Her Mother's Eyes
By Sephiroth 4000
It started with a movie.
As movies went, it wasn't a terribly good one.
The lighting was shoddy, the costumes worn, the dialogue laughable. Not for nothing was it on extremely late at
night. If it hadn't been from the fact
that her seven year old daughter had once again had trouble sleeping, Julia
would not have been up watching it. But
watch it she did, idly stroking Rinoa's thick black hair, trying to coax her
little girl into a deeper sleep, so she could get her off to bed without Rinoa
waking up.
And then the Sorceress' Knight bounded onto the screen, resplendent in armour,
armed with a gunblade.
Stiffening in surprise, she gently set down her daughter's head on the rose
brocaded couch, and leaned forward, eyes intent on the Knight's face. Blue-black hair brushed his armoured
shoulders, and he swung his blade in an extravagant gesture as he battled an
alarmingly realistic Red Dragon. Green eyes flashed in excitement, fear and
anger.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, and slid to the floor, heart swelling within
her chest. It beat with odd irregular
jerks, and tears stung her eyes.
It couldn't be true. He was alive
after all these years. He hadn't. . .he
had survived. . .
Her heart and soul singing with happiness, Julia scrambled- she who was
so careful to look nothing less then graceful – scrambled to her feet in her
haste. She had to find him. The movie had been made in Trabia; she could
catch a train to Timber and from there travel to Fisherman's Horizon, and then
take the flight to Trabia. . .
Hurrying away to fling clothes into a suitcase, she did not spare a single
glance for the small girl curled up fast asleep on the couch.
* * * * *
At first they thought she had just gone out.
She wasn't missed until her husband awoke the next morning, finding his
wife gone, and his little girl abandoned.
However, it wasn't unknown for her to simply take an early morning walk,
and sometimes she couldn't shift Rinoa back to her bedroom without waking her,
so left her on the couch. But days,
then weeks, then months passed, and still the young girl remained motherless,
the husband bereft.
Just left. As if he was such a monster
that she couldn't face him for a divorce.
Up and went.
It left General Caraway a shattered man.
His love had not only gone, she had disappeared, taking his pride and
affection with her. For his daughter
all he had was duty, for as much as he tried, whenever he looked at her, all he
could see was her mother's eyes, eyes he had adored so. Indeed, the girl was the very spit of her
lost mother, the same dark hair, the same creamy complexion, the same dark
slanting eyes. Her mother's eyes.
Years passed, and a girl slowly changed, growing older, more mature, and looked
ever more like her mother. He tried, oh
he tried so hard it hurt Rinoa to see it, but still all he could see was her
mother. Even as she understood, she
grew to hate him for it. Couldn't he
see that she was more his daughter, then the mother who had so easily abandoned
her? Why couldn't he see?
And as she grew, she could feel something was not right. Her father was a high ranking General in the
largest army in the world. Yet the
mobilisations around Deling, the forced conscriptions on every man, five years
of his life was taken to serve Galbadia; it couldn't be right. Especially since there was nobody who could
threaten Galbadia. Balamb? Too
small. Esthar? Seventeen years of silence, and no sign of
them ever breaking it.
Dollet? The remnant of a broken
empire. SeeD? Them? They were
mercenaries. Very expensive too; no
nation could raise enough money to hire enough of them to make any real difference.
So why. . .
And why did her distant father consult with President Deling to forge ever more
harsh policies?
Eventually one day. . .she too left.
Ironically, she fled to Timber, unknowingly following her mother's
footsteps. Timber was the last place
Julia Heartilly Caraway had been seen.
But she was not as cruel as her mother.
She left him some word of her.
He came home to an empty house, his only greeting a thin sheet of pastel paper
sealed in it's matching envelope.
Unsealing it, eyes narrowed, he read:
Daddy,
What you're doing is wrong. And I will
stop what Galbadia is doing as best as I can.
Why don't you care anymore? I've read
the newspapers about you. You used to
resist the idea of invasion. You used
to try to use your influence with the President to stop all the killing. But you don't care anymore.
When I was younger, you told me Mom had died.
But she didn't, did she? From
things people have said, a hint here, a hint there, I know that she left
you. Is that why you don't care
anymore?
I can't help you; you won't let me. She
hurt you so, and I look too much like her, I've seen the photos. So I'm going to meet up with people who I
can help. Don't try to find me.
Your daughter,
Rinoa Heartilly.
She had signed with her mother's name.
He realised straight away that she had done it not in rejection of him;
but because he had rejected her. Finally he just smiled, hands clenching hard on the paper bearing
her fine lines of script. His smile was
bitter, but was touched with more then a hint of pride.
It looked like his daughter had inherited more then her mother's eyes.
Author's Note: I know, it was a bit of a weird fic, but it jumped into my
head and wouldn't go away. I was just
thinking though, a lot of people have written about 'that summer' with Rinoa
and Seifer, yet I haven't read a single fic that deals with her previous
life. Rinoa isn't really a favourite
character, but I felt she was a bit neglected.
Like my other fic dealing with Yuffie, who isn't really a favourite
character either. But I couldn't help
it! This was pretty short for me, and
odd. A little bit of a different style
too, at least that's what I think. Um,
sorry, I'm babbling. You might say this
is a bit of a spinoff of my AU fic, Echoes of Time, but I think that you can
read it as a purely FF8 fic. So
yeah. E-mails to Sephiroth_4000@hotmail.com Domo
arigatou gozaimasu for reading this peculiar piece of fiction.