"Thanks Quistis, See you tomorrow."
"See ya, Rinoa. Goodnight, Squall." Quistis smiled at them over her shoulder, then shut Squall's door behind her.
Squall came up behind Rinoa, gently placing his hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him, pleased and surprised by this rare show of affection, but he pretended not to notice.
"It's late, you should probably go back to your room now, Rinoa."
She shook her head. "But I wanted to stay and talk to you for a little while longer."
Squall sighed and sat on the edge of his bed. "...Whatever. Ok then, what do you want to talk about?"
Oh, it's just this story I wanted to tell you..." Rinoa smiled.
Squall rolled his eyes. "I'm not a kid. I don't need a bedtime story." He glared at Rinoa, who was laughing. Unfortunately, the look on his face only made her laugh harder.
"It's not a bedtime story!" She giggled. "It's just about something I had when I was a kid...You reminded me of it so I wanted to tell you about it."
Squall watched her, trying to look bored, but having a little trouble hiding his curiosity. "Well, go on."
"Well Squall, when I was a child I really loved animals. I tried to adopt any stray cat or dog that I could find. My Da...Um, General Caraway didn't usually let me, but there were a few times that I got away with it.
One time when I was about nine years old, I found a beautiful little, black dog. I called her Selene because she had a white spot on her chest that reminded me of the moon. The problem was that she was afraid of people. The only way I could get close to her at first was by breaking dog treats into pieces and tossing them to her, each time making her come a little bit closer.
Eventually she started to let me touch her on the head, but only for a second or two, then she'd back away.
One day she came up behind me and nuzzled my hand, but when I tried to pet her, she backed off..." Rinoa paused.
"Did you ever tame her?" Squall asked.
Rinoa nodded. "Yeah. It took a long time before she ever trusted me completely, but it was worth it. Aside from my Angelo, Selene was one of the best pets I had."
Squall looked at her questioningly "That's a nice little story, but what does it have to do with me?"
She was silent for a moment, thinking of a creative way to explain. "Well Squall, A while back I found this wonderful, handsome, wild lion. The problem was that he was afraid to show he's true feelings to people. It was hard to get close to him at first. I tried to get his attention. Asking him to dance with me, wanting him to say I was his girlfriend, just for fun. I even told him to stay close to me, to not leave me alone.
We argued a lot in the beginning, but later on he was very nice to me. He gave me his favorite ring. He even saved my life a few times.
After we had been together for a while, he became a little more open about his feelings." She smiled. "He even kissed me once...but most of the time it was still difficult to get him to show me much affection."
Squall looked away, hiding a faint smile. "So...Did you ever tame this 'Wild Lion' of yours?"
Rinoa sat down on the bed next to him. "I don't know...did I?"
He turned to her and looked into her deep brown eyes for a moment, then leaned forward and kissed her lightly. When their lips parted, he whispered. "I think so."