A/N: I don't own FFVIII. Really.
Letters from the Front Line
-irishais-
The first time that Seifer comes to her, it's because he can't sleep. Fujin isn't sleeping either, but then, Fujin doesn't sleep much, period. "Hi," he says, sitting on the edge of her bed without waiting for an invitation.
"Sleep," she says flatly, and Seifer shakes his head.
"I can't."
"Close your eyes."
Seifer shakes his head again, his fingers kneading the thin mattress. The dim light that floats through the window plays with harsh shadows across his face. He looks too old. The price for glory, Fujin thinks, but she'll never tell him that. It's his dream. "I can't," he says again.
She wonders what it would be like to have someone else in her head, like Seifer does. It doesn't make sense to her, the bond between Sorceress and Knight, but Seifer understands it. It's what he's wanted, what he's dreamed about all the while at Garden.
He wants to be a damn hero.
She turns her attention back to the old book that she stole from the library of the presidential palace. It is the only one that isn't about the history of Deling; it happens to be a detective novel, and not a very good one. Fujin had the plot figured out in about thirty seconds, but it's always nice to find out that she's right.
What she isn't expecting is for Seifer to pluck the book from her grasp and glance at the cover before dropping it on the floor. "Stupid," she informs him and reaches for it, but Seifer's fingers graze her cheek and she stops, startled, raising her eyebrow at him in a question. The pad of his thumb is cold when he brushes it across her lips and she opens her mouth to tell him off when, quite abruptly, he kisses her. It's not an elegant kiss, and it sure as hell isn't filled with fireworks and magic sparkles; it's just kind of...wet. She puts up with it for about three seconds, and then places her palms against his chest, shoving him back.
"Fuj--" There's something in his eyes, something like need and yet she isn't quite sure.
"Go to sleep," she says, and Seifer stares at her, like he can't believe she's serious. Fujin points to the door, just in case he needs directions.
xx
She dreams that he dies, once, a vague, incoherent nightmare where they're falling through time and space, spit out in a field of flowers and he's not with them. It's Ultimecia's voice, silken and sensual, that tells them Seifer is dead, he died because he was too weak to serve her.
A worthless knight. A pitiful puppet.
His body is cast at Fujin's feet, nothing more than a human frame in a tattered grey coat, and when Fujin reaches to touch him, she wakes in a mess of tangled sheets. Fujin blinks in the dim glow of the firelight. Raijin is snoring. She doesn't see Seifer.
It is a week later, when Seifer surprises her in kitchen and Fujin almost stabs him with the butter knife, that she finally understands. There is a spatter of blood on the collar of his coat, and she knows it isn't his, not by the way he's looking at her. They haven't seen him in three days. Ultimecia won't let them go. She expects them to play security guards.
"I killed him, Fuj." The words come slowly, seeping out like honey--it's Ultimecia's fault, she's got her claws in his brain. He's a marionette. A lapdog.
"Yes." There isn't anything that Fujin can do about it. It's Seifer's price for pride, the price for following his dream--none of them will deny it. He went with Ultimecia of his own free will, and the Sorceress will have him in the end, until she decides he's not worth it anymore and casts him aside like a broken plaything.
"I killed him." It's shock, disbelief, that won't let him fall into panic.
Fujin nods, puts down her toast and reaches for his hands. The leather is sticky with blood as she peels away his gloves--some of it comes off on her fingers. His hands are clammy and pale, nails bitten to the quick, peppered with scars from slips while cleaning Hyperion. The coat is harder to get away from him; even stained, it's a battered shield of pride. Without it, he looks smaller, diminished.
"Breathe," she tells him, but when Seifer pulls her into his arms and presses his lips against her forehead, she finds she's just too damn loyal to him to push away.
xx
It isn't a secret--there isn't any way they can keep it a secret, not with that damned bond between the Sorceress and Knight. Fujin wonders if that isn't the worst of it, letting Seifer have something to hold onto. One day, he'll have to choose between his Sorceress or his friends, if it's even a choice.
He's losing himself.
"I'm sorry," he whispers to her. "I didn't know it would turn out like this."
"No one did."
Madness crawls over his skin, dances behind his eyes. They don't speak about what he does, what the grand puppet master makes him do. There's too much blood on his hands, and Fujin wonders how she's going to let him go without destroying him when it's all over. There's no way that this can last forever. She doesn't want it to; it isn't right.
She finds that war makes strange bedfellows.
xx
"Raijin, stop!"
She doesn't know why she's saying it, why she's doing this, why she's turning her back on him. "Seifer..."
"Hey, hey...come on, people--" Seifer's staring at them, but it's not him. It hurts; she didn't think it would hurt this much, but Fujin just can't do it anymore. She can't see him fall so hard.
"You've lost yourself," Fujin tells him. "You've lost yourself and your dream. We want the old you back!" It has to end. It shouldn't have had to turn out like this. They can't keep pretending that he's okay. They can't keep playing war when the stakes have gotten so high. "Seifer..." Her words sound pathetic, desperate, too needy--it has to be done. "Are you going to keep going?"
When he smiles at them, it isn't him. The expression is hollow, his eyes are empty even as he looks at her and Fujin's heart tightens in her chest. "Fujin, Raijin...it's been fun."
She leaves. They've done all they can here. Raijin's right behind her, and before the door closes, she hears Seifer laugh--the sound is crazy, manipulated. He's gone.
Call me a young revolutionary...
The door shuts. They've abandoned him, abandoned their leader. It feels like they've left him to die.
She tells herself it's for the best.
xx
Fujin is certain she's losing her mind, because she is running on clouds, and you just don't do that. "Seifer?"
Raijin shakes his head. He's just as confused as she is, but either Fujin is hallucinating both of them defying gravity or this is real.
Time Kompression.
The streaks in the sky are blood, his blood. They all knew the choice had to be made, and he went with her. A Knight to the last. It's still painful. Why does it hurt so badly?
Worthless Knight.
Ultimecia's voice is a sharp crack of lightning.
"SEIFER!"
She can't even hear herself, the roar of the wind is so loud. It rips his name away, like it's a forbidden word. He fell in battle, he chose the Sorceress, but there's part of her that keeps hoping Ultimecia tossed him in with the rest of them.
Minutes to hours to days to weeks to years and she's still running.
She's vaguely aware of feathers.
"Boss? Boss, where are you?"
She commends Raijin's persistence, but time is stretching on into eternity (tempus fugit, Adel whispers) and she's beginning to think they may never make it out, much less Seifer, much less the SeeDs. "Seifer!" One last time. They have to try.
A hand reaches out of the clouds, grasping for something, anything, and she lunges for it.
xx
She wakes in a field of flowers in Winhill, but her vision's filled with grey and blue.
"...Fuj?"
"Stupid!" she shrieks finally, when she can think coherently again, and she smacks her fists against his chest.
"I know, Fuj. I'm sorry." His words are muffled in her hair, and even as she's clinging to him like a woman drowning, Fujin isn't sure she can forgive him.
There is only so far loyalty can go.