"Never Known"
By: SkySong
First Written: March 22 2006
Un-beta'ed
They don't know the things you've done. In a land far away, across the ocean, where you earned your right to call yourself a SeeD long before they did. They don't know what you had to do to earn it at such an age. You were too young, you had to prove yourself capable, an adult. You had to do horrors. You would be a mercenary at an age where most girls were browsing make up and magazines, daydreaming about boyfriends and true love. You had to forsake those things for something you figured would be worth more in the long run. But was it worth the sacrifice of your soul?
Those who adopted you and gave you their name wanted a doll child. You certainly looked the part. But you couldn't act it. You were too loud, too willful. You stood up to them at inopportune times and had opinions that differed from theirs. You could out-fight and out-wit the boys of your class. They abandoned you to the closest Garden they could find, for you were anything but a doll.
You were a soldier. It took you one year of hell but you accomplished what took others five, six, seven, eight years. You did it. Strong enough, fast enough, smart enough. Those things you already were. But the Garden taught you to be ruthless.
For one year, you were the most dangerous weapon that they had. After all, who expected someone so young, so innocent looking to be so deadly? Assassinations you were good at. You still looked like the porcelain doll your adoptive parents wanted. You could seduce with a look and they never saw it coming. After a year, that ceased. They now knew your face and could see you coming. Your presence caused desertion at social events, or even entire streets. You were too recognizable. You had been used too much, too often, by too many.
You were already a SeeD. Already a killer. There had to be another goal you could obtain. Another legacy to tack on to your dingy, blood encrusted reputation. Something else you could do that no one else your age had ever accomplished. You didn't have to look any further than Galbadia Garden's own halls. The teachers there were all older, experienced SeeDs. What better way to bolster your now waning reputation than to accomplish this?
You were laughed at. You were young enough to kill, but not old enough to show others how to do it, despite previous and numerous successes. Just as they had humored you in allowing you to take your SeeD tests at such a young age, again so they did with a teaching license. It took one year to do what it had taken others lifetimes to accomplish.
Your students defied you, at first. To them you were an age-mate, you lacked the authority over them. You used your whip and your sharp words to show them otherwise. When you were done with them, they were the best of the new SeeDs turned out that year. You took failures and made them SeeDs
They couldn't doubt you now, couldn't deny your wishes now. You had rose too quickly, too viciously. You only saw him once, but you heard his name and you knew what he was, and you knew you wanted him. Your youth had caught up to you, and you demanded a transfer so you could follow him. You had been obliged.
He had been yours, briefly. It fell apart too soon. Your inexperience in a real relationship – something most women your age had developed by now – ruined it. You wanted to think that, in a way, the new location did too. Here, they did not see the whip, the too fine sharpness in your eyes, the satisfaction you had in a creature well and efficiently killed. Instead, they noticed the honey blonde of your hair, the clearness of your complexion, the straightness of your spine and the sway in your hips. They picked out the rare humor in the occasional quirk of your lips and the emotion that you tried to bury.
Here, you were not feared. You were worshiped.
Somehow, it made you human again. You wanted to be something worth worshiping to them. Not a blood-goddess to sacrifice their unborn children to, but a guide to them. How could these gentle children become mercenaries? You could not show them her whip, it would break their bones. You could not flay them with your tongue for they would scatter instead of endure. You'd already been warned about such behavior from the headmaster. He ran a very different sort of Garden than the kind you were used to. It wouldn't be tolerated again.
You did the best you could. You fell again. One of your own students this time, sometime after it hadn't worked out with the one you had come here for. In retrospect, it had been that 'rebound' reaction you had heard so much about. He ignored you, most of the time. Even after you were demoted and became his equal, and you lost your yearning for his company as it became obvious he didn't want it, he still wouldn't speak to you. About anything at all. The only person he ever spoke to was her.
None of them ever knew you – they never tried to, and you didn't want them to see the blood under your nails. Only the sharpshooter had an idea of what was really there, and he knew not to bring it up. He avoided you like the plague.
When you all came back from the sorceresses castle, you weren't sure if you were a hero. You had been support, and not much else. You had been surpassed by your 'students,' and they didn't need you anymore.
What is there left for you to conquer now? You were offered your teachers license back, but somehow, you didn't want it anymore. After all that hard work, where had it left you? You felt like an old woman in a young woman's body. But there was the catch – you are still young. You have all the time in the world to figure out where to go from here.