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There was a very long time where she was alone.

She could not resist the urge to try and stretch out towards her magic, and each time it was blocked from her. The constriction in her chest grew tighter and tighter with each failed attempt- she could do nothing but pull vainly at the chains binding her wrists and keeping her to the cold cavern wall. Her lips were dry and split, made worse by the tears that collected there. She found that she would cry without knowing she was doing so, and the fact that such a large action could occur without her knowledge was frightening. She felt as if she was losing herself, bit by bit, trapped and cornered like a frightened beast.

She wondered if the man ever returned when she fell into a bout of restless sleep. She wondered if he thought it game to laugh at the times she would call out the names of her lost comrades in her dreams. Sometimes she would awaken with a name on her lips, and and she would forget, for a moment, that Rosa was a world away, denied to her, and that Reno was as good as dead. The realization was always like a crash in her chest.

Occasionally when she awoke, there would be bits of bread and water placed next to her, close enough to her bound hands that she could barely reach them. The bread had no taste, but she was unsure if it was due to the food itself or her own inability to feel anything around her. She thought she should begin refusing to eat and drink, but it would do little good- he would simply force her should she stop voluntarily, and she was unwilling to sacrifice the last of her pride, no matter how tempting the idea of sinking slowly into darkness was.

She did not know how long it had been since the attack on the airship. She had no concept of day or night within the ever-constant shadows of the cave.

She would speak just to hear her own voice, which was hoarse from disuse. Once she awoke after having nearly fallen asleep knowing that she had been singing an old song her mother had used to put her to sleep when she was much younger, a tune she had not heard in what, to her, felt like years. The sound of it brought a new wave of tears to her eyes, but she had grown used to the stinging salt in the corners.

She could not feel her hands, and they looked blue in the dim lighting. She thought she should have been more worried.

Finally, the man returned, with heavy-set footsteps that reverberated throughout the cavern. She did not look up. She knew he would approach her anyway.

“Your friends are looking for you,” he said, and he sounded pleased. When she didn’t respond, he pressed in closer to her, and she could see the tops of his shoes in her peripheral vision. “Doesn’t this make you happy?”

“Why do you let them live?” she whispered, dully. “Why not just kill them like the others?”

“I will,” he said, and he moved away from her, into the darkness once more where he was simply an outline. “I might use you to do it.”

“You can’t make me do anything,” she choked. “Go ahead and try.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“I will,” he replied, sounding darker than she remembered. “I will.”

He left, though, and did not go through with his promise, and she wondered if maybe he would wait until he broke her spirit completely. The idea of being controlled was not welcome, but she couldn’t summon enough strength to attempt getting free again. There was nothing left inside, nothing to call upon in order to salvage hope, and it felt empty. She pressed her face against the ice next to her and sobbed miserably.

There was a buzzing sensation on her hip.

It was the first outside influence she’d felt in a long time, and she lifted her head. It was continuous, like the engine of an airship, only very faint. She could not feel around with her hands bound, and so she tried moving one leg to shift the coat still on her form. It moved the sensation slightly higher, and she craned her neck around to look. There were pockets in the coat, and it seemed to be in one of them.

Despite what she knew, the sensation felt like the tingle and pull of magic. She couldn’t stop her heart from speeding up in anticipation. Unable to put her hands into her pockets to draw the source out, she continued to shift until she had moved backwards enough that the pocket was pointing down, and then she kicked up with her leg, summoning energy she didn’t even know she still had, until the object in question fell with a soft ping out of her pocket and onto the iced floor.

It was an orb- it was Materia.

She remembered only a little of Materia being used on her at the headquarters, but she remembered them being green, and this one was a pale yellow. She couldn’t reach it, it had rolled too far away, and she had to strain out with her leg to kick it back towards her body. It was a long process, and by the time the marble-like stone finally reached a point where her fingers could wrap around it, she was exhausted.

She could feel the buzzing intensify when she held it in her hands. It was like something just beyond her grasp- the Silence spell still had its hold on her. She held it, and quite suddenly, she realized what it felt like- it felt like Calling.

It was a Summon Materia.

She didn’t know how it worked or what it called, but she could feel it in her bones, and she knew that’s what it was. It had been in her coat pocket- and it could only mean that Reno had put it there thinking she might need it. It was the last thing he did for her, then, and she clutched it in her dry, cracking fingers, weeping over it like it was the only thing continuing to bind her to the world. She could feel it, but she couldn’t use it, and just holding it was like a breath of fresh air.

She cried and cried until she had nothing left, and the Materia was warmed by the body heat of her palms.

-----

Asura was there, and Rydia was glad to see that it was not the battle face she wore. The Queen smiled, and the action seemed both sad and resigned.

“I’m sorry,” Asura said.

“For what?” Rydia asked. She was wearing her old tunic again- how she missed the sweet smell of the leather. It had not seemed such a grand thing until she’d lost it. “It was not your choice. I made it myself.”

“You are so much like I was,” the Summon said, and she sighed. The magic echoed through the room. “Your heart guides you.”

“I thought that was good,” Rydia said, looking down at the palms of her hands. Her fingers felt gritty, like she’d gotten sand on them, coated in mud, and she couldn’t get it off.

There was a moment of silence, and when Rydia looked back up, the Queen was looking on her with an expression of love.

“I think I might die,” Rydia told her. It didn’t seem so hard to admit, for some reason. It felt almost like relief. “Is that what this is? It must be, you’re gone.”

“We’re never gone,” Asura said, but it didn’t seem very much like an answer. “Can you feel it? The lifestream?”

Rydia tried, but her magic was still denied to her. She thought she saw images, though, things she couldn’t comprehend- glass tubes with a teal substance in them, and a girl with brown hair. She didn’t know what they meant.

“Where will I go?” she asked instead. Asura turned her head around, and it was the face of mourning she wore then. Rydia didn’t like the tears tattooed under her eyes like tiny dots- they always made her think of Mist and her mother.

“Let it guide you,” Asura said. She raised a hand, holding it in front of Rydia’s face. “Let go.”

--------

When Rydia awoke, the Materia had disappeared from her hands, and the shackles had fallen away from her wrists.