Author's note: While it was somewhat challenging to write from Quistis' perspective in Past Tense, Perfect Tense, I at least have a lot in common with her, and so I think I identify with her well. Selphie, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of me. Short, spunky, outspoken, energetic, friendly, sunny, female, mechanically and musically inclined, and hopelessly optimistic (how's that for an oxymoron?). Yep, aside from being mercenaries, Selphie and I have absolutely nothing in common. Kidding about the mercenary thing, obviously.

So, what follows is a prologue of a very long tale involving Selphie's search for Seifer after the events of the game, from her perspective. It'll be challenging for me, but hopefully illuminating and fun. I love the clashing personalities and sweetness of Selfers. I'm not sure that this is what it will become, but I won't be a tease like I was in What We Scientists Like to Call, I was just mean, leaving the story hanging like that. Maybe I'll pen a sequel sometime.

Anyway, I digress. I know this is short, but I hope to have a lot more soon.

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"No."

I was sitting off to his left when he said it; a considerably longer response than the speech he'd written. Unable to help myself, I giggled under my hand. The reporter was frustrated and sat down. Squall watched the sea of waving hands begging for his comments, then quickly turned on his heel and stalked away.

He only condescended to being a man of few words out of necessity, and, I presume, Rinoa's influence. If he had the choice he would be a man of no words. The rest of us rose and followed his lead, leaving behind a crowd of Galbadia's brightest and most disappointed journalists and politicians. They'd been waiting at an impromptu conference hall outside Fisherman's Horizon to ask questions of Garden's commander. They only got to ask one.

The question in question had been multiple choice, not short answer: "Commander Leonhart, the former Knight Seifer Almasy has been sighted taking asylum in FH. Do you intend to extricate, capture, or imprison him?"

Some follow up questions that never quite got asked of him were, "are you hoping to harbor him, along with the two sorceresses you have?", "would you say then that you've washed your hands of the events leading to the war?", and "so, you intend to let the Galbadian army lay seige on this peaceful town?" My favorite was, "can you confirm or deny that you are, in fact, a warm blooded human being?"

We all walked away from the crowd into a nearby knoll and waited for Garden to swing by to pick us up. No one chose to follow us. I suppose they knew better. Squall was scowling, which somehow had the effect of pinching his scar into a tighter line and making it more prominent. Quistis walked over to him, a bad habit that somehow hadn't died. She'd have to talk to the trees this time - there were no walls out here. Zell cracked his neck and bounced on the balls of his feet.

I guess not much had changed in the months following Ultemecia's defeat, not for us, anyway. By now the midsummer early evening sun was glinting with a viper's bite at me from the arrays of solar panels along the edge of the town. A few dogged fisherman were still up on the piers, long lines trailing down, looking like the beginnings of a strange aquatic spider's web.

A splash along the docks caught my attention along with the faint drifting of laughter. There was a floundering dark shape in the water. He made his way back to shore and stared to climb out of the sea when the laughter ceased. Garden was moving in, all silence and motion from the Horizon Bridge. When I turned my head back to the pier, the man was looking around frantically, dripping and sputtering, while being harassed by much smaller white-haired figure.

It all felt too familiar and yet very strange... The laughing man was gone.

Zell did some handsprings to the now docked Garden. Everyone else shrugged and walked toward our floating home, its nomadic tendencies fitting like a well worn boot on our orphaned feet. I found Squall wasn't the only one frowning.

Were we really just going to let Seifer go? It seemed wrong. Maybe that was Squall's idea of punishment. Condemned to live in a world all too willing to remind you of your every sin for as long as you should live. A walking griever without hope of forgiveness or even of not being sad and hurt. I shuddered. Not knowing how I felt about that, I stopped walking and considered the punishment, if that's what it was. Would I wish it on myself or anyone else? No, but I didn't think he should be protected either.

Part of me wanted him close for a more personal serving of justice. Maybe blowing him to smithereens... But I'd lost my appetite for that dish of revenge when I thought about T-Garden, ironically enough.

Squall stopped, put his hands on his hips, and looked at me expectantly. I didn't pay attention and let my mind wander. If I were to be perfectly honest with myself, and I seldom was, the child in me missed having my big brother around, now that I could remember him in that role. It was one that Zell, though also older, couldn't fill. Squall was too robotic, Irvine too immature. It was Seifer who was the combination bully and protector, a trait that never left him, and my big brother, whom I both wanted to hug and to hurt at this very moment. Maybe I could kill him by hugging him! You know, like a snake, or Wendigo. It'd be humiliating, slow, painful, and completely in my own style.

"Ahem..." I looked up to Squall. "We're going."

I dug the toe of my boot in the ground. "I think I'd like to walk around town for a while."

"You'll need to get your own ride back to Garden."

Jerk. "I know. Tee-hee!"

"...Whatever."

I started trudging toward town. Squall yelled from behind me.

"Tilmitt!" I turned around.

"Yes, Commander?"

He gave me the kind of mind-reading appraising glare that only he can give. "You're not planning on doing anything... Insubordinate... Are you?"

I thought about it for a moment, tapping my finger to my lips. "Nah, not technically."

He nodded in a way that said... Something. Hell if I know what. Just for appearances, I plastered a big grin on my face and beamed. "You're going after him, aren't you?", he asked. My grin faltered and I played with my hands behind my back. I met his eyes again, stormy as they ever were, swallowed a shockingly solid gulp, and inclined my head, yes. His monotone response: "I hope you find him."

He'd turned and walked into Garden before I could look up. If I ever understand that man it will be a minor miracle.

Finally, I walked uninterrupted into the harbor town. The Galbadian army was on the other side of town, still waiting for permission to enter or the order to storm the gates.

I began to run.

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Author's Note (Again): A word about first person perspective – I find writing it difficult, but I love it. It gives the author less control over what the audience would experience in the tale, but it also allows the narrator to be duplicitous and make assumptions. Keep that in mind. And if you ever have the chance, buy or read Jaoquim Maria Machado de Assis' The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas or Quincas Borba. Two of the finest examples of how powerful the first person voice in literature can be, and frighteningly realistic mirrors into the ways we deceive ourselves.

Reviews for this and any of my other works always welcome.