Knights
"I'll be your knight!"
Seifer scowled. Edea wanted to laugh, but held it back. That could wait until she shared the story with her husband. It meant trouble, but that didn't make it any less funny, or endearing in a strained sort of way. That may have been the essence of Seifer: endearing trouble.
"Like you could be a knight, wussy-Zell." Someday he was sure he would be better at delivering
insults, but for today this would do.
Zell huffed and clenched his small fists. "I could too!" Seifer was thankful that Zell's comeback was even less clever than his insult.
"You're messing up the game!" Quistis shouted her annoyance. She could be a very patient little
girl, but she there were times when patience was forgotten entirely. She'd used a bit too much
of it on Seifer in her seven years of life to waste it on childishness like this that ruined perfectly
good play time. "We need a knight and Zell offered and you didn't. If you wanted to, you should
have said something earlier."
The way she so often knew why he did everything he did, really, really unnerved him. "Who said
I wanted to? I'm just saying wuss-boy can't be a knight." He had to do something convincing to
show that he wasn't interested, not jealous, not of *Zell* "I wasn't even gonna play the stupid game at all!" He stalked off trying to pretend interest in a perfectly empty piece of ground.
"Fine then," Quistis muttered to his back. She smiled brightly before Zell, "OK, you're the knight
and I get to be the queen!"
Cid had managed to approach without being noticed by anyone. This moment he chose to
announce his presence to Edea by whispering, "Don't most little girls want to be princesses?"
Edea answered calmly. She was never truly unaware of him after all. "Of course Quistis has always been more ambitious than most little girls." Time would show that was a slight understatement.
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Seifer poked a stick in the sand. He wondered why he always had to act that way. It wasn't like it really mattered who played what as long as it was fun, right? It wasn't really Zell's fault... in fact it was most definitely his *own* fault that Quistis had gotten angry. He growled a bit and made a decision. After all, there were lots of different roles a boy could play.
Meanwhile, Quistis had found that sitting on a pretend throne while her knight fought invisible enemies was not that fun. She had declared herself a 'warrior queen' and they took turns beating at a particularly threatening (not) tree.
She was completely absorbed in their battle and was caught completely off guard when arms circled her from behind and lifted her slightly off the ground. The arms could only hold her in the air for a moment, but as her feet touched the ground they showed no sign of letting go. Of course before that point she had figured out exactly who was behind, literally, this attack. "What're you doing, Seifer?"
"I'm kidnappin' ya. Come-on, Chicken-Zell, you're a knight so ya gotta try to rescue her!" Zell charged and Seifer had to release Quistis so that he could wrestle with the smaller child.
At first Quistis was caught up with the plot change. Soon though it dawned on her that she had lost out on an active role again and that didn't sit with her at all. She was about to complain about just that when she realized that things on the ground looked a lot uglier than they should. "Hey, you two, stop that!"
"Oh come on, Quisty, we was only playin'" Seifer stopped long enough to answer and long enough for it Quistis to see that Zell was crying, angry but crying. The smaller blond took off, undoubtedly to report Seifer's actions to Matron. "Crap! Stupid Chicken-Ze-"
"Don't call him that." Quistis frowned. "And you should have known better." Sometimes Quistis sounded more like a nagging parent than Matron did. Those times were invariably when Seifer would say something to her that he would regret.
"You should know better," he mimicked her. "I was just trying to make your stupid game a little fun. You guys aren't smart enough to have fun on your own." And with that he'd done it. There were two outcomes, either she'd be angry, or she'd cry. Oh, how he hoped she'd get angry. The punishment would be over far sooner in that case.
"You're the one that's stupid!" Seifer thanked Hyne, something he didn't do often, as she started her tirade. "You... You're... Oh!" She pushed his chest with both arms with a strength that surprised him and caused him to fall on his butt. He didn't even have time to stand again before she'd stomped away from him.