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Entry tags:
FFVIII: Visitation (4)
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Main characters: Irvine, Quistis, Zell, Selphie, Ifrit
Referenced characters: N/a
Pairings: Quistis/Selphie, Irvine/Selphie
Contains: Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: Selphie is supposed to be dead, but her ghost disturbs Quistis' sleep. Pairings and warnings are by chapter.
"Can you sit up?"
Irvine blinks at Quistis as she helps him up, supporting him on her slender arm. Beside him, Zell blinks and stretches, confused looking and almost cross eyed. It takes Irvine a moment to reorder the world, too, and then he looks up at Quistis, pulling away from her. "What happened?"
"You were captured in a pod. I just ordered the creature -- "
"Selphie?"
Quistis gets to her feet carefully and thanks whatever deities are out there that Irvine doesn't seem strong enough to stand up, weak from being in the pod although definitely alive, kicking and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. "No, Irvine. Just something that's been killing her slowly, sucking out her life and soul. It's already done it to that body we found and dumped it there."
"I thought you would take the warning," the monster says, softly, "I thought you would take the warning even before that, but I didn't want to take a chance. I found out quickly that Selphie's lover, Irvine, wouldn't have the initiative to demand to come here. But I quickly found that you would. So I appeared to you."
"We've come to take Selphie back."
"Then I have a deal for you."
"First we want to know more about what you are." Quistis' voice is soft, but commanding. She isn't expecting any argument from Zell, or Irvine, or from the monster that has taken Selphie's shape. She stands up straight and tall, fists clenched at her sides, and she's wearing a glare that would put Squall to shame.
"I am... a monster, I suppose. A leech. I can survive only by taking from others. I'm essentially a plant based life form, but given life energy -- memories and emotions of a person -- I can take that person's form. As I have in this case. When I have enough strength, I can travel around in this form -- through walls if I so choose -- and manifest myself to people. Often I choose people close to the person who died."
Irvine pushes up all of a sudden, coming to his feet with a wobble, and Quistis moves to support him. He glares at the monster, leaning against Quistis heavily and glad for the strength of that deceptively slender body. "Why not me then? Why didn't you come to me?"
"Are you feeling hurt by that? I went to Quistis."
Zell looks up at Quistis, frowning a little. "Quisty...?"
Selphie, no, the thing that looks like her, smiles to herself. "She loves the girl. Don't you?"
"That's not any of your business. No one's business but my own."
"It's okay, Quistis, I don't... hold it against you or anything," Irvine says, quietly, and Quistis forces a smile, and nods. She's never wanted anyone to know. It's been her own private pain, her precious little secret, and she's still not sure she wants them to know. But still, the ghost -- the thing -- said it, and it's out between them, now. She's sure Irvine won't hold it against her. But still. It was her secret.
"I didn't go to you, Irvine, because you had already given up on Selphie. Quistis had not. It was Quistis I had to warn away. And it's Quistis that this deal works for, she has the most to lose if you free Selphie."
"I don't see how I have anything to lose. I gain my friend, alive and soon to be healthy again."
"Let me tell you the deal now."
Irvine pulls away from Quistis a little, giving her a careful, warm look. "Don't let anything this bitch says harm you, Quisty. I know you... you love Selphie. Whatever she says, I'm sure you'll do the right thing."
Zell nods, forcing himself up to his feet to clap Quistis soundly on the shoulder. "Exactly. Quisty, we all know you're the least likely one to ever get into trouble or temptation and all of that. S'a good thing the choice is before you and not me."
Quistis takes a deep breath. Despite Irvine and Zell's faith, she doesn't know what the monster will throw at her. It could be that with the time the monster spent with her, it came to know something about her. Maybe from Selphie's memory it picked up something. Maybe it knows something that she can't resist, maybe it has an offer that she won't be able to turn down, not even for Selphie's sake. It seems the type of thing for this situation. "I'll hear it," she says, softly, and then nods. She'll hear it. That can't do any harm.
"Selphie has only been read. Not truly fed from. I know all her secrets and all the things she keeps inside her, but as yet, she remains... alive and whole, you might say. I can free her."
"That's what we want," she says, quickly, lifting her chin a little.
"I thought you said you'd hear me out?"
Quistis waits. She doesn't say anything. She just waits. This isn't her game. She watches the expression on the ghost's face, which is one of careful sincerity. She doesn't believe it for a moment but she watches anyway, watching for any flicker, any hint.
"I'll offer you an exchange. You let me keep Selphie. Her body. Let me absorb her. In return, I can be... I can be your Selphie. I can... I can be her, Quistis. You know I can. I had you completely convinced. You let me have her and I'll let you have everything you want."
-----
Zell's voice is a low hiss in her ear. "You're not seriously considering this, are you, Quistis?"
She's pale. She's pale and shaken and withdrawing into herself to think. She isn't seriously considering it, not really. The thought of those icy hands on her rocks her to the core and she doesn't think she could stand knowing she'd sold out Selphie. But she still has to think. How can they get Selphie out if she refuses? Can they get Selphie out if she refuses?
"Quisty?"
"Shut up and let me think!"
The answer definitely takes some thought to reach. She smiles when she comes to it, burrowing down inside her mind. /Ifrit?/
/Mistress./
She doesn't like talking to the guardians. It's the strangest sensation to speak to Ifrit -- every response is like liquid fire in the back of her mind, the concentration necessary almost painful in itself. And if the guardians don't want to talk, they can be even worse to contact. However, this is almost like Ifrit is making it easy.
/Do you know what this thing is?/
/A leech. Don't trust it. Kill it!/
/I need to free Selphie and the other SeeD first./
The agitation the guardian feels at that is obvious. /There have always been leeches. There must be sacrifices made to rid the world of them. They only survive because people like you are weak./
/You know for a fact I'm not weak, Ifrit./
There's a long pause. She can hear Irvine and Zell speaking to her but she remains focused inward, taking deep breaths to calm herself and almost like she's meditating. She waits. She knows Ifrit can help her, will help her, if he's so desperate to rid the world of these leeches.
/I can help you. Summon me and I will burn away the pods, breaking the creature's connection with the pods. That is all I can do if you refuse to be stronger./
/It will be enough./
She stands up, already giving herself over to the heat of Ifrit's summon magic. She hears Irvine's protest and watches Zell pull him out of the way, and she lends the heat of her rage to the summon spell. The rage of being mislead. The anger at being led to believe that maybe in life Selphie had wanted her too. Loved her too. The rage that came from knowing that she had never really protested anything Selphie's 'ghost' had done or said, even though it wasn't really Selphie, even though she knew that Selphie should be with Irvine.
And the rage of that offer being put before her, that offer that a lesser person might not be able to deny. She adds the hurt that she might've been that lesser person with just a little less backbone. She adds her rage that Irvine and Zell thought she might accept the deal and at the fact that they think she might do this if it might harm Selphie.
And her rage that they might just be right.
Ifrit unfurls out of her in a flurry of power that blinds her and caught up for a moment in just that fire, she forgets the rage and hurt and the need to destroy. And then he's gone, and she falls back to earth again, gasping for breath and momentarily weak. It gives her a savage burst of energy to see the monster waver.
/It should be gone in a moment, mistress,/ Ifrit whispers, deep in her mind, and she nods dizzily before she lets him sink away to wait and consume her memories.
"As if I'd ever do that," she whispers, to the ghost. It doesn't look like Selphie anymore. It looks like something beyond description. Something twisted and ancient and dark, and it sends shivers up Quistis' spine. After the heat of Ifrit's attack the cold of the cave is even worse. "As if you could ever be worth half of Selphie, whether she's mine or not. Irvine," her voice snaps sharp with command, "get the real Selphie out of here. Zell, you take the other SeeD."
Zell and Irvine leave, carrying the two bodies slowly, carefully. Quistis stands there, guarding and waiting, watching the monster die. Making sure it's gone.
-----
"Quistis? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Selphie. You?"
It makes her smile to see Selphie there, in full colour, warm and alive and bright and smiling without a hint of cold or sadness in her face. Quistis still can't quite believe she's really alive, not after seeing what was almost her ghost. It's a relief as well as strange, and it hurts as much as it heals. Quistis is sure that's just the way it goes, though, like the way she walked out to see Irvine and Selphie holding onto each other, embracing, kissing. It's just the way it goes.
"Much better than I was. Thanks to you. Irvine told me everything... really, it's all thanks to you I'm standing here now."
"I'm sure Zell or Irvine could've done exactly the same."
"Maybe. But still, it wasn't them... it was you." Selphie smiles at her for a moment. The private pain still hurts, maybe more so now it's not private anymore, but for a moment it's almost like old times. Then Selphie sits down beside her with a soft huff. "Sorry, still feel a little weak. Irvine told me everything, you know, so... I didn't know that you, you know, love me. If it's true. You do love me, right? Irvine wasn't, I don't know, making that up?"
"It's true."
"I see."
"I'm sorry if it's a problem..."
Selphie shakes her head, smiling brightly and wrapping her arms around Quistis, squeezing her briefly. "Not at all, Quisty! I just didn't know, that's all."
"If you didn't know, how come the monster did?"
"Well," Selphie looks uncomfortable for a moment, and then she shrugs, offering a smile, "I thought you might, maybe. But you were good at hiding it. I'd catch a glimmer, and then nothing, so I figured... probably not."
"Ah."
"You do know... you know I'm straight, right? And that, you know, me and Irvine... it's forever." Selphie's smile is tiny but she can't hide it when she says that, and Quistis wouldn't want her to if she was looking.
Quistis looks up. Selphie's arms are still around her, thin and reassuring and purely friendly. That almost breaks her heart, except it's such a nice gesture that it brings her heart into her throat for an entirely different reason. She leans a little closer to Selphie and nods slightly, smiling when Selphie brushes a kiss over her cheek and rests their foreheads together. For a moment, they sit quietly, sharing a moment that has nothing to do with romance and has everything to do with intimacy and friendship and a kind of wonderful selfless love Quistis won't admit to.
"You're still my best friend," Selphie says, quietly.
Quistis smiles. It helps. It's not much, but it does help. Selphie's friendship will be quite enough for her.
"Thank you."
Main characters: Irvine, Quistis, Zell, Selphie, Ifrit
Referenced characters: N/a
Pairings: Quistis/Selphie, Irvine/Selphie
Contains: Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: Selphie is supposed to be dead, but her ghost disturbs Quistis' sleep. Pairings and warnings are by chapter.
"Can you sit up?"
Irvine blinks at Quistis as she helps him up, supporting him on her slender arm. Beside him, Zell blinks and stretches, confused looking and almost cross eyed. It takes Irvine a moment to reorder the world, too, and then he looks up at Quistis, pulling away from her. "What happened?"
"You were captured in a pod. I just ordered the creature -- "
"Selphie?"
Quistis gets to her feet carefully and thanks whatever deities are out there that Irvine doesn't seem strong enough to stand up, weak from being in the pod although definitely alive, kicking and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. "No, Irvine. Just something that's been killing her slowly, sucking out her life and soul. It's already done it to that body we found and dumped it there."
"I thought you would take the warning," the monster says, softly, "I thought you would take the warning even before that, but I didn't want to take a chance. I found out quickly that Selphie's lover, Irvine, wouldn't have the initiative to demand to come here. But I quickly found that you would. So I appeared to you."
"We've come to take Selphie back."
"Then I have a deal for you."
"First we want to know more about what you are." Quistis' voice is soft, but commanding. She isn't expecting any argument from Zell, or Irvine, or from the monster that has taken Selphie's shape. She stands up straight and tall, fists clenched at her sides, and she's wearing a glare that would put Squall to shame.
"I am... a monster, I suppose. A leech. I can survive only by taking from others. I'm essentially a plant based life form, but given life energy -- memories and emotions of a person -- I can take that person's form. As I have in this case. When I have enough strength, I can travel around in this form -- through walls if I so choose -- and manifest myself to people. Often I choose people close to the person who died."
Irvine pushes up all of a sudden, coming to his feet with a wobble, and Quistis moves to support him. He glares at the monster, leaning against Quistis heavily and glad for the strength of that deceptively slender body. "Why not me then? Why didn't you come to me?"
"Are you feeling hurt by that? I went to Quistis."
Zell looks up at Quistis, frowning a little. "Quisty...?"
Selphie, no, the thing that looks like her, smiles to herself. "She loves the girl. Don't you?"
"That's not any of your business. No one's business but my own."
"It's okay, Quistis, I don't... hold it against you or anything," Irvine says, quietly, and Quistis forces a smile, and nods. She's never wanted anyone to know. It's been her own private pain, her precious little secret, and she's still not sure she wants them to know. But still, the ghost -- the thing -- said it, and it's out between them, now. She's sure Irvine won't hold it against her. But still. It was her secret.
"I didn't go to you, Irvine, because you had already given up on Selphie. Quistis had not. It was Quistis I had to warn away. And it's Quistis that this deal works for, she has the most to lose if you free Selphie."
"I don't see how I have anything to lose. I gain my friend, alive and soon to be healthy again."
"Let me tell you the deal now."
Irvine pulls away from Quistis a little, giving her a careful, warm look. "Don't let anything this bitch says harm you, Quisty. I know you... you love Selphie. Whatever she says, I'm sure you'll do the right thing."
Zell nods, forcing himself up to his feet to clap Quistis soundly on the shoulder. "Exactly. Quisty, we all know you're the least likely one to ever get into trouble or temptation and all of that. S'a good thing the choice is before you and not me."
Quistis takes a deep breath. Despite Irvine and Zell's faith, she doesn't know what the monster will throw at her. It could be that with the time the monster spent with her, it came to know something about her. Maybe from Selphie's memory it picked up something. Maybe it knows something that she can't resist, maybe it has an offer that she won't be able to turn down, not even for Selphie's sake. It seems the type of thing for this situation. "I'll hear it," she says, softly, and then nods. She'll hear it. That can't do any harm.
"Selphie has only been read. Not truly fed from. I know all her secrets and all the things she keeps inside her, but as yet, she remains... alive and whole, you might say. I can free her."
"That's what we want," she says, quickly, lifting her chin a little.
"I thought you said you'd hear me out?"
Quistis waits. She doesn't say anything. She just waits. This isn't her game. She watches the expression on the ghost's face, which is one of careful sincerity. She doesn't believe it for a moment but she watches anyway, watching for any flicker, any hint.
"I'll offer you an exchange. You let me keep Selphie. Her body. Let me absorb her. In return, I can be... I can be your Selphie. I can... I can be her, Quistis. You know I can. I had you completely convinced. You let me have her and I'll let you have everything you want."
Zell's voice is a low hiss in her ear. "You're not seriously considering this, are you, Quistis?"
She's pale. She's pale and shaken and withdrawing into herself to think. She isn't seriously considering it, not really. The thought of those icy hands on her rocks her to the core and she doesn't think she could stand knowing she'd sold out Selphie. But she still has to think. How can they get Selphie out if she refuses? Can they get Selphie out if she refuses?
"Quisty?"
"Shut up and let me think!"
The answer definitely takes some thought to reach. She smiles when she comes to it, burrowing down inside her mind. /Ifrit?/
/Mistress./
She doesn't like talking to the guardians. It's the strangest sensation to speak to Ifrit -- every response is like liquid fire in the back of her mind, the concentration necessary almost painful in itself. And if the guardians don't want to talk, they can be even worse to contact. However, this is almost like Ifrit is making it easy.
/Do you know what this thing is?/
/A leech. Don't trust it. Kill it!/
/I need to free Selphie and the other SeeD first./
The agitation the guardian feels at that is obvious. /There have always been leeches. There must be sacrifices made to rid the world of them. They only survive because people like you are weak./
/You know for a fact I'm not weak, Ifrit./
There's a long pause. She can hear Irvine and Zell speaking to her but she remains focused inward, taking deep breaths to calm herself and almost like she's meditating. She waits. She knows Ifrit can help her, will help her, if he's so desperate to rid the world of these leeches.
/I can help you. Summon me and I will burn away the pods, breaking the creature's connection with the pods. That is all I can do if you refuse to be stronger./
/It will be enough./
She stands up, already giving herself over to the heat of Ifrit's summon magic. She hears Irvine's protest and watches Zell pull him out of the way, and she lends the heat of her rage to the summon spell. The rage of being mislead. The anger at being led to believe that maybe in life Selphie had wanted her too. Loved her too. The rage that came from knowing that she had never really protested anything Selphie's 'ghost' had done or said, even though it wasn't really Selphie, even though she knew that Selphie should be with Irvine.
And the rage of that offer being put before her, that offer that a lesser person might not be able to deny. She adds the hurt that she might've been that lesser person with just a little less backbone. She adds her rage that Irvine and Zell thought she might accept the deal and at the fact that they think she might do this if it might harm Selphie.
And her rage that they might just be right.
Ifrit unfurls out of her in a flurry of power that blinds her and caught up for a moment in just that fire, she forgets the rage and hurt and the need to destroy. And then he's gone, and she falls back to earth again, gasping for breath and momentarily weak. It gives her a savage burst of energy to see the monster waver.
/It should be gone in a moment, mistress,/ Ifrit whispers, deep in her mind, and she nods dizzily before she lets him sink away to wait and consume her memories.
"As if I'd ever do that," she whispers, to the ghost. It doesn't look like Selphie anymore. It looks like something beyond description. Something twisted and ancient and dark, and it sends shivers up Quistis' spine. After the heat of Ifrit's attack the cold of the cave is even worse. "As if you could ever be worth half of Selphie, whether she's mine or not. Irvine," her voice snaps sharp with command, "get the real Selphie out of here. Zell, you take the other SeeD."
Zell and Irvine leave, carrying the two bodies slowly, carefully. Quistis stands there, guarding and waiting, watching the monster die. Making sure it's gone.
"Quistis? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Selphie. You?"
It makes her smile to see Selphie there, in full colour, warm and alive and bright and smiling without a hint of cold or sadness in her face. Quistis still can't quite believe she's really alive, not after seeing what was almost her ghost. It's a relief as well as strange, and it hurts as much as it heals. Quistis is sure that's just the way it goes, though, like the way she walked out to see Irvine and Selphie holding onto each other, embracing, kissing. It's just the way it goes.
"Much better than I was. Thanks to you. Irvine told me everything... really, it's all thanks to you I'm standing here now."
"I'm sure Zell or Irvine could've done exactly the same."
"Maybe. But still, it wasn't them... it was you." Selphie smiles at her for a moment. The private pain still hurts, maybe more so now it's not private anymore, but for a moment it's almost like old times. Then Selphie sits down beside her with a soft huff. "Sorry, still feel a little weak. Irvine told me everything, you know, so... I didn't know that you, you know, love me. If it's true. You do love me, right? Irvine wasn't, I don't know, making that up?"
"It's true."
"I see."
"I'm sorry if it's a problem..."
Selphie shakes her head, smiling brightly and wrapping her arms around Quistis, squeezing her briefly. "Not at all, Quisty! I just didn't know, that's all."
"If you didn't know, how come the monster did?"
"Well," Selphie looks uncomfortable for a moment, and then she shrugs, offering a smile, "I thought you might, maybe. But you were good at hiding it. I'd catch a glimmer, and then nothing, so I figured... probably not."
"Ah."
"You do know... you know I'm straight, right? And that, you know, me and Irvine... it's forever." Selphie's smile is tiny but she can't hide it when she says that, and Quistis wouldn't want her to if she was looking.
Quistis looks up. Selphie's arms are still around her, thin and reassuring and purely friendly. That almost breaks her heart, except it's such a nice gesture that it brings her heart into her throat for an entirely different reason. She leans a little closer to Selphie and nods slightly, smiling when Selphie brushes a kiss over her cheek and rests their foreheads together. For a moment, they sit quietly, sharing a moment that has nothing to do with romance and has everything to do with intimacy and friendship and a kind of wonderful selfless love Quistis won't admit to.
"You're still my best friend," Selphie says, quietly.
Quistis smiles. It helps. It's not much, but it does help. Selphie's friendship will be quite enough for her.
"Thank you."
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Perfect sense. :)
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Good to know. ♥
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Happy Quistis/Selphie is good too. x3
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How do you feel about happy Quistis/Rinoa? xD That's all I've got so far. We should roleplay some Quistis/Selphie again sometime. >_>;
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