giggled. “Oh please tell me it’s fire, Papa!”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Cid told him as he put the stethoscope away and took out a light and shone it in Kefka’s eyes, noticing that his pupils now dilated into narrow, vertical slits. With every infusion, the younger man appeared to become less human and less sane. Yet, he appeared to still be in excellent condition for whatever he was, but how much longer that would last was uncertain at best. Noticing that his subject was starting to wince, Cid took the light away and bustled over to his lab table to get the Magicite solution for the infusion.
Celes yawned, resting her head against Terra’s shoulder. Although she had never had an infusion herself, Terra knew the effects they had on the human body. “Are you okay?” she asked Celes, shifting her position slightly.
“Fine,” Celes said sleepily, looking up at her with half-lidded eyes. “But it hurts. . .I don’t know how Kefka can stand it.”
“So how’s Terra?” Cid asked as he selected a place on one of Kefka’s needle- marked forearms and swabbed a bit of alcohol onto it.
“A bit sick lately,” Kefka smiled slyly. “But she’s putting on weight.”
Offhandedly, the scientist looked over at the girl: her limbs were still thin as sticks and coltish with youth, but there was a swelling, a slight roundish bulge, at her middle. Her eyes, too old for her face, met his; hands folding over her stomach. A cold sweat beading his brow, Cid turned back to Kefka. “She’s only a child,” he managed, voice flat from shock.
The mask face regarded him in turn, the once-sly smile now enigmatic, teasing. Cid felt his gaze drawn to that smile; watching the black rosebud of a mouth open to reveal teeth sharper than any human’s should be. “So she is, Papa,” Kefka said dryly, knowing that his reply would infuriate the scientist. He enjoyed testing his limits around people, seeing how far they would let him go before they would finally snap. Cackling, he lifted up one of his arms, the remaining alcohol a bright spot on the forearm. “Fill ‘er up?”
“Certainly,” Cid said through gritted teeth as he plunged the needle into Kefka’s arm, harder and deeper than was necessary, then pushed in on the stopper. He heard him hiss as he did so, his eyes dilating sharply from the sudden pain. For a moment, Cid was reminded of the first infusion: the young boy lying asleep on the table; the injection site looking bruised and inflamed, weeping through the bandage. The bruised look faded after a few days, but the mental scars remained and festered over twenty years, further infected by succeeding treatments. It was a vicious cycle; day by day, year by year.
“That hurt, Cid,” Kefka snapped, a slight whine in his voice. After removing the syringe himself, he angrily tugged on his tunic and slid off the table; Terra awkwardly getting off of the gurney as he did so. He grabbed her by one arm, fingers closing tight over a bracelet of bruises on her upper arm, and jerked her into motion, forcing her to walk at his own quick pace out of the lab or be dragged. She stumbled behind him, trying her best to keep up, before disappearing down the hall out of Cid’s view.

“Almost. . .” Cid urged, bringing Terra out of her fog of pain and anesthesia. The last few months had passed so uneventfully that, except for her growing belly, she could have forgotten that the child was even there. At her right, General Leo clasped her hand, his grip strong and reassuring. The man had raised Terra from infancy until she was ten years old, at which point the Emperor decided that the young magic user should be trained by his toy sorcerer. And then everything fell apart.
“Shouldn’t the father be here?” a nurse, a new hiring from two months previous, asked, brow wrinkled with concern. Wordlessly, Cid looked to General Leo, who squeezed Terra’s hand. The girl could see the outline of Kefka pacing outside the door, lean and dangerous. He reminded her of something predatory: at home when prowling the Veldt or gliding through the underbrush; a cat or serpent. ‘Shall we pretend this is Eden, then? That this twisted structure of steel and slowly rotting tapestries is the Garden of Delights? Well, if I must, I will. . . and this is the apple I must bite.’
Terra tensed through another contraction, forcing herself to push against the life that was tearing to break free; the strain stretching her body and opening newer wounds. She watched with detached interest at the spreading blotch of red staining the white fabric over her left breast; a slowly blossoming flower of pain. Black roses have sharp thorns, Terra thought, recalling the feeling of the fangs piercing her skin. A vampire bite over a broken heart. . .
The child twisted and kicked; insistent and impatient. A chill ran down her spine, the full reality of what was happening impacting with sickening force. She gritted her teeth as instinct took over, working to finish the birthing without her conscious consent.
A thin, almost angry cry pierced the room, breaking the near total silence. Terra felt as if time had stopped; as if she was a witness to a crime. She was suddenly keenly aware of the spaces between each heartbeat, every split-second death before her heart squeezed her back into life again. She watched in horror as the prowling shape outside the door stopped, alerted by the sound of the child’s crying.
“Congratulations,” the nurse chirped brightly as she pressed a wrapped and squirming bundle into Terra’s numb arms. “He’s a beautiful baby. . .you should be proud.”
Terra said nothing, her eyes trained on the door. She felt her blood chill as the doorknob slowly turned, the sound of Kefka’s nails scrabbling against the metal a sharp staccato. She clutched her son close, trying to hide him with her body. Pale, poisoned light oozed through the opening door, spreading across the floor like a bloodstain as Kefka entered the room; the click of his heels a gunshot sound.
He approached her without words, standing beside her without touching; a hideous mockery of a loving marriage. A hush had fallen over the room, broken only by the infant’s whimpering as he started to cry, tired of being crushed up against his frightened mother, her frenzied heartbeat offering no comfort to him.
“Well?” Kefka asked, placing a hand on Terra’s shoulder and gripping it, letting the nails prick her skin ever so slightly. He smiled at General Leo as the man drew his sword, contented that her father was there to see what he had done to her. Terra looked up at Kefka, her eyes narrowing. She held the same look in her eyes as a mother mouse he had once found in the dungeon: she had bitten him keep him away from her young, only to watch helplessly as he ground them into the floor with his boots. He felt her tense as he reached around her to flick aside the blanket that swaddled the baby, her skin cool with sweat. “Ah. . a son.”
“What are you going to name him?” the nurse asked them, her smile and cheerful tone fake and forced. Births were supposed to be happy occasions; they weren’t supposed to feel like the scene of some unspeakable crime. She bit her lip, worried for the girl and her child.
“Atma,” Kefka replied, testing the name on his tongue. The sorcerer smiled, his lips curling upwards like an adder ready to strike. “Yes. . .Atma,” he repeated and the black smile glistened with sharp white teeth. “A lovely name, wouldn’t you agree, Terra?”
Terra stared wide-eyed at him, the color draining from her face. Numbly, she looked down at her son; at his small, red face. There was nothing more innocent than a newborn child: there was no villainy, no evil, no taint that could harm him. So he named him Atma, Terra shivered as Kefka’s true intentions became horrifyingly clear. I didn’t give birth to his son. . .I gave birth to a weapon.

Soft fingers of frost stroked the edges of Terra’s barred windows, chilly air seeping beneath the panes along with pale moonlight. The young woman was rocking her son, his tiny fists gripping the fabric of her blouse; his drowsy face framed by pale blond curls. She jerked at the sound of a key rattling in the lock, unconsciously gathering Atma closer to her body; hunching over to shield him from harm. “You’re back,” she murmured.
Kefka regarded her coldly as he shut the door behind him, his mouth set into a firm line. Six months had passed since the birth of his son; six months without even the tiniest glimmering of magic, of esper blood. He had seen how strong of mage Terra had been as an infant, nearly burning down the coach they had carried her away in. Such amazing raw power. . .such a fine spirit; both of which had been a task and triumph to suppress and break. “A failed experiment,” he whispered to himself, wincing as he saw Terra’s back stiffen. Damnable esper blood. . .
“He’s perfect,” Terra’s tone was tight, blindly defensive.
“And still awake,” Kefka replied as he locked the door, his dry tone concealing his annoyance. “Why is he still awake, Terra?”
The young woman said nothing, staring past him as if she were studying the grain of the wooden door; her face unnervingly placid. The sorcerer smiled faintly as he looked back at her, noticing the soft, yet steady patting of Terra’s hand against Atma’s diapered bottom; jarring the infant into wakefulness. So that’s her plan, Kefka thought as he removed his gloves, his crimson nails glinting in the moonlight. Earlier, he had allowed her peace from his “affections” if Atma was awake and needed tending to, the sound of his son’s crying an unwanted distraction. However, such tricks do wear thin. . .poor girl, she actually thinks she’s being clever. “I asked you a question.”
"I know," Terra whispered, still rocking Atma; the patting of her hand as steady as the twitch of seconds across the chipped face of the clock above the door. "He isn't tired: I've fed him, changed him, rocked him. . .he doesn't want to sleep."
"Look at him," Kefka crossed the distance between them, his voice thick with feigned concern. "Look how he yawns and rubs his eyes," he purred, bending down so that his lips were nearly touching one of Terra's ears. "He's exhausted."
"But he won't go to sleep," Terra insisted, her defiant tone tinged with desperation.

. . . .unfinished. . . .