Chapter Thirteen: Things You Tell Yourself.
It does not bother me to say this isn't love
Because if you don't want to talk about it then it isn't love
And I guess I'm going to have to live without it.
But I'm sure there's something in a shade of grey or something in between
And I can always change my name, if that's what you mean.
My friends assure me it's all or nothing
But I am not worried
I am not overly concerned
You try to tell yourself the things you tell yourself to make yourself forget
I am not worried
"But if it's love" she says
"Then we're going to have to think about the consequences."
Counting Crows: 'Anna Begins'
"I almost forgot!"
Quistis glanced up, realising she had been staring into space for the last five minutes.
She said "What?" half-irritably and wondered if any of the other SeeDs had caught her loss of attention
Apparently not.
Selphie walked over to the door and rooted around in a very large canvas bag that, up until now, Quistis had somehow failed to notice. She pulled out a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and a thick folder bound in blue plastic, and placed them both on the table in front of Quistis, pushing them towards her with a little smile.
"Don't take it the wrong way. Quisty." Rinoa said anxiously.
Quistis swallowed, and realised that Rinoa must have assumed her expression of ferocious thought was somehow directed at her. She shook her head, and sighed as her hair came loose from its usual lacquered bun.
Squall deserves criticism, after a message like that. I know he's got the emotional depth of an ice cube, but why does he have to assume everyone else's built the same way?
She found this slightly ironic, seeing that she usually admired Squall's rather terse and clipped way of issuing orders. Quistis found it perfectly logical that a commander had to keep the necessary distance from his subordinates, especially one as young as Squall. She'd always considered his detachment was to be admired, even emulated, but at times like these it grated.
And the fact that my ex-student is now in charge of my life doesn't bother me at all…
She replied "It's all right."
Rinoa beamed.
Selphie fussed over Angelo for a moment, hooked her chair towards her with one sandaled foot and sat down at the table facing the wrong way round. She folded her arms on the chairback and gestured at the parcel.
"Go on! Open it."
Quistis looked doubtfully at the brown paper covering. She poked it cautiously and then, as the parcel refused to move or attack pulled it closer, squeezing the bundle delicately. It was soft, and gave slightly under her hands.
"It's just like Christmas!" Selphie said happily.
Quistis gave her a humouring look and neatly ripped the Sellotape from one end of the parcel.
Inside was a neatly pressed SeeD uniform, clean and folded, ornamental braid gleaming. It still smelt of the cheap industrial – strength washing soda Garden used. The file turned out to contain a thick stack of press cuttings and newspaper reports on the organisation known as the CLA, a map with a suggested route carefully marked in red, and an envelope containing train tickets. Topping this off was a piece of paper with a time on it, and a place. As a mission brief, it was adequate, though Quistis would have preferred tearful grovelling apologies.
An apology, anyway.
She leafed carefully through the laminated sheets with the tip of one manicured nail, feeling faintly nervous for reasons she didn't even want to admit to herself. Her fingerprints left damp marks on each page as she turned it.
"Any questions?" Selphie said hopefully.
"I think it's all here…what did Squall say to you?" Quistis closed the folder, tracing the SeeD logo embossed on its cover absently.
Selphie shrugged. "He just told me to give you this when we met you. I asked if I could come. The cowboy's been away and it's been so boring since you left."
"Right." Quistis doubted that anybody would miss her unless the photocopier broke down, but she was grateful to Selphie for making the effort. "Rinoa, don't they need you back there? The PR?"
Rinoa blushed. "I'm inexperienced. Cid's flown back. He and Squall are going to handle this personally." She slid one hand down to stroke Angelo's nose, as if in reassurance. The dog gave her mistress a careful lick.
"It's not that you're not good, it's just he doesn't want to give you too much trouble too soon." Selphie reached across the table and patted Rinoa's shoulder. "Cid knows the other Gardens. We need their help in this. They decided to send someone from Balamb cause we're nearest, is all."
"Plus, we're the best." Rinoa said hotly.
She's obviously getting into her new job.
Selphie waved one hand carelessly. "That, too."
"So when do they need you back?" Quistis asked.
It wasn't that she didn't enjoy company, but the knowledge of Seifer's presence was burning like a brand in the back of her mind. She'd never kept information from Garden knowingly in her life, and it felt …wrong. Quistis didn't think she'd ever get used to it, which was probably a good thing from Garden's point of view.
It was hard to think of anything else. Hard, even, to keep her mind on the conversation. And at the end of the day, she was worried that if they did stay, she'd find herself shouting out 'I've been screwing Seifer Almasy!' in her sleep and wake to find Selphie standing over her in her pyjamas, taking notes.
Selphie twirled her hair in her fingers, gave a horrible wink and said " I told you, she can't wait to get rid of us."
"He thought you'd be pleased." Rinoa said plaintively.
"Really?"
"I think the exact words were' she'll meet you at the door and be dying to get back to work, if I know Quistis.' I guess he might not know you as well as he thought."
That's admirably astute, for Rinoa..
"I could go and tell him to give it to someone else, if you'd like."
"No." Quistis said automatically, reconsidered, and then reconsidered again. Maybe the mission was a Good Thing. Maybe she was getting seduced into doing the wrong thing. Maybe Seifer was a bad influence.
Since when has that ever been a surprise?
"I think he assigned you specially"
"Why?"
Rinoa ticked reasons off on her fingers. "One, this group's protesting against child exploitation, right? So he wanted to send one of us. You, I mean. Edea's children. And you're pretty close. Secondly, he figured you'd be tearing your hair out anyway. Thirdly, I think Squall wanted someone he could trust, because he can't be here himself."
"Zell'd be a diplomatic disaster" Quistis said thoughtfully.
"And Irvine's still away." Selphie chimed in.
Quistis rubbed her eyes. "Yes. I heard. How's that going?"
"Fine. Last I heard." Selphie said. "They're going crazy about some silly paperwork back home. He's got things overdue by months. Anyway, Squall could have sent moi.." She jerked a thumb at herself…." but then …"
"He thought you'd enjoy a job." Rinoa began to leaf through the folder.
"Everyone knows you're so diplomatic."
Rinoa didn't look up from her reading. "And everybody knows you never lose your head."
Everybody except me, of course…
"Plus, he reckons the leader's a man…." Selphie smirked
Quistis sighed. "That's sexist."
"It helps, though."
"Is that why the dress?" Quistis flicked a finger at Selphie's ultra-short yellow outfit.
The Trabian SeeD's smile turned flinty. "I like being underestimated." She smoothed her tiny skirt. "Plus, it's yellow! Everybody loves yellow, right?"
"It's very ..bright." Quistis said diplomatically.
Selphie beamed. "Anyway, have a read. We'll be leaving soon and then you can get back to whatever we interrupted." She gave a wink and nudged Quistis with an elbow. "Know what I mean?"
Quistis waved one hand in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. "Really, nothing."
Selphie shook her head violently. "I don't mean that. What I really mean is.."
"Selphie, please."
"…what has this man whom you have only known for two weeks got that hundreds of military cadets who have been trying to get into your pants for positively years haven't? I'm dying to know."
"Can we meet him?" Rinoa smiled and put aside the folder.
Quistis groaned. "Believe me, that is not a good idea."
"You seemed to be away an awful long time when we were shopping." Selphie tore a piece from the brown paper left discarded on the table top, creasing it into intricate folds that rivalled Rinoa's swan.
"I felt like a run." Quistis fought to keep her face poker-straight.
"You look like you've been getting a daily workout." Selphie winked while her hands folded busily. She gave her contraption one final crease, admired it for one second and then looked up at Quistis with a mischievous dark-eyed grin.
Quistis raised one eyebrow. "This isn't a military interrogation. I have the right to remain silent, remember?"
Selphie gave her an angelic smile and launched the paper aeroplane off the table. It floated a couple of metres above the floor. Angelo wrenched herself from Rinoa's side and ran to stand under it, watching intently. The breeze carried the plane down to just above the dog's nose before a rising current caught it and flicked it up again. Angelo's jaws closed on empty air and she gave a wuff of frustration.
"Oh, I forgot." Selphie waved one hand. "Your computer. I unlocked it earlier on, and Squall said to say that he's sent you some more info through the network, just in case you have time to look at it before you leave. Maybe you could take it on the train."
There was a happy bark from behind her as Angelo at last captured the airplane and returned to the table with her tail waving happily. She presented the soggy paper to Rinoa, who took it gingerly, and then lay down again at her mistress's side with another soft wuff of satisfaction at a job well done.
Quistis tried her best to look pleased, her gaze straying towards her computer.
Selphie frowned. "Cid told me to tell you to..oh, just take care, is all." She started to fold a second paper aeroplane.
"Cid's at Garden?"
"Weren't you listening? I told you already. My, it really does look like you've got your mind on higher things. Or rather, lower."
Quistis lowered her glasses and gave Selphie a flat level stare.
The Trabian SeeD gave her an unrepentant smile and then capitulated. "He doesn't want to be away from Edea for too long, but he's staying for the moment. Hopefully, once you get your report in, we'll all have sorted this silly thing out and he'll be able to go back to Matron." Her hands stilled
"How's Edea?" Quistis asked softly.
Selphie turned her chair round and sat down on it the approved way, leaving her origami half-finished. "Uh, not good."
"She's taken a room in the lighthouse and sits there for hours at a time." Rinoa added.
"Just staring out to sea."
"It can't be healthy."
Quistis said thoughtfully "She was really upset still, when I saw her last."
"She's no better."
"I saw her a couple of weeks ago. I took Angelo. And I knitted her some socks." Rinoa said.
Quistis wondered if her hearing was all right. "Rinoa, the orphanage is in Centra. She doesn't need socks. It's hot there."
"I thought they were a nice handmade gift. To show her we cared. I did them in the SeeD colours and everything."
Quistis tried unsuccessfully to imagine socks of Rinoa's own make and then gave up. The girl was treacherously fond of handicrafts. Sometimes they turned out well, other times not. Quistis still owned a blue bead necklace from Rinoa's jewellery making phase that she wore for the SeeD formal balls. All of the orphanage gang had been given one or other of Rinoa's experiments at some time. They usually came in useful as doorstops, targets or in extreme cases, firewood.
Squall refused categorically to have anything to do with her gifts. Quistis's opinion was that it was just another example of the man's obvious tactical brilliance. After all, he'd managed to decline without hurting Rinoa's feelings, thought how Squall, Mr. 'Whatever' had managed that, she'd never know.
"I'm trying crochet next week."
"Rinoa, macramé is not the answer."
"I know. But I thought it'd help. Just because I wasn't brought up by her doesn't mean I don't care, all right! " Rinoa's lower lip was beginning to tremble. Angelo gave a sharp staccato bark. "But Squall loves her and she must get so lonely….. "
"Maybe she should take in more kids." Selphie said thoughtfully.
Rinoa shook her head, perhaps remembering her last visit. "Not at the moment."
"I agree. Not perhaps, a good idea." Quistis said.
Selphie returned to her model aeroplane, small calloused hands folding and tucking with precision. "She's getting older."
Quistis nodded. She'd always wondered just how their Matron did it. Maybe being a sorceress made you eternally youthful, or something.
"We should all go visit her. When we get back. We could all make her something." Rinoa said.
Selphie winced.
"Quisty could make her a cake."
Quistis groaned. "Have you seen my cooking skills?" Cookery was the one missing ability she wasn't afraid to admit to. You didn't get much of a chance to experiment living on packeted rations and canteen food for most of your life.
Rinoa pursued the topic like Angelo on a scent. "Selphie, you could…get her some flowers. Or paint a picture!"
Selphie finished her second plane and launched it at Angelo, who ignored it. "She's got a whole field of flowers. There's always some out, thought it beats me how they manage to grow in Centra. And I can't paint."
"Have you tried?" Rinoa's voice was cheerful. She always tried to motivate people. Sometimes it even worked.
Selphie looked thoughtful for a second and then smiled mischievously. "That's a thought. I could do nude sketches……Get Irvine to pose for me. He'd love that. He's such an exhibitionist." She looked inspired.
"Feel free. Just don't give Matron one of them." Quistis smiled. Selphie's enthusiasm was catching.
She pouted. "I'd get him to keep his hat on."
"Just make sure it's not on his head."
"I'm thinking tasteful, yet erotic. Kind of calendar pose. Maybe we could do a calendar. Genuine serving soldiers." She picked up one of Quistis's highlighters from the table and started on some stick men sketches.
Quistis sighed. "Selphie, we fight. We don't sell pornography. We have a reputation." She glanced at Selphie's pictures, turned back to the folder and then looked again in mild surprise.
"Maybe they'll be disarmed." Selphie made a suggestive gesture with the hand that wasn't holding the pen. "Come on, can't you see it. Pretty boys? Take Squall, for example…"
"He'd have a fit." Quistis said with certainty. She snagged the paper from Selphie and passed it to Rinoa.
Rinoa looked puzzled, flipped the paper upside down, squinted and then blushed violently. She tried unsuccessfully to hide her scarlet face with one hand, but the movement just drew attention to her obvious embarrassment. "Not all of us are like Irvine, you know."
"What sexy, talented, and good with a…"Selphie beamed.
"I'm not listening." Rinoa stuck her fingers in her ears.
"Gun." Selphie said indignantly. "What did you think I was going to say? Hyne, have you got a smutty mind."
"Wasn't there something else?" Quistis asked, trying to steer the conversation back on track. Luckily enough, Selphie was easily distracted.
"Oh, yes." Selphie half-stood, reaching over the table, and took hold of Quistis' hand.
"Squall wanted to make sure you were all equipped. I know you left your junctions at home, so here goes. There's a map of all local draw points in the folder so you should be able to pick some more up before tomorrow. Transfer Junctions Shiva, Bahamut and Siren. And all associated magic, okay?"
Quistis didn't have time to protest before a light glowed faintly behind Selphie's eyes. It pulsed and dimmed again in the space of no more than a second, and then the energy of three GFs poured into her. Shiva came without any hesitation at all, fitting snugly into the small niche she had carved out for herself in Quistis' mind like she belonged there. Siren junctioned almost as easily. Bahamut transferred reluctantly, as always. She'd never really bonded with the dragon-GF, even after they'd acquired him at the Deep Sea Research Centre. None of them had.
Selphie sat down with a grin. Her cool fingers left Quistis' wrist and broke the momentary connection between them.
"Are you sure you can spare them?" Quistis said, just as soon as she could speak
"I wish I could give more. Anyway, Shiva's yours."
"I think so…" Quistis said, uncertainly. She could almost feel the icy glaze of the blue lady settling once more beneath her skin. The concept of 'owning' a GF like it was some kind of pet had always felt vaguely alien to her.
"Siren's always useful. And you're by the beach and all. I thought it was appropriate."
Quistis sighed. The deep breath sent a sharp spike of magic-induced headache coursing through her skull. Only Selphie would think to organise Guardian forces by scenery, for Hyne's sake.
Rinoa smiled in approval and clapped her hands, making Angelo jump up in alarm
Well, maybe there's one other person…
Selphie lounged back in her chair, hugging one slender knee to her chest. "She likes the sea."
Quistis knew it was true. She could feel the pulsing keen of the GF's siren song in her blood, a pulsing rhythm of both music and magic. They were only two letters different. Once you listened to Siren, you couldn't hear anything else.
"And Bahamut?"
"He fits with you better than most." Rinoa broke in.
"What, you mean he's not compatible with me, but he's awful with everyone else." Quistis said sarcastically.
"Squall tried it, but Bahamut and Diablos fight. I don't like him at all. Nor does Quetzalcoatl, so that rules Zell out. Irvine's better than most, but he's not here." Selphie shrugged.
Quistis rubbed her temples. Her head was beginning to ache from the sheer volume of magic Selphie had just unloaded into it. A rumbling growl seemed to reverberate through her bones. Bahamut, no doubt.
"What about you?" She turned to Rinoa.
"I'm not junctioned. Squall doesn't like us using them too much, you know that."
"So that's why he's joined at the hip to Ifrit?" Quistis commented sarcastically. Now Squall was the last person she'd expect to be highly compatible with a fire GF, but then she had pretty much the same feeling about him and Rinoa, so she guessed it must all work out. Somehow
Rinoa shrugged. Angelo barked and she reached down to stroke her dog's shaggy head. "Besides, I have Angelo."
"Uh, yeah." Quistis said. One badly trained dog against monsters that can drop boulders of ice on people?
This is never going to work.
Selphie glanced at her watch. "Anyway, let's wrap this up. We're going soon."
"That was quick."
"I know. We'll have to come visit later. You've got a radio, right? Squall wants you to be in radio contact as much as you can. He says the reception's bad, but what with them choosing the negotiating ground.."
Quistis sputtered. "They chose…"
"Ahh, now you see why they picked you to go." Selphie smirked.
"It's nothing like that." Rinoa said indignantly. "They want to give you a tour, make sure their intentions are honourable, that kind of thing. Plus, it sounds like you might need to do some pretty convincing talking. Squall wants to lay the ground for some kind of cease-fire. We can go with all guns blazing if we need to, but he wants it kept quiet for now."
"Right." Quistis said doubtfully.
"You've got forty-eight hours. Longer if you need it."
"Don't worry." Quistis privately thought that two days was much too long. "What sort of thing does he want me to say?"
Selphie twirled a strand of her hair round her finger. "Well, duh. Just tell them what a load of crap their child exploitation theory is."
"Don't be too hard on them" Rinoa said, and then looked embarrassed.
"They're a threat." Quistis pointed out.
"They're rebels. We were rebels once."
"You didn't blow things up."
Rinoa smiled to take the sting out of her words. "No, we tried to kidnap the president of Galbadia, Quisty."
"Don't call me that."
"Just think about it, okay?"
"Don't be so naïve, Rinoa. They tried to hurt Garden. They attacked us. People could have been killed."
"Do you have a little grudge?"
Quistis was only half-joking when she said "No, I have a very big vendetta."
"You should have diplomatic immunity. They won't dare try anything. Just take care." Selphie said, and air-kissed each side of Quistis' mouth. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her yellow dress and stepped back.
"You're leaving already?"
"Bummer, but yeah. We have to catch the train."
"We get to use the SeeD compartment. Plus free room service!" Rinoa said gleefully.
They're going to regret that with Selphie, Quistis thought, but said nothing.
"I just have to say goodbye to the receptionist first. She's been so helpful."
Quistis blinked, owl-like, behind her spectacles. "Could you repeat that?"
"The receptionist." Rinoa said, speaking slowly as if to an old or deaf person. "She's. Been. Very…."
"Okay, I get the message….but we're talking about the same person? About seventy? White hair? Mouth like she's just eaten a lemon?"
Selphie looked strangely at Quistis. "Well, she was a bit short at first, but Rinoa got talking to her. Turns out she breeds Alsatian dogs."
"She was very interested to hear of Angelo's special skills." Rinoa said proudly, and whistled. "Sit, Angelo. Roll over! Play dead!"
The collie cross obediently obeyed her mistress. Sprawled out over the carpet, she looked like a small ornamental fur rug.
Selphie clapped her hands. "Hey, come here, Angelo!"
The dog didn't move. Rinoa smiled and said "Good dog." One ear flicked at her mistress's praise, but Angelo stayed motionless.
"Here, Angelo! Food!" Selphie fumbled in the pocket of her dress. The dog got up, ears pricked and tail wagging expectantly. She sat down neatly on the carpet next to Selphie and held out a paw. Selphie flicked a dog chew in the collie's general direction. Angelo caught it neatly and swallowed the treat in one gulp.
"We're working on that one." Rinoa said grumpily. "And she's just great at finding items1 Like that sock for instance. If she'd missed that, we'd never have known. You wouldn't have told us."
Quistis mentally groaned. Not this again. "I have my reasons."
"Tell us, Quisty!"
"They're good reasons."
"He's got two heads?" Selphie said meditatively.
"No!"
"He's got two…."
Quistis changed the subject yet again, with all the subtlety of an express train. To her surprise, it actually worked. "So, the receptionist. How did you ever even manage to get up here?"
"I gave her some old tips from my magazines." Rinoa said.
"It was easy. Once Rinoa told her all about dog-training, she was great."
"She even said we could bring Angelo up here." Rinoa retrieved Selphie's second aeroplane from the floor and launched it across the room. "I don't think she approves of you much. I told her you were some kind of nun but she didn't believe me. Muttered something about you coming in at all hours."
"There was a simple misunderstanding. I lost my key and couldn't get in after curfew, that's all."
"Yeah." Selphie said in a tone of voice that indicated she didn't believe a word of her story. "She said we have to be out by twenty-one hundred hours. Don't worry, I said we'd have to go before that. She was really nice."
Rinoa looked slightly puzzled. "And the maid asked if your cousin had tried not being homosexual."
Quistis fought to keep a blank expression on her face while Selphie shrugged expressively. "I knew you wouldn't know. We told her you hadn't got a cousin."
Quistis had enough presence of mind to reply. "Yes, she must have been mistaken.
Funny that."
"Anyway, time and train wait for no woman." Selphie said. She looked at her watch again.
Rinoa giggled. "You're really looking forwards to the train."
"I love trains. You could be going anywhere…Dollet, Esthar, Zanarkand….."
Quistis frowned. She'd heard of Dollet and Esthar, but never the third country.
"'The golden road to Zanarkand.'" Rinoa quoted. "Just some old poem we had to learn at our school. I loved poetry. Maybe I should write Edea a poem."
Selphie and Quistis both looked at each other with expressions of identical horror.
"Train?"
"Train." Selphie agreed. "My, look at the time…."
Rinoa got up from the table "Quistis, just one thing. He said to me one night…." She paused, looking as if she was searching for the right words.
In the sudden silence, Quistis tried not to imagine Rinoa pillow talking their commander.
"He said be careful. He said Balamb can't afford a rerun of the wars-everyone's forgetting the good and the bad. The CLA's only one example, there's this election in Dollet for the Dukedom Parliament. Some of the candidates aren't uh, 'enamoured of our skills' was how he put it. I think he meant that they don't like us." Rinoa sounded slightly insulted.
Selphie waved one hand. "Oh, the chances are it'll be a piece of cake. Just watch your step. And if you can come to some kind of an arrangement…."
"Then Squall'll be very happy." Rinoa chimed in.
"So no pressure or anything." Selphie added, and smiled. She bent down and tickled Angelo's tummy as the dog rolled over obediently.
Quistis said diplomatically, "I'll do the best I can." Arrangement? Huh. I can't even sort out my personal life.
Selphie beamed. "No problem them. We should have a treaty drawn up by this time next week!"
"Thanks." Quistis said, dryly. She found it annoying sometimes, to have everyone assume that you were going to make things work out all right. No one realised how much effort she put into making events occur the way you wanted, how much she sweated behind the scenes to maintain a controlled front of efficiency.
Selphie kissed the air again, in a theatrical manner that somehow stopped one shade short of pretentious. "Anyway. Mwa. We have to go. See you soon, okay." She slipped a small paper bag into Quistis' hand and whispered something into her ear before she walked over to the door and yanked it open. "Bye."
Rinoa gave Quistis a hug. "Take care, Quisty."
"We gotta run!" Selphie exclaimed as she looked at her watch. She scooped up the empty bag and slung the strap over her shoulder, waving as she disappeared. Rinoa gave a smaller, apologetic wave and followed.
Quistis went out onto the balcony to watch them leave. Rinoa's conversation with the receptionist must have been short, because seconds later she saw Selphie jump down the steps outside. She was singing gleefully
"Train, train take us away…."
Rinoa followed, joining in with Angelo tagging at her heels like a small and hairy shadow. "Take us away, far away…."
They ran onto the seafront, chanting as they went. Quistis waved from the balcony, watched them disappear stationwards and then went inside, feeling slightly lonely.
She flicked the switch of the coffee percolator and watched as it gurgled into life.
The SeeD uniform she hung in her wardrobe, guiltily pressing the starched fabric to her nose and inhaling the familiar scent of Garden washing powder. The clean smell reminded her that she was still wearing the sweaty running shorts she'd put on to meet Seifer and she searched around for something new to wear. Suddenly her cupboards felt half empty.
Skirt..needs a clean. Trousers..too heavy. Jeans…..have to do.
While dressing, her fingers touched something large and heavy in the pocket of the fresh clothes. Quistis pulled it out, curiously.
It proved to be a key, a thin cheap Yale bearing a plastic tag that read Roof Garden.
It was a puzzle to Quistis where she'd obtained it until she remembered that she'd got it from the receptionist with Seifer. She turned the item over in her hands.
A roof would be cool and sunny. Quistis hated the heat. It made her think longingly of fresh air, of winds, or even summer rain fresh on skin. Living in Centra, they'd all prayed for rain every autumn. After a long hot baking summer, the sky always opened to throw down more water than the orphanage ever saw for the other eleven months of the year. The cracked flower meadow earth would sprout new blooms, the arid desert ground fractured by millions of tiny streams winding their way to the sea, and the rocks of the beach stained themselves shiny blue with water.
Quistis thought longingly of running brooks and the exotic flowers of the Training Centre. She remembered the view of blue cloudy skies from Balamb Garden's balcony with an aching homesickness. The clouds were light and fluffy and white with none of the leaden cerulean tint of the south- a sign that it would be hot again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.
She made herself a cup of coffee from the percolator in her room, shoved a pad of fine lined paper and a ballpoint into the folder, tucked the pile under one arm and then set off. She seemed to remember a door at the end of the corridor with a Yale lock. Seifer had rattled the handle cursorily whilst they were searching for a quiet way to get in and out of the building without the receptionist noticing, but with his usual impatience he'd never explored any further. The guy just didn't have any tolerance for anything that wasn't immediate.
Hmm.
She tried the key.
With no particular surprise, she found that it fitted. Inside was a short corridor about two metres in length that led to a second door that Quistis opened with the same key. She stepped cautiously out onto the low flat roof.
It was larger than she'd thought, big enough to cover the roof of the new hotel complex constructed discreetly behind the back of the period residence that featured the reception and some of the larger, pricier rooms. Installed upon the bare tiles was a sun lounger with a red and white striped parasol.
That was it.
Quistis sighed as all hopes of flowers and water fled from her mind. There were a couple of pots with dried dead twigs that rattled in the breeze and gave off a hot, heavy scent that settled oppressively around her.
To her regret, the wind was very light even several stories above the ground. It moved the hairs on her neck and did nothing to cool her, only making her aware of how hot and uncomfortable she was. The shade of the parasol looked inviting in the midday glare.
Setting the coffee down with a clink, Quistis climbed onto the sun lounger and soon found out that the hot plastic was uncomfortable even through her jeans. She compromised for sitting on the very edge, back hunched uncomfortably to the sun and the folder balanced open on her knees.
To her pleasure there was a strong smell of lavender from the nearest pot. She began to think that maybe her impromptu exploration wasn't such a bad idea after all, even if the plastic was burning her butt and the laminated covering on the files was beginning to melt.
She adjusted the sunshade and settled down to read, taking a slurp of coffee first to fortify her nerves.
An hour later, the cup was still two-thirds full as Quistis flicked through the information, a slight frown on her face. She'd long since stopped feeling the heat even though her spectacles were fogging with humidity and the shadow of the sunshade had moved on to cast its shade over another part of the lounger.
The information was exhaustive. Whoever had put the folder together for Squall had done a very, very good job. There were copies of every press release, every feature and news report about the CLA and even a few satellite photos of their base, grainy grey and showing some kind of large building.
Unfortunately, although she'd learned a lot about the politics of the group none of the articles had mentioned anything as prosaic as names. Strangely enough, and infinitely more worrying from Quistis's point of view, no one seemed to have been able to find out exactly who was heading the group, or what they wanted out of it, or exactly how a fairly minor peaceful protest organisation had turned into something more insidious and therefore more powerful.
To her mind it meant a change in target, and therefore, probably a change in management.
Absorbed, she reached the back of the folder. Tucked into the back cover pocket were a few posters. Quistis absently leafed through them. They were folded and stained, obviously peeled off some wall or other. Some were facsimiles, darkly over-exposed.
Could this Be Your Kid?
Snakes In The Gardens
Children's Rights, Right Now.
She shut the folder with a clap, realising as she did so that it was still very hot. Shiva whined in her head in a voice like cracking ice. Bahamut's growls had turned to a more pleasing purr, almost like a sleepy, well-fed cat. Reaching back into her mind, Quistis could almost feel their physical presence. To her it was a familiar and welcoming sensation.
She was grateful to Selphie. She really did think of everything.
Quistis glanced at her watch and was surprised to realise that it was almost four p.m. The conjunction of 'time' and 'Selphie' cross-referenced in her head made her wonder if the horrible clock was still in her office, or whether someone had had the guts to take it down and hopefully, burn the evidence. The 'burn' led onto wondering if the other girls had gone yet, which made her look up, shade her eyes and glance in the general direction of the station. There was no plume of smoke which meant that their train must have left. They'd said they'd have to leave quickly.
I've got a day. Tomorrow, midday, that's it.
No more holiday.
No more early morning duels and sleepy long lie-ins. No more shared memories. No more Seifer.
The last thought did give her a pang. Quistis sternly stifled the regret. Seifer was probably bad for her. She should be welcoming this mission. Relationships were a tangle, a distraction.
It's not a relationship.
Just keep telling yourself that. You know exactly what it is.
Maybe I shouldn't come back here. Maybe I should just go straight back to Garden and miss the holiday. Or get Squall to send me somewhere else and just forget. After all, I've got the GFs, how hard can it be? I'll invent some pretext for not giving them back, say I want to practice with Bahamut and forget within weeks.
Quistis considered. All she'd have to do was surrender to the sweet GF induced amnesia she'd spent the last two years trying to push back and give up mining her own fogged memories.
I can make it so none of this ever happened.
The thought was tempting.
He'll understand that I have to go back to Garden. He'll know. It'll be all right.
I hope……
It won't be all right.
There's no way this thing's going to end up okay.
Quistis wiped steam from her glasses and slunk back into the shade of the parasol.
I'm Quistis Trepe, remember? Garden's Ice Queen. And now I have the GF to prove it.
How could she have thought the cosy domestic bliss of Rinoa and Squall was for her, much less the cheerfully pornographic ease of Selphie and Irvine's relationship? She didn't need anyone. Ice.
Shiva rustled in response.
So I go and tell him I'm breaking up with him? Sorry, Seifer, duty calls. You're all right with that?
She took up her coffee and swallowed half the mug in one huge gulp, not caring that it was half-cold. The heat of the sun had kept the cup from dropping below about twenty degrees, so it wasn't too repulsive.
She was angry.
Quistis closed her eyes.
The scent of the lavender tickled at her nose. There was another annoying feeling of forgetting, the sense that maybe the smell should have been mixed with other scents.
Maybe they'd played in the flower field. She couldn't remember, and that ws one more thing she had to speak to Seifer about.
Quistis raised her hand to her head. The headache hadn't diminished.
Seifer, I can't go. I haven't finished with you yet.
I can always get Irvine to tell me.
He's been using GFs for years, now. He won't remember any more.
Quistis slammed the empty mug to the paving slabs with enough force that it almost broke, let her breath out in one long exasperated sigh and turned to face the wind, brushing strands of long hair back from her face. Her body itched with the urge to do something physical, something that would make her forget about the decision she was going to have to make.
SeeD comes first. It always comes first. It's always been my home. People change but it stays the same.
She gave the folder one last glance and then stopped as a map of the local area caught her eye. The plan was etched with the normal landmarks, contour lines and points of minor interest. Stamped over the thin lines were several red circles, obviously added later.
Draw points.
Quistis examined the map for a hint as to what kind of magic they contained, but there was no accompanying text no matter how hard she looked. She turned back to the letter, which Selphie had thoughtfully slotted in the front of the folder.
…1200 hours on the 12th of June at Velalisier on Cape Wrath, approximately nine miles north of your current position.
The twelfth of June…
She checked her SeeD issue watch, a multifunction and probably very expensive model that contained a built-in compass, altimeter, pedometer, calendar and pressure gauge. It was resistant to water, blood, ichor, acid and venom, and had the kind of design that wouldn't have looked out of place on a cutting edge concept car. Although Quistis would never have admitted it, it scared her slightly.
The date displayed in blinking amber letters on its face was 11.06. The eleventh of June. Which meant she was going to have to leave tomorrow, at eleven thirty at the latest, and she still had to junction magic, pack her stuff, and somehow tell Seifer she was leaving…
Quistis began to hyperventilate as the red circles on the map blurred beneath her panicking eyes. She searched frantically for the nearest draw point to the hotel and relaxed imperceptibly as she found there was one just inland of the beach where they usually trained.
I can get there tonight….maybe ask Seifer to come along as backup for any monsters that might have got in….after I've told him of course.
Hyne. Why do I get myself into these situations?
I don't.
Usually….
She sighed, gathered the folder up and lifted her mug. Giving one last glance round to check that she hadn't somehow left vital mission information behind, she crossed the paving to the door and then let in a breath she hadn't realised she as holding as the cool shadowy hallway gathered her in.
Five minutes later Quistis had locked the folder carefully into the bottom drawer of her desk, washed the mug out in her tiny sink and was on her way to the other side of town. She walked the streets almost in a waking daze, thoughts spinning through her mind without paying any attention to where she was going.
I should have told them when I got the letter.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, ignoring the other pedestrians, the sun and the cawing seagulls. Her game face erased all traces of emotion, but behind the mask Quistis had rarely felt more like giving up.
I've got two options. Three, really. One, I go back to Garden after I finish the mission, and forget this ever happened.
But then behaving in such a selfish manner wasn't fair on either of them. Seifer wasn't going to like it if she told him she was going to leave early. He'd argue and fight dirty and follow her back to Garden if she pissed him off that badly, if only to level the score.
Plus of course, if he ever realized that she'd even once considered not only leaving but forgetting everything their relationship then Hyne knew what would happen then.
Like Seifer's letter, Quistis decided that she owed him at least the courtesy of telling him what was happening.
Two, I don't go on the mission. I tell them I'm quitt-
I'm leavin-
I resign…
Breathe. I can't do that. Does he expect me to do that?
For a moment she entertained the proposition. Leave Garden. Stay with Seifer.
As if that would ever work. It might be terrible.
It would be terrible.
We have kids and he starts drinking or at least doesn't quit, and then when he dies of lung cancer at the age of thirty I have to bring them up all by myself and start stripping to pay the debts….and… and this line of thought is ending right now.
Three, I finish the mission, come back, and have two more weeks here to finish off whatever.
We've got to think about this sometime. I slept with my enemy, and we all know how those stories end. Lightning, plagues, mutual suicides, true love…..
Dammit.
It felt like she was running along a treadmill, pacing over the same old ground over and over again without really getting anywhere. Oh, she'd considered all the options before, but she'd never thought that she'd be called upon to make the decision so soon.
Story of the world-everyone knows it's coming, but not so soon.
Quistis wondered where that last phrase had come from. It had the cadence of a quote. She thought Rinoa might know, and wondered if the pair had returned to Garden yet.
I wonder if they realised anything was wrong?
Quistis thought that Selphie at least probably had a pretty shrewd idea of what was going on, if you left the Seifer part out. But then again, Selphie would probably be quite capable of ignoring Seifer's not inconsiderable criminal record, if only because Quistis was finally getting some.
Hyne.
She hated concealing things. It felt as if a weight was dogging her steps, draining everything bright out of life. That four-AM feeling, when you woke up and just for a minute lost yourself in existential worry, realised you were going to die one day after all and then spent two hours huddled in the bedclothes trying to concentrate on breathing.
And then in the morning, everything was normal again and you wondered what in the world you'd been so bothered about.
This will pass, she told herself. This will pass.
Argh.
She turned round to check a street sign and reassure herself that she hadn't somehow been working in the opposite direction, took a step forwards and slammed into somebody.
Quistis' training automatically took over. She leant back, redistributing weight to her centre of balance to stop herself from falling. One hand reached for the small backpack containing her whip and then just as quickly pulled away from it once she realised her situation. Her glasses slid down her nose with the impact and she snatched at their wire frames to stop them falling into the street. There seemed to be a pale cascade around her that focused sharply as the lenses covered her eyes. A torrent of small photocopied pamphlets drifted to the ground around her and Quistis realised just who she'd bumped into.
He was a tall man, dressed in a crisply pressed dark suit despite the heat. Over one shoulder was slung a satchel with 'Hyne Saves' painted carefully on the flap and pamphlets in various pastel colours overflowing from its open mouth, half of which now decorated the street around her. Quistis stepped hastily back, trying not to tread on any of the papers.
"I'm sorry…."
It's all right, child."
She bristled at the condescending tone. The voice was indistinct, muffled by the fact that the man had one gloved hand over his face.
It looked familiar. She thought back to their first training session, over a week ago, and then remembered. It was, of course, the religious man who'd tried to convert them both. He'd made a second brief appearance under Seifer's window at the bonfire, the first night they'd….
Anyway.
She knelt down hastily, collecting handfuls of papers and looked up over her glasses at the priest. There was a half-hunched set to his shoulders like he was trying to look shorter than he was. Quistis thought this strange but then the odd posture was lost as the man bent down beside her and scooped papers into his bag with the practised gesture of someone who had done it many, many times before. He didn't look her in the eye.
Incurably shy, Quistis thought, and reached for the last leaflets, only to be stopped by an outflung hand.
"It's all right, miss. I'm fine."
"Well, if you are..."
"Can I interest you in a copy of the Life Of Hyne? With illustrations?"
The offer sounded halfhearted.
"No. I'm sorry." Quistis said hastily.
"They're in colour."
Quistis thought about arguing that surely the quality of illustrations in your religious literature of choice was fairly low in your spiritual armoury while converting the heathen, but then decided against it. She stood and began to move away.
There was a short pause behind her as the priest took a deep breath and then directed his rhetoric at yet another hapless passerby.
"Have you accepted Hyne as your personal saviour?"
Quistis flipped her spectacles back onto her nose and carried on down the street. She hadn't got anything against religion, not personally but she found it hard in her line of work to believe in any kind of deity. Apart from the 'trust in Hyne but keep your powder dry;' variety that most soldiers turned to when the shit hit the fan. It was surprisingly hard to be an atheist when someone was shooting at you, if only because you needed to be able to take somebody's name in vain.
By the time she reached Sullivan Street the afternoon was fading towards early evening in a mist of orange haze. The sunlight had turned a pleasant gold, like aged whisky, that made even Seifer's house look semi-respectable.
Given the recent storm, this was no mean feat. The rain had loosened a couple more boards from the wall, exposing slabs of cheap polystyrene insulation that was already peeling away in strips. The sign hung from one remaining nail, painted over anonymously. It swung rhythmically with a creak of splintering boards and rusty metal.
Quistis walked up the steps and then tried the door. Misgivings came back to haunt her as she wondered what she was going to say to Seifer.
To her relief, she didn't have to say anything.
The door swung open easily, but inside, the flat was empty.
He's really gone this time, Quistis thought as she checked behind the curtain and then decided to wait. She interpreted the unlocked door as a sign that maybe Seifer wouldn't be very long and looked round for somewhere to sit.
The room was stiflingly hot. Despite the open front door the flat's only window had been shut and locked, for a reason best known only to its inhabitant. Needless to say, the air conditioner had once more died, and no amount of fiddling, cursing or surreptitious kicking on Quistis' part could resurrect it.
That left the window as the remaining source of fresh air.
It took her a good five minutes to figure out how to open it, a complicated procedure that involved twisting a tiny key to the right, flipping up a handle, twisting the key to the left and then pulling it out of the lock. The cheap thin metal bent alarmingly under her hands, threatening to snap.
By the time she finally wrestled the sash up, Quistis was out of breath, several degrees hotter and extremely frustrated. She was even more incensed to find that it really hadn't been worth the effort. The open window released a few fat and sluggish flies but the warm breeze that wafted in was almost as hot as the room. Still, at least it erased the smell of unwashed socks, nicotine and oil that seemed to be coming from the horrible carpet.
Quistis dragged a chair near to the window, set her backpack carefully on the floor and searched round in the bookshelves for some reading matter, noticing that Seifer still hadn't returned his library books. She picked up a copy of the Princess Bride and then settled down to read.
Some time later she noted lazily that Hyperion was nowhere in sight. Quistis wondered where Seifer had hidden it and then flipped the book closed as a more alarming prospect came to mind.
Ye gods. He wouldn't be so stupid as to use it in broad daylight……
Her musings were cut short by a noise outside on the landing that was too loud to be either the cat or Seifer's old and infirm next-door neighbour. Quistis yanked her bag onto her lap and had her right hand on the handle of her whip inside before the door creaked open. The book dropped to the floor, forgotten.
"Make yourself comfortable." Seifer raised an ironic eyebrow. To Quistis's vast relief he was holding a shopping bag instead of the gunblade she'd half expected.
Quistis let go of the rucksack. The heavy weight of her whip inside carried it to the floor with a clunk. "You gave me a shock."
"It's my flat. Who'd you think it was going to be?"
"The police? Angry righteous citizens with flaming torches? SeeD?"
Seifer kicked the door shut behind him. "You're SeeD."
"I'm on holiday." Quistis picked the book up and dusted it off ostentatiously.
"I noticed."
"What's that supposed to mean." Quistis said nastily, thinking not any more I'm not.
"Dunno." He dumped the bag on the worktop, emptying out shopping. From what Quistis could see the groceries inside consisted of equal amounts of food and cigarettes. The food was mostly in the form of large, label-less cans.
"What's that?"
Seifer stopped unpacking for a second and rolled his shoulders forwards as if the muscles ached." Shopping? Food? Camouflaged hand grenades?"
"Be serious."
"I'm always serious. It's just tins, nothing so exciting. When the labels fall off the shop sells them off cheap."
"How do you tell what's in them?" Quistis asked.
"You don't. They could be spaghetti or fruit cocktail or even worse, dog food.""
"You've got no standards."
Seifer grinned. "Don't put yourself down."
"Haute cuisine." she said sarcastically, and made a face.
"Not really. Stew for one, alcohol for three, cigarettes for nine…." Seifer finished unpacking, screwed up the carrier bag and aimed it in the general direction of the window. He left the shopping on the worktop and scratched between his shoulders, shifting irritably like he couldn't get whatever it was he wanted to pop, cracking his knuckles.
The sound got on Quistis' nerves like fingernails dragging down a blackboard. She ignored it until from the sounds of it he'd popped just about everything else in his body and then asked "What are you doing?"
Seifer cracked his knuckles again. "That reminds me. I need a favour."
"What kind of favour?" Quistis asked cautiously. "I'm not giving you a kidney."
"Nothing big. Nothing like organ transplants, you know. I just wondered if you were ever going to get round to taking these bloody stitches out. Tried myself this afternoon with a penknife and the mirror off the bathroom wall."
"It didn't work?"
"Have you ever tried to do surgery on your own back with an Estharian Army Knife?"
Quistis shook her head. "I can't say I've ever been that stupid, no."
"They itch."
"Hard man."
"They do. It's damn annoying."
"I'll need scissors"
Seifer hunted round in the cutlery drawer for a moment. "Check." He chucked a pair of scissors towards her and Quistis winced as they gouged a hole in the carpet but thankfully missed her leg.
"You'll never get your security deposit back, you know."
Seifer shrugged with one shoulder. "Hey. You kicked a hole in the wall, remember?"
Touche.
She gestured to the floor. "Sit. And take off your shirt so I can get the sutures out."
"What?"
"Sutures. It's just another word for stitches."
"Do I look like I came here for a lesson?" Seifer sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of her and rested his elbows on her knees. "This okay?"
"Mmmm." Quistis inspected the wound, pleased at her handiwork. It had healed well, better than could be expected, in fact, given the not-so-sterile properties of the sewing thread and embroidery needle she'd used. "Don't move. I don't want to cut you by mistake."
She took silence as assent and carefully slid the blades of the scissors under the first suture.
Seifer sat motionlessly and asked "What did they want?"
Quistis shrugged, realised that he couldn't see her and gave a noncommittal grunt.
"What's the matter?"
"I don't want to talk about it. Yet." She blew hair out of her eyes irritably.
"Rinoa and Selphie, huh?"
"I said I didn't want to.."
"I know, I know, okay. Yowch. That hurt."
"Two more to go. Maybe next time you'll stop and think before you dive into a fight."
"What, like you lot?" Seifer commented sarcastically " 'Oh, are we getting paid for this? We are? Right then.' You don't get stuck in until you've run a credit rating check"
Quistis didn't deny the observation. "We might do it for money. You do it for kicks. That's worse." She snipped the last stitch free.
"Money isn't everything. Power, on the other hand.."
"Cash helps." Quistis said in an ending-the-conversation tone of voice. "All done. It looks okay."
And it did, to her surprise. Quistis gave her work a critical glance. The wound was a thin pink line, with a row of darker pink dots to each side where the stitches had gone in. A couple of them were bleeding slightly and she wiped her thumb over them.
Seifer slid one hand over his shoulderblade and ran his finger over the cut, contorting his back in an effort to see down his own spine. "Feels all right."
"Looks like it missed your tattoo, anyway."
"Thanks." Seifer reached out for a packet of cigarettes without getting up. The tiny flat would have been a godsend for any terminally lazy person because almost everything was within arm's reach. From where she sat, Quistis could have touched the table, the second chair and possibly the bed, though it would have been a stretch.
But she wasn't in the mood for Seifer's nicotine addiction. Her head still ached dully.
"Light that and I make you eat the entire pack."
"Hyne, bossy women…." Seifer turned round, hugged her round the waist and then kissed her on the neck. He was almost tall enough to reach her mouth, despite the fact that she was sitting on a chair and he was still kneeling on the floor. Quistis had hated it while she was training him because it made it infuriatingly easy for him to stare down his nose at her. Now, strangely enough, she didn't mind.
She allowed herself one kiss before the full load of guilt she'd been busily nursing since Selphie and Rinoa's visit crashed into her like an express train and she pushed Seifer away.
"Hyne, what's the matter." He looked thoughtful. "I can guess."
"Don't, Seifer. Just don't." Quistis glanced around the room. Her eyes lit on the thin sticks they'd used for duelling with. They weren't the original items, but rather just two more successors in a long line of fake swords. Somehow whatever driftwood they found seemed to be shattered into splinters by about the first fifteen minutes of the fight.
"Want to go down to the beach to train? It'll be dark soon." she asked.
"Okay. We can stay here if you like, though." Seifer's tone of voice indicated that he knew something was wrong and that he didn't like it. Quistis thought that he could, in fact, probably guess what the girls had come for, if he really put his mind to it. It wasn't too hard to work out and whatever else Seifer was he wasn't incurably stupid.
"No. I want to go."
He sighed regretfully. "I had such plans for the three of us."
"Three?"
"You, me…and a bottle of tanning oil."
"You don't have tanning oil."
"No. But we could improvise."
Quistis rolled her eyes and tried not to be tempted by his suggestion. "How do you feel about going somewhere else afterwards?"
Seifer looked interested. "Where?"
"I've just got some work to do. Maybe you could bring Hyperion." Quistis said casually. She looked around for Seifer's gunblade, but it was still nowhere to be seen. If it had belonged to anybody else, she would have automatically assumed that it had been stolen through the open door, or pawned for money. However, you messed with Hyperion over Seifer's dead body, and anyone else who even touched the weapon would definitely be looking forwards to a nice long painful death.
He scowled. "What for?"
"I need to go get something. Out of the city walls. There might be monsters."
Seifer grinned. His gaze went to the window and then traced back to Quistis. "Maybe we should leave it to the morning. There's got to be better things to do.."
"No. " Quistis frowned. She thought she was getting a headache "I just need to get out. Take my mind off things."
Seifer shrugged. "Well, if you want to…..When'll we be back?"
"I don't know. It won't be late. Most people actually sleep at night, you know."
Seifer ignored the comment, got up and went to the window. He climbed out onto the sill, which sagged ominously, turned round and started searching for something that was apparently on the roof. His voice, when it came, was faint.
"You want to stay here tonight, then?"
Qustis mentally weighed up the extra trouble of walking back to her hotel room after they'd battled each other and she'd found what she was searching for. With a headache.
It was just too much effort.
Seifer climbed back into the window, holding a bundle wrapped in a piece of blue tarpaulin. He placed it carefully on the floor and peeled back two layers of plastic and one of folded newspaper to reveal the sleek black lines of his gunblade case.
"You hid it outside?"
"I thought about what you said about anyone searching the place"
"That'll be a first." Quistis said acidly.
"Hyne, just because I didn't do anything you wanted me to doesn't mean I didn't consider it. There aren't many places to hide stuff in this shithole..well, not if you skip the really obvious spots. Like 'beneath the floorboards', 'above the ceiling tiles', or that old favourite, 'under the bed'."
"Okay." Quistis picked up her rucksack, checking that Save The Queen was coiled easily inside. "Let's go."
The dusk had closed in by the time they got outside. It was still hot and full of sound, the shouts of drunken teenagers mixed with the click of slot machines and backed by the relentless sound of the sea.
They walked to their usual duelling spot in silence. Quistis had found an old golf bag from the janitor's closet down the hall for the stick swords, and Seifer had added Hyperion. By common consent, Seifer carried the bag, not because Quistis wasn't capable of lifting heavy objects, but because it was his sword.
Quistis was the first to break the silence.
"You know what Selphie did just before she left?"
"No. What?"
"Handed me a pack of condoms and told me not to do anything her and Irvine wouldn't."
Seifer whistled. "Looks like you have pretty free rein then."
"It's not like I even need them." Quistis touched her arm. All SeeDs were given a contraceptive implant at puberty, a small chip that fit like a tiny grain of rice under the skin. There was a tiny white scar marking the spot where it had been injected.
"Bloody cheeky cow." Seifer muttered.
Quistis couldn't see whether or not he had turned red, in the dark, but she doubted it.
She felt called on to defend her friend. "Selphie enjoys life."
The more biological parts, anyway.
Seifer muttered something uncomplimentary.
They were deep in the dunes by now. Quistis reviewed the map she'd memorised on the rooftop and stopped, squinting over to the shore side to try and reconcile the terrain with the two-dimensional image stored in her brain.
"I think this is it."
"It's what?" Seifer gestured at the surrounding sand. The dunes were deserted, free even from monsters. A resort town was no good without a beach, after all. Eaten holidaymakers couldn't spend money, so the town had shelled out for a perimeter fence that spanned over eight miles of seafront. It wouldn't be too much of a problem to climb to get to the draw point, Quistis thought.
"The thing I have to go pick up. It's in there."
Seifer examined the sand at his feet. "Where the hell?"
She pointed at the tangle of scrubby forest inland. "There."
"Don't tell me you have to go find Marlboro tentacles." Seifer griped. "Practice first?"
Quistis nodded and dropped her rucksack to the ground while he unzipped the golf bag. She added, reluctantly "It's not tentacles."
"That was what Selphie and Rinoa came for? They wanted you to pick up something up? The lazy fu…"
Quistis was tempted to take the easy way out, but her conscience wouldn't let her.
"….Not exactly. I'll tell you later. Just fight, okay? I need to get my head sorted out."
As she'd hoped, Seifer implicitly understood the psychology of losing yourself in physical activity. He picked up the nearest stick with a shrug. "Not a problem. Damn, these things really are light."
Quistis put her hands on her hips. "I'm not duelling for real."
I might get a bit carried away, and I don't really want to see you frozen into a block of ice, no matter how that would improve my current dilemma
Seifer worked the tip of his stick under the second branch and flicked it up towards Quistis, who caught it automatically.
"Ready?"
"Ready." Quistis lied
. Really, she wasn't at all prepared. Her head was still a bundle of conflicting thoughts, her mood unimproved by the bite of the odd mosquito that haunted the dunes after dark.
Seifer gave a stabbing lunge. Quistis barely dodged.
"That was it? Come on. I thought you wanted a fight."
The second lunge broke through Quistis's guard entirely and landed with a thud on her clean pale T shirt.
"You're not trying." His voice was faintly mocking.
Quistis slashed the stick in a defensive Z pattern, trying to gather her thoughts as Seifer feinted again. He moved neatly, eyes on her face and not on her weapon. When she raised her arm for another blow he darted in, grabbed the tip of the stick and then Quistis's shoulder. He kissed her hard and then was out of range by the time she'd gathered enough presence of mind to even complain.
"That's cheating. If this was a real fight I'd have cut your hand off."
"There's nothing wrong with cheating in battle, just as long as you win."
"Winning is normally defined as having both hands when you finish."
Seifer aimed a blow at her legs as a reply. She jumped clumsily, the warm sand filling her shoes as she landed. The anger seemed to have cleared her mind and she fell almost easily back into the old familiar rhythms of Garden drill. Thrust, parry, riposte.
Seifer countered each one until he switched hands with the stick and nearly beheaded her with a blow to the neck.
"Don't let yourself get into a pattern, okay?"
Quistis scowled.
Seifer fought to win, but he also fought as if this was a training exercise, not a real duel. If she thought like that it was simpler. These are not real swords. Therefore the tactics I need to use aren't the same as with real swords.
Winning is everything.
It went against Garden's training, which was 'Winning is everything, as long as you try to cause as little mess as possible and remember to get paid at the end of it all', but it fit in perfectly with Seifer's personal philosophy.
Next time the stick came swooping towards her she grabbed it and broke it in half.
Seifer smiled. "You're learning. He stopped for a second and she levelled her stick at his throat.
"I'll have to get you to fight me with a whip sometimes."
"Over my dead body."
Just because you know you'll lose."
Seifer shrugged noncommittally.
Oh, you so would. You like close range weapons."
"It's more personal."
"What, piping hot death, served to your own terminal specifications? I doubt they care."
Quistis was loosening up. She began to enjoy the fight as she rushed Seifer with her stick, pressing her advantage and pushing him down the seawards side of the dunes so he had as much trouble keeping his footing as he had fighting her. She scored two more hits and felt more at ease, laughing at Seifer's rueful expression as she tried to stop him regaining the top of the dune. The dark was a refreshing colour to her tired eyes as she forgot her worries in action.
Seifer was always a good opponent. Harshly critical, sometimes unpredictable, hating to lose, loving to win.
They finished fighting thirty minutes. The duel was classified as a draw on both their parts, seeing as both the sticks brought from the flat had been broken into small pieces, moving from broadsword to rapier to dagger and finally to useless.
Quistis flopped to the sand near her bag.
As her back touched the beach the impending headache returned in full force. She huddled her knees up close to her chest and touched one hand to her forehead, gritting her teeth like somehow that would hold it in. It felt like her brain was pulsing against the unyielding surface of her skull. Quistis had to stifle a gasp.
"What's up?"
"Headache." It was an understatement. The heat combined with Selphie's magic had fused to give Quistis a sore head that felt as if someone had dropped a grand piano on her skull, like in some particularly masochistic cartoon. Bahamut rumbled and she clenched her teeth together.
"Bad headache?"
"Uhhh."
Seifer got up, reached into the golf bag and pulled out a bottle of tap water, still adorned with the peeling label of a different brand. He reached into his pocket and threw a packet of extra extra strong painkillers into the sand near her head.
Quistis peeled each pill out of its foil packet slowly, trying not to make any noise.
She almost asked him if he expected to get injured, but her head hurt too much to speak. She swallowed the pills and took a gulp of water to wash them down, swallowing dryly to exorcise the ghost of the tablets from her throat.
Leaning back on the sand, Quistis stretched out, arms above her head, and closed her eyes. The warm, yielding surface gave under her body, contouring to fit her shape like a really expensive mattress.
Seifer sat nearby, not touching her but close enough so she could feel his body heat He didn't say anything. Quistis was grateful, because she thought that any word would have cracked her skull. The headache pulsed between her ears in time with her heartbeat until, it finally began to fade.
Seifer must have sensed her posture relaxing. "Feeling better?"
"Yeah." She could see his sharp profile in the night.
Damn Selphie and her magic, The GFs all junctioned at once..no wonder I have a sore head. It's a miracle my brain doesn't fall out of my ears.
Seifer moved imperceptibly so that they were touching, and placed one arm round her. It fit into the hollow above her hips nicely as if her body was designed for it.
"She was glad of the dark that shadowed both their faces.
"Feeling better?"
She nodded.
"Want to get going on that trip?"
"In a minute. There's something I need to tell you first."
Lots of people said about the fortunetelling, I don't believe in it myself, but my twin sister does have a pack of Tarot cards, and a book on how to read them. The cards I used pretty much mean what I wrote, though there's some extra bits I cut out of the fic because they made it too long. The bit about the GFs has some artistic licence taken, for reason that will be revealed later.
I also posted a list of my favourite links on my author profile. My faves are probably estrigious.com for art, and mooncalf.org or Moon Pants for fic.
So:
Breaker-one: I haven't finished playing the game either, though in my case it's more about a point of honour. I promised myself I'd upgrade everyone's weapons before it starts getting really serious at the end of disc three, only to find that you need bloody Marlboro tentacles for Zell and Quistis' weapons. And so far all I seem to be able to do against a Marlboro is stand there while it Breaths me. This leaves all my party red, green, bubbling and turning gently in circles. Then it attacks and I run away before it KOs me and spend about half an hour trying to find another Marlboro. Tips are gratefully appreciated, cause it's really pissing me off.
DBZ Fanfiction Queen: Waaaa. * hangs head in shame.* That's what I get for having a beta that doesn't play games and trying to update every two weeks March-June during the annual Great Revision Hell that is my sorry life. Apologies.
DisturbedVenus: I hate to disappoint you, but…maybe later.
Ghost140: Uh, Linkin Park. Them of the 'angry people shouting' genre.
Kjata: For good fic, check out some of the links on my author page.
Mana Angel: Thanks for reviewing. Uh, Quistis did almost kill Seifer, but then so did pretty much all the other characters. Again, the fighting=sex thing comes into play, though I hate to think about what it means for Seifer and Squall. Although, I don't have to, because many, many authors have done it for me.
I am disturbed.
Melete: Wow, thanks. :o I'm flattered. Really.
Nynaeve77: ta!
Quistis88: the adventures of Seifer and Quistis will indeed end sometime in mid July, because I want to go on holiday. Uni work willing, they will, perhaps, be back in late September.
Sickness In Salvation: That's the great thing about fanfiction, you can put all kinds of refs in. In this chapter, Final Fantasy Ten, and that's about it. Oh yeah, the comic Strangers In Paradise, too.
Kate (You're watching the Family Learning Channel!-Now watch as I fire angry ticks out of my nipples!)
I * heart* Don Hertzfelt's short films