Setting 35: 1859 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Main Lobby 1F
"Therefore get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heaviness does not deter it."
-Alighieri, Dante
Inferno XXIV
Almost seeing someone is the same as not seeing that person. Whether or not almost knowing someone is the same a not knowing them is something I have not yet figured out.
Match leaned back against the lee of one of the twelve Moon Stone-embossed pillars that circled the voluminous chamber of the atrium. If the wide space between each pillar had not been capped by tri-lobed archways and corresponding triangular gables, no doubt the ceiling would have collapsed already. But the interior designer and the architect seemed to have compared their notes adequately. Though he did not know them personally, based on his estimation of the structural integrity of the area, he was willing to trust them with his life for another thirty seconds as he loitered in the Garden lobby and counted how much Gil was in the money pouch of the Balamb rascal he had just lifted from the infirmary. It was hardly anything. From what he knew of SeeDs, they were paid well. This blonde man, then, was an outsider, just like he was.
Match had made it a rule to steal from the handicapped or invalids, but "capital boy" and he had history. It wasn't so much to actually earn anything but to spite him. Instead, the paltry net gain was massive disappointment, the regret of having actually put effort into depriving the man of the wallet, and a bent Ribbon that smelled like a sweaty pocket.Totally useless. If I just shoved this in a coin-locker, would it be worth the Gil to open the locker back up and retrieve it?
"'Garden of Good-byes'," he mouthed bitterly. "'Only lovers can come here, and having been here, part their own ways'." I should have socked him while he was standing there so smugly with his sword.
That was the curse that the prick had revealed in their presence two or three summers ago in "Shawl's Stone" while he was laying on the grass with Sujie.
Back when she was still alive, he thought with a deluge of unspeakable sadness falling over him. If he hadn't opened his big mouth and said that, maybe she would still be alive.
Match had just ducked out of sight before the blonde woman looked up back by the quad. How had she detected that he was watching her?
Match rapped his forehead with his knuckle and then felt the tinge as the pain from the recent bullet wound raced through his body. Why am I running from her anyway? I mean, I took a freaking bullet for her.
A more interesting if confounding question was why he had been tailing her here and there as she went about her daily duties. Perhaps it was because he had nothing else to do. Perhaps it was because he had been relieved of all of his own duties the minute every member of his gang besides him was gunned down.
In any case, from the interpersonal communicative behavior patterns that he had observed in her day-to-day dealings, two distinctly groups of evidence had emerged. The first category included the junior-ranked officers and lackeys who took extreme care to pay lip service to her and groveled before her as behooved those of their ranks on the power hierarchy. The second group was comprised of a the young female trainees and a few males, including the two – the tattooed boxer and the cowboy – who he had seen at the basketball courts that day the trigger-happy foolio tried to shoot him and only succeeded through stupidity, as well as his own uncharacteristic impulse to be a hero and save the damsel at that instant.
The social data led Match to conclude that the blonde officer was unusually high up on the administrative ladder and had ascended in a fashion so quick as to spark resentment among those of the same gender. That and that there had to be someone in an even higher-ranked position who the subordinates liked better than her. This other person he presumed to be Squall Lionheart, the name that the underclassmen basketball players were throwing around while harassing their blonde superior. They had called her "Rinoa," but judging by how easily they were fooled by his own false assumption of the Lionheart name, they were not very familiar with either personage and could have been mistaken about her identity as well. At any rate, the blonde was not the "Rinoa C." that he was looking for.
Match clenched his fist in frustration. The only clue he had to his gang's massacre and Sujie's murder was the intended recipient of the last package he delivered. Had he not passed it on to Sujie in the last leg of the trip and just delivered it himself…
Either a third party wanted the package for itself or either the patron or the recipient wanted to erase all traces of the transaction after the transfer was completed. They were so deep in the middle of something they didn't understand, but ignorance was a virtue, a testament of confidentiality when it came to the trafficking business. "Quick, Cheap, and Punctual," that was their motto.
Well, maybe not cheap, he reconsidered.
In the end, though, the blonde could have been a "Rinoa," but he had frequently overheard her addressors refer to her as "Trepe," so at best she made a "Rinoa T."
And so he was back to square one. Until he had a better lead, he really had nothing better to do than to amuse himself by watching her walk around all day and get stepped on, walked over, or talked down to. These acts would alternate with interactions in which she would retaliate on an unfortunate, inferior party onto whom she would project all her previous grievances. It was really fun to watch. The longer he continued to observe this, the more certain he was that he would be able to map out the entire social hierarchy of the Garden based strictly on the differences in social interaction.
Today, after leaving the quad, she had made an unexpected move and headed to the infirmary rather than go about her regular business – call up the lower staff team leaders and access their progress, inventory changes, and so forth. Truth be told, he had been a bit surprised when she hadn't disappeared into the room for more than a minute before the alarms in the corridors went off and she darted back out with a panicked look. If the alarms had nothing to do with her, it would have been too coincidental.
After ascertaining that he was not to reason for the alarm and that the security sensors were not the ones who had been triggered, he surmised that perhaps she had pulled the alarm in reaction to some imminent danger inside the infirmary. At that point he decided to have a look for himself. Swinging down from the archway by bounding back and forth between the corridor walls , Match descended lightly and swung himself into the infirmary using the top of the outer door frame. He landed without a sound about two feet from the makeshift stretcher-bed that was being occupied by a blonde bloke with a battle scar on his face.
Quick scan around the room...no one conscious but Mr. Blue-eyes here. No sign of danger, natural, mechanical, artificial, elemental, or – wait, Holy Shiva!
Match's gaze shifted back to the young man who, even as he lay listlessly on the bed, smacked of a timeless grudge. The man had looked up and saw him, too, and his eyes had widened in sudden recognition almost instantly.
I know you! the two sets of pupils seemed to bellow in that locked moment, the intensity of which nearly blocked out the blaring sirens overhead.
The last thing Match had expected to see was a familiar in Nova Trabia, much less...
"Hodmimir's Forest!" he exclaimed as it dawned on him their once and only meeting place.
"Third-wheel Raggedy-Andy?" Seifer mouthed back incredulously. Perhaps it was the anesthetic playing tricks with his head.
"Capital boy," Match returned the greeting with tantamount iciness. Except he didn't have that scar as I remembered him. And no sword.
Seifer motioned to the bed he was lying on.
"This doesn't change anything. You try one of those kissy Galbadian greetings and I will gut you," he warned. Just when I had nearly forgotten about Yumey, why him? Why now?
Having reasoned up to here, Seifer made a puzzled face. Why here?
"Relax, Balamb," Match shot back, "Thirty Tiamats couldn't drag me within three decimeters of that juicy yapper of yours." He is still in that same outfit, too.
Seifer gave him the bird while thinking in disgust, Untrendy! That prick is still in the same worn-out costume.
Suddenly nostalgic, Match began to jeer, "You know, two year's ago, that was the most romantic way I had ever seen a couple break up. You should teach a class." You couldn't have picked a better time and place to jinx my life, dipwad.
Seifer made an effort to get out of the bed and lunge at his addressor, but finding the effort beyond his capacity, he grudgingly fell back onto his pillow. Now that I know you so much better, I am glad you were there to hear it. I hope your relationship falls to Cerberus too.
He was on the verge of dishing out a retaliatory insult when the whole room shook from an impact from outside the Garden. What the Ifrit is going on out - hey, wait!
Match had apparently grown tired of meaningful reminiscing and swiped Seifer's wallet. The movement had been almost too quick for Seifer's eyes to follow, but he was just used to dodging Squall's gun-blade flicks towards his eyes and vitals enough to spot the blindingly quick approach, legerdemain, and retreat. Half an instant later, the thief was gone.
Damn! Seifer sat up in consternation but then doubled over in pain. Yumey and Shojora's Ribbon!
The Gil that he carried around with him could hardly afford anyone a decent meal but the Almasy heirloom was unique. Perhaps storing it in his wallet over the years and thinking it was the safest place to keep it had backfired on him. He made off with my Ribbon!
Seifer banged his hand against the bed railing angrily and swore in the Tonberry dialect to smite his offender. I am going to skin that bastard. Right after I kill my father's assassin. And Cary-Kay, and...
His incendiary oath was interrupted by his fourth visitor of the afternoon. Lifting his head off the pillow, Seifer turned his attention to the curious, little head peeking in on the room, just barely visible from the side of the doorframe.
The set of pink, round eyes belonged to young lady no more than his age with a shocking head of moon-silver hair.
Acknowledging the presence of an audience, Almasy shifted back into confidence mode.
"I'd give you my autograph except I think my wrist is broken," he explained, having to raise his voice over the sirens outside.
The verbal extension brought out a giggle from the addressee and lightened the atmosphere enough for her to step into the infirmary.
This response was encouragement enough for the invalid to take a stab and guess that she was but a relatively new trainee who may have heard of his name and exploits back on the Disciplinary Committee while bearing him no grudge for the detonation of the old Trabia Garden. Sensing an opportune chance to impress a potential fan for life, he grinned amicably.
"You know, being your sempai and all," he swaggered, "in situations like this, I have to advise you to lock the door and take cover here beside me."
She smiled, clearly amused.
"I don't know what is going on," the girl cried innocently. "Everyone is in a panic...some kind of emergency."
"Yup," Almasy agreed, "and it is bound to get very, very scary out there."
She put her hands over her mouth and made a frightened sound.
"We'd better be careful," he added. "I've been in enough of these situations to know that nowhere is safe."
"In here least of all, right?" the girl probed with a knowing look.
Seifer swelled with pride and flashed a smile, mistaking her comment as being meant to flatter him. Blinded by his perception that he was the most dangerous enemy to have, he did not grasp the true meaning of her words even after the overhead lights went out and the darkness engulfed him.
Jeremy's Scribbles:
I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.