Destroyed
Chapter Three: Two Sides to Every Story
And so time moved on, as it had a tendency of doing.
People flowed in, every now and then to Traverse Town, bringing with them new skills and talents, each applying them as they could to working towards a better life. Throughout all this, the small group who had escaped from Hollow Bastion and the nightmares there tried maintaining a normal enough life.
Leon found himself a place to train on a nightly basis, away from the girls and where he could collect his thoughts enough to focus first and foremost on his sword and the techniques that would serve him in good stead when it came to battle. It was a small cavern, situated under the streets of Traverse, with pools of water now and then, but he didn't mind that so much.
Yuffie spent a lot of her time helping the new refugees. It was admirable work, she clothed them, fed them and gave them places to sleep on their first night of arrival in their shared hotel. Sometimes, the younger ones, children, were unable to sleep for the fear of the Heartless coming for them, and she would stay up, playing with them without tire until they were exhausted enough to fall asleep without complaint.
Aeris buried herself into books and research. Any scrap of knowledge was not left unabsorbed, any stone not left unturned. When Leon or Yuffie came to speak with her, the would find her either with her chin in hand, leafing through yet another boring tome, or staring off into space with tears in her eyes. Leon never understood why she looked so sad, but Yuffie did.
The loss of the planet, the loss of the comforting presence. Aeris could not hear it anymore, and perhaps it was this that made her so melancholy, staring with distant eyes through the windows and into the dark skies of Traverse.
But she never spoke about it.
Silence, after all, became her.
* * * * * * * * * *
The sword felt unnaturally heavy in his hands, and slowing down he let the point dip enough so it trickled across the skin of the water, ripples flowing from where it passed and dissipating. He lowered his eyes, and concentrated on slowing his breathing enough so he could return to his kata's and routines.
The water chimed softly about his feet and then without volition he moved forward to a small tor in the water, climbing up it and then resting on it, hands and arms over his legs as he sat. His clothes felt bulky today, the dark blue denim jacket he wore constrictive and the trousers too baggy. Frowning he shook his head, and the hair he had grown out so long ago because Rinoa had said in passing how pretty it made him look.
He almost smiled. Pretty Boy was her nickname for him, for the longest time.
He remembered a lot, painful memories some and almsot wistful thoughts of yesterday others. They had been close, they had loved each other. She had rescued him from the shadows in his mind, and in so doing given him a chance to start over, to pick up the shards of his life he had thought broken forever. The bloom of early love had eventually trailed away into deep friendship, and he had pledged his undying support in whatever she chose to do now as a Sorceress.
Quistis and Zell spent their time rebuilding Garden and adhering people back to their old ways and training, this time telling the SeeDs just what they were in for.. and Cid returned to Edea and managing the orphanage.
Irvine took off with Selphie, to Esthar of all place. He had not heard from them until that fateful day, sat in his office at Garden, pushing through stacks of paperwork. Rinoa had been pacing the floor before him, her moods as mercurial as ever as she tried to puzzle round some problem concerning Galbadia.
The day the Heartless came.
They came from Esthar at first, decimating the poluation and driving those who could out of there. His father, Laguna, was among the first to die. Trying to save a woman from her burning house. What a moronic hero he could be some days.
They moved from Esthar to Centra, scouring the land and not only attacking people but also monsters. Their hunger knew no bounds as they swept forward.
The next logical place they would attack would be Galbadia, and as Edea and Cid escaped on the White SeeD ship towards them, losing some along the way to their attacks, Squall knew he had to make a choice. It had been the hardest of his life.
They took the Balamb Garden, sending orders to the Galbadia one to do the same, and gathering up as many people as he could, they escaped to the ruins of Trabia, and the strange star shaped crater in the earth. Rinoa had insisted she could feel strong residues of magic there, and indeed, even the garden machines refused to fly over the pit.
It was there Rinoa had almost drained herself dry, opening the pathway to Hollow Bastion.. and there so few remaining had escaped what ate their world. A couple of weeks passed, and they explored the castle, meeting others who came from worlds which were called "Magic".
Then the Heartless had come after them.
The fighting had been bitter, but he was a SeeD, he had been raised to understand that sooner or later, you die. Be in battle or not. They had all been prepared.
Sighing, Leon bent his head, remembering bitterly the expression on his best friends face, a face filled with love and hope when she had pushed him away from the fighting. In those dark eyes were wings and dreams, hopes and wishes.
~ "You have to go, protect her.." ~
Why she had said that he would never know, but grasping the hilt of the gunblade, his first duty to his sorceress as her knight was to obey her. Looking down at her, he tried to force aside the sensation he was leaving her for dead, leaving behind everyone else for the darkness of death. But something in those eyes..
~ "Go.. I will hold them off as long as my powers stay with me." ~
Rinoa.
Brave, wild.. and now strong. She turned like a dream in blue, Quistis lashing out her side with her whip, striking shadows in half, and the Sorceress lifted her hand. Pale strands of electricity sparked from those fingertips that had snapped his soul wide open, and without a backward look, for fear of remembering her as less.. Squall went to find whoever "her" was..
"And it turned out to be you," he murmured, echoing in the cavern as he stared down at his leather clad hands. The fingers flexed easily, the material creaking under the movement. Then he trained his eyes from his hands and looked into the water as it rippled outward from his small tor.
Aeris.
Could anyone be blessed enough to find two angels? One he had grown closer to than anyone else, his dark angel. Rinoa. And then how she turned out.. he had never imagined.
Pale skinned, she had looked over the warrior Cloud's shoulder at him. He hadn't expected the force of kindness and empathy from those glittering green eyes, he hadn't sketched in his mind the soft fall of cinnamon brown hair, nor the sweetest smile in the world directed at him.
He knew then it was possible to find life after love. Possible to love again.
She was perfect, smaller in build than Rinoa was, but with the same kind of drive and energy.
Once he had asked Yuffie if Aeris was a sorceress, at perhaps their second week of living in Traverse Town. The young ninja had looked at him strangely, and so he had to explain to her what a sorceress was.
The laughter had been only slightly mocking, and very amused.
~ "No, Squall.. she's well. Aeris is a Cetra."
~ "It's Leon... what's a Cetra?"
~ "What-ever. A cetra is an Ancient, she's half human."
~ "Half human?"
~ "Well, as far as I can tell, the Cetra are basically humans who evolved a long time ago to live in natural harmony with a planet, kinda like a druid in all those fairy tales but better. She hears it and it hears her, and she draws her powers from the world about."
~ "Oh..." ~
Was her natural spell to bind people in love to her?
He sighed and leant his head in his hands, staring down at the water and hoping for an answer, a sign, something.
~ I come here everyday, to wield a sword and not to think about..~
He gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into his hair.
~ ... about falling in love again. ~
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Aeris pushed aside her books and leant her chin in her hands, staring out of the window at the back alleyway, where the water from the drains gurgled and people passed in motions towards their houses.
After almost nine months of looking, she had found maybe another three reports, detailing Ansems work, and several journals from his soujourn in the Hollow Bastion. All of them had been deeply terrifying for her, the darkness a strange and un-used to thing that she, as a creature of light had never once set her mind to understanding.
It appeared from all his words that in studying the shadows he had eventually become one himself in essence. Some small part of her tried to cling to the belief that maybe a shred of Ansem, the great man he had been, remained. But another, the realistic part of her screamed out that he wasn't alive anymore.
The door to the staff room opened and she looked up as Squall walked in, brushing hair back from his face with a hand and then stopping to look at her. She smiled, hoping a blush wasn't rising in her porcelain cheeks, and looked back down at the text book.
~ Anything to avoid looking. ~
"How was the cavern today?" she asked softly, pushing the page over and frowning at the diagram of a Heartless, the intricate detail he had put into the antannae and the face shape.
"Wet, cold. Anything in to snack on?"
"Yuffie bought some apples."
He grunted, and moved over the living room, stepping over her legs as she was laid out on her stomach on the floor amid a sea of books. She almost shivered as the wet toes of his boot caught the back of her calves. She risked a quick look up through her bangs at the strong shouldered back of Squall, or Leon.
She didn't like to think of it.
Over the last nine months he had somehow wormed his way into her heart, found a secret place she had kept and though only was Cloud's. But...
Was it possible to love two people at once? Was she projecting her own love and loss of Cloud onto a man who was very real and very near?
Shaking her head and denying any further thoughts of Leon, she sat up and pulled the text book with her as Leon rummaged about for food.
This passage was new.. and she coughed to draw his attention.
As if on cue, Leon stood up and glanced back at her as she sat with the book over her lap, her back to the setee. Her green eyes remained fixed on the words, with the small drawings and doodles in the margin of the writing. "I found something," she said quietly.
"What?" The swordsman moved round the door of the kitchen and past the opening to the dining hall, to flop down with tiredness on the couch behind her. She lifted the book, and started to read what was written there.
"The worlds are all interconnected with each other, each and every one however also sealed off from the other by means of a Key and the keyhole.." he voice trailed off as she suddenly realised Leon had leant down to get a better look. His arms were over his knees, left forearm brushing her bare shoulder, strands of his hair whispering over her neck.
For a moment she licked her lips, trying not to blush but feeling it spread over her cheeks. Then she lifted the book with inistence and kept reading. "The keyholes within each world are hidden away. Existing to protect their worlds and others are the Seven princesses. Over time, and with each generation, the princess passes down her gift to those who will come after her, and these seven women are known as the Princesses of Heart. Inside them lies a key to unlock the doors and also to seal them. The same power to seal or unlock doors lies within the Keymaster."
"Keymaster?" rumbled Leon softly, and she almost jumped at the proximity of his voice.
"Y-yes," Aeris replied uncertainly, "one chosen to wield a weapon known as the Keyblade, to unlock even the sturdiest of doors and the mightiest of hearts."
"Hearts... heartless." The voice grew fainter, and she looked over her shoulder at Leon who had leant back on the setee, with a reddish apple in hand. His smoky eyes focused on the ceiling, and she fond herself studying his scar, his features.. everything.
~ Two sides? Two people.. I feel torn.~
"Maybe whomever the Keymaster is, maybe he can stop the heartless."
"Also, the Princesses of Heart.. maybe we should look into that."
Aeris looked down at the heavy book in her delicate hands and bit her lip. She badly wanted to help, badly wanted to prove she had a purpose and the Planet had not been wrong in sending her back, but this was proving difficult.
So much to do, so much to save.
Why couldn't things be less complicated? Where had all the heartless come from originally?
"I don't know.. maybe.."
She jumped and looked up at Leon, as he leant back forward. Then she realised she had said her last thought out loud, and assumed a neautral expression, watching him as her thought it through.
"Maybe they came through a door that had been left unlocked, and if so, who unlocked the door?"
Aeris knew, and with a dread certainty, she whispered, "Ansem."
"Why?"
"In his reports and journals, he speaks of study and research.. what if his study had brought him to a place where the darkness existed, and this darkness was the Heartless? If so then.." she swallowed, "Then we must recover all of Ansem's reports in order to understand better the Heartless, and provide a way for the keymaster."
~ He will come. I know he will. I just do. ~
Leon arched a brow, obviously wondering to himself what she had just answered in her head, then nodded,"Alright, we'll start preparations then. When does 'he' get here?"
Aeris shrugged and then smiled, with the first feeling of hope she'd had in a long time, staring up at the handsome man sat next to her, "I don't know. Maybe we should send a missive to King Mickey..? Don't ask, just tell him I... I have some information for him."
Leon laughed, and she blinked, taken aback. He never laughed. Never. Then as he calmed, and stood up she was sure a look of pain had crossed his features.. then he left.
Aeris looked down, left alone with the books.
~ He laughed... for me? ~
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Leon stopped outside the staff room and leant on the wall, feeling the chill of the plaster and the cool air from the night outside. Yuffie could be heard singing away in her room, closest to the staff room and he let his head tilt back.
He had touched her, smelt her.. she was close.
But something wasn't right, not yet.
Why was falling in love never simple?
Chapter Three: Two Sides to Every Story
And so time moved on, as it had a tendency of doing.
People flowed in, every now and then to Traverse Town, bringing with them new skills and talents, each applying them as they could to working towards a better life. Throughout all this, the small group who had escaped from Hollow Bastion and the nightmares there tried maintaining a normal enough life.
Leon found himself a place to train on a nightly basis, away from the girls and where he could collect his thoughts enough to focus first and foremost on his sword and the techniques that would serve him in good stead when it came to battle. It was a small cavern, situated under the streets of Traverse, with pools of water now and then, but he didn't mind that so much.
Yuffie spent a lot of her time helping the new refugees. It was admirable work, she clothed them, fed them and gave them places to sleep on their first night of arrival in their shared hotel. Sometimes, the younger ones, children, were unable to sleep for the fear of the Heartless coming for them, and she would stay up, playing with them without tire until they were exhausted enough to fall asleep without complaint.
Aeris buried herself into books and research. Any scrap of knowledge was not left unabsorbed, any stone not left unturned. When Leon or Yuffie came to speak with her, the would find her either with her chin in hand, leafing through yet another boring tome, or staring off into space with tears in her eyes. Leon never understood why she looked so sad, but Yuffie did.
The loss of the planet, the loss of the comforting presence. Aeris could not hear it anymore, and perhaps it was this that made her so melancholy, staring with distant eyes through the windows and into the dark skies of Traverse.
But she never spoke about it.
Silence, after all, became her.
* * * * * * * * * *
The sword felt unnaturally heavy in his hands, and slowing down he let the point dip enough so it trickled across the skin of the water, ripples flowing from where it passed and dissipating. He lowered his eyes, and concentrated on slowing his breathing enough so he could return to his kata's and routines.
The water chimed softly about his feet and then without volition he moved forward to a small tor in the water, climbing up it and then resting on it, hands and arms over his legs as he sat. His clothes felt bulky today, the dark blue denim jacket he wore constrictive and the trousers too baggy. Frowning he shook his head, and the hair he had grown out so long ago because Rinoa had said in passing how pretty it made him look.
He almost smiled. Pretty Boy was her nickname for him, for the longest time.
He remembered a lot, painful memories some and almsot wistful thoughts of yesterday others. They had been close, they had loved each other. She had rescued him from the shadows in his mind, and in so doing given him a chance to start over, to pick up the shards of his life he had thought broken forever. The bloom of early love had eventually trailed away into deep friendship, and he had pledged his undying support in whatever she chose to do now as a Sorceress.
Quistis and Zell spent their time rebuilding Garden and adhering people back to their old ways and training, this time telling the SeeDs just what they were in for.. and Cid returned to Edea and managing the orphanage.
Irvine took off with Selphie, to Esthar of all place. He had not heard from them until that fateful day, sat in his office at Garden, pushing through stacks of paperwork. Rinoa had been pacing the floor before him, her moods as mercurial as ever as she tried to puzzle round some problem concerning Galbadia.
The day the Heartless came.
They came from Esthar at first, decimating the poluation and driving those who could out of there. His father, Laguna, was among the first to die. Trying to save a woman from her burning house. What a moronic hero he could be some days.
They moved from Esthar to Centra, scouring the land and not only attacking people but also monsters. Their hunger knew no bounds as they swept forward.
The next logical place they would attack would be Galbadia, and as Edea and Cid escaped on the White SeeD ship towards them, losing some along the way to their attacks, Squall knew he had to make a choice. It had been the hardest of his life.
They took the Balamb Garden, sending orders to the Galbadia one to do the same, and gathering up as many people as he could, they escaped to the ruins of Trabia, and the strange star shaped crater in the earth. Rinoa had insisted she could feel strong residues of magic there, and indeed, even the garden machines refused to fly over the pit.
It was there Rinoa had almost drained herself dry, opening the pathway to Hollow Bastion.. and there so few remaining had escaped what ate their world. A couple of weeks passed, and they explored the castle, meeting others who came from worlds which were called "Magic".
Then the Heartless had come after them.
The fighting had been bitter, but he was a SeeD, he had been raised to understand that sooner or later, you die. Be in battle or not. They had all been prepared.
Sighing, Leon bent his head, remembering bitterly the expression on his best friends face, a face filled with love and hope when she had pushed him away from the fighting. In those dark eyes were wings and dreams, hopes and wishes.
~ "You have to go, protect her.." ~
Why she had said that he would never know, but grasping the hilt of the gunblade, his first duty to his sorceress as her knight was to obey her. Looking down at her, he tried to force aside the sensation he was leaving her for dead, leaving behind everyone else for the darkness of death. But something in those eyes..
~ "Go.. I will hold them off as long as my powers stay with me." ~
Rinoa.
Brave, wild.. and now strong. She turned like a dream in blue, Quistis lashing out her side with her whip, striking shadows in half, and the Sorceress lifted her hand. Pale strands of electricity sparked from those fingertips that had snapped his soul wide open, and without a backward look, for fear of remembering her as less.. Squall went to find whoever "her" was..
"And it turned out to be you," he murmured, echoing in the cavern as he stared down at his leather clad hands. The fingers flexed easily, the material creaking under the movement. Then he trained his eyes from his hands and looked into the water as it rippled outward from his small tor.
Aeris.
Could anyone be blessed enough to find two angels? One he had grown closer to than anyone else, his dark angel. Rinoa. And then how she turned out.. he had never imagined.
Pale skinned, she had looked over the warrior Cloud's shoulder at him. He hadn't expected the force of kindness and empathy from those glittering green eyes, he hadn't sketched in his mind the soft fall of cinnamon brown hair, nor the sweetest smile in the world directed at him.
He knew then it was possible to find life after love. Possible to love again.
She was perfect, smaller in build than Rinoa was, but with the same kind of drive and energy.
Once he had asked Yuffie if Aeris was a sorceress, at perhaps their second week of living in Traverse Town. The young ninja had looked at him strangely, and so he had to explain to her what a sorceress was.
The laughter had been only slightly mocking, and very amused.
~ "No, Squall.. she's well. Aeris is a Cetra."
~ "It's Leon... what's a Cetra?"
~ "What-ever. A cetra is an Ancient, she's half human."
~ "Half human?"
~ "Well, as far as I can tell, the Cetra are basically humans who evolved a long time ago to live in natural harmony with a planet, kinda like a druid in all those fairy tales but better. She hears it and it hears her, and she draws her powers from the world about."
~ "Oh..." ~
Was her natural spell to bind people in love to her?
He sighed and leant his head in his hands, staring down at the water and hoping for an answer, a sign, something.
~ I come here everyday, to wield a sword and not to think about..~
He gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into his hair.
~ ... about falling in love again. ~
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Aeris pushed aside her books and leant her chin in her hands, staring out of the window at the back alleyway, where the water from the drains gurgled and people passed in motions towards their houses.
After almost nine months of looking, she had found maybe another three reports, detailing Ansems work, and several journals from his soujourn in the Hollow Bastion. All of them had been deeply terrifying for her, the darkness a strange and un-used to thing that she, as a creature of light had never once set her mind to understanding.
It appeared from all his words that in studying the shadows he had eventually become one himself in essence. Some small part of her tried to cling to the belief that maybe a shred of Ansem, the great man he had been, remained. But another, the realistic part of her screamed out that he wasn't alive anymore.
The door to the staff room opened and she looked up as Squall walked in, brushing hair back from his face with a hand and then stopping to look at her. She smiled, hoping a blush wasn't rising in her porcelain cheeks, and looked back down at the text book.
~ Anything to avoid looking. ~
"How was the cavern today?" she asked softly, pushing the page over and frowning at the diagram of a Heartless, the intricate detail he had put into the antannae and the face shape.
"Wet, cold. Anything in to snack on?"
"Yuffie bought some apples."
He grunted, and moved over the living room, stepping over her legs as she was laid out on her stomach on the floor amid a sea of books. She almost shivered as the wet toes of his boot caught the back of her calves. She risked a quick look up through her bangs at the strong shouldered back of Squall, or Leon.
She didn't like to think of it.
Over the last nine months he had somehow wormed his way into her heart, found a secret place she had kept and though only was Cloud's. But...
Was it possible to love two people at once? Was she projecting her own love and loss of Cloud onto a man who was very real and very near?
Shaking her head and denying any further thoughts of Leon, she sat up and pulled the text book with her as Leon rummaged about for food.
This passage was new.. and she coughed to draw his attention.
As if on cue, Leon stood up and glanced back at her as she sat with the book over her lap, her back to the setee. Her green eyes remained fixed on the words, with the small drawings and doodles in the margin of the writing. "I found something," she said quietly.
"What?" The swordsman moved round the door of the kitchen and past the opening to the dining hall, to flop down with tiredness on the couch behind her. She lifted the book, and started to read what was written there.
"The worlds are all interconnected with each other, each and every one however also sealed off from the other by means of a Key and the keyhole.." he voice trailed off as she suddenly realised Leon had leant down to get a better look. His arms were over his knees, left forearm brushing her bare shoulder, strands of his hair whispering over her neck.
For a moment she licked her lips, trying not to blush but feeling it spread over her cheeks. Then she lifted the book with inistence and kept reading. "The keyholes within each world are hidden away. Existing to protect their worlds and others are the Seven princesses. Over time, and with each generation, the princess passes down her gift to those who will come after her, and these seven women are known as the Princesses of Heart. Inside them lies a key to unlock the doors and also to seal them. The same power to seal or unlock doors lies within the Keymaster."
"Keymaster?" rumbled Leon softly, and she almost jumped at the proximity of his voice.
"Y-yes," Aeris replied uncertainly, "one chosen to wield a weapon known as the Keyblade, to unlock even the sturdiest of doors and the mightiest of hearts."
"Hearts... heartless." The voice grew fainter, and she looked over her shoulder at Leon who had leant back on the setee, with a reddish apple in hand. His smoky eyes focused on the ceiling, and she fond herself studying his scar, his features.. everything.
~ Two sides? Two people.. I feel torn.~
"Maybe whomever the Keymaster is, maybe he can stop the heartless."
"Also, the Princesses of Heart.. maybe we should look into that."
Aeris looked down at the heavy book in her delicate hands and bit her lip. She badly wanted to help, badly wanted to prove she had a purpose and the Planet had not been wrong in sending her back, but this was proving difficult.
So much to do, so much to save.
Why couldn't things be less complicated? Where had all the heartless come from originally?
"I don't know.. maybe.."
She jumped and looked up at Leon, as he leant back forward. Then she realised she had said her last thought out loud, and assumed a neautral expression, watching him as her thought it through.
"Maybe they came through a door that had been left unlocked, and if so, who unlocked the door?"
Aeris knew, and with a dread certainty, she whispered, "Ansem."
"Why?"
"In his reports and journals, he speaks of study and research.. what if his study had brought him to a place where the darkness existed, and this darkness was the Heartless? If so then.." she swallowed, "Then we must recover all of Ansem's reports in order to understand better the Heartless, and provide a way for the keymaster."
~ He will come. I know he will. I just do. ~
Leon arched a brow, obviously wondering to himself what she had just answered in her head, then nodded,"Alright, we'll start preparations then. When does 'he' get here?"
Aeris shrugged and then smiled, with the first feeling of hope she'd had in a long time, staring up at the handsome man sat next to her, "I don't know. Maybe we should send a missive to King Mickey..? Don't ask, just tell him I... I have some information for him."
Leon laughed, and she blinked, taken aback. He never laughed. Never. Then as he calmed, and stood up she was sure a look of pain had crossed his features.. then he left.
Aeris looked down, left alone with the books.
~ He laughed... for me? ~
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Leon stopped outside the staff room and leant on the wall, feeling the chill of the plaster and the cool air from the night outside. Yuffie could be heard singing away in her room, closest to the staff room and he let his head tilt back.
He had touched her, smelt her.. she was close.
But something wasn't right, not yet.
Why was falling in love never simple?