Chapter Twelve: Horoscopes
Now you may find it inconceivable or at the very least
A bit unlikely that the relative positions
Of the stars and all the planets could have a
Special deep significance or meaning that exclusively applies to only you
But let me give you my assurance that these forecasts and predictions
Are all based on solid scientific documented evidence
So you would have to be
Some kind of moron not to realise
That every single one of them is absolutely true…
That's your horoscope for today…….
Weird Al Yancovic: Horoscope(edit)
Quistis surprised even herself with her self-restraint.
There was no need, really. Her generally repressed personality was
legend (and, in some cases, fantasy) amongst virtually everyone at
Balamb. She prided herself on the fact that, while any other SeeD
would have immediately made excuses, dived out of the window
and gone after Seifer with all the weaponry they could carry, she
hadn't.
It had been a strain, though.
Quistis had balled her hands up into fists so tight that her nails left
half-moon marks on her palms while the receptionist had lectured
her on the joys of celibacy, restraint and good hygiene (in that
order) She'd tolerated Selphie's innuendo and Rinoa's small
smiles (when she thought Quistis wasn't looking) for all of three
hours after what she was coming to think of as the Flower Fiasco.
After three hours, or one hundred and eighty incandescently
angry minutes, or ten thousand, eight hundred seconds of
fiendish, Bosch-like planning of what exactly she was going
to do to Seifer when she caught up with him, Selphie had
wanted to visit the shops and Rinoa agreed that shopping
might, indeed be a good thing. If only so she could purchase
a new skirt, her old one having been irreversibly soiled
by a mixture of pollen, crushed white rose petals, thorns
and water.
It had been easy for Quistis to evade the trip. Everyone knew
her usual hatred of shopping.
She just lent the other girls her room key, dressed in jogging
shorts and vest, and then set off around the bay. Seifer's flat
was to the north of the hotel, so she headed due south down
the beach road until she lost sight of the building, turned
around and jogged back into town.
Right.
It was payback time.
The sound of her feet on the hot midday pavements conjured
up an easy, automatic rhythm. To pass the time, Quistis
imagined painfully precise predictions of what exactly the
coming hour was going to bring. She categorised her revenge
with care, first numerically and then alphabetically.
By the time she had reached 'torn apart by three terrifying
Toramas' Quistis had reached the residential area of the city.
Caution made her follow the backstreets just in case Selphie
realised what she was doing. That was all she needed.
The Trabian girl had a nose for romance that rivalled prize
bloodhounds and absolutely no tact whatever. Add in the
curiosity of several thousand cats and an insanely sharp mind
and you had trouble, plain and simple.
However, last time she'd set eyes on Selphie, she'd been busy
dragging Rinoa into the nearest item shop. They'd be a while.
Quistis counted on two hours before anyone really started to get
suspicious. She'd seen grandmothers with less pride in
bargain-hunting than Selphie. No doubt the next time she saw
her, the small SeeD would be holding up some hideous garment
six sizes too big in a fetching shade of earwax, grinning from
ear to ear and proudly flaunting a sale label.
She kept running, the tarmac under her feet warm and tacky.
It stuck slightly to her pristine white trainers and stained them
with dark graffiti scribbles. The time was midday, only a few
minutes past the hour, and hot. Her aertex top clung sweatily
to her body in the still air.
It still felt strange to be wearing civilian clothes, even after two
weeks. Quistis much preferred her own clothes to the stiffly
starched and gilded SeeD uniform, but she'd never be so stupid
as to fight monsters in a vest and shorts. Her outfit, resting in
the wardrobe back in the hotel, had a number of adaptations,
like most SeeD clothes. No garments protected against magic,
but the modifications made everyone's job a little easier, and
kept the infirmary free for those who really needed it.
Like Seifer would, in a few minutes.
Ripped to ribbons by rabid Ruby Dragons… what's next…oh yes…
savaged by seven slavering Snow Lions… torn apart by three Toramas…
Infirmary? The man was going to need several pints of blood at
the very least.
Quistis picked up her pace a little, wincing as her tendons started
to tighten, and then slowed again. She didn't want to arrive at
Seifer's flat covered in sweat and dishevelled. It would give her
a distinct disadvantage.
She turned into the road.
It just isn't fair.
Quistis could just imagine Seifer holed up in his room, snickering at
his own intelligence. He wouldn't care if she'd had to pay for all the
flowers (which had turned out to be a lot more costly that she'd
thought) plus dry-cleaning bills for the quilt. And there was no
way he could afford to reimburse her for the damage, so that
avenue of retribution was out.
Oh, well. Much more painful and satisfying ones were still open.
It was a miracle the manager hadn't made her pay for dry cleaning
her mattress..
Quistis realised that she was grinding her teeth together and stopped.
She really didn't want to have to pay for caps on top of all the damage,
and she'd reached the end of the alphabet, anyway. V and W were
giving her some trouble.
The road opened out in front of her, houses thinning to either side.
Not far now.
If Seifer wasn't in, she could wait.
Aeons, if need be.
Quistis reached the house and rested against its peeling wall for a
moment while she got her breath back. The old shop's porch protected
her from the merciless sun and also from anyone who might happen to
look out the window. Paint cracked off under Quistis' fingertips as she
leant her palms on the planks and fought for breath.
Three minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, by her watch, her
breathing had slowed. The heat seemed that little bit less oppressive
as her metabolism returned to normal after her run. Quistis swept the
sweaty strands of hair from the back of her neck, retying her neat bun
in the faded glass of the old shop's front window.
She glanced critically down at her stained white trainers, slipped her bra
strap up her arm and smoothed an imaginary crease from her vest.
Leaving peeling rubber prints on the tarmac, she crossed the vacant
lot, still stained with the charcoal marks of ashes, and walked up the
metal steps as quietly as she could. By anyone's standards, that was
very quiet. The ancient and overweight cat dozing on Seifer's next-
door-neighbour's mat didn't bat an eyelid as she crossed the narrow
porch to his door.
It wasn't locked, and opened with a graveyard creak at a quick push
of Quistis' hand.
Inside, the flat was quiet and at first glance almost appeared empty.
The curtain that divided off Seifer's bed from his tiny kitchen area
was knotted back against the wall, fastened with what looked like a
bootlace.
A pair of bare feet stuck out from behind the fabric. Quistis took a
Couple
of stealthy steps into the room and stopped, trying to decide out just
which one of her revenges to use.
Seifer sat on his mattress, half –hidden by the bunched curtain with
Hyperion laid across his legs. The sword's case was discarded half-
way across the room and there was a small bottle of oil open on the
floor next to a sharpening stone. He was wiping a soaked rag down
the blade with a ferocious expression of concentration as Quistis
walked in. She stopped half way across the room, with one hand
resting on the pitted surface of the table and the other placed
squarely on her hip.
Seifer must have heard the door swing open, but he ignored it and
carried on with his cleaning. When the rag reached the bottom of
the blade he looked up straight into the firing line of Quistis'
furious glare. A smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. It spread
into a smirk and then a sharp grin.
He put the sword down and began to laugh at the expression on her
face as Quistis crossed the room in two quick strides.
"What's the ma…aaargh! Quistis! Hey! What did I do?"
Quistis didn't remove her hands from around his neck. Seifer was
laughing too hard to fight back.
"You know." She gave serious thought to removing his head and
then decided that it would be too much work for very little gain.
"What? I left flowers on your bed and now you're beating me up?
I'd hate to see what you'd do to a guy who gave you chocolates."
It was a shame that Seifer had already finished cleaning his gunblade,
because it would have certainly been possible to sharpen it on the
withering stare he received from Quistis.
"It would have been romantic, if I hadn't known why you did it"
"You should count yourself lucky. You wouldn't have got that
off Leonhart. The guy hasn't got a romantic bone in his body."
He considered. "Well, maybe one.."
Quistis privately disagreed. She thought that Squall would be
perfectly capable of being romantic, if there was no one else
apart from Rinoa within a five mile radius. There was no hope
of trying to explain this to Seifer, though, so she countered with
a frosty glare and a snarl of "Don't. Ever. Be Romantic. Again."
Seifer smirked. Quistis decided that he obviously wasn't taking this
seriously enough and punched him in the ribs, not hard enough to
cause any major damage, but hard enough to hurt.
"Wha…hey! Stitches, remember. Gerrof. " He ducked under Quistis's
arms, cursed as she caught him a glancing blow on the top of his
head, and pushed her off.
Quistis managed to get one last kick in before she landed painfully
near the sink. She grabbed hold of a drawer handle and yanked
herself indignantly to her feet, taking a deep breath to prepare for
the verbal duel that was almost certainly going to come.
Seifer leant back on the mattress and smirked at her. "Hyne, the
look on your face.."
Quistis looked around for something to hit him with. Luckily, she
didn't even have to think. The drawer that she'd yanked herself
up with was still open and her questing fingers touched cool metal
as she slid one hand inside.
Cutlery.
Perfect. Something breakable would have been better, but Seifer's
flat was conspicuous in its lack of delicate and expensive objects.
"You deserved it. You can't say you weren't winding Selphie up…"
He looked at her through half-closed eyes full of lazy wicked amusement.
Quistis grabbed a handful of forks and threw. If she'd been slightly
less angry she might have questioned the fact that while Seifer didn't
even own a working kettle, he had suddenly acquired a drawer full
of tomato knives and soup spoons. However, she didn't think to
check, and by then it was too late.
There was a sudden silence.
It was broken by a pained comment from Seifer.
"Hey…It was only flowers."
He brushed a fork from his chest absent-mindedly, knelt on the
mattress in a clatter of cutlery and yanked an eight-inch Sabatier
carving knife from the wall behind his head.
Quistis' face flushed. She reached back into the cutlery drawer
and stirred the contents round with one hand, carefully.
Among the mess of cheap tin spoons and pewter forks, the shining
handles of two other identical knives stuck out like sharks in a
swimming pool full of toddlers. Quistis picked one up and
examined it. Superbly weighted, they looked like regular kitchen
tools until you looked closely and noticed that both sides of
the blade were sharpened. She ran a finger over one edge, pressing
lightly, and winced as a thin line of blood appeared.
Seifer shrugged and picked up a bent spoon from the floor. "I don't
mind you breaking my things. I have so many."
Quistis put the knife back in the drawer, shut it and leant on it. She
said "What exactly are those doing in your cutlery drawer?"
She hadn't expected a straight answer, but Seifer surprised her.
"Hiding. Look, don't shout at me for having weapons. At least I'm
not carrying them. I'm just being…careful."
"Careful." Quistis scooped up forks from the floor. She supposed
that she should have been thankful for small mercies. Knowing
Seifer, it could just have easily been chainsaws.
"Right." Seifer touched the hole in the wall where Quistis had
thrown the knife in. He didn't comment on the accuracy of her
throw but she knew that if the blade had hit hilt-first she would
have never heard the end of it.
"Did anyone tell you you're paranoid?"
"Yeah, but I don't really trust them." Seifer flipped the Sabatier
in his hand and threw it into the front door, where it stuck. Quistis
stalked over to the door, placed one hand against the wood to give
her leverage and tugged.
The knife came free with some effort.
"Show off."
Seifer grinned. He picked up more cutlery, bundled it in his shirt hem
and then emptied the whole lot back into the drawer.
Quistis tossed the last knife in on top and then wandered over to
his bed on the pretext of picking up a few more stray pieces." I never
thought knives were your thing."
"They're not. Never were, really. Can't do enough damage with
knives. But they're easy to hide."
"And almost legal." Quistis commented sarcastically.
"That, too." Seifer said. He walked over to the window, reached for
Hyperion and resheathed it with casual precision. The plastic oil
bottle was closed and kicked together with the sharpening stone into
a corner of the room that also contained a large pile of Weapons
Monthlys, one balled up T shirt and a crumpled plastic bag full of
empty cigarette packets.
Quistis retrieved cutlery busily until she found what she was looking
for. Hiding Seifer's cigarettes deftly in her palm, she moved to the
sink.
"You know, you should hide that stuff."
"Mmm?" Seifer wiped oil-sticky hands down his jeans, glancing
thoughtfully up at the ceiling.
Quistis dropped the cigarette packet into the sink, opened it and
turned the cold tap on full blast. "Really."
She could always think up the next scene in her bloody drama
of revenge while the water was running.
"I'll do it sometime. I think I know where I can stash Hyperion…"
He stared again at the peeling polystyrene ceiling tiles, walked over
to the window and looked out, turning round to face the roof and
examining something above the level of the flat's window frame.
Quistis didn't know what he was doing and cared less, though she
had the vague feeling that she wouldn't be too bothered if he leant
out too far and fell off.
Seifer climbed back into the flat after a few minutes and stored
Hyperion thoughtfully away under the mattress without saying
a word of what he'd been doing. Task completed, he fixed Quistis
with a suspicious glare, eyebrows meeting in the trademark Almasy
frown. "Hey, what're you washing up for?…"
"I'm not."
"You're.." Seifer squinted at the sink. "Damm."
Quistis flicked the tap off with the sense of a good job well done.
"What was that? Am I ruining your last packet of cigarettes, thus
depriving your nicotine-fuelled little brain the chance to destroy more
cells? Why, yes. I do believe I am."
Seifer's frown didn't change. "Shit. I guess I deserved that one."
"You think?" Quistis leant back on the sink, feeling the cool stainless
steel rest pleasantly against her shirt.
"Hey. You were the one who locked me in a wardrobe and then made
me listen to your bloody sex lives for twenty minutes."
"No. I'm the one who just had to pay nine hundred gil for fresh
flowers. Plus thirty to get the quilt dry-cleaned. And then when I
go back I've got Selphie hanging off me like a bulldog wanting to
dish the dirt on my imaginary boyfriend." She took a breath.
"And….double-jointed?"
Seifer grinned. "I didn't have much time."
"I'm going to repay you for that." It was said in a dire tone of
voice that indicated her vengeance had only just started.
"I'm looking forwards to it."
Quistis swirled the cigarettes round in the sink, watching them
disintegrate into a swirl of paper and tobacco. It was a petty revenge,
but incredibly satisfying. "I guess you didn't think about what would
happen if they found you."
"Never crossed my mind."
There was a certain tone to Seifer's voice that suggested it had,
several times, but they both ignored it.
"I didn't think so. You shouldn't draw attention to yourself."
"You mean I shouldn't draw attention to you."
"Me, you, us. Whatever. It's all the same. Just…..don't." Hyne, she
thought. I sound like Squall.
Seifer looked slightly puzzled. "Don't what?"
Quistis pushed her glasses up her nose and pulled the plug on Seifer's
cigarettes. They circled slowly towards the plughole in a soggy, ruined
mess. "Anything….oh, I don't know. Don't apologise, anyway."
"I did. "
"Seifer, 'you should count yourself lucky' is not an apology."
Unless the meaning of the word has somehow been redefined in the
last fortnight…
"I let you drown my cigarettes…"
His comment did not meet with even the faintest encouragement from Quistis.
As if in punctuation, a faint slurp came from the sink as the mess of
disintegrating tobacco and paper wedged in the pipes. Seifer darted
a worried glance at the sink. "Did anyone ever tell you you've got an
overdeveloped sense of vengeance? It's going to get you into trouble
someday."
Quistis raised her eyes to the peeling polystyrene ceiling. "Seifer,
take a long hard look at yourself." And ask why everyone thinks
you're dead and I'm allowed to be alive, she could have added,
but didn't.
Seifer conceded. "Ahh, come on. Like I said, if it was anyone else
it'd be romantic. But 'cause it's me, it's wrong, Story of my damn
life." He shoved both hands in his pockets, hooked one foot round
a chair and sat down at the rickety table.
Quistis elected to stand. "The story of your life has a warning label
at the front saying 'Don't try this at home, kids.' And it wasn't anything
to do with you being you. It's the fact you wouldn't have even thought
of it if it was just to be nice."
"I don't do nice." He ran one hand through his hair, maybe checking to
see if any part was noticeably shorter courtesy of Quistis's impromptu
trim.
"I noticed."
"Nice is such a damn stupid word. I do great. Amazing, even. But I
don't do nice."
"I'm still waiting for the apology. That you mean."
"Okay, I'm sorry for pissing you off. I'm sorry you threw a knife at my
head and I'm really, really sorry you drowned my cigarettes, okay?"
Quistis looked unimpressed. The apology was okay, but if she'd been
lucky enough to get Seifer on one of his rare guilt trips she planned to
sit back
and enjoy the scenery while it lasted.
It must have worked, because he coughed and said "I'll buy you a drink.
They're not expecting you back yet?"
Quistis checked her watch. "I've got an hour. And I don't drink, just
in case you didn't notice."
"A coffee, then."
"I shouldn't really."
"An espresso. Look, they won't be around here."
"Maybe. But you're paying." She lifted the remains of his cigarettes
out of the sink, fingernails scraping against the stainless steel, and
threw them neatly into the plastic carrier bag that, in Seifer's view,
passed for a bin.
Seifer rolled his eyes and got up, reaching into the furthest corner
for his boots. "Okay. Need to get some new smokes anyway."
Quistis sighed. "I'm not twisting your arm. Yet. Thirty minutes,
and that's all. I should get back."
"Maybe they'll be able to tell you a bit more about what's been
going on."
"I'd think so. I'll get it out of them one way or another even if
they're not. And before you ask, if it's classified Garden stuff I'm
not telling you. You're a civilian."
An uncivil one, she added, in the privacy of her own head. There
was something about Seifer that resisted classification.
Seifer laced his boots and shrugged. "It's one up from being dead.
Come on, let's get out of here before I change my mind."
"Sometimes I don't know why I bother." Quistis stepped out onto
the narrow porch, moving back so Seifer could close and lock the
door behind them. She walked down the first couple of steps onto the hot
metal staircase and felt the heat hit her like a blow.
"Me too." Seifer said. He slipped the key into his pocket and followed
her down the stairs. The next-door neighbour's cat watched them both
incuriously.
Quistis automatically retorted with "I find that hard to believe.", and
then regretted the words even as they left her mouth. They sounded
way too snobbish, and she'd never considered herself to be much of
a snob. A military snob, maybe, but that was something totally
different, the contempt of a soldier for civilians who needed her
protection. She reached the end of the stairs and stepped onto the
pavement, noting the marks that her rubber-soled trainers had left a
few minutes ago.
"Yeah, I saw you, when damn Selphie was talking about, you know, Shit.
You thought it was hilarious. You were laughing your bloody head off. I saw you.
You could have told them to leave, or something."
"I thought your ego could stand it."
"Only just. It's going to need a lot of massaging." Seifer shot her a flirtatious leer.
"Don't look at me. My hands are still sore from handing all that money over."
"Coffee?"
"Coffee."
A few minutes later they were seated at a small table in the House Of Leaves
coffee shop. It was more of a bar, a tiny place with a few stools
that the owner closed down at night by pulling a stainless steel shutter
down in front of the chairs. It didn't look much, but the coffee would
have stopped a Marlboro in its tracks and in Quistis's eyes, strong
coffee covered a multitude of sins.
She settled back in her chair, keeping a close eye on her watch and
felt the caffeine start to diffuse into her bloodstream, strong
unadulterated stimulant.
Seifer was half-way down his own cup. Like her, he'd refused
milk and then sugar, though she got the nagging feeling that he
would have preferred something stronger. "Did they actually tell
you anything? Over breakfast."
Quistis sighed, picked up the stirrer and then put it down again,
unused "You need to let go. It's nothing to do with you any more."
Seifer drank his coffee and said nothing. Quistis tried to fill the
sudden silence, which was always a mistake.
"Get a job or something, Live a normal life. And for Hyne's sake cut
down on the smoking. What're you going to do in five years time,
stand there and wheeze at the monsters?"
"Can you see me ever getting a normal job?"
"That depends," Quistis said carefully, "what you mean by normal."
She trod carefully. It was the first time they'd talked about any kind of future.
"See?"
"Can't you do what Laguna did? Exterminate monsters, or something."
She thought she could remember some kind of job like that, in the dreams they'd
shared more than two years ago.
"The day I follow in that floppy-haired moron's footsteps…and
anyway, I can't use Hyperion. Too damn noticeable. It's pretty easy to forget in
this little beach shithole but sooner or later other people'll remember. And I'm
not going to be around when they do."
Quistis looked round, wondering, indeed, why she bothered. "I'm not
trying to sort out your life for you, Seifer. You're going to have to do that for yourself."
She flipped over one of the many free papers that carpeted the tabletop.
"Nothing about the Gardens?"
Journalists have short memories. There's some election going on in
Dollet at the moment. That's what they're all talking about now.
"It's hard to vote when you don't legally exist."
"You couldn't anyway. Dollet citizens only."
"Beside, anyone who wants to go into politics is either a jerk or an
asshole."
"Squall would kill you if he heard you saying that."
"It doesn't make it any less true. But he'd kill me no matter what I said.
Or have a bloody good go, anyway. Look, it's not my fault his father looks
like a female stripper."
Quistis scanned more of the paper. She focused on the book reviews,
and noticed an ad for some kind of new game. You could play a banana
republic dictator and decide whether to crush the proles under your jackboots
and try to fight off the outraged mobs, or pander to the
capitalists and build swimming pools.
Quistis would have gone for the swimming pools, herself. She
wondered vaguely whether she should order a copy for Seifer.
Maybe it would act as a substitute for the real thing and teach him
some valuable lessons.
It was a moot point anyway. He didn't have a computer.
She turned over a couple of pages, reading the list of candidates for
the Dollet Dukedom Parliament elections. There were small
photographs of all the runners, each accompanied by a paragraph
of text. Many of the candidates looked like serial killers, but then
Quistis had yet to lay eyes on a passport photograph that didn't
make the subject look like the main suspect in some horrible crime.
She read the article anyway, because it felt like she ought to. All
SeeDs were supposed to keep up to date with current affairs, if only
to avoid offending somebody in power. Quistis was firmly of the
opinion that this was a good idea. SeeD was politics. It was hard
not to get involved.
And she was good at not getting involved. It was difficult for some
people to keep the necessary distance between mercenary and client,
but she usually managed it effortlessly. The wars with Rinoa (and
of course now the whole Seifer thing) were the only two exceptions.
The latter was currently sitting across the table from her finishing
off his coffee and trying to read the paper under her arm surreptitiously
and upside down.
Quistis raised her elbow, handed him the broadsheet and looked round,
enjoying the sun on her face. The view was fantastic, because The
House of Leaves was right on the seafront. She drained her coffee
cup to the dregs and glanced down the boardwalk swiping steam from
her glasses with one hand. Beneath the newly cleared lenses, her
eyes widened.
A single word hissed from her lips. "Damn."
Seifer's coffee cup was empty. He'd spent all of two seconds
reading the paper before discarding it on the floor and sprawling
back in his chair, stuffing the free sugar sachets into his jeans
pockets. He didn't look up at her words. "Sam who? Don't tell
me you've got another secret lo-"
"Seifer, just get into the back of the shop, okay." Quistis placed one
hand on the top of the paper to hold it up in front of his face, half-turning
in her seat to keep a better eye on the crowds.
Seifer irritably tried to glance round the paper at her and then pushed it
to one side. "What?"
"Selphie. Rinoa. Here. Now." Quistis said, and swallowed. She suddenly
felt acutely exposed and guilty in a kind of schoolgirl way. The warm morning
had turned suddenly chill.
"You're joking."
Quistis dragged her chair round to block out the view from the shop.
"I wish I was."
Seifer hooked his seat nearer to the front hatch with one foot and peered
out at the beach round the white-boarded wall. "Yeah, yeah. You're not getting
the better of me that easily." He absent-mindedly brushed her
finger with one hand, sugar gritty against her palm. Back and forwards,
and then his hand abruptly stopped. He was close enough that she
could hear him inhale sharply in surprise. "Hyne, it's them."
"I told you so"
"Yeah, but you tell me I'm an asshole several times a day and I don't
take any notice of that."
"I thought you said they wouldn't be round here."
Seifer frowned. "I don't know! I just said it to make you feel better.
Didn't really think about it." He retrieved the newspaper from the
floor and flipped it up to cover his face again.
Quistis relaxed slightly. The guilty fear that had been her body's first
natural reaction ignited into anger. "Do you ever think about anything?
Really think?"
"You're the one that knows them. Don't blame this on me"
"I thought they'd stay in town." Quistis wondered why she'd ever
consented to coffee. It was just too tempting, sometimes, to forget.
To pretend that they were both normal, when nothing could have
been further from the truth. It meant she didn't have to think about
the consequences of what they were doing.
"Shit. We have to hide." Seifer lowered the paper.
From the coffee shop, the two girls were clearly visible. They were
both walking round the bay, no more than twenty metres away
along the boardwalk. It wouldn't have been so bad if they had been
near Quistis's hotel which was firmly situated in the old and
picturesque part of town. The streets there were a rabbit warren.
Here in the newer shopping centre, the boardwalk was faced by one
long line of souvenir shops looking out to the sea.
Quistis was sure they'd both be able to escape somehow, it was a
just a question of where and how fast. She glanced round quickly and
pointed, keeping her movements small so as not to attract attention.
"What about there?"
There was a small shop next door to the coffee house. It had a curtain
for a door, and a deep, shady awning patterned in red and white stripes.
Over the awning was a large and brilliantly painted sign that read
'Madame Esmeralda, Fortune Teller' If Quistis squinted, she could see
that the much smaller brass licence plate underneath it read 'Tracy Danielewsky'.
They entered the shop, at speed and with caution. Quistis felt oddly
angry, though she couldn't fathom why. It probably had something
to do with twenty years of SeeD conditioning shattering under her
melting running shoes.
Inside, the shop was even smaller than it appeared from the street.
This was probably because every available surface was covered
with a thick layer of tapestries, hangings, and small strings of cheap
fake temple bells. Seifer reached out and flicked one with a dirty
fingernail. It went click.
Quistis looked round at the bowls of pot-pourri, the incense holders,
the small crystal unicorns. She was unimpressed. If the proprietor's
ability in fortune telling equalled her ability to collect useless junk they
were both in for the most accurate piece of prophecy since Nostradamus,
though she sincerely doubted this was going to be the case.
Seifer swore. His hair brushed the ceiling and came away veiled in
cobwebs.
"Who pays for this shit?" His gesture took in the faded crystal ball
and palmistry charts on the wall, the purple hangings printed with stars,
and the strings of bells
"People who want to know what the future holds."
Quistis' voice was heavy with irony. She didn't have a problem with paying,
because Hyne knew the SeeD salary for her rank was more
than adequate for someone with absolutely no social life, but the fortune
telling stuff got on her nerves. They'd had enough trouble with prophecies and
magic way back in the Sorceress Wars.
Seifer shrugged. "Who cares? It's going to drop crap on you anyway."
There was a noise from behind one of the tapestries. "Who's there?"
"Customers."
A thin woman came bustling out from behind a door that must have
been concealed under one of the hangings. She gave them both a tired bright
smile and sat down at the table.
Quistis gave her the interested gaze of a scientist conducting an
experiment.
The fortune teller had a face like a piece of leather that had been
left in the sun for too long. She looked about forty years old and
quite tired but what she didn't look was the least bit Romany.
The word Quistis would have used to describe her was 'faded.'
Possibly 'poor.' Apparently fortune telling didn't earn that much
money even in a little holiday town like Hana.
The general effect was of someone who was trying too hard and
had picked up most of her accessories from the mall bargain bin
while following a kid's Notre Dame storybook. She was dressed
in a shawl over multilayered skirts with a headscarf topping off the
whole ensemble, but the shawl had holes in, the skirts were clashingly bright and
several of the coins had fallen off the scarf, leaving small
circular darker spots. She wore so many bangles that it was a miracle
her arms hadn't fallen off and several knuckleduster rings.
She smiled, revealing a gold tooth and a bad case of decay and spoke in
a husky smoker's voice.
"Would you like your fortunes telling? A séance? Madam Esmerelda
Speaks With The Dead Tuesday mornings and Fridays by arrangement."
"Fortunes?" Seifer looked sceptical, and gave Quistis a tiny nudge
with his elbow.
She edged the beaded curtain back with one long bare leg and shot a
fast glance out into the square.
Rinoa and Selphie were still standing looking at the stores. They'd
moved on to one of the seaside carts, resting in the shade of its brightly
gaudy awning. Selphie held a bunch of pink plastic flip flops up and
started haggling with the vendor.
From the looks of it they weren't going to be moving on any time
soon. And they'd probably think she was inexcusably rude when she
did meet them.
Hyne.
She gave Seifer a tiny shake of her head.
Seifer sighed. "Yeah, go on. Hit me."
"Madame Esmerelda is fluent in all forms of fortune telling." She
pointed to a peeling sign above her head which listed several foreign
and bewilderingly long names. "Crystallomancy, Bodachomancy,
Tarocchi, Technomancy, Oneiromancy or Palmistry? Take your pick. "
"In proper language?"
"Crystal ball or cards or palm reading. They're the most popular ones.…."
Quistis leaned forwards and said "Cards." She didn't hold much with fortune
telling, preferring to divine the future by the art of chronomancy
– in other words, telling the future by waiting to see what happened.
But if they really had to waste money on a fortune telling then it
couldn't hurt to use something familiar to do it with. Quistis was a
card sharp extraordinaire, though she doubted whether Seifer knew
about her Triple Triad abilities. Or even cared.
The woman shrugged, unwrapped a greasy pack of cards from a length
of dark red, faded fabric and began to shuffle them. Her bangles
clattered like a brass band. "You can have the ten gil fortune or the
five gil fortune."
Seifer didn't even have to think about it. "Five. How long is this
going to take?"
"You can't hurry fate." The fortuneteller shrugged and handed Seifer
the pack of cards. "Shuffle them"
Seifer scowled and gave the cards a few casual flicks, passing them
onto Quistis at the gypsy's gesture. A second gesture followed it, thumb
and two fingers rubbing together. "Pay before I tell your fortune."
Seifer glared at her, recognising a fellow con artist. "What if I don't
like what you tell me?"
She gave an eloquent shrug. "Can't change fate. The cards tell you
what you need to know, not what you want to hear."
"Joy" He gave her the glare of a person not expecting any fortune
other than Bad.
Quistis flicked Madam Esmerelda a five gil note, which disappeared
somewhere into the woman's trailing skirts. She professionally
shuffled the cards, turning them over in her hands. They weren't
that bigger than Triple Triad cards, with a design of interlocking
suns and moons on the obverse. They didn't feel particularly fortunate.
Just cards. Worn-out cards at that.
The gypsy scooted back and hit the button on a tape player. Slightly
mournful, haunting music started to fill the air.
Quistis rolled her eyes at Seifer, who flicked the curtain aside to
stare at the street and shook his head. He mouthed 'still there.' quietly.
The woman gave them both a glare as if to say that they weren't
being impressed enough and lit a stick of incense with a theatrical
flick of her wrist. The fumes filled the already stuffy tent with
smoke and made Quistis' head ache instantly. She slapped the cards
back down onto the scarf.
Madam Esmerelda rolled back her sleeves and fanned the deck
along the table. "Pick twelve."
Quistis sighed, surreptitiously trying to blow the scent away from her mouth,
and flicked a few cards out from the pack. After six the
fortuneteller held a hand over the cards and gestured at Seifer. "Now you."
Seifer selected half a dozen cards from the pack in a manner which suggested
he had had 'I Am A Sceptic' tattooed onto his forehead
at birth.
The gypsy held out her hands for them, gathered them all into a pack
and shuffled them, laying them onto the table in three groups of four
and gesturing with a ring-bedecked and hennaed finger. "This is past"
The first set.
"Is present." pointing at the second
"Is future" indicating the third.
"Is bollocks." hissed Seifer in Quistis' ear.
The fortuneteller's voice seemed to have picked up a heavy foreign
accent within the last three minutes. It slurred across the room and
blended with the incense, as heavy as treacle.
"Pick a card, any card." Seifer muttered.
The gypsy gave him a nasty look. "Fate cannot be hurried. I will now
make a past reading. I must warn you that you must have faith in the
cards. If you do not truly accept the wisdom of the cards disaster will follow.
Disaster."
The last words were edged and sounded more like a schoolteacher than
any kind of gypsy.
Seifer gave her the blankeyed expression of a man with so many skeletons in
his closet there was barely room for his clothes. Quistis shrugged.
The gypsy turned over the first card.
It was Death. No mistake about that. A skeleton in black armour,
and riding a pale horse. At the feet of the horse a variety of people
crouched. A small child offered flowers to the grinning skull which,
Quistis felt, might not be the wisest move ever made.
Seifer looked unimpressed. "So this is present, right?"
"Past. But it does not mean death! It means..chaaange." The last
word was over-emphasised and dramatic.
He looked unimpressed. "Right. Past, okay. Change."
The woman turned over the other three cards in the first set and
then they all sat and stared at them for a while.
The first card had been Death. It was followed by two other identical
cards: cheap pasteboard, nothing like Triple Triad, Quistis noted.
Three deaths. The card that followed them was different. This one
also featured a man on a warhorse, but this time the steed was white.
The pair of them charged towards the edge of the card, sword
upraised, with an expression that suggested that at the very least
he'd left the gas burning when he was out. It read: The Knight Of
Swords.
The gypsy shrugged. "This is puzzling. The atmosphere of scepticism
may be affecting my Tarot." She shot Seifer a hard look, which glanced
off him like water from a duck's back. Her accent had faded again.
Quistis personally disagreed. If anything, the atmosphere of scepticism in the
room had diminished markedly since the cards had been revealed.
Because it made sense, if you thought about Seifer.
Three deaths.
First, the thing with Deling.
Second, Time Compression
Third, Trabia.
He was sitting very still on the edge of his chair. "Can't you do it
again?"
"Honey, for five gil the cards only get read once. And that's hardly
worth my time."
She turned the second lot of cards over and shrugged, making her
bangles jingle in a non-musical melody.
Both their eyes followed her hands.
Another Knight Of Swords. A card called Justice, with a picture of a
woman sitting in a throne. She held a bared sword and a pair of scales.
Two of swords. Eight of wands. "I must have got two packs mixed."
"What does it mean?"
The gypsy shrugged and a coin fell off her headband. "Knight of
Swords. Not a good card. It represents a warning to watch your back
or else a person. Does it remind you of anyone?"
Quistis shook her head and lied through her teeth.. "Of course not.
But what exactly does it mean?"
Madame Esmerelda pulled a book off her shelf and flicked through it.
"Not common." Her accent fell away as she quoted. "The card
represents Opposition. It's Bad News"
Quistis heard the capital letters drop neatly into place like a guillotine
blade and sighed as the gypsy continued. "Really, it means that you
should be cautious in your dealings, but you'll know whatever it is
when it happens, as" she spread her hands and flicked the card back
into the pack ." it is not likely to be subtle."
"Really?"
"More …violent, I'd say. A surprise."
. Quistis was thankful that the picture on the card looked entirely
unlike Seifer.
The gypsy coughed and waved one beringed and tasseled hand in
front of her nose. "I shouldn't worry, dear, all the cards must be
taken in harmony with each other. Now let me take you through
your other cards. Justice, that's a good one. It represents victory
for the right. That which should be, "she gave a few mystic passes
over the deck, "will be, and nothing will change it. Two of swords:
a favourable card, of friendship and alliance. Eight of wands: this is
the time to take action, so make haste."
Quistis unconsciously began to hum 'There may be trouble ahead'
and then deliberately stopped herself. "What about the future?"
"All in good time." Madam Esmerelda turned the music up and
stubbed the incense out in an ashtray. "This means, my dears, that your
present is in flux"
"Pardon?"
"Change. Friendship. Changing into, dare I say, romantic luurve."
Quistis and Seifer shot each other a look. Seifer rolled his eyes and said
"Isn't this the bit where you say one of us is going to cross over water and
meet a romantic dark stranger? Preferably me, for choice."
Quistis kicked him under the table.
The gypsy smiled, skin pouching into little pockets under her eyes. "Not
necessarily. Anyway, the future." She winked at Quistis." Which is the
bit everyone is bothered about."
"Not everyone"
"Most people." The gypsy seemed more relaxed now that they were
acting suitably impressed. Her accent had returned in spades and she
made an ostentatious hand waving ritual over the third set of cards as
she turned them over one by one, choking both her hapless spectators
in a cloud of sweat and patchouli.
The first card showed a boy holding a cup. "Page of Cups. This means
a message, or someone who will bear an important piece of news. A
young boy, usually."
" This is such a damn ripoff. Everyone gets mail." Seifer snapped.
Quistis guessed that his manner was just a bluff to cover the fact that
he'd been sincerely freaked out by the earlier cards.
She was probably right, probably knew him better than most, by now.
Scary thought.
Quistis's lips moved, despite herself. Messengers..
Vividarium interviligium viator, in the garden sleeps the messenger.
In Garden sleeps the messenger, incompletely translated from pig
Latin. Was the fortune something to do with that? Even though
everything had happened in the past? Had the woman somehow
recognised them?
It's not possible.
She scolded herself for starting to believe that this was all real and
glanced round at the reassuringly shabby seaside hut.
Nothing more than an old woman, practised at fakery and trying to
make some money.
The fortuneteller turned up another card: this one painted to show a
hand holding two crossed batons. "Two of wands. Something
unexpected will happen, so this just cross-references the Page. You
didn't plan for your news and it will catch you by surprise when you
least expect it. It probably won't be good."
Seifer glanced out at the square and then let the curtain fall back
across the door with a sigh. "If I believed in this stuff I'd be scared."
Madame Esmerelda shook one finger gently at Seifer, who glared
at it like he was a snake and it was a hamster. "Have faith."
"In what?"
"Faith, in general, is never a bad thing."
"In myself?"
The woman turned over a third card. "That's as may be. Eight of
coins: you know where you're going now and how to get there,
whether you like it or not. And last but not least, the eight of swords.
Unexpected events may occur. You may receive bad news; beware
of old enemies and false friends."
"Don't have any."
Quistis muttered "Enemies or friends?"
The gypsy woman spread her hands out over the cards and bundled
them back up into a scarf. She shrugged with another clashing
jingle of jewellery and said "That's the last one, I'd print you out a
copy of the results, but the Meter of Magic isn't working today."
"That's okay." Quistis said politely. She suddenly had an idea and
elbowed Seifer in the side, mouthing at him to check the seafront again.
"Let me give you a summary anyway." the woman persisted. "I can write
it down if you'd like." She pulled a purple pad decorated with unicorns
and glitter towards her.
"It's really fine. Actually, I just remembered I really need to be
somewhere else."
Seifer twitched the curtain aside and mouthed 'Still there'.
Quistis chopped one hand across at him. "My uh, boyfriend can pick
up the summary, He'll stay a bit, and I'll just go to the shops."
She saw comprehension starting to dawn in Seifer's face. He raised
one hand to scratch at his scar and then coughed into the palm.
"Right."
"Stay. You might even learn something." Though I do doubt it. After
all, I taught him for three years and he never learned a thing.
Coincidentally, in the last week he's learned several things, though
the teaching method has been rather different.
"All the cards should be taken in harmony? What a load of crap.
More like 'it's shit, but I keep your money, lady."
Madam Esmerelda looked vaguely affronted at the comment, but must
have decided to ignore it. She reached behind her to stow the cards
away in a small cedar chest and gave them both a bright fake smile.
Quistis kicked him, hard. "I'm sure it'll be informative. I'll meet you
later, usual place. At yours." She rose from her chair. "Have fun."
"Fine." Seifer settled back in his seat, watching Quistis's ass as she
disappeared through the curtains. He watched as she moved over to
the stall, feigning surprise at the meeting, and then just as quickly
ushered the girls away, in the opposite direction, he noticed, to his flat.
"Like I said…."
"Save it. I've got things to do." Buy more cigarettes, for a start.
The gypsy looked slightly hurt. "May the forces of good spirits be
with you on your…."
Seifer was already moving towards the door. "Save it for the tourists."
The curtain fell across her startled face behind him.
He stepped out onto the boardwalk and took a long, deep breath,
clearing his lungs of cheap incense and patchouli oil. There was a
slight breeze, for once, making the day almost cool after the muggy
scented heat of the shop. Seifer leant on the boardwalk railing and
glanced round.
In the distance, there was a group of girls who he guessed must be
Selphie, Quistis and Rinoa. At least they were kind of the right height
and were dressed in the same clothes he'd seen the two SeeDs wear
earlier in the morning.
He watched them walk down the pier with an unreadable expression,
scowled, kicked a pebble out into the sea and watched its flight with
shadowed eyes until it broke the surface of the waves with a soft plop
and disappeared from view.
Seifer turned, shrugged, and headed in the direction of the nearest off-licence,
fishing a few tarnished coins from his pockets in amongst all
the lint and sugar packets. He fed them into a vending machine and collected
a packet of Marlboros.
Seifer lit one and watched the three woman fade into the distance with narrow
eyes, sucking on a cigarette held loosely between two fingers.
When they disappeared he felt in the coin return slot for change, pocketed a
five-gil piece and headed home at a sauntering walk.
Some time later, back in the hotel room…
"What's going on?"
Rinoa tucked her hair behind her ears. "I have a message from Squall."
She reached into one pocket of her blue dress, pulled out a sheet of paper
and put it on the table. It was folded elaborately into an origami swan.
Selphie and Quistis stared at it.
"I got bored on the train." she said defensively.
Quistis picked the tiny paper bird up by its neck and unfolded it carefully,
smoothing the creases out. "I can tell."
"Cute, though." Selphie said
"I'll teach you sometime." Rinoa's hand stole down to stroke Angelo's
nose. "I learned when I was little. It's not hard, if you've got patience."
Quistis said "Better not teach Selphie then."
"I'm patient."
"Yes, only you have to add 'im' to that sentence."
"I could. If I wanted to." Selphie said indignantly.
Quistis finished unfolding the swan. She held the paper up in front of her.
If the decoration had been Rinoa's idea, the letter was all Squall. It was
printed carefully on official Balamb Garden notepaper, thick, slightly
corrugated cream card, the kind they used for special missions and sent
to people they wanted to impress.
'To: SeeD Operative level 29, Quistis Trepe.
As you no doubt know, Balamb Garden was the subject of hostile action
approximately 48 hours ago. This attack was carried out by an
organisation named the Childrens Liberation Front( CLA). According
to our reports they wish to negotiate a cessation of hostilities with the
Gardens. We have arranged a meeting at 1200 hours on the 12th of June
at on Cape Wrath, approximately nine miles north of your current
position. Owing to the unusual nature of the request you will be in
constant radio contact throughout and we expect the talks to be
concluded satisfactorily within 48 hours.
We believe these people, while misguided, to be no real threat so
please treat this mission as Special Diplomatic Grade B. Please find
enclosed formal uniform, map, and briefing details regarding this group.
After the mission please transmit any relevant data to Balamb ASAP.
After this has been evaluated you can then return to Hana where you
will continue your holiday as scheduled.
Please ask SeeD Tilmitt or Ms Heartilly if you have any questions.
Squall.'
That was it. No 'sorry for cutting your holiday short', no 'if you'd like,
we have a mission I thought you'd be interested in'. Just a curt order.
Quistis turned back to the paper.
She knew she should be ecstatic at the chance to return to work. Instead
she felt vaguely insulted, as if Squall had ordered her to do something totally
unreasonable, rather than cut short a vacation she'd been
vociferously resisting for weeks.
This slightly worried her.
Hey guys:
First off, thanks to the recent ff.net fuckups review notices have been….different,
to say the least. Until Tuesday of the first week after I posted I was moody
'cause I only had two reviews. Then I got over one hundred copies of the same
three reviews which kind of alerted me that something might be wrong with the good
old pit of voles, so I wandered
over and, uh, the ego was very pleasantly massaged.
Thanks, all of you. It was such a nice surprise.
Anyway:
Altol: Ta. I'm assuming you mean Loki as in the whole 'trickster' thing.
But I just keep getting confused with Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' Loki, who's basically
a nasty amoral bastard who puts a baby in a fire to burn away his humanity and lies
his way out of eternal torment by kidnapping
a Japanese deity and tying him down underneath a giant snake.
Actually, now you mention it….
Amber Tinted: Yeah. I've never been out with a dead guy but I imagine
it might have its problems ( resists opportunity to make tasteless joke)
Arashi: Teen Goth Squall is definitely a concept worth expanding on.
He'd hardly have to do anything, anyway. Just dye his hair and maybe
buy some black belts.
Breaker-one: Yeah. Rinoa gets on my nerves too. But, you know, the
whole theme of the damn game is Squall finding True Love, and while playing,
Squall definitely grew on me. So then I had to make Rinoa
kind of……less annoying. .
Crystalline Dragon: I update every fortnight, on Friday nights GMT,
you extremely polite person. Muchas gracias.
DBX Fanfiction Queen: Why yes, he is dead. Several times in fact. He is
an ex-Seifer……. I did get both btw, and many thanks for pointing out the
continuity error. D'oh!
Ghost140: Who am I? Why am I here…forget the questions, someone
gimme another beer. Virtual cookie for the song quote.
Kjata: Thanks. I knew I had to put it in when my beta-sister kept bugging me
with 'so…written any more of that wardrobe bit yet?'
Nynaeve77: Read your fic, liked it, must check out fictionpress more.
Also, you've got some very very good favourite fics.
Seatbelts: hey guys. I'm really depressingly unoriginal. The dreams were just
weird drabbles that I had to fit it in somewhere.
Seventhe: thanks a lot. Funnily enough, the reason I started that was
cause the mental image was so funny. Plus I thought I needed more
relationshippy fluff stuff.
Sheep: thanks. Cool name, btw.
Sickness In Salvation: Well. You deserve a whole damn chapter to
yourself. Very much appreciated. Suffice it to say that you were
dead right about all of the quotes and refs, including Waiting For
Magic and yes, the list of a hundred things you learned from the
movies (which I have saved on my computer) plus there's several
hundred more you probably didn't get. Some of which are probably
intelligible only to me or my twin sister, cause I'm a geek culture ho.
Sulou: I got both of your reviews, thanks very very much. Really
appreciate it. See, the simultaneous 'embarrass/piss off' thing is
something he'd be extremely good at.
Superviolinist: Yeah, I know things have kind of been a bit heavy lately,
so there'll be a couple more chapters of relatively light fluff and
foreshadowing before I get my teeth back into the blood and sex and
stitches that people know and …know, I guess..
The fortunetelling methods: Crystallomancy, Tarocchi, and Palmistry
are pretty self-explanatory (crystal gazing, tarot and palm reading respectively.)
Bodachomancy is divination through sacrificing trolls to observe their entrails
Oneiromancy is telling the future through dreams. (tough luck, Seifer)
Technomancy is the name of a sadly defunct fanfiction site which
featured the best fic I have ever read. And I read quite a lot of fic.
Kate( even a glamorous bitch can be in need)