Echoes of Time
Chapter 4: Legend of the Star
By Sephiroth 4000
It was cold, the
air-conditioning was on too high.
Quistis absently rubbed her arms, even as she watched Seifer glare at
Squall, and Squall ignore him. Hyne,
how many times had she seen this little act played out? Too many times. It was, no had been so hard when she had been an
Instructor, teaching those two. She
faltered, her breath catching as it always did, when she thought of the words
Cid had told her so gently, but somehow that kindness had made it worse.
"I'm sorry, Quistis, but the faculty and I cannot allow you teach any longer
. . ."
". . .feel that
you would be better off working as an ordinary SeeD. . ."
". .
.discipline problems within the classroom. . just look at the Almasy boy. . ."
"Dismissed. Your Instructor's licence terminates at
midnight."
Maybe she did have
confidence problems, she thought angrily, but she knew that she had been
a good Instructor. Better then some of
the others. . .was it her fault if she moulded her students to think, and
question everyone even herself?
The others just forced their students into being good obedient little
SeeDs, never mind that they have brains, and wills. . .She realised that her
hands had each other in a death grip,
the thin black leather of her gloves straining over her knuckles. She sighed disgustedly, and self-consciously
relaxed them.
Life sucked. She realised she was on dwelling on being
fired, because she desperately did not want to think of the mission coming. Each mile the train they were on devoured,
each breath she took, carried her that much closer to her mission. . .To assassinate
a Sorceress. This was
madness. It might have been cowardly,
she shook that away, not a coward
unless you run away, but she was relieved that she was only going to be
protecting that annoying young sniper. She might have been only one year older
then the rest of her team, but that was just enough difference to enable her to
remember the last Sorceress War, terrible remembrances of fire and blood. Quistis no longer had nightmares about it,
but she remembered. It was
enough to make her afraid.
She glanced around. The carriage had an almost funeral air to
it. The only sound was the slight
scuffing noise of Zell's feet, as he deftly manoeuvred through his combat
forms. Up, down, twist, kick. It was actually rather hypnotic watching
him. She only hoped that it was burning
off his nervous energy.
If only she had such a
convenient way. . .
Deling City was crowded, Squall
noted almost absently. His eyes swept
almost feverishly across the mass of people, even as he led his team to find a
:'General Caraway'. The hotel was
already full from reservations alone.
They would be staying at his mansion, and the General would guide them
to their positions shortly before the parade.
Even as he looked around, he
could feel Seifer's eyes on him, doing their best to stare a hole
through him. His rival would do his
best to throw him off, make him look bad.
Dammit, what the hell was the Headmaster doing, appointing him
leader? If anything, it was Instructor
Trepe who should be leading; she had more experience then any of them. Squall
truly did not want to lead; not because he couldn't do it, but because he
disliked being responsible for other people. He liked working on his own. . .
His mindset was irritable,
even as he stepped up to the guard posted outside the General's mansion. Silently he noticed the darkened gardens
around the imposing building. An extravagant
waste of space, and cover enough to hide someone. . .but there was a
guard, and fairly formidable walls. . ."I'm here to see the General," he said
shortly.
"Too many people have been
bothering the General," the guard grumbled.
"Who are you?"
"Squall Leonhart, from Garden."
The guard scrutinized him,
then shook his head. "Listen you punks,
just because you made it into Garden doesn't mean you can see the General
anytime! If you wanna see him that bad,
go to the ruins to the ea-"
Squall's patience snapped, and
while the guard had been talking, he fished out a paper included with the
mission briefing, and shoved into the guards' face. There was no way
he was doing the General's trumped up test; he had heard about it while at
Galbadia Garden. "This is a paper from
Headmaster Martin, authorizing me to see the General.."
He wasn't aware of how icy his
tone had become, or how his gaze had snapped up from it's usual disinterested
stare at the ground, or how his posture had changed, suddenly subtly
aggressive. Rinoa, however, peering
around Seifer's back, saw and noted all of this. Growing up with her father, and surrounded by politicians and
military types, she had grown adept at reading body language from the tiniest
twitch. She had to suppress a giggle,
because the poor guard looked so flabbergasted even as he checked the
paper. Her father's way to get rid of
"whiners" was to send them off to the ruins on some bogus task. Usually the monsters there sent people
screaming away. She wondered idly how
this lot would have fared. Just
travelling with them from Timber; their fighting skills and attitudes were
amazing. Even Squall and Seifer who
seemed to detest each other, were able to work together during a battle. And the ruthless way they fought. . .she had
learned a lot just from watching.
She sighed even as the guard
stammered something about this being most irregular, and resumed hiding behind
Seifer's tall frame. It wouldn't do for
her father to see her after all.
General Caraway waited by the
door. His sharp eyes studied the young
SeeDs, and he smiled grimly. He hoped
they were worth the incredible amount of money Garden had charged. They were very young; he judged that
none of them were over twenty. Yet
there was a lethal grace in the way their leader (the only one he could
properly see) walked, and coldness in the boy's eyes.
There was a flash of blue
behind a blonde boy, and a face that quickly went back into hiding. A very familiar face. Rinoa!? His daughter had become a
SeeD!? Last time he had had someone
checking on her, she was playing at being a rebel in Timber. It was true that Galbadia Garden accepted
anyone who cleared the tests, but still. . .
His mind spinning, General
Caraway led the mercenaries inside.
Rinoa sighed, and turned over
to lie more comfortably on her side. She
was so tired that she couldn't sleep.
Although the SeeDs had let her have a bed the whole way through the trip
(Client's rights, she told herself) she still hadn't slept much. She didn't know how they had managed
sleeping in shifts. And they had still
gone out! After being shown the
positions they would be waiting in on the day of the parade, that man had
told them they could rest or see the city.
True, they had rested for a little, but then they had all gone! Seifer had woken her to see if she wanted
to come, but she had swatted at him, and mumbled into her pillow, "Go
away. Let me sleep. . ."
It was no good. She sat up abruptly, flinging off the floral
print covers, and irritably pulled on her blue robe. Maybe she'd go up to the back balcony; there was always a breeze
up there, and it was slighty stuffy in here.
Lithely stretching, arms raised above her head, she climbed the stairs
and went into the master bedroom, empty ever since her mother died. The room was bare, having long ago been stripped
of her mother's feminie gentle touches, her father unable to bear seeing
them. The balcony door's were open
though, a gentle wind billowing through gauzy white curtains. She gave a little
sigh, and pushed through them.
It was a beautiful night, the
sky blessedly free from smog, the wind cool and refreshing against her
overheated body. She started however,
when a shadow from the other end of the balcony (the entrance from the upstairs
guestroom) moved, and looked at her, then resumed his silent scrutiny of the
star-studded night sky.
"Squall!" she exclaimed, half
laughing, her heart still racing. "You
startled me."
He said nothing, unmoving and
silent. She paced slowly towards him,
her boots making very little noise against the stone floor.
"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?" she remarked,
hugging herself.
He flicked his gaze to her
once, then appeared to look away. ". .
.Is it really." It was not a question,
merely a statement, and Rinoa felt her smile falter a little against the absolute
disinterest in that statement.
"Look," she began
quietly. "I know we got off to bad
start with that scene in the ballroom.
But still. . .we've got a mission, right? So, could we. . .I don't know. . .start over?" she smiled, and stuck her hand out. "Friends?"
There was an odd hesitancy in
his blue-gray eyes and for a moment she had the horrible feeling he was going
to just walk past her like she didn't exist, but then. . .
"Whatever," and he shook her
hand.
"Right," she said brightly,
for some reason suddenly giddily happy.
"So what you looking at?"
He gave her an odd look, then
shrugged. "The stars. . .they're
brilliant tonight."
She laughed lightly, the
pointed at an especially vivid burst of light almost directly above them. "See that one? They call that one 'The Knight'.
I used to always wonder about that when I was a kid, because it's not
part of a constellation or anything."
Staring up at that star,
hesitantly he said, in almost a whisper, "There's a very old story about that star."
He couldm't believe he was
talking to her, she was Seifer's girl, and yet, there was still something. .
When she had looked at him. . .He had seen a face so familiar and dear to him.
. .How could he know that this was not his own feeling, but from a man whom
he had been in a dream that was not a dream?
"Really?" there was surprised
pleasure in her so-familiar voice, begging for him to tell her.
"Yeah. . .It goes something
like this. . . " his voice was so quiet and subdued, that she had to strain to
catch it. "Once, so long ago that none
alive remember it, an evil Sorceress did battle against a good Sorceress. That was the beginning of the first
Sorceress War, and it was waged across generations of normal Men. However, there came a time where the good
Sorceress was vanquished, and only the valiant efforts and death of her Knight
allowed her to escape long enough that she might release her power to another,
and not the evil Sorceress. Grieving
for the loss of her Knight, and mortally wounded, she stumbled onto two children;
a girl and her younger brother. She
grieved that such power would pass to one so young, but unable to hold onto
life any longer, she passed her powers onto the girl. The girl of course was stunned, but marshalling her wits, she
fled along with her younger brother."
He let the words wash over him, almost hearing the light girlish voice
that had told him this tale so many times. . .
"The world was ravaged by the
evil Sorceress, even as the girl grew in knowledge and power, and she roamed
the world desperately searching for the one thing that would keep her human;
her Knight. Long and wide she searched,
but no where did she find him. Alas,
she was found by the evil Sorceress, who had long coveted the power the old
Sorceress had bequeathed to her. The two
battled, and the young Sorceress grew weary, for she had not the experience the
evil Sorceress did. Almost defeated,
she despaired, and waited for the end.
The evil Sorceress laughed, and raised her hands, preparing the final
attack. It came, a spear of ice aimed
at the young Sorceress' heart. But. .
."
His voice faltered, and Rinoa
almost bounced up and down, anxious to hear the end. "But?"
"But. . .even as the spear
came at her, she was pushed out of the way, by her younger brother, who was
still only a child of ten. She gave a great
cry even as he fell, brought down by the evil Sorceress' awful power. And she realized, that it all along, it had
been her brother that had kept her from going mad with her unexpected power,
that it had been him, even though he had only been a child, that had
been her Knight. Anguished, she faced
the evil Sorceress, swearing that her Knight's sacrifice should not be in
vain. In fury and anguish, she smote
the evil Sorceress unto death, until the other did pass her powers onto her,
and died. The girl was then caught up
in this new power, and she might have gone mad then. . .but she saw the still
body of her brother, lying in a pool of blood.
Sorely hurt, and grieving, she knelt over the body of her Knight. "I shall not forget you lesson," was all she
said. "I cannot." Afraid that one day she might without a
visible sign, she caused a new star to be born in the heavens, a star to shine
brightly through the darkness of the night, like he had through the darkness of
her powers. And that is why that star
came to be known as "The Knight"."
"Oh. . .that's so sad," Rinoa
choked, discreetly trying to hide her tears.
She cried at anything; books, movies, anything at all. She watched his face quietly, even as he
gazed at the dark sky. Once again, that
slight smile was back, that cautiously happy expression, just like at the ball.
. .
"I've never even heard a story
remotely like that one, Squall. Where
did you hear it?"
"My sister used to tell it to
me. . ." His voice faltered at the end
of that quick answer, and an oddly bewildered look crossed his face like dark stormclouds.
"Squall?" she stepped closer,
and unknowingly reached out a hand to touch his arm. "What's wrong?"
He flinched away from her
touch, his confused blue eyes meeting hers.
"I. . .I. . ."
"Squall?" her tone was
concerned, even as she looked up at him.
"I. . .don't have a sister. .
." Only an incredulous whisper.
"Squall?"
Shaking his head, his normal
expression sliding over his face like a mask, he pushed past her and went into the guestroom.
Author's Note: Yeah, I know, sop sop sop. That was so soppy, argh, I can't believe I wrote it. The story about the star was crap. Well, what can you expect when I'm writing under the influence of writer's block but decided to push on past it anyway?