A/N: Gosh!! I didn't realize how many people were hanging around waiting for me to update this fic! You guys are great...very devoted :-P I'm lucky to have y'all.
Chapter 11: Fortitude
The blizzard had changed the entire appearance of the landscape. When Quistis had walked through on her way to the tavern, the sun had been setting and splashing orange and red across the hard, crusted snow. Presently, layer upon layer had been added to that appearance and the world had taken on a completely different tone. It was suddenly much more forbidding, and the task of traversing it seemed all the more daunting. Sheer determination was all that kept Quistis from turning tail and running back to the relative safety of the tavern.
Seifer came up beside her, stepping high with his snowshoes. He had the stride to easily outpace her in the cumbersome, but essential, devices. He let out a long breath, which promptly froze in front of his face.
"Why are we stopping?" he demanded.
"Wouldn't think you'd be in such a hurry," she pointed out.
"I'm freezing to death just standing here," he barked. There was a little vein in his neck that jumped out whenever he forced words out in such a way, and even though his neck was completely covered, she could practically see the little twitch in her mind.
Shrugging off the feeling that she'd been thinking about Seifer too often, Quistis trailed her gaze over the tops of the mountains, tracing their shape against the sky. They were the one feature of the land that hadn't been completely reshaped by the snow, and she was being forced to rely on their relative appearance and the position of the sun (along with a scratched up little compass which was proving to be less help) to find her way around. All of the most used mountain passes were marked in red ink on her map, a few of them even labeled with names she been able to wring from the locals. Early on in her trip through Trabia, she'd come to realize that making an attempt to put a name with a place was fruitless and even frustrating. Everyone seemed to have made up their own names without considering even for a second what anyone else might call it. For a foreigner like Quistis, the whole of it was more confusing than helpful.
"Hold up," she gave Seifer's leash a tug as he started to walk ahead of her.
"What?" he scrunched up his nose, irritated at not being able to keep his own pace.
"I want to look at the map," she explained, reaching down the top her coat with one mittened hand. The wind, by some miracle, wasn't blowing and she reluctantly pulled off her mitten with her teeth to unfold the map. Fur came off on her tongue, and even as she cringed with the unpleasantry, she tried to focus on the task at hand.
"Hyne, Quistis..." Seifer reached forward with his bound hands to pull the mitten from her mouth. "How did you make it out here on your own?"
"Didn't have to baby-sit then," she reminded him. She pushed her sunglasses up her nose as she bent over to spread the map out against her legs. She would have never believed that sunglasses were an important feature to traveling across snow, but the first day she'd spent on an ice field with the sun blaring down from the sky had thoroughly convinced her to invest in a pair. SeeD would cringe when they got her expense report, the entire trip being filled with train tickets and a number of local purchases that included her current artic apparel.
"Do you even know where we are?" Seifer demanded, tilting his head slightly to one side.
"Of course I do," Quistis snapped, feeling insulted by his obvious lack of confidence in her abilities. She'd accomplished things no one else had, being one of the youngest SeeDs ever to become an instructor not among the least of them. Seifer, on the other hand, was a spectacular failure. She couldn't even remember all the time's he'd failed his SeeD exam, and at the peak of his studies he'd betrayed those of his own to side with evil. If anyone deserved doubt and criticism, it wasn't Quistis.
His features taking on the same cold sheen as the countryside, he turned his face from her as if he could somehow read her thoughts. Shaking her head to rid herself of the slight amount of pity and remorse that started to rise up in the depths of her stomach. It was beyond her why she was inclined to feel anything toward Seifer other than a general sort of dislike. She'd hunted him for long enough that he'd become almost a permanent fixture in her mind, and she somehow felt as if she knew him in and out. Their hunter and prey relationship had somehow fostered a certain sense of familiarity.
Tracing her finger along the map, she picked out a low pass that she figured wouldn't have been made completely impassable by the snow. Perhaps the most desirable feature of that specific route was that it came out into a little valley in which a sizable town was located. Hopefully she'd be able to gain transport from there into Esthar or, at least, to the coast so that she could sail back to Balamb. The shorter her trip back with Seifer had to be, the better.
"Okay...let's get going," she announced, shoving the map back into her coat and putting her mittens back on. Seifer had dropped her mitten into the snow after taking it from her, and it was finely coated with a white powder that was difficult to remove. Slapping it quickly against her thigh a few times, she sent a shower of flakes back to the ground. Seifer received a heated look from her before they started walking again.
Quistis was cold...freezing actually. She had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from clacking together. Seifer, however, seemed to be fine. With every other step he'd let out a puff of air and there seemed to be a healthy blush to his skin that completely belied his nearly emaciated form. He'd lost all unnecessary fat, and his muscles had taken on lean and thready appearances. If anything, she supposed he was about as healthy as he'd ever been. He'd only grown more hard.
"Slow down," she gave his leash a tug, nearly pulling him off balance.
"Damn it," he struggled for a few moments to regain his balance without the aid of his arms and hands. When he finally came back to equilibrium on his feet, he turned heated green eyes on his captor.
"What?" she feigned innocence.
"What the hell was that for?" he demanded.
"You're getting ahead of me," she shrugged, struggling to get in front of him with the big snow shoes on. Her knees hurt from bowing her legs in order to keep up the rigorous pace Seifer was setting. The slight aching was beginning to wear at her already thin resolve.
"Well, Hyne forbid!" he rolled his eyes. "If you didn't walk like a damn sloth in those things, we might get somewhere before night fall."
"I wouldn't be so worried about timing if I were you," Quistis shot back.
"I'd rather not die out here," he narrowed his eyes. As he grew more tense, she could see his hands straining at their bindings, and his shoulders bunched with the effort.
"You're not worth nearly as much dead," Quistis replied, knowing all the while it was a hit below the belt. He spun around faster than she honestly thought was possible in a pair of show shoes and started walking at a quick clip, dragging Quistis along behind him.
"Really? That's interesting to hear, Quisty," he ground out, picking up his pace even more. The break neck speed he had going allowed Quistis to finally understand how he'd been able to stay ahead of her for so long. He traveled quick, and he didn't seem to get tired while doing so.
"Seifer! Stop!" She had the rope tied around her waist so he wouldn't be able to get away from her. But now, as he raced in front of her, she wasn't able to keep up.
"Give me on reason why I should," he grunted.
"I can't keep up..." she panted. She stumbled, one of her shoes catching the other, and as the ground lurched sickly up at her she had the sharp mental image of her ankles twisting violently. Seifer could leave her for dead if she couldn't walk. He'd never agree to carry her to safety. "Seifer!" Her own voice was lined with a panic she didn't even realize she was feeling.
"How's it feel?" he asked. "You like not being in control? Like knowing I can decide whether you live or die?" He snarled and pulled on his end of the rope with remarkable strength. Quistis twisted her body to one side, letting it pull her onto her side in the snow rather than over the front of her snow shoes. Her lungs were gasping for the frozen air, which stung and tingled inside of her. Small tears were squeezing from between her eyes in response to the sudden violence Seifer had unleashed upon her. She was in over her head. She was out in the middle of nowhere with a murderer, and she had virtually no control over him.
"Stop crying," he demanded as he walked back over to her.
Quistis reached instinctively for her whip and was about to unleash all the power she could muster upon him before he somehow managed to pin her arm with his knee. There was a sheen of fear to his own eyes, and as he sat on top of her and they stared each other down, Quistis became confused as to who was in control of the situation.
Her hood had slipped off, and snow was melting against the back of her head, vastly increasing the rate of her chattering. The longer they sat in the snow, an amount of time which Quistis had already lost complete track of, she grew colder.
Seifer was breathing hard, the beard he was growing doing nothing to hide the tension in his jaw. He looked down at her for a long while, his knee cutting of bits of circulation throughout her arm. Finally, when the wildness leaked back out of his gaze and he seemed to gain back his head, Quistis was able to clear away the cob webs from her own mind and twisted underneath him.
"Seifer...get off of me..." she half demanded, half pleaded.
He gave her one last hard look, reminding her that (contrary to whatever she'd thought before) she was not in control of the situation. That was an immensely frightening idea, and when she rolled over onto her knees to try and get up she tried to hide her face from him so he wouldn't see her fear.
What have I gotten myself into?
More than at any other point in her journey, she found herself questioning why she'd taken the assignment in the first place. She'd wanted to get away from Garden, and the place she'd so wanted to escape was currently the only place in the world she wanted to be. Homesick to her bones, she fought within herself to find the courage to keep going. It had never been difficult for her to dig up bravery within herself before, she was trained as a mercenary and her own life was often secondary to her goal. Whether she'd gotten soft or was simply out of touch with her training from being gone so long, she wasn't sure. However, the prospect of meeting her end at the hands of Seifer made her blood run cold.
Perhaps, she figured, it was Seifer that made her situation so frightening. With all that he'd done, she never really figured that he would kill her. She didn't fully trust him not to, but at the same time she couldn't see him murdering her in cold blood.
He waited, panting, as she pushed herself up out of the snow and righted all of her clothing. He was a loose cannon, more so than she'd ever really allowed herself to believe. It was easier to fight him with the aid of companions, but she was alone with him and had no one to help her.
"Let's keep going toward the pass," he suggested, his voice thick.
"Sure," Quistis replied, looking down at his bound hands to be sure he hadn't somehow been able to get loose. The restraints eased some of her tension, but as they began walking again (she with a little stiff pain) she was still struggling with the effort of finding the fortitude demanded of her.
Hyne, what I wouldn't give to be home...
