Disclaimer: it's pretty obvious I don't own FFVIII.
This story is inspired by "Nuvole Bianche" by Ludovico Einaudi.
And is obviously dedicated to my mother.
NUVOLE BIANCHE
Music, rich, full of feeling, not soulless, is like a crystal on which the sun falls and brings forth from it a whole rainbow.
- F. Chopin –
PRELUDE
At the end of February, after the war, Rinoa tells Squall that she would like to go away for a few days since her birthday is approaching. To Trabia, maybe, just to avoid all the chaos and attention on her; they are still too famous and her being a Sorceress does not help.
So Squall looks for a cabin in Trabia, and they leave very early in the morning, to avoid the journalists that surely want to get in contact with the Sorceress. Their friends will join them for the weekend.
They have spent a lazy afternoon by the fire, in each other's arms, Angelo snoring softly on the carpet, when Squall decides to get up and cook dinner. She sits on the sofa and turns on the TV to watch the news; predictably, they are talking about her. She is half-listening to a reportage about her family when Squall says, from the kitchen door, "I think I met your mother…"
That gets her attention. She turns to look at him; he's leaning against the doorway, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"How so?" she asks.
"In a dream. I think she was Laguna's…. crush."
"Tell me more, please?" she almost begs.
He looks inside the kitchen as if checking if the food is ok. Then he shrugs and goes to the sofa, sitting beside her.
"Well, we… were coming to Timber. It was the very first time it happened… you know, Ellone." She nods and takes his hand, using it to pull him nearer, so she can lean her head on his chest. "I remember the dream actually began in Timber. I think we were in the forests surrounding the city… but then Laguna decided to go back."
Rinoa smiles, sensing his disbelief at such unprofessional behavior.
"We were in Deling City, then. His friends asked me – I mean him if he wanted to go to the same place or something like that. I think they were making fun of him… then we were in the hotel's bar. She appeared a little later, to play the piano… it was… a very beautiful melody. A little melancholy but… I liked it."
She nods. She has listened to that same melody for years.
"I didn't know anything about that girl, just her name. Julia. She… Uhm… told him she had written a song about him."
"It was 'Eyes on me'. The song we danced to at your graduation ball… it's a modified version. It became a very popular song when she finally recorded it. There were many covers at the time…"
"I recognized her from that reportage on tv. I didn't know she was your mother."
"Selphie told me about your dreams… she told me about this one, too. I didn't tell her it was about my mother, though."
"Why not?" he asks, shifting a little so he can hold her a little better.
"You all had too many things to think about, at the time… I didn't want to add this too. There was too much going on and I just thought we could talk about it later. When things got…easier."
"I'm sorry I can't say more about her." He puts his chin on her hair, thinking. "She was… very sweet. Laguna was a total fool, he kept talking about himself but she… listened. She understood. And when she confessed she had a song about him, she looked almost…"
"In love?"
He doesn't want to offend her admitting her mother looked enamored with his father, but she has already said it, and she doesn't seem distressed by that fact. "Yes. She looked… happy."
She frees herself from his embrace. "We should check the food."
He follows her into the kitchen, and she's stirring the hot soup when she says, "I've always known my father wasn't her first love. Actually, sometimes I even thought she didn't really love him." She stops stirring the food and leans her hands on the kitchen counter, her head so low that her hair hides her expression from him. "My father never talked about her. I just had my memories and they were so fragmented. I just remember her saying that she had to go out, that she needed to see someone about her new song. I asked her if I could hear it first. She just said: later, honey. And she was gone."
Squall goes to her, embraces her from behind, his arms around her shoulders and his mouth against her temple. He doesn't know how to soothe her; this is a kind of pain he can't deal with. Their bond is burning with it, to the point he feels almost scorched. He just holds her, her body trembling slightly against his chest until she raises her head. "Thank you."
They eat in silence, the television just a distant noise in the other room.
Later, just before going to bed, she asks him if they can go to Deling City, before going home.
Her mother's fingers are running so fast on the keys that it almost looks like they are not even moving. The music flows in the room and she stares, excited, trying to understand how her mother does it.
"It's just practice," says Julia, and Rinoa climbs up the stool to sit beside her. She slowly presses a white key, and delighted by the melody, tries to reach a black key, failing.
"You're too small, honey," says her mother. "When you grow up you can learn if you want to, ok?"
In Deling City, in her father's house, she runs her finger on the dusty furniture of her mother's music room.
The piano is no more there: her father had it removed a few days after Julia's death. Everything else is still as Julia left it that fateful night before going out: on the desk, there are several blank music sheets, there are open books scattered in the room, a bag on the little sofa in the corner near the window. It almost looks like a time capsule.
She moves her hand over the sheets on the desk: underneath, she finds a note. The appointment her mother had the night she died. She never reached the place; a drunkard ran over her before she could. She places her finger on her mother's elegant handwriting, so different from her own: her mother's is small, regular. She writes in big, round letters that almost look a little too childish.
Squall watches her as she moves into the room; the sun coming in from the window illuminates the dust she lifts with her actions. She almost looks surrounded by the past, and he has to control the instinct to reach out and touch her to make himself sure she's real. She looks lost, sad, and distant.
Then, without saying a word, she goes to the little sofa, and with a little struggle pulls the zip of the bag open. She recognizes this bag, she remembers it: the zip was broken. She thinks that's why nobody opened it for all these years.
And then she sees it.
Inside the bag, there's a folder. She realizes her fingers are trembling when she reaches out to take the folder. She opens it slowly, after the deepest breath she has ever taken: and then she sees the score of the very last song her mother has composed.
She watches, and Squall watches her.
She turns page after page; eight sheets of music she has never heard.
And then she lifts her head, turns to Squall, and says, "this is the last song my mother has written."
He approaches her slowly, almost afraid the room may break if he enters with too little respect for this piece of past. The bond is so still it almost feels like it's not even there. She looks at the music as if waiting for it to say something; then, with her voice broken by the tears, she whispers, "it's my mother's last message to the world, and I can't understand it."
"What are those?" asks Rinoa, pointing her chubby finger to the music score her mother is trying to learn.
"Those are called notes," answers Julia patiently. She wants to find a way to explain how music works to her daughter, in a way a little child can understand; but she knows she's not really good at teaching. "Come here," she says finally, and takes her little girl in her arms, makes her sit in her lap. "Now choose a black spot on the paper. I'll play it for you."
Rinoa points and Julia presses a key on her piano. The girl is fascinated by that; she points again and again and again, and Julia presses another key, and another, and another. "How?" asks the child, and Julia understands she wants to know how she knows which key must be pressed.
"You need to study hard and practice a lot. And sooner or later you'll be able to read that sheet and hear the music in your little head." And she ruffles her daughter's hair.
In Esthar, one hot June afternoon, they decide to enter the bookshop and enjoy the air conditioning for a while.
Rinoa hasn't looked at her mother's music since that day in Deling. The score is safely stored in her drawer, at Balamb Garden. Every now and then, she tries hard to remember what her mother told her: but she was too young to understand, too young to remember. She just looks at the music and cannot hear the melody in her head, she cannot even identify the notes. All she sees are black and white dots.
She almost unconsciously looks for books about music. Squall follows her around the store; reading is something new for him, a pleasure she taught him. He chooses books when the title or the cover's image seems interesting; most of the time, he watches Rinoa and almost naturally follows her lead in that area. She loves reading, and he found out that her taste is almost similar to his.
Rinoa picks a book about music theory and flips through the pages. He's surprised at how fast he understands why she picked that particular book: she wants to be able to read her mother's song. The expression on her face is almost longing, and he wants to grab her hand and squeeze it and let her feel his presence, but at the same time, he doesn't want to disturb her. She puts the book down, turns to look at him. "We should go," she says, trying to look indifferent. "We need to go back to the Palace and freshen up, or we'll be late for dinner with your father."
She doesn't wait for his answer. She moves past him, and he barely has the time to check the book's title before following her.
That night, after dinner, Laguna leads them both into a room near his apartments at the Palace. He asks for a cup of Estharian herbal tea and, almost proudly, shows what he calls 'my little haven'. The room is full of bookcases, paintings, and in a corner near the window, there's a grand piano. Squall feels a shiver on his spine; Rinoa's attention will be for the instrument only.
As soon as she enters the room, she gasps and covers her mouth: she has recognized a little heart she has drawn on the piano leg, long long ago... Her voice is thick with tears when she turns to Laguna and says, "is that…?"
"It's your mother's piano," he answers, nodding. "I found it a few years ago in an auction. I bought it because… ah, I don't know." His leg trembles, he can't control the cramp that creeps along his muscles. "When I found out you're Julia's daughter, I… I just want you to have it," he finishes, trying hard not to double up in pain. "I don't know if you can play, I just think it should stay in your family. You can leave it here if you don't want to take it to Garden… just remember you can come here anytime and play it, or anything you want."
She hugs him tightly, and he's still trying to control his cramp and his emotions. He simply pats her back. "Thank you so much, Laguna. You don't know how much I cried when my father had it removed… I… I can't even… thank you."
"I loved your mother," he says, a little awkward, and Rinoa goes back to Squall, squeezes his hand. "I couldn't stand someone else having her piano. But… it will be my pleasure to give it to you, if you accept."
"Yes," she breathes, and turns to look at her boyfriend with glistening eyes. "Do you think we could take it to Garden? Would Cid mind? I don't want to-"
"Don't worry, Cid won't mind," he interrupts. Then he turns to his father; his eyes are glistening too. "Thanks. It means a lot."
Laguna nods. "Just..." He swallows, fights his cramp again. "Just let me hear you play, once in a while."
Rinoa nods, looking longingly at the piano.
Two days later, she wakes up alone in bed. Squall apparently went to train; typical. She stretches and her hand hits something; she looks more closely, and it's the music theory book she picked in the bookstore.
There's also a note.
So you can understand her message. Love you. S.
"Why stop?" asks Rinoa. Julia sighs; she adores her daughter but there are moments she just wishes she could be alone for an hour, just her and her piano and her memories. Rinoa is a very curious girl, she keeps asking questions, and today Julia would like to be left alone; but then she feels guilty and opens her arms so her child can go sit in her lap.
"Sometimes, in music, silence is more important. With silence you can give meaning, you can break the rhythm, you can make the listeners think. Silence is powerful. Sometimes you just need that."
Rinoa is a very curious girl, but she's also very intelligent. She's quiet for a long while, listening intently, watching her movements as if trying to understand what's really behind those silences, those pauses in the music.
Sometimes Julia thinks she wants a little peace and quiet, a more understanding husband that would keep their daughter entertained while she plays her piano. But in moments like this, she sees a spark in Rinoa and she just can't wait to teach her daughter to play.
By the time they come back to Balamb, Rinoa has finished her music theory book. She's not sure she understood everything, but she knows she simply can read those notions again. Her mother's piano will be shipped from Esthar next week; she can't wait.
Squall keeps telling her that she can't expect to play her mother's song soon. He says that her mother started playing as a child, and Rinoa's almost nineteen now. He doesn't know anything about music, and he just has a vague memory of Julia playing; still, he's sure that managing to write the kind of song Rinoa found required a lot of work, a lot of practice, and a lot of studies. Rinoa dismisses his concerns and really can't wait to get home and look at the music score again.
So she does.
Squall is right, and the black and white dots her mother has written on those music sheets have no more meaning than they had before they left for Esthar. But she opens her book again, devours it again, comparing everything she reads to her mother's delicate touches on the sheets. For an entire week, Squall comes home after works and finds her on the sofa, her mother's song on the coffee table, studying that book again and again. He smiles, meets her lips when she greets him, ruffles her hair, and fixes dinner while she learns of tempo markings, of time signatures, a lot of terms stolen from ancient Centran, of beats and rhythms and there are so, so many memories of her mother, her words, the way she tried to teach her things in a way a four-years-old could understand. She was writing this song in those memories, Rinoa thinks, putting one note after the other, linking them together with her long and elegant fingers, lacing them with her meaningful silences and pauses. She closes her eyes, and her mother's right hand is hovering on the keys…
…arpeggio, Julia said one morning, as the sun filled the music room with light. Rinoa remembers laughing at such a funny word. Then her mother giggled, played an arpeggio for her, and Rinoa at almost nineteen is filled with the same childish wonder the melody gave her when she was four. High notes, the right hand. Like glass clinking.
Rinoa feels her heart squeezing.
She remembers.
She remembers, and it's beautiful and soul-crushing.
Rinoa twirls and twirls in her yellow dress, with her hand full of daises she has picked up from the garden for her mother. Julia is happy, this morning, and she takes her little girl into her arms, squeezing until her daughter laughs out loud.
"Guess what?" she asks Rinoa, caressing the little girl's face.
"Tell me, mummy!"
"Your father said you can learn to play the piano!"
Her mother's smile was radiant, that morning. It's curious because now Rinoa's older and she recognizes the subtle differences – there was mummy, but there was father. Something has always connected her to Julia, not only in her looks but in her spirit, in the way she sees things, in the way she feels justice, in the way music fills her soul and seems to keep her glued together.
There was mummy, warm and gentle and delicate and sunny and flowery and everything she wanted to be as a young woman.
And there was father, serious and a little detached and always too busy and not that interested in the way sometimes her mother played her piano like she was thinking about something she had lost. Someone she could no longer reach.
He cared, he just didn't know how to really show it.
Kinda like Squall, she thinks.
But then Squall is back home, with a paper bag on his left hip. She wonders, sometimes – when the time comes, will he be father, like Caraway had been, even back when they got along, or will he be daddy?
He smiles, scratches Angelo's ears, and he is warmth around their bond, tenderness around her mind, and she tingles, blushing slightly at her own thoughts. "I bought dinner," he says. "Balamb fish."
"Oh," she coos. "What's the occasion?"
"Your piano will be here in two hours. Hey, no tears, you promised," he says, setting the paper bag on the kitchen counter. He comes nearer, kneels before her. She is almost petrified, and she tries to blink back her tears. He's right, she promised him. Learning her mother's song will be hard, she'll need patience, she'll need to focus. The melody in her memories is hazy, but it's there. She'll nurture it and care for it, and bring it to the world again. Tears have nothing to do with that. Resolve does. Love does.
"There's something I want to give you," he whispers, brushing a stray tear away. "If you promise not to cry."
She shakes her head, tries to smile. "I'm just happy, you know that."
"Mh, ok then," he says, standing up. "Come."
He guides her to the kitchen, nods to the paper bag. Leaning against the kitchen sink, he watches as she rummages through the bag.
She feels his gaze, warm and protective, like the summer breeze on her skin, when the sun is so hot and the air is so nice. The bond between them is almost singing in anticipation.
Under the Balamb fish's bag, carefully wrapped to preserve flavor, there's something else. Books, she knows, wrapped in ocean blue paper, sealed with Balamb's bookstore distinctive sticker. She opens the paper, careful not to tear it apart, and her eyes widen.
"They are practice routines for beginners. You can use them to learn the basics. Kavya swears they're the best."
Rinoa swallows tears. "You enlisted the librarians' help?"
Squall slowly moves away from the counter to embrace her. He puts two fingers under her chin and lifts it to look into her eyes. He smirks. "Of course not. I asked Zell, so he had an excuse to see her."
She snorts, and in doing so the tears she has tried to hold back spill. "This will drive you nuts," she says. She has a vague memory of pressing the same keys again and again, the pain in her small fingers, her mother gently guiding her hand.
He feels the memory through their bond, feels the love in it, feels Julia's gentleness, Rinoa's eagerness, their happiness, a yearning, a kind of pain that is different, not scorching as it was in Trabia. The kind of pain that does something good. The kind of pain that heals.
He moves a lock of her hair behind her ear, cups her face, and brushes a tear away with his thumb. "I don't think so."
Julia moves her hand ever so slowly on the keys, and Rinoa is watching in wonder. "See?" says Julia, and her little girl eagerly nods, eyes sparking. She's almost trembling with excitement.
Then it's Rinoa's turn to press the key. She's a little too eager, and they spend the good part of an hour trying to get the hand position right, pressing two keys, again and again and again.
And they laugh.
And they're happy.
Rinoa is particularly strict with her practice.
She studies her theory – she's trying to learn to sight-read – and she uses that knowledge when she sits at her piano – her mother's piano, she sighs, and she brushes the little red heart she drew on its white leg, to make sure it's really her piano – and exercises. She follows the instructions on the books Squall gave her to the letter.
She presses the keys – finger one and finger two, finger one and finger two, one two three four, long note at the end, start again – and she remembers, and sometimes she closes her eyes, sighing heavily, and she hears the rustle of fabric on the other corner of the room.
Squall is lying on the sofa, reading the latest issue of Weapons Monthly, one leg bent to support the magazine, one hand holding it open and the other dangling from the sofa to touch Angelo's head, sleeping at his feet. He looks focused, but she knows he's listening. She must be driving him nuts, playing those two notes again and again, and that thought passes through their bond before she has a chance to stop it.
"You're not," he says aloud. "I kind of like it. I don't mind at all."
For his sake, though – and for her sake, too – she switches to scales. C Major. That's the only thing her mother has really managed to teach her. Finger one, finger two, finger three, pass the thumb, one again, two again, three again, four, five. Back again to middle C. Repeat until your fingers hurt.
Then do it with your left hand. Again and again and again.
When her hour of practice is done, Squall sits up and opens his arms. She sprawls on his chest, and he absentmindedly takes her hand in his, massaging it with his thumb.
"Does it hurt?"
"I feel like my little finger is going to pop out on the other side," she says, and he chuckles.
"Sounds gory," he jokes, still massaging her hand. "But that's not what I meant."
"It feels unreal," she answers, after a long silence. "But it doesn't hurt." She closes her eyes, enjoying the gentle pressure on her palm, the feeling of his coarse lips kissing her forehead again and again. "Are you sure you don't mind?"
"Why would I?" he asks, caressing her hair with his free hand.
Why would he? Through the bond, there's a distinct feeling of the way he looks at this. It's practice. She needs it to push forward, to move on other things, on music made to communicate something, not made to teach. She needs it to understand her mother's message. She needs those exercises as he needs his gunblade routine. It's the strength of the foundations she's building. He sees its beauty and appreciates it.
This kind of moves her to tears and she blinks. She promised, no tears. Tears have nothing to do with this. Resolve does. Love does.
"I dunno," she jokes, her voice cracking. "I thought maybe you'd start asking yourself what have I gotten myself into?"
"That's something I stopped asking myself a long time ago, Rinoa."
"Think you're so smug, uh?" She playfully hits his chest, feeling the sound of his chuckle reverberating against her breasts. "I resent that."
He puts a finger under her chin, gently lifting her head. "Whatever I got myself into, I love you, Rin."
Later, in their bed, when she's pressed flush against his chest, still slightly breathless, she pulls away from his kisses. "Thank you," she whispers. The moon shines through their curtains, and his face is almost soft, almost ethereal in the combined light of the moon and their bedside lamp.
"For what?"
"Your support. It means the world to me."
Her father takes her hands. He's swallowing a lot, Rinoa thinks, as she does when she sees a dessert she likes. But his cheeks are moist, and he's been trying to say something.
"Why are you sad?" she asks. Father is never sad. His cheeks are never moist. Mummy's cheeks are, sometimes, but she says it's because she makes her smile so much.
"Rinoa, honey, you know that mummy went out, right?"
Caraway watches his little girl nod. She is a little weary, almost suspicious.
"She…" His voice falters and cracks. How do you say to a five years old girl that the mother she adores won't come back anymore? "Mummy can't be with us anymore, honey," he says.
Mummy always says she is a good girl, so Rinoa nods. She won't make a fuss. Her father doesn't like tantrums. "Can I see her tomorrow?"
Caraway picks her up, makes her sit on his knees. Maybe it will be easier if he doesn't have to look into his daughter's eyes. She has Julia's eyes, Julia's hair, Julia's soft features, and it hurts so much to look at her right now that he can't do it, not when he has closed his wife's eyes forever a little more than an hour ago.
"Mummy won't come back for a very long time, honey." He leans his cheek against Rinoa's hair, breathing her scent. Her mother's scent, her mother's real scent, not the one of blood, of pain, of fear, of death. A soft scent of roses. He wants to remember that.
"But I want to hear her song. She pr-promised." There's a cold feeling in Rinoa's heart, a painful and strained edge in her father's words. She doesn't understand. Mummy promised. Mummy always keeps promises.
"She wanted to keep her promise, Rinoa." He hugs her tighter because he knows Julia's mummy, but he is father, detached and a little cold. But maybe he can be daddy, for once. For his little girl, his little, innocent, motherless girl, he can try to be daddy. Try to soothe her pain. Try to make her understand the unfathomable for her five-year-old mind. "We won't see mummy for a very, very long time, honey." He notices her eyes drift on the telephone on his desk. "We can't call her either."
"What, I can't hear my mummy's voice anymore?" Rinoa almost shrieks, because even if she doesn't grasp the idea of death, there is something that is now making its way into her brain.
Mummy will never come back again.
Caraway holds her tighter, buries his head into her hair, and he cries, because his little sunny girl with her scent of roses is motherless, and he is a widower, and this pain is so unbearable, so unthinkable, he doesn't know how he'll wake up tomorrow morning.
But his little girl needs him.
Mummy is no more.
And Rinoa wails.
Author's note: the name for the pigtail girl, Kavya, means learning, among other things. At least according to the website I used. It sounded nice and fitting, so I used it. The exercises Rinoa does are from Beyer.
This was originally a oneshot, but then I realized it would get way too long. So I decided to split into three parts, then it kept growing and now it will be five parts Hopefully I'll stop at that lol
As usual, I only relied on Grammarly, and English's my second language, so if you notice mistakes please feel free to point them out!