Becoming

The bar was dark and noisy, packed with characters of questionable nature. No one paid any more attention to the blonde girl seated at the bar than a cursory glance to ascertain that the seat was indeed taken.

Her long hair fell loose down her back, and since she was young and very pretty, it was surprising no one bothered her, she realized in the back of her mind, but whatever was keeping would-be propositioners away from her, she was grateful.

Had she known what was keeping them away from her, she probably wouldn't have been as thankful.

Seifer sat at a table directly behind her, his knowledge of bars pointing out that this was the best place for him to sit and not be seen by her. He didn't want to avoid her but he knew if she saw him she would be angry, and irrational, and maybe she'd run away.

Losing her again was not an option. He was under careful orders from Edea to monitor her.

"She has no knight, and no guidance. We do not want another Adel on our hands. This could be disastrous, Seifer. Watch out for her. I did not see this in the stars, and I do not know what may come of this. All of us, we must be prepared."

He'd hated her talking about Quistis like that. His Quisty wouldn't be another Adel. Beautiful, bossy Quisty...She could never be evil.

Just what would happen if she let her powers have charge, Quistis wondered. Would it really be such a bad thing? Nothing very bad could happen, could it? She wouldn't kill people, or destroy things, or anything wrong. What could be so bad with letting her power have control.

You wouldn't have to remember, a tiny voice in her mind whispered. No more pain. Everything would be normal again.

She'd been having doubts for a while. There weren't a lot of things she could do, because she wasn't normal anymore. Everyone knew she was a sorceress, that when Rinoa Heartilly, one of the defeatists of Sorceress Ultimecia, had died she had passed on her powers to Quistis Trepe, SeeD and once-instructor at Balamb Garden. There was no safe haven for her anymore, because everyone was scared of her.

Remembering, she sighed bitterly.

"Selphie...I wish I could stay here. I don't want to leave."

"I don't want you to leave," the younger girl had protested, but the look on her face disagreed with her words. That was the first time she'd seen it. Selphie, one of her best friends and longtime sister figure was frightened of her.

When she'd hugged Zell goodbye he had flinched away from her. Pretending she hadn't noticed, she moved away, hiding her tears.

Things would never be the same again. She knew that and there wasn't anything she could do to change it.

You could make them pay, you know...They have no right to be scared of you, you always loved them. Let them taste your anger. Give them what they deserve...The sinuous voice in her head whispered to her trickily, trying to beguile her.

I'll never do that. They're my friends, my brothers and sisters. We grew up together. I could never hurt them, ever.

Seifer watched her carefully, noticing her head shake a little. It seemed like she was trying to clear it, of troubling thoughts or pictures or maybe...voices?

He could remember when he had been in the thrall of the sorceress. His mind had been literally tortured by visions, dreams, images and voices, promising him power, glory, wealth, if he murdered and destroyed people.

It came with the power, Matron had told him later. With everything there comes a price, and with the gift of the sorceress there is temptation. Even her knight, he is tempted. Sometimes, to overthrow her, or just to destroy.

What are these voices? Who sends the pictures?

No one knows. Demons, maybe? Griever, perhaps.

What is their purpose?

Torment is what they live for. They live off pain and fear. They show you your nightmares and your worst, scariest memories, and then they tell you things will be better, if you do what they want. Quistis will fall to them, if she does not have someone to protect her, to guide her, to love her.

I will find her.

Will you be her knight?

I'll do anything for her. I love her, Matron.

She loves you, you know. I don't think she realizes it yet, but a time will come, very soon, when she will call out for you, and you must be there to answer her. I have seen it in the stars.

I will be.

Do you promise?

I promise.

Seifer would be there for her. He'd follow her everywhere, and when she fell, he would be by her side.

He wouldn't make the mistake of falling for the wrong side again. Now, as far as he was concerned, there were no sides. There was only Quistis, and he would follow her to the end of time.

*

Matron sat in the doorway to time, otherwise known as the orphanage.

She was getting old, she knew. It was something she could feel in her bones, down to the very core of her body. Before long, she could not toy with magic like this.

There was something she needed to find. The stars were not clear on this new course of destiny. Quistis becoming a sorceress had not been told of, but there were hints of a fall from grace, of hiding and fear and becoming ostracized. It read that before long, without a knight, she would become corrupt, pure evil.

It did not say whether it would be much different if she did have a knight.

Edea sat, silent. The mark of the sorceress had stayed with her. Reading the stars was a talent she'd always had, one that she both appreciated and feared. It was frightening to know things that had not yet come to pass, at times.

She waited for the vision, but was not fully prepared for it when it hit her.

Flashes of blood. Fallen bodies. A battleground.

The images assaulted her, and her head felt like it would explode.

A woman with a cruelly beautiful face stepped carelessly over the bodies. Her golden eyes shone with an angry fire.

Expensive cloth formed a beautiful gown that left nothing of the woman's body to the imagination. She was beautiful, in a terrible way.

The woman, dripping corruption like water stepped forward, to the burial place of Griever. Reaching forward, an insane smile curved across her face, she touched the spire and the ball the Guardian Force had been trapped in rose to fit in her hand.

A cruel laugh ripped from her throat, and words that Edea could not make out were spoken. Flashes of the bloody torn bodies of the fighters on the battlefield were visible once more, and a darkness fell over them. She could hear wingbeats and many clawed feet ripping, tearing...

Edea fell back on the stone, pressing her hands to her aching head.

The vision, as she knew, was only one of many possibilities and she hoped that Seifer would find Quistis before it was too late.

Griever had been imprisoned after the final fight with Ultimecia, having been deemed much too powerful to be given to SeeD for a junctionable GF. The terrors he had instigated were not quickly forgotten, and it would be long before anyone carrying the junctioned GF would be accepted. He had been locked away for his own protection, but it was entirely possible that Quistis would release him.

That could not happen.

Oh, it can and it will. We can't have you carrying tales.

"You! Get out of my head!" Edea commanded, but it was in vain. She lost power over her own body and slipped into unconsciousness.