Chapter Seven
It's hard to lead the life you choose
All I wanted
When all your luck's run out on you
All I wanted
You can't see when all your dreams are coming true
Oh yeah, it's easy to forget, yeah
You choke on the regrets, yeah
Who the hell did I think I was?
GooGoo Dolls: Sympathy.
"And your plan is?" Seifer and Quistis walked back the way they'd come.
She shook her head at the tracks they'd left in the snow, cutting a pine branch to sweep over the prints. "Listen. We already have an advantage."
"Which is?" Seifer jumped back to let her sweep the branch over a long scrape where he'd fallen off a rock. "And give me that twig. Im walking in the back. "
"We know where we are. And they don"t. And we know where they are."She handed him the branch.
"So?"
"We wait until the guards are really tired. And then, if we're quiet and lucky, we just walk straight through. They'll never hear us." Quistis counted silently as she waited for expected explosion. It wasn't long in coming, but it was at an admirably reduced volume.
"I can't believe I just wasted three fuckin'seconds of my valuable life listening to you explain that. Quistis, that sucked. Damn, Angelo could do better than that. I.."
Quistis cut him off with a well placed branch full of snow. "So. Do better."
There was a long pause as Seifer stared at her, spitting snow from his mouth. Finally he shrugged and turned away, letting her go first again as they clambered over a pile of boulders "I can't .But they must be pretty shit. They're supposed to be tracking me but instead here we are nearly walking right into
them. I mean, I couldn't track us, but you get someone used to this place, someone local, they could do it, no problem. "
Quistis sighed. "I don't think they're all that bad. You said yourself it's a smaller group than you though, plus we've changed direction. What I'd do in this situation is to try and predict which way you were going and then cut you off. So maybe that's what they're doing. "
"Then we're both gonna die."
"Always the optimist."
"If you make it, could you keep my coat?" he suggested. "Every so often you could take it out and look
at it romantically and think about me. That'd be great. You could sniff it if you'd like. Of course, you'd have to patch over the bullet holes."
"Seifer." Quistis voice could have frozen water at a glance."We should rest here."
He looked round. Quistis faced a rocky overhang that made up one side of the little hollow they stood in. It provided cover and shelter, and a flat spot to pitch the tent. It was about a mile from the Galbadians.
"Hang on, what about the plan? When did we sign up to do this?"
"When you couldn't think of a better one. We haven"t really got much choice."
He shrugged. "You could just give me a few hours start, then go up to thenearest sentry and shout "He went that way!""
"You must be joking. You're not important enough to waste my career on."
"Nothing"s important enough to waste your damn career on. I"m just your instructor's ticket. Hell, it"s your life. What would you do if you couldn"t be a SeeD any more?" Seifer threw his bag down. He looked up at Quistis just in time to watch her face go white.
He'd meant the last remark as just another comment in the seemingly endless verbal conflict that had been their conversation so far, but it must have hit its mark. What he'd thought was just another piece of idly tossed shrapnel turned out to be an anti-aircraft missile.
What had he said now?
"Do you know if I'm identified this could lead to the biggest political incident since the Sorceress' Wars?" she said. "Two Gardens both sending forces after a war criminal who"s supposed to be twelve months dead? Covert forces? Special ops? This could be the ticket our critics have been waiting for. Inter-Garden conflict…"
"Aren"t you just a fuckin' soldier? Leave that politics stuff to the big guns."
"It"s all politics. Every damn thing we do. You should know that." she fired back. "If I get demoted again, I"m telling you, that is it. No more chances. If this goes wrong, they'll fire me. They'll have to."
He shrugged. "So what?Quistis, you're twenty. Garden isn't all that's out there, for Hyne's sake. You can
do other things."
"Like you? I don't want to be a civilian. I dont want to be a murderer or whatever else you spent your last twelve months doing in that fleapit of a city."
Point to her, Seifer thought silently.
"I haven"t got anything outside Garden. I have to do this, Seifer. I don't hate you. I'm doing it because it's my job."
Seifer decided that he was too tired for this. He slammed his bag down and wrenched out the tent poles, avoiding looking at her. In Garden, he'd have walked away. Slammed the door. If he was in Garden, he wouldn't have been out here.
Bitch.
The tent poles snapped into silence of two people mutually ignoring each other filled the clearing.
Whe it was finally erected, Seifer sat down in the doorway, wishing he could smoke, and flicking matches out of the tent door.
Quistis built the fire carefully into a tiny and perfect textbook meticulously adjusted one of the logs.
A match nose-dived into the damp moss and pine-needles of the forest floor near her boot.
Another match sizzled through the air close to Quistis left ear.
He wanted to light the fire? She'd show him how to light the damn fire.
Quistis searched her memory. It would be a waste of magic, but they just had twelve hours left, and Hyne, was she counting them down. She paced away from the camp, like she was searching for more firewood, pretending to be absorbed in finding just the right length of branch to add to the lips moved in a silent rhythm.
She waited until he leant out of the tent and then whirled, bringing her hands together. Flames burst from her palms. The fire leapt three feet in the air, sending orange sparks showering into the clearing and hissing up into the gathering dusk.
Seifer leapt back. "What'd you fucking do that for?"
She smiled. Seifer lashed out with a boot, swearing under his breath, sending showers of sparks and
bonewhite ash from the mostly burntout logs flying. The sparks flowered briefly in the snow, and then died with a hiss and a spiral of soggy smoke.
Quistis drew back, twisting so none of the sparks landed on her parka with a reactionthat was automatic. Her hand went to her wrist, slipping under her coat sleeve to the two pressure patches. Seifer flinched.
Quistis automatically drew her hand back, face burning with a mixture of surprise,embarrassment and shame as she watched his eyes flicker with relief, and then a more complex mix of emotions. She didn't move as he stood up, fast, and pushed past her, coat swirling behind him like an angry dark cloud.
"Where are you going?"
"Get more fuckin" wood."
She heard him crashing about in the undergrowth and hoped nothing was about. They were too far for the Galbadians to hear them, or at least she hoped so
Seifer stamped through the trees. It was dark. He didn"t care.
Bitch.
He swung, punched a tree and splinters of wood whined through the air, his fingers sticky with something that might have been crunched under his feet. Like broken ribs, cracked skulls, peanut shells.
The memories, like the dark, came crushing in again, too close. Seifer rubbed his eyes, squeezing them shut against the pressure as spirals and blots of light flowered against his retina. Yeah, great. What a life.
He grabbed some dead wood off the floor, snatching his hand back as it touched thorns.
The circle of light glowed invitingly behind him. Quistis was hunched up by the fire, which was mostly down to coals. She looked miserable, all huddled coat and sleek pale hair. She rested her head on her arms and watched the waning flames. They reflected in the frames of her glasses.
He shrugged, and turned away, searching for more wood. Aaa, well, everyone had a weak spot.
Seifer wondered if he was the only one that remembered everything about their childhood. He didn"t think so, but the chances of meeting any of the gang in a situation where he"d be able to talk about it were slimmer than an anorexic teenager.
Maybe he better be nice.
Quistis scuffed over the ashes of the fire, lost in thought. She blew hair out of her mouth. She'd lost her temper and her mind. She should have known better.
But she'd been tired, and he'd hit her in just the right spot.
She looked up as Seifer emerged from the trees carrying more twigs.
"You know, life outside Garden's not all bad. You don't have to do the "will work for food, kill for money"thing." He settled down against the rock wall at the side of the tent. The stone still reflected
the heat of the tiny fire, though it was bitterly cold."Not if you don't want to."
Quistis gave Seifer a baleful glare and a non-committal "Mmm."
He set more twigs on the fire, cupping hands around the small pile that glowed with a sudden golden tinge as he flicked his lighter onto the pine-needle tinder.
Quistis gazed up at the moon, or where it should have been, the sky darker than velvet with heavy clouds, threatening rain, or snow, more likely, at this high altitude.
Seifer followed her gaze. "We better hope it doesn't snow again. We might as well leave a fuckin sign. That is, if they didn"t see your little fireworks display."
He watched Quistis intently. She seemed okay now. There was still a look in her eyes that indicated she wasn't having a good day, year, or life, but at least she didn"t look so damn miserable.
Hyne, when had he started caring what the hell she felt like anyway?
"If you hadn"t started playing around with matches..." Her voice was waspish and bitter, but hell, he could deal with that. He internally grinned. Now that was more like it. And that was the moment his stomach chose to remind him that he hadn't eaten since this morning. "Got any food?"
She flicked a hand at her bag. "Help yourself."
He pulled the rucksack awkwardly towards him to avoid getting up and flipped back the top, sorting through spare raincoats, matches, the silvery foil of space blankets,water purification pills and just about everything the well-equipped mercenary could wish for in the woods. Beneath the neatly folded clutter was a box, which proved to contain, on investigation, six or seven foil-wrapped ration bars with an impressively long list of E-numbers on the packaging.
Seifer threw one to Quistis, who caught it neatly between cupped palms, and then ripped the wrapper off the nearest one. It tasted like cherries made of plastic.
Halfway through he noticed she was staring at him. "Wass' matter?"
"Don"t you chew?" She crumbled little bits of her bar and ate them neatly. Somehow crumbs didn"t even seem to stick to her gloves. Figured. The New Improved Instructor Trepe. Now wipe-clean.
"Not at a fucking dinner party."
"Don"t think you"re getting the kiss of life when you choke."
"Kiss of death."
"Har har."
He ripped open another bar, hoping she wouldn"t notice, and changed the subject."What time do you want to set off?"
Quistis laid her lunch in her lap, chewed (neatly, with her mouth closed) and then swallowed before talking. "About two, three a.m.. Make it two-forty five. It'll take us at least half an hour to get to the camp, and I don"t want us anywhere near there when the sun comes up."
"Want someone on watch?"
"Let me think. We"re in unknown territory with hostile forces less than a mile away. Of course. That's protocol. Regulations. Common sense."
"I"ll take first." He felt slightly awkward, offering, as Quistis raised one eyebrow. Now that had to be a look she"d practised in front of a mirror.
"Fine. Only don't get any ideas about going anywhere."
"Like I'm stupid."
"I won"t say it...Anyway, give me your pack, then. I"ll check the kit."
He shrugged, thinking it was just fine, but then, if she wanted to do it, fine with him. Heaved the pack at Quistis and she caught it in one smooth movement, crawling into the tent past him. Seifer swatted her on the ass as she passed and then looked innocent when she spun round. Because there were some things a man just had to do, dammit.
"Fallen, uh, pine-cone".
Her eyes glinted evilly behind her spectacles with the promise of retribution, but she didn"t say anything. Seifer did a mental victory dance. Point, and score.
Inside the tent, Quistis broke open a glowstick inside the tent as she laid out equipment on the groundsheet. Everything seemed to be intact except the smashed com device, carefully wrapped in a
plastic Zip-lock bag, with its electronic innards spilling out as she opened it. It didn"t matter, the transport should be there, and Garden could monitor where they were via Seifer"s skull transmitter, but it would have been nice to know. Her hands went through the almost automatic motions of folding and checking items as she adjusted the load. The tent wouldn"t take long to take down, and it could
go right in the top. The last things to go in were the weapons she'd taken off Seifer, and she hesitated a minute before tucking them down the side of her bag. Oh, what the hell. Her fingers brushed the worn leather holster as she considered. Why not? They might need all the help they could get.
Quistis strapped the holster on over her heavy padded overtrousers, her fingersfumbling inside her thick gloves as she tightened it to its smallest hole, although it still hung baggily round her hips. After a moment"s thought she took one of the knives from where she'd stuffed it down the side of the pack and regarded it closely. It wasn's much to look at but it was a beautifully weighted weapon, the handle of the horn of some animal, worn and polished with use, and the blade thin from many sharpenings. She tucked itinto her coat sleeve and then crawled backwards out the tent, half-expecting another
slap as she pivoted round, keeping her balance, ready for a violent and wrathful retaliation that wasn't necessary.
Seifer was hunched up next to the small fire, staring into the flames. His eyes reflected the leaping gold-red light. His face looked tired, drawn and pale beneath his ever present tan,a man in serious need of some Nytol.
"Are you all right?" Quistis asked quietly.
Seifer started, rocked back on his heels and almost fell over. "Yeah. Just ..thinking. Go to sleep. I"m not getting shot if you fall asleep on your feet. We"ve got to get going in a couple of hours. "
She shot him an evil glance. "Do you remember where you came from? Before the orphanage, I mean?"
"Why should I? I was five. SeeDs are lucky if they can remember what they had for breakfast yesterday. Everyone knows that. "He raised one hand and scratched at hishair, idly. Dried red-black flakes of blood fell out.
"But you didn't use any GFs." she pointed out.
"What makes you think I want to, anyway?"
"Use GFs?"
"No. Remember. Why do you want to know something like that at a time like this?"He sighed. "Fuck off."
Quistis turned back into the tent, unbuckling the holster from around her hip. "You better have these." There was a soft clink of metal and leather as she put the gun down on the
snow next to Seifer and pulled the knife out from her coat, laying it on top. "Don"t get any ideas. You're going to need them." She turned back into the tent.
"Quistis?"
"Yeah"
"Have you seen Raijin and Fuu? Since the wars?"
Quistis answered the question he didn"t ask "They're all right, Seifer." She could only see his silhouette through the thin walls of the tent, his expression, therefore, unreadable, but she thought he relaxed a little. "Fuujin made SeeD almost a year ago. Raijin last month."
His voice was edgy. Tentative. "It didn"t make any difference..what happened?"
She chose her words carefully. "Well, after it all happened, I mean, they forgave Edea. I think they got a bit of flak from the other students, but Cid gave a big speech about how loyalty was important and how we should all try to put our pasts behind us and work together for a new Garden. I think a lot of SeeDs did things they weren't proud of, during the wars."
There was a long silence.
Quistis coughed awkwardly, trying to break it, and Seifer ignored her, thinking, wishing he was smoking, just wanting to be left alone.
Eventually she got the message said good night and disappeared into the darkness of the tent. They were going to have to leave in a few hours, to make it to the camp at three am or thereabouts, when the night was at its deepest and the sentries were falling asleep at their posts. Seifer had never been good at sleeping, not for a long time,and even less since the wars, and she looked tired, and …. well, he"d volunteered.
Do you remember?
Not all that much, thank Hyne. But more than she did, most likely. Nosy fucking bitch. Only a little from before Edea and the orphanage, or maybe it was just that he'd pushedall the memories down inside, …storms, sand, blood, hard hands, snivelled tearful drunken apologies, and the wariness that always came from never knowing whichone it was going to be. After that, things became a little clearer.
The other kids, of course, he'd always remember them. Not that he'd ever said anything, the past was best left buried, live for the present and all that. Never something he was proud of. Not the kind of scars you joked about in the locker room, how the girls liked them, medals of bravery. Just a little kid, too scared and stupid to see what was happening right in front of his eyes, and then, even stupider, thinking he could change it.
And afterwards, when he"d tried and failed and made it worst, just about as bad as it could ever be, the orphanage, Edea, all the there he'd stayed, despite all the attempts of Edea to get him adopted like the other kids. Too old, too…damaged, too aggressive, ill behaved,violent, disruptive for the people that came.
Squall had been there too, already not caring all over it all. No one had wanted him, had gone fairly early.
He wondered, idly, what her life had been like, turning the thought over and over in his head like a piece of glass that cut skin.
Wherever she went, she"d never talked about it. If she had, the Trepies would have known, and then Seifer would have known through Fuu and Raijin and the channels ofenvy and gossip and jealousy that ran half hidden beneath the placid surface of any group of people living together in close contact, all year round, all the time.
Somewhere in Balamb, she'd never had an accent to lose, those clipped vowels and precise turns of phrases.
He wasn"t so stupid to think that it had been good- all pink sheets and teddy bears and …whatever girls were supposed to like. Frills. Dolls. Teaparties. Mommy's little girl didn't get sent to the army at twelve, to learn how to be a trained killer. Or maybe it had been even earlier, for her, with the child prodigy thing and all. Get them whilethey're young, start them small, monsters, group missions, lessons and training and then before you know it you're fifteen or sixteen and practising your newfound skills. Bigger
and faster monsters. More of them. Training all the time, lessons on tactics and politicsand how to hit things and kill them or not kill them or just break bones or use magic.
Until one day you finally got to test what they"ve been teaching you on a human, on a person and they bled just the same, sometimes even easier, no spikes or fangs or poison.
And you just went right on doing it.
What the hell had Garden been thinking? Sure it all started with the sorceresses, but had no one thought it might be a bad idea to teach adolescents to be trained killers, and kick out the ones with bad attitudes that they couldn't use with no visible means of support once they hit twenty?
Seifer wondered what would have happened if he'd failed all the exams and then he'd just got too old to stay. If the sorceress shit hadn't happened. Maybe they"d have offered him a job as a janitor or something.
At the time he hadn"t been able to understand it, he'd known he was a hell of a lot better than most students there ( which had maybe been the problem), and he'd watched them all pass, and move on, while he"d been stuck behind and man had it grated.. No matter how hard he'd covered it up with violence and bravado. He'd just wanted to make something of his life. Be famous.
His hands scratched at the snow, tracing something idly, a line, a diamond shape.
A fire cross.
He scrubbed it out with his coat sleeve.
It was cold out here, despite the fire that was little more than coals. Hi breath formed tiny clouds of ice crystals. The invisible presence of Quistis in the tent was oddly reassuring, even if her presence was dragging things up from his past he"d thought were long buried.
Seifer drew the knife Quistis had given him and used the blade to scrape at the transmitter in his skull carefully, craning his head forwards. A few shorn dirty blond hairs drifted onto the snow before he sighed and put the knife down. No use. Run, he'd get caught. Wind up stumbling into the middle of a scout party, or freezing to death in some Hyneforsaken cave. Looking like a fool. Infamy wasn't what
He'd wanted, but it was a hell of a lot better than obscurity.
He"d always known he"d go back to Garden eventually. Nowhere else. And there was only so many times you could lose before you became a loser.
Damn.
What was it about the dark silent hours between one and four am. that made you think bollocks?
He"d heard that most people died at that time, easiest to let go and forget what you had in the daylight. It was suicide time, when everything seemed worse than it was. And it was far too easy to be alone with your thoughts, out here with nothing to look at except the dying embers of the fire and the darkness. So fucking dark out here. Not like the city. There'd been times during the last six weeks, that he"d been happier to see the sun risethan he cared to admit. Ever.
So he sat and watched out for Galbadians and tried to think of nothing. The wind rose, howling in the trees like a damned soul, and Seifer shivered, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his coat closer around him.
It sounded like a sea. A storm. Just like a sea in a storm. He imagined wind-tossed waves, scattering white spindrift foam and dark sky. Sand grating on bare feet and tossed up stinging into your face, eyes smarting with the salt that caked rough on chapped lips and for a minute the night smelled of fish and iodine seaweed and dead rotting things. Dead men, haunting the darkness behind his eyes.
He scuffed some sticks in a circle and traced them into shapes, a square, a circle, a little man, mind determinedly blank, and then burnt them in the ashes.
The glowing letters of Quistis" watch winked at him.
Twelve midnight.
Dammit, Seifer thought.
It was midnight and Isak was on watch. He stood in the shadow of a particularly large fir tree, occasionally checking the gun at his side, and stared out into the dark.
Huh.
It was great being able to hit a bird's eye at a hundred yards, but that shit didn't work if you couldn"t see anything. It was blacker than pitch out there, and cold. It was hard to forget the cold.
Fortunately he had one of the last remaining pairs of night vision goggles left to the team, but even with them the view just resembled a carefully arranged green tangle, with the occasional flash of light reflected from the eyes of some small animal.
I shouldn"t be afraid. I shouldn"t be afraid.
I"m a member of one of the most feared mercenary fighting forces in the world.
The faint glow from the fires of the main encampment, a magnesium-bright glare in his night goggles, gave him some reassurance. His hand cramped on the buttof the gun, and he shifted it, flexing his fingers.
Four bloody hours of watch left.
Five past midnight.
Three hours, fifty five minutes of watch left. Isak held his breath experimentally, timing himself and watching the scene in front of him. Sixty seconds, sixty-one, sure is cold out here. Sixty-eight, remember
to check the sky…which stayed clear from aerial assault, stars burning briefly in the dark.
His breath frosted in clouds in the air, appearing as a pale green nebula in the night goggles.
Seventy-nine seconds. Not bad. And if he looked out he could pinpoint the positions of the other guards. Three rings of them. Was that really necessary?
What was all the use of learning tactics and techniques if they were just going to be standing around? He should have become a damn security guard. At least you got time off.
Time off. Heh
Isak briefly thought of the special assignment pay that was racking up inhis account. Just by standing here, for one hour, ten minutes I've made….he briefly calculated..four gil.
That would buy him half a beer.
A beer. He was going to have a beer when he got back home
Maybe he'd have two beers.
He shook himself. He had to concentrate. The future fortunes of the Galbadian Garden were resting on him.
He scratched his ass.
Maybe he should go get some cocoa.
Isak tracked noisily back to the camp so everyone heard him and didn't mistake him for a murderous ex-mercenary trying to sneak by in the night. Some cocoa was still steaming on an impromptu pot-holder made of twigs and bootlaces thathad been left over the dying fire.
He scooped up a cup from a pile that someone had thoughtfully left nearby andquietly ladled some up. It tasted like crud and had obviously never seen a cocoabean in its no doubt long and exciting life, but it was hot.
He carried it back to his post, where it steamed gently on the floor, getting cold as he slid down with his back to the tree and lit a cigarette. The night vision goggles exploded with a small supernova at the lighter's flame. Isak ripped them off and cursed. The movement made the cigarette held loosely between his teeth drip ash into his cocoa.
Isak sighed, looked at it, and drank it anyway.