6/9/2013 - Hello all, after a lot of thought, changing a core direction essential to the character development in this story. As such, going through each existing chapter to update, edit, and tweak details to align with the story before posting a new chapter that's in the works!

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Hello all! I'd like to say first, thanks for viewing this story, it really means a lot to me. This story, just must be written. There's no excuse for not writing it-as it has been in the works for years.

This story is a personal project of mine; I hope to weave a beautiful story of duty, defeat, and love. This will be written in a traditional Romantic style-which means focus on the feel of a scene, on the vivid portrayal of an image. I will experiment with the potency of different words. So, my updates may be slow, but each of my chapters, will be nothing short of the best I can offer at this point in my life.

My inspiration for writing this are a couple of different books and movies: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Pride and Prejudice (2005), and Atonement (2007).

If few or no people read this story, I won't be disappointed. I am writing this for the sake of writing, for the simple thrill of watching worlds come to life and dance about a page.

Prologue

They'd fallen from the sky—from the moon, someone said—to Tear's Point, then dispersed quickly, wreaking havoc to the planet about them. The fiends wasted no time attacking: the forests, nearby cities, or unsuspecting passerby who wandered near to witness the fiasco. Then, as suddenly as they had come, they were gone, dissipated into the air in the blink of an eye.

At the contact point, she stood, unmoving, as if frozen in the moment.

The rain fell, tears plummeting from the heavens, cold and hard. Still she stood, the hem of her little white dress sticking to her thighs in a gray blur and the thin spaghetti straps struggling to stay upon her elegant broad shoulders. Yet, it did not bother her.

Barefoot, she began to walk.

She did not know a destination, nor did she know the cold. In fact, she was completely complacent to both, a gentle placid look upon her face. She walked with a lightness in her soft gait, as a person walks when she has nothing to lose, leaving that very emptiness behind in each grain of sand impressed in her footsteps. All that guided her was a single sheet of folded paper in her hand—the word "SeeD" written in scribbled ink.

The stepping stones were covered in a sworn moss, stringy and thick under her toes. The cement columns that lined the walkway from the forest to the doorway was just as weathered, complementing the quiet elegance of the marble stone orphanage.

Beyond, she saw a field of golden flowers, dipping and rolling with the rain's playful dance.

Lightly, she brought her rain-soaked self up the steps and rapped her knuckles gently, but firmly, several times against the old wooden door. The door soon eased open, a man peering cautiously through a small margin between the door and the wall. He watched her through a pair of rectangular spectacles and a set of nervous brown eyes. He appeared amiable, but confused.

"Can I help you?" he asked, his voice shaky.

She poised her wide-eyed gaze again to the meadow, rolling boundless into the horizon, then down to her bare toes, muddied with evidence of her travels, and back to the man who watched her warily. Her wet skin glistened under stray rays of sunlight as her rich coffee brown eyes glinted a lighter shade.

"I don't know," she said.

.-.

When the SeeDs arrived, they were confused as to the presence of the stranger. For the most part she—save for occasional private conversations between herself and their dear Matron—stayed seated in the corner on a little stone tablet in her little white dress, wrinkling from the weight of the water, her dark hair dangling stringy with water.

"She just showed up, completely soaked with a little piece of paper in her hand," Edea told them. As the SeeDs went about their business, they eyed her out of the corner of their eyes. Squall took charge. He had Ultimecia to worry about, and Rinoa on his mind. Strange girls appearing out of nowhere currently had absolutely nothing to do with him.

"About the girl, Squall," Cid intervened during a conversation with Squall, who struggled to hold his composure at the mention of the distraction. "Edea and I think it's best for the lovely young lady is to join Garden. To join you."

"...why?" Squall asked. Cid pulled the same crumpled piece of paper the girl had clutched so dearly from his vest pocket and held it for Squall to examine.

"The poor girl has nothing else, Squall. She may be able to find some answers there," Cid explained.

"Is this supposed to be important to me?" Squall replied rather bluntly, growing more and more exasperated at the lack of focus on their directive at hand.

"Not exactly... but she's requested to apply to SeeD. And for this particular case..." Cid peered over Squall's shoulder at the girl with a quizzical gaze. "Edea and I believe we should accept." Squall sighed. This was preposterous. Right now, all that mattered to him was Rinoa.

"Cid, this is unnecessary right now."

"Sooner the better, Squall. Edea believes... nevermind."

"...what?" Cid turned back to Squall with a stern look.

"Edea simply believes she will be important to your cause. In one way or another." Squall watched the girl with incredulity as she stared blankly into the horizon, watching the waves of the ocean lap up against the orphanage beach shore. "Go ahead, take her back to Garden, and.. assign a mentor to her to ensure her progress be expedient."

"Cid, why can't you just admit her?"

"That's unethical, Squall, don't think such things," Cid chuckled lightly at the thought. Squall sighed again, turned and looked about the room. Unethical, he thought, like how you suddenly left your post unannounced and handed the burden down to me when the situation got rough. The first of the group to catch his eye, Zell Dincht seemed to be curiously eying the girl from a not so subtle distance. Squall beckoned to him.

Zell caught his gesture, and with a quick nod headed in the direction of the chatting two. Cid beckoned for the girl to come as well, and they met in a small group of four in the center of the stone room.

"Zell, starting now, you're to mentor this girl for SeeD admission," Squall explained shortly, his patience was growing thin. He curtly pointed at the girl, then turned on his heel, pulling Cid with him to discuss more strategies, leaving the two to chat alone.

Zell, a little dumbfounded with the new directive, looked at her inquisitively. She blinked her wide brown eyes at him as a polite smile curved along her lips. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said, formal and calm.

"Yeah," Zell snorted as he eyed her. She flinched at the noise. An awkward pause. "What's your name?"

"Lina," she said gently in a prompt reply.

"You got a last name with that, Lina?"

Lina blinked again a couple times, her eyes rolling across the meadow in thought. Then looked to him.

"I don't know."