Disclaimer: as usual, not mine
Author's note: this is written for The Successor Challenge 2021, theme: fear.

SMALL THINGS

Lying in the Quad, with grass tickling her hands, she thinks Garden is moving too slowly. But she also thinks it's moving too quickly.

Going home shouldn't be so excruciating.

She sighs, listening to the cry of a seagull perched on the railing, to the waves crashing against Garden's body, to the laughter of a group of friends, on the other side of the Quad. Even to the sound of Garden's engines.

To anything that manages to distract her from the air becoming more and more frigid, thus signaling they are approaching Trabia.

She is not ready to see her home in shambles, yet she can't wait to be there, see with her own eyes what happened to Trabia Garden. To her friends. She shivers, wondering, for the umpteenth time, how many of her friends are still alive. How many she'll have to mourn.

Steps are approaching, and Selphie closes her eyes, listening to those too. It's probably Rinoa, she thinks when she recognizes the soft scampering of paws. Maybe one of the kids who love playing with Angelo. Then those paws are unceremoniously deposited on her chest, and Angelo's coarse tongue attacks her cheek. She laughs, trying to breathe and shoo away the dog, and then Rinoa's laugh gently touches her ears.

"I'm sorry," says her friend, giggling. "She just loves you. Angelo, down, girl."

The dog moves but immediately places her muzzles on Selphie's thighs as she sits up. She can't help softly patting the dog's fur, as she notices Rinoa's clothes. Her friend has abandoned her usual look in favor of something more appropriate to Trabia's frigid climate; the standard Garden-issue sweatshirt and track-pants look so odd on her. Yet, Rinoa seems at ease – probably because of how warm those clothes keep her, and they all learned something about priorities in the last weeks.

Rinoa sits down next to her, hugging her knees. The air is once again filled by the cries of the seagull, the girls laughing on the other side, the waves crashing, Garden's engines moving too slow, too fast.

"I know we've known each other only for a few weeks," Rinoa says, brushing a stray, orange leaf from her dog's tail. "But if you want to talk… I'll listen."

Straight-forward as always. Rinoa has a direct approach to life – there's a problem, she tries to fix it. Someone needs help, she'll be sure to do her best to make her part. There's injustice, she'll fight for what's fair. She wants something, she gets it – not through her father's connections, but with hard work and dedication to the cause. She sees a friend feeling down, she's there to listen.

Selphie wonders if this kind of approach will work with Squall, too. Judging from what she heard about the concert in Fisherman's Horizon, Rinoa may have found the right way to go about that, too.

"It's just… we're almost there, you know?" Selphie feels pretty stupid – of course she knows. They're traveling together. She just hopes her friend also gets what she didn't say. We're almost there, and I'm not ready yet.

Rinoa sighs, tapping her fingers against the toe of her boot. "Yeah, I get that." Then, after a short pause, she shakes her head and adds, "I get that."

There's a relief, spreading through Selphie, warm and soft, like the hot chocolate she used to drink with her friend Amil when it snowed. She says nothing, and for a while, Rinoa says nothing too. Selphie keeps petting Angelo, and Rinoa seems incredibly interested in the toe of her boots.

Then, suddenly, Rinoa turns to look at her, leaning her cheek against her bent knees. "Ok, make you a deal," she says, and Selphie turns too, her hand still deep into the dog's fur. "I tell you what scares me, you tell me what scares you."

"Ok," Selphie says, curious.

Rinoa looks away, plucking invisible grass blades from her dog. "Losing you guys." She turns again, and her brown eyes are soft, sincere, and Selphie, even though skeptical, feels for her. "I've been doing some thinking," Rinoa adds, leaning her chin on her knees and staring at the ocean in front of them. "I wonder if there's another way? We went against the sorceress in Deling City and we lost. That failure brought on Garden's coup with students fighting each other… and then we almost got sent back to the sorceress as prisoners, to avoid another missile attack. And Trabia…" She shakes her head, moving the toes of her feet as if she's trying to stretch them. Selphie guesses she would move her weight from one leg to the other if she was standing. Her friend's body language is so easy to read. "And then what? We'll probably have to go against the sorceress again. What if we fail one more time?"

She stretches her legs and leans back on her hands, watching the sky as if expecting to find an answer between the clouds. "I guess I'm just saying I love being with you all. I feel like we've gotten close. We're not just a client and some SeeDs I employed, you know?"

"We're becoming friends," says Selphie.

Rinoa nods. "But in battles… sometimes it's so scary. Maybe it's just because I'm not trained as you all are, but… I feel left behind. And I worry. What if something goes wrong? That's what I think. I just… wish there could be another way." She flicks back a lock of hair the wind has pushed against her face. "So yeah, losing you all is what scares me the most."

"You know you could always go back, right? I mean, you just have to say the words and-"

"I don't want to go back, though," says Rinoa, turning to smile at her. "I like it here. I've never been in a place with so many people my age. It's so… liberating. I feel free," she adds, and Selphie hears the words her friend has not said – the years she spent with her father, and how suffocating his overprotectiveness has been. "And I want to help. I feel like I'm helping make a difference."

Selphie nods, dropping the subject. She lowers her gaze to Angelo, still comfortably spread on the grass, with her muzzle on her legs, enjoying being petted as the spoiled but adorable dog she is. "So I guess it's my turn now?"

Rinoa shrugs. "You don't have to if you don't feel like it. But if you do… I'm here."

Selphie nods again, taking a big breath. She opens her mouth, closes it again, shakes her head, and tries again. Finally, she surrenders, stopping her petting, earning a slight grunt from Angelo. "I don't want to go there," she whispers at long last. "If I don't get there, I won't know for sure who I lost. That way it's like they're still alive, you know?" She brings a fist on her lips to stop them from trembling, as hot tears run down her cheeks. "I feel guilty because I'm already mourning and I also feel guilty because I'm not mourning them enough because every time I stop to think about it I feel like I'm going crazy." She sobs, and Angelo sits up, gently licking her teary cheek. "And Hyne help me, sometimes I wish Balamb got hit instead of Trabia and then I feel even worse and-" She stops, sobbing quietly as not to be heard by the group of forever gossiping girls. Rinoa moves to protect her from prying eyes, and she leans on her hand, using her other hand to gently caress her friend's head. She doesn't say anything, and Selphie is grateful for that, because she just needs to cry, she just needs to stop pretending, she just needs a moment to be herself.

In a few minutes, she's hugging the dog, who wails quietly. Rinoa is still sitting in front of her, shielding her, protecting her. Being her friend.

This is not what she expected when she came here to lie on the grass and watch the sky, Selphie thinks. She came here so sounds could keep her mind distracted, so her skin could still feel Trabia approaching. She is scared. She has never been so scared, not when she saw with her eyes the missiles launched towards her home – after all, they could miss, right? – not when she risked being exposed during their undercover mission to save Balamb – after all, Quistis was with them, and she was the smart one, she could make a plan, right? – not when she realized they were locked into a base that was going to self-destruct – after all, there was that big machine, they could try and use it, right? – not when she saw Galbadia's Garden just outside the city of Balamb – after all, they were there, they could save the city, right? – never felt such a primal fear, squeezing her gut in a way no battle, no monster, no new magic ever had. She has been raised to be used to death, but has never really faced the possibility of one of her friends dying.

She has never thought she would feel like this. She never could prepare, put on a mask and train herself to be her usual happy self, so that nobody could see the pain lying underneath. This is so different, so frustrating, so enormous she's not sure she can cope. She's not sure she'll ever recover from this blow. And she has not seen the damage yet and this is what scares her the most because the monstrosity of this pain is unfathomable.

Eventually, the tears cease and Selphie raises her head, laughing in a way that sounds more like she's sobbing. "I think I messed up your dog's fur."

"She doesn't mind," Rinoa says. "She's used to me."

Selphie looks at her and widens her eyes, as finally, the link between her surname and the woman in Laguna's dream clicks in.

"Your mother, right? The singer." When Rinoa nods, Selphie covers her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

Rinoa giggles in a way that oozes sadness. "I figured that much when you guys talked about the other world."

"How do you do it?" Selphie asks. "If you don't mind telling me, of course."

Rinoa sighs, and she's silent for a long while, and it's her turn to pet her dog's fur as she puts her muzzle on her thighs. Her adorable, spoiled dog is used to comfort people who are hurting. "At first," she starts, at long last, "you cannot believe it. You need the time to absorb the news. You don't actually realize what dying entails until you see it in your everyday life. I remember I saw my mother being buried and then, a few days later, bursting into her music room calling for mummy because I wanted to give her a daisy I picked in the garden." She shakes her head, lightly touching her dog's nose. "It's the small things that really make it sink in. Her empty space during meals. Her perfume slowly vanishing. Her voice. The small things. The important things."

Selphie can understand this. There are so many things she's thinking about – small things. Important things, like Rinoa said. Hot cocoa when it snowed. The fairies' gifts. Yellow chocobos pijamas. Blue streaks in black hair. Laughter. Voices. Her friends cheering for her, when she left for Balamb. There are so many things she would have done, had she known it would end like this. There are so many things she would have said. Words that will wither, like flowers on a tombstone.

"Then there is so much anger and resentment. It's wrong, and you know it is, but you start blaming others, blaming yourself. I remember I did a lot of screaming. I went from being a well-behaved kid to a little demon to well-behaved again because I thought it would bring her back."

Anger and resentment, check. Selphie sure feels those emotions, powerful and swirling inside of her, so real, so there she can almost taste their bitterness, always lingering on her tongue. And she did an awful lot of blaming, these days. Not one of her friends in Balamb Garden had escaped her blaming.

"Will it always be like this? Anger, and bitterness?" Selphie asks, almost to herself.

Rinoa smiles slowly. "It's still a long way to go, you know. When these feelings calm down only your pain remains. Your loss. That's when you really start to cope. It started in Timber, for me. When I got this missy here," she says, scratching Angelo's ears and taking her muzzle in her hands for a quick kiss between her eyes. "But there is a kind of turning point. It's very slow and you almost don't realize it but one day you will think of them and you'll remember the good things. The small things. The way they laughed. Something funny they said or did. The person they were and not this giant feeling of something missing like there's a huge hole in the world and nothing can fill it. Of course you miss them. It's just… you stop thinking the world owes you something because it took your loved ones away. You are thankful because for a short time you were together."

Selphie closes her eyes. "The small things?"

Rinoa nods. "Yeah. Like the kind of pizza they always wanted, or the ice-cream flavor they liked more. The books they suggested to you. The music you listened to together. All the small things that make them them."

There is silence, as they both think of those small, fundamental things. Then Selphie giggles. "One of my friends loved Ms. Moogle's Cake."

Rinoa smiles too. "What a cute name!"

"And it's sooo good, too. It's a simple cake with coconut and some hazelnut spread. There was this cute little cafè In Trabia City that served it with caramel sauce. I love it, too. It's my favorite. You should try it." Then she smiles, meets her hand on the dog's fur. "We could share a slice."

Rinoa giggles. "I don't share cake. Especially if there's coconut in it."

They laugh together and then turn together to watch the grey, cold sun in the distance.

"I hope you don't have to remember the small things, Selphie," says Rinoa after a while. "But if you have to… I'll be there to listen. Especially if they revolve around coconut."

She's joking, but she's also serious, and Selphie can see she has made herself vulnerable for her sake. So she could mourn, and cry, and be angry and bitter and start remembering the little things that will help her cope.

Then Rinoa stands up, brushing her Garden-issue trackpants. She looks so odd, such a carefree, kind spirit in clothes meant for warriors. Vulnerable, and strong because she allows herself to be vulnerable. Garden never taught her that, and Selphie thinks it's ironic it took a resistance fighter to show her she could be vulnerable. Rinoa is another kind of fighter, but she's a fighter nonetheless.

"Now I make you a deal," says Selphie, imitating her and standing up. Angelo faithfully sits at her master's feet, waiting. "We overcome our fears, together."

Rinoa tilts her head, looking at her, shifting her weight on her leg and grabbing her elbow. "How?"

"I tell you all the small things and get to pet your dog. And you come with me at the Training Center, so you won't feel like you're not enough and left behind." She pauses, and then she adds with a smirk, "we can also ask Squall to help us."

Rinoa blushes, and Selphie giggles, reaching out to hug her slightly. She kisses her friend's burning cheek. "So? What do you think about it?"

Rinoa smiles, ignoring her embarrassment to indulge her friend. "I'd call it a plan of courage."

"So you're in?"

"So I'm in," Rinoa answers. "I bought a coconut, cocoa, and caramel tea back in Balamb. You could come and have some, tonight. Bring Quistis too, if she's not busy."

"Sounds like a plan." They continue in silence, and when they reach Garden's main ring, Selphie turns. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

Rinoa smiles and slightly bows. "Anytime." And when she turns to go to the library, her faithful dog walking so close to her she's almost brushing her leg, Selphie finally understands.

Rinoa's giving her small and important things, too.

Author's note: thanks for reading!