[September 7] [Final Fantasy VIII] Gardens Made of Frost

[noa-swandriver.livejournal.com]

Title: Gardens Made of Frost
Day/Theme: September 7 : a man is sufficient
Series: Final Fantasy VIII
Character/Pairing: Shiva, Squall, Zell, Selphie, others
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: Of all the humans whose souls she has burrowed in, Shiva likes them best of all.
Note: I don't know it just happened. D:

Shiva knew every degree of cold there was, and she knew them well. She had reveled in the icy wrath of countless young, stupid soldiers, had often let it grow wild and feral in their minds until there was nothing left but the ice in their veins and the steel in their hearts. Shiva didn't like to be possessed any more than the men who claimed to own her had liked her for anything but her power; she had the advantage, however, of having the ability to recognize her possessors' flaws and weaknesses, the good sense to offer nothing that wasn't owed, and the ruthlessness to eliminate whatever or whomever she disliked as subtly as poison and with the same swift, sharp agony as if every one of their frail, detestable organs had failed them at once.

This new band of child soldiers were an interesting exception, and the winter they carried in them was truly, phenomenally blackthorn in such lovely and unexpected ways. There had been Zell, for a while, the anger and the fierce, jealous wanting in him already sharpened to a fine, rapier point hidden below soft layers of bright, desperate cheer and good intentions. He wanted love and understanding, he wanted to be liked and well-respected, to make his mother proud to call him son, he wanted power beyond measure, he ached to be good, better, best, best of all. Against the classmates who offered nothing but derision,  against the teachers and the odd parent who looked at him like a fly they would gladly watch be devoured by a spider, against these he railed, that they would assign him a worth so much lesser than was his due. The boy's brain had been a marvel of modern neuroses, but Shiva had not been inside of it for so very long, and had remained there for only hours. He did not like the way she lingered in him; she made him uncomfortable. It had been a shame, but it suited her just as well.

Being plunged into the mind of Selphie was much the same as cannon-balling into a frozen lake; the dissonance between her mind and Zell's was obvious, but even once inside of it Shiva had trouble understanding it. There was magic here, as infinite and fearsome as anything a sorceress could dream of, but the limitless pull of destruction and creation humming within the girl in strange, atonal waves was too other for anything a sorceress could draw from, and it was affecting Selphie herself. Without prying, Shiva knew Selphie knew. There was a fear of it so strong it was woven into the very fabric of Selphie's thoughts, though it was tempered by a light dusting of mad euphoria, the knowledge that she had the power in her to do anything and a dawning desire to use it. Selphie had fear enough in her for twenty girls - fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, fear of betrayal, and on and on in such a way that when laid upon the earth in words it would stretch from Dollet to Galbadia - and it shivered down her spine like a glancing shock, like chains being tested and found terribly competent. Selphie's mind was like a battlefield in February, barren at a glance but full of chaos and ghosts, closer to warmth and the augury of life than December but twice as hard, the kind of hardness which would bend but never fold.

Shiva hadn't seen inside Rinoa, who seemed more mascot than rebel, nor Irvine, whose doubts were so manifold and heavy that Shiva could feel them sometimes regardless, hanging over his head in angry, crowding clusters and stayed only by distractions - from what Shiva could see through others' eyes, mostly long, wicked legs and large pretty eyes - and Edea, briefly considering Shiva, cast her away with a hiss the moment she felt the chill of her power. Power Edea had, in spades and aces, and she wanted no more of it. There had been Quistis, who seemed all rigid control and repression, but who had the potential for ruthless cunning and ambition freezing hot in her soul, who was lonely and awkward and nearly as determined to make something eternal of herself as Zell, but who had very different ideas about the hows, whys, and whats. And then again, finally, there was Squall.

Of every man, woman, and child she had ever possessed - and she meant to keep him - Shiva loved Squall best of all. He wasn't an endless white storm of hopeless degage, or ruthlessly cunning. He was a rising of gooseflesh before the first strike of lightning, a fit of shivering for warmth that had been present until suddenly it wasn't. He was a subtle, commanding coolness, just enough to keep you alert and awake, an intangible, creeping sense of caution that bade you to pay attention or regret it. He was so lovely that she had come to him; he was lovely, and he would more than do, though he was perhaps a knife's edge too close to Rinoa, but there was time for all three of them, all of it in the world.

Shiva would wait, and she would watch. She had been eliminating annoyances for centuries now, if it unavoidably came to that, and she was very, very good at it, but at keeping the things she wanted, she was the best.