the future before the past

[llyse]

            The Garden is waiting. Bred for fighting, poised for flight, it and its inhabitants are usually at the ready, but never like now. SeeDs and instructors and noncombatants scramble, making last-day preparations.  Systems are checked, weapons are tested, spells are stored. Messages zip across the globe, warning and questioning and wishing good luck.

            She is watching. Everywhere and nowhere, not even a person, she floats on the winds of change and listen to the people speak. She does not know who she is. Once she was a person, but now she is more, and she does not think about what she has become; it is enough that she watches. This event will start something, she can sense, and she must see it happen.

            In the morning the announcement had gone out to all residents of all three Gardens: prepare for permanent relocation and possible war. Explanations were given, of course, but surprisingly few chose to leave Balamb Garden. Surprising to the leaders; she had heard them discussing it. It did not surprise her: those living here were mostly those with few relatives or friends outside of the Garden. This was their home and family. They would not leave. Sometimes she wonders how she knows this, if at one time in her past she actually lived here in this place of flesh and spilled blood.

            Rinoa Heartilly, the headmaster of Balamb Garden had said, at the same time as his compatriots in the other Gardens were also explaining, was a sorceress who had too much magic. It was too easy for her to use it: the merest thought, the smallest uncontrolled wish could unleash that power, and Rinoa Heartilly had many wishes. One could drain her magic, but it would regenerate, faster than ever. Fifty years of age was the point at which a sorceress' power peaked before falling, and Rinoa was still far from reaching that age. Already her powers were growing beyond her control. Unimaginable, what point those powers would reach when she turned fifty. She would be as a god.

            Sorceress magic was of two kinds: true-magic, used for spellcasting and healing and other arcane things; and seed-magic, the core that lodged in every sorceress, generated true-magic, and was passed on when a sorceress chose. Rinoa was so sure that her seed-magic would shatter and pass to more people: one person was never supposed to hold that much.

            Fithos lusec wecos vinosec. The witches need more heirs.

            In Balamb Garden, a man wonders how he will deal with this crisis.

            The best you can, says his friend, although she too worries. They both smile.

            The man is a leader, a Commander: he will manage. The woman is strong in situations like these; it is emotions that she cannot handle. They will be fine, the watcher thinks. Out of the headmaster's office she goes, into the corridor; through the lift and down: the place is buzzing with activity, mostly technicians making sure that the Garden will survive the trip through time. Those SeeDs that have something to visit are off visiting it for the last time.

            There is an empty schoolroom where a woman site. This is where they once studied, in bygone days. Such brightness, then, all their hopes and dreams. Their lives have gone to shadow since, yet still in the rapidly frosting heart of the woman there lies a thread of hope. She is at present content, and calm, and that is all she will be.

             The watcher shivers incorporeally and moves on, too conscious of the strange vibrating split in the air that threatens to--what? She does not know, and has no wish to find out. Watch. Always watch, no more. She spins through the floor of the schoolroom, into a bright room where a boy east alone, lost in thought.

            Onwards then: the infirmary, and the man who lies sleeping, dreaming blissfully. There is no fear in him; he has lost his fear somewhere in the dreams that bring him closure. His is the peace of someone with no options, no agony of choice. There is only one path that he may walk, and he has accepted it. The watcher lingers beside him, visually tracing the line of his jaw, the shape of his body. Perhaps she once knew him (stop thinking). He is light, she thinks (no, don't think!), light exiled to shadow, and it burns him so.

            His companion likewise has no options, but as she sits awake, not needing any rest, her mind roves. She is light, the mother of all, it seems. Yet brightest light casts darkest shadow. There is uncertainty in her, fear and sorrow and despair. The light within her distils these shadows into ebony void, turning what might have been a normal woman into a battleground of purest hate and brightest light. The mother of light looks up and raises her hand in grave salute; confused, the watcher flees.

            North she goes, passing packing SeeDs, and SeeDs helping others to pack. Some are leaving, not wishing to join the permanent exile. The white ones will also stay, she knows; they will stay and fight and protect when the black ones are gone. There is a small dorm room like any other, where a pair of lovers lie together on the bed for one, taking comfort in company. They speak of normal things, quiet and content, bridging the gap that has grown between them these few days. They will need their strength in the years to come, these two.

            The watcher watches as the day flies, and the night, and the Garden too. Few watch it go as it speeds to rendezvous with the other Gardens and leave. Only the watcher lingers, watching it go. She must send it off, for she is the only one who knows. For she is the Watcher, and she must watch.

A/N (7/8/2003. typed 10/9): "She is Ultimecia, the Watcher." Yeeeah.