Author's note: I am particularly nervous about this part, so please bear with me! This covers Rinoa's life as Princess up until the SeeD graduation ball, so even though it follows the previous part in a chronological sense, it expands and glides over things that will be discussed in later parts. Hope it makes sense somehow!
IV. THE PRINCESS
It is everything she wanted, and yet it is different from whatever she had envisioned, when she was just Rinoa, shedding herself of everything that was still Caraway in her, fully blossoming into Rinoa Heartilly before being allowed to become Rinoa, codename Princess.
Sometimes, the pub owner jokes about her codename, and she huffs in mock annoyance, blowing her hair out of her face before Vulpe reaches out to push her rebellious locks behind her ear. She doesn't know why, and she doesn't know how, but the way she looks at things has shifted once again: she is Princess, and that means she has to fight for real, now, and she is involved in the creation and implementation of plans with Zone and Watts - even though she still calls them Nightwatcher and Vanguard, sometimes, because they usually respond calling her Princess, and she likes how her codename rolls on their tongues. Princess. She hated that name back in that city, when that man told her she was a little princess and needed to behave like one. But now it feels different, and she embraces the difference without a second thought.
The day of her sixteenth birthday, she enters the pub as usual, and her little found family in Timber blows some light blue confetti on her while screaming happy birthday! It dawns on her that she doesn't remember the last time someone celebrated her birthday as if they were truly happy they could share it with her; her father has always seemed a little forced, a little too cold, and the memories of the birthdays she got to spend with her mother are hazy, albeit warm. She smiles, through happy tears, and throws her arms around Miss Dimarco's necks - her found big sister - and then around Vulpe's neck - her found mother - before falling into a group hug with Zone and Watts. She is sixteen, now; the age soldiers in Galbadia are usually enrolled, and she can't help but wonder about that, about the lonely birthdays that she had, and about the cheerful one she's going to have now. The freedom she's fighting for is giving back freedom to her, and she lets it wash all over her, as Vulpe gently pushes her to sit down and enjoy her presents. There's a cup of not-measured-with-a-finger-anymore coffee waiting for her, a cupcake with light blue frosting, and a couple of gifts she didn't expect. She presses her hands on her cheeks, red and warm with joy and a slight awkwardness at being the center of attention, and she starts saying a lot of thank-yous, until the words almost have no meaning anymore. Zone pushes his and Watts' gift in front of her and watches with the protective, warm smile of a very proud big brother as she tears the paper open and peers inside. It's a weapon, with a firing mechanism that should go on her arm and a bladed projectile. Watts launches into an explanation of how her Blaster Edge works, before the junk shop's owner puts a hand on his shoulder. Let her enjoy her birthday, we'll train her later.
She doesn't have the time to ponder over that choice of words, or even ask why they gave her a weapon with the intention of training her, because Vulpe is pushing towards her a small gift wrapped in azure paper. From me and Francesca, she says, and Miss DiMarco's encouraging smile pulls her away from her thoughts about her shining new blaster thing, or whatever Watts called it. When she tears the paper, there's a small jewelry box with a nice wings motif for the locket. She unclips it and she sees there's already a bracelet in it, and she takes it out, closing her hand around it. An appropriate gift for a Princess, right? says Zone, and she smiles, drying her tears with her free hand. I love it all, I love all of you, she says, feeling a little ashamed of the slight whine in her voice.
Finally, Zone takes her hand and puts something in her palm, and when she looks down she realizes it's a key. For your room on our base, he says. We have something big coming up. Welcome aboard the Forest Owls' Train Base, Princess!
Her room is spacious - because this is where we'll have business discussions when you're not sleeping, says Zone.
It's entirely pink - because we didn't have enough money to give you a proper room, but Vulpe volunteered all her daughter's old furniture, and she loved pink, so yeah, adds Watts.
The sofa is a hide-a-bed, and there's a dresser next to it. She places her new jewelry box on it, with the bracelet safely nestled inside, and sits on the sofa, taking in the entire room. Her room. The business room of the Forest Owls' Train Base, where they'll have business discussions. She almost feels her breath taken away by the enormity of the situation. Up to now, she was Rinoa the Princess, but she was protected in Miss DiMarco's spare hotel rooms, in Vulpe's cozy kitchen. Now, she truly has become Rinoa, codename Princess, and everything is unfolding before her very eyes. This is the real deal.
Day in and day out, she becomes more and more involved with the Owls' operations. She writes flyers that get printed in the unused rooms of the TV station, thanks to a guy crushing hard on Zone - the same guy who brought her to Miss DiMarco when she first got to Timber; she learns to smile sweetly to the soldiers she encounters during her journeys through the city, and she finds out very fast that her pretty face can pull more information out of those idiots' mouths - or at least that's what Vulpe argues; she dyes some caramel highlights in her hair, her mark to signal she is a resistance fighter to the entire population of Timber, something innocent that looks like frivolous vanity to the Galbadian army, and that opens secret doors to her.
It's late July when news of the death of several prisoners flows in from the Vortex. Rinoa has learned, in time, that Vortex is a codename, too; and she has been hearing that name so many times since May. Some say it was an escape attempt, others say it happened because Galbadia deliberately killed some resistance members to make a statement, the army says it was an accident and the Propaganda Tower works several hours a day to blast its lies through the entire city. Rinoa cries hard on her hide-a-bed, in her comforting room, as pink as a little girl wanted it, and she sobs into her pillow for the lives that couldn't be saved. The next day, she stops by the haberdasher's on her way to the pub, and buys a black ribbon that she ties around her bicep. What's that? asks the pub owner when she gets there, and she just shrugs, trying not to cry again, answering a ribbon I want to wear. For them, and my mother. The pub owner pretends not to hear her slight sniffle and ruffles her hair. You're too tender for your own good, kiddo, he says, and goes back into the pub kitchen, leaving her to tend to the few customers.
It's then that she notices a blond guy, sitting at a table in the corner with two friends, she thinks; one girl with silver hair and a black patch over her eye, and a muscular guy with dark skin and a book in his hands. The girl turns and raises her hand to call a waitress, and she goes to their table. She takes the girl's unusual, one-worded order, struggling a little to understand what she wants, and the muscular guy adds something else, and all the while she feels the blond guy's gaze on her. She goes back to the kitchen, thrusting her scrawled order into the owner's hands, and when she's back at the counter, blond guy is there.
What's your name, he asks, and she hesitates for a brief moment. Rinoa, she answers, figuring that saying her true name won't be too much of a big deal.
I'm Seifer, he says.
It's a long month of August, spent between the mourning of old resistance fighters and the new acquaintance of Seifer.
She doesn't understand exactly how she feels. Or maybe she does realize she has a huge crush, because Seifer is handsome, is strong, and is always protective, not in the way that Zone and Watts are, but in the way she guesses a guy could be protective of the girl he may like. Still, she doesn't understand how he feels, and he looks much more interested in Timber's independence, in what he could do for it, and this makes him dear to her heart, even though it looks like her crush will remain just that - a crush, maybe even wishful thinking. Watts is still undecided about what they should and shouldn't tell him; Zone looks almost jealous, sometimes, and not in the way she guesses a guy could be jealous of his little sister. Still, there are things she learns about the world beyond Galbadia and Timber; she learns of SeeD, of what they do, and in a moment of boldness, fueled by Seifer's passionate description of his successes at Garden, she writes a heartfelt request for Garden to dispatch some SeeDs to help with Timber's cause. Day in and day out she checks at Timber's hotel whether she has received an answer; and day in and day out, Miss DiMarco shakes her head with a gentle smile. In the evenings, she spends time with Seifer, his friends, Zone and Watts - who are still nameless for the Balamb trio; they haven't even shared their codenames. Codenames are for us to know, says Zone, and she never broaches the subject again. Both Zone and Watts have earned their right to use a codename, and the right to disclose it, with the blood of their fathers, and she trusts them and loves them enough to respect their wishes.
She spends a lovely summer, immersed into the fluttering emotions of her first crush on a cute guy and the positivity she gets from him. He makes her feel like she can do anything she wants, something that she has sorely missed when she lived in that city; and even though Seifer doesn't let her properly defend herself with her weapon, when she has to train, she blames that on his chivalry, even though it frustrates her. She has to admit that there are things she doesn't like; the way he treats animals, or the way he sometimes lies to his friends, or the way he sometimes mocks someone she loves dearly. She just brushes these things off, because maybe the pub owner is right, and she truly is too tender for her own good; still, when Miss DiMarco gently pulls her away, or when Zone and Watts escort her back to their base, she tries to tell them he could help, he has connections, he knows people and things, but Miss DiMarco says nothing, in a way that usually means that she doesn't want to say something Rinoa will not like, and Zone simply says he doesn't trust him enough. Yet, he adds sometimes, mostly for Rinoa's sake. Rinoa says nothing, and mulls over it in her hide-a-bed, because as much as she really likes Seifer, she trusts Miss DiMarco more, and she trusts Zone and Watts with all her heart.
They say goodbye at the end of August, and he promises to write her every week and come see her every month. Which is weird, according to Vulpe's daughter, since he is not her boyfriend, right? Weird, she repeats when Rinoa shakes her head, her cheeks reddening.
Her feelings dull over September, when Seifer is back in Balamb, and she is still in Timber, and he has not written a single time and there's no news about him coming to see her, and he has not even answered her letters. By October, she realizes she is not missing him as much as she believed she would. Come December, there are movements, in Galbadia, that need all her attention; something big is gonna happen soon, starts explaining Zone on a cold January day, sitting around a little table in the base operational room. On the other side of the room, there's a wall covered with the flyers Watts gave to her in that city, and in front of her there is a little model of Timber's plains. Zone and Watts catch her up on the movement of troops in Galbadia, on money apparently exchanged in halls that breathe power, on a new political figure hidden in Vinzer Deling's Residential Palace. Something is moving, slowly but surely, and they have to grasp at every opportunity. So what do we do, asks Rinoa, and Watts clears his throat. We need to hire SeeD, says Zone, and Rinoa nods, understanding what he means. We still need a plan, says Watts. So she writes to SeeD. Every other week she sends a request and regularly comes back empty-handed. She tries to quelch her anxiety by continuing to work on her plan, and when finally Watts comes back, one night, excitedly recounting how he managed to discover that Vinzer Deling is coming to Timber by train in three weeks, she is ready. She knows how they can strike, and she explains in great detail her plan to kidnap the lifelong president of Galbadia. She doesn't even give herself the time to enjoy the shocked look on her comrades' faces. She pulls out a sheet of paper and writes Seifer a very business-sounding letter, asking for his help to hire SeeD.
This time, he answers.
Ten days after her seventeenth birthday, just five days before Vinzer Deling's arrival in Timber, Rinoa is standing at the gate of Balamb Garden, holding her - fake - ID card for the gatekeeper to check. Apparently, her pretty face works in Balamb, too, because the document check is not as thorough as it should be, and she finds herself standing at the entrance of Garden's majestic ballroom. She will meet Cid Kramer, here, and plead her case directly to him. She lightly touches the highlight in her hair, the mark that makes her a resistance fighter; she fidgets with her bracelet, the one Vulpe and Miss DiMarco bought her one year ago, as a testament to the strong bond between them.
She takes a few steps into the room, stopping when a shooting star shines into the sky. She smiles, because this is a good omen; Vulpe is sure of it, shooting stars always bring good things.
She is here to fight for Timber, and she will win.
Author's note: insert my standard note about English being my second language and using Grammarly here.
Next week, Rinoa will meet a new, faithful friend.