Disclaimer: Still not mine. Squaresoft's.
The days following the training accident were busy ones for Zell. Three times a day, in the cafeteria, he would slowly try to include Raijin, Fujin, and Seifer. Especially Seifer. He would eat at one of the two tables, and would try to drag at least one person from the other table with him. This led to a few very awkward moments with Squall and Seifer at Seifer's table, and after over a week of trying to meld the two groups, Zell was nearing despair.
Squall hadn't brought a lunch. He hadn't bought one either. He hadn't realized what was being offered, and, having been violently ill last time he had eaten the 'meatloaf' the Caf. offered, sat down bereft of a meal. He was surprised, as was everyone else, when Fujin, accompanying Zell to the table that day, held up half of her sandwich and spoke. "SHARE." Squall declined, but Zell was ecstatic that he'd made that much progress, and the grin on his face showed that fact.
After everyone else had finished eating lunch, Squall dropped a number of envelopes on the table. "Mission orders." He tossed an envelope to Quistis and Irvine, keeping one for himself and pushed another three over to Zell. Zell picked them up and flipped through them, looking at the names on them. Himself, Seifer, and a newly promoted SeeD, Ritlyn. Bouncing up from his seat, Zell left Seifer's letter with him, and went off in search of the other SeeD.
"Listen up. There are reports of something matching a Ruby Dragon's standard attack pattern in this area, its terrorizing the villages around here. We'll be in two groups of three. Group A will be myself, Irvine, and Quistis. Group B is Zell, Ritlyn, and Seifer. Zell is in charge of group B. If you can engage and take this thing out, do so, but report back once every two hours. That is all, if you don't find it within the next six hours, return here and we will try again tomorrow. Move out." Squall may hate speeches, but he isn't all that bad at them, Zell thought as he ushered his two teammates out into the blinding snow, and pulled his jacket closer around him. Hyne, it was cold.
Four hours of fruitless searching later, Zell radioed into the makeshift 'base camp', and tossed the radio back to Ritlyn. He could barely see a foot in front of his face in this snow, and they expected him to find a single creature? It was laughable, and he would have laughed, if it wasn't so cold, and he wasn't shivering under all his layers. If it came to a fight he knew, he'd be heavily handicapped by his lack of mobility.
Zell turned to order Seifer and Ritlyn into the next area, and was in time to see Ritlyn's legs tumble to the ground, and look at the broad draconic face of the dragon that ate him. It wasn't a Ruby Dragon after all he realized. It was a Diamond Dragon, its broad grin macabre with its blood red 'lipstick'. Zell was frozen to his spot, and some sluggish part of his mind wondered if it was fear or cold that kept him from moving.
The dragon lunged forward for him, and Zell knew he was about to die. Then a heavy weight slammed into his side, and he went flying, and landed, Seifer atop him, just out of reach of the dragon. Both SeeDs heard the first crack and knew instantly what it was, and scrambled to their feet. Too late. With a roar, the ground beneath them gave way, and they fell.
The dragon glared down at them, and they fearfully looked up at it. The hole however, was too small for it, and rather than expend energy, it turned and stalked away, content with the meal it already had.
The snow hadn't stopped. It had only gotten worse, and the two fallen SeeDs could see the hole they fell through slowly being covered, too far above them to make any chance of escape by that route feasible. With a click, Seifer turned on a flashlight, and examined the small cave. At least a dozen feet of solid ice blocked the cave exit, and he hadn't prepared for that much ice. He wished he had, because it was cold, the sun was setting soon, and it was only going to get colder.
You know, I don't intend to leave things at a cliffhanger, but thats where they keep going.