Another Story [fic]
Username: mako_lies
Class: White Mage
Title: Another Story
Summary: Everyone has their secrets. Sometimes, they never get revealed. Other times, they do.
Characters/Pairings: Celes, Strago, Setzer, Edgar, Cyan, Gau, Relm, Locke, Sabin, Terra, Shadow
Word count: 2,000
Rating: T (for disturbing moments, mind control, and violence against minors).
At eleven, Celes finds a book of fairy tales bound in blue leather covers. She hides it beneath her mattress and reads when she has time, which is not often. It is her first book not about strategy or technique, and she finds the stories far more exhilarating than the swish clang swish of her sword, or the raw of her unbound knuckles after sparring.
The only thing that comes close is the chill of Blizzard.
Stories are sweeping blurs of color and imagined faces, are softness she will never experience. She curls her hands to fists - feels her skin break. In these stories, magick is common as breath and love is more than a fool’s weakness.
Celes reads in her spare moments until Kefka discovers the book with malicious glee.
See how she defies you? See what she does when no one watches?
The first lash makes her tense - one - but she does not release a sound - ten - and does not jerk against her bonds - eighteen - or kill the man with sharpened ice - twenty-six - the blood flows hot down her - twenty-nine - and even then she does not heal. Thirty.
It does not do to keep secrets from the Emperor.
-----
Relm’s hardly old enough to start asking questions when she starts asking questions. Of course, he already has answers to tell her, though they’re not the truth. Maybe someday, she’ll learn it, but four is too young by far.
“They died protecting the Village from monsters,” he tells her.
It does not warm his heart that she already knows what death is - forever, she asks him, eyes wide and scared and red-rimmed already. He holds out his arms to her, doesn’t know what to say.
She crawls into his hug; Strago combs fingers gently through her hair. “We’ll make do.”
-----
There are certain words they do not say. Daryl slips out from the engine-room, wisplike and covered in grease. He puts his palms to her sides, staining his hands black, and her eyes on him are bright bright.
Setzer smirks as she twines dirtied fingers in his hair and tugs, till his neck is craned back far as it will go, and she leans down to him - does not allow him to rise from his seat. “Setzer,” his name is a purr on her chapped lips, “You didn’t even offer to help me once.”
“You didn’t seem to require me - and I enjoy watching,” he tells her, allowing his smirk to grow.
She huffs but her eyes dance with wicked delight, and her lips - finally - brush his. Daryl slides into his lap, straddling his hips with her legs, but she never loses the firm grasp on his hair, never loses the contact of her lips on his.
Though, wicked devil that she is, Daryl pulls back before he can deepen the kiss, even as he pulls her flush against him, until their fluttering heartbeats dance to the same tempo.
Happy as they are, there are words they will not say.
-----
He turns the coin over in his hand - can’t shake Sabin’s expression, horror and admiration how could you leave something like this to chance?
His brother knew him too well. Edgar would never leave something like that to chance. He turns the coin over, to look at the second face, and tilts his head back to gaze at the dark desert sky, stars stretching farther than his brother can run in a single night.
It’s a happy illusion of closeness to think his brother is still looking at the same sky, considering Sabin can’t have made it out of Figaro yet.
Of course, the illusion shatters finer than sand when he reaches out and feels the stone next to him. It is cold - like his brother wasn’t sitting next to him at all - and Edgar flips the coin again.
Sabin’s freedom.
Flip.
Sabin’s happiness.
Flip.
Edgar releases a sigh and shuts his eyes, tightens his hand to a fist around this coin that Sabin will forever think decided their fates (you could have stayed - quashes the thought as quickly as it comes).
This is how it should be - he will be glad for Sabin, no matter the ever growing void.
-----
Cyan never tells anyone about it. Not his wife, certainly not his child, and not the friends he makes after Doma.
He was young when it happened, though happened is a kinder word than he would like, because it almost suggests that he is not responsible, that he did not make a choice.
But it was a choice. A terrible one.
The thief who reaches into his pocket is young, also, but deftly fingered. Cyan’s gil pouch is removed quicker than he realizes to prevent it, though he feels its loss. Anger rises with youthful pride and he whirls, grabs the boy’s wrist.
“M-mister,” the boy stutters (cannot be older than fourteen), “S-sorry, p-please…”
Cyan’s blade cuts off more words - the boy’s right-hand fingers fall to the ground, blood splattered and steaming on the cobblestones. The scream is ear-splitting, grieved, and justice will forever be known as Cyan’s hard eyes and scowl.
It is not kindness that causes him to hand over the potion, merely knowledge that if the boy bleeds out, his superiors will be most displeased. “Perhaps thou shalt consider before thieving when next we meet.”
And, without another word or thought or glance, Cyan leaves him there.
-----
He find it on the Plains. Animal friends happy licking it, make shine more in light. Sun up more hours yet, long enough time to take shiny thing to hide, after find more food.
Gau stomach rumble unhappy, but want shiny thing more.
He take it from animal friends, growling because they get unhappy, but they like Gau, so step back. Now where hide it? Gau not keep secrets - share always with animal friends, but he not want them take his shiny thing.
Crescent Mountain have good cave, soft dirt. Go bury nice deep so no one ever find it.
-----
She looks down at her hands - dripping pink and blue and green - tries to blink but - her eyelids are paint and oozing orange and yellow down her cheeks.
Grandpa’s voice booms all around her: “we are, all of us, made of magick.”
Magick is paint, sliding cool and quick and sure down her wrists, and drying. Magick is motion, is sound, is blood and fighting and anger.
Relm is paint is pain is paint. Her flesh melts away black to reveal rivers of rainbow blood and she throws her head back to scream but her vocal chords have seeped a nice silver into her innards and already those are going gold and sliding down.
She pools into a puddle on the ground, murky brown, and then it starts to rain, washing her magick - herself - away.
When she wakes, she checks her arms and her hands and her feet and her stomach and all of it’s there and the only paint is crusted underneath her fingernails. She sobs into her pillow but doesn’t go find Grandpa.
He worries enough and always seems so sad. Besides - she shouldn’t be afraid of her magick, she is magick.
But the fear is there.
-----
Locke double-checks the map, even though he knows exactly where they’re going and how they’re getting there and what they’ll find. Okay, his grin is a little smug, his eyes gleaming a little too brightly - but it makes Rachel laugh, hands reaching for his wrists.
“Tell me!” she says, pouting.
But he can’t give in, because this will be far better if he doesn’t. “It’s a secret,” he tells her. “Just trust me, alright?”
She never hesitates, just laughs and nods and follows him.
The trek to the mountain is bright and sunny that day, no cloud marring the sky and he’s thinking of blue crystal set in polished silver, thinking of words engraved (forever and always), is thinking about dark, curly hair, and bright smiles, and the hand that’s so warm in his.
Rachel talks about the sky and the birds, about friends in Kohlingen and their joys, and she badgers him some more about where they’re going; Locke just grins. “It’s a secret,” he tells her, again.
“You’ve been planning this,” she says, then laughs. “I’d wondered what you were up to.”
And he does have it all planned out.
Except, it turns out, fate has plans, too.
-----
Ten minutes of running in the desert almost end it for him. Sabin nearly turns then, to go running back to his brother, to everything he knew - but he can’t. No one cares what happened, no one wants to ask questions. No one wants him. (Except Edgar.)
Four weeks of wandering nearly set him back on the path to Figaro. “Go home, kid,” the shopkeeper scoffs at him, “Nothing for you, here. We only take gil.”
Sabin should have brought more gil with him - but the thought returns his anger. He doesn’t need Figaro; he’ll show everyone just what he’s made of. And it’s certainly not royal blood.
Seven months later, he finds himself standing outside the sands of Figaro. Edgar’s less than a day’s journey away and Sabin blows out a long, heavy breath. He’s never been so long without his brother - and he never really wanted freedom like this, without his twin.
But it’s what he has. A visit - most likely - would serve only to remind them both of what they have lost.
It’s the last time he almost returns to Figaro, returns to Edgar. The desire to never really goes away, but the hurt fades some, eventually.
-----
The cool of metal at her temples - left foot, right foot - the doors open before her and the sounds of her gait - step, step, good puppet, good - echo in the metal that is not on her body. These metal walls are not what trap her.
(I like flowers. They are pretty.)
Fire bursts hot and pure - now, now, now, more, more - from her fingertips and then - yes yes yes yes - screaming louder and louder rises as the soldiers burn, crying as their skin blackens to ash. The screams stop long before the burning does and eventually, even the cinders fade.
(I like flowers. They are pretty.)
Sword in hand, she cuts - faster, faster, move faster, bleed more - straight though bone and the screech that follows is nearly sweeter than the begging spare me spare me oh mercy please and the laugh that trickles from her is not her own, is harsh and grating even in the open, clean, bloody, dark, horrible air.
(I - I like flowers. They are pretty. Please. Oh Mercy. What -)
The metal at her temples pulses, sharp blinding pain that is mental, not physical. Her body is not her own - and neither will her mind be.
-----
That’s Shadow… He’s an assassin… He’d kill his own best friend for the right price…
He bites back a sharp retort and barely keeps Interceptor in check. Oh, the dog doesn’t know what’s being said, only that it upsets Shadow. Well, as much as anything can upset Shadow.
Mostly it’s the irony of the thing. The king will never know how far from the mark he is - though he is obviously a man who judges himself a good judge of character and beauty - because Shadow will never say.
If they wish to think him capable of what he failed to do, that is their business. Not his. Interceptor growls at them.
“Guess we’d better steer clear of him…” the brightly dressed thief says, eyeing the dog and keeping his quick fingers well out of reach.
Shadow allows himself a smirk under his mask. If the thief thinks that will protect him, he is sadly mistaken, but the smirk and amusement both die with the thought. He tires of them. “Leave us,” he says, voice low, “The dog eats strangers…”
They leave so quickly that they do not see Interceptor look at him derisively. Smart dog. Who knows where they’ve been?
Class: White Mage
Title: Another Story
Summary: Everyone has their secrets. Sometimes, they never get revealed. Other times, they do.
Characters/Pairings: Celes, Strago, Setzer, Edgar, Cyan, Gau, Relm, Locke, Sabin, Terra, Shadow
Word count: 2,000
Rating: T (for disturbing moments, mind control, and violence against minors).
At eleven, Celes finds a book of fairy tales bound in blue leather covers. She hides it beneath her mattress and reads when she has time, which is not often. It is her first book not about strategy or technique, and she finds the stories far more exhilarating than the swish clang swish of her sword, or the raw of her unbound knuckles after sparring.
The only thing that comes close is the chill of Blizzard.
Stories are sweeping blurs of color and imagined faces, are softness she will never experience. She curls her hands to fists - feels her skin break. In these stories, magick is common as breath and love is more than a fool’s weakness.
Celes reads in her spare moments until Kefka discovers the book with malicious glee.
See how she defies you? See what she does when no one watches?
The first lash makes her tense - one - but she does not release a sound - ten - and does not jerk against her bonds - eighteen - or kill the man with sharpened ice - twenty-six - the blood flows hot down her - twenty-nine - and even then she does not heal. Thirty.
It does not do to keep secrets from the Emperor.
-----
Relm’s hardly old enough to start asking questions when she starts asking questions. Of course, he already has answers to tell her, though they’re not the truth. Maybe someday, she’ll learn it, but four is too young by far.
“They died protecting the Village from monsters,” he tells her.
It does not warm his heart that she already knows what death is - forever, she asks him, eyes wide and scared and red-rimmed already. He holds out his arms to her, doesn’t know what to say.
She crawls into his hug; Strago combs fingers gently through her hair. “We’ll make do.”
-----
There are certain words they do not say. Daryl slips out from the engine-room, wisplike and covered in grease. He puts his palms to her sides, staining his hands black, and her eyes on him are bright bright.
Setzer smirks as she twines dirtied fingers in his hair and tugs, till his neck is craned back far as it will go, and she leans down to him - does not allow him to rise from his seat. “Setzer,” his name is a purr on her chapped lips, “You didn’t even offer to help me once.”
“You didn’t seem to require me - and I enjoy watching,” he tells her, allowing his smirk to grow.
She huffs but her eyes dance with wicked delight, and her lips - finally - brush his. Daryl slides into his lap, straddling his hips with her legs, but she never loses the firm grasp on his hair, never loses the contact of her lips on his.
Though, wicked devil that she is, Daryl pulls back before he can deepen the kiss, even as he pulls her flush against him, until their fluttering heartbeats dance to the same tempo.
Happy as they are, there are words they will not say.
-----
He turns the coin over in his hand - can’t shake Sabin’s expression, horror and admiration how could you leave something like this to chance?
His brother knew him too well. Edgar would never leave something like that to chance. He turns the coin over, to look at the second face, and tilts his head back to gaze at the dark desert sky, stars stretching farther than his brother can run in a single night.
It’s a happy illusion of closeness to think his brother is still looking at the same sky, considering Sabin can’t have made it out of Figaro yet.
Of course, the illusion shatters finer than sand when he reaches out and feels the stone next to him. It is cold - like his brother wasn’t sitting next to him at all - and Edgar flips the coin again.
Sabin’s freedom.
Flip.
Sabin’s happiness.
Flip.
Edgar releases a sigh and shuts his eyes, tightens his hand to a fist around this coin that Sabin will forever think decided their fates (you could have stayed - quashes the thought as quickly as it comes).
This is how it should be - he will be glad for Sabin, no matter the ever growing void.
-----
Cyan never tells anyone about it. Not his wife, certainly not his child, and not the friends he makes after Doma.
He was young when it happened, though happened is a kinder word than he would like, because it almost suggests that he is not responsible, that he did not make a choice.
But it was a choice. A terrible one.
The thief who reaches into his pocket is young, also, but deftly fingered. Cyan’s gil pouch is removed quicker than he realizes to prevent it, though he feels its loss. Anger rises with youthful pride and he whirls, grabs the boy’s wrist.
“M-mister,” the boy stutters (cannot be older than fourteen), “S-sorry, p-please…”
Cyan’s blade cuts off more words - the boy’s right-hand fingers fall to the ground, blood splattered and steaming on the cobblestones. The scream is ear-splitting, grieved, and justice will forever be known as Cyan’s hard eyes and scowl.
It is not kindness that causes him to hand over the potion, merely knowledge that if the boy bleeds out, his superiors will be most displeased. “Perhaps thou shalt consider before thieving when next we meet.”
And, without another word or thought or glance, Cyan leaves him there.
-----
He find it on the Plains. Animal friends happy licking it, make shine more in light. Sun up more hours yet, long enough time to take shiny thing to hide, after find more food.
Gau stomach rumble unhappy, but want shiny thing more.
He take it from animal friends, growling because they get unhappy, but they like Gau, so step back. Now where hide it? Gau not keep secrets - share always with animal friends, but he not want them take his shiny thing.
Crescent Mountain have good cave, soft dirt. Go bury nice deep so no one ever find it.
-----
She looks down at her hands - dripping pink and blue and green - tries to blink but - her eyelids are paint and oozing orange and yellow down her cheeks.
Grandpa’s voice booms all around her: “we are, all of us, made of magick.”
Magick is paint, sliding cool and quick and sure down her wrists, and drying. Magick is motion, is sound, is blood and fighting and anger.
Relm is paint is pain is paint. Her flesh melts away black to reveal rivers of rainbow blood and she throws her head back to scream but her vocal chords have seeped a nice silver into her innards and already those are going gold and sliding down.
She pools into a puddle on the ground, murky brown, and then it starts to rain, washing her magick - herself - away.
When she wakes, she checks her arms and her hands and her feet and her stomach and all of it’s there and the only paint is crusted underneath her fingernails. She sobs into her pillow but doesn’t go find Grandpa.
He worries enough and always seems so sad. Besides - she shouldn’t be afraid of her magick, she is magick.
But the fear is there.
-----
Locke double-checks the map, even though he knows exactly where they’re going and how they’re getting there and what they’ll find. Okay, his grin is a little smug, his eyes gleaming a little too brightly - but it makes Rachel laugh, hands reaching for his wrists.
“Tell me!” she says, pouting.
But he can’t give in, because this will be far better if he doesn’t. “It’s a secret,” he tells her. “Just trust me, alright?”
She never hesitates, just laughs and nods and follows him.
The trek to the mountain is bright and sunny that day, no cloud marring the sky and he’s thinking of blue crystal set in polished silver, thinking of words engraved (forever and always), is thinking about dark, curly hair, and bright smiles, and the hand that’s so warm in his.
Rachel talks about the sky and the birds, about friends in Kohlingen and their joys, and she badgers him some more about where they’re going; Locke just grins. “It’s a secret,” he tells her, again.
“You’ve been planning this,” she says, then laughs. “I’d wondered what you were up to.”
And he does have it all planned out.
Except, it turns out, fate has plans, too.
-----
Ten minutes of running in the desert almost end it for him. Sabin nearly turns then, to go running back to his brother, to everything he knew - but he can’t. No one cares what happened, no one wants to ask questions. No one wants him. (Except Edgar.)
Four weeks of wandering nearly set him back on the path to Figaro. “Go home, kid,” the shopkeeper scoffs at him, “Nothing for you, here. We only take gil.”
Sabin should have brought more gil with him - but the thought returns his anger. He doesn’t need Figaro; he’ll show everyone just what he’s made of. And it’s certainly not royal blood.
Seven months later, he finds himself standing outside the sands of Figaro. Edgar’s less than a day’s journey away and Sabin blows out a long, heavy breath. He’s never been so long without his brother - and he never really wanted freedom like this, without his twin.
But it’s what he has. A visit - most likely - would serve only to remind them both of what they have lost.
It’s the last time he almost returns to Figaro, returns to Edgar. The desire to never really goes away, but the hurt fades some, eventually.
-----
The cool of metal at her temples - left foot, right foot - the doors open before her and the sounds of her gait - step, step, good puppet, good - echo in the metal that is not on her body. These metal walls are not what trap her.
(I like flowers. They are pretty.)
Fire bursts hot and pure - now, now, now, more, more - from her fingertips and then - yes yes yes yes - screaming louder and louder rises as the soldiers burn, crying as their skin blackens to ash. The screams stop long before the burning does and eventually, even the cinders fade.
(I like flowers. They are pretty.)
Sword in hand, she cuts - faster, faster, move faster, bleed more - straight though bone and the screech that follows is nearly sweeter than the begging spare me spare me oh mercy please and the laugh that trickles from her is not her own, is harsh and grating even in the open, clean, bloody, dark, horrible air.
(I - I like flowers. They are pretty. Please. Oh Mercy. What -)
The metal at her temples pulses, sharp blinding pain that is mental, not physical. Her body is not her own - and neither will her mind be.
-----
That’s Shadow… He’s an assassin… He’d kill his own best friend for the right price…
He bites back a sharp retort and barely keeps Interceptor in check. Oh, the dog doesn’t know what’s being said, only that it upsets Shadow. Well, as much as anything can upset Shadow.
Mostly it’s the irony of the thing. The king will never know how far from the mark he is - though he is obviously a man who judges himself a good judge of character and beauty - because Shadow will never say.
If they wish to think him capable of what he failed to do, that is their business. Not his. Interceptor growls at them.
“Guess we’d better steer clear of him…” the brightly dressed thief says, eyeing the dog and keeping his quick fingers well out of reach.
Shadow allows himself a smirk under his mask. If the thief thinks that will protect him, he is sadly mistaken, but the smirk and amusement both die with the thought. He tires of them. “Leave us,” he says, voice low, “The dog eats strangers…”
They leave so quickly that they do not see Interceptor look at him derisively. Smart dog. Who knows where they’ve been?