Belonging || Rydia, #38 (Fear)
Belonging
Fandom: FFIV
Characters/Pairings: Rydia (assumed Rydia/Edge), Asura, Leviathan
Rating: PG
Theme: 38, Fear
Summary: “Choosing one thing does not mean forsaking all the others, daughter. Love who you love, and be happy.”
- - -
The first step onto the meshed floor in the Land of Summons makes her entire body shudder; her boot against the metal grating makes a seething, hissing sound. Rydia feels pulled, downward, her arms and bones suddenly heavy and aching with weariness. Her mind knows this is simply the magnetic field around the caves, tugging at body and aura to align her presence with the time flow that dominates the Land - but that does not change the feeling of her heart being pulled through the soles of her feet.
She takes another step, and is rewarded by more: the pull on her muscles increases, as if weights suddenly hung from her shoulders and wrists and muscle and sinew. The ache reminds her of the time she picked up Cecil’s sword, as a jest, and tried to swing it around: not only was it too heavy, and too large, but it burnt her hands as if chastising. The pain lances upward through her legs, along her bones.
She stops for a minute and lets the familiar pull of her Land strip everything from her - hoping that the aching pain in her nerves might block out the throbbing of her heart. Let it be pulled through her feet. It is nothing to her.
By the third step she hears monster-whispers around the corner, and is reminded of herself; Rydia swallows the Float-spell in her hand and grips her whip. Even being the favored friend, the last summoner, the adopted daughter - these things are not enough to change the basic, ancient rules upon which the Land of Summons resides, first of which is: earn your way in. The Arachne and Darktree breed on the magnetic pull of the grates and create countless warriors, expendable spirits dedicated only to testing the mettle and resolve of those who wish to reach the city. They have for eons, and they will until the end of time.
The Float item takes, and Rydia feels her body lifted, weightless, pulled away from the soul-scorching hold of the magnetic floor. The pain fades, and she almost - almost - misses it.
- - -
Asura and Leviathan hold an impromptu festival for her when she arrives. It’s almost too much like the feasts that Cecil and Rosa hold for her in Baron, and she feels a little hesitant, but then she remembers what festivals are like in the Land of Summons: re-enactments of the traditional battles (fire and ice, earth and wind) as epic duels, and the guest gets to battle the summon of her choice. Rydia chooses the Mist Dragon, in deference to her homeland, and wonders whether it’s really been this long; is she already forgetting the customs of the monsters who raised her? She does not want to forget, in the declaration of who she is, those who made her this way. She is afraid to forget, as if it would make her somehow less.
Asura presides over the festival, as is her right, and heals all the contestants before and after each battle. Ifrit and Shiva’s duel is almost a dance, fire and ice intertwining in a way Rydia knows is more show than force. She then battles Mist, and wins - although it is an unspoken tradition to give the guest advantage in a battle like this. To finish it off, in her honor, Asura and Leviathan actually enter the dueling circle; Rydia knows this is rare, and watches in admiration with her heart bursting.
Sometimes it is unbelievably wonderful to feel so loved, she thinks, as Leviathan’s Tidal Wave crashes over Asura and she emerges, ringed in the pale light of her healing. Sometimes it’s terrifying. It is something she never thought she would have, and she fears its loss more than she ever thought imaginable.
- - -
“Daughter,” Asura says to her the next morning, her human voice still creamy-warm as Rydia remembers: she has not, then, forgotten everything. “What’s wrong?”
Rydia bites her lip; she watches Leviathan’s serpent form twist and writhe as he addresses the subjects who have come this morning to petition their king. “Why would something be wrong?”
Asura shrugs her shoulders. “You wouldn’t actually come home for anything less.”
Rydia opens her mouth, wounded, but Asura’s glowing laugh silences her. “Daughter,” she says, “I am the one who told you to stay out in your world. This is not an insult.” A silence falls between them, and then she adds, softly, not laughing this time: “You have been a while with the humans, then.”
Rydia nods, feeling wretched and achy. She’s been there long enough to start to forget, apparently. “Edge asked me to marry him.”
“Hm.” Asura’s tons is noncommittal, but Rydia can see the smile playing around her mouth. “And this is what you want?”
Rydia says nothing, simply watches Leviathan shift from sea-snake back into human. Sometimes she feels as though she herself has two forms, two sides, two halves that do not entirely mix; two different worlds come to ground in her blood. Unlike Asura and Leviathan, though, her natural form is human; her natural home is above the ground. Rydia knows this. And yet she wonders: there is a part of her, monster-bred, that no one will ever understand.
“Eblan’s King has asked our daughter to marry him,” Asura informs Leviathan as he walks over to the ring of rock where the women sit.
“A king.” Leviathan sits down, pretends to muse on it. “Well, a king might be good enough for you, my sweet.” Another thing she has forgotten: how playful Asura and Levia both are in their human forms, a stark contrast to the formality they both show as King and Queen of Summons. “What have you said?”
“Nothing,” Rydia says mournfully.
There’s a pause, and Asura and Leviathan exchange the sort of glance that makes Rydia feel terribly insignificant and tiny. Her monster-parents have been together for ages and eons, and she knows she is just a small bright-green blip in the utter eternity of their lives and the bright shining force that is their love for one another.
“Not yes?” Asura ventures gently. “Not no?”
“Nothing.” Rydia stares down at the rock-table and traces her fingers along its smooth surface, outlining the curve of a vein of some sparkling mineral. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You speak so well of him.” Leviathan tilts his head to look at her, reminding Rydia that there is still a sea-dragon below that skin. “I would have expected you to answer easily. What holds you back, love?”
“It would be different if he were simply asking me to marry him,” Rydia says tartly. “But if you haven’t noticed, he comes with a crown and a kingdom.”
“He’d better,” Leviathan says lightly. “You deserve even more. Hold out for a Chocobo farm, perhaps. Or a fleet of those flying ships you use. Or both.” He pauses, and looks at her with alacrity. “Humans still do rings, right? Do you have one? I have to approve it before you actually marry this man.”
“Levia.” Asura swats him, but her eyes are bright with laughter.
Rydia smiles, but Leviathan’s teasing only makes it hurt worse. She misses them so badly, sometimes, that monster-self part of her yearning for their comfort. “Not yet,” she says, softly. “I wouldn’t take it - it felt too much like saying yes.”
“So you do not want to be a queen?” Asura looks at her, and Rydias’ heart aches: she will never be a queen like Asura, golden-white and glowing with utter warmth and love for her land. Even Rosa does not merely rule her land: she feels for it, lives for it, for in many ways Cecil and Baron have become part of the same thing, and Rosa loves all of what they are.
“That isn’t really it.” Rydia turns to look around her. The glowing roof of the cavern above them gives the red-rock land the semblance of daylight; below their feet, even the ground emits a faint warm light. The table before them is carved from marble, all dark-burgundy and sparkling gold. If she was ever to be a queen, she wants it to be here, not in a land she doesn’t know.
Asura nods as if she understands without further words; she probably does. “Have you told him that it is Eblan that stands in your way?”
“I - I tried.” Rydia grins weakly in remembrance. “He said - if that was the only thing keeping me from marrying him, that he’d give up the country entirely and come live down here with you two.”
“Excellent.” Leviathan leans back in his chair, slowly, playing at satisfaction. “Well, that’s settled then. Do you want your old house, or shall we build you a new one?”
“Oh, Levia.” Asura turns towards Rydia, and reaches out for her hands. “You cannot live here, daughter, you know that.”
“I know,” Rydia says. “And Edge does too.” She glances down at their hands. Asura’s hands are pale-white and human; her own hands are dirty and worn, monster-like. “I just had to come back here, to think about it a little.”
“Take all the time you want,” Asura says, and Leviathan nods.
- - -
She heads back into the caverns, feeling the magnetic pull clutch at her, a victim caught in its metallic web. Her strength slowly saps as she fights, but it’s a refreshing feeling: facing battle with nothing but whip and word, like the old Callers used to. Training has always cleared her head. She fights until the first level is empty of its guardians, and then turns back, feeling the thrill of the pain lancing up her legs into her chest, where it clenches like her heart.
She could stay here forever, a part of her thinks. She could stay here and simply train in magic and grow old, and be happy. But would she be truly happy? Without Edge? Without Cecil and Rosa? Without the sunlight and the simplicity of Mist?
She then heads to the dueling circle. Today there will be no festival, but she calls forth her beasts, one by one. Rydia has always vowed to herself to renew her summons, occasionally, for the day she cannot defeat them in battle is the day she lays aside her summoner’s robe. It is a ritual, for her, for she does not come to the Land of Summons often. One by one, they appear to her - Mist, then Shiva, then Ifrit - and one by one, she proves her worth. Ramuh, then Titan. A sheen of sweat breaks out on her skin. She thinks of summoning Bahamut - wonders whether the dragon-king would heed her Call.
“What are you so afraid of?”
Leviathan appears before her. He is still in human form, but shimmering somewhat in the light of the cavern, as if he cannot decide whether to be snake or man.
“I’m not afraid.” Rydia looks straight at him, daring him to defy. “Duel me,” she says, because she is desperate.
Leviathan continues to walk forward, slowly, until he is standing before her. As a man, he is ageless, swathed in purple robes; his eyes are the color of the sea.
“How long have I known you?” he asks, conversationally. “You come here and renew your summons whenever you’re scared. You did it after the Baron uprising, you did it after the riots in Eblan, and you did it twice before returning to Mist.” His sea-eyes are serious. “I am just wondering what you’re so scared of this time.”
Rydia stares him back, feeling her eyes narrow in selfish, human self-defense, wondering how he can see into her aching heart so very well.
“If you don’t want to marry this man,” Leviathan tells her, “then don’t.”
“It isn’t that!” she bursts out, snapping her whip in sheer desperation. The Land glows all around her and she feels her heart breaking right there.
“Then marry him,” Leviathan says, as if this is easy.
“I’m afraid,” she whispers. “What if I become the Queen of Eblan… and stop being Rydia of Mist?” The words sound terrifying once said out loud. “I… I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“What?”
“You’re my parents. You need me. I need you.” She clutches her hands in front of her. “I’m afraid of losing everything.”
Leviathan’s face is passive: it betrays nothing. “Do you really think that would happen?”
“I don’t know.” She looks up at him, defeated now. “Would I still be yours even if I had a family of my own, and a - a kingdom? Could I still be… your daughter?”
Leviathan looks down at her, and there’s a smile in his eyes now. “We’d still claim you as our own if you ran away with the Chocobo farmer.”
Rydia scoffs. “Can you really say that? I know how fast time passes down here. I could take a year, and it’ll be what, seven? Ten? How could I do that?”
“We want that which is best for you,” Leviathan tells her. “And we live long. You know that.”
“It’s just a big step.” She looks towards the ground. “I’m afraid I’ll be terrible at being a queen - or that I’ll be good at it, and that I’ll forget about you, and forget about Mist. There are so many things - and I just-“
“Rydia.” Leviathan’s voice is formal, now, and even though he still wears a human’s face she hears the tones of a King. “You’re making this much too difficult. Do you love him?”
“Yes!” she snaps, stunned and a little hurt.
“Good.” Leviathan smiles. “Then - marry him. Choosing one thing does not mean forsaking all the others, daughter. Love who you love, and be happy.”
Rydia opens her mouth to protest, but for the very first time, the weight on her heart has lifted. It’s as if she’s swallowed a Float spell again, only this time to her soul: is it really that easy?
Perhaps it is.
“Now if you’ll stop being such an idiot,” Leviathan says, conversationally, “then I’ll duel you, if you are so inclined.”
Rydia snaps her whip again, playfully, and looks up at him. “If I’m an idiot,” she replies, “it’s because I had such a terrible teacher.”
- - -
She looks for a long time at the opening of the cave-maze, looming just beyond where the neatly-arranged tiles of the Land stop.
Things still won’t be easy. But her heart no longer feels the tug of guilt, that magnet drawing her down to the Underground where she feels she should be. Instead, there’s a fluttering sort of almost-queasy feeling when she thinks about it - a happy one. Edge.
She’s said her goodbyes to the Land, but not forever: only for now. She does not have to give anything up. She will still belong.
She is, to be honest, proof more than anything that one person can truly belong in more than one place.
With one more glance at the twisted veins that make up the floor of the cavern, Rydia turns on her heel, and warps herself back to the surface.
Notes: for mount_ordeals
Crossposted: brokenprism
Notes: Entirely the fault of lassarina, although once Leviathan decided to not shut up at all, it sort of took its own path.
Fandom: FFIV
Characters/Pairings: Rydia (assumed Rydia/Edge), Asura, Leviathan
Rating: PG
Theme: 38, Fear
Summary: “Choosing one thing does not mean forsaking all the others, daughter. Love who you love, and be happy.”
- - -
The first step onto the meshed floor in the Land of Summons makes her entire body shudder; her boot against the metal grating makes a seething, hissing sound. Rydia feels pulled, downward, her arms and bones suddenly heavy and aching with weariness. Her mind knows this is simply the magnetic field around the caves, tugging at body and aura to align her presence with the time flow that dominates the Land - but that does not change the feeling of her heart being pulled through the soles of her feet.
She takes another step, and is rewarded by more: the pull on her muscles increases, as if weights suddenly hung from her shoulders and wrists and muscle and sinew. The ache reminds her of the time she picked up Cecil’s sword, as a jest, and tried to swing it around: not only was it too heavy, and too large, but it burnt her hands as if chastising. The pain lances upward through her legs, along her bones.
She stops for a minute and lets the familiar pull of her Land strip everything from her - hoping that the aching pain in her nerves might block out the throbbing of her heart. Let it be pulled through her feet. It is nothing to her.
By the third step she hears monster-whispers around the corner, and is reminded of herself; Rydia swallows the Float-spell in her hand and grips her whip. Even being the favored friend, the last summoner, the adopted daughter - these things are not enough to change the basic, ancient rules upon which the Land of Summons resides, first of which is: earn your way in. The Arachne and Darktree breed on the magnetic pull of the grates and create countless warriors, expendable spirits dedicated only to testing the mettle and resolve of those who wish to reach the city. They have for eons, and they will until the end of time.
The Float item takes, and Rydia feels her body lifted, weightless, pulled away from the soul-scorching hold of the magnetic floor. The pain fades, and she almost - almost - misses it.
- - -
Asura and Leviathan hold an impromptu festival for her when she arrives. It’s almost too much like the feasts that Cecil and Rosa hold for her in Baron, and she feels a little hesitant, but then she remembers what festivals are like in the Land of Summons: re-enactments of the traditional battles (fire and ice, earth and wind) as epic duels, and the guest gets to battle the summon of her choice. Rydia chooses the Mist Dragon, in deference to her homeland, and wonders whether it’s really been this long; is she already forgetting the customs of the monsters who raised her? She does not want to forget, in the declaration of who she is, those who made her this way. She is afraid to forget, as if it would make her somehow less.
Asura presides over the festival, as is her right, and heals all the contestants before and after each battle. Ifrit and Shiva’s duel is almost a dance, fire and ice intertwining in a way Rydia knows is more show than force. She then battles Mist, and wins - although it is an unspoken tradition to give the guest advantage in a battle like this. To finish it off, in her honor, Asura and Leviathan actually enter the dueling circle; Rydia knows this is rare, and watches in admiration with her heart bursting.
Sometimes it is unbelievably wonderful to feel so loved, she thinks, as Leviathan’s Tidal Wave crashes over Asura and she emerges, ringed in the pale light of her healing. Sometimes it’s terrifying. It is something she never thought she would have, and she fears its loss more than she ever thought imaginable.
- - -
“Daughter,” Asura says to her the next morning, her human voice still creamy-warm as Rydia remembers: she has not, then, forgotten everything. “What’s wrong?”
Rydia bites her lip; she watches Leviathan’s serpent form twist and writhe as he addresses the subjects who have come this morning to petition their king. “Why would something be wrong?”
Asura shrugs her shoulders. “You wouldn’t actually come home for anything less.”
Rydia opens her mouth, wounded, but Asura’s glowing laugh silences her. “Daughter,” she says, “I am the one who told you to stay out in your world. This is not an insult.” A silence falls between them, and then she adds, softly, not laughing this time: “You have been a while with the humans, then.”
Rydia nods, feeling wretched and achy. She’s been there long enough to start to forget, apparently. “Edge asked me to marry him.”
“Hm.” Asura’s tons is noncommittal, but Rydia can see the smile playing around her mouth. “And this is what you want?”
Rydia says nothing, simply watches Leviathan shift from sea-snake back into human. Sometimes she feels as though she herself has two forms, two sides, two halves that do not entirely mix; two different worlds come to ground in her blood. Unlike Asura and Leviathan, though, her natural form is human; her natural home is above the ground. Rydia knows this. And yet she wonders: there is a part of her, monster-bred, that no one will ever understand.
“Eblan’s King has asked our daughter to marry him,” Asura informs Leviathan as he walks over to the ring of rock where the women sit.
“A king.” Leviathan sits down, pretends to muse on it. “Well, a king might be good enough for you, my sweet.” Another thing she has forgotten: how playful Asura and Levia both are in their human forms, a stark contrast to the formality they both show as King and Queen of Summons. “What have you said?”
“Nothing,” Rydia says mournfully.
There’s a pause, and Asura and Leviathan exchange the sort of glance that makes Rydia feel terribly insignificant and tiny. Her monster-parents have been together for ages and eons, and she knows she is just a small bright-green blip in the utter eternity of their lives and the bright shining force that is their love for one another.
“Not yes?” Asura ventures gently. “Not no?”
“Nothing.” Rydia stares down at the rock-table and traces her fingers along its smooth surface, outlining the curve of a vein of some sparkling mineral. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You speak so well of him.” Leviathan tilts his head to look at her, reminding Rydia that there is still a sea-dragon below that skin. “I would have expected you to answer easily. What holds you back, love?”
“It would be different if he were simply asking me to marry him,” Rydia says tartly. “But if you haven’t noticed, he comes with a crown and a kingdom.”
“He’d better,” Leviathan says lightly. “You deserve even more. Hold out for a Chocobo farm, perhaps. Or a fleet of those flying ships you use. Or both.” He pauses, and looks at her with alacrity. “Humans still do rings, right? Do you have one? I have to approve it before you actually marry this man.”
“Levia.” Asura swats him, but her eyes are bright with laughter.
Rydia smiles, but Leviathan’s teasing only makes it hurt worse. She misses them so badly, sometimes, that monster-self part of her yearning for their comfort. “Not yet,” she says, softly. “I wouldn’t take it - it felt too much like saying yes.”
“So you do not want to be a queen?” Asura looks at her, and Rydias’ heart aches: she will never be a queen like Asura, golden-white and glowing with utter warmth and love for her land. Even Rosa does not merely rule her land: she feels for it, lives for it, for in many ways Cecil and Baron have become part of the same thing, and Rosa loves all of what they are.
“That isn’t really it.” Rydia turns to look around her. The glowing roof of the cavern above them gives the red-rock land the semblance of daylight; below their feet, even the ground emits a faint warm light. The table before them is carved from marble, all dark-burgundy and sparkling gold. If she was ever to be a queen, she wants it to be here, not in a land she doesn’t know.
Asura nods as if she understands without further words; she probably does. “Have you told him that it is Eblan that stands in your way?”
“I - I tried.” Rydia grins weakly in remembrance. “He said - if that was the only thing keeping me from marrying him, that he’d give up the country entirely and come live down here with you two.”
“Excellent.” Leviathan leans back in his chair, slowly, playing at satisfaction. “Well, that’s settled then. Do you want your old house, or shall we build you a new one?”
“Oh, Levia.” Asura turns towards Rydia, and reaches out for her hands. “You cannot live here, daughter, you know that.”
“I know,” Rydia says. “And Edge does too.” She glances down at their hands. Asura’s hands are pale-white and human; her own hands are dirty and worn, monster-like. “I just had to come back here, to think about it a little.”
“Take all the time you want,” Asura says, and Leviathan nods.
- - -
She heads back into the caverns, feeling the magnetic pull clutch at her, a victim caught in its metallic web. Her strength slowly saps as she fights, but it’s a refreshing feeling: facing battle with nothing but whip and word, like the old Callers used to. Training has always cleared her head. She fights until the first level is empty of its guardians, and then turns back, feeling the thrill of the pain lancing up her legs into her chest, where it clenches like her heart.
She could stay here forever, a part of her thinks. She could stay here and simply train in magic and grow old, and be happy. But would she be truly happy? Without Edge? Without Cecil and Rosa? Without the sunlight and the simplicity of Mist?
She then heads to the dueling circle. Today there will be no festival, but she calls forth her beasts, one by one. Rydia has always vowed to herself to renew her summons, occasionally, for the day she cannot defeat them in battle is the day she lays aside her summoner’s robe. It is a ritual, for her, for she does not come to the Land of Summons often. One by one, they appear to her - Mist, then Shiva, then Ifrit - and one by one, she proves her worth. Ramuh, then Titan. A sheen of sweat breaks out on her skin. She thinks of summoning Bahamut - wonders whether the dragon-king would heed her Call.
“What are you so afraid of?”
Leviathan appears before her. He is still in human form, but shimmering somewhat in the light of the cavern, as if he cannot decide whether to be snake or man.
“I’m not afraid.” Rydia looks straight at him, daring him to defy. “Duel me,” she says, because she is desperate.
Leviathan continues to walk forward, slowly, until he is standing before her. As a man, he is ageless, swathed in purple robes; his eyes are the color of the sea.
“How long have I known you?” he asks, conversationally. “You come here and renew your summons whenever you’re scared. You did it after the Baron uprising, you did it after the riots in Eblan, and you did it twice before returning to Mist.” His sea-eyes are serious. “I am just wondering what you’re so scared of this time.”
Rydia stares him back, feeling her eyes narrow in selfish, human self-defense, wondering how he can see into her aching heart so very well.
“If you don’t want to marry this man,” Leviathan tells her, “then don’t.”
“It isn’t that!” she bursts out, snapping her whip in sheer desperation. The Land glows all around her and she feels her heart breaking right there.
“Then marry him,” Leviathan says, as if this is easy.
“I’m afraid,” she whispers. “What if I become the Queen of Eblan… and stop being Rydia of Mist?” The words sound terrifying once said out loud. “I… I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“What?”
“You’re my parents. You need me. I need you.” She clutches her hands in front of her. “I’m afraid of losing everything.”
Leviathan’s face is passive: it betrays nothing. “Do you really think that would happen?”
“I don’t know.” She looks up at him, defeated now. “Would I still be yours even if I had a family of my own, and a - a kingdom? Could I still be… your daughter?”
Leviathan looks down at her, and there’s a smile in his eyes now. “We’d still claim you as our own if you ran away with the Chocobo farmer.”
Rydia scoffs. “Can you really say that? I know how fast time passes down here. I could take a year, and it’ll be what, seven? Ten? How could I do that?”
“We want that which is best for you,” Leviathan tells her. “And we live long. You know that.”
“It’s just a big step.” She looks towards the ground. “I’m afraid I’ll be terrible at being a queen - or that I’ll be good at it, and that I’ll forget about you, and forget about Mist. There are so many things - and I just-“
“Rydia.” Leviathan’s voice is formal, now, and even though he still wears a human’s face she hears the tones of a King. “You’re making this much too difficult. Do you love him?”
“Yes!” she snaps, stunned and a little hurt.
“Good.” Leviathan smiles. “Then - marry him. Choosing one thing does not mean forsaking all the others, daughter. Love who you love, and be happy.”
Rydia opens her mouth to protest, but for the very first time, the weight on her heart has lifted. It’s as if she’s swallowed a Float spell again, only this time to her soul: is it really that easy?
Perhaps it is.
“Now if you’ll stop being such an idiot,” Leviathan says, conversationally, “then I’ll duel you, if you are so inclined.”
Rydia snaps her whip again, playfully, and looks up at him. “If I’m an idiot,” she replies, “it’s because I had such a terrible teacher.”
- - -
She looks for a long time at the opening of the cave-maze, looming just beyond where the neatly-arranged tiles of the Land stop.
Things still won’t be easy. But her heart no longer feels the tug of guilt, that magnet drawing her down to the Underground where she feels she should be. Instead, there’s a fluttering sort of almost-queasy feeling when she thinks about it - a happy one. Edge.
She’s said her goodbyes to the Land, but not forever: only for now. She does not have to give anything up. She will still belong.
She is, to be honest, proof more than anything that one person can truly belong in more than one place.
With one more glance at the twisted veins that make up the floor of the cavern, Rydia turns on her heel, and warps herself back to the surface.
Notes: for mount_ordeals
Crossposted: brokenprism
Notes: Entirely the fault of lassarina, although once Leviathan decided to not shut up at all, it sort of took its own path.