[fic] Carbon Made - Chapter 5
Mar. 29th, 2008 03:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crankyoldmanFandom: FF8
Characters/Pairings: Squall/Rinoa, Laguna
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes you just have to break down to build yourself up.
Notes: Ha, omg, so I kind of love the parental issues in FF8 probably more than anything else. Except for maybe the sorceress issues. Which is pretty much what this chapter is. I wouldn't have been able to write it without Vanessa Carlton's song "Half a Week Before the Winter" which is a haunting little song that gives me goosebumps. I love finding songs that just fit with characters in my mind. And yes, I will eventually get to what the hell is up with the hands.
x-posted to LJ
We have wings because from up high, they all look like ants.
Rinoa wondered about winter.
Maybe it was all the places that Laguna had been telling her about all week, but she realized she'd never actually seen it. Only a rain that was sometimes cold, but it was like a drizzly Spring. If she went off of only what she had experienced, then she could almost fool herself into thinking it didn't exist. But from someone that had been seemingly all over the world and from the phantom-limb feeling of frost on her fingertips, it had to exist.
Well, that was a little too philosophical.
Being in Esthar was like getting a really crappy job. And somehow not minding it. After they had gotten through the moldy files that Laguna had piled in his office there were other such confiscated items to go through. She'd even been allowed to keep some of the lesser items, like a rather pretty pocket knife she figured Squall would like.
Rinoa had never been above work, not really. Her problem had always been sitting still.
"Have you just been staying around here because of me?" Laguna was the leader of a country. Even if she really adored his brand of friendly not-Squall-but-yet around, she hadn't meant to be catered to. Some people, well, they made her angry with that.
Certain military men came to mind.
He gave her that nervous smile that Squall pretended he didn't have and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "Maybe a little bit. I don't really have to do much besides show up places and look pretty." Switch to the goofy smile that Squall hadn't figured out yet.
Rinoa had found it odd how distant Squall could be to his father. But the longer she was here, the more the invisible hands felt like the cold dead weight of the ring on a chain. The smell of books and the oil the went with fixing up old machines had brought memories of her own dad. She knew that Squall had been impressed with General Caraway, like a lot of people were.
Did he think it was as unnatural as she found his distance to President Loire?
"How about you take a day off, Laguna. I promise not to wander anywhere off the grounds."
Rinoa, strangely, probably understood him a little more than he thought she did. After all, he hadn't asked to be where he was either. She only hoped that she came off half as well as he did with it--one day she wasn't just going to be some strange girl that a stranger wandering around Garden would wonder exactly what was off about her. One day... one day everyone would know. And maybe they wouldn't be afraid.
"Just promise you'll look before you do anything."
---
When the shadows were at their shortest, she regretted letting him go. It was silly, because she'd been very grown up just that morning, thinking about heavy things and letting the person she was most comfortable around go do things for his country for a change, but there was something about the way the light hit the metal so harshly that unsettled her a little.
It reminded her of blank pages, something which she'd spent a week ignoring. Blank pages and blank letters.
Without Laguna around, it was so empty. She could be a glass half empty kind of girl in this desert feeling place, container garden reminding her that it would only ever be summer here, if she were to stay for a long time. Rinoa hadn't planned on more than a month, because she figured that whatever types of things that Ellone could walk around with would either come and pat her on the shoulder or just leave her alone.
It starts with 'Dear Squall'
The day it had all gone wrong had started when she found the ring. Rinoa hadn't been allowed in that room, Daddy had specifically told her to stay out of it, in that firm tone. She had to have been seven at the time. Angelo wasn't even around yet, just her and that spinning top toy.
'I'll bet you'd never have guessed that I've always tried to shake people out of things. I've never been very good at sitting still.'
The doors in Esthar were as unlocked as the doors back at home. Daddy had always placed a certain trust on her to follow his words, because locked doors only made things more interesting. Even still, it was only the sound of footsteps, the fleeting kind of hope that a seven year old can have when they were still used to a mother. And she could almost smell her perfume, something cold and airy like a wind that didn't happen around there.
'I always figured you had to lose something in order to grow up. That's the way all the people I grew up with treated it--who'd be first to lose their baby teeth, their knobby knees, their virginity. Maybe once you'd lost everything you'd be all grown up, like my dad.'
There were all her long dresses, her vanity, her shoes and makeup. Mom's room was a dressing room for when she would go out and sing, even after getting married. Rinoa found out later that she hadn't finished writing one for Daddy yet, because she hadn't been able to find the perfect note. But in the room with her feathers and sequins, satin gloves and ivory combs Rinoa felt safe. She was far too short to fit into anything, but she put on the fluffiest dress she could find and teetered on the tallest heels. Then, she looked in the drawer.
'But it really wasn't grown up at all, it was just sad. I started to get angry because the longer time went on, the less he seemed attached to anything. All he was, all I ever heard from his mouth was loss loss loss, nothing else.'
A perfect shiny sliver of a band, sitting in the middle without any other jewelry to keep it company.
'I started to see darkness, death, this shadow in everything he did and I wanted life. I stayed out late at the loudest parties and made friends with the rowdiest people I could because it had to be better than sitting still in an office pretending that I was living. That maybe if I was so bright that it burned, the shroud would shrivel up and go away.
She'd tripped into his office, that clear cold smell of her mother's perfume masking the usual smell of old books and gun grease. It had taken her a while to stand just right, a little white gosling in too tall of shoes and way too big of a dress, holding up a little treasure for her Daddy, because that's who she'd taken the ring for. She thought it was his, because he used to wear one before Mom had gone away.
'That didn't work too well. It seemed no matter how big a noise I made, all it would mean was some time spent in the cold empty places of my house. I got better at sneaking out the more he did that, and he got more and more intent on making me sit still.'
It was the only time she'd ever seen him afraid. Like she'd just brought in a monster or a boyfriend. He stood up shakily, leaning on that desk she would learn to hate and stared at her, waiting a few moments before...
"Give me that, go to your room and stay there," Rinoa found herself whispering.
'Maybe you can see why when I saw you, standing like some ridiculous statue in a party full of moving people I just had to pull you out there. Because I know that look, that distance. It's ok to be sad or afraid, but it's not ok to not feel anything.'
But she hadn't done that. She'd balled her little fist up and tore off the dress, pulled out of the shoes and ran, ran out those unlocked doors and as far as she could because that wasn't him, that wasn't Daddy. In the middle of the night a witch had replaced him with a dark man. A shadow man. Dust.
Rinoa determined then, when she was too tired and he eventually caught up with her, that she wouldn't hold still. She couldn't turn to dust like he had, and so she'd cried and fought and ran and everything she could think of. No one seemed to know about enchantments like that.
'I think, though, that it's just as bad to feel everything. That always being angry and excited and all that in between doesn't mean you're actually a part of anything. I'm glad you're... steady. I guess I needed a little darkness too, you know?'
Just a flicker of expression. She started to wear it openly, this symbol of rebellion, this amulet. Rinoa wouldn't forget and neither would he, not until it was broken. And when she saw him, this boy with eyes like dust in winter, and that little symbol of something he held onto himself, she had to connect herself to it. Tokens were silly things, but even at seventeen she could still believe in enchantments.
'I should have been telling you about the things I've been up to out here, but it would bore you. I figured that you would appreciate this a little more. Really, I just wanted to say, I can understand. Or at least I try.'
She hit the 'return' key and realized that she wasn't outside anymore. The dimly lit room with the curtains drawn and the lone terminal sent goosebumps up her arm. Rinoa never liked it when she lost her spatial reasoning like that, lost her ability to control where she was. But she had been putting off writing it for a week, and she supposed that the silence and the emptiness was enough. Might as well finish what she'd started typing.
'I think I'll be home soon. Listen to Selphie when she tells you to take a break, she knows better.'
Her shoulders always shook a little when she started crying, but the phantom hands were steadying them. Rinoa supposed she should have jumped at something that wasn't really there, but it was just as much a part of her as anything else. At least something was strong.
'Love always, Rinoa.'
Characters/Pairings: Squall/Rinoa, Laguna
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sometimes you just have to break down to build yourself up.
Notes: Ha, omg, so I kind of love the parental issues in FF8 probably more than anything else. Except for maybe the sorceress issues. Which is pretty much what this chapter is. I wouldn't have been able to write it without Vanessa Carlton's song "Half a Week Before the Winter" which is a haunting little song that gives me goosebumps. I love finding songs that just fit with characters in my mind. And yes, I will eventually get to what the hell is up with the hands.
x-posted to LJ
We have wings because from up high, they all look like ants.
Rinoa wondered about winter.
Maybe it was all the places that Laguna had been telling her about all week, but she realized she'd never actually seen it. Only a rain that was sometimes cold, but it was like a drizzly Spring. If she went off of only what she had experienced, then she could almost fool herself into thinking it didn't exist. But from someone that had been seemingly all over the world and from the phantom-limb feeling of frost on her fingertips, it had to exist.
Well, that was a little too philosophical.
Being in Esthar was like getting a really crappy job. And somehow not minding it. After they had gotten through the moldy files that Laguna had piled in his office there were other such confiscated items to go through. She'd even been allowed to keep some of the lesser items, like a rather pretty pocket knife she figured Squall would like.
Rinoa had never been above work, not really. Her problem had always been sitting still.
"Have you just been staying around here because of me?" Laguna was the leader of a country. Even if she really adored his brand of friendly not-Squall-but-yet around, she hadn't meant to be catered to. Some people, well, they made her angry with that.
Certain military men came to mind.
He gave her that nervous smile that Squall pretended he didn't have and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "Maybe a little bit. I don't really have to do much besides show up places and look pretty." Switch to the goofy smile that Squall hadn't figured out yet.
Rinoa had found it odd how distant Squall could be to his father. But the longer she was here, the more the invisible hands felt like the cold dead weight of the ring on a chain. The smell of books and the oil the went with fixing up old machines had brought memories of her own dad. She knew that Squall had been impressed with General Caraway, like a lot of people were.
Did he think it was as unnatural as she found his distance to President Loire?
"How about you take a day off, Laguna. I promise not to wander anywhere off the grounds."
Rinoa, strangely, probably understood him a little more than he thought she did. After all, he hadn't asked to be where he was either. She only hoped that she came off half as well as he did with it--one day she wasn't just going to be some strange girl that a stranger wandering around Garden would wonder exactly what was off about her. One day... one day everyone would know. And maybe they wouldn't be afraid.
"Just promise you'll look before you do anything."
---
When the shadows were at their shortest, she regretted letting him go. It was silly, because she'd been very grown up just that morning, thinking about heavy things and letting the person she was most comfortable around go do things for his country for a change, but there was something about the way the light hit the metal so harshly that unsettled her a little.
It reminded her of blank pages, something which she'd spent a week ignoring. Blank pages and blank letters.
Without Laguna around, it was so empty. She could be a glass half empty kind of girl in this desert feeling place, container garden reminding her that it would only ever be summer here, if she were to stay for a long time. Rinoa hadn't planned on more than a month, because she figured that whatever types of things that Ellone could walk around with would either come and pat her on the shoulder or just leave her alone.
It starts with 'Dear Squall'
The day it had all gone wrong had started when she found the ring. Rinoa hadn't been allowed in that room, Daddy had specifically told her to stay out of it, in that firm tone. She had to have been seven at the time. Angelo wasn't even around yet, just her and that spinning top toy.
'I'll bet you'd never have guessed that I've always tried to shake people out of things. I've never been very good at sitting still.'
The doors in Esthar were as unlocked as the doors back at home. Daddy had always placed a certain trust on her to follow his words, because locked doors only made things more interesting. Even still, it was only the sound of footsteps, the fleeting kind of hope that a seven year old can have when they were still used to a mother. And she could almost smell her perfume, something cold and airy like a wind that didn't happen around there.
'I always figured you had to lose something in order to grow up. That's the way all the people I grew up with treated it--who'd be first to lose their baby teeth, their knobby knees, their virginity. Maybe once you'd lost everything you'd be all grown up, like my dad.'
There were all her long dresses, her vanity, her shoes and makeup. Mom's room was a dressing room for when she would go out and sing, even after getting married. Rinoa found out later that she hadn't finished writing one for Daddy yet, because she hadn't been able to find the perfect note. But in the room with her feathers and sequins, satin gloves and ivory combs Rinoa felt safe. She was far too short to fit into anything, but she put on the fluffiest dress she could find and teetered on the tallest heels. Then, she looked in the drawer.
'But it really wasn't grown up at all, it was just sad. I started to get angry because the longer time went on, the less he seemed attached to anything. All he was, all I ever heard from his mouth was loss loss loss, nothing else.'
A perfect shiny sliver of a band, sitting in the middle without any other jewelry to keep it company.
'I started to see darkness, death, this shadow in everything he did and I wanted life. I stayed out late at the loudest parties and made friends with the rowdiest people I could because it had to be better than sitting still in an office pretending that I was living. That maybe if I was so bright that it burned, the shroud would shrivel up and go away.
She'd tripped into his office, that clear cold smell of her mother's perfume masking the usual smell of old books and gun grease. It had taken her a while to stand just right, a little white gosling in too tall of shoes and way too big of a dress, holding up a little treasure for her Daddy, because that's who she'd taken the ring for. She thought it was his, because he used to wear one before Mom had gone away.
'That didn't work too well. It seemed no matter how big a noise I made, all it would mean was some time spent in the cold empty places of my house. I got better at sneaking out the more he did that, and he got more and more intent on making me sit still.'
It was the only time she'd ever seen him afraid. Like she'd just brought in a monster or a boyfriend. He stood up shakily, leaning on that desk she would learn to hate and stared at her, waiting a few moments before...
"Give me that, go to your room and stay there," Rinoa found herself whispering.
'Maybe you can see why when I saw you, standing like some ridiculous statue in a party full of moving people I just had to pull you out there. Because I know that look, that distance. It's ok to be sad or afraid, but it's not ok to not feel anything.'
But she hadn't done that. She'd balled her little fist up and tore off the dress, pulled out of the shoes and ran, ran out those unlocked doors and as far as she could because that wasn't him, that wasn't Daddy. In the middle of the night a witch had replaced him with a dark man. A shadow man. Dust.
Rinoa determined then, when she was too tired and he eventually caught up with her, that she wouldn't hold still. She couldn't turn to dust like he had, and so she'd cried and fought and ran and everything she could think of. No one seemed to know about enchantments like that.
'I think, though, that it's just as bad to feel everything. That always being angry and excited and all that in between doesn't mean you're actually a part of anything. I'm glad you're... steady. I guess I needed a little darkness too, you know?'
Just a flicker of expression. She started to wear it openly, this symbol of rebellion, this amulet. Rinoa wouldn't forget and neither would he, not until it was broken. And when she saw him, this boy with eyes like dust in winter, and that little symbol of something he held onto himself, she had to connect herself to it. Tokens were silly things, but even at seventeen she could still believe in enchantments.
'I should have been telling you about the things I've been up to out here, but it would bore you. I figured that you would appreciate this a little more. Really, I just wanted to say, I can understand. Or at least I try.'
She hit the 'return' key and realized that she wasn't outside anymore. The dimly lit room with the curtains drawn and the lone terminal sent goosebumps up her arm. Rinoa never liked it when she lost her spatial reasoning like that, lost her ability to control where she was. But she had been putting off writing it for a week, and she supposed that the silence and the emptiness was enough. Might as well finish what she'd started typing.
'I think I'll be home soon. Listen to Selphie when she tells you to take a break, she knows better.'
Her shoulders always shook a little when she started crying, but the phantom hands were steadying them. Rinoa supposed she should have jumped at something that wasn't really there, but it was just as much a part of her as anything else. At least something was strong.
'Love always, Rinoa.'
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-29 12:45 pm (UTC)The flashback at the ending of this chapter helped me to make more sense of Rin’s character that I hadn’t been able to grasp before. Not that I didn’t enjoy it in and of itself it was well done mixed in with the letter and all her other memories. Your can do those sorts of sequences so wonderfully and this one was one of the better ones. It was very easy to visualize it.
I’m also fond of the feeling for the story even if I have no idea what’s going on in it.
Partly randomly not related; I’m really glad there was some Aeris and Iffy interaction in the last chapter of Tall Tales or I’d feel a bit oversaturated with the father-daughter dynamics. I know it’s not intended for Vincent to be one of Aeris dad’s it’s just how it clicks in my brain which has little to do with the narration. So the brief mom conversation there was refreshing. It all reminds me of the break-up meme you did last year was it.
Not that I don’t utterly enjoy father-daughter relationships as they’re interesting and I really don’t have that sort of relationship with my father at all I suppose he is more like how people do the mother in these sorts of relationships while my mom’s more of the dad so it’s neat to see the other side. I guess I don’t like seeing the moms get left out of the conflict as I suppose I’m weird. Not that you need to know that I’m just trying to work thing out I suppose.
Once again I enjoyed the chapter a lot.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-29 05:20 pm (UTC)Not that I don’t utterly enjoy father-daughter relationships as they’re interesting and I really don’t have that sort of relationship with my father at all I suppose he is more like how people do the mother in these sorts of relationships while my mom’s more of the dad so it’s neat to see the other side.
You're going to like the next chapter, then. Aeris is getting another mother-type in the group. ~_^
~Cendri
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-29 08:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-29 06:54 pm (UTC)Who can fault her for trying to find herself?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-31 01:45 am (UTC)I have to say 'hrm' because I'm not quite sure what else to say. I've been sitting here for a surprising amount of time, trying to make my thoughts make sense.
I really like when Rinoa's sorceress attachment comes up and I really enjoyed what you did between mixing her letter and her flashback. Rinoa's relationship with her father was always under-explained in FF8 and so I was really glad to see you pick that up (in a more mature way than the daddy-didn't-love-me gut reaction that seems to lurk in all fandoms).
But I think I know what bothers me in this chapter (or maybe 'bothers me' is too strong a word). It's a tiny bit symptomatic of the whole story. It's all incredibly one-sided. I realize that the point of this is Rin trying to find her subjectivity but it just seems... one-sided. I'd love to know what Squall says to these letters. Since you never pull him into any of this, he seems very cold.
Granted, I never play in this fandom but Squall always struck me as a boy who doesn't say a lot but who could surprise you with the depth of his feeling. I don't get a lot of that from this story. I don't feel like there's a lot of trust between them - like somehow they're together for... the sake of being together? It just makes Squall feel very cold and distant. I would love to see him have just ... some kind of sign of support for Rinoa. Some little sign of - I understand that you need to figure this out; I have faith in you and I'll always be with you.
Remember the smile he gave her at the end of the game? That's what's missing in this story. She brought him back and he...
Well, he loves her. And he's her Knight. That sort of thing, I feel, must run very deep. To see them so seperate ... it all just seems a little bit lonely and cold.
I wonder if the difference is that instead of Rinoa being on her own she feels distinctly alone. And that I don't think is right because Squall would go through Hell and high water to keep her from feeling that way. (Of course, you might argue that that's exactly why Rinoa had to leave; to fight her own battles). My point is more that he'd at least show some sign of support. If I were Squall, receiving letters like the one Rinoa sends would ... well, upset me. Worry me. I'd say something.
Half the point of FF8 was that these orphans and pseudo-orphans had to learn that they weren't alone. It feels like a reversion, like Rinoa's taken a step back. I appreciate that she is a bit of an outsider (not a SeeD) but ... I just keep on asking myself what Squall would do. And something doesn't feel right in the construction of this.
You've set yourself a tricky task, in a way; a story about a woman who's in a relationship trying to find herself. I know it's not the norm but I sometimes have sympathy for the husbands in these. If the love is still there ...
It reminds me of that Vin.Tifa I wrote where Vincent ended up leaving her for that exact reason. I feel like there must be a true depth of feeling between Squall and Rinoa ... but I don't feel it in this story.
But perhaps we just have different points of vue about his character. I don't play in the FF8 fandom so it might be a bit hard for me to judge. But I did play FF8 and it leaves me feeling like something is lacking in this story.
(I hope my little review didn't come off too harsh. You know I love you, Cendri. It's probably been nibbling at me for a while.)
-T. pirate
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-31 02:08 am (UTC)Really.
I like making people worry and then swooping in. XD
~Cendri
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-31 02:23 am (UTC)... though that really does take the fizzle out of my entire argument. SERVES ME RIGHT. :p
-T. pirate