People look at him with such adoration. Their perfect hero. The perfect hero, as if made to triumph over me. As if he is not what I know him to be - ever so fragile on the inside. Ice might be cold and hard - but it isn't always strong. Look how easily it chips and melts. And I've always been skilled at chipping and carving and melting. Squall could be my ice sculpture if I chose. But I don't choose.

The only thing I will use my skills for is to make Squall mine again, make him free again. Because before he was theirs he was mine, before he was a hero he was a boy in the fields by the orphanage and I loved him. Before he froze up he was like sunshine - yes, and even I adored him then. But this that they adore isn't sunshine, this is steel, something they've bent and shaped in all the wrong ways. I could reshape him, melt the ice that shouldn't be there.

It's their faults. Keeping us apart. When we fought, I could almost bring him back - there was, at least, fire in the heart of the ice. The scar across my face is mark and proof of it. But, my Squall, such levels he has risen to and I have fallen to in the time between now and then.

It's almost too late.

He's trapped now, and I know it. If he were less proud - but pride is a failing we share - he might be calling me for help. If he asked, I'd save him.

I could make him free. I remember him as he was, as he will be again.