Alter
DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VIII © Square-Enix, not me. This story is mine.
(one puff of breath is never enough – existence is my absinthe)
She has to remind herself. To keep breathing.
It feels so strange sometimes, breathing—drawing the air through her nose and mouth and feeling her chest expand, contract, expand, contract, the fabric of her shirt straining as her breasts push against it. Her hair shifting with her movement and tickling her face. She always has to push it out of her eyes.
Take another breath. And another breath.
She wonders what purpose she's supposed to serve to them.
Zell is everyone's friend, hers and everyone's and everyone's and everyone's; Quistis is kind but she can't escape the feeling that the woman is always watching her, always measuring and judging. Selphie—Selphie is always off in her own little world; a world for only herself and Irvine.
Squall is hers, but he is more theirs than hers. She's the newcomer to the tight web that binds them.
She's sure that they know this, although they are polite enough to not rub it in. That she's an outsider.
If she didn't remind herself to breathe—if she stopped—she wonders if any of them would miss her. She wonders what would happen after her forgetful lungs ceased working. She hopes Squall would be sad. She knows he wouldn't like it—to be gone is to be left as other people's memories, something he hates like he's still a child—but she wonders how he would mourn.
It's a dark and morbid thought. She reminds herself often to breathe.
—I'll be your knight, Rinoa—
She doesn't wear rings on a chain around her neck to float and jingle anymore—it's too nightmarish. She has bad dreams. So many bad dreams. Running across the fields for Squall who isn't there, floating through nothing and fading into static. Her mother and father and friends and everyone in Timber dead in front of her. Ultimecia whispering into her ear, and her body moving like on puppet strings.
The world is warped, and she must remind herself constantly. To breathe. As though she's still watching the last of her air steam on the front of a crystal dome protecting her from death.
She wonders what purpose she's supposed to serve to them, to her companions. She is not the brave one, the strong one, the smart one—she just causes more trouble than she's worth. And was partially responsible for getting Squall out of his shell.
A good thing, but not to be attributed to her alone. They are soldiers, and she—
She wonders if she would feel accepted. If she could breathe. On her own. If they were to call her name as if they loved her.
If she could ignore the feeling of being in constant flux. And live simply as Rinoa-their-dear-friend instead of a sorceress who has to remind herself. Constantly. To breathe.