Chapter Six

Next Day:

"Remember class, tomorrow is your monthly battle exam in the Training Center!" Quistis announced loudly as the older students stood up from their seats to leave, "We're meeting at 10 a.m. sharp, don't be late!"
Quistis stayed seated in her chair and slipped a small stack of papers and notebooks into her bag. She stood to follow her students out of her classroom, but was interrupted rudely by the Trepies, who surrounded her with smiles of adoration and giddiness.
"Wow, GREAT class today, Lady Trepe!" A young girl exclaimed as she folded her hands over her overlapping books in front of her.
Another student, a boy whom was just as excited, folded his hands behind his back and grinned widely as he praised her with such words as, "So wonderful! Magnificent lectures and notes!"
Quistis groaned and put up a smile as she looked up at the clock high against the back wall. It was 9:30, and Rinoa had already made the dinner for her and Squall. They were, perhaps, finishing it already at that moment. She shuddered at the thought of what would happen after dinner, she blocked it completely out of her mind. For some strange reason, it made her incredibly upset to even think of the concept, even though she knew that it had happened before and probably always will while they were together.
As the Trepie's continued their mindless babble, in which she herself usually ignored, Quistis looked out through the large windows in the back of the classroom and looked out at the darkened sky. She sighed and felt a slight shiver run down her neck as she turned to look away at the doorway. She also felt that she needed to be elsewhere. She didn't need to be wasting her time here with her adoring fans.

Squall sat inside of his office near in navigational platform in the upper-level of the garden with his head leaned back over the top of his chair with his eyes closed shut. His right arm lay slumped over his lap, and his left arm hung limp at his side with a scattered puddle of papers underneath his loosened fingers. A single lamp lay lit, and beside it, a clock which lit up the time in bright white, it was 9:45. Squall sniffed a little before shifting his weight in his chair before continuing his deep sleep.

The hallways were completely empty and quiet when Quistis had finally escaped from her obsessed fan-group to begin to make her way back to her dorm to get a good night's sleep. She knew that she would need many hours of sleep in order to be well-rested for the battle exam the next day, which she was dreading. She had already been training on her own for the past few weeks, and she hurt all over to begin with.
As Quistis walked out from her classroom and into the hallway, she began to walk away when she suddenly realized that the door leading to the balcony had been opened and sat, just slightly opened, as if inviting her to come and investigate. She paused and adjusted her glasses against the bridge of her nose before slowly walking, curiously, towards the cracked door.
"Hello? If there is a student up here, you're in huge trouble!" Quistis barked, somewhat nervously, as she lightly pushed the door open to reveal a darkened stairway leading to the moon-lit balcony above. "This area is off-limits to all students and will result in punishment if caught..."
However, as Quistis began to climb the stairway, she felt her heart slowly begin to sink deeper and deeper. That sense of dread she had felt in the classroom before was now beginning to take its hold, and it worried her.
As she reached the top of the stairs, she saw a dark figure showered in moonlight, crouched and weeping, against the stone balcony wall. The figure paused from their weeping and turned, slightly, to their side and whispered, "Quistis?" through her choked sobs.
"Rinoa!" Quistis' shouted as her eyes widened with shock and her belongings slipped from her arms and hands. She fell forward against the stone ground to her side to wrap her arm around the sobbing girl, "Oh my god, Rinoa, what happened!"
Rinoa couldn't speak; her words were stopped by her constant sobbing and flow of tears dripping freely from her closed eyes. Quistis looked around, not very certain as to what to do in this sort of situation, and took a slightly tighter hold of her to lift her gently from the cold floor.
"Come on... everything is going to be alright... I'll make sure of it..." Quistis whispered quietly, but with a sense of anger, as she led Rinoa down the stairway, leaving her belongings behind her on the balcony floor.