Stealth
Chapter xxix
By YuriNigasa
*standard I don't own FFVIII, Squaresoft, characters, etc. applies from now until whenever I decide I'm done*
Stealth
Chapter xxix
By YuriNigasa
"I am Her Oracle. Heed the words spoken from the Time of Great Calamity. To seal away the Gate the Guardians of mankind sacrificed Themselves. In preparation for the Time yet to come She left behind a gift. Into the hands of Her children, a legacy. I am Her voice. Thus begins the Book of the Sundering."
It was later that night, and we were all sitting in various places around my and Squall's room. Elijah was propped up in a chair underneath the lamp, the glow from the bulb casting his face into dramatic shadow. In his lap was a remote terminal, and he was scrolling through the scans of the Centran text we'd taken that day. Only about a portion of the pages had been scanned. Due to the fragility of the manuscript, we were taking our time.
A secondary terminal screen had been set up on a small table so we could see what he was looking at, even if we couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"In the Time of Prosperity, all things flourished. The Guardians walked among us, taught us, guided us."
"Unknown to us in our contentment, Dark Forces began to amass themselves under the leadership of one called Immamiel, the Dark Shadow. He drew to him the Guardians who did not value humanity. He prodded those who resented the bond between Guardian and those they saw as inferior and week. He drew to him these Guardians, who would become known as the Four Harbingers: Thanateros, bringer of death, Myr, bringer of war, Necheta, bringer of hatred, and Shaeos, bringer of destruction. They ravaged the land from ocean to ocean. Immamiel drew to him the twisted and contorted, warping them to further his own desires. Striking out at all who would oppose him, a rein of terror gripped the world."
"Actually," Elijah interrupted his reading, "that doesn't really mean world as we think of it. It's more like the amount of land encompassed by their borders."
"Immamiel drew into himself the power of the Harbingers, cloaking himself in invincibility. None of humanity could stand against him, a brutal tyrant with the powers of a god. The Guardians tried to aid, but there was not one among their numbers who stood against the full onslaught of terror. Again and again they were forced to retreat, to give ground, and with ground precious blood, and with blood, life."
"Lost to us were Merhanna, Guardian of the Oceans, Zacheu, Guardian of the Wilds, Enania, Guardian of the Forest, Haiea, Guardian of the Night, Taethen, Guardian of the Mountain, and Vach, Guardian of the Wing. The greatest loss, however, was the loss of Heroth, Guardian of Knowledge. Since the beginning, Heroth had lived, watched, and observed. In the mind of Heroth were all things known to man and Guardian. The mysteries of the world known and forgotten. When Heroth fell, a great sadness descended across the shoulders of those already weary from battle."
"The Guardians needed an ally, one they could lend power to until the power would rival Immamiel's. They found one who would stand in defense of her people and in defense of the Guardians."
"Hyne."
"A child of mankind, She had been blessed with powers that rivaled those of the Guardians. Born with powers that had never before been known, She was the first to harness the elements for use in sorcery. It was Hyne who learned to call forth the powers from the very earth at Her feet. It was in this one that all the world placed their hopes."
Elijah looked up. "That's all we've got right now. We'll try to get as much tomorrow as we can."
I was a little disappointed. There had been no mention of Chronos, although since Elijah had only talked about the 'Harbingers' and what seemed to be a dead Guardian roll call, that was good.
"Can you imagine?" Selphie asked from her perch in Irvine's lap.
"Yeah, all those Guardians, dead? Hell, all those Guardians walking around with... with people? Can you imagine what it would be like if Quez suddenly decided she wanted to pop out for a chat? Baby... I tell ya. That would be intense," Zell stretched out the last word to give it emphasis.
"We don't know that they were exactly in the forms they are today," Quistis said. "Maybe they were different, somehow. Maybe we'll find out."
"Ohh this is pure torment. I want to know what happens next. Remember when Matron used to read us a chapter a night and no matter how much we'd beg and plead she'd never do more than that? This is so way worse. And let me tell you, I used to think that royally sucked."
"Yes, but this isn't some bedtime story," Squall's voice was dead calm, the voice of leadership. "If we don't find what we need in this manuscript, then we've lost a huge lead."
I surreptitiously put my arm around him and hooked my thumb in the back pocket of his pants. I saw him glance over from the corner of his eye but I let my face remain impassive, as if focused entirely on the task at hand. "Even if we don't discover anything about Chronos, we've got more to work with now than I ever thought we'd have. We have a record of a civilization nobody knows of, of who knows what else that may have been lost to time. We know now that we're being lead in the right direction."
"You're still placing an awful lot of trust in this. Casting down your lot with things you don't even know are telling the truth. I see a lot of stuff I can't explain and some stuff that hasn't scared me this bad since we set foot inside that twisted castle," Irvine said quietly.
"So we take our time. We go slowly, work with what we have." Squall looked a bit hesitant when he spoke, almost like he was hiding something. It worried me. Had he remembered something that he wasn't telling the rest of us?