Part 10:
'C'mon...Seifer let's go sneak up those guys on the left...' whispered Quistis as she grabbed him by his hand, ducked and almost flew past the plants as they scrapped past them violently...
Seifer didn't like people to tell him what to do, but somehow never felt the need to groan at Quistis...deep down he kind of liked being with her, it was interesting...he didn't quite know what to expect of her...that's what entertained him so much... so he just kept quiet and watched her attentively...
'Oh...man...lately I just been having the gases...I don't know what's wrong with me...I think it's from that crap food those bullies have been giving us...Man...first they threaten us to leave our homes, then they force us to look for a needle in a hay stack...a stupid plant! Can you believe it?...we came all the way here to look for a useless imaginary plant!' complained one of the guys that Seifer and Quistis observed...
'I don't know... that Tear Blossom plant is very mysterious...everybody talks about it...but no one has actually seen it...why are they looking for it now? Why now? All these years have past since the Queen passed away...I don't understand...You know what...? I'm tired of this...I'm going back home...to our Forest...to Ganahir...they can't just rip us away from our families and force us to look for a stupid plant that has been missing for decades! Sorry, dude...I'm going home...see ya soon...hopefully...that's if you survive...' said the other one determinedly as he punched his own hand furiously and walked away into te darkness...
'Hey! Wait! You can't leave me alone! Hey! C'mon! We were just starting to be buddies!...Oh man!' yelled the other one at his colleague who had disappeared into the dark...hearing his footsteps fade away into the darkened field...
'Great...more work for me!...I hope he doesn't get caught...that would be bad...real bad...' he mumbled to himself...
'...their Queen has passed away...what does that have to do with the Tear Blossom?' asked Quistis rhetorically as both her and Seifer sitting on the fresh tall grass, all they could hear were the crickets...
'...err...Queen Harath...she died 16 years ago...her daughter Cryo is the only heir of the Kingdom...but has refused to take it...' groaned Seifer unexpectedly...
'Wha'? How...? How do you know that?...' asked Quistis inquisitively...
'I have some friends there...' he groaned shyly...
'I see...well then since you know so much about it why haven't you told us?' asked Quistis suspiciously, thinking he was taking the enemy's side once again...
'...hold on there...I didn't come with so you could be suspecting of me...if I knew you where gonna treat me like this...I wouldn't have came with you...I don't have patience to answer useless suspicious questions of such a mediocre instructor...' he mumbled as he got up and started walking away furiously...
Quistis then remembered their last conversation and decided not to be polite this time...he had hurt her feelings...she was up to her neck with his bad temper and his insults; he wasn't going to escape this one...
'...maybe you shouldn't have...you aren't of great use anyway...you just a bad tempered rebellious little boy going through puberty...' she replied trying to get him back for being nasty to her before...
'Oh, really?' he asked provocatively. Their moods were rising up...a fight was coming...
'Seifer...just go...I prefer to work on my own then with you...I'm sick of you...I really am...now go...get out of my sight!...' she groaned as she walked past him and pushed him with both her hands, making him stumble with his open in surprise and amazement...
'Huh! If that's what Instructor Trepe wants, that's what Instructor Trepe gets...!' he smirked...
'Yeah...just get lost, alright?' Quistis grumbled from in the bushes...
'Alright...women...huh!' he groaned to himself...
'That Seifer thinks he can just treat me the way he wants, he thinks he can just do what he wants...this time...I'm doing what I want...I'm not being nice or patient with that jerk any longer...I was really stupid to think he'd ever change...or less likely...be nice for once in his life...jerk!...I'm sure his working for who we're after...useless bully...' she hissed in the darkness as she walked furiously through the tall plants that grew on the field...
'Rinoa...let's follow does two jerks there...I have a feeling they're talkin' about somethin' important...he he...'sneared Zell softly as he ducked down and rubbed his hands together...
'Huh? Alright...' mumbled Rinoa as her mind roamed around somewhere else...
'Rinoa...why are you so quiet?...I mean...is everything Ok? Is something wrong, you look kind of worried...I dunno...!' said Zell softly as he turned around to speak to her...
'Oh...well...I am kind of worried...I probably should have told you this before we came out here...but I thought maybe I'd be mixing things up a bit...but now...I think I'm sure...Squall hasn't said anything yet...maybe it's because he doesn't remember...it was quite traumatising for him...and also because of the GF...he might...' she tried to explain, but Zell wasn't understanding very well...
'Whoa...girl...hold on there! I don't get it...what are you trying to say!' Zell whispered a little puzzled slapping his head with his hand...
'...I'm sorry...Ok, I'll tell you...it's those guys in Dollet...they were dressed just like you are now...so I assumed...maybe they are after me...and if they are...they'll find me...I'm right here...and if they do...Zell, I'm scared...' she mumbled softly as a great look of fear invaded her pretty face...
'...whoa...wait a minute...so...that means...that the Tear Blossom...must be...it's...it's you...!' Zell's tone of voice got a grave worried tone...
'Rinoa...don't worry...Squall knows I'll take care of you...don't you worry...I'm here to protect you! Whoever tries to take you...I'll whoop them out so badly they won't know what hit them!...Huh!...so don't you worry!...besides you're disguised!...nothing will happen as long as I'm around...k?' Zell said reassuringly, a bit shocked and frightened himself...
'Zell, I'm not Tear Blossom...but they are after me because of my powers and now they are after that Tear Blossom which probably also has great power...' whispered Rinoa very puzzled now...
'Yeah...that's true...you ain't no vegetable!...' concluded Zell ironically...
'...Zell...the Tear Blossom must be some kind of plant...a powerful one...if they searching between these bushes...I'm sure it's some kind of plant they're looking for...!' she concentrated deeply...
'But then...why did they try to kidnap you?' Zell was really puzzled...
'They know I'm the Sorceress...and that I have powers...so that must be their goal...to kill me...and take my powers...that's what they want...in order to rest in peace, a sorceress before she dies must hand over her powers...and that is probably what they want to do with me...' she mumbled sadly...
'Whoa...they want you and that plant! That plant probably carries great power...together with yours...that would make anybody invincible...stronger than Ultemecia...' concluded Zell finally...
'That would be awful...because of me...the whole world could be destroyed...the whole world would be under the power of some evil guy...whoever wants that power...it must only be evil...' Rinoa's eyes started glittering behind the cloth around her face, underneath her hood...
'Don't you worry, girl...I-I'm sure none of that crazy stuff will happen...Squall won't let that happen to you...or me...or all of our comrades...you are safe with us...don't worry...huh?' Zell was trying his best to calm her down...not really succeeding at it, though...
'...thanks, Zell...I won't forget that...I know I can always count on you...but now I'm starting to think that maybe I should have been taken away that day I arrived from space with Squall...the people from Esthar were right...it would be for the world's safety if I had been put away...I was selfish and let my heart lead me...I only reacted to the moment...and when you guys came for me...I just was so happy...I couldn't control it...you guys had came for me...like deep down I hopped you would...and now...I feel awful...I could have helped to save the world from being possessed by evil...it was all in my hands...right here...and I let that slip away...' she murmured sadly as she shook her hands explicitly...
'Shut up!...I-I mean...d-don't say that...! Are you mad? How could you say that? If you had been put away that day...we wouldn't be all together right now!...Squall would have never forgiven himself and probably had jumped off the highest cliff he could find...and us...we would probably all be alcoholics!...' Zell raised his voice a bit seriously...
'...Oh...Zell!...thanks...' Rinoa put her arms around Zell tightly and smiled as a little tear came rolling down her face, getting absorbed by the cloth around her face...
'...don't mention it...' he groaned softly...
'Irvine, how come nobody says anything important! First they talk about their parents, then their girlfriends, then their disgusting intestinal problems...Yuk! I'm starting to think this is all a big great joke!...' Selphie grumbled as she turned around to look at Irvine...
'Yeah...me too...say...Sefie...I've been wanting to talk to you for some time now...It's probably not the right time...or the right place...but...' Irvine tried his best to get to the subject...
'...me too...' mumbled Selphie softly as she gazed into his darkened hood, she could only see his big, tall structure standing over her and looking at her gloomily...
'...well...I don't really know where to start but...I want to ask you something important...it's... about you and me...or me and you...whatever you like...I'm kinda nervous right now...but...errr...what I'm trying to...say...is...'
'Irvine! Does two guys at 9 o'clock are coming in on you...hurry! Or you'll be seen!...' yelled Laguna from in the microphone in Irvine's and Selphie's ears...it was so nervous wrecking, Irvine grabbed Selphie by her waist and jumped into a tall bush with her...hearing couple of men walk right past where they had once been...
'I don't get it! If we are wearing their clothes...aren't we supposed to blend in with them! What's with the yelling anyway? You almost gave me a heart attack...I was in the middle of somethin' important, dude!' grumbled Irvine softly to Laguna as he touched the little receptor in his ear...
'That is true...but the thing is that these dudes keep a distance, they're very synchronized...they change position according to each other...just trying to save your butt!' Laguna explained patiently...
'... Right...how was I supposed to know...?' mumbled Irvine to himself...
'...I can see this isn't the right place... or time...we can talk some other time, maybe?' asked Selphie sweetly and understandingly at Irvine...
'Yeah...you right...it's hard though...' said Irvine bleakly...
'Hard? What's hard?' she pretended to not know grinning under her mask, hoping he would just spit everything out on that moment and end the whole 'beating around the bush' conversation...
'...huh?...oh...it's nothin'...some stuff I've been trying to do...I mean say...say...just that...some stupid thing always has to happen!...' Irvine kicked a bush as he raised his voice on the last words...
The next thing you could hear was shriek...
'Aaaargh!' Irvine cried out, making everybody look in their direction...
'Shhhhhh!' Selphie ducked down and pulled him down with her, forcing him to sit down on the grass...
'...what happened?' she whispered worriedly at him...
'My leg!...Oh...my leg!...Ouch!...' Irvine grizzled...
Selphie pulled Irvine's pants pipe out of his right boot and pushed it up...his leg was full of thorns...
'Ouch!' Selphie mumbled as she looked at the frightening sight with her flashlight...
'I know it's ouch!...Argh! Don't touch...it's too painful! It hurts!...' Irvine winced as he pulled his mask off to breathe...
'Breath in deeply...slowly...that's it...you're doing fine...' Selphie tried to calm Irvine down...
'Urgh...' Irvine winced and blinked his eyes quickly, his mouth dropped open, he was struggling for air, but with all the pain and fear he couldn't... he collapsed onto the floor...
'Irvine!' Selphie cried out for him...
'Irvine! Wake up! Irvine!' Selphie crawled up to next to his face...he wasn't breathing...she checked as she put her ear against his semi-open mouth...
'Oh no! Breathe! C'mon! Breathe!...Err...CPR!' she mumbled in panic to her self...
Selphie pulled her mask off and started pressing Irvine's chest and counting up to three...she was in so much panic she would count the times she pressed his chest in all wrong, making her even more nervous than she already was...
'one...two...three...' she pushed his chest as hard as she could with both her hands and then nervously with her fingers pulled his mouth open by his lips and leaned her mouth onto his and blew as much air into his lungs as she could, enough to make her shake of tiredness...
She repeated the process a second time and Irvine had finally came back in a choke...opening his eyes widely and finding him self face to face with her...
'Irvine!' You're back! Oh!...Thank you!...oh my gosh...' she squeaked as she threw herself at him in an embrace (Irvine still choking)...
'My leg...It hurts!...It's too painful!...' he moaned...
'Don't worry! I'll take care of it! Just lay down and breathe in slowly...ok?' she advised sweetly as she gave him a peck on the cheek...
Selphie rubbed her hands together and with without saying anything she pulled out one of the thorns...making Irvine scream as loud as ever...
'Shut up! You are drawing attention!' Selphie grumbled...
'Stop it! NO!...leave my leg alone!...Selphie...stop! Argh!' he yelled and grizzled at the same time...
'Keep it down, Irvine...I'm trying to work here!' she groaned...
Irvine was moaning as he laid on his back and covered his face with his arm as he hiccupped now and then ...
Selphie went on taking thorns out of his leg ...making him moan and jerk all the time...
'Alright Irvine...it's done...it's over...are you feeling better...? she asked very concerned, crawling back next to his face...
'...Yeah...but it burns...thanks...' he mumbled still hiding his face with his arm...
'It will go away...you'll be fine...I think I still have some cure magic left...'
'Cure!' Selphie cast cure on Irvine's leg...
'Feeling better!' she asked in concern...
'Yeah...' he mumbled still hiding his face...
'Hey...look at me...why are you hiding!' she asked quite surprised with his behaviour.
'I can't...' he mumbled...
'Oh cut that out!...' Selphie pulled his arm away...
'Oh...I'm sorry...' she saw Irvine's eyes were wet...he had been crying...and was trying to hide it...
He pulled his arm away brutally and wiped his eyes, still looking away from her...
'Hey, Irvy...I'm sorry...I didn't want to hurt you...but if I had left the thorns in your leg...your leg would have been all bloated up by now...then you couldn't walk...and maybe you'd have to chop it off!...It's over...does it still hurt?' she asked caringly...
'...No...I'm sorry...I felt a bit stupid...that's all...it's not your fault...you were great...you saved my leg...' Irvine turned around and smiled...
'Stupid!...For what!' asked Selphie, this time feeling really boggled...
'...for having my eyes drop tears...and for talking too loud...'
'...you mean crying...and screaming like a baby?' chuckled Selphie...
'...yeah...yeah...I don't usually apply does words to myself...so what?' Irvine said defensively...
'Oh...Irvy...you have absolutely no reason to feel stupid...at least around me you don't!...' she grinned sweetly...
'Thanks, Sefie...I am kinda silly, aren't I?' he chuckled...
'Yeah...but don't ever change... that's the way I like you...' mumbled Selphie absentmindedly as she gazed into his eyes with a huge smile on her cute face...
After a few moments of silence, Irvine suddenly decided something...
'Selphie...I've decided...we can't go on like this...this is like torture...'he started...
'You bet...!' Selphie agreed absentmindedly...
'I don't have any doubts, I never did before anyway...I don't even know why I suggested that...anyway...I don't know if you have, but right now I don't really care...because I'm so tired of hiding this...it doesn't make any sense in my head...' he ignored what Selphie had said...
'Me neither...' she agreed still gazing at him...
'Selphie...' he groaned as he lift up and sat next to her...
'Selphie, I need to ask you something...' he breathe in deeply before he started...
'Yes...' she answered before he had asked her the question...
'Huh! Yes? Yes what!' Irvine felt confused and surprised at the same time...
'Yes, Irvine...Whatever you want to ask me...the answer is yes!' she smiled happily...
'Yes to what!' he started rising his hopes...
'Well...if I not mistaken...yes... to this...' Selphie put her arms around Irvine's neck gently, rubbed her cold nose against his lovingly, stared into his darkened eyes peacefully, with the most passionate smile on her face, kissed his cheek softly and then finally his lips...their soft, warm lips met once again...in a passionate kiss...Irvine felt a weird electric wave passing through his whole body the moment Selphie's lips had touched his...it was surreal...so weird, but at the same time so good...it was like drinking a hot coco on a winter evening...a enormous thrill to be there in her arms...
He was so relieved Selphie felt the same way about him...he just wanted to stay like that all night long...he had been longing to kiss her for so long...it was actually painful to think about it...and now there she was...her arms around him kissing him like he had never been kissed before...with so much love and soul...
He put his whole soul into that kiss, he wanted to prove to her that he really loved her, that what he felt for her was going to be the strongest anyone could ever feel...he wanted her to feel what he had wanted to tell her for so long, he just didn't have the words for it...in the end of such an electric kiss, they embraced one another tightly and both laughed their heads off...that experience had been the most thrilling they had ever been through...it just made them want to laugh out of disbelief...
They looked at one other, but couldn't help bursting into laughter whenever they would try to talk...they simply had no words...
Quistis sneaked up on another couple of soldiers, ducking down and making her way closer to them.
'Tonight, if Samuiiha's men do their usual patrol around Win Hill, maybe we'll have some time to sneak out of here...I'm tired of this...my family needs me...I don't even want to imagine what they're doing to them...I can't just stay here, knowing that my family's so far away from me and that they're being bullied around by those trolls...' said one of the guys with a very concerned tone in his voice.
'Yeah, me too...my sister needs me too...she's only twelve...she can't be left on her own...I promised my father before he passed away, I'd take care of her, no matter what...I can't be here any longer...' said the other one...
'They are being threatened to work here...these people are innocent after all...it's that Samuiiha we should be after...I have to go tell the others...we have to go to their forest...'
Quistis crawled away slowly and silently a few feet away from the soldiers, carrying the flashlight in her mouth she made her way through the bushes, but stopped when suddenly she heard heavy footsteps in the distance coming towards her...
'Hey!...what's with the pushing!...' yelled a guy in the distance...
'Shut up...don't mess with these...they can't break your leg or something, lets get out of here before he turns around...' said another voice...
It didn't sound like human footsteps; it was heavier, sloppier and noisier...
Quistis froze as she felt the creature's presence behind her. It had stopped suddenly...She turned her head around slowly to look back, still on her knees with the flashlight in her mouth and the little bug flying right in front of her nose, made it's way back into the flashlight's tube in a flash...leaving Quistis in total darkness with a 10 foot tall beast that stood staring at her...
As soon as she looked at the beast and came to the conclusion that it was lurking over her, she turned her head back around slowly and stood as still as she possibly could, she didn't know what she was doing or what she was supposed to do...she just knew that she had to get out of there...
Quistis's muscles got tense, she dug her feet into the ground and in a jump, she started running like she had never ran before in her whole life...She couldn't see anything in front of her, it was all dark, she could only see the little spots of blue light in the distance, and felt the twigs and the grass scrapping pats her violently as she ran...she could feel her face get grazed every second, her face was bleeding severely, but she didn't care...she could hear the heavy thumps of the beast's feet or claws coming right after her...she was petrified, her legs were moving as fast as they could, this run seemed endless, she was getting exhausted...her legs were getting tired...she looked back to see if the beast was closing in on her...and he was...she was too tired ...she was hurt and had no more strength in her legs, failing her as she tried to jump over a rock that appeared in her way...
She fell frontward, on the stony ground hurting her arms and knees in the process, trying to get up with the little energy she had left, but not succeeding...
She looked back, forgetting about the pain she was in and found her self in deep trouble...
She could hear the creature breathing furiously behind her, making the hairs on the back of her neck rise... Now the beast was approaching her, his feet thumping as he came, she could feel the earth bump as it made its way towards her...
Quistis froze out of fear...she looked at the thing approaching her and hopelessly just stared at it, knowing there was nothing she could do...her whole body was tense and sore...nobody was going to find her...she just knew it...
The creature was lurking over her...Quistis's eyes were blinking nervously...her mouth dropped open in fear as she took her a last glimpse at the beast, her eyes went blur, she felt her head blank out and lost all the strength she had...her head dropped down onto the ground. She fainted...The beast was reaching out for her, grabbed her by her collar and lift her up into the air carelessly , but as it prepared to walk away...
'Hey troll! C'mon...come and get me!...c'mon...come and see what I have for you!' smirked Seifer as he jumped out of a bush, making the creature turn around in surprise...
'Yeah...that's right...come and get me...! C'mon...I feel like squirting blood today...yeah...that's it come and get me...' Seifer shouted out provocatively, trying to attract the beast's attention before he did anything to Quistis who hung unconsciously by her collar in the beast's huge claw- like hand ...
Seifer drew his Gunblade , with a wicked grin on his face and jumped onto the stone Quistis had tripped on and in one go sliced the creatures head off, making the hooded head shriek and roll away into the bushes, shaking the leaves violently as it passed...The creature's groggy body stood a few seconds up straight, but soon its knees had given in to its weight and bent over , Seifer grabbed Quistis quickly out of its gigantic hand before it fell and ran out of its shade where a second later the creature's large body collapsed in a loud clump...
To be continued...