I turned around in horror as the door slammed shut behind me, launching myself at the wheel and trying to reverse the damage, but Riku was too strong. In seconds, he had shut, bolted and locked the cabin door. “NO!” I screamed, and threw myself against the hard metal, the airship shaking around me. The captain, too busy to stop me, simply shouted “Get him away from there!” And Squall rushed forwards, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me from the door, into a tight, loving hug. Companionship… caring… maybe this was Love.
I woke up several hours later, in the dead of night. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing but blackness and… white fur? A steady heart beat… I couldn’t place it. Focusing my powers, I scanned the mental signatures around me… Squall. Squall was the one who’s heart was beating. Someone was worrying about the airship, another about the regency… Neither mentioned the names of Haru and Riku. I focused harder… “Queen Haru is…. Where is King..?” Mental images of Haru and Riku popped up on their crowning day. This was the captain thinking. I checked harder. No signs of love, other than the one next to me. I couldn’t find them. As I stood up, waking Squall as I jumped off his chest, I looked around at the blazing wreckage of Her Majesty’s Pride and Joy, the Silver Crescent, I felt no mental signature of Riku or Haru. They… were gone…
I dropped to the ground and Squall crawled up beside me. “What’s wrong?” He asked me, in a worried tone of voice. I tried to keep my voice calm, but I couldn’t hide the breaks. “Haru and Riku… they’re gone… I can’t find them anywhere…” A single, crystalline tear ran down my cheek and Squall held his hand up and wiped it from my face. Then he did something weird. He leant in close, and put his lips on my cheek. There was some weird sound and he pulled back, blushing more than ever before. Riku had done it to Haru lots of times. Was this a “Kiss”?
As the night wore on, I realised how tired I was. Soon enough, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I lay my head on the grass and closed my eyes. A few moments later, I felt someone’s arms around me, and that heartbeat I felt before. Thinking back to the last thing Haru had said to me, I began to wonder… What exactly was love? Was it a need to prove yourself, like Haru, or a need to protect, like Riku, or… a need for affection, like Squall? Was it a need for attention, as Zidane once showed me, or a need for self-destruction, as Freya had proved? Or was it all these things and more, rolled into one? I decided to ask Squall when I woke up.
But when we woke up, I forgot completely. I opened my eyes and looked around, before shutting them quickly. It was far too bright, too white, so perfectly, clinically white. I tried to open my eyes again, but I couldn’t. I had no choice. “Blind!” I cast upon myself, and everything took a black hue. But, to my expectation, I could still see. I stood up, Squall still sleeping by my side, and looked around. Many doors lined the walls. Marble sculptures of flowers lined the corridor. I cast Blind on Squall, woke him, and he too looked around, voicing the thoughts in my own head. “Castle Oblivion…”
I took Squall’s hand, enjoying the familiarity it brought, and pulled him to a large, golden doorway. I put my hand to the door and checked the room for mental signatures. “GO AWAY!” I stumbled back, Squall catching me. Someone was in this next room, and they didn’t want me here. Fixing my other hand on my Oak Staff, I opened the door. The next room was also purest white, exactly the same as the one before, except for one detail. There, in the middle of the room was Zexion, hugging his knees tightly. He looked up; his tear-stained face fixed with pure sorrow, and started rocking back and forth. I walked over and next to him. “I thought I told you to go away.” I nodded. “You did, but we need your help. Haru and Riku are gone… and now you’re the only person who can rule Lindblum.”
Zexion looked up at me then and his eyes brimmed with tears. “Haru, too?” I nodded. Zexion dissolved into sobs, and I put my hand on his back, noticing Squall twitch as I did so. “We need you now, Zexion. The public need you. Please… do this for Gildas.” I knew it was unfair of me to say this, but Lindblum needed Zexion now. Zexion looked back to me, and nodded shakily. “Okay… for him…” Squall reached down and held his shoulder, and as he did so, Zexion clicked his fingers. For a second, all I could see was darkness. Then we were outside, in a field of barley. Zexion stood up, and looked at me, focusing for a second. My Blind spell disappeared, and I smiled at him. Squall’s was gone too. Zexion looked at the grass and his eyes began to quiver again. “What’s wrong?” I asked, and he just glared at me.
“You want to know what’s wrong? Why don’t you just probe my mind, like we all know you can! Why don’t you just read my secrets like words on a page, and get it over with!” Squall stepped forwards, but I stopped him. “You want me to? Fine.” I focused my energies as the sun began to set, casting a flaming glow upon the sky. Scanning the nearby mental signatures, I found Zexion’s and- “VIVI!” Wait, what? “VIVI!” Someone was signalling me. Zexion looked confused. I tried again. “VIVI!” I span around. Somewhere over… there! A tall oak tree stood at the top of the hill, set ablaze by the orange glow of the sunset. I saw a figure standing there, waving an arm, and another, taller figure beside it. The figures began running towards me, and soon I didn’t need to read minds to know them. I ran forwards, my arms outstretched, and ran into Haru’s arms. “I thought you were dead!” I cried, and Squall, Zexion and Riku joined us. “I thought you were dead!”
I was so glad to see Vivi, Squall and Zexion that I couldn’t stop laughing as we ran towards them. As I squeezed Vivi in a tight hug, he said, “I thought you were dead!” I let go of him and stepped back, smiling at Riku. “So did I,” I replied. We set up a small fire – as the sun was rapidly sliding out of view behind a hill – and sat around it in a tight circle companionably. Everyone had been chattering happily, but as the darkness surrounded us but for the warm ball of light cast by the flames, all conversation petered out. “So…what happened then?” I looked at Vivi through the fire, and thought back. “Well…” I began, probing my hazy memories.
“We were on the top deck of the airship, and you guys were locked below deck.” I had been…resigned to death. Not happy about it, but I wasn’t sad, or even slightly scared. I think it was because I wasn’t alone; Riku’s presence had calmed me. We could go together. “I think we both thought that we were going to die,” and here Riku nodded in agreement before I continued. “Everything was shaking and falling, and then…it just stopped.” There had been a massive explosion, bigger than any so far, but following that, everything was quiet. The crackle of the flames seemed distant, and I couldn’t hear people screaming or shouting anymore. I put it down to death, but I still gripped onto Riku with all my energy. My eyes were shut again, so I didn’t know whether or not I could actually see. I didn’t really care, to be honest.
“Eventually, I felt Riku shaking me, and looked around. We were in a forest, just over…” I scanned the horizon, and pointed it out, “there.” Riku said we must have been thrown from the airship from the crash. I was aching all over, so I started to use Cure. That was when I had noticed Riku; he hadn’t stood up and instead was lying on the grassy, muddy floor, panting heavily. He had taken the worst of the impact to protect me! I knelt next to him guiltily, and saw that his face had lost all its colour. His arms and legs were limp when I tested them, and his eyes had been sapped of their sparkle. He could barely move. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ I had muttered continuously, certain I would not be able to heal him. But I tried my hardest. He looked a little better when I had finished, and could move properly again, but he couldn’t support himself on his own legs. I had gone to try healing him some more, but I just couldn’t do it. “All my magic had been used up and I would have to wait for it to restore before I could do anything else. “
“We knew that the forest might not be safe, so we decided to find a more open space. There, we were going to rest up until I could use Teleport to get us back to Lindblum. From Lindblum we could send soldiers out to Castle Oblivion to search for you to tell you that we were here.” I had supported Riku, who was still unable to walk, as we trekked through the dense forest in the direction of the most light. He winced with every jarring step I took, making my guilt flare up each time, but I had no choice but to keep going. “It took a long time, but eventually we emerged into this field, and I guessed it was maybe mid-afternoon.” The sun had been warm on my face after the cool forest, but I couldn’t relax yet.
I took Riku under the shelter of the oak tree and sat him down to rest for a while. After checking the horizon for any potential problems or other people, I joined him and took his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ I had whispered, but he looked at me curiously. ‘You do so much to protect me, but I can’t help you at all.’ He shook his head, but looked suspiciously queasy afterwards. I straightened him up and conjured a small ball of water to drink. That way, I knew my magic had been restored a little, and I began to heal Riku a little more. He looked a lot better than he had to begin with, but he still wasn’t himself.
Riku lay back, gazing into the sky. I watched him as he watched the clouds, glad that I could just be with him. He noticed me staring at him, and pulled me down beside him, laughing his beautiful, cheery laugh. I wanted to live in his heart. I had missed being this way with Riku. ‘…Let’s go back to a simple life after this. No more adventures, no more emotional attachments to anything but each other. Okay?’ I asked. Riku smiled wider, and nodded. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he chucked lightly, kissing me softly, romantically, lingeringly. And then…
“…So we just waited under the tree for a while. We didn’t do anything at all, just waited. And then you guys showed up. Uh-huh.” I rushed through my words, blushing furiously as I finished our story with a tone that invited no questions. I could see Zexion peering at me with a funny look on his face through his hair, so I busied myself stoking the fire, wishing the burning in my cheeks would go away. I could feel it! Riku laughed a little, stroking the palm of my hand. It was ticklish, and I couldn’t control the giggle that slipped out. So I jumped on him in return, pinning him to the ground and sitting on him, grinning triumphantly.
I thought I had won, but Riku seized me round the waist and lifted me up above him. I poked at his elbows so they folded, and I landed on him, my eyes locked on his, my fingers tied into his, my heart beating for his. I smiled gently, mirrored in his face, and was just about to kiss him when a dry sob shook me. I looked up, stunned, to see Zexion wiping tears away with his robes. Considering Gildas, I clapped a hand to my mouth and clambered off of Riku, horrified. “I am so sorry, Zexion!” He shook his head, and jumped to his feet before running off. I watched him go, and looked at Riku in anguish. He shrugged, and crossed his legs, pulling me down to sit on his lap. Zexion was nearly out of sight and I fretted about him anxiously. He only just lost his one true love, and here I was flaunting my husband in front of him. “Maybe I should go apologise,” I breathed. Riku rested his chin on my shoulder. “Forget about it. He has to move on at some point; Gildas would have hated to see him moping about.” I tried to stand up, but Riku tightened his grip on me.
Vivi jumped to his feet. “I’ll go instead,” he said, and scurried off. Squall watched him as he ran off, a wistful expression on his face. A sudden exhaustion came over me, and I let my head flop down onto Riku’s to sleep. It came easier than normal, and I could stop thinking about everything…stop worrying about Zexion – and Vivi and Squall. Finally, some peace…
