Concentric Circles, Perimeters
by Cryptographic DeLurk
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AN: This story takes place at least a decade post-canon, and isn't Dawn of the New World compliant. And I hesitate to call the style experimental, but it's highly aesthetic at the very least.
Read & Relax.
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The successor's estate was at the centre of Mizuho, built half on land and half on sticks over the running stream that carried water through the rest of the village in a web of smaller streams. It was at once completely surrounded and completely isolated.
Sheena moved through it silently, the way a ninja should, careful not to let the wooden floors creek, or the shouji rattle. There was little clutter, nothing to trip or fall over. Large & airy rooms. Quiet but for the babble of the stream and the flutter of the wind against the chimes and bells she had hung. Sheena was not one to narrate her own life and didn't fill the quiet with her own words.
Her term as Village Chief had gone more smoothly than she'd once anticipated. She had done well to bring prosperous times to Mizuho, both in the broad strokes of her direction in hunting, fishing, and farming, and her ability to negotiate with the Capital. And she had more than proved her proficiency as a summoner. It did not make her well liked, but she was respected and feared, perhaps even pitied, in equal measures.
She provided guidance and services and settled disputes when the need arose. She arranged assignments and trade and secrets in a tightly bound ledger. She called Undine to flood the fields in the spring and Efreet to light bonfires in the winter.
She lit incense at her Grandfather's grave. She took walks through Gaoracchia Forest alone. She visited the Temple of Lightning sometimes. Because she didn't dare call upon Volt while she was in the village, or in the Forest.
He had, in some ways, taken away everyone that was important to her. In others, he had given her everything. She wasn't really friends with any of the summon spirits, not the way she had been with Corrine, but she was familiar with them in a way she wasn't with many. She sat, and poured herself cold tea, and talked to Volt in the way you only could with old enemies that did not share a tongue.
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She did not know why Colette had come, but she had one day, crossing the field in a swarm that left the land torn and sundered in her wake. The dogs had dug up nearly the entire field of radishes, and Sheena had had to make amends on her behalf.
"I'm terribly sorry about all this," Colette said, as they tried to smooth the land back into neat rows and bury everything they'd unearthed.
Sheena hadn't had the heart to tell her it was okay. "What brings you here?" Sheena asked. Those who could find Mizuho still rarely came without wanting something.
"I travel everywhere now," Colette said.
Her hands were covered in premature wrinkles and dirt, and her hair was cut above her shoulders. The dogs came to her hands and licked them plaintively, as if asking for forgiveness. Colette reached to pet them without pause. She didn't even need to think about granting their request.
Sheena flinched as they stalked around her. The dogs were large, and circled her like wolves circled their prey.
"Why do you have so many?" Sheena asked.
"I picked up Pocket near Soda Geyser, and rescued Horace from a mean owner, and purchased Blankey from a breeder in Asgard." Colette pointed to three dogs indistinguishable in the crowd. "And the rest just started following me. There are a lot of us now."
One of the dogs snarled and bared its teeth at Sheena. Several more took up barking.
"Oh, Gascard, you don't need to be like that! It's just Sheena!" Colette laughed and ran her hand fearlessly across the dogs gums, over the whites and yellows of its teeth. The dog whimpered and licked its nose, though it continued to watch Sheena suspiciously.
"Aren't they cute?" Colette asked.
They were most certainly not. There were dozens of them, with only a handful that weren't so large as to come up past Sheena's waist. They were ugly tans and browns, with dark eyes and powerful jaws and sharp teeth, and none of them seemed at all friendly.
Sheena laughed anxiously and said something to please Colette, and Colette beamed.
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There was enough room at the estate, and Sheena set up some netting to pen the dogs for the night. She set out Colette's futon on the opposite end of her bedroom, with too much space between them.
In a lot of ways Colette's sense of style had not changed. She might have been older, but she still had that strange mix of clumsiness and grace. She wore a simple blue dress and boots over a pair of leggings.
Sheena felt very frumpy and desexed next to her, in her rusty brown jacket and trousers, her traditional garb as Mizuho's chief. She pulled on an equally frumpy robe and climbed beneath her coverlet and stared at the ceiling, as Colette talked about visiting Genis and Lloyd in Sybak, and Raine in Asgard, and ruins of old towers.
The dogs whined and scratched and eventually one shook the screen door open, and filed into the room. Colette cooed, and did not seem to have the heart to send them away. Sheena did not have the bravery. She pulled the covers up to her nose and slowly watched the dogs file in, one or two at a time, until they were an ocean between her and Colette – too tempestuous to travel.
Colette continued talking, over the growing collection of growls and whines and snores.
"I wanted to fly down the mineshaft after you," Colette reminisced. "But Raine and Kratos stopped me. I kept thinking- What was the point of having wings if I didn't get to use them like that?" She laughed. "I must have seemed really silly, simpering after an assassin."
"I wasn't a very good one." Sheena pulled the covers up further, hiding her eyes and cheeks and shame, even in the darkness. She'd known Colette was a target, and it had taken Sheena all of one minute to grow fond of her even so.
"I'm glad you weren't good at it." Colette laughed. "I mean, of course I would be."
"I'm glad too." Of Sheena's many failures, it was the first she'd managed to be proud of.
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The dogs needed to be taken hunting, because there was no way for Colette to feed so many of them otherwise. They walked through Gaoracchia Forest, digging up roots and vines and tearing apart monsters. It would have made for a pleasant walk, with Colette and Sheena safe at the centre of the pack. If not for the fact that whenever Sheena moved too close to her companion, the dogs would growl and snap at her. They swarmed protectively around Colette, arranging themselves in one line after another, like rings on a tree stump, each one pressing Sheena further and further out.
The sunlight fell, sifting unevenly through the foliage of the trees, and Sheena watched from afar as it speckled over Colette's nose and cheeks and caught against her hair.
You're beautiful, Sheena thought.
"What did you say?" Colette called, over the din.
"It's a beautiful day," Sheena called, cupping her hands around her mouth like a megaphone.
Colette called something back. Sheena could not hear her.
After a while Colette removed the chakrams from her back, and spun them idly in her hands as she walked. She lifted them and spun – circles upon circles. But though there were monsters ahead of them, ones the pack was intent on destroying, Colette held her hand.
She laughed, after a while spent enduring her own uselessness and futility. "I'm afraid to throw," she shouted to Sheena. "I have too many friends I might hit by mistake."
Sheena cupped her hands again – circles upon circles – spoke through them. "I used to be like that too. Every time I tried my summonings."
They walked out of the forest and into the plains that sat before the cliffs before the sea. And the sunlight glimmered then off the shiny peaks of the ocean waves.
Most of the dogs took off, racing the cliffs to herd deer, hares, monsters. They picked off prey – the weak and slow and dying – surrounded and devoured in gruesome, bloody messes. Or at least that's what was happening as far as Sheena could tell. They were far away. White and brown and red dots in the distance.
The dogs that stayed behind seemed more docile than usual, and Sheena did not know what to make of them until Colette bent down to them. "Ooph, you ate too much already, didn't you?" she would say to them. "Is it time for nappies?" And she gave them belly rubs when they bared their tummies to her.
Sheena thought this a good moment to approach, but when she came too close the dogs flipped back around on their stomachs and growled. Sheena backed away nervously.
"They don't seem to like me very much," she told Colette.
"Oh, that's not how Petunia feels," Colette said, rubbing the face of the nearest dog so its black lips and pink gums smooshed together.
The dog closed its eyes and looked content for all the world.
"They're only a little defensive. They just need some time to warm up to you," Colette reassured.
She stretched, and a flair of purple wings spread out from her back, out of thin air.
"Do you want to go flying?"
Sheena grimaced and gave a half-hearted laugh. "Only one of us has wings."
"I can hold onto you!" Colette flexed one bicep and laid her other arm over it. "I may not look it, but I've gotten pretty strong."
"…Maybe next time," Sheena declined.
But she summoned the Sylph. And Sephie and Yutis put their weapons down to race through the sky, playing tag with Colette. And Fairess hovered near Sheena and cast spells to buffet them further into the air.
It looked terrifying to Sheena, the rough way the wind blasted Colette higher, carried her back down, flipped her side to side and upside down. She was batted side to side over the plain, like a kite. And the dogs abandoned their hunting to chase after her, howling mournfully as if they were afraid she'd fall. But their fears proved unfounded. Colette always regained her bearings, righting herself in the air, chasing after the Sephie's taunts and Yutis's cheers.
"I could send you up pretty high too," Fairess offered softly. "You already know how to jump and how to fall."
Sheena remembered being young, too young, back when her parents were still alive. Every day she'd practice running and climbing and jumping, until she could leap twice her height into thin air. Free fall back down.
"You could go fly with them too," Sheena pointed out moodily.
Fairess arranged her shield more stiffly in front of her. "I could. I enjoy flying. But I enjoy relaxing and casting spells from afar, too… Do you?"
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Zelos was the most regular of Sheena's visitors. She saw him whenever she needed to visit the Capital. But he would only come to Mizuho when he fought with a wife, peddling some piteous story about how wronged he had been – wrongly accused and bullied and yelled at and cast aside.
Sheena would roll her eyes and grill him, trying to find the gaps in his testimonies. He was a philanderer at heart, and she had no doubt that he was the one in the wrong and the stories he spun were only to make himself look good. She scolded him for not being a more attentive spouse, and hit at his wandering hands. But in the end she bothered Tiga for red sea bream and aired out the guest bedroom. She cut him bowls of sashimi and curry rice with pineapple.
"Ah, nobody makes it like you do, my sweet Sheena," Zelos would say with a smile a little too genuine. And Sheena would blush in spite of herself. He still had a pretty face, even after all this time.
He would stay a few days while they reminisced. And then he'd return to Meltokio, and the divorce announcement would follow a month or two later.
The divorce announcements stopped when he married Queen Hilda, although the fights and the visits did not. Sheena would make fun of him – their wayward king. Zelos would remind her that he was only prince consort, and wasn't that a much more fun and romantic title?
Sheena found Zelos already in her home this time. She returned from her morning routine – sets of kata, tour of the village, hours in the willow grove sitting still until her joints ached. She let the motions of hand and brush fall onto the paper seals like stars, and imbued them with magic. Then bound them in packs for later use.
She was setting a seal for safety and fortune across the door, and when she opened it there was a long and busy corridor to an open room. Sheena recognised Colette and Zelos by their hands, gesturing to each other across the table.
Travelling up the corridor was like travelling upstream. She struggled against an increasingly tumultuous and viscous current of dogs. She tried not to touch any of them, dancing and sliding her feet into the gaps.
When she reached the door to the room, the occupants waved. Colette – enthusiastically. Zelos – lazily, with a smug grin. He seemed to have known that Colette was here in advance, because he had come bearing gifts: On the low table – a half eaten cake in a folded paper box – bursting with sliced fruit and whipped cream. Against the wall – a sack of dog treats with a firmly tied drawstring.
Zelos seemed to have no problems with the dogs. And the dogs seemed to have no problem with him. A few were laid sprawled out over his lap and curled into his back, and he pet them with lazy strokes of his hand.
"Sheena~ I was just telling Colette about the new opera house they opened in Meltokio! It's a perfect place for a date! You two should come visit sometime~!"
Colette leaned over the table and scrambled for the box and the disposable paper knife inside. "Would you like some cake?" she offered.
Sheena was not sure if it was the dogs stalking about, or simply the fact that she felt suddenly like an intruder in her own home. They seemed more comfortable here than she was. Angelic and picturesque. She was half sure it was only illusion, but they seemed to glow – like she could see the outline of gossamer wings streaming from their backs.
Her heart seemed lost somewhere in her throat. She felt like clawing at the walls. Scurrying up them like a beetle. Sheena gave her apologies and hurried away.
She talked to each of them separately.
Colette hugged him, too long and too tight, at every greeting and farewell. And Sheena watched them and tried to master her jealousy. And when he was gone Sheena spoke.
"You know he's not serious about anyone?" she said. And when Colette blinked, confused, she extrapolated. "Don't let him draw you in with warmth and personability. He's been married half a dozen times and, if he wasn't serious about any of them, you won't be the exception."
"Oh!" Colette cottoned on. "You mean-!" The laughter pealed from her lips like song. "We've already- I already know we're not compatible."
Colette's smile was easy and certain and inscrutable. And Sheena wanted to ask. She wanted to know how Colette knew and what gave her that confidence. But in the end she was too intimidated to do so. She could think of a hundred reasons she might not want to know the answer, and number one on the list was this: What if Colette was that confident about the same thing regarding Sheena?
"Sheena, hunny, always worrying~" Zelos sighed later, as he flung an overfamiliar arm over her back. "You're always making things too complicated. Why don't you relax? Enjoy yourself a little bit more?"
Sheena told him that this was spoken like someone who didn't know what the word 'responsibility' meant.
"You know they can smell fear," he said, seemingly out of nowhere. "They react to it. She reacts to it too. Maybe not consciously, but she holds back because she can tell you're frightened, and doesn't want to be the reason why."
Part of her wanted to shove him away. To strike her palm directly in his gut. How dare he read into Sheena's feelings and actions and make up his mind about them before Sheena herself had.
But perhaps he could sense her ambivalence too, because he reacted. Pulled away from her and flitted away before she could come to a decision.
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"He's right, you know? The enemy will always be able to sense your fear."
Sheena matched Celsius's movements – kick for kick, punch for punch, blow for blow. Sheena had gotten slower with age, but sturdier somehow. Her strikes were more weighty, she was more difficult to push back. And she hadn't lost any of that technical precision that always had her just an edge up on her peers.
Cold radiated through every one of Celsius's strikes, leaving frost on Sheena's skin and nails. Shenna twisted around her, and kneed her directly in the stomach. Celsius held her abdomen strong and firm, and responded with a sweeping blow that cut a mountain of sharp ice up through the marsh.
Sheena flipped back, dodging out of the way as she put distance between herself and her sparring partner.
She took a second to catch her breath, and laughed. "You-! You could have had me impaled!" she accused.
"No, I couldn't have," Celsius countered. "You're not afraid. You were going to dodge," she said, in complete faith. "Pact Maker."
It was true. Sheena huffed a few more laughs, through heavy breath, before running forward at Celsius again. Sharp, precise blows aimed at twisting each others wrists and ankles. They leaned into the movement, following the contortions as they slowed gradually to a more languid exchange, like a slow dance. The ovular outline of Celsius's muscle and blue skin.
"You're not afraid of Fenrir," Celsius pointed out, after their heart rates had slowed enough to allow for speech.
Sheena looked sideways, to where Fenrir was licking at his paws, curled up in a dry spot in the wetlands. "Of course not," she huffed.
"His teeth are colder and sharper than any of those dogs," Celsius said smugly. "You should know, since he's bitten you before."
Sheena snorted. That was a long time ago.
"An enemy you can't fight is different," Sheena said.
"There is no enemy you can't fight," Celsius responded, with a coy shove at Sheena's shoulder. "In some form or another."
This was, Sheena knew, the extent of her wisdom.
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Zelos hugged her, too long and too tight, but Sheena let him. It was a long trip back to the capital. Longer since the world had reorganised itself to twice its original size. She didn't know how soon it would be before she saw him again. So she also let him whisper into her ear:
"You should tell her, before she moves on again."
He waved and left without any further clarification.
Sheena hadn't realised, not until she was halfway through a game of go with Tiga, and Colette walked in on her and laughed. Zelos had snuck an ornament into her hair. She'd pulled it out – a little ornamental comb with a purple butterfly. So he hadn't just brought presents for Colette.
Sheena put the comb away and forgot what he'd said. For two days at least.
It was raining. And the water came down not in an airy drizzle, but in heavy, smothering sheets that flooded all the roads through town and battered against the roof oppressively. Sheena unhooked her bells and chimes from where the hung on the porch, and brought them inside where it was warm and dry, save for one leak in the kitchen that Colette had found and foisted a bucket under.
All the dogs needed to be inside too, because otherwise they would be soaking wet and howling scared at the thunder and lightning that shook the house. Truth be told they were already doing that, but at least in a place where their cries would be muffled for the other residents of the village.
Colette soothed them the best she could, although most seemed not in a mood to be soothed. Sheena huddled in her blanket, watching as they picked petty fights amongst themselves – chewing at each others' legs and nipping at ears and jaws, and then gently licking the wounds just as easily.
Colette took a brush to the dogs who had gotten caught in the showers, trying to tease through matted and impromptuly washed fur. The smell it kicked up in the room was musty and dirty.
"I'm thinking about heading to Ozette next," Colette shouted over all of it.
Sheena wondered why Colette was talking about this now, when the roads and sky and all the world around them was cold and flooded and alight like judgement. There would be no clear road out of Mizuho for days, longer if there were landslides through the mountain passes.
"Why would you go there?" Sheena called. "That village was destroyed. There's nothing there."
"That's not true," Colette protested. "Presea carved a wooden statue of a giant bear. They say it has moss growing on its back. I want to see it."
"Don't go," Sheena said quietly, so that Colette couldn't hear her above the dogs and the storm. Or at least don't go without me, she thought. But that was an irresponsible thing for the Village Chief to say, no matter how isolated Sheena was here.
"I can't hear you," Colette called to her. "Sorry. I know I've taken advantage of your hospitality. I know it's not easy with all the friends I bring with me. There's not many places that will have me. And Iselia just isn't home without Father."
The entire house seemed to rattle – thunder and lightning and Volt and all the dogs and all the ghosts and Colette. I'm scared. I'm scared… Sheena breathed. "Don't be sorry. It hasn't been a burden at all," she lied. "Don't go."
"I can't hear you," Colette called.
"Then come closer to me!" Sheena screeched, sitting up and pulling her coverlet more tightly around her. "I can't even get near you without one of them snapping at me!"
It was all wrong. Frustrations and ugliness and Sheena blaming circumstance and a pack of animals when she was the one too afraid to get close. She had shouted it too loudly and angrily.
Or perhaps it was exactly the right volume for Colette to be able to hear her over all the noise.
Colette set down the brush, and waded through the crowd. Breaking line after consecutive line as she approached Sheena. Never meeting resistance, save for a dog rubbing its back fondly against her leggings. Maybe it was that easy.
"Sorry," Colette said. Her face was flushed and Sheena felt terrible – it shouldn't be her apologising. "I thought I was bothering you or being a little too obvious or, well, it seemed like you were a little afraid whenever I tried to get close."
"I was," Sheena croaked, digging her torso out of the blankets she'd covered herself in. I am would have been more accurate. "C-Can I touch you? Will they let me hug you?" she asked, glancing nervously around at the pack spread about the room.
"The doggies?" Colette asked. "I don't think they can stop you," she said curiously. "You know it's my decision and not theirs, right?"
Sheena felt very stupid, and took this as an excuse to cling to Colette's legs, which were the thing closest in reach.
Colette laughed and dropped to her knees, which made her dress ride up against Sheena's face.
"I want to see the bear statue," Sheena mumbled into the dress.
"Okay!" Colette agreed. "Then we can leave in a few days, after the weather has settled."
And then I want you to come home with me, Sheena thought, although the words caught in her throat and refused to be dislodged.
But maybe she had said enough for tonight. It was easy to feel that way, when Colette brought her arms up and returned the hug.
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