Prologue
I'll be here...
Why...
I'll be 'waiting'... here...
For what?
I'll be waiting... for you... so...
If you come here...
You'll find me...
I promise.
Promise?
Squall stood alone. A vast desert surrounded him, its ground dry and cracked. There was no sun in the sky, but a featureless blanket of darkness.
"I am alone,"
A shooting star darts across the sky, and Squall catches a glimpse of it. He quickly faces left, but the shooting star was gone, leaving a trail of white in the sky. He frowns slightly.
"Rinoa," Squall remembered, "where're you?"
Squall began walking. He wanted to find Rinoa - he had to. He started walking forward, not knowing where he was headed.
For hours Squall walked the desert, only to find more desert terrain rising out of the horizon. It felt as though he was going round in circles, though he knew that he was walking straight. His knees were buckling now, and Rinoa was nowhere to be found. As he took his next step, his legs gave way, and Squall fell onto dry, rough dirt, his elbows grazed. He gasped slightly from the pain.
"Am I… Am I alone again?" Squall whispered in a mingle of fear and despair. He could not stand the thought of losing Rinoa. He was not prepared to return to his life of solitude and loneliness. He hated them, and he began to hate Rinoa for leaving him so suddenly, denying him his supposed happiness. "I… I need to be strong…"
Squall's vision began to fade, and he felt an overwhelming exhaustion suddenly. Breathing became hard. Squall was gasping for air. It was hard to keep his eyes open. In the distance, Rinoa seemed to be waving to him in a field of flowers – a beckoning wave not, but a farewell.
"Rinoa," Squall called out with all the strength he could muster, but it was only barely louder than a whisper. His strength had left him, and he faded into darkness – falling in darkness.
Squall awoke on a cold hard floor, subtly startled. He sat up, and beads of sweat trickled down his forehead. A photo of a beaming Rinoa stood on his desk, beside his ornate "Lionheart" necklace. Squall reached for the framed photograph and grabbed it. Holding it near his chest with both hands, he felt a warmth that he hadn't felt for the past thirteen years.
"Rinoa…"
-
Rinoa tumbled and turned in her bed, not daring to sleep. She feared her powers would manifest again in her sleep - it might not leave something as simple as a wrecked bedroom again.
Rinoa knew she could not contain nor command her new sorceress powers, and that everyone around her was a liability – helpless victims of her lethal powers should they begin to manifest themselves. She knew that she would have to lead a life alone if she did not want any harm to come upon her friends, but she was also afraid of loneliness.
She knew Squall was – too. His seeming impeccable shell is a façade – a strong defense that prevents damage to his tender feelings inside. He used to shut himself up away from everyone, so that he would not become close to someone and create a dependency on them. Squall had changed tremendously since then, and has shown willingness to open up to his closer friends. Rinoa knew that, however, if she were to suddenly express desire to leave, or had left suddenly, Squall would retreat back into that emotional shell of his and fortify his 'defenses' even further.
It was a hard decision to make for Rinoa. She would be causing chaos either way, and there seemed to be no way to avoid it. She did not want to talk to Squall about it, for she knew Squall would abandon everything he had to be her knight. Moreover, should she become an enemy of the world somehow, she did not want to drag Squall down with her.
Rinoa resolved to make a decision – she was determined to do it tonight. Tears began to well up in her eyes, like it always did every night, and she realised again, the seeming impossibility of making a choice. Rinoa shut her eyes and let her tears flow down her cheeks, only to have more of it well up in her eyes, like always. However, something was different this time – she had come upon a decision.