Wow, it's... eheh... been a while, hmm? *winces* okay, well, you all (if there still is a "you all" at this point) have my permission to beat me up and unleash the evil mutant soul-eating daises on me. I have no excuse. No, scratch that; I have several excuses, none of which are good enough.
Short version? I broke down. Between college apps (I'm Hopkins bound!), an utter lack of direction, and starting work on my novel (the original one) I just broke down and stopped. Working. On. Anything. At All. And unfortunately, Dreams was one of those things.
I'm really upset about it, actually. I had done so well with ~Hourglass~ and then I went and dropped Dreams for nearly eight months. That really gets me, especially since I tend to have fic-finishing issues.
But! I really am back this time. Why am I so sure? Because now, dear friends, I know the ending. That's right: I was cleaning out my computer to switch over to my brand-new laptop (minna, meet Satsuki-chan) and I found my old files. And then I realized, when I got to the end of dreams3, that there was no more. And then I checked the date on ff.net and really started feeling guilty. Then my muses showed up and (taking pity on me) gave me the rest of the plot.
Again, apologies. I think we're really gonna make it this time. Keep me up to the mark :p
Without further ado...
----------------
_In Dreams_
----------------
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He certainly hasn't wasted any time.
I can feel the change in the very air of the castle. Everyone- servants, pages and ministers alike- moving more quickly, more purposefully, more intent.
By now the world must know that my father has one foot in the grave and the other following quickly. A useful excuse for the sudden engagement, for the haste of the fast-approaching wedding date. Already Syran is king in all but name.
And what am I, I wonder. Absently I thumb my rinds. My engagement sapphire has replaced the old ring marking me scion of my line. Syran has it now, as signet. It makes me less.
I'm wearing boots instead of slippers, and the slightly raised hells clack harshly against he stone floor. They're not the well-broken-in leather back in Garden, but the rough Hexadragon hide is strong and makes me feel more like my other self- more like Quistis. I need to be Quistis now. I need the training she had.
How much will Naltaeri remember when we're separated? I can only hope she's had some basic teaching. At any rate she's the sense to keep her mouth shut and nod.
My approach isn't a secret by any means, and I can hear the voices in the war room fall silent three steps before I appear in the doorway.
"Princess," a dozen voices greet with uncertain deference, unspoken question clear. Only Syran says nothing, jade eyes inscrutable, watching, analyzing, not giving anything away. Lykouleon is not there; together with the other councillors he attends my father's deathbed. I do not visit him in his last days, leaving that task for Naltaeri. Quistis has never known a father; she could not bear to bid one farewell.
Which am I, now, I wonder. Neither, perhaps.
My gaze shifts to the simulation spread on the table below and I repress a sigh. Miniatures, clay and wood, modeling a defense pattern.
"Awful," I breathe, without even realizing it.
One of the underministers bristles, wagging a finger at me. "My plan is certainly not awful, young lady. Perhaps if you'd had some military training-"
"Look at this, for Hyne's sake," I snap, incensed. "You're practically inviting them in. Any commander with klad for brains could get around this! They'd leave a token force here, sweep under here, dart past your three guards over there and be at the capital before we knew it!"
The underminister was gaping in astonishment, and he wasn't alone. Only Syran seemed unsurprised, leaning forward, definite satisfaction in those eyes. "Do go on," he murmured. "How would you do it, Instructor?"
Ministers tittered, thinking he mocked me, but I felt ice grip me suddenly. Nothing showed on his face, nothing that meant anything one way or another, but I knew. I'd slipped overplayed my hand. Revealed, too much, if he really knew.
No way out, if he did; nothing to do.
Nothing to do but go on as I'd began.
"Anything for my favorite student," I tossed over my shoulder, not daring to look back as I moved clay figures and ministers murmured afresh. He said nothing until I'd finished, only coming up behind me to watch in silence.
"Hmmm," he says.
A younger minister with more righteousness than sense takes that as his cue. "This wouldn't do at all," he declares impetuously, sweeping me a look that means to be condescending but succeeds only in appearing facile. "Absolutely ridiculous. Of course it's only to be expected. Perhaps if you'd had some proper training, my dear..."
Syran raised a neutral eyebrow. "Perhaps if you'd show us how you'd break that defense..."
"But certainly," he says smugly, moving up to the table. "Firstly, I move cavalry here."
"Artillery in the pass," I counter from the other side of the model, moving the hidden clay cannons into the open.
He shrugged. "Once they're occupied, I move my infantry around the opposite edge."
Will they never get it? No SeeD cadet was so clueless as this. "Two troops heavy cavalry, three troops light. Having decimated your cavalry, a third of the artillery falls back and disperses, backing up the spread around the mountain."
The minister blinked in shock. "Well... um... *my* artillery drives down the center, clearing your cavalry!"
They always fall for it. "The artillery in the back engages yours. The unmoved guns target your left flank. The other three heavy cavalry falls on your right, and a quarter of my infantry wraps around and cuts you off. You're dead in about three seconds, and the other quarter of my infantry on this side- still fresh- backs up the drive through your reserve troops. Oh, and don't forget I've still half the cavalry, an artillery brigade and half the infantry on the other side of the bowl, so don't bother with a two-pronged attack." I was really involved now, forgetting that this wasn't my classroom, that these weren't my students. "In this case you must use the superior terrain to compensate for a smaller force," I lectured the top military minds of Lihalla. "Contrary to conventional military wisdom, the lower ground is an advantage here; we trade space for time and men and come out ahead. For best results, two of the four passes should be permanently blocked-" my finger marked off the chosen passes, the two behind the city, so as to keep our enemies coming at us from one general direction. "Station artillery in the other two, keep a guard on perimeter, then distribute. You'll want more cavalry on this side, since it's steeper, so it'll come out lopsided, but this is a classic example of when and how to apply Bernoulli's defense."
I looked up from the table in time to take in the view: thirteen wide-eyed, slack-jawed, dumbstruck ministers and advisors. Twelve of them hastily attempted to cover their surprise. The oldest, and perhaps the wisest, regarded me respectfully. "An excellent plan, Princess. I confess I've never heard of hits... Bernoulli? Where did you learn of him, and gain such an excellent grasp of tactics?"
"Ah-" had I said Bernoulli out loud? He was part of the curriculum, but wouldn't develop his strategies on warfare until the Fourth Galbadian Succession, less than a century before the Second Sorceress War. "I've, um, spent a lot of time reading lately," I temporized. "You'd be surprised, ah, how many books deal with tactics."
"I certainly was," Syran puts in dryly, the first words he's spoken since the challenge. "Did you happen to read Dr. Ross' work?"
His eyes caught mine and I knew, damn it, he knew and I knew he knew too.
"I've always been a fan of Aki's theories," I managed.
"Are any of these masters still alive?" the eldest minister queried. "Perhaps they can assist."
"I doubt it," Syran said. "And they shan't hear anything from me." The decision was clear, and the minister bowed.
"Nor from I," I whispered.
"Then, now with our plan, we are dismissed. Make it happen," Syran ordered.
He offered me his hand for escort. I took it, and our pact was sealed.
Once reaching my rooms, soon to be vacated, he releases me. I take a few steps into the fire-lit space before his whisper halts me.
"Quistis..."
I stop and swallow, then turn sideways.
"Yes, Seifer?"
I could hear him let out his breath from half the room away. His hand moved then stopped before he could make some gesture. His lips parted, as if he was about to say something, but he shook his head, and said only "I'm sorry."
As he turned, I saw the light in his eyes flicker and die. Walking away, I could see from the stride alone that it was a different man.
Suddenly alone, suddenly lost, I flung myself onto the bed and fell headlong into darkness.
//////////
I expected nothing from him, and it seems he felt the same, because there were no more messages, no more signs or double meanings. On either end. I saw him only once in Garden, at the weekly update, before he went on assignment in Dollet, two days ago.
I went back once more, but he wasn't there. The time was taken up with last-minute wedding preparations, surreality at its finest. I suppose some part of me still expected a white gown and a veil, but Lihallan princesses throw back to tribal tradition, and the dress looks like nothing so much as an exotic bikini halter and long flaring silk pants gathering to a gold-lined cuff three inches above the ankle. In the dead of winter, no less- small comfort that Syran wears an open vest. Pins were stuck into me for hours before I escaped, and I only made it halfway to the library before I opened my eyes in the cafeteria, Zell inhaling hot dogs a foot from my face. I turned away. More and more I felt different here, like an outsider. Lihalla was becoming more and more my home. War, battle, death- at least back then there is a culture about it. We may be warriors, but there is no reason to be uncivilised about it.
//////////
I awaken to chaos, a swirl of confusion so strong it cuts through five senses to make even Quezacotl shriek in protest. All my GFs are crying out, in fact, screaming at me to get up, get up, do something! Their cries are shocking and familiar all at once. They were once more frequent; every time I was back attacked I was warned by them, but as I've grown in power they've become less so. Now they cry out again, scrambling my thoughts with primal warnings of imminent danger.
But I am in my bedchamber, and there is naught about but the curtains and blankets of my bed. Still instincts are so strongly driven in me that I leap to my feat, nearly tangling myself in silken overhang and tripping over cushions as I scramble to my feet. Once having achieved them I pause. SeeD instinct drives me to battle, but there is no opponent. What is going on?
Unbidden the presences in my head chime in. I don't have Ifrit anymore, but I was planning a demonstration today for my Advanced GFs class, and I'm overstocked. Doomtrain and Quezzy jostle with Diablos and Alexander, and poor Carbuncle is nearly crushed beneath them as they clamor to be let out, to fight. I resist their pull. [What's going on?] I demand, sidestepping the piles of blanket and pillow spilling from the overstuffed bed to pad the carpet. [What's got you all so excited?]
Their voices clamor in my head, fragmented and disjointed. Finally Alexander silences them and speaks directly to me. [Battle.]
[Nowhere near!]
A moment of silence. [Perhaps you were wrong.] His voice is directed inwards.
Quezacotl speaks out in his defense. [We were not wrong. Our bringer values the time-of-long-past as well as the time-that-is-now.] His voice turns to me. [The blue-coated ones who smell of gunpowder have given Eden's fruits and Eden's children as offering to Ifrit, and Sacred and Minotaur are bathed in Devour.]
Instantly I am out the door and running down the hall. [Where?]
[Five summons from this child of the Brothers,] Doomtrain gives answer.
[Shit!] The Guardians recoil, unused to human invective, but I have no time to soothe them as I run headlong into Syran's door. It's locked, and no amount of banging can rouse Seifer from sleep. I back up a step or two and focus my mind. "Firaga!" It flies open.
Perhaps Syran could sleep through an earthquake, but fire is one of his prime elements, and he is jerked from Diablos' embrace to the harsh realties of this time. "Naltaeri?" His instincts are products of an earlier time, but fire calls to fire and he is on his feet before he is fully awakened. "What is wrong?"
"We've been invaded!" I grab his hand and pull him out of his room. "The Galbadians-"
"Who?" He wrenches his hand from mine and pins me with his gaze. "Naltaeri, you're talking nonsense."
I meet his eyes and silently curse. I'm not used to this time, the slowness of communication, the lengthened reaction times, and my own altered position. In Garden my word on invasion would rouse armies in seconds, and confirmation would be a matter of minutes. "The Galbriands, I mean." Another problem: names. Then another thought occurs to me. [You are sure it was the blue-coated ones who smell of gunpowder as it is in the time-that-now?] I demand silently.
[They are the ones who will become the blue-coated-ones. They are now those who smell like gunpowder. There is no mistake.]
"Naltaeri, I'm sorry," Syran said in a calming tone. "I shouldn't have told you how much we knew about their military, you've gotten all excited... it's my own fault for letting you in on the councils, but it's not good for you. There's been no word of invasion."
"It's happened!" I insist. "Five hundred kilometers from here, they've burned crops and towns!"
"Naltaeri..."
[Let me.] Alexander slips from me, and I remember too late that he was normally Seifer's- I couldn't hold him from his true host. Before I could call a warning he'd entered Syran's mind, and he froze before me, jade eyes wide and shocked.
[Shit, shit, shit!] Rational thought and royal dignity be damned; if anyone walked down the halls and saw this there would be serious trouble. I shove the unresponsive Syran headlong into his chambers and bodily yank the heavy stone doorway into place. Then, sweating, I exert some measure of control over Alexander. [Return! Now!]
[Request violates Garden protocol 301.33b.] Damn it, when did Alexander get Seifer's sense of humor?
[First junction occurred approximately 3.14159 years before last chronometer check, radical psi plus or minus time compression differential.]
[That is not funny! Get back here! Now!]
[Unnecessary. Subject has been briefed.]
Syran is looking coherent again, and the look in his eyes as he stares at me makes me uncomfortable. "How- what- damn," he finishes. "It's because you have the ability to cast, isn't it?"
[Points for being quick on his feet,] Alexander quips as he slides back into my head, almost carelessly destroying a memory of blocks on a rainy day. I resist the urge to never summon him again.
"That's exactly it," I say as reassuringly as I can manage, snatching the opportunity offered. "I know it sounds fantastic, but believe me, I can tell, and we're under attack."
"Right." He strides over to his closet and pulls his shirt over his head, not bothering with modesty before his betrothed. I mean to turn, but a cruel fascination rivets my eyes. Even in such a time, without the benefit of rigorous training, I recognize physical peak when I see it, understated muscles rippling in the maliciously flickering light of the single candle that has burned through the night to mark the time. The future king cannot be expected to rely on the hourly bells.
"Come on," and that fast the spell, barely begun, is shattered like so much spun glass, cutting deep into my self. He strides out the door.
"Where to?" He grabs my wrist and breaks into a jog. I run after him, soft slippers on grey stone, dreams on reality, cast in relief. Somewhere in the distance lightning strikes out of a clear sky.
"Where else?" He stops outside a door all too familiar. "Are you sure, Naltaeri?" he asks softly, breaking character just once.
Lately it's been hard to breathe.
"I'm sorry, Syran."
"No." He turned away and gazed through the hallway with unseeing eyes. "That's my line. We almost made it, huh?" He smiled crookedly. "One day till the wedding. We could have had a traditional wedding. I wanted it to be nice. For you."
I look down. "It won't be, will it."
Now he looks at me, jade eyes intense. "We're at war, Naltaeri. It's over. All of it's over. If we're to have any chance of survival. We're not ready. You've seen the briefings, you know. I thought it would be a year from now, two..."
I shake my head. "Now. It's always now for us."
He looks at me sharply, shadows obscuring the look in his eyes. "Perhaps it is."
"I'll get the war ministers." I turn and run, hating myself for a coward but unable to endure conversation any longer. Color melts from the surrounding objects, throwing my familiar home into relief, marking it a strange land where horrors lurk. I ran, but the shadows of my own making could never be escaped.
The third minister whose bedroom I invaded was the one who informed me of my father's death.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The door is closed behind her, and she leans against it, a rare moment of weakness hidden by the vestibule from servants and prying eyes. Inside, the low hum of voices breaks off, then resumes again, Syran's rough bass leading them all. Everyone is delivered, and now there is nothing more to be done. Nothing more for my betrothed, nothing more for my people, nothing to be done but wait.
And I wonder, a trifle bitterly, if this is how I will spend the rest of my life, waiting. Waiting at Garden for missions that never come. One of the Great Heroes of the War will not be called for simple, trifling little disputes. Garden had become merely the place she waited to come here, to come home. And now she waited for the morrow, that she might offer herself to my husband, whose affection for her might be measured in the fact that he alone had been honest enough to tell the truth about her marriage: she was power, a symbol, and a sacrifice. Once married, she could spend the rest of her life waiting for him; but he would not come.
She was caught in a holding pattern, in an endlessly repetitive series of events that would not change for someone as insignificant as she. She would spend the rest of her Garden days repeating the same lectures, in the same halls, to the same blank looks on faces only subtly different. Waiting... to come here. And when she was here, there would be nothing for her to do but wait to go back, wait for fighting to reach her, because fighting was all that she knew how to do. She didn't know how to live. She didn't know how to love. It didn't matter. The fighting was all that mattered, and in the fighting was everything else destroyed.
Her purpose in the life into which she had been born had been fulfilled the moment Ultimecia lay dead at their feet. She had come to love Lihalla dearly, but now she looked at the stone walls bitterly. Her purpose here would be fulfilled when she had given herself and her power to Syran.
She could have loved him, had she had a chance. Hyne knew Naltaeri always had.
Naltaeri loved her people, too.
There was simply nothing to be done- no help for it, no way out.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Syran lay there in the grey half-light before dawn, trying not to feel beyond the press of linen on bare skin, the weight of coverlets heavy on a burdened soul. The last echo of the fifth bell had faded. In two bells, at seven, he had his first official all-hands meeting as king. He would have had it yesterday, the moment the marriage and coronation were complete, but some traditions could not be broken, and among them was the wedding night.
And so he had a handful of time here, blocked off by heavy brocade drapes, defined by pillows and sheets and Naltaeri's soft warm body pressed so trustingly against him. Still asleep and looking childlike, fragile and oh so innocent, still. She'd been innocent, damn him, and damn every foolish young noble who'd claimed her. He hadn't wanted that from her, didn't deserve such a precious gift when it was given the only time he could give here anything, on the eve of a life in which she could have no part. Mysteriously acquired knowledge notwithstanding. He knew what he was doing to her, and it cut at him, but not as much as it would if he did to her what he was doing to himself.
She shifted slightly, her sleep cycle coming to its end. He held her more tightly and buried his face in her hair, head resting against his neck, as if by those simple acts he could just shut it all out, stop time and hold Naltaeri and himself in this moment forever. Syran wanted nothing more.
It was into that endless, precious moment that she awoke.
He loosed his hold immediately, but she only adjusted herself marginally against him. Her eyes when she glanced upward timidly were shadowed sapphire that kept no secrets. In vain he searched for that strange gold glint that had been appearing of late. Nothing. It didn't make this any easier.
"Did you sleep well?" The words slipped past his guard, let out unwillingly. A clean break was hopeless, but to drag it out...
She looked at his, only looked, and something like hurt flashed through her eyes. "Well enough," said softly. "The last time, I suspect."
A queen's voice. He's prepared himself for silence, tears, emotion, but this cold, detached sovereignty hurt more than anything else could have. It was his voice, the ruler, ruthlessly focused on the greater good while he ordered the people he cared most about into their own personal hells. Aching, he again pressed his cheek to her golden hair, seeking a solace that he knew could never be found. Given up, sacrificed for the sake of survival.
Hyne help him if he dreamt regardless, even as he knew his dreams for false hopes he was far better off without.
"Forgiveness, Naltaeri." His voice betrayed him.
She looked away. "It is given."
He sighed, uncoiling into the bed in a boneless heap. Emotionless, flat, still those words more precious than any sound in the world, any save one- her voice in the night, crying out for him. He treasured that call, locked it away in his heart as the move valuable of all the treasures in the world, that he might draw it out when he needed it most. He would never hear it more. "Thank you."
Perhaps she heard something in his traitorous voice, for she touched his cheek, and the walls so recently erected fell behind her eyes. "How much longer?"
Syran cursed himself for a fool. That meeting should have been earlier, he should have left before she'd awoken... but holding her in his arms then... he couldn't have brought himself to let go. He would cherish the feel of her the rest of his days; even as he lay cold and alone on a cot in the war room or half a lonely bed he would remember how it felt to hold her close, would cradle her ghost within him. It would bring no warmth; nor would the dawn, this day, still too far and yet too impossibly close. "Two bells, maybe less."
She sighed, looking once above her, then at him. "Until you must go," she asked, holding her voice steady, "will you hold me?"
Hyne damn him for a fool. "Naltaeri..." He pulled her close against him, clutching her tight, too tight, but she made no protest. How he wished to utter those empty, vapid platitudes, the luxuries of other men; to tell her that he would never let her go. Not for they those clichés; only the knowledge of what once, briefly, was, and could never be again. He should spare her that. He should.
But they lay there together until the ringing of the seventh bell.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, look! An ending!
^^;;; so it's back. And alive. And *crosses fingers* breathing.
seiferfetish: tell you what- i'll send you a free copy of my first novel if you promise to write a long, gushy letter of praise (truth in letter is irrelevant) ^^;;;
Quistis88: Okay... so now I feel like I failed you. Well, here's more... it wasn't soon... but it's here...
seyenaidni: Yo. (sorry, running out of things to say ^^;;;)
Ripley: I need a support group to finish these things. I note that you got done way ahead of me, and did far better than I ever could. :) At least someone has motivation...
Mintaka: less confusion? I hope? let me know.
amy: awkward won't even begin to cover what's going to happen in the next chapter... stay tuned. I swear it'll be out soon.
Cyrell: heh. they'll connect, all right. I direct your attention to the above reference to the next chapter. Hoo boy. I love doing this to characters...
And a general shoutout to Tennyo Tears. Trust me, people, without her we'd really have been in trouble. I owe all my motivation to her. You rock, girl.
Lyaka ^^
(to keep the motivation going, it's permissible to feed the author)
Short version? I broke down. Between college apps (I'm Hopkins bound!), an utter lack of direction, and starting work on my novel (the original one) I just broke down and stopped. Working. On. Anything. At All. And unfortunately, Dreams was one of those things.
I'm really upset about it, actually. I had done so well with ~Hourglass~ and then I went and dropped Dreams for nearly eight months. That really gets me, especially since I tend to have fic-finishing issues.
But! I really am back this time. Why am I so sure? Because now, dear friends, I know the ending. That's right: I was cleaning out my computer to switch over to my brand-new laptop (minna, meet Satsuki-chan) and I found my old files. And then I realized, when I got to the end of dreams3, that there was no more. And then I checked the date on ff.net and really started feeling guilty. Then my muses showed up and (taking pity on me) gave me the rest of the plot.
Again, apologies. I think we're really gonna make it this time. Keep me up to the mark :p
Without further ado...
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_In Dreams_
----------------
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He certainly hasn't wasted any time.
I can feel the change in the very air of the castle. Everyone- servants, pages and ministers alike- moving more quickly, more purposefully, more intent.
By now the world must know that my father has one foot in the grave and the other following quickly. A useful excuse for the sudden engagement, for the haste of the fast-approaching wedding date. Already Syran is king in all but name.
And what am I, I wonder. Absently I thumb my rinds. My engagement sapphire has replaced the old ring marking me scion of my line. Syran has it now, as signet. It makes me less.
I'm wearing boots instead of slippers, and the slightly raised hells clack harshly against he stone floor. They're not the well-broken-in leather back in Garden, but the rough Hexadragon hide is strong and makes me feel more like my other self- more like Quistis. I need to be Quistis now. I need the training she had.
How much will Naltaeri remember when we're separated? I can only hope she's had some basic teaching. At any rate she's the sense to keep her mouth shut and nod.
My approach isn't a secret by any means, and I can hear the voices in the war room fall silent three steps before I appear in the doorway.
"Princess," a dozen voices greet with uncertain deference, unspoken question clear. Only Syran says nothing, jade eyes inscrutable, watching, analyzing, not giving anything away. Lykouleon is not there; together with the other councillors he attends my father's deathbed. I do not visit him in his last days, leaving that task for Naltaeri. Quistis has never known a father; she could not bear to bid one farewell.
Which am I, now, I wonder. Neither, perhaps.
My gaze shifts to the simulation spread on the table below and I repress a sigh. Miniatures, clay and wood, modeling a defense pattern.
"Awful," I breathe, without even realizing it.
One of the underministers bristles, wagging a finger at me. "My plan is certainly not awful, young lady. Perhaps if you'd had some military training-"
"Look at this, for Hyne's sake," I snap, incensed. "You're practically inviting them in. Any commander with klad for brains could get around this! They'd leave a token force here, sweep under here, dart past your three guards over there and be at the capital before we knew it!"
The underminister was gaping in astonishment, and he wasn't alone. Only Syran seemed unsurprised, leaning forward, definite satisfaction in those eyes. "Do go on," he murmured. "How would you do it, Instructor?"
Ministers tittered, thinking he mocked me, but I felt ice grip me suddenly. Nothing showed on his face, nothing that meant anything one way or another, but I knew. I'd slipped overplayed my hand. Revealed, too much, if he really knew.
No way out, if he did; nothing to do.
Nothing to do but go on as I'd began.
"Anything for my favorite student," I tossed over my shoulder, not daring to look back as I moved clay figures and ministers murmured afresh. He said nothing until I'd finished, only coming up behind me to watch in silence.
"Hmmm," he says.
A younger minister with more righteousness than sense takes that as his cue. "This wouldn't do at all," he declares impetuously, sweeping me a look that means to be condescending but succeeds only in appearing facile. "Absolutely ridiculous. Of course it's only to be expected. Perhaps if you'd had some proper training, my dear..."
Syran raised a neutral eyebrow. "Perhaps if you'd show us how you'd break that defense..."
"But certainly," he says smugly, moving up to the table. "Firstly, I move cavalry here."
"Artillery in the pass," I counter from the other side of the model, moving the hidden clay cannons into the open.
He shrugged. "Once they're occupied, I move my infantry around the opposite edge."
Will they never get it? No SeeD cadet was so clueless as this. "Two troops heavy cavalry, three troops light. Having decimated your cavalry, a third of the artillery falls back and disperses, backing up the spread around the mountain."
The minister blinked in shock. "Well... um... *my* artillery drives down the center, clearing your cavalry!"
They always fall for it. "The artillery in the back engages yours. The unmoved guns target your left flank. The other three heavy cavalry falls on your right, and a quarter of my infantry wraps around and cuts you off. You're dead in about three seconds, and the other quarter of my infantry on this side- still fresh- backs up the drive through your reserve troops. Oh, and don't forget I've still half the cavalry, an artillery brigade and half the infantry on the other side of the bowl, so don't bother with a two-pronged attack." I was really involved now, forgetting that this wasn't my classroom, that these weren't my students. "In this case you must use the superior terrain to compensate for a smaller force," I lectured the top military minds of Lihalla. "Contrary to conventional military wisdom, the lower ground is an advantage here; we trade space for time and men and come out ahead. For best results, two of the four passes should be permanently blocked-" my finger marked off the chosen passes, the two behind the city, so as to keep our enemies coming at us from one general direction. "Station artillery in the other two, keep a guard on perimeter, then distribute. You'll want more cavalry on this side, since it's steeper, so it'll come out lopsided, but this is a classic example of when and how to apply Bernoulli's defense."
I looked up from the table in time to take in the view: thirteen wide-eyed, slack-jawed, dumbstruck ministers and advisors. Twelve of them hastily attempted to cover their surprise. The oldest, and perhaps the wisest, regarded me respectfully. "An excellent plan, Princess. I confess I've never heard of hits... Bernoulli? Where did you learn of him, and gain such an excellent grasp of tactics?"
"Ah-" had I said Bernoulli out loud? He was part of the curriculum, but wouldn't develop his strategies on warfare until the Fourth Galbadian Succession, less than a century before the Second Sorceress War. "I've, um, spent a lot of time reading lately," I temporized. "You'd be surprised, ah, how many books deal with tactics."
"I certainly was," Syran puts in dryly, the first words he's spoken since the challenge. "Did you happen to read Dr. Ross' work?"
His eyes caught mine and I knew, damn it, he knew and I knew he knew too.
"I've always been a fan of Aki's theories," I managed.
"Are any of these masters still alive?" the eldest minister queried. "Perhaps they can assist."
"I doubt it," Syran said. "And they shan't hear anything from me." The decision was clear, and the minister bowed.
"Nor from I," I whispered.
"Then, now with our plan, we are dismissed. Make it happen," Syran ordered.
He offered me his hand for escort. I took it, and our pact was sealed.
Once reaching my rooms, soon to be vacated, he releases me. I take a few steps into the fire-lit space before his whisper halts me.
"Quistis..."
I stop and swallow, then turn sideways.
"Yes, Seifer?"
I could hear him let out his breath from half the room away. His hand moved then stopped before he could make some gesture. His lips parted, as if he was about to say something, but he shook his head, and said only "I'm sorry."
As he turned, I saw the light in his eyes flicker and die. Walking away, I could see from the stride alone that it was a different man.
Suddenly alone, suddenly lost, I flung myself onto the bed and fell headlong into darkness.
//////////
I expected nothing from him, and it seems he felt the same, because there were no more messages, no more signs or double meanings. On either end. I saw him only once in Garden, at the weekly update, before he went on assignment in Dollet, two days ago.
I went back once more, but he wasn't there. The time was taken up with last-minute wedding preparations, surreality at its finest. I suppose some part of me still expected a white gown and a veil, but Lihallan princesses throw back to tribal tradition, and the dress looks like nothing so much as an exotic bikini halter and long flaring silk pants gathering to a gold-lined cuff three inches above the ankle. In the dead of winter, no less- small comfort that Syran wears an open vest. Pins were stuck into me for hours before I escaped, and I only made it halfway to the library before I opened my eyes in the cafeteria, Zell inhaling hot dogs a foot from my face. I turned away. More and more I felt different here, like an outsider. Lihalla was becoming more and more my home. War, battle, death- at least back then there is a culture about it. We may be warriors, but there is no reason to be uncivilised about it.
//////////
I awaken to chaos, a swirl of confusion so strong it cuts through five senses to make even Quezacotl shriek in protest. All my GFs are crying out, in fact, screaming at me to get up, get up, do something! Their cries are shocking and familiar all at once. They were once more frequent; every time I was back attacked I was warned by them, but as I've grown in power they've become less so. Now they cry out again, scrambling my thoughts with primal warnings of imminent danger.
But I am in my bedchamber, and there is naught about but the curtains and blankets of my bed. Still instincts are so strongly driven in me that I leap to my feat, nearly tangling myself in silken overhang and tripping over cushions as I scramble to my feet. Once having achieved them I pause. SeeD instinct drives me to battle, but there is no opponent. What is going on?
Unbidden the presences in my head chime in. I don't have Ifrit anymore, but I was planning a demonstration today for my Advanced GFs class, and I'm overstocked. Doomtrain and Quezzy jostle with Diablos and Alexander, and poor Carbuncle is nearly crushed beneath them as they clamor to be let out, to fight. I resist their pull. [What's going on?] I demand, sidestepping the piles of blanket and pillow spilling from the overstuffed bed to pad the carpet. [What's got you all so excited?]
Their voices clamor in my head, fragmented and disjointed. Finally Alexander silences them and speaks directly to me. [Battle.]
[Nowhere near!]
A moment of silence. [Perhaps you were wrong.] His voice is directed inwards.
Quezacotl speaks out in his defense. [We were not wrong. Our bringer values the time-of-long-past as well as the time-that-is-now.] His voice turns to me. [The blue-coated ones who smell of gunpowder have given Eden's fruits and Eden's children as offering to Ifrit, and Sacred and Minotaur are bathed in Devour.]
Instantly I am out the door and running down the hall. [Where?]
[Five summons from this child of the Brothers,] Doomtrain gives answer.
[Shit!] The Guardians recoil, unused to human invective, but I have no time to soothe them as I run headlong into Syran's door. It's locked, and no amount of banging can rouse Seifer from sleep. I back up a step or two and focus my mind. "Firaga!" It flies open.
Perhaps Syran could sleep through an earthquake, but fire is one of his prime elements, and he is jerked from Diablos' embrace to the harsh realties of this time. "Naltaeri?" His instincts are products of an earlier time, but fire calls to fire and he is on his feet before he is fully awakened. "What is wrong?"
"We've been invaded!" I grab his hand and pull him out of his room. "The Galbadians-"
"Who?" He wrenches his hand from mine and pins me with his gaze. "Naltaeri, you're talking nonsense."
I meet his eyes and silently curse. I'm not used to this time, the slowness of communication, the lengthened reaction times, and my own altered position. In Garden my word on invasion would rouse armies in seconds, and confirmation would be a matter of minutes. "The Galbriands, I mean." Another problem: names. Then another thought occurs to me. [You are sure it was the blue-coated ones who smell of gunpowder as it is in the time-that-now?] I demand silently.
[They are the ones who will become the blue-coated-ones. They are now those who smell like gunpowder. There is no mistake.]
"Naltaeri, I'm sorry," Syran said in a calming tone. "I shouldn't have told you how much we knew about their military, you've gotten all excited... it's my own fault for letting you in on the councils, but it's not good for you. There's been no word of invasion."
"It's happened!" I insist. "Five hundred kilometers from here, they've burned crops and towns!"
"Naltaeri..."
[Let me.] Alexander slips from me, and I remember too late that he was normally Seifer's- I couldn't hold him from his true host. Before I could call a warning he'd entered Syran's mind, and he froze before me, jade eyes wide and shocked.
[Shit, shit, shit!] Rational thought and royal dignity be damned; if anyone walked down the halls and saw this there would be serious trouble. I shove the unresponsive Syran headlong into his chambers and bodily yank the heavy stone doorway into place. Then, sweating, I exert some measure of control over Alexander. [Return! Now!]
[Request violates Garden protocol 301.33b.] Damn it, when did Alexander get Seifer's sense of humor?
[First junction occurred approximately 3.14159 years before last chronometer check, radical psi plus or minus time compression differential.]
[That is not funny! Get back here! Now!]
[Unnecessary. Subject has been briefed.]
Syran is looking coherent again, and the look in his eyes as he stares at me makes me uncomfortable. "How- what- damn," he finishes. "It's because you have the ability to cast, isn't it?"
[Points for being quick on his feet,] Alexander quips as he slides back into my head, almost carelessly destroying a memory of blocks on a rainy day. I resist the urge to never summon him again.
"That's exactly it," I say as reassuringly as I can manage, snatching the opportunity offered. "I know it sounds fantastic, but believe me, I can tell, and we're under attack."
"Right." He strides over to his closet and pulls his shirt over his head, not bothering with modesty before his betrothed. I mean to turn, but a cruel fascination rivets my eyes. Even in such a time, without the benefit of rigorous training, I recognize physical peak when I see it, understated muscles rippling in the maliciously flickering light of the single candle that has burned through the night to mark the time. The future king cannot be expected to rely on the hourly bells.
"Come on," and that fast the spell, barely begun, is shattered like so much spun glass, cutting deep into my self. He strides out the door.
"Where to?" He grabs my wrist and breaks into a jog. I run after him, soft slippers on grey stone, dreams on reality, cast in relief. Somewhere in the distance lightning strikes out of a clear sky.
"Where else?" He stops outside a door all too familiar. "Are you sure, Naltaeri?" he asks softly, breaking character just once.
Lately it's been hard to breathe.
"I'm sorry, Syran."
"No." He turned away and gazed through the hallway with unseeing eyes. "That's my line. We almost made it, huh?" He smiled crookedly. "One day till the wedding. We could have had a traditional wedding. I wanted it to be nice. For you."
I look down. "It won't be, will it."
Now he looks at me, jade eyes intense. "We're at war, Naltaeri. It's over. All of it's over. If we're to have any chance of survival. We're not ready. You've seen the briefings, you know. I thought it would be a year from now, two..."
I shake my head. "Now. It's always now for us."
He looks at me sharply, shadows obscuring the look in his eyes. "Perhaps it is."
"I'll get the war ministers." I turn and run, hating myself for a coward but unable to endure conversation any longer. Color melts from the surrounding objects, throwing my familiar home into relief, marking it a strange land where horrors lurk. I ran, but the shadows of my own making could never be escaped.
The third minister whose bedroom I invaded was the one who informed me of my father's death.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The door is closed behind her, and she leans against it, a rare moment of weakness hidden by the vestibule from servants and prying eyes. Inside, the low hum of voices breaks off, then resumes again, Syran's rough bass leading them all. Everyone is delivered, and now there is nothing more to be done. Nothing more for my betrothed, nothing more for my people, nothing to be done but wait.
And I wonder, a trifle bitterly, if this is how I will spend the rest of my life, waiting. Waiting at Garden for missions that never come. One of the Great Heroes of the War will not be called for simple, trifling little disputes. Garden had become merely the place she waited to come here, to come home. And now she waited for the morrow, that she might offer herself to my husband, whose affection for her might be measured in the fact that he alone had been honest enough to tell the truth about her marriage: she was power, a symbol, and a sacrifice. Once married, she could spend the rest of her life waiting for him; but he would not come.
She was caught in a holding pattern, in an endlessly repetitive series of events that would not change for someone as insignificant as she. She would spend the rest of her Garden days repeating the same lectures, in the same halls, to the same blank looks on faces only subtly different. Waiting... to come here. And when she was here, there would be nothing for her to do but wait to go back, wait for fighting to reach her, because fighting was all that she knew how to do. She didn't know how to live. She didn't know how to love. It didn't matter. The fighting was all that mattered, and in the fighting was everything else destroyed.
Her purpose in the life into which she had been born had been fulfilled the moment Ultimecia lay dead at their feet. She had come to love Lihalla dearly, but now she looked at the stone walls bitterly. Her purpose here would be fulfilled when she had given herself and her power to Syran.
She could have loved him, had she had a chance. Hyne knew Naltaeri always had.
Naltaeri loved her people, too.
There was simply nothing to be done- no help for it, no way out.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Syran lay there in the grey half-light before dawn, trying not to feel beyond the press of linen on bare skin, the weight of coverlets heavy on a burdened soul. The last echo of the fifth bell had faded. In two bells, at seven, he had his first official all-hands meeting as king. He would have had it yesterday, the moment the marriage and coronation were complete, but some traditions could not be broken, and among them was the wedding night.
And so he had a handful of time here, blocked off by heavy brocade drapes, defined by pillows and sheets and Naltaeri's soft warm body pressed so trustingly against him. Still asleep and looking childlike, fragile and oh so innocent, still. She'd been innocent, damn him, and damn every foolish young noble who'd claimed her. He hadn't wanted that from her, didn't deserve such a precious gift when it was given the only time he could give here anything, on the eve of a life in which she could have no part. Mysteriously acquired knowledge notwithstanding. He knew what he was doing to her, and it cut at him, but not as much as it would if he did to her what he was doing to himself.
She shifted slightly, her sleep cycle coming to its end. He held her more tightly and buried his face in her hair, head resting against his neck, as if by those simple acts he could just shut it all out, stop time and hold Naltaeri and himself in this moment forever. Syran wanted nothing more.
It was into that endless, precious moment that she awoke.
He loosed his hold immediately, but she only adjusted herself marginally against him. Her eyes when she glanced upward timidly were shadowed sapphire that kept no secrets. In vain he searched for that strange gold glint that had been appearing of late. Nothing. It didn't make this any easier.
"Did you sleep well?" The words slipped past his guard, let out unwillingly. A clean break was hopeless, but to drag it out...
She looked at his, only looked, and something like hurt flashed through her eyes. "Well enough," said softly. "The last time, I suspect."
A queen's voice. He's prepared himself for silence, tears, emotion, but this cold, detached sovereignty hurt more than anything else could have. It was his voice, the ruler, ruthlessly focused on the greater good while he ordered the people he cared most about into their own personal hells. Aching, he again pressed his cheek to her golden hair, seeking a solace that he knew could never be found. Given up, sacrificed for the sake of survival.
Hyne help him if he dreamt regardless, even as he knew his dreams for false hopes he was far better off without.
"Forgiveness, Naltaeri." His voice betrayed him.
She looked away. "It is given."
He sighed, uncoiling into the bed in a boneless heap. Emotionless, flat, still those words more precious than any sound in the world, any save one- her voice in the night, crying out for him. He treasured that call, locked it away in his heart as the move valuable of all the treasures in the world, that he might draw it out when he needed it most. He would never hear it more. "Thank you."
Perhaps she heard something in his traitorous voice, for she touched his cheek, and the walls so recently erected fell behind her eyes. "How much longer?"
Syran cursed himself for a fool. That meeting should have been earlier, he should have left before she'd awoken... but holding her in his arms then... he couldn't have brought himself to let go. He would cherish the feel of her the rest of his days; even as he lay cold and alone on a cot in the war room or half a lonely bed he would remember how it felt to hold her close, would cradle her ghost within him. It would bring no warmth; nor would the dawn, this day, still too far and yet too impossibly close. "Two bells, maybe less."
She sighed, looking once above her, then at him. "Until you must go," she asked, holding her voice steady, "will you hold me?"
Hyne damn him for a fool. "Naltaeri..." He pulled her close against him, clutching her tight, too tight, but she made no protest. How he wished to utter those empty, vapid platitudes, the luxuries of other men; to tell her that he would never let her go. Not for they those clichés; only the knowledge of what once, briefly, was, and could never be again. He should spare her that. He should.
But they lay there together until the ringing of the seventh bell.
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Hey, look! An ending!
^^;;; so it's back. And alive. And *crosses fingers* breathing.
seiferfetish: tell you what- i'll send you a free copy of my first novel if you promise to write a long, gushy letter of praise (truth in letter is irrelevant) ^^;;;
Quistis88: Okay... so now I feel like I failed you. Well, here's more... it wasn't soon... but it's here...
seyenaidni: Yo. (sorry, running out of things to say ^^;;;)
Ripley: I need a support group to finish these things. I note that you got done way ahead of me, and did far better than I ever could. :) At least someone has motivation...
Mintaka: less confusion? I hope? let me know.
amy: awkward won't even begin to cover what's going to happen in the next chapter... stay tuned. I swear it'll be out soon.
Cyrell: heh. they'll connect, all right. I direct your attention to the above reference to the next chapter. Hoo boy. I love doing this to characters...
And a general shoutout to Tennyo Tears. Trust me, people, without her we'd really have been in trouble. I owe all my motivation to her. You rock, girl.
Lyaka ^^
(to keep the motivation going, it's permissible to feed the author)