Wait for me, I'll write you letters-Suspendedonsilverwings
A gun shot. A cry. A yell. A silence.
Light flashed everywhere and it was Sin and they all knew it...possession, mutiny, poison...all Sin.
But that was all.
Paine awoke to find herself in some sort of encampment. Orders could be heard, shouted over what appeared to be some type of makeshift parapet and the clank of armored bodies rattled her hypersensitive eardrums. A groan escaped her and slowly, she managed to prop herself up on her side, elbow as her aid. Apparently the flurry around her was not so distracting as to avoid her being noticed, for as soon as she made that slight adjustment to her position, a gruff, middle-aged man knelt to the ground beside her, eyeing her curiously.
"So you've finally come around, eh?" he was not unkind.
"Er...yes. It would seem that way...where am I?" she inquired, marveling at how the world kept moving about her while she was stationery, surely a side-effect from whatever put her here...wherever this was. The man seemed to consider several things before answering her, stroking his chin in contemplation and for a moment, glancing around as though to seek another's authority.
"You were found at the edge of one of the cliffs on Mushroom Rock...thought you were dead to be honest...that bullet didn't even go all the way through; lucky I guess," the man was going to continue but Paine jerked suddenly; bullet?
"Bullet? I was shot?" she asked dumbly...she remembered nothing of the sort...in fact..."Was there anyone else there?" she also questioned...because the fact was, she could not remember. A tad suspiciously, the soldier frowned.
"You saying you don't remember...anything?" he assessed. After a second's pause, Paine nodded.
"Well, I remember my name," she offered.
"Mother of all Spira...alright then...fine, better than nothing I'm guessing," he responded in a mixture of reluctant belief and wonder.
"Paine," she supplied. Raising an eyebrow, the man gave way to a slight and deep chuckle.
"Fair enough," he said and then added, "I presume you were on your way here when you...were shot...this is the first encampment of the Crimson Guard and I am Saithos," he informed her.
Mushroom Rock...Crimson Guard...it does seem to ring a bell...sort of, Paine mused and refrained from rolling her eyes.
"So?" the man prompted. Evidently he wasn't willing to take his own assumption for the truth; Paine admired that quality immediately; this was definitively a good soldier before her.
"Yes, I was," she answered; why not? A part of her couldn't help but wonder why she was alone though...and while a part of her spat in emptiness that she always had been, always would be...another part called folly and told her otherwise.
Without her memory though, Paine recognized her position...a little too close to helpless as to which feeling to go with.
On the other side of the rather enormous set-up of camp and armory, a certain Al-Bhed man kicked an empty can in front of him in irritation; he'd been here for two days, not knowing what was going on, recalling scarce his name. He couldn't even remember what he was here for. Having given up the prospect of getting those memories back, he offered to join this 'Crimson Guard.' Or so they called it. He had decided he did not like the Maester...Kinoc was it? Scowling, he shrugged it off; not that it mattered. The man was as stupid as he was round and Gippal would be damned if he ever took direct orders from the so-called Maester. Keh. Still...his one good eye surveyed the busy and ever-squalling mess the camp seemed to operate as...and not for the first time, he felt his vision was searching for something or someone...even if his mind refused to put a name to it.
And then there was that other nagging feeling...that it wasn't just some one he was looking for...but a handful of important some ones. Cursing a few choice Al-Bhed phrases, he stomped rather moodily into the fray of activity; maybe making himself useful would take his mind off of things he couldn't even remember.
"Hey, ye've already signed up, what're you hangin' around fer?" a young but sturdy man in chain-mail addressed a taller, thoughtful man in front of him. The one being spoken to adjusted his thin, square spectacles; they seemed to be forever sliding down his nose.
"I was wondering when I would be informed of my team," he answered, adjusting his weight to lean on the cane to his side he had woken up with in the camp.
"Ye'll be informed as soon as all the others!" was the response and so the other turned away. "Wait a secon', ye did not put a last name, och?"
"I don't remember it."
"Ah, ne'er mind. 'Tis naught but a wee problem...so 'tis just Nooj? I cannae call ye nothin else to address ye when ye be called?" the soldier eyed the form in scrutiny.
"Nooj will be all, thank you," and the man in red with his cane and spectacles walked away. He didn't remember having a cane before; then again he didn't remember anything barely; but still...he eyed the cane with distaste. It had taken him not long to adjust to it and yet...he knew it was a definite weakness. And so he hated it. Why live in weakness when you can die in strength, he pondered more lightly than he ever meant to as he walked to find something he wasn't sure of and to wait his call, not caring to note how his previous thought hung over his subconscious like clouds heavy with dark rain.
"Baer-ah-lie?" the woman frowned and the silver-haired man nodded.
"Yes, Baralai," he affirmed. What was so strange about that? He knew there were other people with more...unique names...none came to mind, but not much did of late. To his chagrin, when he woke, not two and a half days earlier, he was in the Crimson Guard...well, first someone explained to him what it was and now here he stood, registering. Running his fingers through his hair, he stifled a sigh of anxious restlessness. He felt like he was missing something, someone...that he should not be there signing these sheets by his lonesome. Yet he was...he turned to leave...and bumped into someone.
"Excuse me," he apologized formally, distantly, and the woman retorted.
"Stop daydreaming...not everyone here is as nice as I am when people run into them," her voice had a somehow familiar sarcastic and dry lilt to it...her eyes were a very deep red.
"Who are you?" he questioned. Pushing past him, she mumbled something.
If he could trust his rather sharp ears even as he walked away----perhaps not entirely of his own volition----he could have sworn she said:
"I don't remember."
Days passed; Paine could still remember no more than her name; it was grating on her nerves. Saithos would check on her from time to time, beginning to fill a sort of surrogate older-brother/father image or motif that suited him...regardless of his gruff and sometimes unforgiving exterior. Paine's wound had healed miraculously and she could be found training with the best most of the day, each day...as if fighting would bring something back to her...at least it was gratifying. The clash of the steel and the ring of the blades, the whirlwind of their movement...a sword dance.
It was at the end of one such training that a higher officer she did not know approached her and tapped her on the shoulder.
"What?" why waste time on courtesies, Paine thought dryly.
"You've been accepted to undergo the trials for the Crimson Squad," the woman said and Paine's eyes widened a bit involuntarily.
"I have a team then?" Paine asked.
"You will be the recorder," the woman instructed as though not hearing Paine's question.
"R-recorder?" if Paine could sputter, that was it. A recorder?
"You'll accompany the team and on spheres like these," the woman held up a deep red one, "you will capture their efforts in order for us to decide them worthy or not," the woman finished. Paine exerted all her self-control...surely they were joking...her, a recorder? To capture others' efforts? What of her own?
"Am I not to fight alongside my team?" Paine persisted and the woman fixed her with a glare colder than icy, more emotionless.
"You are not," she affirmed, eyeing Paine levelly. And Paine yielded. As the woman turned her back to her, she shot out one last order.
"Report to the main tent, there you'll be assigned your team then."
Reluctant, Paine made her way shortly after the woman had left, towards said main tent. Well, what they can't see, they cannot penalize anyone for, Paine figured wryly and knew that one way or another, she would fight...it was in her nature, this much she simply knew, did not need to remember...knew. Warrior...Paine...yes, she would be.
The main tent was a ridiculously grand thing that suited the Maester's strange and yet expected taste for the finer, unnecessary, languishing luxurious things in life...even, Paine thought amusedly, in the battle area. Standing many feet times her size, it was immense, a centerpiece that could not be ignored, a brash and muddy yellow against a fire-orange red. If that was crimson, Paine would presently eat both her left and right boots.
Coming to full attention, Paine stood amongst a few other people outside the tent. Saithos emerged from the tent and staved Paine's approach with a gesture as he moved to one side and to her irritation, Kinoc also appeared.
"The next team will be as follows: those by the names of Nooj, Gippal, and Baralai come forward," Kinoc ordered. An Al-Bhed with a familiar scowl, a tanned and silver-haired man with an impassive expression, and a tall, angst-ridden man in red with small square frames on his face ascended the minute platform.
"Three?" the woman beside Kinoc prodded him pointedly with her elbow and Kinoc glared before issuing another name.
"And Paine."
The three men looked to Paine as she walked to join them. All four faced each other. And in turn, they each shook hands, repeating their names unnecessarily.
"Nooj."
"Gippal."
"Baralai."
"Paine."
Then after a segment of quiet sizing up and scrutiny, they all seemed to be on the same page as they said, "nice to meet you."
"Your trials begin tomorrow," Kinoc little more than yelled and then submerged back into his gaudy tent.
Paine turned to go retrieve her things to bring to their central area and a hand reached out to grab hers. Eyes cast over her shoulder, she faced the Al-Bhed.
"You're not just our recorder...are you?" he posed the question lightly.
"I am who you will make me to be," she returned and escaped his grasp. Why he had done that, Gippal almost couldn't fathom...something about the woman...the red eyes...the sensuous cold in her voice...and an amused wryness. They seemed oddly familiar.
But they had just met...hadn't they?
That night the four lay about a fire in a similar formation of one not that long ago, but for them all, it seemed the first time...each internally fighting with the lack of memories they knew to be inside their head and their hearts.
In a far outreach of the camp, the man with purple eyes who had threatened them before in many ways stood vigil over what seemed like nothing and was, in reality, everything. Purple eyes grazing the sea of life beside that which would destroy it all...Sin as its master...the once formless being of hatred and malice...now a tangible creature of darkness…and the man was its eyes for now.
And in his eyes he put the vision of a young summoner coming to rid Spira of its manifest, accompanied by a young man from another world, and a motley crew of guardians...Ronso...unsent...black mage...blitzball player...Al-Bhed...
In his eyes the purple-vision also let images of a quartet once knit so close by threads so strong... they could foil everything Sin stood for, aimed to do...but each one now sat lost to each other in their broken remembrance they could not grasp...even so close...vicious irony.
A nauseous and sweet laugh trickled from his lips.
The threads would break. Strong...or not.
As for the summoner...a vivid image of Yuna, daughter of Braska flashed across his perspective...sending the souls of those ravaged and torn in Kilika Port...how quaint.
Closing his eyes and so closing off his vision from Sin, the man relaxed in to a reclining position.
"And the spiral will continue."
A whisper so soft...it was like death.
------------------------------------------------------
THANK YOU FOR ALL THE REVIEWS!!!! THEY'RE WHAT MADE THIS CHAPTER COME :D
Aw, ya know my ego-drill: next chapter? If you like this, tell me through your reviews and comments or whatever they call them on ff.net and I'll answer the call. I almost can't believe you like it haha and have to read the reviews sometimes to remember you actually do ^^;
[silly me, oy.]
-Suspendedonsilverwings