-- knightworthlesschildlapdogweakmindedfoolsadthatallweyourelosingitseiferthesorceressdemandsiknowyourenotlikethat --
Blue sky.
Seifer blinked his eyes open, and saw nothing but blue sky for miles in every direction. Not that he looked in every direction. Wide, soothing blue sky.
Empty.
Nothing in it. No UFOs, no thunderclouds, no flying castles, no giant floating sleek black towers, nothing.
Nothing but a puffy white cloud in the shape of... a puffy white cloud. He'd never played that stupid game anyway, finding shapes in the clouds, making up meaning where there was none. He'd had better things to do.
Now he just stared.
It was a nice day, for sparring or fishing or lying on the ground wondering why you aren't dead. Wondering if maybe you are dead, and all you got for your trouble's a lousy blue sky and a crapass puffy cloud.
There was a rock digging into his back.
Which meant he wasn't dead -- unless this was hell, an eternity of empty sky and a friggin' rock stabbing into his back.
Screw it. He sat up -- or tried to -- and immediately regretted it. He hurt in a thousand new and interesting ways, and his decisive motion to sit up turned slow and strained. He was pretty sure he'd broken something; it was just a question of what.
And once he was in a semi-sitting position, the rock was out of his back and he regretted that, too. Missed that one single source of pain, just annoying enough to distract him from everything else. He would have kicked the damn rock right then if he could have.
Sitting up, he could see that his blue sky ended -- over there, at the mountains, and over there, at the horizon, and over there, right next to him. He was sitting -- if you could call it sitting -- on Fighter's Ledge. That was what the cadets called it. Officially, B-Garden refused to acknowledge its existence except indirectly as one of the many dangerous places outside of Garden that were unsuitable for sparring. Maybe if they'd had that last duel in a sparring room, he'd have woken up there instead. It wasn't a comforting thought.
Neither was the thought that, when he was lying there, he should have been able to see the rocky edge where the mountains rose away on his right side. Shouldn't have all been blue sky -- but he'd only been seeing out of one eye; the right was swollen shut.
He thought, this is how Fujin sees the world, and was pissed off at his eye instead of the rock. He wondered where she was. POSSE, FOREVER, or until we decide we've had enough and side with Squall, whichever comes first.
And then he got to his feet, as quickly as the pain would let him, just in case there was anyone watching.
There wasn't.
There was the wind in his ears, and the sound of his boots scraping on the rocks -- couldn't tell, now, which one was the bastard who'd stabbed him in the back -- and maybe his own breathing, a little laboured because of the pain or the effort of getting up. What was left of his trenchcoat rustled in the wind. He thought he could probably inspect it and account for every single rip and tear, who was responsible and what kind of weapon they'd used.
Except -- except he'd had the strangest dreams, before he woke up here, dreams that felt so real so goddamn real about things he hadn't done and people he hadn't killed and things people might have said to him and orders Ultimecia couldn't have given. He'd watched the strangest scenes play out, dueling Squall but Squall kept fading in and out, fishing with Fujin and Raijin but neither of them actually being there, Matron scolding him and nothingness where her face should be. Rinoa saying his name, her eyes red and glowing, and Squall's scar kept shifting, one side to the other.
Seifer, blue sky all around him, closed his good eye and felt for his scar. It was still there, and he breathed. Couldn't remember anymore which side was the right one.
They were just dreams.
Maybe he'd been lying there since that duel with Squall, and all of it was dreaming. Even the good stuff. Especially the good stuff.
He opened the one eye again, and took a few steps towards the edge. His legs hurt. His head hurt. Everything hurt.
He looked down at the crater where Balamb Garden used to be -- he'd called it "home", once, sarcastically -- and looked around him at the blue sky.
Thought, for a second, about falling, or about regretting that he'd got up at all -- and then started climbing down, trying to remember the path he'd always taken.
Balamb wasn't far from here. No point in standing around, staring at clouds or wondering how he wound up where he did. No point in looking back, or thinking about how he woke up there, the last place he'd ever actually won.
Balamb wasn't that far. He'd make it.