A Final Fantasy VIII Fan Fic
All rights to the characters and names of locations are owned by SquareSoft
Rated PG-13 for slight nudity and language
By Toysaurus
Chapter Ten
Selphie, Quistis, and Irvine sat at a back table in the cafeteria, having all arrived at the Garden earlier in the afternoon. Dinner hour was over and they were the only ones present outside of the dining room staff who were mopping the floor and cleaning the tables.
"What are we gonna do?" Selphie whined. "This is terrible." She was all but wringing her hands in her anxiety.
"Calm down, Selphie," Irvine said solicitously. "We'll figure something out."
"Where's Zell? Wasn't he supposed to meet us here?" Quistis asked.
"I don't know. Knowing him he probably got lost," Irvine laughed.
"Puleeze! Can we stay on the subject? This is serious, you know," Selphie complained.
"Okay, Selphie," Quistis replied, while gently patting her friend's hand. "You're right, of course. This is deadly serious. I think you and I should go and find Rinoa and try to talk some sense into her, before it's too late."
"Hey, what about me?" Irvine asked. "Why am I always the one left out?"
Selphie smiled at him and replied, "Do you really want us to answer that?"
Quistis began to laugh at Irvine's stunned expression and Selphie said, "Come on, let's go find Rinoa before I chicken out. Irvine, you stay here and wait for Zell."
The two women stood and left the cafeteria leaving Irvine behind wondering why it was always left to him to deal with the excitable Zell.
It just so happened at that particular moment Zell was in his room talking with Mordred. He had just been heading out the door to go meet with his old friends when the headmaster's son literally forced himself into the room and demanded Zell speak with him.
Zell was impatiently working off his excess energy by pacing back and forth in the small room while Mordred sat perched on the edge of the bed speaking.
"Don't you realize the impact that this is having on the morale of the upper-classmen, not to mention all of the SeeDs?" the younger man asked factiously.
"I know, I know," Zell muttered in his pacing.
"Much less the damage and disrespect Lance and Rinoa's behavior is inflicting on the public persona of my father," Mordred continued. "After all, he is the headmaster of the Garden and he's being made to look a fool. Suppose the world press got a sniff of this? Garden would suddenly become a world laughingstock."
This caused Zell to literally shudder when he considered the ramifications of Mordred's last statement and what was worse, the implied threat behind it.
"After all," Mordred spoke, "everyone knows what is going on behind my father's back, but no one wants to speak of it. The Garden has become a huge dysfunctional family."
"Okay, okay, I get the picture. I'm not an idiot, you know," Zell protested.
You could have fooled me, Mordred thought maliciously.
"But what do you expect me to do about it?" the older man asked.
Mordred smiled inwardly. Got ya! "I want you to come with me and serve as a witness. My father said he needed hard evidence or he wouldn't believe it. I'm going to provide him with that tonight."
With much misgiving, Zell agreed to accompany the headmaster's son on his spiteful mission. Silently Mordred led Zell from the room and down the corridor.
Rinoa, Squall, and Lance sat quietly at their table in the executive dining room, the dried out remnants of the remains of their meal serving as evidence that they had finished eating some time before. As Rinoa sat uncomfortably looking at the two clearly unhappy men who were seated with her, she wondered with some anxiety why Squall had insisted they dine together.
"Well, I think - ," Rinoa began to speak, while pushing her chair back from the table.
"Rinoa, wait," Squall interrupted. "Before you go there's something I'd like to say. It's about Mordred."
"I'm glad you brought this up," Lance interrupted. "He's doing everything he can do to bring the Garden down around your ears. He must be stopped."
"He's my son," Squall said plainly.
"He's your enemy," Lance replied passionately.
"He's my only child," the headmaster said.
Rinoa ducked her head, unable to bear the sorrowful expression on her husband's countenance.
"There's something you two don't know that I should have already told you," Squall explained. "Mordred's mother is Morgan Le Fay, she is the Sorceress Adel's younger sister."
"I know, I know," Squall responded when he saw the look of astonishment on Rinoa and Lance's faces. "It's hard to believe, but it's true. She had sworn vengeance on Laguna, but discovered it to be so difficult to get near him, she chose me, his son, instead."
"She isn't a sorceress, is she Squall?" Rinoa finally spoke.
"No, but she had learned quite a bit of magic and she had no difficulty with using it on me when I was away on a mission and she enticed me to have dinner with her at her home. She had drugged my meal and you know the rest of what happened, I'm sure."
"But what was the point?" Rinoa asked.
"Son or daughter, she planned on raising them to hate me and then when they were old enough, to send them to me to wreak her revenge on me."
"That's all the more reason that Mordred should be stopped in any way possible," Lance said firmly.
"You will not harm him," Squall spoke harshly. "That is my order. He is half mine and I still have hopes of reaching him. What we need to do," Squall continued, while gazing intently at Lance and Rinoa, "is be on our best behavior. We must allow Mordred no leeway to work his poison."
"Now if you will excuse me," Squall said, while pushing back from the table and standing. "I need to go have a short meeting with the evening staff. Rinoa, I hope to see you at breakfast."
While Squall left the dining room, Lance and Rinoa sat silently. As soon as they felt he had left the immediate area, Rinoa spoke in anguish, "What are we to do?"
"I know what I should do, I should leave tonight and never come back."
"Oh no," Rinoa murmured and began to weep.
"But I can't leave you, my love," Lance said. "When I think of never seeing you again, I see no reason to live."
"What's to become of us?" Rinoa cried out.
Mordred, with Zell standing beside him, waited in the corridor that housed Lance's room. They could observe the headmaster at the far end of the hallway as he wended his way around the Garden on his last nightly rounds.
Just as Squall was walking down the corridor, Mordred knocked loudly upon Lance's door. Not receiving any answer, the younger man inserted the pass key that Seifer had provided him with and swung the dorm room door wide open just as the headmaster came walking up.
Being only human and not really paying close attention to what was occurring, (in fact, Squall thought Mordred had just let Zell and himself into his own room), Squall took a casual glance into the room and was saddened beyond belief when he saw Lance rising up naked from his bed and Rinoa laying underneath him.
She has forgotten to remain dressed, which should be the first rule of social etiquette when being entertained by a male friend in his room, thought Squall in shock, as he took several steps into the room.
"There! You see sir?" Mordred shouted out in glee, bringing even more people who were passing by into the room. Rinoa began to be racked with sobs with great gobs of tears flowing down her presently twisted features.
"The adulterer!" the headmaster's son cried out, literally jumping up and down in his excitement at finally causing the ruin he had been sent to create and pointing his right arm at Lance.
Presently beside himself with anger, Lance took two steps toward Mordred and pushed the younger man's arm aside.
"He struck me! He struck me! You all saw it!" shouted out Mordred. "Have him arrested and placed in the disciplinary room."
As if they had heard their names called out, two members of the disciplinary squad entered the room. Lance set about quickly gathering his clothes up in his arms in preparation of making a quick exit. He hated leaving Rinoa in the lurch, but what choice did he have? Turning toward his lover for a second, Lance managed to catch her eye even though she appeared to be in a state of shock.
No surprise there, he thought. "I'll be back to get you," her handsome lover promised her.
The ebony-haired woman barely acknowledged his existence. Lance decided the quickest and easiest way out of the room was through or over Mordred, so having acquired all the necessary items of apparel, he raced directly at Squall's son and knocked him easily down to the floor on his way out of the room and into the corridor.
"Ow!" Mordred cried out. "He's trying to kill me!"
Once outside the room, Lance turned left and sprinted down the corridor toward the main part of the Garden. He didn't relish running nakedly through the atrium, but he was certain he wouldn't be allowed the luxury of enough time to dress right then. Lance dashed through the atrium after reaching the end of the corridor from the men's dormitory. He scurried out through the front gates and into the darkness of the night, which could hide a multitude of sins. On his way he passed Selphie and Quistis, who did take a double take when he darted by them.
"Did you see that?" Selphie asked, her voice full of wonderment.
After Quistis nodded, Selphie continued, "I wonder what it's all about."
"I'm not sure, but I have a real bad feeling about this," Quistis answered.
Back in Lance's room Squall ordered the two members of the disciplinary squad to escort Rinoa to one of the disciplinary cells immediately.
"But she's naked, sir," one of them protested.
Enraged, Squall replied, "I don't care! Wrap her in a sheet and take her clothes with her, but get her out of my sight!"
The two SeeDs led Rinoa wrapped in a sheet out of the room and down the corridor in the direction of the disciplinary cells, which were hidden away from the rest of the Garden and completely unknown to anyone not closely connected with the Garden. Squall glanced at Mordred who stood smiling at him and he couldn't help but curl his lip at the young man in a look of total distaste. The headmaster then turned without saying a word and left the room.