EPITAPHS: CHAPTER 3
- Oct 6, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 21
EMBERS OF IFRIT
Death was a lot noisier than he’d been expecting.
He’d heard tell that death was when the quiet finally overcame everything, until that’s all there was and you faded away, or went to embrace of whatever god awaited in the afterlife, if that was what one believed.
He did not expect the ringing and high pitched whines, interspersed with muffled…somethings. He couldn’t rightly call them words. There was a vague sense of movement, but he was numb. Probably the curse, if his memories weren’t entirely scrambled. It had claimed most if not all of his left arm before his ravaged body gave in and he passed out. No, not passed out…died. He’d died.
Right?
Of course, that's the only thing that could've happened. He'd destroyed the crystal, channeled all the stolen aether from the world, severed the chains that bound magic and eikon alike to mankind. Ifrit had growled something in grim agreement. The world whited out at some point after that and for a moment he remembered waking up and seeing the stars. The stars, which had for so long been hidden behind Ultima's spell. He watched the last vestiges of the Phoenix's blessing dissipate into the sky as his arm turned to stone. And the last concrete thing Clive remembered was the rumble of words that felt like coals.
Not yet.
And then the fire went out.
So, these must be the dreams of a dead man.
“Don’t…dare…”
Founder, even death was chastising him, and it even had the audacity to sound like Jill. The quiet would creep in for some unknown amount of infinite time, then the ringing would herald the return of death’s nagging. Rarely did it make as much sense as that first time, but it was always there. Perhaps this was the consequence of his choice, a purgatory where death would occasionally chat nonsense at him in the maybe voices of his loved ones. At least death had the decency to let him dream that he’d made it home.
Until one day, when the quiet stopped coming, and the ringing didn’t leave. It was a subtle change, and Clive wasn't sure how long it took him to even notice, and truly he wondered in hindsight if he'd have ever noticed if it hadn't come with a pinprick of gray in the inky blackness that had become his existence. A gray that brought with it new voices for death to wear. Clearer voices. Voices he could put names to.
Joshua. Jote. Gav. Tarja. Otto. Uncle Byron. Jill. Always Jill.
“Any…”
“....still……not…”
“...me know…”
“You…”
The chatter ebbed and flowed around hazy images as the gray slowly expanded, and for awhile he found himself wandering disjointed dreams of what ifs and maybes. A life where the Night of Flames never happened. One where he never found Jill at the Nysa Defile. Another where Ifrit was discovered earlier, and one where he never awakened. Even one where Clive and Joshua's roles were reversed; he the Phoenix's and Joshua Ifrit's. It was...confusing, almost maddening that when he'd feel like he'd figured everything, the reality around him would shift again, and with it bring more of those jumbled sentences and voices that he maybe recognized.
But everything was fluid and the irritation soon washed away with the next shift. But as the dreams continued, small things started following him between the dreamscapes. Things that were taking on more concrete sensations that crossed that line between inconsequential and intolerable. The scratch of the particular type of straw that he’d experienced more than once in Tarja’s infirmary. The screech of the lift that always bothered him when it hadn't been maintained after heavy use. The acrid burning of whatever hellscape had been created in Mid's dungeon and permeated the air. The sludgey sound of blighted waves that echoed below as skiffs came and went at the Hideaway. The all consuming smell of Torgal’s horrendous breath.
It was that last one that finally snapped the nerves he shouldn’t have.
“By the Flames, Torgal,” he snarled, reflexively moving away from the source of the stench even though he had no head to turn.
Until he did. And in an instant everything came into blurry focus and so too did death relinquish its hold and all that entailed. Suddenly he did have a head, and it was completely encased in wriggling, slobbering, suspiciously Torgal-like enthusiasm. He had a voice that had no strength save for the ability to fumble out words and scratched like nails with disuse. And ears that rang in that way that you knew would never go away, even while other sounds came into focus above the whine.
And the first words he heard that didn't slip away before he could make complete sense of them were, “Fucking hell he’s awake!”
Pain, light, noise, over stimulation such that he wasn’t truly able to parse what was happening. A blisteringly painful shriek of clanging and crashing in his ears that probably would have split his skull had it not been muffled by the sudden smothering application of itchy thick fur and slobber he had no strength to remove. Yelling, some sort of struggle that he could only make out blurry shapes of, all of it was vague and fuzzy until he felt the sudden pressure on his chest and around his shoulders. He tried to focus, but could only make out a splash of strawberry blonde color splayed across his chest.
Joshua. Here. Alive.
He was alive, and it was Joshua embracing him in a hug of disbelief. It was Gav, screaming for Tarja and anyone else he could think of, all the while peppering his announcements with obscenities of joy. It was Torgal, who escaped from the banishment of the floor and resumed making sure he knew exactly how much he missed him. And after a moment it was Jill who came crashing in and couldn't keep her hands from his face as she and everyone around sobbed tears of relief.
The hows and whys slogged through his mind even as the raucous voices continued to rise, but in the end, it didn't matter. He'd figure it out later.
He was finally home. And the embers that had kept watch finally went out.