Consequences
by Soul Hunter and TacomaSquall
Chapter 3:
Unsolicited Advocacy
The brig in Balamb
Garden. One of the most depressing
places I have ever been in my life, it was a place I had grown far too familiar
with over the years. From the first
time I was thrown in here, for being serious about enforcing discipline amongst
Balamb's cadets, I had hated this place. Never had I felt I deserved to be thrown here. Until now.
Can I honestly say
that what I did wasn't wrong? I
betrayed the Garden, turning against them when they faced their gravest
crisis. I dragged my two friends along
with me, blinded to the fact that Ultimecia offered me so much but gave me so
little. Eventually, even they turned
away from me, choosing to save me, instead of lemming-like subordination. Their actions in the Lunatic Pandora may
have saved my life.
My blood runs cold
whenever I think about that moment when I looked in Rinoa's face, as Ultimecia
junctioned her. The terror I saw in her
eyes was too much. I guess she had always
clung to the illusion of me that she had when we were dating.
I never fell in love
with her. Sure, she was fun to hang out
with. She was disarmingly charming in
her naivete, but she just seemed to be way too childish for my tastes. Somehow, it didn't seem right for me to be
with someone so innocent.
When I looked in her
eyes, I realized that I had just been responsible for destroying some of that
innocence. In her naivete, she had
somehow believed that I was incapable of the terrible things I had done as
Ultimecia's knight. She had somehow
been able to rationalize away everything I had done. In that moment, I saw her love for me wither and die.
In that moment, I
wished that I had been cut down by Odin's blade, rather than the other way
around.
Afterwards, I felt a
clarity of mind that I had not sensed since I dueled Squall before the SeeD
final exam. That clarity of mind led me
to follow Fuujin and Raijin's lead, escaping from Lunatic Pandora while Squall
and his merry men fought to save Rinoa from Ultimecia. No longer did serving as the Sorceress'
Knight seem right. I finally realized
exactly how evil she was.
Of course, there is
no one who understands how I slipped right into her trap. No one understands that she knew how to push
every one of my buttons. She knew how
to convince me to do things that I would have never done alone.
I hear the electronic
lock to my cell buzz with activity, and the door slips open. I steel myself to face the torturer I know
is coming for me, to wring as much confession as they can from me before they
put me up on their Kangaroo-court stand for "judgment". Ha – how the hell can they presume to judge
me when they don't even have an inkling of what it felt like to be her knight?
To my surprise,
Little Miss Instructor walks into my cell, dressed in her rather drab-seeming
instructor's uniform. Perhaps it is
just due to the fact that she seems about as happy to be here as I am, but she
seems to be the opposite of her usual unreachable-goddess-of-learning persona.
"Come to gloat over
me, Quisty?" In my current circumstances,
I can't afford to let anyone else see me as weaker than I used to be, no matter
how accurate such an assessment would be.
Her eyes glinted in
the dim light of the brig. She snapped
right back. "No, regardless of how
fitting it would be to do so." At least
some of her fire still burned brightly, regardless of whether she liked where
she was or not.
I growled, "Then what
do you want? I'm not scheduled to be
exhibited like a torama in a cage until tomorrow. Did you want to have a private viewing, before the masses came by
to look upon the Sorceress' Knight?"
Anger colored my
words as I continued, "Or are you here to make me confess, that your so-called
justice may be swift and merciful? I
have heard the way people talk about me – it's impossible not to. Are you here to ask me, for Hyne's sake, to
cast myself upon the mercy of the court, when I full well know there will be no
such mercy in any proceeding headed by the SeeDs after what happened during the
War? Or are you here for a different reason? Have you sunk so low from Rain Boy's
rejection that you are longing for the touch of a -"
She slapped my face,
hard. I didn't even see her draw her
hand back for the blow. As my head
rocked backwards from the force of her blow, she spoke in that calmest of tones
that she reserved for me at my most (to her) idiotic. "Damn you, Seifer. Don't
antagonize me."
Rubbing my chin, I
asked her, "Why not? It always was fun
back when I was your student. Now that
I'm your prisoner, it should be just as entertaining." I took perverse satisfaction in the fact
that I was hitting her buttons square on.
"Listen to me. In less than a week, you are going to go on
trial for your life." Her voice was
losing some of its calm. Good, that meant
that I was eroding her self-control.
"Don't give me one of
these 'Listen to me, I'm doing this for your own good' lectures, Little Miss
Instructor!" I stared her right in the
face. "Both you and I know that there
isn't a chance in Hell of this trial being anything other than a circus."
"Seifer, I am the
only person who is going to be on your side during that circus!" Rage flashed in her eyes.
I sat down on the
cell's cot, stunned by her declaration. Quistis was going to be my advocate?!?
Quistis
continued. "For once in your life, stop
acting so stupid. You are going into a
hostile courtroom, where there is a high likelihood that you will be judged
guilty of war crimes. This is not a situation
that you can bluster your way out of, Seifer."
I looked her in the
eyes. She was wearing her usual
schoolmarm glasses, the ones with the oblong eyepieces. Her eyes were narrowed in anger at me. "Wait a second." I cut her off in mid-rant. "I don't trust you. You have
plenty of reasons to sabotage my defense."
"I know," she
grated. "But I made an oath to follow
orders from my superior officer, unless they were unethical. And it is Cid Kramer's determination that I
am the best person to represent you."
"What?" What the hell was Cid thinking? Was he pulling some sort of attempt to save
me out of pity? "I don't need Cid's
pity or yours, either."
Quistis' eyes blazed
again, and she forced herself to regain the glacial calm that had made us call
her 'The Ice Queen' when we still roamed the halls of Balamb Garden as the Disciplinary
Committee. "I don't pity you,
Seifer. I think you are as guilty as
sin. But, I will comply with Cid's
request because of one simple thing, Seifer. You deserve justice, not a lynching or a Kangaroo court."
She was serious! My estimation of Instructor Quistis Trepe
went up a couple of notches, just from that statement. I nodded slowly. "So, what type of prosecution are we likely to face?"
"Xu Kirishima will be
the prosecutor." I felt my spirits
sink. Xu was determined that I be
convicted and pay the penalty for my crimes, I discovered during the journey
back from Fisherman's Horizon. The
ebon-haired SeeD was a stickler for details, and there were a lot of details
she could refer to during my time as the Sorceress' Knight.
"How are you going to
defend me?"
She smiled. "Actually, Seifer, I was hoping that you
would tell me. As your advocate, I need
to know your story." Her smile rapidly
became a frown. It was clear that she
was not looking forward to this.
Hesitantly, I
began. "It all started on the day of
the practice duel between Squall and I. As you know, we gave each other the scars that we wear to this day."
As I continued, my
narrative began to flow smoothly. In
some ways, it was a relief to tell the tale. "I went to Doctor Kadowaki, and had things taken care of. After she had stitched the wound closed, she
gave me some pills for the pain. I took
two and made my way to my dorm room. I
barely made it, with the assistance of the Posse, before I passed out."
"As I lay there, I
dreamt of Matron. She was in grave
danger, with armed men hunting her down. No one else would stand to support her, and she was forced to use magic
to protect herself from the first onslaught of attackers. After the first wave, she slumped from exhaustion."
"In my dream, I
realized that I bore Hyperion with me. I drew my gunblade and charged beside her, just in time to prevent her
from being killed by an enemy that struck her while she was unaware. Together, we were able to drive the
attackers away."
"As the enemy fled,
she turned to me and smiled. She
thanked me for saving her life and hugged me. I was embarrassed to realize that I was holding a beautiful woman in my
arms. I awakened at that realization,
and it was the next morning."
"After that, the
dreams came every night. As they
continued, they became more detailed, and, I guess, I started filling them in
with my own fantasies of being a great hero. Soon, Edea and I were trying to save the world, even as her enemies
sought to destroy it. I dreamt that I
became her knight, her protector and strong right arm, but also her lover."
As I spoke to Quistis
about how I became the Sorceress' Knight, I felt the old antagonism start to
slip away. I had no choice but to trust
her. Ironically, in trusting her, I
allowed myself to do something I had done to no one other than Ultimecia. I opened up to my former Instructor.
It was with a strange
feeling of relief that I told my story to her. Finally, I aired how I felt about everything that had happened to me
over the past year. I allowed someone
behind the façade that I wore towards the rest of the world. I was no longer Seifer Almasy, the
Sorceress' Knight. I wasn't the head of
the Posse. I was merely the young man
who dreamt of being a hero some day, of being admired by all for my great
deeds.
We spoke that night
for about two hours, with me sketching in the whole of my time at Ultimecia's
side. I didn't shy away from anything,
even those things which troubled my conscience the most.
I explained about how
Ultimecia manipulated me, driving me to seek Squall's death at any cost. How she played with my emotions until I was
willing to do anything for her approval.
Eventually, I reached
the end of my story. I told of my
self-imposed exile at Fisherman's Horizon. I spoke of the peace I had begun to find on the waves. I also spoke of the dissatisfaction I felt
upon achieving notoriety.
Quistis sighed as she
rose to her feet at the end of my tale. "Seifer, the trial is in one week. I hope we will be ready." She
started to walk out of my cell, and stopped. "Thank you. I have an idea of
how hard it must have been for you to tell me this story. If we can continue to work together, perhaps
we will have a chance, after all."
She walked out of the
cell. The electronic buzz of the door's
lock covered the sound of her retreating footsteps. The pale moon, a sliver of flimsy silver, peeked in through my
cell's window, as the lights in my cell dimmed to night-time darkness.
Methodically, I
readied myself for bed. As I lay there,
I thought about the upcoming trial. Amazingly, I was no longer certain that it was going to be a sop to the
people who wanted to see me dead.
The kicker was that I
didn't know if that was better or not…