Desert Rose

Desert Rose

Flora_Winters

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy IX, and I’m not making any money here either.

Summary: After the final battle, Kuja retreats to his desert palace, hiding from the world he tried to destroy. Language, MM, OC, Violence, WD, WIP

Prologue

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sands
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hands

--Sting

He was sitting upon a high dune, looking out at the twinkling souls in the velvety midnight blue. A cool wind smelling of ghostly night blooming jasmine stirred his silver hair, causing the silky strands of moonlight to shimmer around his bone white face.

It was a beautiful night, but it was another lonely one. He felt so very alone in this world he had sought to murder. He had wanted to make it burn and drown in its own crimson decay, but no longer.

The constricting vines that had been sinking their venomous thorns into his poisoned heart had withered the moment a young genome had caused him to feel. Black roses had fallen in a sea of red splendor all around him.

Zidane had saved him and now he was all alone. The solitude no longer pleased him like it once had.

His lustrous desert palace was an empty and silent place. He would walk through the misleading halls and painted illusions of labyrinths deep for hours, hoping to discover something he was missing.

He fought to banish the scorched corpses of his dark past. It was dead and gone. He was free from it all now. He didn’t even want to think about how much fun he had dancing to terror filled screams and drinking molten torment, while licking at anguish.

Garland and Terra were gone. He would never have to suffer him or that painful world ever again. That collar around his neck had shattered and his crazed spirit had soared on wings of fire for a time before falling back to soil.

He watched how the dunes of sand danced all around him. The desert was always moving, flowing like an endless sea. It was beautiful, but that beauty was most deadly, like he had been. That was why he had chosen to make his sanctuary beneath it. The desert mirrored him. It was vast, changing, unpredictable, and very dangerous.

His mind wondered back to Zidane. Was the world how he wanted it to be now? Had his dreams come true? Had he really found his true love? Was he happy?

He closed his sparkling eyes. Deep down inside, he hoped so. He hoped he was very happy. After all Zidane had been put through, overcome, accomplished, he deserved it.

“But,” he whispered to the crawling sands. “What about me? I’ve suffered and overcame a lot. Where is my fairytale ending?” Had he not been a victim?

He opened his eyes with a flutter of long lashes, chuckling. The villain in almost every tale ever told ended up utterly alone, cursing all with every breath.

In the distance, he heard something become something else’s midnight snack. Death came so quickly and so mercilessly here in the darkness and shadows of rolling dunes.

Nothing dared to venture near to him. He was lord and master here. Where he walked, creatures great and small hid, waiting in trembling silence until he passed them by. Well, at least that is what he told himself in order to make himself feel better.

He dropped his head, shaking it. Perhaps he would go to his library, pick out a good book, and read it after taking a luxurious bubble bath. Perhaps he wouldn’t even fantasize about drowning himself this time, too. He always did manage to keep himself from going through with it. There was no point in it really. Nobody would ever find him, so there would be no drama.

He rose to his feet and the wind caused his silk garments to flutter about his lithe frame like the violet wings of a vibrant dragonfly. He began to stretch, only to spin around on sharp heels when he heard a loud cry in the near distance.

“HELP!”

It sounded like a man and his desperate cry was soon followed by a violent roar of something large and very hungry. He could feel the ground under his feet begin to vibrate.

“YOU BASTARD!” The voice shouted, followed by a deafening explosion that lit up the darkness in the distant dunes. A vicious roar echoed. “DIE!”

Another loud explosion lit up the distance.

Kuja suddenly discovered himself jumping from dune to dune, racing towards the quickly fading light in breakneck heels. Just what was going on? Who would be stupid enough to venture through the desert at night?

He came to a sudden stop, looking down from a tall dune. There was a giant sandworm dead before a kneeling figure. The whole front of the smoking beast had been completely blown off. He could smell the stink of scorched flesh.

The kneeling figure suddenly screamed a wild curse in a tongue he didn’t recognize and he watched the cloaked man collapse onto his side, unmoving. He just stood there for a few moments, taking the scene before him all in. That was when he soon found himself descending the dune, gliding right up to the collapsed figure in the sand.

He pointed a delicate finger at the stranger’s hand, striking the sand between his thumb and index finger with a sizzling bolt of cobalt light. The man didn’t move. He was either dead or unconscious. So, he rolled him over with his foot just in case.

His eyes took in the splatter of blood on the man’s chest. The fabric had been slashed by something. A sandworm couldn’t have done that. Had he been attacked by something else before the giant worm had smelled his blood?

The man moaned and Kuja knelt down in a whisper of flowing garments, removing the man’s hood and mask. A splay of shocking yellow hair and a rather handsome face was his reward.

He put his pale hands to the man’s injured chest, ignoring his whimpers of pain. He could heal the injury easy enough, but why help this stranger? He didn’t know him. Why did he suddenly feel like showing kindness and compassion?

“Can you hear me?” He asked.

The man tried to open his eyes, failing miserably.

“Will you let me help you?” He asked, peeling away torn and bloodied fabric.

He received another moan. He took it as a yes.

His long hair began to billow about his face like molten strands of silver starlight as his whole frame began to glow with luminous light of dazzling characters. His smooth hands sparkled like dazzling crystal as he recited the healing spell.

He watched in pleasure as those deep gashes inflicted by voracious talons began to seal, heal, and fade without leaving any scars. The magical light slowly faded and the flesh looked as though it had never been harmed at all. Only the remaining blood hinted at what had so very recently occurred.

Kuja took a deep breath, feeling a little more exhausted than he had been. Now all he wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep in his lonely, yet warm bed.

The young man before him was snoring softly, oblivious to the devastatingly beautiful creature who had at one time destroyed an entire world using only the bare hands that had just now saved his life from the icy clutches of Shrouded Death. He rolled his eyes, sighing. Now what was he going to do? He just couldn’t leave this man here. He had healed him. This guy was in his debt.

He looked over at the dead worm. It would soon attract scavengers and even more unpleasant things. The beast had obviously bitten off more than it could chew.

He saw no weapons of any kind on the man’s person or scattered about. Had he used magic? Was he a human mage?

That was when he suddenly noticed the pointy ears. He was instantly on his feet, looming over the sleeping male like a purple storm. A distant echo of thunder rolled across the clear sky.

His scarlet lips were soon smiling and it was a wicked smile of old. It was the kind of smile that had caused poor Zidane to loose his cool calm on so many of their joyful encounters.

He snapped his fingers and the man’s unconscious form began to sleepwalk after him, all the way back to his palace under the countless grains of sand.

To Be Continued

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