A/N: SquareEnix owns FFVIII. Random drabble; contains a Quistis/Seifer slant.
LIFEWORLDS
When Zell marries, his wife moves into his home in Balamb and unless he is away on SeeD missions, he comes home to her every single night. The wife is a model daughter-in-law and mom, son and bride are all kept perfectly happy considering how tiny the house is and the fact that Zell is really biologically unrelated to his idyllic family.
When Squall and Rinoa marry they still – have to - live in Balamb Garden almost all the time. They have a home in Timber, for weekend getaways, and a cosy little cottage in Winhill for long holidays. Timber fits Selphie's tastes perfectly, for trains are still her greatest love, and taking trains back and forth between Balamb (because Garden almost always lands back there, right where it began) and Timber just to check up on the pair is immense enjoyment for her. Neither does she consider it a wasted trip when they are in neither of the two places, which really happens more often than she cares to admit.
When Selphie and Irvine marry, they build their lovenest in Trabia purely for formality's sake, because they spend a quarter of their lives in Balamb Garden and the remaining three-quarters anywhere across the globe. They are renowned globe-trotters now, notorious for never staying in a place for more than month at a time, and their house in Trabia collects dust for eight months a year. Trabia is Selphie's choice, because she grew up there and the red lights of cities like Deling are simply inappropriate if one intends to keep a faithful husband.
When Quistis and Seifer marry they have to compromise. (Did they even marry? Seifer does not seem like the type to consent to long-winded pronouncements of marriage vows, and exactly how 'together' are they? When did 'together' even begin, anyway? They see Quistis the least often of all, and when Seifer appears, hullking like a shadow around her, somehow it doesn't seem peculiar or preposterous, when it should, shouldn't it?) Quistis's ideal home is in Dollet, the quaint little town of shadows and sunsets and intelligent chit-chat in pubs til' dawn, but Seifer is tired, tired of looking at people, tired of seeing dead nameless soldiers' faces in every gaze he meets. Quistis knows Seifer wants to live by the sea, because it carries memories of a more innocent past, because the black shadow of Edea produces a curiously calming effect on his nerves. She knows how that shadow flickers persistently in the back of his mind, as a burden which is futile to try to shake off; so accepting it as a permanent part of his soul, remembering Matron instead of attempts at forgetting, ironically works better.
So they live in a house beside Obel Lake, which is sufficiently distant from most civilization for Seifer, and yet in adequate proximity to the nearest railway station for Quistis. They manage a balance-of-sorts; he spends his days honing the fishing skills he inherited from Fisherman's Horizon, while she shuffles papers, reports to Garden from her home office and packs her bags for long journeys. Sometimes they wonder if all they have in common is each other. But that is enough. More than enough, really.