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Garnet hadn't made much progress in the past few days. She had taken on the odd healing job to keep gil at hand to pay for her accommodation, it seemed a talented White Mage was always needed, but it wasn't particularly fulfilling work, nor had she found Zidane still. She was rather proud of how she was managing on her own; she was no (longer) a stranger to new cities and environments, but she had always travelled with others. Even when she had ended up in Treno she had Steiner and Marcus with her. But now she had nobody, and she had done rather well, she thought. Much better than she would have done when she first left Alexandria, all that time ago...

See, Zidane? You might not be with me in person, but the lessons you taught me are always by my side...

One of the oddities she had come to learn about Torensten was the fact that the beings there were considerably less diverse than she had expected. A city this large should have had a population of vastly different races. Back on Gaia (that still seemed odd to think), you would see a broad mixture of people, not just humans, but people derived from a range of different species. Here, almost everybody was human. There was an occasional person with unusual ears or perhaps a strange build, and the odd swish of a tail that occasionally Garnet thought might be Zidane, and was disappointed to find out wasn't, but the usual diversity was missing.

Which was why it was odd she walked almost right past the Burmecian. She was so used to passing people of all kinds back on her travels with Zidane, it didn't immediately strike her as odd. But only a moment after she stopped and she turned. She clutched the pendant around her neck thoughtfully for a moment. She had plenty of experience dealing with Burmecia as of late. Plenty of peaceful negotiations had started, Alexandria pledging what aid it could to help rebuild Burmecia, although with the damage dealt to Alexandria, that was not as much as Garnet would have liked. She made her best effort to help undo the damage her mother had done, but she knew she would never be able to fix it entirely. She had also offered new homes to Cleyran refugees, but it was a drop in the water. Her mother, Alexandrian soldiers, had taken their homes. And she was now Queen of Alexandria. She had done everything she could to stop it, and yet her heart still twisted with guilt when she thought about it.

It was that almost stopped her approaching the Burmecian, but she forced herself to. He was from Gaia, and that meant a potential ally. Or somebody lost and suffering as she was when she first arrived, and whom she could help. Either way, he deserved her attention. It was like Zidane always said, you don't need a reason to help people. She had to try.

"E-excuse me!" she called out, following behind him in a trot. "Yes, uh, you are... from Burmecia, aren't you?" she asked, dropping into her informal 'Dagger' speak. "I'm from Gaia as well. How long have you been here?" she asked, trying to get the basic information first. "My name's Dagger," she introduced, deciding to stick to her alias. Telling a Burmecian she was Queen of Alexandria here was possibly a bad move, at least until she got more information.

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Garnet was forced to hesitate when Mitiko challenged her, asking why she focused on the negative impact instead of the positive. It wasn't an easy question to answer. She felt like she had to explain it as if to a child, but she wasn't sure she entirely understood either, and she seemed to stop for a moment, having to think.
"It... is difficult, Mitiko, when I think about that day. Had Madain Sari not burned, my life would be completely different. I wouldn't be the person standing before you now. I'd have grown up differently, with a different family, different friends, a different home... It's... really very difficult to think about it. To know that I could have been someone entirely different, if not for the evil actions of one man. Everything important in my life today is because of what happened then. My friends, Zidane, my kingdom... who I am... but... that doesn't make Garland's actions any less evil. He murdered innocent people out of fear. He didn't have good intentions. He didn't do it so that I might end up living this life. Had he known I survived, he would have killed me too. He did it because he wanted to kill anybody who could call an Eidolon. He did it for selfish reasons and my mother and father, my real mother and father, died as a result. That's why I can never forgive him. I can be thankful for everything that I have been given since that day, but I still can't forgive him. Nor Kuja. I'm sorry, Mitiko, but they have taken too much from me." Garnet wasn't sure the explanation was satisfactory, but it was the best that she had.

When Mitiko asked why Garnet had helped save them, however, her heart broke a little. She looked at the confused, blank looking girl, and wanted to hug her again, but figured that she would react badly.
"Oh, Mitiko, what Garland did, it was unforgiveable. What Kuja did, for power and revenge, that was also unforgiveable. But yourself and the Genomes? You didn't have a choice. You were under his control. I couldn't let you die, because of something somebody else had done. Just like the Black Mages on our world, they hadn't chosen to do what they did, and if I could help them, I would. I could help you, so I did. It is as somebody very special to me once said.... 'you don't need a reason to help people'. You were in need and I could help," she explained, although she wasn't sure she understood the answer herself. She was a white mage, trained to help and save lives whenever she could. She hadn't even thought about it. She had just seen innocent people in danger and needing help. She hesitated again, thinking back to what those words meant. What Zidane had done for Kuja at the end. "...and even if it is... inexcusable, it does not mean that you abandon somebody to their fate. Zidane has as much of a reason to hate Kuja as I do, but he still returned to his side at the end. You can still care for people, even if you do not always agree. I could not stand by and see an entire race condemned because of the actions of one man," she went on, but it was a difficult topic.

If Garnet had struggled with difficult, moralistic topics before, to answer Mitiko's next question was even harder. What did she call what she had with Zidane? She looked down for a moment, intently fiddling with the pendant around her neck in that manner she did when she got so nervous she struggled to think. What was she supposed to say? How could she convey in a mere word what Zidane meant to her? Amarant would call him her 'boyfriend', but that term seemed both informal and somehow laughably childish. She was sure that some around the castle called him her 'suitor', but that was too formal and not particularly flattering. She looked back at Mitiko, releasing the pendant. Oh, who was she kidding? She knew the truth.
"I would call it... being in love," she admitted. It felt good to say the words, even if doing so made her heart skip a beat and her skin burn with anxiety. "I am in love with Zidane, and he... I hope... with me," she answered. Why had she said 'I hope'? She had seen him at the play. The love in his eyes. She knew it really, didn't she? Did she have to doubt herself even over this?

When Mitiko didn't answer regarding who had sent her, Garnet knew she had her answer. Kuja. Of course it was Kuja. Kuja had sent Mitiko to find cosmetics. Was Kuja so vain he wouldn't allow Mitiko near him while she looked plain? The thought disgusted her. It seemed so unpleasant.
"Yes, Mitiko, rouges and powders are a type of make-up, along with others. Have you... not noticed that my face does not look... entirely natural?" Garnet supposed that was a compliment on her make-up skills. "The... dark line... around my eyes... is eyeliner. My lips are glossy. My cheeks are slightly rosier. It is not a hue that I have naturally. It is achieved with make-up," she explained, struggling a little. It was surprisingly hard to try and explain make-up to somebody who didn't have any understanding of it at all. Garnet didn't wear heavy make-up, she was a Queen and before that a Princess, she had to look naturally pretty (and she did, most would say), but obviously she also didn't not wear any at all. "Perfume is... a scent that you wear that... makes you smell nice," Well, that seemed like an oversimplification, but the best Garnet could manage. "Many people like to smell nice, and like to wear make-up to cover the flaws of their skin and make themselves feel better about how they look, but I promise you, it is entirely optional," she went on.

She paused, and she tried to think of how to approach the next subject.
"Mitiko... make-up, perfume, your new clothing... it can be a good way to find ways to express yourself. To find... your individuality, to find something you enjoy and feel more unique... but... it is an option. You shouldn't do this because Kuja told you to. You should do this because you want to. And if you don't want to, don't let anybody tell you otherwise," Garnet explained. "But if you would like to try, I would be happy to help you. Skill with make-up is rather expected of a Queen, and I learned when I was very young. I do... not normally shop for it myself... but I have done so at times," Zidane or Steiner could be trusted to stock up on weapons and potions, after all, but when they were running low on mascara, Garnet knew she'd have to deal with that herself. "I'm sure we can find a cosmetic store around here, if you're interested."

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There were certainly a lot of reasons for Garnet to have NOT volunteered to head to the water shrine when the call for adventurers went out. Garnet had been on an adventure, yes, but she wasn't what you'd call an adventurer. At least not by the standard sense. Her white magic could certainly help in a jam, and she knew that she wouldn't be alone, but she still wasn't really one for running head long into danger just for the thrill of it. But her search for Zidane had ground to a halt with the storm, and there was barely anything else she could do. Besides, water shrine? The last time she'd adventured to a water shrine, not only had she handled it with only Eiko for back-up, but it had been part of a key to finding their way to Terra.

It couldn't be a coincidence now, could it, that a water shrine was acting strangely on a world she had been pulled to against her will? Maybe the water shrine would have a hint as to how to get home, or at least, give her an idea that might help her understand what had happened here...

Garnet was soaked to the skin, the white of her silk blouse almost entirely see-through, and the rain streamed down her face with such abandon that nobody could see she was also crying. It wasn't the storm that scared her. Not as such. Not this storm. No. Instead, it was something else. A memory...

There was a time when she had thought it was a dream. A dream she kept having. A young girl, clinging to a boat, lost in a storm, too young to really understand what was happening, only knowing she had to stay close to her mother, huddling under a cloak as the spray of salt water and the freezing lashes of rain soaked into her, lightning flashing against the dark storm clouds...

...and in the distance, a gigantic eye loomed in the sky, glaring down on a burning village...

She had had that dream almost all of her life, and of course, she had learned that it wasn't a dream. She should have known. She could remember the freezing water against her, the lash of the rain, the tang of the salt water as it sprayed around the boat, the smell of the damp wood and her mother's soaked hair as she clung against her. But she had been raised a princess. She had never even felt the rain. A chance of rain meant that any public appearance would be called off, and she never left the castle. She had certainly never tasted the spray of the sea; how did she know it was salty? Oh yes, she had read books, but this was a memory. She could remember the cold rain, remember the salt, remember the smells...

She had just never understood it. Until she had found that boat at Madain Sari. Until she had remembered who she really was.

And now, with every gust of wind, every crash of the waves, she remembered again. She remembered her home burning. She remembered the people dying. She remembered having to leave her father behind to escape on the boat. It was all hazy, all gigantic the way the world looked to a six year old, and all the more terrifying for it. And worse of all, she remembered that eye. 

She knew what it was. Of course she knew what it was. She had been inside the Invincible. She had travelled the world in the Invincible. She knew it was just the giant red circular device that rested in the bottom of what was only a very high tech airship. She knew that. She knew that logically, she had nothing to fear. But... logic had nothing to do with it... No matter how much she repeated to herself, it wasn't the same, it wasn't the same as her memory, there was no eye, the eye was just a high tech device from Terra, none of it mattered...

...still, she saw it. Looming over her. Intelligent. Malevolent. Evil. The great eye searching the sky from her burning home. Sometimes the nightmares ended when she thought it saw her, when she thought it looked at her, and suddenly she woke up in her warm bed, terrified and alone. When they had been adventuring together, in the small tent, it had been those times she'd edged closer to Zidane, pretending not to like it when he put his arm around her in the early days, but secretively being so glad of the human contact. Before that, a nightmare bad enough could send her scurrying into her mother and father's bed. She had to stop that once her father passed away, but there were nights she still wanted to retreat into her mother's arms...

But now she was a queen. And she was alone. She had nowhere to run. And she couldn't let it get to her. She couldn't let the trauma beat her. Every flash of lightning put her back in that boat, every glare of light made her see the eye, and she felt sick and faint and as if the ground beneath her was swaying. She felt like she did back on Bran Baal, when she saw the Invincible and had fainted clean away. But she couldn't faint here. She was alone, there was nobody to help her, and she was an adventurer. She had to keep it together...

But still, she swayed and her legs buckled and she felt light headed with terror as the flashbacks got worse, and she began to fight her way half blindly, desperately, for the lower decks, to try and get out of the rain, and away from the horrible nightmare. To find somewhere warm and safe and wait until they had made it through the storm. She couldn't face it any longer...

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The feeling of being helpless was one Garnet both knew intimately and hated strongly. She always felt that whenever she tried to do anything on her own, she ended up as some pathetic damsel in distress, but being stuck in the mud in a swamp was a new low. Garnet had never actually been aware that you could become literally stuck in the mud, she thought it was just a saying, and while she had encountered resistance while walking plenty of times, she'd never actually become so hopelessly mired as she was now.

And then, in an instant, she was free. It happened so quickly she had to wonder if her futile struggling had somehow broken the swamp's hold on her, but that didn't seem to be the case. Her mind took a moment to catch up, before she realised somebody had pulled her free of the trap. She looked around, to see a slightly older looking man, neatly dressed, if not smartly, with unshaven stubble. His blonde hair was long, and for a moment, reminded her of Zidane's. He seemed to be checking that she was alright.
"I'm fine, I'm just-" she shook her head, trying to understand where she was. She processed what he had said. The witty comment about her dress. She supposed that she did look ridiculous. "Hey! It's not nice to make fun of somebody you've just met, you know?" she replied, putting her hands on her hips in annoyance. She was mostly being playful, but it was about the best defence she had, given the absurdity of the situation.

Any thoughts or concerns were cut off, however, by the same rustling of whatever creature had been observing her before, now up in the trees. It seemed it was still following them. Garnet took a slight step back, instinctively placing a hand on the stranger's shoulder for protection out of concern.
"I... don't think now is the right time to discuss my situation, but... I don't know how I got here...." she explained quickly. "I assure you, if I were to explore a swamp, I would not dress like this!" she told him, although again, that hardly seemed the problem at the moment. Something was in the trees, slithering towards them, snapping branches and bending leaves. Some kind of big snake, perhaps?

"I'm... not sure I'm ready to fight..." she admitted, somewhat awkwardly. "I have white magic. I can support you, but... I don't have a weapon," and I'm useless with one anyway, she didn't add out loud. Something felt wrong when she tried to feel her Eidolons. They weren't all there. She could sense... Ramuh? Only Ramuh. The others were gone. Ramuh and swamp water wouldn't mix, he'd have as much chance of electrocuting the pair as the snake, so she had to rely on her newfound saviour.

Once again, Garnet realised, she was relying on the kindness of strangers. She was slightly ashamed, she had thought she had become a professional adventurer, but... it seemed that she still had a long way to go when left alone...