G'day all, welcome to the next chapter! ^_^ Back to Selphie we go, in the longest chapter so far… @_o;; *gets a head spin from too much typing* A very big thankyou again to those who have reviewed and to those who are following the story! ^___^ Also, grateful thanks to CTHSKI for pointing out how Rinoa might be able to detect the magic while Quistis could not… I've modified the previous chapter to explain this. ;)
And so without further ado…
CHAPTER 6 – Eye of the storm:
Contact.
:Selphie…?:
???
:You… can hear me… can't you…?:
……?
…yes.
……?
…who are you…?
:You… don't know…?:
:……:
:I'm… sorry… I can't… tell you now… they're too near… they might… hear…:
……
:I… have to go… I'll… try to keep… you safe from… them…:
'Them'…? What's going on…?
:I'm sorry… I can't say yet… they're coming… must go…:
End of Contact.
* * *
"Are we awake now, then?"
The voice sounded achingly close to Selphie's ear, jolting her out of the syrupy black soup of half-slumber like a fish breaking through water. Her eyes instinctively flipped open in reaction to her body's gradual awareness of its wakefulness, her two orbs of darkening jade suddenly contracting as they shied away from the unexpected strength of the light fitting blaring down upon them from the white plastered ceiling.
"Steady now… no fast moves yet, okay?"
Selphie nodded before more tentatively opening her eyes again. The pastel coloured walls were the first to come into focus, followed by the impeccably starched coat enclosing the stocky figure of one very concerned looking Doctor Kadowaki, a furrowed line in her forehead matching the sympathetic curl of her lips. The warmth in those casual hazel eyes remained staunch regardless of the doctor's emotions, lightly crinkled in the corners with smile lines and the inevitable onset of middle age. Her bark coloured hair was only just starting to unravel from its bun wound high on the rounded peak of her head.
Blinking owlishly, Selphie suddenly found herself set upon by a barrage of warring senses struggling for the privilege of being first in line to be acknowledged by her sleep-groggy muscle of grey matter… the sterilised aroma of the Garden surgery drifted into her flaring nostrils before being batted aside by the scratchy texture of alien clothing prickling against her soggy skin, followed by a fast ball of muggy warmth floating around her being from the infirmary's humming heater… finally, it was the turn of the insistent but muted pattering of rainfall hurling against the glass pane of the window behind her head, the mournful moan of wind occasionally rattling the otherwise firm panelling in unbridled frustration, like an exiled ghoul.
Doctor Kadowaki crossed the floor to Selphie's bedside with unhurried steps, stethoscope swinging from either ear. "Here now, show me your back."
Selphie obediently obliged, shuffling her seated weight to the left, tangling her folded legs in the crisp folds of the infirmary quilt as it drooped from where it had been wrapped around her slender shoulders. The cotton shift she had awoken to find herself clothed in was rather thin, and even with the heater chugging its toasty breath around the tiny room, there was still a sharp, damp chill crawling restlessly beneath her water-congested skin that could not be warmed away so easily… Selphie suddenly drew a hissed intake of breath as the icy kiss of the stethoscope headpiece planted itself between the indentations of her shoulder blades. "Just relax..... breathe normally. Can you cough for me? Good, good...."
Selphie resisted the urge to squirm and
pull away as the wintry metal prowled slowly across the stretch of her exposed
back – the feeling reminded her too much of the chilly paranoia that had often
accompanied her during the escapades of the previous year... Ultimecia's
castle, grim and frightening all over again. A spasm chose to rack her body at
that moment, but it was from the cold, not from fear. She was numb when it came
to fear.
"That'll do for now," Dr
Kadowaki finally conceded, lifting her icy instrument away from Selphie's
knotted muscles. Selphie gratefully gathered the fallen quilt in
her fingers and pulled the fabric tightly around her shivering frame. Heavy wool, she noted,
the fibres tickling the lining of her nose. It smelt faintly medicinal,
surprisingly rather comforting. Dr Kadowaki crossed the surgery to a tray lined
up against the wall, setting her stethoscope down carefully among the other
tools littered upon the surface.
"It's not really any of my business," the doctor suddenly spoke, not lifting her gaze from the tray as she absent-mindedly shifted the various objects into more pleasing personal arrangements, "But you really must pardon my wondering what on earth an elite SeeD was doing gallavanting in the first big storm of the year five minutes before curfew with absolutely nothing in the way of an umbrella." The doctor turned, a mild smile sculpting her lips. "That was a pretty big fall you took, you know."
"… fall?" Selphie repeated then frowned, finding that her voice sounded somewhat half-cooked in her throat. She coughed experimentally, trying to coax her speech towards attaining full boil.
"Down the stairs," Doctor Kadowaki affirmed. "The faculty were out and about closing up – 'heard your screaming, one of them said, and the rest is history." Her voice had remained relatively neutral as she relayed the facts, but now adopted an air of serious puzzlement. "Let me just say that you're a medical wonder, my girl – how on earth you managed to survive that five metre fall with no more than a bit of bruising is something pretty far fetched, wouldn't you agree? Hell, you're more flexible than I gave you credit for…" a soft chuckle, and a wondering shake of the head. "Are you sure you don't feel pain anywhere?"
Selphie blinked, then ran a quick mental check to be sure. "No… um, I… feel fine…" she said slowly and with a stretch of each syllable, as though expecting something to occur in between the words to prove her verdict wrong. Personally, she was just as dumbfounded as the doctor was, and like the doctor, she was doing a surprisingly good job at masking it. Still unconvinced by her miraculous diagnosis, she poked her arms through a gap between the blanket and turned the limbs this way and that, trying to catch a glimmer of a gash, or maybe even the sneaky onset of the excruciating floppiness of a fractured bone, but she felt so healthy that it felt… positively unhealthy. A mild patch of bruising staining the skin behind the crook of her left arm was the only telltale sign of injury that Selphie could detect in her first self-inspection, and apart from that minor blemish, the rest of her arms and hands were immaculately barren of any manner of nicks or breaks.
I fell… I am absolutely, positively, booyakingly certain I fell! Down stairs no less, Hyne dammit! I should've been brained to next Tuesday!
"You're looking mighty perplexed," Doctor Kadowaki observed, not bothering to conceal the laugh from her voice.
"Oh hell yeah," Selphie agreed loudly, still staring wide-eyed at her white washed arms. "What… what do you think happened?"
The doctor shifted herself more comfortably against the wallpaper beside the door, arms crossed against her clean white chest as she thought about the question. "Magic, might you agree?" she ventured, tilting her head to one side. "I'm not certain from where, but nothing else explains this situation best… Maybe you could figure it out better than this old fogey."
With a hidden start, Selphie suddenly remembered… the apparitions, the ensuing blast…
Of course there was magic involved in this… it was there right from the very start! That explosion was conjured… or something like that, I'm not really sure what to call it… one thing's for sure, it was definitely synthetic… not something that was generated from natural energies, like most external energies we get from the draw points. Think back to the early classes…
* * *
A cool autumn breeze filtered through the slender crack permitted by the otherwise closed panel of clear window glass, weaving a lazy path across the sleepy heads of a dozen slouching and lounging SeeD hopefuls. The gentle drone of the softly spoken instructor pacing the low stage at the front of the brightly lit classroom sounded for all the world like the subtle humming of insect wings, otherwise as harmless as a curious fly but almost just as irritatingly incessant…
"As future SeeD mercenaries, you shall be trained shortly in the use of the energies your betters refer to as Para-magic to aid you in the line of duty, and which are to only be strictly used in ways which preserves your person, benefits others or in other miscellaneous situations that are dealt with in more detail in your SeeD handbook…"
The petite, delicately built girl hunched over her study panel in the furthest corner of the room stifled a rather deep yawn and sighed softly, her glazed emerald eyes brushing hopefully over the numbers displayed in the digital clock installed conveniently in her desk. 2:09. Still a good fifty minutes to go…
"… Para-magic is constituted by the varying categories of energies that are generated within nature, such as the energies that fuel wild monsters and energies which can be found contained within natural stones, minerals and resources. Due to the research conducted by the famed Doctor Odine of Esthar city on the abilities of Sorceresses, it is now possible for individuals such as yourselves to be trained in the art of harnessing these external energies for anything ranging from offensive and defensive combat to healing…"
Another yawn, but deeper this time… and obvious enough to be detected even through a slight covering of the mouth.
The droning abruptly broke off, leaving a gaping silence in its wake. "Ms. Selphie Tilmitt? Is this lecture by any chance boring you?"
Eleven heads suddenly stirred long enough out of their dozing stupor to swivel in synchronised motion to focus on the startled SeeD novice hidden in the corner, who by now had quickly straightened and hurled her spacey consciousness back into the world of the awake. Recovering her composure with a resilience most would label as astounding, Selphie met the instructor's unsmiling impression of a puckered prune with a brave impish grin and shook her head vigorously, causing her wild brown wings of hair to bounce against her ears.
"No ma'am, not at all! Everything's a-okay and going your way!" A perpetually blinding set of pearly whites flashed into life within her animated face with the suddenness of a switched-on light bulb.
The instructor raised a curious eyebrow, swallowing Selphie's overly perky manner with some considerable difficulty, if her sudden loss for words was any indication… the instructor could almost feel Selphie's exclusive brand of sugar eating straight into the core of her teeth enamel. The SeeD novice continued to fix her with that confident, innocent smile, apparently unperturbed and transformed into a glowing exemplification of the highest order of student dedication… All that Selphie was missing was her harp and halo.
"Well… that's good. That's good to know." The instructor recovered feebly and prudently retracted her claws, still rather unsure of what to make of this… unusually happy student. It'd probably be best to suss this one out to see whether she can really cut it... what's the likes of her doing in a military institution like this? 'Probably won't last too long… we'll let her fall out in due time.
A few seconds of silence throbbed through the air before the mild drone of the instructor's voice once more resumed to drift pointlessly into half-receptive ears, and a sense of normality once more dropped over the composure of the room as the brief interruption faded from memory.
Selphie finally permitted her strained smile to fall slack at the corners of her mouth and resumed her lazy slouch against the uncomfortable solidness of the steel-enforced student bench. Whew! Any longer and the wind might've changed for good…
A flicker of movement on the previously dormant screen of her study panel suddenly snagged Selphie's slipping attention, and she yanked the closing hoods of her eyes back open as she leaned forward to investigate. A message box had materialised in the corner of the screen, and a string of words were rapidly filling the rectangular space provided.
Incoming message from: Clarrie_hunny (ID No.5690912)
Hey, good save Selph! ^^ Stupid old #$%!, you're not the only one she's putting to sleep… -__-;; *zzzzz* u going to the courts after? Squads A and B are playing, come cheer with me k? Laterz. ^^
* * *
Selphie snapped herself out of the momentary flashback before it could get any further into dangerous territory. Some things just weren't… appropriate to be remembered at the moment. She forcibly steered her thoughts back to the original questions she had posed for herself…
Para-magic… the energies that we've been taught to draw and handle from early novice training… but I remember… they were always telling us that we don't self-generate that type of energy, we've only been taught to mould and siphon it from objects or monsters… huh. What's the deal with all this stuff then? That could mean the blast was artificially created from an internal source, like… like a human, I guess? Maybe. I don't know. If it's even possible, I mean. I guess it's not impossible…
Selphie frowned, inwardly and outwardly.
Bah, who are you kidding? Fess up girl – all this time, you never thought that anyone else could do what you can do with magic, but now it's starting to look like you're being proven wrong after all this time… I've always been able to tap into my own internal energies to fuel personal magical attacks and spells during emergencies… it was something that got me recruited as a Seed in the first place. It's something similar I share with… with all things, a Sorceress… but nowhere near as strong, absolutely nowhere as near. My powers are like a slowly dripping leak compared to them! But that blast and apparitions weren't Sorceress fuelled power… hmmm. I think. I don't know… there was something so darn familiar about the feel of it… but at the same time it was so alien! Almost like a… a combination of elements? Is that how to describe it? The magic didn't feel whole… more like a mix of magic, but none of it being Para-magic. Geez, I'm confusing myself. I guess all I can assume right now is that someone or something out there was responsible… But… heck to Hyne, what I don't get is why anyone or anything would practically push me down the stairs… only to break my fall??
"Any answers yet? I can all but hear those cogs moving."
Selphie pursed her lips, her face screwing up with the effort of editing through all of the separate filmstrips within her reels of thought. "Maaaaaybe…." she began, but then decided to think better of it, knowing that it would only muddle her listener and eventually muddle herself. Selphie shrugged in defeat, and pulled her mouth into a lopsided smile accompanied by an exasperated roll of her eyes. "Okay fine, I admit I'm just as clueless. Some elite SeeD I am!" She rounded off the self-criticism with an exaggerated wail.
"Good to see you're not too proud to admit it," Doctor Kadowaki said graciously, levering herself off the wall and sticking her hands in her coat pockets. "One thing's for sure, things just haven't been boring in here ever since Squall took over… how well he is really looking after you lot? Letting his Elite just go falling down stairs, tsk tsk…" The doctor suddenly turned Selphie's way, her face lit up with a new thought. "Silly me, I didn't even take the liberty of calling on one of your team mates… do you want me to page Squall for you? Or Quistis, maybe? They'd probably be worried. Well, Quistis anyway," she added with an afterthought and a wink. "Who knows, you might get a day of leave by doing your best act as an invalid, if you get my drift that is…"
"Doc!" Selphie blurted out in amazement, but she couldn't help but laugh despite her attempt to harness a reasonably stern, rebuking tone. "You're supposed to be setting a working example for the young, you know. Is that what you say to everyone who calls in sick?"
"Now that's purely classified information," Doctor Kadowaki smirked, without missing a beat. "Seriously though, I could give them a call if you want."
Thinking that a little bit of sympathy for her plight mightn't do any harm and would probably help to raise her sunken mood, Selphie was about to give the go ahead… when a mental kick to the upside of her head suddenly conveniently reminded her that she was supposed to be avoiding Squall, not drawing attention to herself and her Festival schemes! The chaos of the evening had almost been intense enough to make her drop her guard… but by the hairs on the skin of her teeth, she quickly swallowed the 'yes' that had been gathering on the tip of her tongue with a less than subtle gulp, and instead settled for a brief shake of her head. "Thanks doc, but I'll be right and fine – I'll let them know what happened later without all the gory details…" Selphie exhaled a silent sigh of relief. Geez Loiuse, just nearly go and blow it all, why don't you? Silly duffer – 'good to see you're still thinking straight…
The doctor yielded to Selphie's decision without dispute, having not noticed the slightly guilty expression flitting across her sheepish face like a stray shadow. "Well, now that we've got all that settled, do you feel like camping in here for the night or heading back for your dorm? I can't be sure whether you'll suffer from any relapse, but really, it all depends on how you're feeling."
Warm as she was, snuggled in the woolly security of the infirmary quilt and already feeling quite comfortable and at ease in her propped up position upon the bed, Selphie judged the likeliness of herself getting a decent night's sleep in a different bed as relatively close to nil.
And after what's just gone down, I need as much down time as possible from reality.
Reluctantly pulling herself free from the hugging folds of the blanket, Selphie shook her head in response to the offer. "Thanks for the thought doc, but I think I'll be able to get a better nod-off in my dorm tonight…" shivering slightly in the thin fabric of the infirmary shift, Selphie slid her legs out from under her and slowly placed the soles of her bare feet in the fraying carpet while still continuing her chattering banter. "I feel right as rain, honest…! Whatever healed me up out there did a really ace job, swear to Hyne and all that. Actually, I'll even wager you one that I can haul my bum all the way to my dorm doing nothing but the Mog dance, whaddya say??"
"Unfortunately, too many scamps such as yourself have robbed me of my precious savings for me to accept any such offers ever again…" Doctor Kadowaki said with a droll lilt of a smile. "Ah, the resilience of youth these days… just you wait 'til you become middle age fodder like me, and we'll see who starts winning bets. Hyne knows whether still have enough for an easy retirement…" On that last good-natured grumble, the doctor turned and slipped out of the room as Selphie gingerly steadied herself, her senses alert to any indication of discomfort, pain or foreign feeling with each movement, but nothing was conveyed to her enquiring mind besides a disorientating sensation of exhaustion clogging her limbs, and a mild tightness around her calf muscles from the over-exertion of one to many stair climbs. The doctor reappeared as quickly as she had departed, a familiar yellow sun dress caked with scraps of flaking mud draped over her right white sleeved arm and a pair of water-wrinkled leather boots suspended from her left hand. "These should be pretty dry by now – they've been sitting near the heater since you were brought in. By Hyne, they were mighty wet… you must've taken one hell of a beating out there." An ominous peal of thunder sounded from outside the window barrier as though the storm was willingly accepting responsibility for Selphie's physical and mental state. From the sound of things, the storm had still refused to relinquish its grip on the heavens and was continuing to rage as strongly as it had when it first heralded its deafening arrival over Balamb.
"You'd better change back into these for now until you get to your dorm," Doctor Kadowaki advised, placing the items of clothing at the end of the ward bed. "We don't have much in the way of fashion in here, I'm afraid."
"No sweat doc," Selphie chirped, leaning forward to grasp at the hem of her forlornly dirt-splattered dress and reeling it in towards her. The doctor discreetly slipped out of the ward and busied herself with a pile of files sitting upon her desk, her back turned and lips curled as they hummed a well known local tune.
Selphie pulled the infirmary shift over her head and quickly slipped into her well worn dress, the material feeling more coarse and heavy with the extra dried weight of several thousand rain drops soaked into the fibres. The stretchy cloth still enclosed itself reliably around Selphie's form, and as she fiddled with the buckles dangling from the straps over her shoulders, she felt her mind starting to wander of its own accord…
Well, we've got a start on puzzling out the source and its magical nature… but what about the motive? Why… on Hyne's grave would… Clarrie and Marty be conjured up to make me run a half-mile through stormy weather, and to knock me down stairs only to let me live with hardly a scratch to show for it…? Why did the source pick up on… my Trabia memories, of all things? Did it purposely want to… hurt me? Physically and emotionally? And how did it even pick up on my memories in the first place?
Her face demure, Selphie snapped the right buckle in place and pulled her arm under the arch of the joined strap. Meanwhile, Doctor Kadowaki had shifted to a cabinet behind her worktable, immersed in arranging several files tucked under her arm within a particular compartment.
The whole thing felt like… a screenplay, almost. Is that the best way to describe it? It was so darn dramatic, right from the very start with that…
A flash of thought struck a bullseye in Selphie's plane of awareness and she lifted her chin, chewing her bottom lip as she contemplated. Hurriedly connecting the final strap and sliding the dress zipper up her midriff, she grabbed her boots and made for the open doorway, calling out even before she passed through it.
"Doc? You said the faculty were closing up at the time they found me, right??"
Doctor Kadowaki looked up from where she was rifling through a row of neatly tabbed files and paused as she absorbed Selphie's question, one thumb marking her place within the multitude of papers. "Well, yes, I guess I did. Why'd you want to know?"
Selphie didn't answer at first, hopping wildly on one leg as she struggled to maintain her balance and pull on one stubborn boot while maintaining conversation all at the same time. "The ones that locked the gate…" she ventured, changing her dressing tactics by leaning against the door frame for support. "… they didn't see anyone around when they got there, did they?"
The doctor blinked, casting her mind back. "Not that I can recall, no…"
"And the ones that found me… they didn't see anyone nearby either?" Selphie cut in quickly.
"If they did, they didn't mention it…"
"No flashy lights? Explosions? Little kiddies running around in hysterics?"
Looking rather bamboozled, Doctor Kadowaki waved Selphie's insistent barrage to a stop. "Selphie… hallucinations are supposed to occur after a fall, not before… absolutely nothing of the sort was mentioned by the staff that brought you in, and no uproars have been raised as far as I can tell. Were they supposed to have seen what you saw?" Somewhat suspiciously, the doctor added, "What exactly did you think you saw, anyway?"
"Um…" Selphie's eyes dipped, pretending to be mesmerised by the make of the underlying carpet.
Wha…?? None of the faculty saw the figure that dropped through the gate? No one saw the apparitions of Marty and Clarrie, or the other Junior girl… jack all? How is that possible? Was it… really just a hallucination…?
No, Selphie silently worded, knocking the suggestion out of the air with a steel plated palm.
I know exactly what I saw.
"Ehhhh…" Selphie mumbled vaguely, steering her frowning thoughts back into reality and trying to stall for a bit of time… Her eyes tracked from the carpet to the shelf of medical books and the tips of the doctor's black glossy shoes… before glancing over the second boot hooked in the grasp of her curled fingers. The shoe! Use the shoe! Selphie hastily dropped the remaining boot onto the floor and proceeded to pull the dismal act of being entirely engrossed in the task of squeezing her foot inside, her skin rubbing uncomfortably against the shrunken leather with a certain amount of friction. After one too many seconds had slipped away, she finally formulated a lame but mildly passable excuse… "Um…Just forget I said anything, doc… erm, maybe I really did hit my head too hard…" Selphie thought hurriedly, latching onto that last train of thought to fill the silence with any sort of random wonderings. "… I guess there're some things magic can't cure, huh?? Or maybe it was some sort of weird effect from sugar consumption, you should write up some cool mediciny thesis on it, I've got a whole bunch of ideas you could use and I could be a guinea pig if you wanted, I really wouldn't mind and…"
"Okay okay okay, too much of that type of rambling and you'll never turn that brain off for sleep tonight," Doctor Kadowaki submitted, throwing up her hands in mock defeat. She inclined her head towards the open cabinet and clicked her tongue in reproach. "Now look what I've done… I've just lost my place…"
Selphie was never one to pass up an opportunity for exit, and this was no exception. "Okies, I'll be leaving now then, 'k? Thanks for looking after me doc, I really appreciate it!"
The doctor nodded, smiling in reply as she sifted through the files with wandering fingers. Her posed question seemed to have been temporarily forgotten, much to Selphie's relief. "Just to be on the safe side, call in tomorrow morning and I'll give you another check over to make sure you haven't gotten any nasty 'lurgies overnight. Can't have an Elite running around half-baked, can we?"
"No ma'am, no we can't," Selphie bobbed her head in agreement. She cantered towards the infirmary door and it obediently slid open as its in-built sensors registered her body heat. "Oh, and if you see the faculty dudes who saved my sorry bum, could you give them a big 'thank ye'?? Thanks for everything again, doc!" On that final note, Selphie finally took her leave, darting out of the cosy roast that had filled the tiny infirmary and into the icy, marbled halls of the settling Garden.
Selphie trundled down the water-flanked path trailing towards the central junction hall, the clacking of her heels chiming with a steady cadence against the glossy tiles. The silence of the normally bustling Garden seemed to echo with a dull boom gathering with oppressive strength from the very bowels of the infrastructure, a silence that was only broken by the monotonous spattering of the ornamental fountains and the steady clicking marking Selphie's route as the path snaked steadily towards the dorms.
It feels like an empty Garden… 'feels like I'm the only SeeD here…
Selphie swallowed, an unwelcome and very familiar feeling tip-toeing into the depths of her guts. It had been relatively easy to maintain her outward, grinning disposition in the company of someone else or with others… but it was only when she was alone that her happy-go-lucky pantomime started to draw its curtains. The literal play-back of some of her most private memories before her very eyes had shaken Selphie considerably, although she preferred to bottle her festering discomfort than to let it show upon her face. In her mind's eye however, little could stop her from viewing the root of her darkening mood all over again… a massive empty husk of faded military splendour, the destruction rendered ever clearly against the stark blue emptiness of a snow washed sky, an epitome of living death… the rubble, debris and most of all, the bodies that were no longer there…
… so many bodies gone.
The rain was still bashing heavily upon the outer armour of the Garden, creating a dull roar that bounced against the sleekness of the walls and sculpted tiles in the emptiness of the Garden corridors. As she turned off the circular path into the walkway branching off to the various SeeD sleeping quarters, Selphie was piercingly aware of how alone she suddenly felt in a place which was supposed to be… home.
This was… is… not home. Home is gone. Gone up in smoke, screams and martial overkill.
She traversed the narrow, dimly lit halls, her steps muted by the thickness of the plush navy carpet bolted firmly into the wooden floorboards. The walls murmured underhanded, muffled sounds as she breezed past, oblivious to their feather-like words… smothered speech, muted movements and whispers of fragments of sleeping spells, carried along the air currents in a melting, motley melody of descending night…
Blip. The security device ingested the series of entered digits without kicking up a fuss, and smoothly slid the suite door open. A bucket of moonshine gushed its contents from the uncurtained window at Selphie's feet as she stepped into the cold, shadow spangled room.
There's not really much to come back to in here after all… maybe I shouldn't have passed up the doc's offer.
As the door glided back into its previously closed state, Selphie shook her feet out of her restrictive boots and proceeded to undress in the dark, shrugging herself out of her waterlogged garment with a soft rattling of buckles and the rustling of stiffened cloth. Within the confines of her SeeD suite, the silence was bearing down upon her in an even more oppressive fashion, ringing in her ears and articulating every single one of her movements with what felt like high amusement. Doing her best to ignore the suffocating sound of emptiness brushing against her skin, Selphie mechanically slipped into her set of issued SeeD sleeping garments and crawled beneath the covers of her issued single sized SeeD bunk. Pulling the thin, starched blanket up to her chin, her body warred briefly against the indentations of the bumpy mattress before she eventually closed her eyes and prepared to surrender herself to the numbing embrace of slumber.
Everything feels so routine nowadays.
Selphie squeezed her dry eyes together, silently imploring her gloomy mind to sheath its prodding sword.
Everything… so constricted. It's not supposed to be this way.
She tossed her body to one side, flinging the sheet further over her new pose and snuggling down hard against the pillow. A new memory invaded her ticking thoughts, intercepting her passage towards the shadowy realm of temporary rest and peace.
I… wonder who that voice belonged to?
Selphie could almost feel the weak, delicate words of the dream speaker brushing fleetingly against her ears again, leaving a warm tingle of nerves bustling beneath her skin in the wake of each gentle touch of sound. Asexual in timbre and fleetingly dusted with a vague glimmer of what possibly felt like… magic.
Whoever you were… you must have healed me…
Selphie hugged her arms around her torso, trying to fill the space between her body and the blanket with as much self-generated heat as possible.
… or were you the one who threw me down?
She curled into a ball of entangled limbs, woven cloth and nagging questions, her hackles rising in response to her emotionally frustrated thoughts like the spines of a harassed hedgehog. The room was still so cold, and the persistent silence ever stifling.
It's going to be a very long night…
* * *
… and a very long chapter. XD I borrowed the definition of Para-magic from the explanation given in the study panel at the very start of the game, but I took some liberties in giving my own interpretation of how the magic actually works. As for Selphie's unique magic abilities, that's something that I feel she possesses judging from the nature of her limit break compared to the other characters… but I'm not going to go too deeply into that yet in this insignificant little blurb. =P *Hushes up*
This also marks my start in showing a darker side to Selphie complimenting her overly happy personality – I find it impossible to believe that even someone as positive as her doesn't have at least one skeleton in her closet, and if your home Garden was blown up one day and your friends with it, would you get over it so quickly? :/ I'll be dealing with this in more detail in the upcoming chapters. Also, Selphie and Squall shall meet very very very soon, so please bear with me! =P
Coming up next: darkness and depression abound! What black things doth Selphie and Squall think about when nobody's around (no, not THAT way you sickos. O_-) and how will this bring them together? What will the two of them uncover about this puzzling little mystery? Coming your way shortly! ^^