Disclaimer: "Last syllable of recorded time" isn't me, but by one of my favorite authors, Shakespeare. And if this chapter is a little chronologically confusing, just keep in mind that in Seifer and Quistis started their GuardianHearts accounts at different times.
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Quistis sat at her desk with her chin in her hands, watching the water-drinking bird that Zell had gotten her for last year's birthday bob its colorful glass beak in and out of her water cup, its yellow pipe-cleaner tail up in the air.
Up and down the bird went, bobbing on its adjustable crosspiece, the dyed dichloromethane coloring the entire apparatus a vibrant blue.
Up and down the bird went, a colorful glass pendulum swinging in time to the clock ticking on the wall.
It had been two hours since the debacle on the docks, and the anger from her encounter with Seifer was still stinging as badly as the knuckles of the hand shed clocked him with.
Best not to include that in the report, which sat as yet untouched in front of her.
Really professional, Quistis. If you keep this up, Cid will have you sorting paperclips next.
Although, she thoughts, paper clips didn't talk back.
Rubbing her knuckles, she glared at the drinking bird.
That same bird had dipped its beak into her morning coffee when she, Irvine, Xu, and Zell had set up the GuardianHearts account.
That was a long time ago, a lifetime ago-
- (four months ago)-
She could still feel Irvine's arm around her shoulders, hear his easy laughter in her ears-
-she wheeled from the memory in pain and revulsion, blinking rapidly as she once again focused on the little room, the little bird drinking without drinking, a blown glass simulation of life. Unconsciously, she rubbed at the scar on her neck.
Ironic how close that tacky desk ornament came to replicating her own existence, these days.
4 months. Two full weeks of dipping in and out of consciousness in the med bay. 3 months of leaving her room only when necessary and always after curfew, of ignoring the phone, of ignoring Cids requests for her depositions and avoiding the friends she could not bear to face, all waiting for some part of her to return, to regenerate like the tissue at her throat and bring her back to the world she had known, the people she had known, to the mold the world had recognized her in.
But it had not come.
A month ago, she had grown weary of the silence of her room and turned on her personal laptop for light and sound as an alternative to cabin fever. Eventually, she had crept into her old e-mail account, and had been mindlessly deleting over three hundred accumulated messages when the user message from Fisher_King had popped up, effectively breaking her isolation. Since then, she'd had an ear to listen and a friend who made her laugh, which was all far more than she deserved.
But the world went on, didnt it? She got up like a robot every morning at 5:30 am and turned on the coffee maker. She took her morning jog around the Quad before anyone else was up. She drank her coffee in the sterile silence of her room. She whispered through the hall like a ghost and then lay her head down on her pillow with no real hope of sleep.
The blasted bird bobbed up and down on her desk like clockwork, and every day, she breathed in and out and went about her life. Nothing had stopped because he died.
Just her, it seemed.
Up and down, up and down, went the bird.
The clock ticked on, mercilessly forward and never back, and outside, she could hear the shuffle of students and Instructors between classes, SeeDs between jobs, and even her scar had sealed itself shut. Each syllable of recorded time was moving the world according to its instructed pace where all she could do was stay still, waiting, waiting for something, someone, gone forever-
With a sweep of her arm, the bird and the papers of her report flew off of her desk, the paperweight shattering into a thousand satisfying pieces. The clock came next, the face cracked down the middle, the big and little hands now permanently frozen in place.
She stood over it for a moment, feeling angry and vindictiveand very like a fool.
After awhile, her breathing quieted, and the thunder of her heart in her ears settled to a dull throb. The tears did had not come before still remained absent.
More than you deserve.
Quistis sank into her chair and settled her chin back onto her arms, staring blankly at the wall.
The world could stop for an afternoon.
Hers seemed to have stopped forever.