Chapter Four

I stayed awake for hours again last night

Just searching for a reason to keep up the fight

I've made choices I don't regret,

But I"ve got problems I don't get.

Oh let's wait one more day for the conversation

One more day to make it right

Let's get away from the confrontation

One more day, just buying time.

Buying Time, Great Big Sea

Dammit, Quistis thought, she'd fought for this mission. Trying to persuade Squall, persuade them all, persuade maybe even herself that Seifer was worth more to them dead than alive, that they really couldn't let the Galbadians get away with this. Even if Seifer had never been a fully fledged SeeD, even if they hadn't heard of him for twelve months, even if he had tried to destroy the world.

When the intelligence reports came in that implied, in a few carefully-chosen words, that Galbadia were sending troops into Marduk to capture one ex SeeD cadet and general nuisance, she'd been one of the few that had said maybe they, the Garden, should send people in.

She hadn't intended being sent on the mission herself. Thinking that it would be a great idea to find out what the Galbadians wanted with Seifer was one thing, but being sent out here, alone, with orders to go get him and drag him, kicking and screaming if need be, back through the Galbadian lines to a safe transport ship was quite another.

"There isn't another SeeD we"d rather send," Squall had told her. "You"re the only person for the job." But I"m not even twenty! she'd wanted to shout. You must have better agents than me, better trackers, people with more experience and more muscle and more brains even. And Seifer-

Seifer's an asshole.

She sighed. Sometimes being one of the heroines of Balamb was a double-edged sword.

She trudged on, boots sunk ankle deep in snow. The cold bit through her carefully chosen winter gear. And it wasn"t even full winter yet, it was mid-November, and there was only a faint dusting of snow on the ground compared to the usual six-feet high drifts.

She hoped that the man who"d contacted them just had some unfortunate hiker locked up in his cellar. She'd get there and it wouldn"t be the right man and she could just apologise and call Garden or wait it out and have them come get her. It wouldn't be very intrepid and certainly it certainly wouldn't be one of the textbook missions she'd read to her students, but it would be completely and utterly mundane. And right now Quistis could totally do mundane.

She thought it ironic, seeing as she"d been going so stir-crazy back in Garden, with her teaching and papers to mark and safe, familiar faces. It had been mudane. It had also been boring and predictable. And it had been driving her mad.

But no one hiked in the Galbadian forests, only the insane and the merely badly lost. There were a few settlements spread about, wherever the locals had enough weapons and techniques and training to hold their own against the monsters and make a lucrative living trading off furs and tentacles and certain recreational drugs readily available in some of the lonelier mountainous holdings. But even they were few and far between. And they had a tendency to disappear, change, and move without notice. There weren"t even any decent maps of this area, for Hyne's sake.

She knew that this would have been a major factor in Seifer deciding to run into it.

The bastard, she thought. Why couldn"t he at least have run somewhere warm. And maybe not entirely crawling with monsters. And, if this was going to be her fantasy, why not somewhere with hot and cold running water and soft beds? Or a minibar. Quistis hadn't been on vacation in years. Literally.

Worse, Cid had personally recommended this man to her. He had told Quistis that Gennady Ayers used to be a survival instructor, back in the old days of Garden, before Seifer and Squall and the sorceresses and the messengers. So, worse luck for her, he probably knew what he was talking about.

Which meant that when she got to this man's house, she was going to have to deal with a very angry Seifer Almasy, who she was then going to have to extract through hostile territory.

A branch deposited a load of snow down the back of Quistis's neck. She swore.

Her destination wasn't far ahead. She'd already been walking for a day, having been dropped off some miles away out of Galbadian radar with a double load of equipment and provisions, a brief, not entirely accurate map, and the promise that there would be someone waiting in a few days time to pick both of them up, if she managed to get that far.

Quistis checked her map. Not far now, she thought.

Thirty minutes of hard walking later, the sun was high in the sky. It was pretty, really. The light glittered from the thin snow and black rocks that jutted out from the hills on either side. Quistis's tactician's mind couldn"t let go of the layout beneath. She assessed the lie of the ground, the wind direction; planning out every move suitable for every situation.

If a person came round that corner, armed with a sword, magic, a gunblade, a whip-I would-If it wasn't a a person at all, but a snow lion or a Marlboro then I would…

She caught sight of a small village down in the valley and checked her map again. There it was, the knowledge clear in a computer printout with elevations and contour ridges marked approximately, dotted lines for trails and an X marking the spot.

The information lay like a lead brick in her stomach. Village of Yesnaby. Population: 85. Contact: Gennady Ayers (ex-SeeD). Your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Quistis reached for her com and toggled it open. The reception was unclear, cloudy, but she caught a hint of a voice that might have been Xu's. "Omega. Repeat, Omega. Are you receiving me? Over."

What might have been a "yes," floated from the tiny speaker.

"Um, Right. This is Delta One, Repeat. Delta One. I have reached the dragon's lair. Repeat. I have reached the dragon's lair. Over. Do you copy?"

A hiss of static, then.. "Copy..bttzz…elta one. Over and out."

Stupid codes. They should have never let Zell loose on them. She felt like she was in a cheap paperback novel with an embossed gold letter on the front and a bad title like "The Phi Tau Delta Conspiracy".

She flipped the com closed and replaced it safely in her parka pocket, pulling up her fur lined hood more closely to cover her face and shroud the thick scarf over her nose and mouth. She consulted the tiny village map on the flipside of her printout and she frowned. They'd said Gen's house was slightly away from the others. And Quistis was here. Which meant that he was…..about here. She located a faint trail of smoke through the trees and started to head towards it. Bingo.

That was the end of the easy part of her mission.

The cabin was slightly away from the other houses. It was small and unprepossessing. It huddled into the trees surrounding it in a state of gentle decay not helped by the piles of wood that covered all its walls. Quistis looked at it doubtfully.

Well, this must be it, she thought, and walked out from the trees, onto the stone path, knocking snow off her boots. The front door was carved from a single slab of heavy wood. She reached out for the knocker and the door swung open at once, making Quistis jump, her fingers going for Save the Queen laced through her belt.

"SeeD Trepe? I"m Gennady Ayers." A hand grabbed hers and wrung it with the force of a mousetrap.

"Um, Quistis Trepe," Quistis said as she surreptitiously tried to shake some feeling back into her fingers.

A few minutes later after bags had been taken and fires lit and boots kicked off. Gennady pulled back a chair and got down to business. "Right. Let"s cut to the chase."

Quistis settled cautiously into a fat armchair. She looked puzzled for a moment and pulled two badly creased hardback books and a pipe from under the seat before she sat down again. Gen took them absently.

"Cid said you…..found him a day ago."

"Well. To be honest I would have been suspicious even if I hadn't recognised him. We don"t see many visitors round here, and some of the ones we get aren't the kind you"d want to invite into your home. Anyway, Cid said he"d be sending someone." He paused."Though I didn't expect you to be quite so….young."

Quistis's voice turned to ice. "I can assure you, sir, I am more than capable."

"Oh, yes, I know. I know.. One of the heroes-sorry, heroines of the Sorceresses Wars. You must have done well." Gen smiled. "You're one of the kids that Edea raised. In that orphanage of hers. I remember him telling us about you. About all of you."

"I fail to see what this has to do with the mission, sir. But yes, I am."

He leant back. "Stop being so touchy. I don't think for one second that you aren't capable of dealing with this. Otherwise Cid or Squall or whoever's running the Garden these days would never have sent you. I respect his judgement and if he says you can do it, you can do it. It just seems odd that this guy's been missing for almost a year now and no one's done anything. Why all the interest all of a sudden?"

She relaxed slightly. "Well, sir, as I'm sure you are aware, a month ago we had no idea that Seifer Almasy was even still alive. I, for one, just assumed he died during Time Compression. That he never came out. And we were perhaps glad to …let that lie. If anyone asked, we could just say he was dead. I don't think Cid, even now, is keen to take this to trial unless international pressures force him to, but if the Galbadians get to him first we won't have much of a chance. While we're taking it through the courts, there"s too many opportunities for someone to fall downstairs or to have a fight with guards and end up "accidentally" shot through the , you must know that the fortunes of the Galbadia Garden have gone downhill since the wars. Headmaster Martine feels, not without reason, that his Garden was brought into disfavour by the recent….events. Business has been down. A lot of clients have been coming to us instead. Balamb's by no means taken all the work, but we"ve made a very good living out of it. Martine was one of the chief opposers to Edea's reinstatement, but with public favour towards Balamb, how could he protest? It was clear to everyone that she'd been controlled in some way. But Martine got very unpleasant about it all. I think he feels that if a public figure were made to take the blame for the damage, then most of the repercussions could be moved off their Garden onto a more, shall we say, easily recognisable figure. It's not entirely a personal vendetta,of course, but Martine was against the whole sorceress thing from the start. Edea's safe now, she"s too much of a public figure and she was respected for years before all of this happened. And that's where Seifer comes in."

Gen agreed. "A scapegoat."

"That's right. According to our sources, the intelligence forces at Galbadia Garden have been searching for news of Seifer"s reappearance ever since the end of the wars. Then finally they started to recieve definite reports about two months ago from Marduk, in the north of Trabia. And I mean definite. Since the end of the wars we"ve had more 'Seifer Almasy sightings' than I've had…cups of coffee. Balamb pumas. Loch Ness monsters. Yetis. Seifers. We mostly file them in the wastebasket. According to the sources, a reliable witness had seen Seifer Almasy, and apparently he's been there for a considerable length of time. And some of the activities he's thought to have engaged in were illegal to say the least. So the authorities of Marduk were more than happy to let Galbadia in to search for a wanted criminal, with a substantial financial that's when we started to hear what was going on. We sent troops as well but somehow he managed to escape from the city through the maintenance tunnels. We"ve also had informers stationed at all the major mountain passes for weeks."

"A good idea," Gen said. "I gather Galbadia have lost a considerable number of troops and resources trying to follow him through the forest. And frankly, I'm not surprised. It's a bad part of the country. One man might get through relatively easily, if he knew how to fight and had a Marlboro's own luck, but sending a large number of troops through is just asking for trouble. Monsters from miles around, and supply problems too." He paused, "Go on. Want a drink? I've got coffee, tea? You must be cold."

Quistis smiled gratefully, glad for the familiar rituals of coffee and sugar and a hot drink. "Yes. Coffee, please."

"So what'll happen once he returns to Garden?"

"Oh, I'm not saying that Seifer will be let off scot-free, even at Balamb," Quistis said hastily. "There's been no precedent for this case before, so a lot depends on whether he was really being controlled in the same way as Edea or not, which is a matter of …some debate, considering his previous conduct at Balamb Garden. Authority problems. Conflict. Arrogance. Fights with other students. Disruptive behavior. And, added to that, he's been accused of a number of unexplained crimes in Marduk. Of course, since the government there is as corrupt as hell, it"s possible that some at least of those crimes were not Seifer"s doing. In fact, it would have been physically impossible for him to have committed some of them without being two places at once. Nevertheless, those must be taken into account too. And at the end of the day, he's our problem. He was one of ours once. Not Galbadia"s. Balamb's. Technically, he's still under Balamb jurisdiction and must be tried in a military court. Nobody just gets..'disappeared, or held up as a scapegoat just because some fool didn"t ask the right questions at the right time. If nothing else, it would look like we can't handle our own matters. And that's not good for business."

"You're very objective, aren't you?"

"I try to be."

Gen put a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. "To be frank, I think it's nothing less than a miracle and good weather that Almasy has survived as long as he has. It can get tough out here. I just hope you've got enough equipment for the two of you." He lifted a pack from the floor and dumped Seifer"s possessions on the table. "A gun. Three rounds of ammunition, two knives, a whetstone, half a dead squirrel, fifty gil, two groundsheets, a damp sleeping bag, one empty hipflask smelling of spirits, a lighter and half a packet of Lucky Strikes. I"m ashamed on behalf of all SeeD ex-survival teachers"

Quistis shook her head "I thought he quit."

"You used to know him personally? I thought…"

She shrugged. "It was a couple of years ago. I used to be Seifer's teacher. Not that I made a very good job of it"

Gen smiled "I'm sure you did a very good job."

"Yeah. Except for the whole "joining with the sorceress and trying to destroy the world as we know it" thing"

He shrugged.

"Anyway, that's partly why I was sent on this mission. And, speaking of which, I better get on my way. I"m sure that the sooner you have the use of your cellar back, the better it"ll be. Toss the stuff outside. We"ll have to go through it later."

"Are you sure you'll be all right? It's quite a long way to travel. If I can do anything..?"

She gave him a look so old-fashioned it was practically Neolithic. "I told you, I can manage. You managed perfectly fine with your ingenuity and I'm sure I can do no less with the whole of SeeD"s resources at my disposal. How did you manage it anyway? Cid was most surprised. They"ve been after him for months and then we get a call from the middle of nowhere asking if we can please come take our Seifer back."

Gen shrugged. "I just got lucky. He should just have been out for five minutes but then he started to snore so I just left him. Let's go wake him up."

"Wait." Quistis pulled out her com device. "Omega. Are you receiving me? This is Delta One. Over." The reception was better in the village. She could hear Xu"s voice quite clearly.

"This is Omega. Copy."

"This is Delta One. Um, the dragon is ready to fly. Do you copy?"

Xu had the grace to sound slightly embarrassed. "I copy, Delta One. On the record, good luck, we're sure you'll do us proud. Off the record, don"t let that bastard get away with anything. Good luck, Quistis. You"ll need it. Over and out."

Gennady raised one eyebrow, and Quistis blushed. "New codes," she said as she waited for Gen to pull his boots on and struggle into a heavy torn coat and gloves. She wondered if she still hated Seifer, for making her lose her instructo'"s licence, for being so vicious and hating no matter how many times she"d tried to get close to him.

She was surprised to find she didn't, not really. Those old battles had been fought and lost or won long ago. Just a year, but it seemed like lifetimes since she'd had to watch him fail and rise and fail and fall once more. So long ago. And besides, if she wanted a personal vendetta with Seifer Almasy she was going to have to queue.

Gen opened the door.

Seifer was half-asleep at the time, lost in half-formed dreams, heavy exhaustion and misery. He didn't even realise what was happening before the door creaked open. He jumped up still only half awake and the light hit his face like a miniature supernova. After the darkness of the tightly chinked cellar, the afternoon sunlight hit the snow and reflected from all sides with all the intensity of a blast furnace, but unfortunately none of the heat. He went blind. Somebody dragged him out and yanked his arms away from his eyes. Seifer cursed as the wind cut through his clothes like knives. As he looked up through weeping eyes he saw a familiar silhouette.

Quistis.

She was all dressed up for the cold in fluffy coat and military issue winter boots. She looked just as he remembered. Pale and cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature.

What the hell is she doing here?

Quistis smiled at him. "I"m sure you"re wondering why Squall chose me to go on this mission," she said.

"Bite me."

It's because I"m the only SeeD he thought might not be tempted to push you off a cliff in the middle of nowhere and claim a monster got you. And yes, that does include him."

"That makes me feel so special."

She took something from her pocket "Gennady, hold him still."

There was a click as a pistol made contact with the back of Seifer"s skull, forcing his head forwards and exposing the nape of his neck.

He tensed in futile desperation. It wasn't over yet, or all the running and fighting had been for nothing. It couldn"t be over.

But Quistis hadn't come all this way to execute him. And he wouldn't be able to try anything before Gen pulled the trigger and made a nice round hole in the back of his head. At the moment he wasn"t sure whether they"d find anything in it. "Can"t a man take a camping trip?"

"Well, yes. But when the most wanted man in three countries tries to flee into the woods he gets the whole world up his ass."

He stalled for time "So what"s my head worth now? In Marduk, they were offering sixty thousand gil. "

"It"s gone up to eighty thousand, last I heard. Must be the whole "running into the woods and not letting them catch you" thing" Do you know how pissed off they must be by now? I really wouldn't like to be in your shoes when they get you"

"Isn't your job supposed to be to stop them? And I know I'm supposed to say 'Is that it' but you know, that's quite a lot of money."

She smiled wider. "It is."

"I mean, I wouldn"t pay eighty thousand gil for me, and I AM me."

"I wouldn"t pay eight gil for you," Quitis said. "and I"ve known you since you were five."

"That's because you've known me since we were five", Seifer said."Look, if you're going to shoot me, can you please get on with it. I'm getting cold."

"You think I'm going to shoot you?" Quistis's eyes widened in shock for a fraction of a second. Seifer mentally licked his finger and scored a point on thin air."Certainly not. Now hold still."

There was a faint click from behind Seifer. Something flickered red in the corner of his eye. Safety catch? He didn"t think so. "Trepe...what the fuck?"

There was a sudden touch of cold at the base of his skull, just below the hairline, and then a sharp pain like an insect bite. He flinched away. !What's that?"

She ignored him. "Seifer, you must be wondering why I'm here."

"You think?" Seifer snapped as Gen released him. He spun around, trying to see out of the corner of his eyes just what the fuck she"d just put on his head. He slid cuffed hands up to the back of his neck, and his fingertips contacted a smooth metal surface half covered by unwashed hair. "Trepe, just what the fuck is this?"

She blinked at the obscenity. "It"s just a homing tag. Anyway, don"t you want to know why I"m here?"

"Maybe because you"re the last person I wanted to see. Maybe you"re a hallucination and I"m really freezing to death. Maybe I"ve just got a really twisted subconscious and Hyne hates me. Oh, wait, I knew that already. "

Quistis sighed. "Seifer, get up. We have to go. The pickup point's some way away and they won't wait long. "

"What pickup point?"

"To take you back to Garden."

He felt his heart sink. "Of course. The part where I have to face up to the consequences of my actions. How far?"

"Three days due south."

"That"s through the Galbadian lines."

"Exactly" Quistis smiled. "They won"t be expecting us. Plus it's about the only way we can be sure that they"re not monitoring the air traffic properly and avoid an international situation. This way we can just deal with this internally. No one will have to know, and your sentence is likely to be much less severe. The Galbadians think they've got you on the run. The only thing that's stopped them landing more troops right here to cut you off is the forest and the monsters. It's hard to supply their men. But they've stationed troops at all the northern passes. You never would have made it."

He grinned, a bright blade of malice through the untidy straggle of dirty blond stubble and caked blood."What if I run? Or if I just stay here?"

Quistis sighed and glanced up at the sky. It threatened snow. "Seifer, I"m warning you. What in Hyne"s name did you think I put that homing device on you for?"

"Well, this is just a shot in the dark, but I"m guessing it was to keep an eye on me."He stared flatly at her. "What else?"

"Really," Quistis said flatly. "Did you think we didn't expect this? You've not been known for your co-operation in the past. It's forty miles to our rendezvous. I"m not dragging you all the way. Even if you have lost weight since I last saw you." She glared at him.

He snarled. "Yeah, well, while some of us have been sitting in nice comfy chairs in the Garden painting your nails, some of us have been on the camping trip from hell."

"Whose fault was that? None of us asked you to be the Sorceress' Knight. No one asked you to run into the woods. No, Almasy, you managed to screw that up all by yourself."

"Whereas you"ve made such a fucking success of your life. I bet you're still an a waste of fame."

Quistis glared at him. Behind her, Gennady gave them both an odd look. "Get up"

"No." Seifer told her."We'llnever make it past the Galbadian lines anyway. They"ve got this area sewn up tighter than Leonhart"s ass."

"You let me worry about that," she said. "Now let's get going."

"No."

"Do you really think I'm just going to let you sit there until the Galbadians find us?"

"Like I've got anything better to do. Oh, wait. Freeze to death."

Quistis slipped her hand inside her left glove. "Don't tell me I didn't warn you." She flicked her wrist.

Red-hot pain exploded in Seifer's skull. He doubled over in the snow, clutching his head. After ten seconds or so the pain abated. After he could think again he muttered, "Just what the hell IS that thing?"

Quistis raised her chin slightly. She looked faintly horrified, but resolute. "I told you, didn't I? Did you expect Garden to just send me out here. The transmitter in your skull sends radio waves directly to Garden, wherever it might be. You"ve been tracked to the nearest metre since that thing first went in your skull."

Seifer scowled. "Congratulations, Quistis. You"ve just managed to turn me into Trabia's first walking radio station. Now everyone knows we're out here. What a clever move. Now I can see why they made you an instructor."

She scowled." It"s a cloaked tracking frequency"

"So what was that?"

"We developed it to control the monsters in the Training centre. It didn't work terribly well, but we found it had other uses." She sighed. "Whether you like it or not, Seifer, you"re just a pawn. Again. Think of it this way. Come with me, and you live, for one. Your co-operation will be noted in any legal action that might be brought against you in Balamb. You're still under the legal protection of the Balamb Garden authorities, no matter what you"ve done. If you're going down, at least it's going to be legally."

"Whatever. I've been shot at and chased through the woods for miles and now you sic the lawyers on me? Some things are just too cruel."

"Shut up and listen," she said. "The Galbadians are pissed. Business is down and they happen to need a whipping boy who isn't the wife of the founder of the most powerful mercenary force around. If you refuse, even if we let you go, you wouldn't last five days. Think of it this way. If you die of the cold in the woods or the Galbadians get you, then nobody will know what happened. They'll just assume you're dead already, that you never came out of Time Compression. So you leave with me, or you die, or you spend some time in Galbadia getting everything you ever thought you knew about sorceresses dragged out of you feet-first. Your choice."

He scowled." You make it sound so tempting. Why don"t they just send someone to pick us up here? I"m sure the intrepid Gennady and his friends here could spare their root cellar for a few more days. Hyne, I"d even share it. "

Quistis wrinkled her nose." Don"t you listen? They"re monitoring this area. Breaking through their lines is the one thing they won't expect you to do. And there is no way I am sharing a blanket with you, much less a room. Really, Seifer, have you smelled yourself lately?"

"So give me a couple of hours to have a wash and a shave. The offer still 'll be regretting this missed opportunity all your life." She was right, though, and he knew it. He smelt to high heaven. In the forest he hadn't noticed it so much, but kneeling beside immaculate Quistis in her pristine furs and SeeD issue winter boots, he realised what a spectacle he must look in his ragged jacket and socks, stained with sweat, and blood.

She ignored him and turned back to Gennady "Is everything ready?"

He nodded. "Packs, four days' rations, maps, everything. You should be fine. Just be careful getting through their lines and remember what I told you. I"ve marked a few trails on the maps. If you're lucky, they'll never even know you were there."

She smiled confidently "I'm sure we can manage."

We, Seifer thought sarcastically. You mean you.Quistis was on her own. But he had a problem. Running again was pretty much out, he'd only been ahead of the Galbadians by three or four days the first time and he must have spent at least a couple of days locked in the cellar waiting for Quistis. He'd never stand a chance on his own without the maps or weapons…

Weapons, he thought, and looked at Quistis. She was armed. Save the Queen was strapped to her hip. A whip wasn't much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing.

She nodded to Gen "Okay, untie him. We should be going."

Seifer held his hands out. Gennady unlocked the cuffs and stepped back. Seifer stood up slowly, knees aching and cold. He flexed his wrists, trying to massage some feeling back into them.

Quistis turned away and Seifer lunged. His fingers touched the smooth hilt of her whip before the pain sent him staggering to his knees and he wound up somewhere flat on his face in the snow near the tarp with Gen pinning him down. Copper tasting blood seeped into his mouth from his nose. It froze on the snow as he watched.

Quistis glanced contemptuously at Seifer as a stream of cursewords drifted up from the floor. "Hyne, Seifer, you still really don't learn, do you? No wonder you never made SeeD. "

"Doesn't it piss you off, being right all the time?"

She sighed "If you keep this up, this is going to be a really long trip."

Seifer shrugged. He grabbed his boots from the tarp and started lacing them up. When he had finished he fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of the remains of his pack and lit up, letting the smoke trickle out of his mouth and breathing it in again through his nose.

"Aren"t you going to help pack?"

Seifer exhaled and blew a cloud of smoke in her face."This wasn"t my idea"

She coughed. "Maybe not, but it's your stuff, and if there"s anything you want, you"d best get it now or go without. I'm not sharing my blanket with you when you find out you"ve left all your bedding."

"Damn. And I just got my hopes up as well. Me, you, a single blanket and the romantic glow of a few burning bridges. What could be nicer?"

Quistis's hand moved towards her left glove again. Seifer followed her movement with his eyes. He weighed his options, crouched down in the snow and started unbuckling his pack. Besides, he wouldn't have put it past that bitch to put a couple of bricks in with his stuff.

He started rifling through the contents and a pair of socks hit him in the back of the head.

"What the hell was that for?"

"To make impressions of very small reindeer. To put on your hands so we can leave some really strange tracks and confuse the hell out of the Galbadians. To wear, dumbass. Yours are wet."

"Trepe. I never knew you cared"

"I care about you not getting frostbite. We"ve got forty miles to travel through enemy territory in three days. It"d be nice if you were able to walk."

"Take this thing out of my skull and I"ll be running in the opposite direction whether I have wet feet or not."

Gen watched as they packed up and left the clearing. A trail of cigarette smoke drifted behind Seifer"s retreating back like an angry reluctant ghost.

"Good luck," he called after them but Quistis was too far in front to hear and if Seifer, trailing behind, heard it, he ignored him.

Whn they had vanished into the trees he shrugged and set off for Vasily's house. He decided he needed at least some of the luxuries of civilisation, conversation, lethally strong home-brewed spirit, a fire, and if not someone to talk to about his troubles then a place to sit and think about them for a while.