Autumn
Prologue
by almasy
"Through autumn's golden gown, we used to kick our way
You always loved this time of year
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now
'Cos you're not here…
Like the sun through the trees, you came to love me,
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away…
A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes
As if to hide a lonely tear
My life will be forever autumn,
'Cos you're not here… "
Justin Hayward, 'Forever Autumn'
"You're just a little boy…"
Oh, God, she's calling to me again…
Why, why, can't I stop it this time? I've fallen to her so often before, taken in by claims of grandeur, power and fame, fooled by lines spun as if from gold. Lies. Falsehoods. The gold was fake. The dream didn't come true. Nothing worked out as it should have done, and we failed. I failed, she failed, what's the difference? It all amounts to the same nightmare in the end. I almost lived in a dream world; where horror and darkness could not touch me, but if I know...if I know, in my heart that everything she told me was a sham, why can't I refuse her now? Shut my door against the onslaught of her persuasion? Two fingers to the force that ruined me?
I could have been something. Hyne, no; she never got to my ambition. Damn near destroyed everything else inside me, but my drive remained intact. The fact that I could have, even should have, been a hero hasn't been robbed of me, and no amount of kicking in the street, filthy looks or banishments is going to change that. I mean, for fuck's sake, I was a Sorceress' Knight. I was second in line to damn near the most powerful person on the planet. Had she won, I'd have been stronger than God. Had we won, instead of him, they'd be yelling our names in the street right now. Praising our damned souls. Not his. Hyne, I could have been somebody…
But she lost, right? We lost. So we're resigned to being failed nobodies. Or at least, I am. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, no? Seifer Almasy, so close to taking control of the globe, is now shacking up in scarcely more than a mud hut on the outskirts of Esthar. It's a joke, right? I stopped laughing months ago.
Sometimes I think it's worse, y'know; to still have your ambition. Knowing that you've blown it is a lot easier on those who don't give a fuck about what day it is, or when life's going to end on them. You just sit back and wallow, then. But to feel that you're nothing, that you've given up every chance you had of glory, when there's a hunger inside you for it that just won't die…? Yeah, that's tough. But them's the breaks. Maybe one day, fate will do me a favour and I'll stop hungering. Until then, I just have to ignore the smell of the food, right?
I never did stop kicking myself over it. Lost chances, stupid decisions. Idiot that I was. I wish I were him, sometimes. Squall. He has everything I'd die for, and he'd rather die than have it. Figures. The people's superman, that's what he is; everyone fainting in the roads when they see his face, bursting into tears at the mere sight of him. Worshipped wherever he goes. Everyone knows his name and associates all the good stuff with it. You can't go into a shop here, without some faceless customer or another combining the words 'Leonhart' and 'hero', or some such other glorifying adjective. Hyne, that was all I wanted. If I couldn't be loved by whoever created me, if I couldn't be truly wanted by Matron, or accepted by Irvine and the others, I wanted the world to be my friend. I wanted each and every person to embrace me. I wanted that love to surround me like a thick red maze of comfort and make me whole again. I couldn't love myself; I thought myself unlovable. By the time I realised that it wasn't true…game over.
Sure, I wasn't the most appealing little kitten in the pet shop. I was an angry, arrogant little bitch at times, never lacking in attitude or abusive language, with violent tendencies that veered out of control. Maybe I was a dirty fighter to boot. But I wasn't rotten to the core. At the time, I remember believing that I was blackness itself; like a dark tomb that held horrifying monsters deep in its crevices. That nothing would ever throw a light onto me; cleanse the dirt from the walls. I believed myself thoroughly disgusting, and I acted the part. Horrible inside, horrible outside. I couldn't be like him, so fair and just and right, I had to play the monster I thought they all saw lurking inside me. It's a cliché, but wisdom really is a quality worth waiting for. Had I known then what burdens me now…I could have saved my own life.
Would I have been a hero, then? Squall and me, perhaps? We could have both been kings in our own ways. Had I let someone, anyone, inside that tomb and showed them how black it was, how I couldn't escape it, how it tied me into knots and tore me apart, then maybe they'd have seen past my idiotic façade. Perhaps they'd have looked beneath the wisecracks and the arrogant visage. Maybe they'd have accepted my flaws and I. Hyne knows they did it for Squall. And maybe, just maybe, if they'd done that she wouldn't have tempted me, would she?
But hey, someone has to play the bad guy. And I'd kept the role long enough, why not continue with it? Nothing better to do, after all. I'd probably have wound up no more a hero than a random guy in the street, anyway, if I'd have fought with Squall. If I hadn't run off with the bitch, there wouldn't have been a war for Squall to fight, and he wouldn't have wound up a star either. Hmm. Interesting conundrum, this life business.
"I'm not a little boy!"
I don't like the way she lures me. It's as if I know it all in my head, the ins and outs of why it's the stupidest idea imaginable to pay her the slightest bit of attention. And then, everything topples downwards. My sense flies out the window, my stomach tugs at me, and I hear her velvet voice seep through me. It's like liquid gold, her voice. Like Siren's lapping waters, soothing my spirit. It's still a nightmare, being trapped by her swaying tones, but like all sins, it feels so good that you can't help but enjoy the ride. Like I said: sense out the window.
I want her to leave. I really want her to leave. But when it comes down to it, I can't tell her to. There's nothing I can do if she wants to summon me, much as I'd like to spit in her face and run for the hills. Maybe sense is no match for her power. Certainly the case in the war, no? There's no point in dwelling on the fact that she downright lied to me, that nothing she promised ever turned out as it should have done; the bottom line is that I don't have any other promises. I don't have any other offers, do I? Nobody else is banging at my door, telling me they want me, that they need me, that I'm everything to them. She is. Does that make it wrong for me to let her in?
Hyne, maybe I am just a fool, to make the same mistake twice. To know that this can only bring more hatred upon my shoulders and agree nonetheless. But I'm scum already. I've gone down in history as the guy who lost. The villain. The one who tried to kill The Heroic One. The stupid bastard; the one they love to hate. Can I change that, by accepting her into my life again? I don't know. It doesn't seem like I can make it worse though, does it? See, that's my ambition talking again. Strive to change, Seifer. Your dream is still out there for the taking. You're somebody, you know you are. Reach out, reach out…
Can I turn the tables? Who knows? But I can't just sit around and wonder the question, until I've grey hair and no teeth. I have to get out there and try. If it all comes to nothing again, I'll be executed this time. Fine. My life's over anyway, if I live the rest of it as a blank nothing, with a roof over my head that's threatening to collapse and nobody to care if it did. But if I win this time…
Victory.
…I can't imagine anything else that would taste that sweet, can you?
---
There's a moment, just after acceptance, when the fear hurts more than the persecution. It's an icy apprehension; no longer am I safe in my bed, hearing the voice but pretending not to. I am going somewhere; there is a purpose to my life. We have been brought back together, and even the bad guys get scared sometimes. She is calm, of course. Who? My summoner. Her identity is just another mystery that I cannot fathom out. My first thought, the gut feeling, is that it's the same old, same old. Edea, or ultimately, Ultimecia. The voice is too similar, the way she strokes over the words that make me weakest. She knows me too damn well. But of course, logic and reasoning has to get in my way again. It can't be Ultimecia; she lost her life as I did mine. Rules out that option, huh? But even I can't discount the persuasive argument that is the familiarity of her tone. It has to be her. Nobody else can work me the way she does. Even Squall couldn't bring the vulnerable out in me, though I tore it out of him. This Knight can't fall for anyone but her, and that's the cold truth. How she's come to me, seemingly beyond the grave, though, is something I can't explain. I know she passed her power down, but…that would leave my Sorceress as Rinoa. The thought that it could be her is just laughable, frankly. She's a nice girl, but she's only good for one thing, and Hyne knows it isn't her magical powers. Even beyond anything else, why would she summon me? Putting all that happened aside –how much she and the others must despise me for all I did-, she has Squall now. Does it matter if I was her first? She has no use for me now, and I'm willing to wager that the last thing she'd want is having me turn up on her doorstep again.
So, that's a dead-end as well.
Seifer Almasy; Sorceress' Knight extraordinaire, if he can just work out who his Fair Lady is…
All I know is that she's requested my help, somewhere in the hazes of this dream, and I've accepted her pleas. Agreed to stand by her side once more; battle her foes no matter what part they may have played in my life. I've sacrificed my soul to her, poured my hope into a mutual engine for success and glory. All I can hope for is that we don't fly off the road.
She'll reveal herself to me soon enough, I guess. What's important is that our bond is back, the bows of our ambition have been retied. We're not going to lie down and die here. We've our eye still on the goal, and I'll be damned if we're not gonna have another shot at it.
The world better watch out. Seifer's a-coming back and I can't promise that his intentions will be completely honourable.
Ready to play the hero again, Puberty-boy?
---
Prologue
by almasy
"Through autumn's golden gown, we used to kick our way
You always loved this time of year
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now
'Cos you're not here…
Like the sun through the trees, you came to love me,
Like a leaf on a breeze you blew away…
A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes
As if to hide a lonely tear
My life will be forever autumn,
'Cos you're not here… "
Justin Hayward, 'Forever Autumn'
"You're just a little boy…"
Oh, God, she's calling to me again…
Why, why, can't I stop it this time? I've fallen to her so often before, taken in by claims of grandeur, power and fame, fooled by lines spun as if from gold. Lies. Falsehoods. The gold was fake. The dream didn't come true. Nothing worked out as it should have done, and we failed. I failed, she failed, what's the difference? It all amounts to the same nightmare in the end. I almost lived in a dream world; where horror and darkness could not touch me, but if I know...if I know, in my heart that everything she told me was a sham, why can't I refuse her now? Shut my door against the onslaught of her persuasion? Two fingers to the force that ruined me?
I could have been something. Hyne, no; she never got to my ambition. Damn near destroyed everything else inside me, but my drive remained intact. The fact that I could have, even should have, been a hero hasn't been robbed of me, and no amount of kicking in the street, filthy looks or banishments is going to change that. I mean, for fuck's sake, I was a Sorceress' Knight. I was second in line to damn near the most powerful person on the planet. Had she won, I'd have been stronger than God. Had we won, instead of him, they'd be yelling our names in the street right now. Praising our damned souls. Not his. Hyne, I could have been somebody…
But she lost, right? We lost. So we're resigned to being failed nobodies. Or at least, I am. Oh, how the mighty have fallen, no? Seifer Almasy, so close to taking control of the globe, is now shacking up in scarcely more than a mud hut on the outskirts of Esthar. It's a joke, right? I stopped laughing months ago.
Sometimes I think it's worse, y'know; to still have your ambition. Knowing that you've blown it is a lot easier on those who don't give a fuck about what day it is, or when life's going to end on them. You just sit back and wallow, then. But to feel that you're nothing, that you've given up every chance you had of glory, when there's a hunger inside you for it that just won't die…? Yeah, that's tough. But them's the breaks. Maybe one day, fate will do me a favour and I'll stop hungering. Until then, I just have to ignore the smell of the food, right?
I never did stop kicking myself over it. Lost chances, stupid decisions. Idiot that I was. I wish I were him, sometimes. Squall. He has everything I'd die for, and he'd rather die than have it. Figures. The people's superman, that's what he is; everyone fainting in the roads when they see his face, bursting into tears at the mere sight of him. Worshipped wherever he goes. Everyone knows his name and associates all the good stuff with it. You can't go into a shop here, without some faceless customer or another combining the words 'Leonhart' and 'hero', or some such other glorifying adjective. Hyne, that was all I wanted. If I couldn't be loved by whoever created me, if I couldn't be truly wanted by Matron, or accepted by Irvine and the others, I wanted the world to be my friend. I wanted each and every person to embrace me. I wanted that love to surround me like a thick red maze of comfort and make me whole again. I couldn't love myself; I thought myself unlovable. By the time I realised that it wasn't true…game over.
Sure, I wasn't the most appealing little kitten in the pet shop. I was an angry, arrogant little bitch at times, never lacking in attitude or abusive language, with violent tendencies that veered out of control. Maybe I was a dirty fighter to boot. But I wasn't rotten to the core. At the time, I remember believing that I was blackness itself; like a dark tomb that held horrifying monsters deep in its crevices. That nothing would ever throw a light onto me; cleanse the dirt from the walls. I believed myself thoroughly disgusting, and I acted the part. Horrible inside, horrible outside. I couldn't be like him, so fair and just and right, I had to play the monster I thought they all saw lurking inside me. It's a cliché, but wisdom really is a quality worth waiting for. Had I known then what burdens me now…I could have saved my own life.
Would I have been a hero, then? Squall and me, perhaps? We could have both been kings in our own ways. Had I let someone, anyone, inside that tomb and showed them how black it was, how I couldn't escape it, how it tied me into knots and tore me apart, then maybe they'd have seen past my idiotic façade. Perhaps they'd have looked beneath the wisecracks and the arrogant visage. Maybe they'd have accepted my flaws and I. Hyne knows they did it for Squall. And maybe, just maybe, if they'd done that she wouldn't have tempted me, would she?
But hey, someone has to play the bad guy. And I'd kept the role long enough, why not continue with it? Nothing better to do, after all. I'd probably have wound up no more a hero than a random guy in the street, anyway, if I'd have fought with Squall. If I hadn't run off with the bitch, there wouldn't have been a war for Squall to fight, and he wouldn't have wound up a star either. Hmm. Interesting conundrum, this life business.
"I'm not a little boy!"
I don't like the way she lures me. It's as if I know it all in my head, the ins and outs of why it's the stupidest idea imaginable to pay her the slightest bit of attention. And then, everything topples downwards. My sense flies out the window, my stomach tugs at me, and I hear her velvet voice seep through me. It's like liquid gold, her voice. Like Siren's lapping waters, soothing my spirit. It's still a nightmare, being trapped by her swaying tones, but like all sins, it feels so good that you can't help but enjoy the ride. Like I said: sense out the window.
I want her to leave. I really want her to leave. But when it comes down to it, I can't tell her to. There's nothing I can do if she wants to summon me, much as I'd like to spit in her face and run for the hills. Maybe sense is no match for her power. Certainly the case in the war, no? There's no point in dwelling on the fact that she downright lied to me, that nothing she promised ever turned out as it should have done; the bottom line is that I don't have any other promises. I don't have any other offers, do I? Nobody else is banging at my door, telling me they want me, that they need me, that I'm everything to them. She is. Does that make it wrong for me to let her in?
Hyne, maybe I am just a fool, to make the same mistake twice. To know that this can only bring more hatred upon my shoulders and agree nonetheless. But I'm scum already. I've gone down in history as the guy who lost. The villain. The one who tried to kill The Heroic One. The stupid bastard; the one they love to hate. Can I change that, by accepting her into my life again? I don't know. It doesn't seem like I can make it worse though, does it? See, that's my ambition talking again. Strive to change, Seifer. Your dream is still out there for the taking. You're somebody, you know you are. Reach out, reach out…
Can I turn the tables? Who knows? But I can't just sit around and wonder the question, until I've grey hair and no teeth. I have to get out there and try. If it all comes to nothing again, I'll be executed this time. Fine. My life's over anyway, if I live the rest of it as a blank nothing, with a roof over my head that's threatening to collapse and nobody to care if it did. But if I win this time…
Victory.
…I can't imagine anything else that would taste that sweet, can you?
---
There's a moment, just after acceptance, when the fear hurts more than the persecution. It's an icy apprehension; no longer am I safe in my bed, hearing the voice but pretending not to. I am going somewhere; there is a purpose to my life. We have been brought back together, and even the bad guys get scared sometimes. She is calm, of course. Who? My summoner. Her identity is just another mystery that I cannot fathom out. My first thought, the gut feeling, is that it's the same old, same old. Edea, or ultimately, Ultimecia. The voice is too similar, the way she strokes over the words that make me weakest. She knows me too damn well. But of course, logic and reasoning has to get in my way again. It can't be Ultimecia; she lost her life as I did mine. Rules out that option, huh? But even I can't discount the persuasive argument that is the familiarity of her tone. It has to be her. Nobody else can work me the way she does. Even Squall couldn't bring the vulnerable out in me, though I tore it out of him. This Knight can't fall for anyone but her, and that's the cold truth. How she's come to me, seemingly beyond the grave, though, is something I can't explain. I know she passed her power down, but…that would leave my Sorceress as Rinoa. The thought that it could be her is just laughable, frankly. She's a nice girl, but she's only good for one thing, and Hyne knows it isn't her magical powers. Even beyond anything else, why would she summon me? Putting all that happened aside –how much she and the others must despise me for all I did-, she has Squall now. Does it matter if I was her first? She has no use for me now, and I'm willing to wager that the last thing she'd want is having me turn up on her doorstep again.
So, that's a dead-end as well.
Seifer Almasy; Sorceress' Knight extraordinaire, if he can just work out who his Fair Lady is…
All I know is that she's requested my help, somewhere in the hazes of this dream, and I've accepted her pleas. Agreed to stand by her side once more; battle her foes no matter what part they may have played in my life. I've sacrificed my soul to her, poured my hope into a mutual engine for success and glory. All I can hope for is that we don't fly off the road.
She'll reveal herself to me soon enough, I guess. What's important is that our bond is back, the bows of our ambition have been retied. We're not going to lie down and die here. We've our eye still on the goal, and I'll be damned if we're not gonna have another shot at it.
The world better watch out. Seifer's a-coming back and I can't promise that his intentions will be completely honourable.
Ready to play the hero again, Puberty-boy?
---