Author's Note: The song The Night We Called it a Day isn't mine, but was written 70 years ago by Tom Adair. I don't own anything related to Final Fantasy VIII.
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I don't have a poetic mind, so don't expect flowery metaphors or waxing vague philosophies when you hear what I have to say. Should any come out of my words, they're the accidental art in the ramblings of a young fool, the random outcome that happens if a thousand moombas wrote for a thousand years and one great passage might appear. If I had to tell this story verbally and not in writing, I'd have said only this: everything falls apart when you bring out the worst in the people who bring out the best in you.
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Winter came, as much as it ever does in Balamb. It threatened for a while, but the sunny days were short and grey even before the season change was official, only yesterday. People were in worse moods. The elation the world felt after being saved from time compression had slipped away sometime in the fall. As the days got shorter and nights grew longer.
Discontent festered in Galbadia. Esthar resented becoming a part of the world at large again. Trabia struggled after an initial push to rebuild its Garden left a bankrupt and divided people now suffering from hyperinflation and a cyclical questioning of the need for a force to defeat a sorceress that either would never threaten again, or was held safe by their own brethren. By me.
Rinoa was resigned when I met her for lunch. She didn't try to lift the scowl from my face or even to hide the one she wore. It was a quiet meeting, punctuated only by chewing and the stabbing of food with utensils and the audible strain of our relationship.
At long last she sighed.
"I'm leaving Garden."
I looked up, hiding my surprise.
She took the look for what it was; a request for elaboration. She knew me well, and that was probably why she was leaving. Any passion that started to rise in me before and during the war had been replaced by a gnawing void that ate at things, but was never sated, never fed. It feasted on all that I cared for, including her.
"When I came here… This was a vibrant place. A city unto itself with its own verve and clear purpose. The people were happy and focused." She almost started to tear up as she described what you see when the dreams of hundreds crumble under the answered prayers of millions. "Now, look at this place… There's graffiti in the hallways, SeeDs pillaging for extra money, assaults within these walls. Students skipping class and others who can't begin to understand why they should be here. Garden used to be an oasis, but now everyone's mired in a directionless, hateful stagnation. This is a soulless village. Garden lost its heart, Squall, and it doesn't look like anyone can bring it back."
She sipped at some tea. I choked on words.
"I see what it's doing to everyone. Even you. I can't find you anymore, and it's killing me to see you lost and not be able to do anything about it."
I said nothing. Where I was, it was hard to see even the right words, let alone the right thing to do. Shrugging, I slumped my head and shoulders until she came over and kissed my cheek.
"You should come with me. When you're ready."
"I'll think about it," was all I could manage to choke out. She walked away. Out of Garden and my shredded facsimile of life.
: : :
The cadets in Quistis' class were as punctual and attentive as ever. I had to audit this semester's curriculum for her class today, so I stood in the back of the room, ignoring the streams of salutes as students came in twenty minutes before the bell. Out the window the sky was bright and wide and blue. A touch of fog hung, muting the sun's glancing rays. It was already preparing to set at not quite 16:00.
It was the shortest day of the year. But it wasn't in Centra, at the orphanage. There the day would be bright well past 22:00. As children, we wouldn't let the brightness slip away even then, but filled the twilight with fireworks that stained smiling eyes with light even as we fell asleep. I was often lonely then, missing Ellone, but the rest of them, they kept me sane and happy most of the time. Somehow that was easy to forget. They brought out the best in me.
Quistis walked into the room a few minutes later. She took note of my presence with a long, drawn face, but said nothing. I took out my notepad.
She scanned the room and seemed satisfied that everyone was present. As the cadets sat down I noted that there were only nineteen instead of the usual twenty, and there was a substantial waitlist for her class. I'd ask her about it later.
The final cadet took a seat in the back. Quistis' eyes bored into him with an intensity that frightened even me. Blood fled his face when he saw his instructor's glare.
"You will remove yourself from that seat, cadet, and sit where you are assigned."
He scurried to the only other available terminal.
She sighed, her tired eyes trying to light up as she began to teach. The students treated her every word as gospel, taking fervent notes, and hanging on each pause. She was an effective teacher. Very effective.
Some people thought the focus the students put on her was because of her beauty, but that clearly wasn't the case in the classroom. She was the only one of us six to take an instructorship after the war and students were eager to be regaled with tales of exotic monsters and forbidden magics. They wanted to soak up the wisdom and skills of a savior.
In her face I could see the weary conclusion that such wisdom and skill could not be transferred in the classroom, despite the enthusiasm of the cadets. She started to drone about junctioning, eventually falling into an entirely fictional lecture about the merits of using silence status attack against Malboros, despite the widely known fact that their physicality is more dangerous. Berserk and blind are better. But she knew that, and I think her students did too, though they accept her every word even as her fibbing stretched, with little more than a confused look or raised brow.
She shrugged almost imperceptibly as I sent her a questioning gaze.
Eventually her students left and she waited for me at her desk. I walked up to her, taken by the dark circles that were even more prominent up close.
"Didn't get much sleep last night?" I asked.
"No." It wasn't like her to just admit to something even remotely associated with imperfection.
"What was that all about?"
She shrugged, looking out the window at the setting sun. "I try to tell them that I'm not always right, that they should question me, their other instructors, and their selves. But they don't. They're hopefully going to learn the hard way. I'm trying what I can to make sure it isn't so hard that they die learning the lesson." She paused. "What reason is there for me to teach those from whom I learn nothing?"
"That sounds selfish."
She looked at me evenly. "Yes. It is selfish. But answer this: how good are you at doing something that you can't fail but also can't truly ever succeed, and what good comes out of doing it?"
I had no answer for her. "Why haven't you been filling the class? There's a long wait to get in here."
"I think you know why, Squall," she snarled, snarled, at me. I nodded dumbly. "This class doesn't deserve a 20th student and why usher along more mindless drones faster than we need to?"
"Is that what you think?"
"I don't think anything: I'm a SeeD," Quistis rebutted harshly.
I sighed, feeling cold compression on my chest. I'd chosen this life, hadn't I?
No, others made my choices for me. I didn't choose anything until I was forced to, too cowardly to walk my own path, until it was the only one to take. But now all the forks are back and I'm going nowhere. No one will show me what to do, I suspect because no one else knows what to do.
"I'm sorry Squall. I know this is a trying time for everyone, not just me." She put her hand on my arm in an alien show of concern. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm… Shitty. Will you be going to the Winter Garden Festival? Selphie needs all the support and companionship she can get."
"Yes, I'll be there. We all need support now."
I nodded and walked out of the classroom. When I reached the door, I turned to see her focused on that seat in the back, eyes glossing over in sleepy contemplation.
: : :
I walked to the training center, ready to train the next generation of mercenaries. The ranks of cadets and even established SeeDs selecting gunblades shot up dramatically.
Ability to wield them did not.
I'm not the greatest teacher, but I'm one of the only two here, and the other one taught me. Taught me how to hold a gunblade, swing it, defend with it, but to wield it... Not really.
Shots fired to my left caught my attention. Irvine was at the firing range with Exeter, so I walked over to him.
"Evenin', Commander," he drawled.
My head inclined in greeting. He reloaded the breech and set behind his sights again. Each shot buried itself deep within a pseudo-vital organ in the mannequins. With a flourish, he blew on the smoking barrel once he'd emptied the clip, and smiled a worn smile at the adoring fans crowding around him.
"Gets old, doesn't it?" I asked.
"Yep. Sure does." He stopped. "You comin' to the festival tonight? My Selph will hunt you down if you don't."
"Yes, I'm coming."
He hung his head and readjusted his hat. "Does this ever get any easier?"
I looked at him quizzically and he sighed.
"I mean, like, when Ellone left the orphanage, you were devastated. How did you cope?" I thought about it.
"Poorly, but yeah, it did get better. It helped that you all were there to distract me."
"How come we can't distract each other now?"
Shrugging, I said, "Maybe we were more easily distracted as kids."
Irvine shook his head after a moment. "Nah. I think we're more distracted now than we ever were as children." There was some logic to that, I conceded. "All this 'real life' getting in the way of our friends and wants and dreams. You still dream, Squall?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "But I don't think I pursue them anymore. It doesn't seem like good things happen to those who dream."
"Well, it's something, anyway."
"Yeah. Something… I have to go to class, I'll see you tonight."
He clapped me on the back. "Good luck, Commander," Irvine wished, then left me to my students.
: : :
I am the best gunbladist in the world, but not because of instructor Lugo. Training, opponents, comrades, not instruction, make a master. Paucity helps too, for a time, until monopoly sets in, then…
I don't know how to teach that to these fifteen or anything much else, it seems. Like I said, I'm not a great teacher. The sack of lodestones I'd carried I set on the floor, along with a cloth and oil to demonstrate how to sharpen and clean. One of the SeeDs had a double bladed model that proved to be a little more troublesome.
"Is that yours?" I asked.
"Yes, Commander."
Feeling my eyes narrow, I nodded. The remainder of the demonstration period I spent displaying various guard breaks and preemptive parries for horizontal strikes. The techniques were advanced, but so were the students and most of them could reproduce the forms when called to.
Sparring ended the class. SeeDs paired off and I would make my way to randori with all of them, pointing out flaws in stance or method. They were strong, fast, smart.
I'm not quick to anger, but today the procession of foibles and litany of mistakes get to me. They should be better: they're the best we have. While they could reproduce most any maneuver I asked, run a three and a half mile, and bench press a small car, they could never touch me, never even make me break a sweat or try.
"Your blade is too heavy to have any power behind it without spinning or using your shoulder."
"Parry!"
"You need to mix your vertical and horizontal strikes or you'll be too predictable."
"Anticipate my moves; watch my torso and neck! The biggest target and the most vulnerable, plus they give clues about what I plan to do next."
"Plan ahead, damn it!"
By the time I was facing the twin bladed SeeD, my frustration had boiled over. He was dancing around, but his footwork told me exactly what he was doing. The slices he made were even plane, heedless of the fact that if he was to ever actually manage to hit something, his gunblade would easily get stuck since he was primarily using overhead and over shoulder techniques, which didn't give enough speed to go clean through any but the softest targets and eliminated any advantage of the second blade by being easy to intercept between them or the hook behind.
Where were the feints? Where was the variation? Where was the unpredictability and subtle lateral movement that allowed defense even while attacking?
Why didn't they get it? The weapon isn't a tool. It's an extension, a way to further enhance and express yourself. A while ago it was the only way I could express myself. They would never come close to equaling me, would never be able to bring anything to make me or any of them better, or even maintain our skills. I wondered, mostly selfishly, what purpose this all served, what was in it for me?
Why do I fight those who have me question why I fight them while I'm doing it?
Why teach those from whom you can learn nothing?
I riposted a textbook overhead slash, bit my revolver into the curved hand guard, and with a flick of my wrist sent the offending gunblade away with a clatter. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd bunched my fist in the man's collar, snarled, and threw him to the ground.
My head shook from side to side in disgust before I turned and walked away.
"You don't deserve to have that."
I picked up the SeeD's gunblade and left the training center and my students.
: : :
Selphie was sitting by the punchbowl, wearing a muted grey dress with red slashes across the shoulders. She was singing a sad song, amidst shining, glittering decorations and dozens of dancing, convivial SeeDs, and her friends, sitting alone, chugging away at the drink. The flask she hid when she filled a new cup didn't go unnoticed.
The song was obviously a lamentation or ululation of some sort. She stopped when I sat next to her.
"Heya, Squally." She set her head on my shoulder, smelling heavily of gin.
"Why aren't you dancing?" I asked.
"What is there to dance about?"
"You don't seem much like the Selphie I know and love. This is your festival. You should enjoy it."
"This festival's a travesty, Squall, and you know it. Why did it have to be today, of all days…?"
"Well, it is the longest night."
She sighed. "Yeah. That too." She took another drink and slurred an incomprehensible oath of pure hatred to the solstice, weaving her head back and forth. A deflated Selphie was almost too much to take. It was an abomination against nature, and felt like I needed to correct it.
"Hey," I said. "Everyday gets brighter and longer from here on out."
"You're half right, but longer doesn't seem better anymore," she said as she stood shakily. "Dance with me."
I took her onto the floor, apologizing to the people she bumped. Her wide eyes took on a slightly more muted, bluish shade, as she stared up at me. I led her during an irritatingly upbeat waltz and she just kept staring at me.
"Everyone is counting on you to be strong, Squall."
"I can't be strong on my own."
"You aren't on your own."
"Well, it feels like it. I can't be that kind of strong on my own."
She frowned. "I think I know what you mean. We're all trying, but it just doesn't seem to work, we can't go back… Only Zell seems happy anymore, like he can't feel the miasma that's taken all of us. Why aren't we enough for each other anymore?"
"I don't know, Selphie. Maybe because we aren't all here."
She stumbled and took us off the dance area. I got her back to her feet and noticed the mistletoe hanging above us. She smiled.
"Look, mistletoe. That seems like such a strange choice for a winter decoration. S… Someone always told me we allowed it in Garden because it was associated with poisoned weapons in mythology, sort of like a predecessor to junctioning." I nodded. The story sounded familiar.
We walked over to where Quistis and Zell stood on the balcony. Irvine was off getting drinks for everyone. Selphie reached for her flask again. I stole it away before she could drink anymore. "Maybe you should lay off that."
"Fuck you, Squall."
I was shocked by her language, but didn't show it. I took a few swallows myself instead. She giggled.
"Sorry Squally, I should have offered to share. You could use some too, huh?" I handed it back to her and she finished the little bit that remained.
: : :
The moon was big and prominent directly ahead, a glowing light on a long, long, night. I joined everyone in staring at it. A cool, humid breeze seemed to come off of it. It was barren and otherworldly, a wind that should have eased and relaxed heated bodies, but was too alien to offer any comfort.
Suddenly, Selphie blurted, "I'm going to the Fire Cavern."
There was a collective sigh.
"We'd better go after her," Irvine said.
"Zell, grab a few bottles of wine, would you?" Quistis asked.
"Tch… Fine. I don't see why we all have to leave." I glared at him and he silently did as he was asked.
We all trudged along in our formalwear as Selphie ran and stumbled as fast as her little legs would take her to the site of many a field exam prerequisite and a mangled oak tree that stood bereft of leaves. Quistis took a big swallow of the wine Zell handed her and she offered some to me. I obliged, wincing at the acidic tang. She was holding a crumpled piece of paper in her hand, old and worn.
"What is that?" I asked.
She didn't answer. We passed by some loitering vandals and I drew Lionheart to send them scattering. There wasn't a disciplinary committee anymore. Quistis looked at me until I handed her the bottle back, but I didn't let go.
"The wine for the letter."
"Wine now; letter later." I nodded. She always kept her word. "Where's Rinoa?"
"She left."
There was a finality in the way I said it, because she looked shocked. She didn't ask any further.
"There was a moooon out in space..."
Selphie was crooning ahead of us. It would have been funny: the classic song, off-pitch and off-key, with too much power in those bellows lungs. Except we could hear the sobs swallowed from her diaphragm in each note. A front was rolling in over the sea, bringing less pleasant but more earthly weather.
"But a cloud drifted over its face..."
We all knew why she came here, but we wouldn't talk about it. After Cid passed away it became a forbidden topic, one to be talked about only in the subjunctive. At least he lived long enough to see his dream realized, but it didn't seem like good things happened to those who dream.
That tall, mangled oak came into view. Its silvery skin exposed and polished from years without the armor if its bark, branches long ago having lost all their foliage, but it was still hard as stone, and refused to fall in death. For over a hundred and fifty feet it reached toward the clouds. It seemed like as good of a place to bury him as any.
Selphie's song continued to drift through the night, taking on an ethereal quality. Irvine had removed his hat and Zell had finally stopped shadowboxing. Quistis kept rubbing that piece of paper with her thumbs and I kept drinking. One bottle gone.
I opened another.
Other than the song, there was only silence, as the wind died down to pay its respects. It grew cloudy and dark as I studied the tree and the mound beneath it, wondering how something could be so proud even in death. I didn't think that there was any way I would be.
"The moon went down; stars were gone…"
Irvine and Quistis were tearing up.
"Why are you guys still so worked up about that asshole?"
Zell. I punched him, sent him sprawling, and stalked over to continue until Irvine lifted me away. Continuing to glare at him while he worked his jaw, I tore out of Irvine's grip.
"You wouldn't be what you are today without him," I finally said. More quietly than I intended.
"None of us would," Quistis agreed.
Zell turned away. "Tch… Whatever. He'd have never said the same for any of us."
"That's because we always brought out the worst in him and we didn't realize that he brought out the best in us."
I wondered why we never realized that. Flowers were blooming from the grave. A painter's epitaph came to mind.
"Maybe the bastard really does live forever…" I don't know who said that. Probably me.
Selphie was truly sobbing now, on her knees in the grass.
"But the sun didn't rise with the dawn…"
Quistis walked over to me, note unfolded and in hand, quivering. She read loud enough for us all to hear.
"'I'm sorry. You must be strong.'"
It had suddenly become harder to see. Darkness closed in and the world was blurry. I stumbled, bottle still in hand, over to the unmarked mound, cursing the man beneath.
We all pushed him to his death. There was a scream and a wail.
Providence had a hand in our affairs until we were adults. 'Fated children', indeed. Now what had been united was being unraveled, or had already been actively destroyed. Providence left us. Alone.
Providence was buried under a gnarled oak tree outside Balamb.
"How can you ask us to be strong?" It was I screaming. "You were our strength. Do you want a posthumous medal? Honorary SeeDship? You won, you bastard, you won!" A ragged breath sucked in my lungs and I felt someone's hands on my shoulders and was vaguely aware that my knees had sunk to the ground. My rage continued unabated. "And you fooled us all, you know. We thought you were tearing the world apart, when it turns out, you'd been holding it together! What do you want?" I demanded of the damp ground.
It didn't answer. Might as well have been talking to a wall…
"What do you want? …You were right. You were the better man. I can admit that now. You were the strong one; so how can we be strong? The world isn't strong enough to survive without someone to be strong for it…" I was living off of the leftovers of the dreams of the strong, and I didn't feel like I deserved them. They crushed me.
"There wasn't a thing left to say…"
"'You must. You can grant a last wish for your brother, can't you?'" Quistis kept reading.
"No…"
The singing had grown closer and I hadn't realized it until Selphie's tears started drying on my neck and I felt her arms tighten around me. I noticed the bunched-up sod in my fists and the running of Quistis's mascara, and how Zell still had his arms folded with his resolve coming quickly to match them, and that nothing in this cacophony of life that till recently had a melody and rhythm, made any sense...
"The night we called it a day…"
I absently wondered how she spelled it in the last stanza.
Quistis kept reading, cadence belying her lack of stability. "'You all had been able…'" She sobbed. In the translation of the ancient tongue, that was the meaning of her name. "'…So don't let my being gone stop you. I'd hate to think I was a bigger obstacle in death than in life. I shouldn't have to apologize for what follows, since I think I have mostly nice things to say, but people usually want consistency, not nice.'" She stopped. "There's something written for each of us."
"Read it." Selphie was rocking us back and forth.
"'Irvine - Look down. If you see Selphie, you've found what you're looking for. Take care of her and be sure to listen to everyone; they need your counsel. Zell – I know you probably won't believe me, but you've done well, and, well, you've come a long way, Chicken-Wuss. Take care of the bullies now that I'm not around, eh? I think you'll be good at it. Selphie – I meant what I said on our last encounter. You probably could have taught me something about how to be happy. Make sure they smile, okay? Quistis – '"
We all turned to look at her, but her breath had stopped. I don't think she'd ever read this before, despite the worn nature of the paper. She must have come close many, many times.
"'Quistis – Save me my seat in your class, alright? I promise to come by sometimes…'" Her body was wracked with silent weeping. "'And I promise to listen this go round. I think everyone is ready for you to be the big sister now. Why don't you see? Squall – I dreamed; you succeeded in realizing them. Keep doing it. You are a good brother and deserve your success, Commander.'"
Then there was nothing.
Rain finally fell. It finally felt like a real Balamb winter. It finally felt like someone had died. Like two had died.
I stood up with wobbling knees and wrapped an arm around Selphie and another around Zell, whose composure had finally broken. I nodded to Irvine and smiled at Quistis. Perhaps providence could stay with us in his words.
Quistis smiled back.
"Let's go home, Sis."
"Our brother would want us to celebrate his birthday."
: : :
Author's Note Again: Excerpt from a fictional Q&A with my audience –
Q: Why do you almost always write about Seifer?
A: Because he's interesting, damn it!
What inspired this one in particular? That it's the people who mock you, question you, bully and belittle you, fight you, who shape you just as much or more than those who support you positively. Ask Michael Jordan.
The title of the story is adapted from a concept in Dan Simmons' Hyperion epic, appropriately enough. The first song I imagine Selphie singing is Martina McBride's Better Way to Say Goodbye. Leftovers of the Dreams of the Strong is a song from Xenogears, I think.
The word "Quistis" is a common form of the Latin "Quivistis" which does tranlate to "you all had been able." I happen to think that fact is interesting.
Happy Holidays and thank you for reading (and reviewing, if you have the time).