Chapter 13
"You've learned more in two days than I did in my first year of training. Drawing's to easy for you now. It only makes sense that you start casting." Selphie marvels.
"I had a good teacher. Besides, this stuff pretty amazing. Remind me to give this back to Squall okay?" Rinoa motions to Squall's electronic SeeD handbook. "I can't believe garden can afford to give all the SeeDs these…"
"They're cheap in big batches, and it's a well-funded program."
Everyone's first spell is float, Selphie had told Rinoa, because it's the easiest.
"You aren't trying to shape magical energy into physical form, like heat or lightening or something, you're just using it to work against gravity. Rinoa had done really well with small objects, floating pens and later stacks of books and glasses of water off the floor and holding them suspended, but she couldn't lift bigger things, like a mattress.
"This is so cool! It's just like television! But why is it so much harder on the mattress, it's about as heavy as the books…?"
"It's bigger; you have to spread your energy out more."
Rinoa had worked for an hour with no success. When she finally gave up, Selphie was flipping through an issue of Timber maniacs. Rinoa flopped down on the mattress, and stared out the window at the clouds parading lazily across the sky.
Relax your perception.
Rinoa's eyes widened, she froze, worried that if she moved, Leviathan would go away.
"Selphie he's talking to me!" she hissed.
"Leviathan? Good, good! That's great, stand up." Rinoa sat up and gingerly stepped onto the floor. (Relax my what…?)
"Good, stand up straight. Breathe deeply." Allow your conscious to expand.
"Hang on, I can't hear you both at once…"
Use only one hand. (I've always done it with both) Use only one hand. Move with your breath, not against it.
Rinoa raises her hand and closes her eyes, feeling heat build in her palm, and then waves the mattress upwards. It rises too fast at first and almost hits the ceiling. Rinoa exhales and it slows and hovers above the ground. Selphie applauds.
After that it seemed no spell was out of her reach. Since mastering float, Rinoa had learned to freeze the geezards in Galbaldia Garden's training center with "blizzard", inflict minor burns with "fire" create a bolt of electricity with "thunder", and temporarily deaden pain sensors and heal small burns and bruises with "cure".
Selphie was teaching her "protect", a much more complicated casting, when Zell came to tell them it was time to leave.
The car lent to the SeeDs, a blue van used for student field trips and outdoor training sessions, is much too big its seven passengers. The driver, Eddie, a teaching assistant with a bald head but a very full black mustache, is clearly unhappy to be there. He heaves a sigh periodically, and finally complains to Irvine, who's sitting shotgun,
"That guy has some nerve; I don't know who that guy thinks he is. Just because a' employee, not a twenty year old fresh outta college fuckin' office intern either, I've been at G-Garden for what? Two years now? And that guy has the nerve, just because I'm spending my day off on campus, to ask me would I mind driving down to fuckin' East Academy? I mean, yeah I fuckin' mind. You know what that guy thinks? That guy thinks because I ain't locked in my room grading fuckin' papers, I mean, just because I ain't got an instructors lisence, it doesn't mean…"
Rinoa tunes him out and goes back to reading Squall's SeeD handbook.
The use of Para-magic (magic) or "casting" is an essential part of the garden student's curriculum. Every student, from weapon's specialists to tacticians in training must pass both a level one self-defense practicum, and at least a level one PECE (Para-magical Energy Casting Exam), which includes a written test and evaluated casting of basic spells. Magic specialists must additionally pass a level four PECE in basic para-magic, and a level 6 PECE in their area of specialization. For information on preparing for the PECE, see the SeeD tutorial, section 22D.
SeeDs classifications of standard spells differ from their scientific organization in that spells are sorted by area of function and level of difficulty, rather than the nature of the manipulation of energies. The blank basic families of spells are healing, status related, elemental, enhancing or "support" and forbidden. Please note that use of any spell from the latter group during an official exam or evaluation without prior consent of the proctor or test administrator can result in serious consequence including loss of privileges, suspension, or expulsion.
The healing family includes both 'combat' spells, used to staunch bleeding, repair minor cuts and lacerations, numb pain, and restore energy, and 'non-combat' spells for more serious injuries and maladies. Though healing para-magic is not as effective as modern medicinal techniques, it requires no equipment, and is an invaluable supplement to basic first aid. Mastery of healing spells is essential for medics and field nurses. (For information on healing magic, see section 25D.)
Status magic covers four standard spells in the SeeD cache, and at least fifteen in total. Bio poisons humans and some monsters, causing a gradual breakdown of the nervous system resulting in muscle spasms, sensory malfunction, and eventually death. It is very effective, but relatively easy to counteract and difficult to cast. Blind attacks the retina of humans and most monsters, causing loss of sight. Sleep causes some humans and a few monsters to pass out, and meltdown weakens the pain tolerance of all humans and monsters. (For information on healing magic, see section 26D.)
Elemental casting is the transfer of elemental energy (see 'element chart' above) in the form of structured heat, electricity, cold etc to another body of matter. Elemental specialists focus on offensive, rather than defensive or enhancing magic. Elemental casting is particularly effective against monsters, which often have weaknesses to elements particular to the body structure of their species. (For information on healing magic, see section 27D.)
Support magic includes well-known spells like shell, protect, and haste, and more unusual ones, such as reflect and aura. Few SeeDs choose to specialize in enhancing magic, though many elemental casters have a strong background in…
Rinoa snaps Squall's handbook shut as the van pulls over from highway next to East Academy Station. Irvine jumps out of the front seat, followed by Rinoa and the other SeeDs. Eddie wishes Irvine luck, gives the others an upward jerk of his chin, and makes a U-turn to head back to the Garden.
Rinoa follows the others onto train platform and sits on a bench while Squall buys tickets. They board the Deling-bound train and take a compartment near the front, and store their backpacks and Irvine's leather messenger bag above it. Unlike the SeeDs, Irvine leaves his weapon his black weapon case in the overhead bin. It's a little crowded, with Rinoa, Selphie and Irvine on one bench seat and Squall, Zell and Quistis on the other, until Selphie leaves to look out the window. Rinoa makes a mental note to ask her what's wrong with the cabin window. She looks out over the Galbaldian planes, yellow-green grasses broken by an occasional shrub of tree in the distance. The sky is vividly blue against the yellow land.
Next to her, Irvine stands up, tips his hat genially to the compartment, and steps out into the hall, closing the sliding door behind him.
"Man, when are we leaving?" says Zell. When Irvine doesn't return after a few minutes, he steps around the edge of the table to sit on Rinoa's side of the compartment. "So what do we do about him?" he asks testily, jabbing a thumb at the compartment door.
"Irvine did just kind of…leave…should someone check?"
"I'll go." Rinoa volunteers. (I think I have a good idea where he went anyway.)
Rinoa steps out into the train hallway. It's decorated simply, with gray carpeting and lined with off-white compartments with sliding, blurred glass doors.
"This train, bound for Deling city, will be departing shortly." announces the overhead speaker. Rinoa wanders between the rows of compartments towards the front of the train. A few of the compartments are empty, their doors wide open and keys hanging outside them. The others show their occupancy with closed doors and luggage in the locked bins above them. A few late passengers, a young couple, push past Rinoa and scurry to claim one of the empty compartments.
In the front of the train is a triangular shaped area with worn blue carpeting, and no walls. Rinoa suddenly understands why Selphie leaves the train cabin to look at the view. The two front facing sides are made of huge glass panes connected to the floor and the tin ceiling, affording a 180 degree view of the Galbaldian planes, the train track stretching into the distance like a grey fence cutting through the yellow grass. In front of the windows, leaning against the rail surrounding the windows, Rinoa recognizes the back of Selphie's yellow jumper. Next to her, Irvine's brown trench coat and cowboy hat.
"Maybe it's destiny…" says Irvine coolly, leaning on the window and into Selphie's view.
"Y-Yeah right." Selphie turns away from Irvine and the windows. Rinoa ducks around the corner and into the nearest empty compartment. She sits upright on the cabin's bench, trying not to listen to Selphie sigh and the sound of her boots crossing the floor.
"A sigh of love?" Rinoa can picture Irvine, standing in the light of the huge windows, watching Selphie leave. Rinoa holds her breath and wills herself to melt into the wall as Selphie passes. She slips out of the compartment and follows her at a distance, back down the hallway. (Poor Selphie…what an egotistical jerk-off…) The train creaks; the floor shifts under Rinoa's feet as it starts to move.
She hears Irvine before she sees him, following her down the hall. She quickens her pace, but he catches her hand and turns her towards him, locking his blue eyes on hers before she's even a compartment length away from the triangle room. Rinoa's hand squirms against his leather glove, but he holds it and slowly draws her back towards the windows. "Rinoa," he says breathily "I'd like very much to have the honor of your company for a moment." Rinoa turns her body around, her hand still clasped in his, twisting her shoulder, and comes face to face with Zell, Quistis, and Squall. "Selphie's in the restroom." Quistis says coldly, her cheeks reddening. Zell looks ready to punch through a wall. Irvine drops her hand.
"Mr. Kinneas," Quistis says, through a clenched jaw, "You are representing your garden in a vitally important mission. Your behavior, thus far, has not reflected as much." Rinoa could imagine Quistis as a strict teacher, despite her youth.
Irvine turns his back to the SeeDs and surveys the planes rushing under their feet. "It's the same everywhere…no one understands me..." he announces. Rinoa notices Squall raise his eyebrows, skeptically. "Sharpshooters are loners by nature..." he continues, walking towards the window. He leans into the railing, hunching his shoulders. "We hone our instincts, pour our whole being into a single bullet. The pressure of the moment...An instant of tension..." He stands straight and turns back to Rinoa, who averts her eyes and sees Selphie emerge from the hallway and stand behind a fuming Quistis. "That's what...I have to face alone..." He walks towards them. Rinoa steps back reflexively and he passes between her and Selphie, who watches him with wide, green eyes, transfixed. "...It's not easy." he says, and continues down the hall. He turns back to the group and gives Selphie a meaningful look. To the others, he adds, "So just...do me a favor, and let me be! You get my drift?" He turns away and retreats into the SeeDs' compartment.
Zell punches the doorframe between the triangle room and the hallway, and the train rumbles. Quistis glowers at him and then spins on her heel and walks back down the hall. Squall and Selphie follow, Squall shaking his head gloomily.
"Err, there was no damage to the train from that, uh, minor vibration..." announces the overhead system "I repeat... there was no damage to the train from that…minor vibration."
Rinoa returns to the compartment. Irvine is leaning back in his seat, his hat tipped forward to shadow his face. Next to him, Quistis flips through Cid's orders with crisp gestures and pursed lips. Squall sits by the door, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him.
Rinoa: Timber residents often say that trains remind them of home, because they're such a popular form of public transportation. Timber is, in fact, the hub of the International Railway Network, and manufactures train cars used all over the world. Trains and train stations always remind me of emotional vulnerability. Leaving Seifer, returning to Balamb, and traveling between Timber and Deling city are all connected to trains. This train ride back to my father's house was especially hard. To get away from the loaded silence in the compartment, I went to sleep with my head against a window.
I had a half-dream half-memory of being in my father's house. It must have been after my mom died, because the decorative coat that signified his being a general was in the front hall closet. I'd pulled it off of its hanger hid under it for a long time, crying and singing quietly to myself in the dark. All I could see was a stripe of light from the front call coming through a crack in the closet door. He and my nanny, Anya are looking for me, but I won't come out because I'm angry.
My father wanted to send me to school in another city; he'd already picked out the place. I'd be starting first grade alone in a strange place, and I was sure my best friend Kemy would find a new best friend when I was gone, and Anya would find another little girl to take care of.
My father's harsh voice and Anya's nasal one echoed all around our house calling "Rina! Rina!" "Rinoa Jacqueline Carraway!" I thought with bitter pleasure that with so many rooms in our three story house, they'd never find me. I was angry with Anya as well as my father. She was leaving tomorrow. She'd told me so.
She found me first and lifted me, red-eyed and sniveling out of the closet. She clucked and fussed as she led me upstairs by the hand.
"Mister Carraway! She's right here!" I felt utterly betrayed.
My father was livid. "Rinoa! Why didn't you answer when we called you!" I started to cry again and he threw up his hands in exasperation. "Stop that! Rinoa, you're too wild. That's why you need to go to Timber Elementary Boarding I can't even…" he kept gesturing at me as though it was obvious what he was trying to say. As though a six-year-old could understand, my seventeen-year-old self thought. I cried harder and wiped my nose on my sleeve. "Don't do that" he said impatiently and reached for me. I screamed and ran the other way into Anya's tall, protective legs. She reached down and stroked my hair.
"Mister Carraway, she's still only a child-"
"And that's all she's ever going to be if I keep letting her run wild!" I buried my head in Anya's skirts to drown out his shouting. "She's too headstrong. She doesn't have any sense of reasonable boundaries, she…"
My father sighed and dropped his hands. "Rinoa, go to your room." Disobeying my father had become reflexive by then, and I sank onto the floor. He picked me up, pried Anya's skirt out of my small hands and carried me, crying and struggling, to my room down the hall. He put me down on the edge of my bed.
"Rinoa, you will stay here until I tell you you can come out. I have work to do, but we will talk about this tonight." He left, and I fell back on my bed, exhausted from crying. I heard a key turn in an old-fashioned lock and lept up. I grabbed a hard-headed plastic doll off the floor and banged its head on the door rhythmically, like a small protestor. It was probably reasonable of my father to lock me in, I reflected. If he didn't, I would have hidden somewhere else, or run away to the park with some toys and crackers in a toy baby stroller, a regular occurrence at the Carraway house.
I might not have been so upset if I'd known how much good the little boarding school in Timber would do me. I was happier with the seven other children in the juniors program than I'd ever been at home, and I loved community living after growing up with only my father, his servants and Anya around. When I turned ten I joined the regular boarding school program, which lasted all the way through the eleventh grade, by which I'd gotten enough credits to graduate. I spent my summers in Deling City enjoying the night life, and as little time as possible at home.
For the rest of the train ride I watched Irvine out of the corner of my eye, and wondered why I felt so blank about Seifer's death. The cynical aggression was gone; so was the guilt. Now I just felt empty and drained. I would go back to my father's house, but I didn't plan to stay there, though he would probably try to make me. Still, I'd been sneaking out of that house for years. I'd pack a suitcase and go to a friend's house. I'd call Shiro. Shiro was my first love, at the age of eight, and a constant companion during my summers in Deling, from roller skating to the movie theater to visiting night clubs in later summers. He was the fourth of five sons, and his mother had always been glad to have another female presence in the house. She and her husband had emigrated from southern Esthar in the 20s. I would stay at their house and get back in touch with Watts and Zone…and when it was safe, I would go back to Timber.
I felt better having a plan in mind. Maybe when I got back to Timber I would study magic and casting. I'd have to get a license, which would take time and required the consent of a legal guardian. I wondered if it would be worth the risk to continue learning illegally. I'd have to use a different name; anything connected with the Forest Owls wouldn't be safe after our train kidnapping fiasco. I might have to change my hair too. I wondered how I would look as a brunette.
The overhead system announces the train's arrival in Deling City, and the group gets up, files out of the compartment and retrieves their backpacks. Their weapons draw a few stares from the crowd of men and women in business suits. They shuffle through the mob on the train platform and into a brightly lit, underground station. Officials in blue uniform direct swarms of people, most in business suits with ties and high-heels, but a groups of teenagers in jeans and jackets mill around talking and smoking under the wary eyes of the station officials, and two homeless men with scraggly hair and beards beg change from passers-by with empty paper coffee cups. Rinoa breathes in the familiar cigarette smoke and car exhaust. (Just like home.)
"Hey, this is where Sir Laguna is from!" Selphie realizes.
"Yeah, feels so weird to be here and be awake." says Zell.
Even with Rinoa guiding them through the city's system of cable-car shaped buses, it will be late in the evening before the party gets to Carraway's mansion. Yellow balls of light, the perpetually lit streetlamps lining the roads of downtown Deling City crawl past, broken only by a dark expanse in front of the city temple. The temple priestesses don't allow streetlamps, mailboxes, or parking in front of the temple. Rinoa wonders, what religion they cater to. She's never heard of anyone going to the temple to pray. The SeeDs sway, thrown by the movement of the bus, or hold onto the rails lining it. Zell complains that they should have benches. Rinoa stands at the back of the bus, shifting her weight to accommodate for turns and stops, as Main Street flies past.
"Wow, you look like you've been doing this all your life." Selphie says laughing.
"Most of it. Hey Selphie, thanks for teaching me about casting. It's been…really fun. It's been great meeting you."
Selphie gives her a puzzled look.
Inches from her ear, in what she thinks at first is Leviathan's voice, Rinoa hears, "We'll be staying at General Carraway's residence until the inauguration ceremony. The General will be briefing us on the mission." Rinoa feels shivers go up her spine realizing Squall has been standing immediately behind her for who knows how long.
"My father is overseeing this? I didn't even know he had contacts in garden…he's the general of the Galbaldian army…"
"Not everyone in the Deling's government approves of his new emissary."
"But he would never assassinate his boss's ambassador, he's just not like that…if anyone found out he was involved it'd be the end of his career; the press would have a feeding frenzy…I don't get it…"
Squall shakes his head; his long hair falls away from his face. "Why else would Martine have allowed you, the general's daughter, access to the details of the mission?"
Rinoa pauses, and then nods her understanding. "If he weren't in on it…I could have warned him. I wouldn't have though; I guess I forget that not everyone understands the uh…nature of his relationship with me. He's always been loyal to Galbaldia; I'm the rebel in the family."
"Maybe that's why he's doing it." Irvine emerges from a shadowed corner of the bus. Rinoa draws back suspiciously; Selphie watches him like a hen transfixed by a fox. By now Zell and Quistis have taken notice. Irvine glances over his shoulder as though the bus driver might hear them.
Rinoa laughs. "I promise, he isn't trying to win me over. He's about seventeen years to late."
"No, but you said he's loyal to Galbaldia. He's been in the picture longer than Deling has. Maybe he just wants what's best for his country. Besides, aren't Galbaldians usually suspicious of sorcery?"
"Isn't everybody?" says Zell.
"It doesn't matter." Squall says, in a tone that says the subject is closed. "It's not our job to figure out why; we just follow orders."
Irvine retreats back to his corner of the bus. To Rinoa's surprise, Quistis follows him to ask a question about Martine. Zell slips into Irvine's vacant place, next to Selphie.
"Aren't you even curious?" Rinoa asks Squall. "They're asking you to…kill someone."
Squall shrugs, doesn't meet her eyes. "Maybe this is a coup d'etat. I don't know. Your father must have had a good reason or garden wouldn't have trusted him."
The bus pulls up in front of the familiar house, built on the steep slope between main street, and a smaller back street so that the whole house seemed to be growing straight out of the hill. A dark, hedge-lined path behind an iron gate stretches in front of them, the large, Victorian house looming behind it like the scene of an ancient murder in a mystery movie.
"You folks getting off?" asks the bus driver.
Rinoa steps down off the bus. A puddle of water from a recent rain shower, common to the northern coast of Galbaldia in the winter, wets her boots. She can't remember the last time she was here in the winter.