Well ... I'm back, people. You could say so. Sometimes the writing bug just grabs you by the ear and shakes you until words fall out your brain and you have no choice but to type them out and post them on fanfiction areas - be it fanfiction.net, your personal homepage or anything else. -grimaces- Well, it got me hard. So I've got no choice but to slave away at paper with pen and at the computer keyboard typing until my fingers fall off doing 'The Elemental Cycle'. -grimaces again, massaging her aching fingers- Don't be too hard one me. I haven't played FF8 that much, so there are bound to be some errors. When you find one, point it out to me, but please, please don't flame. I hate flamers - do they have so much spare time they can spend it writing tons of stuff that essentially consist of 'I hate [topic]. I really, really [expletive] [topic]. I'd like to [insert unimaginable act here] and [insert unimaginable act here] so that your [expletive] fanfic would [insert appropriate ending]. [topic] is a stupid [expletive] [expletive] and you're a [expletive] idiot for wanting to write about it.' That's really dumb. It doesn't help the writer at all. -grimaces again, this time at her babbling- Well anyway, get on with the story. -shoos reader from note section-
The Elemental Cycle I: Wind Spirit
'No!'
Screams, yells of fright. The smell of burning wood, the loud chant of the mob outside.
'Leave her alone! She's just a child, for Hyne's sake!'
'Bitch! You gave birth to a monster, a demon, and still you deny it?'
'Burn her!'
A harsh voice raised above the crowd. 'Let her husband deal with the bitch!'
'Yes!'
'Kara! Out of my way!'
The little girl started at the sound of her mother's name.
Pleading voice - 'She's just a child ... please, Lavan!'
'Mama?' - a small voice. The little form crawled from behind the stove where she had hidden, looking out.
'Stay back!'
'Mama?'
'Lavan, no!'
The girl let out a little shriek as the man grabbed her, holding her aloft. 'The demon-child, Kara!' he yelled, and lifted the girl to the light coming from outside. In the firelight, her features were clearly ... strange. Silvery-gray hair shone in the light, and the girl's reddish-pink eyes gleamed slightly. Her skin was unnaturally pale, even lent false light by the torches.
Other than that, she was a perfectly normal three-year-old girl, mouth open in a wail. And to the superstitious crowd, a demon, ready to curse them, to rain destruction down on them.
The man flung her back into the house roughly, her head cracking on the wall. Kara tried to slap him, black hair flying, but Lavan shoved her aside and stepped into the house. Some other villagers grabbed the woman and restrained her.
Lavan drew a dagger from his belt, eyes gleaming. The little girl stumbled away from him, tripping over a chair and falling to the floor. He raised the slim weapon above her as she crouched, rendered immobile by shock and fear.
A bright flash: the descending dagger ... and a flash of movement.
The dagger sank into flesh, blood spurting out. The woman Kara kicked at the man, the dagger buried up to its hilt in her arm. Lavan pulled it out, eliciting a gasp of pain from Kara, and tried to fend her off with one hand while stabbing down with the other.
His aim wasn't very good, and the girl tried to squirm away. The stab turned into a slash, slicing a deep cut across the left side of her face, catching on her eye, leaving a wound that would mar her face from left eyebrow to cheekbone. The girl screamed and stumbled back against the wall, hands coming up to clutch her bloodied face.
The man howled in fury and brought the dagger up again, ready to drive the knife through the remains of the ruined eye and up into the child's brain. The dagger descended -
-And the man collapsed under the blow of the heavy pot. The woman, momentarily forgotten, had used that moment to her advantage. Now she staggered forward, blood running from the cut in her arm, and tried to pick up the girl.
'Child, child .. ssh, it's gonna be okay. Come on ...' The little girl kept on wailing, tears dripping from the one eye left to her as the woman gathered the small, shaking body into the protective circle of her arms.
A hissing sound filled the air. Previously nonexistent flames shot up outside the windows, licking at the tattered curtains. The woman swiveled in horror. The house was made of wood - it would burn easily.
The yells outside suddenly became clear. All too clear.
'Burn them! Burn the witch and the demon; they killed Lavan! Burn!'
Edea Kramer hurried down the village path towards the fiery conflagration in the distance. Her fledgling sorceress powers, normally nebulous and almost unable to be used, had sharpened, sensation along her body like flames burning her nerves. A sure sign that there was a child in trouble nearby.
It was an oddity of her sorceress powers. They were very weak - extremely so, but whenever there was a child in danger nearby, they would abruptly sharpen, her sensations heightened.
Witch! Demon-child! Burn them!
Surprise; she never had been able to read mind before. This wasn't good. It meant that whoever was in danger out there, he or she was probably in danger of death.
The scene burst on her at once. A mob, gathered in front of a little wooden house with a thatched roof. Composed of uneducated, unknowledgeable farmers, for the most part. Superstitious farmers. Very superstitious ones, from the tableau in front of her.
She intercepted one of the people, a middle-aged woman with dark hair, who was gesturing wildly and almost yelling to a fellow villager.
'Excuse me, but what is happening?' The last word came out squeaked as her senses sharpened to the point of pain. There are people in the house! There are children in the house!
The woman turned to stare at her, then replied in a rapid-fire flood of words - 'Kara and her child, there - the idiots say the little one's a demon, but you'd be a fool to believe 'em.' She jerked a finger at the people around her. 'Ignorant, superstitious fools ... I be the teacher, I'd know - that girl's no demon, I tell ya. The fool father, lost tonsa gambling an' he goes an' blames it on 'is girl.'
'She cursed us!' one of the villagers piped up. 'Since she was born, nothing good's come to our village!'
Edea ignored them, but the schoolteacher snorted and said, 'See what I mean? Idiots. I doubt they even know when the little tyke was born - she's not from around here.' The villager glowered.
Edea shoved her way through the people with sorceress-enhanced strength. She reached the little clearing in front of the house, where nobody dared go, surveyed the situation for a moment, and then called out a single charged word.
'Water!'
A large bubble of water appeared above the house; Edea slashed her arm down sharply, and it burst, spraying water all over the burning house and dousing most of the flames. The crowd gasped collectively, and retreated.
From the ruined house staggered a little girl. Her hands and feet were burned, and she had probably been shielded by someone, judging by the burned areas. A deep cut ran from her left eyebrow to cheekbone, and the left eye was a ruined mess, dripping fluid and blood on her bloody dress.
'Mama?' Pale skin gave her a ghostly appearance, like a spirit. The child didn't look demonic; she looked sick.
There was a little stirring among the crowd - mothers, maybe. Mothers naturally reacted to children who looked sick, abused or pathetic, and the girl looked all three, not to mention starved and in obvious pain, both emotional and physical. The stocky teacher brushed past Edea, heading purposefully into the charred cottage. It galvanized Edea, who held her arms out to the child.
'Come here, little one. Come on ...' The girl stared at Edea with one wide, frightened red eye. After what seemed like an eternity, she stumbled forward and into Edea's embrace. The sorceress lifted the girl - she was so light! - and rocked her slightly, murmuring an ancient Centran lullaby. The girl buried her face in Edea's shoulder and started to sob.
Ahead of her, the teacher re-entered the circle of light cast by the torches the mob carried, lugging a body. 'Kara,' the woman said grimly. 'Looks like she died protecting her little one.'
The crowd stirred uneasily. 'Kill the demon-child!' a man exhorted. Nobody moved.
It was a fragile balance, Edea knew as she turned to face them. And she had to tip it in her favor.
'Look at her,' she called out. 'Look at this girl. Do you think she looks like a demon?'
The same man interrupted her rudely. 'Yea - look at her! See the hair, the red eyes, you be outsider, you don't know her, but we know - she can see right through you. Devil eyes, those! Right uncanny.'
Edea ignored his interruption, stroking the girl's hair gently, then looked back at the crowd. 'Appearances can be deceiving. She is special - no more devil than those with black hair or red hair.'
'Special hell! Specially evil! Demon!' the man flung back. The mob roiled. The balance tipped. Edea took a step backwards, determined to protect the child to the finish.
'Stop!' - a commanding voice from the direction of the path. Edea's head came up. Can it be...?
The crowd parted as a wedge formation of people pushed through determinedly. In the lead, Cid Kramer smiled at his wife, then caught his breath at the sight of the battered and bloody girl. The other SeeDs fanned out, among them some Edea knew - older children from her orphanage.
'Edea,' he greeted her seriously.
'Cid,' she responded. 'Get us out of here - the child ...' she shifted the girl in her arms to show Cid the ruined eye, the disfiguring cut and the bruises on her arms. Cid's mouth tightened in anger.
Turning, he took Edea's hand and led her towards the crowd, the SeeDs automatically forming up to escort them.
'Hey,' the antagonist, the man who'd spoken up against her earlier protested, 'You can't take the devil out of here alive!'
'I can,' replied Cid implacably. 'And I will.' He gestured curtly, and the three SeeDs in the lead abruptly displayed their weapons. Two longswords, a flail and a shuriken were readied in able and competent hands. The crowd fell back, some of them fleeing in panic. The SeeDs passed through them easily, Edea and the child safe in the center.
There was no opposition, even with the man screaming imprecations behind them.
On the train to Balamb, where Edea had been intending to visit with Cid before being dragged out by the girl's plight, Edea stared down at said girl, now sleeping comfortably in her arms. The girl had received treatment at the local hospital, for her face wound - the bruises had healed easily with a Cure. The schoolteacher earlier hadn't mentioned a name, and it was safe to assume that the girl had no relatives. Therefore, Edea now had to name her.
She thought back, to when the child staggered out of the cottage, burnt and bloodied, but alive. She had looked like a ghost, a spirit. Silver hair ... silver was the color of the wind, so it was believed. So -
Looking down at the girl's pale face, Edea whispered softly - a christening. 'Little one, little child ...'
'Little Fujin ...'
Well, that's it. The next part, 'Thunder Spirit' will be coming soon. And I mean soon. Watch out for it. I'm planning a cycle of seven, for now - 'Wind Spirit', 'Thunder Spirit', 'Fire Spirit', 'Joining of the Three', 'Summer Dreams', 'Lantern', and 'Deep Water'. We'll see how it turns out - some may get omitted, some may get added, some may get changed. Remember, it's all for your fun. You'd better appreciate it. ^_^
~k@zen0~