A/N: Highly, highly experimental idea-slash-storytelling method. I'm either channeling too much House of Leaves, or I have finally cracked.
something wicked this way comes
-irishais-
There is no good or bad; just opinion and perspective.
-Squall Leonhart
(iteration one)
How much longer?
Not long now.
Will it hurt?
More than you can imagine.
That's not what I wanted to hear.
But it's the truth.
at first, it comes on slowly, a whisper, a breeze, a sigh in her ear that tells her that something is there, something waits, something is just a little off, and then it builds, builds, builds until there are voices everywhere, but only this one voice matters, the one telling her that her time is now her time is now
her time is now
and her scream goes on forever.
xx
She comes to herself, slowly, carefully, the petals unpeeling from a bloody red rose. The first thing she is aware of is the silence, a rush of nothing and everything all at once, a vast knowing of things.
(who who who)
The power is there, so profound that she can reach out and run her fingers through it, gathering the magic in her hands and feeling it hum through her very core.
(Quistis calls it source magic, and she wants to laugh, because Quistis doesn't know how right she is.)
who are you?
The question hangs, an unanswered nuisance buzzing around her head.
She hears the clomp, clomp, clomp of a man's boots against the floor, and the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile.
"Rinoa?"
xx
there
is
something
waiting
in
the
shadows
xx
It's so easy to persuade him to go to Centra with her, where his matron waits in a crumbling lighthouse, the damsel that no longer needs rescuing. The boat ride is long and choppy, and the saltwater that blows against her lips is bitter(sweet).
She laughs in the morning air, and he watches her curiously.
(Soon, the voice tells her, he will need to know.)
"How good to see you," Edea says, and her hair is a streaming black veil around her shoulders. "This is such a nice surprise."
Squall hugs her, the most affection he gives anyone outside of Rinoa, and she waits, patiently, not touching the older woman.
The magic hums, louder, singing out to kin in blood and darkness, and she tries to suppress it, just a little.
No, the magic tells her, no no no.
Edea looks at her with wise dark eyes.
xx
"No!" she screams, fighting and pulling against Squall's grip as Dr. Kadowaki advances upon her with the Odine bangle, the metal glinting ugly silver in the dim light. "No, I won't, you can't put that on me!"
"Rinoa-" and she hates him for saying anything at all, "you have to. Just for a little while. Until you can calm it down."
The very thought of what the Odine metal represents, being cut off from everything, makes her eyes sting with tears and fury. "You're supposed to protect me!" she cries, and he pulls her into a fierce warrior's embrace, pinning her upper arms to her body. She claws at his back ineffectually, her nails snagging on the thin weave of his shirt.
"Please," he says, "please. For both of us."
Kadowaki hovers, waiting for the commander's say-so.
"I can control it," she whispers.
"I know. But-"
She tears herself from his grasp and the walls shudder with the force of the magic pouring off of her- the magic burns up in her veins, yes yes yes, and she pushes against the wall leading outside, Squall lunging after her, and it parts for her, disintegrating under her hands.
(for a half-second she is nowhere, and she is afraid she has failed.)
But she is suddenly outside, running across the dead grass. Squall is yelling for her to stop- she chances a glance over her shoulder. There is a hole in the side of Garden that she has made, and he is clambering through it, running after her.
run run run, the voice urges her, and she heeds it, tearing across the open field to the sea.
She has just enough time to think that she can barely swim when her wings explode out from behind her and she is flying.