**Disclaimer: Yeah, whatever.**
**Please review me! Please! Please! (down on knees) I am only 13 and have not written very many fanfics so need constructive criticism...would be greatly appreciated...of course reviews without criticism would be appreciated 2!**
I had requests for longer chapters so I am making this on as long as I can, without rambling...
THE OLD LIE: DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI...
"Quisty!"
The tall, blond male feverishly pressed two shaking fingers to the attractive blonde's cold, limp neck. He could feel nothing. Was she -
"NO!"
He lifted up her head and cradles it in his arms, brushing away the tangled mass of gold hair from her forehead. He picked up her wrist and tried to feel for a pulse there. She couldn't be - she couldn't be -
There it was. Seifer kept his fingers upon the feeble, thready pulse, terrified that if he took his fingers away it would fade away completely. It was weak - so weak -
"Quisty - can you hear me? Quisty?"
His eyes teared with hot, salt water. If she died - if she died, he would never forgive himself. What he threw away - this - this swan could have been his -
"Quisty, please!"
***
A haze, a misty diaphanous veil of raindrops was hovering in front of her eyes. Was it there? Or was it not? Did it really matter? Was she alive or dead? Nothing mattered, nothing mattered in this lazy, half-blissful, half-agony state of stupor.
Someone was whispering something - whispering or shouting she could not tell...she could feel moving air on her cheek, warm, like breath, but that was all. She was numb from the neck down, and numb in her legs, but her chest felt raw, ragged, and almost as painful as her blistered heart. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but instead, a racking bout of coughs shuddered through her body. Some of the mist cleared and she was aware of splashes of blood on the white collar of her dress. A face was hovering above hers - that face -
"Seifer..."
***
"Quist? Are you awake? Are you - are you all right?"
He knew it was a stupid question as soon as the words left his mouth. Her face was white; chalk white, her sapphire eyes dilated and glassy. They were terrified eyes, scared and frightened, and somehow weighed with an infinite - sorrow that he was unable to fathom. The bloodless eyelids fluttered once, twice. The unsure movement gave him hope - she was still alive. Her mouth was dry and parched, and a thin line of crimson blood trickled from its corner, from her coughing fit. His eyes travelled down her body, taking in the blood-soaked dress, the scars and scratches on her white arms, and -
What horrified and worried him the most was her crushed, useless leg; it was covered in scratches, the once flawless skin stained with rivulets of blood, and her ankle was completely snapped; a splinter of bone penetrating her delicate skin. He was astounded that, with her injuries, she was not screaming in agony. Then, a more sinister, more serious thought crossed his mind.
"Quistis? Can you feel anything?"
"Seifer...is that you?"
"It's - it's me, Seifer. Can you see me?"
"Yes - it's getting clearer. I - I can feel my face, and my chest, but the rest of me is - is numb. Completely- numb - "
She was breathing heavily, and her speech was laboured. What worried Seifer most was the possibility of internal injuries he didn't even want to guess at. It was as if she hadn't even tried to defend herself.
"What happened, Quist?"
"I was here - in my secret - secret place. I was upset - a little shaky." Her eyes closed as if weighed down with some truth she felt the need to lie about. "There were claws - the dinosaur - and I don't remember anything else."
"Can you move?"
"I don't know", whispered Quistis truthfully. Could she move? She was worried; she was worried about her body, about her health. Was she going to live?
"Seifer - How do I look?"
"You look beautiful."
An unspoken bond passed between them. The past? What was the past? When they could just live for the future, live for what was in front of them? It had always been Seifer, now and for ever. Anything else - anything else she had said or done, ever, had been for him, or because of him -
Quistis choked back a sob and looked up at Seifer, with that soft, gentle look he had always adored. He stroked her hair and realised that he could never love anybody but her. Even if he got married, and lived with somebody else, or died, far away from anybody he knew or loved, his heart would be somewhere else. With Quistis.
"I love you."
The words, so simple, and yet so beautiful. Quistis, weak from loss of blood, felt a warmth spread up through the numbness of her limbs. She was loved. For the first time, she was actually loved. But -
"Seifer - really. How do I look? Are my injuries bad?"
" I - I can't be sure until I try to move you."
Quistis felt his hand slip underneath her chest and lift her up. Almost immediately, a pain beyond any pain she could have ever imagined radiated through her ribs. With every breath she took the sharp pain grew sharper and more agonising, as if a dagger was hacking at her ribs and at the delicate tissue of the lungs underneath. She screamed involuntarily, a heart-rending scream that shattered Seifer's world. He knelt beside her prostrate form and supported her head as she dissolved into another desperate coughing fit. Droplets of blood spattered her neck and dress. He held her until the coughing subsided.
"I - can't move. Not now."
"We need help."
"Seifer! Don't leave me!"
Realising for the first time the hopelessness and seriousness of the situation, Seifer buried his face in his true love's cold neck and poured out his grief. Quistis could not feel the pressure of his head on her shoulder.
***
*Where am I?*
*Constricting throat - helplessness - Rinoa? Angel. My Angel.*
*Can I save her?*
*Somebody answer me!*
*Not - all alone - again?*
*Am I - all alone?*
**You're not alone**
**Neither is Rinoa. Your darling Rinoa.**
Squall realised that he could now open his eyes, and opened them slowly, letting the dingy light flood his pupils bit by bit. He was in some sort of metal walled room. A glass dome, reminiscent of the Sorceress Memorial was fixed upon the far wall. Inside it -
"RINOA!"
He scrambled to his feet, his head spinning. His Rinoa was trapped inside that inhumane thing, chained like a wild animal, struggling - what was this?
Invisible hands were pulling him back, supernaturally strong hands. He fought and struggled but the forces were too strong. He was pulled down onto the floor and held there. He looked around agitatedly. Where was he and what the hell was going on.
"Ah, Squall."
"Ultimecia. So we meet again."
Squall tried to keep his voice level, but inside, a smaller voice, was screaming, "We defeated her! What's she doing? Killing? Murdering? Rinoa? Murdering Rinoa? Rinoa! NO! Ans what about me?"
"What do you want with Rinoa? You can keep me. But she has nothing to do with this."
"Oh but she has everything to do with this. You'll see, poor misguided boy - "
A streak of eletrical lightning shot towards the dome and reverberated off the glass. Rinoa, held captive inside, winced in shock.
"The latent sorceress...she will have to be exterminated."
The words were going on above Squall's head. He was in a play, with no part, no lines. All he could hear was the little voice screaming "NO! NO! NO!" He reached in his back pocket for the gunblade, but its familiar bulge was not there. His gunblade was not there. His only protection - stripped from him. It was all too much...
What was he going to do?
***
Seifer stroked the side of Quistis' face. He couldn't leave her - he had to stay. How was he going to manage this on his own? He couldn't bear to see her in agony. He had to keep talking to her.
"Remember when we first met, back at the orphanage, Quisty?"
Quistis smiled lovingly, her smile sending a ray of warmth into his heart. Even when she was d -
No! She wasn't - she wasn't - that. She was going to be all right. She was whispering something.
"Tell me..." she murmured.
***
Seifer's voice was wisping into her mind, soothing her, cooling her. She was in bed and her parents were reading her a bedside story...
No! She was with Seifer, the guy she loved. And he was telling her a story. Perhaps her true bedtime story -but no- she mustn't think like that -
"I remember the first day we met," Seifer was saying, stroking her cheeks. "I remember the way the sun glinted off your long strands of hair, the way your eyes smiled shyly from underneath your eyelashes. I remember it all so clearly. Matron introducing us. We shook hands. Energy and friendship passed between us. I was too young to understand it then - " Seifer paused as if holding back a tear, "But It was love."
"I remember your face when we were playing games. I was yelling at Zell, making him cry, or fighting with Squall, teasing him. You would try to break us up, your eyes shining with concern and anger all intermingled, your mouth fixed into a stern line - yet it was ready to blossom into a smile at any moment. All you needed was a little encouragement. And then you were the most radiant girl in the world."
"Remember that night we set off fireworks? I led you over to the edge of the sea to watch them, and you dipped your toes in the water. The water that night was clear, lucid, and only rippled by a faint breeze. Remember? Remember the light, flickering?"
She did remember. She could almost see the flickering lights now, the reds and yellows flickering off the leaves around her. Wait - it was flickering -
"Seifer!" She interrupted urgently.
"What? What is it?"
"That light. Find out what it is..."
Seifer turned anxiously and headed out of the bushes. The light was clearer now, both soft and dreamy, and hot and fiery.
Seifer had returned, a strange expression on his face.
"What is it? What is the light?"
"Quisty - "
"It's fire, isn't it?" Her voice was almost hysterical now. "Don't lie to me Seifer. The Training Centre is on fire, isn't it?"
Seifer paused, drawing breath.
"The Training Centre is burning." He said finally, stumbling over his words. "The Grats' magic has spilled over, giving the Centre an overload of fire magic. It's pretty serious. I won't lie to you. And - "
"And, Quistis, if I can't move you out of here, and fast, we're both going to be stifled to death. Soon."
***
"What was that?" Selphie scrambled out of bed. The noise was still there - a kind of roaring. She headed next door to Zell's room. The noise was getting louder, more crackly.
"Zell? Zell!"
The well built macho youth yawned and looked at Selphie's concerned, yet flushed face. "Sefie - what is it? Spider in your bedroom?"
"That noise? What is it?"
Zell only had to listen for a second to realise what it was. "Holy Hyne Sefie, that's fire! And it's coming from the Training Centre! That means trouble!"
Zell was already out of bed, pulling on his uniform and gloves. "If there are monsters out there at night, I'll need to go down there."
"Shouldn't I come too? It isn't safe alone - "
"Sefie - go get Squall. Tell him to come and help me as quick as he can. This is an emergency!"
With that, Zell was gone, fists held out in front of him, face creased with worry. Selphie ran out after him, heading down the narrow corridor to Squall's dormitory. He'd know what to do.
***
"Squall?"
Selphie peeked cautiously around the door to his dormitory and nearly did a double take. Everything was immaculately neat, the bed made, the desk organised. But Squall -
Squall was nowhere to be seen.
And on the floor, broken into a million jagged silver pieces, was the mutilated corpse of his faithful Lionheart Gunblade, shattered into ominous disrepair.
***
And on the other side of Balamb Garden, the omniescent, celestial eye of life was closing ever so slowly...
Continue? Or not? Will Zell be too late to save the young lovers? I'll be basing that on the number of reviews!!
**Please review me! Please! Please! (down on knees) I am only 13 and have not written very many fanfics so need constructive criticism...would be greatly appreciated...of course reviews without criticism would be appreciated 2!**
I had requests for longer chapters so I am making this on as long as I can, without rambling...
THE OLD LIE: DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI...
"Quisty!"
The tall, blond male feverishly pressed two shaking fingers to the attractive blonde's cold, limp neck. He could feel nothing. Was she -
"NO!"
He lifted up her head and cradles it in his arms, brushing away the tangled mass of gold hair from her forehead. He picked up her wrist and tried to feel for a pulse there. She couldn't be - she couldn't be -
There it was. Seifer kept his fingers upon the feeble, thready pulse, terrified that if he took his fingers away it would fade away completely. It was weak - so weak -
"Quisty - can you hear me? Quisty?"
His eyes teared with hot, salt water. If she died - if she died, he would never forgive himself. What he threw away - this - this swan could have been his -
"Quisty, please!"
***
A haze, a misty diaphanous veil of raindrops was hovering in front of her eyes. Was it there? Or was it not? Did it really matter? Was she alive or dead? Nothing mattered, nothing mattered in this lazy, half-blissful, half-agony state of stupor.
Someone was whispering something - whispering or shouting she could not tell...she could feel moving air on her cheek, warm, like breath, but that was all. She was numb from the neck down, and numb in her legs, but her chest felt raw, ragged, and almost as painful as her blistered heart. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but instead, a racking bout of coughs shuddered through her body. Some of the mist cleared and she was aware of splashes of blood on the white collar of her dress. A face was hovering above hers - that face -
"Seifer..."
***
"Quist? Are you awake? Are you - are you all right?"
He knew it was a stupid question as soon as the words left his mouth. Her face was white; chalk white, her sapphire eyes dilated and glassy. They were terrified eyes, scared and frightened, and somehow weighed with an infinite - sorrow that he was unable to fathom. The bloodless eyelids fluttered once, twice. The unsure movement gave him hope - she was still alive. Her mouth was dry and parched, and a thin line of crimson blood trickled from its corner, from her coughing fit. His eyes travelled down her body, taking in the blood-soaked dress, the scars and scratches on her white arms, and -
What horrified and worried him the most was her crushed, useless leg; it was covered in scratches, the once flawless skin stained with rivulets of blood, and her ankle was completely snapped; a splinter of bone penetrating her delicate skin. He was astounded that, with her injuries, she was not screaming in agony. Then, a more sinister, more serious thought crossed his mind.
"Quistis? Can you feel anything?"
"Seifer...is that you?"
"It's - it's me, Seifer. Can you see me?"
"Yes - it's getting clearer. I - I can feel my face, and my chest, but the rest of me is - is numb. Completely- numb - "
She was breathing heavily, and her speech was laboured. What worried Seifer most was the possibility of internal injuries he didn't even want to guess at. It was as if she hadn't even tried to defend herself.
"What happened, Quist?"
"I was here - in my secret - secret place. I was upset - a little shaky." Her eyes closed as if weighed down with some truth she felt the need to lie about. "There were claws - the dinosaur - and I don't remember anything else."
"Can you move?"
"I don't know", whispered Quistis truthfully. Could she move? She was worried; she was worried about her body, about her health. Was she going to live?
"Seifer - How do I look?"
"You look beautiful."
An unspoken bond passed between them. The past? What was the past? When they could just live for the future, live for what was in front of them? It had always been Seifer, now and for ever. Anything else - anything else she had said or done, ever, had been for him, or because of him -
Quistis choked back a sob and looked up at Seifer, with that soft, gentle look he had always adored. He stroked her hair and realised that he could never love anybody but her. Even if he got married, and lived with somebody else, or died, far away from anybody he knew or loved, his heart would be somewhere else. With Quistis.
"I love you."
The words, so simple, and yet so beautiful. Quistis, weak from loss of blood, felt a warmth spread up through the numbness of her limbs. She was loved. For the first time, she was actually loved. But -
"Seifer - really. How do I look? Are my injuries bad?"
" I - I can't be sure until I try to move you."
Quistis felt his hand slip underneath her chest and lift her up. Almost immediately, a pain beyond any pain she could have ever imagined radiated through her ribs. With every breath she took the sharp pain grew sharper and more agonising, as if a dagger was hacking at her ribs and at the delicate tissue of the lungs underneath. She screamed involuntarily, a heart-rending scream that shattered Seifer's world. He knelt beside her prostrate form and supported her head as she dissolved into another desperate coughing fit. Droplets of blood spattered her neck and dress. He held her until the coughing subsided.
"I - can't move. Not now."
"We need help."
"Seifer! Don't leave me!"
Realising for the first time the hopelessness and seriousness of the situation, Seifer buried his face in his true love's cold neck and poured out his grief. Quistis could not feel the pressure of his head on her shoulder.
***
*Where am I?*
*Constricting throat - helplessness - Rinoa? Angel. My Angel.*
*Can I save her?*
*Somebody answer me!*
*Not - all alone - again?*
*Am I - all alone?*
**You're not alone**
**Neither is Rinoa. Your darling Rinoa.**
Squall realised that he could now open his eyes, and opened them slowly, letting the dingy light flood his pupils bit by bit. He was in some sort of metal walled room. A glass dome, reminiscent of the Sorceress Memorial was fixed upon the far wall. Inside it -
"RINOA!"
He scrambled to his feet, his head spinning. His Rinoa was trapped inside that inhumane thing, chained like a wild animal, struggling - what was this?
Invisible hands were pulling him back, supernaturally strong hands. He fought and struggled but the forces were too strong. He was pulled down onto the floor and held there. He looked around agitatedly. Where was he and what the hell was going on.
"Ah, Squall."
"Ultimecia. So we meet again."
Squall tried to keep his voice level, but inside, a smaller voice, was screaming, "We defeated her! What's she doing? Killing? Murdering? Rinoa? Murdering Rinoa? Rinoa! NO! Ans what about me?"
"What do you want with Rinoa? You can keep me. But she has nothing to do with this."
"Oh but she has everything to do with this. You'll see, poor misguided boy - "
A streak of eletrical lightning shot towards the dome and reverberated off the glass. Rinoa, held captive inside, winced in shock.
"The latent sorceress...she will have to be exterminated."
The words were going on above Squall's head. He was in a play, with no part, no lines. All he could hear was the little voice screaming "NO! NO! NO!" He reached in his back pocket for the gunblade, but its familiar bulge was not there. His gunblade was not there. His only protection - stripped from him. It was all too much...
What was he going to do?
***
Seifer stroked the side of Quistis' face. He couldn't leave her - he had to stay. How was he going to manage this on his own? He couldn't bear to see her in agony. He had to keep talking to her.
"Remember when we first met, back at the orphanage, Quisty?"
Quistis smiled lovingly, her smile sending a ray of warmth into his heart. Even when she was d -
No! She wasn't - she wasn't - that. She was going to be all right. She was whispering something.
"Tell me..." she murmured.
***
Seifer's voice was wisping into her mind, soothing her, cooling her. She was in bed and her parents were reading her a bedside story...
No! She was with Seifer, the guy she loved. And he was telling her a story. Perhaps her true bedtime story -but no- she mustn't think like that -
"I remember the first day we met," Seifer was saying, stroking her cheeks. "I remember the way the sun glinted off your long strands of hair, the way your eyes smiled shyly from underneath your eyelashes. I remember it all so clearly. Matron introducing us. We shook hands. Energy and friendship passed between us. I was too young to understand it then - " Seifer paused as if holding back a tear, "But It was love."
"I remember your face when we were playing games. I was yelling at Zell, making him cry, or fighting with Squall, teasing him. You would try to break us up, your eyes shining with concern and anger all intermingled, your mouth fixed into a stern line - yet it was ready to blossom into a smile at any moment. All you needed was a little encouragement. And then you were the most radiant girl in the world."
"Remember that night we set off fireworks? I led you over to the edge of the sea to watch them, and you dipped your toes in the water. The water that night was clear, lucid, and only rippled by a faint breeze. Remember? Remember the light, flickering?"
She did remember. She could almost see the flickering lights now, the reds and yellows flickering off the leaves around her. Wait - it was flickering -
"Seifer!" She interrupted urgently.
"What? What is it?"
"That light. Find out what it is..."
Seifer turned anxiously and headed out of the bushes. The light was clearer now, both soft and dreamy, and hot and fiery.
Seifer had returned, a strange expression on his face.
"What is it? What is the light?"
"Quisty - "
"It's fire, isn't it?" Her voice was almost hysterical now. "Don't lie to me Seifer. The Training Centre is on fire, isn't it?"
Seifer paused, drawing breath.
"The Training Centre is burning." He said finally, stumbling over his words. "The Grats' magic has spilled over, giving the Centre an overload of fire magic. It's pretty serious. I won't lie to you. And - "
"And, Quistis, if I can't move you out of here, and fast, we're both going to be stifled to death. Soon."
***
"What was that?" Selphie scrambled out of bed. The noise was still there - a kind of roaring. She headed next door to Zell's room. The noise was getting louder, more crackly.
"Zell? Zell!"
The well built macho youth yawned and looked at Selphie's concerned, yet flushed face. "Sefie - what is it? Spider in your bedroom?"
"That noise? What is it?"
Zell only had to listen for a second to realise what it was. "Holy Hyne Sefie, that's fire! And it's coming from the Training Centre! That means trouble!"
Zell was already out of bed, pulling on his uniform and gloves. "If there are monsters out there at night, I'll need to go down there."
"Shouldn't I come too? It isn't safe alone - "
"Sefie - go get Squall. Tell him to come and help me as quick as he can. This is an emergency!"
With that, Zell was gone, fists held out in front of him, face creased with worry. Selphie ran out after him, heading down the narrow corridor to Squall's dormitory. He'd know what to do.
***
"Squall?"
Selphie peeked cautiously around the door to his dormitory and nearly did a double take. Everything was immaculately neat, the bed made, the desk organised. But Squall -
Squall was nowhere to be seen.
And on the floor, broken into a million jagged silver pieces, was the mutilated corpse of his faithful Lionheart Gunblade, shattered into ominous disrepair.
***
And on the other side of Balamb Garden, the omniescent, celestial eye of life was closing ever so slowly...
Continue? Or not? Will Zell be too late to save the young lovers? I'll be basing that on the number of reviews!!