awaken to thy strength

[llyse]

            He swore he would never cry. Tears were an expression of emotion, a sign of weakness. It was not that he was too strong to show weakness, no, he was weak. He knew his weakness, to the core of his heart. It was because he was weak that he had to train, to work harder, to be all the stronger to hide that damnable weakness of his. He felt, that was his weakness. He could not overcome emotion to do what he must. But he had his strength. His devotion, his dream. It fed him, kept him going. And one day devotion would overcome emotion.

            Crying, he heard. It pierced his dreams, brought him wakeful into dreary and drizzling reality from his dreams of honor and glory; the soft sobbing, mournful sound made it impossible for him to close his eyes, much less sleep. He wondered: did it not say in the books that he read, that the greatest people always came from the most sordid, the most ridiculed beginnings? The hardships taught them to endure, to have faith, honed and tempered them to lean dark steel, tough and sharp and unbreakable. He almost smiled. Even the weeping barely dampened his hope. He was miserable, now. He would soar, later.

            The day he left it drizzled, too. The woman he refused to call mother crouched mindlessly in the small shelter they called him, sobbing to herself. He had often wondered if she was insane, these days. She would wake in the morning, and go to her slave-work; she would return late at night with food, and sob till dawn. He wondered if she slept. He left because he saw light: the man had invited him to join his group; it was better than running on the streets every day, watching what he could not have. He promised himself: he would win free of these streets someday. He would soar.

            He learned of glory, from the legends his mother told him. Hyne. Glorious sorceresses. That was true soaring.

            It was a message. Deling, its squalid filthy streets and dark slums, was beginning to feel like home. The gang loved him. They were like his family. He thought he loved them. He lost sight of the glory, but the glory found him. It came in the form of the book. It shone at him from the cover of a book on medieval symbolism; it stole his soul, and he immediately stole the book. It recalled him to his true cause—serving the glory—and although there was nothing in the book that mentioned it save the cover art (his, it was his, he put it on all his clothing—the emblem of the knight) and he thought so hard about it that he carelessly let himself get caught.

            It dripped in the dungeons too, tears from the wall. Alright, so it was not a real dungeon, but so what? It was dark, it dripped, it had a barred window and stone walls and a small pallet on the floor, what did it matter if they called it a jail, not a dungeon. It was storming outside, the roof leaking and rain spattering in the small window when she came. She had dark clothing and dark hair but she seemed to shine, almost shimmering in a way he had never seen. He thought she was Glory, then. He thought he could soar.

            The orphanage was small but clean, simple but full of love. It's only value to him was that it gave him a big area to run around in, and a rival. All of the children there had that glow around her, Quistis' soft motherly warmth, Zell's quicksilver glitter, Selphie's fluttering light, Irvine's faint shine, and the hard-edged halo that Squall possessed. He saw it when he looked in the mirror, the same hard glittery halo as Squall. He determined, that since Glory was not here as he thought, it had to be waiting somewhere. He would train himself to be worthy of it, and train he did. He ran, all along the beaches, up and down the lighthouse stairs, in and out of the orphanage. He fought Squall until Edea had to have him sleep in the living room. He wanted to soar.

            In the Garden of blood-flowers he found the two. The girl drew him at once, as much for the measuring way her cool gaze raked over him as for the swirling eddies of light that curled around her like winds in a storm. Wind, he later realized, was an apt analogy when it came to her. She had a temper like the storm, throwing tantrums one moment, all biddable placidity the next. They were glorious together, mastering weaponswork and spell theory swiftly, and, having no need for homework, ran all over the place. They talked, laughed, fought: they were kindred. To everyone else Fujin said little and paid less attention, but with him she loosed the barriers.

            She cried when the Guardian took her eye. Headstrong, confident, the two of them had snuck out of a summer training camp on the Timber plains to pursue rumor of a Guardian Force haunting a forest. They found it; or rather it found them, when they had been stumbling lost through that forest and the silvery Guardian had swept from nowhere, winds swirling. A single angled slash opened Fujin's face to the bone, taking out one eye; and then the Guardian surrendered to her. Garden technology healed the slash without scar, but could not grow an eye. She, too, never cried after that, and grew quiet, even with him. Then Raijin came, lightning-quick scatters of light, and rounded out their group perfectly. He almost forget his dream of soaring.

            He met Glory's child during the summer, pure raw fire-force (Squall felt it too, he knew). She had devotion to match his. She was part of Glory, and he loved her for that.

            Glory. He found Glory. His one strength, his belief, his faith, his devotion to his Dream, finally overcame his weakness. He forgot his weakness. The Glory took him to Her bosom, and he forgot everything but Her. The formless dreams of his childhood come true—he had risen from the squalor and filth of his beginnings in the mud to the light of the Heavens. It was even better when Glory's child, that beautiful beautiful girl, became Glory. Glory burnt into Glory, and Glory—

            --Fell.

            The lies and traps that twisted his brain took months to unravel, winding truth from the lies and mutilations and perversions that laced his memories. Fujin and Raijin helped where they could, especially Fuj—he knew it tore at her heart to see him fighting with himself. He was well aware of his former second-in-command, current friend's feelings when it came to him—but—

            (he had known the gunblade was his the moment he set eyes on it: Hyperion, sun-god, light—and when it came time to sell it, he could not—he sold everything he could sell, and it was not enough—he found Edea, and went as far as to beg, pride set aside—and still the boy died. Edea could do nothing. The blade, he knew, had to go, but not for gil. Never for cheap gil.)

            The glory was still there, seething at the back of his mind. It grumbled when he was mugged, it growled when he killed monsters for a living, it snarled when he returned to Garden. It woke, tendrils of warmth seeping through his brain, when he saw Rinoa, full Glory, power so blinding it left room for nothing else. Glory there, but different. He wanted to help her, because she needed help, because she was so lost and dead—partner, not slave.

            Tears woke him; tears he saw, dripping on his shirt. Rinoa smiled, teary, but his eyes sought Fujin first. His strength had overcome his weakness, he knew. His love had overcome his devotion. That was his true strength.