Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Final Fantasy VIII. All such characters are copyrighted property of Squaresoft.

Snows of Winter, Rains of Spring

By Joshua Reardon

Chapter 2: Waking Nightmare

She awoke screaming, her piercing shriek shattering the night stillness. She could still feel the razor sharp talons slicing through her breast and piercing her heart. She unconsciously grabbed at her chest to feel for the wound. There was nothing there.

Rinoa Heartily couldn't understand how the dream had been so real. Even now, fully awake, she could still smell a faint waft of the great beast's breath, fetid with the smell of rotting flesh. She quickly scrambled out of bed and ran to the bathroom sink, heaving up the lovely honeyed pork she had had for supper.

Washing out the sink, she flushed her mouth and splashed water on her face, the cool liquid doing little to soothe her inner turmoil. She was trembling with fear and she couldn't understand why. She looked at herself in the mirror; the same features she had seen for seventeen years stared back her. Her face was flushed from vomiting her last meal, but otherwise everything seemed normal. So why couldn't she shake this impending sense of dread that hung over her?

She was shaken from her thoughts by a hurried rap at the door, and a voice.

"Rinoa, are you alright?" She could faintly make out Selphie's voice through the door.

Opening the door, she saw the spunky young girl standing there in flannel pajamas with a very concerned look upon her face. For a second, her mind couldn't process why Selphie would be wearing flannel in this heat, and before she knew it, her mouth had asked that very question.

Her face broke out in smiles and giggles. "When you live in minus forty degree weather for most of your life, you learn to bundle up when you go to bed. I got so used to them it's almost impossible for me to sleep now without them." Still laughing, she pleaded, "now are you gonna let me in or what?"

Moving aside, she let the young SeeD into the room, the door sliding shut behind her with barely a whisper.

"What happened? I could hear you screaming through the wall" Selphie said, her face gaining the concerned look once more.

"I…" she was about to tell her all about the dream, but it was just too disturbing at the moment, the very thought causing her stomach to rise. "Just had a bad dream, that's all. I'm sorry if I woke you Selph."

Selphie looked at her with a skeptical glance. "That must have been one heckuva bad dream. Did you want to talk about it?" concern once again in her eyes. She took a seat on the bed, curling up with her feet under her, waiting for the whole story.

"Not really Selph, it kinda left a bad taste in my mouth". 'Literally', she thought, still unable to linger long on the thought of the dream.

Rinoa went and took a seat on the bed as well, next to her friend. She began talking without realizing.

"It was just so real" she said, almost against her will. "This…thing was chasing me through snow and trees, and it was so cold I could hardly breathe and then it sprang on me and blood was everywhere and all I could think was how much I needed Squall and he wasn't there and-".

"Whoa, whoa, slow down, you're hyper-ventilating. Take some deep breaths Rin."

Rinoa inhaled slowly and steadily, letting her anxiety over the nightmare fade away. There was something very wrong with this. She couldn't place the problem, but it was there. Why should she react so to a dream? A disturbing dream, but still just smoke and mist. Was this a sorceress problem? Were all her dreams going to so tangible from now on?

Selphie broke her musings. "Do you need anything Rin, can I get you anything?"

Rinoa just shook her head. "I just need to talk to Squall I think". He would probably be as stumped about the dream as her, but at least she could take comfort in him just being there.

Selphie reached around and rubbed Rinoa's back, putting her arm on her shoulder. "No worries, I'm sure he'll be back in a few days", she said.

It took a few moments for the words to properly register with Rinoa's distracted mind. 'A few days?'

"What do you mean 'He'll be back'?" she asked. "Where is he?" A small twinge of fear suddenly sliced through her.

"He… he's in Trabia, on a mission" Selphie replied, with trepidation in her voice. "He left this morning."

Rinoa was shocked, she couldn't understand. Why hadn't he told her? 'Unless he's running away from me' she thought, sadly. She turned to Selphie.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She almost shouted at the young SeeD, hurt plainly showing on her face.

"We… we thought you knew Rinny. He didn't tell any of us either, but we all thought he had at least told you."

Rinoa couldn't believe this, any of it. How could he just leave and not tell anyone, especially her. Pain lanced through her heart, spearing it like a javelin in a target. She clutched her chest, feeling that talon from her dream all over again, only for a completely different reason. The pain was no less though. Thinking on the dream, she slowly came to a realization.

Wiping the beginnings of tears from her eyes, she spoke, uncertainly. "You said he went to Trabia right?" A thought was forming and she hoped that it wouldn't be true.  

"Yeah, I don't know the specifics but it was supposed to just be this small town problem. He…he couldn't be in trouble could he-"

Rinoa never heard the rest, as she was already out the door running. She had to see Cid, had to find out where Squall had gone.

As she bolted down the corridors of Garden, time seemed to slow around her and somehow she couldn't run fast enough. Thoughts whirled through her heard at a frenzied pace, mocking the slowness that engulfed her. The dream couldn't be a coincidence. Nothing with them ever was. Something bound them inexorably together, something that tied their threads of fate into an intricate knot so strong it had once defied the flows of time. Would it now be enough to defy death itself?

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She could feel the gentle vibration of the train as she leaned her head against the wall. Closing her eyes, she could remember a trip not so long ago, a journey that began with another train ride. She reached up and brushed a blond tress out of her eyes and behind her ear, chiding herself for dwelling on the past.

Quistis Trepe wasn't one to normally linger on things that had come and gone, but that one afternoon had been the last time that she had been with Squall before he met her. No, that wasn't quite true. There had been the dance of course. He hadn't even known her name and he was still more open to Rinoa than he had ever been with her. Pushing her glasses up to the bridge of her nose, she looked at the girl in question, Rinoa Heartilly.

How they had become friends was beyond her. There was just something about Rinoa that you couldn't help liking. She was so outgoing and free, but with a strength few could match. She understood how Squall could have been drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. There were a lot of things she would never understand about Squall, but his attraction to Rinoa was not one of them. Maybe that's what really drew him to her. Maybe, some how, she could connect with him in a way Quistis never could. Oh but how she had tried. 'If only's' ran through her head in a mass stream, and she quickly shook them away. No sense dwelling on what could have been.

"I can't believe I let you drag me into this" Quistis said, in mock outrage.

Rinoa turned to her and smiled. "If I remember correctly, it was you who came up to me and told me, in no uncertain terms mind you, that if I didn't let you come you were going to thump me over the head until I listened to reason."

"I'm sure I said no such thing." Quistis couldn't help but smile. "Well, maybe a rap or two, but no thumps."

Rinoa looked at her, and a seriousness took over her features that belied her seventeen years. "Thank you for coming Quistis, I don't think I could've done this alone. I just can't shake the feeling that Squall is in danger."

Quistis got up from her seat and moved across the car. The private SeeD car was spacious, with a décor reminiscent of Galbadian taste. She went over and sat beside her friend, facing the window. She watched as the landscape flashed by, greens giving way to white as snow overtook the terrain.

"Well, someone had to come keep an eye on you. Don't worry Rin" she patted her hand, hoping to relieve some of the stress her friend was burdened with, "we'll find him, safe and sound."

"Thanks Quistis." She looked toward the older woman, "I hope I didn't cause too much trouble just leaving like I did."

"No… no trouble at all Rin" she answered, with only a small grimace.

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"Well, she can't go alone!" Selphie almost screamed in Irving's face, which was quite the feat, seeing as how the dapper marksman had almost a foot on her in height.

"I'm not saying that," Irving countered, in frustration. "All I'm saying is that we can't go with her. You know the rules say three level-A SeeDs must be on call at any given time and with Zell away on leave and Xu still only level 28, that leaves us and only us three." He made a sweeping gesture taking in her and Quistis alike.

"Since when do give a damn about rules!?!" Selphie retorted, even more vehemently, throwing her entire small frame into the argument.

Quistis could only shake her head in annoyance. This had been going on for the last fifteen minutes, ever since Selphie had barged into her room dragging Irving along like a rag-doll, to tell them all that Rinoa was going to Trabia to find Squall. Selphie had said Rinoa had had a dream, a nightmare more like, of Squall dying in the snow. Quistis had been skeptical, but also couldn't deny that the thought of Squall in danger had sent a sliver of fear to flower in heart. And it was beginning to grow like a thorn.

Quistis shook her fears away and turned back to the argument continuing to grow in her sitting room. She looked at the two SeeDs. For all that they were spitting thunder at each other right now, in an hour they would be back to holding hands and stealing kisses in darkened passageways. She almost felt jealous that they had found something in each other worth holding on to.

She needed desperately to know that Rinoa was wrong, that Squall was alright, that his blood wasn't turning the snows of Trabia to a crimson hue. She couldn't deny these wants and feelings, but also she wanted to protect her friend.

"I'm going with her." Her sudden outburst after long minutes of silence was enough to cause the other two to pause and stare.

"…What?" Both Irving and Selphie stared at the young blond, dumbfounded.

Quistis stared back at them, determination burning in her azure eyes. "I'm going, and I don't care about the rules. Rinoa needs help."

"Then I'm going too" Selphie said looking triumphantly up at Irving and sticking out her tongue.

"No, you're not" Quistis replied, holding up a hand to stop Selphie's quick retort. "You and Irving need to stay here and make it look like I'm still in residence. I'll need you two to cover for me, take my classes and keep Cid from finding out."

"I don't like this Quisty," Irving looked at her, disapproval written all over his face. "Personally I don't think Rinoa should even be going in the first place. Squall is a great fighter, hell, probably the best in all of Garden. There's not much that he can't handle."

"And what if he's found it, that one thing even he can't take?" She looked at her friends, her face a mask of calm. "Rinoa is going no matter what we say or what we do. She's that stubborn, always has been. The best we can do is help her. Are we agreed on this?"

Irving and Selphie looked at each other, and both turned back to Quistis and bobbed their heads in acknowledgement.

"Good, now get out so I can pack. It's damn cold in Trabia."

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As they stood on the train platform, the wind clawed at them with icy fingers. Rinoa huddled into her jacket. She could still remember the last time she had been here. The near destruction of Trabia Garden had been a devastating blow to SeeD, hundreds of students lost in one moment of fiery destruction. She could still remember the smell of the wreckage, the sickly sweet incense of charred flesh. She tried to push it to the back of her mind, but she couldn't help wondering how she could be only seventeen and have seen so much death.

Quistis looked at her friend, standing there, shivering in the chill wind. "Are you sure you want to do this Rin?"

"I can't turn back now Quistis," determination etched on her face. "I need to know that he's all right."

Quistis sighed in resignation. "Well, where do we start?"

"Cid said that Squall had gone to a small town called Odin's Vale." She reached into her pocket and brought out her organizer. She flipped it open and pushed a button. A small holographic map of the region came up, a red dot highlighting their position.

"It's supposed to be just at the foot of the Mjornir Mountains, right here," she indicated by pointing on the map.

"That's a bit of a ways," Quistis studied the map for a minute. "I don't relish the thought of traveling on foot".

Rinoa looked around at the Train station. There weren't that many shops. There was a restaurant on the far side called The Ice and Snow Pub, with a sign that proclaimed in large letters that they were 'fully licensed'. It didn't instill a great amount of hope in Rinoa.

"Maybe we can rent a car."

Quistis turned from the map and looked in the opposite direction as Rinoa. "I don't think so. Look."

Rinoa followed where the SeeD was pointing, her line of sight eventually fell upon a stable on the far end of the station.

"Chocobos, great," Rinoa said, with less than enthusiasm in her voice.

Quistis smiled at her. "I hope you can ride, because that looks like our only way around here."

"We'll find out." Rinoa sighed in resignation. "Come on, let's get going."

Rinoa headed off toward the stables, hoping beyond hope that she would be in time. She wasn't sure what she was racing toward, but she knew that Squall needed her.