I'm baaaaaack! *watches as readers run for cover* No thanks to the few reviews I got ;_; [sad lil' author] My goal is to reach 100 for this fic (it's a nice three-digit number! :) and at this rate we're not going to make it *sobs* Though the reviews I did get made me blush wildly *^^* now we just need quantity, not quality ^^v
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~Hourglass~
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10:40 AM
(She said)
I can't stop running my fingers over the sleek, gleaming surface of the new whip hanging deadly at my side. It even looks different than anything around it, luminescent and sharp and superior.
"Thank you." The words are small, seemingly meaningless in perspective, but I see the soft glow in his eyes and know they mean something to him. "So much."
His gaze dwells upon it, then on me, for long moments. "You'll need it," he says roughly, as if trying to excuse his actions, his attachments. "I wish to Hyne you didn't."
His words set off trains of thoughts derailed before they reach a solution. It's the way he says it that makes the largest impression upon me. There's no mockery in his tone anymore, no ego, no animosity. Nothing to relieve the stark factuality of his words. Somewhere along the line he'd stopped thinking about "if things go wrong" and started planning for "when things go wrong". His relentless preparation for calamity had started to impress on me a similar conviction that we were driving hell-bent for disaster. No escape, no choice, nothing for it but to keep going, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes and the consequences.
Again me hand brushes the weapon on my hip. Its statistics are amazing, far beyond my current ability to use to the fullest/ What kind of destruction were we headed for, if I am expected to wield it with impunity?
"Here," Seifer says, pulling me into a small niche between stores. "Stop a moment, Quisty. We've got to do something about your junctions."
"My junctions?" Is something wrong with them? I check hastily, but nothing appears to be out of order.
"Yeah..." Seifer seems worried, so I reach up to my left shoulder and undo the clasp that holds my long sleeve onto my fitted gear. It slides down easily, revealing my junction plate.
In the right light, you could see it. It looked as if someone had inlaid mother-of-pearl on my skin, done naturally, like it belonged there, an oddity of birth that could glint in all colors and none. Mostly it stayed icy white. A testament to neutrality. Equal opportunity destruction. A line of type, two larger symbols, another line of smaller symbols. The top line was words: [standard SeeD-issue junction, GF/magic]. Then below it, sharing space, were the SeeD symbol, looking strange in only one color, to the left of the universal symbol for junctioning. Then, below it, by affiliations.
/Thunder,/ the first symbol meant. My GF/elemental affiliation. Three days of tests they had run on me, physical, mental, sociological, to determine which best suited me. With which I was most compatible. Some people had walked out of there with two or more on their charts. But I had only had one. They told me that it happened occasionally that someone's affiliation with one element was so strong that it overwhelmed all other compatibilities. They reassured me that I could become good enough with one element to compete evenly with people who possessed two junctions but were less skilled in each. A blank space rests below it, where elemental defense will go. Every time I look at the blank slate it makes me nervous, reminding me that I am unprepared to handle it. It is my weakness that I must overcome.
Next to it, my status affiliations. The biohazard symbol is first, indicating that I'm dangerous with all types of stat-altering magic. That, they explained, is a result of being a blue mage. I don't have to sacrifice skill with sleep to cast deadly poisons. Then three symbols beneath designating my status defense. Most people only have one; again, the blue mage comes into play. Death, sleep, confuse.
His fingers trace lightly over the symbol for death, and I shiver beneath his touch, not only for the feather-light brush but the odd glint in his eyes. Is that what I am? Is that what I am fated to become? Like the weapon by my side, sleek and dangerous; Death, swift and unyielding.
I gasp softly with the shock as he transfers spells to me. In the rush of adrenaline I forget even to breathe as the symbol flares beneath his fingers, shining shadowed, obsidian inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I see the threads of silver vanish completely as my defensive junction climbs steadily until it reaches maximum and I can hold no more.
The connection breaks, leaving me empty outside but overflowing within. The spells fill me, wrapping themselves around me, creating a protective filament against themselves. I can't even cast them yet with a decent rate of success but I am immunized against death spells.
Then his fingers slide to the left, the blank spot on my junctions. He stares at it for a few minutes, then looks up into my eyes. "I never knew," he says simply, and I catch in his voice the edge of a plea for forgiveness. For what, I do not know, but that never mattered. I know he's hurting, I know he did something he regrets, I know he hurt me and didn't know why.
Then the rush hits me again, harder this time, until the exhilaration borders on pain and I'm so wrapped up in both that it doesn't make a difference. I dimly feel his fingers moving over my skin, it's as if they've turned to razors, sharp-edged and cutting into my fragile epidermis. A downward stroke and my blood boils in my veins; a sideways slice and lightning cracks in my head, causing even Quezacotl to cry out in protest. Ice freezes my heart; the glow of righteousness overwhelms my conscience; I stagger, poisoned, then can only stare as the world freezes around me, even the dripping of the spigot by the house's garden slowed so that a single drop of water falls forever. Vitality charges my body, and suddenly everything is rushing by; a single breath is lost in an instant, an aeon vanishing before I blink an eye. Something burns within me, like a thousand needles piercing my soul, something ancient and powerful and forbidden. Then, with a mind-numbing crash, I fall back into reality and cling, gasping desperately for breath, to Seifer.
He isn't looking at me, but rather at the place on my arm where his fingers still rest. I look too, and suck in air. Where there was a blank spot, now a single symbol burns, still angrily red in its newness against the silvery inlay of my older junctions. I don't recognize it. It should be an elemental symbol but it's none I've ever seen before. It takes me a few tries to work up the breath to ask, haltingly, "What- is that for?"
He finally looks up at me. "It's an old symbol," he says unwillingly. "It's forbidden."
I stare at the shape burned into my flesh. "Forbidden."
He leans heavily against me, causing me to rest all of my weight against the brick wall behind me, and rests his head atop mine. "I can't promise you that no one will hurt you magically again. They can still hit you with status effects, and a strong enough mage can overcome any prevention. But forbidden magic is the strongest. It protects against all elements, as well as itself. It's as close as you can come."
I move my gaze from my own junctions, choosing instead to focus on his left arm, resting temptingly on my shoulder. "Do you have it?"
He shifts. "Yes."
"Let me see."
Reluctantly, he slides his trenchcoat off of his left shoulder. The white muscle shirt he wears underneath leaves his arms bare, and I can clearly see the writing lettered there.
[standard SeeD-issue junction, GF/magic], then the SeeD and junction symbols again. But below that...
GF/elem affiliations. Not just one, or two, or even three, which was rare but did happen. He had every damn one burned into his flesh, the symbols even smaller then usual, two rows of four. Leading off was Holy, which was sheened golden indicating a current GF junction; his main compatibility. But all the symbols had a touch of gold to them; fire was next, red-gold swirled... naturally, since that was his Limit Break. Then, in succession, marching down his skin, came wind, poison, neutrality, earth, water, and finally ice.
I raised my eyes slowly to his, knowing without needing to see that, if I looked for his defenses, I'd see the same forbidden symbol that I now bore; or that his status A/D would be double biohazards.
"Why?" the word escapes my lips softly, frayed nearly to nothingness. I can't imagine having such junctions. The forces to carry within, to harness, to master-- the *need* for such a thing...
His hand touches my cheek, caresses it. "It was needed," he whispers in return. Pain shadows his eyes, turning them dark jade with memory.
"Will I..." I can't look away from him, pressing myself into the wall behind me as if I could melt into it, feeling small and frightened. Strange, unsettling feelings. Loss of control. I've always hated such things. "Will it happen to me?"
He looks away for a moment; when he looks back his eyes are shielded again. "Yes," he admits, a choked murmur, laced with regret and unavoidability. "If you want to survive... it's needed. It's the only way."
I look down and feel myself enveloped. Not by the hard, cold, uncaring brick of the wall behind me, but by strong arms, a warm body against mine, wrapped up tightly. "It'll be okay," he whispers into my hair. "I promise."
I close my eyes and lean against him, wanting desperately to believe that he could make everything right in a world I felt crumbling around me. Wanting, for the first time, to be protected.
10:43 AM
(He said)
I can feel her trembling again, every quiver transmitted through my frame, and I hate that I frightened her. She is frightened, though she'd never admit it. I don't blame her a whit. If I were her I would have long since passed 'frightened' and be headlong into 'panic'. I've been careful not to tell her much but the preparations I made spoke for themselves. Second-level potions, the most advanced weapons, a junction plate that could send monsters running for their lives on the Island Closest to Hell... it told unmistakably of the magnitude of for what we were headed.
I sigh softly, adjusting my grip so that my fingers rest on bare skin. "Just a few more spells, Quisty," I murmur as reassuringly as I can. "Okay?"
I can feel her shaky nod giving me permission. Getting a firm lock on the magic I want to transfer, I let my fingers trace their symbols lightly on her skin. One by one they flow from me to her: Curagas, Regens, Lifes, Regens, Esunas, Shells, Protects... the litany goes on as she shivers, delicate as a breeze, filling with magic. Then the contact is broken. In the moment of silence following the transfer, I hand her a small stone.
She studies it carefully, taking in its speckled green exterior and its smoky base color, then turns it over to see the symbol pressed in gold on the underside. "A GF?"
I wrap my hand around hers, pressing the rough edges of the stone into her palm. "Carbuncle," I explain. "She'll shield you from most magic."
"Where did you get her?" wonderingly.
My half-smile is bittersweet, remembering Rinoa flinging her up in a doomed, last-ditch effort at protection. Innocent, naïve Rinoa, scarred and hardened by the Third Sorceress War. Her fading memory is a painful reminder of what could happen again. "An old friend," I tell her softly. "Here. Take this, too." The second object is a heavy gold ring, large enough to encompass both her thumbs, impressed on one side with an image so faded and worn it can barely be made out. I always thought it looked like a bird in flight, until I realized what the ring contained. "This is Doomtrain."
"/Doomtrain!/" she gasped. "You *have* him? You're giving him to *me*?"
"I have Alexander," I remind her, "and if I need to I can junction Ifrit and Diablos. Quezacotl is fine for conserving strength on lower-level encounters, but you're going to need something more powerful."
"But- I can't come *close* to defeating GFs of this magnitude!"
"You don't need to. Doomtrain has been imprisoned in that ring for a long, long time- he'll gladly join whomever frees him. And Carbuncle's a shy little sweetie; you won't have any problems with her."
She stares at the two objects resting in her hands. "I'm not good enough," she whispers sadly.
I brush her cheek, and she looks up, letting me hold her. "You will be," I promise. "You will be."
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As Hourglass draws to a close I'm starting to think about my next fic. At the moment I really don't have any ideas, so I'm very open to suggestions. If anyone has a plot sitting around, or there's something you'd like to see but haven't got time to write yourself, pass it along. And if you're the hundreth reviewer, I'll let you pick the main couple, within reason (there are some pairings I just can't write. For example, I doubt I could pull off a convincing Quell if my life depended on it, so don't ask :)
But that won't happen unless you stop sitting and get clicking! Or do both, but at least click :) Review within the next three seconds and, while you sleep I'll replace your old computer with a new one that looks just like it, while you sleep! ^_- (Duck the flying Dilbert joke...)
Lyaka ^^
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~Hourglass~
---------------
10:40 AM
(She said)
I can't stop running my fingers over the sleek, gleaming surface of the new whip hanging deadly at my side. It even looks different than anything around it, luminescent and sharp and superior.
"Thank you." The words are small, seemingly meaningless in perspective, but I see the soft glow in his eyes and know they mean something to him. "So much."
His gaze dwells upon it, then on me, for long moments. "You'll need it," he says roughly, as if trying to excuse his actions, his attachments. "I wish to Hyne you didn't."
His words set off trains of thoughts derailed before they reach a solution. It's the way he says it that makes the largest impression upon me. There's no mockery in his tone anymore, no ego, no animosity. Nothing to relieve the stark factuality of his words. Somewhere along the line he'd stopped thinking about "if things go wrong" and started planning for "when things go wrong". His relentless preparation for calamity had started to impress on me a similar conviction that we were driving hell-bent for disaster. No escape, no choice, nothing for it but to keep going, full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes and the consequences.
Again me hand brushes the weapon on my hip. Its statistics are amazing, far beyond my current ability to use to the fullest/ What kind of destruction were we headed for, if I am expected to wield it with impunity?
"Here," Seifer says, pulling me into a small niche between stores. "Stop a moment, Quisty. We've got to do something about your junctions."
"My junctions?" Is something wrong with them? I check hastily, but nothing appears to be out of order.
"Yeah..." Seifer seems worried, so I reach up to my left shoulder and undo the clasp that holds my long sleeve onto my fitted gear. It slides down easily, revealing my junction plate.
In the right light, you could see it. It looked as if someone had inlaid mother-of-pearl on my skin, done naturally, like it belonged there, an oddity of birth that could glint in all colors and none. Mostly it stayed icy white. A testament to neutrality. Equal opportunity destruction. A line of type, two larger symbols, another line of smaller symbols. The top line was words: [standard SeeD-issue junction, GF/magic]. Then below it, sharing space, were the SeeD symbol, looking strange in only one color, to the left of the universal symbol for junctioning. Then, below it, by affiliations.
/Thunder,/ the first symbol meant. My GF/elemental affiliation. Three days of tests they had run on me, physical, mental, sociological, to determine which best suited me. With which I was most compatible. Some people had walked out of there with two or more on their charts. But I had only had one. They told me that it happened occasionally that someone's affiliation with one element was so strong that it overwhelmed all other compatibilities. They reassured me that I could become good enough with one element to compete evenly with people who possessed two junctions but were less skilled in each. A blank space rests below it, where elemental defense will go. Every time I look at the blank slate it makes me nervous, reminding me that I am unprepared to handle it. It is my weakness that I must overcome.
Next to it, my status affiliations. The biohazard symbol is first, indicating that I'm dangerous with all types of stat-altering magic. That, they explained, is a result of being a blue mage. I don't have to sacrifice skill with sleep to cast deadly poisons. Then three symbols beneath designating my status defense. Most people only have one; again, the blue mage comes into play. Death, sleep, confuse.
His fingers trace lightly over the symbol for death, and I shiver beneath his touch, not only for the feather-light brush but the odd glint in his eyes. Is that what I am? Is that what I am fated to become? Like the weapon by my side, sleek and dangerous; Death, swift and unyielding.
I gasp softly with the shock as he transfers spells to me. In the rush of adrenaline I forget even to breathe as the symbol flares beneath his fingers, shining shadowed, obsidian inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I see the threads of silver vanish completely as my defensive junction climbs steadily until it reaches maximum and I can hold no more.
The connection breaks, leaving me empty outside but overflowing within. The spells fill me, wrapping themselves around me, creating a protective filament against themselves. I can't even cast them yet with a decent rate of success but I am immunized against death spells.
Then his fingers slide to the left, the blank spot on my junctions. He stares at it for a few minutes, then looks up into my eyes. "I never knew," he says simply, and I catch in his voice the edge of a plea for forgiveness. For what, I do not know, but that never mattered. I know he's hurting, I know he did something he regrets, I know he hurt me and didn't know why.
Then the rush hits me again, harder this time, until the exhilaration borders on pain and I'm so wrapped up in both that it doesn't make a difference. I dimly feel his fingers moving over my skin, it's as if they've turned to razors, sharp-edged and cutting into my fragile epidermis. A downward stroke and my blood boils in my veins; a sideways slice and lightning cracks in my head, causing even Quezacotl to cry out in protest. Ice freezes my heart; the glow of righteousness overwhelms my conscience; I stagger, poisoned, then can only stare as the world freezes around me, even the dripping of the spigot by the house's garden slowed so that a single drop of water falls forever. Vitality charges my body, and suddenly everything is rushing by; a single breath is lost in an instant, an aeon vanishing before I blink an eye. Something burns within me, like a thousand needles piercing my soul, something ancient and powerful and forbidden. Then, with a mind-numbing crash, I fall back into reality and cling, gasping desperately for breath, to Seifer.
He isn't looking at me, but rather at the place on my arm where his fingers still rest. I look too, and suck in air. Where there was a blank spot, now a single symbol burns, still angrily red in its newness against the silvery inlay of my older junctions. I don't recognize it. It should be an elemental symbol but it's none I've ever seen before. It takes me a few tries to work up the breath to ask, haltingly, "What- is that for?"
He finally looks up at me. "It's an old symbol," he says unwillingly. "It's forbidden."
I stare at the shape burned into my flesh. "Forbidden."
He leans heavily against me, causing me to rest all of my weight against the brick wall behind me, and rests his head atop mine. "I can't promise you that no one will hurt you magically again. They can still hit you with status effects, and a strong enough mage can overcome any prevention. But forbidden magic is the strongest. It protects against all elements, as well as itself. It's as close as you can come."
I move my gaze from my own junctions, choosing instead to focus on his left arm, resting temptingly on my shoulder. "Do you have it?"
He shifts. "Yes."
"Let me see."
Reluctantly, he slides his trenchcoat off of his left shoulder. The white muscle shirt he wears underneath leaves his arms bare, and I can clearly see the writing lettered there.
[standard SeeD-issue junction, GF/magic], then the SeeD and junction symbols again. But below that...
GF/elem affiliations. Not just one, or two, or even three, which was rare but did happen. He had every damn one burned into his flesh, the symbols even smaller then usual, two rows of four. Leading off was Holy, which was sheened golden indicating a current GF junction; his main compatibility. But all the symbols had a touch of gold to them; fire was next, red-gold swirled... naturally, since that was his Limit Break. Then, in succession, marching down his skin, came wind, poison, neutrality, earth, water, and finally ice.
I raised my eyes slowly to his, knowing without needing to see that, if I looked for his defenses, I'd see the same forbidden symbol that I now bore; or that his status A/D would be double biohazards.
"Why?" the word escapes my lips softly, frayed nearly to nothingness. I can't imagine having such junctions. The forces to carry within, to harness, to master-- the *need* for such a thing...
His hand touches my cheek, caresses it. "It was needed," he whispers in return. Pain shadows his eyes, turning them dark jade with memory.
"Will I..." I can't look away from him, pressing myself into the wall behind me as if I could melt into it, feeling small and frightened. Strange, unsettling feelings. Loss of control. I've always hated such things. "Will it happen to me?"
He looks away for a moment; when he looks back his eyes are shielded again. "Yes," he admits, a choked murmur, laced with regret and unavoidability. "If you want to survive... it's needed. It's the only way."
I look down and feel myself enveloped. Not by the hard, cold, uncaring brick of the wall behind me, but by strong arms, a warm body against mine, wrapped up tightly. "It'll be okay," he whispers into my hair. "I promise."
I close my eyes and lean against him, wanting desperately to believe that he could make everything right in a world I felt crumbling around me. Wanting, for the first time, to be protected.
10:43 AM
(He said)
I can feel her trembling again, every quiver transmitted through my frame, and I hate that I frightened her. She is frightened, though she'd never admit it. I don't blame her a whit. If I were her I would have long since passed 'frightened' and be headlong into 'panic'. I've been careful not to tell her much but the preparations I made spoke for themselves. Second-level potions, the most advanced weapons, a junction plate that could send monsters running for their lives on the Island Closest to Hell... it told unmistakably of the magnitude of for what we were headed.
I sigh softly, adjusting my grip so that my fingers rest on bare skin. "Just a few more spells, Quisty," I murmur as reassuringly as I can. "Okay?"
I can feel her shaky nod giving me permission. Getting a firm lock on the magic I want to transfer, I let my fingers trace their symbols lightly on her skin. One by one they flow from me to her: Curagas, Regens, Lifes, Regens, Esunas, Shells, Protects... the litany goes on as she shivers, delicate as a breeze, filling with magic. Then the contact is broken. In the moment of silence following the transfer, I hand her a small stone.
She studies it carefully, taking in its speckled green exterior and its smoky base color, then turns it over to see the symbol pressed in gold on the underside. "A GF?"
I wrap my hand around hers, pressing the rough edges of the stone into her palm. "Carbuncle," I explain. "She'll shield you from most magic."
"Where did you get her?" wonderingly.
My half-smile is bittersweet, remembering Rinoa flinging her up in a doomed, last-ditch effort at protection. Innocent, naïve Rinoa, scarred and hardened by the Third Sorceress War. Her fading memory is a painful reminder of what could happen again. "An old friend," I tell her softly. "Here. Take this, too." The second object is a heavy gold ring, large enough to encompass both her thumbs, impressed on one side with an image so faded and worn it can barely be made out. I always thought it looked like a bird in flight, until I realized what the ring contained. "This is Doomtrain."
"/Doomtrain!/" she gasped. "You *have* him? You're giving him to *me*?"
"I have Alexander," I remind her, "and if I need to I can junction Ifrit and Diablos. Quezacotl is fine for conserving strength on lower-level encounters, but you're going to need something more powerful."
"But- I can't come *close* to defeating GFs of this magnitude!"
"You don't need to. Doomtrain has been imprisoned in that ring for a long, long time- he'll gladly join whomever frees him. And Carbuncle's a shy little sweetie; you won't have any problems with her."
She stares at the two objects resting in her hands. "I'm not good enough," she whispers sadly.
I brush her cheek, and she looks up, letting me hold her. "You will be," I promise. "You will be."
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As Hourglass draws to a close I'm starting to think about my next fic. At the moment I really don't have any ideas, so I'm very open to suggestions. If anyone has a plot sitting around, or there's something you'd like to see but haven't got time to write yourself, pass it along. And if you're the hundreth reviewer, I'll let you pick the main couple, within reason (there are some pairings I just can't write. For example, I doubt I could pull off a convincing Quell if my life depended on it, so don't ask :)
But that won't happen unless you stop sitting and get clicking! Or do both, but at least click :) Review within the next three seconds and, while you sleep I'll replace your old computer with a new one that looks just like it, while you sleep! ^_- (Duck the flying Dilbert joke...)
Lyaka ^^
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