Rydia : (31) : Betrayal
Title: Turn
Theme + Number: (31) Betrayal
Claim: Rydia (character; challenge)
Characters/Pairings included: mentions only
Rating: PG
Warnings: n/a
Summary: She hears her mother’s voice in her dreams, sometimes.
She hears her mother’s voice in her dreams, sometimes. Her mother had bright hair, as fiery-red as Rydia’s is green, and it wraps around her face as her mother smiles at her. She doesn’t remember much of her mother - mostly the hair, and the kind smile, and how her mother turned into rose-gold and mist when she summoned. The dreams make her feel better, because they prove that somewhere in her subconscious, she still knows her mother’s face.
Sometimes in the dreams she is a child and her mother is her mother and they are doing normal things that she somewhat remembers. Sometimes she is grown, and her mother is mostly a spirit, looking down at her from a cloud with that fiery-red hair. She has those dreams often; they are the wishful thinking of a child grown too quickly. Rydia enjoys them, mostly, though she feels silly for having them.
But every now and then there is a nightmare, and Rydia wakes up seething with shame and rage, because her mother’s face is twisted with disappointment and the dream is wrought with the scent of betrayal. Rydia tells herself sternly, every time, that this is her own inner insecurities talking - her own fears - but every time her mother’s lovely eyes darken she can’t help the lurching of her heart.
And sometimes, her mother’s voice tells her how sad it is that Rydia now walks with the men who destroyed her village - how easily Rydia forgives, as if her mother’s life and livelihood meant nothing. These are the mornings Rydia wakes up stone-cold, so close to tears that she has to pretend to still be asleep until she can move without crying. She lies in the sleeping bag and tells herself over and over again that this is the right cause, and they are fighting for a common cause - like she told Cecil - and eventually she convinces herself enough to come out and face the fire and Edge’s gentle teasing about her hair.
And so she can barely move as she watches Kain leave the cave carrying the crystal; Rosa stumbles and falls, wailing, and Cecil wraps his arms around her and holds on, the force of his embrace telling of his own inner anguish. Rydia cannot move. It is the nightmares coming true - telling her all her choices were wrong, her faith misplaced.
Later, when Kain has returned, she wants to sneak up to him and whisper into his ear. I trusted you. I betrayed my mother, my legacy, and followed you, my mother’s-killer, for the greater good. How dare you turn your back on me?
She doesn’t, because the look in Cecil’s eyes says everything, better than she ever would. But she wants to.
For: mount_ordeals, FFIV
XP: brokenprism
Theme + Number: (31) Betrayal
Claim: Rydia (character; challenge)
Characters/Pairings included: mentions only
Rating: PG
Warnings: n/a
Summary: She hears her mother’s voice in her dreams, sometimes.
She hears her mother’s voice in her dreams, sometimes. Her mother had bright hair, as fiery-red as Rydia’s is green, and it wraps around her face as her mother smiles at her. She doesn’t remember much of her mother - mostly the hair, and the kind smile, and how her mother turned into rose-gold and mist when she summoned. The dreams make her feel better, because they prove that somewhere in her subconscious, she still knows her mother’s face.
Sometimes in the dreams she is a child and her mother is her mother and they are doing normal things that she somewhat remembers. Sometimes she is grown, and her mother is mostly a spirit, looking down at her from a cloud with that fiery-red hair. She has those dreams often; they are the wishful thinking of a child grown too quickly. Rydia enjoys them, mostly, though she feels silly for having them.
But every now and then there is a nightmare, and Rydia wakes up seething with shame and rage, because her mother’s face is twisted with disappointment and the dream is wrought with the scent of betrayal. Rydia tells herself sternly, every time, that this is her own inner insecurities talking - her own fears - but every time her mother’s lovely eyes darken she can’t help the lurching of her heart.
And sometimes, her mother’s voice tells her how sad it is that Rydia now walks with the men who destroyed her village - how easily Rydia forgives, as if her mother’s life and livelihood meant nothing. These are the mornings Rydia wakes up stone-cold, so close to tears that she has to pretend to still be asleep until she can move without crying. She lies in the sleeping bag and tells herself over and over again that this is the right cause, and they are fighting for a common cause - like she told Cecil - and eventually she convinces herself enough to come out and face the fire and Edge’s gentle teasing about her hair.
And so she can barely move as she watches Kain leave the cave carrying the crystal; Rosa stumbles and falls, wailing, and Cecil wraps his arms around her and holds on, the force of his embrace telling of his own inner anguish. Rydia cannot move. It is the nightmares coming true - telling her all her choices were wrong, her faith misplaced.
Later, when Kain has returned, she wants to sneak up to him and whisper into his ear. I trusted you. I betrayed my mother, my legacy, and followed you, my mother’s-killer, for the greater good. How dare you turn your back on me?
She doesn’t, because the look in Cecil’s eyes says everything, better than she ever would. But she wants to.
For: mount_ordeals, FFIV
XP: brokenprism