It’s getting easier to tell when the visions are coming.
When they first happened, I thought it was all a part of that materia deal that was happening on the Voyage. Stray memories being seen by passing through at the right (or wrong, some could argue) time. Glimpses into pasts that wanted to stay hidden.
But then they started happening when I was nowhere near the ship. It was then that I realized that it was the crystal doing its job. Showing me glimpses of its past, the past that it wanted to show me. To teach me lessons on monkhood, what it means to be a Fist.
This memory, here, I can feel it start to happen by the dull sense in the back of my brain, the fuzzled mumbling of voices, just high enough to be heard, low enough that I can’t make it out. Gives me enough time to close my eyes and focus. Which is all I can do, laid up in this hospital bed in the Quarter.
The pain comes first. It’s a similar pain, but instead of the left side it’s on the right, and there’s more of it. You put a hand on it, feeling the wetness of blood that’s all too familiar by now. Still flowing, even now? That’s never a good sign.
“Set me down, s-set me down I need a minute.” You say through gritted teeth. Even speaking is getting hard to do. Something that always comes so easily, it’s a strain now.
Rose doesn’t do it at first, trudging on with you on her back. She wouldn’t feel the blood seeping through her doublet, not yet, its too thick for that. You start to make the request again, but she slows, moving the both of you behind a rock. It’s not as gentle a set down as you’d like, but here you are now, sitting on the cold Gyr Abanian dirt.
“What’s wro--ah, shit. You’re bleeding again.” Rose comments, turning to see the state of you. You wonder if she’s just as hidden as you are behind this rock, what with how tall she is.
The soft, gentle rasping of the White flows through you after a moment. The focus in Rose’s hands glowed as it floated there in the space between them. It was a shining, brilliant purple in its coloring once. But the metal is tarnished, chipped, covered in dirt. At least you hope its dirt. You know that it isn’t.
“That should….that should do you, for now. I never did quite get very far learning about the White like the others did.” Rose explains, her face soft and sympathetic. “I still can’t believe we got out of there, the way we did. With you being as stupid as you were.”
You’d laugh, but the pain in your side is still intense, even with the bleeding stopped.
“Me? Stupid? C’mon, Rose, you know I’m not stupid. It’s us or them now. Fighting this battle on two fronts. If it ain’t the Garlean standard at the end of my fists, it’s our fuckin’ flag on their faces. We’re alive now, though, aren’t we?” You ask. It’s not the first time you’ve asked that, and you hope this isn’t going to be the last.
That soft and sympathetic face turns to stone, the smile a frown, brow set, the familiar creases between the eyes that she loved to talk about so much. “We’re alive, for now. But you know Alesone wouldn’t approve of what you did back there, burning through all of those chakra’s like you did.”
The weight on your chest comes back. It’s so heavy, like a boulder placed on top of you. You almost wish that it was an actual boulder, that would be far, far more easily dealt with than the heartbreak running through you now.
“You didn’t….have to bring her up, Rose.”
“I did. You know I did, how could I not? Only godsdamn way to get through to you sometimes.” Tears start welling in her eyes. It’s not hard to notice them, although they’re starting to come more and more silently now. You’re not sure if that’s good news.
A sigh escapes you after a moment, causing you to shift in displeasure. This isn’t the first time you’ve had a broken rib or three. Never a fun time.
“Look…...I’m sorry, alright? If I didn’t do what I did, we wouldn’t be alive. We can’t very well get our revenge if we’re dead on the end of a pike now, can we?” This also isn’t the first time this questions been asked. This one you hope is the last.
Rose turns away, looking back the way you two came. The edges of your vision start to blur, and darken. There’s more being said here, but its fading, becoming that fuzzy mumbling again. The end of this particular memory.
I can never really tell what the crystal is trying to tell me, even if I’ve had it for the better part of six moons now. Especially now. Did it come because we both had broken ribs? Me, in this hospital bed, her bleeding out in the Gyr Abanian wastes? If there was any lesson to be learned from this one, though, it seems like its the one I already learned myself.
Patience.
But it seems to be getting harder and harder to be patient when there’s always a threat looming on that horizon now, doesn’t it?
