Disclaimer: Do not own anything except a psyche much confused by money and love. I most assuredly do not own FF8, or the rights to any of Emily Dickinson's poetry.
Fool's Gold
By giggleplex
Chapter 5: That Image Satisfies
A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld,—
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled
But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies,—
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.
- Emily Dickinson
Seifer was alone, for once. It was a simple matter of the time and care that he spent on his hair after training—all of his other obligatory training partners had long since left him. Of course, they had their hair cut short and they piled on deodorant from an aerosol can, as if it qualified as an instant shower.
He held a great deal of contempt for his peers in this respect. Hygiene was something that he certainly would never sacrifice.
Little droplets still dropped haphazardly around the end of his damp blonde hair. He tried to shake them out, and mess up his hair a little for vain effect. Crouching over to his equipment bag, he zipped in his SeeD issue sword and shampoo bottle. The shampoo bottle, of course, under his sweaty clothes—just in case someone looked in his bag.
He didn't bother slinging the leather bag over his shoulder, but held the straps squarely in his hand. The SeeD trainee dog-tags jingled over his wrist and brown leather gloves.
He also didn't bother putting on a proper shirt. His white wife-beater may have been against school policy, but he was never one to pay much attention to policies. Large combat boots thickened up the legs of his baggy canvas pants. With one last look in the mirror, he swept out of the room with a lax pace.
The training room's muggy atmosphere gave way to the clear air of the main hall of Garden. Seifer walked past one of the large stone fountains while making knowing eyes to a couple of older girls. He did not see them rolling their eyes after he passed.
Only one faculty member, in long red and white robes, took note of his uncouth dress. Seifer ignored him.
Just as he was passing the door to the parking lot, he heard a frantic rhythm of boots similar to his. At first, he ignored the sound as well. However, the pace got louder and closer and he couldn't help but quirk a blonde eyebrow. Rarely were there ever residents in a hurry to be anywhere on a Sunday afternoon.
A female trainee skidded around a glass corner, her skirt flowing dramatically around her thighs. He immediately judged her as a prude—the skirt hung below her knees and her hair was cut modestly below her shoulders.
He could have sworn that he had never seen her before. She, obviously, recognized him.
Catching her breath, almond-burgundy eyes narrowed into aggressive slits. She closed her mouth and swallowed. Her lips contorted into a ghastly scowl that made her look like some avenging spirit, along with that pasty complexion.
Seifer let out a short bark of a laugh. What an ugly sight!
Seemingly without warning, the girl charged up to him with speed he did not expect, and backhanded him with enough force to send him sprawling.
He sprung up to his feet immediately. There was no trace of humor on his face.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"Seifer Almasy." The girl said with venom.
Suddenly realizing that he could never hit a girl, he reeled back into a contemptuous pose.
"You'd better watch yourself. You can't flirt with guys like that, especially with YOUR face."
Her nostrils flared.
"I don't give a damn about what you think of me. You fucking bastard, how could you?! What the hell did she do to you?!"
"I told you to watch it." He balled his hands into fists. "I'm not gonna take any of that from you, or anyone."
"You damn well should!" she shrieked, gesturing madly into his face.
A few passerby had stopped to further witness the debacle. The girl shoved him back, but it was a weak shove by a weak person. Seifer was not caught off guard again.
"How can you think that if you treat people like shit, you'll somehow rise beyond the dung-heap?!"
"Can you believe this?" he asked aside to a startled male trainee. "Who the hell is this bitch?"
"I'm Xu Chang, you asshole!" She screamed. "And you should believe this because you've ruined the reputation of the wrong person, this time!"
He turned to face her, but it was apparent in his expression that he was not taking her seriously.
"Whoever had their reputation ruined was probably some crazy bitch like you." He countered "I never did anything to ruin your reputation; you're doing that well enough on your own."
She choked on her own words, as her fury overcame her ability to speak.
With one last confrontational lunge into his face, she shrieked:
"I hope you rot in hell Seifer Almasy for everything that you've done to the only saint left in this godforsaken world! I hope you suffer as much as she's suffering right now! I hope you're left in the dust someplace and Quistis Trepe has the opportunity to step over and ruin you!"
She brushed past him roughly and marched around the opposite corner. Several people watched her go, as one.
The group assembled suddenly started whispering around him, and scattered calmly, business as usual.
Seifer remained a few seconds later.
He was so close to punching her in the face.
He stalked off furiously in the direction of the dormitories. A few more whispers touched him on the way back, but he continued to stare resolutely forward. It would all blow over soon. That's the way things worked in Garden. Reputation ruined? Yeah, maybe for like a week. Right?
Right?
Near the lobby of the trainee wing, as silence hung around the place so that it was almost too thick to breathe, he heard a sudden sniff around the vending machine corner. Something made him stop, and consider it.
The sniff came again.
Quietly, he took a few steps to the right in order to get a good look into the vending room. Luckily, no one saw his consideration.
In the corner, huddled in a wrinkled heap of second-hand trainee uniform, a blonde girl sat with her knees to a curtain of uneven hair. She did not look up.
With a jolt, he realized it was the same girl from before. He resolutely did not think anymore on the subject of why he thought that he knew her.
In her hands, she clutched a pair of awkward, plastic-framed glasses that had been obviously ruined. Cracks ran like spider legs down both lenses.
They had obviously been stepped on. He could make out a dusty print across the frames.
Seifer fled. He resolutely told himself to forget anything had ever happened.
He did not see her face rise. That stony face with no tears. Her lips pursed, and her icy eyes flared despite the utter stillness of her body. She fingered the tangled ends of her hair, considering.
She bit her lip, and pulled out a pocket knife and a razor from her pocket.
Seifer was successful in forcing himself to forget the image of the peer-forsaken girl. He tried to sleep, but found that he could not even manage a short nap. Fifteen minutes after laying down, he sat up again.
For his unstoppable trembling, he did a few basic exercises beside his bed. After the fiftieth push-up on his fifth set, he tore himself upright again and marveled for a moment at the feeling of dizziness.
Moments stretched on for what seemed like hours. With a slightly harried look at the light coming through the shadowy lines of his blinds, he stood up and breathed in deeply.
He needed to get out of there.
He set off out of his dormitory, mirroring the same frenzied pace as before. Gray doors, identical in almost all ways, flew by him in a silent procession.
Just before he reached the door of the dormitory wing, he caught a snippet of mutterings.
He turned, and witnessed a growing group of hushed and hushing trainees spilling out of the vending room. Automatically, he paced over to them.
He then remembered what had happened before. His eyes widened at a sudden feeling of impending distress. Seifer wanted nothing more than to march right back out of that scene, and out of the presence of . . .
A trainee moved sideways in front of him, and he was given a clear view of the cause of commotion.
It was a scene he would remember forever.
She was virtually unrecognizable. Bent over the all-purpose steel sink, unnoticing or uncaring of the onlookers, she did not look up. He expected her to at least look up when he caught view of her.
The Xu girl from before was there as well. She had one hand on her shoulder, and a stony countenance. Occasionally she would say something, but no one heeded her words—least of all the girl being addressed.
In one pale hand, the center of attention had a fistful of her tangled blonde hair. In the other, she held an immaculate Swiss-army knife.
She was sawing off her long, feminine hair with furious strokes. The ends were messy, and fluffed up untidily from the tangle of split ends. Her head looked like a post-harvest wheat field, target of an impending storm.
With one final swipe of the knife, she let the hair drop. It made an untidy mess on the gray tiles, and did not shine.
Her head was raised only for a moment, reddened with blood, before she grabbed a cheap razor with a surprisingly steady grip. Her other hand turned on a calm stream of water from the faucet. Balancing the razor, but not daring to let it go, she pumped some soap onto her hand and began to wipe it in her uneven hair. Adding some warm water, the goo turned into a smooth lather over tangled hair.
She raised the razor. It was pink, and the sort that women used to shave their legs.
Without further ado, she swept the razor from the back of her neck to her widow's peak.
Then again.
Then slightly to the right.
They all watched, stock still. Silent.
Between strokes, she thrust the pink plastic razor under the jet of water, and out with a visible splash of sparkling water. Her eyes were closed as she ran the blade over her scalp.
The soapy reminants of hair fell to the ground in a messy slop. Somehow, none of it managed to get on her uniform.
With every reaping movement down the surface of her head, another section of pale skin became visible. Soon, the tracks came together like puzzle pieces. Stripes became solid.
With one final stroke, she dropped the razor in the pile of discarded femininity.
She tore out a few paper towels, dampened them, and finally turned off the sink. The dispelling of sound signaled a sudden rush in whispers from all around the room.
She wiped off her head with the towel, but dropped this one into a nearby trash-can.
Her altered profile managed to convey how thin she really was. The skin of her face did not conflict with that of her scalp, both were pale beyond belief. A grand, elegant curve curled up from her neck, over her head and to her forehead.
The silhouette was awkward at best. But not displaced, for the absence of hair conveyed a different sense of beauty than Seifer had ever seen before. She was practically androgynous. Sexless. Stunning.
She was practically God.
He caught sight of her pitch-black eyelashes, curling and extending the impressive curve of her profile.
They opened. Seifer was physically stunned with the heat of her irises, the icyness of her gaze.
She turned to face Xu, who appeared just as stunned as the rest of them. Her gaze was no longer defeated, or submissive. She raised her nose, and her dainty chin became the focus of an immaculate image. Her eyes narrowed.
With the sacrifice of her long blonde hair, grown for years over a passing comment, the force that was Quistis Trepe finally showed through. There was a sudden hush.
A snippet of a conversation, long forgotten, arose from Seifer's mind.
"You should let your hair grow out, Quisty. It makes you look more like a girl."
He held a shaking hand up to his eye. No . . .
A shiver racked his body with realization. A tumult of realization sent him mentally reeling.
The line he had muttered years and years ago continued to echo.
"You should let your hair grow out,"
The reborn girl, turned and caught his eye. He caught the reply. There was no smiling face under a felt cap. This was no orphanage.
No.
She walked past him without a second glance.
Mutters were left in the wake of her step. Seifer remained silently reeling.
"I guess I'm gonna miss ya too, Quisty."
He came back into the conscious world slowly. So slowly, in fact, that he could not remember how long he had been awake. All of his senses were blunted, and awoke far after he did.
Hearing himself let out an audible groan was the initial moment that he realized he was awake.
He sat up blearily, rubbing blurry eyes and breathing through his open mouth. He felt filthy and otherwise awful.
"Ugh . . . "
A quilt fell from his shoulders, and he squinted to view his surroundings. Ordinarily, he wouldn't be so out of sorts in the morning—it was a sure way of getting yourself killed on the battlefield. Yet, it had been so long since he had slept in a warm bed . . .
Or couch. He raised an eyebrow. Wherever he was, he was warm and seemingly safe. His head rested on the pillow once again.
"Hey, I thought I heard you up and about."
A lightswitch was flipped on and he winced, shielding his eyes from the light.
"I wouldn't really consider it 'up and about.'" He whispered testily.
"What's that?"
"Nothing . . . " he felt like hell.
Her presence shifted from the side of the room, to a closer point in between a low coffee-table and the couch on which he rested. She bent down, and held a hand to his forehead.
"Well I do believe it's simply exhaustion." She said, matter-of-factly "Thank goodness you haven't come down with another one of those terrible infections you rebels have been getting lately. War! No sanitation! Mud! You should count yourself lucky."
He opened his eyes again, trying not to wince again. The war . . . the ill-fated 'rebellion.' It seemed so far away from him at that moment—so long ago. Lifetimes had gone by.
In a practical sense, he supposed it had only been a few days.
He tried to focus on the woman's face. For a moment, he thought he saw his mother. Then, he blinked again as his face went white.
It was only the woman-doctor from before. He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
His mother had long since passed on to someplace better. The memories of her were even hazier than those of the Timber rebellion. The fog that hung around his brain at the recollection of her had nothing to do with actual mist in the memories, but rather, the consistency of stories long forgotten.
He realized he was staring, and averted his eyes. She clucked disapprovingly.
"I warned you about your exhaustion, and look at you know." Her legs unbent with vague creaks in her knees, and she crossed her arms over him. "How are you feeling?"
Still feeling a bit out-of-sorts, he replied, "Well enough."
She contorted her mouth into a mocking smile.
"Well enough for what? A nap?"
He didn't bother to answer.
Her arms uncrossed, and she sighed with a roll of her eyes.
"Well keep the name 'Sylvia Marshall' in mind: I probably saved your life."
He didn't watch her leave.
It was difficult to focus on anything, after experiencing the effects of severe exhaustion. He realized this, and felt somewhat guilty about it.
He faded in and out of consciousness for a good while. Through the time he spent awake, he tried his best to concentrate on the unusual plight of Seifer Almasy and his necessary confessions. Unfortunately, he drew no new conclusions.
His mind wandered to various things. He wondered where Sylvia Marshall went when he heard her keys. He wondered why he wasn't hungry, but still eating the soup laid out for him. He wondered about golden hair and had vague visions of beauty. He wondered about love stories. Mostly, he found himself wondering about his mother.
Eventually, he became exhausted of sleeping, and wondering.
His body rose slowly, fighting dizziness as he sat upright. The quilt found itself across his legs, and he managed to find a remote control to the television set in front of him.
As he watched various daytime programs, he did not wonder anymore. In fact, he did not think at all.
It was difficult to estimate how long he sat there. His mind was so tangled, everything seemed like oblivion. He found himself watching several children's programs without actually watching them.
The sound of a door opening, and keys jingling barely registered. He was flipping channels.
Sylvia Marshall strode in commandingly in her worn trench-coat and matching hat. He did not look up, but suspected she was watching the flipping channels as she slipped off her coat.
"My, my. I guess I should have left you at the hospital after all. You have the attention span of most hospital patients."
He refused to answer again, but wasn't really angry. He just didn't care.
She flung herself down into a nearby rocking chair, her hair askew over the headrest. She looked weary.
"What a dreadful day." She intoned to no one in particular.
He finally looked over, feeling obliged to continue the string of words.
"How so?"
"He talks!" she laughed, but quieted down quickly. "Oh today was just one of those days. Everyone was on edge and we were busier than we could keep up with."
"One of those days?"
"I don't know how to explain it. Usually there's a reason for the mood everyone seemed to be in, but today it seemed completely random. Everyone was just too careful, and snapping at anything."
"Strange." He replied.
"I'll say." She stood up, stretching her arms up above her head.
His head was starting to pound. He turned back to the television screen, marveling at the effort it took to keep his neck upright. The news was on, most-likely the local channel.
A beautiful man and a beautiful woman were laughing, but it didn't reach their eyes. They clicked their pens importantly, and shuffled their papers across the marble tabletop. She wore a pink suit with prominent shoulders. He was slightly balding, but wore it well.
Dr. Sylvia Marshall suddenly snatched up the remote from the coffee table, and turned up the volume. With a jolt, he realized there hadn't been any sound for as long as he had the appliance on.
" . . . Concerning the unfolding story at Timber's Heartilly Memorial Hospital." Said the woman in the pink blazer.
"That's right Jane," the man replied, shuffling his papers and finally staring empathetically at the camera. "today there are some concerning reports at the South-Sector hospital."
The screen flashed to a pre-edited video, showing a shot of the Galbadian flag sagging dismally in front of the entrance.
"What's going on?" Dr. Marshall gasped.
Even the Wanderer knew something was very, very wrong.
"Timber's Heartilly Memorial Hospital has always had a good reputation of being Samaritan, with it's extensive volunteer staff and non-profit budget."
Flash to a matronly nurse.
" 'We do things a little different, here at Heartilly. We're not here for the money.'
The hospital has collected many awards over the years for its volunteer spirit."
Flash to a kind male doctor.
" 'With the neighborhood we're in, we have to do a lot out of generosity. Thanks to the kind support of donators all over Galbadia, we're able to treat nearly any person, regardless of health insurance or monetary assurances.'
The Heartilly Memorial Hospital has always been a source of pride for the people of Timber."
Flash to children playing checkers, bald from chemotherapy.
"However, recent allegations are leaving a dark stain on the otherwise untarnished reputation of the hospital.
These rumors bring us back to the dark times of the most recent Sorceress tyranny in Galbadia. Seifer Almasy, Sorceress Knight and one of the most wanted criminals in the world, is supposedly taking advantage of the generosity of Heartilly."
The Wanderer's heart seemed to stop cold.
Flash to an authoritative policeman.
" 'If Seifer Almasy is in Timber, he is a serious threat to our community. Regardless of his health, we cannot afford to keep him out in the open.'
As for the confirmation of Almasy's whereabouts, the Heartilly administration refused to comment.
'We believe in patient confidentiality, and will accept anyone on the verge of death regardless of past decisions.' "
Dr. Marshall gasped.
"The SeeD organization, which has offered millions for the capture of ex-Sorceress Knight Seifer Almasy, also had something to say."
Flash to a sea of paparazzi, and two imposing figures adorned with copious medals and honors on their gray uniforms. One was male, one was female. One had dark hair and steely eyes, the other had blonde hair with an icy gaze. Both appeared to be ignoring the reporters.
" 'Commander, Headmistress. What do you have to say about the reports of Seifer Almasy's rumored presence in Timber?' "
The man's eyes seemed, if possible, to become steelier.
Yet . . . the woman's face betrayed sudden emotion. It only lasted for a split second, but the Wanderer knew he was not imagining things.
" 'We have little faith in rumors.' " Said the woman. Her blue eyes were her only distinguishing feature, as her hair was entirely pulled back into a severe bun.
The man stepped forward. He looked directly into the camera, and some of his naturally commanding aura seemed to seep through the television screen.
" 'However, if we feel there is any truth to these allegations, rest assured we will look into them.' "
Flash, back to the woman in the pink suit. The image of the woman with the cracking mask still lingered in the Wanderer's immediate thoughts.
"Alice Meyers joins us live from Heartilly Memorial Hospital. Alice?"
The screen flashed to the front of the hospital once again. A female reporter stood in front of the Galbadian flag-post, and a growing crowd of angry protesters. A bold 'LIVE' appeared at the top of the screen.
A storm seemed to be brewing.
"No." Dr. Marshall audibly denied reason for her horror.
The Wanderer couldn't hear anymore. He saw a sign held up by one of the protesters.
'Unhuman! Kill the Knight NOW!'
Without thinking, or remembering his fatigue, the Wanderer sprinted out of Dr. Marshall's apartment. His face was contorted with panic.
He hoped it wouldn't be too late.
Author's Notes - Wow, I was going to do another flashback scene, but I doubted it would be out anytime soon. So . . . I just hope you've enjoyed one of the longest chapters yet, hehe.
Who knows what will happen next? Will it end soon? Will it be a happy ending? Will Seifer be torn to bits in a mob?
Well, I can assure you it won't be the last one. I expect about three more chapters, give or take. It's getting longer than I thought it would be. However! I have finished college applications, and winter break is just around the corner. So, I should have some time to write in the near future.
BTW: it's a crying shame that people only read Emily Dickinson's bad poetry. I did my thesis on her . . . I love her now, way more than I thought I would.
Thank you for making it this far, everyone! I'm so glad you like it so far.
Review if you want me to be even more motivated than I am now! Haha!
Till next time,
giggle
P.S. – I have a myspace now, so drop me a comment if you are interested in my life outside the realm of fanfiction. There's a link on my author page.
P.S.S. – Anyone interested in becoming a beta (shifty eyes)? My grammar could be better . . .