timeandtides_backup | [thread; CLOSED] Some grown-up girl bonding time.

Characters: Dagger and Eiko (with a Cameo by Auron)
Progress: ongoing
Summary: after many months of delays and re-scheduling, Eiko finally comes for her Monthly Visit
Location: Alexandria
Date: Mid-November
Warnings: None?

Being back in Alexandria was not what Garnet had expected; she had expected to return home quietly once the threat of Kefka had been lifted. After being kept in hiding for just over a week, and then finding herself spirited away to the outer continent, the world is unrest, she'd had no choice but to returned to her half-ruined home. The damage from the night of the Ball remained, and added on top of it, the dust that settled and the effects of time passing them all by. The fields were being harvested furiously, an attempt to salvage what of the produce had not rotted from neglect. The queen had her work cut out for her once more.

But on this particular afternoon, the repairs to the ballroom were well under-way. The palace had already been cleaned of dust and cobwebs, and the maids were busily making up two of the guest rooms. Eiko was due to arrive this afternoon, and as Garnet had heard it, she was to be accompanied by a personal guardian. Not that Garnet really blamed Cid... The world had somehow become an alien and dangerous place to all of them.

Dressed down for the afternoon, Garnet made her way out to the dock. Hair braided loosely, clad in one of her silk riding shirts, tan pants, and a decorative marigold bodice with front laces, The young queen paced the door, looking across the the water to the city skyline. The airship had to have arrived by now, right?

And that's when she saw them; the bouncing form of the nine-year-old summoner, and behind her a tall man with dark hair, peppered with streaks of grey. Must be her guardian, Garnet mused to herself, standing on tip-toe, and waving across the water as they boarded the small ferry boat to bring them over to the palace.

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Whether it was a secret or not, Dagger didn't know. She'd been in the same room with him, sitting right across the table and had no idea he was a summoner. Did anyone else know? I knew I was a bit behind, but to be this out of the loop? She let the thought slide for the time being.

The very 'explanation' of Fayth and Aeons went very nearly over Dagger's head. Not that she should have expected any different; it had been nearly four years since she'd first summoned, and in that time she'd only been able to learn what books and Eiko's child-perspective ramblings had to teach her about her heritage. Legends were created around Eidolons, or Eidolons were born from Legends... it was never clear. None of it ever was.

Contemplatively, Dagger lifted her tea cup, but didn't quite sip.

"That sounds... so sad."

Eiko's grasp on her heritage wasn't quite as strong as she liked to believe. More and more, her attitudes about being a summoner were being forged by her own opinion, rather than actual knowledge passed down by her grandfather. There were books in the abandoned village, and the Eidolon Wall still stood, but truthfully, the vast wealth of knowledge died with the tribe.

She picked up her own cup, and took another drink from it, then nodded her agreement. "It does. I wonder if Anima gets lonely there all by herself." Soft echoes of the loneliness she knew she felt being all alone in a destroyed village.

Lonely. Dagger mused silently, taking another sip of her tea. They all knew a thing or two about loneliness, didn't they? She, and Eiko, and Freya, Zidane. Even Steiner, Beatrix, Quina Well, maybe not Quina, it was hard to tell if the Qu felt anything but hunger, and Vivi...

She paused mid sip, and swallowed. Their old friend had slipped into her thoughts more than once, recently. It was still so hard to believe he'd been gone for nearly three years already. Longer than they had all been together...

"I ... begin to wonder if loneliness is something we all must endure at some time." There were times, even now, that she was lonely still.

Eiko watched Dagger with a thoughtful expression. Something was going on and it was her job to take care of the other summoner. If she didn't look out for Dagger, then who would? The discussion on loneliness took the child by surprise. She hadn't felt lonely since she'd left with them years ago. Sure sometimes she worried it would happen again, like when she woke up halfway around the world from home. But nothing like what she'd experienced before.

"Why do you look like that?" she asked bluntly. No point in tiptoeing around whatever was on Dagger's mind. "Did Zidane leave again?"

"Well, no he--" Dagger blinked, the cup mere inches from her lips. How had this become about Zidane? Her eyes averted. "It's sort of a long story."

Slowly, she lowered her cup, and it clicked against the matching saucer. On the eve of her birthday, after spending that time with Zidane in the garden, she thought things would be alright. But with things as they had been, she hadn't seen him since. The whole night was beginning to feel like a dream.

"He came to my party, and we... well, he apologized. For leaving like he did."

"He better. I didn't give him up just so he could run off again. Men!" That last word was uttered in a tone of complete exasperation that Eiko could have only learned from overhearing it. She herself had no actual experience in the realms of romantic relationships, outside of her old crush on Zidane. She just thought she understood them. Then again, at the ripe old age of nine, the child had a rather keen grasp on people, product of her watching and absorbing everything around her.

Unfortunately, Garnet broached the wall surrounding the topic of the party, so Eiko decided to march boldly ahead with it. "So, tell me about the party! I want to know everything!"

[thread; CLOSED] Some grown-up girl bonding time.

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