When the world is at its end, he will stand on broken earth and she will be there before him.

"This can be yours," she'll say. "It's not too late."

He will look around, and will wonder why she offers him ruins. She will be too weak to stand, and he will know this is the moment of her death. Unless he steps forward to stop it.

"Why?" is all he will say.

She will cough. He will watch the blood spatter onto the rocks, and wonder at how he ever came to view her as powerful.

"Why?" he will repeat, "Would I ever want anything you could ever offer?"

He'll spit at the ground in front of her. And she will let out a cry that rips a hole in the fabric of time itself, and through it, he will fall.

He will return a hero. And she?

… … …

.

She appears to him in a disguise, at first, and he falls for it.

Seifer has seen this movie before. He's worn the thin band of tape down until the sound is distorted and the screen is a series of stripes and streaks. He's paid to have it loaded to his desktop and has spent nights he should have been studying glued to the screen, watching, hoping, dreaming; sleeping-walking through classes the next day and frustrating everyone around him as he passes his tests even though he's obviously too distracted to pay attention in class.

He's watched this scene.

A Knighting?

He is not there yet. But when she shows herself he is not fooled by the layers of purple and the clockwork on her back. She is familiar, but she is more.

Come with me to a place of no return. Bid farewell to your childhood.

(he is seated on the rug in a room he can only just remember.

"seifer, time for bed," a voice says.

"but it's not over yet," he pleads. "can't I please watch until the end?")

He does not waste time looking at the faces he is leaving behind.

The haze closes around him and when it fades he is in the same room he left behind, and he is alone. Seifer walks to the spot where Squall stood, moments before, and stares at the empty space.

"Just watch," he says. "And you'll see."

He pulls Hyperion out of its sheath and rests it on his shoulder, and marches towards the door.

He doesn't know what he expects to see, but it is not the wide expanse of everything he has ever known, twisted over itself before him, and he pauses, and wonders if he is not making a mistake.

("it's only us," the woman on the screen says. she is beautiful, and young as he is, seifer knows he wants to keep her safe.

"but we'll survive," the man says.

"we'll survive," young seifer tells the screen.)

"We'll survive."

Seifer steps through the door and hears it close, unbidden, behind him. The path that stretched through his past and into something dark and unknown settles in front of him, and when he takes his first step it is strong and certain.

She's here, somewhere. And Seifer intends to find her.


Oops. My hand slipped. This *might* be inspired by Labyrinth. Might be. So, uh, wish me luck!