Disclaimer
I don't particularly feel like repeating a disclaimer at the beginning of every chapter for this story so the one here is meant for the entire length of this fan fiction. I do not own Final Fantasy VIII and the original characters but am borrowing them for this story. I do however own any unrecognizable characters that will appear in this story.
"Speech"
'Thoughts'
'Mental Communication'
Note: Kaidia is pronounced Kay-de-a (at least in my mind it is.)
It had been a hard few days…
The girl, Kaidia Dos-Santos, sighed as she glanced back down at the book she was holding, having just checked on the time once more. It was currently half past 0100 hours, exactly five minutes from when she last checked. The alarm was set for 0600 hours, exactly an hour before she had been told she had to be awake by. Her one hand brushed her dark chocolate coloured curls off her face, and then when it was gathered back together, having been re-braided into control using a handy dark blue ribbon. But a second later she sighed with frustration as the strands fell free once more to hang messily across her face.
Glancing up, she caught her features in a mirror that she usually did not bother to look in. Her dark chocolate hair fell and partially hid even gray - blue eyes, which looked like a deeper blue now that the ribbon was in her hair. She knew quite well that she was pretty, but didn't really care enough to add to her features with makeup. Her heart shaped face was accented by light eyes and dark hair, and attracted enough attention without the additional help. The situation would be intolerable if more was attracted deliberately by herself.
Turning her attention back to the book, she was suddenly annoyed at her unwavering expression staring back at her from the mirror. This particular book was her savior, her mantra, her hope and peace…when the outside world looked so scary, threatening or hopeless she would return to this book. Or when her inside world became so chaotic and choked with thoughts and flickers of biting memories haunted her sleep, she would find solace reading this book. Over and over, cover to cover, even up and down sometimes. When she returned from classes, she would refer to it as an instinct…to see if she had gotten the correct answer for the situation. As a result, she had the entire book memorized and frequently would recite it to friends and Instructors by whole. It had become her lifeline; the SeeD manual.
'Do I depend on this too much?' she thought to herself as she ran her smooth hand down its creamy page, browning and crinkled due to years of use. Most students deliberately lost their SeeD manuals' several times and were given new ones. But hers she kept with her, and, as far as she could remember, it was her first copy of the precious book.
Not that she wanted to remember very far back.
Her short term memory was incredibly detailed, listing information in categories; like interesting, boring but useful, useful, why did I want to know that?, disturbing content and to be dismissed as soon as possible. But then she had others under the category interesting. Breaking it down further there was passing notice, note to consider matter when bored, notice to investigate further at soonest available free moment and pressing analysis needed. She had taught herself to classify everything by these standards and more, and held herself to the highest standard she could, the SeeD manual. So there was nothing that occurred within her short term memory that went without further thought. And thus she spent a lot of time off in her own world thinking.
But her long term memory…well, there wasn't anything worth thinking about before she entered Trabia Garden at ten years old.
She also, as an instinct honed finely into her, distrusted all new people. There were only three things she trusted; her SeeD manual, her dog Sebastian (or Bast as he was well known as) and her friends. Everything and everyone else she would hold aloof of until she had no reason to be suspicious of them. Out of all of her closest friends, she trusted more than anything her hidden boyfriend, who went by the name Kayden Trepe. He especially stressed his last name, in Galbadia, as it was well known that Kayden's true last name would bring out the furthest resentment in everyone; Almasy.
They were so much alike, that their natures sometimes grated and clashed in titanic arguments or duels with their chosen weapons, magic or sometimes just words. She could never let him have the last word; it was…wrong, she decided. And because they had such a complex relationship they strove to out do each other in everything, from stocked magic, to training, to knowledge of SeeD and its practices, to useful survival knowledge and much more. They were rivals, but also lovers. They battled, but then they laughed it off.
'But it's his fault that the faculty thinks I'm a problem child…him and his stupid pranks and actions…But I can't just walk away.'
They were training partners too. Kayden, because he thought the Hyperion Gunblade was the coolest weapon and he would cut an imposing figure, wielding it against foes when he became a SeeD. And she had just been drawn to the Gunblade, could not explain the feeling of rightness she had in holding one, the feeling of familiarity. And so they trained daily, each trying to out maneuver the other…until one or both would fall with exhaustion.
It had been a grueling session; classes in monster defense and offense, and magic wielding in the morning…a lunch break where both would finish as quickly as possible and then would be off to the training center for three hours of depleting the monster stock. Then there would be three more hours of class…the homework and readings that followed, dinner. And off to the training center once more or a dueling arena for a mock duel.
They would return to their rooms only when forced to by curfew. However, Kayden had always found a way around it. The rule stated all Cadets must be in their rooms before 2300 hours for lights out until 0600 hours. The key word was 'be'. 'Be' did not mean stay apparently, as long as they were in their rooms at some point during that assigned time of lights out it was fine. So Kayden did not stay…and challenged her to do the same. And she did, following him out to some pretty shady places.
But there were good points to her wanderings with Kay. She had an impressive selection of drawn magic in her stock, more so then a normal cadet, and more conflict training then most do too. Before the SeeD exam, she had already stocked the majority of second and some third level spells that could be found in Galbadia Garden area, and some fairly far off when she had borrowed a car from a friend to range further in the plains. She already had Cura, Fira, Thundara, Water, Blizzara, Shell, Protect, Sleep, Berserk, Zombie, Float, Aero, Silence, Break, Scan, Confuse, Blind, Drain, Slow, Tornado, Esuna and Haste. And because Kayden was with her during these ventures he had the same spells she held in stock.
Both were extremely careful not to use their odder spells in front of Instructors or faculty heads in case the said person tried to follow up with a reasonable explanation. If it got out that two cadets had these spells and no reasonable explanation followed on how they managed to come across them; especially if they were so far out of the range that even during the day the Cadets were unable to venture too, the Headmaster could use that as an excuse to involve the other Gardens to find the answer, and bring the attention to Commander Leonhart…who she heard did not go easy on those that deliberately broke the rules.
Also, they had ventured to card huts to play with the best from their Garden as well as surrounding area's in mini tournaments of Triple Triad. Both she and Kayden were now considered up and coming duelist champions, not to mention they both have amassed an impressive deck.
It helped her confidence to know that the majority of the monsters that were on the plains surrounding Galbadia Garden she could hold off and defeat single handedly. That did not include all monsters though, both she and Kayden were quite careful not to wander too far away from the plains or near any forests…there was a slim chance that their presence may be noted by a feared Wendigo or worse, an Ochu.
Not that an encounter with the aforementioned Ochu had changed their minds drastically on heading out of Garden after curfew. During one wandering last year, she had saved her companion's life by slicing down on the hulking mutated plants' massive head and right through to its unprotected cranium and calmly pulling the trigger; casting well aimed bullets into its brain. The pale creature, with its dark green skin shadowed in the path of the almost nonexistent moon, toppled quickly, faster then she had thought it would, and she ended up being thrown back first onto a nearby tree branch.
She had come to quickly, shaking off both the shock of the throw and the pain of the unexpected encounter with the tree, to see Kayden quickly slice the neck of the creature and thus making sure it was 'gonna stay down.'
She had argued that she had most likely hit its central nervous system when she sliced the creature through the monstrous head and hit its cerebral cortex with the powerful firing of the Gun section of her Blade and it would have lost the ability to stand and counter within moments of the attack. This was all done nonchalantly while she intently studied the lines of her own Gunblade looking for hidden damages as well as cleaning the 'goo' off of it.
They both limped back to Garden, after a quick bath in a lake to rid themselves of the distinctive smell of Ochu blood and an even quicker fire spell to dry themselves with. They had just returned to Garden, and had just slipped in their rooms when the obscuring darkness had vanished under the coming of the sun for another day.
Neither had given a particularly believable account of what had occurred that night, but gave the same story every time they were asked to explain the mysterious bruises on her back and left side ribs or the scratch that donned Kayden's Gunblade for weeks afterwards. And because they gave no more information other than a training mishap, it was soon dismissed by the instructors at Galbadia Garden as just that. She was fairly sure they all knew she and Kay were traveling outside Garden after curfew, but they did not bring it up in conversation. She and Kayden just referred to it as 'the incident' when it came up in an argument, to keep the others in the dark, to their nighttime wanderings.
But on their next excursion outside, both had avoided the now ominous forest without either actually saying anything to that fact.
The only time that they were caught by an instructor, for some reason the punishment had been so light that it was not a punishment at all. They had been 'ordered' by the Galbadian Commander of Garden, Charles Verauan, to train for five hours in the training center. A common occurrence for them anyways and nothing out of schedule either.
At some point, she had been told she had fallen into favour with the Commander at Galbadia Garden, and he now seemed to interfere when the Instructors or Martine tried to discipline her. And until someone gave her a good enough reason to stop, she saw no real harm in their wanderings, as long as they were careful.
She recognized a good situation when she saw it, and did nothing too drastic to curb any major attention from those that could go above her Commander to issue a more lasting and severe punishment. And the only person that had more authority in Galbadia Garden then its own Commander, was Squall Leonhart. But since she and Kayden did so many things that slid under the radar, they were frequently left alone and, for the most part, unchecked. And as she had heard from her friends, if she and Kay had grown up in Balamb, it was likely they would be disciplined severely for their transgressions.
Kay, for the most part, was completely unconcerned with that idea, but had agreed not to flaunt their supposed favouritism around, unless it did gain the attention of others who would be able to rectify the situation.
Besides, she mused, it was unlikely that her own Headmaster would ever need to involve another Commander in an issue concerning a SeeD cadet. Even if he thought their own Commander would let someone get away with anything, while others were punished harshly. She supposed she rebelled as his rules were unfair to others and because he had picked favorites; she had little to no regard for him.
It had concerned her, though, that Verauan would be weak enough to show favouritism to specific students, SeeDs or Instructors though. For, if a trivial fact like the cunning of method of escape and their blatant disregard for what the rule should have been read as, was viewed as being amusing by the man they were supposed to respect; then it would be just as easy to fall out of favour.
And because of his favouritism, he had suppressed any attempt for that tricky 'be' to be replaced with a more sure word or phrase like 'stay' or 'remain and not leave.' Of course this was relatively easy to do, as all he had to do was assure Commander Leonhart of the original Garden that there had been no recorded misunderstandings on that word.
Kay and herself were not mentioned because, according to the 'Galbadian Commander', none had been found outside of their rooms after curfew; unless by accident and usually they had just realized the time and were extremely apologetic (she had a feeling that Verauan had classified her and Kay under that heading. It was odd though because when they had been found neither had been particularly apologetic in any way). It was not right to punish those who made a simple mistake; just as long as it was not repeated (they had not been found again; so in his mind the incident had not reoccurred).
Thus the painful and expensive task of recalling all SeeD manuals from everyone that had a copy at G-Garden and printing new ones was not necessary. That was the last attempt she had heard Martine had made to fix the situation, probably frustrated by how quickly Verauan had suppressed his idea.
And the only reason she and Kay did not make the situation worse for the nearly retired Headmaster, was because they both respected the man. His rules were fair to all and favoured none, and he attempted to run the Garden the way it was supposed to be. For her, she believed that nothing should ever come easily to some and not to others, and thus felt little to no respect for the man that commanded the SeeDs within the largest Garden. But when asked by Martine for a reprieve from their 'activities' they both immediately obeyed, for awhile.
Verauan was not neutral, and would pick and choose his favourites with freedom of one who knew he would get away with it. She was one of the ones that was picked, but really did not wish to be. No matter what she seemed to do, he always interfered on her behalf.
'His constant interference attracts attention to me. I'm not that different from the other students! I should not be a favourite just because I'm proficient in the Gunblade, as well as other forms of defence with swords, daggers, or guns. But he gloats that he has two students who are up and coming Gunblade legends! As if that's the only fact that matters to him that we've happened to pick the same weapon as the Commander at Balamb Garden! It's a Gunblade…so what? I don't want that attention! I wish Bast…no… can't use his power too often…'
'Hush Child.' The gentle voice whispered to her. 'It is of no matter. You are aware of your own accomplishments, and if someone only wishes to admit one then he is not worthy of your respect.'
'I just feel like I've been favoured for the wrong reasons. He expects great things from me just because I use a Gunblade…and he anticipates that I am to respect him…he's blind to all the other students and their own strengths. He focuses only on some…'
'Then he is not worthy of others respect…'
'He should be fired!'
'Hush…Do not let the situation worry you, there are people like that in this world…'
That seemed to end that conversation, as she abstractedly petted her silky dog's head as he lay next to her, seemingly picking up on her distress and moving to comfort her. He had always comforted her, since before she could remember. Bast's dark brown liquid eyes met hers and a wave of calmness echoed from them into her. With his dark fur, he was nearly lost in the darkness of the room; when he was on the floor it was near impossible to see where dog began and the darkness ended. The only relief to his dark colouring was a tiny amount of brown on his face, surrounding his eyes like a mask, and donning the tip of his long and frequently wagging tail. He had been her companion since 'before' and would always be there.
He was not an ordinary dog. Something far more powerful, and ancient, laid only resting in a bound form. And for some reason, he had chosen her as his person, and she could not express how grateful she was for that company, on the darkest of nights and during the darkest of her days. She suspected he was an ancient and, until recently, lost Guardian Force, but did not know why he had picked her. His response was that she drew him to her, and he chose a form that would not scare her as a small child; the form of a mid sized very cute dog. And as far as she could remember he had not even given her his true name…but allowed her to call him 'Sebastian' and answered to affections such as 'Bast' or 'Bastian.'
Bast managed to convince everyone else that he was always a two year old, incredibly well trained, dark collie. But in truth, he was far older, older than the ten years she could recall him being with her…since before the pain. And he helped her live through it.
Shaking her head to rid herself of those thoughts that plagued her for years, she continued with gently stroking both her precious friend as well as trying to read her mantra for survival. 'I am on my way to becoming a SeeD…I will not be bound by my past nor will it affect my future…I will make it on my own…I--will be a SeeD, and I will be a good one.'
She had survived the SeeD written exam, almost studying day and night for weeks, never taking a break for longer than four hours at a time…and that was only to sleep. She thought over the material in class, running it through over and over until she could repeat everything without hesitation or uncertainty. Staying up later than lights out, studying, avoiding Kay during this time so that he could not get her to sneak out with him and lose that time too. She kept on reading, and had not slept the night before the test. And she was successful. Her short term memory overwhelmed with information that her answers were incredibly detailed and precise. She had tied Kay for the highest mark…a feat seeing as his mother was the legendary genius SeeD, Quistis Trepe.
And so that night, after sleeping for several hours, she had agreed to celebrate with her boyfriend. Unfortunately, his version of celebration involved, once more, scaling down the Garden walls. Over the three years she had known him, they had gotten quite proficient at it. He would usually scale quickly down using a jump wire, and then disassemble it at the bottom. Her method was more direct and more dangerous, magic. Thus she always had float and aero spells stocked fully.
It had been a hard test; she had seen others agonizing over answers, hesitating and second guessing themselves. SeeDs were normally in situations where they could not second guess, and could not erase the answer and try again…as they could on paper. They had to be calm, rational and not prone to excessive amounts of emotion and they needed to have the answers. And it was calming to her when she had the answers laid out in front of her. 'I won't always have that though…I must be ready to act on my own initiative based on my knowledge of SeeD practices and the current situation. I won't have time to second guess… I don't think I'm ready for this…'
In the end, it had been Kayden that had forced her to move ahead. He had simply stated that he intended this to be the year he was going to become a SeeD. She had not responded to that, but had responded in a manner he probably had predicted she would when he stated he did not think she could keep up and was still a little girl. That started off another verbal spat between the two. But when all was said and done she applied to the programs that were necessary to allow her to be considered ready to attempt the difficult SeeD exam.
And where most failed the test, a few made it through to the first part of the SeeD practical exam. And even fewer of the graduating year made it past that challenge.
They had been led, in a group to a tomb. It was formally known as the 'Tomb of the Unknown King', centered on the peninsula tip that curved upwards forming one half of a circle above Deling city. Upon getting there and setting up camp, all the Cadets eligible for the challenge were outfitted with a location device. Probably, she had assumed, in case they became lost in the structure ahead and could not find their way out. She remembered promising herself she would not be one of those.
When they were told that this was their second exam she read up as far as she could on the maze like structure, looking for any hint on what to expect. As far as she could determine, the idea was like a large circle, follow one path never veering from that and you would find a way through. She had memorized the maze…or at least the landmarks in the maze. In the very center sat the tomb of the man no one remembered. Directly above that point following a straight line was a flood gate control.
According to her gained knowledge, both switches were listed as being what they were. To the left (if it could have been considered left) was the drawbridge control. And to the right of the flood gate controls sat an empty room that had been rumored to be the deserted living place of a Guardian Force. She knew that within the maze she would have to rotate the map suitable to her location.
She had also read up and memorized all the creatures that were rumored to dwell in that place; for example the most common were Blobra, Buels', Bombs and Armadodo. Those were the four she was expected to be able to handle, with help of course. If something more challenging like a Forbidden came up, the instructor would step in and she would be the support instead. She had learned that Forbiddens' normally did not appear in the catacomb but had on occasion been found inside. And to deal with those creatures she had memorized their stats, their individual strengths and weakness to magic and items as well as their relative strength and what magic could be drawn from each. And to be on the safe side, she also memorized the information of the monsters that dwelled on the outside of the tomb as well. Kaidia Dos-Santos always tried to be prepared.
She had been taken by car to the misty tomb of someone that passed to death so long ago that only his tomb was known about. He had been forgotten by all, no one even knew his name. It was sad that the only thing mentionable about this lost one was the location of his body. She did not want to be forgotten like that, where all traces of your existence vanished from memory and all that was left of you was an empty body left to decay in some grave. And a few centuries after your death, that would vanish too.
'I do not want the attention…but I don't want to vanish? Does that make sense?'
The second part of the exam had been interesting, from her perspective. Kaidia sighed; it had been more like an earth bound nightmare. The student had been blindfolded and lead into the maze, following some indeterminate route until all semblance of direction was lost. The instructor was not allowed to speak to the student, only to give advice on the enemies that sauntered around the dim decayed building and that was only if the student asked, and then said student was told to find the exit.
Kaidia had started thinking right away. Taking a piece of chalk, she nicked the wall they were standing at with an arrow, pointing in the direction she had gone when she started in, given the slim chance that her idea would not work. She had guessed that they would be asked to find something, starting at the entrance; not to have to find their way out. She had been in a corridor with a possible four exits, one behind her, two to either side and one ahead.
It really didn't matter where she was in the maze she had realized quickly, all she needed to do was find a side wall, or the center section where the casket sat in desolation. Because if she found the center then the answer was to head straight down from there, and that would answer the question of where the exit was. For heading straight down would either lead to the drawbridge or the exit of the maze, and either way she was assured of her location.
Of course, nothing usually went well for her on a good day, and this certainly wasn't a good day. She had not walked straight into the center square. Instead, her picked direction had lead on into the maze. She had picked to head right of her current direction and would continue heading straight on that path with her quiet instructor in tow, despite the opens of new paths. It was dizzying in there, nothing ever changed about the appearance of the walls she was following, and she was almost sure this had been some obscure joke. The tomb itself was small, but because nothing ever changed about its cool confines, it could cause some to lose their heads and panic. And the monsters that inhabited the prison only added to the possible panic.
The only noted advantage was that she was able to successfully draw the magic spells Firaga, Thundaga, Blizzaga, Quake and by an odd chance Meltdown from one of the sleeping bombs that attacked them. It was possible that she attracted the stronger monsters after so easily defeating the first wave.
She and her instructor had traveled through two more rooms where there had been three choices of where to go. She had, despite the original direction of right, had kept walking straight on the path and had finally seen the outer wall. She knew this because there was no 'straight' in this case. And once again, to not confuse herself she headed right. Knowing that once she had hit the wall, she only had to find an identifying location, like the empty area where the GF had been, or the floodgate or drawbridge controls to figure out the path that would lead them out with the minimal amount of time. She knew that each of those areas would break into the wall of the cave, and thus she would still be following the dungeon walls and would nearly stumble onto a locater. To her relief they found one left line after only venturing one chamber. She entered it and found the empty nest of a long forgotten GF…and quickly left once more.
With the silent tail she had followed, she watched her every move carefully. Knowing the basic layout served her here. She had to assume that left of where she had originally met the wall was the floodgate control. As the dungeon wall followed headed left into the GF's pit, she must have come from the spot above that location, and conveniently, much to her surprise, was already heading in the right direction to the exit. And so she continued walking, without hesitation, left from the spot where the GF had sat so long ago, knowing that it would be the opposite too her memorized map now. And then it was just a question of following the wall of the maze and never deviating from heading left whenever a choice presented itself, she used the wall as her guide to exit the complex and once she hit a section that had three more directions than the one she came in, left, would be the exit.
And so, without uttering a single word at any time to her instructor, she passed the second requirement to the SeeD exam. Apparently with one of the best times too, out of the small group of sixteen that passed. About twenty had failed already by the time she was left to entertain herself with paranoid images of rockslides and monsters that should not be found in this cavern attacking. Her paranoia became ridiculous when she found herself mentally pondering the notion on whether it was possible that a mutated form of mini Ruby Dragons existed only in here. She had tried very hard to turn her thoughts off after that initial discovery of the direction of her thought. And soon both herself and her instructor had found themselves outside, blinking in the mid day sun. She had only been in there for around an hour it seemed, but it felt as though it had been longer.
Only after exiting was she questioned extensively by said instructor and the other higher ups in Galbadian Garden, wishing to know her strategy for finding the exit. There were situations where she would have to trust herself to find the way out by logic, not rely on chance or the sensitive nose of her 'dog', and indeed she had passed that test.
Now lay the third and most daunting challenge…the actual SeeD exam. She did not know what lay ahead, so she studied for every form of challenge she could think of. And finally, after hours of pouring over books of monster, weapons and magic theory, as well as her detailed notes and the SeeD manual she now held, she felt as ready as what she could be…which, this time, was not reassuring. But it was here, the night before, and all she could do was stare without recording anything from her book and pat her dog. She had never felt so unsure of herself in her entire life, well as much of it as she wanted to remember or could remember. Until this point, she had been confident enough, but now she felt like a real little girl, afraid of the future and of the dark.
When she had started this a year ago, accepting Kay's challenge, she had never dreamed it would be so difficult…but it was SeeD and she should have known that only the best pass. 'But am I good enough? Am I really ready for this? Before this every day seemed assured, scheduled, in what I could expect; classes, training, lunch, training, classes, homework, dinner training, bed, training…and then attempting to sleep. But now…it's like standing in a doorway, the room behind me I know, but what's ahead is hidden in shadows. Thinking is not doing me any good…again. Kay says I think too much and I'm beginning to agree with him.'
'He is not the only one that shares that sentiment, Child.'
Ah yes, Bast, or whoever Bast really was, had expressed such when her thoughts overflowed as they were now.
'Remember, love, I will be there…'
'I just feel like something's going to change…'
'Something will change…you are stepping into your future.'
'No…its not becoming a SeeD…I feel like something's going to happen…something horrible…'
'You have faced so much, and I'm sure whatever happens in the next day you will find the courage to face as well…as well as the strength to keep going. The one you name Verauan believes you will succeed because he wishes it…I know you will succeed because YOU wish it and you have the dedication to make it so. Rest, little one, you are tired.'
'I…I'm scared…of this feeling.'
'There is no reason to fear feelings, only to accept them and be able to move with them…What happens will happen…there is no avoiding these things. And worrying about them will not ease your mind. Instead it will further your panic and leave you stressed. You will not be at your best if you do not rest…Come…Let me help…'
He was referring to one of his odd powers. Where he would calm her with his own peace and love, and allow her to sleep when she could not find the strength to sleep herself. He would lie next to her, and she would curl up with her body around his, like a stuffed animal, and listen to his soft heart beat while his words, a lulling song, echoed in her mind. And when she was relaxed enough she would slip away to sleep. She fell into this position without thought.
'I love you, Bast…'
'And I love you, more then you can ever imagine…Now sleep, little one…let lie your concerns…I am here and I will always be with you…no matter what the future holds.'
Well there it is…Tell me what you think.
Ja'ne
Avion Jade
