has/had (blink of an eye)

[llyse]

            Squall, they say, has always been a bit of an overachiever.

            Oops, sorry, make that had.

            You weren't always like that, I know. Isn't it strange, that in life I paid no attention to you, and you to me, but in death, now, I have studied you, talking to everyone about you, probing into secrets and pasts and histories. I'm not too sure you would have approved. I know Mother doesn't, but then Mother doesn't approve of anything these days. Nor has she said anything for quite some time, but that's another matter.

            Back to the point. You weren't always so intent on winning, on training and pushing yourself to the limit to become the best. As a child, you were just a child, until your Sis was taken away from you, isn't it so? Ellone sobbed when she told me about it, that's how she misses you. And then, you learnt that you wanted to protect, to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. It was helpful too that there was Seifer nearby, to test and pit yourself against. You didn't want to stand in the rain crying any more.

            Then there was the exam. The turning point, one might say, for your fortunes. To tell the truth, you were not that great—your instructors (those that're still alive, of course) say that you were above average, but not genius potential. Truly. Seifer, they said, was the truly talented one, the one who picked up blade and chant easy as breathing. But he was too headstrong. Three times he failed the exam, all for not obeying orders. Seifer just wasn't a military man, not until his blood cooled.

            You weren't special. Did it rankle, father (it feels odd calling you father now—sir just seems to leap to my lips and mind automatically when I think of you), did it rankle to not be special? To know that perhaps there were people stronger than you who could take away what you wanted to protect no matter what you did?

            Well, the Dollet exam. Of course Seifer participated (how could he not? His last year, it was), and the rest of his posse. They were remembered by all as overbearing and fairly unsuited to being a Disciplinary Committee except for Fujin but I think… I don't know what I think, except that I could swear that I saw Seifer Almasy on a street in Deling that day, calm and smiling, but his eyes looked dark. Life teaches its lessons well, or perhaps Seifer is still a quick learner.

            I seem to have wandered off the topic. Oh well, for the third time, the Dollet exam. Your team: Instructor-in-Charge, Quistis Trepe; Team Leader, Seifer Almasy; team members, Squall Leonhart, Zell Dincht. Instructions: hold the town square. No contact with any other teams. And matters got out of hand. What were you thinking, father, when you allowed Seifer to drag you all towards the communication tower? Was it bravado? Was it the fear of losing to Seifer? Or was it the heat of the moment, much like the fury that must have surged through you when you returned Seifer's stroke and carved the signs of destiny on his face to mirror yours? I wish I knew.

            Seifer might have been devastated. His failing the test might have contributed to him falling so easily (headstrong hot-blooded Seifer. Why?) to Edea. He wanted greatness much too much. And you… you took the Timber assignment and got dragged into a whole load of trouble. Now, it seems, I'm gaining a better appreciation for you. Not yet the forbidding, strong Commander—then you were just a cadet, frightened and wondering if you did the right thing. That was when Mother met you, I know. She was pretty back then, wasn't she? Still is pretty now—sorceresses age slowly, buoyed by magic. You met Mother and accomplished her scheme and went to the TV station and saw Seifer step off the edge to eternal dreaming. And the rest is history.

            Always I wondered what you were like back then. Were you strong or weak, confident or shy? I guess nobody will ever know, because I've asked everyone, from Grandma Edea down to Uncle Nida, and they say that you were very quiet, almost rude (whatever), and if you were skilled at anything, it was at hiding your feelings from everyone.

            The war. After the war. You returned through Time Compression, victorious. During the celebration party, heady from wine and victory you and Mother conceived me. Shotgun or not, the wedding was three weeks later. Everyone else was happy. You went on to become an outstanding SeeD and later Commander. Rinoa, too, took her SeeD exam and became SeeD. Just a normal SeeD, but it didn't matter, as long as she could be with you.

            The rest of your friends? Seifer and Fujin and Raijin (admittedly, not truly friends) vanished—there were sightings of them, of course, but after you announced their pardon, everything died down. Quistis never regained her instructor status, but I think she was happier anyway without the burden of seeing her students go out and try to get themselves killed. She never got married—doesn't trust herself in a relationship, I hear. Selphie married Irvine, and chose to stay at Balamb with him, and then died a few years later. I don't even remember her face. After her death, Irvine transferred back to Galbadia Garden, and worked his way up to commander. Zell became your Second-in-Command, your advisor, and your public relations officer. He made up for Irvine's getting married, with affairs left and right.

            Life was good. And then it all came down on us.

            It started with the SeeD exam. The one that I failed. I suppose I was kind of wrong to turn my temper on you like that, but I couldn't stand being patronized any more, and not being what I was. I swore to you that day that I wouldn't stand for it any more. I kept my promise, too. That very day I moved in with Ceres, bought myself a good pair of handguns (Ceres dubbed them Gemini) and started to learn in earnest from Instructor Kanzen. The Garden was agog for a few weeks. Then Mother started having her trances and acting strange.

You—all of you—should have seen something wrong, but Cid was running the orphanage and Edea was dead and Ellone was taking care of Laguna in Esthar and nobody thought of asking them via the laser VCS. Mother would go into trances, and you would try to wake her. I heard about all of it through the Garden grapevine—by that time I wasn't talking to you any more.

            For a time Mother got worse, and the rift between you and me grew wider, you being too busy to talk at all. Then Mother took a turn for the better. She seemed alert, seemed herself. You had the time to come and talk to me; to tell me about your youth, how you grew up, why you fought and everything else. We started to mend fences, with Uncle Zell's noisy enthusiastic help.

            I still remember that day. I was practicing at the Training Center with Ceres, having fun shooting up the (really quite useless) monsters and staying well away from the T-Rexaurs. Twirling my guns, laughing with Ceres, laughing at Ceres when she overextended with her shock-spear and fell flat on the ground, sent flying as the dormitory-side wall exploded outwards in a shower of masonry and other things that didn't bear thinking of.

            I still remember seeing Mother step out of the rubble, her eyes glowing.

            I still remember seeing you step out of the rubble, your face set.

            Lionheart always looked pretty, that electric blue glow contained in a blade-shape slashing. Mother's ice looked prettier, shimmering all shades of light blue as it stabbed straight through your heart. I saw the look in her eyes as she realized what she had done, glow taking on shades of pain and then vanish before she fainted, not saying a word. And that was it: the end of the Sorceress' Knight, Commander of Balamb Garden, one of the six heroes responsible for slaying the dread Ultimecia. Killed by your wife.

            It all happened in the blink of an eye.