AN: Some people are just incorrigibly demented, and I happen to be one of them. The
continuity is probably messed up. The facts are probably screwed up. The names have been
changed to protect my right to misspell. Just read it. I apologize in advance.
~~~
"Warped," part five
~~~
Why did a sorceress need a knight?
The pain Selphie was feeling seemed to abate when she allowed her mind to wander. She
remembered, of course, what Seifer had said about sorceresses as he'd swayed under his
'romantic' dream.
*She needs my protection*, he had said.
But they had defeated Seifer so easily, while the sorceress had impaled Squall, dodged
bullets, and stopped them in their tracks at every turn.
And it was clear to Selphie then, that sorceresses didn't need anyone to protect them, no
matter what their knights had convinced themselves of. What then?
She felt the air around her grow lighter…perhaps she was waking up?
There was a reason, and she thought of Seifer, rooted on the moving float, all bravado
and uncertainty, all of his valiance and solidity dreamed up and ridiculous under the
fluorescent lights of the parade. Why did the sorceress tolerate…
There was something about the green of his eyes, she thought, and space…
How lonely it was in space, on that cold table, on dusty islands, while the green of his
eyes, and the warmth of his hair and his skin…was not. How lonely it was to be a
sorceress, and how spacious this body was for a teaspoon of light!
She was surprised to find the numbness in her side dissipating as she woke, in the arms of
someone warm, almost unable to tell where she ended and where he began.
"Selphie?" His voice seemed to vibrate in her chest. It was warm and dusty, and she
coughed less painfully, feeling the blood quiet, flowing somewhere far away.
Why did a sorceress need a knight?
"She misses…"
"What?" Squall was holding an ungloved hand to her forehead, conducting something
she suddenly recognized as precious through his skin.
"She misses the missing part of herself," Selphie explained in a daze, "And you're the
ones who have it, because…because you *are* it."
"Selphie, what's happening to you? I don't get it. Did you figure out a way to get us out
of here?"
"Yes" was all she said before meeting his surprised mouth with her own.
~~
"What're you doing?" His voice sounded flimsy, his breath outweighing the words as if
something had suddenly torn through what he had wanted to say. His eyes were nearly shut,
but she could still see the blue struggling underneath, pushing up at the lids, trying to shake
loose whatever had taken him over so quickly.
She didn't answer him—she wanted to, but couldn't.
Why did they always ask so many questions? She was the one who should be asking the
questions. It was, after all, her body that they had stolen. She often wondered what they
would say if she could ask them why.
"You're my night," she told him instead, that enigmatic word creeping up from her throat
again, growing out of her like a vine. Why had she chosen it, of all things, with all of the
confusion it had caused? Night, day, earth, sky, light, dark…all it meant was that he was
the other half; the half that she was missing.
But they never, never understood, and they only heard what they wanted to. It didn't
matter. Her fingers curled into him; worked under his layers like roots spreading
through skin. He was already leaning weakly against her, spilling into her…
"Selphie…"
A breath arranged by the shape of his mouth. His lungs expanded with it, and for a moment
she thought she could see through him, bones and all. Her eyes burned. There was nothing in
him that was against her.
So why had he done it?
Gently and uncharacteristically, she stroked his face with the girl's short fingers, looking
into the blue of his eyes and nodding at him carefully. She was Selphie—she remembered
things—the garden committee festival, making SeeD, her attempt to play the flute, the
wreckage of Trabia…
And she knew, all the while, that Trabia hadn't been destroyed, and that she had never
played the flute because she had never been to Fisherman's Horizon, and that there would
have been nobody to play for anyway, because…
Because…
"Selphie?"
She was confused until he looked up at her from the floor, eyes huge with confusion,
perspiration still holding a few strands of hair to the corner of his mouth, and then she found
herself forgetting again. The wound was still there, somewhere under the back of her neck,
but she couldn't feel it when they were like this. And that was the idea, she knew.
With a smile like a slit in her face, she traced a nail up the center of his stomach, finger
catching at the pith of him, the long red line like an axis dividing him in her imagination.
His skin trembled, understanding what she meant even if he didn't.
Brave knights. Laughter bubbled up inside her throat like acid and he followed her hands
with his eyes like ivy. Green and blue; yellow and brown—
Let them think what they wanted.
They had always managed it in the past, and yet…so had she. She knew now that this skin
was an imitation. What she really wanted was coming…was approaching quickly, slowed only,
as it always was, by the passage of time.
His mouth opened as if to herald the moment, but all that came out was a shuddering breath.
She would wait.
~~
Selphie began to roll lazily over, stopping only when she felt the grass and the sun. Her
body ached hotly, the grass tickled her thighs and the warm skin-
She opened her eyes in horror.
Squall breathed on, naked in her arms, his eyes unnaturally bright and glazed over. A
long red scratch stretched from his navel all the way up to the delicate, breathing lines of
his throat. He lay back in the grass, his chin in the air as if to display the vulnerability,
and for a moment she thought his throat had been cut…thought that she had cut…
"Squall!" she called, shaking his face in a kind of panic that led her to forget important
things.
She remembered them when he moved, sliding against her intimately enough to assure
her of what had happened if she'd had any doubt. She yanked away just as his eyes went
huge; he looked down and then jumped under her.
The grass whooshed around them with his movement, and a stifled exclamation later,
they had scrambled apart. Selphie clutched her chest protectively, feeling the wound in
her back again for the first time. Squall knelt in the thick grass, the heat of his blush
almost palpable. It was moments before he had recovered himself enough to notice the
dried blood.
"W-what happened?" He glanced up at her through his hair, following the line with his
fingers up under his chin where he couldn't see it. He took a few deep, deliberate breaths
as if he meant to calm them both. Selphie didn't trust her voice.
"I…" He looked at her desperately. No—that wasn't it. None of this was her. She
hadn't…
She saw a flash of peach between blades of green and remembered how his lips had
parted when she…
But *she* hadn't. It had been…
"The sorceress…do you remember what Edea said about the sorceress?"
He sunk down into the grass, nodding, brushing damp hair out of his eyes.
"Before a sorceress can move on peacefully, she must pass her powers..." Selphie felt a
chill run through her as the familiar words sounded, but it was on the next that her voice
nearly died.
"Rinoa…"
Squall flinched visibly at that, crossing his arms over his bare shoulders defensively.
"I got her powers, Squall. That's what this is," she said, turning her back to him, her fear
finally outweighing her embarrassment, "And with no time… That's why it wouldn't
heal."
His eyes followed the wound torturously, breath pumped in and out of him mechanically
as he touched her back and closed his eyes in shame.
"The sorceress…she's missing something. That's why she always takes a knight." Her
back throbbed as she spoke; his hand trembled against her skin, "Hyne, the wars, King
Zelbaga; them tearing her up—that was all real. It's the reason we can do magic. It's the
reason for the sorceresses. It's the reason she wanted to gather them all up and compress
time, so she could be together again, and…The sorceresses are Hyne's pieces."
All existence denied, she thought, *except one*. He sighed.
"It's why she wanted to free Adel, isn't it?" Selphie nodded.
"She couldn't get to Adel where she was, so she used Rinoa to get her powers. Not just from
Edea but from Adel, too."
His gaze turned outward then, beyond the grass.
"Where are we?"
The sun was shining hard through the clouds as if to get her attention too. They had
slipped out of the time compression. That much was clear, but where were they? She
noticed for the first time a familiar stone wall behind them.
"Squall, is this the…"
"Squall!" She recognized the voice immediately as Matron's. It was only the voice that
came after it, close to her brain, that she couldn't place. It reverberated from behind her
eyes, freezing her in her place.
*I can't disappear yet.*
I *won't* disappear yet.
~~
End, 5.
continuity is probably messed up. The facts are probably screwed up. The names have been
changed to protect my right to misspell. Just read it. I apologize in advance.
~~~
"Warped," part five
~~~
Why did a sorceress need a knight?
The pain Selphie was feeling seemed to abate when she allowed her mind to wander. She
remembered, of course, what Seifer had said about sorceresses as he'd swayed under his
'romantic' dream.
*She needs my protection*, he had said.
But they had defeated Seifer so easily, while the sorceress had impaled Squall, dodged
bullets, and stopped them in their tracks at every turn.
And it was clear to Selphie then, that sorceresses didn't need anyone to protect them, no
matter what their knights had convinced themselves of. What then?
She felt the air around her grow lighter…perhaps she was waking up?
There was a reason, and she thought of Seifer, rooted on the moving float, all bravado
and uncertainty, all of his valiance and solidity dreamed up and ridiculous under the
fluorescent lights of the parade. Why did the sorceress tolerate…
There was something about the green of his eyes, she thought, and space…
How lonely it was in space, on that cold table, on dusty islands, while the green of his
eyes, and the warmth of his hair and his skin…was not. How lonely it was to be a
sorceress, and how spacious this body was for a teaspoon of light!
She was surprised to find the numbness in her side dissipating as she woke, in the arms of
someone warm, almost unable to tell where she ended and where he began.
"Selphie?" His voice seemed to vibrate in her chest. It was warm and dusty, and she
coughed less painfully, feeling the blood quiet, flowing somewhere far away.
Why did a sorceress need a knight?
"She misses…"
"What?" Squall was holding an ungloved hand to her forehead, conducting something
she suddenly recognized as precious through his skin.
"She misses the missing part of herself," Selphie explained in a daze, "And you're the
ones who have it, because…because you *are* it."
"Selphie, what's happening to you? I don't get it. Did you figure out a way to get us out
of here?"
"Yes" was all she said before meeting his surprised mouth with her own.
~~
"What're you doing?" His voice sounded flimsy, his breath outweighing the words as if
something had suddenly torn through what he had wanted to say. His eyes were nearly shut,
but she could still see the blue struggling underneath, pushing up at the lids, trying to shake
loose whatever had taken him over so quickly.
She didn't answer him—she wanted to, but couldn't.
Why did they always ask so many questions? She was the one who should be asking the
questions. It was, after all, her body that they had stolen. She often wondered what they
would say if she could ask them why.
"You're my night," she told him instead, that enigmatic word creeping up from her throat
again, growing out of her like a vine. Why had she chosen it, of all things, with all of the
confusion it had caused? Night, day, earth, sky, light, dark…all it meant was that he was
the other half; the half that she was missing.
But they never, never understood, and they only heard what they wanted to. It didn't
matter. Her fingers curled into him; worked under his layers like roots spreading
through skin. He was already leaning weakly against her, spilling into her…
"Selphie…"
A breath arranged by the shape of his mouth. His lungs expanded with it, and for a moment
she thought she could see through him, bones and all. Her eyes burned. There was nothing in
him that was against her.
So why had he done it?
Gently and uncharacteristically, she stroked his face with the girl's short fingers, looking
into the blue of his eyes and nodding at him carefully. She was Selphie—she remembered
things—the garden committee festival, making SeeD, her attempt to play the flute, the
wreckage of Trabia…
And she knew, all the while, that Trabia hadn't been destroyed, and that she had never
played the flute because she had never been to Fisherman's Horizon, and that there would
have been nobody to play for anyway, because…
Because…
"Selphie?"
She was confused until he looked up at her from the floor, eyes huge with confusion,
perspiration still holding a few strands of hair to the corner of his mouth, and then she found
herself forgetting again. The wound was still there, somewhere under the back of her neck,
but she couldn't feel it when they were like this. And that was the idea, she knew.
With a smile like a slit in her face, she traced a nail up the center of his stomach, finger
catching at the pith of him, the long red line like an axis dividing him in her imagination.
His skin trembled, understanding what she meant even if he didn't.
Brave knights. Laughter bubbled up inside her throat like acid and he followed her hands
with his eyes like ivy. Green and blue; yellow and brown—
Let them think what they wanted.
They had always managed it in the past, and yet…so had she. She knew now that this skin
was an imitation. What she really wanted was coming…was approaching quickly, slowed only,
as it always was, by the passage of time.
His mouth opened as if to herald the moment, but all that came out was a shuddering breath.
She would wait.
~~
Selphie began to roll lazily over, stopping only when she felt the grass and the sun. Her
body ached hotly, the grass tickled her thighs and the warm skin-
She opened her eyes in horror.
Squall breathed on, naked in her arms, his eyes unnaturally bright and glazed over. A
long red scratch stretched from his navel all the way up to the delicate, breathing lines of
his throat. He lay back in the grass, his chin in the air as if to display the vulnerability,
and for a moment she thought his throat had been cut…thought that she had cut…
"Squall!" she called, shaking his face in a kind of panic that led her to forget important
things.
She remembered them when he moved, sliding against her intimately enough to assure
her of what had happened if she'd had any doubt. She yanked away just as his eyes went
huge; he looked down and then jumped under her.
The grass whooshed around them with his movement, and a stifled exclamation later,
they had scrambled apart. Selphie clutched her chest protectively, feeling the wound in
her back again for the first time. Squall knelt in the thick grass, the heat of his blush
almost palpable. It was moments before he had recovered himself enough to notice the
dried blood.
"W-what happened?" He glanced up at her through his hair, following the line with his
fingers up under his chin where he couldn't see it. He took a few deep, deliberate breaths
as if he meant to calm them both. Selphie didn't trust her voice.
"I…" He looked at her desperately. No—that wasn't it. None of this was her. She
hadn't…
She saw a flash of peach between blades of green and remembered how his lips had
parted when she…
But *she* hadn't. It had been…
"The sorceress…do you remember what Edea said about the sorceress?"
He sunk down into the grass, nodding, brushing damp hair out of his eyes.
"Before a sorceress can move on peacefully, she must pass her powers..." Selphie felt a
chill run through her as the familiar words sounded, but it was on the next that her voice
nearly died.
"Rinoa…"
Squall flinched visibly at that, crossing his arms over his bare shoulders defensively.
"I got her powers, Squall. That's what this is," she said, turning her back to him, her fear
finally outweighing her embarrassment, "And with no time… That's why it wouldn't
heal."
His eyes followed the wound torturously, breath pumped in and out of him mechanically
as he touched her back and closed his eyes in shame.
"The sorceress…she's missing something. That's why she always takes a knight." Her
back throbbed as she spoke; his hand trembled against her skin, "Hyne, the wars, King
Zelbaga; them tearing her up—that was all real. It's the reason we can do magic. It's the
reason for the sorceresses. It's the reason she wanted to gather them all up and compress
time, so she could be together again, and…The sorceresses are Hyne's pieces."
All existence denied, she thought, *except one*. He sighed.
"It's why she wanted to free Adel, isn't it?" Selphie nodded.
"She couldn't get to Adel where she was, so she used Rinoa to get her powers. Not just from
Edea but from Adel, too."
His gaze turned outward then, beyond the grass.
"Where are we?"
The sun was shining hard through the clouds as if to get her attention too. They had
slipped out of the time compression. That much was clear, but where were they? She
noticed for the first time a familiar stone wall behind them.
"Squall, is this the…"
"Squall!" She recognized the voice immediately as Matron's. It was only the voice that
came after it, close to her brain, that she couldn't place. It reverberated from behind her
eyes, freezing her in her place.
*I can't disappear yet.*
I *won't* disappear yet.
~~
End, 5.