Uploaded: 2009.10.20; 2009.11.08 (fixed a typo and generalized)
Disclaimer: Whatever
Marry
"You WILL marry who I choose!"
"I will NOT marry any boy you choose for me! I will choose my own destiny!" a raven-haired girl screamed at her father.
"Rinoa! You WILL marry who I choose! You are too naïve and foolish to choose your own destiny!" The man ordered from across the desk in his study.
"I will never marry who you pick!" a brunette declared to his father.
"Squall! You have to at least meet the girl! I know you're responsible enough to find your own dates, but just think of all the trouble I went through to help you with your social problems!" The man exasperated while wringing his hands at the front door to the Presidential Palace.
"I don't have to meet any boy YOU chose for me to marry, GENERAL!" Rinoa retorted.
"Your party boys are nothing like this one! At least give the boy a chance!" the general commanded.
"A chance? Kind of like how I gave you a chance to make up the 17 years of my life that I thought my parents were dead only to find that only one was, the other was too busy acting like a bumbling idiot president to have time for me?" Squall accused.
"Please Squall! This isn't about me or our past! This is truly the best for you! She's a lot of fun!" the president begged.
"Fun? How can anybody YOU chose for me be fun? General Caraway's idea of 'fun' is probably beating prisoners and disorderly soldiers alike into a bloody pulp! For YOUR information GENERAL, I don't want to be beaten as entertainment!" Rinoa goaded.
"This boy has come highly recommended! He's well-known for being kind and caring!" General Caraway defended.
"You think every girl is kind and caring! You don't know how to read people at all! I'm disgraced that the blood tests labeled me a Loire!" Squall snarled.
"Squall! If you don't trust my judgment why won't you at least see her for yourself? All I ever wanted is for you to have a comfortable life!" President Loire beseeched.
"I don't need YOU finding me a guy to live comfortably with! I can do that just fine on my own! How would YOU, GENERAL GEORGE CARAWAY, even know what a comfortable life is? If you think an overly strict general barking orders for the few hours he was actually home is comfortable then I don't want YOUR comfortable!" Rinoa exclaimed, seething in rage as she used her father's full name with the title.
The general took a few moments to suppress his own growing anger. He didn't need the tabloids to have his face smeared across the cover along with the title 'Renown General Beats Daughter'. He smiled at a new approach to use.
"Rinoa, this boy is highly sought after. I've been told he's very handsome." General George Caraway replied calmly with a grin.
"I don't care if she's the most beautiful creature on the planet! The mere idea that you, Laguna Loire, the klutz, the fool, picked her is what repulses me!" Squall didn't drop the volume to match his father's.
"Squall! What about your reputation? You know most boys are at least dating by now!" President Laguna Loire implored.
"MY reputation? Don't you mean YOUR reputation, Caraway? You know damn well I never cared about MY reputation. It was ALWAYS about YOURS and how much of an embarrassment I am to you!" Rinoa yelled.
"What does this have to do with YOUR REPUTATION? I'll tell you what! You two will tour the world together! The world will follow the most important couple in the world on this tour! The arrangements have already been made!" Caraway revealed.
"You already made arrangements for me to tour the world with some random girl? You didn't even ask me! I don't even want to spend a second of my life with some girl you chose yet you already stick me in a world wide tour with her?" Squall berated his father.
"Squall! You don't understand! Just think of it as a grand vacation! It'll be benefiting the world!" Laguna urged.
"Benefitting the world? Like I care about that! I am 18 Caraway! I'm a teenager! We don't care about the world!" Rinoa shouted.
"Oh now I've heard it all! What do you think your mother would think? What would she think of the selfish and spoiled daughter you've grown up to be? I'm sure Julia Heartily would feel as disgraced as I do!" Caraway suggested.
"Don't you dare even mention mom! You abandoned her and me to go off on your grand dreams of revolution!" Squall scolded.
"Squall! I didn't abandon you and Raine Leonhart! If I didn't leave Ellone would have been left to that crazy Doctor Odine! Don't you even want to know who it is? She's very popular!" Laguna tried one last time.
"No I don't want to know who it is! I already know it's one of your despicable ranking officers, probably three times my age!" Rinoa sniped.
"That's it! I've had it up to HERE with your mouth! You WILL marry this boy or you will NEVER see another boy in your life!" Caraway ended the conversation.
"We'll see about that!" Squall growled as he pushed past Laguna to exit the palace.
"Where are you going?" Laguna asked, almost as if two seconds ago they hadn't been in a heated argument.
"I was supposed to meet Seifer, he wanted a rematch." Squall slid his gunblade into its harness at his hip.
"Well make sure you two don't get carried away like last time!" Laguna called out as Squall disappeared down the driveway.
Squall frowned; Seifer and he had given each other permanent reminders of their friendship in their last gunblade duel. Matching scars ran across their foreheads, right between the eyes. Squall didn't care about the scar to what he had been told was a perfect face; he won the duel anyway. Squall merely hated his father for never shutting up about it.
Rinoa found she was locked in her bedroom after her argument with her father. Rinoa swore she was going to get a biology degree so she could prove that she wasn't really related to that man.
Rinoa smiled for the first time since entering the house.
'When will Caraway ever learn? Locking the door means nothing when there's windows!' Rinoa thought cheerfully as she pulled out her cell phone.
After a few moments a voice picked up on the other end.
"Hello?" A female voice answered.
"Selphie! Are you off work yet?" Rinoa asked enthusiastically
"Uh I will if you let me finish this last order." Rinoa could hear Selphie try to cover the mouthpiece while she yelled at her customer telling him that Rinoa was more important than his side order of curly fries.
Rinoa giggled. "Selphie! You're supposed to be nice to the customers! You're going to get yourself fired!"
"Yea well, I hated this job anyway. My boyfriend said he would hire me if I lost my job so I'm not too concerned."
"Really? Irvine said that? What would you do? Wait. Irvine owns a business?"
Selphie laughed through the phone. "That's EXACTLY what I said! He said he'd find something."
Rinoa laughed even harder. "Selphie! That means he doesn't really have a job for you to take! Don't get fired!"
"Well that would be easier if you let me get back to taking this guy's order. He doesn't even want curly fries anymore! Now he wants garlic fries!" Selphie exclaimed with a gasp of frustration.
"Oh yea! I have to tell you and Quisty something. Can I meet you two at the café in like 10?"
"Yea sure. See you soon Rinny." Rinoa could hear Selphie yelling at her customer to make up his mind before the phone was silenced.
Rinoa quickly dialed another number. This one picked up immediately.
"Hello?" Another female voice answered.
"Quisty! You free?" Rinoa got straight to the point; she now had a 10-minute timetable to work with. Well, maybe 9 minutes now.
"Rinny, you know I'm always free besides the times you and I go to Matron's to help with the orphans."
"I had to ask! And I thought we stopped calling them orphans."
"Fine, children. What did you call for?"
"Oh, meet me and Selphie at the café in like…" Rinoa looked at her clock, "8."
"Alright, Bye Rinny." Quistis hung up.
Rinoa quickly walked to one of the many windows in her gigantic room and shoved it open. She went to her closet and pulled out her escape rope, made out of many bed sheets tied together. Rinoa tied one end to her bedpost and slung the other out the window. She tested its weight before actually descending from her 3rd floor window down to the garden below.
Rinoa ran through the garden towards the front gate, passing the best part of the garden, a statue of her mother playing on a grand piano.
When Rinoa reached the front gate she slowed her pace to sneak by the guard on duty, it wasn't too hard; the post was setup to spot vehicles, not people crawling by. Once through Rinoa checked her cell phone to see she only had 5 minutes until she was late for the meeting she herself called. Rinoa took off at a sprint towards the café.
Squall arrived at the top of the hill to see Seifer lounging against the great tree occupying the very apex.
"Damn Puberty Boy! I thought you chickened out!" Seifer smirked as he saw Squall approaching. "We agreed to meet here 30 minutes ago!"
"Sorry. My idiot father had this stupid idea to marry me off to some chick." Squall informed Seifer.
Seifer burst out laughing. "Laguna is such a moron! He wouldn't even know whether the chick was female! I assume you told him to shove it?"
"Pretty much." Squall grinned, leave it to Seifer to know exactly what to say to brighten his mood. The two had been best friends their entire life. Whenever one started something, the other soon took it up. And once both were sufficiently proficient, or not, they would hold endless competitions. The perfect rivalry. Squall learned to ride a bike, Seifer followed suit and raced until Seifer lost control and ran into a parked car. Seifer learned to pick locks, Squall took up the hobby until they were both caught trying to open Ellone's diary; she wasn't very happy. Seifer learned to box, Squall took it up as well until they both returned home with broken noses. Most recently Squall had taken up the gunblade and both boys were very nearly equally capable with it.
"So you ready to get your butt kicked?" Seifer challenged as he unsheathed Hyperion, his gunblade.
"I don't know, you ready for me to finish that x in between your eyes?" Squall countered as he followed Seifer's lead and withdrew Lionheart.
The two boys charged each other and the duel began.
Rinoa arrived at the café 4 minutes late huffing and puffing.
'Geez! I need to get back in shape! I can't believe it took me so long to run a mile!' Rinoa berated herself.
"Rinny!" Rinoa heard Selphie scream as she entered the café.
"You're late." Quistis stated with a lot less excitement.
"Sorry, I ran as fast as I could. I need to get back to working out. Quisty you want to join me?" Rinoa asked looking for some moral support.
Selphie and Quistis looked Rinoa up and down. "You don't need to work out. You've always had the perfect body Rinoa!"
"9 minutes to run a mile, that's disgraceful! And I feel like I'm going to die right now!" Rinoa exclaimed with disgust.
"Well I'll go get you a drink, hold up!" Selphie literally bounced all the way to the counter where she grabbed a large cup and filled it with water before bouncing back to the table. "Here you go!"
"Thanks Selphie!" Rinoa chugged half the cup of water before putting it down.
"So Rinoa, what was so important for us to meet?" Quistis asked seeing that Rinoa was breathing close to normal finally.
"Oh, Caraway just told me he plans to marry me off to some foreign dignitary!"
"What? No way!" Both Quistis and Selphie exclaimed.
"That's what I said! But he went on some long explanation about it. I don't think he's going to take no as an answer." Rinoa looked sad. She had never really experienced love. Sure she had dated some guys but they always ended up wanting her for the wrong reasons; her breasts, her money, her breasts, her fame, her breasts, her family ties, her breasts. It looked like now she would never realize what love really was.
"Well is the guy at least hot?" Selphie asked trying to lighten the depression Rinoa was rapidly falling into.
"I don't know! I've never met the guy; never seen the guy!" Rinoa exclaimed.
"Well, maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe he's like a foreign celebrity, or movie star!" Selphie shouted excitedly. "Could it be Prad Bitt? He's so hot and he's not from Galbadia! He's from Balamb so maybe he's your future husband!"
"Selphie! This is General Caraway who is arranging the marriage! That alone means it isn't a movie star!" Rinoa laughed at Selphie's misplaced enthusiasm.
"She's right, Selphie. With Mr. Caraway making the decision. It's probably a foreign general… which means he's probably 60." Quistis gave Rinoa a very apologetic look, "Sorry Rinoa, Selphie really would have never figured it out on her own."
"It's okay Quisty, my fate is probably decided no matter what I do now." Rinoa looked defeated. She didn't really know what she had hoped to accomplish by telling her best friends about her predicament. Maybe she just wanted someone to comfort her knowing that Caraway would never do that. "I'm only 18! Why do I have to be married already? I just wanted to experience the kind of love you and Irvine have Selphie! Just once! Is that too much to ask for? To be loved?"
Rinoa was breaking down in tears and both of her friends were startled. Rinoa had always hidden her innocent-self behind a stonewall of strength, mostly developed from constant bickering with her overbearing father.
"Rinny!" Selphie pleaded, "Please don't cry! It's not over yet! Maybe you will find love still! Who knows, maybe the 60-year-old is very lovable! I mean, I love my grandpa!"
Rinoa stared at Selphie through her tearstained face. "I don't want to marry your grandpa Selphie!"
"Well…" Selphie thought hard for a moment, "I know! You can have an affair!"
Quistis and Rinoa just stared at Selphie as the girl beamed at herself for her idea.
Rinoa brought her hands up to her face, which sunk, as one, back down to the table as she mumbled, "I'm doomed."
The two gunblades glinted in the evening sun as their owners struggled for dominance in yet another bout of competition.
"So how are you going to avoid this marriage?" Seifer idly chatted as the two fought.
"I don't know. Just won't show up to anything I guess." Squall returned as he swung for Seifer's neck.
Seifer brought his blade up to block, "That doesn't sound so full proof to me." Seifer swung at Squall's knees.
Squall dropped his blade to block, "Got a better idea?" Squall sliced at Seifer's right arm.
Seifer dodged out of the way and kicked Squall back as he struggled to regain his balance, "I just might."
Neither boy closed the gap between them created when Squall was kicked back.
"Call it for today?" Squall asked heaving to an equally out-of-breath Seifer.
"Yeah." Seifer collapsed where he had been standing to the dirt ground below.
Squall followed suit but crawled over to a rock to rest his back against. "You going to tell me your idea to…"
CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! A train had just arrived in Esthar North Station, right behind the duel hill.
Seifer smirked. "That."
Squall contemplated it for a moment. "Where would I go?"
"Somewhere with enough people to get lost in." Seifer quickly replied.
"Esthar is the largest city in the world. Deling is the next largest. There?" Squall asked as he mulled the idea over.
"That would work." Seifer nodded.
"Hmm, no stupid president pestering me all the time, sounds like paradise." Squall commented.
"Yeah. You know, you're the only person I'll ever meet who can't put up with one man's stupidity in order to gain the wealth of the world." Seifer laughed.
"Would you like to take my place as Laguna's son?" Squall asked as he raised an eyebrow at Seifer.
Seifer stopped laughing for a moment before replying, "Yeah you're probably right, I'd end up killing the guy after the first week."
Squall burst out laughing. "Alright, I guess if I'm going to hightail it I better get to it before Laguna sends a search party out here for me."
"Yeah. Hey, I'll come with you. We can wreck havoc in Deling together, just like we used to in Balamb!" Seifer shouted as his eyes lit up with the possibilities.
"Sounds good! Let's go before we have to wait for another train." Squall got up and sheathed his gunblade before breaking into a jog towards the Esthar North Station. Seifer had to hurry to catch up. Squall added one more comment before disappearing into the station, "Anything is better than having to marry a random girl right?"