Learning How To Breathe

By Faronon Star Wolf

Notes: This is going to end up being an absolute monster of a story, as I can't see any way to finish it prior to the end of the game, given the wide range of changes that come from one small detail.

I would recommend the OC Remix "Of Transformants and Brevity", which is the song that inspired it.

I don't like to think of that. So, I put it in any memory before That Night, and say it happened then, and then, and then, any night but That Night—

But she was right. I've inherited the full measure of the Spirit Sight from both the Kisaragi and the Suijindo families, though sight is a misleading name for it. In any case, that's why I spent my time in the forest, as there was less to feel there than in any of the cities or towns I had ever been to. It's also why I hate riding in boats, but for a different reason.

I wish now that I hadn't left Wutai, because then I probably would have gotten training on what is basically the essence of thousands of people who lived and died affecting my judgment a lot sooner than I ended up getting it.

I never told Cloud and the others, but I had been to Nibelheim before—just briefly, a short stop when I was eleven—nearly twelve—and had just left home. Nibelheim was in the process of being rebuilt—I remember entering, and seeing the almost frantic looks exchanged between the people working. I was a bit frantic myself, because I looked at them, and knew without knowing that they were from Shinra.

Uncomfortable, they offered me a place in one of the women's tents, and I accepted. The woman who I was going to be sharing with spun a tall tale of a fire that burnt down the village—"but no one was hurt, thank God"—and in return I gave her a sob story about how my parents had died, and my evil aunt didn't want me except to work as an unpaid servant, so I ran away from home. She didn't believe me and I didn't believe her.

I'd spent dinner listening to them talking, and excused myself as soon as I had finished eating. Wandering around the village, I naturally approached the only standing building. Standing by the wrought-iron gate, I looked up at it, smoke stained and broken, and shivered. The wind had picked up, and was practically howling out of the mountain gorge.

If I had to put a moment on when the ability to hear spirits kicked in, I would say it was then. It had been growing for sometime, but it really started when I was in that place.

Staring up at the cracked façade and the broken windows, I could hear someone screaming. I could hear choked gasps, whimpers, and someone chanting brokenly, shinra. Shinra. Shinra, shinra, shinrashinrashinrashinra.

Someone whimpered save me, please and then said defiantly I don't want to be saved, but I could hear under that self-hatred and I don't deserve to be saved.

There was pain and death and horror and it was this place and I could hear faint echoes of someone saying I'm marrying him and I'm pregnant and I'm dying all at once. Shattered images of people, white coats and children and guns and oh god he shot me and mothers locked within glass prisons. Someone said you deserve this and it'll show the world what you really are and I'll lock you here and you'll never get out, never and then there was someone else speaking, I deserve this, I'm a monster, horrible horrible didn't stop her didn't save her Lucrecia forgive me please, please oh god I'm so sorry.

There was fire and agony and hatred and thieves, usurpers, I'll kill you all and mother and I will rule and out of my way, I'm going to mother and you're still sane, aren't you? and he killed you, father I'll avenge you, I will I will I will.

And through it all I could hear someone's heart beating, slow and steady like they were sleeping, and then it sped up, as if they were about to wake—

Then one of the older men called out to me, and I shook out of my trance, turning to face him. I didn't know it then, but looking back on it now, if he hadn't called then, I probably would have gone mad. Or died. Or both.

It's not a happy thought.

But this was never a happy talent, because there are people from both sides of my family who were overwhelmed and went nutso. Completely crazy, off their rocker, all that fun stuff.

"Girlie, you don't want to go in there," he said, a calculating gleam in his eyes. "They say it's haunted."

I stared at him for a few seconds, shivering. The whole town reeked of death and pain and betrayal and he's a hero, why is he doing this?

"I—I need to l-leave," I was finally able to say, stuttering. I could feel the desperation for revenge and pain and why did you do it? Give back my mother, my hometown my friends my family everything I ever knew.

I had to get out, I had to leave, I was on edge of madness and dancing on a wire over an abyss of fire and rage and cold cool dispassionate inhuman logic.

I turned, then, and ran, fleeing from the voices and the agony and what are you! and screaming, falling into green light and pain and take them to the mansion, I could use some new specimens. I fled, leaving behind everything I had with me in the tent of a Shinra employee and knowing only I had to leave before something happened that I couldn't handle.

I came to myself again hours later, huddled in between the roots of a tree, quivering and shaking and remembering Mother's words on That Night, of how to build a wall between myself and the world, and how it wouldn't stop everything but the old horrors would fade, leaving only the newer ones to haunt me. I trembled, reciting her words to myself and focused, doing the best I could with the little reserves I had, pushing away the memories—finally I pushed myself to my feet, feeling sick and weak. I didn't know where I was, but there was that slow and steady heartbeat in the back of my mind, and I knew if I followed that I would be able to find my way back to Nibelheim from anywhere.

I went back, finding the town still and silent and abandoned. I grabbed my bag and fled again, thankful the tents weren't in the town itself. I slipped out again,leaving that place behind me and vowing that I would never never never step foot there again. I stumbled into Cosmo Canyon just after noon, exhausted and aching, eyes burning whenever I shut them.

It was more peaceful there, but there was still pain and hatred and envy and father I hate you, you abandoned us and mother died it's all your fault I hate you I hate you I hate you.

I left as soon as I was rested, traveling to Gongaga, but there was more pain and agony and why did it explode, there's no reason for that to have happened.

I fled, and spent the next months traveling, stopping at North Corel—it's all his fault—The Gold Saucer—you know you want to—Costa del Sol—they say he's a scientist, isn't that so sexy?—jumping onto a ship to Junon—it's all Shinra's fault, they've ruined everything they touch—and finally stopping in one of the forests, where the only memory clinging to it was oh god, I've never done this in a forest before.

That remnant faded as I lived there, running off instinct and intuition, eroding the support of it day by day until it collapsed, leaving only me in its place.

It was the most free I'd ever felt.