Author's note: here comes the second part of the story!
As you'll notice reading, this doesn't perfectly follow the previous part in a chronological sense. I wanted to delve a little deeper into the pre-game moments that defined Rinoa. Hope it makes sense! This may happen in future parts, too.
II. TIMBER OWLS
The first time Rinoa finds out about the Forest Owls, she's been fourteen barely a week.
In Galbadia's eternal night, she exits the Presidential Palace, having spent an entire afternoon in its Library, and she almost jumps when a young man with a blue headscarf and a yellow vest with a collar covering half of his face collides against her shoulder when he passes her by, thrusting a flyer in her hand as he does so. She is a little scared, with a fleeting thought that her father may be right, that everyone wants something from Rinoa Caraway; but then the guy is gone, and in her hands there is still the flyer. She just reads the words anarchist on top; she opens her eyes wide when she sees that word, feeling like some kind of traitor just for reading it, and hastily slips the flyer inside the geography book she was allowed to take home. She feels her heart beating fast during the entire journey home, and she greets the governess with a tight smile when she gets back, immediately running to her room to calm down.
She doesn't know why the young man chose her; maybe he knows she is General Caraway's daughter? It's possible, she guesses, because she had to attend a political gala with her father, two months ago, and maybe pictures have been circulating without her knowledge. Her musings are interrupted by the governess calling her down for dinner, though, just as she opens the book to pull out the flyer and read through it; and she realizes her hands are trembling only when she runs to her dresser and hides the incriminating piece of paper in a drawer, underneath her panties.
The entire dinner feels awful. Her father is reading the newspaper, giving her no attention whatsoever; yet, she feels like bursting at the seams with anxiety at the mere sensation he could look at her and know what she's hiding in her panties' drawer. She barely tastes the vegetable soup the governess has cooked; and absentmindedly praises how good it is; and her mind is so focused on pretending everything is fine that she doesn't even realize that she has been asked twice if she'd like some dessert. She gives as much polite an excuse as she can muster, stating she's not feeling very well, maybe she has caught a cold; and when her father dismisses her to bed, telling her she should rest with the same even tone he uses to give orders to the guard outside their door, she slips out of the room without a word, remembering at the last moment she shouldn't run up the stairs if she's faking sickness, and closes the door of her bedroom behind her. She leans against it, heaving a relieved sigh, and then she puts her ear against the door to listen to the noises outside her room. The governess has just closed the dining room's door; her father's boots on the way to his study, for his evening glasses of whisky; the part of the house where her room resides is silent. So she feels safe enough to turn the key into its lock; she is not allowed to lock her door, and this would be a major breach, should her father find out about it. He's the only one allowed to lock doors in her house, especially when she's on the other side of them, waiting for him to decide she can be free again.
Shaking her head, she goes to her dresser and opens the drawer, moving aside her panties to see the flyer hidden underneath them. She squeezes the ring on her chain, the only thing belonging to her mother she is allowed to have, and with a firm nod she takes the flyer - Anarchist Monthly - and slips under her duvet without even changing into her pajamas, and starts reading.
Galbadia's dictator, President Vinzer Deling Special! How does he stay in power?! We reveal his darkest secrets!
April comes and goes, and the young man who gave her the first flyer is in front of her as she's out to do some shopping. She feels a little guilty because she told her father she needs a new bra - with an embarrassed, appropriate, and on-cue blush that convinced him to probe no further, and that managed to gain her a few hours of freedom. Yet, her guilt is immediately trumped by the knowledge that she shouldn't beg for freedom.
She notices him when he's on the opposite sidewalk, in front of the junk shop. She instantly recognizes him, because she has spent so many nights reading that half-flyer, half-magazine, that she has memorized every single word, replaying in her mind the moment he bumped into her. She has been reading even more in the Presidential Palace's Library, books that her father would never approve of, books that Vinzer Deling probably forgot are so accessible. Or maybe he is so sure of the power he has gained in such an illicit way that he doesn't fear anything anymore. She's not sure about that, all she's sure of is that the afternoon Anarchist Monthly was thrust into her hands, everything changed. Or maybe, the way she looks at the things that surround her changed.
Before thinking twice about it, she crosses the road and stops beside the guy, who's looking at a window shop. She can read his body language, though - once, out of sheer boredom during one of the afternoons she often has to spend locked in the mansion's library, she has read through a book about body language and how to realize if someone's lying to you, and she has learned so many things about how people behave. This guy fears something; he is staring at the window without looking at the goods displayed; his eyes are darting right and left as if he's trying to gauge if he's being followed, or if the guards are going to stop him with a stupid, random excuse and search him. As luck would have it, she notices the window he's staring at is the bookshop's; and she just has the time to think that fortune favors the brave, before she seizes the opportunity that was given to her as a gift. She clears her throat, noticing how he jumps without moving, and points at a book in the right corner, asking him if he would recommend it. He shakes his head, telling her he hasn't read it, and then he turns to look at her; the way his eyes widen tells her he has recognized her, too. I'm sorry, she says then, I may have mistaken you for someone else. You look like someone who recommended me something very interesting to read, last month.
She waits, with bated breath, as he ponders on his next move. Then he starts walking down the boulevard, and she follows, probably looking like a maniac or like a stalker or both, until he stops just at the entrance of the Arc of Triumph, looking once again right and left before slipping further into the dark and opening his vest to pull out some paper. This time, it's not a flyer, there are pages and pages, clipped together with a stapler.
She stares at the paper and when she raises her eyes he is already gone, and she notices his headscarf and his bright yellow vest further down the boulevard, disappearing down into the train station. She hastily puts the bundle in her bag when she hears voices coming closer, and she allows herself a secret smile - she doesn't have to feel guilty anymore. She has to buy a new bra, so the guard won't search her bag when she comes back home.
She learns of the Second Sorceress War through the bundle, avidly reading history books and earning some unusual praise from her father for the attention and dedication she's putting into her studies. If only he knew what she's discovering, he wouldn't praise her so much; he would probably lock her into a room - not the library this time - until she bends to his will, being effectively locked and deprived of freedom into submission, under the excuse of safety and protection. Her father has stopped being someone she wanted to be noticed by; everything she's reading and discovering takes off the rose-tinted glasses of love she was still wearing, and she now sees him for what he is: a man who maybe loves her, but more often than not sees her as an inconvenience; a man who tolerates her when she's not useful, but doesn't hesitate to use her for his political games; a man who sees through her when he looks at her, like she's not there; and finally, the man who earned his military rank on Timber's battlefield, crushing every insurrection, every dissident movement, until all that remained was a torn city, a grieving population, and two orphans who decided to honor their fathers by fighting for the freedom of the city their fathers died for. She cries when she reads about the death of the two leaders of a resistance faction named The Forest Owls; hot tears of rage for the unnecessary cruelty of their death, and grief for the shared pain of losing a parent when she reads that their sons had to watch. It's something she feels so keenly, so deeply. She feels ashamed in such a deep, heart-wrenching way, because she realizes how privileged she truly is, and how many of her privileges come from her father's closeness to Vinzer Deling, and therefore from Timber's suffering.
She knows better than to mention Timber to her father, though. She waits to meet the mysterious young man again, and every time she purposefully bumps into him, and new bundles with their fresh horrors are thrust into her awaiting eager hands, and she cries under her duvet when she reads them, at night, when the realization that there are people incarcerated for their opinion hits her. She barely manages to go through the motions when her father decides to parade his trophy daughter around at political parties, full of these people who now disgust her so; and she finally earns her reputation of a rebellious, opinionated vain girl who should know better than speak her mind.
Her disgust, her indignation, her pain, her anger, and her sheer need to do something, anything to help finally give her the kick she needs. When her mother's royalties roll into her account on the day of her fifteenth birthday, she has already concocted a plan; she would share it with the guy with the blue headscarf and the yellow vest, should she see him, but it's been months now and she fervently hopes he has not been incarcerated for spreading the truth. She is going to find him, though, as soon as she reaches Timber. She wants to help. She will help.
She sheds herself of Rinoa Caraway, and when she steps out of the train, in Timber, she feels she's finally making a difference. She spots a guy with a white sweatshirt and a dark cap in front of the station, and politely asks him if he happens to know someone she's been looking for. She unfortunately doesn't know his name, but the description helps a lot, and the guy smiles. Gotta wait a few weeks to meet him, they're on the run now, he says, motioning for her to follow him. She realizes a little too late she's being a little too trusting, almost hearing her father scolding her for being the person she is, but then he stops in front of the hotel, nodding his head towards the door. Go inside. Ask for Francesca DiMarco. Tell her Watts told you the Owls are still around. She will know what to do.
It's in the safety of a spare hotel room that Miss DiMarco uses to hide resistance members that she tells her entire story, with the hotel's owner gently caressing her hair in such a maternal way that Rinoa weeps out of the pure relief of finally receiving affection. She tells her everything - how she found out about them, how she hopes the guy who gave her issue after issue of Anarchist Monthly is ok, how she has cried in anger and shame. Miss DiMarco gives her a cup of hot spiced wine that burns down to her stomach and makes her a little dizzy, and then tells her everything will be ok. The Owls are still around, dear, she says. We'll take care of you.
Amidst the warm acceptance she's receiving, nothing sounds as wonderful as the Owls are still around.
Authors's note: well well. Sorry for this headcanon dumping. As usual, beta read with Grammarly since English is my second language and I kind of feel this time around I was too tired to properly English, so let me know if you spot something weird. See you next week for the next installment, in which a new friendship will be born.