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At the edge of civilization, in the town square of one of the few remaining settlements, stood a non-imposing stone facade directly across from one of the last standing aetherytes in the wake of the calamity and the aftermath.
Late into the night, a tall blond man crossed the rather empty town square, walked up the small stone steps, and knocked on the wooden door. The man got no answer, but knew that the one he was looking for was not likely to respond anyway.
Shrugging his shoulders, he pushed the heavy, wooden door open. There were pieces of broken magitek armor and empty containers that once held ceruleum strewn about on the floor of the large open space in front of him.
The blond man looked across the way and spotted his target: a white haired man with a white beard, shorter and brawnier in stature than himself, was sitting at a desk, scattered papers and books in front of him. Only the light from a lantern on the desktop and the roaring fireplace nearby illuminated the man’s face, which even at that distance, it was clear that he had tears running down his cheeks.
As he approached, the blond saw what his counterpart was holding in his hands: a half empty bottle of ale in one and his trademark pair of goggles in the other.
Nero shook his head in exasperation. “Garlond, are you trying to drink yourself to an early grave?”
Not bothering to turn towards him, Cid took a swig of his ale. “What’s the point of living now?”
The white haired Garlean then slammed the bottle onto the wooden desktop, the sound echoing throughout the near empty workshop.
Cid’s lip quivered as he fought back more tears. “You bloody well know that I have nothing left! She is gone... our child never lived to see even one day... I have no future... no future that I wish to see.”
He finally looked back to Nero, his once shining silver eyes now seemed to dull to a cloudy grey. “I don’t want to live in a world without her in it. I won’t, I won’t do it!”
“If you truly beg for death, why haven’t you done so already?” Nero shrugged as he sat in a nearby chair, one leg crossed over the other. “Surely you have a gun at your disposal around your workshop that you could put to your head and end it all? Why do you hesitate?”
Cid looked towards the ground and chuckled. “Is this your idea of pushing me to do it? You wish to get the last laugh and finally see my demise?”
“You truly think so low of me? Nay, I was merely making an observation. Perhaps you haven’t given up all hope quite yet,” Nero pointed his finger at Cid, smirking while he leaned back further into his chair.
Cid looked over at Nero with a scowl. “Maybe so, or perhaps I’m just a coward and can’t get the job done.”
With a heavy sigh, Cid leaned back in his chair and looked straight upwards. “Yume deserved better. Hells, every single one of them deserved better. All the Scions and Warriors of Light did was fight for the innocent, tried to make the world a better place. Now, look at it all!”
Cid reached once more for the bottle of ale and gulped down the remaining contents before speaking again. “Maybe it was best that our child died with her... who would want their child to grow up and witness this hellscape?”
The blond sat upright and stared at Cid with a knowing look in his eyes. “Garlond, I understand you want to just drown yourself in the booze from your bottle. Many nights I do the same, whenever I think about...” Nero then closed his eyes, fighting to bury the emotions that threatened to reach the surface.
“Severia, I know...” Cid responded.
After a moment of silence between them, Nero shook his head and once again returned to his characteristic smugness. “But, you still have records of all your previous research, correct? The Crystal Tower, Alexander, and Omega?”
“Well, of course I bloody do! Though I may be a broken man, I surely still have my wits enough to preserve all the Ironworks’ research! What are you getting at?”
Nero rolled his eyes and shrugged, annoyed at how dim the intelligent man sitting across from him can be at times. “If you want to just give up and be with your wife and child in the next life, then I won’t stop you. But if you have any shread of hope left, why won’t you put down the damned bottle and figure out a way to fix all this?!”
Cid slammed the now empty bottle once again down on the wood of the desk in frustration. “Damn it Nero! Don’t you think I’ve mulled over the findings over and over again?! To develop the technology necessary to travel back in time, it would take much longer than our full lifetimes to accomplish such a feat! What’s the damned point?!”
Sighing, Nero stood up swiftly and looked down at Cid with a face that held a mix of pity and conceit. “Well then, if you won’t figure out a way to reverse the calamity, I’ll just have to take your research and do it myself,” he boasted as he tapped on his puffed up chest. “Then I will take all the credit! Your choice, Garlond.”
Cid didn’t look up at the boastful blond man, but instead longingly stared down at the goggles he still held in his hand. Even Nero’s taunting did not snap Cid out of his trance.
Nero dropped his head as he walked back towards the door in defeat. As he opened the door and stepped over the threshold, he looked back to Cid with a frown. He spoke with a quieter tone, just loud enough to be heard, “If you decide to pull yourself together and do something productive, you know where to find me.”
And with that, the door closed and Cid was left alone with only his booze, the scattered remains of the Ironworks’ legacy on his desk and covering the floors of his nearly bare workshop, and his memories of what once was the life he so cherished.
Though it only seemed like minutes to him, Cid guessed that several hours must have passed, due to the numbing pain he felt throughout his stiffened body. He looked down at the goggles that he still held in his hand while he, once more, relived several joyous moments of the last few years of his life.
Moments later, he shook his head to refocus on the present. With a deep breath, Cid reattached the goggles to his third eye and stood upright. As he tried to take a step, he wobbled back and forth but balanced himself after a few seconds and began walking through the rubble on the floor of his workshop. His head was pounding as if a sledgehammer was being smashed against it, but he knew he had to get out of the workshop where he had secluded himself for weeks now.
As he pushed open the large, wooden door, Cid had to squint from just how bright it was outside. After his eyes adjusted to the change in luminosity, he looked around the town square of Revenant’s Toll, but as usual, the streets remained nearly empty. The sky was tinted with striking purple and pink hues while a flock of birds flew by, high above Cid’s head.
The birds instantly brought him back to happier times, back to when she was by his side. He genuinely smiled for the first time since before the calamity, before Black Rose stole his family from him. It was as if he was hit with a sudden realization, as if his mind made its way through the fog.
“Yume, my little bird... you have flown so far. You never gave up. Even with your last breaths, you died fighting, didn’t you?”
Cid nodded as he stood up just a little bit taller. “Perhaps I should follow your example.”
The white haired Garlean then removed his black glove from his left hand and glanced down at the golden band still wrapped around his finger with tears forming in his overcast eyes. “Even if I never see you again in this life, I might be able to save you in some reality... in another world, we can be together. Maybe then our child would have lived as well... and we would be happy.”
Cid looked towards the rising sun on the horizon with a newfound dedication, with renewed purpose. “That’s worth fighting for, isn’t it?”