Chapter 16:

The overhead light is on now, and her father is just standing up behind his desk. Rinoa feels a surge of residual frustration and anger. (Still angry about last night…) He clears his throat.

"Rinoa."

Rinoa's shoulders are tight. She nods tersely.

"Hello Sylaas."

Carraway: When my wife died, what structure there was in my daughter's life was destroyed. I met Julia during the Sorceress War, at which time the pursuit of a career in the military entailed extensive traveling. After the War, when "Eyes on Me" – the CD not the song - became popular, she was the one often abroad. Rinoa traveled with her mother until…well, until she was five years old. The next three years were enough to convince me that I was completely unsuited for fatherhood. Rinoa had the audacious independence of a girl twice her age, and refused to be chained down. I blame the instability of her early childhood, the loss of her mother, and my own ineptitude. I was busy and a poor disciplinarian, and in retrospect Anya was more of a parent to her than I. When she resigned to return to school in Centra, I threw in the towel too.

Her summers at home convinced me that I had made the right choice. She was willful, and by her early teens she'd become willful, enraged with my politics and a passionate liberal, though what she knew of politics at the time could not have been more than the popular opinion of her young peers at Timber Academy. The summer after her last year of school, she didn't come back.

In the back of my mind, I knew I was hoping for the kind of reunion other fathers had with their daughters after long absences, but in Rinoa's mind I had failed her as a parent, and she refused to let me enjoy her time in my house. I was already tense about Martine's sudden switch of SeeD members, with no more explanation than that his Galbaldian team leader had been injured. Why the injury of one student should incapacitate a team of eight, he did not explain. The replacement team consisted of only six SeeDs from Balamb garden.

I should have known when I left her alone in my study. I went downstairs to meet with the SeeDs, but there was little to discuss. I didn't have the heart to give them a pep-talk. We reviewed the mission, and how their escape route to the back entrance of my residence they were to take when they'd finished. Four separate routes for each member of the gateway team from their posts on either side of central arch and at the switchboard in city hall, and one for the sniper team from the carousel, though they wouldn't be needing them.

Rinoa was in the living room when I came home, looking for her coat. I asked where she was going and she snapped,

"Kemy's."

She didn't have a suitcase or backpack with her.

"Where are you going?" I asked her again, and she turned on me, flushed and said,

"I'm getting out of this house! I hate this place, and I'm….leaving."

She didn't seem to be leaving though. She sat on the couch facing away from the door and rested her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. I left her alone, but locked the front gate from a control panel in the front hall. Not that it would stop her, but I could never give up the pretense of controlling her. If she wanted to watch the assassination of the sorceress, she'd find a way, and with her political convictions and flair for the dramatic she'd probably want to help as well. I returned to my study to find the door closed (I'd left it ajar) and the Odine Bangle from early stages of planning the assassination missing. I half-jogged back to the living room.

I told Rinoa she was foolish and selfish to endanger the mission with her childish games, that I forbid her to leave the house, that she was not to contact the SeeDs assigned to the assassination mission again. She got up off the couch, turned and regarded me coldly, her wrist extended.

"I assumed it had belonged to Anya."

She did not apologize for having taken it out of my study, and I was still angry with her, and unwilling to give up my passionately defended conviction that she was trying to sneak out.

"You will not leave this house until the parade is over."

Upon second thought, she was, after all, innocent until proven guilty, I added. "It'll be chaos out there soon. You'll be safe here." She waved me off with a limp wrist, the Odine bangle glinting in the sun. I left her, and returned again to the control panel in the front hall, this time to lock the living room doors, and went back to my rooms to watch a local news channel and wait.

Rinoa collapses on the couch, and screams into a pillow for the second time in two days. Quistis's flushed face and angry voice echo, unbidden in her mind:

"So what are you planning to do with it…we don't have time for this; this isn't a father-daughter quarrel. This isn't a game."

Her father had said the same thing, as had Squall at the T.V. station. This isn't a game. (…Of course this isn't a game. I don't want to make it one, I want to help. I wanna be part of this. I can do this…) she runs her fingers over the colorful crystals in the bangle. (7:30…not enough time to find my coat…) She stands and crosses resolutely to the door; locked. Her eyes widen in realization, and then narrow in anger. Of course. She runs to another door, but is not surprised to find it locked. Next door; locked. Locked! She fights an impulse to kick the baseboard.

(If I want to prove that Galbaldian resistance isn't a game to me, I can't act like a little kid).

She tries the doors again, then stops in front of the windows overlooking Main Street. On the side of the house opposite the front door, the downslope of the hill puts the first floor living room about two stories above the street. One hand resting on the maroon curtains, the other on her mother's necklace, she peers down to the street below. People mill around like small insects, waiting for the parade to start. Half an hour.

(I can do this.) She reminds herself.

A young woman in a black suit notices her first, and soon most of the block is staring and pointing. One man is yelling, trying to talk her down.

"I took a counselling course in high school! Now just stop moving and we're going to talk through this together!" He cries.

Rinoa can barely hear him over the ringing in her ears. She clutches miserably to knotted maroon curtain hanging out of the window, inching her way towards the drainpipe like a rock climber. The air is stinging and chilly on her bare legs and shoulders.

When the spectators below realize what she's doing, a few start to cheer and shout questions. "What are you doing? Did you get locked it?" (In a manner of speaking…) Rinoa reaches the drainpipe with one foot, wraps her ankle, then her leg around it. The curtain is stretched to its full limit now. She holds her breath and lets go, feeling for a moment that she's suspended in midair, connected to the wall only by one leg. The curtain falls limply away, and Rinoa's hands touch cold metal. Then she's sliding quickly down the rusty pipe, her hair flying all around her face. She holds tighter to the pipe to slow down, and feels her knees scraping, not painfully, against the wall of the house. A few people below are whooping and clapping. A young crowd has gathered at the base of the drain pipe, and teenagers in overcoats help her down, laughing and talking among themselves and to Rinoa, "Wow, what a jump." "Your mom wouldn't let you out of the house, huh?" "Oh! Are your legs alright?" Rinoa glances at the speaker, a dark haired girl in a pink overcoat (when did those coats come back in style?) wearing a skirt over her pants, and then down at her legs. Her inner thighs are striped with rust from the pipe, and two trickles of blood run down her shins from scrapes from the outside wall left on her knees.

"I'm fine," she assures them "thank you, thanks guys." She pushes her way through the cluster, which watches in bewilderment as she takes off at a sprint.

It's already eight o' clock when Rinoa reaches City Hall; the parade should already have started. (What public function concerning Vinzer Deling ever starts on time?) The building is lit like an enormous version of the lanterns she made as a child by putting candles in punctured tin cans. Light spills out of every window and skylight, and grows out of the roof in the form of holographic juggling clowns, the herald of a celebration. A speaking platform had been built over the outside of the second floors where wedding ceremonies and meetings of the city council take place. It stretches like a wide diving board out of the base of the holographic carousel, supported by clearly temporary wooden beams. A tiny bump of a podium is silhouetted against the lights.

Rinoa crosses the expanse of cement, wooden supports rising around her in a grotesque forest. The front door is chained shut. A single, uniformed Galbaldian soldier eyes her as she reads the "off-limits" sign. Of course, the sniper team is going to come in through the back door. Rinoa hadn't even known there was a backdoor previously. As she circles the building, she wonders if she's ever even been inside before. (What if I meet Squall and Irvine trying to get in? They're supposed to enter the building when the parade starts. But Deling hasn't even made a speech yet. If they try to break in too early they might get caught…they'll go when most of security is following the parade…but what can I do about security? I'm no SeeD; I can't take deal with an armed guard…)

No one is standing guard at the backdoor, because it doesn't have a handle. (It opens from the inside?) Rinoa climbs the fire escape, only to find a chain across the (probably locked) emergency exit. (What if there's a fire?) She sits and leans on the door, fuming, and strongly reminded of sitting on Ari's back porch the previous summer. The blood on her legs has smeared and dried, the stripes of rust mostly brushed off. She combs her fingers through her tangle of hair. (Even if I get to the sorceress before the parade starts, how could I see her like this? I didn't even put the stupid bracelet in a gift bag…I'm never going to get away with this.) She drops her head onto her drawn up knees.

Look up.

(…Leviathan!)

Use the resources you bring with you.

Rinoa does look up, and then around her. (What resources? What do I have? I didn't bring anything, just my clothes, my wallet, this stupid bracelet, blaster edge, item pouch. She takes out her folded weapon and examines it, unfolds it. (Am I supposed to take it apart and pick the lock with the pieces?) There's nothing of use in her items pouch – pills, tiny bottles. (Who are you to talk to me like some freaking Zen master anyway?)

"I don't have anything!" She says aloud. (Hyne…look up…look up?)

She looks up. Above her is a dark window, not leaking bright light like the ones in front, but open. It's dirty, long out of use, but there's a yellow post-it note still sticking to the inside. How to get up? Rinoa jumps and her fingertips fall a few inches short. (Resources…resources….I can do magic? Melt the chain with fire?) She doubts that her spells have that kind of power, or can open locks. Blind? Cure? Protect? …Float?).

Rinoa breaths deeply, sweeps a hand towards her chest, feels the weight of her body lift from her feet. She stretches a hand up, still a long way from the window. Another breath, and another. With each exhale, she lifts a little higher until she can grab onto the windowsill. With the spell still helping hold her weight, she pulls herself up and nudges the window open with an elbow. It opens easily for something so old and dirty. She pushes her torso into the dark room on the other side and bends double at the waist feeling the spell dissipate and supporting all her weight on the sharp-cornered sill. With some more struggling and wriggling, she falls the rest of the way into the room, a walk-in storage closet she realizes, as her eyes adjust to the dark.

The post-it on the window says "God's Speed", not her father's handwriting, but definitely his phrase. Rinoa feels some smug pride that her entrance of choice was the one chosen by a military organization like Garden. (Not that I had much choice…) Rinoa leaves the closet, finally feeling the bruises on her hips from the windowsill, the sting in her knees from her descent from the living room window and tiredness in her legs from the run to City Hall.

Rinoa opens the closet door to find herself in a long carpeted passage, and, glory of Hyne, down the hall from a plastic map to the fire exits. She finds an X labeled "you are here" on the bottom of a large circle, representing the hall on the second floor. A wide set of stairs descends to the floor below. Rinoa imagines a wedding; bride and groom prepare for the ceremony in the rooms on the second floor while guests congregate on the first. The bride descends the stairs, her white train trailing behind her…

Footsteps pad down the hall to her left and she runs to the right, passing closed doors and another plastic map. Most of the overhead lights are off on the back side of the building, but the hall grows brighter as she comes to the front. Some of the doors are open now, and occasionally she passes a group of soldiers, but no one stops her. Still, she'll have to talk to one of them.

"Excuse me, is the sorceress in her room?" she asks the first guard she sees standing alone.

"Should be." He eyes her scraped knees.

"Could you remind me where that is?" She hopes she sounds like she belongs. He raises the visor on his helmet, looks into her face suspiciously.

"Who are you?"

(Relax, lie.)

"It's me….Rinoa. Oh, sorry," she gives him a condescending look "Rinoa Carraway."

"You're related to the general?"

"His daughter." Says Rinoa, as though it should be self-evident. She waits a minute, then pulls out her wallet, feigning exasperation and shows him her school ID. A year old, but he apologizes politely and points her to the right.

"From here, about a quarter turn around the hall. It's behind the speaking floor; you'll know it by the guards."

Rinoa keeps an eye out for a guarded room, and spots it before the soldiers (one tall, one short and pudgy, standing on either side of the door) see her. She backs up cautiously until the guards disappear behind the curve of the wall. She smoothes her hair and rubs at the blood stains on her knees with the tail of her duster. She strolls confidently up to the guards, nods her head politely, and extends her ID card.

"I need to see the sorceress please."

The soldiers look unenthusiastic. The short one steps forward and raises his visor out of respect, but folds his arms, causing the blue fabric of the uniform to strain across his shoulders.

"The parade is about to begin; Edea isn't seeing anyone."

"I have an appointment. I…may be a little late." The soldiers aren't impressed. "Doesn't she have a secretary?" she continues nervously, "She can tell you that I'm expected." The guards exchange looks, but the short one walks off briskly, presumably to find the secretary. Rinoa and the tall guard wait in tense silence. When the short guard is out of sight, Rinoa breaths deeply, raises a hand and casts silence on the soldier. He gives her a confused stare. She smiles politely in answer, and he says something, scratching his temple, and not realizing that Rinoa can't hear him. She raises her hand again and he looks angry, moves his lips noiselessly, and then jumps backwards in surprise. He draws a short, Galbaldian blade and swings it blindly, but Rinoa is already through the sorceress's door.