Prologue - Castles
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There is a kingdom by the sea, a haven borne from the remains of war. Here survives a matronly lady and her children, not by blood but by circumstance.
Two of the children frolic in the foaming surf. She likes the way the salty sea laps at her slim shins when she rolls up her overalls to her knees. She chases the tide and he chases her. The ends of her brown hair curl slightly skyward, just like the corners of his lips whenever they play together.
Three blond children remain on the shore, far from the reaches of the gentle waves. The girl guides one of the boys to build something grand, because Matron told her she would be a good teacher someday. The other boy practices his swordsmanship with a sturdy branch, because he told himself he will be a glorious knight.
A sixth joins them. A boy with floppy brown hair and a name that matches his eyes. He wears a cheery yellow shirt that belies his personality. He doesn't like the shirt but doesn't complain. He doesn't do anything.
The blonde girl is only too pleased to see his arrival. She tries to get his attention, as she does every passing day. "Come on, Squall! Don't you want to try?" She carefully pours a bucket of water over the small hill of sand, not knowing there are some mountains her continuous goading will never move.
The reluctant boy looks at their castle and deems it unworthy of a response. He thinks about Matron working on tonight's dinner in the kitchen with the eldest sister. He already misses Sis and, having been told to go out and play, he sees that there's nothing worthwhile out here for him. He goes back to scratching the closest rock with a thin stick he found outside the castle limits.
The swordsman rides in on his high horse, and with two calculated swipes breaches the defenses and brings the castle tumbling to its knees.
"Hey!" The smaller boy had just learned how to shape a steeple. "I just maked that!" Builder lunges at Intruder but he's pulled back by a yanking on his shirt. Quistis had predicted his movements before he even knew he was moving.
She will do all she can to prevent war between two wayward forces. She will always seek to understand and mediate, so she stretches herself to her full height—no taller than some of the boulders that surround them—to confront the errant knight who is as raucous as she is regal. She glances at his weapon before the usual interrogation begins. "What're you doing, Seifer?"
"I'mma knight, I save people." He stabs his makeshift sword into the warm sand. Her cross expression makes him cross his arms.
A pink finger gestures at the broken walls that are still softly merging with the sinking foundation. "How's this saving anyone?" She's done this before, not saving her breath and her time when it comes to arguing with him.
"I'm saving yoo from crying—yoo know this won't last." He's seen this before, that nothing lasts.
"Sure it will." But only because she wants it to.
"The one last week only lived two days then yoo cried over it."
"Two days is a long time! Just because you never work hard—"
He makes a false start to scare her into thinking he would strike her. Their minds know he won't but her body doesn't, so Quistis flinches once. He maintains eye contact as she glares at him—summer skies trying to pierce sea glass—and he almost feels a pang of guilt when he sees those skies clouding up with the prospect of rain.
"I can build a better one. Yours don't even have a moat."
"They don't all have to have moats."
"I like castles wi' moats," Zell says as he rubs at the sand pile with a small fist. Maybe if the castle had a moat, that would've kept the knight at bay.
"There, see?" Seifer especially likes validation when Quistis stares him down with her unyielding eyes.
Two soaking children approach the castle ruins, tired of running in circles.
"Are yoo making sandcastles?" Selphie's squeals sound terse in the drying and dying warmth of the late-afternoon sun. "Let's have a comtitition!" She no longer struggles with the mispronunciation as she embraces her linguistic progress.
"Yeah, sounds fun!" Zell moves some ways down the beach and is eager to see how he will fare without his teacher. Quistis feels the first bittersweet pang of a student moving on to fulfil his purpose.
Irvine busies himself by scooping sand into the bucket. "Sefie, wan' me to make a cannon for yoo?"
"Okay! I weally wan'it to go BOOM!" Her arms punch through the air. Each grain of sand bursts from her palms like the confetti on her birthday, just last week.
Seifer's make-belief weapon now serves a dual purpose as he uses it to dig the beginnings of a moat, cutting deep to draw the outlines of his boundaries.
"Squall?" Quistis tosses him an expectant stare as she makes anxious nips on her lower lip with a pearly baby tooth.
He doesn't want to play but knows that if he doesn't participate, he will continue to be bothered. "I can be the judge."
It's the first thing he's said all day, so Quistis will (always) take what she can get. She decides that she too wants to pass judgment on the work of others, and so she joins Squall as he shuffles to sit on a different and more authoritative rock to assume his new role.
The waves creep closer and the sun dips further into the unfurling horizon as Squall declares a winner. Selphie proves to have more of an architectural eye than the others, but it's unclear how much of that is Irvine's cannon contribution.
"No fair," Zell points out the injustice that no one else seems to see. "They have two peepole!"
Squall's bony shoulder answers with a shrug. "Their one looks the best. Yoo don't even have a door."
"But mine's better than Seifer's, right?"
"Tough luck, yoo baby," says Seifer from inside his shoddy stronghold. He managed to build the fortress around himself. He feels safe behind the walls for only mere minutes until a certain streak—pestilent and dogged—bursts from its vessel. His sword smashes through the granular barricades with a fluid (practiced) movement. He makes a speedy invasion to expand his territory.
A chorus of protests flare up into the air and fuses with the hush of the impending dusk. The knight defends himself with a satisfied smirk.
"Why build it if you can't destroy it?"
Quistis disagrees, even with her limited understanding of the way of the world. "Not everything should be destroyed."
Seifer disagrees, even with his dormant romantic optimism. He shows his feelings by emptying the bucket of water over Selphie and Irvine's handiwork, and everyone watches in silence as the cannons darken around the water's course. They begin their short trek back toward the house. Zell is the first to disappear through the door.
She feels a light trickling of grainy mischief slip from her hair down her back. Quistis pats her hair to find herself touching what might have been a part of the castle. She turns to see Seifer holding his hand over her head, willing a fistful of sand to cascade into her hair.
"Stop it, Seifer!"
Quistis swats at his prank and turns toward the beach (away from him) in time to see the walls of sand crumbling into the surf. Ice creeps beneath her skin like vines on abandoned castles, because the hardened heart of a war orphan knows no other way to cope.
Seifer laughs to mask the pain he endures from her firm punch to his stomach.
Lesson learned: Quistis doesn't like getting sand in her hair.
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Multiple personalities coming together from thousands of miles apart. A million hopes and dreams. Countless losses they would never fully comprehend. The far expanses of the ocean mirror their limitless potential. Not knowing they are cursed to have their souls ravaged by fate, war and each other, they will build and rebuild their sand castles until the seas recede.
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Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this short start to a Seiftis that I'll probably finish when I'm pushing 80 years old. Since these are shorter, maybe I'll update more often.
I'm experimenting with writing in present tense, because I feel that it suits the intentions and mood of this story more. The goal here is to provide snapshots into the life of our heroes (but it'll mostly be Quistis and Seifer, of course). I want to ensure that everything is canon-compliant, but I also have limited time for research and a bad memory. So, if anything anywhere is 'wrong', I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know! :) Thank you so much for reading. If you liked it, please leave a review.