I don't own Final Fantasy IX, nor the lines of the "Great Bard". Hopefully, you know who they do belong to.

He'd often wondered, why would anyone want to be a canary? Trapped inside a gilded cage, the only prospect of escape through a desperate song... Many found it beautiful, but he'd always found the canary's song depressing. Whenever he saw one, he thought of smashing the cage and letting the creature fly free. He'd even done it, once.

But that was before he received a cage of his own.

It is odd, he mused, how life mirrors fiction. All the world's a stage, a great bard had once said, and now he truly believed it. Comedy or tragedy, epic or romance, everything wove together in a mass of props, stage directions and last-minute improvisations. And each person had their path scripted beforehand, even if they didn't always stick to it. But then again, perhaps that deviation is also part of the plot...

He'd wondered about this a lot, recently. For he was the ultimate role reversal... Given the part of villain, only to end up the hero. Was it fate? He didn't know. He didn't know if he should care. All that mattered was the outcome, really... but the actor part of him still wondered about the past.

And all the men and women merely players... Yes, round and round, a swirl of changing scenes, changing characters, changing dreams... Each life a whole, and a part of a whole, adding memories to the production of the cosmos. He wondered what its title was. "Dance of Eternity"? "Across the Stars"? Or perhaps simply "Crystal", the beginning and the end.

And though each life is just a tiny fraction of an act that had been going on for centuries before his birth, and would continue centuries past, it can still bring down the show. The play was eternal, and yet final curtain had nearly occurred, simply through the actions of one malcontent actor. But was even that planned? Was the near destruction of all life by one Genome's despair scripted from the beginning?

He glanced up at the stars. He remembered what Vivi had once asked... How do you prove that you exist? Do we really exist? If all beings are but characters in a play, does that answer the question? Life is born to die... And it is born to act, as well...

He ran his hand along the balcony rail, staring out at the space he had once traversed through. Then he smiled slightly. It doesn't matter, really. Whether we're scripted or improvising, actors or audience... We simply have to live and believe in life. Being caged doesn't matter, either... For no matter how many we break out of, we'll just make more for ourselves.

He turned, and headed into the castle. The stars twinkled, spotlights on a hundred thousand actors living out their lines.

In the end, we're all canaries.

-fin