Homecoming
| Homecoming | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 10 December 2012 |
| Location: | Cornelia |
| Synopsis: | After ten thousand years, Garland returns to his homeland. Things do not go as planned. |
| Cast of Characters: | Garland |
Cornelia.
He loathed Cornelia. The land of his birth, the land that had claimed so much of his mortal life, his mortal attentions. Once upon a time, the four walls of Cornelia had been the most important thing in all the realms to him; once upon a time, he would have gladly laid down his life in defense of them against even the staunchest foe.
The rising brick walls of the peaceful city are etched against the night sky as the man this town once called 'nightmare' arrives. The darkness closes behind him as Garland steps into his homeworld, onto his homeland's soil, for the first time in millenia. It has been so long, so long, since he stood underneath the stars of Cornelia, since he smelled the pleasant scent of the flowers growing in the gardens of the quiet little town. It has been an eternity since he walked down this road, towards the gates of the town that never change, towards the timeless little city that never moves forward. How long had it been, in this world, in this iteration of reality, since he had been slain? How long since the fear of Chaos disappeared, and the Light Warriors hailed as heroes for their ultimately-futile act? As Garland makes his way towards the city, his cape billowing imperiously behind him, he cannot suppress a smile beneath his helmet, a smile that will never be seen by any being in any world. How they would tremble at his approach if they knew! How they would weep at the sheer impertinence, the staggering realization that Chaos - that Garland - is as eternal and unbending as the darkness itself. It gives him pleasure, and that is a rare thing in this day and age; little has given Garland pleasure, save the knowledge that his goal continues to edge ever closer. It is as inexorable as the glaciers; he will succeed.
But one must always spare some time for old foes.
"Welcome to Cornelia!" The night watch observes as Garland passes between them. He stops, his foot hovering above the ground; he lowers his head a mere fraction of an inch, inclining it in acknowledgement to the guard. Still...that was strange, Garland reflects, as the gates of Cornelia swing open for him; the guard gave him no second thought, no pause. Here was Garland, a nightmare given flesh to these people, a god clad in steel, and all they did was smile at him? A mystery he would have to resolve.
He passes through the gates, and as they gently close behind him, not for the first time, he wonders why he has returned. He wonders why, after so long, this itch - this inconsolable mental itch - had been afflicted upon him. It was not as though Garland was even capable of homesickness - as though he were able to feel those pangs of loneliness or nostalgia for the 'good old days'. So why? The thought tormented him, as he strode through the streets, passing shops he had known his whole mortal life on the way to the castle. The cobbled pathway, the grass peeking up from betwixt the stones; the old bookstore, where he had spent so many days with her, indulging her whims. In the distance, though he could not see it past the walls, the field where they had...
Garland's fist closes, the metal of his gauntlet straining under his might. It would scream, were he a less disciplined man. It would scream and awaken the city to his presence, and he had no desire for that.
Though the fountain standing in the middle of the town nearly forced that desire upon him.
The four men etched there in stone stood, silhouetted against the moon. He did not need to see the fine details, though the darkness was no impediment to his eyes, and had not been since that night. He did not need to see their proud, smiling faces, their armored forms, their mighty weapons arrayed together in a symbol of triumph and cooperation. He did not need to see how they stood together, as the water poured forth around them, as it rolled across the plinth beneath their feet and made them seem as untouchable as the stars above. And most of all, he did not need to see the plaque of gold, writ across the fountain's edge. THE LIGHT WARRIORS, it read. NEVER FORGET THEIR TRIUMPH.
Of course he would never forget their triumph. That day roared in his mind, like thunder; every element of their victory, of their ignorance, of their actions. Every blow of their swords; every burst of their magic. He would never forget their triumph, for it was his greatest defeat, and he briefly considered giving in to his own desires and drawing the Heartless down upon the sleeping city like an angry god, visiting his wrath upon them as they slumbered. They would wake up as his soldiers, and it would be a vengeance most well-deserved indeed. But it would not be done, not tonight. It would be easy, but it would not satisfy him, to consume these creatures who barely even remembered the nightmare he inflicted upon them. They slept so peacefully; when he returned in earnest, he would return in fire, carving his path in blood. He would bring their greatest heroes under his heel, plant his boot upon their throats, and press down upon them as they screamed for mercy. When his advent came once more, he would return a conqueror, not a visitor, and he would not conquer in the night. He would bring them true despair, the despair of powerlessness, the despair of weakness, the despair that comes when nothing can be done against an overwhelming force; he would come and consume this land with his own power, and the Light Warriors would look upon him and know his name was Chaos, and they would tremble.
Garland releases the grip he held upon his own hand and stalks past the fountain. His path is to the castle, nothing more; anything else was a distraction. There was only one person in this foul nation he sought, only one person in this sickly-sweet saccharine city he wished to see once again. Memories once more came flooding back as he stepped past the castle gates, past the guards quietly sleeping on the job. In his day, he would have had them thoroughly scolded. Did they not understand what they protected? Cornelia's walls may be firm, and the gate guards may be alert, but negligence was not acceptable of those chosen to guard the Princess.
So it is that he passes through the gate and into the halls. So it is that he is the silent specter, the nightmare riding upon the silence and the shadows and the darkness, the god of evil returned once more to these halls. So it is that he walks past images he once marched proudly for; emblems of kings and queens long since passed, the pride of a nation that was tiny and weak but nonetheless so proud, so proud and so strong in its pride. His vows still echo in his head; his duty to serve, to love, to protect this nation, to defend the king and the queen, to protect the Princess to the end of his days.
He rounds the corner, and opens the double-doors that stand before him. The Princess's room; he knew it well. He had been there many times, to listen to her woes, her fears, her doubts and secrets. He had been her confidant, her bravest knight; he had loved her with all his heart and soul.
He had loved her.
Garland crushes his hand tight once more. Love was an emotion that barely registered, flickering briefly through his mind nonetheless, just like that strange itch. That strange itch that had started with the Princess of Heart, the memories that had come flooding back to him, the memories of emotions long-since crushed and desires long-since suppressed. He wanted to see her - not the Princess of Heart, but his princess. Sarah. He wanted to see Sarah again, though he had put her out of his mind more than ten thousand years ago; his first death had crushed his love into the ground. Again, at the hands of the Light Warriors. Again, they were the cause of so much of his life's hatred...they, and her accursed father. How he would have loved to spit in the King's eye, to swear that he loved the Princess, that she would never be married off so long as he-
"Who's there?"
The girl's voice vaults him out of his rage. He falls from his walk through the mind, returning to the now immediately; his eyes focus on the girl sitting in the bed. She could have been no more than sixteen, beautiful green hair rolling down her back, fear etched across her delicate face. The crown on her head hangs there easily, as though it belonged nowhere else; he begins walking forward, to get a better look at her. The girl pulls her covers up to her face.
"S-stay away...stay away from me! Brother! Help me!"
Garland does not stop. He continues advancing. He has no desire to hurt this girl; she was his Princess, his love. Her face was the same, her fear the same as the fear she had spoken every night to the handsome young champion she had given her favor to; she had feared the darkness, and the monsters that had stalked outside the walls, and the dragons that stole young princesses away in the fairy tales, and he had stood fast before the shadows and been her beacon-
He pauses.
He speaks one word, in that echoing voice, that low, terrible rumble that could drive a man to terror simply by its sound, one word seeped in puzzlement, in confusion. "'Brother'?"
Then he came charging through the door. "Hold fast, monster!" His voice declared, pure and kind and full of courage; Garland almost scoffed. How many times had he heard that? How many times had he heard those exact same words, from would-be heroes and cretinous children who thought themselves great warriors all across his age? He had caused more suffering, more destruction, more sorrow, than many creatures could claim they had even witnessed in their lifetimes. And the boy thought that 'hold fast' would be enough to stop him from-
And it is. Or rather, it is not the words, but the face of the boy - perhaps eighteen, not a day over twenty, with white hair streaked in green, with eyes as fierce as a dragon's, determination writ large in his features, a strong chin, and a jawline that Garland could not ever forget - for it is his. It is his jawline, his chin, his eyes, his hair - though the green was not, it was as unmistakable as the ancestry of the girl behind him. His head whips around to stare at her, and indeed, it is in her eyes, too - the dragon's gaze that he held.
And the truth smashes into him, and sends the mighty Garland - the God of Chaos, the Devil of Gaia and Terra, the Nightmare of Cornelia - physically reeling. He stumbles, something he has not done in a king's age or more; he wobbles, as the truth collides with him like the Doomtrain itself, as it makes itself known through these children. Through his children. Or rather, the children of the Garland who never fell.
The reason they did not remember him. The reason they did not know his armor, did not fear him. The reason they had allowed him into the palace. The reason these children now bore his eyes and Sarah's smile, his hair and her lips.
The time loop had been undone.
All that Garland had been had been undone with it. He had never fallen, in this timeline; he had persuaded his case, untainted by the darkness, before the King. He had married Sarah. He had had...children. And perhaps grandchildren. Who could say how long it had been, how long in this world he had been gone? For in truth he had never been gone at all. Garland, the Garland of this time, the Garland of this line, had been...happy. He had gotten what Garland had wanted most, what Garland had sold his soul to Chaos - had sold his soul to himself - to achieve, and was then barred from by the acts of the Light Warriors. They were remembered as the heroes who saved the world from Chaos - but Garland of this time had never been Chaos.
He had died peacefully with Sarah.
Anger wells up within him once again, an anger almost uncontrollable. The darkness of the room flares; the girl quails, drawing the blankets over her as though they offered some relief and then hurling them away from her as the shadows within them too danced in response to their black champion, their once-and-future god. The boy wavers not a moment, charging Garland with his blade; it clangs off Garland's armor as the great knight parries the strike from the son he never had. He recognizes the style, too; it had once been his, the longsword that the child held.
Garland screams.
The memories of her smile come flooding back to him; of the picnics they shared in the castle garden, of the secret love they shared, of the smile she gave to him and only him, of love and trust and friendship and kindness. The memories of emotions he had once held, that had slipped from his grasp at her father's declaration; the memories of desperation, of screaming at the darkness to give him the power, of the darkness holding out its hand and blessing him...
No. He could not stay here.
But he would come back. And he would undo all that this Garland had wrought. With his own hands, with his own claws, he would remove all that this Garland had loved, all that brought these memories to bear. Then he would bring the Princess of Heart to Maleficent, and then...he would wait for events to unfold.
Garland grabs the boy by the throat. He raises him above the floor; the princess screams, the guards come running, their footsteps echoing through the halls. The boy's face remains defiant. "I will defy you to the last, creature! Whatever you seek, whatever you desire, I will defy you till my dying breath!"
"Oh," Garland intones quietly, "I expect it." And then the Door opens, and the boy is dragged through it; Garland takes a final look at the girl who stands there, at the room he had spent so much of his life in, at the guards who come flooding through...and then waves it closed.
He had much work to do.
