Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.
Chapter IX
They buried Xu under the snow, as best they could with frozen bare hands. Rinoa knew that any attempt to retrieve Nida's body would end in more death. Even so, the thought of him lying there alone amongst enemies was unbearable, and she wept for him. She wept for Xu, too, as she heaped clumps of snow over the Trabian warrior's lifeless limbs. She asked Quistis how they might mark the spot where Xu lay, so that when the spring came and the snows melted, they might return and give her a proper burial.
"Nomads place no value on a grave," Quistis said, her tears now dried. "To return to the soil is enough. Let us move north, before the villagers decide to seek us."
They picked their way across the path back to the woods, the snowflakes massing around them. Quistis instructed Rinoa to take only the bare minimum from their packs, and abandon the rest to the snow.
"We must travel as light as we can. It would be folly to slow ourselves down for the price of a few extra comforts."
The smallest tent was big enough only for one, so Rinoa carried the tent that had been Xu's on her back, leaving the cooking pot, tools and sleeping furs to Quistis. They spoke little as they left and made their way further north. The wind bit and whipped at Rinoa's skin, her reddened eyes stinging, and she fell in step behind Quistis, still numb to the truth of what had happened. They had been four; in the blink of an eye, they were two.
Bika Snowfield lay ahead to the north, blank and hostile, a world of nothingness. Quistis led Rinoa to the western cliff that edged the snowfield, a great sheer wall of rock. Night had fallen long before. How far into the night they had walked, Rinoa did not know. It could be morning for all she knew. The snowclouds were thick, obscuring the sky, and whether it was moon or rising sun that they hid, she could not be sure.
Quistis guided her to a small cave in the cliff, its entrance almost invisible from a distance. They climbed inside, and she saw that the cavern was larger than it appeared: large enough for a dozen people to bed down and sleep. For two, it was a palace.
"You knew this was here," Rinoa said. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and took in the pile of dry branches stacked neatly by the cave wall, the scattered ashes that remained of a fire. "These are yours?"
"Yes. It has been some months since we were last here."
Quistis gathered the firewood, and lit a fire at a spot close to the entrance. Rinoa saw that it was just far enough inside for the fire to remain hidden from sight from across the snowfield, but close enough for the smoke to find its way out into the air. She unpacked the sleeping furs and laid them out on the cave floor.
Rinoa sat on the furs, Squall's cloak wrapped tightly around her, and watched the fire flicker up towards Quistis' impassive face.
"Please, Quistis," she said, after a while, when she could hold her tongue no longer. "Tell me what she meant. How could I take her place?"
"Xu was to be my Successor. The receptacle for my powers when I die."
"But I could not be... I could never-"
Quistis gave her a look of dry pity, tinged with bitterness. "Could never? It is not a case of ability, nor potential. The magic flows to the nearest woman, be she maiden, mother or crone. Or child, even, as I was. There no choice involved in Succession. It is merely a matter of proximity. A blunt instrument."
"And it was to be Xu?"
"Yes. Now, little thief, it shall be you."
Rinoa drew back, unnerved by the finality of Quistis' tone. "You are still young. Succession must be a distant prospect, years in the future. Why did Xu ask with such urgency?"
Quistis was silent. Without looking at Rinoa, her fingers worked at the fastenings on the bodice of her worn traveling garb. When she had drawn the leather aside, she rolled up the cotton undershirt to the top of her ribs, the firelight revealing mangled, twisted flesh.
Rinoa stared at the wound that cut across Quistis' torso, stretching from just below her breast-band to the side of her left hip. It was deep, the torn skin darkened and exposed, and it was more awful than any scar Rinoa had ever seen.
"What... happened to you?"
"Adel gave me this wound. She was cast out into Trabia, when Laguna Loire felled her from power. I assume you know the story."
"But I was a babe-in-arms when Adel was expelled." Rinoa frowned at Quistis' flawless face, unlined and unweathered. "You cannot be more than a few years older-
"I am much, much older than I look." Quistis pulled her undershirt back down and began refastening her bodice. "Adel was near death when she reached the Northern lands. A Sorceress knows when another is near. She sensed me, and waited some years for her strength to trickle back before she sought me out. She hoped to kill me and take my powers, to heal herself and retake Esthar."
"But you defeated her?"
"Barely." Quistis' eyes darkened, and Rinoa thought it better not to ask more.
"I can only think that Laguna Loire did not know of my existence then. He was foolish to send her here. Perhaps he hoped she would languish in the snow, weak and unable to die, for generations to come. Perhaps he simply considered her to be Trabia's problem as soon as she was gone from his domain. I do not know, nor do I care to."
"Then what happened to her powers?" Rinoa asked, the answer already forming in her mind.
"They became mine. At much cost. I would never have taken them willingly. I only fought her to save my own life, and to save others from her tyranny. It would have been easier for me to die that day." She moved her hand across her belly, touching her hip. "This wound... It is, and will be, my death. A slow death, but a death nonetheless. My time is nearly at an end."
Rinoa struggled to find her voice. "How long?"
"Perhaps a year. Less, if I am forced to use strong magic. There is a reason you have never seen me cast a spell other than lighting a fire. I have little energy left to sustain my sorcery."
Quistis gazed into the flames, then added quietly, "I have fought her for fifteen years. I cannot fight much longer. I am weary."
"Her? Adel? But she is dead, is she not?"
"Not all of her. She is... within. She will always be there. She resides in the magic she passed to me, and she hates that I do not allow myself to wield it."
She glanced down at her hand, and Rinoa saw a faint glow form at Quistis' fingertips. It was an icy, pale blue, the color of Quistis' eyes. She watched. Every so often, a spark of angry, bloodied red leapt into the blue, and fizzled away as the lighter color enfolded and neutralized it.
"That is... the red color is...?" Rinoa whispered.
"That is her. Yes. Every waking moment, I battle against her in this way. And so I fight on."
Morning light poured into the entrance of the cave, or perhaps it was the light of midday, Rinoa decided, after the falling snow finally ebbed to tiny flakes, and then nothing. She rose, finding Quistis tending to the fire, and together they drunk hot water boiled from melted snow. They ate the last of the dried meat caught by Nida days before, and began to prepare to move on. Rinoa gathered a handful of snow from the ground outside, and used it to douse the fire while Quistis packed away the cooking pot.
She gazed out over the snowfield, now transformed by the sun into an sea of dazzling white. Movement in the trees a quarter-league away caught her eye, and she brought her hand to her brow to cut out the bright sun. A figure clad in furs scrambled down from a tree and raced across the snow, with the long legs and awkward gait of a youth, barely more than a boy.
Quistis came to stand at her side, joining Rinoa in watching the boy dwindle to a tiny speck in the distance.
"Should we give chase?" Rinoa asked.
"No. Let him return to them with his sighting of us. Those that fear me seem to fixate on knowing exactly where I am. Perhaps it allows them to feel they have the upper hand. The villagers at Vienne were the same. If they see for long enough that we will not approach, they will let us be." Quistis hoisted the pack to her back and tied the cord around her waist. "There are forests to the east of the snowfield. We will head there."
Rinoa took her own pack from the cave, and together they set off on the journey across Bika Snowfield, further and deeper into the bitter cold.
It soon became apparent to Rinoa that they had left a land on the verge of spring for one where the promise of green was a far-off whisper. The last patches of exposed grass and bare earth soon gave way to thick snowdrifts that often came to the top of her boots, spilling over the sides and working their damp way through her socks to her toes. She was awed by the great white expanse of it. Snow had been a delight, a treat in Galbadia; a light dusting on midwinter's eve, if she was lucky, and she had often longed to see it all through the winter. Now the reality of it was in front of her - ahead and below, and all around - and she saw its deadliness as well as its beauty.
Her own existence was laughably insignificant against all this. She was little more substantial than a fleck of dust, or a drop of water. In a place like this, a human life could be snuffed out like a candle. Even with a Sorceress at her side, Rinoa reminded herself. Now that she knew Quistis was dying, her assumption that she could rely on Quistis' protection had melted away. Rinoa was well used to fear, or so she had thought; but the stark likelihood of death had never been so close.
Until now. The Reaper's breath is on my neck, she thought. I must not give him the satisfaction.
Quistis reached across and stilled her arm, and they both stopped in their tracks. Far ahead, gliding across the snowfield, was a cloud of blue mist in the shape of a woman. No - Rinoa rubbed at her eyes - she was a woman, an impossible woman, as tall as Laguna's castle, her skin the hue of an afternoon sky, barely clad in scraps of silk twisted around her body. She moved with perfect grace, clouds of sparkling ice dust formed in her wake. Rinoa's heart lurched at first, then she began to feel a curious sense of calm. The unearthly creature held her audience spellbound as she passed into a thick flurry of snow to the west, and was lost from sight.
Rinoa breathed again. "What... Who was she?"
"There is a Guardian in this place," said Quistis. "I have seen her before. I believe she is the one known as Shiva."
The oldest books in Lord Caraway's library had held mentions of Guardian Forces. Rinoa, like all Galbadians, had always assumed them to be the stuff of legend. But she could not deny what her eyes had seen, and felt her world shift on its axis yet again. The gods were real, and she was a Sorceress' heir. Nothing was unthinkable, not any more. The sky could break open to reveal a field of flowers, and she would have accepted it as truth.
"Will she harm us?" she asked Quistis.
"Not if we leave her be."
"Aid us, then?" Rinoa dared to imagine, for a moment, how it might be to be saved, to be brought to warmth and shelter.
"I do not know. Perhaps. But we would be fools to expect it." Quistis shook the snow from her hair. "Let us persevere. We shall have a better chance if we reach the forest by nightfall."
As they pushed northwards, gentle undulations shaped the snowfield into hills. Hard work to climb, to gain footholds in the snow, but almost a joy to tumble and skid down. Rinoa's legs had been trembling for hours. Whether it was with cold or exhaustion, she could not be sure. She stopped, bent over to catch her breath, while Quistis offered her water from her flask, still warm from the morning's fire.
"How much longer?" she asked between sips.
"We are more than halfway, I think," said Quistis. Her face was grim, and Rinoa followed her eyes to two black dots on the horizon to their rear, too small to make out clearly.
"The villagers have pursued us this far?"
The two dots moved up the snowy slope, and vanished over the hill. The speed and manner of their movement was too fast and smooth to be men on foot. Rinoa felt quite sure they must have been mounted on chocobos. A shiver passed through her. Under the bright clear sky, she and Quistis were completely exposed on the snowfield. There was nowhere to hide for miles all around. Whoever the two scouts had been, there was no mistaking that they had spotted their quarry.
"What should we do?" she asked Quistis.
"We move on. What choice do we have?"
They carried on through the deep snow, their pace less steady, more urgent than before. Rinoa could not stop herself from looking back over her shoulder every few steps. They had walked less than half a league when her fears were realized: the dots had returned.
There were many more of them now, fifteen or twenty, she thought. They stood in a line of chocobos, a controlled, precise formation that Rinoa knew was no angry mob.
Quistis stared into the distance with narrowed eyes. "Those are not Trabian villagers. They must have sought assistance from the South. Or perhaps Laguna Loire has finally seen fit to tidy up his mess."
Rinoa's lips were numb with cold. "Quistis, what can we-"
"They are here to stop us going east. Where would they have us flee to? This is the furthest north we can go. Any further, and there will be no game for us to hunt. If they push us west into the Hawkwind Plains, we will starve there too; there are no forests." Quistis' face tightened with resolve. "No, this time I will face them. What else do I have to lose?"
Me, thought Rinoa, then felt ashamed at her selfishness. Quistis seemed to read her thoughts and smiled, gripping Rinoa's arm with her cold fingers.
"Do not be afraid, little thief. I will not let you die."
The line of chocobos had torn free, moving rapidly towards them. Rinoa could make out black cloaks and the glint of steel as they advanced closer. At her side, Quistis' hands glowed.
"You could kill them all with a twist of your fingers," Rinoa said, as soon as the realization entered her mind.
"I could."
"But you will not. Because you will die?"
"No. Because I am not Adel."
The rider in the center raised his hand high in a signal to the others, a black glove stark against the snow. Red-orange sparks appeared, scattered among the riders, and Rinoa saw, to her horror, that they were archers with flaming arrows. And they were closing in.
Quistis' voice rang out, clear and powerful. "Lady Shiva! I ask for your favor! Bring us a blizzard!"
Magic leapt from Quistis' hands, and a shimmering bubble formed around herself and Rinoa. Rinoa reached out to touch it with a finger, and found an thick, impenetrable wall in the air. A spell of protection.
Snow was falling now, and it quickly grew thick and heavy before her eyes. Rinoa could not see any sign of Shiva, but she hoped desperately that the Guardian had answered Quistis' plea. The snow flew in all directions, hiding the riders from sight, but their blazing arrows streaked through the sky and hit the magical sphere, fizzling into steam and smoke.
Quistis' eyes were shut tight in concentration, and each time an arrow collided with the spell, she shuddered violently. "It may not hold," she gasped to Rinoa. "Be ready to flee."
The center rider, the commander, was a birds-length ahead of the others, and as he rode closer, Rinoa began to make out his face through the snow. No... it could not be. No, this was cruel.
The army was Squall's, and his sword was drawn, gleaming brilliantly against the sea of white.
"Rinoa!?"
Her name was torn from his lips, and somehow reached her ears on the wind above the sounds of battle.
"Hold your fire," he shouted, but his words were lost in the din of screaming chocobos, and the rain of arrows only thickened.
He pulled at the harness of his chocobo, and rode at a fierce speed through the whirling snow towards her. Somehow she was calling his name, reaching her hand out to him. Reaching desperately for the life of safety and luxury in Esthar castle, the life she had rejected. A gilded cage, yes, but she had spurned it for ice, hunger, fear and death. And she had spurned him, too, the chance to love and be loved by him, and even so, he was still coming for her, to save her.
"Squall!" she cried, tears freezing on her cheeks as soon as they seeped out into the icy air.
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Squall roared again, and he was stretching his arm out too, and soon they would be touching, and maybe this could all be ended-
Quistis' voice came ragged at her side. "Forgive me... I cannot hold it..."
The spell of protection flickered and vanished, and Rinoa's scream as the arrows hurtled closer was buried in Quistis' arms, pulling her close, hands wrapped gently around the crown of Rinoa's head, a rapid incantation whispered somewhere close to her ear.
The snowfield blinked and winked away, and all was dark; impossibly so. No, more than merely dark, it was a void of complete nothingness, and Rinoa could neither breathe nor move her body, suspended in the endless blackness.
Then the air rushed into her lungs, salty, warm air, thick like syrup, and her knees crashed against hot sand that stuck to the remnants of snow on her hands.
Overhead was bright sunlight. A cloudless sky, the bright blue of summer.
Quistis rolled onto her back and gasped up at the sky, and Rinoa sank to her side, and the only sounds she heard were the waves lapping against the shore and the cries of circling seabirds.