VOICES: EPILOGUE

Time had very little meaning, after Origin fell.

Everything after Phoenix spoke to Joshua that last time, told him not to let the light go out, was a jarring mess of dream or memory or delusion, he was never going to be sure which. He had been dying. He was dead. He had given Phoenix over to ensure Clive could destroy Ultima once and for all, and for that he had died.

He was sure of it.

So why was he here, coughing up sand and salt on a filthy beach while his body ached of Curse and broken bones?

Phoenix, what hap-

But that was when Joshua realized it.

That core of warmth that had always been present, that had accompanied him since his sickly days of childhood, was missing. Phoenix was gone. All of his magic was gone.

"What-" Joshua tried to say out loud but his voice was hoarse and scratchy, as if it had never been used, and his lungs ran out of air far quicker than they should have. He could taste the copper of blood in the back of his throat. Maybe he was dead and his body just had to catch up with reality.

Through the racking cough, Joshua dared open his eyes, which burned at the brightness of the rising sun.

The sun.

He could see the sun.

They did it. Clive did it.

Oh no. Clive.

Where was Clive?!

"Cli-" Joshua tried to call out, but that lack of air and rush of blood cut him off again.

"Easy there, Phoenix."

Joshua would be embarrassed later by how long it took him to realize that he was not alone on that beach. That Dion had been sitting nearby and calling his name the entire time since he'd woke. Currently, he could only manage to stare dumbly at the Crowned Prince. Apparently the look on his face asked the question his voice could not.

"No, you're not dead, at least not yet," Dion chuckled darkly. He winced as he scooted over closer to help Joshua sit upright to lessen the burden of swallowing. "And neither is Ifrit."

He nodded over to behind Joshua. Almost toppling over as he turned too fast for his sense of balance to compensate for, Joshua saw Clive's prone form lying not too far away from them. He was unconscious, but he could just barely see the shallow rise and fall of breathing under his brother's armor.

Dion must have felt the moment Joshua realized the truth when all the tension drained out of him and his adreneline fueled strength gave out, because the Prince quickly helped Joshua lie down again. Dimly he noted Dion favoring his right arm and not moving his legs very much, but that was all Joshua could manage before his body gave out and demanded he sleep.

The next time he briefly woke up, it was to the sudden crushing grip of thin but strong arms and the unwanted deluge of wolfhound breath and slobber.

Jill and Torgal.

And again after that, it was to rushed voices of joy and fear and barking orders.

The Hideaway.

It went on like that for some time. Brief stints of consciousness where more and more of the world started coming back into focus, until finally Joshua was able to make sense of things again. He could tell it had been awhile because he could feel that annoying scratch of a few weeks of stubble that never quite manifested in anything but itching.

"Well look who finally decided to wake up."

Joshua had a brief sense of de ja vu, hearing Jill's voice call over from across the room. Blinking away the ick of sleep, he was greeted by the grinning faces of Clive and Jill, sitting just one cot over from him.

He could not have kept the smile from his face even if he had wanted to.

"You're alive," Joshua rasped weakly, his voice still raw with disuse, but at least that bitter taste of blood was blissfully absent. He did note the familiar lingering taste of Tarja's tinctures though.

Jill and Clive couldn't stop laughing.

"'We're alive'?! We're the ones who should be saying that to you," Jill said, trying in vain to hide the relief in her voice, but the manic laughing in between gave it away.

The look in Clive's eyes told a similar story. As if a thousand worries were suddenly lifted from his shoulders. "You had us worried for a moment."

"I-" Joshua had to pause to swallow and clear his throat. "I-suppose I had myself worried as well. I had though myself dead."

There was an awkward pause as Clive and Jill glanced at each other and then back at Joshua. Awkward enough that Joshua slowly realized what they weren't saying.

"I…did die. Didn't I?"

Jill sighed and looked over to Clive, clearly indicating he should tell the story.

"You did, yes," his brother confirmed quietly.

"Then…how…"

"We think…the Phoenix resurrected you."

Joshua froze. Resurrected. From the dead. Something Phoenix swore over and over was not possible.

"That's…not…"

"…possible. We know," Jill finished for him. "But it's the only thing that makes sense."

The three of them were quiet, Joshua attempting to wrap his head around the concept while Clive and Jill waited patiently for his reaction.

Honestly, it wasn't that far fetched of an idea. He'd been familiar with death's touch most of his life, be it from illness, frailty, or injury. What he had felt when the world was scrambled was most certainly death's fingers finally finding purchase. Then suddenly waking up with too shallow breaths and a sunken feeling in his chest as if something had been shoved forcefully back in and caved in a portion of his ribcage in the process.

"I tried healing you after Ultima…but…it was too late. I was too late," Clive said suddenly, as Joshua's fingers drifted towards his chest where he could feel the raised skin that used to hold Ultima prison. "But when I woke up on that beach and Dion told me-"

"Dion!" Joshua blurted out suddenly. "That's right, Dion was there!"

"I have impeccable timing, I see."

Almost comically, the three former Dominants turned towards the door to the Infirmary where Dion had just opened the door and hobbled his way in. He was leaning heavily on what could only be a pair of crutches devised by Mid and her crew, allowing him to move around, however slowly and awkwardly with the splint on his left leg, but he was alive, and for the first time any of them had seen, was smiling.

"Good to see you awake at last, Phoenix," he said, limping over to a nearby chair where he heavily settled down. Jill got up to help him adjust in the chair and move his crutches off to the side.

Joshua was about to make some comment about his name not being Phoenix, but he was distracted by the odd way Dion was sitting. While his left side was bandaged and splinted to set the broken bones from whatever had happened to him after they had been separated in the initial approach, his right leg was held out at an awkward angle, set straight out in front of him as he sat.

Dion followed his gaze and chuckled when he realized what Joshua was looking at.

"A parting gift from the Curse," Dion mused, tapping the stone of his leg. "It seems my days as a Dragoon are over. Though your engineering friends in the basement have been nagging your physicker about some plan about prosthetic replacements for those Curse-afflicted without functioning limbs."

Joshua saw Clive glance down at his arm and laugh, though not without a bit of fear. "Well, if there's anyone who could do it, it would be Mid and Tarja," Clive laughed weakly. It was then that Joshua finally noticed the petrification on Clive's left arm. His entire limb was stone, hanging useless at his side.

"Clive…your arm…" Joshua started, but Clive waved it off with his other hand.

"I'm fine, don't worry. Though I have no doubt that Mid may have plans for it too if she's already trying to rope Tarja into things," Clive laughed. "I fear that far more than a useless limb."

"I have heard some of the stories about them," Joshua smiled weakly. As reality settled around him, he was having trouble keeping the infectious joy out of his voice. They had made it. They had survived, and they had made it home.

Well…most of them had. Suddenly sobered, Joshua fell quiet while he tried to put the words and courage together to ask what he feared he already knew to be true.

"When…I woke up…I thought I felt…" Joshua began, but decided it was best just to ask outright. "Phoenix is gone, I know that. But are they all gone? Is all magic gone?"

Clive sighed but nodded. "With the last crystal destroyed, whatever influence Ultima had over our world is finally gone."

"But since it was him who gave humanity magic and Eikons…" Jill added, but she trailed off just before saying it out loud.

Joshua nodded, a bittersweet understanding washing over him. "I see."

They were silent for several minutes, each mired in their own thoughts concerning their lost companions.

"It's so strange. The quiet," Dion said softly, after a time.

"It is, isn't it?" Jill agreed softly. "It's not even the silence, it's the emptiness. Even when they were quiet, you could feel they were there."

"And what's worse, we owe them our lives, and we can't even repay them," Joshua added bitterly, clutching weakly at his chest where he knew that hole had been. There were only discolored scars there now, and he could feel that his bones weren't quite right, nor was his breathing, but he was alive. Something he knew he shouldn't be.

The only person Phoenix had ever truly brought back from the dead, and he hadn't been able to do anything to save her. He hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye.

"There is one way, I think." Clive said, his voice rising, as if an idea had suddenly struck him. He glanced at the other three former Dominants and grinned. "How's your writing these days?"

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