Author's note: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII or its characters. This is AU.
In the Wind
Seifer kept an eye on the town on the horizon that was growing larger as he approached it. He didn't know if his wanted poster had made it this far out on the frontier. He rather hoped not. His posse was desperately in need of suppliers, and dodging the law would make shopping much more difficult. As outlaws went, he really had more reputation than actual crime to his name. But given that he had become an outlaw by being blamed for someone else's crime, that did not surprise Seifer. His reputation was enough to get him into trouble though.
Until he was fifteen, Seifer Almasy had lived on a small ranch out on the frontier. He'd been adopted as a child by Cid and Edea Kramer, and he had been happy. His life might have been full of hard work, but he had people who loved him and a life he enjoyed. And then he'd gone to town one afternoon while Cid was away on a trip. Edea had wanted a couple supplies for her baking, and Seifer had offered to go get them for her. He stayed in town longer than he was supposed to in order to flirt with a pretty girl.
He'd come home to find the front door wide open and the house silent. And he'd found Edea on the kitchen floor where it was clear she'd bled to death. She had been shot at least five times. Seifer had sat there with her body until it had grown dark in the kitchen. The next morning he'd rode into town to get the local sheriff. The men who had killed his foster mother had been a group of cattle rustlers, and they had never been caught. To make matter's worse, Cid was killed on his way home in a train robbery.
So Seifer had been alone. At least, he had been until Adel had come into his life. The first time he'd seen her, he thought he'd seen a ghost. She looked almost exactly like Edea. Adel had taken him under her wing, and once again Seifer had a place where he belonged. It had been through working with Adel that he'd met Fuujin and Raijin. And once again he'd been happy. At least, until he'd realized what Adel was really up to. She had ordered him and his posse to run a family off their ranch, and Seifer couldn't do that.
It didn't matter that the mother had looked a little like Edea or that the boy had blond hair and green eyes. He couldn't destroy someone else's home. And Adel hadn't been pleased about that. She had also sent someone else to deal with the family. Seifer remembers going back there and finding the house burned to the ground. He and his posse had left Adel's service at that point. But the worst of it had been that Adel had planted evidence that he was responsible. That was the moment Seifer had become a wanted man.
Other crimes had been added to his name since then. Some of them he had actually committed. Seifer hadn't been willing to let his friends go hungry, so yes, he'd stolen food and other supplies at times. But he hadn't killed anyone unless it had been in a firefight. But none of that really mattered if the local law enforcement knew who he was. He'd just have to be careful. They needed the supplies he'd been sent to get, and Seifer wasn't going to come home empty handed.