Presenting the second in a series of archival pieces of my old works: Ikiiri.

This is a Final Fantasy 6 fanfiction that I had written well back in March 2004; the foreword shares the backstory of the piece. This was and has remained one of my favorite works that I've ever produced - even given the dated quality of the writing - largely on my attachment to the lead character, Ikiiri. I present it here almost exactly as it appears on the Caves of Narshe, with only slight formatting considerations. This work also includes artwork produced for the story by the artist Rujuken, who liked the Ikiiri character so much he produced a series of four pictures gratis. I don't know if he has a DA account or similar online haunt, but he has a sizable gallery on the Caves of Narshe.

Perhaps one day I'll revise it and update it with acceptable quality writing, but until then, here is the version as currently published on CoN. Notably, unless something happened otherwise, all of my works have - until the release of them here - been exclusive to the Caves of Narshe; you cannot find them anywhere else.

So, I leave you now with an excerpt from the story, as a teaser of its contents:

"She stumbles over a dirt mound and ends up turned around, breathless and visibly shaken. Another round of arrows flashes by her, but this time she isn't so lucky: One pierces her left shoulder, while another goes straight through her abdomen; fortunately none of them hit anything vital.

She stumbles backwards, gripping the one in her stomach while yet another volley flashes by her, missing entirely. One more step and she slips backwards, rolling down a small slope into very thick underbrush.

They rush up to the ledge and look down for a while, searching for any sign of her; then their leader orders two teams of two each to fan out to the sides while he takes the center alone. He scans the area for a moment while they rush off, then he prepares to step down when a large Mantodea suddenly bursts from the trees and rushes him. Acting on instinct and reflexes alone, he aims and fires an arrow straight for its head.

***

She lies on the ground, drifting somewhere between consciousness and sleep...her legs are splayed out, with her left arm over her stomach and her right arm curved at an L-shape to her side. Her eyes are cracked very slightly open, but are glazed over, watching dreamlike images pass by instead of clouds.

"Be careful during the day," Says her grandfather. "It's not safe. Travel at night."

She remembers all the childhood stories about her people wandering into the forest and disappearing. Sure, there'd always been the threat of deadly monsters attacking them, but so far monster attacks had accounted for very few deaths among her people. There was always something else to it, something much more foreboding and dangerous...she knows now what it is. During her younger years, she'd always thought that those tales were just stories to scare children, to keep them in line. She used to tell herself that they couldn't be true. She'd never seen anyone just disappear on her.

Now she wishes she were right. It's funny how even through all that's happening to her, it stills feels so alien...so distant. It felt like a dream when the first arrows came for her, and it still feels like a dream. Lying there in the dirt, shock begins to take affect and she denies that any of this is real."



Final Fantasy 6 © 1994 - present, Square-Enix. "Sheni" and related concepts are © KL Sanchez.