The girl is slim, though well-muscled and strong. Flat belly, lean thighs, small breasts. She's a swimmer. He can see it as she circles the beast, how she seems to be feeling the air around it as she would test the current before diving. Her eyes are clear, intelligent, though they're beginning to dim with exhaustion. The moon has almost reached its zenith, bright and full, dulling the light of the stars around it. None of the others have lasted more than an hour before and this night is half over. There hasn't been a casting ceremony like this in at least ten and five cycles.

The wyrm twists on itself when she darts in again. Once, twice, then she leaps to the side, her arm dripping with blood to the elbow. The priest sniffs in disgust. The hatchlings always smell worse than the great wyrms, their throats not yet able to burn the oily fluid bubbling in their guts. The stench seems to seep from their scales, just now fading from glossy black to the deep ruby for which the dragons were named. He hates that scent, so reptilian and cold, as if copper had decayed and frozen to the earth.

She circles it again, slower, carefully avoiding its snapping jaws. Occupied with watching its fangs, she has forgotten the tail. He's pleased when she's knocked onto her back and sent tumbling. The blow seems to have sharpened her, frightened her. She rubs her palms on her thighs, brushing sand from her fingers.

The wyrm hisses, grit and saliva dripping from its jaws. Even if it kills her, it will never breathe fire. It seems to know this. He can see the yellow eyes focus on her with something approaching hatred.

A young man just on the edge of the firelight takes a step forward. The priest glowers at him. Twice already he's had to hold her admirers to the border of the holy grounds so she can complete her test. He'll not allow any interruptions. Not this time.
The girl circles again, venturing farther from the beast with every pass. It leaps at her like a serpent, over and over again, then draws back within its coils. She lifts her arms and it lunges again, but she's moved just out of its strike range.

She circles again, watching.

The priestesses have chosen well. This one is patient. She's not like the others, the ones that follow their fathers and brothers during the hunt so they feast on another's kill. His mouth tightens in a grim line. As if they could fool anyone. The ceremony for them to gain the magic and they already have it? Cowards. They'll never know the power this one will know, provided she lives. The spells are stronger when they're torn from the living beasts and eaten while the blood still flows from the kill.

The high priest almost smiles. This one would never follow her father and allow him to kill her first spell-beast.

A faint sucking sound sputters wetly from the hole in its throat. She's pierced the fire gland, that deadly soft spot where the fluid mixes with air, but she wasn't strong enough to sever the thick cartilage of its windpipe. Even though it won't be able to produce a true flame for years, the dragon is still trying. It wants to burn her. It gurgles and moans, unable to understand why it hasn't been able to kill this hairless animal yet.

Furious, it slithers forward and snaps at the knife in her hand. She jumps and lands awkwardly next to its neck, scrambling backwards to distance herself from those teeth . The wyrm's head is nearly as long as she is tall and she struggles to kick it away, stabbing blindly at its tongue, its jowls, its throat.

Her legs are strong but the beast is stronger. Her knife falls from her hand and she isn't fast enough to retrieve it. The dragon's mouth closes over her arm, lifts her above the ground, then twists her entire body in guttural, animal triumph.

The girl screams, clawing at the teeth embedded in her arm, tearing fingernails from her hand in an attempt to force it to loosen its grip. Blood flows from her arm in thick rivulets, reflecting the light from the torches.

The boy tries to run into the circle, but she falls before he can reach her. The priest drags the boy away, still unwilling to have anyone assist her. He must see this test to the end and he swears to kill the next one that tries disturbing her.

The hatchling's teeth, though nearly as long as the knife the girl just lost, are not yet as strong as those of a fully-grown dragon. Lodged between the thin bones of her forearm, a dislodged fang shines moon-white against the swollen flesh of her arm.

She looks once at the wyrm, then once at her arm. One, two...three white lumps in her skin. One is the fang itself, the other two the ends of her broken ulna, likely snapped when the beast was twisting her about like some snared rabbit. She stumbles, blind with pain, though still able to hear every soft rustle of the dragon's coils. Her vision clears long enough for her to see the beast watching her again. Jerking the fang free, she lurches forward and falls to her knees. Vomit bubbles behind her teeth, burning her throat so that she's choking on a stream of hot bile. She retches as the wyrm dives toward her once more, then the world fades into flame.


When she wakes, the dragon is gone, so is the moon and the crowd and most of the grass around her. The priest is convening with the sisters and all are muttering about fire and the test. She closes her eyes. All she wants is water. She no longer cares about the test.

"They want to make you the high priestess."

The girl doesn't have to open her eyes to know who is speaking to her. It's just him. She wants to tell him that he's being ridiculous, but she can't speak. She's not certain if she'll ever be able to speak again. Something like laughter escapes her, but even that dry exhalation is agony.

"How did you do that?" Cool fingers brush the hair away from her throat. "Nobody else has been able to do that, even when the girls eat the hearts."

How? She has no idea. The world opened and whispered to her and she knew something she didn't before.

"Not even the sisters can do that. How did you...?"

The girl groans and her eyes flutter open. The boy sees the blisters on her lips, how her eyes seem bluer than before against the reddened whites. He sees the plea for water, for rest, for quiet.

"Don't. Just...stay here. I'll be back."

So the boy runs. He doesn't know what else to do. He runs because he's never seen blue that deep.


Note: Originally posted on livejournal. I was really, really bored and wanted to play with some ideas about blue magic. I've never really liked that you just win a battle and suddenly Quistis gets another spell from an item. It didn't seem...right, or even brutal enough. Magic in this game seems very greedy, very selfish. Guardian Forces eat memory, so the magic itself has to be just as hungry. Since she usually has to be grievously injured before she even gets to use her limit break, I think obtaining the items has to involve something similar, a sacrifice in a way, like she has to give something of herself before she can become one with the spell.

This is also an idea I'm using in Failures. That damned fic is turning out to be the longest and most complicated (and most fun) thing I've ever written. So tinkering with magic ideas in oneshots is letting me think through the individual spells, work out in my head what I want to do with her.

And yeah, the boy is Seifer, or at least a version of Seifer, maybe like a past life Seifer. I wanted him to be ashamed of himself in order for him to want to be a knight.