Saturday Evening, Room 421

[angelo_wings]

It was Saturday night. She'd been here a week without checking in. Conveniently, she had so very handwavily found a store to sell her a computer -- wireless, they said, which was confusing but she liked it.

So now she had no excuse not to e-mail Quistis and ... no, scratch that, Quistis didn't exactly like her. She didn't take it personally. She figured most of that had to do with the sulky dark-haired boy who'd declared himself her Knight.

Selphie, on the other hand? Selphie would appreciate the gossip. Especially if she started with the most important part.

Selphie!!

SQUALL IS TAKING SEX ED!!!!

I don't know how he got signed up for it, but I snooped and saw his schedule. It's called "Dating, Hooking Up and Sex." I can't imagine how much he glared at everyone for that.

We took a shuttle here and met all sorts of people who were also coming to the school. Then we got to the picnic, where I met even more new people (new for me -- they were already at the school for a while). Most of them are from places I've never heard of, and they don't know anything about Galbadia or Timber. They even stare at me funny when I say I'm a sorceress!

I was assigned a 'big sib' who apparently knows Squall -- he's going to teach here one day! Isn't that wild? -- and my roommate is very nice. There's an awesome library here but I haven't spent much time there. I've been going to classes and I even got myself a computer so I can check in with everyone.

How is everyone adjusting? Has Esthar been attacking? Is there anything new I should know? Is anyone upset at Squall for leaving? I didn't know he was coming with me. I mean, I saw him, but I figured he was just escorting me there, not that he'd stay. You know how stubborn he gets.

E-mail back soon, okay? I want to know everything that's going on. Especially concerning Adel.

She had left a few details out. Her friends said they were okay with her being a sorceress, and maybe they were. That didn't mean they'd want to know about the Magic Reserves, or that she'd met a boy with wings just like hers. Best not to push her luck.

Rinoa typed her name, hit Send, and began composing an e-mail to Zone. Something way more professional, hopefully. The Forest Owls weren't going to just give up.

Angelo was asleep on the foot of her bed, and the door was open.

(will be linkdroppy as hell once I edit those in. yyyyyup, links ahoy! all squall-mods (like finding his schedule) were permitted by the mun. also open!)

Comments

[intraspective]

Ino studied her for a long moment. Sure, they'd just met and all but...

"Wanna talk 'bout it?" Ino asked, closing her eyes. "I can keep a secret."

She really, really could.

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa hesitated. It might be a bad idea, but ... this had been a week full of bad ideas. So what was one more?

"Do you know what a Sorceress is?" she asked. "Most people don't, at least, not here."

[intraspective]

"I don't think I do, not the way you mean it," she said, glancing over at the other girl. "I know it means you've got magic."

[angelo_wings]

"I do," Rinoa agreed. "I have ... a lot of magic."

This was a wee bit of an understatement.

"That's why I need a knight," she continued. "So I don't ... lose myself in it. Some Sorceresses seem to. They're fine, and then one day, they're taking over a country and mounting an army. Trying to end the world, or just rule it. I think it's just that there's so much that you ... can't hold on to yourself."

It made sense to her, but then, this was hers. She wasn't sure how well she explained it to other people.

[intraspective]

"And he protects your piece of mind," she repeated softly, Rinoa's earlier words. "They say the mind can only understand so much. Maybe that's true of power it can hold as well?"

Though Fandom made that difficult to say for certain.

"I can understand getting washed away by your own power, though." Ino was in no danger of that but she didn't have to be a genius to guess how quickly she'd go mad if she had no shields between her mind and the rest of the world. She was lucky, being in the 'off' position, unlike Emma. "It's... you can tame it? But it doesn't have to stay tamed and it might get free one day."

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa nodded. "I don't know if I can tame it," she explained. "It's still so new. I lock it away and I try to tell myself I won't ever use it. But Squall was hurt, on the ship, and it all came out. It was ..."

She shook her head, failing at words.

No, that wasn't entirely true. She knew the words she was supposed to use: horrible, awful, bad, wrong.

And the ones that really fit how it had felt: amazing. Incredible. Alive.

Guilt added a flush to her cheeks. Damn it.

[intraspective]

"A rush?" Ino guessed. "A thrill. Even if it's dangerous..."

Well, that could add to it. Ride the danger, let the pounding of your blood fill your ears. There was a reason Ino liked hunting monsters.

"I think," she offered, "just ignoring it won't help."

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa glanced over, trying to convince herself to lie. Failing. She nodded, quickly.

"In that moment," she said, in a low voice, "I knew. I could do anything. I could crumple up the sky and toss it over my shoulder. I could tear apart the ship, piece by piece, and stand in the center of the whirlwind. I could change the world just by breathing."

How much of this was just the heady rush of it, and how much of this was power that she really had, Rinoa didn't know. And she really wasn't eager to find out. Except for the tiny part of her that wanted to set fire to the whole world, just to prove she could.

She didn't sound like herself, to her own ears. Not the sound of her voice, and not the words, either.

Neither of those were very good signs.

"I don't think ... letting it out will help, either," she said, and at least that sounded like her.

[intraspective]

Ino's eyes were cool.

"Good thing you've got your knight," she commented. Not sounding off-put or disturbed. "If you can't control your power, then you've probably got to learn to control yourself."

Moods, feelings, reactions...

"Let him deal with grounding you for the moment."

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa nodded, her flush darkening. She hadn't meant to let anyone see that.

"Edea said ... most sorceresses that go bad didn't have knights," she said, fumbling slightly for the words. "Which maybe means having one makes sure you won't. It worked for her."

Until she got possessed, but really, who could help that?

[intraspective]

"Maybe that's all you need," Ino said, picking her words. "But ain't it better to be more prepared than less? Maybe in learning more control, if something goes wrong or something happens where your powers come out... maybe that'll make it easier to stop from doing just anything you can just 'cause you can."

[angelo_wings]

"I don't even know if I can control it," Rinoa admitted. "It's not something I want to try and ... be wrong about. Maybe it's better just to lock it down and never get too close."

[intraspective]

Ino played with a bit of her hair.

"What if someone close to you gets hurt?" she asked quietly. "And you say 'screw control' and then you can't get it back? Maybe you were lucky last time you managed."

[angelo_wings]

"I don't know," she said firmly. "I don't know that there is a right answer here. But I have it and I can't make it go away, no matter how much I want to."

[intraspective]

Ino shrugged a bit.

"And givin' it up, well, ain't no shame in not wanting to give up power either. You didn't sound like you minded the idea of using it." She hadn't sounded exactly like herself either. "Maybe it'll figure itself out."

[angelo_wings]

"I should mind," Rinoa admitted. "But I can't give them back even if I wanted to. Unless I die, but I'm not really looking forward to that, either."

She happened to like life. It was enjoyable, for the most part.

[intraspective]

"If you were looking forward to dying, you'd have more problems than just magic."

What? It was true.

"You got anything you can do safely with your powers?"