Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2014-12-12 08:16 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2014-12-12 08:16 pm
Fanfiction: With These Signs Upon Our Souls, Chapter Eight (FFVIII/FFXIII)
I've been working on this for two and a half years, but we're finally coming up to the last few chapters! I think I might be able to finish posting it before the end of the year. No promises. But I might.
The summary is, by this point, hilariously out-of-date, but I refuse to write a new summary for every chapter.
Title: With These Signs Upon Our Souls, Chapter Eight
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,000 (this chapter; 20,000 cumulative)
Summary: The exam brief is simple enough: protect the fal'Cie from the Timber resistance. Squad B are about to get the mission as wrong as humanly possible.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
The others are sitting in a rough circle just by the Esthar end of the bridge, Quistis checking their food supplies, preparing for the long journey back to civilisation. Zell looks up as Squall approaches.
“Hey, Squall,” he says. “Where’d you go?”
His voice sounds so clear. Everything feels brighter and sharper and colder with Shiva in his mind again. Squall feels more alert than he has in a long time. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her. And now, finally, he has a clear direction.
“We’re going to steal Ellone,” he says.
-
Weird things can happen when you’re on the move, Laguna’s article says. I’ve never had a GF, I’m not a l’Cie, and you can probably guess I’m not a sorceress either. But a couple of times I’ve just been able to use magic. I swear this is true. It was like something else was working through me. I’ve never been able to explain it.
It’s what he was expecting. He was half-asleep when Selphie tried to read it to them, couldn’t really think it through, but what else was it going to say? No GF, not a l’Cie, not a sorceress, but... he could use magic. Of course.
And Squall knows why, because he was there.
Ellone wasn’t kidnapped because she could see the past. She was kidnapped because she could send people there. It’s the reason the real Laguna suddenly found himself able to use magic; Squall’s body may not have followed him into the past, but somehow his l’Cie powers did.
He should have realised it earlier. When they first got their Focus, they all saw Winhill in their shared vision. Why? Because they found a newspaper about Ultimecia there? They could have seen that newspaper anywhere.
The Winhill square is cracked and abandoned and overgrown when they walk into it, but only for a second.
They check Ellone’s crystal and the plinth thoroughly, but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of security on it. Hard to imagine anyone trying to steal a crystallised l’Cie in this tiny village. And it’s not as if there’d be any way to make a quick getaway; you’d have to either drag a human-sized crystal over a mountain range or try to smuggle it onto a passenger ship.
But they won’t need to take her that far. And if they get caught, what’s the worst that can happen to them? They’re already dead.
“Rinoa, cast Float,” Squall says. “Seifer, I’ll need you to help me carry her if Float doesn’t work. Everyone else, keep lookout.”
This is almost definitely not going to work. They don’t know whether they’ll be able to communicate with Ellone in any real way. They don’t know whether she can send people forward in time as well as back. But it’s the only chance they have.
-
They can’t exactly take Ellone on the ferry and hope no one notices, and Squall can’t really see them carrying her over the mountains either, so they’re stuck in the south of Galbadia for the moment. They set up camp in the most shielded spot they can find, a clearing hemmed in by forest to the east and south and mountains to the north. Squall isn’t sure whether the town will send anyone out to search, but it makes sense to be cautious.
They have as much non-perishable food as they could carry while still transporting Ellone. It’s going to have to be enough. Winhill seems like the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, and it won’t be hard to pin Ellone’s disappearance on the strangers who bought up half the main shop’s stock and vanished the day she did. They can’t go back.
It’s strange to look at a pile of food and wonder if it’ll last them the rest of their lives.
It’s almost nightfall by the time they finish setting up, and the temperature is starting to drop. Seifer makes the fire; Fire spells seem to be his speciality, now that he’s a l’Cie.
“So now what?” Zell asks, looking Ellone over. She’s still suspended upright, somehow. “We just... talk to her? Try to get through?”
Squall shrugs. “It might not work, but it’s the only option we have.”
“Hey,” Zell says. He taps Ellone on the arm, cautiously, as if he’s afraid she’ll shatter under his hand. “Hey, Ellone? It’s Zell. You hear me?”
The noise from Ellone is the same as it’s always been: flickering, unclear images of the past. Dreams, maybe. How do you wake up a crystal?
Selphie waves her hands in front of Ellone’s face. Astonishingly, it doesn’t seem to have any effect.
Squall looks away.
“Hey,” Rinoa says. “Squall. This’ll work. There’s definitely something there.”
He frowns at her. “You don’t have to try to cheer me up.”
She shrugs. “Well, maybe I want to.” She raises her voice. “Hey, Ellone! Your friends are here! Come and talk to us!”
Even though this was his idea, Squall can’t join in with the others. Looking at Ellone’s frozen face just makes him think of how hopeless this is. And, after all these years, he really doesn’t know what to say to her.
He hefts his gunblade onto his shoulder and sets off to patrol for monsters.
-
It’s dark by the time he gets back. Zell, Rinoa and Selphie are next to the fire, playing the noisiest three-way game of Triple Triad he’s ever heard. Quistis is sitting by Ellone, and she raises a hand when she sees him.
“Where’s Seifer?” Squall asks.
“He didn’t say where he was going,” Quistis says. “Much like someone else I could mention.”
Squall looks at Ellone. He doesn’t have to ask whether they’ve managed to establish contact.
Quistis follows his gaze. “You should talk to her, you know,” she says. “You were always her favourite. If anyone can break through to her, I know it’ll be you.”
“She didn’t have favourites,” Squall says.
“You didn’t notice?” Quistis asks, and then she laughs. “Oh, of course you didn’t. Ellone adored you.” She stands and stretches. “I’ll leave you alone for a while. Really, I think you should talk to her.”
-
He sits by Ellone for a long time, not speaking. He can’t try talking to her with the others around; he’d feel ridiculous. Besides, what is he supposed to say?
Seifer eventually returns, Floating a couple of Fastitocalon-F ahead of him.
“You went all the way to the beach?” Quistis asks.
Seifer shrugs. “Felt like some fresh food for once. And apparently this stupid place doesn’t have anything else worth eating.”
He’s not wrong. Squall mostly saw Blood Souls and Cockatrices on his patrol, and eating either of those is a famously bad idea.
Seifer’s actually the best cook in the group – maybe it comes of being so good with the Fire element – but Quistis offers to prepare the fish so he can rest, and, although he insists he’s fine, he lets her take over. The others eat close to the fire; Squall stays a little further back in the circle of firelight, next to Ellone, although Quistis brings some fish over to him.
Gradually the others fall asleep, one by one, and eventually it’s just Squall left, watching the flicker of the fire reflected in Ellone’s crystal, listening to her memories.
“Ellone,” he says, very quietly, and then he can’t say anything else; his throat feels too tight.
This is stupid. They can talk as much as they like, but she won’t be able to hear them. Dreaming or not, she’s an inanimate object; he might as well be talking to a wall.
If he’s not going to make an effort with Ellone, he thinks, he should at least try to get some sleep. He won’t achieve anything like this. He can wake Selphie up instead; it’s supposed to be her turn to keep watch.
He stays where he is, sitting in silence, surrounded by her past.
-
“Need some company?”
The voice brings Squall out of a semi-trance, and he realises he’s been staring at Ellone. He looks up. Rinoa. “I’m okay. You should be sleeping.”
She laughs. “Okay, I’ll admit that offer wasn’t completely selfless. I kind of need some company. Nobody else is awake.”
Squall hesitates.
“You can sit here if you want,” he says, “but I’m not very good company. You shouldn’t expect much.”
“I just expect you to be Squall,” she says, sitting down. “I’ll be happy if you manage that. You’re off to a great start, by the way.”
There’s a pause.
“You’re looking at Seifer,” she says.
Is he looking at Seifer? He hadn’t noticed.
“Are you wondering whether he’s gonna storm off again?” she asks, stretching out her legs. “Because we had a whole adventure in the mountains for me to make it very clear that I don’t need his permission to talk to people.” She shrugs. “Honestly, I think he was just looking for an excuse to go off on his own.”
“You don’t think he’ll take another excuse now?”
“It wasn’t that hard to drag him back to you guys. I think he’d rather be around you than off doing his ‘lone hero’ thing. Even if he won’t admit it. Sound like anyone else we know?”
He doesn’t answer. For a while she’s quiet as well, looking at Ellone.
“You’ve all known each other for a long time, huh?” she asks, eventually.
“We forgot,” Squall says.
“Maybe, but still. You’ve got all your old friends around to support you. A lot of people would say you’re lucky. You know, for a l’Cie.”
Whatever that means.
“But you won’t let them support you,” she says.
“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know you’re quiet. Nothing wrong with that. But I don’t think this is the kind of thing you can just get through on your own.”
Squall looks over at the others. At Selphie, Zell, Quistis, curled up close to each other; Seifer, lying on his own, his back to the rest of them. Sometimes he doesn’t know how any of them can sleep, knowing what the future holds.
“Everyone here has enough problems,” he says, eventually. “I’m not going to ask them to worry about mine as well. And talking won’t change anything. We’re l’Cie.”
“That’s not what I mean by ‘support’,” Rinoa says. “Okay, we can’t magically make everything fine, but you might feel better if you talked.”
“I’d rather just not have to think about it.”
Rinoa grins suddenly. “I didn’t say what you had to talk about. It doesn’t have to be the l’Cie thing. Argue about music or play Triple Triad or something. I know you like these people, so just... enjoy being around them. We don’t have to have a big therapy session if you don’t want to, but I think you could definitely use some fun.”
“How long do you think we have?” Squall asks. “A week? A month? I can’t make friends when I know I’m just going to lose them all.”
“You’re already friends,” Rinoa says. “Can you seriously tell me it’s not going to hurt you? Losing Quistis, Seifer, everyone?”
Squall looks away.
“You can’t just push everyone away and pretend that means you don’t care,” Rinoa says.
“It won’t matter soon enough.”
“It matters now. Didn’t you let yourself make friends before we got branded? Or did you just go ‘well, they’re gonna die eventually, so what’s the point, right?’”
He doesn’t answer.
“Wow,” Rinoa says. “Oh, wow. That was supposed to be a joke.” She’s silent for a moment. “Look, okay, maybe we can’t stop being l’Cie, but we can make the most of the time we’ve got left, right? We’re not finished yet. Just... stop thinking like we’re all Cie’th already, or I’m gonna have to get offended.”
She says it like it should be easy. How is he supposed to forget what’s going to happen to them?
Rinoa taps him on the shoulder. “Hey. Look at me.”
He does.
“You know, even with this whole thing hanging over us, I’ve had fun,” she says. “Going on this big quest thing, getting to know you guys. Well, I knew Seifer already, obviously, but getting to know the rest of you. I’m not saying I wouldn’t go back and not get turned into a l’Cie if I had the chance, but it’d be a shame if I never met you and Quistis and Selphie and Zell. And I’ll be sad when it’s over, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m having fun now. I...” She sits back, frowning. “I don’t know if this’ll make sense, but I’d be sadder if I didn’t have anything to be sad about. I want to be losing friends when we turn to crystal, not just people I didn’t care about.”
“I can’t do that,” he says.
“Well, bad news,” she says, with a half-smile. “We are your friends. So I think you’re gonna have to.”
-
“How’s... this?”
There’s a loud thud.
“Yeah, you got it! Wanna try kicks next?”
“Soon! I’m gonna keep practising this.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Squall opens his eyes. It’s daylight. He looks at Ellone, to make sure she’s still there, before checking on the source of the noise.
Selphie is beating up a tree, although Squall finds it hard to imagine it did anything to her. Zell is standing nearby, applauding enthusiastically, the sound muffled by his gauntlets.
“What... are you doing?” Squall asks.
Zell waves at him. “Yo! I’m teaching Selphie hand-to-hand. You want a lesson?”
Squall considers.
It’s a pointless exercise, really. He doesn’t know exactly how much time they have left, but he knows it isn’t enough to learn a new combat style. There’s no way he’ll become good enough at hand-to-hand for it to be any use to him.
But it’s something to do.
-
“You’re doin’ well!” Zell enthuses. “Hey, maybe you could teach me some gunblade techniques in exchange, right?”
“You don’t have a gunblade.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have proper gauntlets.”
“I have hands,” Squall points out.
Zell shrugs. “Guess I’ll just have to borrow yours, then.”
“No.”
“Aw, c’mon.”
Squall takes a few paces towards the tree he left Revolver leaning against, just in case. “No.”
“Fine.” Zell breaks into a bout of shadow-boxing. Squall considers trying to mimic his strikes, but even the thought makes him feel selfconscious, so he just watches, trying to recognise the things Zell has taught him.
After a moment, Zell lets his hands fall to his sides. “Hey, d’you think Seifer would let me borrow his gunblade?”
Squall looks at him.
Zell sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He goes quiet, then looks over at Ellone. “You think she can hear us?”
Squall breathes in slowly, tries to focus on the confused images radiating from Ellone. He thinks there might be more Zell in them than usual. A coincidence? “I don’t know.”
“Okay!” Zell flexes his fingers. “Let’s have a practice match. I’ll go easy on you.”
Squall is still looking at Ellone. It felt good to be distracted for a while, but he’s hit reality again. They’re still l’Cie. They still have a Focus they can’t reach. Ellone’s still walled off from them, and even if they establish communication they don’t know if she’ll really be able to help.
“No, thanks,” he says.
“Oh,” Zell says. “Well, let me know if you ever want another lesson! The Dincht School of Combat is always open.”
-
Squall wakes suddenly, tense. It’s still night, he judges without opening his eyes; there’s light, but it’s the flicker of firelight, not daylight. It’s probably nothing dangerous – he’s always been a light sleeper, and there’ll be someone on lookout to alert them if anything seems wrong – but something’s woken him, and he isn’t going to be able to get back to sleep until he’s pinpointed what it is.
It takes him a moment to realise that someone is singing, very softly. It’s a tune Squall recognises quickly – the one Julia played on the piano, the one Rinoa played in the same room – but somehow the words feel familiar as well.
“My last night here for you,
Same old songs, just once more...”
He listens for a moment, his eyes still closed. It sounds like Quistis’s voice. She must have taken over the watch.
There’s a rustling sound, footsteps, and Quistis cuts herself off on the verge of the chorus. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”
“Don’t apologise.” Rinoa’s voice. “I love this song.”
“Ellone used to sing it,” Quistis says. “I thought it might help her remember.” She laughs a little. “I’m not really much of a singer, though.”
“You were good! Keep going.”
“With you listening? I don’t think I’d survive the embarrassment.”
“Then we’ll sing it together,” Rinoa says. “C’mon.”
She starts – “Whenever sang my songs...” – and, after a moment’s hesitation, Quistis joins in.
Squall is beginning to doze off, listening to the two of them, when suddenly his mind is filled with images – Laguna singing that song, the way the old orphanage echoed, Quistis trying to dress as an adult when she was maybe four – and he’s wide awake. It’s some sort of flare from Ellone. He feels for a moment like he’s about to pass out, like he did just before the Laguna dreams, but the weakness passes.
When he sits up and looks around, he sees that Zell and Selphie and Seifer have woken up as well.
“What the hell?” Zell mumbles, rubbing his eyes.
Hello?
It’s not really a voice. There’s no sound. But it’s there, somehow, in Squall’s mind.
“Can you hear that?” he asks.
Hello? Where am I? Can anyone hear me?
It sounds frightened. It sounds like Ellone.
Chapter Nine
The summary is, by this point, hilariously out-of-date, but I refuse to write a new summary for every chapter.
Title: With These Signs Upon Our Souls, Chapter Eight
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy XIII
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,000 (this chapter; 20,000 cumulative)
Summary: The exam brief is simple enough: protect the fal'Cie from the Timber resistance. Squad B are about to get the mission as wrong as humanly possible.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
The others are sitting in a rough circle just by the Esthar end of the bridge, Quistis checking their food supplies, preparing for the long journey back to civilisation. Zell looks up as Squall approaches.
“Hey, Squall,” he says. “Where’d you go?”
His voice sounds so clear. Everything feels brighter and sharper and colder with Shiva in his mind again. Squall feels more alert than he has in a long time. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her. And now, finally, he has a clear direction.
“We’re going to steal Ellone,” he says.
Weird things can happen when you’re on the move, Laguna’s article says. I’ve never had a GF, I’m not a l’Cie, and you can probably guess I’m not a sorceress either. But a couple of times I’ve just been able to use magic. I swear this is true. It was like something else was working through me. I’ve never been able to explain it.
It’s what he was expecting. He was half-asleep when Selphie tried to read it to them, couldn’t really think it through, but what else was it going to say? No GF, not a l’Cie, not a sorceress, but... he could use magic. Of course.
And Squall knows why, because he was there.
Ellone wasn’t kidnapped because she could see the past. She was kidnapped because she could send people there. It’s the reason the real Laguna suddenly found himself able to use magic; Squall’s body may not have followed him into the past, but somehow his l’Cie powers did.
He should have realised it earlier. When they first got their Focus, they all saw Winhill in their shared vision. Why? Because they found a newspaper about Ultimecia there? They could have seen that newspaper anywhere.
The Winhill square is cracked and abandoned and overgrown when they walk into it, but only for a second.
They check Ellone’s crystal and the plinth thoroughly, but there doesn’t seem to be any kind of security on it. Hard to imagine anyone trying to steal a crystallised l’Cie in this tiny village. And it’s not as if there’d be any way to make a quick getaway; you’d have to either drag a human-sized crystal over a mountain range or try to smuggle it onto a passenger ship.
But they won’t need to take her that far. And if they get caught, what’s the worst that can happen to them? They’re already dead.
“Rinoa, cast Float,” Squall says. “Seifer, I’ll need you to help me carry her if Float doesn’t work. Everyone else, keep lookout.”
This is almost definitely not going to work. They don’t know whether they’ll be able to communicate with Ellone in any real way. They don’t know whether she can send people forward in time as well as back. But it’s the only chance they have.
They can’t exactly take Ellone on the ferry and hope no one notices, and Squall can’t really see them carrying her over the mountains either, so they’re stuck in the south of Galbadia for the moment. They set up camp in the most shielded spot they can find, a clearing hemmed in by forest to the east and south and mountains to the north. Squall isn’t sure whether the town will send anyone out to search, but it makes sense to be cautious.
They have as much non-perishable food as they could carry while still transporting Ellone. It’s going to have to be enough. Winhill seems like the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, and it won’t be hard to pin Ellone’s disappearance on the strangers who bought up half the main shop’s stock and vanished the day she did. They can’t go back.
It’s strange to look at a pile of food and wonder if it’ll last them the rest of their lives.
It’s almost nightfall by the time they finish setting up, and the temperature is starting to drop. Seifer makes the fire; Fire spells seem to be his speciality, now that he’s a l’Cie.
“So now what?” Zell asks, looking Ellone over. She’s still suspended upright, somehow. “We just... talk to her? Try to get through?”
Squall shrugs. “It might not work, but it’s the only option we have.”
“Hey,” Zell says. He taps Ellone on the arm, cautiously, as if he’s afraid she’ll shatter under his hand. “Hey, Ellone? It’s Zell. You hear me?”
The noise from Ellone is the same as it’s always been: flickering, unclear images of the past. Dreams, maybe. How do you wake up a crystal?
Selphie waves her hands in front of Ellone’s face. Astonishingly, it doesn’t seem to have any effect.
Squall looks away.
“Hey,” Rinoa says. “Squall. This’ll work. There’s definitely something there.”
He frowns at her. “You don’t have to try to cheer me up.”
She shrugs. “Well, maybe I want to.” She raises her voice. “Hey, Ellone! Your friends are here! Come and talk to us!”
Even though this was his idea, Squall can’t join in with the others. Looking at Ellone’s frozen face just makes him think of how hopeless this is. And, after all these years, he really doesn’t know what to say to her.
He hefts his gunblade onto his shoulder and sets off to patrol for monsters.
It’s dark by the time he gets back. Zell, Rinoa and Selphie are next to the fire, playing the noisiest three-way game of Triple Triad he’s ever heard. Quistis is sitting by Ellone, and she raises a hand when she sees him.
“Where’s Seifer?” Squall asks.
“He didn’t say where he was going,” Quistis says. “Much like someone else I could mention.”
Squall looks at Ellone. He doesn’t have to ask whether they’ve managed to establish contact.
Quistis follows his gaze. “You should talk to her, you know,” she says. “You were always her favourite. If anyone can break through to her, I know it’ll be you.”
“She didn’t have favourites,” Squall says.
“You didn’t notice?” Quistis asks, and then she laughs. “Oh, of course you didn’t. Ellone adored you.” She stands and stretches. “I’ll leave you alone for a while. Really, I think you should talk to her.”
He sits by Ellone for a long time, not speaking. He can’t try talking to her with the others around; he’d feel ridiculous. Besides, what is he supposed to say?
Seifer eventually returns, Floating a couple of Fastitocalon-F ahead of him.
“You went all the way to the beach?” Quistis asks.
Seifer shrugs. “Felt like some fresh food for once. And apparently this stupid place doesn’t have anything else worth eating.”
He’s not wrong. Squall mostly saw Blood Souls and Cockatrices on his patrol, and eating either of those is a famously bad idea.
Seifer’s actually the best cook in the group – maybe it comes of being so good with the Fire element – but Quistis offers to prepare the fish so he can rest, and, although he insists he’s fine, he lets her take over. The others eat close to the fire; Squall stays a little further back in the circle of firelight, next to Ellone, although Quistis brings some fish over to him.
Gradually the others fall asleep, one by one, and eventually it’s just Squall left, watching the flicker of the fire reflected in Ellone’s crystal, listening to her memories.
“Ellone,” he says, very quietly, and then he can’t say anything else; his throat feels too tight.
This is stupid. They can talk as much as they like, but she won’t be able to hear them. Dreaming or not, she’s an inanimate object; he might as well be talking to a wall.
If he’s not going to make an effort with Ellone, he thinks, he should at least try to get some sleep. He won’t achieve anything like this. He can wake Selphie up instead; it’s supposed to be her turn to keep watch.
He stays where he is, sitting in silence, surrounded by her past.
“Need some company?”
The voice brings Squall out of a semi-trance, and he realises he’s been staring at Ellone. He looks up. Rinoa. “I’m okay. You should be sleeping.”
She laughs. “Okay, I’ll admit that offer wasn’t completely selfless. I kind of need some company. Nobody else is awake.”
Squall hesitates.
“You can sit here if you want,” he says, “but I’m not very good company. You shouldn’t expect much.”
“I just expect you to be Squall,” she says, sitting down. “I’ll be happy if you manage that. You’re off to a great start, by the way.”
There’s a pause.
“You’re looking at Seifer,” she says.
Is he looking at Seifer? He hadn’t noticed.
“Are you wondering whether he’s gonna storm off again?” she asks, stretching out her legs. “Because we had a whole adventure in the mountains for me to make it very clear that I don’t need his permission to talk to people.” She shrugs. “Honestly, I think he was just looking for an excuse to go off on his own.”
“You don’t think he’ll take another excuse now?”
“It wasn’t that hard to drag him back to you guys. I think he’d rather be around you than off doing his ‘lone hero’ thing. Even if he won’t admit it. Sound like anyone else we know?”
He doesn’t answer. For a while she’s quiet as well, looking at Ellone.
“You’ve all known each other for a long time, huh?” she asks, eventually.
“We forgot,” Squall says.
“Maybe, but still. You’ve got all your old friends around to support you. A lot of people would say you’re lucky. You know, for a l’Cie.”
Whatever that means.
“But you won’t let them support you,” she says.
“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I know you’re quiet. Nothing wrong with that. But I don’t think this is the kind of thing you can just get through on your own.”
Squall looks over at the others. At Selphie, Zell, Quistis, curled up close to each other; Seifer, lying on his own, his back to the rest of them. Sometimes he doesn’t know how any of them can sleep, knowing what the future holds.
“Everyone here has enough problems,” he says, eventually. “I’m not going to ask them to worry about mine as well. And talking won’t change anything. We’re l’Cie.”
“That’s not what I mean by ‘support’,” Rinoa says. “Okay, we can’t magically make everything fine, but you might feel better if you talked.”
“I’d rather just not have to think about it.”
Rinoa grins suddenly. “I didn’t say what you had to talk about. It doesn’t have to be the l’Cie thing. Argue about music or play Triple Triad or something. I know you like these people, so just... enjoy being around them. We don’t have to have a big therapy session if you don’t want to, but I think you could definitely use some fun.”
“How long do you think we have?” Squall asks. “A week? A month? I can’t make friends when I know I’m just going to lose them all.”
“You’re already friends,” Rinoa says. “Can you seriously tell me it’s not going to hurt you? Losing Quistis, Seifer, everyone?”
Squall looks away.
“You can’t just push everyone away and pretend that means you don’t care,” Rinoa says.
“It won’t matter soon enough.”
“It matters now. Didn’t you let yourself make friends before we got branded? Or did you just go ‘well, they’re gonna die eventually, so what’s the point, right?’”
He doesn’t answer.
“Wow,” Rinoa says. “Oh, wow. That was supposed to be a joke.” She’s silent for a moment. “Look, okay, maybe we can’t stop being l’Cie, but we can make the most of the time we’ve got left, right? We’re not finished yet. Just... stop thinking like we’re all Cie’th already, or I’m gonna have to get offended.”
She says it like it should be easy. How is he supposed to forget what’s going to happen to them?
Rinoa taps him on the shoulder. “Hey. Look at me.”
He does.
“You know, even with this whole thing hanging over us, I’ve had fun,” she says. “Going on this big quest thing, getting to know you guys. Well, I knew Seifer already, obviously, but getting to know the rest of you. I’m not saying I wouldn’t go back and not get turned into a l’Cie if I had the chance, but it’d be a shame if I never met you and Quistis and Selphie and Zell. And I’ll be sad when it’s over, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m having fun now. I...” She sits back, frowning. “I don’t know if this’ll make sense, but I’d be sadder if I didn’t have anything to be sad about. I want to be losing friends when we turn to crystal, not just people I didn’t care about.”
“I can’t do that,” he says.
“Well, bad news,” she says, with a half-smile. “We are your friends. So I think you’re gonna have to.”
“How’s... this?”
There’s a loud thud.
“Yeah, you got it! Wanna try kicks next?”
“Soon! I’m gonna keep practising this.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Squall opens his eyes. It’s daylight. He looks at Ellone, to make sure she’s still there, before checking on the source of the noise.
Selphie is beating up a tree, although Squall finds it hard to imagine it did anything to her. Zell is standing nearby, applauding enthusiastically, the sound muffled by his gauntlets.
“What... are you doing?” Squall asks.
Zell waves at him. “Yo! I’m teaching Selphie hand-to-hand. You want a lesson?”
Squall considers.
It’s a pointless exercise, really. He doesn’t know exactly how much time they have left, but he knows it isn’t enough to learn a new combat style. There’s no way he’ll become good enough at hand-to-hand for it to be any use to him.
But it’s something to do.
“You’re doin’ well!” Zell enthuses. “Hey, maybe you could teach me some gunblade techniques in exchange, right?”
“You don’t have a gunblade.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have proper gauntlets.”
“I have hands,” Squall points out.
Zell shrugs. “Guess I’ll just have to borrow yours, then.”
“No.”
“Aw, c’mon.”
Squall takes a few paces towards the tree he left Revolver leaning against, just in case. “No.”
“Fine.” Zell breaks into a bout of shadow-boxing. Squall considers trying to mimic his strikes, but even the thought makes him feel selfconscious, so he just watches, trying to recognise the things Zell has taught him.
After a moment, Zell lets his hands fall to his sides. “Hey, d’you think Seifer would let me borrow his gunblade?”
Squall looks at him.
Zell sighs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He goes quiet, then looks over at Ellone. “You think she can hear us?”
Squall breathes in slowly, tries to focus on the confused images radiating from Ellone. He thinks there might be more Zell in them than usual. A coincidence? “I don’t know.”
“Okay!” Zell flexes his fingers. “Let’s have a practice match. I’ll go easy on you.”
Squall is still looking at Ellone. It felt good to be distracted for a while, but he’s hit reality again. They’re still l’Cie. They still have a Focus they can’t reach. Ellone’s still walled off from them, and even if they establish communication they don’t know if she’ll really be able to help.
“No, thanks,” he says.
“Oh,” Zell says. “Well, let me know if you ever want another lesson! The Dincht School of Combat is always open.”
Squall wakes suddenly, tense. It’s still night, he judges without opening his eyes; there’s light, but it’s the flicker of firelight, not daylight. It’s probably nothing dangerous – he’s always been a light sleeper, and there’ll be someone on lookout to alert them if anything seems wrong – but something’s woken him, and he isn’t going to be able to get back to sleep until he’s pinpointed what it is.
It takes him a moment to realise that someone is singing, very softly. It’s a tune Squall recognises quickly – the one Julia played on the piano, the one Rinoa played in the same room – but somehow the words feel familiar as well.
“My last night here for you,
Same old songs, just once more...”
He listens for a moment, his eyes still closed. It sounds like Quistis’s voice. She must have taken over the watch.
There’s a rustling sound, footsteps, and Quistis cuts herself off on the verge of the chorus. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”
“Don’t apologise.” Rinoa’s voice. “I love this song.”
“Ellone used to sing it,” Quistis says. “I thought it might help her remember.” She laughs a little. “I’m not really much of a singer, though.”
“You were good! Keep going.”
“With you listening? I don’t think I’d survive the embarrassment.”
“Then we’ll sing it together,” Rinoa says. “C’mon.”
She starts – “Whenever sang my songs...” – and, after a moment’s hesitation, Quistis joins in.
Squall is beginning to doze off, listening to the two of them, when suddenly his mind is filled with images – Laguna singing that song, the way the old orphanage echoed, Quistis trying to dress as an adult when she was maybe four – and he’s wide awake. It’s some sort of flare from Ellone. He feels for a moment like he’s about to pass out, like he did just before the Laguna dreams, but the weakness passes.
When he sits up and looks around, he sees that Zell and Selphie and Seifer have woken up as well.
“What the hell?” Zell mumbles, rubbing his eyes.
Hello?
It’s not really a voice. There’s no sound. But it’s there, somehow, in Squall’s mind.
“Can you hear that?” he asks.
Hello? Where am I? Can anyone hear me?
It sounds frightened. It sounds like Ellone.
Chapter Nine
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WHAT IS GOING ON
HOW DID I MISS THE LAST TWO CHAPTERS OF THIS
AAAAAAAAAAAA I am going to go read those first now.
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oh for crying out loud
“I just expect you to be Squall,” she says, sitting down. “I’ll be happy if you manage that. You’re off to a great start, by the way.” THIS WHOLE CONVERSATION. Rinoaaaaaa ♥
oh my gosh they woke her up whaaaat oh man oh man
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I'm so glad you're still enjoying this!
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Ugh, ugh, I love these guys. I really, really enjoyed the quiet scene by the fire.
He can’t try talking to her with the others around; he’d feel ridiculous.
Squallllllllllllll ugh ugggggh
“Ellone,” he says, very quietly, and then he can’t say anything else; his throat feels too tight.
I CAN'T HANDLE THE FEELINGS I'M HAVING
He stays where he is, sitting in silence, surrounded by her past.
This is a beautiful line.
“You can sit here if you want,” he says, “but I’m not very good company. You shouldn’t expect much.”
“I just expect you to be Squall,” she says, sitting down. “I’ll be happy if you manage that. You’re off to a great start, by the way.”
She is so charming! They are so great!!
“Wow,” Rinoa says. “Oh, wow. That was supposed to be a joke.”
Oh my gosh, this whole pep talk / argument was so perfect.
I’d be sadder if I didn’t have anything to be sad about.
And this is perfect Rinoa! Oh, you write these characters so well, and remind me how much I love them.
Selphie is beating up a tree, although Squall finds it hard to imagine it did anything to her. Zell is standing nearby, applauding enthusiastically, the sound muffled by his gauntlets.
I LOVE THEMMMM
After a moment, Zell lets his hands fall to his sides. “Hey, d’you think Seifer would let me borrow his gunblade?”
and I so badly want to see this attempted exchange of fighting lessons. amazing.
AND HOW YOU USED THE SONG, OMG OMGGGGG