Back to Squall we go! This chapter however is mostly written from the view of Quistis, who'll also be doing most of the thinking in this section… the following events by the way are taking place during Selphie's little adventure out in the rain. Anyway, enjoy this next instalment, and a very big thankyou again to all who have reviewed so far, you guys and gals are this story's oxygen. ^_^
CHAPTER 5 – First Fears:
"Well?"
A stray bang of grey-streaked strands slipped across his down-turned brow, brushing against the inner gully of a fading slash indented within otherwise flawless flesh before being impatiently smoothed away. His steel capped boot tapped edgily against the tiles, voicing his unspoken agitation.
"Squall…"
"Yes? What?" The clipped reply cut through the air without any previous sanding along the edges, and the golden haired receiver noticeably cringed at the Commander's rather dull-pointed bluntness. She decided to phrase herself more… gently, this time.
"I keep telling you, but you're just not registering. I try to reason, and you keep pushing. Here's my final verdict, Commander Blockhead – I can't sense anything. At. All. Read my lips! Feel my Braille! Sequel now impending!" Quistis drove her attack home as firmly as she dared, adopting a tone that anyone else besides her or possibly the estranged Seifer would have found positively mortifying if aimed at the stoic, unblinking pillar of foreboding remoteness that was Squall Leonhart. As it was, Quistis was perfectly aware of her previous student's stubborn streak, running through his bearing like a stream of unyielding granite, and she also knew that the only way to take to this imposing geographical feature was with a solid round of verbal jackhammers.
Obviously not solid enough that time, Quistis thought wryly as she noted Squall's deepening frown, evidently still reluctant as ever to submit to his vice-Commander's ruling. "Are you…"
"…sure? Squall, we've been through this conversation enough times in the past couple of minutes… I thought you would have reached that blatant conclusion the third time through," Quistis sighed wearily, uncrossing her arms from where they rested against her breasts. "I'm sorry, but I just can't sense anything in here – no magic, no underlying presence, no signature… this room is completely bare to my senses."
Squall scowled in reply, keeping his swirling eyes trained upon the floor to mask some of the pent up frustration that was threatening to fly on a heated course towards the adamant, but otherwise innocent, Quistis Trepe. She didn't follow up her words with anything further, patiently waiting for Squall to gather his thoughts together in what she knew would be a mulish onslaught of denials, claims and the added bonus of a quaint slice of colourful language.
And it begins… Quistis rolled her eyes skywards in the hope of having invoked the pity of Heaven's deities as Squall pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against, and strode purposively past Quistis to position himself in the centre of his office. She rotated her body to follow his movements, noting that he was still struggling with an internal glitch that was impairing his ability to formulate coherent speech.
"I'm telling you Quistis, the illusion was…" Squall finally blurted out.
"… 'right here, shooting wildly'. I know, you told me."
Squall narrowed his eyes, deciding to try again. "It…"
"… 'imploded, raining multiple drops of magic.' I know, you told me that part too."
"Hyne's ass, stop doing that!" Squall's snap-frozen demeanour cracked ever so slightly as he involuntarily spouted a geyser of steam from below the ice, eyes narrowed into two accusing points and his voice raised higher than it usually rated on the Leonhart sound meter.
"Swear Jar, Squall," Quistis ordered coolly and matter-of-factedly, gesturing with her retainer.
The already highly irate Commander whirled upon his clearly unruffled opponent and hit her solidly with a bubbling melted-molten glare that would have been capable of peeling less staunch individuals like flaking paint. "Quistis, I don't think you're taking this very seriously."
"Don't make me come over there and spank you," was her placid reply.
Squall paused, continuing to blast Quistis with volleys moulded from the searing white core of his innermost resentment, but she extinguished his broiling glare with a contrary arctic sweep of her glacial, cobalt tinted eyes with a nullifying effect akin to that of a pail of cold water sloshing over an angry, but essentially petty, flame. There was little doubt in Squall's mind that Quistis was not bluffing.
Squall violently broke eye contact with a snapping turn of his head, his lips pressed together in a very tight line. With one last passing glance informing Quistis that she was treading on extremely dangerous footing, he marched with as much shredded dignity that he could glean towards the display cabinet beside the window, upon which a large glass jar was positioned, and which was presently half full with a gleaming hoard of glittering gil.
"I'm not calling you a liar," Quistis continued smoothly, as though the brief confrontation had never occurred. The corners of her bow shaped lips twitched ever so slightly with amusement, her eyes attentively drinking in the spectacle of the glowering, stiff-lipped Commander as he was reduced to fumbling around ungracefully in his pockets for elusive spare change. Composing herself, she continued. "But as it is, the simple fact of the matter is that I can't affirm anything that you've just told me. I don't doubt that magic was involved – most certainly, I'd say. But if there were any traces of magic at all in the first place, they've either been masked, swept away or… simply weren't there at all. Not that I believe that last option of course," Quistis said quickly, as Squall froze in mid-search and fixed her with a warning frown, hands still buried in his back pockets.
Quistis picked at a long slender fingernail as she thumbed through her internal body of knowledge. "Para-magic can only be identified and assessed using Para-magic techniques, or in other words, like produces like and hence like is only open to detection by like… hence we're definitely not contending with Para-magic here if beginner, intermediate and advanced Para-magic Scan spells can't pick up on the magical residue left behind by the spell that was used…"
She was interrupted out of her voiced ponderings by the angry clash and clatter of bouncing coins as Squall seethingly flung a handful of gil into the eager, open mouth of the jar. "That's what's so unusual about this whole situation, Quistis," he said, sounding somewhat restrained as he turned to face her again. "You claim that you can't pick up on the traces using any method at your disposal… but how does that explain the fact that I can, right here, right now, even without junctioning or spell casting?"
Quistis scooped a stray lock of honey tresses away from her cheekbone, tucking the loose ends behind the rounded curve of her ear lobe. "That I can't explain as easily…," she admitted with a defeated shrug. "If only Rinoa were here… this type of magic wouldn't escape a Sorceress's detection…" Quistis mulled over absent-mindedly. With an air of chagrin, Squall turned away to stare morosely out of the uncovered window, his jaw clenching painfully at the mention of that achingly familiar name. The storm had blown in only a few minutes ago, and splotches of rain were flinging themselves at the gleaming glass with a censored hammering which easily filled the looming silence.
Quistis rubbed her forehead in embarrassment, realising what it was that she had just said. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, "I know that's still a sore spot." A light powdering of a blush gathered upon her arched cheeks, unseen by the frowning Commander whose face had also started to burn, though set alight by a completely different, anger-based fuel.
A tense handful of seconds ticked away, punctuated only by the relentless drumming of raindrops.
"Before you go about sinking your head in the sand as per usual, I've just thought of something plausible," Quistis said suddenly, trying to force their minds back to the topic at hand. Squall inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement, trying to disguise the heated crimson betraying his angry emotions, the corner of his one visible eye focused on the musing woman behind him. He felt a reluctant twinge of grudged appreciation for his former instructor as the graceful sweep of her form bunched slightly at the hourglass waist, her upper body hunched as she concentrated on some internal monologue being related to her by the constant chattering of her keen intellect. In the smart attire of her official SeeD uniform and with a pair of clear-framed glasses resting on the bridge of her elegantly tapered nose, Quistis had the manifest bearing of one who fully knew that she was a valuable asset to the Garden administration staff, and looked to be every bit the part of the regal Garden vice-Commander that she was…
… or Commander. She's obviously more suited to the job then you ever could or would be. I wonder why the Faculty didn't think the same, when they stripped her of her Instructor rank? The up-start bastards. Huh. Don't let her catch you saying that. By Hyne, when did I ever let her get so much control over me? She's like a disciplining mother nowadays… and hell, that's embarrassing.
"Remember the Dream World?" Quistis cut straight to the point. "The nature of the illusion that you described bears some sort of resemblance to what we experienced last year, with some certain exceptions of course – last year, Ellone's junctioning of our minds into figures of the past was selective, since Rinoa never got to see what the rest of us did in the same manner that I now can't pick up on what you saw, since Ellone could only 'connect' to people she knew. If Ellone is involved however, I don't know how it is I can't pick up on the magic residue since she was well acquainted with me… we'll probably need to think that one through. Secondly, the illusion you described sounds as though it has some sort of bearing in the past, which definitely points towards the involvement of Ellone all over again, but why didn't you lose consciousness and get transplanted into the illusion like we all did whenever Ellone exercised her powers? My prescription? Let's get on the line to Esthar."
Quistis dispatched this unbroken discourse in one instantaneous clap of breath, much like the lightning crack lunge of the whips that she was so fond of training with. Squall finally fully turned, the metallic fire in his eyes subdued, having given way to a newfound sense of enquiry, and his cheeks restored to their usual pale pallor with the timely suppression of his scarred emotions. There'll be time to fight those later…
"Ellone? You think she's responsible for this?" He felt like re-affirming the thought for some reason, even though the notion seemed perfectly conceivable to his mind. Why didn't I think of it sooner? It seems so damn obvious now that I think about it…
Quistis drew back a little, once more crossing her arms over her abdomen in a guarded pose. "Of course I can't be entirely sure on that, I'm merely going by assumption," she confessed. "Really though, the call is yours – speaking of which, don't you find it somewhat… unusual that we haven't heard anything out of Esthar for at least a good fortnight? I could've sworn we departed on friendly terms…"
"They wanted to retain their reclusive nature, Quistis," Squall explained, his eyes already straying to the communication panel sitting upon his desk as he pronounced the words, "And we agreed to respect that decision, for the sake of protecting Ellone's secret, the possible re-harnessing of Lunatic Pandora and any other military technologies developed by Esthar that could spell disaster for the world outside the city..." Even before he had completed that sentence, Squall found himself crossing the room in ignorant contradiction of his words and halted in front of the user panel of his intercom. Quistis said nothing, an understanding smile gracing her docile facial features.
With one hand resting characteristically among the multiple belts adorning his hip, Squall prodded the first button on the panel and waited.
"Commander?" A questioning, tinny voice blossomed from the speaker of the machine, the sound quality crackling slightly with static caused no doubt by interference from the storm.
"Xu," Squall rejoined, "Get me the Esthar Presidential Palace."
"Roger, Commander. Standby for transmission…" Xu's voice withdrew and the intercom went dead. Squall counted the seconds by as Xu went about fulfilling the request… at the six second mark, the intercom blared back into life.
"Commander, Esthar's central communication line is failing to connect… they could be experiencing technical problems, upgrading, or the signal could be disrupted by the storm on our end. Do you want me to continue trying to establish a connection?"
Squall rubbed his forehead as he paused to think. "Xu, doesn't the Presidential Palace have three alternate communication lines? The connection codes should be listed on the records in your office – test each one of them and report back with results, please."
"Roger."
"Hang on – wait. If none of those lines connect, then I want you to try contacting any of the major or minor establishments in Esthar to determine the city's overall current state of accessibility. It's imperative that we initiate a link between Garden and Esthar tonight, or as soon as possible… I trust you're up to the task?"
"Affirmative, Commander. I'm on it." The intercom blacked out, and Squall diverted his attention away from the panel until further notice.
"So… the central line itself is down?" Quistis deliberated from the back of the room. "That's highly unorthodox for a city on the advanced modern scale like Esthar."
"And we last used the line approximately two weeks ago without any technical problems," Squall added, his face turned away from Quistis as he resumed his gazing out of the weeping window at the enveloping sash of night. "They'd have had plenty of time to pull their act together if anything had gone wrong between here and then."
"Foul play then, do you think?" Quistis decided to speak both of their fears out loud rather than beating around the bush, but then again, she had never been one to mince her words. "I'm not all that eager with jumping to conclusions so brashly, but too many things linked to Esthar seem to be occurring in something more than just a coincidental sequence of events, don't you think?"
Squall did not reply, considering whether or not he had even heard the posed question in the first place. His arms crossed in soldier-like fashion in the small of his back, his figure had taken on the appearance of an ebony and ivory sculpture, and like such an inanimate sculpture, was equally as mute and cold.
Quistis noted Squall's lapse back into his usual introverted self with a subtle lift of a delicately shaped eyebrow, but she hadn't instructed the young Commander for years on end without learning something on the art of reading his silent footed emotions. The wrinkling of leather folds between the neck and collar of his fur rimmed jacket – the result of a near unnoticeable swell of tensing shoulders – told a familiar story of inward worries, while the finely boned fingers of his interlocked hands had paled for lack of circulation, so tightly were they being twisted together. A rigid stance, body locked into stiffness from an almost certain knot radiating out of a stomach that was no doubt churning in turmoil.
"Squall, I know you're worried about Ellone," Quistis said quietly, trying to speak on behalf of Squall's fears. "And I know that you're also worried about Laguna. Just try to remember that we're all SeeDs here, and it's our calling to make sure order is kept throughout the world, no matter what town, city or continent… and this will be no exception, if there's any initial basis for us to worry. For all we know, we could be just overreacting and…"
Quistis' words were abruptly thrown out of orbit as the intercom chose to sputter back into life amidst a worsening storm of cloudy static.
"Commander?"
Squall seemed to stir slightly from his feasting upon his private anxieties and troubled thoughts, but still did not shift himself from his designated position before the drenched window pane. "Any luck?"
"Negative, sir. All Presidential lines are down, and connection with any manner of Esthar industrial or domestic sectors draws a blank… if I could speak frankly sir, it seems to me that the entire city seems to have undergone a mass communication blackout despite the diplomatic terms and conditions mutually signed between Esthar and Balamb Garden…"
Squall gradually let out the breath that he had been holding and slowly closed his eyes.
A nervous hush descended upon the rain beaten room, in which no one dared to speak for several moments as the news was slowly chewed and savoured. Quistis bit her lower lip, not really knowing what was an appropriate way to react.
"Permission to try again, Commander?"
Squall shook his head, a gesture directed more at his personal decisions than in reply to Xu's offer. "No Xu, that'll be all for tonight. Thankyou for your efforts."
"No problem, Commander." The intercom then tactfully settled back into dormancy.
Squall still hadn't budged, and seemed to be sinking even deeper into the depths of aloofness at a rate that would be considered far from healthy by any life counsellor, or at least by any concerned staff member, as Quistis certainly was. Knowing Squall however, she judged her chances of successfully dragging him out of his personal quagmire of despondency at this point in time as relatively low in probability – the infection that was eating into Squall's persona in response to the lack of certainty of what was happening in Esthar had already split cells in multitudes of millions… there was little use in trying to snap Squall out of his congealing soup of gloomy stupor. He'd swim back to the surface for air in his own time.
"Squall, it's getting pretty late and there isn't much we can discuss now without a good night's rest. We could call a conference among the administrative body tomorrow to tackle the problem head on…" Quistis trailed off, watching as her words bounced clean off the broad expense of leather clad back barring access to the person she suspected was still lurking on the other side… shaking her golden head and abandoning the rest of her unspoken words, she gathered her coat off the wall hook and pivoted towards the elevator. Courtesy however compelled her to hesitate momentarily in the office doorway, and to direct a curt formality over her shoulder back into the bleak atmosphere of the office. "Good night Squall. I'll talk to you in the morning."
Silence, ever the Commander's trustworthy envoy, was left to intercede and charged with passing on the message. Without a backwards glance or any further words, Quistis departed from the Commander's frigid kingdom of self-emersion and stepped into the waiting elevator, pulling her arms through her suede coat sleeves as a safeguard against the unwelcome chill that would no doubt accompany her on her walk towards the dorms. As the elevator doors slid to a close, Quistis could still see the distant portrait of a man shrouded in black death and miserable contemplations, standing stock still before a window wet with the stain of a thousand blotchy tears, before the doors met firmly in the middle and wiped the image away from the slate of Quistis' vision.
* * *
Yes, I've always considered Quistis to have an upper hand over Squall that is never really looked at in the game… =P it seems reasonable, since she's been his authority figure for such a long time! ;) Anyway, as you can see, some of the confusing bits are now starting to be explained, and the next chapter shall deal with the issue of magic a little bit more. And the inspiration for the Swear Jar? Blame it on the movie 'Crackerjack'. XD
Coming up: How has Selphie fared from her rather spooky encounter? Wait and see for thou shalt find out! ^^