Lovers Trust

Notes: This was the fastest written chapter to this story in a looong time. A too long time. Done in less than an hour!
Well… nothing about our boys… which makes it even stranger that it was so easy to write… *mumbles to myself*


24

[Rinoa]
She sighed heavily and slumped down on the stone. Five days had gone since the Elder had coldly told them that neither Seifer nor Squall had been sighted. He lied. She knew it. She wasn’t a sorceress only to the title. Squall and she had had a bond during the war.

Sure, it had been a bond out of necessarily and it had slowly vanished when all the danger was over and no real feelings of love grew between them. But she felt him. He was here; she could just not place him. It was almost nothing more than a hunch. But she was sure Squall was here. Seifer too.

The GFs behaved very strangely. First Ifrit, which had just vanished from Irvine, then Diablos, that had skipped from Selphie. Though, the demon had kindly told the girl to unjunction before he left like thin air. Rinoa wasn’t junctioned. She didn’t need all that extra powers now when there wasn’t a war going on. She trusted her own powers more and more.

Both Zell and Quistis had fought with their GFs. Quetzalcoatl had suddenly just stopped listening to Zell and, according to the fighter, been elsewhere. Still junctioned but its attention had been elsewhere. Quistis just said her GFs were disobedient and had unjunctioned at least two of them.

Rinoa sighed again, rubbing her temple. What did it mean? She knew there was some connection here. Everyone knew, or at least those who knew the blond, that Ifrit belonged to him. Just as Shiva belonged to Squall. Squall had told her at some time that he’d had Shiva as long as he could remember, before they figured out that the GFs stole memories.

Whatever! That wasn’t important right now! That sneaky Elder was hiding something and damned, but Rinoa would find out just what he was hiding!

“Woaha! I smell some ominous clouds here.” Rinoa looked up as the lithe blonde approached.

“Hi Zell,” she greeted but couldn’t muster more than a weak smile.

“Still banging your head against the problem, huh?” he said and hunched down in front of her.

“Yeah. I know they are here, I feel Squall but I just can’t pinpoint his position,” she said sadly.

Zell eyed her. It wasn’t often even now that he settled down and tried to think something over. It warmed her that he tried doing so now. He must believe her then. Not that anyone of them had said they disbelieved her, but they couldn’t mask their expressions as good as Squall.

“Why can’t you just threaten to fry his sorry ass if he doesn’t tell us what he knows? We all know he must be hiding something,” Zell said and jumped up, starting to shadow box in the air.

Rinoa smiled. She’d thought of that too, but violence didn’t necessary give you what you wanted. Zell knew it too, but he wasn’t the one with the most creative of ideas. Well, no one of them really was. It had always been Squall that could push information out of the unwilling.

“Can’t we ask the GFs? They seem strangely talkative, some of them,” Zell asked and Rinoa eyed the fighter for a moment.

“Why don’t you ask Ques?” she asked silently and Zell made a face.

“He’s stingy, don’t know why really. Seems like he just don’t want to listen to me anymore. He just… I don’t know, sort of looks somewhere else,” Zell explained.

Rinoa frowned. What did it mean? What did the GFs do?

“Hey! Can’t you meditate and find Squall that way? You did that before, you know?” Zell lightened up.

“When we had a bond, yes. Right now I don’t think it’s possible,” she said silently.

“You could try! It’s worth a shot, right?” Zell persisted.

Rinoa sighed again. O, well. What could it hurt to try? Zell made a victory fist as Rinoa crossed her legs and straightened her back. She closed her eyes, raised her hands with her fingertips together in front of her. With a deep exhalation she let her arms and hands sink to her knee and rest there.

The first times she did this, she had had to work up a sweat, now it was like second nature. She opened her sense to her inner core of magic. Making and anchor, she opened her senses to the outer world. It felt like bungee jumping. Or like the world turned upside down and she was falling down in the sky.

She hastily gathered herself and tightened around her core that made her take control again. To see the world like this was nothing like gazing upon it with her eyes. Everything was colours. She flew around among myriads of colours that everything was being. Humans, animals, monsters and… Guardian Forces.

She had never done this to gaze upon the world and explore it. This state actually scared her. Only once had she done this for a longer period of time, and it had been to find Squall. At the time a silver string had been connected to her and disappearing off out in the world. She had followed it to him. To that… battered form of a soul. She hadn’t understood at the time that Squall’s soul wasn’t supposed to look like that.

However. Now she looked around, studying the different souls around her and she gasped. Right beside them, there in Shumi tribe, hundreds of powerful souls swirled. They seemed to swirl around one special spot and they build upwards like a whirlwind. They were definitely GFs. Nothing else was so large and bright.

Looking closer, she recognised a lot of them. She also saw the GFs the gang had junctioned. Quetzalcoatl stretched from Zell’s being and watched intently at the swirling mass. Leviathan circled around the base of the whirlwind like a giant snake. Cerberus was just a colour among the others but from time to time the three heads would pop up like he was some dolphin swimming in the ocean. Other GFs did the same.

She saw Carbuncle and Doom train and a… bird? No a horse or? Was that even a GF? Rinoa shook her head. Diablos suddenly charged down from somewhere, aggressively flying around the whirlwind as if he was too exited to keep the gentle swirl the others did. He gave a roar as he looped up again only to swirl down in gracious dancing motions.

A high-pitched neigh sounded and that bird/horse broke free from the whirlwind to join the demon in his dance. Rinoa didn’t know how long she stared at this phenomenon. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and ghostly. So much power, so many beings and they all seemed so… exited.

Suddenly the darkness of shadows descended upon her and Riona looked up, gulping in fright. Diablos was but just feet away from her, and he was so large! She had never trusted the GF that had malice written all over him. The beautiful bird/horse came up beside the demon. Red eyes gleaming in contrast to its bright white colour of both body and wings.

: : Little witch : : it purred and Rinoa jolted backwards.

If Diablos had malice written all over him, this being Was malice. Diablos purred that ended in a rumbling laughter.

: : Lion cub is not yours to have, no no, not yours to have! : : Diablos half sang half laughed.

Rinoa glared at the GF, growing in her self.

: : You know what is going on, tell me, where is Squall and Seifer? : : she demanded.

It made the two creatures shut up and stare at her with unblinking red eyes. The horse thing neighed like it was laughing before it demonstrative turned its back on her and flew back to the mass of whirling GFs. Diablos eyed her while his wings flapped and his tail swayed.

: : With the Child of Ifrit, of course : : he purred and Rinoa glared.

Squall and Seifer were together, that much she understood. But the rest? The GFs odd behaviour, just where was they? Diablos smiled a smile that would make grown men hunch in fright. He swiped out a hand as if to show off the whirlwind.

: : There, in the middle, where else? : : he answered and sounded as if he couldn’t keep himself from laughing.

Rinoa swallowed. There? In that mass? Why? What were the GFs doing? Diablos made a loop as he laughed. Rinoa couldn’t decide whether it was in insanity or in joy.

: : Why? What is happening? : : she asked the madly looping Gf. Diablos stopped abruptly and stared at her with shining red orbs.

: : Happening? Dear Sorceress, what is happening has not happened in thousands of years! : : he explained as if it would make some sense.

Rinoas expression must have told the GF that she wasn’t catching. Diablos frowned and made some sound she couldn’t decide what it was. He calmed down and placed himself beside her, crossing his arms and gazing at the whirlwind.

: : My belief is that Ifrit child is trying to heal Lion cub. Griever is sure protective enough : : Diablos murmured in a placid voice.

Rinoa narrowed her eyes. Griever? The one GF they had fought?

: : I don’t understand. Griever? We fought him : : she said uncertain.

Diablos looked down at her and there was something in his eyes. Something old, something ancient. Some understanding she couldn’t comprehend. He gave a one sided grin.

: : Ah, but Shiva and Ifrit is protecting their charges and Griever is holding them all. It will take the time it takes and your mission is to protect their bodies. Leave the rest to those three : : Diablos smiled.

With a roar that was answered with many different voices, he surged up again. He met the white being and together they looped around the whirlwind.

Rinoa slowly returned to her body. It took a while for her to really settle in again and a light nausea lingered in her stomach. Zell was jumping and kicking in front of her. He had expected to wait for a long time. He stopped as she moved. Turning on the stone, she eyed the place where the Whirlwind was supposed to be.

It was in the mountain wall behind the Elder’s house. If she concentrated, she could feel them. Feel the Gfs and their powers. How could she have missed that before? It was like standing in front of a wildly burning house. She stood up.

“I think I know where they are,” she silently said.

“All right!” Zell made a victory fist and more jumped than walked after her.

She ignored both the Moomba and the little shumi that tried stopping her from entering the house. It was dark and silent where the Elder was supposed to be. Rinoa narrowed her eyes. There was a hidden passage beside the large tank.

“You are not allowed! Please, step out immediately!” the little shumi pleaded.

Rinoa walked down the passage with the shrieks of the shumi’s protests ringing in her ears. Soon she stepped out in some room with benches to the left and a pool to the right. She clenched her teeth as she saw the Elder gaze down in the pool. She stepped up to him and he didn’t seem surprised at seeing her.

“Where’s…!” she didn’t finish her sentence, because the towering shumi made a gesture towards the pool.

Rinoa blinked as she saw dark shadows. Squinting her eyes she could make out the forms of two humans.

“Is that…?”

“Yes,” the Elder answered.

“Holy Hyne,” Zell whispered beside her as he came up to them.

The little shumi that had tried stopping them bowed and retreated. Rinoa didn’t take her eyes from the forms. Above them and around them she felt the presence and powers from the GFs.

“How long will they be there? Why didn’t you tell us?” she said lowly and looked up at the Elder who looked down at her.

“They will emerge when young Leonhart is whole again. As to why I did not tell you, you weren’t ready and I still won’t explain to you. It is enough that I had to explain to young Almasy,” the Elder said softly though there was a hint at annoyance at Seifer’s name.

Rinoa looked down in the pool again.

“How long can it take?” Zell asked and weighed back and forth on his feet.

“Days. Weeks. Sometimes years,” the Elder answered calmly.

They studied the pool for another moment before Rinoa looked away.

“We have to tell the others,” she said slowly and Zell nodded before jogging out of there.


Author’s Whining: I just had to tell you what was happening “outside”. To give the boys a little time ;)

Feel free to cast a tantrum if you feel like it, I feel like it. I’m only chapters away from the end. It can’t take more than two or three chapters now.