Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VIII and everything associated with it does not belong to me…
AN: This was written a long time ago, and for some reason never posted by me? How weird.
Chasing Gravity
"there is no up or down in space."
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When she's dreaming, she's flying.
Rinoa is flying on Hyne's wings – white wings, black wings, holy wings, broken wings. She's always soaring in the sky, head titled back as her wings take her where she needs to go, her body skimming the grass and flower fields below. The scenery changes, and flowers turns to tree stumps and then to blossoming trees themselves. Her wings know what to do and before she can even think of it, she's swimming amongst the clouds. The sun's rays don't reach far enough to burn her skin and she turns on her back, gazing up into the clear sky. It should be cold up here, she thinks, but just beyond the sky she can see stars – and the thought is wiped from her mind.
Below her, she can see Squall running to keep up. She laughs at his efforts, her eyes caught on the Griever pendant swinging at his neck, and swoops down to catch him in her arms. He comes with her gladly, smiling into her eyes, and holds her close, her arms around him and vice versa – the feel of his skin on hers is like grasping Heaven within her arms.
They swoop above the clouds – high above them, passing the glare of the sun and the hold the sky has on their world. They open their eyes to the black abyss all around them, sprinkled with burning – fading, growing, dying – stars, and she lets Squall go. He gazes around them, and before he can open his mouth to speak, she shushes him with a finger on his lips. The chain around her neck floats up to eyelevel, the two rings there gently clinking against each other and she watches them for a moment, reminded of something familiar but still so far away.
Squall's Griever does the same and her eyes switch to it, fascinated – she reaches out to run a finger over it, marvelling at the silver glint and thinks, This is Squall. This is Griever – Squall. GrieverSquall. Together.
She doesn't question her train of thought, just laughs at the revelations and pushes away from her Knight, dancing amidst the universe, free from the watchful eyes of the world. After a moment, Squall joins her and twirls her and they spin, arm in arm, until they can't see straight and the stars are trails of light at the edges of their eyes. Gaia floats somewhere light-years away, and they take off on their own adventure.
Gravity has no hold over them – there is no up or down in space, Rinoa says, smiling, laughing, dancing.
Here in outer space, they are not Squall or Rinoa; not Knight or Sorceress, just two humans, man and a woman hopelessly in love – hopelessly bound.
When Rinoa dreams, she flies, free on Hyne's cursed wings.
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AN2: In the FF8 world, Hyne is not viewed as a God but more as the Devil, escaping his own creation after not being able to defeat them. A part of him that he split apart was the magic of sorceresses, apparently signified by the feathers you can see around the sorceresses in the game. So in the sense of where this drabble leads is that Rinoa has the wings of Hyne, who is viewed as cursed/evil/whatever you want to view it as, but these wings and his powers are the ones that allow her to be free. The Griever/Squall comparison is also something I think Rinoa could notice (since his Griever ring is what she had to remind herself of him for the longest time) in the early days of her collapsing under the pressure of being a Sorceress. Yes, I am a firm believer of R=U. Just a little side note on here to explain my thinking behind this.