Grazing The Sky

Zidane hung upside-down, watching the sky's colors bleed into a vibrant orange. He waited for a long moment, a light breeze coming to him from being suspended so high. He waited, his brain silent. Unable to think of anything.

He waited for a thought to come, gravity suspending him. Rushing blood to his head, clearing away all the crap in his thoughts. All the lies, all the mistakes made along the way. It only left one question to resound in his mind.

What the hell was he doing?

___________

Lance drifted in and out of consciousness. Dreams that were fuzzy, with images and faces, memories and people he'd probably never see again. Experiences that were somewhere halfway between a nightmare and a pleasant dream.

He woke up with a heavy heart.

They were so close, just a few days away from the castle. And here they were, divided.

At the sight of movement, Lance closed his eyes. Refusing to look at Zidane, sensing his presence as he stopped beside a tree.

After the passing of a few moments, Lance's dark eyes opened. He stared at the crossbreed, wondering if he could teleport back. If Lance could just do this on his own.

Zidane looked away, standing still. An answer to Lance's question all on its own. They were stuck here, together.

The only way out of this place was forward, towards the castle.

"I can explain everything." Zidane's voice. Broken, quiet, defeated. He sat down against the tree, tail coiling around him. Sinking Lance's insides back. "If you want me to."

Lance only met his eyes, sure his own were darkening as well. Zidane looked away.

"I can't begin to say how sorry I am," the crossbreed said, eyes closing to the ground beneath them. "But you need to believe—"

Lance tsked; Zidane continued on.

"—that I've been trying to save your life for the past few months. That part was always the truth." He looked up, glassy eyes reflecting parts of the sky. "Which doesn't mean much anymore, especially coming from someone like me."

Lance watched a sad smile tick onto Zidane's face.

"As ironic as it is, I feel like explaining the truth is the only thing I can do right now."

He let out a deep breath.

"It started when I lied to Zooka."

Lance listened, part of his mind wanting to detach, pull away from it all. Was this another lie, too? Was the truth impossible for someone so corrupted?

"I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't bring myself to erase her memory, but..." A smile flashed onto his face. "There's worse things I do. Influences I project, when she gets too close..." His voice broke, at the end, and Lance could only look away. At the ground beneath them.

"After... I lied, months passed and it was hard for me to look at her." He bowed forward, hands finding his face. "I couldn't even look in the mirror anymore. I still can't."

His hands dropped, fingertips grazing against the grass below, as Zidane let out a sigh.

"So, I went to Yittek. It hadn't been too long since I had seen him—I normally come by to drop off something human he'd be interested in—but it surprised me when I didn't even have to explain anything. I mean, he had already been helping me look for a way a little while after Zoo and I got together, but when I came to him then... He just knew. Might have been because he's known me my whole life and just knew it was coming, but still... It was just nice to be understood without having to say anything.

"I let him into my mind, let him see the details of everything. How I'd been searching on my own, talking to Spiros in the thieving organization. Looking for some kind of way out."

Some way to make your lie a reality. Memories flashed, Yittek promising a way back to his old life... He never stopped trying to...

"When I didn't find anything, Yittek started searching with me. We spent a lot of time in the Equilix, and it was there I found out about Solfluxes."

"About me," Lance added.

Zidane nodded. "About you. Solfluxes are... A little difficult to explain. Have you heard of the multiverse theory?"

Lance raised a brow. "The thing where every choice opens up a new dimension whether it's made or not?"

Zidane nodded. "Yeah. A Solflux is the drastically changed, living version of that choice. So, for example, you're what happens when my soul chooses to reincarnate into a human."

"Wait," Lance said, "so I'm the human version of you?"

Another nod.

"Different souls react to different things," Zidane continued on, "so getting any human wouldn't work. I needed my counterpart. Yittek tried to talk me out of it, but the more time went on... The more I thought about it... Everything seemed to make sense. At least, for a little bit, at first. It was just one life, out of an infinite number of universes with an equal number lives just like that one. Where things were probably good, probably better than how they are now." With his hand on his face and his eyes closed, Zidane grinned, the action sad and pitiful. "That's what made me agree to it. That type of thinking. I made a pact with Ezyta to bring you back to our dimension once the injection was complete, and it only took me about a week to really snap out of it and try and get you safe." He drew himself upwards, sitting upright as his hand fell away. "That's when I tried to contact you. And, well, here we are."

"I just heard your voice, when you contacted me," Lance remembered.

Zidane nodded. "Ezyta had showed me the portal, and when I was alone, I couldn't get through it. It was rejecting my Spiro side; I could only speak into it and connect with your mind."

Lance thought for a moment.

"So you guys wanted to dissect me and see how the cells worked. So you could counteract them."

Zidane nodded, still avoiding his gaze.

"When the injection was complete, she called me back. The portal looked like a jagged crack in midair," he explained. "Shifted everything above and below. She forced me into the portal, after making me a clone. Said she'd 'destroy my existence' if I ever betrayed her again."

Lance's brows rose, mind remembering the slitting of his neck.

"That's why she..."

"Tried to kill you, yeah." Zidane slowly shook his head, dark eyes opening up to the earth. "We're lucky we have so many of those healing packs."

"So, after you went to my dimension," Lance began, the word tasting bitter in his mouth, "what happened?"

"Picked you up off the street, explained as much as I could without freaking you out, and tried to find a way back to my dimension. Ezyta gave me a book before I left; Dimension Traveling & Solfluxes."

A way to get back to his dimension...

"So..." Lance found himself at a loss for words. "This is... a reality..."

Zidane finished for him, when he could no longer speak. Head low, mouth moving just enough to utter the words in the silence between them.

"Where you technically don't exist."

Where my mom doesn't have a son. Tears welled to the bottom of his vision, but he closed his eyes, holding them in. Holding them back. Where Cal doesn't have a best friend. Trent and Danny don't have a bandmate.

"There's an unlimited amount of dimensions?" he asked, voice fractured as he opened his eyes again. Seeing dark irises look into his.

"Yeah."

"Then, that means there's a dimension where we've already got this!" He raised his arms towards the castle, at lack of words. "This thing he's hiding! Hell there's one where I've got my body back!"

Lance looked to Zidane again, a thought coming to him, the words he wasn't saying.

And where he has a family. Everything he's ever wanted...

Zidane avoided his stare, eyes growing dimmer. He shook his head.

"The amount of time it took for Ezyta's servants to find even one dimension where I reincarnated into a human was more than a few months. To find something that specific... It could take the rest of our lives."

He looked up, bleak stare going to the castle on the tree's horizon. "If we even make it to old age, that is."

Lance followed his stare, stomach knotting. They weren't going to die there. They couldn't...

I can't let myself die, either. His fingers dug into the grass, clawing into a fist. Not like this.

"So..." He swallowed, and in the next moment realized the question he was about to ask. Zooka was on his mind, but why? Why now?

She's...

From the corner of his eye, he saw Zidane nod. "You're on the right track," he said. "There's so many words I could use to describe it, but she's basically my soulmate. Literally, the soul that's complimented mine since... As long as we've both been around, I guess. And I do the same for her." He paused for a moment, and then softly his head shook, eyes becoming lost in some memory. "Before I agreed to what Ezyta wanted to do, I started researching all of it. Tried to minimize the causalities." A sad, sarcastic grin hooked his mouth up. "A shitload of good that did... But I came across a book on Leities, which is a word that means soul bonds. It's basically what we are to each other, me and her. Souls with a pact that never breaks. Leities show up for each other in every dimension, every form of every outcome. In some way, some form."

Lance understood what he was saying. Somewhere, in his own universe, she was there...

He knew instantly that he'd never seen her before. Not even in passing; he would've known that magnetic draw, that feeling like his very core was being awakened in some incredible bolt of electricity and pure warmth. He would've known, just like he knew how to ask about her name in the beginning.

He turned his mind to something else.

"Is there a way I could be teleported," he asked, "to a dimension where we've already solved everything?"

Zidane slowly shook his head, dark eyes closed. "No. Dimension traveling is relatively new technology," he replied. "Even just hunting down one dimension where I reincarnated as a human took months of hundreds of Razaleks searching constantly."

He remained quiet, before finally looking back again.

"So, after I had found you and made sure you were alright"—His eyes searched Lance, as if they could see some of the cells inside—"Or as alright as you could be, I had to get back."

"To your dimension."

"To my dimension," Zidane agreed with a nod. "Because in yours, I didn't exist so Yittek wouldn't know me."

"That's why we teleported twice? One to get to the right dimension, and the other to get to the right territory?"

Zidane nodded again. "Yeah, exactly."

"And Yittek knew you were doing this?"

A shake of the head. "No. I hadn't spoken to him for about six months or so. I didn't want to bother him with anything; thought I could do it on my own."

Lance thought for a moment, s.u.c.k.i.n.g his cheek in between his teeth. He raised his eyes to Zidane.

"Think he would've stopped anything?"

This time, it was Zidane's turn to be silent. Then the crossbreed shrugged one shoulder, looking up at the trees past Lance.

"I think he would've tried, but Ezyta's impossible to influence. She knew I took some info from her, like who was going to take you; she just let me believe I snuck it out of her mind."

"Because she's a bitch."

Zidane smiled. "No, because she has an unlimited supply of energy, kind of like Yittek does. And she has mental guards upon mental guards. She just deactivated them to toy with me."

"Proving my point."

"So yeah," he said, straightening. "That's about it."

They sat in silence, each one with their own thoughts, before Lance suddenly smiled.

"That's why you opened up to me so damn quickly," Lance said, eyes towards the sky. "Why you poured out your past. You needed me to trust you."

Zidane faintly cleared his throat, looking away. Towards his hands.

"Yeah..." he said quietly.

They were quiet for another moment. Zidane looked up to Lance, his voice soft.

"How's your face?"

Lance looked up, dropping his thoughts away. He stared at Zidane for a moment before realizing the question.

"It's fine. Healing packs helped regrow the teeth I lost, so it's alright."

"Let's hope the healing packs did that and not the cells..."

Lance nodded the best he could, trying to fight away the fear. "Yeah..." He looked away, and then in a burst of confidence, met Zidane's gaze.

"I'm... Sorry... For what I said," Lance told him.

Zidane's eyes were nearly black. He blinked, the color shifting in the slightest amounts. Becoming a little bit brighter.

"Apology accepted," Zidane replied, his voice nothing but kind.

He got to his feet, signifying their conversation was over. Lance watched him for a moment, noticing how his stare was on the ground, how even the light from the sky couldn't really brighten his eyes very much.

Lance knew the thoughts bouncing around in the crossbreed's head; they were the same ones he was grappling with now as well. It wasn't her fault; Zooka may have given him the seed, but Zidane was the one who'd planted it. Tended to it, made it into what it was now.

Lance allowed the anger to extinguish, dying down as if it was carried away by a wind. He let out a breath, getting to his feet as well. His hands found their pockets as he looked to the castle again.

"I can't wait to get out of here."

He sensed Zidane follow his stare, heard the shift as he set the staff onto his back again, the narrow bag's strap across his c.h.e.s.t.

"Yeah..." Zidane paused, and then he spoke again. "We'll be there by nightfall. It has to be dark before we do this, so we can take our time getting there. It's probably best that we go slow the closer we are to his territory, the more likely we are to be noticed."

"Got it."

They walked in silence, Lance trying to focus on anything but his own thoughts. Everything he had just learned... Finally, it all made sense. It just put a weight in his gut.

The truth was just really hard to handle, sometimes.

He blocked out the thoughts of his family. He couldn't... He couldn't think of something so painful.

He could only move forward, one foot in front of the other. Each step bringing him closer to a way his life could be saved.