Disclaimer: I don't own any Final Fantasy VIII characters.

Note: Still experimenting with the minimalist style. If the lack of detail gets annoying, please let me know. :)

Chapter 2

Quistis opened her eyes and wasn't surprised when the only thing she met with was darkness. What did surprise her was that the ground beneath her was soft and lenient. Then she remembered....

Slowly she shifted and slipped her arm under her pillow. The digital clock on the bedside table read 3:21 AM. All of those months spent with no exposure to actual light had taken their toll on her biological clock and she found herself completely awake.

After a few minutes something moved beside her and she turned her head to try and make out what it was.

"Oh....You're awake...."

The voice was masculine and harrowingly familiar. Quistis cursed the weakened state of her body that kept her from flying out of the bed. Instead she opted to scoot herself to the very edge.

Seifer reached over and turned on the light to its dimmest level. Sitting up he yawned and sifted his hand back through his hair. The bed creaked softly as he stood and grabbed up his robe from its hanger on the wall. Odd hour or no, he wanted to take the opportunity to speak with Quistis while she was still too fragile to walk away.

"First I want to apologize. You look like shit, and the guards responsible for that have been taken care of."

The blonde woman struggled to push herself back against the headboard and sit up. Just being in the same room with Seifer was enough to contaminate her already bleak mood, but being in the same bed made her wish that she was back in the dungeon.

"Fuck you...."

Seifer crossed to her side of the bed and needed only to press his hand against her chest to force her back against the mattress.

"You're not going anywhere. Your life belongs to Galbadia now. More specifically, it belongs to me. You better be happy that I've chosen to give you a purpose while you're here. That's more than can be said for your friends."

He opened up the drawer in the side table and took out a pair of handcuffs. To ensure that the Instructor would not get very far if she tried to escape, he fastened one of the latches around her wrist and secured the other to the bed post.

"We'll talk more in the morning. Now go back to sleep."

With that he circled back around to turn out the light then strode to the couch on the other side of the room. Quistis watched his dark silhouette move about silently. He had taken the couch for himself and left her there in the bed. Somehow it seemed odd that he would have given up the space of his bed to anyone, much less a prisoner. She didn't have the drive or the strength to contemplate it though. With her left wrist cuffed to the bed post, she shifted onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Her back stung from the pressure placed upon it but she managed to ignore it. The pain in her stomach was worse. It had been a while since her last meal as the guards only fed the prisoners enough to keep them alive and functioning.

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Quistis was still awake when the sun began to peek up over the horizon and cast its light into the room. She watched the gradual spectacle with an odd sense of fascination and warmth. The sun was such a wonderful thing that so many people took for granted. Just to be able to look upon it every morning was a right that everyone should have had, but not so the prisoners kept locked away in Galbadia's dungeon.

At 8:30 the bedside clock began to beep loudly. On the other side of the room, Seifer lifted from the couch and padded over to turn the alarm off. Quistis avoided him as best she could by closing her eyes and pretending to still be asleep.

The Headmaster grumbled something incoherent then reached over to unlock the cuffs that kept his 'visitor' secured to the bed. He then ambled his way to the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Within minutes the sound of running water could be heard.

Quistis took advantage of the moment and gently twisted herself to sit up and place her feet on the floor. Her legs were weak and her knees nearly buckled under the weight of her own body, but she managed to make it to the door. Before she even touched one of the door knobs she half-crouched, half-fell silently to her hands and knees and brought her face close to the floor. Under the door crack she made out four shadows, one for each foot of the two guards that stood outside.

She cursed under her breath then held her bottom lip between her teeth as she clambered back to her feet. There was hardly any use in trying to escape anyway. She wouldn't have gotten far even if she had been in perfect health.

Once she was back on the bed she flopped down and curled up on her side. The short trip across the room had taken a lot out of her. Fate had been kind enough to at least offer her a nice, soft mattress to rest upon while she endured what she hoped were her last days.

Twenty minutes later, Seifer emerged from the bathroom in a wispy cloud of steam. The grey robe that he wore reached down to his ankles and around his neck was the towel that he had used to dry his hair. He crossed the room and pressed a small button near the front door before going over to the bed where Quistis had drifted back into unconsciousness.

"Breakfast will be here soon. I want you to eat as much of it as you can."

Disrupted from her uneasy slumber, the former Instructor blinked open those cold blue eyes. As thin and drawn as she looked, her glare was something that would never fade in intensity.

"Fuck.....you...." she rasped the words just audible enough for him to hear. She would be content to say nothing else but those two words to him for as long as she was able to speak.

"Come now, Instructor. I can't have a decent conversation with you if you don't even have enough energy to hold your head up."

He walked from the bed and picked up his comb from the dresser. A few quick swipes with the grooming utensil were all that he needed to bring his hair back into its perfect, slicked back form.

Within minutes there was a knock at the door, and upon Seifer's permission, two servants entered, each baring a tray on one hand. The two trays were set down on the table by the large windows that made up the far side of the room. The servants then went to the bed and adjusted Quistis properly. She was set back against the headboard, her pillows adjusted, and the sheets folded down around her. One of the breakfast trays was set in front of her and uncovered.

Quistis couldn't help but salivate slightly to the sight of a decent meal. Fruits, eggs, sausage, biscuits, orange juice, and milk were laid out on the tray in a precise arrangement. In the months prior to this meal, the most she had seen was water, bread, and occasionally a packet of protein powder that tasted like chalk. She frowned and set her jaw tight.

After sending the servants off, Seifer stood at the foot of the bed and folded his hands at his back. His green eyes were steady upon Quistis, observing her casually.

"I promise it's not poisoned."

"Damn."

Seifer frowned deeper.

"No one is going to try and kill you. At least not anymore. Now eat before I call a guard in here to force feed you."

Quistis matched his steely glare with one of her own before hesitantly reaching for the fork on the tray. She hated Seifer with every ounce of her existence, but damn if she wasn't starving. Her stomach hardly knew what to think when she swallowed the first bite.

Stubborn cooperation was better than nothing. Seifer turned and strolled back to the table where he took a seat and grabbed up the morning paper. The headlines in the news were always the same. His name was mentioned no less than five times on the front page along with words like 'negotiating' and 'surmounting' and 'prolonged takeover'.

The room fell into a silence that might have been considered awkward if either one of the occupants had been paying attention.

When Quistis set her empty tray to the side she leaned back and folded her hands over her stomach with an absent little grin. Seifer was only halfway through his meal when he heard the motion and turned around in his seat. Seeing that Quistis was finished, he stood and walked back over to the bed.

"Now then...I'm sure you want to know why you're here."

Quistis only looked up to the surly Headmaster and smirked.

Seifer exhaled a soft breath and paced back and forth with slow, deliberate steps.

"Balamb Garden is gone forever, almost every city in the world bends to the Galbadian name, and Galbadia belongs to me. I didn't need a sorceress to do what I did."

"You just needed an army of mindless grunts to do your dirty work."

"Those 'mindless grunts' were the beginnings of an empire that now governs the fate of hundreds of thousands of lives, including yours. It hasn't been accomplished before and it probably never will again."

His pacing stopped at the side of the bed where he stood and narrowed his eyes at his former Instructor.

"But the future is never a guarantee. I'm not an immortal being who can surpass generations to ensure that his empire stays strong."

Quistis tried to shift further up against the headboard. She hated it when people looked down at her, physically or otherwise, and right now Seifer's advantage of height was multiplied tenfold.

"Don't tell me that you brought me here to mix you up some kind of a youth potion."

"You were always such a snooty little bitch. Even as a little girl you never did anything but get in my way and boss me around."

Behind him, Seifer clenched his fingers together at the brief flashbacks that flickered through his mind. His youth was one that he would have rather liked to forget.

"But you did have your exceptional qualities. You were smart. Only a few months older than myself, and yet you made it into SeeD by the age of thirteen. No Garden has since seen such a prodigy."

Quistis folded her arms and frowned. Somehow she didn't like the way that this conversation was going.

"So what? Were you planning to take my brain out and make copies of it to install in some kind of bionic soldier army?

"Not quite. An army as stubborn and smart-mouthed as you wouldn't be worth the effort, but your intelligence combined with my confidence and ambitions are definitely worth passing on to others that could lead such an army."

Now the Headmaster's lips turned up in a small grin.

"For a long time I've been facing questions about who will take over once I'm gone. I have no children, but with you I plan to change that."

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Note: As always, please R&R and let me know what you think. :) The story might get a little bit (very) violent in later chapters. I haven't quite decided, but knowing how I am, it's a good possibility. XD