DISCLAIMER: Everything you recognize ain't mine. No profit here (chyeah, I wish), so don't sue.
Chapter 1: Pax Galbadiana
"Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage."
- Ray Bradbury
"In a mad world, only the mad are sane."
- Akira Kurosawa
"Gray Zero… to… Leader… copy?"
Oh, how he hated working in Trabia. If there was one place in the whole world that hadn't really been affected by the ban on radio signals nearly twenty years ago, it was Trabia. The vast mountains made it very difficult to get a good reception. Even so, the fact that they were underground was most likely to blame as well.
Weapon held in one hand, he slowly, carefully, reached up. He pressed the gloved tip of his finger against the frequency control and toyed with it for a few seconds, searching for a clearer reception.
"…repeat. Gray Zero to Gray Leader, do you copy?"
There we go.
"Affirmative. Over," he said as quietly as he could.
"Status report. Over."
"Moving along in 2-1-2 formation. Gray Two and Gray Four lead, Gray Leader in position one, Gray One and Gray Three bring the rear. No targets currently in sight. Over," he whispered into the tiny microphone attached to his helmet.
"Proceed as planned. Thermal sensors have reached their limit. They won't be able to pick anything up in a few feet, so be careful. Over and out."
"Copy that. Over," said the Gray Leader, signaling his team now. "Switch to infrared and carry on in 2-1-2. Over."
Almost in unison, the five black-clad men reached up and pulled their visors down. The Gray Leader signaled the two men in front to start moving. As one, the five mercenaries took one step after the other, dirt and gravel crunching under their booted feet.
Gray Two came to a stop at the woebegone wooden door at the end of the hallway and turned to look at him. The leader gave him a firm nod and tightened his fingers around his weapon. Through his earpiece, he could hear the sound of Gray Two's labored breath as the latter approached the door. He closed his eyes, concentrating in earnest, until a clear blue shield formed in front of Gray Two; a Protect spell. The two men leading the small raid took this as their cue to bring the door down. It didn't take more than a single shove with their shoulders before the ancient-looking barrier shattered into a bundle of dust, cobwebs and splinter.
By the time the last few pieces of wood had crumbled to the floor, the Gray Leader had stepped into the dark room that had just been revealed to them, weapon at the ready for any imminent rebuttal. The scope on his weapon scanned the unlit room quickly, searching for any indications of another presence in the room; he found none. "Clear," he whispered into the microphone, and the other four soon joined him, making a reverent deal out of re-scanning the room as a precautionary measure.
It took a few minutes of almost complete silence, save from the combined sound of their breaths, to realize that the room they had just entered contained nothing but more dust and a few old, misshapen chairs that had been knocked down on the floor. The only remarkable feature of the room was that there were no exits.
"Dead-end?" Gray Four muttered, eyes still trying to spot anything the others may have missed.
"Can't be," said the Gray Leader. "We have the blueprints; there should be a way out of this room."
"Maybe the passage caved in?" Gray One suggested, but Gray Three was quick to discard that theory.
"There are no signs of a cave-in in here," he said. "If anything, it looks a little bit too neat, if you ask me. This place was dug carefully."
"Is anyone else sweating their asses off in this thing?" grumbled the Gray Leader, yanking his helmet off. "Someone contact Binary Boy and ask him what the hell's going on," he ordered as he knelt down, wiping a few beads of sweat off his brow.
Gray Two fiddled with the frequency control for a few seconds. "This is Gray Two. Gray Zero, do you copy? Over."
"Yeah, Gray Zero copies. What's wrong?" came a voice filled with boredom and static on the other end.
The Gray Leader held up a hand to silence the man about to reply and picked up his helmet, pulling the microphone cord out to speak straight into it. "You tell us," he growled. "There was supposed to be a Hynedamned exit somewhere around here according to your blueprints, but we can't find shite."
"If you made an effort to actually describe where 'around here' is, I might be able to help."
"We spoke less than five minutes ago. Where do you think? We're in the room right after the main hallway."
There was a small pause on Gray Zero's end. "That's impossible; I'm certain I—"
"There's no bloody exit here. You must've fucked up when—"
"I do not fuck up," replied Gray Zero, in a tone which clearly stated that if anyone dared challenge that claim, they would be very sorry indeed. "I got the right shit, S—"
"Hey! No names, fucktard. The line might not be secure," the Gray Leader cut in quickly.
A sigh from the other end of the line. "It's safe; I know it is. I made certain myself."
"Well maybe someone overrode it."
"Impossible."
"There's always a bigger fish, you idiot," said the Gray Leader, by now getting considerably frustrated. "Now about that exit…?"
The sound of keystrokes came from the other end, followed by a weary groan. "It's there, dammit. Right there. There's a bloody exit marked right on the top rightmost corner. The blueprints are recent. Hell, the whole structure's way too recent for them to be old."
"Hold on a second," said the Gray Leader, starting to stand up. "Your right or my right?"
"How the hell should I know where you're standing? Your right as you entered the room."
The leader stood up on his feet, moving towards the aforementioned corner. There truly was nothing there; or at least nothing visible upon first look. The man began to run one gloved palm over the relatively smooth walls, but he found nothing.
"Talk to me," came Gray Zero's voice through the microphone.
"Nada," the leader said, but continued to search nonetheless.
"Maybe it caved?"
"Nah, TNT-happy says there's no signs of that."
"Well… er… Perhaps—"
"Hold it," said the Gray Leader. He dragged the sole of his boot over the ground before him; it didn't feel solid. He gave it a small stomp for good measure. Wood. A trapdoor. "Found it."
"Wait, wha—?"
"Commander Leonhart's office, this is SeeD Ross speaking. How may I help you?"
Sipping her lukewarm coffee, Shizuka Ross, Balamb Garden's Library Girl extraordinaire, lazily jotted down the credentials of the caller. The girl had long ago realized that regular SeeD missions were not really what she was cut out for, though there were different ways she could serve Garden instead. She had entered the academy of elite mercenaries to prove, to herself more than to others, that her timidness was something she could either work around, or eventually rid herself of. As it turned out, she hadn't been able to do either. But the young woman's sharp wit and friendly disposition made her a valuable asset when it came to Garden's bureaucratic affairs.
That having been said, her dreams of a fascinating career did not include preparing Squall's extra strong coffee and taking his phone-calls. When the opportunity had come up for her to leave the library and work in Squall's office, she had immediately taken it, something she now regretted.
Zell, knowing all about his girlfriend's frustration with her job, had promised he would talk to Squall and see what could be done about giving Shizuka something a little more challenging to work with. For the time being, however, she had to be patient and simply go through the motions, she thought, as she continued taking down notes on what the caller was telling her.
The moment she thanked the man on the other end of the line and placed the receiver back down, the mahogany door behind her was wrenched open. She hurried to minimize the Solitaire window hovering incriminatingly on the forefront of her desktop and looked over her shoulder to see Squall's head peeking through the crack of the door.
"Who was that?" he asked.
"Mission request from FH," she replied. Her laconic reply wasn't enough for the Commander; he gave her an expectant look, waiting to hear the rest. Shizuka hesitated. "The uhh… Umm…"
"Yes…?"
Oh well… Best get it over with. "They said they're having a bit of trouble with a Fastitocalon infestation in the area. They, uhh… the fish that is… they keep chewing their nets," she finally managed.
Squall's expression immediately darkened. Shizuka felt her shoulders tighten as she came face-to-face with the kind of eyes Squall reserved for every bearer of bad news. It wasn't really that Balamb Garden wasn't making ends meet. In fact, business had never been as lucrative. In Irvine's words, the ends were meeting like a motherfucker. On the other hand, the lack of any other active Garden organizations made it practically impossible to ignore requests for help, even those as trivial as the most recent one from FH. The Garden system had operated smoothly in the past, spreading missions evenly among three academies.
However, in the wake of war, two thirds of the Garden Alliance had been put out of business, for different reasons each. Trabia Garden had been utterly destroyed, and Galbadia Garden was currently under suspension by the Garden Council for siding with the Sorceress two years ago. As such, Balamb Garden had to serve the needs for mercenary manpower on a global level.
Even worse, the world now had little need for serious missions. Pax Galbadiana had made things a little more… well, peaceful for everyone. Balamb Garden survived on sponsorships alone, but it wouldn't last for much longer.
On the upside, ever since the fallout from the war had been cleared up, Galbadia had become fertile ground for missions; every nation that had once been independent would be soon looking for a chance to break free from the Galbadian Empire, whose leadership was now in a state of complete and total disarray. The interim government was dealing with minor uprisings daily, and the few SeeD cells deployed throughout Galbadia reported that things were already in motion.
In the meantime, however, the Garden's most pressing concern were Fastitocalon Fish.
"I umm… told them we'd uhh… think about it…" Shizuka began, but received the slam of Squall's door in reply.
With a sigh, Shizuka turned around again and clicked on the minimized Solitaire window. Some days, she really missed the times when Rinoa used to hang out in the office and found ways to distract Squall or keep him happy in general. Not that she had anything against the girl; in fact she liked her quite a bit, though the feeling tended to wither every time the young Sorceress accidentally pressed a button that seemed to erase everything Shizuka had been working on for hours upon hours. Though far from an expert, Shizuka had a fairly decent understanding of computers and modern software, a fact that always made her wonder what on earth that little button that Rinoa claimed to have accidentally pressed was.
Lately, she'd begun to wonder if it was the on/off power button.
The door of Squall's office burst open once more, and in her haste to cover the screen again, Shizuka swiveled her chair around and pressed her back against the monitor, throwing her arms behind her head. Squall blinked at her.
"What are you doing?" he asked, face screwed up in suspicion and confusion.
"Nothing!" Shizuka hurried to say, eyes wide as she struggled to feign innocence. "Just uh… chilling…?"
Squall arched an inquiring eyebrow, but didn't question her any further. "Where's everyone?" he asked instead.
"Everyone?"
"Where's Quistis?"
"In Centra," Shizuka said, in a tone that suggested he should've already known.
"Oh, right," Squall mumbled, rubbing his forehead. Shizuka took this as a cue for more coffee, though her current position made it rather uncomfortable to reach for the pot and fill a fresh cup. One more talent for my resume, she mused inwardly. Squall only continued speaking once he had a warm cup of fresh caffeine pushed in his waiting hand. "Selphie, too, right?"
Shizuka nodded.
"Xu?"
"Instructor Aki invited her as a guest speaker for his lecture today," she replied.
"Irvine?"
"It's his weekend off."
"…Zell?"
"Cafeteria."
"…Rinoa?"
"Work."
The mug shook in Squall's hand, and with purse of his lips, he turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him again.
Through the closed door, Shizuka could hear faint mumbling, until a noise that sounded suspiciously like a stapler hitting the wall was heard, followed by the words, "…GOT A GARDEN TO RUN!"
When the last mercenary had descended through the wooden trapdoor, the team resumed their previous formation under the Gray Leader's orders and proceeded deeper into the underground tunnel. The hide-out, the leader noted with an arched eyebrow, no longer resembled something that had been dug underground. The structure looked more like sewers that had been -mercifully- swept clean. There are no cities within the vicinity. Where the hell did the sewers come from?
"I'm picking something up," Gray One spoke into his microphone all of a sudden, toying with the frequency control attached to his helmet.
Everyone came to a stop at his words, trying to find the correct frequency to listen in as well.
The Gray Leader frowned. For the past minute, he had heard what sounded like absolute nonsense to him, though he had managed to pick up a few words here and there. Still not enough to make any sense of the mutterings, however. "What language is that?" he asked his men.
"Trabian," replied Gray Four.
Huh… Knew it sounded familiar. "What are they saying?"
Gray Four remained silent for a fair few minutes, listening to the conversation taking place somewhere within the structure. Once he'd heard enough, he turned to the leader and said, "They're talking about a shipment of C-4 they're waiting on. I think they're working on the wiring now."
"How much is a 'shipment'?" the Gray Leader asked, fearing the answer.
"Couple of kilos."
Fuck. That's enough to blow a Hynedamned hole in the world. "Then let's get crackin'," the leader said, shouldering his weapon. "Gray Zero," he spoke into the microphone.
"Yeah?"
"I want you to pinpoint a frequency for me; I think it was around 67.5 MHz. Get a lock on their position," he said.
"Give me a couple of minutes. You got the blueprints around?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'll let you know the exact spot once I've secured a lock."
"Good," the Gray Leader said, and removed his helmet again. "Meanwhile, listen up," he said, turning to the rest. "No messing about this time around. I don't want any unnecessary action. Shoot when you have to, cover when someone asks and get the job done. We've pulled off much harder missions; those amateurs shouldn't be too much of a hassle."
"Roger," came the unanimous reply.
"Hey, I got your location."
"Hit me," said the Gray Leader.
"Uhh… three feet to your right."
The leader blinked. "…what?"
"Three feet to your right."
"What the hell are you talking about? If they'd been that close we should've been able to hear something."
"That's where the frequency came from."
"Check again."
"I did!"
"Well check again."
"The hell I will! There's no way I'm mistaken about this. Double and triple-checked."
The Gray Leader's eyes shifted to his right. Sure enough, there was a metallic door just three feet away, but that didn't do much to inspire confidence. The place was filled with doors and hallways. "Are you one hundred percent, sure?" he spoke into the microphone.
"I'm a thousand percent certain."
Sighing, the Gray leader motioned towards the door. "Blast it," he told the rest of his group, and took a few steps back.
Hot…
So hot…
I'm dying, aren't I? This must be what Hell feel likes.
Hooooooot…
"You've gotta… Make you ooown kind of musiiiic… Siiing your own special soooong…"
Hyne… It's far too early for this… far too hot…
"Maaaake your- Up, up, up Quistyyy! Even if nobody else sings alooooong…"
Groaning, Quistis Trepe rolled around the sheets in her bed, counting down from ten.
Ten… Nine… Relax… Breathe… Six… She's just cheerful… Four… No need to take it out on her… Two… One…
"It's so hot in here…" Quistis mumbled sleepily, wiping the sweat off her forehead.
"The AC is running," Selphie said, pulling her socks up to her knees. "But the hotel manager said something about energy conservation or whatever. We can't lower the temperature too much. It's not too bad," she said, getting up from her bed. She checked her reflection on the mirror by the bedside, while taking in big gulps off the mug of coffee in her hands.
Quistis let out a sigh, finally slipping her eyelids half-open. "Still… It's Centra."
Selphie shrugged, indicating that Quistis did have a point. Even at this time of the year, Centra had a lowest temperature of 109 degrees at best. "I know, I know… But if you don't get your squishy buns off the bed and hop in the shower now, we're gonna be late."
Quistis nodded wordlessly, kicking the sheets away with her legs. Why did I even sign up for this? She should have stayed back in Garden, catching up on paperwork or handling some sort of mission instead of getting involved with Garden politics. This was far more Selphie's territory than hers, but the latter had insisted she tagged along. Not that she minded enjoying some of the luxuries of the five-star Kaveria Resort hotel that Garden had so generously paid for, but some cool, refreshing November rain would've felt much better.
Stumbling out of the bed, she muttered a belated, "My buns aren't squishy," to Selphie and headed straight for the bathroom.
Cold shower it is.
The spray of chilly water felt soothing beyond belief, and Quistis let the thin rivulets course through her hair and skin for a fair few minutes as she leaned against the shower tiles. Selphie's cheery song could still be heard through the walls of the bathroom.
"Siiing you oooown speeecial soooong… Maaaake you oown kind of muuusiiic… Even if nobody else sings aloooong…"
…well alright, then.
Stepping in through the small cloud of dust and smoke, the Gray Leader entered the room, weapon at the ready.
The red laser of his scope streamed through thin tendrils of smoke, searching for any signs of movement. Four identical lasers soon followed suit, trying to cover every square inch of the room thoroughly as the dust slowly settled down.
Cautiously, the Gray Leader took a few steps further inside the room, already feeling that something wasn't quite right. Their surroundings weren't much different than they had been when they'd first entered the hide-out. Broken, abandoned furniture, a bunch of crates, nothing but a single table standing up and—
"The transmission…" Gray Four said almost faintly.
The Gray leader shifted his gaze over at the ancient-looking radio transmitter left upon one of the crates. A recording was being played. "Same thing we heard?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.
"Yeah… It's looping."
"It's a trap," Gray One gasped.
"Ya think?" the Gray Leader growled, rounding up on his team. "Out of here, NOW! Go, go, GO!"
The four men cleared the room as fast as they could, and the leader followed suit soon enough, after putting a bullet right through the transmitter in frustration. A trap… All this preparation, the fucking journey… All for nothing… He reached for the door—
Click.
"NL!"
For the merest flicker of a second, his heart stopped beating.
…boom.
À la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle
Que je m'y suis baigné
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai.
Sous les feuilles d'un chêne,
Je me suis fait sécher
Sur la plus haute branche,
Un rossignol chantait
The faint, pulsating hum in his ears woke him up. For a second, he thought he'd gone nearly deaf, picking up only minor changes in pitch, as if his head was underwater.
But the Second Sorceress War had thought him well enough… His hearing would return any moment now, with a shrill, painful ringing. There… There it was.
Fuck, just shoot me now, he grumbled to himself, wincing as he instinctively covered his ears, though it was no use.
The explosion must've been loud enough to be heard to the four corners of the world. Was he missing a limb? No… everything felt intact. But his chest hurt. There was something very heavy lying right on top of him, squishing his lungs to jelly.
He opened his eyes, little pieces of plastic slipping down his cheeks. His visor had broken. Fuck, everything feels broken. It was impossible to say what hurt the most. His head, his ears, his chest, his legs? He could tell he was covered in dust, probably in bruises, too, and his hearing hadn't fully returned yet. He could only make out one single sound; a song.
Someone was singing.
Wait… what?
"Je voudrais que la rose fût encore au rosier …"
What the...?
"Et que le rosier meme á la mer fût jeté…"
"Stop it already," he groaned, more to himself than to the voice, thinking the song was a strange hallucination rather than reality.
Silence.
"À la claire fontaine, m'en allant promener. J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle. Que je m'y suis baigné…"
Turning his head to the side with difficulty, he saw through heavy-lidded eyes the source of the song. A woman was siting on the ground with her back against the upturned table. She was curled up into a tiny little ball, arms wrapped around her bent knees, and she swung back and forth on the spot, singing.
The Gray Leader blinked tiredly. Was he hallucinating? His team and he were the only ones in the room; they'd checked. He tried to take a deep breath in—and only now noticed the heavy metal door crushing his chest.
Must've been blown off the hinges at the explosion, he thought. Which was rather lucky, considering that if he hadn't been shielded by the door, the flying debris would've most likely killed him. Nevertheless, it would probably be wise to try to and push it off him; it was getting difficult to breathe.
"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. Jamais je ne t'oublierai…"
"STOP IT," he growled, but his voice was soon drowned under a whopping coughing fit.
The woman went on, unperturbed. The Gray Leader glared at her through piercing, jade eyes, taking in her appearance. He was now convinced she was no apparition, for he could not think of a single reason why he'd choose to hallucinate about this woman, of all people. She was old, with long, almost white scraggly hair. Her skin was covered in deep wrinkles and she had a melancholy voice, hoarse with age and sorrow.
Even stranger than the fact that she was there, was the fact that she appeared to be unaware of her surroundings. Had she even noticed the explosion?
"Hey lady," the Gray Leader croaked, trying to get her attention. She didn't turn around. "Hynedammit," he swore through gritted teeth. He had an inkling she did not understand Balamese, and he was absolute crap when it came to foreign languages.
"Uhh… parlay voos Balamese?" he asked, now wishing he'd paid more attention in Trabian class as a kid. He blamed it all on Instructor Fairweather, who had what was without a doubt the most hypnotizing voice on the planet. "Esthari-go yamer... er... yamero, yameru? Shumi? Milai Centra? Fuck, parlay voos anything?"
As if coming out of a long, deep trance, the woman stopped singing and turned her weary blue eyes at him. Her gaze was unfocused, like that of a newborn child, following sounds rather than sights to direct its gaze. She looked at his general direction, cocking her head to the side. And then, suddenly, her gaze sharpened. She looked into his eyes, straight into his eyes and gaped. She looked like she had just now noticed there was someone else in the room with her.
"Well?" the man growled impatiently.
Now, the Gray Leader liked to think of himself as a worldly man. He'd seen his fair share of strange, bewildering sights. But what happened next was beyond imagination. And his could get rather wild.
The old woman, with agility he wouldn't have thought possible, suddenly lunged straight for him, closing the distance between them on all fours and reaching for his face. With eyes as wide as saucers, the young man stared at the woman, dumbfounded, as she pulled his helmet off and caressed his face lovingly.
"Tu as arrivé! Il y a longtemps que je t'aime… Longtemps que je t'attend…" she began rambling on, her cold, spindly fingers running up and down his cheeks almost frantically.
"The fuck do you think you're d-?"
"Je suis desolée, mon amour… Les roses bleues!" she yelped, grasping a handful of what appeared to be blue petals from the floor and waving them right in front of his face. "Les roses bleues! Elles ne sont pas ma faute… J'esperais… quele rosier meme á la mer fût jeté…"
The man looked from the blue petals to the woman and back again, noticing for the very first time that all the crates he had spotted earlier on had been upturned –and some destroyed- by the explosion. There were blue petals, like the very ones the old woman was clutching, spread all over the dusty floor. The crates must have been filled with them.
The hell…?
"Si beau… Si fort… Est-ce que tu me pardonnes?" the old woman whispered, her face inching closer to his. From this distance, he could count every wrinkle on her face, see the bloodshot whites of her eyes, smell her rancid breath.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" the soldier yelled, pushing her away with his one good arm; the other wouldn't budge.
Falling onto the floor again, looking panicky and heartbroken, the woman broke into shrill wails. "PAS MA FAUTE! CE N'EST PAS MA FAUTE!" she shrieked. "ILS M'AS DISENT QUE JE SERAIS PARDONÉE! CE N'EST PAS JUSTE!"
Although he took pride in the fact that he wasn't a man easily frightened, the Gray Leader was now petrified. The woman was clearly insane and he was incapacitated; there was no telling what she could or would do, but whatever it was, he feared he wouldn't be able to stop it.
No, not like this, he mentally screamed to himself. I did not come this far to die like this. It can't be.
Much to his relief, Deux Ex Machina arrived in the form of a distorted voice.
"Kkkhhhhttkhhhh…eader? KHHHH… ere? Khhhh… espond!"
Reaching for his helmet hastily, the young man kept a wary eye on the woman who was now thrashing on the floor in between hysterics, repeating the same words over and over and clutching her hair manically. "Get me the FUCK out of there!" he hissed into the microphone, hoping against all hope that someone would hear.
"Khh… NL? Khhh… at you?"
"Yes, it's me. GET. ME. OUT."
"Kkkhhh…'s going on?"
"JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
After what felt like an eternity, he could breathe fresh air again.
Fresh, cold, Trabian air.
Actually, the word breathing was a bit of an overstatement. Even though the door was now off his chest, his lungs had been sufficiently screwed up. A team of field medics was already by his side, working furiously over his chest before tending to the less grave injuries on the rest of his body. A cocktail of Hi-Potions, Curagas and Elixirs was being dumped straight into his veins, alleviating the pain to the point of almost non-existence. Instead, a rather pleasant numbness had spread all over his body, and there was a dull humming in his head.
He had spent almost two full hours in the abandoned hide-out, in the company of the wailing, psychotic woman. At the very least, she hadn't tried to touch him again, but her tears and shrieks had proven to be far more effective in making his skin crawl. Relief as such he'd never experienced washed over him when the rescue crew of his team reached them and pulled both of them out of the wreckage.
"How many lives you've got, man?" said a familiar male voice above him, chuckling. Gray Three, AKA SeeD Rhys Puck, was standing right over his stretcher.
"Fuck off n' let me 'njoy th' med-high," the Gray Leader mumbled, a wide, lax grin on his lips.
"No time for that; Jonah's looking for you," replied his peer.
"Whut's he wunt?" the Gray Leader mumbled, stifling a groan. "Washh it," he growled at a near-by medic who had nearly dropped a vial of elixir in her hurry to get to him.
"Sorry, SeeD Almasy," the young girl –no doubt a trainee- muttered quickly before administering the elixir.
"Wondering if you'd be able to attend the meeting in this condition, actually," spoke a third -male again- voice and Seifer Almasy came face-to-face with the looming figure of Jonah Meric.
Seifer merely raised a hand and gave his superior a thumbs-up in response to the question.
"Are you sure?" Meric spoke, arching an eyebrow. "I called Caradoc to brief him on the situation and he says he can handle it himself. He'll be sure to let Van Helgon know why you couldn't make it."
Seifer shook his head. "Ah'll be kay… High's gunna wear off, right?"
"Flight lasts a good two hours, plus one hour before take off, so yes, it should," Meric replied, scrutinizing the blond man in concern.
"Then ish gud," Seifer said, closing his eyes.
"We probably shouldn't have poured so much magic into your system, but… you seem to be handling it alright," Meric said, a flicker of amusement dancing in his eyes. Giving Seifer a rarely affectionate pat on the shoulder, he made a move to leave the scene along with the other soldier, before coming to a halt and turning to face Seifer again. "The woman who was brought out with you… Did she speak to you at all? Did she say anything?"
Seifer slipped his eyes open again, his gaze holding nothing but weariness and annoyance. "Fuckin' crazee bitch… Jush junk… Culdn't undr'sand. Went m'ntal on me."
Meric simply nodded and turned to leave again.
"Whut're you gunna do with 'er?"
Jonah stopped on his tracks and took a small pause before looking over his shoulder. "The Hope's Chapel center will surely welcome her. I don't think there's anything we can do for her right now."
Seifer frowned. "She wuz high?"
"Very much so," Meric replied. "She might be needing psychiatric attention in the future, but for now, a rehabilitation clinic would be the best course of action. The dementia could've been caused by the drugs."
The young man nodded, his eyes slipping shut again. What kind of sick-ass grandma got high anyway? And what the hell had she been doing right in a smuggler hide-out? And what ab— Ohhh, 'nother Curaga…
Awesome…
A/N: Don't understand French (Trabian)? Neither does Seifer. So don't expect any translations. Whenever I want you to understand something spoken in a foreign language, I will make sure it's translated in my A/N. Still, don't feel like you're missing out on anything. I don't think it would make much sense anyway, given that this is only the beginning.
Also, my apologies to French people. My French is very rusty, and hopefully, I haven't butchered the language too much. If I have, I'm terribly sorry.
Like I said in the Prologue, I'm sure thee are a few things that confused you about the above. Fell free to post questions in the forum, but please don't get mad if I leave some of those unanswered. It means that it's something vital for the continuation of the fic and is supposed to be revealed to you when it's time.
Till next time.
04/10/2010 EDIT:
-2nd scene, Shizuka talks about the state of Galbadia at the time and the smaller states about to revolt to earn their independence.
- The song Selphie sings is Make Your Own Kind of Music, by "Mama" Cass Elliot.
- À la claire fontaine is a traditional French children's song
