cadence (remember to BREATHE)
[llyse]
Step step step, breathe. Step step step, breathe, a familiar cadence burnt into her heart during the times in the Lunatic Pandora, waiting for Seifer to return from whenever he'd been going. Step step step, breathe. Always wandering the halls, conscious of the fact of Seifer's madness, the dreams swathing his mind like mist or fog. Seifer had always been the cleverest of them all, the leader, the intelligent one. Maybe that was his downfall. Raijin was too simpleminded to be affected, and Fujin?
Fujin had no dreams.
Step step step, breathe.
He hadn't come out for days, hiding in his room, lost. Not in dreaming—she had spoken to him before, and his eyes had none of the glazed dreamer's look, the look of someone (doing what he was doing now?) hiding behind a thin sheen of non-thought, following the dream. Seifer was awake. She called to him; he didn't answer. Raijin called to him; he didn't answer. Perhaps it was the new experience of being looked down on, the feeling of being lower than the lowest beggar the way the townsfolk treated them even after Squall (how nice of him, said Seifer) had announced their pardon, although they could not (would not) return to Garden. It was too distinctive, that scar. Marking him forever, traitor and betrayer. He came out in the end, haggard and quiet and newly introspective, so thoughtful it scared her. Pat on the back for the both of them, a secret little smile that said, "What, are you still here?"
Seifer had no dreams left.
Step step step, breathe.
It was not to be believed. Seifer Almasy, brought down by a couple of knife-wielding toughs in a dark alley in Deling (stinking like offal, she remembered thinking). Of course the Hyperion was long gone by then, sold for the gil to treat the illness that bore away their darkly bright friend anyway. The storm felt wrong without thunder, too quiet. Afraid of the dark, the last two (when had it been three—too long) drew together. The door was shut. Step step step, breathe, went Fujin outside it, the same cadence drumming on the polished floor that was never marred no matter how many times hard bootheels clattered across them. The same cadence drumming in her heart. It seemed she was always drumming the cadence outside while Seifer slept, or dreamed, or…
The door opened.
Step step step, breathe.
He would not speak. The doctor said that he could, that he should, else he forget how to speak (secret amused smile, but she was not amused), but he would not. The doctor also suggested that Fujin speak to him. The sun was cold. Seifer would not say anything, and she did not know what to say, and Raijin was not there (don't think) to offer kind words or suggestions or funny stupid jokes… Finally, driven to the edge, she talked. She spoke about the fight that many years ago (has it really been eighteen?). She rambled about the startling news that Squall's son had failed his SeeD exam. She reported Irvine's new promotion to headmaster of Galbadia Garden. She reminisced about Raijin and the times they'd had together. In desperation, she even mentioned his dreams. Seifer smiled, but she could see the darkness behind stormy irises, a haunting wallpaper of mistakes and errors and regrets saturated with pain.
"I don't need dreams," Seifer said. "I've got you."
Fujin forgot to breathe.
