I know, I know, another late update. My life has recently been a whirlwind. PM me and I'll tell you all about it :) which... may or may not be such a good idea.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and also the fact that future updates will be vastly quicker. Yay!
As always, please remember to REVIEW.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
Geez, we've been in the library for five hundred hours.
Nida's gorgeous face twisted into an intimidating scowl as he looked from me to the book I'd been pretending to read for the past half hour. Clearing my throat, I instantly brought my attention back to Chapter 24 of Sorcery throughout history. After a few unsuccessful attempts at absorbing a single word, I felt myself begin to drift off once more.
Click-click, click-click, click-click.
"Would you stop that!" hissed Nida from behind the humongous Theories of Magic.
Sighing, I flung my pen with a little too much force. It bounced off the table and ricocheted off the wall, clattering seismically through the pin-drop library silence.
Nida's glare practically burned a hole in my skull as I bent below the desk to retrieve the blasted pen, and by the time I resurfaced, Nida wasn't the only one scowling.
"Izzy!" the librarian whispered, hands resting on her hips in a chastising manner.
I mouthed 'sorry' but that didn't seem to be enough. The pig-tailed girl gestured me to follow her as she turned around and walked away from the study desks and towards the front of the library.
I gave Nida a helpless sort of look, but he just shrugged, whispered, "You better go with her," and went back to reading his book.
Shaking my head at his unhelpfulness, I reluctantly followed the librarian, who was now standing behind the counter and watching me expectantly.
'Don't tell me I'm in trouble for dropping a pen,'
'You're not...'
"Hey Izzy," she greeted as I approached the front desk, and to my bewilderment, grinned rather sweetly. "I heard you passed the SeeD exam. Congratulations!"
"Um thanks," I said awkwardly.
"But I'm sure you won't be able to participate in the library committee anymore?" She paused to take a breath, and her gaze flitted to the space behind me. Instantly turning scarlet, the pigtailed girl snapped her mouth shut, her eyes wide and staring at something behind me.
I turned around to see nothing more interesting than a few students enter the library. Turning back to the librarian, I noticed that she was now trying hard to hide behind the computer screen. Ok that monitor may be massive, but who is she fooling? "What's wro-"
"Excuse me!" a familiar male voice cut me off. Zell strode up to the desk, seemingly oblivious to the now scarlet face emerging from behind the screen.
He flashed me a friendly smile and nod before turning his attention to the librarian.
"W-what can I do f-for y-you?" squeaked the librarian. Her fingers were clasped so tightly on the tabletop that her knuckles turned white.
Without any hesitation, Zell launched into a cacophony of unintelligible speech. I waited for a minute, in case the librarian wanted to talk to me, but it seemed as if she had forgotten I was there. I took the moment to inconspicuously leave the front desk, although I doubted the librarian would have noticed even if I'd tap danced my way through the library; she seemed rather taken with the blond SeeD.
As I returned to the study area, I realized that Nida still had his face buried into the volume. My stomach sank a bit at seeing him so invested in gaining information. Saturday night had gone by in a blur of books, but Nida and I had so far found nothing that would help us.
To my intense frustration, Nida had practically woken me up at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning to drag me to the library yet again. Now, I sat back down in the uninviting wooden seat, and picked up the list of books Nida had compiled the previous night.
We've nearly read through all these books. I scanned the list again, hoping that a bazillionth look through it would somehow illuminate the name of the one that would reveal anything about 'interworld travel' (as Nida had called it) and sorceresses.
Hollow as my empty stomach was, it growled like an angry beast, demanding to be fed right away. Damn him for making us skip breakfast.
At that exact moment Nida decided to shove his book into my face. "Read this," he hissed.
I grabbed the volume. 'Sorceresses are understood to be direct descendants of Hyne, due to their ability to use magic without the aid of guardian forces or the draw command.' I looked up.
"Whoopie," I said in a deadpan voice, "Didn't we already know that?"
Rolling his eyes, Nida pointed to a paragraph below the one I'd been reading.
'Of all the powers a sorceress may possess, the most intriguing is their ability to sway the minds of individuals, and bend their thinking in order to turn the person into a puppet. It is speculated that a sorceress may possess the ability to travel in time and even dimensions, but evidence has never been seen of such actions. Research has been conducted on the site of the sorceress memorial, but-'
I stood up abruptly. "This is it!"
"Shh!" Someone hissed.
I sat back down and turned to Nida excitedly. "We have to go here... why are you frowning?"
He bit his lower lip, and the movement of his teeth clamping down on the soft-looking pink flesh momentarily distracted me.
"Because-" his voice snapped me back to reality. "Because the Esthar continent is desolate."
"What?"
"It doesn't contain life, Natasha."
I poked the page, "then why does it say there's been research done there?"
Nida let out an impatient tsk. "Read the entire paragraph," he hissed, frowning.
I turned back to the book and read aloud this time, "the entirety of Esthar has been desolate - I totally know what that means, by the way, you didn't need to explain-"
Nida glared and pointed back at the book.
I cleared my throat and continued, "-has been desolate for seventeen years. Since the end of the Sorceress War, Esthar has been perpetually uninhabited." Underneath the paragraph was a picture of a futuristic city with large walkways leading to a ginormous, circular building that looked like something out of an Ursula Le Guin novel.
I read the entire paragraph again, feeling my newfound bubble of excitement popping. With a loud sigh, I slumped deeper into my chair. "Now what?"
Nida was scratching his chin and biting his lip again, something I noticed was a bit of a habit with him. "We keep looking," he finally replied and picked up a book from the pile on my desk.
Keep looking? I abruptly sat up. "With all due respect for that plan, I think we're pretty much done looking."
He shook his head, but I cut him off before he could get a word in.
"Look, we've looked through all these books already," I gestured to the pile of thirty or so thick volumes piled haphazardly on both of our desks, "and the closest we've gotten to finding anything is a paragraph about something that doesn't exist. Maybe I should-"
"We," Nida corrected.
"Maybe it's time to start looking for her outside," I implored.
Nida watched me for a few seconds, as if contemplating his words carefully. "We don't have any leads or indication of what she even looks like,"
"I told you what she looks like!" I argued.
He put up his hands defensively, "I know you did, but no one else knows who she is. We don't have a lead," he repeated. "It's foolish to go out on a mission without a plan of action. All the training we've had so far goes against it. Not to mention it's completely illogical."
Cus, you know, magic and GF monsters are so logical. I raised an eyebrow, "We've completely passed the point of logic wouldn't you say? Me being here and all?"
Nida chewed on his bottom lip, and guilt chewed up my stomach. I really didn't want to be rude to him. "Listen, I-"
Smack! "What in Gaia have you done to that book?"
The shriek caused both Nida and I to jump, and Theories of Magic tumbled from my lap and onto the floor.
A flash of dark blue and yellow was all I saw as I bent to pick up the book, and before my fingers so much as grazed the cover, the library committee member snatched it off the floor.
"Out!" he screamed, pointing towards the library entrance. "You two have been disrupting the peace all morning."
I opened my mouth to protest, but Nida grabbed my arm, apologized to the scowling library guy, and dragged me away.
"You know, Izzy has never been kicked out of the library before," he said as we walked out into the hallway, "and neither have I."
I faced him with an apologetic grimace. "Really? Sorry, I know I can be loud sometimes."
To my surprise, he laughed. "Let's just go get some lunch."
The rest of the day was spent in a perpetual state of learning for me. I had a lot of questions about SeeD and Garden, and Nida seemed more than happy to provide answers. I felt like a child, just bombarded with information about the new and exciting world of which I was thrust into and had to be a part of. Getting used to being Izzy was easier than I could have imagined, considering I would never have imagined having to do such a thing.
Garden may have been a mercenary academy, but it felt like a regular boarding school to me, especially when I learned that the SeeD candidates were in fact teenagers, and not the early-twenty-somethings I'd first thought. I can't believe that I thought this was a dream.
Everything felt so real; even the face in the mirror was starting to look familiar. But I didn't want to get accustomed. I had to keep telling myself that all this was temporary, and I would be back home to see everyone once again soon enough.
Monday morning found me jolted out of sleep by shrill beeping that could only be coming from a creature from the bowels of hell. I peeled myself out of bed and looked around for the source of the noise. There, on the side table, sat the SeeD communication device, blaring so loud, the vibration nearly caused it to fall off the table. I caught it before it dropped to the floor, and punched open the notification.
Beep. "SeeD class schedule for the week of Monday, June 10…"
I barely looked through the schedule and moved on to the next notification. It was an email from Nida: "Meet me in the 2F classroom when you're awake."
I closed the inbox and sighed. when I really thought about it, staying at Garden and living Izzy's life until I found some information about the sorceress that could help was the best option I had. But still… it didn't feel right, nor was it practical for me to walk around pretending to be someone I'd never even met.
'But it's the only thing you can do right now,' Siren piped up.
I silently agreed, but couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something important; something on the tip of my mind that I couldn't quite access.
With a shrug, I shook off the uncertainties and headed out towards the cafeteria. Meeting Nida was important, but my stomach protested with rumbling wails that needed to be dealt with first.
Lit with the brilliant sunshine streaming in from the glass ceiling, water sparkled as it flowed through the fish shaped fountains into the rippling pools in the center of Garden. I walked slowly, enjoying the soothing sounds of water passing through stone.
Upon reaching the hallway marked 'Cafeteria,' I found myself nearly crushed by someone on a skateboard that…is it floating in mid-air? I gaped open-mouthed as he disappeared down the hall in a blur of red and denim blue, and into the doorway at the end. How awesome is that! I jogged down the hallway, hoping to catch him before he left. I must ride that skateboard…
In my pursuit, I barely noticed as a flash of dark brown suddenly materialized in front of me. I tumbled to the ground in a heap and looked up to see an impossibly muscular person looking down at me.
"Sorry, Izzy!" he offered his hand and pulled me off the ground with so much force, that when he let go, I almost fell down again. He laughed, before walking away with an enthusiastic wave and "See ya!"
Freshly baked bread mingled with coffee to create the most welcome and delicious aroma I'd inhaled in what seemed like forever. I walked into the cafeteria. Hmm. There was nothing like good old carbs and caffeine to get your day started. My stomach rumbled with hunger and I practically ran up to line forming in front of the buffet table.
The cafeteria was a huge, dome shaped room that put my university cafeteria to shame with its marble floors and glass ceiling. Lush plants with big leaves sat in fat vases around the tables, which themselves were round, and made of expensive looking wood.
I piled my plate with a bunch of wholesome goodness, and having seen other students handing over their ID cards, I slipped Izzy's card to the lunch lady at the end of the line. I sat in a quiet little corner, away from where most of the other students sat (not that there were many students).
Sweet! Without hesitation, I shoved a bagel into my mouth, bit off a huge bite, and washed it down with a delicious sip of tea. Sweet nourishment, what will I ever do without you?
"You know, normally people chew their food before swallowing."
The sudden voice caused me to jump in my chair, spilling the entire contents of my cup of tea onto my arm. I nearly chocked on bagel, but managed to swallow the bite. I moaned in pain as the liquid seeped through the sleeve of the cardigan and onto my skin.
I hastily removed the sweater before looking up to give the glare of death to whoever had interrupted me.
"Zell! I will murder you!" I growled.
He scratched the back of his head, "Sorry Izzy." Reaching over, he grabbed a bunch of paper towels from the dispenser and shoved them at me.
I proceeded to wipe the tea off my arm, and when the burning subsided, I sat back down with a plunk, and wiped the edge of the table. I groaned again as I looked at the empty cup of tea.
Sighing, I grabbed the cup and got up.
Zell cleared his throat before tentatively reaching for the cup. "Um, let me get it for you," he said, a lopsided, apologetic smile on his face.
My annoyance quickly went away. He seemed truly sorry, and the guy offered me tea… "Sure! If it's not too much trouble, thanks." I smiled for added measure.
His face instantly brightened and he walked off to the thinning line in front of the coffee section of the buffet table.
Well that was nice.
I held up the cardigan in front of me, trying to see if it was still wearable. The left sleeve was completely drenched in tea, staining the canary yellow into a gross-looking beige colour. Underneath the sweater, I'd chosen to wear a distasteful frilly pink top.
Izzy's wardrobe mostly comprised of girly things; nothing that I myself would wear. Whatever, it's not like I'm me right now anyway. Besides, what would have probably looked hideous on me didn't look half as bad on Izzy.
Zell came back with a steaming cup of tea and carefully put it on the table in front of me. As I thanked him, he took out the seat opposite me, turned it around, and sat down so that he was pressed against the backrest.
I hungrily grabbed the tea and took a tentative sip. Hmm…
Zell chewed off half a sausage in one go. His plate was piled with sausages and eggs.
Jeesh! How does he eat like that and stay in shape? But then, I had noticed that everyone at Garden was in great shape. It only made sense; Garden was a mercenary academy after all.
Next to his seat, he'd propped up his bright blue wheel-less skateboard.
"Hey, Zell?"
"Hmm?" he grunted with a full mouth.
I smiled and asked, "Can I borrow your Back to the Future-esqe skateboard sometime?"
He swallowed loudly. "My what?"
Oh crap, he wouldn't know about Back to the Future.
"No way!" he exclaimed once he saw me eyeing the board. "No one rides my T-board but me! Plus, you'll seriously hurt yourself."
I shrugged and went back to sipping at my tea. You would think I'd asked for one of his kidneys or something.
"Since when do you approve of my T-board?" he asked, shaking a fork in the air accusingly.
"What? Why would I not approve?"
"You're such a pain in the ass about it usually."
Whoops. I shrugged again.
Zell watched me for a few seconds, and I uncomfortably looked away.
"So," Zell said between bites, "are you excited for your first mission?"
My mouth fell. "What? When is it? I didn't know I had to go on a mission!" and why didn't anyone mention anything?
Zell put his hands up. "Calm down, jeez!" he scratched the back of his head. "I was only making conversation.
A sigh of relief passed through me, and I let out a nervous laugh. "Right, whew!" I mimed wiping my forehead. "You scared me."
He stared at me as if I was a crazy person, so I decided to nibble on the end of my bagel without a word. The last thing I want is to mess up Izzy's school life too.
Zell took a bite of scrambled eggs. "You know," he said after swallowing, "you're really acting strange."
I sighed. "Um, I guess." I refused to meet his eyes.
"Yeah, you're never this high-strung. I always thought you were a lot like Squall, all calm and quiet." he looked at me suspiciously.
Geez, why is everyone so hung up on the suspicious part of this? Instead of answering him, I loudly cleared my throat, smiled widely, and said, "Well, this has been fun, but I have to go." I abruptly pushed my chair back with a loud scrape, gathered Izzy's bag, and high-tailed it out of there. How long am I going to keep running away from anytime someone mentions I'm not Izzy?
I pushed all negative thought out of my mind as I focused on what Nida had told me to do. The main second-floor classroom… If I remembered correctly, Nida had mentioned the main classroom as being the one where had Squall awkwardly given his inauguration speech.
The room was empty when I entered. I checked Izzy's SeeD device. There were no other emails from Nida.
Now what?
I looked around the room, then out into the hallway, where a few students loitered. Biting my lip, I decided that the best thing to do was to wait for Nida. He'd told me about the study panels the previous day, and probably wanted to go through one of them.
After finding Izzy's study desk at the back of the classroom, I wasted no time in sitting roughly in the cushioned chair and turning the machine on.
'Izzy Kou….
GFs: Quezacotl (unavailable)
Ifrit
Siren
…..
Touch here to obtain GF Ifrit.
I touched the button next to Ifrit's name. Suddenly a grinding sound erupted out of the machine, followed by a gentle hissing as the small compartment next to the screen opened up. Inside sat a bright red, spiky stone that looked like a ball of fire. Cool, another GF.
I heard Siren groan when I rubbed the stone.
Sorry, Siren, but you have to make room. I grinned as my body started to tingle. I closed my eyes as the spirit of Ifrit entered my mind. Shuddering, I blinked open my eyes, just as a roar filled my head.
'Ifrit?'
'You are not Izzy.' He growled.
'Uh…'
Siren sighed loudly. 'You won't scare Natasha,' she said firmly, as she started to explain my situation to Ifrit.
'Thanks,' I mentally smiled at Siren, and tried to tune out their chatter.
The screen flashed bright blue before a brightly lit menu opened up. The options were highlighted in bright red boxes. "The Basics," "About Garden," "A Message from Garden," and the last option, "The School Festival Committee." Let's see… I touched the "About Garden" section, and a screen popped up with more options. I skipped over all the "rules" options, and touched the "Garden Info" icon. Three options popped up, "Balamb Garden," "Trabia Garden," and "Galbadia Garden." I clicked on all three in succession, but none had more than a blurb on where each Garden was located, and a mention of each headmaster.
I went back to the "About Garden" menu, this time clicking on the "SeeD info" tab.
"Balamb Garden's mercenaries… blah blah…operate all over the world… blah."
I went back to the main menu, and this time opened the tab labeled, "The Basics." Bingo! Excited, I clicked on the tab labeled "About Sorceresses and magic."
"A woman who has inherited the power of a sorceress. The origins go back to ancient times during Hyne's reign. However, no factual evidence exists."
That's it? I clicked the 'next' button at the bottom of the screen, but all that told me to do was look in the library for more information. I went back to the menu, and this time clicked on "Magic." There was a bit of information about how the magic human used was Para-magic…whatever that means. Frustrated, I clicked the 'back' button until I was on the main menu page again.
"Well, this was extremely helpful." I rolled my eyes, thinking of the lovely string of profanities I would probably never unleash.
"How many times have I told you that computer can't hear you?"
I yelped as a hand came down to rest on Izzy's desk. Looking up, my gaze met a pair of shimmering emerald eyes.
For a few moments I just stared at Alaric, too flustered to say anything. His chocolate-brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail today, and I noticed he was wearing a crisp looking SeeD uniform.
"Hey Izzy," he whispered, looking down at me with an unreadable expression.
I cleared my throat, remembering what I had read about him in Izzy's diary. "Uh, hi."
He motioned at the seat next to me. "Mind if I sit down?"
Oh jeez, this is gonna get extremely awkward. "Uh, sure." I patted the seat before looping Izzy's bag over my shoulder. "I was just leaving anyway." I stood up at the precise moment he sat down on the seat next to mine. I made to slide out of the booth-like table, but Alaric grabbed my arm to stop me.
I rolled my eyes and turned to him, sure that this is how Izzy would react. "Is this necessary? I really have to be somewhere," I said in the coldest voice I could muster.
His face fell and I felt a pang of guilt.
"I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes," he whispered in a strained voice.
Oh jeez. "Sorry," I answered, "I really have to go."
He eyes suddenly flashed with anger. "You can't give me two minutes of-"
"We'll talk later, I promise!" I smiled for good measure. Jeesh, what a creep! With that, I jerked my hand out of his grip and practically jogged to the door.
Smack! The wind was knocked out of me, and I took a step back to see Nida recovering from the collision.
He groaned and rubbed his chest.
"Sorry!"
He shook away my feeble apology and turned me around. "I'm glad you're here, I wanted to show you some-What?"
I loudly cleared my throat and nudged my head towards Alaric, who watched us intently from the front of the room. How did he get there so fast?
"Can I help you?" asked Alaric in slow, haughty drawl. "There's a class starting here in twenty minutes, and unless you're in it, you'll have to leave." He looked at me pointedly.
I wanted to ask him if we could stay for five minutes, but Nida dragged me away before I could so much as get a syllable out.
"I thought we needed the classroom!" I protested as Nida and I reached the bridge over Garden's first floor.
He nodded, "I wanted to show you Izzy's study panel."
"That would have taken five minutes!"
"I know, but we don't question an instructor. Do you want to get in trouble?"
I opened my mouth-
"Plus, it looks like you already got your other GFs." He leaned against the banister and crossed his arms.
I leaned next to him. "Wait, how do you know I did?"
Nida turned to face me, "Your eyes have the GF glow," he stated simply.
And now that I paid attention, his eyes were tinged with a greenish glow, which I remembered seeing on all the other SeeDs on the day of the exam.
I sighed and sat down on the floor. It's not a good thing that I'm starting to get used to being here. So far, being at Garden had been interesting, fun even, but the idea of everything becoming familiar scared me. Why isn't there any information about the sorceress? Every textbook that I'd looked through would mention Adel or other sorceresses, but no description had so far fit the one I was looking for. My dream theory was starting to seem more plausible, but that was the one I knew wasn't true.
Nida started talking, and it was only then I realized he'd sat down next to me. "-later by the classroom?"
I asked him to repeat himself.
He sighed, "I said I have to get to class, but can you meet me by the main classroom by two?"
I nodded quietly, wondering whether I should just leave Garden.
Nida waved as he jogged off to his class, and for a few moments I just stared after him, not knowing where I should go.
I guess I'll go back to the library.
The elevator door dinged open and I stepped out into the hallway. Just as I was turning into the library hallway, I heard two bickering voices.
"Seifer! You can't be serious!" Was that Quistis? I turned around slowly in time to see Seifer rush past me, followed promptly by Quistis.
She caught up to him and roughly turned him around with her hands. She's a lot stronger than she looks. I moved closer.
"If they actually think they can send Leonhart," he spat the name as if it was something nasty, "to Timber with those two losers-" he didn't finish his thought, but instead gave Quistis a look of pure hatred.
"If you think you're going to become some big hero, forget it." Quistis sneered, "You haven't even been able to pass the SeeD exam."
"Do you seriously think that matters?" he whispered so low, I didn't know if I heard him properly.
I tentatively stepped closer.
Seifer roughly shook himself free of Quistis' grasp, and stalked off down the hallway.
"Seifer!" Quistis didn't hesitate, and ran off after him.
I bit my lower lip. My gut was telling me to run after them, and I didn't like ignoring my instinct. Why would Seifer say being a SeeD didn't matter? It mattered everything to Garden students.
Ignoring the Siren's protesting words, I ran towards the Parking Lot, where the other two had disappeared.
Next chapter should be up within the next few days!
Please review with any comments/concerns/criticism you may have :)
