Disclaimer: The only things that belong to me in this story are Keire, Mel,
Daniel, Avine, and a few others I shall introduce when I feel like it. All
else is the property of Squaresoft, much as I wish it wasn't.
A Word From the Author: I would like to clear up a point. Having realized that Adele's name is awfully similar to Adel, I would like to say that the two have absolutely nothing in common and are very two different people. Just for the benefit of clearing up potential confusion. Let the story begin!
Chapter Six: Forever Trapped
"What is a human being but a bundle of memories?"—Ed Greenwood
Everything smelt and tasted of disinfectant.
The black-haired girl closed her eyes, squeezed them together tightly to mask a soul deep agony that could no longer be hidden safely within the safe barriers of her heart. They had taken everything but her inner strength, one she had known she possessed, from her, and she would keep that as long as she could.
Even her magic, the magic of the fearsome sorceresses of legend, the gift—or curse—passed down through the centuries to fall upon the shoulders of Rinoa Heartilly- Leonheart, who had now unwittingly given it to her, the new successor of Hyne's last gift to the fallen humans.
The girl did not resent Rinoa. It was not her fault, nor was it her right to place blame where it was not deserved. Rinoa had not specifically ordered her powers to leave and find a new host. It had just happened, and she accepted the inevitable fact of it. Sighing, she raised her wrist, staring as if in a dream at the slim silver bracelet that graced her wrist like a handcuff and held her prisoner just like a cuff would.
No ordinary cuff, or she could have just blasted it and the whole room to smithereens in the heat of her rising hate for this place. But her sorceress powers would be useless here, while the Odine Bangle held it in check. Indeed, if her logic was right, it was the damned powers that had put her into this predicament in the first place.
She hugged her drawn up legs, resting her chin on her knees. She might have been beautiful underneath the streaks of dirt that smudged her face, but someone had robbed her of her natural vivacity, her bright vitality. Her heart beat and breath passed through her lungs, but her sapphire blue eyes were dead and tired, red-rimmed from exhaustion and tears. She lowered her head, her face shadowed by the temporary safety of her matted hair as it fell around her shoulders. It had been unwashed for days since the last time they had come to get her, and so was the rest of her body.
At least she was sane now. Sometimes, after the madness had seized her, when her indomitable will broke through the gray fog, she awoke battered and scratched by her own nails, leaving jagged cuts of welling blood behind, drool slithering from the side of her mouth, her body twitching spasmodically, while hysterical laughter poured unabated from her foam flecked lips, innocuously inappropriate for the grim atmosphere. That was the least she could be thankful for, in this terrible, white place where no one left alive—or unscathed by the tortures her prison offered.
At first, when she had first come, torn away from the warm bosom of her family and friends to suffer, in a place where love did not exist and the sun did not shine, she cried. She would cry hard and long, and got slapped for making a din. Her heart ached with homesickness and a terrible sorrow no balm but a gentle touch of a loved one could ease. She wept long after she had no tears left, in a new, bruised hole in the center of her once innocent heart.
No longer innocent. In her prison, innocence, kindness, compassion, they were left behind at the door. Everyone who worked here had had the choice to leave or stay. They came here of their own free will, and stored their emotions away behind a wall in their minds while they poked and studied a still screaming human being.
They were human on the outside, but deep within where no one but themselves could see (and did they quake silently at the ugly sight?) they were monsters.
The technicians and scientists that hurried past her cell on some unknown errand did not so much as glance as her, having more important things on their minds, much less spare her a single ounce of sympathy. They didn't care that she was a human being; they saw her as nothing more than a valuable specimen, who could lead to tremendous breakthroughs in the field of science. They didn't give a damn that she was an intelligent being that had hoped and dreamed just like them, that outside the walls that held her caged were people who loved her and hugged her, who worried at her disappearance. They didn't know, or care, that her name was Avine Swifter. To them, she was just 'Test Specimen XVIII.'
For a while she hoped, but as the days passed and the pain increased, the loneliness got to her, flagging her once optimistic spirit and beating down her hope. Even the strongest willed can let hope die when nothing happens to fulfill that hope. Avine held onto hope longer than she had thought possible, then it waned and hard on its departed heels came despair; a look into the endless future, of countless more violations and infinite 'experiments.'
She wanted to die, but they wouldn't even grant her that dignity. They were careful; she was to precious to them as a test subject to let her die. So she lived a living death, watching with empty, envious eyes as bodies were carried out past her cell. Their facial expressions bore grimaces, etched on their faces even in death, but their hollow eyes had a peaceful look about them that made Avine long to join them.
Sometimes they took her out of her prison, but though she was free of the bars, she was not free of the compound where she was housed in. Avine had never craved the gentle caress of the sunlight's fingers on her skin as much as she did now. No one ever misses something until it has flown away and is gone forever, out of reach.
She was strapped down, and alien fluids were injected into her lifeblood, which scorched and seared her veins with unbelievable intensity. Her screams never got beyond the door, however; the room was sound proof, though within her cries were desperate and held an edge of insanity. She knew that, slowly, day by day, her mind was giving out under the pressure, and sooner or later she would break, earning herself an undeserved fate worse than death. To be living, but unknowing of anything but the imaginary demons within her own brain...
Her teeth clamped down, chewing on her own lip, her world lost in a haze of roaring pain. She sought to focus on the smaller pain as blood trickled down her lip, but after a while, it was just too much. Bound to th operating table, with its icy hardness, she'd screamed and writhed long after her voice had shattered into shards of hoarse whispers, the merciless straps cutting cruelly into her tender wrists.
After the pain had faded and she had recovered sufficiently, the only thing her numbed mind would register was the white-coated doctors clustering around, scribbling notes and talking in low whispers, then the sheer injustice of it all would hit her with the force of a Ragnorak at high speed. She felt hate as she had never before, and a slight twinge of regret, quickly suppressed, that she would ever have to feel this emotion.
(Hyne, help me...one day, I swear I will kill them)
Many other operations came after that, once she had recuperated enough to ensure her survival for the next test, so many that they began to blend together in her mind and she fount it impossible to sort through the tangled jumble of her damaged mind and find out which was which. Memories of her previous life grew worn and torn with the passing of time, and soon all she remembered and clung to like a lifeline was her own name and others, whom she vaguely remembered. Each day her hold on them weakened a little, and they slid back to the back of her mind.
But Avine couldn't lose her precious memories just like that. She couldn't let her enemies win, and she perceived the preservation of her identity as a victory over them a sign that she had not yet been defeated.
Sometimes in her dreams she heard a voice. She knew not the source , but instinctively she trusted it. A kind, motherly voice, that soothed and repaired the broken pillars of her mind. She could not understand the words, but she accepted the well-meaning comfort gratefully. No matter if it was just a figment of her own imagination. She would need whatever respite she could get at this shaky period.
Gradually she grew to depend on the voice to support her. The owner of the voice appeared to care more about her welfare than even her friends, who still had not shown up to rescue her from her fate. At times she felt a surge of anger at them, they who had forgotten her and were undoubtedly gone on with their own lives.
The voice agreed with indignant sympathy, then sang her discontent away.
Her sense of time, too, distorted, and with her fragmented, disjointed memory and terrible burden, Avine opened herself increasingly to the voice, the only source of happiness in her miserable life. Soon, it spoke to her even in her waking hours. She could almost comprehend the words now. So close! ...so very close...
She thought, sometimes, when it eased her dreams and turned her nightmares away at sleep's door, that it must be the voice of an angel.
When the voice was silent, and the madness had retreated temporarily, she dreamed of blue skies, emerald meadows, the cool touch of the wind and the smell of life, of the newborn leaves in spring, and the eyes of the one she loved.
But when she opened her eyes and her dreams vanished at the edge of her awakening, when she saw the gray, stainless steel above, below, and around her, cutting off all contact with the outside world; when she strained and listened for the morning talk of birds as they complained about the rain, and heard only the endless electronic humming of machines, she would rail and shriek at her dreams for the mocking deception and dash her fists open to the bone on the unyielding, cold, uncaring walls of her prison, leaving smears of blood marring its surface. Then she would be dragged kicking and wailing away by technicians who sedated her—not out of concern for her safety and well-being, but because they couldn't afford to lose her, not after spending so much on her already.
When she awoke, her small face lifting to find the shadow of her captivity over her again, the insanity seized hold of her again and she was lost in the infinite maze of her own mind, turned against her, wandering its myriad, wandering corridors, trapped in the eternal darkness.
...forever trapped.
On the other side of the world, the man sat, chin cupped in curved hands, staring blankly into the glorious, endless vista of azure sea and sky, stretching into the horizon for eternity. His eyes did not see or appreciate the beautiful view, however; he was only pretending he was. Instead, the scene he truly saw was that of war, the inevitable war that loomed like a dark, threatening titan in the near future.
He let his hands fall with a sigh, closing his eyes and tilting his head back slightly. He felt the walls of his own cage closing in hungrily on him with malicious intent, and could almost hear the voices of his captors, shrill and hurting as those of harpies, sting his ears with high, chill laughter. They were the puppet masters, and he—he was the puppet.
Dancing every time they pulled his strings—
No.
Now he was seeing the blood, hearing the screams, feeling the close, grim presence of the Reaper freeze the surrounding air. In his mind's eye, guns spat and silvery blades flashed, and soldiers on both sides fell in hundreds, some wearing familiar faces, frozen in agony, crumpled and broken like a carelessly thrown doll discarded by a petulant child, empty eyes turned beseechingly to the heavens...
...he wondered if they saw anything...
...forgotten as relentless, booted feet of both friend and foe trod over them, trampling their mangled bodies into dust on the bloodstained ground...
(no no no no NO NO NO NOOOO!!!!)
But it would happen. Eventually.
And it would all be his fault.
His.
A soft, anguished moan spilled out over his lips like a little waterfall of torment. He wouldn't be doing the actual killing. But he might as well stab them in the back with a dagger for all the good those words might mean. It was by HIS hands that events would lead to that grisly and unavoidable confusion.
He was trapped, trapped by his loyalty, his guilt, trapped on both sides. He could not betray one without betraying the other. Avine Swifter's intense blue eyes seemed to regard him gravely, and he winced, remembering his role in her capture. Yet another life that he had ruined.
( Oh, Avine, I'm so damned sorry, sacrificing you and the whole of Garden for my own selfish needs...)
A small breeze ran velvety little fingers through his blond hair, teasingly pulling at the ends of the blond strands. He barely noticed, so preoccupied was he by his inner battle.
When would they call again, he wondered bitterly. When would thet next whistle for their obedient pet to fetch? The transmitter implanted behind his ear remained mercifully silent, though.
For the time being.
He got up as the breeze grew to an insistent wind which tugged ineffectually at his shirttails. It was getting cold. He sheathed his gunblade in one smooth motion, took a last long look outside, at the light where he did not belong and never would.
Trapped. Forever trapped. He wore no chains, he walked, ate slept where and when he pleased, no bars held him prisoner, no walls shut him in. But he was a prisoner nonetheless, just like poor Avine Swifter, just that the manacles that held him were of a much different kind. They were forged by himself.
Ironically, he wouldn't have been suffering this conscious crisis and would never have betrayed Garden if the heroes of the Sorceress War had never made him see the light. Now, to defend his friends, he was forced to move against other friends.
He wanted to scream at the circumstances that had brought him to this spot. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw and bleeding and his helpless frustration had been vented. But he dared not. Such an action might bring unwanted attention to himself, and questions might be asked that he wouldn't know how to answer.
When he was on the side of the demons in the second Sorceress War before, he had learned how to let go. He had just let all those emotional bonds go and exhilarated in his freedom. But it had left a huge empty hole behind that he had tried to fill and sate with power. It hadn't worked. Friendship brought pain and plenty of stress, but it also brought a good and loyal friend who was willing to listen.
He wished he could let go now, though. At least he would spare many people a lot of hardship.
An old saying, unbidden, came to him. 'Nothing done out of love comes to a bad end.'
He snorted to himself. Well, there was always a first time. He was a living example. He leaned back and stared morosely at his wrists, at the invisible cuffs, the cold iron of his guilt chaffing his soul with its oppressive heaviness.
Trapped, indeed.
Betrayal
The worst crime of all
To betray a person that trusts you
Just like that;
Shattered
The trust broken so easily
So hard to repair
Eve if it ever mends
When you look deep into their eyes
You see
Yourself;
A person who is a betrayer.
Author's Ending Note: Hee hee, the first chapter in my story that doesn't star Sephiroth! Hope that fans of everyone's favorite silver-haired villain aren't too disappointed. Don't worry, he's definitely up in the next chapter. This chapter was just to let you know how Avine was doing ( hmmm...doesn't all that angst sound a teensy bit familiar?) and the thoughts of the blond one ( whose identity shall not be revealed until I say so.) Bye, see you around later, and DO NOT forget to do you-know-what, okay? And the poem is original, owned by me, I swear!
Thanks to:
Omega Paladin—tee hee, thanks!
Zero-no-uta—I definitely will!
Dark Knight Gafgar—wow, nice of you to review every single chapter of my story!
Delphine Pryde—I'm afraid that Sephiroth and Squall will have minimum contact throughout the whole story since it is the OCs who take part mostly. However, Seph WILL be working with Arne a lot later on (Squall's son, in case there are any forgetful people around here)
Noacat—Well, here's a new chappy for you to enjoy!
Meeeeee—I hope I have the correct no. of 'e's in your name...
A Word From the Author: I would like to clear up a point. Having realized that Adele's name is awfully similar to Adel, I would like to say that the two have absolutely nothing in common and are very two different people. Just for the benefit of clearing up potential confusion. Let the story begin!
Chapter Six: Forever Trapped
"What is a human being but a bundle of memories?"—Ed Greenwood
Everything smelt and tasted of disinfectant.
The black-haired girl closed her eyes, squeezed them together tightly to mask a soul deep agony that could no longer be hidden safely within the safe barriers of her heart. They had taken everything but her inner strength, one she had known she possessed, from her, and she would keep that as long as she could.
Even her magic, the magic of the fearsome sorceresses of legend, the gift—or curse—passed down through the centuries to fall upon the shoulders of Rinoa Heartilly- Leonheart, who had now unwittingly given it to her, the new successor of Hyne's last gift to the fallen humans.
The girl did not resent Rinoa. It was not her fault, nor was it her right to place blame where it was not deserved. Rinoa had not specifically ordered her powers to leave and find a new host. It had just happened, and she accepted the inevitable fact of it. Sighing, she raised her wrist, staring as if in a dream at the slim silver bracelet that graced her wrist like a handcuff and held her prisoner just like a cuff would.
No ordinary cuff, or she could have just blasted it and the whole room to smithereens in the heat of her rising hate for this place. But her sorceress powers would be useless here, while the Odine Bangle held it in check. Indeed, if her logic was right, it was the damned powers that had put her into this predicament in the first place.
She hugged her drawn up legs, resting her chin on her knees. She might have been beautiful underneath the streaks of dirt that smudged her face, but someone had robbed her of her natural vivacity, her bright vitality. Her heart beat and breath passed through her lungs, but her sapphire blue eyes were dead and tired, red-rimmed from exhaustion and tears. She lowered her head, her face shadowed by the temporary safety of her matted hair as it fell around her shoulders. It had been unwashed for days since the last time they had come to get her, and so was the rest of her body.
At least she was sane now. Sometimes, after the madness had seized her, when her indomitable will broke through the gray fog, she awoke battered and scratched by her own nails, leaving jagged cuts of welling blood behind, drool slithering from the side of her mouth, her body twitching spasmodically, while hysterical laughter poured unabated from her foam flecked lips, innocuously inappropriate for the grim atmosphere. That was the least she could be thankful for, in this terrible, white place where no one left alive—or unscathed by the tortures her prison offered.
At first, when she had first come, torn away from the warm bosom of her family and friends to suffer, in a place where love did not exist and the sun did not shine, she cried. She would cry hard and long, and got slapped for making a din. Her heart ached with homesickness and a terrible sorrow no balm but a gentle touch of a loved one could ease. She wept long after she had no tears left, in a new, bruised hole in the center of her once innocent heart.
No longer innocent. In her prison, innocence, kindness, compassion, they were left behind at the door. Everyone who worked here had had the choice to leave or stay. They came here of their own free will, and stored their emotions away behind a wall in their minds while they poked and studied a still screaming human being.
They were human on the outside, but deep within where no one but themselves could see (and did they quake silently at the ugly sight?) they were monsters.
The technicians and scientists that hurried past her cell on some unknown errand did not so much as glance as her, having more important things on their minds, much less spare her a single ounce of sympathy. They didn't care that she was a human being; they saw her as nothing more than a valuable specimen, who could lead to tremendous breakthroughs in the field of science. They didn't give a damn that she was an intelligent being that had hoped and dreamed just like them, that outside the walls that held her caged were people who loved her and hugged her, who worried at her disappearance. They didn't know, or care, that her name was Avine Swifter. To them, she was just 'Test Specimen XVIII.'
For a while she hoped, but as the days passed and the pain increased, the loneliness got to her, flagging her once optimistic spirit and beating down her hope. Even the strongest willed can let hope die when nothing happens to fulfill that hope. Avine held onto hope longer than she had thought possible, then it waned and hard on its departed heels came despair; a look into the endless future, of countless more violations and infinite 'experiments.'
She wanted to die, but they wouldn't even grant her that dignity. They were careful; she was to precious to them as a test subject to let her die. So she lived a living death, watching with empty, envious eyes as bodies were carried out past her cell. Their facial expressions bore grimaces, etched on their faces even in death, but their hollow eyes had a peaceful look about them that made Avine long to join them.
Sometimes they took her out of her prison, but though she was free of the bars, she was not free of the compound where she was housed in. Avine had never craved the gentle caress of the sunlight's fingers on her skin as much as she did now. No one ever misses something until it has flown away and is gone forever, out of reach.
She was strapped down, and alien fluids were injected into her lifeblood, which scorched and seared her veins with unbelievable intensity. Her screams never got beyond the door, however; the room was sound proof, though within her cries were desperate and held an edge of insanity. She knew that, slowly, day by day, her mind was giving out under the pressure, and sooner or later she would break, earning herself an undeserved fate worse than death. To be living, but unknowing of anything but the imaginary demons within her own brain...
Her teeth clamped down, chewing on her own lip, her world lost in a haze of roaring pain. She sought to focus on the smaller pain as blood trickled down her lip, but after a while, it was just too much. Bound to th operating table, with its icy hardness, she'd screamed and writhed long after her voice had shattered into shards of hoarse whispers, the merciless straps cutting cruelly into her tender wrists.
After the pain had faded and she had recovered sufficiently, the only thing her numbed mind would register was the white-coated doctors clustering around, scribbling notes and talking in low whispers, then the sheer injustice of it all would hit her with the force of a Ragnorak at high speed. She felt hate as she had never before, and a slight twinge of regret, quickly suppressed, that she would ever have to feel this emotion.
(Hyne, help me...one day, I swear I will kill them)
Many other operations came after that, once she had recuperated enough to ensure her survival for the next test, so many that they began to blend together in her mind and she fount it impossible to sort through the tangled jumble of her damaged mind and find out which was which. Memories of her previous life grew worn and torn with the passing of time, and soon all she remembered and clung to like a lifeline was her own name and others, whom she vaguely remembered. Each day her hold on them weakened a little, and they slid back to the back of her mind.
But Avine couldn't lose her precious memories just like that. She couldn't let her enemies win, and she perceived the preservation of her identity as a victory over them a sign that she had not yet been defeated.
Sometimes in her dreams she heard a voice. She knew not the source , but instinctively she trusted it. A kind, motherly voice, that soothed and repaired the broken pillars of her mind. She could not understand the words, but she accepted the well-meaning comfort gratefully. No matter if it was just a figment of her own imagination. She would need whatever respite she could get at this shaky period.
Gradually she grew to depend on the voice to support her. The owner of the voice appeared to care more about her welfare than even her friends, who still had not shown up to rescue her from her fate. At times she felt a surge of anger at them, they who had forgotten her and were undoubtedly gone on with their own lives.
The voice agreed with indignant sympathy, then sang her discontent away.
Her sense of time, too, distorted, and with her fragmented, disjointed memory and terrible burden, Avine opened herself increasingly to the voice, the only source of happiness in her miserable life. Soon, it spoke to her even in her waking hours. She could almost comprehend the words now. So close! ...so very close...
She thought, sometimes, when it eased her dreams and turned her nightmares away at sleep's door, that it must be the voice of an angel.
When the voice was silent, and the madness had retreated temporarily, she dreamed of blue skies, emerald meadows, the cool touch of the wind and the smell of life, of the newborn leaves in spring, and the eyes of the one she loved.
But when she opened her eyes and her dreams vanished at the edge of her awakening, when she saw the gray, stainless steel above, below, and around her, cutting off all contact with the outside world; when she strained and listened for the morning talk of birds as they complained about the rain, and heard only the endless electronic humming of machines, she would rail and shriek at her dreams for the mocking deception and dash her fists open to the bone on the unyielding, cold, uncaring walls of her prison, leaving smears of blood marring its surface. Then she would be dragged kicking and wailing away by technicians who sedated her—not out of concern for her safety and well-being, but because they couldn't afford to lose her, not after spending so much on her already.
When she awoke, her small face lifting to find the shadow of her captivity over her again, the insanity seized hold of her again and she was lost in the infinite maze of her own mind, turned against her, wandering its myriad, wandering corridors, trapped in the eternal darkness.
...forever trapped.
On the other side of the world, the man sat, chin cupped in curved hands, staring blankly into the glorious, endless vista of azure sea and sky, stretching into the horizon for eternity. His eyes did not see or appreciate the beautiful view, however; he was only pretending he was. Instead, the scene he truly saw was that of war, the inevitable war that loomed like a dark, threatening titan in the near future.
He let his hands fall with a sigh, closing his eyes and tilting his head back slightly. He felt the walls of his own cage closing in hungrily on him with malicious intent, and could almost hear the voices of his captors, shrill and hurting as those of harpies, sting his ears with high, chill laughter. They were the puppet masters, and he—he was the puppet.
Dancing every time they pulled his strings—
No.
Now he was seeing the blood, hearing the screams, feeling the close, grim presence of the Reaper freeze the surrounding air. In his mind's eye, guns spat and silvery blades flashed, and soldiers on both sides fell in hundreds, some wearing familiar faces, frozen in agony, crumpled and broken like a carelessly thrown doll discarded by a petulant child, empty eyes turned beseechingly to the heavens...
...he wondered if they saw anything...
...forgotten as relentless, booted feet of both friend and foe trod over them, trampling their mangled bodies into dust on the bloodstained ground...
(no no no no NO NO NO NOOOO!!!!)
But it would happen. Eventually.
And it would all be his fault.
His.
A soft, anguished moan spilled out over his lips like a little waterfall of torment. He wouldn't be doing the actual killing. But he might as well stab them in the back with a dagger for all the good those words might mean. It was by HIS hands that events would lead to that grisly and unavoidable confusion.
He was trapped, trapped by his loyalty, his guilt, trapped on both sides. He could not betray one without betraying the other. Avine Swifter's intense blue eyes seemed to regard him gravely, and he winced, remembering his role in her capture. Yet another life that he had ruined.
( Oh, Avine, I'm so damned sorry, sacrificing you and the whole of Garden for my own selfish needs...)
A small breeze ran velvety little fingers through his blond hair, teasingly pulling at the ends of the blond strands. He barely noticed, so preoccupied was he by his inner battle.
When would they call again, he wondered bitterly. When would thet next whistle for their obedient pet to fetch? The transmitter implanted behind his ear remained mercifully silent, though.
For the time being.
He got up as the breeze grew to an insistent wind which tugged ineffectually at his shirttails. It was getting cold. He sheathed his gunblade in one smooth motion, took a last long look outside, at the light where he did not belong and never would.
Trapped. Forever trapped. He wore no chains, he walked, ate slept where and when he pleased, no bars held him prisoner, no walls shut him in. But he was a prisoner nonetheless, just like poor Avine Swifter, just that the manacles that held him were of a much different kind. They were forged by himself.
Ironically, he wouldn't have been suffering this conscious crisis and would never have betrayed Garden if the heroes of the Sorceress War had never made him see the light. Now, to defend his friends, he was forced to move against other friends.
He wanted to scream at the circumstances that had brought him to this spot. He wanted to scream until his throat was raw and bleeding and his helpless frustration had been vented. But he dared not. Such an action might bring unwanted attention to himself, and questions might be asked that he wouldn't know how to answer.
When he was on the side of the demons in the second Sorceress War before, he had learned how to let go. He had just let all those emotional bonds go and exhilarated in his freedom. But it had left a huge empty hole behind that he had tried to fill and sate with power. It hadn't worked. Friendship brought pain and plenty of stress, but it also brought a good and loyal friend who was willing to listen.
He wished he could let go now, though. At least he would spare many people a lot of hardship.
An old saying, unbidden, came to him. 'Nothing done out of love comes to a bad end.'
He snorted to himself. Well, there was always a first time. He was a living example. He leaned back and stared morosely at his wrists, at the invisible cuffs, the cold iron of his guilt chaffing his soul with its oppressive heaviness.
Trapped, indeed.
Betrayal
The worst crime of all
To betray a person that trusts you
Just like that;
Shattered
The trust broken so easily
So hard to repair
Eve if it ever mends
When you look deep into their eyes
You see
Yourself;
A person who is a betrayer.
Author's Ending Note: Hee hee, the first chapter in my story that doesn't star Sephiroth! Hope that fans of everyone's favorite silver-haired villain aren't too disappointed. Don't worry, he's definitely up in the next chapter. This chapter was just to let you know how Avine was doing ( hmmm...doesn't all that angst sound a teensy bit familiar?) and the thoughts of the blond one ( whose identity shall not be revealed until I say so.) Bye, see you around later, and DO NOT forget to do you-know-what, okay? And the poem is original, owned by me, I swear!
Thanks to:
Omega Paladin—tee hee, thanks!
Zero-no-uta—I definitely will!
Dark Knight Gafgar—wow, nice of you to review every single chapter of my story!
Delphine Pryde—I'm afraid that Sephiroth and Squall will have minimum contact throughout the whole story since it is the OCs who take part mostly. However, Seph WILL be working with Arne a lot later on (Squall's son, in case there are any forgetful people around here)
Noacat—Well, here's a new chappy for you to enjoy!
Meeeeee—I hope I have the correct no. of 'e's in your name...
