Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ About Darkness ❯ Exile ( Chapter 9 )

“Tifa Lockhart, you have been found guilty in the charges of attacking one of your own and betrayal of Balamb academy. You are dishonorably dismissed from the academy and will be sent into exile. Your return to Balamb will conclude in your execution”

 

Headmistress Quistis nodded at the guards that flanked Tifa whose hands and feet were bound. She wore a pair of grey woolen pants and a grey shirt. Black, unkempt hair framed a narrow, worn-out face. The wound in her chest had been treated and bandaged but her skin showed a sickly green hue and her eyes were dull and blank as she was lead towards a small wooden podium, past the students and instructors of the academy who were seated in rows at the side of the hall.

 

Tifa barely twitched as a leather-clad man with a stony expression pressed a white-hot iron against her forehead, leaving a mark just above her left brow. Two snakes, forming a circle, biting each other's tails. The symbol of treason. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room.

 

Xxx

 

The hovercraft glided over the sparkling, calm water that separated Balamb from the landmass of Esthar.

 

Tifa could see the rugged coastline in the distance as she glanced over the broad shoulder of her guard.

 

Rinoa sat next to her, watching the shadow of the floating boat slide across the water. Tifa did not know whether she had requested to accompany the group that would drop the convict in the middle of nowhere. Neither did she know the reason. She would have preferred to go alone with the nameless guards instead of feeling Rinoa's occasional glances on her. There was no understanding, no sympathy. Pity, maybe, and sadness.

 

It would have hurt had Tifa not felt empty and bare of all emotions. The fresh scar on the marked skin above her brow glowed a fierce red.

 

xxx