Do I See (Blue Eyes)

.- .-

When I woke up—although, truthfully, I didn't recall falling asleep in the first place—it was to my great surprise that the reason for this was most likely the lion that was leaning over me, sniffing my face in slow, deadly huffs. My mind processed this in its due course, decided hope was extinct, and shut down. Even the soldier part put aside its weapon and raised its hands in eat-me defeat.

Something about the lion, though, seemed to be in coordination with the native life of Traverse Town—a certain block-ness that seemed unreal, with too large eyes and a curious coloring shift. Regardless of this, however, the beast still made a frightening sight. I had a vague, desperate hope that maybe it would associate the scar slashed over its eye with my own and choose to move away sufficiently far enough for me to get my gunblade and perhaps cast a spell or two, or at least "..." at it before I died.

There used to be a general rumor about me at the Garden, saying that I could go to sleep to instant action in moments. This is slightly untrue—rather, my soldier mind wakes up immediately, and the rest gradually follows in its wake. Those would be the things not necessary for survival: thoughts, opinions, memories that didn't involve the location of a gun or chokehold. So, a few moments passed before the remembrance of yesterday's time compression struck me, and a brief hope let within that perhaps this scene would change to involve far less teeth that it was currently containing.

"He doesn't think that you can understand him, so he says that he apologizes on Queen Kiara's behalf for frightening you, and that he may know where your friend is." It took me a minute to trace the oddly accented voice to my bedside table, where a large and, apparently, talking bird was sitting. An anthromorphic smile curved its beak and it shuffled its absurdly colored feathers before continuing. "A certain, ah, Cloud, I believe."

The rest of my memories had finally arisen, dragged sullenly from their sleep, and enough had that particular celestial heading on them that they were able to edge past other forefront ideas of the existence of translating birds and slaying lions.

"Where is he?" I asked. My classmates and peers had also circulated several rumors about my ability to stay on topic through any pandemonium. Zell used to joke that this was due to having the GF equipped nearly as often as Shiva, and Quistis would usually make up some valiant cause for this ability that made me feel hints of pride over it, but I kept the true reason to myself. It wasn't dullness, per say, but something that certainly looked and smelled like it.

"In the Serengeti, actually," the bird was saying. "One of the lionesses found him." It looked disgruntled as a blue hued hornbill could manage, and a brief thought over what Cloud's foot wide weapon of mass destruction could do fanged beasts only slightly longer than its length wandered through. "Aerith had requested that we watch the plains for him, so luckily Vitani knew what to expect. She asked that we find you and inform you of our information."

'Aerith asked, or the lioness?' I nearly questioned, but held my tongue lest I lost my reputation for silence. Instead, I nodded, and was assaulted with war cries of "Attack!" as maned animal inclined his head as well.

"Can you take me there?"

The lion growled, a most alarming sound, and the bird dipped his head down. "The king says no, but has been given the coordinates for you to enter in one of your, ah, 'Gummy Ships'."

I was beginning to detest the idiotic contraptions but nodded once more all the same, not bothering to ask why a lion knew mechanical planet coordinates, nor how the two had arrived in the first place. It seemed that these planets work by their own rules. I suppose that, to some of them, the idea of Garden flying would seem bizarre, but they would not find talking reptiles and a planet ruled by, apparently, a giant rodent very puzzling at all.

Cid was not difficult to find, watching people from his usual perch that overlooked the town, and was more than willing to lend me one of the flying ships. I politely declined one shaped like a Chocobo, turned down the absurdity of flying in a Cactuar, and let him know that I did not wish to have the ship named after myself, and no, one named off of my sword was not acceptable either. It seemed highly suspect that Yuffie may have gone through a crazed ship-building session at some point, and I was only surprised that The Moogle was not yet constructed, as they were her favorite resident 'cute' things.

After some persuasion, he reluctantly stopped trying to have me fly The Mickey Mouse and parted with a gleaming white ship that even I could find attractive. To be sure, though, I cautiously asked him what name it had.

"It was Sora's last construction," he replied gruffly. "He never got a chance to give it a name. But, it has to have one before I can give it to you. What are you going to call it?"

I thought about it for a few minutes. "Laguna."

"That's a $# curious name." He took the cigarette out of his lips and peered at me, then shrugged. "It's your choice, though."

Yuffie would be the only one to find the name of the ship and know what it meant. She would also be one of the few people, even from home, that would realize it was a tribute to Selphie and not the man called my father. However, even she didn't know that the reason I never spoke of Laguna to her or anyone else here was that I could not figure grammatically how to. I had not seen him die, and therefore there was some estranged chance he might be alive. It was a slim and unrealistic hope, and I'm not even sure why I hoped for it, but something about him always seemed un-killable.

I took off in The Laguna, having found the coordinates entered into the machine, next to a blurry golden picture labeled The Savanna. Based on the image, I supposed it was either a desert or a grassy planet, and dressed for both—leather pants, t-shirt, bomber jacket, and safety belts. Aerith was always in distress over my unchanging clothing choices, and only Sora agreed that belts were the way to go in any climate.

The ship landed me on my second assumption, and I stared at outstretched waist-high grass that spread out as far as I could see, wondering how I was supposed to find anything in these militarily ideal conditions. If Cloud had been sitting three feet from me, as long as he was holding still I would only have a luck's chance of finding him. If lions were in high population here, it made the prospects even worse, as I'd have to be taking measures against them as well as searching for the man.

"What are you?" a voice behind me said, and the reflexes I had trained for years to stop me from pulling out my blade on any child that snuck up behind me turned me around slowly. A lion cub was seated on the ground there, peering up at me with golden eyes. As I saw no accompanying oddly-shaded bird, I could only assume that once I was in a world, its logistics molded to fit me. However, this still did not give me any clue on how one was supposed to address young carnivores.

"I'm Squall—" I still had to stop myself from adding a last name, rank, and status to that— "...are your parents around?"

"Parents, parents, parents," the cub said in a whiny voice, sitting down in what I took to be an annoyed manner. "Everyone's always just asking, 'Are your parents around? Shouldn't you be back listening to them?'"

Apparently the lion could understand me as well. I filed that away as useful information before kneeling down, hand just resting on the shaft of the gunblade handle in future preparation. "I would like to be the one listening to them. Could you point me in their direction? It's very important."

"Oh," it said, blinking. "Oh, I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. I probably shouldn't do that."

I couldn't let this cub go, as I doubted that I'd find another very quickly. "Wait! I'm sure..." What had Rinoa always said about dealing with kids? 'They think they're adults. Treat them as such, and you may get information that you wouldn't have before.' That sounded more like Quistis, not Rinoa, but seeing as most of the adults I had met in the past were fairly stupid and foolhardy, it didn't seem to be bad advice no matter the source. "I'm sure you'd know what I need anyway, if you could pretend I'm not a stranger for a few more moments. Have you seen any... thing that looks like me here? He's blonde, though. I mean... he has a golden mane."

It watched me silently, then brightened and made a few bounces. "Yes! I mean, no. I haven't seen him, but the hornbills say that he's staying with Rafiki."

An actual location was more than I had ever received before. Weeks of disappointing rumors, however, had removed my faith in any information—although Yuffie would point out that I started with very little belief to begin with—and I was only truly hopeful of finding another clue on his trail.

"Could you take me to this Rafiki?" I asked.

The cub fidgeted and nodded. "Yeah... I guess. You won't tell my parents, right? I'm not really supposed to go that far."

"I promise," I replied. I couldn't imagine it being a difficult deal to make.

It moved off and I followed, watching the area warily as we moved. The plains reminded me of an off-colored Esthar, but unlike my father's country, the lumbering creatures that moved through the grasses did not attack us. This would have provided a refreshing change from my homework, or even in the past in Traverse, but now it seemed there was no threat from anywhere. The worlds were absolutely at peace.

...not that this was a bad thing, mind you. But I could not help being paranoid about everything that seemed too good to be true, or at least too boring.

The grass became shorter as we went, which put me more at ease, and the rare lone trees began increasing in number. Darkness that could have been forest lined one edge of the horizon, and more familiar blue-green prairie began springing up. Throughout all of this, my small guide kept up a constant talk that I kept one ear on as we walked.

"This whole area was burned out by a fire once or maybe twice but anyway that once was when King Kovu..." All of the children I had had the misfortune to be around lately seemed to never realize the value of silence, or of breathing. Why so many people were utterly obsessed over them left me completely in the dark. This involved the first thought that maybe my natural instincts regarding genders was perhaps to be preferred—the chance of unwanted children springing up was absolutely nil.

The cub went on about fires and rescues and other seemingly random topics before coming to a halt before one of the most massive trees I had ever witnessed. "Here's where Rafiki is, and I'd better go before he sees me and yells. Good luck finding your friend!" To my surprise, it twined briefly around my legs before scampering off, and I nearly had a kind thought about youngsters before I caught myself.

I wonder what kind of person this Rafiki is. I placed a hand on the hard wood plant, thinking to myself in the moody way that drove apparently everyone else insane. And why he's in a tree. Knowing this place, he's probably a bird.

Hoisting myself onto one of the tall roots, I tilted my head back to gauge the situation, and there, staring back at me with evident shock and surprise, were two of the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen.

Had seen twice.

With hair of the brightest gold, and eyes that glow faintly in the dark...

"Cloud Strife, I presume," I said with the most absurd urge to begin giggling at the utter ridiculousness of all of it. I can't admit to ever having had the want to laugh like that, but it seemed oddly appropriate.

"I've heard your name is Squall," he replied, and he did laugh: a laugh that was pitched too high and that echoed around me in a way that sounded entirely alien and ultimately familiar. As it had been excessively often, the scene around me shifted—the waving grass blades to crumbling stone, the massive tree to the gray pillars still etched in my memory after all these years. It had had a name, once, but during the wars and after it was known as Ultimecia's castle.

The throne had been moved down to the floor, now, and two figures were placed before it this time, one perched upon the platform seat and another crouched down beside it. I walked forward. The only hope I had, here in a place controlled by magic I couldn't hope to touch, was to hang onto the essential stubbornness I was famed for.

Seated on the throne was a woman, decked with flings of pearls and diamonds and framed by layers of white that, in typical sorceress fashion, went off in yards of imposing folds but still managed to come back and show off shapely legs up to the hip. Soft, the image spoke to the part of me women had tried to rip out of my chest countless times before, gentle. Weak. Protect. Serve.

My boot had already risen for another step towards her when my eyes followed the curve of one alabaster arm, off of the throne side and onto the person seated on the floor. The fierce magical pull to care for a sorceress snapped suddenly, and I watched Cloud in surprise. He was more real here than I had ever seen him be in all my traveling and I wondered if every hint and rumor I had heard was simply to lead me here. The thought should have infuriated me, but he was staring at the floor in an expression of such despair, the infamous sword dropped to the ground a few feet from his side, that I could only wonder what truly was happening here.

To make up for my stillness, the sorceress herself had risen and was approaching me in long, lurid steps. Her black hair was set to curve over her shoulders, brushing against the bottoms of a too-tight corset studded with silver. A few strands fell before her eyes, and my attention was drawn back once more as I looked into them. Look at her. She needs protection. She needs your help. Serve a sorceress.

To do so, first you have to kill her knight.

The smallest part of my conscience cried out, You promised Aerith you would find him!

She never said he had to be alive.

Protect this girl. Save her. The world will try to destroy her. Witches aren't bad, merely different. Sora said he beat Cloud in a matter of minutes, and that he watched him be taken down by Hades' mutt. He is not worthy of being a knight!

A muffled cry snapped my attention once more and I glanced away from the sorceress just long enough to move out of the spell I kept falling into. Cloud had apparently reached for his sword and was now holding onto his hand with the other, catching the blood that dripped from it. I frowned in confusion and took a closer look at the numerous scratches on his arms, the tattered state of the wing that accompanied him, and, as stepped forward, the ankle tether that bound him to the floor.

"What is it you see?... Oh, the boy. I thought I might call him Griever," the sinuous voice before me said, as the sorceress tilted her head up, elegant lips parted.

"He isn't your knight?" My speech sounded drugged even to my ears, although the fact I could process this meant this sorceress was much weaker than she looked—not likely—or that something very peculiar was going on, possibly as a result from being around the strange world-group collection named 'Dysnee' for so long. Cloud raised his head at the sound of my voice and I could see the slight recognition flash in his sterling eyes, although he made no other movement.

"No," she replied, moving closer to me. I avoided her eyes, trying to figure out how to fully drive the muzzy feeling from my mind while the sorceress reached out, tracing her fingers up and down my arm. The touch was so light, so fragile—

I remembered Yuffie tossing her shiruken, up and down, up and down, and my mind clamped further. I will not give in.

"But you do have a knight, don't you." It wasn't meant to be a question. Seifer and I had both developed a clear, if nearly entirely useless, ability to tell if a sorceress had someone to protect them. Seifer could use his after some practice to also discover if a woman was single or not, but I never saw the value in that. Besides, I knew too many females who were more likely to protect their lovers rather than be defended themselves.

She pouted and pressed nearer. "Well... yes. But he is... away right now. He left me here, all alone..."

A part of my thoughts screamed in vengeance against him, but I nearly had complete control now. "Then what do you want with Cloud?"

The sorceress scowled further. "I don't want anything to do with him. The weak, blonde type—" I could see Cloud scowl even while he watched uneasily as the woman leaned her length against me, although what caused his discomfort, I couldn't comprehend—"don't interest me. But, my knight requested that he be brought here, and to repay his faithful service, I agreed."

Something finally clicked in my mind, and I dared a look at her.

"Why do you want to call him Griever?"

She laughed and clapped her hands together. "Have you finally figured it out, Squall? I would have named him different, but Angelo was already taken."

The ex-SOLDIER made a sudden movement and my eyes jumped over to him. He was mouthing something to me frantically—had she made it so he couldn't speak?—and despite a lack of lip-reading abilities, a talent Quistis had attempted to drill into me fruitlessly for hours, I only had two typical reactions to choose from in the first place. The panic in his expression made me lean towards the first, and I drew my gunblade in a smooth arc, spinning away from Rinoa, it had to be Rinoa, how had I not seen it before? Every movement, every word, had her name written all over it and turning to face the stretch of hall behind me.

A man was standing there, casually leaning against a sword that nearly topped his height. His silver hair touched virtually to the floor, a ridiculous trait in any kind of swordsman, but the alert eyes showed the coloring to be natural, not from age. He sounded much like Sora's outline of Riku, but with several feet and several more pounds of armor on him. When that line formed in my head, I realized that I was thinking of Sora for another reason, as well—he had known this man.
.-

.-

:: "Who was your biggest challenge at the games, then?" I had asked him. "You beat Yuffie and me easily enough. It wasn't Hades; I think that only took you about three tries. Was it Hercules, maybe?"

Sora had laughed and shaken his head. "No, it wasn't Herc."

For the first time since he had spoken about Riku, the perpetual smile had dropped off of his face.

"His name... is Sephiroth. I don't know what his last name is. Maybe he doesn't have one. The battle took two minutes."

I had given him a skeptical look. "You fought with me for ten, at least."

"Two minutes before I died," he had replied, voice quiet. "There was nothing for ages, and then I was back in Traverse Town, and Donald and Goofy had no memory of even going to Olympus."

"You... died. He killed you?"

Sora had nodded. "Yeah. After I beat Ansem, I went back there. This time, I lasted an hour. When I came to again, I had to... had to watch Riku go through the d-door for a second time."

I did not ask about it again.::

.- .-

The man—Sephiroth—nodded to me, nearly amiably, and then apparently tuned me out of his vision. He crossed the floor, a single feathered wing that reminded me of Rinoa she was there, she was right there watching with me trailing behind him, and went to kneel by Cloud. Reaching out, Sephiroth placed his fingers on Cloud's chin, tilting it up with delicate gentleness as if he was going to kiss the man, which made me feel rather surely. Strife's eyes had dropped closed, as if he expected this as well, and I remembered that they had come from the same world, although nothing further than that. Perhaps, I thought glumly, they had been lovers there as well.

Then, to my vast surprise, Sephiroth stopped the caress and backhanded Cloud hard enough to send him sprawling, the blonde head smacking the ground with an audible thud. He grabbed a handful of spiky hair in a black-gloved hand and jerked him back up, voice cordially pleasant. "Don't do that again."

I moved forward, furious beyond any right I had to be, and was stopped by a light hand on my arm. Suddenly, other events seemed equally as pressing as hacking swordsmen to bits.

"Rinoa."

"Ah, so you did figure it out!" She slanted her head up towards me, face wreathed with smiles. "Sephy, would you like this one as well? See, he wears leather like you." Rinoa picked at my coat. "I knew sending you this would be a good idea."

Sephiroth looked my direction and I was caught with a sudden urge to run, although overwhelming duty and fear of shame kept me rooted to the spot. He smiled fondly at Rinoa and shook his head, then walked off back down the hall to disappear in the room he had come from originally.

"I though Ultimecia gave me the coat," I said, trying to content myself with watching Cloud pick himself up from only the corner of my eye. He seems to be fine.

"That was the point," Rinoa replied smugly.

"Why are you here?" My voice was void of emotion now, a sign Zell would say either meant I was hungry or about to snap. The hand holding the gunblade—I was loathe to think it was mine—was shaking somewhat, and I did my best to keep it still. "The last time I saw you, it was with a knife through your heart."

She tossed her hair, pouting in that way she always had. "Well, if you hadn't noticed, those that give a hand to the heartless find that they don't really need hearts. Therefore, your particular parting gesture was, in fact, silly."

"What do you want with me? You have a knight. You know how I feel about you. So what is it?" It took all of my self control to not yell the last words and I took my finger off of the gunblade trigger lest I accidentally fire and remove my foot. Nothing about the situation was going positively whatsoever and it put me at a loss of what to do.

"Ah, yes... how you feel about me." Rinoa placed her fingers on my cheek, smiling warmly. "I just think we might have had a bit of a bad time there, but surely you're over that by now?"

I watched her in disbelief. "Over it?"

"You still love me, Squall. After all, you promised that you'd always be there," she said, circling around and forcing me to turn to talk to her. I could sense someone staring at my back and the feeling was giving me constant chills of alarm.

"...." I replied. There was so much I could respond with, but I've never been skilled with words. Even if I knew exactly what to say, my lips would not allow the words to pass.

She wrapped her arms around me. Delicate. Fragile. Protect. "Please, Squall. Stay with me. I need you... not as a knight, but for you."

My mind was screaming at me to kill her, to throw her away, to perform any action at all, but it was already too late for that. The gunblade dropped to the floor, spinning away across the stone, and I returned her embrace involuntarily. A gasp from behind me registered as a curiosity, but her face was turned towards me, the lovely lips poised for a kiss, and I drew closer.

"Squall!" The cry jerked me out of the reverie and I jerked my head around to see Cloud, kneeling now, hands pressed against what I could now tell by the bloody cuts forming were wires thinned to the points of invisibility. Rinoa whimpered as if in pain, and the spell jerked me back to her. She simpered and stepped back, and gestured towards my fallen weapon.

"When he attacks the spell, it hurts me. Help me, Squall. Kill him, quickly, before Sephiroth comes back," the sorceress pleaded. "Protect me."

No!

I bent down, fingers tracing over the black leather handle of the gunblade before my hand tightened around it.

No.Please, Hyne, no.

If you do this, you won't have to search any more. You can just tell Aerith that you were too late to save him (to late to save him from yourself Rinoa what are you doing stop this please) and it will be all over. None of this will have happened. You can return to Garden and be with Rinoa again.

Straightening, I turned and walked towards where Cloud was chained, steps slow and even.

Yes. To serve the sorceress, I will do this. Even if I can't be her knight.

I drew back my hand, poised to strike, when my eyes met with his again. The clear blueness struck a memory inside me, and I could feel the recoiled wire-like snap of the spell breaking.

It was too late. My sword came down. I could only watch in horror as Strife's eyes closed, preparing for a strike I couldn't stop.

A second blade shot down an inch from his face, the sheer thinness and length speaking of the man from before. He wrenched me away from Cloud with evident anger, turning his weapon towards me threateningly.

"What are you doing?" his voice was cold and smooth—a salary man's, not someone to fear. The emotions behind his luminescent green eyes, however, ripped thoughts through me at the deepest levels. I ignored them and matched his stance.

"I don't care what happens to me here. Let Strife go. Aerith will hunt down the world for him if you don't, and I don't really think you want her on your trail."

Sephiroth's eyes narrowed. "Aerith is alive? Well, no matter. What interest do you have in the boy, anyway?" There was something there, a slight stressing of certain words, which struck with what Rinoa had been trying to do all night. What are they getting at?

"I was promised great funds to do this job," I bluffed. "I don't get paid until I return him alive, though, and I'm not going to let all of this work go to waste."

The swordsman smirked, and then laughed outright, sending chills through me once more. "Very well. What do we get in return, then? Surely you don't expect me to be repaid with the 'good feelings' of making the 'right choice.'"

"Well, what do you want?" I asked, placing my hand on my hip in a more comfortable lean, allowing my stance to drop. It had fooled many others that thought no one could possibly fight completely off balance, and it often led people into a more relaxed, negotiable state.

He watched me for a long moment, and then bowed with a rather ironic smile. "I want what my sorceress bids me to."

Rinoa, of course, beamed at the attention, which she had been trying to shift onto herself for the last few minutes. "Perhaps a switch can be made," she replied, lowering and raising her lashes at me suggestively in a way that truly tested my ability to not take a swing at her. "This boy for, oh, that girl you mentioned before. Aerith."

Sephiroth, whose expression had been changing to increasingly annoyed, looked at her in sheer wonder and admiration at that statement. If Rinoa had been Quistis or even Ellone, I would have suspected that she had said it purely to get that reaction, but the Deiling Princess was often an enigma when it came to motives. She merely smiled back his direction, then mine. "Well?"

I tilted my head back in a pretense of indecisive thought, and then looked into her eyes once more. Allowing my expression to grow hypnotized before becoming warm, I nodded. "As you wish. When do you require her by?" Cloud was staring at me with an expression of shock that I'm sure held massive amounts of constrained fury at my words.

"Oh... next week should be enough time to capture her by, don't you think?" Rinoa waved her fingers at Strife, apparently undoing the spell, then picked up the chain shackling his wrists. She came over and pressed it into my fingers, all delicate curves and pouting lips again, which turned into a smile after a moment. "Buy me something nice with the reward money."

"Anything for you," I replied, nearly choking on the words and having to struggle to keep them from being pronounced as sarcastically as I could manage. Before they could change their mind, I activated the spell to teleport us to the Gummy ship. Not until we were deep in the clutches of space did I feel safe enough to look over at the man, who had rode with me in silence until then.

Fishing around in the toolbox for a specific blade, I glanced in his direction. "Can you speak now?"

"I..." Cloud cleared his throat, and then nodded. "Apparently so. Why... why did you agree to trade me for Aerith?" Instead of the furious demand I expected, his voice was soft and hesitant as he let me slice the bangles off of his wrist. Moogle steel was worth every damn crystal I had to search for to buy it.

I shrugged and tossed the chains to the side. "First, I knew she would agree to such a trade in an instant. I also have complete faith in her powers, which are impressive," I replied. Cloud was staring at me, somewhat suspiciously, and I locked gaze with him again. Apparently, the message was received, as he nodded and began rubbing his wrists. I had no intentions whatsoever of delivering Aerith to anyone, but I was fully aware of Sorceress ability to listen in on conversations they wanted to. There was no reason to doubt that Strife also knew this, if he had been with Rinoa for as long as I suspected.

We did not speak again on the ride, although Cloud seemed as if he might start to several times—he never went through with it, however. I landed the ship at Cid's dock and opened the door to disembark. As we stepped out, I realized that everything was done, now. I had found Cloud and delivered him alive.

It was over.

.- .-

.- .-

A/N: ...but this story isn't! After this, POV is getting switched, though.

Sorry about the total lateness of this chapter (please blame my recent acquiring of KH:CoM. If you don't have it, it's filled with amazing slashy goodness. Do go get it.) To make up for it, I made this one really long. Please enjoy and supply me with any feedback you may have—it's what keeps me writing!

Also, preemptive apologies for any spelling/language mistakes.