"Ashes"
9. Gliding
Ocean Garden groaned, its surfaces vibrating as the thrusters located below fired at full force. The Garden slouched forwards at first, the impact of the sudden thrust driving it lower, but it quickly lurched up and began to move towards. The cadets and SeeD all held on the best they could, some slipped, but they held on however they could.
In the Infirmary, Seifer kept muttering apologies to a writhing Quistis. He was sorry, he was so sorry that he was hurting her, that he was causing her more pain by holding her. His words were laced with the tears he felt pouring out, and he was sorry, he was so sorry.
In the elevator, Selphie was cradling an unconscious Squall as an ever-watchful Brea stood her ground, despite the sudden shifts in the Garden's balance. Selphie gently rocked Squall back and forth, cringing at his head wound. She unraveled the tie he had wrapped around his hand and found small glass shards in the cuts, forgotten or missed. She picked them out, one by one, feeling as if each shard removed healed him more.
Brea, with her back turned to both her General and her Lieutenant General, tried to stand her ground, feeling that if she were to fall, she wouldn't have the strength to stand back up. Her General's word had given her the mission she was clinging to now, and her feverish mind was stuck on her pride. She felt proud that she was now the General's aide. That was what she was, that was who she was, and the General's aide had to stand strong. This thought was the only thing keeping her in one piece.
Nida, manning his post, held onto the giant navigation bar with all he had, trying to keep it straight. It seemed to vibrate from below, which was making it hard for him to keep an exact heading, and he had to. Everything was riding on him making the bullet find a target in the FH Maintenance Docks. The broken observation windows allowed for the breeze to come rushing through, and he could barely see straight if he looked up ahead. His last message to Xu had been for her to find a way to announce their arrival.
Xu, held together by a few Cura spells and field dressing, was jerked around like a rag doll by the ground underneath her shifting. She held in her lap an amplified bullhorn; a battery-operated device designed specifically to hold the yield of most of the inner-garden speakers combined. As she held on, the corpses of her fellow SeeDs and cadets were thrown off their chairs and onto the ground, their limbs contorting in ways that made her look away. The medic, still with her, talked to her, and she listened. She watched him talk his pressure away, telling her stories of Dr. Kodowaki and her insistence that magic could only help patch up wounds, not, as she used to say, magically make them disappear. Xu wished they would.
At the end of the big push, Ocean Garden found its balance and started to glide, moving towards Fisherman's Horizon with the survivors on board.
Xu didn't know how long it had been since the motion forward when Nida's voice broke through the static of her little transceiver.
"I can see the bridge! Better let them know!"
Xu held out a hand to her medic.
"You can't get up yet," the medic said, "Your wounds, you'll bleed..."
"Help me bleed, then." Xu said.