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Celes stared blankly at the kitchen before her. Her fingers flexed as if to make a start on the ingredients, but when it came to what should actually be done with them, her mind came up empty.
It wasn't that she didn't know how to cook: she'd long ago taught herself to make a passable meal, along with countless other small skills that had use in an emergency, and had served her well as a soldier. It was just that they'd been on the road so long, subsisting on rations and wild-caught meat, that kitchens now seemed alien to her. There were spices here, for Goddesses' sakes. She hadn't cooked with spices since she'd worn a general's rank.
A world had fallen and risen again in that time, and right now just the fact that things like spices still existed seemed absurd. Things weren't supposed to just-- snap back into place like that, as if none of it had ever happened. She knew that wasn't really how it was-- there was still so much rebuilding to be done, so much irreparably lost-- but it felt that way. She'd spent her entire time away from the Empire trying to adjust to the life of a rebel. She hadn't been ready to undo all that work.
She started picking up the containers, weighing them in her hands, hoping to jog her brain back into remembering what oregano and cumin tasted like, only to be jolted from her reverie by Terra's entrance. The girl was in her Esper form, all fur and flame and light, and for one horrified moment she thought the house had somehow caught fire until she turned to look at her fully.
"Oh, it's you," she said, relief lacing her voice. "You startled me."
"You're not easily startled." Terra looked from Celes to the jars in her hands. "Are you all right?"
Celes set the spices back down on the counter. "It's nothing, really. It's just-- I think I've forgotten what a good meal looks like."
Terra shot her a half-smile. "I don't think I ever knew."
Right. While Celes had lived a comparative life of luxury under the Empire-- a privileged rank and all that came with it-- Terra had been little more than a slave. She softened, suddenly guilt-stricken. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--"
Terra shook her head, her wild mane so light and fluffy it followed several moments behind. "No, you didn't do anything. It's all right." She glanced back to the food, her nose twitching. "So what are you trying to make?"
Celes looked over the ingredients once more, her mind still stalled on how to put any of this together. It was such a stupid, simple task to be hung up on, and now that Terra had brought up her history, it seemed only right that she should cook something fine for her. Yet the mere prospect right now was overwhelming. She might as well have been told to jump into the Lethe-- no, that was something she could do. She might as well have been told to bring Kefka back from the dead.
"...beats me," she said finally, her voice resigned. "I look at all of this"-- she spread her hands --"and all I can think about is hunting down a wererat and putting a sword through its skull, then roasting it over a fire." She cringed at her own coarse imagery, looking down at her hands as if expecting to suddenly see blood. "It's like that's all I know how to do any more."
Terra's hand reached out, but stopped short of touching Celes, perhaps remembering the earlier startle. "Then why don't we do that?"
"Huh?" She looked at Terra.
"If that's what you know how to do right now, then that's what we should do."
"But there's food right here."
"But you need something familiar," said Terra, her voice calm yet insistent. "For right now."
"For right now," Celes echoed, not really hearing or meaning the words she'd said. She was thinking about what Terra had said. It was true, all of it true, but how had she hit the mark so swiftly when even Celes didn't understand it?
Because she knows, said a small voice in the back of her head, what it is to live through loss. Because she knows what it's like to survive, to still be standing, inexplicably, when everything around you has crumbled. She knows it better than you do.
It's been her life.
Celes swallowed past the horrible knot in her throat, the dawning weight of it all solidifying in the pit of her stomach. Oh gods. Oh gods. What did they do to you that you grew old this fast? Oh gods, I'm sorry. I should have saved you. I knew they were doing this to you and I never...
"Sssh." When she opened her eyes again, she had found her way to her knees, with Terra beside her in a feral crouch, shushing her gently. The image was somehow not as surreal as it should have been. "It's all right. Whatever is happening... it's not right now. I'm here. It's all right."
Celes reached out a hand for Terra, and now that she was permitted, Terra took it. Firm claws and warm fingers wrapped around her cold, clammy ones, pressing strength into her palm, and Celes just let herself exist with it for a moment, moored to Terra, her anchor, her rock. Finally, between the waves of nausea and confusion, she let Terra help her to her feet, then leaned into the Esper's shoulder, resting her face on comforting fur.
"I'm sorry," she said again, once she had found her tongue. "I should be the one soothing you..."
"When did I say I needed soothing?" Terra chastised gently.
She led Celes by the hand to a chair, a motion halfway through which Celes realised she was right, that all of this was in her head right now, not Terra's. Not that that made it any easier to bear. But the chair was good. Yes, the chair was just what she needed right about now. She sank into it with a sigh, still not relinquishing Terra's hand, Terra still not relinquishing hers. For now, at least that much was stable.
"We still need to eat," she said, once her stomach felt as if it could tolerate the sentiment without rebelling.
"I don't think you're in any condition to go hunting right now," said Terra. She looked back at the countertop. "Katarin could probably help me prepare some of this."
Celes shook her head. "Katarin has a baby to care for." And I'm being an idiot. This isn't a real problem, not like raising a child. Whoever heard of a surplus of food being a bad thing?
She tried to push up out of the chair, but another wave of dizziness washed over her, and she was forced to sit back down. Terra's eyes pinned her with a look stern yet compassionate.
"In Mobliz, we care for each other," she said. "That includes you, too." Even if you're too stubborn to accept it, was the unspoken message. "Will you be okay for a moment if I go to get her?"
"I'm okay," said Celes, because she didn't want to say that she wasn't. Inwardly, she was recoiling at the thought of Katarin seeing her like this-- anyone, except Terra, seeing her like this-- but she didn't want to say that, either. She'd given Terra enough to deal with right now, without having her negotiate her every whim.
As Terra gently closed the door behind her-- so careful, those claws could be-- she sat and thought of how nothing made sense any more. Including those words of Terra's.
We care for each other.
That she lived in a world where that was a possibility might have been the strangest thing of all.