Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to Final Fantasy 8, Square or Alt-J. This is just for fun.
Chapter One
Sleeplessly embracing
Yawn yearns into me
Plenty more tears in the sea
And so you finally use it
Bedding with me you see at night
Your heart wears knight armour
~ Hunger of the Pine – Alt-J
His day had started typically enough. He rose with the pale light of dawn, swinging long legs from his sleep-dishevelled bed and running a callused hand through similarly sleep-dishevelled hair. It had grown long these last few weeks and was in dire need of a cut. Seifer had dressed warmly against the sea's chill that permeated every nook and cranny of this old house; long johns underneath his trousers, a fleeced jumper over a thermal shirt and thick socks tucked into well-worn brown leather boots that were so overused that they no longer creaked as he walked. He glanced out of the frosted window and took in the starkness of the landscape and the burgeoning weather. Despite the salt of the sea, a thin layer of snow had settled over the steps down to the beach and the small rock garden. It gave the area a faintly magical aura; the snowflakes slowly melting amongst the salt, glittering vainly against the morning sun's weak rays as they filtered pitifully through the snow clouds, as fair and dense as goose feathers. Seifer could appreciate its beauty only a moment before his mind settled on his tasks for the day. The snow and the cold only served to make things more difficult. He had intended to continue his work rebuilding the back wall, but that was not possible with the surrounding damp of melting snow. Seifer sighed, irritated that his good work was interrupted. Any major building work would need to be curtailed until the weather improved.
The house was silent. No footsteps echoed on the bare stone floor but Seifer's heavy tread. Edea was gone for now, travelling around the world with Cid, looking not only for new children to be taken into the orphanage, but also for new buildings in each corner of the world, in every city, to take in parentless children. In the meantime, Seifer was left to attend to the repairs of the current orphanage. It had sustained considerable damage over the years, not only from the war, but from general disuse over the years. When he had arrived here three months ago, browned and lazy from four years of fishing and dozing on Balamb's harbour side, the floor had been coated with dust an inch thick and any room without a door had been veiled in black damp that crept into everything, leaving ruined furniture and a constant musty smell that Seifer hated with a passion.
At Edea's behest, for she hated to see her favourite without a purpose in life, Seifer set about first removing all the damp. He had spent weeks drying out the damp rooms with specially imported heaters from Esthar, before he began steaming off the damaged paint and applying new paint in its place. He had carved doors and fitted them himself. He had swept and polished and cleaned until the skin on his hands started to crack. The inside of the orphanage now looked passable as a home, although it was still miles off from perfection as he imagined it.
Seifer had moved his things into a small room off from the main sleeping area that in the past had been used as some sort of laundry room. Miraculously the room was largely intact when he'd arrived and had only needed to be cleaned and warmed up with a portable heater. Now it housed a decently sized bed for one as tall and broad as he, a small table upon which sat a well-used lamp, and several books he had brought with him to pass the long, lonely hours when it was too dark to work or there was little to do thanks to the weather. Seifer had never been one for reading, preferring the heady thrum of action and more action and action begot from that. He'd surprised himself at how easy he'd found it to slip into a book at the end of a long and arduous day working on the building, slowly sipping at whiskey with hot water to ward away the cold.
A dark evening of relaxation was as far from Seifer's thoughts as it was possible to be right now. Since arriving at the orphanage, he had found being idle unbearable. His years spent loafing around Balamb Harbour seemed as if they had happened to someone else. He missed the bright hot sun and the splash of his lure in the azure waters. He missed the flail of the fish in the water as he caught it. Sometimes he had caught big ones and would sell them to the fishmonger. He missed Raijin and Fujin. He missed them most of all, and thought of them often, missing Raijin's raucous laughter and Fujin's tight, secretive smiles.
When he was busy, it was easy to forget about being lonely.
In truth, Seifer did not miss company as much as he'd expected to when he promised Edea he'd help her. Centra was a stark, bare place. Where there weren't expanses of hard rocky territory, there were dark forests full to the brim of vicious creatures. Even fishing here was a bad idea; the surrounding waters contained all manner of horrors and little in the way of edible fish. Anything beyond what could be grown, made or collected at home – milk, cheese, eggs, herbs – had to be flown in. Sometimes Seifer questioned the logic in building an orphanage in this inhospitable place, but like most difficult questions, he tossed it aside and moved on with his day.
It was half an hour later, after washing and shaving his head, that Seifer sat himself down heavily on a stool in the kitchen, a steaming cup of coffee nestled between his hands. He watched as the vapour curled and danced from the rim of the cup, before dissipating into the air like a faithless ghost. Outside the sea roared and more snow was falling, sticking fast despite the salt. The faint squalls of seagulls could be heard amongst the clamour of the waves. Apart from that, silence. Nothing but silence. His head ached with it. In Balamb it had been so easy to silence the stream of consciousness in his own mind but here… amongst a thousand memories and then ten thousand more, it was not so simple.
He loved it here, loved the smells and the sounds and the feel of stone and wood underneath his hands; loved waking in his bed to the sound of the birds in the field and the gentle flow and recede of the sea.
But this silence… it throbbed inside him like a flaring infection. He stared out the window at the new flurry of snowflakes that blurred the landscape. Nothing to do, nothing to do, nothing to do but think of the past and the future and what was and what could be and what could never be. He swallowed and tried to quell the rising anxiety in his chest.
Suddenly a great sound rang out, louder than any wave and more violent. Seifer recognised it instantly and with a swiftness he had almost forgotten that he possessed, lunged across the room and picked up Hyperion, feeling a cold confidence rise in himself as he gripped the hilt. He ran from the kitchen to the main room and positioned himself near the window. With his old soldier's poise, he leaned just enough to survey what was happening outside. He blinked with shock as he realised that the sound he'd heard was the crash and subsequent explosion of an aircraft. He ran to the door and flung it open, before running full kilter down the path to the crash site.
The craft was burning quickly, with smaller explosions blasting from it every few moments. Seifer noticed that the cockpit was open, showing that whoever had been unfortunate enough to be flying that thing had ejected themselves last minute. Shielding himself from the burning aircraft behind a stone wall, Seifer tried to survey the area from his vantage point, hoping for a glimpse of the pilot.
"Hey!" he yelled. "HEY! Is there anyone out there? Shout out if you need help!"
No response. Seifer gave a grunt, knowing now that he had to search for a potential corpse.
I wonder what fun this day will bring, he thought cynically.
Still avoiding the fire, he ran hunched over, Hyperion still in hand, to search for the pilot. When he was far enough away from the heat, he stood at his full height and peered around, scanning the surrounding area for signs of a body or a parachute. Thankfully it didn't take long. About a quarter of a mile away, on a grassy hill beyond the field behind the orphanage, there was a flutter of white. A parachute. Seifer felt his stomach clench as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards the chute. It fluttered like a surrendering flag in the snow.
As he got closer, he could see a spattering of red in the pure white – blood. Seifer reached the pilot and as carefully but quickly as he could, removed the chute that covered them, revealing a shock of golden hair marred by blood and a delicate form that could only denote a young woman. Seifer blinked back his shock as he realised that it was none other than Quistis lying there.
"Shit," he muttered to himself. He didn't move her, aware that it could do more damage. "Quistis," he said. He touched her face, pushing the hair from it to reveal a gash near her hairline that was weeping blood. "Hey, Quistis!"
Sluggishly she opened her eyes, only dimly aware of the fact she was being spoken to. Seifer breathed a sigh of relief; at least she wasn't unconscious. Most likely she was just in shock.
"Quistis, it's Seifer," he said, using his most strident voice. "You've been in a crash. I need to get you inside. Can you move your arms and legs?"
"I… I don't… I don't…"
"I need to get you up. You'll freeze out here. Now, can you move your neck? Move your neck for me if you can, Quistis."
With what appeared to be a great effort, Quistis turned her head to the left and right, wincing slightly from pain. She moved her legs and seemed to be trying to get up.
"Alright, that's good enough for me," said Seifer.
He unclipped the parachute and lifted her up as if she weighed less than a bag of feathers. By some miracle nothing seemed to be broken – most likely she just had a concussion and some cuts and bruises. Quistis's face was whiter than the landscape, her usually pink lips tinged with blue. She was shaking uncontrollably. Seifer felt a pang of pity for her as he carried her bodily back to the orphanage, snowflakes stinging his eyes.
Once inside, Seifer removed her boots, talking to her gently all the while. Quistis was still shaking terribly, but seemed to be aware of what was happening.
"Seifer," she whispered, her voice juddering with the effort. "What happened?"
"You were in a crash," said Seifer softly as he wrapped a blanket around her, placing her in a chair near the fire he had stoked in the main room. "Your air ship went down. I don't know why. Just breathe. You're alright."
Quistis fixed Seifer with a tearful blue-eyed gaze. Seifer felt that pang of pity again – how unlike Quistis it was to cry. "It's alright," he repeated. "You're just in shock."
She breathed deeply and pulled the blanket tight around herself. "I don't know what happened," she said. "One moment everything was fine, the next…"
"Bet you've never be happier to be ejected from an aircraft, huh?" said Seifer.
Quistis gave him the ghost of a smile before her eyes filled with tears again. She was coming to herself now and brushed the tears away with frustration, the old warrior in her returning.
"How's the craft?" she asked.
Seifer pulled a face. "I've seen more intact dumpster fires."
"Damn it," Quistis muttered.
She flinched as Seifer took a step towards her. "You're bleeding," Seifer said. "You've got a pretty bad cut on your forehead. Let me look."
Quistis was taken aback at the sheer gentleness of Seifer's hands as he moved her hair away from the cut. These were hands that had done such damage in the past, but now he was handling her as if she were made of porcelain. "Is it deep?"
Thankfully the cut was clean and shallow. "It's not too bad," Seifer said. "It's already started to clot, so that's good." He glanced at her and was relieved to see that colour was starting to return to her face. "Does it hurt anywhere else?"
"I have a headache," said Quistis. "And my legs hurt. My neck aches too."
"No doubt from your bumpy landing. Anything else?"
Quistis shook her head and looked at the floor. How strange this situation was.
Seifer continued to stare at her. "What were you doing out there anyway?"
Quistis blinked. "I was bringing you supplies," she said. She registered Seifer's obvious surprise and confusion. "Edea had sent a message to Garden informing us of your plans to help her rebuild the orphanage. She wanted someone to bring you supplies – food as well as building materials. I volunteered." She shrugged. "Everyone else was busy."
"I bet they were," said Seifer, his voice studiously devoid of any inflection. He'd heard on the grapevine about Squall's upcoming wedding to Rinoa. It didn't surprise him that Quistis had wanted to get away from that particular maelstrom. Seifer couldn't imagine an event he'd want to attend less, apart from maybe his own execution.
"Well, thanks," said Seifer, eventually. "Sucks that all that stuff is smouldering in the beyonds though."
Quistis gave a deep sigh. "I can't believe I crashed," she said, a pinch of that old self-loathing leaking into her voice. "All those supplies…"
Seifer inwardly groaned thinking about it. He didn't even want to ask what kinds of delicious food and useful materials had been in that cargo. "You'll have to contact Garden when you're feeling back to normal," he said. "Let them know what happened."
Quistis nodded, her cheeks reddening now, as if embarrassed. If there was one thing he knew about this woman, it was that she passionately hated screwing anything up. Seifer considered saying something to make her feel better, but thought better of it; she'd only find it patronising. He made his way to the sink, filled the kettle and placed it on the hob to boil. What she needed right now was a hot drink to take her mind off the crash and some boiling water to clean that cut.
Once the kettle boiled, Seifer made Quistis a tea and filled a small bowl with boiling water and added in a handful of sea salt. Picking up a clean rag, he dragged a stool to sit opposite Quistis.
"Look at me," he said.
Quistis did as he asked, still shaking slightly. She felt vulnerable and utterly mortified. She prided herself on her skills as a pilot as well as a soldier; to crash for seemingly no reason, losing the entire cargo when she'd volunteered for this… she could barely swallow the drink in front of her, she felt so embarrassed.
Trying to shake away the thought, she looked into Seifer's face as he brought the rag dipped in boiling salt water to her face. His piercing green eyes were slightly narrowed as he went about his task. His large hands were surprisingly gentle as he wiped away the dried blood and cleaned the wound. Quistis could barely believe she was in this situation. She'd planned to drop off the goods, say a quick hello and leave. Seifer wasn't generally her company of choice. Although the war was years ago and the world rebuilt, it was still somewhat awkward. She had no real dislike for the man, but he was a tough, solitary individual. Outside of Matron and those two strange friends of his, his contact with the SeeDs was limited. She'd been impressed and a little taken aback at his decision to help rebuild the orphanage, but considering his attachment to Edea, maybe it wasn't such a shock.
Now she was sat opposite him in the orphanage kitchen, shivering despite the warm woollen blanket he'd wrapped around her shoulders, watching as he tended to her injury. She flushed and looked away from his face. Strange character or not, he had always been a beautiful man; Quistis had never found herself at ease around men who looked like that. They made her feel gawky and awkward and natural charm had never been her strong suit. She wasn't like Rinoa, with her easy charisma, or Selphie, with her unquenchable gift for happiness. No, Quistis had always been different in that respect.
Seifer was pleased with his handiwork. The wound was clean and it looked like Quistis wouldn't need stitches. Her shaking had largely subsided now. He applied a slick of antibacterial gel and a sterile bandage over the cut.
"There," he said, the trace of a smile on his austere features. "How's that?"
Quistis lightly touched the bandage with a delicate pale hand. "Thank you," she said.
"Ah, it's nothing," said Seifer, turning away.
"No, I mean it, Seifer," said Quistis. "Thank you." She fixed him with her icy gaze. "You saved me. If you hadn't helped me, I don't know what I would've done…" She trailed off, flushing red.
"Really," said Seifer. "It's nothing. If I hadn't been there I'm sure you'd have thought of something, once you pulled yourself together. You're not some pussy, I know that much."
Quistis raised an eyebrow, then flinched at the pain it caused in her forehead.
"Well, thanks for that," she said archly. "Not some pussy. You have a way with words, Seifer."
At that Seifer gave a bright bark of a laugh and looked at her, his face transformed by a wide heart-stopping smile. "Don't I though?" he said. "Forever the charmer, huh?"
Quistis found herself smiling back, despite her discomfort. "Sure," she said.
A long moment of strange silence passed between them. Quistis turned away and stared out the window. "It's really coming down heavy out there," she said, concerned.
"Yeah," said Seifer, glaring at the billowing flakes. "All that shit's doing is getting in the way of my work." He sighed. "And until the weather dies down, you're not gonna be able to get a message through to Garden."
"Damn," said Quistis. "How long do you think it'll snow for?"
Seifer pulled a face. "Hard to say, winter's pretty erratic down here, as I'm sure you remember."
She nodded, a faint smile on her face. "I remember us all crowding round the fireplace on nights like this when we were kids. It would get so cold in the bedroom that sometimes we'd all fall asleep here." She trailed off. She looked Seifer in the face. "I guess I'll just have to wait. I'm not in any rush to get back, not really." She thought of Squall and Rinoa's wedding, Selphie's excitement; an endless parade of dresses and table plans and soothing the nervous bride. Quistis was glad Seifer couldn't read her thoughts. No doubt being stuck in Centra with Seifer for a few days would be a welcome respite from home. Maybe once she was back on her feet she could be of some use around here.
"Well, that's a good thing," said Seifer. "Seeing as you ain't got a choice right now." Without warning he placed his hand on her forehead. "You're still a little cold. Drink that tea. I'd put you to bed but I want to see if you have a concussion first."
Quistis felt herself flush underneath his cool palm. How was it possible that someone so thorny and odd could be such an unexpectedly good nurse? Once again, she was glad Seifer wasn't reading her thoughts.
Seifer? Putting me to bed? Hyne, now there's an offer I never thought I'd have. She paused, momentarily baffled at her own thoughts. Maybe I do have a concussion, she concluded.
"Alright," she said, coolness returning as if it had never left. "I'll stay. Seeing as I have no choice."
Seifer grinned at her, the old tone of mockery back in his voice, the arrogance alive in every syllable. "There's the Ice Queen I know," he said. "Feeling better already, huh?"
Quistis smiled thinly at him and turned away to the window, watching the snowflakes fall. She couldn't see the sea from here, only hear it. Feeling suddenly exhausted, Quistis leaned back in the chair, heaved a deep sigh and let herself disappear into the white whirl outside the windowpane.
It's been ages since I've written anything so I hope you enjoyed. :) Second chapter should be up in a few days, fingers crossed!
~ Lux