literature

Beneath the Surface

Deviation Actions

LunaManar's avatar
By
Published:
790 Views

Literature Text

[Note: for context, please read submission description.]

His eyes wandered to the side, and she let him think, laying possessively on him and toying with Griever's chain. Her wings hung low, her power curling slowly along him to keep the contact fresh in his senses while he searched for the words to describe it.

“This weight,” he began quietly, “Like I've been submerged. Or...buried. I dreamed about it once.” His eyes closed, head relaxed to one side in concentration, distantly feeling Rinoa's fingers brush through his hair as he spoke, low and carefully. “I was just laying there. All these roots grew around me and pulled me under a big tree. No one could see or hear me, even if they walked right by. I was invisible...and safe.” He seemed to wake a little, gaze shaded and distant. “It's like that. I feel...sheltered, I guess. I don't mind that no one knows. I also know...there's nothing stopping those roots getting into me, if they wanted to. That's fine. The way I feel...I think I could light up a forest.” He came out of his reverie, eyes training on her, steady and expectant.

Her hand had stilled, warm at his temple. She leaned in. Head tilted thoughtfully, her wings twitched and her energy hummed around him, securing a closer hold. His eyes fluttered, but he kept his focus on her.

“Squall,” she whispered. “How would you feel about...about some of those roots, tapping into you, just a little?”

Squall drew a deep, audible breath. He had been waiting for this question, even longing for it—and dreading it. He must have shown it; Rinoa resumed her gentle petting, wordlessly reassuring as he settled again with a stuttered exhalation. He fought the weight to touch her arm. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything you want.”

His fingers slid down, took her hand and held it tightly. His chin inclined, but his eyes never left her. “Do you want this from me?”

She squinted uncertainly. “Squall?”

“You've paid a lot of attention to what I feel,” he explained. “What I want. I appreciate that, but...this is important. I wanna know that you're asking...'cause you're hoping I'll say yes.”

Her look of confusion melted into an amorous smile. “I want you to feel safe, but...” Her wings brightened and folded in close, illuminating their faces with soft gold-white. “I want it because I think it would make me feel--” she hesitated, but made herself say the word, “--powerful...and closer.” Her gaze fell a bit, resting on Griever. She quipped to hide a self-conscious flush. “There it is again...wanting to claim you for myself. I'm terrible,” she concluded with a quiet laugh.

Squall touched her face, bringing her eyes back to him. “No,” he said firmly. “You're not.”

She took his hand, leaning her cheek into his palm. “Sometimes it's tempting...you're so close, it's right there.”

Squall was smiling faintly, adjusting the chain of her necklace with his other hand so the clasp was in the back again. He said, “I want you to. I wanna share it,” and met her eyes again. “Yes.”

Rinoa lifted her wings again, unfurling them over him, shaping her energies to bear down on him. She rested a steadying hand over Griever, willing courage to his open-eyed look of awe and subtle fear. “I think I know what to do,” she whispered.

Squall collected himself even as he felt the gentle gravity of her once-sedate power begin to churn and coil around him. Hand falling to rest at her hip, he breathed evenly, blinking, trying to relax through her manipulations and resisting the inclination to twist. He managed some slack in his muscles, though it was a conscious surrender. He watched her trustingly, taking comfort in her confidence.

Finally, she had him where she wanted him, and with a whisper to warn him, she breached his entangled spirit with a score of brief, sharp sparks. His breath caught, his eyes narrowed, but he kept still. Wings tilting and fanning subtly, Rinoa eased fine tendrils into his spirit, thin as needles, intractable as roots. She found his shaking hand and took it, threading her fingers though his, a determined connection clutched between them.

It endured when, too overwhelmed by the sensation to focus, Squall was forced to look away. His head fell dazedly to one side, back pressed into the floor. The slow shifting of his legs and shoulders and an involuntary twitching of his hands betrayed his quiet struggle not to recoil. Though it, she kept close to him, foreheads touching. “Gentle,” she whispered, repeating the word and drawing it out, as much to remind herself as to soothe him.  

Squall felt her breath, heard her whispers on his cheek, and he held on. His half-open eyes flicked sightlessly as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. He was feeling something, but feeling what, he could hardly say; though not pain, it was potent, intrusive, and somewhat alarming; he felt a loss. He was being bled, however lovingly.

The initial shock gradually subsided, and what she had done became easier to internalize; more than just surrounding him, she was entrenched. There was no pain; once his tension faded, he found her purchase in him benign, even pleasant. Comfortably bound, he finally relaxed, mentally tracking her as she crept along the shallowest tributaries of his spirit, diverting their flow away.

He heard his name. He breathed warmly, stirring as if waking from a pleasant dream. His eyes focused, and he looked sideways at Rinoa. His brow lifted in surprise; he'd thought maybe that the sun had risen, but the warm glow he'd seen through closed eyes was that of her wings. So often airy and fragile looking, now each feather shone with the incandescent aura of sunlight on metal. They lit up the room as if Rinoa herself had carried the dawn to him.

She smiled and let a relieved breath go when she saw comprehension in his eyes. She hovered near, anxiously petting him. “You're not hurting, are you?”

He realized he was still holding tightly to her hand. His grip eased, his other hand joining the first. He was still shaking subtly. “No,” he assured her, still staring in wonder. “Nothing hurts.”

Rinoa watched his eyes, watched his familiar scowl take them over as he puzzled over what he saw and felt, no doubt trying to put them together into some logical understanding. It was reassuring; he was all there, every critical bit of him. She fanned her wings a little for him to see, sending shadows and light dancing through the corners of the room. She was rewarded; his scowl broke for a moment, and he smiled. “You look like you have so much going on in your head,” she prompted him.

“Sorry...” He shook his head, finally focusing on her face again. “It's a lot to sort out. I've got this feeling...a little unsettling...”

“Feeling? What's it like?”

“...Like I'm being eaten alive.”

Rinoa made a bit of a face, thoughtfully looked aside. “In a way, you are,” she admitted. “You aren't getting that energy back.”

He smirked a little. “For getting chewed up, I feel pretty good.” He felt a small thrill as he contemplated the idea, working it out aloud to maintain his calm. “I don't mind, when I think about it. Hard to keep still when you're feeling the teeth, though.”

Rinoa chewed her lip. “I'm being as gentle as I can.”

He smiled placidly despite his intermittent tremors. “You're all right.”

She nudged his nose, kissed him appreciatively. “You're very understanding...”

“What about you? You okay?”

A little surprised by the question, she closed her eyes, leaning her forehead into his. “I don't know if there's a way to describe how it feels for me.” Her fingers flexed slowly in his grip. “You're like fire that doesn't burn. I had some idea, but I didn't think...it would make me ignite.” She pulled back to smile at him. “It's wonderful. For what it's worth... I'm...grateful.”

Squall felt heat in his face. He released a voiceless sound that was almost a laugh. “What do I say to that?”

There was mischief in her eyes. “Don't say anything.”

He touched her face as she leaned in, exchanging slow affections with her, soft kisses, working his fingers through her hair while she worked her roots into his soul. His nerves prickled with ethereal contact that surged each time she drew small breaths of him away, made him pause, made him tremble, even smile. For all her apologetic fussing, he could see it excited her. She was doing it on purpose now, just to stall him in a kiss or encourage his subtle twisting under her, and there was something exquisitely ruthless about the satisfaction it brought him; so captured, he couldn't have escaped her now if he'd wanted to, but he did not want to. He had no influence over what she took from him, and he did not need any. So often theirs was a balanced intimacy, but when her wings came out, he was her knight, and that was all. Never had that been true more than now, and he was perfectly, deeply content with it.
For my birthday (today!) I wrote myself some Squall and Rinoa fluff. It's a snippet of a much longer story, but not one I've done a lot of work on yet. Mostly I just wanted to write the scene.

It isn't a full scene, so it starts and stops rather abruptly (I did try to endcap it as best I could though), and because it takes place a little while after the game and a lot of things have occurred in the interim, there's some missing context that might make it confusing for...pretty much anyone but me. So if you want some explanation, here it is (spoilers?): 

This scene is pretty much the polar opposite of Surrogates. It plays with a lot of the same things in regards to sorceress abilities though, and my take on them. Without getting too specific, if a sorceress gets a good grip on you, she can mess with you in all sorts of potentially nasty ways, and one of the things she can do to you is junction your spirit/soul/whatever and use your life force to fuel her power. Works better if you're a guy, because Hyne's power is sexist that way. 

But it doesn't have to be awful! If the sorceress isn't out to hurt you (and you're very, very comfortable with her), it can actually be kinda nice, as long as you can keep from losing your cool. Just super intense. 

The leadup to the scene (which I have not yet written; I'd like to, but I don't really have time right now) is mostly just these two goofing off in their room at Garden one night, there's some play-wrestling that ends with Squall on the floor and Rinoa on top of him, using her powers to hold him down (and he's having fun and so is pretty okay with it). I know a lot of people tend to end scenes like that with Squall just throwing Rinoa over his shoulder and carrying her someplace, and while that's funny and I think that happens sometimes, Rinoa's a sorceress and I go with the idea that once she's comfortable using her powers, she isn't afraid to use them anymore, and it makes her a bit harder to tangle with. Squall's pretty used to them, although as this scene shows, some take more getting used to than others.

I think that's really all you need to know to understand the snippet. Please forgive me for the relative unrefined-ness of this piece, but do let me know if you find any typos. I wrote this in a couple nights and I have had zero sleep, so it's possible I left some in there.

Anyway, enjoy, and Happy Halloween!
© 2014 - 2024 LunaManar
Comments4
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
skribleskrable's avatar
Hah! Last night I started a drawing of Squall and Rinoa playfighting/wrestling on the floor(and now it looks like there might be some paint involved). How weird is that! Allthough I put Squall on top:p

Anyway, this is a really interesting scene. I like the idea of a powerful Rinoa, and I think she is too, especially when she learns to control her powers. I imagine her being very careful until she has that control though, but when she does I can totally see her being a bit "forceful" with Squall.