Escape With Me
Warm air crystallized forming puffs with each exhalation. The rapid drop from fireside warmth to ice flow numbness jerked Squall awake. Shivering he found little warmth in the fur blanket that draped over him. Staggering out of the bed he found himself in a delicately constructed room, rough ice hewed and shaped into intricate pillars featuring dancing bears and ballerinas.
Turning, he looked around the room, without an idea of where he was, he decided against voicing the question aloud. He needed to find his teammates, where ever they where in this ice palace. If they are here, while not being close to them, the thought of being alone in such a place was unnerving. Especially as Squall noted his lack of weaponry.
Stepping through the door, Squall tensed at the otherworldly feeling that had settled over him and into his bones. It was welcoming but at the same time, it forced his muscles to tense and his mouth to dry. Like a reaper attack, he could feel the cold grasp of death reaching for him, asking him to come just a bit closer.
"Watch out." Squall jumped, surprising himself more than the heavily dressed woman at the bar. She smiled, for what she was and the damaged she could do it appeared cold, if there were others around. He followed her gaze to the stairs in front of him that led to her welcoming presence. "Don't want you to trip."
Squall, curious about how he ended up in such a place, but also weary enough of the guardian slowed his descent, eyes scanning the room. They were alone. "How did I get here?" Shiva pressed her lips together in a pout, doe-eyed as Squall crossed his arms waiting for her to answer.
"You were stressed." He knew that, on the run from the Sorceress Edea, the plot to assassinate her and having just escaped prison was a stressful situation. She stepped from behind the counter, the soft clack of her heels snapped his attention to her figure. Dressed in little more than a thick fur coat resembling that if a grey wolf she held her hand up, millimeters from his cheek. "I brought you here." Squall tilted his head as she finally touched him. The surprisingly warm hands trailed down his jaw, cradling his head as she moved up to the step below him. Her cool steel eyes had drifted down tracing the shape of his lips.
It was an odd sensation, not just the experience of her tongue gliding against his, but the way she easily swayed him to move and the coolness against his back as he tumbled onto the frozen couch. Most defiantly the way he grasped the soft flesh behind her legs forcing her to straddle him. It didn't compare to the moment she pulled away surprised at her own actions. As her warmth disappeared as she scuttled off the couch. Reaching for the Guardian Force, he grabbed her wrist intending to stop her only to swipe at falling drops of tiny ice crystals.
"Squall! Squall wake up!" A hard world shaking smack on the young leader's cheek brought him out of the dream world and into a world of pain as his leg muscle tightened into a Charlie horse and his face stung for the hit. Irvine stepped back as Rinoa's face appeared. "Are you okay? You hit Sell with an ice spell in your sleep."
Squall turned looking over at the martial artist and his still icy hair. Gripping his locked up leg tightly Squall nodded with a grimace. "Yes, fine." He growled as he rolled out of the bed holding the back of his leg. Irvine stepped out of the way watching the seventeen-year-old limp like that Laguna guy to the bathroom. Irvine ran a hand through his sleep mused hair as Rinoa attempted to melt Zell's hair without igniting his scalp.
Watching the bathwater rise, Squall reached into his pants, pulling out his wallet. Inside was his Triple Triad Shiva card. The foil card sparkled in the dim lighting of the bathroom. As he turned the card one way her face turned, a close-up of her profile when he turned it the other way, the card pulled out to show a full body portrait of her summon.
Join Me. Squall looked up from the card, the room cooled, a thin layer of ice forming on every reflective surface. The card fell to the floor as Squall sunk into the bath water.
So this was originally on my old account, Mousenabber. The only story there and ironically this was my very first fanfic. That's because I actually played FF8 before 7 (well finished it completely I had a friend in high school that loaned me her PS1 and FF7 before I got my own.) It took me eight hours to finish disc one so FF8 does hold a special place in my heart. I also had a friend who introduced me to HIM that I actually met here on years ago but we lost contact. I have been wanting to rewrite this story forever but I finally decided to, but you can read the original one as well.