hyne's gate
-irishais-
ONE.
He runs, boots beating against the rocky mountainside, slipping, falling, tumbling down, skin gashing open as his arm clips a boulder in his free fall. It takes Seifer entirely too long to regain his footing, longer than is Garden acceptable, but Garden never trained him for this, never trained him for a mad flight from a madder witch-
She is on his heels, and screaming her death knell.
Seifer runs and runs and runs, and tries so hard not to look back, Hyperion in its sheath on his back, beating hard against his spine, run boy run. The cliff turns to scraggly forest, the castle recedes in the distance; when he dares to look over his shoulder, the storm is exploding around it, the battle raging on, you can do it, Leonhart, he thinks absurdly, grabbing hold of a tree to keep his momentum around a sharp corner and keep himself from plunging over the edge of an abrupt precipice. Blood drips in his wake, a trail of his scent. Any second now, hellhounds will be after him, baying at his heels, and they will drag him back in pieces.
He needs to stop, needs to catch his breath, knows that the second he stops, he is dead, because her monsters are nearly as terrifying as she is, ferocious and bigger than the dragons that hide in these hills, nasty beasts.
Seifer runs, runs, runs. The universe bends, collapses in on itself- he is on a path on a mountainside and a second later he is in a gray desert hell, and then the mountain is back, the green trees too technicolor-bright. His magic surges in his veins, his heart threatens to explode from his chest.
Thunder howls like a call to war.
He roars, wants to draw Hyperion and turn back, kill the witch himself, but this is one fight he knows he will never be able to win.
It's up to Leonhart, up to everyone- all Seifer can do is flee, flee (like the miserable koward that you are, you pathetik kur-)
No, no, no- he chances a second look over his shoulder, expecting her on his heels, expecting her teeth bared, her claws out, her wings stretched like hell has emptied and the devil is here. The path behind him is empty.
A lightning strike splits a tree three feet from him, and he hurls himself into the air, over the smoking limb that has crashed in his path. Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop, you cannot stop, he orders himself, you are not allowed to stop-
Kill her, kill her, someone please kill her-
The world folds, folds again, an origami nightmare. His legs feel stuck into the earth, every step like dragging concrete, and when he reaches out to something, anything, the blue gleam of Esthar breaking through the trees, his fingers pull, stretch, turn his hand into a disjointed nightmare parody of what it should be.
( n, Ultimecia's venomous sneer at her victory)
No, no, no- they can't fail, they're the fucking heroes, they're not allowed to fail-
It is a relief, when the shockwave finally comes, and blows him over the edge.
(this is the end. finally. he lets himself fall, eyes closed, and embraces death.)
(forgive me father, for i have sinned.)
xx
She lost her guard ages ago, horse beating a path through the forest at the far edge of the city, and her riding clothes blend with the scenery, hair dark, horse chestnut and all but invisible in the woods. If she keeps going up, up, she'll come to the temple of Hyne at the peak, a place of immense power. If she goes left, there is a warren of caves that make for an excellent hiding spot, best when one is attempting to evade the royal guard.
Xu has only been to the peak once, a place that struck her as terribly sad, and haunted. No one goes up there unless there are rituals that call for it- most of the magic Esthar's mages work can be handled at any of the dozen ceremonial spaces within the city boundaries.
She's been to the caves hundreds of times, ever since she was a child. Her keepers will know to look for her there. So she chooses up- if nothing else, even if she doesn't summit the mountain, Xu can lose herself in the trees for a while, in the peaceful solitude that nature offers. It is not the palace, and it is not a thousand people begging for her Royal Highness' attention.
(She only has so much to give; what part of personal space is so hard to understand? Xu just wants to be left alone occasionally, given a bit of slack in the leash that comes with royalty.)
Up she goes, her horse slowing and picking his way carefully through the path, the space between the trees irregular and narrow. The quiet is a blessing, falling so abruptly and absolute, that for a while, Xu has trouble pinpointing what is out of place.
It is only when the stillness is broken by her horse stepping on a twig and snapping it, sending a squirrel skittering away in fright, that Xu realizes what is wrong.
The birds don't sing.
She stills her horse, and turns in her saddle- bear? Beast? Dragon, maybe, come creeping out of its nest in the middle of the day. But they are mostly on the other side of the mountain, and she has never seen one during daylight hours.
She's never seen one, period, save in scrolls of legend, but her father's men have embellished tales of all the things that haunt these hills. Suddenly, she feels very foolish for having left her guard at a gallop the second they had gotten free of Esthar's city limits.
At the peak of the mountain, thunder clouds gather. She stares at it in awe- there is something there, something- is it a castle? Xu shields her eyes with one hand, and tries to see it better. But the trick of the light is gone with the next flash of lightning, and Xu turns her mount, back reluctantly down the mountainside- the last thing she needs is to get caught out here in a downpour, or worse.
Her horse refuses to obey after a few steps, all four hooves planting solidly in the ground, quaking with fear, eyes rolling wildly back at her, ears flat against his skull. Terror- a snake, maybe? He has never been fond of them. But the ground is clear.
It's just the storm, it has to be- but they've been caught in downpours before, and thunder has never bothered her companion.
Xu clicks her tongue, squeezes her thighs into his flanks, urges him on.
"What's wrong with you, why won't you-" She shuts up as her words fill the silence.
Her voice sounds strange, drawn out like music, and when she lifts her head, the world is...shifting, her horse's neck seems longer, the trees are meaner, vicious with their grasping limbs. Something screams.
The world explodes.
Her horse bucks, panics, hurls her onto the ground. She lands stunned, pain radiating from her back, watching the horse bolt down the mountainside riderless, terrified. Xu reaches, as if she can catch those flying reins from where she lays, barely able to breathe, much less chase down her fleeing mount.
Moving seems impossible, but she makes herself do it, rolling onto hands and knees, the pain receding as she forces her limbs into functional order, centering itself as a tight knot in between her shoulders. It is more pain than she has ever been in before, but she keeps herself like that until her tongue decides it wants to work and lets her stammer out the few syllables of a healing spell.
The agony eases, and she can breathe again, reaching back to rub at the remaining ache.
There is a grunt and an impact nearby, startling enough that Xu is on her feet and retreating for some sort of cover, half of a basic defensive spell called up before she realizes it is just a body. Xu lets go of the spell, pushing long hair back from her face where it has been freed from the elaborate updo her ladies in waiting had forced it into this morning. One of her combs has broken, an expensive ornamental thing with rubies and diamonds, sharp when her fingers graze it. Xu yanks it free, stuffing it in the pocket of her riding habit, staring warily at the intruder.
At first, the body seems nothing more than gray leather, a coat someone has flung from a great distance away, but it moves when she rises and totters a few steps toward it, a breath and a whimper. If it's someone come to kidnap her, they're doing a poor job of it.
"Hello," she says, the word croaking out, but out it comes, no distorted echo this time. Xu swallows, tries again. "Hello- are you alright?"
No answer.
Closer inspection confirms it's a man, a striking profile even half-submerged in the dirt, blond hair flat against his head. Certainly not a native of Esthar.
She spares a glance for the mountaintop, fearful of the storm- but it's gone, dissipated like it never happened, leaving only blue sky with the usual circle of clouds that linger at the peak, clear enough that Xu can see the outline of the temple from here. What was that storm?
If it was a storm. Maybe a ritual her father had ordered performed, some cleansing ceremony or another. Or darker magic, the kind that she is not yet privy to, the secrets she will only be granted when she wears the title empress, and rules over her country.
Hyne bless us, Xu sighs, and nudges the man in the dirt with the tip of her boot. Nothing. No movement. The lone wince may have been the herald of his passing.
And wouldn't that would be wonderful- what a way to spend her precious moments of freedom from the imperial palace- Father, guess what I found in the woods this afternoon while ditching my guards? A dead man!
She inches closer, and reaches down to touch his shoulder, shaking him as brusquely as she dares. "Hello-?"
He opens his eyes and lunges at her, hand reaching out quickly to grab her wrist before Xu can retreat, his grip bone-crushingly strong, pulling tears to his eyes before she stomps on his arm to free herself, a reflexive action that surprises her as much as it seems to surprise him.
His noise of pain is indignant. Xu wrenches her wrist away, rubbing at it with her left hand. She keeps a knife in her saddlebags, small and ceremonial, but sharp and serviceable nonetheless, but her saddlebags are gone along with her horse.
She is defenseless royalty against a madman. For the first time in this whole strange encounter, Xu actually feels afraid.
"Who are you? Identify yourself!" she orders, trying to call up the tone her father uses, the one that makes people do as he says immediately, without any hesitation. Her fear creeps in, though, a tiny quaver. Xu curses herself for it, and tries to make herself as imposing as possible. "I'll have you know there are a half dozen imperial guardsmen on their way right now, so I would just... just lay there, if I were you."
Oh, yes. That's intimidating.
xx
He's hallucinating. He's hit his head harder than he thought- or he's hit his head just hard enough. Xu is standing there in what looks like a ridiculous costume, and she's threatening him, but there's no conviction behind it, no power in her voice.
"Christ, Xu, shut up," he moans, fingers probing his scalp for gushing wounds. His face hurts, cheek tender, but that may have to do with the Almasy-shaped hole he seems to have left in the ground.
He stands, and pats himself for Hyperion, suddenly not in his grip. He turns wildly, regretting every motion, something is definitely broken, but he can deal with that later- where is Hyperion?
A silver gleam in a tree six feet over, and Seifer drags himself toward it, limping with every step he puts on his right foot, each footfall a wave of pain that alternates with the wheeze in his chest and the scraping of at least one broken rib. His gunblade is buried a good six inches into a tree.
Perfect.
He rips it free with a bellow that probably only helps in tearing muscle further, a sound that he suddenly reconsiders as soon as it leaves his lips, weapon out before him in defense- where is she, where is she, where is the bitch?
There is no Ultimecia, nothing but a handful of bird calls and Xu's indignant spluttering as he limps his way back to her.
"-dare you speak to me like that, I'll have your mouth washed out with lye, your tongue pulled out, how dare you-"
He grabs her arm again, bicep firm in his grip. "I don't know what game you're playing, but you've got a squad nearby, right? Because we have to go, right now."
"Unhand me!"
She wrenches at his grip, tries to dig in her heels, but there's no force, no effort behind it- and wasn't her hair shorter? He remembers it hacked to her chin.
Fuck it, he's got more important things to worry about than Xu's hairstyle and the fact that she's clearly gone off the deep end once and for all (he knew it was coming, no one is that uptight all the time without eventually snapping.)
He yanks her up and hurls her over his shoulder, and runs, runs as best as he can, which is nowhere near as quickly as he was going before, but the city is near, the forest is thinning out; he's run with worse, been hit by worse, his second field exam comes to mind, hauling Trepe back to Garden with a bullet wound- his limping gait will have to hold out until he can go somewhere and probably pass out.
Ultimecia's castle is behind him, her mayhem ended, and either she's dead, or Squall and company are, and Seifer really, really doesn't want to think about what that means for him.
Xu is screaming now, yelling for help as he crashes through the trees, into an open stretch of land that turns into the outskirts of a town- where the hell is he, wasn't he heading for Esthar? Did he run down the wrong side of the fucking mountain and end up in Trabia?
Either way, it's civilization, and it's somewhere he can hide.
He pulls up short, though, when six very large men on horseback surround him, swords drawn and all pointing at critical parts of his anatomy. Hyperion is up, ready to hack his way through the second they give him an opening-
"Guards, arrest this man!" Xu bellows, and it's too much, he can't deal with her craziness anymore, dumping her onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Whoever these guys are, they're not SeeD. They don't wear any Garden colors, and he doesn't think Trabia's ever had horses as part of its cavalry.
"What the hell is going on here?" he demands. "Move! Let me through, I need to-"
"You're under arrest for kidnapping Her Royal Highness-"
"Xu, call off your dogs-"
He doesn't see who hits him with the spell, only that it slams into his skull, dropping him face first into the grass.