Disclaimer: The Characters are still Squaresoft's.
SeeD Inauguration, Balamb Garden, following the Dollet/Galbadia conflict's resolution.
"Oh...hey, Zell. Wanna join the Garden Festival committee and..."
"Sorry, I...ahh... Just remembered something! G-Gotta go. See ya!" Zell ducked behind the first column he found, and snagged a champagne from a passing tray and took a gulp, choked, and decided to slow down. Sipping the remaining half of his drink, the blonde slowly surveyed the crowd, absently people watching. Wow. Squall was dancing...and not all that badly once he got into it. ... And there she goes, running after someone not quite in sight. Zell watched Squall head off to a balcony, followed by Quistis shortly after.
Zell never saw Squall come up behind, and jumped (moreso than normal) when Squall laid a hand on his shoulder. "Geez Squall! Don't scare me like that!"
"...Whatever." Typical Squall-ism. Zell blinked, confused, as the taller SeeD pressed a glass ball into his hand. "...Congratulations" With that said, Squall turned off and headed out, to get ready for his appointment with the Instructor. Zell stood staring at his hand and the baseball sized glass orb it held. After nearly two minutes of staring and staying (nearly) still, it dawned on Zell what the orb was. Tracing one finger over the cool surface of the glass, Zell shivered at the tingle that spread out from it as the Guardian Force inside made the itchy journey up his arm, and nestling into his mind. He'd never get used to that feeling.
Shiva stood, proud and regal, and surveyed her new domain. A black sky set above a tiled floor that stretched as far as she could see. Each hexagonal tile she knew, was a memory, and in building her new home in this man, she would be forced to destroy more than a handful. She frowned. There were still fires sputtering and large greasy scorch mark marred the floor. Her floor. Ifrits mark, she knew. This one had played host to the fire elemental guardian, and Ifrit reveled in making messes and leaving his sign as a way to brag that he had been there.
This was her domain now though. And in her domain, Shiva was more than just an Ice Goddess. She was. Statuesque, she stood there as ice spiraled around her feet and lanced out, covering memory-tiles, slowly absorbing them as fuel for herself, and extinguishing the flames. Slowly, one hand began to rise from her side. As her hand rose, spires lanced out of the floor and stretched distant into the mental skyline. The ice was pure, perfectly clear, and the great spires began to hollow themselves out with a rush of water, that all drained into what quickly became a moat. In mere moments of her entering the mind, her mental fortress had been created. Ascending on a pillar of ice, Shiva reached into her new hosts mind and began to draw the spells he had stored. Each spire, she knew, corresponded to an attribute of her host, and by placing the magic in their place, she could junction the spells, fusing magic and flesh into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Shiva was coaxing the weak and spiteful fire spell, so out of place in her domain of ice, into its spire, where it would appear as a signal tower, the flame sitting atop a monumental candle of ice, where it would be junctioned to her hosts Elemental Defence, and was understandably startled when she heard the voice.
"Hello!" Carefree, innocent, and irrepresably energetic tones washed over the Ice Goddess as she comprehended what was going on. Her host was talking to her, greeting her. They had never done that before. Perhaps, she thought, this may be more interesting that anticipated.
"I am Shiva, Queen Goddess of the Ice, Elemental Guardian Spirit, and I bid you greeting." There. Befittingly regal enough for someone of her stature to speak to the one being higher than she was, her master.
"Hi. I'm Zell. So, your like, in my mind? If so, can you tell me where I left my spare gloves?" Shiva smirked, so...naive.
"It does not work like that." Shiva sat her in her throne, her icy form melding with the seat, as she sent her mind into Zell's, and looked out through his eyes. A party. How droll.
"So...care to dance?" Without awaiting her reply, as she watched, Zell placed his near-empty drink on a passing tray and stepped onto the dance floor. And, without the benefit of a physical partner, began to pantomine a dance, managing to keep time with the other dancers. Shiva sighed. He was making a fool of himself, she could hear, through his ears, the laughs of the crowd, and realized, as she processed Zell's thoughts, that she didn't mind, because he didn't mind. Integrating herself further into her new hosts mind, the goddess made an image of herself and placed it before Zell's eyes, making it seem, to him at least, as if she was infact, dancing with him.
With a grin he whispered, (and Shiva realized he had spoken outloud to her all along, rather than just sending mental messages) "So, dancing with my own little Ice Goddess. How cute"
"Little?" Shiva's tone had a measured amount of questioning and a touch of anger.
"Well, you do fit inside my mind, so you can't really be all that big"
"Your right" Shiva smirked "It is a rather small space in here". She was rewarded with a genuine laugh, which she answered with a chuckle of her own. Perhaps this would be very interesting...
Shiva and Zell after that night were inseperable, except when they had to be. Zell would always come to the Icy GF before nearly anyone else with his questions, and Shiva would often help him relax with a joke, or well placed question. She wondered once, why she, an incarnation of ice, was soul-mate to a being seemingly made of animated lightning, but she would quickly dismiss the thoughts as inconsiquental. After all, she had Zell, Zell had her, and they shared a bond different from love between humans, a melding of their spirits, and Shiva was happy.
Authors Notes:
Lisha: Thank you for the praise. But, you asked me to "drop me a line whenever you do update?" There is a way to have this automatically done, I am not sure if you are aware or not, so I will go over the steps for it.
Go to your profile, and on the left menu bar, find 'Email Alerts", select it, and then choose the 'Author Alerts" tab on the new page. Type "Plainswalker" into the name entry, and press add, and presto. You get an e-mail every update (or new story) I make.