4.
In Which Shiva Gets Possessive and Vincent Is Still Dramatic
Thursday.
Straightening her protesting back, Rinoa wiped the sweat from her brow and gave a tiredly cheerful smile to the man offering her a plastic cup of water.
"Thanks," she sighed. The cool water soothed the dust in her throat.
The man, an older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair, grinned. "Hey, you're doing the work of three people out here. Least I can do."
There were whole crews of people clearing out the rubble left from Ultimecia's destruction and others beginning to rebuild in the places that had already been cleaned up. Rinoa was helping to carry the timber splintered beyond usefulness to an already enormous woodpile, to be reused as fuel.
She handed the empty cup back to the man with another grateful smile and glanced down ruefully at her filthy clothes. "I only wish there was more I could do," she sighed. "There's still so much to do, and so many people without a place to go…"
"You wanna know something?" the man interrupted smoothly, gesturing at the construction going on around them. "Honestly, I think something like this needed to happen."
Rinoa gave him a strange look.
"Hey, I know you didn't grow up 'round here, but look. People are actually working together for once, and for Galbadians, that's pretty unusual."
That didn't make her feel much better. Almost no one had recognized her name, and no one outside of SeeD and Esthar's government had any knowledge of her being a Sorceress, but seeing the destruction that a Sorceress had caused made her want to prove that not all of them were cruel, that her magic could be used to help and heal as well.
"Are you all right?" the man asked worriedly as Rinoa rubbed the heel of a hand against her temple.
"Just the sun, I think." Pushing aside the growing headache, she raised her empty cup and added, "This'll help."
"Well, I'd best be moving on, m'dear," he said cheerfully as he hefted the water pack over his shoulder. "Be careful now, don't work yourself into a collapse."
"Thank you," Rinoa called, and waved as he walked on.
She threw herself back into the work. When some of the workers started singing a lewd old bar song, she eventually got over her embarrassment and even managed to contribute a few lines. These people were so different from SeeDs: no flash of weaponry, no sense that behind a friendly face was a contract killer. The Galbadians were angry and scared about having to rebuild their lives, but these were normal concerns, these were people she could know and understand.
I'm sorry, Squall. You frightened me. Her small body struggled to lift a heavy beam, and she managed a smile at the two girls who dashed over to help. We never made each other happy, and…it's like you left part of yourself behind at the end.
When the beam was moved, she paused to tie back the hair beginning to stick to her sweaty cheeks.
"Miss Rinoa? Are you okay?"
Rinoa was startled, but she managed a smile. "I'm fine. Is everything all right?"
The girl shook her head. "I'm sorry, you just…looked kind of sad. Is there anything I can do?"
The girl's kindness made Rinoa's smile feel less forced. "Just thinking, is all. Come on, want to take a lunch break with me?"
It was getting into early evening when Rinoa first felt that something was wrong.
The girl was pleasant company. Lunch was iced tea and sandwiches donated by a kindly old woman, and the two chatted in the weak shade of a tree away from the chaos of construction. Rinoa had thought her headache was caused by the heat and exertion, but instead of lunch making it better the space behind her eyes began throbbing steadily. She groaned.
"Rinoa?" the girl asked hesitantly.
"Ah, sorry, just a headache." Rinoa's smile came out more like a grimace. She got to her feet and brushed off the seat of her trousers, then held out a hand. "C'mon, we should get probably get back in there."
The girl took her hand but gave her a scrutinizing look. "You sure? You look kinda pale."
"I'll be fine," she said, and though the girl looked dubious she followed Rinoa back to the nearest construction job.
Focusing on something else eventually allowed Rinoa to forget the headache. Sweat and aching muscles and watching something be rebuilt beneath her hands was cleansing, in its own way; there were no weapons, no exchange of gil for human life.
An enormous length of a beam was refusing to be budged and had already left several long splinters in people's soft palms. Rinoa looked left, then right, checking that the people around her weren't looking in her direction, and then surreptitiously pointed a finger at the stubborn beam.
Wood and stone were blown into pieces, shattered with the force of an explosion. Rinoa and everyone within five meters were forcibly lifted off their feet and thrown backwards, and Rinoa was halted mid-flight by her back slamming into a crumbling brick wall. She managed to wonder what the hell had just happened before she blacked out.
…
Squall dreamed of silent, snow-covered forests, ice-toothed caves, and bitterly frozen winds. Cold arms slid around his waist from behind.
My lovely little lion. Shiva's voice echoed as though it had to pass a great distance to reach him, even when she held him so close that her breath would've wafted againsthis neck if she'd had any. You're restless. Lions weren't meant to be tamed, much less fall asleep from exhaustion.
"I have obligations," Squall told her, looking ahead blindly.
When she laughed, it sounded like the cracking of ice. You forget I know you better than yourself.
Squall frowned. The memories he'd given up for her were in her possession, fueling her power, but it was fucking terrifying sometimes to have someone so intimately aware of him.
You should find him. The fiery one. There was a slight distaste in her voice. She'd never been very compatible with people that fought with hot fury.
"…What?"
The one that hurt you.
"Seifer didn't hurt me," Squall denied automatically, then had to resist the urge to smack himself. "He's a liability. He's too skilled and unpredictable to be allowed among civilians."
If he were truly so dangerous, you would have already seen him causing chaos.
…That wasn't the point. Shiva, of course, knew exactly what he was thinking. You're lying to yourself, my little lion.
Squall's expression twisted into what would be called a sulk on anyone else. He opened his mouth to argue –
– and Shiva's arms suddenly tightened around him until Squall felt his ribs creak in protest. The landscape around him heaved and rolled under his feet like an earthquake, and the air felt oppressive, expectant.
Leave us!
The Guardian Force's voice was a scream of rage and power. Squall gasped aloud for breath as her arms tightened and the light of her Diamond Dust shattered the air, attacking something he couldn't see or hear or feel. An unnatural cry reverberated in his bones. An ache was building in his temples.
Then Shiva was howling aloud and Squall was torn from her gasp, thrown into a blackness so deep he briefly wondered if he was dying. The sudden silence, the lack of white snow, the loudness of his panting with bruised ribs was shocking as he tried to sense something other than this impenetrable darkness. Squall knew he was alone from the unmistakable emptiness that came from un-Junctioning. He missed the comfort of Lionheart's well-worn leather hilt.
The ache in his head increased to a pounding, debilitating agony. Hissing, Squall fell to his knees with his skull cradled in his hands. His teeth gritted and bit through his tongue, filling his mouth with the hot taste of blood.
my son
you said you'd be my knight
"Rinoa – ?"
you said you'd always be there for me
my precious son
…
By all rights, Laguna should've been asleep hours ago. The world seemed determined to throw as many conferences, alarmed scientists, and angry politicians as it could to see when he'd start screaming his fool head off. With Ward in the north keeping the Estharian scientists company, and with Kiros having his own duties, Laguna was being tempted into going mercenary on everyone's asses.
Yawning loudly, he walked into his office with a pile of papers. It was a typical office, as far as the presidential ones went, though without many books on the shelves and a wide collection of tacky figurines instead. A truly horrid potted plant took up a corner and one of the drawers in his desk had somehow, magically, turned into a liquor cabinet. Laguna had certainly had nothing to do with that.
Foregoing the light with the confidence of one who has spent far too much time in one place, Laguna unceremoniously tossed the papers onto his desk and went straight to the wide window. It faced a large part of the city and in the gloom of nightfall he could see all the multicolored twinkling lights of his people.
Behind him was the near-silent sound of shifting clothing. Old instincts kicking in, Laguna dropped to the ground and struck out with a knife he kept in the back of his wide belt. A soft curse broke the quiet and then there was a powerful grip on the back of his neck, another hand with incredible strength forcing him to drop the weapon.
"I'm not here to kill you," said the intruder. "I just want to ask a few questions."
"You ever thought about using a phone?"
"…No."
Laguna shifted slightly and the grip on the back of his neck tightened. He prudently held still.
"I need to talk to Squall Leonhart."
"What?"
"Leonhart."
"Yeah, I heard that, but…what?"
The stranger loosened his grip and Laguna was immediately swiping the knife off the floor and dancing out of reach. His assailant was much shorter than he would've guessed with spiky hair that might've been yellow, judging from the dim light coming in through the window.
"Zell? What the hell are you doing?" And hey, Laguna was always good for a practical joke, but this? What the hell. But then he realized that Zell's voice wasn't nearly so low and flat, nor his body so still. "Wait, who are you?"
A slight pause, then, "Cloud Strife. I need to speak with Leonhart immediately, and you're the most obvious person who would know how to do that."
His brusque and stubborn manner faintly reminded Laguna of his son. "You seriously broke into the capitol for this."
"…Yes." A faint edge of what could've been embarrassment.
"…Right. I'm gonna turn on a light. You attack me, I attack back."
Laguna flipped the switch by the door, taking a moment to adjust to the sudden light. The intruder did indeed resemble Zell, but it was purely superficial. At least he didn't look insane, definitely not like an assassin or jilted lover (though Laguna had never seen any indication of his son being, ah, that way, but one never knew for sure, and Laguna had always tried to keep an open mind about these things. Hey, Squall could be into goats for all he knew, though the thought of someone like Squall doing anything even as mildly inappropriate as forgetting to zip up his pants made Laguna's brain break a little and okay not thinking about this anymore).
"What do you want with Squall?" Because Strife didn't seem like the kind of guy who did much small-talk. (So, taking presidents hostage, is this a hobby? I hear macramé is a little less traumatic.)
"It's about the last Sorceress," Strife said quietly, and Laguna was promptly all seriousness.
"What would you know about that?"
"She wasn't the last one. And she wasn't much more than a…puppet." He tripped a little over that last word. "I need to talk to Leonhart."
"Where'd you get this information?" Laguna demanded, because he was Esthar's president and shit like this should've been brought to his desk at the slightest whisper of a rumor.
"Please. Let me talk to Leonhart."
One track mind. "Fine. Have a seat, I'll get him on the vid."
…
The monsters may have looked a little different, but their viciousness never changed. Vincent followed the hordes that seemed to be migrating from the Northern Crater, wondering why now, and why the Northern Crater. Between this and his awakening after so many years, it didn't seem like a coincidence.
At least the constant battling was warming the blood in his cold veins and sharpening skills that had gone rather rusty. He had yet to come across any human settlements, which meant there wasn't any slaughtering of civilians, but also that he couldn't replace the clothes threatening to fall off at any moment. At one point Vincent caught his reflection in a smooth stretch of ice and found an unchanged face staring back. CHAOS laughed behind his thoughts.
After a few days of travel with the monster hordes thinning out and wandering aimlessly, he discovered that Icicle no longer existed. It took crossing a narrow strait – thankfully just wide enough to discourage the monsters from swimming – in the hold of a fishing ship before the first signs of civilization appeared. Welcome to Kinevar [Dollet west], a faded, waterlogged sign greeted him on the edge of one of those fishing shanty-towns that tended to appear on the outskirts of coastal cities. There was a faint light shining in the coming twilight, and he slipped from the ship with no one any the wiser.
Vincent was very, very good at not being seen. He moved through the shadows towards the nearest ramshackle house and broke the lock on the back door with a claw, and by the time the moon rose he was back outside in worn trousers and a black long-sleeved shirt, both chosen for their warmth and ease of movement. In a moment of sentimentality he'd also filched a length of thick red cloth from someone's sewing closet, and taken a knife to his ridiculously long hair so that it hit the middle of his back once more rather than being twisted round his bony knees.
Monsters had led him to civilization, and the smell of alcohol led him to the people. It was a stereotypical fishing tavern, rundown and dimly lit, reeking of fish and salt and human sweat. For a moment he was back on the Highwind, hovering in the shadows behind Cid as the man smoked and swore out all the cryptic creepy Turks and ninja thieves and schizophrenic SOLDIERs of the world.
He didn't see any immediate threat at first glance, but he still made sure his face was shadowed by his new cloak as he casually entered and seated himself at the bar near the door. He was close enough to listen to the conversation of a group of men, but there wasn't much more there than sexist commentary on loose women and how crappy this weather was for work. A positively ancient transistor radio on the counter behind the bar crackled grumpily.
" – Estharian scientists claim," said a plastic woman's voice through the intermittent static. "However, they caution the public that there's no proof of these new monsters, and if there are, they've assured that they will hire SeeD experts to contain and study the new species for future control. In other news, a woman in Timber has claimed to have given birth to Hyne's child – "
No proof indeed, Vincent thought dryly.
"What you be wantin', buddy?" came a gruff loud voice, and the barkeep would've startled Vincent if he hadn't walked as heavily as a dragon.
"A pint of whatever's on tap," he said, his voice gravelly.
The man was covered in tattoos and enough sinewy muscle to bench press the Sister Ray, but his black-toothed grin was cheerful enough when he plunked down a greasy tankard in front of Vincent.
"Reports are coming in from Dollet of an attack by unknown creatures on the people – a slaughter – "
"How far is Dollet from here?" Vincent asked, but the barkeep just blinked at him.
"What d'you want to know that for?"
Vincent's claw hand lashed out and grabbed the front of the man's shirt, dragging him halfway over the bar and getting up in his face. "How far is Dollet?" he asked again quietly.
"A-about twenty miles west of 'ere," the barkeep stammered, terrified by a dark voice and blood-red eyes.
In a dramatic streak of red and black Vincent disappeared without another word, leaving behind a tavern of fishermen that wondered if they'd just seen a devil.