Chapter Five
The boy with green eyes.
Edea and Cid were happy, weren't they? A child after so many years of hoping and praying, a being of their living flesh with a conscience, a mind, and a heart.
robbedfromtheminonetwistedsecondoffateofhateofcowardicetheplaceinshamblesnoluciannoabsolution -
Such a world of fantasy we live in that we are simply to retreat from everything we once loved?
But it was all a fantasy. Memories wash ashore on that beach now, and I am as helpless as I was when I was nine. Wet eyes, frail body – a decade later and my eyes are just as wet, my body just as frail, and I am wrapped up in a timeless present of circular tracks and wheels.
Lucian was fair-haired like his father, but unlike his father he had a quiet, introverted demeanor which isolated him from our little group despite our best efforts to get to know him. He was always caught up in some personal delirium – he would not hear the things we heard, see the things we saw; through his eyes there was a flipside to the world behind the looking glass and his reflection was a distortion of perceptions; some shimmery silvered dream wavering behind a watery mirror; like ripples across his mind, getting wider, wider, and wider –
Then disappearing. Was that the price of falling all those years?
Andwhatofthepriceofadream?
Quistis looked up, her eyes suddenly brimming over with tears as recognition dawned with some deft touch of a thief.
Without saying a word she wrapped her arms around her twice savior, squeezing as much warmth out of him as she possibly could for fear that the body would turn cold and limp as she'd imagined it would be. He didn't return the gesture.
They stood like that for some time, he with his arms hanging limply by his sides and she embracing him with silent jubilation. When she finally withdrew from him, she took a moment to take in all that had changed after ten long years.
Now an adult, he looked nothing like his parents. The fair-haired child she used to coax to sleep stood a high above her, seemingly wary and guarded of her. She swept her eyes over him regardless, noting absentmindedly the fashion of his clothes to be reminiscent of Galbadia's dress style.
"How are you doing Quistis?" He asked all of a sudden. The banal nature of the question startled her.
"I'm fine. And you?"
"I'm good, although it was a little disappointing to have been forgotten by the one girl who actually meant something to me all those years ago." His smile was dim and faintly… accusing?
Quistis cringed, remembering their initial conversation in the elevator. She placed a hand on his arm. "Lucian…" She began, "What happened? Ellone said…"
"Ellone sees a lot things that aren't really there." He said quietly, flinching at her touch. He met her gaze for a moment, then moved his eyes down to the ground. Safer territory, she realized, reluctantly letting her hand fall back to her side.
"But the guards?"
"They ditched me in an area close to Galbadia. Probably figured I'd either be too dumb to head in the right direction, starve, then die, or that heading into the city was a death sentence enough." His voice was almost as bitter as his eyes. When he didn't offer any more information Quistis tried to probe him further in an attempt to gain what still eluded her.
"Why didn't you-"
"Why didn't I contact Cid and Edea?" He asked, interrupting her. "Would it have made a difference?" He turned and stared at the horizon. Quistis followed his eyes, but found herself once again drawn to his angular profile. Something about this man struck her as so familiar, and yet so unfamiliar at the same time. It was unnerving.
"What do you mean by that?" She prompted, uncertain of what else she could say.
Lucian chuckled. He gestured towards the central part of town. "Come Quistis, let's go for a walk."
*
He remembered being bathed by a clean sheet of rain the last time he had stood here. Drenched and standing with his face titled up towards the sky, he had experienced an epiphany. A vision of a sorceress's knight.
The rain was clearly lacking now, the sun casting down its light to barely graze the surface of the waves. But the epiphany struck again. Like lightning. And it hit him hard.
Lucian.
The name rolled over his thoughts, again and again, seeking out the face of a seven-year-old child.
"Lucian," Seifer mused to himself, "you always did keep me from getting things done."
But regardless, Seifer knew the plan was never to simply murder Trepe in broad daylight. Though she had been in the process of completing the task for him when that brat showed up. Pity.
Narrowing his eyes, Seifer leapt down from his perch once the couple was out of sight and took a moment to bask in the sun. It had really been too long since he'd last been here. Why hadn't he…?But then a flash of metal too much like the color of silver crossed his line of vision, no more than a container being loaded off a ship, and he suddenly remembered why. He felt the wind trace his cheek with brittle fingers.
The features on his face lost their hard edge and, for one brief moment, he was like any other man standing on those docks, looking out into a distant beyond for a future lying hidden behind the vast array of clouds.