I was not always as I am now.
Quistis Trepe sat straight up in bed, the words as clear as bells on a silent Sunday morning, ringing clear in her sleep-quieted mind. The room was darkened, turned blue by the filtering moonlight through the paper-thin shade and the air was still with the heaviness of midnight. She glanced around, sleepily confused by the strange woman she'd heard. A voice, soft and mournful had pronounced the statement, and like silk it flowed over the young SeeD, caressing her with its deceptively light touch. Deciding that it had been nothing more than a dream, she relaxed into the warm security it offered.
I was once free and beautiful, as you are.
The voice which had pulled her forcefully from sleep only moments before began to lull her back into slumber, the softness, the sadness, too achingly beautiful to be real in Quistis' sleep-blurred opinion. As if the air suddenly became gentle hands, she felt herself slowly lowered back to her pillows, long light hair tumbling in all directions as she succumbed to the hypnotic sighs, most of her mind once again growing still and silent, surrendering herself over to her subconscious, to that mysterious part of her own psyche which controlled dreams and desires.
A part of her mind which she no longer ruled, not completely.
As she slept soundly, the lady could no more fathom her lost of control than she could when she was fully alert. Unknowing, trusting, she blindly relinquished herself over to her its other, unearthly mistress. A fair-haired queen of beauty and grace waited there for her chance at limited freedom, hungry for it like a thirsty man yearns for water in a desert, desiring it with more passion and longing than any man ever had for a woman's body. To feel soft and fluid and human again, even for a few moments, was worth any pain, any wound she'd suffer in the unspoken contract she had with the sleeping girl. The beautiful young woman who reminded her of herself sometimes, but who lacked the unbridled nature she'd once possessed when she'd been completely herself.
As wild as the wind, stormy as the sea was I once, before…
Before she had surrendered -- not just a fraction of her mind, as the girl did -- but her entire being, unwisely to another, trapping her within a shadowy place, shackling her to serve another whim's for all eternity. Except in times like this.
Freedom.
Unknowingly, Quistis slipped deeper into herself, sleeping peacefully to offer small comfort to the goddess who haunted her mind.
And the Siren was grateful for the few quiet moments when she could pretend that she was not a spirit without form, a human no more. She blinked and felt herself blink; slowly and deliberately, she raised a slender hand to touch the soft waves of hair framing her face and sighed at its luxuriant feel. Behind her closed eyelids, salty tears gathered, clinging to the fluttering lashes as she reveled in the texture of hair and how different it was from the downy nature of feathers. Small, delicate toes curled in the sheets as she stretched them -- not talons, not claws, but toes.
Sometimes she wondered if she could have held sway more tightly, taking possession of the nubile form for more than a few sleepless hours between midnight and dawn, but she quickly banished such thoughts. For this child -- this young woman whose mind was her home -- was more than a vessel or shell but a part of the Siren. She was a friend, a descendent, both a daughter and a mother in their interdependent connected relationship, one needing the other for survival and strength. To betray her would only mean to betray herself, and to render her long-ago sacrifice meaningless. No, the Siren would never turn against the fair-haired girl who she envied. She was, after all, her guardian.
She took a deep breath and wrapped herself in the bedclothes, almost content as she lay in the small, narrow bed in the darkened dormitory room. For a moment, she could almost forget that she was a guest in a host's body, that she was no longer young, beautiful and free. That moment was the only one which had come to matter.
Peace came in many guises.
But it lasted only for a moment, that delusional bliss of amnesia; it was then that she remembered everything which had come before, remembered what had brought her through the spans of history to that place in a young woman's mind, where she was both mistress and slave, defeated and conqueror. As painful as it was to remember, it was worth the freedom.
An unearthly song filled the air between slumber and wakening, serenely tragic on the cool waves of darkness.
Author's Notes: A strange little drabblefic, slightly related to The Guardian and The Ties that Bind. Just a little look at what it means to live in someone else's head since it's obvious that the GFs in FFVIII have some personality of their own. Please, read and review.