Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII. If I did I wouldn't have made Cid such a pushover.
First person point of view
This is from Squall's point of view, I might alternate it between the 3 friends I'm not sure yet.
Gods I'm tired. Seifer wasn't kidding when he said that we might end up fighting the whole Galbadian army, today we had, or at least we had fought what seemed like an army. I had gotten into the habit of counting the kills when we went out. 393 soldiers had died by our hand this day. Some had run away after we had killed the first hundred and fifty. In my mind's eye I could still see those lucky seven run up that hill. 400 soldiers against 3 SeeDs; 393 dead soldiers and 3 dead tired SeeDs later we had accomplished our goal, what was it again, oh yes, to show the new Galbadian President we meant business. I felt my itchy eyes roll and stimulated my tear ducts to clean out the dust. What a mission.
My slightly shorter comrade's arm lay over my shoulder as mine did over his. Together we walked depending on each other, both leaning towards one another to form an invert 'V' in the center of which we carried my second comrade, both her arms over our shoulders, unconscious after her last couple of spells. She swung slightly between us her feet barely brushing the ground. We were on our way back to our employer's train via the forest. We hadn't encountered any monsters yet, a fact that relieved me since at this point I don't think we could have fought off a bug bite let alone a wendigo.
Sometimes I wondered about our employer's sanity moreover I wondered about the universal perception of us. Her words floated back to me from when we first joined her cause, albeit unwillingly.
"You're SeeDs you shouldn't need to rest!" She had said scolding us like children. Gods how I pitied her children, provided she ever found a man willing to spawn some with her.
Eventually we had convinced her that even we needed a couple of hours a week, although you'd think she'd have realized that after traveling with us during the Second Sorceress War. Oh, that's right she was usually knocked out. I shook mine head in an effort to clear it of her. Given how tired I was it wasn't hard to drive her from my mind. It was getting easier all the time to go back to the way I used to be, silent, cold, and in control.
Selphie stirred slightly her feet lifting to take steps and I cursed under my breath without regret. Selphie for all her energy wasn't nearly as durable as Zell and I. Her small body and quick gestures was made for the magic she controlled so easily, not for taking hits that would have knocked the much more physical Zell off his feet.
Zell too was just as exhausted only his amazing stamina kept him upright and moving forward. Due to Selphie's curing spells right before she passed out we were no longer bleeding and in pain. Part of me regretted letting her heal us completely, the pain would have kept us awake.
I myself wasn't as durable as Zell nor as magic nimble as Selphie sometimes I wondered if it was my balance of their strengths that made me the leader. I yawned and felt both Selphie and Zell turned to glance at me. Zell sighed in relief, Selphie giggled and I felt my lips move in what they knew was a smile though to everyone else it would be nothing. To everyone else we were infallible, especially me. It made my friends feel better to know that I was just as tired as they were.
It was dark by now and I knew that it was not just being tired that made us move so slowly. We were hoping that by the time we got back to the train that our employer would be asleep and that we would be able to sleep as well, it wasn't likely as it had never happened before but anything was possible. For instant, it was possible fight an army on 5 hours sleep 5 days ago. Weather or not it would be possible for us not to kill our employer if she didn't let us rest was more debatable, based on weather we had the energy to kill her right now and if we could remember some clause in the contract before we got back.
As we dragged ourselves pass the hotel I noticed the hotel girl and the cat girl playing hopscotch outside the junk shop. At the site of us they stopped and hotel girl ran up to us as cat girl entered the junk shop to say something to the shopkeeper, as gristly old man we had come to know quite well. I never bothered to ask their names, Selphie knew people's names and she knew me well enough to know who I was asking for when I needed one of them.
I didn't bother to stop as hotel girl came up to us, I was afraid that if we stopped we would collapse, what was holding us up now mystified me, by all that laws of gravity there was no way we could be moving like this, Zell and me counterbalancing each with Selphie swinging between us.
"Mister Squall I have a message for you from Rinoa." I growled and stopped. We swayed but stayed upright; Selphie put her feet flat on the ground but picks them up again when the change in balance threatens to topple us.
I move my head slightly to indicate I had heard her. We'd spend enough time in this town that even the locals knew how to interpret my gestures by now. So why did my employer find it so hard.
"She said she had to go to home for something, that she'd never be back for your worthless hide and not to try not to cry too hard for her." Tourists to this city that heard what hotel girl said looked at us curiously but I knew it was a code and that Hotel girl had spoken word for word to get it to me. It meant that they'd had to get the hell outta dodge, probably cause of the uproar they'd made us stir up. They didn't know when they'd be back and to stay put.
Cat girl came out of the junk shop dragging one end of a body bag and I felt my comrades relax slightly more, the last time this had happened our employer had forgotten to leave us anything and we'd had to go looking for her anyway. Rank A SeeD salaries were nice and cushy for times like that but sometimes you just wanted your own things. Especially since last time she had starting looking through our things trying to find some token of my supposed love for her and found some of Selphie's high explosives instead. At least it had made her easier to find.
Hotel girl ran to help her friend and the old junk shop man. Together the three of them managed to drag it to us. The old man cussed then apologized at the girl's expressions before asking, "What the hel..er..hecks in that thing?"
Zell laughed weakly revealing how tired he was while Selphie she replied for us, her voice still rough from a throat shot earlier, "All our worldly possessions, along with some miscellaneous things that we always carry around incase of emergencies."
Like a disassembled machine gun, some high explosives, a flamethrower, some spare monster remains we haven't gotten around to sorting yet, all our battle spoils and some spare missiles complete with disassembled launch pad. I smiled again; never know what you're going to run into and we'd used all of it at one time or another, although it was in need of an update, like some defensive items. I sighed maybe we'd get around to that now that we have an impromptu vacation it looks like, but first..
"Have any spare rooms?" I asked Hotel girl.
"For you, always." I turned my head slightly to see Hotel girl's mom at the door of the hotel. "I started preparing a room for you the second we got Rinoa's message." She smiled at us and held the door open expectantly.
I nodded and looked down at our bag in front of us before glancing at my comrades. At their nod I bend down to grab the strap at my end at the same time Zell bent to grab his. Selphie swung her feet forward and planted them on the ground in front of us to keep us from tumbling over and to brace us for impact as Zell and I swung the heavy bag over our heads to smack hard against our backs.
Zell hissed in pain, Selphie whimpered in strain and even I winced. Inner padding was definitely going to be one of those updates to our bag I thought as a sword tip rammed into my shoulder blade, only the thick casting of the body bag kept it from impaling me.
Slowly we got our balance back right before Selphie passed out again. The girls looked at us for a few minutes before running ahead to open doors, wait elevators and clear people out of the way for us. I knew they wanted to help us but we had found we worked better under our own steam, an unfortunate side effect of being a SeeD. The inability to depend on others, this time with good reason; none of them could lift us if we collapsed and if startled while not fully coherent we could lash out, hurting someone. Cat girl had been lucky last time and I didn't want to know if her luck would hold.
Finally getting to the room I thanked them for the help and shut the door. We dropped the bag and feel into the closest bed. Dirt, blood and shoes were forgotten as we submitted to exhaustion. A good night's sleep, a bath, and a good meal tomorrow and we would be right as rain, until the next time.