"Such a little man could not have made so big a depression."
-Norman Thomas PuPu's SagaÓ - The FF VIII Fanficby Jeremy ChapterÔ (Jeremy_Chapter@yahoo.com)
"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move."
-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord
Ulysses 18
Prologue: 1716 DAY 27, Tomb of the Unknown King Main Chamber
"O cruel one, bestow on me
Some taken of your sovereign sway,
Which I may follow earnestly,
And never from its precept stray.
If you would have me fade away
In silence, then account me dead,
But if you'd hear my ancient lady,
Then Love himself my cause shall
plead.
My soul to contraries inured
Is made of wax and adamant,
And well prepared for Cupid's law.
Whether soft or hard my heart is yours,
To grave it leave to you I'll grant,
And to your will I'll bow with awe.
-Cervantes
Don Quixote
of La Mancha
Squall is hurting very, very badly. Just as he is about to remember how he ended up in so precarious a situation, he looks up and sees Rinoa about to kill him.
Twenty-seven days earlier:
ENTRANCE
DIVISION 1: ON THE WAKE
"A savage race, that hoard, and sleep,
and feed…know not me.
I cannot rest from travel."
- Lord Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 5
PuPu the alien is murdered while wandering towards Balamb Garden to find Squall.
Setting 02: 1427 DAY 1, Winhill Cemetery"This is my son…When I am gone. He works his work, I mine."
-Lord Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 33
At Raine's grave marker, Laguna tells Raine how he feels about her and lets her know that their son is a success. He has totally misjudged Squall as being a person who doesn't need the opinions of others. Ellone, Kiros, and Ward arrive.
Setting 03: 1458 DAY 1, Winhill Outskirts"Down stage he strode some paces,
grave, tall in affliction, his long arms
outheld.
Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed
softly.
Softly he sang to a dusty seascape there:
A Last Farewell.
A headland, a ship, a sail upon the
billows.
Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil
awave
upon the wind upon the headland, wind
around her."
-James Joyce
Ulysses II
Laguna has decided to stay in Winhill while Ellone decides to go back to Esthar accompanied by Ward and Kiros. By chance they meet on their way the current owner of Raine's house is infected by some fatal respiratory disease and collapses in a seizure. Only the Esthar medical technology can surgically cure her ailment, so Ellone gives up her seat on the convey. Accordingly Kiros and Ward leave without her. Ellone waits by herself for the next ship.
Setting 04: 1533 DAY 1, Great Salt Lake Perimeter"It is
astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed,
when that little wisdom is its own."
-W. R. Inge
Strange beings discuss where to land their ships and at least settle with an energy-rich location, Esthar. It is a good place to harbor their ship because the city itself is invisible. Their objective is to find their lost comrade who never returned from a planetary sampling assignment. So far they have two human test subjects in their custody. They talk about taking another native to ransom back their comrade but decide instead to send another one of their party to go undercover and confirm their worst suspicions, that their comrade is dead.
Setting 05: 2045 DAY 1, Balamb Garden Ballroom"How dull it is to pause, to make an
end.
To
rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"
- Lord Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 22
At the party, Cid assigns the position of Headmaster of the new Trabia Garden to Squall. Quistis is designated Squall's aide and Selphie is to head the reconstruction crew. Squall receives a brief communication with Laguna. Irvine and Zell are dispatched to investigate atmospheric phenomena along the four fields spread over the world. Mina, Zell's girlfriend, will be leaving for Galbadia the next morning. Rinoa will stay at Balamb Garden for a week or two until things are settled in Trabia before going to see Squall.
11 days later:
Setting 06: 1730 DAY 12, Trabia Heath Peninsula Island"'But now reach out your hand; open my
eyes.'
And yet I did not open them for him;
And it was courtesy to show him
rudeness."
-Dante Alighieri
Inferno XXXIII
Zell and Irvine have been working their way around to each of the mission sites and are about to close in on the one closest to Trabia. They are pretty pissed at being sent on what had seemed like a good mission but didn't turn out to be one. They were delayed during the negotiations with the Shumi and take turns blaming each other for it. They don't see anything at the sites but learn from the autochthonous people that there is a cow missing from the Winhill Bluffs. They can't get back to Trabia because they lost the keys to the Ragnarok.
Two days later:
Setting 07: 1417 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Basketball Courts"I am become a name;
for always roaming with a hungry heart
much have I seen and known,- cities of
men
and drunk delight of battle with my
peers."
- Lord
Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 11
Worried about the growing complaints about rampant theft in
the new Garden, Quistis wanders onto the Garden basketball courts in a vain
attempt to find Squall. Some students are playing there on their off time
from the Garden close in her, mistaking her for Rinoa. A mysterious
stranger saves her from the lusty pack, but is wounded in the process. He turns out to be the criminal responsible
for all the recent thefts.
Quistis is surprised to find Irvine at the Trabia basketball
courts with Zell. They managed to make
it back after checking their fourth and last site. Quistis remarks that Guardian
Force Alexander took leave from her for vacation.
"All times I have
enjoy'd
greatly, have suffer'd greatly; both with those
that loved me, and alone."
- Lord Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 7
Squall is sitting on the cliff with his legs hanging over it, pondering to himself. He is in low spirits because he is still steamed at Rinoa after two weeks and will convince himself that she is no good for him. Quistis approaches him.
Setting 09: 1856 DAY 15, Balamb Garden Subsidiary Corridor 2F"It
may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
it may be we shall touch the Happy Isles."
- Lord Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 62
At Balamb Garden, Rinoa is abused by the girls who hate her because she took Squall off the market. She has an eating disorder. She decides Squall has had enough time to receive her and packs her bags to leave. She is too busy to notice her kidnapper lurking behind her.
Setting 10: 1910 DAY 15, Directly over Esthar City"Ah, Genoese, a
people strange to every
constraint of custom, full of all
corruption,
why have you net been driven from the
world?"
-Dante Alighieri
Inferno XXXIII
The strange beings are now talking and have almost confirmed their suspicions that mankind is inherently bad and that the SeeD commander was perfectly capable and in some way ergo responsible for the death of one of their comrades. The more assertive alien tells that he already sent their undercover agent to carry out a more active role, and having completed the mission, was now moving to the second phase of their reprisal. The less aggressive alien is displeased for having been left out of the loop, remind the first that in the future they should collaborate as the rules stated, and that they were not out for revenge just yet. The mission should still be a study to ascertain the truth behind their companion's death. The less aggressive alien asks how their two human test subjects are doing and the response is the tests are going well.
Setting 11: 2018 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs"It
little profits… an idle king,
by this still hearth, among these barren
crags."
- Lord
Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses 1
Quistis finds Squall at sunset by himself sitting on the edge of Trabia's cliff looking out onto the ocean shore below him. He is wearing some weird orange and back t-shirt. Quistis didn't know when Squall started wearing shorts or smoking as he lights a small green piece of a Malboro tentacle. She tries to get him to talk about their feelings for each other before she is taken completely by Squall. When she realizes what she was about to do, she leaves back towards the Garden in a hurry. Squall suddenly hears a cry for help down below. He reluctantly leaps off the cliff and lands in the water to save a girl with ocean blue hair from some sea monster.
Setting 12: 2039 DAY 15, Just beyond Winhill Cemetery"Folly,
thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss."
-von Schiller, Johann Christian Friedrich
Laguna jumps into a deep crevice to save the bar owner's cat who had fallen in. Back up top, Kiros and Ward wait for him. They have come back after two weeks of not hearing from Laguna or Ellone. Laguna is taking an exceptionally long time climb back up so they head into town, but en route meet a traveling student and childhood friend of Selphie from Trabia. Stiltzkin, the traveling moogle in FF9 is accompanying him. The student reveals that he arrived from Galbadia and had documented a fascinating anti-Malboro campaign. He'd also met a woman named Mina there. Finally Kiros and Ward go back and Laguna is done. After pulling himself up and letting the cat go, Laguna loses his footing before the neighbors can grab him and drops back into the gorge and knocks himself out.
Setting 13: 2041 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Officers' Lounge 1F"Captaining this venture was a woman."
-Vergil
Aeneid I
In the Trabia Garden lounge, Selphie thinks about her hard day managing the construction site and teaching the math class. She gets stuck in a sofa and her student has to help her out. She starts reading the reports when Irvine and Zell barge in. She is surprised to see them and inevitable gets into a fight with Irvine. A nervous Quistis, having rushed back into the Garden, steps in. Irvine ends up leaving with Quistis and Selphie, and Zell storms towards the Garden exit by himself.
Setting 14: 2059 DAY 15, Archaeological Excavation Site on the Outskirts of Nova Trabia"A man is not finished when he's defeated; he's
finished when he quits."
-Richard
Nixon
Having made parole, Seifer and his posse are busy digging a tunnel towards Trabia Garden under the pretense of helping a church group excavate an archaeological dig site. The church group has been searching for buried religious relics for the past two weeks. Seifer remembers what the sorceress Ultimecia/Edea had done to seduce him; she gave him a trial that he could not hope to pass.
Setting 15: 2110 DAY 15, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the
eye.
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Rinoa snaps awake and finds herself in General Caraway's mansion. Without her asking, her father promises to arrange her marriage to Squall. Angelo has been placed in a kennel outside the house because he can't keep quiet. Rinoa is visited by two of her friends who tell her that she was brought into the house by a midget whom they have mistaken to be her new boyfriend. Rinoa has no clue what they are talking about, and she is worried because her father isn't acting like himself.
Setting 16: 2115 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests"It is better to be violent,
if there is violence in our hearts,
than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."
-Gandhi
Zell, trudging through the dark forest, is pissed because of
the trouble he had at the Chinese diner when he was trying to get his mind off
of Mina and explain what looked like a conspiracy against him. He fails
to find any other way of explaining the photo of Mina and the man who looked
sort of like Squall. A trainee girl named Rishi had tried to comfort him
because he looked so miserable. In the woods, he runs into a
silver-haired girl and saves her from a voracious Blue Dragon. He barely
manages to beat it, and the girl runs away without thanking him.
When he is by himself again,
he sits down against a tree trunk and pulls out a crumpled photo of a girl and
a dark-haired guy with their hands wrapped around each other, smiling at the
camera. He remembers a riddle she asked him long ago but he cannot answer
it. Tired, frustrated and hurt, he falls asleep.
Setting 17: 0019 DAY 16, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)
"Love me
faithfully!
See how I am faithful:
With all my heart
And all my soul
I am with you
Though I am far away."
Carmina Burana
"Omnia
Sol Temperat"
Rinoa wakes up with a start, having had a nightmare involving Squall's drowning. She is locked inside the Master Bedroom. She remembers that after her father left her room, his lawyer had dropped by and unlocked the door to come talk to her. Apparently her father is in danger of losing his house because of a potential law suit for everything that Julia earned from her hit song since the plaintiff, Faye Wong's manager, claims that Julia wasn't the one who sang the song. Caraway complains that most of Julia's profits were managed by a trust fund committee for an unnamed trustee before she died. The 10 members of the board expired almost immediately after the trust fund was in effect, so it was impossible now to find out who inherited the money. Additionally, a major drain on the family income is his investment in the global astronomy program into which Caraway stopped putting money. The lawyer leaves her, locking the door behind him.
The next morning:
Setting 18: 0716 DAY 16, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests"All human things are subject to decay,
And,
when Fate summons, monarchs must obey."
-John Dryden
Zell wakes up in the forest with a colossal backache.
On the way back to Garden, he spies a person lying on the beach. He
is vexed even more when he realizes that it is actually two people lying
together, Squall and another girl.
Zell returns to Trabia Garden
by himself, very disgruntled. At the
gate, the girl he saved in the forest from the previous night meets up with him
and introduces herself as Pearl. She
had been searching for her friend whom she lost her the day before. She
would love to see the inside of Garden.
Zell has to argue with the gatekeeper before he can clear
Pearl for entry. They run into Rishi who immediately develops an
antagonism towards Pearl. Irvine joins them. Quistis finds them
both and drags them into the boardroom to listen to an urgent message from the
Shumi.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.
Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams.
World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams.
Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems."
-Arthur O'Shaunessey
Squall wakes up and finds a girl warmly resting against him and isn't sure what to do. She has pale skin, memorizing blueberry lips, and aquamarine eyes. She looks more like a sea goddess than a human.
The girl, Merali, looks around frantically for something that she has lost, but she does not say what it is. She eventually gives up. He then gives her a lift back into town. When he returns to Nova Trabia Garden, he finds that the Shumi have called and complained about Irvine and Zell possibly stealing an undisclosed but valuable object. Because there was no proof that it could not have been stolen before Irvine and Zell arrived, Squall dismisses the case.
Five days later:
Setting 20: 2315 DAY 21, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
-Russell, Bertrand
The aliens talk about PuPu being a prince and how that escalates matters. The mother-ship arrived two days before and took their space over Esthar. They need to relocate. They mention the difficulty of keeping Caraway under their control. One alien tries to convince the other that Squall is the criminal. They plan to move to the Tomb of Unknown Kings.
Setting 21: 2320 DAY 21, Downtown Nova Trabia Commercial District"Without the discipline of service and obedience,
fear remains formal and does not spread
over the whole known reality of existence.
Without the formative activity shaping
the thing,
fear remains inward and mute, and
consciousness does not become objective for itself."
-G. W. F. Hegel
The mysterious thief who saved Quistis is perched on the rooftop of a
commercial building waiting for a shop across the street to close so he can rob
it. He sees a man in black and a gun-blade walk out.
After
walking out the store, Squall smokes and thinks about his three recent outings
with Merali. He is looking for a present to buy her but all the shops are
now closed.
Two days later:
Setting 22: 1733 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1
"Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue."
-Don Marquis
The Almost Perfect State
Aliens go seize Caraway to be re-brainwashed. It is risky because it is still bright outside and there have been many power shortages in the area because of their activity.
Setting 23: 1812 DAY 23, Esthar Palace Command Center 2F
"I consider chaos a gift."
-Septima Clark
In
Esthar, continued electronic disturbances have worsened considerably in the
past two days, keeping their communication and transportation from functioning
properly. Kiros and Ward have their
hands full so they don't have time to investigate why Ellone hasn't returned from
Winhill, nor find a way to contact Laguna for help. Without any working safeguards, the whole city, including the
palace, has been infiltrated by creatures.
Dr. Odine is bumbling
out, clearing out his basement of old files classified as "low priority,
limited use" because trifling matters about humans without splicing some
monster genes was too elementary and he needed more space to build a large
battery for a grand operation. He thus
has no time to analyze what is causing these disturbances. He bumps into Kiros and spills the stack of
documents he was carrying. Neither pays
any attention to the folder titled "Heartilly abortion" with
"11th success" scribbled haphazardly on the side as they toss it into
the disintegrator. Another file titled
"Crystallization of Great Salt Lake" was also tossed.
Setting 24: 1810 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)
"Everyone has a talent; what is rare is the courage
to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."
-Erica Jong
Rinoa
wakes up in the dark and wonders who turned the lights off for her. It turns out that there has been a power
failure. She discovers that one of the floorboards
in the room is a bit shaky. Removing
it, she finds a compartment containing her mother's old diary. Rinoa finds the emergency gas lamp and
lights it to peruse a few random pages.
She finds some notes for her mother's hit song "Eyes on Me," and
then some barely legible scribbling that says, "Now a girl."
General Caraway can't be found
anywhere in the mansion, and she can't hear Angelo's barking either.
She decides to check out the
basement where she is sure her father is checking the circuit breakers.
Setting 25: 1813 DAY 23, Directly under Nova Trabia Garden
"Now go; a single will fills both of us:
You are my guide, my governor, my master."
-Dante Alighieri
Inferno II
Seifer can't believe his scheme might actually succeed, and none of it would have happened had he not heard that the church group had already been operating in Trabia and that an old friend of his was funding the dig. It seemed to him that no one else in the church group knew the sponsor.
Setting 26: 1822 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1
"They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision
because I see them through the mesh of a sieve."
-Kahlil Gibran
Rinoa stumbles into a smoke-filled basement coughing. She suddenly realizes that her father is strapped to a table and there are many mechanical devices lying about. She pales when she sees two other entities present...short, green aliens. They spot her and immediately nail her with a gas gun and she remembers nothing except falling down the flight of stairs in a choking frenzy.
DIVISION 1 Terminus