Hello to everyone! Everyone meaning about four people, right about now. Thanks to everyone who reviewed; there were just enough of you that this chapter, miraculously, got done. *pointed glare at everyone else* Yes, two weeks, I know. Crisis of motivation, people. I doubt some of you really understand just what it means to see a review- and just how your eagerness to write fluctuates depending on said level of reviews. *sighs* It would be easier the other way... oh well.
The good news is that after this there's only one more chapter and the epilogue. Whee! Almost done. Thank goodness. I feel bad about this whole fic half the time. I'll be glad when I'm done with my guilt trip.
Again, this chapter is a little shorter. This isn't just lack of motivation; it's planning too :p so there is some method to my madness... at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Stay tuned for the grand climax, which is next, and which will hopefully be out quicker than this chapter took *crosses fingers and glares at reviews*
Not mine!
----------------
_In Dreams_
----------------
The first thing though her mind when she woke up was how badly she wanted to just roll over and go back to bed. Unfortunately for her, that was most emphatically not part of SeeD training. Just the opposite, in fact, and so the force of training forced her out of the haven of sheets and pillows. It wasn't until she stood barefoot on cold stone floor that she registered drapes and candles and reflected that she could have slept in after all.
A series of cries dispelled that idea, and she immediately started hunting for the source of the noise. It wasn't hard to find: there was only one object out of place in the by-now-familair chamber, and it wasn't hard to guess what would be inside the ornately carved crib set up in the corner of the room. Bemused, Quistis looked over the high, solid railings and was rewarded with a happy gurgle from the child within.
/So this is my daughter.../ the thought was distant, almost unimportant. Try as she might, she couldn't reconcile this innocent child with the large blue eyes with herself. It just didn't seem to click.
/Maybe it's not supposed to./ She remembered enough of her hostage-rescue training to support the neck as she lifted the child, whose name, she realized belatedly, she didn't know. She still managed to make adequate babytalk, judging by the cheerful gurgles and laughter coming from the bouncing baby girl. Some things were just instinctive. "So you're the future of the Lihallan Empire," she murmured to the cheerfully innocent bundle that seemed interested only in whether or not her toes would fit in her mouth. "Assuming there is one, that is."
The princess shifted in her arms, and Quistis started walking aimlessly around the room. That seemed to settle her down somewhat, for she promptly snuggled up and went back to sleep, leaving Quistis to deal with the unexpected sensation of twelve pounds of deadweight baby in her arms. "You're not as light as you look. Ooof..." Fortunately the little one didn't stir as she was put back into her... crib? As good a word as any, Quistis decided, although cribs probably hadn't been invented yet. Locating the blanket- which the sleeping child had somehow managed to throw to the floor- and replacing it back where it belonged, she turned her attention to other matters.
"Drat the man, where is he?" she muttered. It was a rhetorical question, of course. She knew very well where he was. It wasn't as if he'd left the room for the past... well, at least nine months. She frowned. There was something wrong with that... but there was something wrong with the whole war, something that had been bugging her since she'd started her serious research efforts. Something- somewhere- was just not matching up. She had to find out why, but first, she had to know what *was* going on, and Syran had been keeping Naltaeri entirely out of the war effort. She grimaced and started digging out a robe of some sort and throwing it over what passed for nightclothes. They were thicker and more covering than her SeeD uniform, and a good deal harder to move around in, but slightly less cumbersome than a full dress. She'd been tempted more than once to raid her husband's closet, but he still had several inches of height and waist on her, and it would hardly have been any better. Perhaps there was a way to junction clothing... maybe if she packaged it up very small and wrapped spell items around it first... or maybe if one of her GFs held onto it before going back in her head... something to think about. Trivial, at the moment. More important was getting an update on what was going on.
And finding out exactly how dire their situation was.
She set from the room at a brisk walk, the untied ends of the housecoat trailing behind her. She paid them no mind as she walked, mind working over problems at a speed rivaling her quick step. Something, her instincts were telling her, just weren't adding up. But try as she might, she couldn't figure it out. She'd always been a very visual person; hopefully, once she could see the whole situation spread out on a map, she'd figure out what was wrong. There was definitely *something* off about the whole situation, something that, if they could only figure it out, would throw the whole thing their way. *If* she could figure it out. That was the crux of the dilemma, she knew. There were very few problems she couldn't solve once aware of them; the real challenge was figuring out what the problem was.
"Naltaeri, I thought we agreed that you weren't going to get involved in this anymore."
Scratch that. The real challenge was going to be being "allowed" (she gritted her teeth) to figure out what the problem was.
"Look, I know you want to help, and however you knew about the invasion was really useful, but you haven't been able to do that again and I really don't think..."
"Lykouleon!" she turned to face him and smiled as brightly as she could while resisting the urge to punch him. Patience in the face of misogyny had never been her strong point. "There's no need to overreact. I just want to take a look at a few of the maps and-"
"No." He blocked her way, all traces of amused tolerance gone. "Absolutely not."
Suspicion began to trickle through her mind. "And why not?" she challenged, edging around him. He shifted to block her, revealing as he did that while he may have been well trained by this time's standards his hand-to-hand was sorely lacking by hers. "What's on those maps that you don't want me to see?"
"It's none of your concern." Cool grey eyes tracking her warily, watching for her next move. He needn't have bothered. She wasn't about to telegraph it to him the way he just had to her.
"You're lying to everyone," she said softly, and saw his eyes go steely. It wasn't news to her. She'd suspected it all along, and overhearing his 'conversation' with Syran- 'argument' was probably closer to the truth- had just confirmed it for her. "No one else knows, do they?"
"Knows what?" Nothing revealed in his voice.
"That we're losing. Badly. A lot more badly than anyone had thought possible." Ah- there it was. The slight flinch, telling her she'd scored, and well. Now, she knew, he'd be even more determined to keep her out. Well, if she had to...
"You don't know what you're talking about," he told her firmly. "You don't have any military training. You should just go back to Elaisha and leave this to us."
"I need to see the real maps, Lykouleon. You need my help."
"No," he said coldly, a thousand years of prejudice driving him forward, "That's one thing we don't need."
There was only one way, really, to respond to that, and Quistis was honest enough to admit to herself that even if there *had* been an alternative, her pride wouldn't have let her take it. So she gave in to impulse and punched him square in the jaw.
"That," she grinned, "you definitely needed." And she closed in. His shock made him an easy target, and his hand-to-hand was subpar at best. A third-year cadet could probably have beaten him; it was no task for Quistis to wipe the floor with him. Her body protested, of course. Naltaeri definitely wasn't in the physical shape Quistis was; a little-appreciated fact, however, was that muscles meant little compared to willpower. Her instincts were all in the right place. She simply ordered her body to respond, and respond it did; and if she didn't quite have her full strength behind her, that had really only been an issue with the first punch.
She /did/ feel a little guilty about leaving him unconscious on the floor, but she really hadn't hit him /that/ hard. About the only thing bruised was his pride, and no, she really didn't feel guilty about /that/. Still, she did close and bolt the door behind her, just in case. Squall always had had a hard head.
She'd been half-afraid she'd have to search for the papers she needed, that they might be hidden for the sake of classification, but they were lying there on the table, open for all to see. Either security hadn't yet become the art form it was in her time- aided, no doubt, by computers- or they were just that confident that no one would see their plans or understand if they did. She had to admit it was unlikely, in this day and age, for servants to understand battle plans. It was a little different in Garden, where that training was an integral part of everyone walking the halls, from cadet to Instructor. Well, it made her job easier. And the main map was right on top, held down with rocks. But what it said-
"No, that can't be right," she murmured in shock, staring blankly at the map. "That's impossible!"
Hastily she shuffled through all the other papers on the table, other maps, field reports, communiqués, army positions. It was all the same. She dropped them carelessly, picking up the map, staring at it. So innocent, it hung there, not knowing, not understanding. This was the key to what had felt wrong the whole time.
She'd *seen* that map before.
Not just her, either. Every SeeD cadet had seen it as well. After the first two years of basic schooling, a cadet had the chance to enter the SeeD program, pre-graduation courses. That was when you chose your weapons proficiency, took your first junction. Up to that point the training was fairly standard, and Garden might as well have been any other military academy. That was the point. A would-be cadet could walk away- or fail out- within the first two years and still be fitted for a career in any army or self-defense force in the world. Some children simply wanted to learn how to defend themselves, and never intended to go on. The real SeeD program started the beginning of third year, and then new cadets were sorted into their classes based on prior knowledge and inborn skill.
This map she was staring at was a _placement_ test for battle strategy.
A small corner of her brain, the part that was still thinking things through calmly, observed dryly that now at least she knew where they had gotten the battle. It had been a subject of contention for SeeD cadets for as long as Garden had been around. Understandably, it was a closely held secret; the teachers didn't want students digging into history books to find the solution. Rumor had it that they'd classified all the information relating to this battle, down to the very culture and country it'd concerned...
Her eyes widened. /Hyne.../
So that was why she'd run into so many dead ends. Why she'd been blocked at every turn searching for information. For a Hyne-damned *placement test*?
But that, she realized with a start, wasn't even the real problem.
The real problem was that this test was theoretically impossible.
That, she remembered dazedly, had been the whole point. They hadn't been *supposed* to win. No cadet could have had the military knowledge to even start correctly. What the test was really designed for was to see how cadets reacted under pressure, to gauge the originality of their thinking, to see how quickly they could shift gears, if they were willing to take risks. Some cadets froze up, others refused to deviate from the regulations, or simply agonized over their decisions for far too long. Some were unwilling to send troops to die for the greater good. Some simply had no grasp of strategy. None of those made it into Stragetos classes. But even the ones who did- she herself had been one of them- hadn't won. They'd simply reacted well. Made quick decisions, taken risks, pitched the rulebook out the window and tried daring and unorthodox solutions when it became clear classic strategies would just get them killed. She, Quistis recalled, had tried a highly risky spell barrage. It had failed, of course. Not enough spells, too few junctions, a ridiculously high burnout rate. But at least she'd tried. And it was okay, because no one won-
No.
The map slipped through suddenly numb fingers.
Someone /had/ won.
It was an utter impossibility. Sheer luck, some teachers had said, a fluke, a mistake in the simulations, something being allowed that shouldn't have been. It was true, of course. The computer was programmed to do whatever it took to win. It was rare that that was required, of course. Most students lost on their own merit. Those that forced the computer into cheating to effect their defeat rose quickly though Strategos ranks; they became the military geniuses of SeeD. But they still, always, lost. If it took last-minute reinforcements of thousands of men, cheating with the junctions, fudging burnout and casualty rates... the computer was *programmed* to *cheat*, if it had to, in order to win. It *always* won.
But she remembered one student. One brilliant student who'd taken it and lost, as everyone had, but unlike everyone else had realized why he'd lost. Not because he'd been bad, or even ordinary. He'd pulled the computer logs and realized he'd been cheated. And halfway though that semester, he'd broken into the simulator and reprogrammed the computer to play fairly. And then he'd fought the battle again and won. Not overwhelmingly, and at great cost to his side, but he'd won.
So there _was_ a way out of this scenario, despite everything she'd ever been told- and she only knew that because she'd taught this student. The records had been wiped, the teacher who'd caught him sworn to silence- and, Quistis remembered with a pang, Instructor Melbourne had died during the War. The computer logs had been wiped. No one was supposed to have known, but one of her students... a boy who craved attention, who wanted her approval... he'd left the single hardcopy of the records on her desk.
She'd never talked to him about it. She'd always wondered if that lack of recognition had driven him into Ultimecia's arms. But she'd never forgotten, either, that out of everyone who'd lost that unwinnable battle, Seifer Almasy had done the impossible- and won.
/But then,/ she thought, remembering troop deployments and communiqués, /Why isn't he doing it here?/ The placements were all wrong, were classical in the extreme. This looked like a suicide battle to her trained eye. She and he knew the way to win- so why wasn't it laid out before her?
And that, she saw with blinding clarity, was what was wrong. This battle was indicative of this whole war. By all indications, it was being fought by a king with dated, classical knowledge. Knowledge that didn't extend beyond this time period. There was nothing new or creative or innovative, or even any accepted strategies that dated after the rise of the Galbadian Empire. Subconsciously, she'd been expecting brilliance- a brilliance she'd come to expect from her favorite student.
Why wasn't Syran listening to Seifer?
She had to find him, she knew. Find him and make him listen, make him understand...
She was out the door and running before her mind had even thought it through.
She never made it.
//////////
Someone once told me that darkness was the absence of color.
They were almost right. Lying here at night, in my Garden room, I could almost believe there's no color. White wall, black shadow. Even my uniform, the brightest piece of clothing I own, is dimmed to grey in the half-light seeping under my sealed door.
Almost. If I don't turn.
But I do.
They're blood red in the night, mocking me as they slowly tick by. Impartial, caring for naught beyond the tick of seconds, minute after minute, hour after hour, counting to sixty over and over again with the mindless dedication of the ignorant.
Ignorance is cruelty.
Time keeps right on going.
This is worse, in its way, than the War ever was. That was dangerous, yes. Every minute of every day, we were in danger of being attacked, in danger of losing our lives. But we were doing something. We were right there, in the middle, and we had the comfort of knowing that we were the best fighters in the world, and we held power that was the stuff of fairytales. We knew we weren't invincible, but we had a fighting chance, and that was more than most of the civilians- casualties- of the War could say.
We were /there/. We were doing something.
What must it have been like to be on the sidelines?
But for them, ignorance was bliss. They didn't know what was really happening, from day to day, didn't know where troops were or how close many of them came to being killed. For most of the people who died, I was told, it was instantaneous; they didn't even know it was coming.
There's something to be said for that, because now I can see how horrible the alternative is: I *know* what's going on. I know there's a battle being fought, and lives being lost, and I *know* I could change it... and I can't.
That night, I dream of Time Compression. For the first time since the War, it isn't a nightmare.
By the time I went back, the battle was long over. We'd lost.
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One more to go- the conclusion approacheth...
Quistis88: Hope the ending doesn't disappoint ^_- I feel that the quality of these past few chapters has been slipping, but the last one's shaping up very nicely. Let me know what you think!
Pierson: ^^ Tee hee. I love plot complications... they're so much fun. Gets the mind working. Resolution is swiftly approaching- no sense in drawing things out, right?
Tennyo-chan: You still rock, girl. Don't let school get you down! *persists in thinking early August is waaaay too early for school...* I'm not a magician, really, though sometimes I feel like a channel for something else. Well, I hope it holds out! :)
Hynes Lady Phoenix: You're so sweet... I'd be blushing if I wasn't too tan for it to matter! *too much time at the beach...* I'm glad you think I'll acheive my dreams... your review is going up next to the huge stack of papers I have for my original fantasy novel. I get bogged down all the time- glad to know someone thinks I'll pull through! Please stick around, and give writing a shot- I know I'd love to read what you have to say.
^^ Thanks for everything, guys- until the next one!
Lyaka ^^
The good news is that after this there's only one more chapter and the epilogue. Whee! Almost done. Thank goodness. I feel bad about this whole fic half the time. I'll be glad when I'm done with my guilt trip.
Again, this chapter is a little shorter. This isn't just lack of motivation; it's planning too :p so there is some method to my madness... at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Stay tuned for the grand climax, which is next, and which will hopefully be out quicker than this chapter took *crosses fingers and glares at reviews*
Not mine!
----------------
_In Dreams_
----------------
The first thing though her mind when she woke up was how badly she wanted to just roll over and go back to bed. Unfortunately for her, that was most emphatically not part of SeeD training. Just the opposite, in fact, and so the force of training forced her out of the haven of sheets and pillows. It wasn't until she stood barefoot on cold stone floor that she registered drapes and candles and reflected that she could have slept in after all.
A series of cries dispelled that idea, and she immediately started hunting for the source of the noise. It wasn't hard to find: there was only one object out of place in the by-now-familair chamber, and it wasn't hard to guess what would be inside the ornately carved crib set up in the corner of the room. Bemused, Quistis looked over the high, solid railings and was rewarded with a happy gurgle from the child within.
/So this is my daughter.../ the thought was distant, almost unimportant. Try as she might, she couldn't reconcile this innocent child with the large blue eyes with herself. It just didn't seem to click.
/Maybe it's not supposed to./ She remembered enough of her hostage-rescue training to support the neck as she lifted the child, whose name, she realized belatedly, she didn't know. She still managed to make adequate babytalk, judging by the cheerful gurgles and laughter coming from the bouncing baby girl. Some things were just instinctive. "So you're the future of the Lihallan Empire," she murmured to the cheerfully innocent bundle that seemed interested only in whether or not her toes would fit in her mouth. "Assuming there is one, that is."
The princess shifted in her arms, and Quistis started walking aimlessly around the room. That seemed to settle her down somewhat, for she promptly snuggled up and went back to sleep, leaving Quistis to deal with the unexpected sensation of twelve pounds of deadweight baby in her arms. "You're not as light as you look. Ooof..." Fortunately the little one didn't stir as she was put back into her... crib? As good a word as any, Quistis decided, although cribs probably hadn't been invented yet. Locating the blanket- which the sleeping child had somehow managed to throw to the floor- and replacing it back where it belonged, she turned her attention to other matters.
"Drat the man, where is he?" she muttered. It was a rhetorical question, of course. She knew very well where he was. It wasn't as if he'd left the room for the past... well, at least nine months. She frowned. There was something wrong with that... but there was something wrong with the whole war, something that had been bugging her since she'd started her serious research efforts. Something- somewhere- was just not matching up. She had to find out why, but first, she had to know what *was* going on, and Syran had been keeping Naltaeri entirely out of the war effort. She grimaced and started digging out a robe of some sort and throwing it over what passed for nightclothes. They were thicker and more covering than her SeeD uniform, and a good deal harder to move around in, but slightly less cumbersome than a full dress. She'd been tempted more than once to raid her husband's closet, but he still had several inches of height and waist on her, and it would hardly have been any better. Perhaps there was a way to junction clothing... maybe if she packaged it up very small and wrapped spell items around it first... or maybe if one of her GFs held onto it before going back in her head... something to think about. Trivial, at the moment. More important was getting an update on what was going on.
And finding out exactly how dire their situation was.
She set from the room at a brisk walk, the untied ends of the housecoat trailing behind her. She paid them no mind as she walked, mind working over problems at a speed rivaling her quick step. Something, her instincts were telling her, just weren't adding up. But try as she might, she couldn't figure it out. She'd always been a very visual person; hopefully, once she could see the whole situation spread out on a map, she'd figure out what was wrong. There was definitely *something* off about the whole situation, something that, if they could only figure it out, would throw the whole thing their way. *If* she could figure it out. That was the crux of the dilemma, she knew. There were very few problems she couldn't solve once aware of them; the real challenge was figuring out what the problem was.
"Naltaeri, I thought we agreed that you weren't going to get involved in this anymore."
Scratch that. The real challenge was going to be being "allowed" (she gritted her teeth) to figure out what the problem was.
"Look, I know you want to help, and however you knew about the invasion was really useful, but you haven't been able to do that again and I really don't think..."
"Lykouleon!" she turned to face him and smiled as brightly as she could while resisting the urge to punch him. Patience in the face of misogyny had never been her strong point. "There's no need to overreact. I just want to take a look at a few of the maps and-"
"No." He blocked her way, all traces of amused tolerance gone. "Absolutely not."
Suspicion began to trickle through her mind. "And why not?" she challenged, edging around him. He shifted to block her, revealing as he did that while he may have been well trained by this time's standards his hand-to-hand was sorely lacking by hers. "What's on those maps that you don't want me to see?"
"It's none of your concern." Cool grey eyes tracking her warily, watching for her next move. He needn't have bothered. She wasn't about to telegraph it to him the way he just had to her.
"You're lying to everyone," she said softly, and saw his eyes go steely. It wasn't news to her. She'd suspected it all along, and overhearing his 'conversation' with Syran- 'argument' was probably closer to the truth- had just confirmed it for her. "No one else knows, do they?"
"Knows what?" Nothing revealed in his voice.
"That we're losing. Badly. A lot more badly than anyone had thought possible." Ah- there it was. The slight flinch, telling her she'd scored, and well. Now, she knew, he'd be even more determined to keep her out. Well, if she had to...
"You don't know what you're talking about," he told her firmly. "You don't have any military training. You should just go back to Elaisha and leave this to us."
"I need to see the real maps, Lykouleon. You need my help."
"No," he said coldly, a thousand years of prejudice driving him forward, "That's one thing we don't need."
There was only one way, really, to respond to that, and Quistis was honest enough to admit to herself that even if there *had* been an alternative, her pride wouldn't have let her take it. So she gave in to impulse and punched him square in the jaw.
"That," she grinned, "you definitely needed." And she closed in. His shock made him an easy target, and his hand-to-hand was subpar at best. A third-year cadet could probably have beaten him; it was no task for Quistis to wipe the floor with him. Her body protested, of course. Naltaeri definitely wasn't in the physical shape Quistis was; a little-appreciated fact, however, was that muscles meant little compared to willpower. Her instincts were all in the right place. She simply ordered her body to respond, and respond it did; and if she didn't quite have her full strength behind her, that had really only been an issue with the first punch.
She /did/ feel a little guilty about leaving him unconscious on the floor, but she really hadn't hit him /that/ hard. About the only thing bruised was his pride, and no, she really didn't feel guilty about /that/. Still, she did close and bolt the door behind her, just in case. Squall always had had a hard head.
She'd been half-afraid she'd have to search for the papers she needed, that they might be hidden for the sake of classification, but they were lying there on the table, open for all to see. Either security hadn't yet become the art form it was in her time- aided, no doubt, by computers- or they were just that confident that no one would see their plans or understand if they did. She had to admit it was unlikely, in this day and age, for servants to understand battle plans. It was a little different in Garden, where that training was an integral part of everyone walking the halls, from cadet to Instructor. Well, it made her job easier. And the main map was right on top, held down with rocks. But what it said-
"No, that can't be right," she murmured in shock, staring blankly at the map. "That's impossible!"
Hastily she shuffled through all the other papers on the table, other maps, field reports, communiqués, army positions. It was all the same. She dropped them carelessly, picking up the map, staring at it. So innocent, it hung there, not knowing, not understanding. This was the key to what had felt wrong the whole time.
She'd *seen* that map before.
Not just her, either. Every SeeD cadet had seen it as well. After the first two years of basic schooling, a cadet had the chance to enter the SeeD program, pre-graduation courses. That was when you chose your weapons proficiency, took your first junction. Up to that point the training was fairly standard, and Garden might as well have been any other military academy. That was the point. A would-be cadet could walk away- or fail out- within the first two years and still be fitted for a career in any army or self-defense force in the world. Some children simply wanted to learn how to defend themselves, and never intended to go on. The real SeeD program started the beginning of third year, and then new cadets were sorted into their classes based on prior knowledge and inborn skill.
This map she was staring at was a _placement_ test for battle strategy.
A small corner of her brain, the part that was still thinking things through calmly, observed dryly that now at least she knew where they had gotten the battle. It had been a subject of contention for SeeD cadets for as long as Garden had been around. Understandably, it was a closely held secret; the teachers didn't want students digging into history books to find the solution. Rumor had it that they'd classified all the information relating to this battle, down to the very culture and country it'd concerned...
Her eyes widened. /Hyne.../
So that was why she'd run into so many dead ends. Why she'd been blocked at every turn searching for information. For a Hyne-damned *placement test*?
But that, she realized with a start, wasn't even the real problem.
The real problem was that this test was theoretically impossible.
That, she remembered dazedly, had been the whole point. They hadn't been *supposed* to win. No cadet could have had the military knowledge to even start correctly. What the test was really designed for was to see how cadets reacted under pressure, to gauge the originality of their thinking, to see how quickly they could shift gears, if they were willing to take risks. Some cadets froze up, others refused to deviate from the regulations, or simply agonized over their decisions for far too long. Some were unwilling to send troops to die for the greater good. Some simply had no grasp of strategy. None of those made it into Stragetos classes. But even the ones who did- she herself had been one of them- hadn't won. They'd simply reacted well. Made quick decisions, taken risks, pitched the rulebook out the window and tried daring and unorthodox solutions when it became clear classic strategies would just get them killed. She, Quistis recalled, had tried a highly risky spell barrage. It had failed, of course. Not enough spells, too few junctions, a ridiculously high burnout rate. But at least she'd tried. And it was okay, because no one won-
No.
The map slipped through suddenly numb fingers.
Someone /had/ won.
It was an utter impossibility. Sheer luck, some teachers had said, a fluke, a mistake in the simulations, something being allowed that shouldn't have been. It was true, of course. The computer was programmed to do whatever it took to win. It was rare that that was required, of course. Most students lost on their own merit. Those that forced the computer into cheating to effect their defeat rose quickly though Strategos ranks; they became the military geniuses of SeeD. But they still, always, lost. If it took last-minute reinforcements of thousands of men, cheating with the junctions, fudging burnout and casualty rates... the computer was *programmed* to *cheat*, if it had to, in order to win. It *always* won.
But she remembered one student. One brilliant student who'd taken it and lost, as everyone had, but unlike everyone else had realized why he'd lost. Not because he'd been bad, or even ordinary. He'd pulled the computer logs and realized he'd been cheated. And halfway though that semester, he'd broken into the simulator and reprogrammed the computer to play fairly. And then he'd fought the battle again and won. Not overwhelmingly, and at great cost to his side, but he'd won.
So there _was_ a way out of this scenario, despite everything she'd ever been told- and she only knew that because she'd taught this student. The records had been wiped, the teacher who'd caught him sworn to silence- and, Quistis remembered with a pang, Instructor Melbourne had died during the War. The computer logs had been wiped. No one was supposed to have known, but one of her students... a boy who craved attention, who wanted her approval... he'd left the single hardcopy of the records on her desk.
She'd never talked to him about it. She'd always wondered if that lack of recognition had driven him into Ultimecia's arms. But she'd never forgotten, either, that out of everyone who'd lost that unwinnable battle, Seifer Almasy had done the impossible- and won.
/But then,/ she thought, remembering troop deployments and communiqués, /Why isn't he doing it here?/ The placements were all wrong, were classical in the extreme. This looked like a suicide battle to her trained eye. She and he knew the way to win- so why wasn't it laid out before her?
And that, she saw with blinding clarity, was what was wrong. This battle was indicative of this whole war. By all indications, it was being fought by a king with dated, classical knowledge. Knowledge that didn't extend beyond this time period. There was nothing new or creative or innovative, or even any accepted strategies that dated after the rise of the Galbadian Empire. Subconsciously, she'd been expecting brilliance- a brilliance she'd come to expect from her favorite student.
Why wasn't Syran listening to Seifer?
She had to find him, she knew. Find him and make him listen, make him understand...
She was out the door and running before her mind had even thought it through.
She never made it.
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Someone once told me that darkness was the absence of color.
They were almost right. Lying here at night, in my Garden room, I could almost believe there's no color. White wall, black shadow. Even my uniform, the brightest piece of clothing I own, is dimmed to grey in the half-light seeping under my sealed door.
Almost. If I don't turn.
But I do.
They're blood red in the night, mocking me as they slowly tick by. Impartial, caring for naught beyond the tick of seconds, minute after minute, hour after hour, counting to sixty over and over again with the mindless dedication of the ignorant.
Ignorance is cruelty.
Time keeps right on going.
This is worse, in its way, than the War ever was. That was dangerous, yes. Every minute of every day, we were in danger of being attacked, in danger of losing our lives. But we were doing something. We were right there, in the middle, and we had the comfort of knowing that we were the best fighters in the world, and we held power that was the stuff of fairytales. We knew we weren't invincible, but we had a fighting chance, and that was more than most of the civilians- casualties- of the War could say.
We were /there/. We were doing something.
What must it have been like to be on the sidelines?
But for them, ignorance was bliss. They didn't know what was really happening, from day to day, didn't know where troops were or how close many of them came to being killed. For most of the people who died, I was told, it was instantaneous; they didn't even know it was coming.
There's something to be said for that, because now I can see how horrible the alternative is: I *know* what's going on. I know there's a battle being fought, and lives being lost, and I *know* I could change it... and I can't.
That night, I dream of Time Compression. For the first time since the War, it isn't a nightmare.
By the time I went back, the battle was long over. We'd lost.
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One more to go- the conclusion approacheth...
Quistis88: Hope the ending doesn't disappoint ^_- I feel that the quality of these past few chapters has been slipping, but the last one's shaping up very nicely. Let me know what you think!
Pierson: ^^ Tee hee. I love plot complications... they're so much fun. Gets the mind working. Resolution is swiftly approaching- no sense in drawing things out, right?
Tennyo-chan: You still rock, girl. Don't let school get you down! *persists in thinking early August is waaaay too early for school...* I'm not a magician, really, though sometimes I feel like a channel for something else. Well, I hope it holds out! :)
Hynes Lady Phoenix: You're so sweet... I'd be blushing if I wasn't too tan for it to matter! *too much time at the beach...* I'm glad you think I'll acheive my dreams... your review is going up next to the huge stack of papers I have for my original fantasy novel. I get bogged down all the time- glad to know someone thinks I'll pull through! Please stick around, and give writing a shot- I know I'd love to read what you have to say.
^^ Thanks for everything, guys- until the next one!
Lyaka ^^