Dreams
The Garden car sped down the long, winding roads toward Balamb underneath the threatening cloak of rain clouds that hung like a curtain in front of the sun, darkening the path ahead.
"Hmm. . . Those clouds are looking ominous. It could get to rain," Quistis commented.
"Yo, Squall! If you don't think you can drive in the rain, I can take over for you! I'm good at that kind of thing!" Zell shouted to Squall, meriting no response. After a short silence, Zell piped up again. "C'mon, man! I just wanna drive the car for a few minutes!"
". . . I wouldn't trust you in the driver's seat of a car, Zell," Selphie said.
"What's that supposed to mean!" Zell replied, slightly irked. He stood up in the small car and began to box at the air, but was quickly subdued as Irvine grabbed his arm and pulled him down.
"It's too small in here without you hopping around," Irvine said.
Irvine shot a glance at Rinoa, who was seemingly staring into nowhere, obviously preoccupied by something.
"Why the long face, Rinoa?" Irvine inquired.
Rinoa looked over at Irvine, looking startled. "I-It's nothing."
"You need to work on pretending not to be preoccupied," Quistis said with a very characteristic chuckle, identical to her response upon predicting Squall's thoughts. "But. . . If you don't want to talk about it, I guess I won't ask."
Rinoa looked down at the floor of the car, lost in thought. The truth of the matter was that she was afraid. She was afraid of these dreams that she'd been having recently - dreams of watching close friends dying in front of her, as she watched, helpless. She couldn't even close her eyes, or avert her sight from the horror. She was beginning to fear that these dreams might come true in the future, and she would be just as helpless in the real situation. Perhaps if they went to Esthar sometime, she could consult Dr. Odine about this.
A few raindrops plodded on the windshield of the car, distracting Rinoa. Soon, the squeaking of old windshield wipers prohibited all deep thought, and the rain grew heavy, accompanied with flashing lightning streaking across the sky and booming thunder. Eventually, shadows began to appear in the dark, and the road in the distance grew invisible through the blinding barrier of rain.
"Get ready for a rough ride!" Quistis yelled, bracing herself for impact with anything.
A hulking shadow, perhaps real, perhaps a figment of the imagination, grew in the distant road. Squall couldn't tell if this obstruction was real or not, but he could tell that if they ran head-on into this monstrous obstacle, supposing it was real, they may not have survived, so he slammed his foot down on the brakes and shoved the steering wheel to the right to increase stopping speed.
Suddenly, the car came to a screeching stop, nearly flipping as it turned to the side. Blocking the road was an uncharacteristically large T-Rexaur, obviously slaughtered by someone or something. Blood still flowed from massive wounds on the beast, diluting with the water and eventually settling on the sides of the road, and a monolithic ice crystal could be seen jutting out of its side.
"Who could've done this?" Selphie inquired, slightly shocked by the carnage.
Rinoa, overtaken by a vague expression and obviously shaken, stood up and made as if to step out of the car.
"Hey, wait, what're you doing?" Zell asked. Rinoa didn't respond and simply moved out of the car and, nearly oblivious about the rain, stepped to the T-Rexaur and ran her hand along the ice crystal.
". . . I don't think this is para-magic," Rinoa remarked.
("Another sorceress?") Squall thought to himself.
"You think this is sorcery?" Quistis asked to Rinoa.
Rinoa turned around, quickly crafting an explanation for her suspicions. "I don't know how to explain it, but as a sorceress, whenever there's anything magical around me, I can sort of sense what kind of power it is. Para-magic as a whole has a different feel from this."
"Whoa, whoa, so there's another sorceress out there?" Zell asked typically.
("We still have a mission to do – an important one at that. We can't waste our time on some wild-goose chase, even if there really is a sorceress out there,") Squall thought.
"That doesn't make this sorceress our enemy," Squall replied. "In fact, most sorceresses live out their lives in hiding. This one was probably merely defending itself from the creatures, so this has nothing to do with us. Let's just move the T-Rexaur and get going to Balamb."
"But don't you wanna know more?" Zell responded.
"I'm kinda curious too, actually," Selphie remarked.
("I wanna know, too, but we can't just drop our mission for this. . .") Squall thought.
"We just need to move this thing for now. Maybe on the way back we'll look into it, but for now, we have a mission to think of," Quistis said. "Everyone have magic Junctioned to Strength?"
The group nodded, and set to work dragging the gargantuan beast off of the road by its tail.
"Phew! This thing stinks!" Selphie piped up. "And it's heavier than a Galbadian missile launcher!"
"Just a little farther now. . . There, that should do it," Quistis said. "Now, let's go!"
A large crash sounded in the distance, obviously not thunder, and the death cry of a T-Rexaur rang out.
"That definitely wasn't para-magic," Rinoa said suddenly.
"C'mon, we have to check this out!" Zell responded. "It can't have been too far away from here!"
"I agree with Zell on this one," Irvine remarked. "This sorceress could have her sights set on Balamb, or Garden."
("We don't have time for this!")
"Okay," Squall said, placing his hand upon his forehead, "but if we can't find anything right away, let's move on."
"Okay, lead on, Commander!" Selphie shouted.
". . . Who is it?" A frail female voice called in the distance. Through the rain, a vague silhouette of a young woman in a flowing dress appeared.
"Get ready to fight if we have to," Squall muttered, one hand on the hilt of his gunblade.
The woman materialized like a ghost from the veil of rain, dressed in a long, luminescent white gown of sorts, and though she was standing in the rain, she did not become wet. Her eyes, vague and innocent, told most of the group that this woman could be trusted.
". . . Who are you?" Squall asked, not letting down his guard.
"I am. . . The other half. That's what the voice says."
"What?" Quistis apprehensively interjected.
"The hell?" Zell shouted.
"Please don't hurt me," the woman implored.
"Why would we hurt you?" Selphie asked.
"Everyone does. I don't understand it. . . I sensed someone like me with you, though," she said, looking at Rinoa.
"You're the sorceress?" Rinoa asked.
"That's what they call me. I don't know why they chase me and shoot at me. . ."
"Don't worry," Quistis said, "There's no way we'd do that."
"Thank you."
"Wait a minute," Irvine said, "I know that the rest of you might not remember this, but when we were in the orphanage, Matron would tell us this story every night. . . To tell the truth, it's a little hazy for me too after using the GFs with all of you. Of course you're all familiar with the name of Hyne-"
"So what's your point? Get a move on!" Zell interrupted.
"Okay, okay. The story goes kinda like this. . . In the very beginning, when the world was created, the god Hyne battled all of the monsters. Eventually, as you can understand, he became tired. Well, that's when he created us humans to do the dirty work, then went to sleep. When he finally awakened, he was astounded to see how many humans there were, and the humans, without understanding what Hyne was, attacked him. Hyne retreated, and when he could no longer run, left behind half of his body as a decoy for the humans, and retreated with the other, more powerful half. People have never been able to find that second half, but I'm getting a feeling that our little sorceress is. . ."
"What?" Zell yelled. "I thought you said that Hyne was a god, not a goddess!"
"Well, a god isn't exactly human, so it could take on any form," Quistis replied.
The sorceress, who had been standing motionless for some time, spoke again. "I drifted for an eternity, unable to find any anchor, and suddenly, I was left here, alone."
("Time Compression?") Squall thought to himself.
"Are you talking about the Time Compression?" Quistis asked.
"I. . . I don't know," the sorceress replied. "I don't know anything."
"But you said you were the 'other half.' You definitely know something," Irvine said.
"I don't know what it means. . . There's just a voice in my head, and it says that. I don't know anything else about who I am or how I came to be here."
"How can you talk like us, then, if you don't know anything?" Selphie inquired.
"When I came here, I stayed with a family in Balamb, and they treated me with kindness, teaching me how to speak and read. One day, though, a monster snuck into town after nightfall, and attacked the family. As I saw the people being assaulted, I heard the voice. It created anger inside of me, and a power exploded from within, creating magic that destroyed the monster. After the monster was killed, the family turned on me fearfully and angrily, accusing me of being a sorceress. The voice spoke again to me, and commanded me to kill them. I-. . ." She stopped momentarily. "I killed them all, and several other people."
"The fire two months ago?" Zell asked. Two months before, a fire had exploded within the house next to Zell's, engulfing the family that lived there and several people who attempted to rescue them. Zell worried for days about it, but finally, upon visiting the town, discovered that Ma Dincht had been spared.
The sorceress continued. "I don't know what the voice is. Maybe it's someone else somehow communicating, or perhaps it's some memory that I can't recall. I only wish that it could stop."
("How can we be sure this isn't just a facade? But all the same, why would this sorceress want to kill us?")
Rinoa stepped toward the sorceress boldly, evidently unafraid of any assault.
"What are you doing?" Squall asked, drawing out his gunblade in case it proved necessary.
"Don't worry," Rinoa replied. She looked at the sorceress, and said, "We'll find out what your 'voice' is, and if there's anything that can be done about it, then we'll do it, okay?"
"You're. . . Going to take me with you?"
"Yeah, and maybe your voice will settle down staying with us. I don't know why it would, but I just have a feeling."
"Wait," Quistis interjected. "How can you be sure this is safe? Maybe this 'voice' is another sorceress like Ultimecia, possessing her."
"We can't know," Rinoa replied, "but we can't just leave her here to die defending herself from monsters!"
"I don't think she'd be having any trouble with these things," Zell said, turning to the slaughtered T-Rexaur.
"Everyone gets tired eventually, even a god," Rinoa responded. "She needs our help!"
Suddenly, the sorceress began to yell, eyes wide with fear. "N-No!" she shouted, shocking the group. "St-Stop. . ." The sorceress clutched her head in both hands, beginning to reel about, and then fell to the ground. The group gathered quickly around her, astounded.
"Whoa, okay, she does need our help!" Zell said.
"Let's just get her out of the rain, first," Squall said.
("This reminds me of those times that Ellone sent us to Laguna's past. . . I wonder. . .") Squall thought as he picked up the sorceress and set her in the car before climbing in himself. The rest of the group followed suit, soaking the inside of the car as they stepped in and sat down.
As the car started up again, Selphie settled into a rare pensive mood. After a period of silence from the whole group, she looked at the girl and suggested, "That voice she was talking about. . . Do you suppose it's a GF that she can't control her Junction with? That would explain how she doesn't remember anything! And maybe the GF has some sort of power over her that makes her moods? Oh, and what if the GF knocked her out somehow, too?"
"That would take a GF far more powerful than any discovered yet, even Eden," Quistis replied. "Maybe we should give her to Dr. Odine to see what's wrong with her. For now, though, she'll have to stay with us for the mission. We'll just have to keep her safe, or if she wanted to, she could assist us in battle."
("That just makes one more person to protect. . .") thought Squall.
As the car ride continued, everyone gradually slipped into sleep, and Squall was left driving alone in the silence. The storm gradually ceased, giving way to afternoon sun. As suddenly as she had fallen unconscious, the sorceress awakened.
"Wh-What's happening?" she inquired, gathering her surroundings.
Squall looked back at her momentarily, and replied, "We're SeeDs from Balamb Garden. After we complete the mission that we're on presently, we're going to take you to Esthar, where Dr. Odine can figure out what your 'voice' is."
"SeeD. . . SeeD. . . Why does that sound so familiar?" the sorceress said quietly to herself. "And why do I feel so. . . angry when I hear it?"
("Angry? That sounds too much like Ultimecia. But she's gone. . . She passed her powers on to Matron fourteen years ago, so there's no chance that she could be alive and living in that sorceress. . . Right?")
"What is SeeD?" the sorceress asked.
"SeeD is a mercenary military organization founded, organized, and run by Balamb Garden. Basically, we're combat specialists," Squall replied, careful to avoid any mention of the mission to defeat the sorceress. "Although now is a time of relative peace, we're hired for recovery work in areas damaged during the recent war. Currently, though, we're on a mission to disarm a Galbadian rebel movement that has its hands on long-range missiles."
"SeeD. . ." the sorceress muttered to herself. Silence ensued yet again, making the darkness outside of the car even more oppressive than it previously was. Thankfully, however, lights were on inside of the vehicle.
"What's your name?" Squall asked curiously after a lengthy silence.
"I don't have a name."
("What a sad existence. . .")
Rinoa slowly awakened from her sleep, observing the young sorceress. She seemed to be only around the age of fourteen or fifteen, and had sleek, black hair much like Rinoa's. Her green eyes had a vague and empty look to them, which was understandable, considering that she had no memory. However, every so often, they would grow wide and panicky, just for a moment. Rinoa assumed that that was her reaction to the "voice." Her white dress reached to her ankles, which were covered by boots, and the sleeves awkwardly reached to her long, yet gaunt fingers.
Rinoa slowly sat up, and the sorceress's attention was turned to her.
". . . Say, do you know if your 'voice' is a GF Junctioned to you?" Rinoa inquired.
"A what?" the sorceress asked.
"A Guardian Force. They're beings that control magical powers, basically. If you allow one a place in your mind, particularly in the memory, it will offer you its powers in return. It can also converse telepathically with you, and sometimes, when a GF feels a strong emotion, the user feels it as well."
The sorceress looked down for a moment, taking in this information.
"How do I check if this is one?"
"Well," Rinoa replied, "you have to mentally reach out to it and communicate with it."
". . . Okay."
("Hello?")
("SeeD. . . You must kill them! Call me forth, now!")
("What? . . . No, these people saved me!")
("I shall not allow them to escape! Allow me to break away from the cage of your mind!")
("Wh. . . What kind of anger is this I'm feeling?")
("This is the pain that those accursed SeeDs put me through! Feel my anger, feel my hatred, and channel it into your magic!")
("I-I can't fight with an anger that isn't my own!")
As Rinoa watched, she could see the sorceress's eyes grow wide with panic, and then anger mixed with fear of the very same anger.
("You are the other half! You are the one destined to bring about the end of these humans! You are the end!")
(". . . No! I won't believe it!")
("You can not hide from who you are!")
"Whatever it is, don't let it control you!" Rinoa said, alerting Squall, who looked back and saw the sorceress sitting, tense, with her eyes wide and unfocused.
("Kill them!")
"No!" the sorceress shouted out loud without realizing it.
("I'll let you be presently. You can't run forever, though. . .")
The voice subsided in the sorceress's mind, and she relaxed and breathed out a long, quivering sigh.
"What was it?" Rinoa asked.
"It. . . I guess it was a GF."
"What did it say to you?"
"Nothing. . . Nothing important," the sorceress said, afraid to reveal anything, in case she might anger or frighten the SeeDs with the GF's message.
"I'm glad you figured out what it was," Rinoa replied suspiciously, "but now you need to work on removing your Junction with it. You and the GF have to cooperate to break the bond forged when it was originally Junctioned to you."
"I don't think it'll work with me for that," the sorceress said. "It seems to be comfortable where it is."
"I wonder why. . ." Rinoa responded. "Maybe, since you're a sorceress, it wants to use your powers to accomplish something in the physical world? Did it say anything like that?"
"N-No," the sorceress replied quickly.
Suddenly, the car jolted as Squall brought it to an abrupt stop. The rest of the group yawned, stretched, and stepped out into evening Balamb, at the port. The sunset was fading, with streaks of golden light shining upon the calm ocean and a kaleidoscope of color filtering through dissipating storm clouds.
". . . I hate this place," the sorceress said almost coldly.
("That's right. . . This is where she was attacked and she was forced to reveal her powers as a sorceress,") Rinoa thought.
"It's okay," Rinoa said, "we won't be here for long."
". . . Look, we can't just sit here and stare at the sunset. Our train's leaving soon," Squall said.
"We can't just drag her around with us on our mission, though," Rinoa complained, motioning toward the sorceress. "She needs to decide something to do."
Squall put his hand to his forehead.
("I thought we already had a plan?")
"Okay," Squall said to the sorceress, "is it all right with you if we bring you along for our mission, so that we can get you to Esthar to find out what to do about the GF you have?"
The sorceress paused for a moment, thinking about the GF's demands to kill the SeeDs, and then decided that she could resist its anger for long enough to get to Esthar. All the same, she was hesitant because she didn't really understand her present situation.
". . . Okay," she replied, placing her trust in the group.
"We need seven tickets, then. . . 21,000 Gil in all. Split between the six of us, that'd be. . ."
"3,500 Gil each," Quistis interjected, frustrating Squall.
"Everyone set?" Squall asked.
The group nodded, and set off to the train station. When they arrived, the train conductor stopped the group.
"You've got seven SeeD tickets, but the girl there doesn't look like a SeeD to me," he said, pointing at the sorceress, who did indeed appear unfit for SeeD duty. "I'm sorry, but I can't let her into the SeeD cabin."
("Damn, I hate how stiff these guys can be,") Squall thought.
"She's a crucial part of our current mission, and we have to fill her in on our plan on the way to Timber, so she needs to go in the cabin, okay?" Squall said, weaving a vague lie to sway the conductor.
"I'm sorry, sir, but rules are rules."
Squall put his hand to his forehead. "Look, I'm the commander of Balamb Garden," he responded, showing an embellished badge that he had received after Ultimecia's fall. "Isn't that enough?"
The conductor sighed. "Okay, okay, go ahead. . ."
"That was completely unnecessary!" Selphie later said on the train as the group approached the SeeD cabin.
"Next stop, Timber. . . I repeat, next stop, Timber. . ."
The door opened to the SeeD cabin, revealing a luxurious room adorned with splendid golden-hued couches and bunk beds. Warm, soft, ambient light filled the air, almost inviting sleep.
"How luxurious. . ." the sorceress said, gazing at the room.
"You bet!" Zell replied, plopping his form onto a soft, expansive couch and bouncing about energetically. The sorceress turned to the beds, laid on the high bunk, and slept without a sound.
Selphie and Irvine stood together outside of the SeeD cabin, gazing out at the surroundings.
"You know, Sefie, I've never really thought about trains this way, but it's pretty neat." Irvine remarked, staring into the blur outside of the train.
"Yup, they're great!" Selphie replied, breaking into a singsong voice. "Train, train, take us away; take us away, far away. . ."
Squall sat silently on a couch opposite from Zell as Rinoa laid on the lower bunk of the beds and softly fell into the deep embrace of slumber.
"Hey, Squall!" Zell said quietly so as not to awaken the two resting sorceresses. Squall glanced over apathetically as Zell handed him a magazine.
"Occult Fan V. . ." Squall muttered. "'A Mudshark sighting has occurred near the shores of Balamb, with several eyewitnesses. A local man describes the creature: I saw it, I swear I did! It had a huge fin, about that wide! (See Figure VII) I was just fishing off the shore, and up it comes, swimming through the ground, throwing up sand and dirt and stuff!' . . . Do you really read this junk, Zell?"
"Nah, but it's pretty funny sometimes, you know?" Zell replied. Squall merely set the magazine aside and laid down wearily on the sofa.
Squall glanced over at Rinoa. How peacefully she slept. . . It brought back memories of standing over her hospital bed, and later, carrying her motionless, corpselike form down the seemingly never-ending train tracks. She looked so peaceful, and yet. . . So sad, just lying there.
Rinoa was not at all at peace, however. Imprisoned in the cage of her own mind, she stood in an alien landscape of ruin on a scale far wider than anything that she had ever seen. It was as if the apocalypse had come and passed, and only she remained, staring into a vibrant blood-red horizon. She immediately fell into worry, wondering what had happened to Squall. She began to run down the trail of ruin, seeing no variety in the surroundings; each sight was identical to the next.
Suddenly, not even in the blink of an eye, the other, younger sorceress stood in front of her, with her long, black hair flowing every which way, and her normally calm face poisoned and contorted with anger and hatred, focused on Rinoa. Her eyes, usually green, had turned a violent shade of red, as had her dress, and a necklace of disfigured, mutated skulls adorned her neck.
Rinoa, pale with shock, found that though she wanted to speak, her racing mind couldn't string two words together to form a thought. She slowly walked toward the sorceress, only to be pushed back by an invisible, magical force that shoved her to the ground.
The sorceress spoke, in a shrill, uncharacteristic voice. "Curse you! Curse you and curse SeeD! You are the source of all of my misery and wretchedness!"
"What are you talking about?" Rinoa inquired nervously. The sorceress responded by beginning to prepare for a powerful spell, a crimson aura forming about her.
"What are you doing!" Rinoa yelled, casting a weak Fire spell that distracted the apparent foe.
The sorceress's face contorted with disgust momentarily, but then broke into a wide, sardonic grin. "It isn't your time to die yet, anyway! You haven't suffered enough. You don't realize that two that you love are already gone, do you?"
"Two. . . Already gone?" Rinoa asked.
"You saw them with your own eyes," the sorceress said, her grin widening.
("My dreams? But. . . That doesn't mean anything, right?")
"You'll see," the sorceress said, softly chuckling, "that there is a fine line between dreams and reality. Two are gone, and twelve are yet to come."
"What?"
"It doesn't take much for that line between the abstract and concrete to be crossed. . ."
Suddenly, the sorceress's figure became distorted, twisting about, and then simply vanished, without a sign of her presence left.
Rinoa, not knowing what was happening, and her legs weakened from nervousness and fright, found that the only thing within her power to do was to kneel down upon the ground silently.
"Next stop, Timber. . . I repeat, next stop, Timber. . ."
Rinoa awakened, looking about. She saw Squall, laden with his all-too familiar black jacket and assortment of belts, glance at her momentarily and look away. That kind of apathy was to be expected from Squall, of course. . .
"Yo, Rinoa!" Zell said. "Wanna do something?"
"Um. . . Like what?" Rinoa replied.
"I dunno. Hey, do you play Triple Triad?"
"Yeah! How about a game or two?"
"Sounds good! I was getting pretty bored, you know?"
Rinoa and Zell plopped down on the floor, arranging cards in awkward-seeming patterns. Before too long, however, Zell suddenly froze in place, staring at the arrangement of red and blue cards.
"Whoa! You beat me!" Zell said, shocked.
"I learned from the best," Rinoa said, slyly smiling at Squall, who deliberately ignored her. "Now, I need that Tonberry King card you have."
"Oh, man. . ."
The sorceress in the top bunk tossed about slightly, then slowly sat up in her bed.
"How far are we?" she asked.
"Well, it's been four hours," Zell said, "so we'll probably be there in another three hours."
"Okay. . . Thank you." The sorceress replied.
As Rinoa spied upon the sorceress, the image of her wrath in the dream flashed before her eyes, and, for a moment, she thought that she could actually see that anger in the sorceress's face. However, despite her worries, the honest, yet empty expression on the sorceress's face reminded her that a dream was only a dream, and that in no way could the wanderings of the mind change reality.
I guess if you read this far, you're sticking with this and enjoying it at least a bit (or else you just have nothing better to do,) but I still hope that you enjoyed your reading! Please rest your eyes from reading momentarily to offer a review, be it critical, positive, or angry, and happy trails to each and every one of you!