Whoop! I got my first review ever! Yay for UltraBeing! Have a cookie! A really, really big cookie. And you are right, those first parts are too short, but I had to cut the emotional drivel off somewhere, or else it would have gone on for pages.

Well, this chapter is where it starts to get a bit longer, but it's also where a good chunk of the angst dies. Have no fear, there will be more later, but I'm a sucker for happy fics, so this is what you get.

Consume - Chapter Two

At least an hour gone, maybe more. The blood was drying on the dusty, cracked earth; a splash of crimson in an ocean of brown. Squall was gone, sobbing inside his head, following a whisper that nobody else would be able to hear. And Seifer...

The flies had already started to gather, drawn across the endless desert to this one place of red, to feed on the corpse of a once proud man.

Only, not so much a corpse.

And Seifer...

Something shifted in the air, a slight breeze and the scent of something green and living, unheard of in this dry place. The sand stirred around his body, and something happened.

And Seifer...

Seifer awoke suddenly, jolting off the hard ground, groaning and spitting up blood and vomit. The flies left him in favor of this unexpected treat. He pulled himself off of his side and onto his hands and knees and emptied his stomach for the last time, then continued to heave despite the absence of anything to expel. With a noise that could only be described as a whimper he collapsed panting on his stomach in his own blood and vomit. He pressed his face into the dry ground and inhaled deeply, trying to get the smell of his own blood out of his nose. The dust he inhaled caught him by surprise, and he spent a moment coughing and hacking to get it all out. When he was done he could no longer smell it, and if he closed his eyes he could almost ignore the fact that he had just died. He lay there for a while.

Eventually something happened. The air shifted again, and someone appeared where before there had been nothing. A shadow fell across Seifer's face, but he found himself too tired to move, or to really care. "Seifer? Are you all right?" That voice - anxious, caring, known. Rinoa. Seifer found the strength to pry one eye open.

"H'lo 'Noa."

"Oh thank goodness you're alive. I was on my way here when I healed you, and I wasn't sure...." She was all business and thinly veiled fear and relief and filled with things she was afraid to say as she knelt next to him and helped him onto his back to check his wounds. "You'll be fine but there's still some superficial damage here.... Let me..."

"Shit, woman, watch what you're doing! That fucking hurt!"

She grinned impishly at him, trying to cover up the horror of the situation with humor. "Somebody's not getting a present from me this year...."

He looked confused. "Present? What...? Oh.... ...Tomorrow's my birthday, isn't it?"

She immediately regretted saying anything. This was the worst time possible to remind him of something like that. "Oh, Seifer, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Never mind. Just help me up. I want to get out of here before it gets dark and the big beasties are attracted by all this blood." She helped him to his feet and he looked around at the ground, the blood, the flies, and Hyperion laying over to the side. The edge of the blade was stained by a small amount of blood, insignificant compared to the amount Seifer had spilt all over the ground, but at the same time it meant so much more. It was Squall's blood. Seifer hadn't injured Squall while sparring in years, and after he did, Squall just snapped and.... Seifer carefully slipped a hand inside the rip in his shirt and felt the newly formed scar that stretched across his abdomen above his naval. He had to forcefully rip himself from that train of thought and get back to his surroundings.

Seifer picked up Hyperion and pulled a miraculously clean handkerchief from his pocket. he carfully wiped the blood off the blade, then folded the handkerchief back up and placed it in his jacket's chest pocket. "Let's go."

Rinoa nodded once and started walking away to the west. Seifer blinked at her and then quickly ran to catch up with her. "Why are you walking? Can't you just do your whole blinky-blinky thing and take us home?"

She stopped walking and looked up at him sadly. "Seifer, I was in such a hurry to get here and heal you that I couldn't regulate the power I used. I don't have enough power left to teleport more than one person, and even if I did take one of us I wouldn't be able to assure it's stability. You might end up somewhere else entirely from where I meant to take you, or if you did get to the right place, you might be missing something important, like an arm. You might arrive in several pieces. This seemed like the better option." She started walking again.

"Oh." Seifer blinked at her retreating back and ran to catch up to her again, slinging Hyperion over his shoulder.

They left that place of blood and bad memories for the flies.

Silent for too long. Neither one spoke. Only the sound of their footsteps. Tense, uncomfortable, miserable. Seifer had to speak.

"Rinoa? What happened?"

A pause. Deliberating. Trying to organize thoughts, to figure out how to answer. Rinoa spoke in a small voice - not wanting to say it - as if vocalizing it will make it more real. It couldn't be any more real.

"...Squall killed you."

"No, I mean, what happened?"

Another pause, slightly longer, thoughts arranging and rearranging and still coming to the same end. "I think... there's another sorceress...."

That was the last they said for a while.