Fang sat in silence for a long moment after Aerith spoke.
She knew she'd been gone for some time, she'd felt time pass, somehow, but it was in a dreamlike, disconnected way that only became apparent if she really thought about it. She didn't remember being crystallised, or what had come before, but she knew she must have been. She wasn't a Cie'th, after all.
She hadn't been sure of what to expect when she came to. She'd woken in a Pulsian building, but when she found her way out the world she'd ended up in was alien to her. The buildings were built in a strange style and the lands around them was different. There were also no people. They weren't dilapidated enough to be ruins, not all of them, but they weren't inhabited either.
In the beginning, she'd assumed that she was still on Gran Pulse, and that she'd been away long enough for it to have returned to what the historians called 'normal', that all the wars were over, and that some places has been built and then abandoned while she was gone. She'd estimated that her crystal sleep, if that's what she'd been in, had lasted a century at least. She had come to terms with the fact that everybody she had known was gone then, in that moment.
With that in mind, she had struck out, away from the ruins she had awoken in. Not long after, she had seen the sea from a high ridge along a cliffline. A real, actual sea, with rich blue water extending as far out as the horizon and beyond. Skyseas weren't like that. They were vast, but this seemed impossibly deep as well. Then, high above and like a haze in the distance, she saw a continent, dark, imposing, shrouded in clouds and so far away.
When she moved inland the land turned from abandoned, half-ruined buildings to wilderness. The familiarity had almost made her doubt what she'd seen on that ridge and the evidence of her eyes. It smelled wild, like her home had, but when she really looked it wasn't the same. The monsters were different, the plants were strange and the terrain all wrong. When she'd seen people they had looked normal enough, but they lacked the edge of toughness that she'd come to associate with those around her. It wasn't soft, exactly, rustic living never was, but they didn't look like she'd expect, and their manner of dress had been different enough for her to avoid them.
She hunted to live, not having forgotten those skills, and managed to wrangle a chocobo to ride on. He was a big bull, but not as large as those she was used to, though his ferocity had made up for it. She had covered a lot of ground, travelling for a month or more, before she met the Chocobo Eater.
By then she was certain that she was, somehow, on the lowerworld.
"I knew I was out of time," she said quietly, looking down at her hands, her tone resigned. "Didn't realise it was by that much."
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She knew she'd been gone for some time, she'd felt time pass, somehow, but it was in a dreamlike, disconnected way that only became apparent if she really thought about it. She didn't remember being crystallised, or what had come before, but she knew she must have been. She wasn't a Cie'th, after all.
She hadn't been sure of what to expect when she came to. She'd woken in a Pulsian building, but when she found her way out the world she'd ended up in was alien to her. The buildings were built in a strange style and the lands around them was different. There were also no people. They weren't dilapidated enough to be ruins, not all of them, but they weren't inhabited either.
In the beginning, she'd assumed that she was still on Gran Pulse, and that she'd been away long enough for it to have returned to what the historians called 'normal', that all the wars were over, and that some places has been built and then abandoned while she was gone. She'd estimated that her crystal sleep, if that's what she'd been in, had lasted a century at least. She had come to terms with the fact that everybody she had known was gone then, in that moment.
With that in mind, she had struck out, away from the ruins she had awoken in. Not long after, she had seen the sea from a high ridge along a cliffline. A real, actual sea, with rich blue water extending as far out as the horizon and beyond. Skyseas weren't like that. They were vast, but this seemed impossibly deep as well. Then, high above and like a haze in the distance, she saw a continent, dark, imposing, shrouded in clouds and so far away.
When she moved inland the land turned from abandoned, half-ruined buildings to wilderness. The familiarity had almost made her doubt what she'd seen on that ridge and the evidence of her eyes. It smelled wild, like her home had, but when she really looked it wasn't the same. The monsters were different, the plants were strange and the terrain all wrong. When she'd seen people they had looked normal enough, but they lacked the edge of toughness that she'd come to associate with those around her. It wasn't soft, exactly, rustic living never was, but they didn't look like she'd expect, and their manner of dress had been different enough for her to avoid them.
She hunted to live, not having forgotten those skills, and managed to wrangle a chocobo to ride on. He was a big bull, but not as large as those she was used to, though his ferocity had made up for it. She had covered a lot of ground, travelling for a month or more, before she met the Chocobo Eater.
By then she was certain that she was, somehow, on the lowerworld.
"I knew I was out of time," she said quietly, looking down at her hands, her tone resigned. "Didn't realise it was by that much."