Chapter Four: Some of them fell into heaven (and some of them fell into hell.)
We watched our friends grow up together
And we saw them as we fell
Some of them fell into heaven
Some of them fell into hell.
I sang you all my sorrows
You told me all your joys
Whatever happened to that old song?
To all those little girls and boys?
The Pogues:Rainy Night In Soho.
Quistis woke up, uncharacteristically, at ten past nine.
She groaned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, noting the half empty cup of coffee on the desk, the grey glowing screen of her laptop and the stacks of paper slewed madly over the floor, filled with mostly illegible writing in various rainbow colours of highlighters.
A thought chewed at the corner of her mind. Quistis mentally slapped it down and told her brain it would just have to wait till she was more awake. First things first, after all.
She flicked on the bedside coffee maker.
Five minutes later, system fully re-caffeinated, she sat up in the sheets and reached for the nearest sheet of paper.
The lemon yellow writing stood out quite clearly.
Meet Seifer: nine thirty a.m. Lobby.
Damn.
Why hadn't she put the alarm on? She was always up at six thirty, whatever the weather, had been for years. She could hear the noise of traffic from the open window; the curtains billowing in the ever present wind. She hadn't even shut the screen door last night. What had she been thinking?
She hadn't.
Quistis jumped out of bed, shedding pyjamas on her way to the shower. What time had she got to bed last night? She remembered Seifer leaving at nine, but she guessed she'd somehow forgotten to check the clock before she went to sleep. She could have fallen asleep at any time, and certainly her eyes felt gritty and hot.
The shower, in contrast, was not.
Quistis hissed several words that most of her students would have been surprised to know she even knew. She desperately switched the tap off, pushing her soaking hair out of her eyes with one hand and reaching for the shower curtain with the other.
There was a laminated sign stuck to the tiles of the bathroom wall. It read, underneath the condensation:
Hot water only available between the hours of seven and nine am and five and twelve pm by order of the management. This is a water conservation area.
Sigh.
In the end, Quistis showered by standing outside the cubicle and sticking her head under the jet. It was so cold it made her head hurt. She could practically feel her hair follicles screaming in pain and closing up. Rinoa had once told her that she rinsed her hair in cold water to make it 'shinier'. Quistis decided that Rinoa was dumber than she'd thought. And that was, well, quite dumb.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a tank top and headed for the door, hair dripping.
Halfway through the door she had to return for her glasses. The time was nine twenty five when she made it to the lobby.
It was empty.
Quistis breathed a sigh of relief. There were some people whose role in life was to wake other people up early in the morning and shout at them in loud voices, terrorizing everyone who was not one hundred per cent wide awake. Quistis was not one of those people, but she had decided, very early on, that turning up before everyone else with no visible sign of effort gave you a certain advantage over those whose role in life was to run round like headless Chocobos first thing in the morning.
And right now, she reckoned she could do with every advantage she could get because Seifer was exceedingly good at running a mile with every inch you gave him. He had never been one of the students hurrying frantically round first thing in the morning, either. He'd been one of the people that turned up twenty minutes late with no excuse, no books and no apology, turning his lateness into an act of defiance with a smirk that seemed to say whatever they were doing was a waste of his time. Despite this he'd somehow managed to be early for every single weapons practice.
Quistis had once taken him a corner and told him that it might be a good idea if he put into motion every morning what he managed apparently without effort on weapons practice days. Seifer had just shrugged and pointed out that it might be a good idea if she stopped bugging him and shut the hell up. Quistis had wiped the floor with him, but that hadn't stopped the other students from exchanging smiles. Seifer undermined her authority with a single minded determination and as efficiently as a dozen pit ponies.
He had, at least.
Apart from now, he didn't have any authority whatsoever, which Quistis was aware might have put her in a great position if Seifer had shown any sign whatsoever of respecting authority rather than interpreting it as one big neon light saying 'TARGET.'
She sighed and surreptitiously tried to wring out her hair, which was dripping on her glasses. This was not the calmly casual illustration of professionalism she had wished to present. The clothes made her feel uncomfortable, and the backpack she carried to camouflage her weapons was heavy, awkward and damn hard to use, though Quistis found that if she thought of the clothes as camouflage some of the awkwardness went away. She would have felt more comfortable in full SeeD uniform; even with the knee socks, or in full combative camouflage gear: face paint, the works. The waterproof shirt would have stopped her hair from dripping down her back, at least.
Nine thirty five.
Quistis sighed and crossed the lobby, looking up and down the street outside.
There was no sign of Seifer, but there were a hell of a lot of tourists. She drew back as a small child carrying a rubber ring nearly crashed into her.
There were people everywhere.
Quistis' gaze played automatically over them, noting anything that stuck out. The woman in the corner looked like she was carrying something under her clothes: probably a safety wallet for valuables but in a different situation it might have well been a bomb.
She shook her head.
She just couldn't let go, could she? It was hard to take in the idea that none of the people in the crowd was guilty of anything, or at least not the kind of things Garden got paid to bother about. None of them were wearing uniforms, except the kind of Bermuda-shorts-flip-flops-and-surf-shack-T-shirt ensemble that she hoped to Hyne they would have been too embarrassed to wear at home.
Seifer stuck out like a sore thumb when he turned the corner. Quistis thought he looked like the poster boy for a 'When Good Kids Go Bad' TV special; the all-Balamb quarterback turned alcoholic. He was definitely thinner, although you could have fitted a conjoined twin or three under the sheepskin coat he had been wearing in Trabia.
Seifer gave her a sardonic wave and settled back against the wall of the hotel, scowling against the sun. He shot her a mocking sidelong glance. "Wet look gel, Instructor? You didn't sleep in, did you?"
"I. Don't. Sleep. In." Usually. It's not really a lie….
"Oh, look." He pointed, shading his eyes against the sun.
Quistis sighed. "What?" The sun was drying her hair, but it was going to turn out all frizzy. It would be nice if that had been the least of her problems.
Seifer lowered his hand from his eyes and smirked down at her. "I think I see a flying pig."
The words unleashed Quistis' inner bitch, which she rarely bothered to put on a lead anyway. "Because you were so early."
"I've been up for hours."
"Like hell."
"Really."
"Right." Quistis consciously stopped the line of conversation before it degenerated further. There was a short and awkward silence. They both stared out into the crowd, a small island of quiet in the noisy bustling street.
Seifer gave Quistis an assessing look. "It makes you nervous, doesn't it." He tucked one hand behind his head, lounging against the wall with his feet in the geraniums. "Me, too."
Quistis realised that she was standing rigidly against the wall, pressing her back against it like it was the only thing between her and a raging army. There were just too many people. The crowd swirled round them both like a river in full flood. She didn't feel nervous, not exactly, more like wary- as if she was trying to develop eyes all over her skin.
"We should go somewhere else if we want to talk." She blew a stray wisp of drying hair away from her face and gripped her bag more securely. Hyne, it was hot. Her hair was almost completely dry from her shower and even standing in the blue shade she could still feel the sun's heat. Sweat began to trickle down between her shoulderblades and she pressed her back further into the wall in an attempt to alleviate the itch.
"Somewhere quiet." Seifer said meditatively. "Look, I think I know somewhere. It's a bit of a hike but there really won't be many people there."
Quistis glared at him suspiciously. "A bar?"
He scowled. "Quistis. It's nine forty five. I'm not that much of a piss artist. Yet. Anyway, what I'm saying is, do you know anyplace that's going to be better?"
Quistis didn't feel like admitting that she hadn't really been round much of Hana. "I'm supposed to be having fun. I haven't had time to go exploring"
"What, don't they have a museum of Filing Systems Through The Ages to keep you occupied?"
Quistis didn't dignify the statement with an answer.
Seifer needled her anyway. "Admit, it, you're just as much as a battle slut as anybody else in that place. What have you been doing, anyway? Sticking a Post-it note to your headboard every night before you fall asleep 'Enjoy Self. 9-5'.?"
She shrugged. "Went walking, went running. Sunbathed." She scowled. "I don't think there's much to do."
Quistis had long ago worked out that a golden tan was something that happened to other people and resigned herself to the 'pale and interesting' look which was at least an improvement on the 'boiled lobster' look. Plus, it had proved handy in boosting her ice-queen reputation. Seifer, of course, was tanned pretty much everywhere she could see.
"Quistis, fun does not have a schedule. You just have to make it up as you go along."
"You're not here to have fun. I'm not here to have fun." Her glasses were steaming up. Hyne, it was like being stuffed fully clothed into a wet sock. People enjoyed this?
Lived in this? Voluntarily?
Seifer looked puzzled. "I thought Leonhart sent you here on holiday?"
"That was then. This is now. Now I have to figure out what to do with you." The last word was accompanied by a sweeping glance that implied (she hoped) that uses were limited.
"I can figure it out myself."
"Chance would be a fine thing."
He sighed. "What you really want to ask is if I have 'World Domination' right after 'Buy Milk' on my things to do list. The answer is no. I'm just doing what everyone else is. Normal things. And normal places like this maybe aren't the best place to have a conversation like this. Let's get going. "
He peeled himself off the wall. Quistis noted that although he was wearing the same outfit as yesterday, Seifer didn't appear to be sweating. In contrast, her ice was definitely melting. She could feel dampness in the roots of her hair, and it wasn't shower water, but sweat. The heat hit her like a hammer as she stepped out from the shade.
"Where to?"
He pointed up into the hills wordlessly.
"Is it far?"
"A way." Seifer shrugged.
"Define 'a way.'" Quistis snapped. The heat must have been making her irritable. Or maybe it was just him.
"Six, seven K. What's the matter, all those thoughts weighing you down?"
"At least I have thoughts." She reached up and smacked Seifer on the head. He threw a mock-punch at her, some of the tension beginning to evaporate as they both forgot why they were there for a second. Then Quistis sighed and shouldered her pack. Seifer stared at her unreadably for a moment and then set off, in front. Quistis had long legs, but she had to hurry to keep up, fixing her gaze on his back like a limpet mine as he shouldered through the civilians.
They walked in silence as the crowds thinned out and the streets narrowed towards the edge of the town. It was very hot. Quistis squirmed uncomfortably, wishing for the cooler Balamb climate. A triangle of sweat had appeared on Seifer's T shirt between his shoulderblades and she noticed that he'd slowed the pace, a bit.
They kept on walking.
She caught up with Seifer on the first hill and he gave her a sidelong look but didn't say anything and so, stubbornly, neither did she. The old tensions had flown home to roost, settling between them in a cloud of feathery words. Quistis supposed she should feel grateful that she could remember what had happened that winter.
Maybe she even was.
She watched the landscape around her with the assessing gaze of the born strategist as the houses thinned out to scrubland, and then the scrub sprouted into fields, rocky and thin with plantations of grey-green trees and low overhanging vines. The air was hot and heavy, scented with the smell of plants and vegetation that smelt almost medicinal. Quistis could feel it in the back of her throat as she breathed in. It reminded her of something but she couldn't quite remember what.
As per usual.
They reached the ridge and began to drop down the other side into a small gully. Quistis's shoes kicked up little puffs of dust as she walked, and the fine film covered her clothes from the knees down, drifted, and stuck to her hair. Seifer coughed in front of her.
The dusty valley continued a short way as they turned back towards the sea and then joined the end of another valley in a sharp V of scrub and bramble. This valley was wider, even lush. Trees cast some shade and the air was cooler. This valley had a stream in it, though it was more like a river.
The sound of rushing water broke some of the tension and reminded Quistis that she really, urgently, needed to pee. She was glad when Seifer settled down on a flat stone overlooking the water. He stretched out on the rock, soaking up the heat radiating from it like a lizard, and didn't seem to mind or even worry when Quistis wandered off to go find a convenient bush. In the trees, the strong medicinal scent of the vegetation was even more obvious.
She walked back to find Seifer, who was, perhaps surprisingly, still where she had left him, somehow managing to make a slab of dusty rock look comfortable. His eyes were closed. She muted her steps, trying to surprise him.
It didn't work.
"I know you're there."
Quistis didn't reply. Seifer picked up a stone from the gravel beside him, bounced it once in his palm and threw it in one smooth movement. The stone clicked off the toe of Quistis' boot, or where it had been. Quistis moved to the river, giving in to her internal temptations, and scooped up a handful of water. He followed her movement with his head and opened his eyes just in time to see the water on a course towards his face, but too late to do anything about it.
The resulting stream of curses was educational, or would have been if Quistis hadn't known all the words already. It was like, she thought, a chemical reaction. Cold Water Plus Seifer Equals Swearing.
"You didn't see that coming."
"But I knew where you were. Loosening up at last, Trepe? You're pissing about. Joining in with us lesser mortals?"
Quistis tried to stop her blush, tightened her lips and sat down on the slab next to Seifer. Unprofessional, her mind lamented. You're getting called on conduct by Seifer Almasy.
Ye gods.
It wasn't just the pot calling the kettle black, it was the pot calling the sugar basin black.
Quistis had a horror of wasting time. She felt suddenly and obscurely guilty and hid the blush by kneeling on the edge of the slab and dipping her glasses into the water to try and clean them. Her hair slid down into her face in heavy damp locks and she twisted it up into a dusty bun. The movement crushed some more of the small plants underneath her knees, releasing more of the familiar medicinal smell. It highlighted a memory in her brain but the recollection stayed resolutely fuzzy-edged. It was beyond annoying. Quistis pounded herself on the forehead.
"Didn't know you were into self-harm."
Quistis sighed and readjusted her glasses on her nose. "I'm not, but….."The spectacles took the blurry edges of her vision away but the memory stayed resolutely fuzzy." Look, don't these plants remind you of something?"
Seifer squinted at the plants, rolled onto one elbow and uprooted one, soil clinging to its roots and dribbling sand all over his T shirt. "Yeah. They smell kinda funny, don't they? We used to have them growing by the sea in Centra. You know, the orphanage. I think Selphie ate some once."
"You remember." It was a statement.
Well, yeah, it was hard to forget. She went purple, for fuck's sake." Seifer tossed the plant back into the stream and crossed his arms behind his head.
"No, you remember." She stressed the last word.
"You don't." It wasn't a question.
Quistis wasn't surprised. She'd never suspected Seifer of being dumb: maybe he didn't put the same priorities on things as most other people, but he wasn't stupid.
"I used GFs, remember. We had this conversation back in Trabia. And you never did."
"No." Right now Seifer's tone said; the conversation stops here. He'd turned slightly away from her, arms crossed over his chest, and had absently started flicking pebbles into the stream.
Quistis ignored it, ploughing resolutely on. "Rinoa remembers. So does Irvine.
"Rinoa's got nothing to forget." Was that a slight gentling of his tone? "Go pick on the cowboy."
Quistis tried a new tactic. "Do you know how annoying it is? I never realised how much I had to say I don't remember before I stopped using GFs so much. And now I keep wondering what I forgot that I don't even know I forgot, what kind of stuff I just threw out because I never even realised it was important." She leant back. "They say it'll come back, but no one told us how soon. I think Squall remembers a bit, but you know how he is. Maybe the thing with Rinoa helps. He's got someone's memories at least."
Seifer lit a cigarette, taking his time selecting one from the pack and cupping his hands ostentatiously against a nonexistent breeze. "I remember when I first came to Garden. I met you and you just walked straight past me. I thought you just didn't want to know, so fuck you. And it just never came up again. I didn't want to mention it and you all didn't know how to, so you know, I just let it lie. What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, remember me? We all used to live together back when we were six. I was a jerk?' But I never used GFs. Guess I always figured I could learn to live without them. I was good enough to live without them. But Squall..I dunno. He just made me want more not to use them. I remember the first time he saw Zell after he came to the Garden."
"They didn't come at the same time?" Quistis questioned
Seifer shrugged. "Nah. Zell's younger. Well, maybe he's not, all that much, but he looks it. Acts it. And anyway the first time Zell saw Squall and went up to him to say hi he just blanked him and then he was all '…who the hell are you?' So then I decided that I didn't want to use something that could fuck you up that badly." He stared out over the water, eyes dark.
Quistis could almost see the scene: Zell hurt and confused and Squall just confused. But Zell was tougher than most people gave him credit for. Anyone who could stand up to years of Seifer's hairstyle taunts without shaving their head in self-defence had to have a core of steel.
Did I blank anyone when I came to Garden? How many people did I offend without even realising it?
Quistis realised she should be thinking about what to do with Seifer, but then the siren song of unremembered anecdotes and the allure of finally being able to scratch the little itch in the back of her head finally lured her in. "Tell me."
"What?" Seifer looked exasperated, behind the smoke. "The meaning of life? The real reason why Zell has that stupid tattoo? Where Squall got his pimp coat, and I'll tell you that one for free, it was the Marital Aids and Exotica shop on… "
Quistis was almost sure he was joking, or at least being creatively nasty. "Everything. Something. Whatever you remember."
"When we were kids? It wasn't that great."
She half sat up. "Listen, Seifer. I will say this only once, and I hope to Hyne you've got a video recorder handy because this chance isn't going to come again in your lifetime. Ever. Please. I'm asking you a favour. Tell me."
Seifer looked thoughtful "What's it worth?"
"Knowing that you've done someone a good turn."
"Banks don't take good deeds."
"You're so..mercenary"
"You say that like it's a bad thing. And I'm not going to remind you what you do for a living."
"Seriously, Seifer. I really, really, need to know."
Seifer shot a glance over at her and Quistis could almost see him weighing up the balance. Finally, he just shrugged. "I remember and I don't bloody well want to. You don't and you feel like you're missing out. Trust me, you're not. At the orphanage, it wasn't great. It wasn't bad. But we didn't do anything."
"Well, what's this like? What does it remind you of?"
He swatted at a fly. "It's hot. It used to be this hot, in summer. And those plants, I think they used to grow by the sea. Like I said, Selphie ate some once. She used to eat everything that wasn't nailed down. Fucking annoying if you ask me. Oh, wait. You just did."
Quistis rested one hand on her chin, trying to force herself to remember. She thought of a little Selphie, a mini Irvine, and grinned.
"What did they look like?"
"I dunno. When you're a kid, it's just them, you know. You don't really think about anything like that. We all used to get second hand clothes, and then we'd fight over who got the best stuff. We used to fight a lot." He winced. "I used to fight a lot. Kids. People, Random trees…."
"What about me?"
"You were a bossy little bitch. You used to try and stop us and then you'd get punched in the nose."
"But that didn't stop me." Quistis said slowly.
He grinned. "No, you used to get fighting mad, and then you'd go mental." He said the last word approvingly.
"We'd get sand everywhere. Sand…..I think you buried Squall in the sand."
"I tried, to, but he wouldn't stay still. Zell used to build these little tunnels in the sand with his hands, and then I'd come and stamp on them. I just thought it'd be great to build a big one with Squall in it, but he wouldn't lie still." He sighed. "Guess I was jealous. Still am."
Quistis inwardly smiled. The first step to dealing with a problem is admitting you have it….."You used to build castles."
"They used to fall down."
"And then you'd stamp on them too." Quistis almost, almost, but not quite, remembered. It was more annoying than not remembering at all. "Edea was always there. Matron. She'd call us in from the beach." She could see that in her mind, remember the world being a whole lot bigger and filled with a lot more interesting things.
"I knew you'd remember her. She'd give us biscuits when we came in. Little faces on the top made out of Smarties."
"We used to swap them." She remembered sharing the sweets out, making sure she got blue ones to stick on the top of her cookie as eyes. Seifer had favoured a different colour. "Red?"
He frowned. "I guess. I just waved them about in front of Selphie. She wasn't allowed Smarties. Too many colourings. I bet her she wouldn't eat a whole packet from the fridge one night and she sneaked downstairs and scarfed them all. It took Matron until five am to get her to bed."
The mention of a bet rang a bell. "You and Squall used to dare each other all the time." Thoughts and images flitted together in a jigsaw of waves and damp footprints on stone. "The sea. He betted you wouldn't dive into the sea from the biggest rock." "From the window." He spoke absently.
"You were so dumb. It was miles up."
"I'm not the smart one. If you think about things too much, you never get anything fuckin' done."
"If you thought about things, maybe you wouldn't do them in the first place."
"Where's the fun in that?"
Quistis spoke slowly. "You jumped forty feet into the sea at high tide. You could have broken your neck."
"It might've saved time in the long run."
And then, suddenly, she remembered. Seifer and Squall had been fighting, as usual. She couldn't remember just who had been winning, but then Seifer had called Squall a coward, and Squall had said no, Seifer was, and dared him to do something really brave, to prove it. Seifer had scornfully demanded what ( he'd been sitting on Squall's stomach at the time, pinning the smaller boy to the ground) and Squall had looked up, seen the highest window that overlooked the sea, gave a little smile, pointed with his free hand and said "Jump into the sea from that."
It had been high tide at the time. Seifer had scowled, looked unsure for about a second, punched Squall in the nose, climbed off him and headed up into the tower without saying a word.
They'd all watched, which had probably been his intent to start with. Zell had told Squall that they were going to get into trouble. Squall had shrugged. Quistis had told him that he was going to be in big trouble if Seifer hurt himself. They hadn't really believed he would, you didn't think about those things as kids. They'd watched until Seifer appeared in the window, looking suddenly small against the frame. He'd thrown it open and then disappeared.
Zell had shrugged and turned back to his tunnels. "Didn't think he'd do it." He should really, have known better. Even at seven Seifer had exhibited the same kind of if-you-don't-think –I-can-I'll-run-there-over-broken-glass-just-to-prove-you-wrong tendency as he did now. And if he appeared to be backing down, it was only to get a run-up, for later.
They'd all turned back to whatever they'd been doing when Seifer launched himself from the window, legs still running in thin air. Quistis didn't remember being impressed. What was the point? He'd landed in the sea with the unholy luck of small children and professional idiots one foot from the nearest rock, swum untidily back to the shore and punched Squall in the nose again as a way of illustrating a point. Squall had punched him back and they'd fought until they'd squashed Selphie's sandcastle. At some point Zell and Quistis joined in and Matron had come out, hauled the boys off each other with a lecture to which neither of them listened, scowling at each other with mulish faces, and sent them upstairs.
Quistis shook herself. The recollection seemed almost too real. Was she remembering remembering, or had it really happened? Quistis Trepe: this WAS your life..
It made her head hurt. "You were such a pain in the ass. You really haven't changed."
Seifer grinned. "Want to take a rest stop off Memory Motorway?"
"I ..remember." True, the memory was just one bright spot in a snow crashed video, but it was something. And maybe if she could remember just one thing, and remember it well, she'd remember other stuff. Just a matter of time.
"Congratulations" Sarcastically.
Quistis leant back on the rock. She was surprised at how comfortable she felt in Seifer's company. The awkward silences between them had vanished and he for one looked more relaxed that any time she'd ever known him, lounging in the shade, smoking, eyes half closed. The hot landscape suited him but the relaxation felt…..wrong. She'd never seen Seifer looking so much himself without fighting.
He wasn't paying attention, staring out into the shade. "There's fish in there."
"So?"
"Big fish."
Quistis frowned, raising herself on one elbow. It was hard to see through the rippling water, though as she squinted, a shape of rocks and weeds melded itself miraculously into a trout. Seifer was right. It was big. She scanned the river. And there were lots of them, studding the river like mini submarines. Occasionally one would lazily swim up to the surface and make a lunge for a fly.
There was also, she noticed, a large white sign some way down the river. If she pushed her glasses up onto her nose and really squinted she could almost read it. It said 'No Fishing'.
Seifer had already taken his boots off.
"You're not."
"Watch me."
"Seifer, it's illegal"
"It's free!" He stubbed his cigarette out onto the stones and stepped into the water. It soaked his jeans up to his knees.
"If you were paying, it wouldn't be illegal."
"Just think of it as a free lunch."
"Raw fish? You're really spoiling me. I'd be more worried if I thought you were actually going to catch one."
"Watch me."
Quistis sighed. Seifer's own special disregard for any rules was beyond her. Admittedly, there seemed to be no one around, and they were very big fish, but if no one kept to the rules then there wouldn't be any rules, and since the rules were there, you had to assume that they were there for a good reason. Maybe the fish were genetically engineered killing machines. Piranha mutants. Miniature sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.
She watched. In the stream, Seifer was taking his shirt off. It twisted between his hands like a net as he moved very slowly downstream, stalking, adjusting his movements so his shadow was cast away from the fish. He lowered the T shirt in the water, facing her, and Quistis took a moment to enjoy the view. The tan really did go all the way down.
"You are so never going to catch anything. And even if you do, we'll never be able to get it back to the town without it going off in this heat"
"Sssh." Seifer swirled his T shirt in the water. "It's not the fish, it's the point of it." He slid a foot forwards, carefully. The dappled pattern of light and shade passing through the leaves over his head cast his face in shadow.
Quistis squinted. Her hands doodled idly in the dust, picking up a strand of tough grass and stripping the coating off it with her teeth. "The point of what?"
"It's not anyone's. It's just a river. And anyone rich enough to own a whole river isn't going to bother about a few fish. What do you think they do, count them in the morning?"
"They're still not your fish."
"Give me a minute" He bent forwards, eyes intent on the water.
Quistis stretched out a toe towards the water and poked it in, feeling mud squish beneath her toes. It felt cold to her skin, which was finally acclimatising to the dusty southern heat. She shaded her eyes to watch Seifer, standing up to his hips in the middle of the stream. He'd turned, back half-towards her, the shade of the trees obscuring some kind of pattern on his shoulders. It looked like some kind of paint or tattoo.
"What……..?"
The noise made Seifer glance round involuntarily just as he scooped something out of the water netted in his ragged T shirt. The movement must have thrown him slightly off balance for a fraction of a second. It was unfortunate that the fish gave a thrashing heave just at that moment, escaping from the makeshift net. It was big, Quistis saw for a second, about a foot long, slippery and silver in the bright light with its scales shining like armour. Seifer swore and made a grab for the thrashing fish, missed, swore again, slipped and disappeared with the fish beneath the surface of the stream, arms windmilling in a vain attempt to keep his balance.
The only sign left of him was a soaked and sinking T shirt, water-darkened to black, disappearing down the river. The other fish had all vanished, and the shapes making up the sandy bottom of the stream were now just what they appeared, pebbles and logs.
Quistis laughed.
A hand erupted from the depths and grabbed the T shirt before Seifer emerged from the stream, spitting water and curses in equal measure. He squelched out onto the rock, giving her dark looks.
Quistis returned them with a smile. "Divine justice."
"Bullshit If you hadn't distracted me I could have had one by now." He lay down on the rock, displaying his back to Quistis' view. It was a tattoo, she saw. The design looked something like twisted spiralling demon-wings, reaching from the nape of his neck to the point of each shoulderblade.
"I didn't know you had a tattoo."
"Fuck me, Quistis Trepe doesn't know something? Hold the front page!" Seifer rolled over, sat up and wrung out his T shirt, cascading water staining the dust into dark brown mud.
"Sarcasm's the lowest form of wit, you know."
"That's what everyone says when they can't think of a smart comeback."
"The day when I call you witty is the day I start wearing pink nail polish."
"Yeah, yeah. "
Quistis didn't reply. From the look of the sun it was past midday and the fierce heat was shading into something less brutal, the kind of long, lazy afternoon other people seemed to enjoy. She stretched luxuriously, arms and back muscles cracking. Trust Seifer to find the one part of this Hyne-forsaken town she really quite liked. She'd never let him know, of course, but well, it was okay. Not as good as training, of course, or the kind of buzz you go from finishing something just right, but it was nice. She lazily raised an eyelid as Seifer flipped a pebble into the stream
"I hate this damn one horse seaside town."
Quistis shaded her eyes with her hand to glance up at him. "So when're you leaving?"
"Dunno. How long does it take to grow a new set of balls? Whenever. When I feel like it. When I run out of money. When they start lighting the flaming torches. "
"Would you go back if you could?"
"If Squall begged me on his knees I wouldn't. Why bother? It's not going to happen any time soon unless the girly bastard has a complete change of heart and everyone else gets selective amnesia. He's such a useless motherfucker. I bet he's made a right damn mess of Garden. "
"Did you know Cid made him Commander?"
"News gets around. I may not buy the papers but I read them sometimes. Must have been the best publicity move Cid ever made in his sweater-vest wearing life."
"Squall's doing really well" It was not entirely the truth: Quistis knew Squall was working himself into the ground trying to live up to Cid's reputation. He was, so far, succeeding, at the loss of almost any personal life and to the indulgent annoyance of Rinoa.
Seifer spat. "Joy. He would be."
"I'll let him know you asked after him" Her smile was sharp.
"You dare. Does he still wear the clothes?"
Quistis gave a non-committal nod.
"I never understood that outfit. Dunno why he ever bothers with a fucking sword, he can just take that damn necklace off and bludgeon people to death with it. How does he manage to jump around with that on and not break his own nose? If he really gets into the medallion thing he's going to have to put a plate on a chain round his neck to find something that's bigger."
"Well, why the hell did you wear a white coat? Oh, look at me, I'm trying to hide and I'm wearing white like an idiot!"
"I don't do hiding. And don't even get me started on that pink thing of yours."
"It's not pink!"
Seifer grinned "Peach. How does that fit in with your camouflage theory? At least I can walk in what I wear."
"I don't wear it all the time."
"I never really understood the whole uniform. I mean, female mercenaries, no problem, but what was with the whole' yes, I shall develop the most feared fighting force in Centra and I shall dress half of them in knee socks' thing?
"Now you're the last person I'd have picked to complain about that."
"Oh, I'm not complaining. I just think Cid liked it"
Quistis shrugged. "He isn't at Garden much now. Spends most of his time with Edea. Seifer, she's not well. The sorceress thing-it broke her. She has flashbacks. Dreams. Nightmares, more like. She feels ashamed. People don't remember what she was like before, they just remember her face and they act different, kind of angry afraid and she can tell. " She gave Seifer a hard look. "You don't have anything like that? No problems?"
"I have problems all the time."
"Don't avoid the question."
Seifer fished in his pocket for his cigarettes and swore as he pulled the soaked and disintegrating remnants of the pack out of his jeans. The lighter didn't spark after he flicked it a few times and he threw it into the stream. Quistis watched its cheap green plastic case sink to the bottom.
"Do you remember Edea when we were little? She got kind of weird after the sorceress thing. That must have been when we were about eight. She told you about that?"
"She did." Quistis didn't mention in what circumstances the information had been delivered, and Seifer didn't ask, carrying on talking.
"Not really different, just sadder, I guess. Wasn't really thinking about anyone else at the time, but, you know, she was never fucking right."
Quistis closed her eyes, trying to recall a memory, any memory, of Edea before the wars. From what she could remember at Garden, the couple had acted as her surrogate parents in a kind and vaguely dissociated way. Some things never changed. They'd been better than the real thing, in many ways, an anchor for most of her life. Quistis had never needed a crutch, but Cid and Edea had been like a heirloom walking stick-you didn't use it, and kept it in the umbrella stand most of the time, but it was nice to know that it was there in case anything happened.
"I can't remember."
"You're not missing much." Seifer stared at the water. In the golden light of the sun his shadow cast a spiky long reflection on the rocks. For a minute his eyes looked very dark, like the windows to a haunted house, shuttered and cold.
Quistis asked him cautiously "What do you mean?"
"Nothing. Forget it. Look, we should be going "
Quistis looked round and silently agreed. The sun had started to dip towards the summits of the surrounding hills. It was still hot, but a breeze had sprung up from nowhere, raising the dust round her feet in miniature eddies and whipping the stream into tiny waves.
We must have talked for hours……
They both stood, Seifer snatched his shirt from the rocks and shrugged it on. Quistis picked up his discarded packet of wet cigarettes and slipped it into her bag. Seifer gave her a sideways look but didn't say anything. He shrugged and raised one eyebrow in a way that said if she wanted to clean up after him why not let her?
Déjà vu.
Quistis sighed. All that talking and she still hadn't made up her mind about what to do. More talking must be needed. It was strange that she didn't seem to be finding the prospect very dismaying.
Weird.
Seifer, beside her, looked suddenly thoughtful. "So, what do you want to do now?"
"You?"
"Food. You?"
Quistis waved a hand in the air in the universal gesture of indecision. "I'm not that bothered. I think we need to go over some things."
Seifer sighed and kicked a pebble into the water. "Fine. We can go to my place. I'll pick something up on the way. Don't give me that look. I meant food. What else? Hyne, sometimes you really piss me off. "
"The feeling is mutual."
"I thought it might be. Can't think why the fuck I got that idea." He gestured at her feet. "So? Let's get going."
"I don't know the way." Quistis thought she could probably have worked it out: after all the river had to lead to the sea eventually, and then it was back the way they'd come, but she wanted Seifer in front of her.
"Do I have to do everything?"
"Makes a change from doing nothing." Quistis flipped a second handful of water at him as they left the stream, but he ducked.
"Doing nothing's not my problem. I always got into shit for doing things."
"For not doing things too….Like papers. I swear if I ever get you back to Garden I'll sit you down and make you write them all out. Three times."
"See, that's just another reason for not going back. After I've done all that and Squall's got me copying 'I Will Not Feed People I Love To Monsters' out five hundred times, I won't have much of my hands left." He thought for a moment. "Better make it 'I Will Not Feed Squall's Girlfriend, Dammit, To Monsters.' Asshole."
Quistis tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Did you?" She addressed the question to Seifer's back. He paused for a moment, jaw set, and then continued on down the narrow path.
"Love her? I guess. I did. Now? Her and Leonbrat, last time I saw them she had him written all over her face. There's just too much stuff, you know."
"History?" Quistis knew better than to ask Seifer if he regretted it. She didn't think for one minute she'd get any kind of sensible answer. Unless you counted 'fuck OFF 'as sensible, anyway….
"Right." His face was tense in the golden dusky light and Quistis felt she could guess at least some of what he was thinking: how could she like HIM better than ME? She could have offered a few suggestions, but since when had Seifer ever listened to her advice?
They walked the rest of the way back in silence, their shadows long in the setting sunlight. Seifer turned right when they reached the town, out of the centre and down dusty backstreets filled with cheap boarding houses and shops selling souvenirs, teatowels and snacks. He stopped to buy some fish and chips. Quistis refused a share, having a prejudice against consuming more than half her weight in grease at any one time.
Quistis looked round as the houses got progressively smaller and shabbier. The
signs outside properties had changed from prosperous 'The Elms': No Vacancies (or 'Dunroamin', or 'Chez Nous') boards in gold lettering to small and desperate pieces of cardboard tacked up behind yellowing lace curtains. 'Room for rent: Furnishings, Sink, Heating.' Curtains twitched as they went past. The whole place smelled equally of cat piss and fish.
"Nice."
"Yeah, yeah, Miss Posh Hotel Person. At least I don't have a landlady who gives me Twenty Questions every time I go out. Snob."
"Asshole."
"Workaholic"
"Loser."
"You know I'm going to win, so why bother? Anyway, this is it."
Quistis was less than impressed. The house looked like an old gas station that had been converted into an ironmongers and then abandoned when times got tough. It leaned drunkenly to the side, subsiding and aging ungracefully.
"What do they charge you for this?"
"Enough."
"Whatever it is, they're overpaid."
"Do you want to come in or not?"
"Sure." She attempted to rub the mud off her boots on the street, giving up when the dust cloud produced by her movements reached her nose and made her cough.
"Don't bother. There's no way you could make it worse than it is."
"For once, I think you're right."
Seifer turned the key in the lock, rattled the handle, and kicked the door, which creaked open reluctantly. He gestured her in.
It was like walking into a sauna. The room faced due south and the sun's rays shining all day on the closed window had acted just like a greenhouse. Quistis could feel sweat starting to break out all over her skin.
Seifer, next to her, swore "The damn AC's packed up again"
The first detail of the room that Quistis noticed was a pile of books strewn over the floor. They were facing away from her, making it was impossible to read their titles, but from first impressions they didn't look like the kind of books she would have expected Seifer to read. She wouldn't have expected Seifer to read, period. It had been like pulling teeth just getting him to look at the SeeD manual for his exams.
"What's that?"
"Just books"
He kicked them casually under the table with a swift nudge of his heel and threw open the window. Quistis acted like she didn't notice but made a mental note to go and check later. It probably wouldn't be anything she wanted to find, but suspicious habits died hard.
Seifer stalked over to the hapless AC with a curse and started pulling out fraying wires and decaying pieces of tubing. Quistis looked round the room.
It didn't take long. Hyne, the whole thing couldn't have been much bigger than her first SeeD dormitory, and with the air-conditioner out of action, it had the same inerasable smell of wet socks.
It was one of those flats that was optimistically called 'bed-sit' or 'studio' in advertisements, along with copy stressing its convenience, cheapness and all modern amenities, such as a sink and running water down all the walls. Quistis would have called it poky, if anyone had asked. The furniture was the kind you got in ready-furnished houses, namely stuff that even the local charity shop wouldn't have taken. Most of it seemed to be fishboxes hacked into pieces, interspersed by a chipped enamel sink with a ring round it, a tiny hotplate, and a fridge that was almost as small.
"Has it got a bed?"
Seifer pulled back a curtain. "A mattress. On the floor. The guy said it was a futon in the ad, and I thought 'what the fuck's a futon?' but it was cheap, so I took it anyway."
"A real roach hotel."
"Nah. Doesn't get roaches. It's under the power lines."
Quistis shot him a curious look as a small piece of metal pinged off the wall just above her head. "What are you doing?"
"I'm sawing for teens, Quistis. I'm juggling fish. I'm checking for weirdos. I'm pushing an elephant up the fucking stairs. What do you think?"
"You're hitting the airconditioner. With a spanner"
"It's not working. I'm fixing it. Fixing, you know, when you get broken things and try to make them work?"
"You know, sarcasm's the lowest form of wit."
"So bite me."
"I rest my case. How long did it take you to think that one up?" She stalked over to the bookshelf and started to leaf through the titles, a weird mix of secondhand manuals, magazines and pulp fantasy. Titles like The Princess Bride rubbed shoulders with back copies of Bows And Ammo. She picked a book at random and turned to the first page.
"'I realised the wereleopards were having a big effect on how comfortable I felt nude'…."Seifer, what is this crap?"
"Not mine."
"Riiiiiight."
He glanced up from repeatedly hitting the air conditioning with a spanner. "No, seriously. Some of them came with the room."
"Fine." Quistis ran her finger along a list of titles, obviously library second hands from their plastic jackets. "All Tomorrow's Parties? American Gods? The Princess Bride?"
"Mine."
"Cops Without Tops?"
"Mine."
The magazine featured a busty brunette in a policeman's jacket and very little else, pouting over the barrel of a gun.
Quistis thought Seifer could have at least have had the decency to look embarrassed, but his tone never changed. She slid the issue back beside its crumpled sister rag-Stars Without Bras. Both reminded her of a certain unofficial Garden publication: Cadets with Pets. What was he hiding under his bed if he had his smut on open display? She dreaded to think.
Quistis searched out another book. "Woman's Weekly?"
"What do you think?" He gave her a disgusted look, as far as Quistis could see over his shoulder.
"Bows and Ammo Issue 41- Throwing Stars-We Test The Best. Money Back If Not Completely Decapacitated?"
"Mine." He shrugged. "I'm trying to decide if I can afford an upgrade for Hyperion."
"You can't. Parasitic Infection Of Echinoderms? The Chambered Nautilus Newsletter? A Study Of The Prevalence Of Digenea Trematoda Infection In Seafaring Humans?"
"Here. But good for firelighters."
"You know, they say that you can tell all about a person from what kind of books they have."
"Who're they?" Seifer's voice, from inside the airconditioner, sounded distinctly unimpressed. There was a soft chink as he tossed a spare part over his shoulder which disappeared under the sofa.
Quistis shrugged "Same they who say anything. Anyway, from that, I think you're a homicidal lesbian with a fish fetish."
He faked admiration. "Wow. Now I can see why you made SeeD. Criminals beware." There was a clunk from the airconditioner, which sagged towards the ground with an asthmatic wheeze and abruptly whirred into life, billowing dust. Seifer snatched his hands back with a curse and coughed.
"Did the sarcasm stick in your throat?" Quistis snapped.
Seifer wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving dark streaks of oil. "I bet you alphabetise your books. I bet you keep your Triple Triad cards in folders, for Hyne's sake."
"There's nothing wrong with being organised…"
"Like hell. You're so damn organised if you shot yourself in the head the bullet'd be dated. " He walked over to the tiny fridge. "And labelled. Want a beer?"
Quistis, avoiding the question, ran a finger over the shelf and looked at it critically.
"Don't you clean?"
Seifer glanced up. "Huh? Quistis, I'm twenty. This is clean. I've got better things to do with my time than dust."
She folded her arms. "Like what?"
Seifer stood up and looked away, scratching at a piece of Sellotape stuck to the fridge. "Work." He said it flatly. "Try not to sleep. Smoke. Drink. Go screw people's lives up. Especially mine. Train"
Quistis jumped on the word, feeling slightly awkward and clutching at any straw to break the silence. "We could train together."
He bent back down to the fridge "Sure." and then grinned up with a trace of his old arrogance. "I'll kick your ass. Any time."
"I'll hand your ass to you on a plate, soldier boy."
"I'll handle your ass any time you want" His gaze swept up Quistis' legs, meaningfully.
"That's it!" She picked up a book off a nearby shelf, cunningly disguised as a fishbox. "Jerk." She threw it. Seifer ducked. The book hit the wall behind him with a slap, trailing plaster dust just as his hand exited the fridge holding a can of beer. He hefted it meaningfully.
"Your ass is toast."
"Like you're going to throw that. Waste of cool beer."
"True." He looked at it in mock regret, popped the lid and took a long swallow. " Too good to waste on you. Want some?"
"I don't drink. You're just trying to sabotage me. Get me so drunk I lose tomorrow."
"Who said anything about fighting tomorrow?"
"I did. Right now." Quistis lifted an eyebrow, elegantly. "Unless you're afraid?"
"I laugh in the face of danger." Seifer looked round, and picked up a sock off the floor. He threw it down with a sweeping, theatrical gesture. "The challenge is yours. The beach, at dawn."
"Dawn?" Quistis wrinkled her nose at the sight of the sock, which was wrinkled, had holes in and looked like it could form some kind of biological weapon.
"Sure. Makes it more dramatic. Choice of weapon?"
She pretended to think, seeing Seifer's gaze turn to Hyperion. "I'm sure we'll find something on the beach." No way was she letting him out of here with that…
"I need to practice with Hyperion sometime."
"But do you need full body ventilation? Let me put this another way: would you really like to get shot through with holes for carrying a concealed weapon?"
"It wouldn't be concealed." They both knew he was just arguing for the sake of arguing.
"That's worse. Where did you get it, anyway?"
Seifer ran a hand over the sleek leather case. It was new and looked like it had cost more than the entire contents of the room. "Picked it up in Trabia after I came back. Buried it." The gunblade looked as out of place in the shabby flat as a snake in the forest floor.
Something had been bugging Quistis, and this seemed to be the time for shared confidences. "Why 'Hyperion'?"
"Because 'Save The Queen' is so much more logical? Quistis, we don't even have a queen!"
Quistis was aware that she was blushing. "That's different. And you didn't answer my question."
Seifer shrugged. "It was out of some old book somewhere. Can't remember where. Some old god or sun name or something. Save The Queen?"
"It just fitted."
"Like hell."
Damn, warning, long author validation speech ahead. Yes, I do think I'm cute. So sue me.
As for the question: Seifer is obviously a Disney fan. Hyperion Road was where the first Disney studio was started…As for the symbolism, read Brewers Dictionary Of Phrase And Fable. It fits, but my God he should have done some serious mythology searches before deciding on that name.
The books: does anyone remember that lj meme that went round recently about which books you had on your shelves? I always thought it was weird, 'cause my top shelf's all comic, the two in between are pretty much popular fiction, art books and novels, with lots of SF &F, and the bottom one is all work stuff. I definitely have a work/play split personality.
The books mentioned:
The quote abut the nudes and the wereleopards is from a Laurell K Hamilton book. Heh.
Bows and Ammo: fictional magazine in one of Terry Pratchett's novels.
The Princess Bride: William Goldman. The movie rocked. The book is better.
All Tomorrow's Parties: William Gibson. His post-'Neuromancer' depressing SF world is a big influence on my writing, though you wouldn't know it.
American Gods: Neil Gaiman. I recently went to a signing of his which was great. I made him a birthday card and he gave me a hug and drew Morpheus and Mister Wednesday all over my books. Of course, I had most everything he'd ever written already, but meeting him and knowing he probably deserves to be a millionaire made it all so much better. Read it.
Cadets With Pets: I'm a vet student. In the fifth year we all do something for charity. This year the fifth form stripped and published a calendar full of vet students with strategic sheep and dogs and textbooks covering their naughty bits. The December pic was them all sitting in the lecture theatre, buck naked and wearing nothing but Santa hats.
The journal titles: making a brief guest appearance from the pages of my favourite book of all time: The Bone People by Keri Hulme, in a similar 'Hmm, I can study their shelves and find out what kind of people they are' scene.
Altol (d00d, F&I…I bow down. I really, really liked the first chapter.) Amber Tinted (so..many…reviews…you got carpal tunnel syndrome yet? I really appreciate it), breaker-one (I also have a weird sense of humour. More like black.) DBZ Fanfiction Queen (the infamous paragraph…sorry. It was showing up all right on the previews. I have no idea why it did it, but it wasn't my largest chapter.), gauntlet challenge, (The nasty receptionist (who will be recurring in later chapters), is a cross between the typical British landlady and a woman we called the Breakfast Nazi who we met in a hostel in Italy. Yes, there are real people like that -and most of them run Blackpool boarding houses.), Ghost 140 (hey there), Quistis88 (Html should be sorted on this chapter: Blame ff.net. I do. I seriously must have uploaded the fic twenty times. I was…..*holds fingers apart* this close to throwing the computer out of the window. And that's close.), nynaeve77 (the receptionista will be back), Mana Angel( please do!:D)seatbelts (Complicative! A cool word. And so Quistis!), seventhe (you really should hear some of my conversations with my family. Verbal tennis. Last time it led to my father commenting that 'I was going to need a strong man to take me on.' I take that as a compliment. The smut is two chapters away.) The Finely Tuned Fiend (Time, care and thought: read stress, coffee and quote stealing. I'm flattered.)