In a world without magic

[aria_di_celes]

In the months after Kefka's tower collapsed, the world changed rapidly. Though some of the damage to the land was irreversible,  life began to flourish once again. For the first time in years, the trees budded, flowers grew, and even the sky turned blue. Everything seemed to be heading back to the way things were, though there was something distinctly different about their new world. When Kefka died, so too did magic, and with it, many of the monsters became less aggressive, and some species died out completely. To the average person it wasn't entirely a terrible trade-off, since travel became safer, but still, things were different.

Few felt the difference more than Celes. Unlike most of her friends who learned magic from the shards of Magicite, Celes was genetically modified from a young age. There was hardly a time in her life that she could remember not at least feeling that presence of magic, to be able to call forth fire or ice at a whim. Even now, she could feel the incantations on her tongue, but there was nothing to fuel it. Like a lamp drained of all of it's oil.

For all of the changes in the world, the one place that stayed the same was the mountains of Narshe. Still abandoned since the cataclysm, the frozen peaks saw few visitors. Few, save for the two climbing a long and winding frozen path. Even though it was spring, the mountains were as cold as ever, maybe even colder. Maybe the loss of magic had more of an effect on her than she'd like to admit, but Celes couldn't remember feeling quite this cold before. She'd be the last one to speak up though, so she kept her arms wrapped around her center, trudging forward silently in the snow.

Comments

[lockpick]

It was cold. The kind of cold that would turn a gust of wind into a knife, freezing your breath and sinking into your bones. Not unlike being hit with a blizzard spell, really. It shouldn't be so cold, not so close to spring, but even with the forces of the world evening out, there were occasional bouts of temper. Growing pains, maybe. Either way, it didn't change the facts. It was damn cold, and there was little they could do but press on in the steady snow.

Locke cast a glance back at Celes to be sure she was still behind him before turning back to the climb. She'd been so quiet, but they had little breath to waste, and she'd never been loose with her words. His boots fought for traction on the icy pathway while he studied the terrain with sharp and expert attention. There was an entrance to the mines around here, somewhere. He used to know this place like the back of his hand, even in a blizzard. In the wake of the cataclysm, the old familiar landmarks weren't so familiar, anymore.