queen of hearts
[llyse]
She stood in the light; they stood in the dark. She could not see for the light; yet she knew they were there. The light was around her and in her, it was all of her, came fro her, and yet was apart form her, and she felt that should she open her eyes, she would be blinded. She would not open her eyes; open, and she would lose the light. She would not move, either; step out of the light, and she would have to face the darknes.
The world was darkness. The light made her feel safe, but through it all she could still feel the creeping, stinking darkness that was the world beyond. The darkness sounded of death and smelt of rot, felt like a weary lassitude that sapped her strength and diminished her will to live. It tasted like blood, copper-sweet, copper-sharp. She did not belong here, not in this Garden of deadly flowers. She wanted to bloom in the sunlight, fed by rain and earth, not in this place that was nourished on blood. But for love she entered, and for love she would not leave.
So she stayed in the light. The light fed her, and she dreamed. Dreamed of the days past, before she had joined the Garden of Blood. Sometimes she dreamed of returning, of being summoned back to the Garden by voice and touch, and she would be angry, and lash out—words, actions, magic—but it was all right, because it was a dream. The light was all that was real, and the rest were dreams. Sometimes she heard songs, singing. The Singer (singers?) taught her his (its? Their?) songs, haunting and uplifting, sweet and harsh, sad and merry. She sang, finding peace in the singing, feeling the songs strengthen the light and drive the darkness further away.
And they stayed in the dark, and watched.
"Little princess."
The little girl was small. She was pretty, dark and fair, airy light feet dancing on the floor as the stately woman sat at the piano, airy light fingers dancing on the keys.
"Little princess mine."
The little girl was precious. She was loved, and she knew it. She was. Confidence bloomed in her mind, fed by caring. Her smile was radiant, sparkling, she a light butterfly the very image of her stately mother. Her mother had a song that was special, she knew. Her mother would play it late at night when her father was asleep, and the little girl would creep down and listen, and her mother would tell her the story of the singer and the soldier. The little girl thought it was grand to have an admirer like that; someone who came to watch you and adored you for you. And her mother would smile sadly and say, not if he's a soldier.
Because he never came back.
Later, when the dexterous fingers stilled and the quicksilver sparkle faded, the little girl grew more graceful, prettier, as if to make up for the stately woman's absence.
"Little princess."
"Father!" Giggle. The little girl was still a little girl, but big enough to believe that she was not little anymore.
"I stand corrected. Little queen, you. Queen of my heart."
The little girl laughed, sparkling.
She never remembered how to play her mother's song.
"Little princess."
"I'm not so little any more, you know?"
"Sorry."
They were her friends. No, they were her knights, her bodyguards, her loyal followers. A princess needed a court, after all, ladies-in-waiting and maids and knights and soldiers and squires and servants. And the dog, lolling at her feet with an air of self-satisfaction. He was as pampered as she had ever been, was that dog, named after the tutor she had nursed a youthful crush on once (tall and diffident, good-looking with that flaming hair tugged into a ponytail and the spectacles that made him look mature).
"Will I be your princess forever?"
"Course! And when you grow up, you'll be our Queen!"
"Can I be King?"
"Little princess."
Silvery laughter. "If I'm a princess, what does that make you, then?"
"Why, the knight, of course."
He bent and kissed her fingers, and she had to laugh. The General was forgotten, the darkness that had grown between them when the little girl stopped being a little girl and learnt to dislike what her father did for a living thrown to the winds. It was probably a tremendous embarrassment for the General's daughter to be leading a rebellion against his country, which was part of the reason she did it. That, and to be free of his smothering looming presence. But now, with this young handsome princeling, she felt free and wild.
He was a mercenary-in-training, a would-be dealer of death, but that did not matter as the sky was blue and the sun was shining and they were both young and liked each other (love? Best not to think of that, now.)
"You're a princess now, but you're elegant enough for a queen."
"Flatterer."
And it did not last, because mercenaries were still soldiers, and although he did come back, he left immediately after. But she would think back to that light-filled summer with wonder at their joy and at the innocence.
"Princess?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"You look
like one, but you don't act like one."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"…Whatever."
That was how he was, always. Gruff, cold, apparently-uncaring, and only a sorceress (or one who deliberately tried to understand him) could guess at the sorrows and darkness locked in that icy heart of his. The Dark Knight was never an expressive person, and she leant from him that words were not the only way for people to communicate, not praises and presents the only way to show appreciation. His words were rare; thus so with his gifts. She learnt to recognize the gentle smile he gave her in the mornings as a gift, and the way his voice warmed when he spoke to her, and the way he blushed when she (only she) teased him.
Although he never said it, she knew she was the queen of his heart.
"You could be a princess, but that would make your father a king."
"That does sound absurd."
But she felt that the former-instructor was more of a Queen than she; yet still she knew that she ruled (wanted to rule?) that lonely royal heart.
"Princess?" Blue-eyed laugh, unfettered merriment. "Sure, an exotic Oriental princess."
"Maybe we should make a play. For the Garden Festival, you know, with Squall as the prince and—" the bright one trailed off into dreaming.
"Princess suits you to a T, pretty lady." The flirt bent to kiss her fingers (like someone now lost to dreaming), one hand on his hat to prevent it from falling off. The bright one glared at him, mercurial shift of temper from joyful to annoyed. He laughed back, bending to kiss her fingers as well, and she giggled. "She's a princess, but you're the queen of my heart," the flirt declared expansively to the bright one.
"Don't' worry," the laughing boy reassured her. "We still love you."
She loved them, and they loved her. It comforted her, that there were people who loved her for her, and yet (it was always yet) she found she could not reconcile them with the killers that they were. Mission after mission, after she became one of them, another blood-flower in that dark Garden (and there were plenty of missions, what with the rebellions in Deling, monsters in Esthar, and the remnants of the dread Sorceress's followers attacking Balamb) she watched them kill. Oh, she knew they killed, when she fought with them against Ultimecia, but that was for a Cause. It had been hard enough to stomach that. This—this was for money, and she watched them kill men and monsters alike without batting an eyelid, and go home. And then they were teenagers again, children getting drunk and dancing and teasing each other.
She kept count in her head of the people she killed, and one day she awoke to find that she had lost count. She had sobbed, and he had held her lovingly, stroking her hair with the same hand that opened death-wounds. He did not understand. She knew that he would not hurt her, but the darkness crept into her mind and tinted the world.
Here in the light, she was safe.
"Mother?"
Light and dark alike uttered the double-syllabled word. She had not been aware that she had spoken until the light-dark boundary threw the words back at her mother mother mother…
They were there, she knew. They were watching. And there was more light now, and she had to take a step to get to the edge of it, where she pressed her palms against the opaque darkness and willed them to her.
"Mother?" (mother mother mother)
First the stately woman, smiling as she rarely did in life, arms outstretched in welcome, smile a promise of love. Then the young man, eyes dark pools of misery, arms outstretched in need, lips parted to call her. But to go to them would be to exit the light, and she held her position.
Mother, please. Return to us.
Return to darkness? No, thank you.
"Mother, why don't you come back?"
The stately woman smiled, and said nothing.
She spread her arms (had she arms? She was light.) in welcome.
"Come to me."
The young man pressed palms against the light. I cannot. The woman shook her head. I will not. Come to me, my child.
She almost did. But the darkness reached out and touched her, and she opened her eyes involuntarily before she remembered that it would catapult her into dreams of blood and darkness. The dark knight jumped back in her dream as she rose, driven to fury. No more! The light answered her, slamming him away from her, breaking the wall to pieces. She followed, buoyed on light, consumed by light. She would bring the light to them! She would drown their darkness and their blood in endless tides of light until there was no darkness, only light (but a dream, it was, but she was beyond caring).
He stood as she neared, raising a blade of cerulean light (why should there be light in this darkness, light perverted into an instrument of death, so wrong, so completely utterly wrong--). She fashioned light to meet him, cerulean to match, and drove it through the heart of his evil.
Thou may'st withdraw, loyal subject. I, thy Queen, command thee.
The betrayal-pain in chocolate eyes rammed shards of ice into her heart. The light chased him (she—she was the light) as he went, and snagged him—and lost him—
No dream, this.
A/N 20/2003: Be reminded that this is sort-of Rin's hallucinations. Understanding is optional. (llamajoy, ho. D'ye recognize that description of Rin's tutor? I hoped you would. I couldn't resist.)
