[fic] Carbon Made - Chapter 3
Feb. 11th, 2008 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crankyoldmanFandom: FF8
Characters/Pairings: Rinoa, Laguna, Kiros, implied Squall/Rinoa
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sleep never came easy to her. Visionquest leanings.
Notes: There's a point to this story and I'm getting to it I swear! Some meta may have snuck in. Again, take with a grain of salt.
Kiros was graceful about their troubles, and he arrived just in time to keep Laguna from attempting to navigate them around again. She knew someone would have a few choice words about a president lost in his own city, but she could understand it, maybe just a little. Everyone was lost in their own way.
Of course, when they thought she was out of earshot, they talked.
"I thought you were going to bring her here as soon as she got off that ship."
"Well, it's a nice day, and she looked like she needed to get out a bit."
"I'm usually fine with whatever you decide, but do you remember the witch hunt last time?"
"Oh, no one would recognize her."
"Not a normal random person off the street, no."
"She should have a chance to find herself like normal kids her age. Come on, you remember what we were up to then?"
Their voices blended together into one big adult voice of authority, and she closed her eyes and tried to shut it out. She didn't mean to hear things sometimes, and it seemed like the less she wanted to hear something the more likely she was going to. And it made her wonder, think about the kinds of things she hadn't for a long time.
What would her father have been like if he had friends like Laguna did?
---
Sleep was not something Rinoa cared for much anymore. Maybe it was because the thin film of normalcy was almost nonexistent then, maybe it was because when it happened she couldn't wake up. That thing that she wasn't quite sure she wanted to recognize yet.
There was a part of her there, as she snuck around the general estate of Laguna's residence, that knew waking had really been the worst part. Even waking and having someone to--
Rinoa was exploring.
From what she remembered from tutors, the tiles were really a sequence of numbers, a pattern. Laguna had told her before she went to the room she'd been given that there was a garden somewhere around here, he just didn't remember exactly where it was. All the metal and glass looked strangely less frightening at night, when the shadow made it almost look like stone. Still, there was this tug to see something living that pulled her out of the bed and out into the filtered Estharian moonlight.
Of course her mind wandered, if only to keep from thinking about how cold the mathematical patterns of tile felt under her bare feet.
"I wonder what you're doing in your garden," she whispered, because she'd learned not to ask questions in her head. It echoed too strangely when she did that. Rinoa caught a shadow-kind that moved in the corner of her vision, and that part of her that was still sixteen pulled her to follow it.
Unlike the chase during the day, this one wasn't long, more like a shortcut through a corridor she wouldn't have thought to follow. There was no pale and blonde woman this time, but a familiar male shape that nearly blended in with the shade of a tree.
Her heart sank a little, though, to realize even the gardens in Esthar were contained in pots and under glass.
"Your dad's really nice."
It was a strange thing to say to something that was likely a hallucination, but she couldn't help it. There was a part him that was there, and Rinoa was learning to accept some of the strange things that happened on a sort of faith.
"When are you coming home?"
Once, she remembered, he was away on a mission, the kind that he practically volunteered himself to do, and she'd heard him talking one night. She'd responded, but he couldn't hear back--maybe that was what had made Rinoa decide, really, to go for a while. They'd worked out how to talk to each other face to face, as well as they could, but they still hadn't worked out how to talk when they were away.
She had the feeling that was important.
"You had training and a sword, but what do I get?"
It wasn't any wonder that they ended up together, no accounting for fate or anything silly like that. Rinoa only had to look at the family Squall remembered--those elegant and powerful in all the strange ways women and lost children--and her father and it was pretty obvious.
She'd gotten the cold military man to speak, now she had to work on elegance and power. Even if it really scared her.
"I know it was you that brought us back. I'll never forget that."
---
It was a cool hand with well manicured nails that woke her up, stroking her hair in a way that her mother had when she was very small, the kind of memory that wasn't conscious until something so similar happened that she couldn't ignore it. Rinoa had fallen asleep on the bench in the garden, and Laguna was probably looking for her--she didn't want him to end up in a broom closet or anything.
It's in the office. Go and take it.
She almost jumped then, because unlike the night before, this voice was in her ear.
"There you are." Kiros, this time with Ward were standing at the entrance of the greenhouse, not looking particularly worried. Then again, they were armed.
"I couldn't sleep," she offered, glad that she was past the see-through nightgown phase. Squall had turned out to be one of those types that liked it when she wore his plain white shirts and some shorts to bed. It was cheaper anyway.
"Laguna's got some business today, he said you're welcome to the office."
"Maybe once I'm... dressed."
It smiled, and she had to wonder if that was a good sign.
Characters/Pairings: Rinoa, Laguna, Kiros, implied Squall/Rinoa
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sleep never came easy to her. Visionquest leanings.
Notes: There's a point to this story and I'm getting to it I swear! Some meta may have snuck in. Again, take with a grain of salt.
Kiros was graceful about their troubles, and he arrived just in time to keep Laguna from attempting to navigate them around again. She knew someone would have a few choice words about a president lost in his own city, but she could understand it, maybe just a little. Everyone was lost in their own way.
Of course, when they thought she was out of earshot, they talked.
"I thought you were going to bring her here as soon as she got off that ship."
"Well, it's a nice day, and she looked like she needed to get out a bit."
"I'm usually fine with whatever you decide, but do you remember the witch hunt last time?"
"Oh, no one would recognize her."
"Not a normal random person off the street, no."
"She should have a chance to find herself like normal kids her age. Come on, you remember what we were up to then?"
Their voices blended together into one big adult voice of authority, and she closed her eyes and tried to shut it out. She didn't mean to hear things sometimes, and it seemed like the less she wanted to hear something the more likely she was going to. And it made her wonder, think about the kinds of things she hadn't for a long time.
What would her father have been like if he had friends like Laguna did?
---
Sleep was not something Rinoa cared for much anymore. Maybe it was because the thin film of normalcy was almost nonexistent then, maybe it was because when it happened she couldn't wake up. That thing that she wasn't quite sure she wanted to recognize yet.
There was a part of her there, as she snuck around the general estate of Laguna's residence, that knew waking had really been the worst part. Even waking and having someone to--
Rinoa was exploring.
From what she remembered from tutors, the tiles were really a sequence of numbers, a pattern. Laguna had told her before she went to the room she'd been given that there was a garden somewhere around here, he just didn't remember exactly where it was. All the metal and glass looked strangely less frightening at night, when the shadow made it almost look like stone. Still, there was this tug to see something living that pulled her out of the bed and out into the filtered Estharian moonlight.
Of course her mind wandered, if only to keep from thinking about how cold the mathematical patterns of tile felt under her bare feet.
"I wonder what you're doing in your garden," she whispered, because she'd learned not to ask questions in her head. It echoed too strangely when she did that. Rinoa caught a shadow-kind that moved in the corner of her vision, and that part of her that was still sixteen pulled her to follow it.
Unlike the chase during the day, this one wasn't long, more like a shortcut through a corridor she wouldn't have thought to follow. There was no pale and blonde woman this time, but a familiar male shape that nearly blended in with the shade of a tree.
Her heart sank a little, though, to realize even the gardens in Esthar were contained in pots and under glass.
"Your dad's really nice."
It was a strange thing to say to something that was likely a hallucination, but she couldn't help it. There was a part him that was there, and Rinoa was learning to accept some of the strange things that happened on a sort of faith.
"When are you coming home?"
Once, she remembered, he was away on a mission, the kind that he practically volunteered himself to do, and she'd heard him talking one night. She'd responded, but he couldn't hear back--maybe that was what had made Rinoa decide, really, to go for a while. They'd worked out how to talk to each other face to face, as well as they could, but they still hadn't worked out how to talk when they were away.
She had the feeling that was important.
"You had training and a sword, but what do I get?"
It wasn't any wonder that they ended up together, no accounting for fate or anything silly like that. Rinoa only had to look at the family Squall remembered--those elegant and powerful in all the strange ways women and lost children--and her father and it was pretty obvious.
She'd gotten the cold military man to speak, now she had to work on elegance and power. Even if it really scared her.
"I know it was you that brought us back. I'll never forget that."
---
It was a cool hand with well manicured nails that woke her up, stroking her hair in a way that her mother had when she was very small, the kind of memory that wasn't conscious until something so similar happened that she couldn't ignore it. Rinoa had fallen asleep on the bench in the garden, and Laguna was probably looking for her--she didn't want him to end up in a broom closet or anything.
It's in the office. Go and take it.
She almost jumped then, because unlike the night before, this voice was in her ear.
"There you are." Kiros, this time with Ward were standing at the entrance of the greenhouse, not looking particularly worried. Then again, they were armed.
"I couldn't sleep," she offered, glad that she was past the see-through nightgown phase. Squall had turned out to be one of those types that liked it when she wore his plain white shirts and some shorts to bed. It was cheaper anyway.
"Laguna's got some business today, he said you're welcome to the office."
"Maybe once I'm... dressed."
It smiled, and she had to wonder if that was a good sign.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-11 08:33 pm (UTC)