This is a collection of oneshots featuring the members from the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee (yes, Merlin counts) and those related to them. There will be a lot of fanon stuff in here because—let's face it—nothing is more boring that rigidly sticking to canon material like a person with a ten-foot pole rammed up her ass.

As a precaution let it be known that any Leon/Yuffie romance will be left out and if it will help the fanbase, I offer my apologies. I'm afraid I simply cannot picture the two of them together. There will NOT be an yaoi/yuri because I firmly believe that Cloud and Leon are perfectly straight. Just because Cloud runs away from Aerith and Tifa, just because Leon doesn't have Rinoa doesn't make the two of them gay for each other.

Anti-OC fans should rejoice. While I may run around screwing around with the pairings, I've decided to stick to existing characters.

And finally, before I shut up for good, I've decided to include Zack. While I initially started out not liking him very much, he isn't all that bad and his character has grown onto me (besides it's fun to write about him). It's a pity Nomura hit his head on a pavement somewhere in Japan and left the guy out.

A Timeless Collection
Thordis Valentina

Rating: PG
Genre: Angst/General
Chapter precaution: N/A
Pairing: Leon/Rinoa
Summary: Leon was nothing more than a shell of his former self—a marionette strung to his puppeteer, tweaking, fighting and scowling to his master's content.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.

- Marionette -

When he first opened his eyes, the first thing that swam in Leon's vision was the myriads of colors projected on his ceiling. Brilliant hues of blues, yellows, and reds filtered through a sliver of opening in his curtains. He lay in bed—his blanket still covering most of his body—steely blue eyes fixed on the fantastic colors. He listened to the tick-tocking of the clock on his bedside table, its sound amplified by the heavy silence of his bedroom. It reminded him of a splinter that had lodged itself in his soul. At this Leon tried imagining the many times had he assumed this same position to count off the seconds that carried him further away from a world that had become lost amid the misty veil of age.

Leon sighed, his brow crumpling from concentration and lips pursed in a pensive frown. He was, by birthright, named Squall Leonhart and he had spent all of his childhood in a world that was literally sunshine, daisies, and butterflies.

Radiant Garden.

It was his home and possessed everything that made him. He had grown up there, learning, seeing, and creating so many memories it was painfully impossible for him to recite a specific incident without the cloud of doubt fogging his mind—any happy incident, for that matter. Branded into his mind was the throbbing of a memory so hurtful, it felt as though a thousand knives and lacerated his heart into thin, meaty ribbons.

So long ago Radiant Garden had fallen, yet it seemed as though it had occurred only just yesterday. Yet the fact that many years had passed since the cold echo of terror racking resounding in darkened corridors while his mind was burning up with anger and shame. It felt like an intangible nightmare that still haunted him even after five weary years that felt like ten. Now, Leon could scarcely remember his happy world. When he thought of Radiant Garden, it became a twisted sinister skeleton of a place reminiscent of its former grandeur. It became a splendor that had been chewed up and spat back out by the corruption of hearts, poisoned by an evil seed that had somehow lodged itself deep into the warm, sun-kissed soils.

And while Leon had nearly forgotten everything he previously held close to him, there was one memory that never melded into dark oblivion: her face.

Those soft round cheeks, the curve of her warm smile, her swimming toffee eyes framed by wisps of sable hair; all of it remained so firmly embedded in his mind, Leon could conjure an image so clean, so crisp, and so beautiful, it was almost as if she was standing right before him, her slender arms held out and welcoming him into her heart.

He lifted his hand to his face and stared at his bare calloused palm through blank eyes. Another sigh rose unbidden, emerging as a soft haa. The young warrior felt guilt overcome his sense. Leon had tried. He tried so hard to save her but his incompetence overruled his desires. Everything Leon had done, every choice he had made was a tangled mess of irrevocable and pigheaded mistakes. In the end, he had failed her, killed her. She was gone, taking the greater part of Squall Leonhart as she had fallen into a thousand feet of dark rubble.

Leon was nothing more than a shell of his former self—a marionette strung to his puppeteer, tweaking, fighting and scowling to his master's content. Without Rinoa, Leon's soul crippled and the light within him extinguished. She had been everything in his life. She cut the strings that bound him to the puppeteer. Rinoa brought light and ambition to him.

Eyes still fixed coldly on his palm he curled his fingers into his palm and tightened his fist with so much care the gesture could have lasted for an hour. Lying with his entire body pressing against the hard mattress, he squeezed until his knuckles turned white and his nail scored angry red crescent-shaped imprints in his palm. Never again would Leon feel the velvety skin beneath his work-hardened fingers—and he coveted the sensation with all his heart.

If Leon was an artist, he could have closed his eyes and molded Rinoa's face with the sheer power of his memory. But Leon was not much of a sculptor and he was not much of a warrior either. To him, Leon was nothing, because he had failed everyone: Cloud, Aerith, Zack, Merlin… and above all, her. And there was nothing Leon could do to redeem himself except to scorn who he was, shed his former self and life the life of a complete stranger. This was something Leon convinced himself to do.

Aerith had once told him that the pain of losing someone dearly beloved would mend with time. Leon knew he should have given her credit. She had, in a way, lost Cloud herself and it was only natural that Aerith understood the pain. Yet in spite of her helpful suggestion, the burden grew heavier with each passing day.

The pain was unbearable. It singed his heart, slowly burning straight to its core, leaving behind the pulsing residue of numbness. All that was left in the mold of a young man long gone were emotions of darkness and Leon doubted that he—a man so weak and helpless—had the gall to pull himself from his sagging depression.

Traverse Town's skies were always so black and bleak. Its forlorn buildings were never blessed with the golden rays of the sun. While the panoramic twinkle of stars were present, their gloomy shine had been fighting a losing war with the glaring neon emancipating from the town itself. Its environment was the source of the bitterness and the dampening of his spirits. Leon hated Traverse Town with so much intensity that had he not known any better he would have razed it to the ground much in the same manner Sephiroth had with Radiant Garden.

Suddenly it occurred to Leon that Rinoa's eyes glowed like the stars dancing and smiling. Unlike Traverse Town the air had been fresh and breezy and the moon nurtured the lands of his world with her argent light. During those times, Leon lived in a world free from sorrow and loss. In Radiant Garden, nobody dared to believe the darkness to spread into their lungs and seep into their hair, because they had King Ansem and not a single person questioned him with his loyality.

Rinoa. It was a beautiful name, and Leon enjoyed the way his lips formed each letter, and savored each syllable formed by the twisting of his tongue. Back then, it felt as though he was calling for an angel and pulled him from the ground into cloud nine. Now she was forever absent, unable to receive her glowing name so when he said her name it crumbled to ashes and brought a sour taste to Leon's mouth. No longer could he let her materialize from his thoughts. She was trapped within his mind, slowly and agonizingly tearing him apart, burning every fiber of his being to the ground. With her dead, there was no one here who could save him.

A sigh emancipated in the darkened room, temporarily quelling the stressed silence. Regardless of his desires to curl up and let his mind sink back into blissful slumber, Leon knew he would have to get up sooner or later.

Leon sat up and swung his bare feet on the squeaky floorboard. The warm soles of his feet absorbed the coldness, instantly chilling every part of his body—especially his heart. He rose from his bed, ready to relive his repetitive life as a marionette. Fate would tweak the invisible strings that guided him through this world and he—empty and cold from a loss too sorrowful to overcome—would let it bend him to its own maliciousness. A life without Rinoa was meaningless and he lost the resolve to bring himself to care.

Leon shuffled mechanically through his room performing the mundane rituals of washing, dressing, and grooming. When he was done, he stood before a full-length mirror (placed under the fierce request of a young ninja girl) and squinted coldly at his reflection. He took in the extra lines forming around the corners of his grim mouth and his dull blue eyes. What would Rinoa think of him if she saw him like this? Would she scold him, and then use her slender fingers to fix the grim line on his lips into a smile?

Would his eyes brighten if she were to take his hand into her own with tenderness befit to melt the heart of a war-hardened man?

Leon had always believed it cowardly for a man to cry, but as Rinoa swam tantalizingly in his memory, he felt his insides crumble and fall apart. While his eyes remained stubbornly dry and his face fixed in its usual stern mask, Leon broke down inside. He stared at his face a little longer then snapped his head away, disgusted simply by looking at himself. It was now, and it was today that the puppeteer's marionette raised his little white flag in defeat. Long ago, he may have promised Zack that he would pull himself together and fight with all his might, but looking at who he had become now, resistance was impossible.

Leon felt rage consume him.

A mighty shatter bit through the stuffy silence, followed by the loud bang of the door slamming in its jamb. In the darkened room, pieces of the shattered mirror lay on the ground, glittering eerie silver in the weird light—lost, detached, and lonely as the man who occupied the room it stood in.

This story is mildly connected to Multicolored Mirrors, hence the reference of Sephiroth and Zack.