Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.
Chapter X
The faded leather of Quistis' garb was stained red with blood, flowing so fast that it spilled out onto the sands, each bright droplet coated by a crown of fine grains.
Rinoa swallowed her rising bile at the sight, understanding what this meant. Quistis' use of powerful magic had forced her to surrender to the death-wound inflicted by Adel. It was now no longer blackened and old, but as red and fresh as the day it was made.
"But Quistis, you-"
"This was always going to happen." Quistis took a series of slow breaths and heaved her torso up until she was half-sitting. "It may as well be now. Do not pity me." She turned her head to the rising dune above them, and a wave of recognition and relief spread across her taut face.
Rinoa followed her eyes. The dune sloped up to the rocky outcrop above, where age-worn stone steps cut a winding path through a wall of rocks that obscured what lay beyond. Behind Rinoa and Quistis, the beach fell away to a small sandy strip, meeting a vast blue ocean, empty and still. The shoreline tapered to a point where an old stone lighthouse stood, its walls crumbling into rubble, its flame surely long-extinguished.
"Where have you brought us?"
"We are in Centra. The South. This is the Cape of Good Hope. My mother's home is close. Take me there."
"Your mother is alive?" Rinoa asked, as she gently pulled Quistis' arm around her shoulder and brought them both to a standing position.
"My foster mother. A Sorceress lives alone here, since long before I was born. Her name is Edea." Quistis leaned her weight against Rinoa and allowed her to drag them both slowly towards the steps. "I inherited a traveling Sorceress' gift when I was eight, quite by accident. My parents were already long dead. I was a burden to my village since my infancy. An unwanted orphan, another mouth to feed. When the power came to me, I was banished to the wilds of Centra. Edea took me in as her fosterling. She taught me how to control and wield my magic."
Rinoa could feel the wet warmth of Quistis' blood soaking into her side. She looked down at her boots, and saw the trail of red they were leaving along the stone steps. She heaved Quistis to the next step, caught her breath, then heaved again to the next. They climbed upwards, breath by breath.
"The Esthari commander," Quistis said. "The swordsman. He knew you. Why?"
"He took me prisoner once. Then released me."
"He loves you."
"No, I don't... I don't think that can be so."
"I've lived long enough to know the face of a man in love, Rinoa."
Rinoa's mind barely registered the sound of her true name from Quistis' lips. Whether Quistis had learned it from Squall's cry across the battlefield, or had somehow known all along, she did not think to ask.
"His father planned for us to marry," she said, numbly.
Quistis was silent for a while as she strained to lift her feet to the next step. "You would have been treated well, I think."
"I told him I will be the wife of no man."
"And you shall not, little thief. You are my Successor." There was pride in Quistis' voice, Rinoa thought, and she felt her own chest swell with it.
They had neared the end of the steps now, where two grandiose stone columns stood tall at the top. The columns were cracked, and coated with dense sprawling vines, but neither fact robbed them of their solemn elegance.
"It is ahead," Quistis said, an eager light in her eyes that Rinoa had never before seen.
She tightened her hold of Quistis' torso, and hauled them both to the top step. A stone house, framed by several more columns, was in clear sight now. Quistis stumbled, her legs buckling under her, and collapsed onto the flagstone path. Rinoa heard a pained, wordless cry sound from somewhere above. A woman's voice.
The figure of a woman, tall and clothed in black from head to toe, had emerged from the house and was rushing towards them, her long hair streaming behind her like a curtain of black lace. She picked her way over the fallen columns and rocks that strewed the path. As she reached them, Rinoa saw that her face had the same ageless quality as Quistis', but there was an immense depth in her eyes that might have taken centuries to accumulate.
Quistis' expression, always so guarded, broke into a radiant smile that was forged of unbridled joy. Of homecoming, and of peace found at the end of a long road.
"Mother," she whispered, and the woman knelt on the stones to cradle Quistis' bloodied body against her own.
"My dear one. My beloved child." She spoke soothingly, stroking Quistis as if calming a crying infant, and something deeply-buried in Rinoa's chest cried out at the memories that were stirred. A mother's touch, and a mother's love. All that she had lived without.
"Are you... Edea?" Rinoa asked, and saw the woman nod into Quistis' tangled hair.
"Then is there anything you can-"
"No. There is nothing." She was bent in grief, her forehead against Quistis' cheek.
Quistis twisted her head free and found Rinoa's gaze. "It is as I said. You must not pity me."
"But-" Rinoa's voice was thick, fighting its way through the tears that had begun to flow. "This could have been avoided... You could have had another year to-"
"This is all I wanted. To die on my own terms. To see my mother's face one more time. There is nothing for you to mourn. Rinoa, do not weep. Listen."
She pushed out her blood-streaked hand and gripped Rinoa's fingers with unexpected strength. "Adel's magic... fights for dominance with my own. The struggle will pain you, as it pained me. But you can subdue it. Keep your mind clear. Take a Knight, if his heart is good."
Her voice was weakening, becoming raspier, and her grip loosened. Edea's chest heaved with anguish.
"Oh, my dear child. If only I could have taken your burden. I wish I could take it now."
At Rinoa's frown, she shook her head in resignation. "No, young one. I cannot. The risk is far too great. If our powers were to be compounded threefold in one body... No. I could become a witch that burns the world. We must keep the powers divided, for the sake of all life on this earth. You are barely past girlhood, and deathly afraid, and I am truly sorry. But it must be done."
"What if it happens to me? If I burn the world?" Rinoa stared at them both wide-eyed, the magnitude of what lay ahead starting to dawn upon on her.
Quistis' dry lips cracked into a small smile of reassurance. "You will not, little thief. I will be with you. I will not let you fall to Adel." She brought Rinoa's hand to her mouth, and kissed it.
When Rinoa's hand dropped away, Quistis turned her face up to Edea, eyes shining in adoration.
"You were the only one I have ever called mother. I was blessed to do so."
She touched the back of her fingers to Edea's tear-stained cheek, then she exhaled, and the pale blue mist of her magic floated out into the air together with her last breath. Sparks of red fizzled within the cloud, stifled, but undeniable.
Rinoa felt a strangled cry leave her own mouth as Quistis' form shimmered and dissipated, her clothing crumpling in Edea's arms. From where Quistis had lain, a bright blue flare streamed up into the sky, carving out a pillar of brilliant white light in its wake.
"Her body, it-"
Edea let Quistis' blood-soaked, empty clothes fall from her hands, and looked heavenwards, following the soaring flare.
"We do not leave behind flesh as others do," she said. "This is what we become."
The brightness stung Rinoa's eyes. She could see, now, that the light was not a creation of Quistis' magic. The light came from somewhere else; it filled the space left behind, the path cleaved by the magic as it cut through the sky.
"What... what is it?"
"The death of a Sorceress leaves a scar in the world. It will remain for several days, burning bright as the fabric of the world heals from the tear."
Rinoa was filled with an overpowering urge to touch the rift in the sky that had been torn open by the magic, but she stayed her hands. If that light was what lay underneath, or beyond, the bounds of the world, then she would know it one day soon enough. She would return to it, become it, as Quistis had.
"In time, this light will be seen by those in the North, and to the East," Edea said. "It is brighter than any star. I am known to them. They will assume it is I that has died, and they will come here to find the one who has Succeeded me."
"To do what?"
"Capture you, perhaps. Try to claim you for their own. A new Sorceress is an object of fear and desire. They will be afraid that you may become a tyrant. Esthar shall not wish to face another Adel. We need not doubt that Lord Laguna will send his army here. And the Northern clans on this side of the ocean will leap at the chance to gain a Sorceress on their side. You will have choices to make."
"I will not choose." Rinoa wrestled her gaze from the pillar of light to meet Edea's face. "I won't join anyone's side. I will live as you do."
Edea studied her without emotion, and after a while, nodded. "That is the best way for the world. But you must face them, first."
Rinoa watched as the blue flare, a body of red now visible at its core, reached its highest point in the sky, then began to drop, the pillar of blazing light still burned into the sky in its wake. The magic had separated from the pillar now, and it was hurtling back to the ground, towards the two women still kneeling on the flagstones. Rinoa looked on, transfixed. She was gripped by a sense that the magic was searching, rooting for her, like a newborn infant placed on its mother's breast.
Edea stood and stepped back, placing a distance between herself and the dancing lights. Proximity, thought Rinoa faintly. She is ensuring that I will be the one. Somewhere inside she was screaming at herself to run, panicking, protesting her lack of readiness. But those voices were muted. She was pulled by a wave of fascination, curiosity, sheer magnetism to the lights that were rushing down to claim her.
"It comes, my child. I am sorry."
Edea's voice was dim, so far away. Rinoa reached out, and-
When it came, it tore her into a thousand pieces.
Her? Who was her?
All she knew now was blood, and ice.
Blood red, and ice blue
and pain, always pain
pain like none other
blood red, and ice blue
power, and restraint
and pain, always
wrapped in death
and inside, herself
her... self...
...who?
Who?
Edea pulled the bucket from the well, and plunged a cotton cloth into the cool well-water.
The girl had been convulsing for five hours, since sunrise. Better, Edea thought, than the previous day. The shaking was less violent, the fever broken at last. She had even had moments of consciousness.
Not that she could speak yet, poor wretched child. She could only stare at Edea as she stroked her hair, pressing the damp cloth against her forehead.
"You are safe here, child."
She must have said it a hundred times in the days that has passed since the Succession. The girl never seemed to hear Edea's words. She was locked inside, within a prism of pain and terror that Edea could not enter.
Edea had carried the girl, leaden and unconscious, inside her house and laid her on a bed that had been Quistis', long, long in the past. She had gently stripped the bloodied canvas away from the girl's clammy skin. Her clothing, tattered and filthy, was unsalvageable. The Esthari hunting cloak she wore was in much better condition; Edea had folded it carefully and put it aside for safekeeping. She had soaked a towel in hot water and wiped away the dirt and blood from the girl's face, legs and arms, then carefully dressed her in one of Edea's own gowns, soft, heavyweight black cotton that reached down to the girl's ankles.
By the second day, when she held water to the girl's mouth, she sipped. Not a lot, but enough to keep her body from shutting down with dehydration. She could not chew food in her state, and it fell from her lips when Edea tried to spoon it in. Instead, Edea gave her long-steeped tea thickened with sugar and a pinch of salt, and the girl drank it down.
On the fifth day, she pulled the cup away to find the girl looking at her, eyes almost focused, her brows twisted in confusion.
"Mother?"
"No, child. I am Edea. You are safe here."
The girl's whole face crumpled, and she covered her eyes with her fingers, sobs rattling through her body.
"Mother is dead, she is dead, dead, she was always dead," she whimpered, then tore her hands away, her stare almost accusatory. "How could she leave me?"
"I am sorry." Edea stroked the girl's fingers, wondering how young the girl had been when her mother had died. Judging from the childlike voice she had regressed to, it must have been long in the past. "I promise that you are safe here."
"Safe..." the girl echoed, uncomprehending.
"You must fight to reclaim yourself."
"No." The girl shook her head forcefully, the whites of her eyes exposed with terror. "They are too strong."
They. The single word confirmed Edea's fear. She had seen for herself the traces of red weaving through Quistis' ice-blue powers, but still, she had hoped that the battle would not be passed onto the Successor. Should Adel win, she would seek Edea's powers, too. And then... A threefold witch. Edea felt a chill creep down her spine.
"You must fight," she repeated, as the girl slipped back into unconsciousness.
Night followed day, and day followed night. The pillar slowly faded, and the sky reshaped, growing anew into the rift, edging out the otherworldly light.
Edea stood at the window, watching. The great white sails of the warship billowed in the wind, the crew shouting and heaving at the rigging as they prepared to make land. Fifty of them; more, maybe. There was a woman at the prow, roaring out orders, her silver-white hair catching the dazzling sun. Edea walked to the far window, on the other side of the room. There it was, the smaller, sleeker vessel, still an hour or two from shore. It was close enough now for Edea to make out its one single sail, a wide square sheet stretching from the top of the mast to the deck.
The warship slid to a halt against the sand, and its crew began to scramble down the ropes onto the beach. With the other ship still at sea, the race to reach the prize had been won.
Edea moved to the girl's bedside, and laid a hand on her back. It rose and fell in the rhythms of sleep. She pushed gently, and let a small golden spark of her own magic loose, jolting the girl into wakefulness.
The girl murmured senselessly, and Edea nudged her again.
"They are here."
A/N: Thank you for the reviews, lovely people!