Thanks to
Caleb Nova, Exhile87 and RoMayDrako for taking the time to
review. Thanks especially for your positive comments. I have a plan for this
whole story so I just have to focus on writing as well as I can. I have to
share this computer with three other people so I can't write as often as I
want. Anyway- here's chapter three. I can't define the genre for this. I'll
decide later.
Conference
Squall knew he had work to do; there were hundreds of
papers he had to read and sign but right now he wanted to be able to relax and
think in peace without someone interrupting by telling him thinking too much
was bad for him. As far as he was concerned it wasn't a problem, not thinking
about something meant you made mistakes. Acting on impulse caused more problems
than solved them.
Seeing Rinoa worried earlier that day was not a peaceful
start to the day. He wanted to know what was going on in her mind as she seemed
to know what was going on in his most of the time. Somehow he had the feeling
their relationship was at a precarious point- they had not known each other
very long and their relationship was already far more intense than a couple who
had been together for years. He had become her knight, which was a deep
commitment. It scared him a little sometimes. He was seventeen and knight to
the sorceress who had inherited powers from three different sorceresses- Edea,
Adel and Ultimecia.
As far as he was concerned there was no question of
leaving her. He had known at the time when he had embarked on a relationship
with her it would be far more deep and requiring much more commitment than an
average teenage relationship normally would. At the time he had blindly fallen
in love with her, he still was but her inheritance meant it would be much more
serious than he would ever have assumed. But it was times like these when Rinoa
was not there to ease his troubles by unconsciously reminding him that he loved
her and felt they would be together forever. But he had always been the serious
one. He looked at the national statistics when he was alone and knew that most
teenage relationships didn't last- he sometimes adopted a pessimistic air
regarding their relationship and realised it would be difficult.
But he loved her to such a degree that he felt the world
could go to hell and leave him and Rinoa alone. He remembered that day when he
realised he loved Rinoa; it was a feeling totally unique to anything he had
ever felt. It was different to his love for his 'sister' Ellone, it made him
miss her when he had short missions and conferences to go to regarding the
funding of Garden. It made him feel completely happy when she was there; he
even smiled and forgot to be embarrassed about anyone watching.
The door to the office was knocked, Squall almost jumped
but recovered as fast as he could. "What is it?" He never said 'come in' or
such like as he really would have preferred to be left alone in the office
which had once been Headmaster Cid's. Cid was still officially headmaster; he
just never took such an active role in running Garden now.
Squall sighed, right now Cid was running around organising
an orphanage facility within Garden so children could grow up to be SeeDs
without having to transport orphans from Centra, the old orphanage was
destroyed years ago anyway in a storm that shattered the frail building into
further ruins. Squall disapproved of raising orphans to be SeeDs anyway. It was
something he wanted to bring up with Cid but didn't want an argument about.
SeeD was his own fault really though, if Squall hadn't
started going on and on about SeeD and Garden when he had accidentally gone
back to the wrong time in time compression maybe Matron wouldn't have thought
of it. Maybe things would have turned out different. But then the question of
whether he would have met Rinoa came up in his mind and he dismissed all
regrets about SeeD.
"It's Quistis." Squall held back a sigh; he didn't really
want to see her right now. Whenever she came to his office she would bring a
list of missions for him to take part in. Most of the time he managed to get
out of taking part in half of them but the ones he was left with were a pain.
Boring and ridiculously easy, missions even the lowest level SeeDs could do.
"What is it Quistis?" Quistis took this as a sign to come
in and entered the office. Squall tried not to cry out in shock when he saw
dozens of files and papers in her arms and tried to think up plausible excuses
for not taking part in a third of the missions but he couldn't think of any.
The excuse that he wasn't used to all of the work he had to do and was behind
wouldn't wash anymore. And that he was still tired after the Ultimecia mission
wouldn't really be a good excuse either.
"Some missions requests for you Commander." He hated being
called Commander and she knew it but Quistis kept the formality in Garden matters
and wouldn't stop calling him Commander.
"How many?" He asked eyeing with a look of dread the
papers Quistis was unloading onto his desk.
"Only thirty." She said smiling at the look on his face. "You
have to decide which ones are top priority; a lot of our employers want you on
the missions. You have a growing reputation."
"Is there any way I could turn half of these offers down
without offending them?" Squall looked up at Quistis wearily. She shook her
head. "Damn."
"Unless…" Quistis smiled and Squall looked up hoping there
was a solution but not wanting to fall into a trap.
"What?" He said cautiously.
"You could attend that conference concerning the treaty
between Esthar and Galbadia." Squall shook his head.
"No, Cid's been trying to get me to go to that thing for
ages, I said no then and I'm not changing my mind. Even if he did send you to
try to get me to agree I'm not going."
"But if you don't go to it the peace talks will last a lot
longer. They need a neutral representative that can vouch for Esthar's
sincerity."
"I don't want to go to it Quistis. I hate politics."
"You're the Commander! You're supposed to get involved in
politics- if you don't we could end up being hunted by the governments like we
almost were in the war, this is important." She could see he felt guilty. He
was now responsible for hundreds of lives in Garden, the responsibility not
being something he asked for but something he couldn't ignore now. Everyone
else involved in running the Garden was taking their duties seriously and only
Squall was still adjusting to the changes his position caused.
"What makes you think you can change my mind where
everyone else failed?" He said darkly, Quistis almost flinched but didn't let
it show. Instead she tried another tactic- her last resort. If she couldn't get
him to agree on grounds of responsibility then she would resort to blackmail.
"Then I guess you'll be spending months getting these
missions out of the way." She waited to be dismissed, watching his reaction. He
sighed, he had no choice and they both knew it. She knew she had won.
"Let Headmaster Cid know I'll be going on the trip." He
wasn't happy but months of boring repetitive missions were not particularly
appealing to him. Something Quistis could understand to a degree although she
wasn't anywhere as much in demand for missions as Squall because of his
position in Garden as Commander.
She nodded and left, the office becoming more unpleasant
in her opinion the longer she stayed in it, its atmosphere was musty and old.
Squall unfortunately was left to finish off mountains of paperwork still lying
on his desk besides the requests for his involvements in missions which Quistis
had left for him to sort out. It was getting too much all of this work.
Squall thought of Rinoa, they'd promised to go to the
secret area that night and watch shooting stars together, he hadn't the heart
to tell her that the likelihood of shooting stars occurring tonight were a
million to one. Never mind, they could talk, finally. Alone this time without
Zell or
And now he had to go to the conference, well the day was
really turning out well. Squall had scared his girlfriend and managed to get
booked on a conference he had spent the previous six weeks trying to avoid. Cid
and Edea had been on at him to go for the whole time. Squall had taken to
avoiding them whenever possible.
There was a particular reason he wanted to avoid going to
the conference. Laguna would be there. Not straight away because of national
security but he would be there later on and knowing Laguna he would probably
take the opportunity to talk to him and about his mother. Squall had spent so
long trying to forget what he had learned that to be forced to face the truth
again would just destroy all his efforts permanently. He just didn't know how
he would react when the barriers he had formed around himself started to
collapse.
But he really hated politics, the backstabbing; his lack
of expertise in that world worried him, he didn't want to be cross examined by representatives
of different governments, he was a SeeD not a politician.
He sat back, he wondered what he would say to Rinoa- he
had to go on a conference and he wasn't sure when it would end. How did he put
that to her? Would she do what she had done before and stay in Garden until he
got back? But the longest his missions had ever lasted before were three days.
A month at least. It was an entirely different matter. He didn't want to be
away that long anyway.
He pushed aside the feeling of dread that about having
communicate this news to her later and started to fill in some of the paperwork
he had been working on before Quistis came in. Again he wished he had a
secretary.
Sorry it's so short; there just wasn't much to write about
here. Next chapter will be about the conference, I just didn't want to jump
from one scene to another, the story hasn't started yet, you wait for the next
one. I mean it- it should be interesting according to my plan. Review!!!