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When
Rydia opened her eyes, she didn't know where she was.
It was the smooth whiteness to the space above her that tipped her
off initially, and she gingerly sat up and put a hand to her head,
which was faintly aching. She was lying in a bed, blankets wrapped
snugly around her form, though she didn't recognize it at all.
Something was fuzzy against her skin, and she put a hand to her
shoulder to find that her leather tunic was gone, and had been
replaced with a knit sweater. Glancing upwards once more, there were
blades spinning lazily from the ceiling itself– they looked like
miniature airship blades, only they were not connected to any sort
of machinery, and she did not understand their purpose or design.
Thoroughly shaken, she began to look to her sides in order to gauge
where she was. It was dark within the chamber, but not devoid of
light. There was a window to her right, and though it was blocked
off with a textured curtain, there were beams of light streaming in
through the thin cracks, creating parallel lines of yellow on the
opposite wall. There was a chair near the bits of light, and what
appeared to be a desk covered in cosmetic bottles and adorned with a
small oval mirror. There was an article of clothing thrown
hap-hazardly over the back of the chair– and upon looking closer,
Rydia could make out that it was a skirt. The vials and cloth
indicated that she was in a woman's chambers, but without knowing
who it was, the knowledge only made her more anxious.
The room felt nothing like Baron, nothing like anything she had ever
seen before. It was stark and bare, and the walls were not wood or
stone but a smooth white, making the chamber look even more
impersonal. It was cool, but not uncomfortably so, and Rydia could
see no sign of a fireplace within the vicinity. There was a door
across the way, and she threw aside the bedcovers to investigate it,
pausing momentarily to gape down at the pants adorning her lower
half. Where her leather tunic had gone, she did not know.
She tried to slow her breathing down, but it was next to impossible,
for her heart was racing in her chest and she was beginning to feel
the cold hand of fear in her chest. She moved slowly across the
padded floor, unsure whether or not the venture was safe, and
quietly pushed the portal open.
Outside the small room was a hall. There was another door to her
right, and then a larger opening that expanded from the corridor
itself. Ignoring the portal, she walked gingerly into the open room.
The walls were the same smooth sheen of white, bare and devoid of
decor, and the floor was still squishy beneath her bare feet. There
were more chairs, and a table, and several marbled countertops
sitting next to metal machines. She shrank back, and then, upon
straining, could make out voices from behind the door across the
room. She crept closer. The portal itself was open, just a slit, and
she peeked through to see the figures outside.
She could see only one, but she assumed, by the line of vision, that
there was at least one other standing behind the bulk of the door.
It was a woman, whom she did not recognize– possibly the one whose
bed Rydia had awoke in. Her hair was cropped short, the same
striking blonde shade of Rosa's, and she was speaking animatedly
with her hands. She did not look pleased.
"– don't know what you were thinking," the woman said. She was most
certainly angry. "This sort of thing is completely out of line, a
breach of protocol–"
"I know the protocol," the hidden figure said, and Rydia recognized
the low voice of Tseng. It was a shock of relief to hear someone she
knew, at least well enough, but they seemed in the middle of a
rather important discussion, and she did not want to intrude. She
moved away from the door as quietly as possible. There– across the
room, near the door she had come from initially, was another portal,
and this one contained a window. From the sunlight, she surmised
that it led to the outside.
As she neared it, she was blown away.
The land outside looked nothing like what she imagined. It was not
rolling fields or mountain peaks like the expanse beyond Baron, nor
was it the thatch rooftops of a nearby village. There was no green
among the buildings that exploded beyond her vision, no sign of
trees or hills or anything. There was only metal, cold metal that
glinted in the sun and filled the land as far as she could see.
Rydia was unsure whether her breath was stolen by horror or by
amazement, and she pushed the door open to walk through it. She had
expected dirt beneath her feet, and was instead met with something
warm and solid. It was not rock or stone, and yet was flat and
expanded into lines far past the building. She let herself move
along it, feet slowly taking one step after another, unable to tear
her gaze away from the massive structures surrounding her.
It was surreal– surreal and almost too much. The sheer amount of
noise that greeted her senses when she exited through the door was
mind-blowing. It sounded like hundreds of Dwarven tanks all moving
at the same time, like a fleet of airships hovering just over her
form. The structures were so tall that they blocked out the sun,
shimmering from beneath a thin cloud cover. She kept moving as if in
a trance, because if she stopped, she would have to digest
everything, and she was not sure she could.
The line of smooth-rock she was walking on cut around a nearby
building, making a sharp turn, and she followed it, only to find
herself face to face with hundreds of other people, figures moving
quickly by each other, driven by unknown forces and schedules. She
was nearly bowed over by one man who was nearly running, head bowed,
and shrank back against the brick wall behind her. There were none
that she recognized, none that looked at all familiar. Even their
garb was strange– muted shades of blues and black, metal buckles and
leather cinches, all of it hard and foreign.
She tried to move forward again, and ran into a tall figure.
"Watch it!" the man sneered, brushing past her. She opened her mouth
to apologize, but there was a sudden rush of noise that sounded both
like the engines Cid was constantly building and the roar of a wind
storm. The source was large and metal and moving very quickly, and
as she looked in gaping horror at it, all she could think of was the
Giant of Babil, its joints glinting as it moved slowly towards the
beach. Her senses were screaming at her, alarm bells ringing in her
head– it looked like the Giant, and the Tower, and was moving,
moving towards her, past her, and it was all too much.
She might have shouted– she didn't know. All she knew was that she
had to get away, and she no longer could tell which door was the one
she had departed from. The buildings all looked the same, all
colorless and imposing, and she ran because she didn't know where to
go or what to do, and she had to get away. She had to get away from
the Giant and the Tower, and there was metal all around her,
surrounding her, gaping hungrily at her. She wheezed, gasping,
unable to find her breath. Struggling to find the much-needed
oxygen, she whirled around, finding nothing but blank faces of
strangers as they passed her by.
She was hopelessly lost, and the Giant was gaining, and there was
another one to her right, moving towards her, and she couldn't even
scream because her lungs were burning. She surged forward, trying to
move, but her vision was going red around the edges, and she
couldn't shout and couldn't run and the Giant was gaining, the
Giant was gaining–
"Rydia!" came a voice. For a moment, she swore it was Cecil, waking
her from the nightmare, and when the bland colors around her failed
to turn into her chambers in Baron, she choked on the emotion rising
in her throat. It took her another second to realize that she knew
the voice, recognized it, and by the time it registered, there were
hands on her arms. "Rydia!"
Reno. She wasn't sure whether it was her nerves screaming in her
head, or the almost painful relief of finding someone she knew, and
honestly, it didn't matter. She threw her arms around him and buried
her face in his shoulder, sobbing into his suit jacket. She could
still hear the buzz of the Giant behind her, and the din of the
crowd surrounding her, and the red spots continued to dance in the
corners of her peripheral vision, clouding the scene.
"Whoa, whoa," Reno was saying, and she barely noticed it. She still
couldn't breathe, and the sobs were lodging themselves in her
throat, and finally, her vision went completely red, and she knew
nothing.
------
The second time she woke, she was in a different bed, and she wasn't
sure if the knowledge was good or bad.
There were spinning blades on the ceiling again (she vowed to
investigate the strangeness later, when she was more coherent), and
she sat up with a short gasp. She was glad to see that she was not
alone– Reno was standing near the window, gazing out the glass.
She felt better seeing him there, because at least there was
something familiar in the rather plain room around her, and she
tried to steady her racing heart as he glanced over at her.
"Where– where are we?" she asked. Her voice sounded hoarse and
foreign to her ears.
"Edge," he said shortly, and then, "Outskirts of old Midgar."
"No," she said. She shook her head. "I mean, where–?"
"My place," he told her, moving away from the window. "Elena got
called out."
She was about to ask who Elena was, until she remembered the woman
with the short blonde hair from earlier. He didn't seem to want to
elaborate, and from the suit she'd seen on the woman's figure, she
could only assume that she was a Turk as well. She didn't ask what
she'd been called out to do– he wouldn't tell her anything, anyway.
She stayed silent for a moment, and let her fingers play with the
frayed edges of the blanket. Reno's room was decidedly less clean
then Elena's had been, with clothing strewn around and half-empty
cartons of food sitting on the rather rickety looking table in the
corner.
"I have to take you to see Rufus," he said, breaking the silence.
"Who's Rufus?" she asked. "And what about the man we were following?
What about the portal? Will it–"
"Hold on," he said, holding up a hand to stop her. "Just– I don't
know, I was told to bring you to Rufus when you woke up."
When she leveled him with an even glare, he rolled his eyes.
"He's the boss," he explained. "Are you ready?"
The question was a double-edged sword, but she knew what he meant.
At least meeting with this Rufus, she could get some answers, even
if it required her to go back out into the metal-strewn streets of
the strange city outside. She shrugged off the rest of the blankets,
and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
"As I ever will be," she sighed.
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