It is eyes, all eyes, that remain in memory. Grasping, clutching, holding eyes, eyes that death cannot blind nor soil close. Of the eye and mouth, the eye is the more eloquent organ. Eyes make unfathomable demands when words fail.

We look at the sun and call it an eye. We look at the moon and call it an eye. We look at the stars, and when they fall they are eyes which goad tragedy into the depths of the soul. What is impulse, what inclination? What is destiny to that pale, cold rain?

Stars fall, eyes fall, spirits fall. A white dove rises, and is stricken from the sky.

-

The first time Squall had come to Esthar, he hadn't been terribly impressed by it. Granted, he hadn't been of the mindset to be impressed by much at the time, but it was still an accomplishment given the normal foreigner reaction upon seeing the city.

Over the course of his subsequent visits the place had begun to sink in, and he was starting to realize exactly how incredible the city-state was.

Still several years past the rest of the world in terms of technology, Esthar was as close to a utopia as existed within the modern world. The streets were clean, the people were fed, and the government was neither sclerotic and ineffectual nor oppressive. It was someplace very nearly too good to be true--and any time he visited, the fact still set Squall on edge. He hadn't been embroiled neck-deep in Galbadia's political turmoil without learning some things, and one of those facts was that things nearly too good to be true were often much, much worse than the things that seemed bad from the offset.

You weren't a good SeeD, not really, if you couldn't force yourself not to fidget. Often, SeeDs needed to be able to negotiate under pressure, or bluff their way though a difficult situation. That required one to be in control of themselves not to let any hint of agitation or anxiety slip, and that required a poker face to rival a cyborg's. So, despite the fact that he kept half-expecting conspirators to come out of the ventilation systems (unlikely, given that fresh air was dispersed through a metal grate a Meltdown couldn't warp) or assassins to come in through the windows (equally unlikely, given that whatever polymer they used in window construction seemed to be stronger than the metal which formed the vent grates), Squall sat quietly in the Presidential Palace's waiting room and counted the seconds that the clock ticked off.

He was somewhere in the upper eight-hundred range, after several restarts, when the door finally opened. Still operating on diplomatic mode, he rose immediately to be standing when his guest came in.

His guest did not seem at all impressed.

"I thought," Seifer said flatly, forsaking all the pleasantries, "that I told Xu I would contact her if and when I decided to take up her offer, and not before. What's going on?"

It took Squall about three seconds to realize he had nothing to say to that. "...Laguna said I should talk to you," he answered.

Seifer snorted. "Cute."

Squall frowned. Every time he saw Seifer, it seemed like it got easier to be terribly annoyed at him. "...there's a dig going out tomorrow," he said. "Lunatic Pandora ruins."

Seifer went still, carefully looking across the room at Squall and keeping himself far too stiff to really be read as neutral. "...and?" he said, voice a bit softer than normal.

Squall half-shrugged, watching Seifer carefully. It was interesting, to his mind at least, to see how the erstwhile Knight froze up anytime anything touching upon his stint as Ultimecia's agent was mentioned. It was almost as if he was ashamed. "SeeD is sponsoring it. We think there might be some GFs within the Pillar." He paused for a moment. "Laguna thought you might want to go."

Seifer frowned, then very deliberately looked down to straighten out his cuff. "Don't see why I should care," he said, making a concerted effort to sound flippant about it.

"Actually--" Squall frowned. "Laguna suggested that I should convince you."

Seifer cursed, keeping the profanity very carefully under his breath. "I don't need to be saved," he stated. "I have a life here, and I like it just fine."

"Laguna is... concerned," Squall began awkwardly.

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Oh, for Hyne's sake," he snarled, already arraying words in his mind to shoot back with intent to wound. "I could get this if you were just buggin' me so that Garden could recruit someone of my obviously superior abilities, but I never thought I'd see Mr. Squall Leonhart, SeeD Commander, playing daddy's lapdog."

Squall's eyes narrowed, and his shoulders hunched slightly--bringing the fur ruff of his jacket up a bit around his neck. It never failed to amuse Seifer how often Squall acted like a cat on whom a pail of water had just been dumped--defensive, annoyed, and in a way almost pathetic. With a certain amount of relish, Seifer waited to see what retort he would be met with.

...a tense silence passed.

"Time Compression isn't over," Squall growled, the only civility in his voice the fact that he was talking and not doing something considerably more violent. "There are nodes of disturbance within the ruins. Laguna said if anyone would know what to read into that, it would be you."

If words could manifest physical force, Seifer was pretty sure he'd have been put through a wall by those. (find the legendary lunatic pandora only then shall the sorceress provide you with dreams again oh my loyal knight seifer the sorceress is alive the sorceress demands find the legendary lunatic pandora only then--)

With an incoherent snarl, he lashed out at the nearest thing--the small endtable next to the couch. It toppled, sending its meagre contents scattering across the floor--and, thankfully, doing something to quiet the cacophony of whispering memories inside his mind.

"I don't know anything," he snapped.

"You're the only living person who knows what Ultimecia wanted," Squall countered darkly.

"She told me what to do, she didn't tell me what she wanted." (Those dreams--)

Squall shrugged. "Laguna would feel better if you were on the team," he deflected.

"Well--"

"And he wanted me to remind you that you would be paid."

(Dammit.) "Do I look like I'm starving, Leonhart? 'cause everyone seems to think I am."

"No. You don't." Squall cast a critical eye over him, but didn't say any more. He didn't need to. Seifer could fill in the blanks, on his own.

(You look like you've lost your will to fight, Seifer. You look like you've given up, Seifer. You look like you just don't care any more, Seifer. You look like you've resigned yourself to a mediocre life taking odd jobs in the streets of Esthar to make a quick Gil and it's not fakking LIKE you, Seifer.) "I don't need charity. Not Laguna's, and not yours."

Squall crossed his arms. "Garden isn't concerned with giving out charity," he said. "We are concerned about the Crystal Pillar. You're uniquely suited to the job, and if you don't take it we'll have to find someone who isn't. Laguna is the one who's looking out for your best interests. I don't care."

Seifer gestured angrily. "What exactly would I be doing on this team of yours?" he demanded.

Squall gave him a long-suffering look--the kind he wore when he had to obey his orders but that didn't mean he had to like them. "Leading it," he replied.