Outside Needful Things, Friday Afternoon
Squall
Squall didn't know what he would say, or what he would do, or how this time would be different from his previous attempts, but they were running out of time. Rinoa needed to see reason now.
He strode out in front of the store defiantly and called, "Rinoa! You have to listen to me!"
Rinoa
Rinoa had picked just a few minutes before to fly up for a nice aerial lookout. She'd had her wings out for days. It was wonderful. And now, Squall wanted to throw down. Did he? Two could play at that game.
She couldn't resist going for a graceful, slow swoop down, to give her landing a full regal effect. She was the queen of all she surveyed. She was Sorceress.
"I don't have to do anything," she said. "Certainly not listen to you."
Squall
"You do," Squall insisted. "Leland Gaunt is poisoning you. He's stealing your soul. The book is cursed, and if you don't get rid of it, you will die. Please, listen to me. I'm begging you."
Rinoa
"I told you," Rinoa scoffed. "Your services are no longer required. You've been fired. Stop bothering me, and stop thinking you can trick me into letting you get to Leland Gaunt."
He had called them out here for protection, and he wouldn't find Rinoa wanting.
Squall
"This isn't about services," Squall spat. "This is about you. I care about you, and I don't want you to die! Look around you! Do you see all the fog? He's doing that! He's poisoned the water, and the animals, and you!"
Rinoa
"I'm not afraid of a little poison," Rinoa said, rolling her eyes. "He can't hurt me. No one can."
She arched her wings behind her. "Do you dare to defy me? Stand against me? You, of all people, should know to fear a Sorceress."
He'd killed one, and all. But Ultimecia had been a group effort, and shut up.
Squall
"I'm not defying you, I'm protecting you!" Squall insisted. "I'm defying him. You, of all people, should know that I am always on your side! I will always protect you!"
He was crazy obsessive. She would never be rid of him. He loved her too much.
Rinoa
She'd tried an Aero before, just to test his sincerity. Just to nudge him out of her space.
Now, it was a small, localized Tornado. Just to remind him who he was talking to. Just to teach him to watch his tone.
"I don't take kindly to lies."
Squall
Squall planted his feet and weathered the Tornado. It would take more than that to stop him. "I'm not lying," he insisted. "He is!"
...This was useless. He sucked at talking. Squall tossed his gunblade aside and started walking towards Rinoa with his arms down and palms open. "I'm on your side!" he pleaded. "I'm your Knight, your fiance, your lover, your.. I'm yours."
There was a link between them, a psychic bond forged between Sorceress and Knight. Squall tried to find it, tried to figure out how to use it, tried to push his thoughts and feelings out across the gulf between them. If she could feel how much he loved her, maybe she'd snap out of it.
Rinoa
Rinoa, meanwhile, was walking over to where he had discarded his gunblade. If he didn't want it, then she was going to play with it.
"You aren't my fiance," she reminded him. "If you were mine, you'd be helping me."
A flash of genuine frustration accompanied that. Why was he on the wrong side? He could be standing tall by the doorway, keeping Leland Gaunt safe. Was he really this afraid of her being powerful, of her being unafraid of who she was?
The still-Rinoa part could have cried. But it was easier to be the Sorceress, now.
And then, she felt something, in her mind.
"What are you doing?" she said, drawing her shields up protectively.
Squall
Squall frowned. He could feel her... less, somehow. Shields? Was that how they worked? He had plenty of telepathic friends, so he knew some of the terminology, and he could work it well enough when they had already established the connection. This was different. It was new territory.
He pushed, harder, but wasn't sure he was doing it right, or even what exactly he was pushing at her. He needed to focus.
A shooting star.
They'd seen one together, when they first met. It was during a dance, Squall's first day as a full SeeD, and their eyes met after sliding down off the star. Squall didn't believe in love at first sight -- it was a stupid, irrational concept! How could you love someone you'd only just met? That you hadn't even spoken to? And yet, the moment he first saw her, she shone. She was more alive, more real, more interesting than anyone he had ever seen, and she cut right through all of the walls he normally put up to keep people away. She told him she'd make him like her, and didn't take no for an answer. She dragged him onto the floor and made him dance, although he tried not to, and when he in his frustration and confusion bumped into another couple, she made a face at them.
No, it wasn't at first sight that he fell in love; it was when she made that face.
And then, when it was all over, she left... And, for the first time since he could remember, he was sad to be left alone.
That was what he focused on; that was what he sent to her -- the shooting star, the whirlwind of confusion that turned his whole world upside-down and left him without a foundation to stand on, and then the aching longing when she disappeared. It wasn't the whole of the message, just the beginning, to crack open the door.
Rinoa
That shooting star ...
She'd been there, at a dance, trying to play at being a revolutionary, maybe trying to flirt with her ex, and then she'd seen a shooting star. And had glanced over and realized a hot-looking guy was looking at it, too. It had been like some kind of a sign.
And he had been awkward and grumpy but somehow, that had only made him more adorable.
You're-going-to-like-me ... did it work?
"It's not real," she said, softly, but she was lowering the gunblade even while she said it.
Squall
"It's how I remember it," Squall told her. "I might have gotten some details wrong." But it seemed to be working.
He focused on the moment she first became a Sorceress, how terrified he felt when she collapsed into a coma, how he kept checking on her obsessively in the infirmary, and how frustrated and confused he was when, as soon as he'd actually started caring about someone, all of his friends decided that saving the world was more important. How he left them, abandoned the quest to save the world, and walked halfway across the globe, carrying her on his back, to try to find an invisible land that might, maybe help. He was on her side when no one else was, when all logic and reason said it was the wrong call.
He focused on the moment that he almost lost her for good, up in space, how desperate he was, and how he dove after her into the inky black void with no plan and no backup, just to find her, to be with her, to rescue her... no matter what.
He focused on the first time they kissed, how unbelievably elated he was then, and the next time they kissed, and every time they kissed, and every moment of every day that they spent together. How happy she made him, how whole she made him feel, how right he felt with her.
He focused on the fight against Ultimecia, on how devastated he was when each of his friends in turn was wiped from existence -- yes, even Seifer -- but how much worse it was, how much anguish he felt, how alone he was when Rinoa vanished. And the joy, the beauty the wonder of her finding him again, in that empty wasteland outside time.
And then he focused on the meadow, their meadow, the one outside the orphanage. He didn't remember playing in it as a child, but he remembered the promise they'd made to each other.
He stepped close to her, holding on to the memory. The dark fog seemed to melt away into sunshine and flowers. "I'll always be waiting for you. If you come here, you'll find me. I promise. No matter what."
Rinoa
She could see it, then, through his eyes. How he had -- had he really punched a pillar, at Edea's house? Just because no one was listening. He'd been so scared for her ...
It was one thing to know that someone loved you. It was another to see that love, from their perspective. To feel it.
Rinoa didn't even realize that her shields were dropped, or that her wings had folded themselves away. Or that she was more herself than she had been in at least a week.
All she knew was that she was wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him. And then stopping, letting her forehead rest against his.
"If this is a lie," she said, her voice shaking. "If this is some kind of a trick."
She would never forgive him. Or herself, for falling for it. Please, please, don't be lying to her right now, Squall. Not when she was this open.
Squall
"I would never trick you like this," Squall promised. "I wouldn't even know how. The only trick was figuring out I could do this."
He held her tight, for a very long time. "I wouldn't have believed that anything could make you doubt me."
Rinoa
"It all seemed so logical," she said, which was odd, because when was she logical? "The book just hinted that sometimes Knights were evil, and you seemed different. I was so ready to believe --"
Oh. Oh.
"The book," she said, pulling back so she could look into his eyes. "Is that what's evil?"
Maybe he had poisoned her with a real book. Maybe she could keep it! She needed --
Squall
Squall nodded. "I'm sorry. I... I'm really sorry. It gives him power over you. You'll die if you don't break the curse. You have to destroy it."
He knew how much that was going to hurt her. "It's probably full of lies, anyway."
Rinoa
Rinoa pulled back, feeling the instinctive flash of anger. You're wrong, you're lying, I need that book.
"It's not fair," she said. "It's stupid and horrible and it's not fair. I've never had any idea and this book, it's right here and it might not even be true but it might be and I have to burn it!? How is that fair!?"
That might be oddly reassuring, to Squall. Rinoa throwing a bit of a tantrum was definitely not mind-whammied-Rinoa.
Squall
Squall smiled just a little. It was reassuring.
"I know," he told her. "But you have all the notes you took. Besides, if there really is a book like that, we'll find it again. And if not, it's better that you not dwell on it too much. It might color your perceptions of what we do find."
Rinoa
Rinoa very, very reluctantly pulled out the battered text from where she'd hidden it. (Under her shirt, pressed flat against her stomach. Safest place for it.)
"I'm still going to be mad at you, for this," she warned him.
There was no rational reason she should be. At all. But she'd never liked having rational emotions, anyway.
She set the book on the ground and hurled off a fire spell at it -- and jumped a moment later as smoke poured out of the burning pages.
She knew that shape. Adel.
Squall
In the blink of an eye, Squall put himself between her and the book. It wasn't real, he knew that, but he wasn't taking any chances. The specter didn't have to actually be Adel to hurt them.
With a bark, a flurry of fur dashed by, picked up Squall's gunblade, dropped it in his hand, jumped up and licked Rinoa's face, and then ran off again.
Rinoa
And just like that, Adel was gone, and Rinoa had a wet face.
"Angelo?" she laughed, but the puppy had already sped away again.
She was going to wipe her face off with her sleeve just as her knees buckled. Oh, right, when did she last eat? The world was a little swimmy all of a sudden, that was all.
Squall
Squall caught Rinoa, and scooped her up in his arms.
"Here," he said, as he somehow managed to maneuver a Hi-Potion out of his jacket pocket and toss it to her without dropping her.
He started walking towards the clinic. "How are you feeling?"
Rinoa
"Tired," she said. She was going to nuzzle into the ruff of his jacket.
They were probably going to have an argument later, especially since she'd sort of stolen his favorite GF and lied to him about it. But right now, she just wanted to nap.
Maybe that could be okay.
(Preplayed with and coded by the lovely whateverknight! NFI, but broadcast is fine, and OOC is love!)