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Fairy's Gift[02.08.01] » by Carme FAILURE. The red text blinked bright, contrasting harshly with the black screen it lay against. beeeeeeeeeep........ ".....Fuck. Fuck." A man twisted icy fingers together. The others were frozen over their terminals. He was the first to give up. A tongue flicked out to moisten dried-out lips. "Will they... Did they..." ERROR READING FILE. REWIND. PLAY. ERROR READING ERROR READING FIL ERROR REA ERROR READING FI ***
Green eyes, a pale, pale green; reminiscent of blue sky and flower fields of spring; now widening in an attempt to stay conscious, glossing over, lips parted and unnaturally icy blue. Too cold, too stiff, everything and nothing was happening; oh god, where was he and why couldn't she move? Gift of the blind fairies, indeed, gentle fluff turned traitorous, unresponsive beauty. Too cold. Dainty face, dainty flower partially hidden in the snow, half-melted bits of frost in the ridges in corduroy; corduroy of the summer jumper once bright and sunshiney; she was his sunflower, always and forever, he said; bright sunshine and flowers fading in winter, relentless storm kept coming, where was the warmth? Gone- like home, like friends, like him. She didn't want to leave. Gloved palms and bare fingers brushing chilled dust out of sunflower's face, leaving caring behind -- love? Fading flower hidden in expanses of hard-hearted snow, life ebbing away, desecrating impassive forest, frock fading, small clouds from soft breath growing ever smaller; where were the laughing eyes and silly hat? Dying, can you feel it? Sanity spoke -- A merge with Earth, like the last bit of sunshine bleeding energy away. All she could see was white and specks of red -- ice was freezing senses away -- Young; bloody, life force sapped by shallow beauty of ice; trying a walk and falling with cradled sunflower in stiff arms -- Neither could be salvaged. Silence melted, names whispered, eyes of the dying ignored the blood around. Fading, fading, then nothing more. Gifts of blinded fairies blanketed both; a spring snuffed out by winter morn. ***
Triple, Life, Curaga, Curaga. Triple.... He fell to his knees, breathing ragged. The sharp pain in his chest was probably a broken rib. He checked; noticed that the Double would last just long enough for another spell. Curaga for him, or Life for the fallen one? And so the feathers fell... It was that moment after the spell was cast, frantically going through stocks of magic, that he found that there were no healing spells left. Winter danced her dervish and whirled him away. *** She stretched out the chains of the nunchaku in front of her as far as they would go, casting Wall on herself and her companion. In front of her, the cloudy silver mist condensed to a sphere the size of her fist. It whirled quickly before expanding and evaporating again, and then the bright light of an Ultima spell painted itself over her surroundings. Her wall flashed once before disappearing. Nearby, someone fell into the snow. The only Life spell still junctioned to her HP materialized above her friend's head in swirls of feathers and a purple glow; then the last thing she saw after he staggered to his knees was the mist condensing again and a translucent blue begin to shine around her limbs. When the blade of ice stabbed into her stomach, piercing layers of frozen flesh and clothing, she didn't feel a thing. *** Pure grace and beauty, that was all she could find to describe it, like a winter of silver crystals and clouds. Bits of blue threaded in and out among the mist and it seemed to have a gold sheen over it. Were those wings? She'd swear it was an angel, a seraph, some light immortal come to bless them. Mesmerized and doll-like, she watched the mist spin. The apparition expanded into an opaque spray of platinum white, and the fairy blessed them. ***
Face life so you can get the job done. Funny how I fuck things up so neither happens. He nonchalantly cleaned the silver rifle under the dim light coming from the emergency exit sign outside his room. Even bathed in the dark blood-red glow the weapon seemed to be winking at him, showing off flawless metal plating despite thousands of battles. Letting his mind drift, he hummed a few notes of some song he'd heard earlier that day. Christ, everything I'm doing is so.... Unconsciously, he made his movements faster, more fluid, his humming, louder. He threw in a few lyrics after several more off-key notes. "I've done all I can doooo, could I please come home with yooou? Sweeeeet mmmhmmsunshiiine...." He went back and polished the barrel again humming the chorus second time around. There wasn't really a reason for the obsessive polishing, he supposed. Well.... Who'd want to use a gun with blood and dirt all over it? How did all that shit get on there, anyway? I bet most of the blood's mine from getting hit all the time. Sick. Those things are just out to get me or something. But the rifle had spilled blood of other people and monsters, many times over. The wounds he'd recieved himself were nothing compared to the amount Exeter had caused. He scrubbed harder at the handle, pausing only to shift the rag around; there was a hole in it now. It really was a beautiful gun; he had his SeeD-turned-Commander friend to thank for the upgrade. Dumb cadets like me who can't kill people right don't get a salary. "In the blur of ser-en-iteeee... " On some days he could convince himself the gun was a thing of beauty and his sharpshooting was an art. Guns don't kill people, people do. Hah.... Guess that makes me the murderer. Artist is to murderer as beauty is to.... He leaned closer to the window and tilted the gun slightly in the light to check for anything he'd missed. Yippee-ki-yi-yay. Final battle tomorrow. Who's gonna die this time around? Finally satisfied with his work, he dropped it on a nearby chair carelessly, making no effort to keep it in the condition he'd just cleaned it to. A nearby clock read 23:02. Two hours of sleep. Plenty of time. "The flowers of nai-yev-iteee, buried in a layer of frost..." ***
Her eyes were squeezed shut. Was she listening?
Did she know how off-balance crying threw him? Sure, he was only being selfish, but... God... there she was, huddled up against the far side of the bench, looking not unlike the heap of torn and bloodied SeeD uniforms sitting in front of the city's tailor that was waiting to be burned(for they'll never wear them again). Bright pretty young things like her weren't supposed to cry, they were supposed to bend in the wind like sweet grass and come back after their ordeal no worse for the wear. What happened? She'd always been the strong one. Had anyone ever realized that? Now the last root had been cut and there was no way for the tree to stand up. Feeling too awkward to simply stand by, shifting his weight from left to right in growing discomfort, he simply sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a half-hug. Hey, it was nothing, friends like them were supposed to understand each other like -that-, right? ...Not the kind of hug he'd fantasized about(Horny bastard, someone said, but he ignored the voice), but if she was feeling better from it, nothing else mattered. She was so cold... They both were. It must have been the snowstorm, he thought absent-mindedly. God, I wish she'd stop crying. I want to see her eyes the way they were before this whole situation started... How can anyone stand to live here? The glare off the snow dissipated as the temperature dropped. The two went inside soon after the sun finally set, leaving only deep footprints behind in the hardening world of ice around. ***
It's not what happens, it's how you react and how you look at it. Fairies, fairies, smile, frown, White. Nothing is what it seems. Wrong angle, wrong view. Not right. Now smile. White trickery laughs at you. Gift? Curse? She woke up feeling like a child who just found out he'd been doing addition problems on a subtraction worksheet. Wearing the wrong glasses? ***
Snow in Trabia always had the most delightful crunch to it when one stepped in it, like a frosted pastry that had been baked just right. Nothing but snow for miles around... except for the Garden behind them, but that was camoflauged as well under a thin crust of snowflakes. Gifts from the fairies, the girl called them. The crisp beauty of Trabia in winter was certainly breathtaking... Gifts from fairies, indeed. "Oh, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." So much for a serious mission... More like running rampant through Trabia Garden and the surrounding field, mugging and exterminating the annoying little Mesmerizes that got in the way; much too easy, though no one seemed to mind. The girl running across the field shoved a cowboy hat down over her ears before turning back to wink, then going back inside. The boy stood still for a moment, a goofy smile on his face, looking at where she had been standing just seconds before. He'd get her back later. Snowball fights were so much fun. Laughing a bit, the coatless boy leaned over to scoop up a handful of the fluff, crunching it into a ball of tougher ice while striding over to the door his friend had just gone through. Today's weather was truly a gift from the fairies. ***
STOP. EJECT. ERROR READING FILE. Into the fire went the memories, the recordings, and the souls. When the flames had finally died out, like a stranded soldier who'd used up all his rations and ammunition, no one seemed to notice that among the melted bits of sunshine and snow lay a tiny pair of dragonfly wings and a single blade of spring grass. ***
1/27/01 |
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