In a normal year this would be peak tourist season in Balamb, but the toll of war is evident as Quistis drives into town. She only passes two couples and a boarded-up street vendor on her way to the docks, where she pays for parking and makes her way up the cobblestone ramp to the hotel. The sword she leaves locked in her trunk, on the off chance her assumptions were wrong.
They're right, it turns out.
Fujin reclines in a chair behind reception, reading a magazine. Raijin leans on the counter, snacking on a bag of peanuts and flicking the shells at her. Quistis had half-expected to find them staying here as guests, not manning the front desk. She charges forward, propelled by the heady momentum that accompanies a lack of planning. She hasn't prepared well enough for this, she realizes, and it's too late to turn back now.
"Raijin. Fujin," she greets, approaching the counter.
Fujin looks up from her magazine and regards Quistis flatly. Without a word, she slides out of her seat and rounds the counter, taking the stairs to the lodging area two at a time. Raijin swivels his head after her, looking panicked, then turns to face Quistis, the picture of calm.
Quistis considers them both. Fujin could be having a bad day or a Tuesday. Her behavior doesn't necessarily indicate a red flag. And Raijin's always been Fujin's satellite.
Raijin plants his big hands on the counter. "Instructor Trepe. What brings ya here?"
"I'm here to see Seifer, actually." She lets her eyes wander the room just long enough to mimic nonchalance before turning to Raijin expectantly.
"That right?" Raijin's face lights with interest, and something else she can't put her finger on. "He know you're comin'?"
"Does it make a difference?"
"I guess not." He straightens, sheepish. "Thing is, he ain't here."
She's disappointed and relieved, and tries to hide both. Nice timing, Quistis. "When will he be back?" she presses. "I can wander a bit. Grab a bite next door."
"Nah, Instructor, you ain't hearin' me." He palms the counter, leans forward again and motions her closer. With a surreptitious glance toward the stairs, he fixes her with a consternated expression. "Seifer's gone."
She blinks. "What do you mean, gone?"
His voice drops to a whisper. "He took off four, five days ago. Checked out, took nothin' with him except the clothes on his back."
"Did he say where he was going?"
Raijin runs a hand over his hair and scratches the back of his neck. His consternation increases. "Not exactly."
Quistis raises her eyebrows, prompting him to continue.
"Well. . ." Raijin slides the hand down his forehead, tugs at his chin and slaps the counter again. "He left a note."
"A note," she repeats.
Her immediate conclusion is the morbid one. She takes a deep breath, weighs Raijin's casual bearing and the many other possibilities. So Seifer left. It makes a lot of sense, actually. There aren't many prospects in Balamb for a fugitive, even an exonerated one. It's not something to be worried about. If she were Seifer, where would she go? Cid and Edea's place?
If she were Seifer, she definitely wouldn't do something stupid.
Something dangerous.
The past is all there is for me.
I don't have a future.
"Ya look sick." Raijin thrusts the bag of peanuts in her face. "Want some?"
Jarred, she shrugs him away. "No thanks."
"Yeah, well, don't keel over on me, ya know?" He sets the bag on the counter, then reaches down out of view, retrieving something. "Wanna read it?"
She takes the letter from his outstretched hand. It's been folded four, five times, and hastily, from the smeared ink. After grading his assignments for the better part of two years, she knows the handwriting immediately: small, squared-off capital letters, narrowing proportionate to his level of patience.
Gonna create the future. SA
Her fine hairs stand on end. She knows those words; said them, kind of. They mean nothing, really.
They mean everything.
"Tell me the rest," she says, relief and anxiety mounting in equal measure. "From the beginning."
"Go over it again one more time, would you?"
Raijin gives her a dark look. Fujin hasn't come back downstairs, and Quistis has taken up in her chair behind the desk. She palms her temples, sets her glasses on the counter and thumbs her closed eyelids.
"It's like I said," he repeats, crossing his arms over his broad chest. She gets the feeling he's about to follow Fujin upstairs. "He was in a shit mood. Not angry. He was down, he was blue, ya know? Gets like that sometimes, always has. This time was bad. He said he was goin' away for a while." He mumbles the next part. "Gave Fu his necklace."
Anxiety revs her gut. Raijin mentioned that part about the necklace earlier. SeeDs are trained to detect signs of distress and crisis in themselves and their comrades, and take appropriate action. Fujin and Rajin, like Seifer, are only cadets, but they have that training too. Inwardly, she seethes. They could have contacted—
Who? Seifer isn't close to many students that she knows of, not even before the war, and he's been persona non grata pretty much everywhere since Ultimecia's defeat. You could have contacted me. Unless Seifer never mentioned her, either. A likely possibility, despite. . . everything. He knows she cares, that stubborn ass. She's been obvious about it.
What would she have done anyway?
That's part of her problem. She doesn't know what to do about Seifer, other than follow this morning's development to its logical outcome: find him.
Once that happens, she'll deal with the rest.
"Sure was mad at you for a while," Raijin continues. "He couldn't find work. Plenty to do around here, but he scared the guests. We had him cleanin' toilets for a few days, ya know, under the table. He said it'd be better if he just got what was comin' to him."
That barb she half-expects, and the guilt is superficial. To be fair, she hadn't weighed the repercussions of a pardon as she'd given her testimony. But had he given her the time of day afterward, she could have helped.
"He did apologize though. For the war." At this part, Raijin brightens. "That was nice. Ya know Seifer never says he's sorry for anything. Then he said there was somethin' he had to do to make things right."
She can feel her nerves fraying. "But he didn't say what? Raijin, there's got to be something else."
He straightens, agitation visible. "I got nothin', Instructor," he insists. "If he wanted us to know, you think Fuu and I would be sittin' here hashin' it over with ya? Nah, we'd be right alongside him! Someone's gotta watch his back, ya know? But he doesn't wanna be found."
She tries to appreciate his odd brand of optimism. This is bigger than getting the posse back together and riding off into the sunset. Seifer's missing, his mental state is questionable, he's—basically defenseless without his sword, unless he's junctioned, and the exactly three people who give a shit about him are clueless to his whereabouts.
Yep, she's one of those three now.
"You act like he's on a—joyride," she bristles. "Aren't you worried at all?"
At the frown Raijin gives her, she thinks she's gone too far. Then he shrugs, and sympathy softens his features.
"I miss him, sure. Fu and I both," he says simply. "But we ain't worried. He's free of the witch. He'll be alright." He gestures to the letter, splayed in trifold on the counter. "And if that ain't good enough for ya, look at what he wrote."
She doesn't have to. She knows what's there, and it tells her enough.
"That's the old Seifer talkin'," Raijin continues. "Our Seifer. Always gotta be doin' somethin' big. Grabbin' life with both hands."
She's unconvinced, and as a kindness, doesn't tell him so.
"Can I keep this?" she asks. Raijin nods. She folds it up, tucks it into her bag for safekeeping. "Thanks. Let's stay in touch, okay?" Garden's comms are limited since going mobile after the missile strike, but she takes a Balamb Hotel pamphlet from the stand on the counter, contact embossed across the front. "I'll let you know if I'm able to track him down."
"Ya mean you're goin' after him?"
"You mean you're not?"
It's not her intention for the words to hit how they do. She's shamed at the way Raijin sags. "We can't do that anymore," he says, sober. "It doesn't do us or him any good. He's gotta do this on his own."
She nods. As a concept, she gets it. There's another part of her surprised at how abhorrent she finds the idea of letting this go. Letting him go.
Not after reading what he wrote. Words meant for the people he knew would find them. Words meant for her.
"Look, I gotta check on Fu," Raijin sighs. "Do what ya gotta do, Instructor."
He slips out from behind the desk and shuffles upstairs, and she's left alone in the lobby of the Balamb Hotel, Seifer Almasy's last known location.
For now.
There's a little crowd gathered around the Ragnarok when Quistis exits. She doesn't bother retracting the boarding ramp. There aren't any obnoxious creatures on the Cape of Good Hope, and nobody in the group of hardhat-clad men strikes her as the spaceship hijacking type. Which is good, because Nida was generous in clearing her to take it. That's one relationship she wants to keep on good terms.
From their ranks, Cid works his way forward. He's in a t-shirt and suspenders, and a formidable pair of steel-toed boots. It's hard not to greet him with a salute.
"Quistis!" he exclaims, arms spread wide in welcome. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," she assures him. He tucks his thumbs into his suspenders, relaxing. "I came to talk to Edea."
"Of course." There's understanding in his weathered face. She wonders how much he's heard about their last conversation. He slaps her lightly on the arm and steers her forward. "I'll take you to her." He waves at the dissipating crowd. "Don't mind these old fellas. They're just helping me with a project."
A project. Right. They're ripping up the entire island. Quistis is reminded of Edea's kitchen the night before the trial. She'd baked enough to feed an army. These people don't do anything halfway—which is probably why they took it upon themselves to preserve the future at any cost.
Quistis walks more slowly than she would prefer, allowing him to guide her across the craggy ground. To her left, the terrain plunges down to the beachhead, where the susurrus of waves draws her attention like a magnet. She keeps her eyes forward as they near the ruined orphanage, wending their way around construction equipment and piles of undressed stone.
"We're restoring it, Quistis," Cid explains. He stops just before a row of crumbling columns and sweeps a hand out over the chaos. "That blank space there is where the bedrooms and the kitchen used to be. We're laying a new foundation. You can see the fireplace there—I'm leaving it intact."
"I see it," she murmurs. That's where she gave Seifer the swift kick he needed. And just down there at the water's edge, he'd nearly been absorbed into time. A gust of wind off the water buffets her hair. It's not the reason for her shiver.
"Twenty years ago, I settled here with my bride," he reminisces. "We didn't have the resources to renovate then, but it was home just the same. Always has been. It's about time this place got a second chance, don't you think?"
This version of Cid makes her smile. He's so grubby she wouldn't be surprised if he's been mortaring the stones himself. "Where's Matron staying?" she asks, steering the conversation back on track.
"Ah yes, my girl. Forgive me. I could talk about this all day." He chuckles wryly, turning them around the way they came. "We took the scenic route just now. Edea's camping out in the lighthouse."
It's a deceptively straight shot to the tip of the peninsula. The craggy terrain is treacherous. Cid manages to hold his own. He's always been a gentleman, and even out here in the wilderness he's in rare form, offering Quistis a hand occasionally as they navigate the path. She's damp with perspiration when they reach the tower.
Edea comes out to greet them. Today she's wearing a billowy white skirt and a blue blouse with buttons down the front. She's striking, and as much as Quistis tries to portray a healthy aloofness, it's hard not to be drawn in.
"What a wonderful surprise this is!" Edea croons, laughing as Cid kisses her cheek. She brushes him away and walks over to Quistis, taking her by the hands. "Quistis, what is it?"
"I'll leave you to it," Cid calls, excusing himself before Quistis can respond. "Don't fly off without saying goodbye, now." His stout figure starts back down the winding trail.
Edea's attention flits from Quistis to her husband's retreating form, then back again. A raindrop flecks the older woman's cheekbone and shivers on the crepey skin. She cranes her neck, appraising the sky. "It's been spitting like this all day," she sighs. "Let's go inside."
The shadowy interior subsumes Matron's pale silhouette. Ambivalent, Quistis hovers in the doorway. She needs information more than she cares to nurse hard feelings. And yet the memory of Edea's rational acceptance of such an injustice as fate sends her heart pounding.
She's their Matron. She had tried to do the right thing. She'd protect all of them, if she could. And right now, one of them needs protecting.
Knowing this in her heart of hearts, Quistis follows her indoors.
The lighthouse is hardly in better shape than the derelict orphanage, but Edea has revitalized what she could. The amount of natural light is surprising, and her eyes adjust quickly; she hadn't seen them as she circled the island, but tall windows stud the circumference of the building. Furnishings are minimal, just a trestle table and bench. In the far corner a drape attaches to the ceiling and obscures all but the last few feet of a boxspring and mattress. The stone floor is swept clean.
"I was just sprucing up when I heard you outside." Edea breezes past, holding a clump of flowers by their stems, and a sewing scissors in her other hand. She trims the stalks down and stuffs them into a speckled crock on the table. "Whenever you're ready, Quistis. I can tell there's something heavy on your mind."
Quistis comes nearer but doesn't sit. "One of these days I'm going to visit just to talk," she says ruefully. "Maybe it'll be about something other than Seifer, too."
Edea perks up but her brows come down. "Did something happen?"
"He checked out of the Balamb Hotel about a week ago. Nobody knows where he is." Suddenly each of her knuckles needs to be cracked. She flexes her fingers, denying the impulse. "I thought maybe you might."
"No, we haven't spoken." Edea glances to the side, clearly uncomfortable. She skims a hank of black hair behind her ear and changes course. "Do you have any other information?"
"Not really." She turns in a circle, marking the flowers in the jar, the cracked plaster on the wall, the salt-stained window panes. "He—left a note. Not that kind of note, I don't think—but it's pretty cryptic." She kneads her knuckles and dares an open look at Edea. "I'm worried about him."
Edea's command of calm is masterful. Quistis sees the truth of shared concern in her brown eyes, feels it in the baby hairs at her own nape, but appreciates the effort nonetheless. She's both annoyed and grateful not to have her own anxiety reflected back at her. "Why don't you tell me what's got you worried, and I'll put the kettle on."
The first few sentences are difficult. It feels strange, saying Seifer's name to another person outside of an authoritative, angry or disparaging context. Then the rest of it drains like a wound. Her restlessness. Seifer's surly, defeatist attitude leading up to the trial. His dismissiveness toward the future that awaits him. Her own fixation on the glimpse of him she saw during Time Compression. His refusal to admit publicly that he was Ultimecia's puppet. The sword in her apartment. Her excursion to Balamb and her conversation with Raijin. The necklace he gave away to Fujin. The note he left behind; with words she'd said. The fact that she testified for Seifer, and he didn't even acknowledge her afterward. The fact that she saved his life and he didn't even—
"You feel a connection to him."
It's not a question. Quistis isn't sure why she feels compelled to answer, or why the answer is a resounding, visceral yes.
"Don't you?" Edea prods, and Quistis stays silent, but their eyes meet and whatever Edea sees there satisfies her. "Don't be alarmed, Quistis. To want connection with others is to be alive. I hardly mean romance."
"I didn't think you did." She folds her arms, defensive. "And yes, I do feel there's a connection. At least a little. We went through something really intense."
Edea's smile is small and strained. "One of these days you're going to visit, and I won't have any revelations to share."
The tenuous flutter in her stomach becomes a hot lick of anxiety. She backs up to the table edge and folds her hands around it as it takes her weight. "Matron," she warns.
"To me, you and Seifer have always been connected."
Edea is a train underway. An oracle in trance. And short of walking out the door, Quistis is powerless to stop her.
"During Adel's rule, she engineered a Lunar Cry in Trabia. You may have seen the crater. It was a warzone, Quistis, and many Trabians were killed by the blast alone. There were monsters, and wounded, and we wanted to help. Cid joined the relief efforts. I. . . stayed behind. It was the first time we'd been apart in our marriage. A prelude of things to come, you could say." She smiles, wistful. "When he returned, he brought our first children with him. You and Seifer."
Quistis isn't breathing. On the tabletop, her hands are numb. To her horror, her eyes are wet. It's not right, the secrets. It's not right, the sharing. She's had enough truth, enough surprises; enough uprooting of the foundations of the earth. And no memories to give credence to any of it.
To her credit, Edea's not watching her reaction, and her reverie continues. "Cid found you both in an encampment for the displaced. You were toddlers, under the care of a Shumi volunteer who rescued you from the nearby village. We'd struggled, up until then, having children. As a sorceress, I—"
"Stop."
Edea glances up, startled.
"I can't." Quistis feels her gorge rising. Saliva jets into her mouth. "Matron, I—"
She seizes the crockery and manages to fling half the flowers aside before vomiting violently onto the rest. Belatedly she realizes there's water in the vase, too, and for some reason this helps calm her as she drips bile into the earthenware and wills her stomach not to heave anymore. A soft hand touches her back and moves in soothing circles.
"I'm sorry, Quistis," Edea murmurs. "It's a lot to hear. But if not now, when?"
Quistis holds onto the bowl with clawed hands until her gut stops spasming, then she lets Matron take it out the door and makes for the washbasin set up by the window. There's a ladle and a towel. She rinses her mouth out and passes Matron once again on her way to spit out the door. The stale taste of her mouth is grounding in the face of this story, this truth that has her reality drifting apart at the seams.
She stays outside, her thoughts circling. Eventually Edea joins her.
"So what?" Quistis asks, dulled. "I'm Trabian?"
"It seems that way."
"And my parents?"
"What living parent would abandon their children?"
She can think of at least one. "You could have told me years ago."
"I know." Edea's voice is mournful. "The timing was never right. You were so young. And then it was time to send you all away. What good would it have done?"
"Are Seifer and I. . . siblings?"
Edea shrugs. "That was my question, at first. The Shumi didn't think so. They have ways of identifying blood ties, you know. Perhaps you were neighbors. Or you could have just. . . found your way to each other."
"Like fate, hm?" Quistis' glance at Edea is sidelong and laden.
Edea's rebuttal is just as dry. "Like you did on my beach thirteen years ago. Figured that one out yet, have you?"
Quistis knows when she's in check. She fists her hands on her hips, folds her elbows inward, and curls in on herself in a stretch. Her eyes are bleary. She rubs them, lashes coming off on her fingers.
"Does he know?" she asks.
A silent shake of Edea's head.
"Is there anything else you feel the need to tell me?" she asks coolly. "Now would be good."
"Tea's ready, if you want some," Edea says.
"Better?"
Quistis nods, regarding Edea through her lashes. She drains her teacup. She's not a big tea person, but this blend tastes like lavender and citrus, and soothes the jagged edges inside her. She's coming down from the earlier shock and trawling behind is an empty exhaustion; free of emotion but unabsolved of responsibility.
"Good." Edea settles on the bench, her back to the wall. Quistis sits on the very end, leaning on one elbow. They face each other. "Now that we've both purged, what's your plan, Quistis?"
It's hardly a decision. "I'm going after him."
"That's a start."
"I don't know where he is."
"You could always rent a chocobo. Scour the coastlines. Search from the air in your spaceship. Hire a private detective. Hire SeeD, for that matter."
Quistis lets her elbow fall and buries her face in the crook of her arm.
"Oh, come on, what are your other options? Asking for help from your friends? Now that's crossing a line."
She's unused to the woman's sarcasm, nor is she fond of it. Quistis rotates her head slightly to glare out of one cracked eye. How simple this must seem to Matron. It's hard to tell if she's being facetious or eccentric.
"Or," Edea lilts, tapping her chin, "there's one other option."
Quistis raises her head, prompting more.
"Ellone." Edea lays her palm flat on the table and straightens her spine excitedly. "Ellone can find him."
Quistis sits up too, but in protest. Has Edea always been this ballsy, and did it just go unnoticed by a bunch of five year olds? "Ellone?" She throws a leg across the bench, climbing out. "Matron, Seifer kidnapped Ellone when he was in charge of the Galbadian army. I can't just go ask her to help me find him. And even if I did, what can she even—" She stops short. "You are not serious."
Edea nods assuredly. "Ellone can find anybody, Quistis. As long as it's a person she knows, she can locate them."
"No, she can send a person's consciousness into the past. There's a difference."
Edea's expression is patient. "Five minutes from now, this conversation will be in our past. Ellone could connect either of us back to this moment to experience it—me through your perspective, or you through mine. Seifer has a past too, wherever he is. If she connects you with it. . ."
"There are so many problems with that suggestion, Matron."
From an ethics standpoint alone it's precarious. There's something shameful in the idea. It's not like their prior excursions into the dream world, where they were sent by Ellone against their will. She would be using Ellone's ability in order to gain advantage over someone else. Granted, it would be for that person's benefit, or so she tells herself. It's essentially what Squall did to save Rinoa when she was drifting in outer space. But she can imagine Seifer's reaction. He would be furious at the breach of privacy. So would she, if it happened to her. Then there's her original concern: she'd have some nerve asking Ellone to help find the man who'd orchestrated her capture.
On the other hand—She would be able to see Seifer's past. His recent past. Depending on how recent, it may indeed clue her into his location, if not inform her outright. He would never have to know. There's a good chance he wouldn't even notice. And if he—if the worst has already happened. . .
Well. Even the dead exist in the past.
She shies away from that thought, tucking her bangs behind her ears.
"It might not even work," she argues.
Edea folds her hands in her lap. "That's true. But if it does work. . ."
Quistis stalks over to the window, leaning on a cocked hip. From this vantage point, she can see the waves build as they near the coast, then disappear outside of view without a visible payoff. It feels really, really good to have a plan, just the idea of one, even half-formed. And the dubious morality of that plan feels awful. Even measured against the spectrum of benefit—from closure at one end, to salvation at the other—it feels like a stretch to justify.
Rationality wins in the end. "There's got to be a better way," she decides. "People don't just disappear, Matron. He left a trail and I just need to find it."
Edea considers this. "You're not wrong, Quistis," she concedes thoughtfully. "Seifer's an adult. For as much as he's a victim of this war, of fate, he was also a perpetrator, and he's got to learn how to live with that. Maybe he just needs some time alone. You could choose to trust in that. Trust him to figure this out on his own." She flops her hands in her lap. "And ask yourself what's driving you to do this. Is it for his benefit, or yours?"
Quistis chews her thumbnail. Trust Seifer. It's a loamy phrase, rich with possibility. It's also as ambiguous as the Ellone solution. It just doesn't sit well, as much as she might want it to.
And the answer to Edea's question is a coin toss.
"Thank you for the tea," she says abruptly, arms dropping to her sides. "I'll stop and see Cid on my way out."
Edea stands. "You'll let me know when you find him."
When you find him. The words aren't lost on Quistis. And she sees the concern lining Edea's face. "And if I take your advice?" she says, feeling frustrated. Mean. "What if I decide to trust him instead?"
Edea frowns. "We'll both still be worried."
Quistis lets herself be pulled into a hug. For such a substantive presence, Edea is slight against her, a woman made of reeds. At the last minute Quistis hinges her hands up around the thin shoulders, returning the embrace. It still feels unnatural, but it's a little less guilt she'll fly away with.