Waking Up

 It was nearing dawn in Balamb Garden, a place where ambitious people came to forget their pain. It did not work for everyone, but enough for its cramped living quarters to be coveted real estate. Especially now; unspeakable evils faded into the distant, unchangeable future, becoming all but a myth in only a decade. More immediate wars were a perfect distraction from the crushing knowledge that peace, no matter how hard-won, would not last.

Anything, even self-sabotage, to stall the creep of mass despair: they needed a target they could reach, and fight, and kill. Having nothing else, they had turned on each other. For how could humanity face their eventual eradication but with violent denial? They needed that--hope--belief against all evidence that there was a point to all this, and their children would one day be safe.

Those wars had claimed countless lives, and just as many promising futures that might have supplanted the inevitable darkness. None so much as the last. Hardly a wonder so few cared to remember.

Sometimes she forgot. Sometimes at the chime of six in the morning, she dragged herself from the bed and braved the cold tile floor to the foyer...but the empty food bowl would always remind her. Things were different now. Some pieces were missing.

Family, she remembered, was missing.

It always hit her hard. She never cried, though; instead, she would go to the window, where she would sit and watch the sun rise.

It had only been a few months, but somehow it seemed like years ago. Waking up seemed to hurt more every day. The world was a quieter place; they'd saved it, for now, saved it together. Why they could not enjoy it together, she still could not understand.

She had lost two companions that day. It was not just the empty bowl, but the unused coat hangers that reminded her, the absent scent of leather and metal.

She lived with his sister, now. Ellone was the closest thing to family she had left, and for what it was, it was good. She'd always liked Ellone, but now they were inseparable, bound by their common loss.

She stayed by the window, feeling lost and hollow in the stillness until Ellone woke up. Sometimes Ellone would cry, as she did this morning. She would offer her support, of course, but the truth was that she needed the desperate clinging just as much.

She'd learned that this painful moment would pass, and relief would come in its wake. Today as yesterday, when the tears dried up, they were still here, dear friends, and just a little closer than before.

That's what kept her going: every day when she opened her eyes, she looked forward to something. It was simple, and it had to be, for her heart was too fragile to chase sunsets anymore, but it was enough that every morning, she helped a friend and saw her smile.

Today was no different, and the more she thought about it, the easier she breathed. She was excited, if quietly so, and as she ate breakfast, she didn't think about the distant future; only the next few minutes. Ellone, too, was ready to face it. Soon, they were clean and prepared at the door.

"All right, girl," Ellone said, kneeling to give the old shepherd one more strengthening embrace. "Let's go for a walk."

Her eyes lifted high, ears pricked to attention. The door opened: Ellone stepped out into the morning light.

One paw in front of the other, Angelo followed.