eight
Quistis is working in the cafeteria, sorting out the books salvaged from the library, when Xu approaches her.
"Commander," she says, flipping through an old Junction Theory textbook. The pages fall out in the center; the glue is shot. She pitches the book in the trash. "What can I do for you?"
Xu picks up a soot-stained dictionary, running her thumb across the cover. "This is something the cadets should be doing," she comments. "Let's go get a coffee."
There's a set of encyclopedias that can be saved; Quistis passes the entire stack off to a SeeD waiting nearby. "Reference," she instructs. She knows Xu is still waiting for an answer. "Is that an order?"
"Quistis... Don't be like that."
"Be like what?" Quistis asks, going through a handful of Pupurun graphic novels. The pages are stuck together in most of them- she can practically hear Zell's moan of despair as she throws them all out. "Angry? Because that's going to be kind of hard to stop."
"For god's sake, you sound exactly like Almasy," Xu snaps. "And yeah, that was an order, Instructor. Coffee. Now."
Quistis wipes the soot on her hands off onto her jeans and follows Xu out of the caf.
The Instructors' lounge is untouched by the bombings, and currently empty- there isn't much to do when the cadets have been evacuated to other facilities. Xu sets the coffee pot to percolating. Quistis drops into one of the cushy chairs, and after a few minutes, Xu hands her a cup.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Xu asks without preamble. "Don't you think I should've been told that you can decimate a Rex without being junctioned?"
Quistis stops, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. "I beg your pardon?"
"There's a video. From the TC. The logs say that you were the only one who was there."
"There's no video."
"Yes," Xu says. "There is." She sips her coffee. "Now, I need to know what's going on. I have to look out for the interests of Garden. I can't have something so dangerous-"
"Something?" The laugh comes out of her before she can stop it. "I'm a thing?"
Xu sighs. "That's not what I meant-"
Quistis sets down her cup hard on the table. Coffee splashes over the rim, making a dark puddle against the white plastic. "That's exactly what you meant. You haven't exactly made your feelings about Rinoa a secret; it's no wonder you'd think the same thing of me."
(burn the witch burn the witch)
"Look, Quistis-" and Xu stands, carrying her mug back to the pot. "I know how stressed out you are. Anyone would be, after what you've been through. And I'm sure Almasy told you what I said-"
"You think I care about that? You've hated him our entire lives-"
"But, I have an obligation to the people in Garden. I need to protect them, and if you and Rinoa have some... secret... that will put this place at further risk, I need to know."
(the succession)
She stares into the depths of her coffee. "So you can lock me up? Chain me with Odine metal and drop me on a deserted island somewhere where I can't hurt anyone? Burn me at the stake?" There is a chip in the mug, a tiny nick near the rim. She can see the edges of it clearly, trace the microscopic fragments.
"There are procedures in place- Leonhart had something made in Deep Sea. A cure, he claims. We could try it."
(always)
"I'm not a sorceress," she says.
"Dammit, Quistis- I'm just trying to help you!"
(burnthewitch-)
The cup sails across the room, into the wall, exploding in a shower of ceramic and coffee. Quistis is on her feet and her heartbeat is thunder in her ears.
Xu is staring at her. "What the hell is your problem?"
She is in Xu's face instantly, fury bubbling up from within her, penning her commander in with a grip on the counter that causes the plastic to give under her fingers. "I am not," she says carefully, enunciating every word, "a witch."
Garden is too narrow, too crowded, too full of thou shalt nots, and her head is pounding by the time she makes it out of the lobby, into the bright clear day.
xx
She fiddles with the clasp on the Odine bangle, tracing her nail along the seal. The energy running through it is sharp, bitter, electrical. It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, something no amount of toothpaste can wash away.
Inside of her, an impossibility is growing.
Rinoa touches her belly instinctively, pressing against the taut skin. She cannot fathom what she will look like in nine months (eight and a half, she reminds herself, if she lasts that long.)
She needs to get this damn bracelet off, just to make sure.
-she attacks, a relentless assault of Draw magic, pulling all of Quistis into her. There is not enough room, not enough, and when the gaping void opens up, sucking down Shiva and Quistis and Rinoa, the power explodes out of her-
She hasn't told Squall what happened, but he knows. He has to know. They have poked and prodded and invaded every facet of her, and-
(they trap her in irons)
she cannot perform a single Float spell properly. The power is still there, she knows, humming beneath the surface of her skin, but it's like it's just out of reach. She wants it- she needs it, if she's being honest.
But it will not come to her, not even before the bangle was locked onto her wrist.
"Hey," Squall calls, opening the door to the lavish set of rooms they occupy in the presidential palace. She envies him, how he can sound so normal.
"In here," she replies, and he walks into what they've dubbed the sitting room, a space occupied with nothing but big, overstuffed chairs and a television that takes up almost an entire wall.
He enters.
"How's Ellone?"
"Fine," Squall says, dropping in the chair across from her, kicking off his shoes. "She says hi."
The silence between them is not easy, not today, and she stares out the window. The Estharian skyline is bizarre, bulbous, surreal. It's an artist's demented dream, and she is watching it from a glass palace on a hill.
She doesn't have to ask if Squall told Ellone, because she can read it all over his face, in his body language, in the way he looks at her. In the way she feels him, hovering around the edges, not nearly as close as he used to be.
"You don't have to go through with this," he says finally, awkwardly, shifting in his chair.
She reaches for the window, traces the outline of a spire in the distance, her finger leaving a smudge on the glass. "I'm pregnant," she says. "It's not the end of the world."
xx
They come out of nowhere, once she locks her car and starts for the apartment building. She is not their first target, she knows, but she happens to be the first SeeD they've come across tonight.
There are at least seven of them. Armed, by the sounds of guns cocking and the clink of knives. Cheap steel, guns bought from rundown stores in Deling City where they don't ask for much beyond proof of age. The kind of weapons she expects from a group of thugs, whose most deadly weapons are bombs built from plans they downloaded off of the internet.
(They've done plenty of damage to Garden, her constant companion whispers. Plenty of damage to your loved ones.)
"Hey, aren't you that Instructor chick?" one calls. "The famous one."
"I think it might be," chimes in another. "Pretty lady."
There's a round of laughter, echoing through the empty streets. Darkness is falling, and she's getting the feeling that these guys have seen too many movies. She shifts, subtly, adjusting her weight and shaking out her hands, counting the voices that join in the angry mirth.
Eight, she decides, and knows she is right. Everything is so clear; overhead, a gull cries out the end of the day, and one of her assailants clicks off the safety on his gun.
"She was hotter on TV," another decides.
Someone steps forward, grabbing at her arm, and that's all it takes. She lunges, ramming the heel of her hand into a nose, her knee into a ribcage. There is swearing, and the sound of bones breaking.
A man comes at her with a knife. She disarms him, uses his weight against him, slams him on the ground with her forearm crushing against his trachea. He curls up, fetal, gasping for breath, clawing at his throat.
Three left.
Someone shoots at her, and she feels the impact, a hot streak against her shoulder. Quistis ducks, avoids another shot, slips in under the man's arms like a lover and wrenches his head to the side. The snap is sickening, and he drops.
(Now.)
The last two approach, warily, weapons raised against her, and she watches them, chest heaving, hair hanging in her face. One of them has a trash can lid of all things, held out in front of him like a shield.
Perfect.
The magic explodes out of her, lethal chains of lightning, everything Thundaga aspires to be. It hits the lid first, rocketing through its owner, and she can see right down to his skeleton before he is a pile of ash.
His friend fares no better, and when the spots fade from her eyes, Quistis is alone.
She whirls, slowly. There are no corpses, no weapons, just the stink of burnt flesh in the evening air and the sound of sirens in the distance.
(Good.)
xx
Seifer opens the door to dump a bag of trash just as Quistis has her key out to put it in the lock. "Hi," he says in surprise. "You're home early."
She pushes past him, dropping her coat on the table and going immediately for the cabinets above the sink, pulling out filters and a mug. Seifer shrugs, and crosses the hall, tossing the bag down the trash chute. When he reenters, the coffee pot is burbling.
She's standing in front of the counter, staring at the wall, her hands white-knuckled against the fake marble.
"What's wrong?"
Quistis shakes her head. "Nothing." Her voice is hollow.
Seifer comes up behind her, reaching to touch her shoulder, and she stiffens, jerking away. He stops.
"Sorry," she says. "Just- sorry."
"Okay," he replies, confused. He steps back, watching her carefully as she fills a mug with hot coffee, drinking half of it in three long gulps. When she sets the mug down, it rattles against the counter, and he can see that her hands are shaking.