Tidal (FFIV/FFVIII)

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Tidal
Fandom: FFIV/FFVIII
Characters: Ellone, Palom, Porom
Rating: PG

Notes: Somewhat Mouths of Monsters-verse.

Additional Notes: Okay, so it doesn't have werewolves, but it has the moon, and I figure that's close enough, right? For Katy, because it is entirely her fault. The prompts I suggested were either werewolf!Ellone or Palom/Porom twinshipfic, which are bad enough on their own; Katy chose both. However, instead of werewolves, we just get magic gone awry on a full moon night. Seriously, this doesn't even make sense.

ETA: This fic exploded into something very, very long. Just keep in mind that spells like Comet or Flare can be classified as time magic (at least in FFV!)...

Final Notes: This is made of crack.

- - -

Tidal

- - -

The moon made her restless, now. Once upon a time it was just a glowing crescent which little Elle and Uncle Laguna could make wishes on (usually wishes about pie and later bedtimes for both). But she'd seen the monsters fall, and she'd felt the tidal tug of the moon somewhere underneath her ribs, its sudden closeness pulling at the magical part of her abilities with an unseen rope. There was no peace in the sky, now.

Tonight, the moon was full, and Ellone could feel it buzzing in the back of her mind. Something on the moon was calling - calling her, a constant ceaseless pressure on the magic inside her.

Ellone lit the candle and closed her eyes.

- - -

It was like being stone again - frozen, unable to move, with his mind thrashing about and Porom's constant presence suddenly flaring like a star: I'm here, I'm here, hush, Palom-

I can't see-

His sister's touch on his panicked brow, somehow; as always, it soothed him, the healing in her veins (the blood they shared) calming him almost instantly. He tried to croon into her touch, like he did sometimes when he thought she might not notice, like he had when they'd started this fight; it happened, sometimes. Being stone wouldn't have been so bad except for his mind on hers, knowing that they actually weren't dead yet, just-

Palom. Her voice was so utterly no-nonsense, familiar, almost scolding, and he could have wept at it. Can you stop flailing for a fraction of a second?

He froze everything, holding his breath, holding his thoughts, and he felt the sharp little tug as Porom cast, and then the feeling broke like water sheeting down his skin under the gentle force of her Esuna.

- - -

Casting out her abilities was usually like dipping a toe into a deep pond; this time, she'd reached out, and what was usually calm - vast - timeless - it was a current, a torrent of water, and the second she touched it she knew she was lost.

- - -

For a second Palom thought he'd lost his eyesight, or part of it; everything before him was blurry, and grey, and the panic leapt back into his chest. But then he blinked, and something behind him moved - Porom, moving into his line of vision, the sweetest sight possible at the moment. Rather than voicing that, he swallowed the knot in his throat and said gruffly: "Where the hell are we?"

Porom's staff was still glowing, faintly - she was dressed for battle, he noted - as was he. Where were they?

She turned to look at him, and he instantly spotted the worried lines around her eyes.

"I think," Porom said slowly, "we're on the moon."

- - -

The smoke alarm had gone off five minutes ago, and Angelo had taken care of the door before Squall could put his shoulder through it. It was just a candle on the floor: a small smoldering hole in Garden's flame-resistant carpet, and the slight stench of burning chemicals.

Squall couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Elle didn't use candles: she said the scents made her head all funny, and got her brain all mixed up, and that someone like her couldn't afford to misuse her brain.

Rinoa came out of the bedroom, white-faced.

"Squall... Elle's not in here."

- - -

"What happened?"

He could see Porom's knuckles, white on her staff; he knew she clutched it hard like a lifeline when she was thinking about something. The gem at the top was still glowing faintly, aftermath of the spell she'd cast to free him.

"I... I don't know." Her mouth was set short and tight. "I - I heard you calling, all of a sudden, so I concentrated on you and cast Exit - I was thinking, maybe, our magic would - connect, or something." She blinked, glanced away. They'd been fighting, before. "It did, I guess," she said ruefully.

"Why was I-"

"Petrified?" Now she looked at him, all the traces of their fight washed away in the concern on her face. "I don't know. I was hoping you'd tell me."

Palom shrugged. His brain still felt a little hazy, almost trapped. "I don't really remember," he said slowly. "I remember storming out - being mad at you - but then, it was like-"

"I know," Porom said, hastily. Her fingers brushed the back of his hand for only a second, fleeting. "I was, too," she said softly. "We cast that Esuna together."

- - -

The river threw her out somewhere, and Ellone gasped for breath, choking on the remains of time-tendrils clogging her throat. There was ground beneath her, and it was solid, and for a moment she clutched at it with her fingernails and tried simply to breathe.

This hadn't happened before. Sometimes the magic took her, with a mind of its own, but it was always peaceful. This was a tidal wave, something pulling at her ankles and trying to drag her downwards. She finally cleared the last remnants from her eyes, and looked around.

She was on the moon. She could see the space station, floating idly a few miles away from her; she recognized the grey and the dust, and far beyond the dark terrifying horizon to her left bobbed the outline of her own planet. Fear and panic clutched her heart, and Ellone dropped to her knees again, clutching at the dust like a lifeline. She couldn't help but cry out, a little, as the millions of stars swayed in her frozen eyesight.

- - -

"Did you hear that?" Porom's head snapped to the side, suddenly, and her staff came up to bear in an instinctive move he knew Rosa had taught her. Sometimes he was so proud of his sister that it hurt, a little.

He came to stand beside her, to her weak side as always - she was usually the protector, but he liked to flatter himself a little as her knight, in a way. His rod was in his hand, somewhat disconcerting but comfortingly familiar at the same time. "How did we get onto the moon?"

"I don't know," Porom whispered. "But where else could this be?"

Palom looked around. Grey, and dusty, but without the otherworldly tint that had marked the Lunarian castle he'd only seen in a dream.

It feels familiar, Porom said.

"We didn't go to the moon with Cecil the first time," Palom said slowly, not sure why it mattered.

- - -

The ground had stopped shaking (although it wasn't the ground, it was her hands), and Ellone opened her eyes into dust and stone. Focus, she told herself sternly, thinking the word with force. She wasn't weak, she wasn't helpless, and she hadn't been training all this time with Squall to lose herself to panic! Clenching her fists in the dust, she forcefully called out her magic, hoping the tidal wave would send her back home -

Hello?

Who the hell are you?

The two thoughts came simultaneously, echoing in Ellone's brain like a ricochet.

- - -

Porom's hand clenched down on his arm so hard he flinched - it had been a while since she'd panicked in front of him, and - "What's going on?" she whispered.

Palom couldn't get the ringing thought out of his mind; he shook his head a little, trying to clear it. "There's someone else here," he muttered.

Hello?

The thought was tentative, and gentle, but it wasn't Porom, and it rang oddly in his head, almost like brass.

"Do you hear that?" Porom's voice was so small, so quiet; Palom put his hand over hers in a wordless answer.

Where are you?

Here, Porom said before Palom could stop her, and he felt her tug outward with their magic, together, like a guide, like she did whenever she wanted to find him -

Something in the other mind reached out, reached back, and for a moment Palom felt like he was drowning in something, waves of something pulling their twin magic in like an undertow - he gripped Porom's hand harder, and wrenched them out of it forcefully.

Oh, dear, the voice said.

- - -

There were two of them. Ellone could see them now, her slow terrifying trek across the pale surface of the moon (trying, hard, to not look up into the endless infinity of the sky) leading her away from the safety of the lunar base and into the empty hills.

Her mind-magic was trying its hardest to reach out and touch them again, and it was all she could do to forcefully hold it in check; she was stumbling, a little, but who could see her?

As she drew closer, she saw that they were twins: chestnut hair in pale freckled faces and gazes that lasted a second too long.

"Hello," she said, because there was nothing else to say.

The girl pulled her hand away from the boy, reaching out to brush her fingers against Ellone's arm. It was like a shock: her magic rose up almost instantly, the flood of time desperate to wrap around whatever linked the twins. Palom, Porom. Their names floated across the river, easily, and Ellone panicked, trying to pull the magic back out of their heads -

"It's the same," the girl said in surprise. She lifted her fingers, and Ellone managed to clench something around the tide in her brain before it engulfed her again.

The boy's brow drew down, accusing. "Where's her twin?"

"No," the girl said. "It's time magic."

"It is," Ellone said, drawing their gazes back to her. "But how do you know?"

Porom smiled at her. "We share it," she said.

Ellone looked between both of them. They were about Squall's age, maybe a bit younger, but they looked hardened, and the way Palom stood at the girl's side with his staff raised was both familiar and frightening. "Is that why we're here?"

"It must be," Palom said, a little put out as he looked at his sister. "We cast something together we'd never done before, and-"

"-it brought us here," Porom said, with a wave of her hand.

"And pulled me," Ellone replied. The tidal wave in her head made more sense if there were other time mages about; she'd been the only one, for so long.

"Show me," she said.

- - -

Rinoa mentally flicked out the flame on the candle, then re-lit it. Out. Lit. Out.

"Stop it." Squall's voice was harsher than he'd intended, but it wasn't unexpected. Angelo, curled up at his feet, raised her head and gave an offended sniff.

Rinoa waited until his back was turned, then lit the candle one last time. Lavender was for calming. Ellone must have known that.

- - -

Once, Ellone had asked Laguna what her abilities could do. He'd made up some stories about traveling back in time - storybook heroes, with knights and horses and epic paintings depicting noble travels. Admittedly, she'd been five.

She'd never met another time mage.

- - -

The twins glanced at each other, and then looked back at Ellone, nodding crisply almost in unison.

Now!

Sometimes they were so joined he couldn't tell who had originated the thought, but he stepped back, feeling Porom's white-mage glow envelop him, shaping the magic in his mind and through his mouth, pulling -

- and from behind, the grey aura of the stranger hit him like a spell, so much power, and without thinking, he tugged -

Palom! His sister's voice was harsh.

The stranger's was smoother. Trust me.

She pushed. He pulled.

Comet shot from the sky, but this was more than that: Meteor, and more, glowing with the twin-magic he and Porom bore and the grey-magic the lady had lent them. The rocks before them crumpled and sank and died, but the rain went on, now more stone and water than fire, washing over him like Porom's cure spell -

- - -

I see now.

Ellone linked her mind into that shared energy between the twins, pulsing with its strange, familiar force, and let the wall holding the flood crumble, using all the strength and focus she had to push them away from the moon that had linked them all together.

Maybe she'd been dreaming. But it was something she'd needed to see.

- - -

Angelo barked, once, and then Ellone had tumbled out of nowhere, smelling of fire and rain and burnt things. Squall was at her side almost instantly, helping her to sit, casting Esuna and Cure and Scan all at once in a flurry of magic -

"I'm okay," Ellone said, her voice choked. She took a deep breath.

Squall bit down on his anger - his frustration - his worry - and said, "What happened?"

Ellone looked down at her hands, which were calm and steady. "Did you know," she said in a very small voice, "that there are other things time magic can do?"

- - -

They stood in the Tower of Wishes, holding hands almost shamefully, clinging to comfort and closeness. The moon above them was full, glowing pale and silver, something simple to be wished on or gazed at. The second moon was nowhere to be seen.

"I guess," Porom said finally, her voice very small, "there are other things our twin magic can do."

Palom squeezed her hand tighter for a second. "Maybe we shouldn't fight like that."

"We usually don't," Porom said, lightly. "It - it must have been the full moon."