The excitement was palpable in the room of the Estharian presidential palace. Squall, Ellone and Linoa were all here for a special occasion.
"Alright, are you guys ready to do this?" asked Ellone with an eager smile.
"Yes!" Linoa answered excitedly. "Healing magic and teleportation are nice and all, but it's good to finally be doing something a bit more sexy!"
She had recently decided to try and learn to use the time manipulation powers she inherited from Ultimecia. And while she tried to make it look like she merely wanted to do it out of curiosity, Squall knew better. For her, being able to control Ultimecia's powers would prove that she is stronger than them and wont let them take her over. It had been a year since they defeated the sorceress and Linoa felt ready to face her powers. This is why, as her knight, and as her man, he enthusiastically agreed to be her test subject.
They decided to go ask Ellone for help, as she also had time travel powers, albeit limited ones. They were hoping that Ellone's ability to send one's consciousness into the past would make it easier for Linoa to tap into her own powers, or if nothing else, that experiencing time travel first hand would make her more familiar with it and help her understand the core mechanics of her abilities. The fact that it gave Squall an opportunity to spend more time with his adoptive sister was the icing on the cake.
"You too, Squall?" Ellone inquired.
"Yeah," Squall replied with a nod.
He felt like he should probably add something, but nothing came to mind. Embellishing phrases wasn't his strong suit at the best of times, and right now he was too tense to think of anything. Not that he didn't trust Linoa, but it was all so new and unknown to him.
"Good. Then please lie down," Ellone instructed, motioning towards three beds that had been set up in the room. Squall and Linoa each took adjacent ones and Ellone took the remaining one.
"So... it doesn't hurt, right?" Linoa asked anxiously. Unlike Squall, she had never been through one of Ellone's "connections".
"Nope." Ellone answered. "Well, unless you fall on something when you lose consciousness, and that's why we have the beds."
"Your head might ring a little but no, it's not painful at all," Squall reassured her. Linoa turned her head towards him with a smile, appreciating his concern and his dedication. He smiled back at her with what he was trying very hard to make a reassuring look. Ellone continued.
"Normally, only the person whose consciousness I'm sending back in time falls asleep but this time, I'm gonna use as much of my power as possible to make sure the connection is strong so Squall, you're going to be sleeping as well."
"Okay," said Squall as if there was nothing odd about this situation at all.
"I'll be here with you, Linoa, so don't worry, you won't be on your own inside my brother's mind," Ellone added. I can only imagine how terrifying that would be." Squall grunted slightly, trying to at least pretend his sister's teasing annoyed him. "But in all seriousness, I hope we can test your abilities by having you make a slight change to the past. I will be watching, so try not to make my little brother do anything embarrassing."
Linoa chuckled and started to relax. "Alright, sounds good to me. Ready when you are," she said. Ellone spoke again, with a more serious tone.
"I will only be taking us a few minutes back. That way I can ensure that whatever changes we make are very minor. Now, at the count of three, I will begin. One... two... three!"
Squall felt the ringing that indicated the connection was beginning. He was familiar with it. There was almost something comforting about it now. Maybe it was just the thought that it meant Ellone was with him in some way. As he pondered this, he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.
When he woke up, he was about to ask the girls how the experiment went, but something was wrong. The bed felt different, smaller, and as he opened his eyes, he had the impression that the room wasn't how he last saw it. As his eyes focused and the fog cleared from his mind, he got the confirmation of what he feared: he was in a compeltely different place.
The ceiling above his head was at an angle and fitted with glass windows, decorated with elaborate designs. He could also see tapestries decorating the walls. A thousand questions ran through his mind. Where was he? How did he get here? How long had he been there? And most importantly, were Linoa and Ellone safe?
Squall knew that nothing constructive would arise from wondering so many aimless questions. His SeeD training kicked in. The first thing to do when stranded in unknown territory was to scan the immediate surroundings for any useful information. He sat up, seeing that he was indeed still in a bed, albeit one of a completely different design from the one he was lying in just seconds before. Well, it felt like seconds but he presumed it must have been longer.
He looked around and saw a simple yet cosy interior. The house was old-fashioned, with wooden beams, a bookshelf and cupboard surrounding a large window. Decorative plates adorned the wall. A light blue felt couch was in the middle of the room, with two striped antique armchairs beside it. Right next to the bed was another one, identical to the one he was sitting on, and between the two, a wooden nightstand. Against the wall was a small table on which a large potted plant was standing. In fact, the whole room was decorated with plants. Finally, he saw a staircase leading downstairs to the far right corner of the room from where he was sitting.
None of that told him much about where he was or what happened, but he had a feeling he was nowhere near Esthar. The style was the polar opposite of Esthar's flamboyant look and advanced technology. Another thought crossed Squall's mind:
"Am I even myself right now? After all, Ellone said she was using her powers differently from usual. Maybe I got connected as well by mistake."
This idea relaxed him a little as, if it was accurate, then it presumably meant that Linoa and Ellone were still performing their experiment and he just had to wait it out. He decided to verify his theory by looking at his own body. His hopes were dashed almost immediately as he saw that he was wearing the same clothes as he did when he fell asleep, and the hands he saw before him looked like his own and wore the fingerless gloves he had decided on that morning. One last test settled the matter as he ran a finger over his forehead and the ridge of his nose and felt the rift in his skin where his scar was.
"Okay, so this is my body and I am almost certainly not in Esthar any more" Squall thought to himself, trying to stay calm and rational. "Something must have gone wrong, and I was teleported."
This seemed logical as Linoa had been training here teleporting skills a lot lately. The thought suddenly made his skin crawl. If Linoa teleported him by accident, who's to say she hadn't lost control of her powers entirely? This was the exact kind of scenario he was supposed to prevent as her knight!
"Calm down, Squall," he told himself. "Panicking will only make things worse. You can't even be sure that's what happened. Focus. First things first, I have to figure out where I am and how to find Linoa and Ellone."
He considered waiting for the house's owner to come in, but he decided against it as he had no time to waste. Squall also thought that if his teleportation theory was correct, there was a chance that the owner didn't know he was there and might think he broke in. Or if it was the owner who brought him in here, they may intentionally refrain from entering the room in order to let Squall rest, in which case it would actually help to let them know he woke up.
As Squall walked towards the stairs, he stopped for a second as the place started to feel familiar, although he was sure he had never been there before. Maybe he had and the Guardian Forces had made him forget, but it seemed unlikely. The memory loss only seemed to affect his early childhood up to that point and he had avoided junctioning them as much as he could since the end of the Second Sorceress War.
He walked down the stairs and through a green door. There were a few more steps and once he was all the way down, he saw that he was in a pub, which looked as quaint as the room he woke up in. There were wooden tables, each one decorated with a candle. Barrels were stocked under the staircase. The stone floor gave the room a rustic yet welcoming feel, as did the brick wall. Squall was impressed with how clean the place was. The few bars he'd been to, despite being much more modern, were usually somewhat dirty and grimy, but this one was impeccable. And once again, Squall couldn't shake off the feeling that he knew this place somehow.
"Hello? Anyone here?" Squall called. He hoped that announcing his presence would show that he was, in fact, not here to rob the place. He waited a moment and obtained no response. The place being so small, there was no chance that anyone in there at the moment wouldn't have heard him. He decided to leave, hoping the owner hadn't locked the door behind them.
He pushed the door and it opened with ease, letting the outside light in. He exited the building and was now standing in a large paved square. All of the buildings had that same old-timey look and were covered with flowers and vines. Linoa would love it, he thought. Some kids were playing around and two old ladies had stopped their conversation to stare at the young man who had just come out of the pub. To his left stood a massive mansion, which looked like a lord's castle compared to the humble houses around it, and to his right was a bridge over a river. He now realised why this place felt so familiar and he grabbed his head with one hand as it sunk in.
"What the Hell am I doing in Winhill?!"
Squall's eyes widened as he kept looking around. He had never been there in person before but he knew it from his time spent in Laguna's mind. He had actually considered visiting it after learning of his parentage, if only because it would make Ellone happy, but this was not how he envisioned his first trip there.
While Squall was trying to recover from the shock of being at the furthest possible point on Earth from where he was supposed to be, a moustachioed middle-aged man approached him with concern.
"Sir, are you alright? Can I help you?"
That snapped Squall out of it. He pulled his hand away from his head, straightened his posture and tried to speak as calmly as possible.
"Er, yes, actually. I need to contact Balamb Garden as soon as possible. I think my best bet is to get to Timber first. Can you take me to a train station or something?"
"Balamb Garden?" the man repeated, looking confused.
"Yes. I'm a... student there." Squall didn't did not want to go too far into the details. He assumed most people would have a hard time believing that the headmaster of Balamb Garden was not only an 18-year-old kid but also managed to get stranded thousands of miles away from it.
"You're a gardening student?" the man asked, trying to make sense of Squall's words.
Squall stared at him blankly for a few seconds, at a loss for words. He knew Winhill was an isolated town but surely it couldn't be this backwards, could it? He tried to gather his thoughts and continued.
"No, I'm talking about..."
"Sir! What are you doing out there?" called a feminine voice behind Squall. He turned around to look at the woman and when he saw her, his entire body tensed up, his yes widened and his jaw dropped.
"It's good to see you've woken up, but you shouldn't push yourself like that!" the woman continued.
Squall couldn't believe it, but there was no mistaking her. The long, slicked back brown hair, of the exact same shade and texture as his, held with a headband, the icy, almost grey eyes, the roundness of her face and her commanding yet warm expression. Even her plain clothes were reminiscent of the one time he got to see her, through his father's eyes. This was Raine. His mother. Who died giving birth to him. And next to her was a little girl with dark brown hair and equally dark eyes. Ellone, his big sister, now so small she barely reached his knee.
"What?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. Squall took a step back, feeling weak. He tried to hold it together, but this was too much. He fainted as Raine and the man rushed to catch him.
Author's notes: hope y'all enjoyed the first chapter of this new story! I was very pleasantly surprised with the success of the first fic I published and I had this idea going through my head for a while now and with the Successor Challenge rolling around, it convinced me to finally write it down. It shouldn't be very long overall. I plan to have five chapters tops. Do keep in mind that while I speak English fluently, it isn't my first language, so I apologize for any awkwardly-worded sentence or typo. I will edit the story if I find too many mistakes. Also, for anyone wondering why Rinoa is referred to as "Linoa", it's because that's what she's called in French and I think "Rinoa" sounds terrible.
Anyway. See you soon-ish for the second chapter!
Edit: welp, there really were a lot of typos and awkward phrasing so here's an edited version of the chapter.