Title: Time/Plane
Fandom: FFVIII/FFX
Character(s), Pairing(s): Ellone, Auron
Rating: T
Warning(s): Meta about time compression and the dynamics of the Farplane
Summary: A soul spans a thousand eons, and so does time; compressed together, they glow.


Time Compression felt like a tug at the back of her mind, fingers splayed out in front of her. It didn't feel like her power normally did; instead, it felt like her entire being was being pulled into a container far too small to hold all of her, and yet fitting it anyway. It felt like a car moving too fast around too-tight corners, swaying back and forth as the tires squealed. It made her dizzy, but she pushed on, because if she let go, it would snap like a rubber band and propel them all into something she could never hope to retrieve them from.

She felt Rinoa's power mingling with hers, and then enveloping them all, surpassing them as a wave crashing against their solid backs. Ultimecia was a beacon in the distance- the lighthouse they were aiming for in the fog.

They hit the chains and stilled, and she knew they had arrived, but she kept going, because her hold was slipping, and the tendrils of power around her fingers wouldn't dislodge. She tumbled, over and over herself until she thought she might be sick, and then stopped abruptly when her back hit something solid and real. It felt like ground- ground in time, she could only suppose- lined with the stalks of flowers that moved with the gentle breeze.

Ellone lifted her head, and saw stars.

There were bits of light flying around that she thought were fireflies; thought, until she saw the flickering of rainbow within their glowing forms. They left behind trails that glittered in the strange, not-sun as they swooped low near the flowers. Elle wondered if she was in the orphanage garden.

"No."

She looked up, squinting into the sky that wasn't sky.

"It's not?" she asked, mouth oddly dry. Her tongue felt thick. When she pushed herself to her feet, her legs were trembling as if she'd run a marathon, muscles aching from overuse. The magic was still buzzing in her fingertips, and if she concentrated on the pulse, she could feel the children. They were still alive- still fighting. "What is this place?"

A man stepped out from the shadows, bathed in the glowing faerie-lights. His coat was the color of blood, cowl covering half his face; one arm, like a ronin, held static in the sleeve. He looked like the warrior hero from a picture book she had read to Squall when he was younger, proud and stoic and scarred from the battles that had sculpted him.

He felt like Edea- sad.

"It is anything you want it to be," he said.

"Then what are you?" Elle asked. "A figment, too?"

The ronin looked up at the sky, exposing more of his face, and Elle thought she saw the ghost of a smile flicker across his features. It was like everything around her; incorporeal and ethereal, wavering in and out of existence.

"Yes," he said, "and no."

"So this place that is not a place," she said, blowing hair from her face and concentrating on the tingling in her palms, "does it have a name?"

"We call it the Farplane."

"We?" she asked. The man cocked his head again, as if studying her clothes. She wondered for a long moment if he could feel her magic- he had to see it, wrapped around her like a cloak. She felt at home in the swirls and the fireflies and the whispered song at her ears.

"You are not from here," he stated.

"I don't even know where here is," Elle admitted. "But I think it's connected- somehow. Everything is, I guess."

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Ellone," she answered.

"Are you a summoner?"

"I- no," she said, blinking. "Not really. I've never had a GF. I'm just- me. Everything. Nothing."

He laughed, and it reverberated through her veins.

"Yes," he mused, stroking his chin. "You really are."

Elle turned, trying to find more of her surroundings. She got the distinct feeling that there were more people there she simply could not see; bodies of light felt more like souls than fireflies, and the whispering seemed to come from the flowers themselves, swaying at her feet. They dusted her ankles and tickled the skin there.

"I don't know if I can leave here," she said, mostly to herself, trying to keep the panic down. It bubbled in her chest anyway, and pushed against her ribs. "Or if I can come back."

"Do you want to?" the ronin asked.

She did; something about the place felt like the gasp of relief in a myriad of haste, a final place to lay and relax. It didn't particularly feel good, and yet it was calming, comforting, wrapping itself around her like an afghan to block the cold.

"Is this- where you go to die?" she asked.

"No," he said. "It's what comes after."

Her heart pounded in her head, ringing against her ears, and she could feel her breathing quicken even as she fought it back.

"Am I dead?"

"I don't know," he replied.

"I think- I think there is magic here," she said, holding her hands up in front of her, palms facing the sky. She could see the ribbons; she always could. They connected her to the place where the children were, to the house that Ultimecia had carved, and then again to the orphanage where the waves anchored the white stone to the sea.

Suddenly, the ronin was beside her, holding a hand up as if he, too, could see the threads.

"I think you are the magic," he told her. "A rose amongst weeds."

"You're not a weed," Ellone said, reflexively, because the ripples of sadness were coming from him as they once had from Cid, when Matron had left, and she could scarcely breathe for the nostalgia taking over her. "Are you- dead?"

He grinned, though the expression reached only one side of his mouth.

"Yes."

"No," she said, the word coming out like a gasp. She reached for him without knowing why- he just felt like them, like the ones so drenched in sorrow that even the sun wouldn't warm up, and she felt it in her bones. Her hand collided with his as he was pulling away, and even though he was dead- not there, not really- the contact was enough to trigger the magic in her fingertips.

She saw beasts of light and power, writhing against the sky. She saw white-hot sands and frozen branches, well-worn trails and an expanse of green meadow. She tasted the bitter tang of regret in the back of her throat, and the copper of fear on her tongue. Everything was black, then white, hope, then despair. And when she pulled away, she was breathing hard, struggling to catch the oxygen once more, because it was so overpowering and intoxicating.

"You see?" he asked, and his voice was almost tender. "You see why this place is the way it is?"

"No," she choked out, tears burning the inside of her eyelids. "Not here, too."

His hand was on the back of her head, stroking the hair there, and it was warm- warmth she hadn't expected from one self-professing to be deceased.

"You should go back to them," he told her.

"No," she said again, fingers tangling with his. "Who- who are you?"

"Auron."

"Auron," she tried out, the name rolling of her tongue easily.

"Go."

How she was on her feet, she didn't know; her legs were still shaking from the magic exhaustion. The tendrils began to thicken and pull, wrapping themselves around her arms like chains, ribbons sparkling in the not-sun of the land around her. His hands on her shoulders were steadying.

"Go."

"Wait," she whispered. The magic was a blur now, whirling around her again. It wanted her back, and she fought against its pull. "Wait- I'll come back."

"Don't." His voice was gentle and firm, and she didn't question why so many had looked up to him once. Her hands entwined in his again, briefly, palm against palm. "Live."

"Wait-"

"Live."

And the magic pulled her back into the darkness, into the nothingness of time and space compressed into a line.