Author's Note: This is meant as a sequel to "Eden." You are not obligated to read "Eden" by any means, but it would really, really help. Also, you can blame gietzeng, sissyHIYAH and horsecrazy2 for this in its entirety.


FALLEN EMPIRES

-irishais-

one

Squall stares at the monitor of his computer blankly, the paragraph of a status report that he has been trying to read for an hour blurring together in front of him, the words turning into liquid pixels melting down the screen. He can't sleep. He hasn't been able to sleep since he got here.

Rinoa sleeps, though, deeply, dreaming.

Esthar City was supposed to have been the safe choice, the right choice. Keep her here, where there are fail-safes and safeguards, a person he can trust.

Maybe the orphanage would have been better. Maybe not.

He has put her in a prison, essentially, of his own construct, and it is his fault that she is going mad. He can feel her in his head, a lioness stalking the corners of his mind sometimes, a bird with crippled wings, a silent (accusatory) presence.

All I wanted to do was keep you safe.

He had made a promise to do that, long ago, by the sea.

Or was it in space?

Or in a vast, gray nothingness where he walked forever?

Or was it Garden, on a balcony, beneath the stars?

(I'll be waiting.)

By now, Quistis will be waking up, preparing for her classes, he thinks, glancing at the clock. He hadn't wanted to include Seifer, not on this mission, but there are too few SeeDs he can use now. Too few he can trust. If he still had Zell, or Irvine or even Selphie, it would be easier on everyone. He wouldn't have to do this. Wouldn't have to leave her alone.

(I need you.)

Something squeezes once around his heart, a fist catching the beating organ just once, and letting it go just as quickly. He has to move on, has to accept these things, has to, because that is his job. They are his friends, but he has a thousand people under his command (an entire universe to protect) and no time to fall apart.

The clock on the wall ticks-ticks-ticks.

He calls up another program on his computer, activating the built-in video camera.

xx

She is held fast in the grip of a fever dream, incoherent images slipping in and out, blending together, falling apart, an explosion behind her eyes. She grabs fragments of pictures, but a breath sends them flurrying away, a shatterglass puzzle that will be impossible to fix.

There is an open door and she runs through it. There is a desert, a red-clay nothingness that goes on forever. Feathers tumble down from the sky in great torrents- when one lands in her palm, it turns to ash and leaves a searing pain in its wake. She sees the ghosts at the edges of her vision, spirits in black and gray and brown and yellow and coral.

(she does not see.)

She watches knights in a gray dust battlefield, where lightning streaks across the sky. The scent of flowers is overwhelming.

(i promise, someone whispers, and she can't tell if it's a man or a boy or a phantom.)

There is a woman in blue, tearing up flowers by the handful. He loves me, he loves me not. She has thorns embedded in her hands and her eyes are bright with moon-fire when she lifts her head to stare. Somewhere, a witch is laughing.

xx

Quistis wakes up in a tangle of sheets to the blaring of her alarm, and for a moment, she cannot breathe right. She exhales, inhales, exhales, inhales, slowing the frenetic pace of her air until she has it regulated. The rhythm soothes her, and she shuts off the alarm just before it reaches a fever pitch. The dream hangs in the air with the static hum of electricity, a storm that hasn't quite passed.

This waking ritual is becoming too familiar.

She shoves aside the blankets and crosses her bedroom in five long strides, crossing into safer territory, into the tiny kitchenette. The coffee maker is already burbling, set to go off when her alarm does, and within a moment she has a steaming hot cup cradled in her hands. The warmth and caffeine chase away some of the remaining tangles of the dream; the burn on her tongue is its own kind of esuna.

There is a soft hiss as the door opens, and Quistis looks up from the depths of her mug.

"Hey," Seifer says, looking like he's surprised to see her sitting there. He drops his duffel on the floor. "I thought you'd still be asleep."

She shrugs. "I have a class." Her words narrowly avoid being clipped off by a yawn. "I thought you were coming back later today."

"I caught an earlier flight." He looks bone-weary, a rough graze of blonde stubble along his jaw. He looks, honestly, worse than she feels right now, but he bypasses the temptation of coffee to kiss her. When he hugs her, she rests her forehead against his chest, closing her eyes for a moment. He smells of sweat and dirt and exhaustion, but she doesn't care.

"Is there more coffee?" he asks eventually, his voice muffled against her hair.

She smiles slightly, and releases her grasp.

When he turns away, his shirt is a sliver of gray in her vision and she catches the faint scent of something burnt.

xx

Balamb is empty during these first few hours, when dawn is just a pale haze on the horizon, so when Quistis enters her classroom, it's a bit of a shock that Xu is sitting in one of the front row desks, staring at the board blankly.

"Good morning," Quistis says, setting her materials down on the desk. Early morning visits are not Xu's style.

"I canceled your class," she says, stretching her hands out flat on the smooth desk. "I need to talk to you."

Quistis squashes the faint insulted feeling that brews within her. Xu is the acting commander. She can do whatever she wants, reschedule whatever she wants, Quistis' hours of preparation on this lecture notwithstanding. "What about?" she asks, keeping her tone carefully neutral. She knows. Xu knows she knows.

Her commander (her friend) stares at her hands for a long moment before she replies. "I need you to go to Esthar."

Quistis sets her datapad down on her desk with a soft thud. There is only one situation in Esthar right now. Only one thing capable of getting completely out of hand.

"Rinoa?" she asks.

Xu shakes her head. "No. Commander Leonhart."

It catches her off-guard. "Squall? What happened?"

"He's gone, Quistis. He hasn't answered any messages, and his phone has been turned off. The president hasn't seen him in five days; for all intents and purposes, he's left Esthar entirely. I've assigned you and Seifer to take care of this." Xu inclines her head toward the desk. "I've already emailed you all the details. You leave today."

Quistis nods once. "Of course."

Quistis is left in the silence of the morning, and her datapad pings to let her know she has a new message.

xx

she drifts and falls and slows slows slows, breaking through the dust, clouds, ashes. in the distance, she sees a silhouette of a boy (man), slinking through the darkness.

thunder roars and the lightning leaves a scar in its wake.

ri-no-a

she walks, and crunches flowers under her feet, the petals shattering, glass illusions. (this is not a fairy tale.)

the field is vast, and she is very, very small.

She curls inward, grasping her knees and hugging them to her chest, her heart beating fluttery-fast, a hummingbird's wings in her ears. The pictures are coming fast, too fast to count, too fast to catch. There is a sharp pain in her core, something clawing to the surface.

No, she thinks, you are not going crazy.

A voice floats through the door, piped in via a tiny speaker embedded in the wall. The room's acoustics make the voice wrap and twist around her.

"Are you awake, Rinoa?"

I don't know.