Apologies in advance for: 1) the length (or lack thereof) 2) Switching between tenses (it's intentional, I promise) 3) Slight OOC-ness in the construct.
Please do review. Constructive criticism will be welcomed with open arms.
F O R T Y – T H R E E
It was a thing we decided to do. Go to Trabia and see how everything was going. Actually, that's not right, there wasn't any 'we' about it; it was Selphie's idea and everyone whole-heartedly agreed with her. Trabia was like – a symbol of what got left behind. What we had to forget about while we were surging ahead and sorting out the fate of the world. The feeling that came off it, anger, fear, sadness, whatever, it all just got pressed down and distilled inside until it was just something to draw off, a vague something that you knew was there but you didn't really want to hesitate to probe. Afterwards, it wouldn't do to leave it there. It had to be revisited and teased out, so that we could accept it for what it was.
...Maybe I watch too many talk shows. I don't know.
Anyway, it was weird arriving. Like moving through layers of yourself, or of silence. Every step I took hollowed out a bit more of the space somewhere in the pit of my stomach until we were standing at the gates and I felt completely empty. Didn't feel anything much, except numbness, and that might've been from the cold. It was a very pretty day in some ways – the sky was the most amazing soaring blue, it blazed with fresh cold and made the snow shine. The ground crackled underfoot because of the frost, and you could see your breath in front of your face like a quick sketch of a shadow. Everyone's cheeks and noses were pink, even Squall's, and when I told him he scowled half-heartedly because I was trying not to giggle. But the teasing and the giggles, like Irvine's jokes, were fluttery and false and trying to compensate for a lack of anything really profound to say that would truly suit things.
I can't remember what we said when we separated, but we did because the superficial light-heartedness was getting to everyone. Squall, with that slightly lost but deeply thoughtful look that reminds me of a painting, said that he thought he should talk over the rebuilding with a range of people because, I supposed, he was Commander and that was what he reckoned that a Commander should do. For a while I stood next to him in the courtyard and listened and shuffled my feet, but it wasn't helping. I excused myself and wandered off to see what I could see.
It was very different to the first time I had visited. Obviously. They had imported half a dozen temporary buildings, the ones that look like glorified shoeboxes. Some of the proper walls were up on the main building. The people appeared set, determined, not altogether hearty, but without the horrible haunted mistiness that swam round their eyes just after it had happened. There was a delicious optimism in the air that brightened it and complimented the sun glints on the snowfields perfectly. Trabia had regained the twinkle that Selphie used to twitter about.
The empty feeling was fading until I accidentally stumbled across the graveyard. Nothing had grown there. The flowers were insistently and poignantly fresh, but it's not the same. The colour did not sit properly; it floated over the top like the grief was still too near to the surface for it to settle. From the patch of distressed grey, all spotted and cracked with tombstones, you can see right out over the soundless fields; and if you stand so that the Garden is outside your peripheral vision, there isn't so much as a stonewall to remind you of people. It's like a view to eternity. It's beautiful.
Selphie was there, just standing and looking. Although I'm sure I could have made as much noise as I wanted and she would've been quite deaf to it, I thought it might be wise just to turn round and leave immediately.
I was going to leave, but I saw Zell.
... Rather, Zell's foot recognisable from the red trainer protruding from behind a lump of material that was part stone and part tree root and tree. I thought I'd better warn him that Selphie was here, you know, and suggest that he give her some space too. It's not something we'd usually assume he'd figure out for himself.
I sidle round, probably looking ridiculous, trying to be as quiet and careful as possible. Even he doesn't hear me until I rock down into a crouch next to him, saying as speedily as I can in a whisper that Selphie's here and it might be a good idea to let her have a moment by herself so let's go somewhere... I trail off because he has looked at me. Or maybe just angled his face towards me.
I can see his face now.
His skin was almost as deathly pale as the frost, but his eyes were dull, almost black, as if he only half saw me. He was frowning, at least, his eyebrows where drawn together, but his mouth was slightly open and his lips sort of twitched toward and away from each other like a shiver. He looked trapped behind glass, or searching so feverishly in his head for words that he had forgotten to watch out for the real world. Not himself at all. At first I thought he was drunk.
I start when he blinks – don't know why – then wince and peer over the cragged mound to see if I've disturbed Selphie. I haven't, she still stands sadly with her head bowed in an isolated moment of private peace. I turn my attention back to Zell, who now seems to be locked in some kind of internal struggle, forcing himself to recall how to speak.
The first thing he does is apologise in a croaky but hushed voice, keeping his gaze carefully averted from mine, then he moves to go. I grab his arm and pull him back down, which is surprisingly easy. He might've given up half way. I asked him what the matter was, but he just kept apologising, as if now that he'd finally found a word he was going to flog it for all it was worth. After a minute, I just sit and watch him, and wait.
It pays off. He hesitates, fighting with himself a bit more, then mutters defeated, 'd'you know what I said when I first saw this? I said it really pissed me off. Isn't that just... lame?'
I'm thrown slightly, but reply briskly anyway, 'everyone was angry, not just you. You just said it.'
That was the wrong thing to offer because he gulps and catches his rough hands round his knees. 'They were?' he asks himself faintly, then answers more confidently, 'I mean, yeah, of course they would be. If I were you I wouldn't be able to stand being around me. I'd probably beat the shit out of me.' There's real venom in that.
I'm baffled. His head dips like a dog's about to be hit. 'What are you talking about?'
'Is she cryin'?' he mumbles downwards, abruptly humble again.
'Selphie? I don't think so. I think she's going to be ok.'
'Can you remember when she sat in he Quad and cried her eyes out? It was like a little kid – she was sobbin' so much she almost couldn't breathe.'
'Irvine cheered her up.'
'No, he stopped her crying.' He draws in a deep breath, steeling himself for something. 'Ya know what? There are forty-three new graves here. I counted. Forty-three.' He pronounces that with unusual clarity, as if trying to drag it over his teeth and tongue to hurt them. His shoulders tense up even more.
It dawns on me and simultaneously socks me straight in the stomach, which is no longer empty but rolling and making me feel mildly nauseous. 'You know this isn't your fault. We told you it was Ultimecia. It's true.' I am firm. I am resolute that he will not be allowed to believe himself. I am out of my depth.
The sun continues to delicately pick out tiny crisp crystals in the frozen ground in front of me, innocent and oblivious. Light, tender flakes tremble in the air, blown off the dead tree overhead as a substitute for leaves.
His reply is slow and lifeless, as if he's patiently trotting out a lesson for a child already told hundreds of times, something he learnt an age ago. 'Yeah, dunno why you did that. I worked it out. The G-military wouldn't have acted on Seifer's orders without having evidence of motivation t'back it up, it would've been illegal and even they aren't that stupid 'cos Balamb and Dollet and eventually even Esthar would've reacted and they weren't ready to deal with that.' I open my mouth furiously to cut him off, to nip it in the bud, but even without seeing me he half raises a couple of fingers, magically arresting the breath in my throat. His lesson doesn't break step. 'The only evidence they had were reports that we'd tried to assassinate their sorceress, and they couldn't prove that we were SeeD in a way that'd have the rest of the world convinced, because Galbadia's always fudging reports and arranging jury verdicts and fillin' dossiers with whatever junk suits them. They had to have a confession. Couldn't have used Squall's, oh no, because that was under torture and doesn't count for shit. What else did they have on us? - A videotape of one idiot freely announcing that we were all happily runnin' errands for Balamb Garden.' He ends with a kind of grim satisfaction.
'That's rubbish,' I hiss, my cheeks burning. I can't quite believe I let him finish. The weight of this crushed me and that made me irrationally furious. 'You know that's not true. They would have done it anyway. I don't know why, but you just made that up.'
'Because it's right. Took me a while but I got there.' He's unnaturally still, staring over the snowfields as if about to disappear across them.
'That doesn't even make sense!' I curl my fingers tightly to stop myself physically pulling his head around to face me. I could get a good clump of his hair if I was quick. I can't understand this; I don't want to. Why monopolise the guilt? Why hog it all? It's selfish of him. There's plenty to go round, and he's just taken the lot onto his shoulders. I feel as though I'm watching him struggle and stumble with it from a long way off, but as in one of my nightmares I can't run fast enough to catch up.
'Makes a helluva lot more sense than just saying they died for no reason. That it's no one's fault,' he says with a little more bite. 'I'm going to tell her.' He doesn't move however. He just continues to stare blankly into the undulating white. 'Because I killed them,' he tells it softly.
I should've told him to snap out of it. Really, I should've shaken him, and dragged him over to Selphie, and made him make a fool of himself and have it driven into his skull how wrong he was. Somehow, though, I can't, and I don't think it would've worked anyway.
'Go ahead and tell her than,' I say finally, recklessly. I'm tired, I'm cold, and I've just remembered I'm sitting in a graveyard. I'm either going to laugh or cry, and from the way my eyes are prickling I think I know which way it's going to go.
There is a long, long pause.
He looks at me now. There are tears in his eyes too; shattering the irises into a million more shades of sharp sapphire. 'How?' he asks simply, voice pinched by a deep, touching, childlike sadness. Everything stops spinning and hangs on this moment. He genuinely wants to know. He appeals to me from that far-off place from my nightmare, and I will myself to run faster. But I can't.
I look up, and make sure that Selphie is still there. She hasn't moved.
I glance back to Zell, who is equally motionless, anxiously awaiting an answer...
...Which I can't give him. With nothing of value to impart to him, I act on impulse and lurch forwards and hug him tightly, crushing my fingers in my own grip behind his back because I won't let him shake me off. He hesitantly raises a hand and plants it on my shoulder with an ancient sigh that doesn't suit him. I kiss his frozen cheek as I draw back, offering him a small smile. Zell speaks better through glances and contact than he does through sentences, and I hope that on this occasion he'll also them interpret better. He nods and climbs to his feet as I do, allowing his apprehensive gaze to fall on the petite figure a mere few yards away; the splinter of yellow in the ash-coloured garden. She remains unaware of him, as the sleepers are of whatever she is so absorbed in telling them. It's not right that I'm here - I upset the triangle and the solemn, fragile equilibrium between souls.
The sky still burns cold blue and everything is still.
I leave it like this.
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