AN: Don't b surprised if these chapters suddenly start getting long – I've decided not to let my muses push me around any more peers out from behind sofa now if I can just make it to the computer without being ambushed...
Book Two of the Sorcerer Arc Death's Angel Chapter Seven Of Past and Present Changing Faces
"Adel is gone." Rinoa watched Edea carefully as she made the statement, noting the lack of reaction on the other sorceress's part.
"Indeed. But I don't think that was what brought you here." Edea replied placidly, taking a genteel sip of tea. Rinoa had yet to drink. Had yet, in fact, to even touch the cup beyond accepting it and placing it on the table before her. "It's not poisoned or drugged, I assure you." A slight widening of the girl's eyes was the only reaction. Edea continued her visual study. She didn't know Rinoa well - her only contact with her prior to the Adel incident being when Ultemecia had carelessly thrown her to the Iguions - and had no way to know how much of the sorceress facing her was Rinoa, and how much Adel. One thing was for certain though, if she had gained some skill from Adel's temporary possession, she was still no Adel when it came to manipulating people.
"I came to, persuade you to change your views on the current situation." No. Nowhere near Adel's league. "I...I have new information..." Rinoa stammered slightly at Edea's raised eyebrow. She was still getting used to finding her own way through the murky world of intrigue that Adel had immersed her in. It had come naturally to the Estharian sorceress – who had, admittedly, had a lot of previous practise – but she was still learning, mainly by trial and error. More error than anything else if she was honest. But that was the main point of this game, not being honest. Not showing your true intentions or anything else that could be used against you. The problem was, she was now trying to succeed where even Adel had failed – probably not the best idea in the world.
"Really." The eyebrow lowered, and a pointed glance was shot at the untouched tea. "Perhaps I would be more inclined to believe your good intentions if you showed a little trust in mine." With a slight sigh Rinoa picked up the cup and drank, half wishing that doing so would enable her to rewind time and start the whole meeting again. Edea watched impassively, her own mind slipping back into the memories of a similar conversation two years previously.
FLASHBACK START
"Your tea-making ability has improved over the years Edea." Adel commented, sipping from the cup with a mildly surprised, mildly pleased expression. Edea laughed quietly.
"So, what's the bitter pill you wish me to swallow with that flattery Adel? Or do I still call you Rinoa?" Adel waved her free hand vaguely in the air.
"Adel will do fine – as long as you don't blow my cover in public. As for the pill – it's really not that bitter." She placed the cup carefully on the table, clasping her hands in her lap and wearing an expression that Edea knew all too well. Adel was going to try her hardest to persuade her to do something she knew the other sorceress wouldn't want to, and she was going to try and convince her that it was her own idea to boot.
"I doubt we'll be seen in public together for me to make that mistake." Edea commented quietly. The warning was clear. If Adel wanted her to join forces with her in the public eye, she could think again. Adel, however, took the warning quite calmly, inclining her head in silent acceptance.
"I spoke with the young Leonhart. And before you ask," Adel held up a hand to quiet Edea's outburst before it came. "He is quite well, and quite thoroughly disentangled from any and all the schemes I'd hoped to entangle him in." She sounded quite disgruntled by the fact. Edea wasn't surprised – it wasn't often a mortal managed to completely flummox Adel. But then, this was Squall, and Adel had been out of practice for a long time. The dark haired sorceress sniffed her displeasure before continuing. "He, rather inconveniently, noticed that I am not Rinoa."
"So you tried to...convince...him that your plans were a good idea?" Edea didn't need an answer to her question. Adel's presence in her home, speaking to her about it, were answer enough. The other sorceress nodded, a rueful expression on her face.
"He seems certain that to act now is to hasten the end – or at least is a bad idea." Edea waited, but Adel seemed unwilling to say anything more before Edea committed herself one way or another.
"What action did you suggest?" She finally asked.
"That he aid Ellone in gathering the power of the remaining sorceresses into herself before Kylari can take it for her own." Edea raised an eyebrow. Such a blunt do-or-die strategy, it was not hard to see why Squall had rejected it out of hand. "He also ventured an opinion of Ultemecia that intrigued me." The other eyebrow joined the first. "He suggested that perhaps it was Kylari who was somehow controlling Ultemecia." The eyebrows dropped as Edea's forehead creased into a delicate frown.
"That might explain..."
"Exactly." Adel nodded sharply. "And if that is what happened, we must proceed very cautiously indeed." Edea put her cup down on the table, her free hand rising to play with a loose strand of hair.
"It would explain much – if Ultemecia's attempt at Time Compression were involved who knows when she might have escaped to." Adel nodded again.
"And having transferred her consciousness via the powers once..."
"...She would automatically do so again upon the death of the wielder she was possessing, possessing the new inheritor." Edea finished, eyes widening in concern. "I fear our actions may have yielded graver consequences than those we sought to avoid through them..."
For only the third time in their lives, the two sorceresses found themselves in complete agreement.
FLASHBACK END
"I'm sorry, I didn't come here to threaten you or anything. I just..." Rinoa suddenly paused. "Did you hear something?" Edea shook her head in honest denial. "Oh." Rinoa seemed almost crestfallen at her response.
"Child, there is no use attempting to sway my decision. I will not act until I have reached my own conclusions, and that..." A harsh chuckle interrupted Edea's words.
"Well, well, well. How lovely to see you both again." There was a sorceress standing in the doorway. A tremor passed down Edea's spine, some sixth sense warning her that this sorceress was no friend.
"Kylari?!" Rinoa looked terrified, standing so quickly that she knocked the table, rocking it hard enough to tip the cups and send tea splashing across its surface. But even as she instinctively reacted in fear, she looked confused by her own actions, as if she knew she had done something wrong, but not what.
"I told you to watch the boy." Kylari said, her calm voice and neutral words made all the more fearsome by her chilling glare. Edea could only stare, shock still numbing her mind to the reality of the situation. Something was niggling at the back of her thoughts, but every time she tried to grasp it, it slipped away.
Rinoa was standing, half cringing, uncertain and afraid, but still with enough backbone to prevent her simply breaking down on the spot. "What happened?" Rinoa's expression didn't change, except for the fear/confusion deepening. The sorceress growled deep in her throat, then snorted and tossed her head in disgust. Rinoa seemed paralysed, but the emotions flickering in her eyes showed that even if she was physically frozen, her thoughts were racing.
Kylari's attention shifted to Edea. Strangely she didn't feel afraid. She didn't know the sorceress facing her – it wasn't Amara anyway – but she knew the force driving her. Unfortunately, even knowing only the most basic details of how time sorcery worked, Edea knew that the chances of 'Kylari' being sane were so slim as to be non-existent.
"Hello again, Askylarian." A chair floated across the room, and Kylari dropped gracefully to sit in it. She smiled, and Edea was suddenly more afraid than she had been during the entire Ultemecia episode. Kylari's smile deepened.
"Hello Edea. I'm afraid I couldn't bring a militia with me, not yet, but I suppose there's still time." She laughed at her own twisted joke. "Ah," she sighed, stretching languorously in the chair. "You don't know what a comfort it is to see a familiar face." Kylari smiled her predatory smile again. "Aren't you going to ask me why I'm here? What I want?"
"I don't think there's much point. I don't think you have the sanity to know yourself." Edea retorted, frowning at the other sorceress. Kylari affected a hurt look and tutted.
"I want what you have up here..." She leaned forward and tapped Edea's temple. The older woman felt blood well to the surface where Kylari's sharp talons hand broken the skin – even with such a delicate touch. "You see, I think you know the location of someone I'm very interested in meeting."
"Edea?" Cid suddenly appeared in the doorway, summoned by the rising unease he could feel in his sorceress. Kylari smirked, and gestured without looking around. A weed, which had been growing, perfectly harmlessly, up the wall, suddenly writhed and twisted. Its tendrils shot out to wind firmly around Cid's arms and legs, pulling him back to the wall, where more tendrils secured him in place.
"Well." Kylari hadn't looked away from Edea. "Perhaps now you'll be more, co-operative. Or maybe you won't, and I can have my fun." Edea sighed, noticing Rinoa's expression clearing on the periphery of her vision. Clearly Kylari's threats were making up the other sorceress's mind.
"What do you want to know?" Kylari smiled victoriously. "Only, release my knight first. He can sit here, with me, if you still require surety." Kylari considered for a moment, frowning as she tried to see the trick she suspected, then nodded. The weed released Cid, who walked, somewhat unsteadily, over to Edea. He knelt, and she took his head between her hands, whispering into his ear. "Forgive me my love, for everything." He smiled.
"Always." Kylari watched, motionless except for a single raised eyebrow, as with a savage twist of her arms, Edea broke Cid's neck, killing him instantly.
"I'd never have thought you would do it." Kylari said, almost admiringly. "Sacrifice your own knight just so that I couldn't have my fun." She pouted at that, expression declaring Edea a spoilsport. "Still, I get to watch you scurrying around to find a successor before you go insane." She shrugged. "Almost as good."
"Whatever you gain, it will not be the knowledge you seek." Edea snapped back, sorrow turning to anger as Kylari laughed.
"You know, you never even asked who I was looking for. No matter." Kylari waved a hand airily, dismissing the matter. "Scurry away o doomed one."
Edea bristled indignantly as Kylari turned to Rinoa. It made her feel insignificant, and also somehow scared of the deep foreboding that she had just played into the other sorceress's hand.
"Come Rinoa. We have no business with this creature, except to aid SeeD against her." The raven sorceress nodded sharply in agreement and took a determined step towards Edea and the door, only to be halted by Kylari's knowing smirk.
"Oh, but Edea, you can't be taking my protégé away before we've had a chance to talk." The sorceress protested. Rinoa's expression was a sickly mix of uneasy fear, and a slight tinge of pleased surprise. Edea frowned. Something was happening on deeper levels than the immediately obvious. Clearly Kylari had already begun to work on Rinoa, but there was no telling how advanced her manipulations were. Probably not far given that Rinoa still appeared to have some free will left. Although, she had been possessed by Ultemecia and Adel, and that might have left her vulnerable to other mental attacks. Kylari chuckled lowly, as if reading her thoughts. "I will do nothing more than talk. I promise you that Edea." Edea frowned, but as Kylari tilted her head to one side in sudden, and fake, wonderment, she realised the hesitation had cost her. "Or do you think so little of her ability to defend herself – the sorceress who defeated Ultemecia?"
They both knew that Rinoa had not, strictly speaking, defeated Ultemecia. But it was clear from the expression on Rinoa's face that the only way to remove her from Kylari's presence would be forcibly – an action that Kylari could prevent by 'aiding' Rinoa. Staying would change nothing, and only alienate Rinoa in the process. She had lost. Edea glared at Kylari, then swept away without another word.
"So..." Rinoa's mouth snapped shut on whatever question she had been about to ask. There was pressure on her mind, a too-familiar pressure that she knew meant another sorceress trying to possess her. It was taking her entire focus to repel it, as open to possession as she had been left by Ultemecia and Adel.
"A war is coming." Kylari's honeyed voice slipped over her concentration, trying to draw her attention away from the vital task of defending her mind. "Timber will not be able to stand alone." For a second her attention wavered, but snapped back as the invading touch strengthened. "It will need a friend. Someone with the power to protect its freedom. Galbadia will seek to unify itself by annexing Timber once more." The thought that Timber's hard won independence would be lost once more was too much. Rinoa's concentration broke with an almost audible finality. The force of the mental blow threw her off-balance, making her stagger and fall over the table.
Cups, table and Rinoa landed in a heap on the floor, the porcelain smashing and tea flooding out to stain the carpet along with blood. Silence reigned for several minutes, Kylari staring intently at Rinoa's prone form, not even blinking. Abruptly Rinoa shifted, returning to consciousness, and Kylari smiled in satisfaction
Groaning, Rinoa managed to push herself onto her hands and knees. Her limbs were trembling, the room was swimming before her eyes, and her thoughts were clouded and incoherent. There was blood trickling from various cuts and scratches inflicted by the wrecked table and cups, but she seemed not to notice them. After a moment she scrambled awkwardly upright, like a child learning how to walk, and stood there swaying like a tree in a gentle breeze. Her head felt like it was going to explode, as though her mind was suddenly accommodating more than just herself.
"Come here Child of Mine." Rinoa staggered forwards, eyes blank and staring - the sudden, and unexpected, battle for mental domination lost. "Good." Kylari purred. "Now listen very carefully..."
AN: The plot thickens... :) Don't think Edea got away tho, she's just played right into Kylari's hand sighs I think evry1's gonna hate me by the end of this fic...
Please rxr, but feel free to flame :p
REVIEWS FROM VERSION 1
Reviewer: Lady Yuskreven
Date: 01/12/2002
For Chapter: 4
Review: yeah! another chapter!!!
Another good one, too. I loved the cid's death part. (i know i'm crazy)
More!!!
Author's Response: laughs thanks, glad you liked it. Thanks for reviewing!