Rydia : (25) : Mysidia
Title: Useless
Theme + Number: (25) Mysidia
Claim: Rydia (character; challenge)
Characters/Pairings included: Elder
Rating: K+
Warnings: n/a
Notes: Theme 25: OMG 1/4 DONE. Also, this is longer than usual.
Summary: Rydia feels useless.
"Do you know what you are here for, Rydia of Mist?" The Elder's voice is benign, soft even, and his face is lined with kindness and experience as his deep eyes look into hers.
"I told you already," Rydia says, harsher than she means to because she's embarassed, a little. Mysidia is not her place, and yet she's here. "It hasn't changed."
Mysidia is not her place and never has been. She has always felt chastized here. Mysidian magic was a magic of schools, of learning, of formulas and studying and rune transcription. It was clinical magic, a magic with a system and with rules and a very set and rigid series of steps, and lots of studying and note-taking. A precise and discrete magic.
Rydia's magic in comparison is, and always has been, wild and untamed. She learnt it the way the wild monsters of the Underground taught her: some meditation, some observation, and trust in her own spirit - plus the inadvertant heavy use of emotional triggers to bring out her latent powers early. It is a magic of will and wish and screaming your heart out. By Mysidia's rules, she never should have been able to cast Meteo without knowing its 'rune structure' or 'casting ladder'. (Rydia simply nods at the woman who lectures her thus, and decides never to mention her Titan.)
She's always felt dumber than bricks talking to Mysidians about magic - hers just came to her and filled her up, and she knows no more about it than how to cast it, and cast it well - but she is here.
"You still seek what you do not have, then?" The Elder's voice brings her back, soothing and questioning, and Rydia is reminded yet again and hangs her head slightly.
"Yes," she says, a biting and cutting word. She has come to Mysidia in the hopes that their books and rules can bring back what she lost: her white magic.
Rydia feels useless. Cecil and Edge and Edward are all kings rebuilding their kingdoms; and Rosa, who is not a king, is the most useful of all, for she can travel all over the world and heal those who are still suffering from the Giant's War. Rydia had realized it in Eblan, trying to help Edge, whose people are sick with fevers from living in the damp caverns: she wasn't even strong enough to help carry the ill to a new resting place. She could only watch, and apply potions to wounds, and feed elixirs to the gravely suffering: she was merely an extra pair of hands.
Those hands can create fire, yes, but what good is fire in a time of peace?
So Rydia swallowed her pride, left Edge, and came to Mysidia humble and with her palms outstretched, hoping they could help her re-learn: teach her to heal, again, so that she could go with Rosa, so that she could help.
"Is this really what you're looking for?" the Elder prods, and Rydia heaves a bitter sigh.
"Of course it is," she almost snaps. "I need to get my white magic back - I used to be able to cast it, you know - so that I can help everyone." Someday her temper will get her into trouble, but Mysidia's Elder simply stares at her and smiles.
"You want to help."
She throws her arms wide in exasperation because she's ashamed and trying to hide it. "Of course I want to help - this world is in horrible, sad shape, and there's not much I can do with black magic and summons, now is there?"
"You feel useless?" he asks softly, and Rydia wonders again how all Elders can see right through her childish fits.
"Yes," she sighs, the fight going out of her. She has been here for two weeks and is no further along than she was before: not even a low-level cure has returned to her fingertips. She refuses to go back to Eblan and pour potions like anybody could do. She wants to help. Rydia Drake is nothing if not stubborn.
"Your magic may still be there," the Elder says, "and it may not be. But Lady, I do not think your friends view you as useless."
"But I - I've got nothing anymore," Rydia replies angrily. "At least during the war I could - I could help fight. I could protect them. Here I just - I can't do any of the stuff they need, I can't heal, I can't build. They don't need protecting any more."
"But some people do," says the Elder, softly. "Our world still needs protectors - even more, now, if those who were protectors are now not." He pauses, looking at her closely.
"Rydia of Mist. You do not have to focus on what you are not." He reaches out, resting one aged hand on her small shoulder. "Focus on what you are."
What you are. Rydia thinks to herself. She gave up the use of white magic at the young age of ten because she wanted to be a warrior. I am a Caller. Most summoners choose white magic, to be more versatile, but Rydia had been determined and stubborn and ready for the challenge. I am a protector.
I'm not a healer any more.
She's not. She gave it up, and she has never regretted it, not one day on the moon when Cecil might falter and Kain be high in the air and Rosa drained and Edge frantic and she could reach deep inside herself and pull out Flare, scattering it among their enemies and reducing fiends to ash. She's not a healer. She's a protector.
There's nothing left to protect, says one side of her brain. The other side says clearly: There are always things to protect.
"I assume your friends want you for who you are," the Elder says as he turns to leave the garden, "not for what you can do."
Rydia remains, thinking, adjusting the hood of her long trainee's robe as ideas begin to pop into her head, ways for her to use her fire and ice to help. She will give Mysidia a few days, but she owes Edge an apology: to him, she probably isn't just an extra pair of hands.
For: mount_ordeals, FFIV
XP: brokenprism
Theme + Number: (25) Mysidia
Claim: Rydia (character; challenge)
Characters/Pairings included: Elder
Rating: K+
Warnings: n/a
Notes: Theme 25: OMG 1/4 DONE. Also, this is longer than usual.
Summary: Rydia feels useless.
"Do you know what you are here for, Rydia of Mist?" The Elder's voice is benign, soft even, and his face is lined with kindness and experience as his deep eyes look into hers.
"I told you already," Rydia says, harsher than she means to because she's embarassed, a little. Mysidia is not her place, and yet she's here. "It hasn't changed."
Mysidia is not her place and never has been. She has always felt chastized here. Mysidian magic was a magic of schools, of learning, of formulas and studying and rune transcription. It was clinical magic, a magic with a system and with rules and a very set and rigid series of steps, and lots of studying and note-taking. A precise and discrete magic.
Rydia's magic in comparison is, and always has been, wild and untamed. She learnt it the way the wild monsters of the Underground taught her: some meditation, some observation, and trust in her own spirit - plus the inadvertant heavy use of emotional triggers to bring out her latent powers early. It is a magic of will and wish and screaming your heart out. By Mysidia's rules, she never should have been able to cast Meteo without knowing its 'rune structure' or 'casting ladder'. (Rydia simply nods at the woman who lectures her thus, and decides never to mention her Titan.)
She's always felt dumber than bricks talking to Mysidians about magic - hers just came to her and filled her up, and she knows no more about it than how to cast it, and cast it well - but she is here.
"You still seek what you do not have, then?" The Elder's voice brings her back, soothing and questioning, and Rydia is reminded yet again and hangs her head slightly.
"Yes," she says, a biting and cutting word. She has come to Mysidia in the hopes that their books and rules can bring back what she lost: her white magic.
Rydia feels useless. Cecil and Edge and Edward are all kings rebuilding their kingdoms; and Rosa, who is not a king, is the most useful of all, for she can travel all over the world and heal those who are still suffering from the Giant's War. Rydia had realized it in Eblan, trying to help Edge, whose people are sick with fevers from living in the damp caverns: she wasn't even strong enough to help carry the ill to a new resting place. She could only watch, and apply potions to wounds, and feed elixirs to the gravely suffering: she was merely an extra pair of hands.
Those hands can create fire, yes, but what good is fire in a time of peace?
So Rydia swallowed her pride, left Edge, and came to Mysidia humble and with her palms outstretched, hoping they could help her re-learn: teach her to heal, again, so that she could go with Rosa, so that she could help.
"Is this really what you're looking for?" the Elder prods, and Rydia heaves a bitter sigh.
"Of course it is," she almost snaps. "I need to get my white magic back - I used to be able to cast it, you know - so that I can help everyone." Someday her temper will get her into trouble, but Mysidia's Elder simply stares at her and smiles.
"You want to help."
She throws her arms wide in exasperation because she's ashamed and trying to hide it. "Of course I want to help - this world is in horrible, sad shape, and there's not much I can do with black magic and summons, now is there?"
"You feel useless?" he asks softly, and Rydia wonders again how all Elders can see right through her childish fits.
"Yes," she sighs, the fight going out of her. She has been here for two weeks and is no further along than she was before: not even a low-level cure has returned to her fingertips. She refuses to go back to Eblan and pour potions like anybody could do. She wants to help. Rydia Drake is nothing if not stubborn.
"Your magic may still be there," the Elder says, "and it may not be. But Lady, I do not think your friends view you as useless."
"But I - I've got nothing anymore," Rydia replies angrily. "At least during the war I could - I could help fight. I could protect them. Here I just - I can't do any of the stuff they need, I can't heal, I can't build. They don't need protecting any more."
"But some people do," says the Elder, softly. "Our world still needs protectors - even more, now, if those who were protectors are now not." He pauses, looking at her closely.
"Rydia of Mist. You do not have to focus on what you are not." He reaches out, resting one aged hand on her small shoulder. "Focus on what you are."
What you are. Rydia thinks to herself. She gave up the use of white magic at the young age of ten because she wanted to be a warrior. I am a Caller. Most summoners choose white magic, to be more versatile, but Rydia had been determined and stubborn and ready for the challenge. I am a protector.
I'm not a healer any more.
She's not. She gave it up, and she has never regretted it, not one day on the moon when Cecil might falter and Kain be high in the air and Rosa drained and Edge frantic and she could reach deep inside herself and pull out Flare, scattering it among their enemies and reducing fiends to ash. She's not a healer. She's a protector.
There's nothing left to protect, says one side of her brain. The other side says clearly: There are always things to protect.
"I assume your friends want you for who you are," the Elder says as he turns to leave the garden, "not for what you can do."
Rydia remains, thinking, adjusting the hood of her long trainee's robe as ideas begin to pop into her head, ways for her to use her fire and ice to help. She will give Mysidia a few days, but she owes Edge an apology: to him, she probably isn't just an extra pair of hands.
For: mount_ordeals, FFIV
XP: brokenprism