Well this took me long enough. I remember mentioning starting this many many months ago.
But here it is, the prelude completed. It's probably a little more than a prelude, but nevertheless. There it is.
The name, 'Find Your Way', is a musical track from FFVIII's OST, and is the music that plays in a lot of dungeons. I thought it appropriate a title for a work detailing life in the FFVIII world. The chapter names, also, are titles from the OST. Unless I run out of them, I should be able to keep being clever in that department.
Hope you enjoy!
Prelude: Starting Up
Another sunny day. A slight breeze, a few clouds watching from beyond the mountains, but no complaints. If you listened hard enough, you could even hear the waves roaming the beach half a mile or so away.
Another day. Another lesson on the science of junctioning.
Another audible groan.
Pulling himself up to a sitting position on the side of the bed he'd been daydreaming on, Adan pulled his SeeD trainee jacket over the shirt he was wearing and, with a stretch, got up and left his small room.
In the communal kitchen, his roommate, Leif, was eating … something, and so gave a stuffed smile and a raised plate in greeting. Smiling and nodding to his friend, Adan kept moving through and out of the room and into the corridor.
Taking a right, he found himself on the wide corridor that connected the Dormitories to the main garden hub, smiling at a few people he knew along the way. To either side of the corridor, students sat and talked in the Garden grounds, enjoying the sun beneath the gigantic, ornate awning that was so iconic of Balamb Garden, as the midday bell chimed across the complex.
Stepping from the corridor and into the main hub of the Garden, the gentle trickle of water greeted Adan; the manmade half river, half moat flowing around and underneath the walkways. Around him, students hustled and bustled as they hurried to and from the particulars of their days. Above him, the floor was more sparse as early afternoon classes got underway. Heading right, towards the faint smell of food, Adan decided it might not be such a bad day after all.
Entering another adjoining corridor, Adan took the opportunity to look around him; beyond the large windows on either side of the passage, students and SeeDs alike mulled around the cafeteria's courtyard; eating, sparring, practicing magic or just relaxing in-between classes. The sounds of conversation, laughter, and the occasional shriek of excitement were pervasive as the Garden lived and breathed through the students.
The sound of unintelligible conversation was joined by the scraping and clinking of cutlery as Adan moved into the real cafeteria, his nose assaulted by a combination of everything eaten, in the process of being eaten, and to be eaten that the room had to offer. Approaching the counter, he ordered something light and glanced around, spotting people he knew. Absently smiling in thanks to the waitress, he took his food and moved away towards where his friends sat. Along the way, he paused to take in a sight. Before him sat Zell Dincht, the Garden's premiere Martial Artist and movement expert, and before him, was a plate stacked with about four hotdogs. The blonde man looked as if he'd found buried treasure, beaming ear to ear at Adan when he noticed him staring.
"I've been here seven, man. Seven!" Adan just smirked, whilst the man sitting with Zell--a man Adan didn't know--sighed.
"There were four more before you got here"
At this Adan laughed before moving away, telling Zell he'd see him for class tomorrow. His instructor nodded, barely hearing what he'd said, before returning to his feast.
Noticing him as he approached their table, his friends moved aside to let the boy sit down in the crowded hall. A girl with jet black hair, pulled back into a ponytail, beamed up at him, before gazing past the way he'd came.
"What's made Instructor Dincht so happy?" Instructor Dincht. Adan supposed he was, really, although Zell wouldn't like it if someone called him that to his face.
"Food, Mea" he replied with a smile, "food." The girl opposite him, Mea, looked quizzical before returning to her conversation. The boy next to Adan looked away from his conversation to include him, asking him what classes he had during the day, as if he'd been a part of the discussion from the very beginning.
"SoJ" he replied, followed by a sigh. A few grimaces from those who were listening followed, along with several of his classmates agreeing how much it 'sucked'.
The time passed in the cafeteria with little care to the academic woes around them. Adan contentedly ate his food whilst his friends talked around him, occasionally contributing to the inane babble whenever somebody addressed him. Generally the mood was calm and relaxed, Adan enjoying the time he had with his friends.
With his meal finished, and some light, pointless banter engaged in, Adan rose to take his leave of the cafeteria, bidding his friends a cheery farewell. He wanted to take a short walk, get some fresh air and possibly do some thinking before the tedium of class in the not-too-distant future.
Before he left, however, he felt a hand touching his arm, holding him back. It wasn't a grasp, nor was it feathery brushing of material, but it was light. It was asking him to stay a moment without vocalising it. Looking to the culprit, Adan found the arm attached to the boy who'd been sitting next to him, Zetal. Meeting his green eyes, Adan cocked his head, the motion once again saying just as much as words.
"Hey..." he began sheepishly, an odd contrast to his energetic and outgoing mood at the table, "Can... I, err... that is to say..." Sensing Adan's growing frustration, he finally committed, "are you free later? I kinda need to talk to you..." He took a long breath, appearing physically relieved to have finally said it. Despite this, worry still creased his features at the prospect of Adan's response.
"Um, sure" he replied, seeing no reason to decline, confused though he may have been. "Why? Is it important? Can't you talk to me now?"
"No!" Zetal replied immediately, before quickly checking that nobody had seen him, "It's err... It's private". His cheeks flushed crimson as he buried himself in studying his shoelaces. Adan tried to pretend he hadn't noticed, or that he wasn't piecing together Zetal's motives. Plastering a friendly grin on his face, he nodded.
"OK. Shall we say the secret area? After curfew?"
Having reached a settlement with the still abashed Zetal, Adan turned and headed away, the brief conversation staying with him long after he'd left the cafeteria.
---
Balamb Garden had undergone many changes since its first creation: Peace, civil war, and flight. Soon after that she'd become a warship, taking the fight to Galbadia in that blistering, horrific battle over Centra. Adan had only been a junior classmen then, but he remembered it all. All the running, all the fighting; the feeling that there was nothing he could do. He had had to run and hide and cry whilst others fought, others protected him, whilst others died...
Shaking the traumatic memories of his, and hundreds of other students, past away, Adan carried on down the main concourse, towards what was once the main gate of the Garden. She was currently stationed—moored, he supposed—roughly half a mile from the coast of Balamb, where she usually resided unless some kind of urgent business called for the Garden to move. The main entrance, smashed and ruined by the Garden's virgin flight, had been converted into a dock of sorts, where students could catch a regular ferry back to the mainland to visit family in Balamb, or to catch the train elsewhere. This system had been in place for about half a year now, and the students had taken to it pretty well. The broken precipice in the Quad had been fixed as well; turned into a viewing balcony.
Garden had been through a lot, Adan mused, but it looked as if she might finally be able to start existing as an academy again. Not a warship, not a floating fortress, but a military academy, training Balamb's elite mercenary force, SeeD, rather than waging political and orchestrating universal salvation.
But more important than all of these world altering events, in Adan's mind, was his altercation with Zetal.
Adan was no fool; he could see the obvious situation before him. At least, he could see what it looked like; he was having trouble convincing himself that it was true. Logically, all the signs and expressions Zetal had displayed demonstrated quite clearly that his friend had some kind of attraction to Adan that went beyond their current friendship. Logically, Adan should have known that. But instead, his conscience and ego created a quandary in his mind.
Did Zetal like him? As in, have feelings for him? No, that wasn't possible. He was just Adan. There was nothing particularly special about him. 'Preposterous', he thought. Zetal could go for anybody more attractive, smarter, with a better personality. Adan wasn't noteworthy.
'But he still asked you, didn't he?' his mind retorted to itself, 'that has to mean something. Maybe he does like you. Maybe if you go there later, there'll be so—'
Striking the thoughts from his head as he heard the low, chiming bell from the Garden, alerting him that classes were about to start. Determined to find everything out later, when he was face to face with Zetal, he turned from the main concourse and headed for the elevator, the multitude of possibilities still swarming around in his head.
Above him, the Garden's giant awning continued to move, unhindered.