She had returned, and it was impossible. She had returned, and was seen walking down the long, dark corridors--past doors which should never be opened, past catacombs heaven and hell left unsolicited. It was three bows and three strikes the revenants gave her, three roses and three swords which she held. Past, present, future--all illusions, dust in the heart of stone.

She walked to the mirror, but did not look in--what use hath the Devil for her own countenance? But she kept walking, on and on down halls no mortal can traverse. And we watched her go without comprehending; we watched, and could not follow.

-

Contrary to Quistis's estimation, Squall wasn't in Odine's laboratory an hour later--or at all that night. He had much, much larger things to worry about.

And, at the moment, those things were manifesting themselves as a smoking hole in the middle of his guest-room floor.

Rinoa was huddled in the corner and he was holding her as tightly as he could, trying to be comforting and probably failing, but at least she had stopped attacking things--or attacking nothing. she didn't speak except for muted whimpers, and half of the time she was trying to push him away and half of the time she was trying to pull him closer, and although he had no idea what was happening he could be absolutely certain it wasn't for the best.

"She was talking to me," Rinoa whispered, , clinging to the fur on his jacket as if by letting go she'd lose him. "She was there, right there, and she was talking to me...."

Squall muttered something along the lines of "She's gone now," and wished he knew what was going on. Whenever he asked who was speaking to her, he got the same answer--a look of horrified incomprehension and a frightened "She was!" He didn't know precisely what that meant, but he was beginning to form an idea.

And he was hoping against hope that the idea was wrong.

At first, she had seemed surprised that he couldn't hear it. He had been aware of something--maybe a voice, maybe just some kind of subconscious twinge; in any case it hadn't said anything by the way of words, only a vague unsettled feeling that lasted less than a half-second--but it wasn't the same for her. She had heard words, even is she wouldn't tell him what exactly they were--words that threatened, words so familiar as to be unmistakable.

Time shall compress.

All existence denied.

-

"Something's spinning in Tears Point and making the big statues all weird."

Selphie nodded as Zell listed off the week's oddities, punctuating them each with an emphatic "Yeah!" Zell was pacing back and forth in one of the Palace's many Reception Rooms, hands in his back pockets, looking for answers in the thick carpet a few steps ahead of his current position.

"There's some resonance or something going on in the Crystal Pillar."

"Yeah!" Selphie was doing her best to agree that this was very worrying, but she didn't know if Zell was picking up the message.

"And now, we're hearin' voices." Zell stopped, aiming a few punches at a floating speck of dust. buffeted by the wind from his gloves, it eluded him every time.

"It sure is weird," Selphie agreed.

"I wanna figure this out," Zell said.

"I bet Odine will know what's going on," Selphie reasoned. "He's, like, a huge genius, you know."

"Yeah, but I don't think he has a clue," Zell said. "I think he's just lookin' at stuff and thinking how neat it is, and he doesn't have a clue what's going on or how to stop it. And I dunno what Squall is doing, but I think he's waiting for Esthar to tell us what to do."

"Well," Selphie said, leaning forward, "Esthar is paying SeeD a lot of money, and we do kinda need it ever since NORG died--"

"But Esthar doesn't know anything!" Zell slammed one fist into the palm of his hand as if to illustrate the point.

"Neither do we," Selphie pointed out.

"Yeah, but I bet we could fins stuff out if we wanted."

Selphie cocked her head. "Whattaya mean?"

"Look," Zell said. "This is all weird Time-Compression stuff, right? And we should know about Time Compression. So we should be able to figure this out."

Selphie pondered that for a moment. "Are you suggesting--"

"I think we should go back out to Tears Point," Zell said, nodding judiciously. And we should figure everything out, and we should find who's causing it, and if it's Ultimecia or something come back from the dead, well, we killed her once, didn't we?"

Selphie was quiet for a moment, considering that. "Think Squall will let us?"

"He will if I tell him he will," Zell said with a confidence that was entirely misplaced. "Or we could just talk to Xu and take of without him ever knowing."

"That's kinda mean," Selphie pointed out.

Zell shrugged. "Nah. Squall probably doesn't want to keep track of all this, anyway."

Selphie shrugged back.

"So?" Zell planted both hands on his hips, waiting for the agreement he was sure would come. "Wanna go for it?"

The voice of reason was a very small voice indeed in the back of Selphie's mind, and it had been drowned out already by voices much louder. "Sure," she said, eyes glinting. "Sounds like fun. When should we leave?"