A/N: This is an unusual novelisation of part of Final Fantasy VIII from Rinoa's POV, with asides from the perspectives of different characters and Rinoa's dreams and memories. I'm not 100 loyal to the in-game events and dialogue, and the focus is on the story and not the action segments. Hope you enjoy!

Rinoa - I

Chapter 1

Gentle waves wash up on a beach, where a girl in a blue bathing suit is lounging on a towel under the warm Balamb sun. Beachgoers trudge back and forth through the sand carrying books and sunscreen; mothers call to children playing in the water from under their colorful umbrellas, and a lifeguard sits idly on the roof of a shack flying the Balamb Island flag and a triangular yellow flag signaling low danger of riptides. The girl is young and looks relaxed, her black hair spread out around her head, and one arm draped over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

Another girl, 18 or so, with dark skin, curly hair, and a one-piece orange bathing suit comes running up from the shore, shaking water out of her curls and sits beside her.

"Rinoa, are you going to come swim?"

Without moving her arm, Rinoa shakes her head, no.

"Are you gonna to lie around all day and cook like a lobster?"

Rinoa nods. The dark-skinned girl, whose name is Ari, sighs in exasperation and flops down on the sand. She is Rinoa's cousin and senior by two years.

"I know what you're thinking about." Ari says matter-of-factly.

Rinoa, too comfortable to take the bate, waves a limp hand in response. Ari rolls onto her stomach.

"You're thinking about the guy from garden, right?"

At last, Rinoa moves the arm shielding her eyes and turns her head to face her cousin.

"Kind of." she admits, her dark eyes luminous. "I was kind of thinking I might call him. Tonight."

Balamb Garden, or 'garden', is a military academy on the northern half of the island. One of three in the worldwide 'garden alliance', its most distinctive feature is its SeeD program, which trains and hires out some of the most distinguished and feared mercenaries in the world. Recruits for the SeeD program come mostly from Balamb's student population, but also from Galbaldia Garden, which also graduates future high-ranking officers of the Galbaldian army, and Trabia Garden whose other graduates go on to become tacticians, government agents, and instructors at the various gardens. Garden is actually a very young organization, having become operational remarkably quickly with the financial support of a mysterious 'garden master'. It's also unique in its use of para-magic-related spirits called avatars, or guardian forces.

'The guy from garden' had met the two cousins the previous afternoon in a bar near the north entrance of the town. He had been accompanied by a young albino woman with an eye patch, and a very large black student, who was fascinated with Ari.

"Maybe you and Rajin could go out with us!" Rinoa teases.

"Yeah, and then your dad will join the 'Peaceful Galbaldian Resistance' network." Ari deadpans, rolling her eyes. "No, you go to dinner or something with him. I'll help dad in the hotel tonight."

The girls get up and, brushing the sand from their skin, wander up the beach to Noah Carraway's well-to-do hotel, where Rinoa is staying for the summer. In front of them, the little sea-side city of Balamb bakes in the sun. Seagulls drift over the houses, and residents stroll the sidewalks aimlessly. Balamb is so relaxed, especially in the summer, Rinoa thinks. It's nothing like her native Deling City, or even the busy, urban Timber where she's spent the last few years in boarding school.

Not that she minds the urban living. The exciting night life of Deling City is almost enough to make up for having to live with her father, General Carraway of the Galbaldian Army, while she's staying there. Few people would know her as Carraway's daughter without an introduction – she looks like her mother did in face and figure, and has adopted her last name, Heartilly. And Timber is like a second home, where her closest friends live, mostly members of Timber liberation factions. Timber has been under Galbaldian control for as long as any of them can remember.

Back in her hotel room, Rinoa flops down on her bed still wearing her swimsuit and a silver necklace she rarely takes off. She digs around in the drawer of her bedside table and pulls out a crumpled paper coaster bearing a phone number and another number below it scrawled in pen. Rinoa picks up the receiver on the phone next to her bed, then puts it back down, gets up, and paces to the other end of the room. Maybe she won't call the guy from garden tonight. She's barely spent an hour with him. She toys with the ring hanging on her necklace. Then she jumps back onto the bed, picks up the phone, and dials the number on the coaster. A cool female voice answers,

"Balamb Garden student office, this is Maureen speaking; how may I help you?"

"I…could I please speak to Seifer Almasy?" Rinoa asks.

"What is the ID number of the student you wish to contact?"

"Oh! Um…" Rinoa squints at the messy writing below the phone number "I.D. #4589702 Almasy" she reads.

"Thank you, please hold."

Soft jazz music plays. A few minutes pass. Rinoa is about to hang up when Seifer finally answers the phone.

"Hey Rinoa. 'Didn't think you were going to call."

A few hours later the two are drinking in the same bar they'd met in. Seifer is tall and blond, and wears an off-white trench coat. He's a student at Garden, due to take his second field exam to become a SeeD in the fall. He is explaining to Rinoa, with animated gestures, why he had failed the first one, a mission to help the rebels of the highly publicized Trabian civil war.

"So we're supposed to take down these Gayla things around the base – like, big stingrays that live in the snow – while the rest of the SeeD force actually fights the war. And it's taking forever to go through each one of them. Then my squad captain, some idiot hand-to-hand specialist, get this – slips on an ice sheet and knocks himself unconscious! So this other guy in my squad goes to take him into base and I'm left with this Gayla nest near the base, and I had this idea. See, the base keeps explosives, and I figure it'd be easy and save time…"

Seifer hadn't realized, in his eagerness to get into the main fight that blowing up the Gayla nest would displace a lot of snow, and it had to go somewhere. When the revived squad captain returned, he found Seifer staring at a small avalanche that had blocked off all the east entrances to the base.

Rinoa: I found Seifer more interesting than likeable when I first met him. The bartender refilled my tantal, indicating him across the room. He raised his glass to me, and just went back to talking with his friends, as though he didn't even plan on speaking to me after buying me a drink. He's absolutely self-assured, almost to the point of arrogance. But he can still laugh at himself. He can tell a story about his own stupid mistake. Not many people, male people in particular, are comfortable with that.

I didn't talk to him until his friend Rajin started trying to chat up Ari. She was pretty unresponsive, but he didn't seem to take the hint. He asked if she had an email address after about ten minutes of conversation, at which point Seifer's other friend, a short girl with gray hair and an eye-patch walked over and kicked him in the shin. She turned to Ari and apologized with one, harshly spoken "SORRY". She started to drag him away, but Seifer joined her and made a joke about Rajin having good taste but poor judgment. Rajin didn't seem particularly embarrassed.

We five talked for a little while, and the more I talked to Seifer the more I wanted to know about him. He, Rajin, and the girl, whose name was Fujin, made up the garden's disciplinary committee. Rajin and Seifer told anecdotes about their exploits with occasional one-word contributions from Fujin over the next hour or two. When they had to leave to get back to garden before the student curfew, Seifer slid his coaster over to me, and gave us both a curt wave on his way out. Though I never saw him write it, the coaster had his number on it.

As I got to know him a little better, I realized that for me, part of Seifer's appeal was his how completely unlike my father he was. My father always assumed he would not get anything he wanted without a fight, and so he came to every situation with aggressive resolve. In contrast, Seifer seemed sure he would get what he wanted, and approached life with an assuming confidence. My father appeared to follow the regulations of the military, but would lie, cheat and deceive to meet his ends. Seifer broke rules for the sake of it, but took responsibility and integrity seriously. While my father valued proficiency and discipline, Seifer was more impressed with ambition and passion.

The two have dinner at a seafood restaurant, and then walk along the pier, looking at the water and enjoying the warm, salty air. He tells her about life as a student in garden. He has never met his parents, and doesn't remember living anywhere but the garden. She describes Deling City and Timber to him, and tells him about her father, and the rift between them. They just don't see eye-to-eye, she explains. Not in politics, not in anything.

"That's why I don't think I'm going back to Deling in September" she confides. "I'm done with school now; I have enough credit to graduate. I think… I'm going back to Timber."

Seifer nods "To be with your friends from the independence movements."

"Yeah, I mean, I spent all my vacations with Zachary's family anyway. His mom even suggested that I live with them; she knew what it was like at home. That was before her husband died though…"

"So you're going to join the uh…Forest Moogles?"

"Owls!" Rinoa laughs. "The Forest Owls. Yeah, I think so."

"And these Forest Fowls have weapons training too?"

"Owls!" she says loudly. Seifer pantomimes cleaning out an ear with one finger.

"No, most couldn't fight their way out of a bag; they organize protests, hand out leaflets, that sort of thing. I only learned to use a Blaster edge because of my father. He thinks I should 'be able to defend myself in an unpredictable and dangerous world.'" She mimics her father's stern demeanor, with her hands behind her back and her chest puffed out, gazing out across the water, as though it were an army awaiting her instructions.

"I'll bet he'll get a kick out of how you put it to use."

Rinoa laughed again. "I bet he will!" She sighs. "We won't be able to do much in a fair fight though. Against Galbaldian para-magic and weapons, resistance groups don't have a chance."

"It's too bad you don't have anyone with SeeD training. Kicking Galbaldian ass is a specialty of ours."

"Oh, you're so full of crap!"

"Touché!"

They stand and look out over the water for a minute. The sun is starting to sink below the horizon. Rinoa leans on the pier railing and feels the warm sea breeze on her face and neck.

"What's it like to junction?"

"A guardian force? I don't know. It's like…empowering. It's like having someone inside your mind. I mean, it's really controversial, using GF, since the junction is only, maybe 30 years old. I think SeeD is the only fighting force to use it. It lets you not just store magical energy, but use it to strengthen your mind and body. You can run faster, jump higher…it's almost like you think faster and more clearly too. Your endurance and reflexes are better…"

"It seems like everyone would be using them."

"You'd think so, but a GF is a lot of work. That's why most SeeD members only junction one. First you actually have to find one – they aren't monsters per say. They're like spirits or something. Some people call them "demi-gods". If it allows itself to be junctioned or if you weaken it to the point that it can't fight back, it becomes pure energy that can be stored in the human body until summoned, when it takes on its original form again. It's basically pure magical energy. It takes years to build up enough compatibility with a GF to make it worth using though. I guess that's why regular army recruits don't use them. Only mercenaries, who know they'll be fighting their whole lives…"

They stay out talking until almost one in the morning, and plan to meet the next weekend. Seifer would miss the students' curfew by several hours.

"Whatever" he dismisses the time. "I have an in with the gate keeper."

Rinoa walks him to the town entrance, and they exchange thanks and formalities that feel awkward in contrast to their easy familiarity throughout the evening. Seifer turns to head up the road leading back to garden, and Rinoa returns to her uncle's hotel in high spirits. Balamb hotel sits to the side of a curving cobbled road near the docks. It's rather upscale, and frequented by B-list celebrities vacationing on the sunny island. Rinoa passes through a revolving door into the comfortably furnished, well-lit lobby. A sleepy night receptionist greets her with a nod and Rinoa waves cheerfully to her as she crosses to the other end of the room and through the sliding glass door at the other end.

Ari and Noah Carraway's modest house sits behind the posh hotel. Winding among shrubbery and grass, a set of long pebbled steps leads to the front door. Rinoa fishes a key out from under the door mat and sneaks in. The house is dark and cold, but Rinoa feels warm and energized, and rather like dancing up the stairs.