Continuing on with Final Fantasy: Returning Hope!
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Sabin knew the mountains like the back of his hand. Within only a little over four hours he’d led them down a back pathway, out into a green and flat ravine between ranges, and well on their way to the Sabil Mountains to the northeast. On the hike the brothers caught up with each other with help from Locke on the most recent events. Terra was concerned about the part of the story that revealed her abilities, but Sabin’s reaction to the news was one of calm interest.
“Magic, eh?” he said, smiling at her. “Master Duncan used to talk about how alike to magic some of his techniques are.”
Terra nodded enthusiastically, thinking of Vargas’ strange and powerful wind attack.
“Of course it’s not really magic,” he explained further. “The details are a closely-guarded secret, but the techniques I perform stem from a harnessing of physics, nature, and the power of illusion.”
“I…I don’t understand,” Terra admitted. Edgar and Locke also looked as though they were quietly struggling with this information.
“Well, for example,” Sabin said to Terra, “What sort of magic can you do?”
Without giving it a second thought, Terra lifted her palms and conjured a small flame between them.
Sabin smiled. “Now, there you have it,” he chuckled, impressed and amused. “See, you can pull fire out of the air. Where once there was nothing, now there is flame, using nothing other than your desire for it to be so.”
Terra nodded.
“But how is what you were taught different then?” Locke asked, thoroughly interested.
“If flame is already present, I can manipulated it.” As a demonstration, Sabin performed a strange movement with his hand that caused Terra’s flame to wiggle and dance. “But I cannot create.” He dropped his hand and Terra let the flame disappear. “Vargas commanded a very old technique that allowed him to guide the movement of air,” Sabin explained further. “But it only worked well in the mountains, where air currents are easily bounced off the rock.”
“It’s quite amazing, I must admit,” Edgar spoke up. “That move you did was…dizzying, to say the least.”
Sabin nodded soberly, his recollection more sobering than proud. “It’s more of an illusion than anything,” he modestly insisted. “The victim sees more punches than are actually being thrown, and thus doesn’t know which ones to block.”
Terra envisioned the rocket-fast punches she’d barely been able to keep track of and understood.
“What I do is the result of years of practice and dedication,” Sabin said, then turned to Terra with a grin. “But what you do…well, that’s something genuinely amazing.”
He seemed to be in such honest awe that Terra found herself quietly repeating his words in her head for the remainder of the hike.
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