I awoke and swung out of my makeshift hammock, feet landing in a moving puddle of water and silt. The ground was unused to rain and seemed unable to welcome it. In the west the world was all water. Everywhere I could see the world was water.

Only the horizon bridge and its barely visible lights broke the blue-grey of the vista. The red line of the Galbadian column stretched along it, armor glinting in the early morning sun, coming down in ochre wisps through the fleeting clouds. I could faintly hear the cadence of their marching. Throwing my camp into a pack and shoveling what little fresh fruit I had into my mouth, I began my hunt again.

Each step in the flat expanse surrounding me sloshed with the standing water the underground clay wouldn't let it drain. I walked through a watery desert after taking off my shoes and shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. The sun would hopefully dry this all in a day or two, but until then the land would be all strangeness. Well, until then the land would be drowned.,, I turned around every hour or so to see if the Galbadians were keeping up, and sadly they were. Their armor wasn't much hindered by the water and all their infantry piled into APCs and amphibious transports.

Their keeping pace with me wasn't something I wanted to think about, so I focused on the almost perfect mirror that was the horizon. That was still a little unsettling, but altogether more beautiful, the way it looked as though I stood in and endless sky.

Or maybe an endless ocean, since I had been walking in salt water for untold hours.

While the concept of limitless possibilities made real was exciting, I didn't appreciate it at the moment. There were no tracks and the water made for slow going. Even with my junctions I doubt I traveled any faster than a typical walking pace. Nowhere was there any high ground or clues of any kind as to where I should go next.

I could continue on to Esthar, but I really doubt Seifer would head there, being the new poster child for the Lunar Cry and all. Maybe there would be news there.

Of what, though? The chance that anyone in that city walking outside their safe and perfect bubble into the dangerous and barren wilderness and glimpsing a war criminal who didn't want to be seen in one of the more remote areas of the world seemed... Remote. The continent was wide open, and uninhabited, one could choose their direction where I stood, and go that way for a hundred miles or more before seeing another living soul.

He could go, and hide, anywhere.

Suddenly I sat, overwhelmed. By my folly in taking up such a fool's errand, by the unexpectedly heavy weight of true freedom, and by all that I realized I did not and could not control, most of all, my own thoughts, seemingly the thing I was coming to have the least control of all. I also realized that I just soaked most of my possessions by parking my ass in a foot of water.

Almost crying at my own idiocy, my mind wandered into darker places. What if I never found him? What if I didn't have a job waiting for me when I got back? Squall seemed okay with me leaving, but...

How would I even get back home? I had no way to contact anyone unless I made it to a major settlement, which would probably not ever be on the itinerary of my target. For that matter, what if I did catch him? Should Seifer not be in the cooperative mood if I found him (and when was he ever in a cooperative mood?) I could only hope that the shame brought on by my strongly worded scolding would make him come back with me. Fighting one on one he'd fillet me.

I wasn't prepared for failure or success on this mission...

The water slowly warmed as I sat thinking and the sun hung directly above. Matron always said it was okay to let your mind wander as long as it stayed close enough to be called back when you needed to, so I stood, gave the Galbadians my best one-finger salute and soldiered on. Worse came to worst I could always commandeer another one of their tanks and all would be peace, love, and smithereens again. Not in that order.

Continuing on, the water warmed and the day was peaceful. Gulls and other seabirds flew overhead and there was a gentle pull at my feet in the slowly shrinking landlocked tide. Something must have given way to drain it along the path ahead. Walking in it felt like standing in the inlet next to the lighthouse at the orphanage.

In all but the driest seasons there would be a short stream and a small pool away from the ocean and protected by the breakwaters. Shells and starfish would get washed ashore and end up there for us to inspect and play with. And naturally, each time the rain allowed we would skip along the tops of the exposed rocks, pretending the water below was lava, even though with the undertow currents it was plenty dangerous already. We would try to make it all the way to the lighthouse and frequently did. It's a wonder none of us were swept out to sea.

I was surprised the memory didn't slowly go the way of the standing rains and drain away. Instead I found myself smiling as the water picked up speed and small boulders revealed themselves in the landscape, as if inviting me to relive my childhood. Soon the, uh, seascape, was littered with rocks and I found myself racing along the path they seemed to make to the northeast.

My memories merged with the present and giggling versions of my friends followed me to the lighthouse to the one who I knew was already there. I skipped and scampered as much as I wanted with no one roaming the halls to admonish me. My rock-hopping travels slowly led me to higher ground and I realized that I was passing over the salt flats, on its northern edge.

Some of my islands turned from stones to bone and then to fresh carcasses. My pace had increased significantly once there was dry ground or bodies to jetty between and the Galbadians were a faint glimmer within the slowly forming fog by the time I saw Grandidi forest. They skirted north, into the cover of the Nortes Mountains before resuming east along the Esthar Plains. They were now a good half day behind me, I guessed. I followed the water, which was now just a forked lightning of diamond studded streams into the tree-filled valley, listening to the fading laughter of a boy I used to know, waiting in mockery for he had won the race.

Wind came down from the mountains and dried most of me and my things as the forest came to greet me along with the sunset filtered through the kind of mist you'd always see in film noire. In the undergrowth I swore I could see the flicker of jade eyes and flash of a white and red coat. I ran, forgetting after only recently remembering that I hadn't eaten since the morning, and that my legs had grown tired and sore for the first time in a long while. There was smoke in the mist.

Cascades of droplets fell on me as pushed through the undergrowth. The shocking greens and earth tones were a revelation after a day spent in the water, but they were quickly swallowed in the thick fog.

The ground was muddy and slippery, and I frequently tripped and slid in it.

Snickering rushed at my ear from somewhere nearby. I think.

Blood rushed to my head and my heartbeat filled my ears. I looked around me and at me, dirty, panting, and sweaty, expecting a pox of snipers laser sights on me and to see red lines amidst the trees, but I saw nothing. Vaguely aware of the sounds I thought were ambient, I stumbled in the paranoid way of the prey sensing a predator, but not knowing where it was. Eyes were burning into me.

I don't think I'd ever been this scared in my life.

Scrambling up from the ground where, I'd fallen again, I backed up into something warm and dry, another living body. How I stopped myself from screaming, I'll never know, but I launched myself at the ground in front of me and found a tree instead. Reeling, I turned to meet my stalker.

I couldn't hear anything over my own breathing. I couldn't see anything where I thought I'd run into someone. Panicking, I tried to pull myself together. Some SeeD I'd turned out to be. Going insane after one day on my own, jumping at my own shadow, brought to a stumbling mess by a little fog and forest.

"Little Messenger Girl?"

The voice insinuated itself in my left ear, and this time, I couldn't help it. I screamed. Hyne, I could feel the mad smirk on his scarred face. I jumped away and could just see the statuary of his coat with the bloody red crosses sticking out of the haze, slight glint of the few rays of sun that existed and pushed into my small, small, world on his golden hair.

I scuffled on my back until I had pressed myself into a tree, watching as he folded his arms, shaking violently, mind too full to function.

He never moved until, he was suddenly looming over me, face still obscured by the mist.

"Couldn't they have sent the Instructor instead?"

.

.

.

Author's note: So I guess this is off hiatus. I plan on having another chapter up in a couple of days. It's going to get more interesting.

I hope you enjoy.