Marionette – Chapter 1: Liberi Fatali

Squall Leonhart gazed out the train window, watching the fish swim around, dolphins playfully headbutting each other. The train was in the underwater tunnels, heading for the city of Balamb. His mother Riana sat across from him, her eyes closed, her arms folded, her breathing even and peaceful. Long, bright red curly hair was tossed carelessly around a peaceful fair skinned face, skin exactly like her son's.

Squall and his mother were going to the tiny, sleepy town of Balamb to search for Squall's father Hiro, who had left because of some family problems with his aunt and uncle, and he hadn't wanted to drag his girlfriend and infant son into it all. So he went to Balamb, where his aunt and uncle lived. That had been a little after Squall was born. Now Riana decided her 17 year old son needed to have a father figure in his life, for she was afraid that Squall had become female-oriented and didn't hang out with any guys like a normal male teenager.

Over his 17 years, Squall had not been deprived of a great life, despite his lacking of a father. His mother had done her best to support him and herself, but still she couldn't afford to give him everything as she had hoped during her beginning years of parenthood. Fortunately for her, Squall was a very undemanding boy and hardly ever asked for toys and such. Riana sometimes felt that somehow she had done something to deprive her son of normalcy, but she never said anything to him, feeling that his meekness and antisocialness was just a phase and his undemanding attitude a blessing to her small budget. She didn't have too much money when her son was a child, and if he would have been more forceful in acquiring new things…she would have been in trouble.

Squall was still the meek, antisocial little boy he had been then, only taller and different in appearance. When he was smaller, he'd had long shaggy brown hair that constantly hung in his face, but upon entering his teens he had since cut all of it off and dyed it black with bleached blonde tips, just very recently cutting it in an unruly bowl cut, redying the ends. He also frosted his long bangs the month before-he loved to play with his hair color. He didn't like the pictures of him from his youth, and so he tried his hardest to stay away from his younger look.

Despite his being 17, he had the lanky physique of a child, only he was 5'10" now, not 4'2". He didn't mind being thin; he wore baggy clothes anyway so it didn't matter. He, for some reason, liked baggy clothes better than tight fitting ones, although sometimes he did wear tighter ones when he felt like it. He felt more 'at home' in baggy clothes, more relaxed and at ease.

"Train 2491 has arrived at Balamb. I repeat…" A voice said over the intercom. Squall stirred from his position at the window and shook his mother gently, not saying a word. He didn't like talking to anyone in public places because of all the surrounding ears that could possibly be listening to whatever he had to say, and at home he usually limited his time to his bedroom, the kitchen, or the garage to work on his motorcycle. When he was upset about something, he normally went for a ride on his bike. It was the one thing he could do to be alone, the wind blowing through his hair, the street lights illuminating the pavement, the emptiness of the roads…he loved being alone.

"Squall…?" Riana sleepily opened her eyes, gazing at her son. She saw the stares from the surrounding people, discusted looks all aimed at Squall's multicolored hair. He simply ignored the stares and pointed to the train door wordlessly. Riana quickly saw that people were leaving the train, so she climbed up and grabbed some luggage from the compartment above her and Squall did the same. But while her son reached up to the compartment above the seats, Riana snuck a glance at the boy, drinking in his multicolored hair and his quiet personality. For a while now, she sensed that she was slowly losing him as he spent more and more of his time on his motorcycle and in his room, alone. She was glad that he didn't spend his time with girls or in strip clubs or at bars, but she wished that he was a bit more different than he was, a little less antisocial. She didn't want him to turn out this way when his father had deserted her and Squall, she had hoped for a problemless child…well, Squall would be the first to tell her that a problemless child was merely an idea, nothing more.

"Hey..are you coming?" Squall's quiet voice came out of his mouth mellifluently, flowing like a river of honey. Riana wondered why, with such a beautiful voice, he never talked more. If he wanted to, he could even be in a band, singing lead, going out on stage and have girls swoon over his fabulously good looks.

"Mother…are you all right?" He asked again, looking his blue eyed mother right in the face. She blinked once, smiling at her stormy blue eyed boy.

"Oh…were you calling me?" She asked, feeling a little dizzy. She should have taken more medication that morning…

"Yes." Squall nodded, his soft voice hard to understand over all of the chatter from the people still leaving the train.

"Oh…I'm sorry, I spaced out…we should get going." She said, grabbing another bag. Squall waited a moment, examining her, suspecting something, but then turning wordlessly toward the compartment and grabbing yet another bag, and then one more, the last one. He followed his mother through the gathering crowds in front of the train, seeing people from the train's passengers run to their friends and family who were not on the train, hugging them tightly, kissing them affectionately. For one moment, Squall paused and watched a couple that caught his eye, a black haired girl and a blonde boy. The girl, who had been on the train, ran to the boy and latched herself around his neck, kissing him so long Squall thought the man would suffocate. But despite the discusted face he wore on the outside, Squall wished he could have someone who would greet him like that…

"Hey, is something wrong?" Riana smiled at her son, who quickly turned away from the couple and walked past his mother.

"No…" He sounded sad about something, and Riana looked back at the couple, now happily chatting and holding hands, walking towards a fancy looking café.

"Squall…"

"Let's just go." His voice sounded cold now, without a hint of emotion in it. He gazed back at his mother impatiently, his body leaning to one side, waiting for a command to move. Riana nodded and followed her son away, gazing one time more back at the couple. They were gone.

Squall's POV:

Mother had bought a house near a gas station, where she was going to work part-time. She had no need to work 2 jobs anymore since I was there to work as well, but she did anyway, working her night hours as a housemaid for a hotel just around the corner. She refused to let me get a job, saying that I needed to focus on my schoolwork. She just didn't want me to work, I know that for a fact. My grades were straight A's since I was small; I would have no problem working. I was used to work…after all, life is work, isn't it?

"Squall, you can pick out a bedroom if you'd like." Mother said, dropping the heavy bags she had been carrying onto the hard wooden floor. I nodded and carefully set the bags I was carrying onto the floor, wandering off into the house. It wasb't big at all; it had 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. The bedrooms were both very small, the living room was about as wide as a hallway, and the bathroom didn't have a shower. That was fine, since this town had public bathhouses. I wasn't too crazy at the idea that I would have to shower in front of other men, but I had the feeling that they wouldn't be interested in me one bit, too wrapped up in the coming season of Christmas and buying their girlfriends presents and playing hockey on ice ponds. Sometimes when you move place to place, you realize that every place had the same kinds of people…and this small town-no matter how tiny it was-followed that rule as well.

I selected the smaller room, deciding that my mother needed more space than I did. Besides, the smaller room had a cozier atmosphere than the bigger one…perhaps it was just the size.

"So, have you picked one?" Mother asked, leaning in the doorway. She smiled at me, but I turned my head away, moving towards the window,

"Yes…this one." I told her, not bothering to turn her way.

"Alright…this one is nice…" She said, desperately trying to make conversation. I frowned, making sure that she couldn't see my face. I decided that I didn't want to be cooped up in here with nothing to say to my mother, so I figured I could go for a ride on my motorcycle. I needed to get in a ride before it would snow or I couldn't ride until at least February, if not later.

"I'm going for a ride." I said finally, gazing out the window. Small children kicked a ball around, laughing happily. It made me think of my childhood…happy, yet deprived of something that I didn't know about. Was it my father, the entire reason for coming here…?

"Can you please go to the store and buy some food for tonight's meal? You can pick anything; the fridge should be here by the time you return." Mother stopped me on my way out, handing me a few bills. I put them in my pocket and walked away, stopping at the doorway to the outside.

"I'll be back to help you with the furniture." I said, leaving.

Why is it so warm? It's supposed to be winter…why isn't it snowing now?

The heat hit my face full blast as I walked outside, and I wondered why I hadn't noticed the blistering heat when Mother and I had brought the bags to our new home.

"Hey, watch out!" A childish girl's voice called as a ball flew towards me. I reached out reflexively and caught it as a teenage girl who looked about my age ran up, holding out her hand for the ball. She had sericeous brown hair, so long and shiny that it seemed to be effulgently glowing, bringing a dim light to even the darkest of hearts. But…her hair color reminded me of the caramel brown color I had when I was little…and I felt nostalgia, regret. I wanted to be little again, wanted to run to my mother like any other child would when they got a scrape or a cut, even a little one. Long ago, when I was indeed a child, I had a cut…but it was an uncurable one, a lesion that was on the inside…and now it was simply a gaping hole. It was the hole where my father's face should have been smiling at me, laughing at whatever I did, providing my mother and I with whatever we needed.

"Hey, can I have my ball back please?" The girl asked me, her green eyes glinting brightly. I handed the flourescent yellow ball to her absentmindedly, scanning the streets for my bike.

"Hey, are you new here?" The girl asked. I nodded, still searching for my motorcycle.

"I'm Selphie Tilmitt, and welcome to Balamb! What's your name?" She smiled at me, flashing 2 rows of sparkling white teeth.

"…Squall Leonhart." I reluctantly replied, still not gazing her directly in her face.

"Hi Squall! Are you 17 too?" She asked cheerfully, her voice already becoming annoying to me. Once more, I nodded, hoping that she would soon realize that I didn't want to talk to her, to anyone, and she would leave me alone.

"Do you want to come play ball?"

Do I strike you as the ball-playing type, Selphie?

"…No."

"Alright then, but you're missing out!" She began to gallop away, laughing. She ran toward a group of younger children and I listened to them cheer happily when Selphie held up the brightly colored ball. I started to walk away when Selphie called after me:

"Bye, Squall! I hope to see you aga-ain!" I rolled my eyes as she laughed playfully and returned to playing ball with the children.

I found my motorcycle in an alleyway next to my new home. I wondered who put it there, but then shrugged it off and climbed onto the seat, tucking the money I still clutched in my fist into my pocket, hoping it would be safe there. I started the bike, feeling it come to life beneath me. I called it a lion, for its roar was mighty and heard by everyone, and it was fast and could hunt upon my will. My mother had given it to me for my 15th birthday, and now this bike was my life. It was black and sleek with a hard leather seat cover and a picture of a flaming lion with cloudy blue eyes stenciled along the right side. I had drawn it the year before, believing it to be a self-image of myself underneath the anthropoid skin, believing that I myself was a lion, that I could roar and hunt like one. However, the lion on my bike was eternally seething in fire. I really didn't know exactly why I had drawn the lion in fire. Perhaps it was because my 16th year of life had been hard for me-my mother had been diagnosed with cancer and I had been diagnosed with depression. So perhaps at the time, the fire expressed my hatred for everything, and I was entrapped in it. But now, since my mother's cancer had been falsely diagnosed and my depression was slowly waning, the fire probably could respresent the fiery streak in my personality that my mother claimed she could see. Personally, I felt that fire was my way of escaping, that the lion, representing myself, was encased in flames because of the heat I felt from life, the thrill of it, the unpredicatbility of it. Fire can do anything, anywhere…and so can life. So I supposed the fire still represented my life in a way, but not so much in a depressing way as just a point of view.

I listened to the purring of my motorcycle for a while longer, smiling for once and climbing atop the seat, feeling ready to conquer anything. I tightened my grip on the bar handles and pressed my foot to the pedal, speeding off into the quickly forming skies of night, my lion growling through the virgin silence.

Author's Notes: So this was chapter 1! Wow…I never expected it to turn out THIS good! Anyway, I will go through each of the FF8 characters and explain their lives up until now…although they might not all get their own individual chapters, since I believe Zell's and Irvine's might be a bit shorter than everyone else's, especially Squall's. I might even have 2 people per chapter, I don't know yet. Anyway, I REALLY hoped you enjoyed this, because I worked very hard on this, and even harder on the storyline itself (this was an introduction to one of the characters; when I finish the intros then the real story will begin!)

Alrighty then, I'll see you in the next chapter!