A/N: Just wanted to note very quickly here that some of you have been extremely loyal reviewers. Thank you so much for your unwavering support. And thanks to everyone who has been reading. I didn't honestly think there'd be much of an audience for this fic since as a crossover it fits into a pretty niche spot. So I've been very pleasantly surprised by the amount of people following it. :)
Chapter 10: Calm Lands
The morning after the fair, Quistis lingered in bed long after everyone else got up. Raijin and Fujin left to get breakfast while Seifer sat vigil at the motel room table by the window, occupying himself by flipping through a travel guide. Content under a heavy quilt with just her toes sticking far enough out the bottom to keep from overheating, Quistis drifted back to sleep.
For a while, she dreamed. Memories of sleeping late as a girl while her parents laughed in the next room popped into her mind's eye, followed closely by sweet morsels from the night before: cotton candy, fireworks, and a kiss. Perhaps, her dream-mind suggested, Seifer would tire of his travel guide and consider kissing her again...rousing her from sleep like a fairy tale princess.
Before he had the chance, Raijin and Fujin returned. They carried between them four paper bags. The scent of bacon, eggs, hot coffee, sweet buns, and fresh baked bread mitigated most of Quistis's disappointment and drew her out from under the covers, her stomach rumbling.
"About damn time you got up. I was beginning to think you'd died," Seifer grumbled, his critical tone tempered somewhat by the delicate way he sipped at the steaming cup of coffee in his hands.
"Guess I was tired," she said and shrugged.
Everyone dug in. The sound of plastic forks scraping at paper plates filled the room.
A gulp of too-hot coffee washed down Quistis's eggs, and then she started on a sweet bun, pulling it apart with her fingers. It tasted so good, so satisfying, that she sighed and melted into her chair with pleasure. Life seemed full of joy this morning, rife with possibility. The feeling reminded her of childhood and first love, of those heady days before Sin's attack when it had first occurred to her that Squall could one day become more to her than merely the boy next door.
"Looks like the wedding's happening today," Raijin said between bites. "Maybe we can slip into the temple while everyone else is at the ceremony, ya know?"
"It's worth a shot," Quistis agreed.
"What's the plan if it's still closed?" Seifer asked. "Because a herd of wild chocobos couldn't drag me to see that damned wedding."
"Don't worry. That's not on the docket," Quistis assured him. "If the cloister is closed, we'll just move on."
"Move on?"
"To the Calm Lands."
He frowned at her. "You're still thinking about skipping the temple here? I thought we talked about that. We agreed that it's too important."
She sat back so that she could cross her legs. "I can't wait around here forever. And we didn't agree on anything."
In any other group of summoner and guardians, that would have settled the issue. But the stormy look on Seifer's face indicated that he'd fight her on it later if she didn't make the decision he wanted. Right now, their inevitable argument didn't bother her. She felt empowered. Relaxed. So she slowly finished her coffee, and when she finally felt ready to get on with her day, she excused herself to shower and change.
What a difference a day makes, she thought as she gazed at herself in the circle she'd scrubbed free of steam on the bathroom mirror. Somehow, she'd regained her grip. Control and optimism had replaced all of her fear and doubt. Had it been the effect of the fair? Of Seifer? Or had that merely been the catalyst, she wondered, for some deeper transformation already in progress?
Dressed once again in her summoner's gear, she and her guardians checked out of the motel and walked down Bevelle's main thoroughfare toward the temple. Not as many people clogged the streets today, the majority already gathered to view the wedding.
When they arrived at the temple, they found it minimally staffed. Only two acolytes tended to the faithful who had elected to spend their afternoon praying to Yevon rather than celebrating his most famous followers. The temple in Bevelle, older by far than any of the others Quistis had visited thus far excluding, perhaps, the one where she'd discovered Odin, wasn't built according to the typical floor plan. Two wings flanked the main foyer, built up over the years into a massive building, the sacred levels of which extended down, deep underground, accessible only by lift.
At the moment, the lift was gone. Called to another floor.
"Lady Summoner." The same acolyte she'd talked to the day before bowed to her. "You are not attending the wedding?"
"No. I was hoping to spend the afternoon in your cloister."
The woman frowned and shook her head. "I'm sorry. Another summoner is currently in our chamber."
Seifer looked surprised. "Who?"
"He said his name was Isaaru."
"What? How long has he been in there?" Seifer demanded, clearly agitated by the fact that the other man had managed to overtake them on the pilgrim road and reach the temple first.
"Almost two hours now," the acolyte replied.
"Then he could be done any minute now, ya know?" Raijin said with his usual good cheer.
"Or he could be in there for the rest of the day," Quistis replied. It took hours merely to work through a temple's cloister, and that much time over again spent praying to the fayth. Isaaru might not emerge until dinner.
"Quis-tis..." Seifer said, drawing her name out into a long and wary two syllables. "I know what you're thinking, and I don't want to hear it..."
Too bad.
"It's time to move on," she said. From the beginning, she'd suspected that Bevelle would not pan out for her. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. With her emotional resurrection at the fair, she felt that the city had already given her what she most needed. Their aeon would prove no additional asset.
Seifer glared at her and opened his mouth, ready to argue. Then, amazingly, he closed it again without saying anything at all. For a moment, she waited for his newfound obedience to waver.
It didn't. He fell into line with little more than a pout. Quistis knew him well enough not to think even for a moment that he'd magically developed respect for her authority. More likely, she figured, his competitive nature had surged up to override his sensibility; he wanted to get ahead of Isaaru again.
In any case, sitting around in Bevelle waiting to get into the cloister would eventually frustrate him even more than her. He liked rushing into battle. Like to plot his strategy on the fly. Idleness didn't suit him.
Still, she half expected him to interrupt while she thanked the acolyte, or to grab her by the arm and drag her back through the door as she left the temple.
Instead he followed. Brooding, but silent.
A miracle.
Leaving town took no time at all compared to the slow going they'd experienced the day before. As they walked down the causeway leading into the forest, Quistis heard a mechanical roar overhead and looked up in time to see a huge flying form pass overhead. Its shadow moved across her and then through the city.
"Al Bhed? What would they be doing here?" she wondered aloud.
"STRANGE," Fujin agreed.
"Nah. It's probably nothing," Seifer said. "Bevelle's not as pious as you might think. They use machina when it suits them."
Quistis hoped he was exaggerating, criticizing the city out of frustration. But he lied transparently. And this statement rang uncomfortably true.
They left, passing under an archway and out, off the paved road onto spongy forest floor. The two guards stationed there glanced only briefly in their direction, then went back to their game of cards.
Up the path, the trees thinned, giving way to sparkling slabs of granite.
"Do you know anything about the Calm Lands?" she asked Seifer.
"Nope. Never been there. You?"
"Only what the stories say. My tutors in Kilika had never traveled this far north," she said, although the area didn't strike her as wholly unfamiliar. The newly opened expanse of road and grass and sandy rock reminded her more of home than anything else she'd seen in the past several weeks. The sun sat high in the sky, warm but not hot. Pleasant. As they climbed an embankment, the whisper of Quistis's boots through the tall grass made her smile.
At the top of the hill, they came to the edge of a cliff overlooking the whole of the Calm Lands and all sense of familiarity fled.
The Sin scarred landscape was bare of trees. Even after so many centuries, nothing but grass and wildflowers grew here. Between them, painful looking spires of dirt and rock and huge crevasses broken open like knife wounds in the planet's crust displayed the awful power of Sin in a way that not even her memories of Kilika's destruction could touch. The scrubbed and battered basin stretched for miles and would have gone all the way to the horizon if not for the towering shape of Mount Gagazet filling up the distance.
For a long moment, her entire team stood silent. Humbled.
"This final summoning business..." Raijin began. "It seems...uh...pretty intense, ya know?"
Quistis could do nothing but nod.
They found an easy path down the cliff. From the bottom, Quistis estimated that they'd be ale to reach the hazy form of the travel agency beyond sometime just after sunset so long as they didn't stop to eat or get delayed by the local fiends.
Raijin prattled away as they walked: "Back when I was on the Goers," he was saying, "I made friends with the Ronso team captain. Thought I'd try to be sporting, ya know? He turned out to be a pretty good guy. Sorta quiet. But that didn't bother me, ya know? I wonder if I'll see him on Mount Gagazet. It'd be nice to catch up."
"I've never met a Ronso," Quistis admitted, more in an effort to keep him talking than to engage in actual conversation. His chatter provided both a steady cadence against which to measure her steps and the cover under which she surveyed the deep cracks in the ground with a growing sense of concern-not for herself, but for her troop of guardians. Her own fate was certain. Now, for the first time, she wondered about Seifer's. About Raijin and Fujin's.
When they reached the travel agency that night, Quistis didn't feel ready for bed despite her physical exhaustion. So she dropped her things off on the room she'd be sharing with Fujin, then excused herself. In the lobby, she steeped a strong cup of unsweetened black tea before stepping out onto the agency's front stoop to drink it.
In the wide-open sky above, she could see all the universe's stars, including the wide, white ribbon that split the heavens in two.
She'd finished half of her tea and was lost in her thoughts when a sound from around the back of the agency caught her attention. Seifer emerged out of the darkness, dusting his hands off on his pants. When he spotted her standing there, he froze like a child caught misbehaving.
"Why aren't you in bed?" he asked.
"Why aren't you?"
"I was just checking out the...uh, agency's defenses," he said, lying. She didn't feel like prying the truth out of him, so she let it go.
"I thought I'd enjoy some tea before bed," she told him, then held out her still warm cup. "Want some?"
"No thanks."
He leaned with one arm against the wall and looked uncertain as to whether he should go inside and leave her alone or stay outside and keep her company. Quistis wanted him to stick around, so she took a shallow sip and said, "I'm surprised you didn't insist on staying in Bevelle. Aren't you worried I'm not going to be prepared to meet Sin?"
Looking out over the Calm Lands, she could see how he might now be questioning his decision to let her skip the temple there.
He shrugged, a sliver more helpless than nonchalant. "You'll be ready when we get there."
"Will you?"
He frowned, evidently uncertain of her exact meaning. "Of course, I will. I've been dreaming about this since I was a kid. Just like you."
"You know..." Quistis said slowly, turning her eyes back up to the stars, "I didn't like you very much when we first met."
He laughed. "Really? Tell me something I don't know."
Okay.
She took a breath and said, "I don't feel the same way now. I respect you as a guardian. I've even come to enjoy your company at times. Like last night, at the fair." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other at that. "Fujin and Raijin, too," she added to defuse the tension.
He smirked. "You let Fujin and Raijin kiss you, too? And here I thought I was special..."
She nearly dropped her cup.
"I guess I can understand it. We're a damn likable bunch," he continued, amused. "Though I didn't peg you as the sort to just lay one on whoever leans in close enough."
To reinforce his point, he loomed close. Close enough, she thought, that he'd be able to smell the spices in her tea. Certainly close enough to see her blush in the diffused yellow light coming through the travel agency's windows.
"Don't tease me," she said, caught between laughter and embarrassment.
"Then don't make it so easy."
She lifted her cup to take a drink, using it as a barrier between them, and he retreated a step. It left her feeling disappointed. Had she been someone else, not a summoner on her way to die, she might have reached out and grabbed him by the lapel to drag him toward her again. If things had been different, had they met under different circumstances...
But they hadn't. So she let him move away.
"Don't stay out here too late," he told her. "We're hitting the road early tomorrow."
She nodded and watched him go inside. Once she finished her tea, she did, too. Fujin had already gone to bed, so she undressed in the dark and climbed into her own, then lay there staring up at the ceiling. All at once, she felt both warm and cold; her growing affection for Seifer fueling new, surprising questions about what would happen when they fought Sin.
Seifer had a knack for survival. Surely, he'd live. And he'd make sure his posse did, too. She had to believe in his abilities, not just care for him-as outrageous as that seemed. A mere month ago she would have struggled to imagine herself in this position: doubtful of his sword arm, yet confident in his heart.
This is ridiculous, she told herself. Just go to sleep.
0 0 0
The moment Seifer spotted the corral behind the travel agency, he knew that he'd be renting some chocobos to ride through the Calm Lands and up the snow-clogged pass that crossed Mount Gagazet. Quistis would delight in another opportunity to ride one. And he liked making her happy. So he got up early and worked out a deal with the Al Bhed at the front desk. By the time Quistis and Fujin emerged from their room, he had the mounts he'd picked out the night before harnessed, saddled, and ready.
Quistis laughed when she spotted the birds. "Well, that answers one question," she said, smiling at him.
"What question?" Raijin asked, clueless.
Fujin, however, leveled her uncanny, all-knowing gaze at Seifer and he got the distinct impression that she saw right through him. He tried not to let it concern him. It wasn't like she'd do or say anything to intervene, after all.
Quistis stretched in the warm, early morning sun, and then walked up to the four chocobos.
"This one is for you," he said, indicating a demure female.
She petted the bird's smooth beak. It cooed in response. Much the same way that Seifer did deep down inside when he found himself the object of her affection.
Feeling like a total wuss, he swung up onto his mount. Quistis didn't know how to ride, but she watched him closely and then repeated what she saw. Flawlessly. Perched tall and elegant in the saddle, she looked for all the world as seasoned a rider as anyone Seifer had ever met. Still, he ran her through the basics: to hold the reins in her left hand, keep her heels pointed down in the stirrups, relax her hips, and hold on with her knees.
The rapt, unblinking way she listened to and absorbed his instructions reminded him of her confession back in Macalania that if things had happened differently, she would have become a schoolteacher. He could see it in her now. The focus. The discipline. The thirst for knowledge.
When they left, she rode behind Seifer with confidence. And joy. Even though she didn't outright smile, he could see the exhilaration on her face.
After a while, he began to forget that she was inexperienced. He stopped riding cautiously, careful not to lose her, and relaxed into the day. They picked up speed. And as they approached a crack in the ground, he kicked his chocobo right at it, meaning to jump the gap.
The bird leapt and soared, its little wings doing nothing to gain altitude but slowing their descent so that they landed some distance away with a gentle thud.
Behind him, Quistis let out a girlish squeal he hadn't thought her capable of. He turned in time to catch her in mid-air, her right hand gripping the saddle as the big, satin bow at her side rippled in the wind. As a lighter load on a smaller bird, she soared further than Seifer had and landed several paces ahead of him.
"You okay?" he asked.
She answered by laughing and taking off at a full gallop. Fast learner, for sure. And fearless. Seifer grinned as he followed. This was the woman who would defeat Sin, he thought. And he'd be there with her. He'd never felt so lucky.
For a long time, they rode hard and fast. But eventually, Quistis's lack of experience caught up to her. She slowed and shifted back and forth in the saddle, clearly sore although she didn't admit to it when he asked. By the time they stopped that afternoon, she'd gone stiff. Her dismount, despite all of her effort, didn't show any of the flawless grace she'd possessed earlier that morning.
"It's a lot more work than it looks like. Isn't it?" she said with a bashful smile as she hobbled about in a circle, trying to limber up.
Since the Calm Lands didn't have any trees-or even woody shrubs-they didn't bother trying to build a fire. Thankfully, as the sun set, the night cooled only a little and a huge, white moon in the cloudless sky above cast enough light about that Seifer could make out individual blades of grass even in the dark.
They stretched out close to one another to sleep, Quistis and Fujin wedged between Seifer and Raijin. But no one was ready to drift off despite the long day.
Quistis and Fujin picked up a game they'd apparently learned from Rinoa while overnighting in the Thunder Plains, their voices and the soft murmurings of the chocobos filling the otherwise otherworldly silence. Raijin joined in, either not noticing or not caring that it was clearly a girl's game.
"Have you ever..." Quistis trailed off and hummed as she thought. "Oh! I know. Have you ever been in love?"
"NO."
"Really? Never? Not even for a minute? Not even something unrequited?"
"NO."
"Hm. How about you, Raijin?"
"I thought it was Fujin's turn to ask a question, ya know?"
"It is. But mine's a good one. And I'm curious. Have you ever been in love?"
Raijin stared up at the sky for a moment, looking bashful. "Well..." He hesitated. "Yeah. I just...I don't really like to talk about it, ya know?"
"Fair enough. Sorry." Quistis shifted on the hard ground. "Your turn, Fujin."
"Actually, I got one for you, ya know?"
"Okay. Shoot."
"Have you ever summoned one of your aeons just for fun?"
"Of course not. That would be unethical."
"But you could. If you wanted to, ya know?"
"Well...sure. Sometimes summoners are asked to bring forth their first aeon just to prove they were successful. But they're not something to trifle with. You've got to remember, aeons come from the fayth. They used to be people."
"If aeons are people, then what about the final summoning?" Raijin asked. "Who does that one come from, ya know?"
The question struck Quistis silent for a long time. "I don't know. Maybe...Lady Yunalesca. Maybe me. Which would make sense since to perform it I have to..."
She trailed off and Seifer could hear the frown in her voice. It surprised him to find that he was frowning, too. The touch of sadness at the thought of her dying during the final summoning made him uncomfortable. Better to change the subject. Fast.
"Okay. I've got a question to add to this game," he said.
"I thought this was a sissy teenage girl's game" Quistis replied, doing a fair impression of him.
"It is. But I'm bored."
"You can admit it if you want to play. I won't think less of you," she teased. "Go ahead. What's your question?"
"Is there anything-"
Immediately, she interrupted him: "It has to start with, 'Have you ever?' That's the name of the game."
He sent her a withering look. "If I'm going to play at all, I'm going to do it my own way, or you can just count me out right now..."
"Okay. Fine. Ask away."
"Is there anything left on your list of things to do before fighting Sin?" She'd mentioned it to him once or twice before. Maybe, he thought, if he could fulfill another item on the list for her, it would alleviate some of the nonsensical guilt he was feeling.
"Yes..." she replied slowly. "A few things."
"Like what?"
"Private things. Why am I the one answering all the questions all of the sudden?"
"Private things as in...like, private things?" he persisted, ignoring her question.
"I don't know what you're implying."
"SEX," Fujin supplied.
Seifer rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Fu."
Beside him, Quistis had gone completely stiff and he knew without her admitting to anything that there were indeed some items of a very private nature on her list. Nothing he could fulfill, obviously...not that he felt morally opposed to such a thing, but he doubted she'd go there anytime soon. He wondered if she'd plotted for Puberty Boy to check those boxes for her on this trip and would have asked except that he thought she might kick him in the balls just for bringing it up.
"I think that's sad, ya know?" Raijin said, his tone wistful. "I mean...what? You've never been kissed?"
Quistis managed to grow even more tense. "No. It's not that," she managed.
Silently, Seifer grinned. He glanced over at Quistis only to find Fujin sitting up on her elbows, glaring at him. The woman knew exactly what had happened at the fair. No doubt about it. Likely, she knew that he'd done it for more than just tradition, too. Damn her.
"Do we have to talk about this right now?" Quistis asked. "We've got a long way to travel tomorrow. We should forget this silly game and try to get some sleep."
"I've said all along the game was stupid," Seifer couldn't help but add.
She huffed and pushed herself up off the ground. "I'm going to go check on the chocobos one last time," she announced before brushing dirt off her bottom and striding off in the direction of bird chatter. Her little blonde fishtail bounced in the moonlight.
"I think we hit a nerve, ya know?" Raijin said.
Fujin slugged him. "IDIOT."
There was no doubt in Seifer's mind that Quistis knew of her beauty and how to use it. She'd mentioned having many admirers in Kilika. And he believed her. But he also thought she'd saved herself for Squall and now stood here, in the twilight of her life, untouched. Propping his head on his arms, he looked up at the sky and thought of her under the bright, flashing lights of Bevelle's fireworks display.
For a long time, Quistis stayed with the chocobos. Too embarrassed to return, Seifer thought. Although that didn't seem like her. He'd been harassing her since he'd first met her, and she'd never sulked over it. At length, when she still didn't return, he sat up and squinted his eyes, trying to make her out in among the yellow backs of the gathered birds.
"Damn it," he grumbled. "Guess I'd better go get her."
"Tell her I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset her, ya know?"
They had tied the chocobos to one another and then hobbled them to a wooden stake in the ground. It wasn't something that would keep them from running off if they got it in their minds. But it kept the group from ambling away while they grazed on a patch of gyshall greens. His boots thumped across the ground as he approached and all at once, four sets of bird faces turned to look at him. As he got closer, he noticed that they'd pulled the stake free. Dirt encrusted, it dangled from the knot at the end of their reins. He stepped on the hole it had left as he approached.
"Quistis?"
He didn't see her standing among them.
Then the chocobo he'd ridden that day stepped toward him and in amongst the tightly clustered feet of the rest of the flock, lying on the ground, he spotted Quistis's boots and the gentle swell of her bottom.
"Sweet Yevon." He shoved the rest of the chocobos out of the way and dropped to his knees beside her. A huge, black, bulbous stinger protruded a hand's length out of her back from where it had pierced, sliding underneath her shoulder blade. The venom sack on the end sat shriveled and empty. She probably hadn't even seen the fiend that attacked her.
He glanced around, half expecting to see it skulking in the grass. Nothing but the chocobos looked back. They must have destroyed it, stomping the fiend to death with the killing claws on their feet.
"Quistis. Wake up." He shook her. Hard. Only a significant jostle would rouse her from the sleep spell.
With a groan, she stirred.
"Seifer? I...ahhh!" The simple movement of her arm to lift herself up off the ground cast her into agony. Perhaps he should have let her sleep, he thought.
"You went and got yourself stung. It's still in your back. I'm going to pull it out," he told her.
The massive stinger fit in his hand like the hilt of a knife. And it made a terrible sucking sound as it came free, releasing a torrent of blood along with it. Quickly, he pressed his hand over the wound, then shifted so that he could roll her over into his lap.
"Heal yourself," he demanded, heat flowing disconcertingly over his palm and between his fingers.
"I don't know if I can. I feel really...really..." A dazed, dumb expression crossed her face. It chilled him to the bone.
"What?" He jostled her.
"Poison," she said faintly.
He had no idea if she was capable of casting a spell in such a state. But that quickly proved irrelevant; a few seconds later her eyes rolled back in her head and she wobbled out of consciousness.
"FUJIN! RAIJIN!" he bellowed. "GET OVER HERE!"
How long had she been out with poison coursing through her system? Damn it. He didn't know any magic and couldn't do anything for her without some supplies. Why had he let her wander off alone and stay gone so long without checking on her? What the hell kind of guardian let some shit like this happen while he lay a few feet away, daydreaming about kissing his ward?
"What's wrong? We came as fast as we could, ya know?"
"She's been poisoned. I need something to heal her. Quick!"
Both of them grabbed their bags and dumped them out on the ground. Fujin grabbed Seifer and Quistis's in order to rifle through them as well.
"POTION," she said and handed him a single bottle filled with blue-green liquid.
"Is that it?" he asked, amazed. "Don't we have any antidotes or whatever the hell you use to counter poison?"
"Sorry, man," Raijin said, helpless. "All I've got is a couple of potions, too."
Since it was better than nothing (but just barely), Seifer used his free hand to uncork the bottle and then tipped it slowly to her lips. The potion trickled into her mouth and either went straight down her throat or straight out the sides of her mouth-he couldn't tell which, but she didn't sputter, wake, or visibly swallow. The blood flow from the gash in her back seemed to slow, however.
"We have to get her back to the travel agency." They could keep the poison from outright killing her with the potions, but only until they ran out. Then, if she didn't regain her senses long enough to cure herself, they'd lose her completely. It didn't matter to Seifer what he had to do to keep that from happening. She was too precious. Too valuable.
Swearing under his breath at himself, Seifer shifted her into his arms as best as he could and, with Raijin's help, climbed up onto his chocobo. They lashed Quistis's now riderless bird to Fujin's and then, with no time to waste, they were off. The jarring bounce of the bird's gait should have roused Quistis. But she never moved. Only her pale, shallow breaths let him know that she was still alive.
Through the night, they pushed the chocobos hard. One of them would come up lame soon under the pressure. But still, he urged them along, stopping only to allow them a moment's respite while he fed Quistis another potion. It didn't take long before he'd used up their meager supply. When the sky turned yellow with the coming dawn, he still couldn't make out the agency along the horizon. And he began to despair.
"Can't be much further," he said, both to himself and to her, although she couldn't hear.
The sun was shining bright when he spotted something moving ahead. It took him a moment before he recognized the figures as people rather than fiends. Travelers? All the way out here? He dropped the reins to shade his eyes for a closer look and made out the telltale silhouette of a summoner's bow.
Dona and Barthello.
She still wore the same ridiculous dress that showed more than it covered. And her pilgrimage hadn't humbled her any. When she noticed Seifer approaching hell-bent-for-leather on choco-back, she sneered and set her hands on her hips, ready to start a pissing match. The expression faltered, however, when she noticed Quistis slung limp over his saddle.
"What happened?" she asked, concerned while still sounding judgmental. "She's not dead. Is she?"
"Of course not," Seifer snapped. "She's been poisoned."
Dona raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you just heal her? Or give her an antidote?"
Some of Seifer's teeth threatened to crack with as hard as he ground them together. "We don't have any antidotes. And only she knows white magic."
"Are you trying to tell me that out of the four of you, only she can heal an injury?"
Seifer glared at her.
"Brilliant," Dona drawled. "Get her down off that oversized bird and I'll see what I can do."
Seifer dismounted without help, then handed his reins off to Raijin. Humiliated and terrified, he settled Quistis on the ground in front of Dona. The hand he'd held pressed to her back all this time came away with some effort. Underneath, she'd stopped bleeding. Instead, the flesh of the wound had begun to turn necrotic. Would that heal? He didn't know.
The two summoners struck an odd tableau-the golden, virginal Quistis being tended to by the very personification of a catty, sensual woman. Nervous and uneasy, Seifer watched.
A single spell from Dona nullified the poison. A second returned some of the color to Quistis's cheeks and made her eyelids flutter open but didn't completely heal the sting in her back.
"What in the...?" Quistis murmured. She blinked a few times before making out her surroundings. "Dona?"
"Nice to see you again, too, Trepe," Dona said. With a haughty quirk at the side of her mouth, she looked up at Seifer. "You need to make sure she gets a few days rest and packs the wound with phoenix down. Can you handle that? Or do I need to stick with you to supervise?"
"Phoenix down?" Quistis repeated weakly.
"I can handle it," Seifer snapped.
"I'm sure. Lucky for you, we're heading toward the travel agency anyway." She smiled and wiped her hands on the sides of her dress. When she stepped back, Seifer bent down to help the confused and magic-addled Quistis to her feet. She wobbled drunkenly.
"You're not heading to Mount Gagazet?"
"We've decided to...pursue other interests," Dona replied. "Isn't that right, Barthello?"
The dumb ape nodded.
"Why?" Seifer asked. "What would make you give up summoning?"
"An extended stay in an Al Bhed prison on Bikanel, for one," she replied sourly. "Quistis is one of the only summoners who escaped their net. At least, until they attempted to capture Yuna. Her guardians broke us out and then dropped us off here-" she waved a hand around "-in this wasteland."
By means of implicitly thanking her for saving Quistis's life, Seifer let Dona and Barthello ride double on their spare chocobo all the way back to the travel agency. When they arrived, the Al Bhed running the place came out to meet them. Even though he wore a cowl and goggles, Seifer could make out the look of surprise on his face at seeing them return.
"I don't understand. Why are we back here?" Quistis asked. "Why is Dona here?"
"Long story," Seifer replied. She wouldn't remember much of it if he told it to her now anyway.
With the last of their money, he rented their rooms back and filled his bag with restorative potions, elixirs, antidotes, and phoenix down. The latter he took and gave to Fujin, who packed and wrapped Quistis's wound in privacy. When she finally let Seifer back into the room, the summoner had been tucked into bed and had drifted back off to sleep, looking healthy but exhausted.
"UPSET?" Fujin asked when he frowned and scrubbed his blood caked hand against his coat.
"No. I'm pissed. We went out there without any healing supplies. I mean...for fuck sake. How did we expect to fight Sin equipped like that?"
Fujin shrugged. "DIDN'T."
He eyed her. "What do you mean?"
Rather than answer sensibly like he knew she was capable, Fujin merely shook her head and walked out, obviously of the opinion that he should figure it out for himself. But he had no idea what she'd been trying to get at. Fujin didn't expect to fight Sin? What did she think this whole trip had been about? What else did she think might happen in the end? That he might not follow through?
Maybe she didn't understand him as well as he'd always thought.
With one more long look at Quistis, he turned and followed her out.
0 0 0
The sick haze that had settled over Quistis with the poison lifted after a solid, restorative day's sleep. She woke up in the late afternoon and looked up at the ceiling. Recognizing it as the travel agency, she wondered for a moment if she'd merely dreamt leaving on choco-back until she tried to sit up and the bandages wrapped tightly around her chest pinched.
Some hazy memories of seeing Dona and of returning to the agency filtered back slowly after that.
She was feeling well enough that night to sit up in bed and eat what Raijin brought her. He also explained, haltingly, what had happened after she'd left camp to check on the chocobos. It was a freak accident. Something that shouldn't have happened to a summoner. And it embarrassed her to realize that she'd been caught off guard and nearly killed by a simple, run-of-the-mill fiend. Although not as much as it appeared to embarrass her guardians. Seifer especially.
"My only regret is that it had to be Dona to heal me," she admitted to him while finishing the last of her soup. "Anyone else..."
"I know what you mean," he replied darkly.
She smiled at him, not liking his tone. "Oh well though. Right?"
"She's given up on going to fight Sin," he told her. "So...we're still ahead of the pack, as far as I can figure."
"That's good." She didn't mention that it would take days for the phoenix down to properly heal her back. And in that time, Yuna or Isaaru might easily overtake them. He'd turned moody since the accident and she felt it best not to bring the possibility up.
"I'm sorry I let you down," he said softly. "It won't happen again."
"It's okay. Really."
Seifer nodded. "I vowed to get you to Zanarkand. And I will. I promise."
All of the warmth she'd seen in him the past few days, in Bevelle and on their first night in the Calm Lands, had gone. Buried once again behind the stubborn layers of dreams and duty and martial verve. Her injury had been a massive blow to him. And it had realigned his sensibilities in a way that she found herself surprised to not appreciate. He was more focused than ever on the task at hand. Professional, even.
And that deeply disappointed her.
Because, she realized, she'd lost him.