Fanfiction: "Until I Burn Away"
Aug. 21st, 2019 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deemoyzaTitle: "Until I Burn Away" (19,665 words) [AO3]
Chapters: 5/6
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Rating/Warnings: Teen & Up / strong language, disturbing imagery, and mild gore
Characters: Seifer Almasy, Edea Kramer, Ultimecia
Edea was fading. Seifer didn't want to admit it, but it was getting harder to deny. In public, she still carried herself with the strength and assuredness he'd been drawn to from the start, and she still spoke with all the power and dark charisma she'd had on the night of Deling's assassination. But those instances were becoming increasingly rare, and in the relative privacy of the Master Room, she let her façade slip, revealing a bone-numbing weariness beneath.
She spent most of her days lounging in a hammock, of sorts, made from swaths of white fabric suspended from the ceiling, lightly dozing, or else staring straight ahead but registering nothing. Sometimes, her eyes would fade from yellow to dark brown, and she would look about herself with uncertainty, and settle on Seifer with an expression of intense recognition, bordering on fear. Then, she would blink, and the yellow would return, bringing with it a surge of strength.
But even those surges didn't last as long, anymore.
Seifer was convinced Ellone was the cure for Edea's declining vitality – why else would Edea be pursuing her so fervently? – and he pushed his forces and resources to their limits to aid in the desperate search.
If that was the case, though, why did Edea suddenly insist on making a detour to an uninhabited continent?
"There is something I must show you," she said, in response to his thoughts, and a chill rippled through his brain. He looked at her, and was startled by the darkness of the eyes that looked back. "Something I must tell you. Seifer. My dear, sweet boy."
"I'm not a boy," he reminded her. "I left that behind when I chose to follow you."
"Chose?" Edea threw her head back, and laughed with a vigor she hadn't shown in days. "Do you really think you had a choice?" She faced him again, yellow eyes glowing like the heart of a wildfire, quickening Seifer's blood and compelling him to kneel. "Do you really place so little value on fate? Do you really strive to deny its power? To deny my power?"
"No, my sorceress," Seifer said, staring at the floor.
"Remember, then, that I chose you. I chose a confused boy, one so desperate to be a hero. So desperate to become a man. So eager, so hungry… so malleable. I chose you, Seifer, and I've made you who you are today."
"I am grateful."
Edea sniffed. "You've yet to prove you are. I've given you everything. And you've failed me at every opportunity."
"It won't happen again."
"It had better not. Now, get up. Relay the coordinates to the pilot. I wish to reach Centra before they do."
Seifer bit back his question and exited the Master Room, his pulse still pounding, a strange probing sensation in his head. Edea was wrong. He'd chosen to follow her, he'd chosen to be here, he'd chosen …
… Nothing.
No, Edea was right; it was fate. He never had to choose, for he had always been destined for greatness. He'd been born superior, a leader of men since he could talk. That's why he'd foundered in Garden, forced to take orders from lesser beings, to follow the wrong path. This had always been his path, his true calling.
From the moment the gears of time had shuddered to life, it had been decided.
Seifer Almasy was meant to be the Sorceress' Knight.
It's been an interesting story, to say the least. It has really brought into focus just how many things the game simply hand-waved away to get Seifer where he needed to be. Things like finding and raising the Lunatic Pandora, capturing Ellone, "meeting" Adel. I've tried to answer these questions as well as I could while maintaining a moderately entertaining narrative, and it's been one of the most challenging tasks I've had in a while.
I love FF8, love it to pieces, but writing this story really exposed some weak points in the canon narrative (but at least these aren't as bad as that whole ring business near the end of Disc 2; I cringe every time I replay that part). But I guess that's what fanfiction is for, to stretch our imaginations to fill in those gaps, kind of like this stuff.
Joking aside, this story has been a satisfying way for me to string together the various aspects of Seifer the game provides. It hasn't been easy, and it hasn't always been enjoyable (finding the Lunatic Pandora!), but I am proud of it, in a certain way.
Here's to the final chapter, coming soon!
Chapters: 5/6
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Rating/Warnings: Teen & Up / strong language, disturbing imagery, and mild gore
Characters: Seifer Almasy, Edea Kramer, Ultimecia
Edea was fading. Seifer didn't want to admit it, but it was getting harder to deny. In public, she still carried herself with the strength and assuredness he'd been drawn to from the start, and she still spoke with all the power and dark charisma she'd had on the night of Deling's assassination. But those instances were becoming increasingly rare, and in the relative privacy of the Master Room, she let her façade slip, revealing a bone-numbing weariness beneath.
She spent most of her days lounging in a hammock, of sorts, made from swaths of white fabric suspended from the ceiling, lightly dozing, or else staring straight ahead but registering nothing. Sometimes, her eyes would fade from yellow to dark brown, and she would look about herself with uncertainty, and settle on Seifer with an expression of intense recognition, bordering on fear. Then, she would blink, and the yellow would return, bringing with it a surge of strength.
But even those surges didn't last as long, anymore.
Seifer was convinced Ellone was the cure for Edea's declining vitality – why else would Edea be pursuing her so fervently? – and he pushed his forces and resources to their limits to aid in the desperate search.
If that was the case, though, why did Edea suddenly insist on making a detour to an uninhabited continent?
"There is something I must show you," she said, in response to his thoughts, and a chill rippled through his brain. He looked at her, and was startled by the darkness of the eyes that looked back. "Something I must tell you. Seifer. My dear, sweet boy."
"I'm not a boy," he reminded her. "I left that behind when I chose to follow you."
"Chose?" Edea threw her head back, and laughed with a vigor she hadn't shown in days. "Do you really think you had a choice?" She faced him again, yellow eyes glowing like the heart of a wildfire, quickening Seifer's blood and compelling him to kneel. "Do you really place so little value on fate? Do you really strive to deny its power? To deny my power?"
"No, my sorceress," Seifer said, staring at the floor.
"Remember, then, that I chose you. I chose a confused boy, one so desperate to be a hero. So desperate to become a man. So eager, so hungry… so malleable. I chose you, Seifer, and I've made you who you are today."
"I am grateful."
Edea sniffed. "You've yet to prove you are. I've given you everything. And you've failed me at every opportunity."
"It won't happen again."
"It had better not. Now, get up. Relay the coordinates to the pilot. I wish to reach Centra before they do."
Seifer bit back his question and exited the Master Room, his pulse still pounding, a strange probing sensation in his head. Edea was wrong. He'd chosen to follow her, he'd chosen to be here, he'd chosen …
… Nothing.
No, Edea was right; it was fate. He never had to choose, for he had always been destined for greatness. He'd been born superior, a leader of men since he could talk. That's why he'd foundered in Garden, forced to take orders from lesser beings, to follow the wrong path. This had always been his path, his true calling.
From the moment the gears of time had shuddered to life, it had been decided.
Seifer Almasy was meant to be the Sorceress' Knight.
It's been an interesting story, to say the least. It has really brought into focus just how many things the game simply hand-waved away to get Seifer where he needed to be. Things like finding and raising the Lunatic Pandora, capturing Ellone, "meeting" Adel. I've tried to answer these questions as well as I could while maintaining a moderately entertaining narrative, and it's been one of the most challenging tasks I've had in a while.
I love FF8, love it to pieces, but writing this story really exposed some weak points in the canon narrative (but at least these aren't as bad as that whole ring business near the end of Disc 2; I cringe every time I replay that part). But I guess that's what fanfiction is for, to stretch our imaginations to fill in those gaps, kind of like this stuff.
Joking aside, this story has been a satisfying way for me to string together the various aspects of Seifer the game provides. It hasn't been easy, and it hasn't always been enjoyable (finding the Lunatic Pandora!), but I am proud of it, in a certain way.
Here's to the final chapter, coming soon!
