personalapocalypse | [FFVIII][Fic] Various (Rinoa, Caraway, see descriptions for rating) (Reply)

These, if memory serves, are all of the fics that I wrote for

100_leitmotifs. I really liked that community's concept and even wrote a few more pieces after it had died. I'd like to back them all up together somewhere, so here they are.

Title: No Warning
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Characters: Rinoa, General Caraway (and Julia)
Theme: #6 - with this ring
Leitmotif (when applicable): To fall
Warnings/Ratings: SFW. no warnings.
Synopsis: Rinoa is trying to understand her parents. But the video she's watching doesn't seem to be them at all.
Disclaimer: FFVIII is owned by Square-Enix, not me.

---

"With this ring, I thee wed."

Wait... rewind it a couple of seconds...

"With this ring, I..."

Stop. Do it again, keep an eye on her face.

"With this ring..."

Okay, okay... no, maybe it's his face...

Rinoa sighed and dropped the remote in her lap, leaving the image of the bride and groom frozen on the screen. Her mind felt like a frightened bird... if she could just concentrate, she was sure that she'd see what she had been missing.

The TV-VCR combo was hers, a castoff from a friend at the academy that she had snuck into her room. It wasn't great - the picture kept fading out at the strangest moments - but she'd get a better one later. The tape, on the other hand, was definitely not hers; she knew very well that someone would be very angry when he discovered that she'd swiped it from his private office. But she really didn't care what he thought of anything she did anymore.

It was really weird. She knew exactly who the people in the tape were, but they might as well have been strangers. It was impossible to draw a connection between the smiling couple and the parents she'd had once. That beautiful dark-haired young woman with the radiant smile was barely recognizable as the mother who had died when Rinoa had been very young. And the man... that man with the black hair and the impeccable uniform and the smiling face... he certainly wasn't the same man that Rinoa didn't like to call a father anymore. They were so young, and so... so happy.

Rinoa had watched her mother being escorted down the aisle by an impassive fat man with grey hair, a shy smile on her face as the general had taken her hand. She was a perfect blushing bride... and he seemed like such a gentleman to her. The bride wasn't that sad-eyed woman who had tearfully told Rinoa never to give up on the man she truly loved when she was old enough to understand, never to make the same mistakes she'd made. The groom wasn't the cold-hearted man who had withdrawn so completely when his wife had died that Rinoa didn't even remember ever seeing him cry. They seemed to be as much in love as any hero and heroine in a cheap pulp novel.

Rinoa sighed. She was only thirteen, true, but she thought she knew a couple of things about the world. She was sure that if falling in love with someone could make a woman marry someone who turned out to be so stone-faced and uncaring, could make them forget someone else they loved until it was too late... if that was the case, she never wanted to fall in love. She'd rather keep her heart than let it be messed up like that.

Frowning, she picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV. She had to finish the tape. There had to have been some sign of what would happen between those two, something that everyone else had missed. She had to find it, if only to prove something to herself.

She pushed the button and started the tape again.

"...I thee wed."

Title: Petals
Fandom: FFVIII
Characters: Rinoa, Caraway
Theme: 15. baby's breath
Leitmotif: To fall
Warnings/Ratings: SFW. Canon character death.
Synopsis: A brief memory from Julia's funeral. Appx. 350 words.

Caraway didn't remember much about his wife's funeral. It didn't surprise him - he knew that he hadn't been entirely there, too shocked by the way she had died and the horrible realization that he would never be able to ask her to forgive him. He'd gone though the motions in a fog that hid him from the shock and the grief, and that was perhaps for the best, because otherwise he would have been falling apart. The tabloids would have had a field day with that....

The one clear memory that he had was of his daughter in her little black dress, walking up to her mother's coffin with strangely dry eyes. Rinoa had cried for hours before, but now it seemed that she had no tears; maybe she was just too tired to cry anymore, or she thought that Mommy would somehow see her cry and be sad. And in her tiny hands she'd clasped a little bouquet of baby's breath, her favorite flower, tied with a red ribbon the same color as her mother's dress.

Caraway remembered watching Rinoa reach out and touch her mother's face curiously, the made-up face with the deep red lipstick. He remembered her face twisting for a moment, as if she'd been trying to keep the tears from coming back. He'd expected her to do what he'd seen other children do at funerals before, put the flowers quickly beside the coffin and walk away as fast as she could.

Instead, he had watched her curiously as she'd started to tug at the tiny flowers of her bouquet, not having the heart to stop her from destroying them. She had never said a word, had only started pulling the flowers from the bouquet and sprinkling them over her mother's body. She'd watched them fall, spiraling down from between her fingers before they'd settled in her mother's hair and on her dress, like snow.

Julia had loved snow, he'd remembered with a sudden pang. And Rinoa had remembered, even as such a young child...

He couldn't bring himself to brush the petals away. As far as he knew, Julia had been buried with them.

Title: Crows
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Characters: Rinoa Heartilly, General Caraway
Warnings/Ratings: Possibly NSFW - animal death, disturbing imagery.
Synopsis: She watches them fly, and she sees them fall.
Theme: 12. murder of crows
Note: Originally posted on 100_leitmotifs @ LJ. Surreal ficlet.

---

A thousand crows flew in the clear blue sky. Rinoa stood in the dying winter field and watched, fascinated by the sight. There were so many of them, and they all seemed to fly in sync with each other, weaving and bobbing.

It was so unbelievable that such ugly birds could fly like that. They were such nasty little creatures, dirty carrion-eaters who'd just as happily eat her if she were to fall down dead in that field. And they cawed and cawed and cawed, and the sound echoed around her and over her and through her until she thought her ears would burst.

"Stop it!" she shouted at the sky, but the horribly black birds didn't stop. They kept wheeling in midair, and their cawing sounded to her like laughter - foolish little girl, who are you to tell us to stop?

She stamped her foot on the frozen ground in frustration, and took a deep breath to scream again -

A shot rang out. Rinoa, too startled to scream, turned to find the sound, and was astonished to see a man standing near her in the field. His back was turned to her, but she could see the rifle in his hands, aimed at the sky. Above him, she saw one of the birds fall out of the murder of crows and fall slowly, too slowly, to the ground.

She pitied the birds, then, even though they were dirty and loud and hateful. They might not be very nice to her, but they flew through the sky - that made them her kind, didn't it? And that faceless man had no right to shoot them down, did he? What had they ever done to him, that they had to die?

She ran further into the field where the man stood, his rifle still pointed at the sky. "Hey!" she yelled as loudly as she could. "Stop it! Leave those birds alone, you big... you big jerk!"

The man didn't listen to her. He just lifted his rifle and fired again, and another bird screamed as it fell.

"Stop it, or I'll... I'll burn you, that's what I'll do!" Her heart pounded at the thought of it. Desperately she hoped that he would stop, that she wouldn't have to make good on her ultimatum. She didn't want to burn him, didn't want to hurt another person, but what could she do? How else could she stop someone that heartless?

The man hesitated for a moment, as if considering her ultimatum. Then he fired again, and this time two birds fell, both of them spiraling to the ground like angels falling to Earth.

"All right," she said, "you... you asked for it!" She lifted her arm and pointed at him, eyes narrowed. She could feel herself rising from the earth, her own wings spreading, her own power stirring inside of her as she screamed for the fire to come. All at once the flames burst from the earth around him, falling on the faceless man like soldiers, burning hotter and fiercer than any fire she'd ever called before.

He didn't scream. The fire didn't even seem to touch him. He slowly turned around, and the fire danced around and behind him as he looked straight at her, and -

Oh no, no, no -

He wasn't a faceless man at all, standing in those dead fields, flames licking at his long formal coat and his immaculately pressed trousers.

That was her father -

-

Rinoa woke up screaming. She couldn't stop, even while Squall tried and tried to comfort her, even when her throat was raw and her lungs almost burst with the pain.

They were still falling.

Title: Widower's Walk
Fandom: FFVIII
Characters: General Caraway
Warnings/Ratings: SFW. (Canon) character death.
Summary: They'd never imagined that he would be the one left behind.
Theme: 44. widow's walk
Note: Originally posted at 100_leitmotifs @ lj.

---

General Caraway had always thought that he'd die and leave Julia behind - either he'd be gunned down in combat, or he'd be assassinated by political dissidents. He'd always hated the thought of it, and not just because it meant thinking of his own death. He'd seen plenty of military widows before, had broken the sad news to many of them himself - no matter how many euphemisms he cloaked the messages in, their faces always crumbled when they realized what the message meant, that their husbands would never come home.

They were sad sights, especially the young ones - somber, red-eyed ladies, dressed in black with veiled faces at the state funerals, always trying to smile and be strong even though it was obvious that they were falling apart. He'd even learned how to recognize them without fail, without the black dresses and the veils. There was a certain way that widows walked, after their husbands were taken and they were left to take on all the weight of the world without them.

It had broken his heart, and had made him lie awake for hours at a time on some nights, wondering if the next battle would be his last. He didn't want to think about Julia as one of those women, even when things were at their worst between them.

He'd never thought that he'd be the one left behind.

There was no such thing as a widower's walk; he imagined that the phrase didn't even exist. Men were supposed to be strong, to never bend under the weight of their loss no matter how great it was. He supposed he tried to be as strong as any of them, even when things were at their worst. But much later, after Rinoa finally ran away from home, he would always wonder if letting himself show a bit of weakness might've kept his daughter from hating him.

Now he'd never know. That was the worst part.

Title: Unguarded Moment
Fandom: FFVIII
Characters: General Caraway, Sorceress Edea
Theme: #20 - broken crown
Leitmotif: To fall
Warnings/Ratings: SFW. Mild creepiness and vague descriptions of violence.
Synopsis: Caraway is given an opportunity to do the one thing that he believes is vital to the future of Galbadia.
Disclaimer: FFVIII is owned by Square-Enix, not me.

---

General Caraway hated the Presidential Residence. He and Vinzer Deling had always met in his own mansion, or in the Command Center; it was the President's paranoia that had prompted the change. He didn't even trust his servants to lead his top military advisor out of the mansion; as much as he hated to admit it, the damned place was horrible to navigate, and at the moment he wasn't sure which way the exit was.

He walked down the corridor to where he thought the stairwell should be, keeping his face carefully expressionless. He had to fight to keep his bad mood hidden from the rest of the world... particularly after his meetings with the President, who talked down to him and called him by his given name constantly, treated him like just another servant to be pushed around. Deling was demanding more and more of his time, and his "requests" were becoming very unreasonable. He and the president had never been the best of friends; they were, at best, comrades, two men who understood each other. But now Deling's head was full of rubbish, foolish notions of world domination. Galbadia's resources were strained enough, keeping Timber and the rest of its troublesome holdings under its control; further expansion could well lead to its destruction. He thought of Timber and its constant rebellions with subdued irritation, remembering that his daughter was there and that she would probably be more than happy to watch Galbadia fall, or even to see reflections of her rebellious nature appearing in other occupied countries....

The fact that Deling's new obsessions were not his own, that they had been give to him by the Sorceress, only angered Caraway further. For all his ruthlessness and occasional poor judgment, President Deling had generally been a sensible man. For him to have allowed that witch to cloud his thoughts, make him into another madman... it was utter humiliation, and Deling was too bedazzled to even realize what a fool he was being.

Already she was making demands of her own, unreasonable ones. Just a few minutes before Deling had ordered Caraway to stop accepting Garden graduates as new recruits - the Sorceress didn't like them, he'd said. Never mind that more and more soldiers were deserting the armed forces, or that the Garden students were the best-trained recruits the Army had; the Sorceress didn't like them, so they had to be weeded out and discharged. It was ridiculous - how did Deling expect them to maintain an army at all under those circumstances?

No, she'd drive Galbadia to ruin, if something wasn't done. Caraway knew that he was the only sensible man left in the chain of command; the burden fell to him to end this madness. So far his secret meetings with Martine had gone unnoticed, thanks to careful planning and perhaps a bit of luck; if anyone had realized that they weren't only discussing the latest results of the Garden Transfer Program, both of them would have been carted off to the D-District Prison, to rot in its underground cells. All of Caraway's service would have meant nothing. Now they were out of time; he and Martine would only have the pretense for one more meeting. They would have to put their plan into action and hope that it would succeed, even though they had not had time to complete certain preparations -

As he mused on his plans he paused, suddenly hearing a strange sound. It sounded like someone... not quite crying, but utterly terrified and on the verge of hysteria. It suddenly reminded him of an argument he'd had with Julia, near the end, when their pride had failed them and left her too afraid to ask him for help. He had left her curled up in a ball on the floor of his study, trying as hard as she could not to cry, and leaving her there had been horribly difficult... He turned around and quickly found the source of the sound: a door that had been left slightly ajar.

A woman, he thought, shaking his head. Surely it was only one of the President's mistresses - he'd had at least three before that he'd heard about, and probably more that had been kept a secret. This was none of his business, and it was best if he just ignored it. He turned away from the door and took a step away - then saw Julia again, curled up as if she were right in front of him, begging him in a horrible voice to go away and let her cry...

He slowly turned back around and approached the door, and then reached out and rapped gently against the wood with his knuckles. "Madam?" he called. "Is something wrong? I can find a servant to attend you."

For a long moment the sound of breathing stopped, and was replaced by a long, deathly silence. Then a half-familiar voice spoke softly to him. "Please come in," she said quietly. "I... I need to talk to someone."

This was dangerous ground; Deling could have Caraway imprisoned for taking such liberties in his Residence. It would be best to turn away, find the stairwell, and maybe tell a servant about the crying woman as he was walking out of the mansion. That would have been the sensible thing, and he was a sensible man. That was why he surprised himself when he slowly pushed the door open - it swung quietly on its hinges - and walked in.

He knew as soon as he entered whose room he had discovered. It wasn't because of the room itself - it was the elaborate headdress on the floor that arrested his attention at once. It was broken and ruined - what had once been a perfect translucent shell was now shattered in a dozen pieces on the carpet, and black feathers had been ripped out and scattered around the room. Caraway tore his eyes away from it only with effort, and saw a woman only slightly less tattered than the crown. Her black dress was torn, and bare of ornamentation. She looked nothing like the woman Caraway had seen at those few meetings; she wore no makeup, except for a few errant streaks on her cheek, and her eyes were swollen from what seemed to be a great many tears. But somehow, despite all that, there was an air of calm and dignity about her...

She looked at him with those strange eyes. "How did you find me?"

"Sorceress...." He wanted to back away, very badly. "It was a mistake. I should not have disturbed you. I'm sorry-"

"Don't go," she said quickly, reaching out to him. Her hands were shaking. "It's... so much more difficult when... I'm alone..." This was not the Edea he knew, the proud and imperious woman who would lead Galbadia to a new and greater glory, according to Deling. All he had to reconcile the two was the broken crown that lay in pieces on the floor. "Do you... distrust me?"

"Sorceress, I-"

"Good," she interrupted, which was just as well - Caraway had no idea what he would have said had he continued. "It would be very dangerous to trust me. I have been trapped for so long... I cannot even trust my own mind."

"You're a prisoner?" he asked, confused. She wasn't a prisoner, she was the Sorceress - one of the mistresses of the world, if the old fables could be believed. But she looked like a prisoner at that moment, with her face bare and the pale skin of her body gleaming through ripped cloth as she moved.

She nodded slightly. "Her mind is too powerful. I can't... keep fighting forever. She haunts me - even when she leaves me her memories linger." Her voice was flat and calm, the sort that teetered on the very edge of hysteria. "But if I do not fight she will banish me to a death beyond death, where souls wish for annihilation. I cannot rest while she still threatens me." She looked up again. "Please, help me..."

Caraway didn't know what was going on - there was a chance that Deling had engineered this as an elaborate test, but he didn't believe it. Deling wasn't given to subtle actions such as this. And this woman... something about her disarmed him, in a way that no one had in years. "What is it that you want?" he whispered.

She stood up and stared at him with those empty eyes. "Kill me," she said softly, as if she had only asked for a glass of water. "Take your gun and shoot, before she comes back. I've tried, but she knows my mind. But perhaps if someone else..."

Caraway froze as images flashed through his mind. He saw himself standing over this pale, calm woman with his pistol in his hand, and slowly pulling the trigger. He saw himself standing over her body, blood splattered across the rich carpet, as an endless stream of servants and soldiers poured through the door behind him. He didn't know what would happen to him then; a crime like that was unimaginable. The price would be high, but if it freed Galbadia from the Sorceress's grasp any price would be worthwhile.

But when he reached down for his holster, another image entered his mind - Julia's face superimposed over the Sorceress, both of them growing pale as their lives both bled away. He recoiled mentally from the image, and his hand dropped. He couldn't kill her... in the heat of battle he could have done it, perhaps. But not this way. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I can't."

She did not look angry or upset... just resigned. She looked up at him with that same eerie calm. "I had hoped that if this happened I would have the courage to end this myself," she said softly, "before I gave in. I never wanted -" She stopped, and for a moment her face filled with dread. "Hyne, no," she said. "It's too soon..."

Caraway watched helplessly as she pressed her hands to her head, and then dropped to her knees. "I'm falling..." she said weakly. "If you should meet my husband... please tell him that I... forgive him." She trembled and slumped weakly down on the carpet.

The half-forgotten headdress glowed with a bright silver light, and before Caraway's amazed eyes it rose from the floor, floating in midair. It began to draw its broken fragments back into itself, reforming itself before his eyes - the feathers reattached themselves, grew long and silky and black. And then he saw the Sorceress herself floating in midair, the torn dress becoming whole again, the ornaments that she had torn off and tossed away beginning to drift back...

He turned away and began to walk as fast as he could. He fought down his terror as he walked down the stairs, moving as fast as he could. All he could think of was the Sorceress in the room behind him, and what she would do if she woke up and saw him there. The prison would very probably seem like a paradise after what she would do...

It really was astonishing what fear could do for one's memory. Caraway didn't relax until he'd found his way to his private car, and was resting in the back seat as a servant drove in silence. Surely no one was going to come after him... not then. They would have found him in the Presidential Residence if they had wished to capture him.

He could not rightfully say that he understood exactly what had just happened. He was filled with conflicting thoughts and emotions, not the least of which was shame. The enemy, the one who had corrupted his President and filled his head with insane notions, had asked him to kill her. But he had been too sentimental to take her life at that unguarded moment. He had no way of knowing when - or if - another chance would come.

He sighed and closed his eyes, and found himself thinking of Julia. The way she had died, her body torn apart by the impact of flesh against metal, and then the strangely calm expression on her unsmiling face...

No, it was no good bemoaning what had just happened. There was only one way to redeem himself. He had to make sure that there would be an opportunity for another shot at the Sorceress, one that would not fail. Still, he knew that this day would haunt him for the rest of his life; he would never forget that he had been given the chance to save Galbadia, but had cast it aside for the love of a dead woman.