Meeting Love, Finding Despair
Of Air and Angels
By Dragonbait
Chapter Three
At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
-- Salvador Dali
«--»•«--»
Light softly filtered in through the white cotton curtains. It was early morning. Clothes were strewn about the room as though they'd been flung off haphazardly in a fit of passion. As the light hit their eyes, one of the figures stirred, and groggily, she sat up. Hissing in annoyance, she prodded Kiros in the side. The man stirred, mumbled something in his sleep, rolled over and went back to slumbering soundly, unaware of the growing annoyance of his bedfellow. Anisa yanked the flat sheet off Kiros, leaving the man beautifully naked and completely asleep. In the morning light, Kiros' beauty was something that made her catch her breath, before she wrapped the sheet around herself, quickly tidying up the suite before housekeeping came around to do the morning rounds.
"Kiros," she said, prodding him gently, and was rewarded with a grunt. "Kiros!" Her voice was urgent now; to her great relief, he opened his eyes with a groan. She put one hand on her hip in exasperation. "You need to leave… it's not seemly that we should be seen together by the staff—you know how they gossip."
Kiros sat up in bed, now fully awake. Anisa had a point, he had to admit. "But it's not their business who shares a bed or who's seen with who," he said lazily, with a little laugh.
Anisa glared at him, and he held up a placatory hand. "All right, say we're seen together by the staff… what're they going to do about it? Call the media and alert them to the fact that the president of Timber is sleeping with the president of Esthar's aide?"
Laughing slightly at the look on Anisa's face, Kiros scrambled off the bed, hastily searching for his underwear. Once he'd retrieved his outfit, Kiros left the room with a backwards glance at the incredibly beautiful woman he'd spent the night with.
«--»•«--»
Grey eyes scanned the perimeter of the Estharian Presidential Palace. It'd been a while since the man had been to Esthar, let alone the palace. When he had been younger, he'd known Loire well—had been a brother-in-arms with him during the first Sorceress War back when both of them had been young and foolish. Now both of them were older men. Time had worn the man's face. He had been crippled by a roaming beast, far from its natural habitat, and he had been lucky to escape alive. His bones ached as he moved, but he was grateful for the years he'd had as a spry young lad. Luik Leonhart gripped the handle of his walking stick, moving towards the front gate of the palace. Laguna expected him.
To the left of him, he could see construction going on—the repairs, presumably, of the O-Lab. The last time Luik had been in Esthar, some five months previously, parts of the Odine Laboratories had been destroyed by a combination of glycerine and fire. Fatal. Utterly fatal—but thankfully there'd only been two or so people in there at the time. He walked slowly—there was no need to hurry. When one reached his age, there was no need to hurry. He took in the surrounds, glancing at the various cafés that'd sprung up over the years. Stellar, for instance, was renowned for it's well-made coffees and very nice lunches with high quality food, and Luik was a man who enjoyed his food. Though not a portly man, by any means, Luik was slightly overweight, a result that came more from lack of exercise than diet.
Finally reaching the long boulevard that led to the Presidential Palace's parliamentary rooms, Luik gave a smile to one of the guards standing on duty. The guards' clothes, when he'd first chanced across them some long years ago, had seemed too flashy, too obscenely bright. Now, of course, he understood the reasoning behind such things. By night, Esthar was a city of silence, the lights on the vehicles dimmed in passing, the reflective uniforms of the soldiers that guarded the palace, and indeed, Esthar from the world, were an utter godsend in the dark, flashy as they were. It wasn't quiet today as the men and women hurried about their business and jabbering away on their phones—the chilly sun shining high overhead as Luik ambled down the passageway that led into Laguna's offices. He knew he'd be waiting for him—they'd had the appointment set in stone for months on end. Brothers in law, and yet not. Laguna had never officially married his sister, Raine, the fact that his surname graced the simple plaque on the hill just outside Winhill made it all the more intricate. Raine and Laguna—now there had been a couple who were as in love with one another as the day was in love with night—incomplete without each other, yet alone and destined to be solitary as the earth spun on its axis.
"I'm here to see President Loire," he told the young lass sitting at a desk just outside the office where his friend was ensconced. The young woman looked up at him, barely nodding to his announcement. "He's expecting me," he continued with a touch of gruffness in his otherwise pleasant voice.
"Yeah?" she said as she loudly popped the gum she was chewing on and nodded distractedly, before turning back to her device that she used to send messages to her Estharian socialite friends. Luik looked thoroughly unimpressed, and made a mental note to get this girl some proper secretarial training or be fired. The woman's name, Luik noted, was Hollis.
"Luik Leonhart is here to see Laguna," he said, with emphasis on Laguna's first name. Whoever this girl was, she wasn't a very good employee, and Luik was starting to wonder who had hired her when she clearly wasn't fit for such a job. He remembered when Raine had been alive still, planning to overthrow Adel, and wondered whether his sister would have made a good ruler—she would not have hired this chit of a girl.
"Ohhh," her voice resonated with faux-recognition, "I'll just buzz you through," and she did. Luik shook his head, annoyed. What a farce this had turned out to be. Finally he got into Laguna's office, setting himself down on one of the comfortable, high-backed suede covered chairs. It was only a few moments afterwards that he realised Laguna was nowhere to be found. It didn't alarm him—the man was prone to absentmindedness anyway. After a few minutes, he heard the automatic door open with a mechanical whirr.
«--»•«--»
It was just as she remembered. The dim familiar room where she'd spent time away from the world after moving to Esthar was just that. It wasn't her bedroom, but an unoccupied training room once used to train palace guards. Dim. Quiet. There was solitude. She needed it. The serenity of the room was good—allowed her to get her thoughts in order. She wasn't sure what to do about the situation with Seifer—it was complicated enough, with him having been released from prison mere weeks ago and given asylum in Esthar. Though she didn't like to admit it, she hoped he was going to stay. She admitted to herself, as much as she'd admit to anyone, that she'd missed him.
She sometimes wished that she could hate him. It'd make things a lot easier, and definitely less complicated. But she didn't. She couldn't hate him. No, if anything, she pitied him, and Hyne knew pity was worse than hate. She breathed deeply through her nose, held it for a moment, and then exhaled. Standing up, she made her way through the dimness of the room until she found the smooth, metal exterior of her whip's case. She'd not touched it in years, yet she remembered well the day she'd got it. It'd been the day of that dreadful battle against Seifer in the Lunatic Pandora. She closed her eyes, fingers finding the clasps from memory as she unlocked the case.
«--»•«--»
Springtime, Quistis had been eight years old, playing in the flowers that sprung from the newly-green earth after the cold winter. There'd been shouting coming from the orphanage, the yells and screams of Seifer as he was taken away from everything he knew. The only mother he knew, and indeed, any of them knew, was parting with one of her children. Quistis, running only to see the old, rusty truck drive away in a cloud of red dust, the hollering of the young boy as he screamed at them to let him out—and then Quistis awoke. She'd fallen asleep, it seemed, in the dark room, hands still clutched around the case of her long-disused weapon.
When she'd left Garden, she'd left with the belief that words were the way forward, not violence. It was the reason she'd been drawn to Esthar. Since the era of peace, before the struggle against Adel, Esthar had been a city ruled by an ancient monarchy. Such things were not easily destroyed unless some calamity of nature occurred. Quistis had been awestruck by some of the ancient buildings that ran along the outskirts of the grand city. Tear's Point, she was sure, had once been a temple to Hyne that the ancient race that once inhabited Esthar—and given that there indeed was evidence that the Centra-built shelters such as Garden—it wasn't an impossible step in her logic.
The fogginess of her memory made it uncertain to her whether it was something she'd learnt, or something she'd known already. There were times when Quistis felt as if there was a veil hanging between what she knew was in her memory, and the memories that were long before the use of the GFs. How she would give anything to have those memories back, memories which she was certain would give her peace. She stood shakily, and left the room, leaving Save the Queen in its case. She knew then and there that she'd never snap a whip again, nor brandish it in battle to save a comrade or herself. That was how Seifer found her a few hours later, staring out over the balcony. He crept up behind her, a soft smirk on his face. It was strange, he reflected, what ten years could do.
"Quistis," he spoke her name softly, and watched as she turned. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights: blue eyes wide, face flushed, lips pink and hair askew. It seemed to Seifer that she'd been caught in that moment where he guard was completely down. It was something he wasn't used to seeing—the vulnerability that lay lurking beneath the façade of coolness and the outer perception of who she was. Here was someone he'd ridiculed, given a hard time, and yet she had defended him when nobody else had. He remembered the trial probably more vividly than she could ever imagine, and that hell, that horrible place known as the D-District Prison where he'd once tortured Squall. It had kept him sane in its knowledge that someone did care.
"Seifer," Quistis responded, after what seemed like minutes. "What— what're you doing here?" she enquired hesitantly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She was waiting for a return of the old Seifer, harsh, abrupt, abrasive, the one who was an arrogant jerk and yet she knew he was far more than that. She resumed looking out over the vast expanse of Esthar City, seeing the lights coming on as the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon, coating the city in glorious orange light. It was amazing, the mild heat of the day, and then the chill of winter in the evening. She supposed it was normal, given the desert-like plateau that spread so far in both directions, north towards the frozen tundra of Trabia and Shumi, and to the south, where the vast barren Centra plains spread for miles. The chill of the wind from the north caused her to shiver, and Seifer, she realised, was warm.
She didn't understand the impulses that drove her to lean against his shoulder—the impulses that lead her to take a foolish step in the dark. She wasn't even sure if it was out of isolated loneliness that she wrapped her arms around him and rested her head against his solid chest. She would never understand what had happened in those few infinitely small moments to make her do it. Only when he wrapped his arms around her, did she feel safe. Quistis felt safe in Seifer's arms—something that would never be explained in any rational words.
«--»•«--»
Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.
Tennyson, "Locksley Hall"
«--»•«--»
For months after the fact, the people of Esthar and indeed, the world, would shake their heads and wonder how one of the most respected woman in global politics had gotten involved with the man that many saw as a traitor and a puppet to an evil sorceress. There was no explanation except the most simple, love. The tabloids, including one particularly vicious gossip columnist, labelled the relationship as a farce, and prophesied it to end badly. But oblivious they were, happy in love. The tabloids, doing their part, tried their hardest to find the dirty secrets of Quistis Trepe, but found none.
«--»•«--»
It was winter in Esthar. What passed for winter, at least. To the cities in the west, Esthar seemed like summer, with the heat during the day being warmer than a Deling City summer. Although there was the smallest bit of frost on the ground, it quickly vanished in the early parts of the morning before the midday sun beat down. Kiros and Anisa, Quistis, Laguna, Luik Leonhart and several other dignitaries were working hard on negotiations between Timber, Esthar and the Trabian Consul (comprised of four different people in various parts of the mostly barren Trabia settlement), and an agreement that would solidify the not-so-solid agreement that Esthar would help rebuild sections of the various areas surrounding Trabia Garden.
"If I may be so bold as to cross the floor," a dignitary began with a ponderous expression etched on his face, "I would like to yield the power to the Trabian Consul-General." The silence that followed that proclamation was heavy, and Quistis bit her lip, looking across at Anisa, then towards Laguna and Kiros. She leaned forwards, then looked sharply at the dignitary, her gaze icy.
"Be as that may, Mr Nazario, but it's not entirely up to you to decide who wields power in this situation," she said, watching as Tacito Nazario sputtered, his face turning a rather violent shade of puce. "I would like to remind all of us in the negotiation process that everyone has an equal voice, and an equal vote," she continued, determined to stop what she was sure was going to become a shouting match between Mr Nazario and Anisa. She knew tension ran high between Timber and Trabia, had known it during her time as president. It had been something small, something forgotten by most of the world in recent history, overshadowed by the first and second wars, that had caused an ancient feud between two otherwise unconnected countries. Nobody quite understood how the feud had begun.
But it had, and Quistis, along with everyone in the meeting room, was aware of it. But there was even more tension than they knew. Luik, sage and grey, a veritable wise man with knowledge of the old divisions of the country before Esthar had settled. The borders were old, and had been a sore point for his family, in old times. Trabia had once owned the land south of Tear's Point, and were now wanting to reclaim it. Luik was acting on the knowledge from his homeland, far to the north of Esthar in the Kashkabald Mountains. There had been ongoing arguments as to which country the Kashkabalds belonged to, for they straddled the border of the two countries. "Ms Trepe raises an excellent point," he began, nodding at her with his old kind face serene, "For the Consul-General to be given the power, we must ensure that the checks and balances are in place, that should the Consul-General be found to be corrupt, or to be found accepting money for illegal deals, such as the recent Galbadian Arms Acquisition, which, ladies and gentlemen, can be found on page five of your briefing," he paused, reached over for his glass of water, and took a sip before continuing, "We will not be impressed by such behaviour, and Esthar," he looked over at Laguna, "will definitely not be impressed by such a misappropriation of the generosity extended to this project."
Tacito Nazario looked surly. A scowl crossed his face, and he stood up. "This is an outrage!" he hissed, and stormed out of the room. With Nazario gone, Quistis started giggling uncontrollably—she found the entire situation quite hilarious, as a grown man, in his fifties, was throwing a tantrum like her four-year-old daughter.
"Might I suggest we recess for lunch?" she suggested, trying to stop giggling with all her might. But it was a hard thing to do—the giggles kept coming whenever she met someone's eye. Standing, Quistis excused herself, walked down the hallway, opened the door of a public restroom and went into a stall where she promptly collapsed into a fit of riotous, cathartic laughter. It'd been such a stressful morning that all she wanted was to get out of the city, but she knew she couldn't, due to her hectic schedule—she had meetings for weeks on end.
«--»•«--»
Seifer Almasy was bored. No, he was more than that, really. He'd gone to the training rooms, where he'd proceeded to kick the stuffing quite literally out of a punching bag, the training room overseer had banned him from returning. So here he was, a lit cigarette between his lips, crouched down in the shade of a skyscraper. The thin smoke curled up and around his head, getting into his hair. It was damned uncomfortable, the coldness of Esthar in the winter. Cocking his head to the side as he heard the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot, Seifer dropped his cigarette, gunblade flashing in the sunlight as he rushed towards the scene.
It was the perfect break in monotony that he was after.
From the street, it looked like an ordinary fight; the reality was worse.
A flash of silver, then someone with a dark complexion, hurried past. Seifer felt his heart lurch—it might be Fujin or Raijin there, his loyal posse. A slight, twisted smile came to his lips. Whatever they were doing in Esthar, they hadn't seen fit to look him up. Of course, he supposed he hadn't really been all that easy to contact, being in jail and all.
The next thing Seifer knew, a pair of blue eyes were gazing concernedly at him. The room spun, vertigo hitting him like the proverbial tonne of bricks and mortar, and he blinked, trying to figure out whether the fucking hell the chicobos dancing around his head were real or imaginary. Then a voice which he knew so well from years of ignoring it popped into his thoughts, and Seifer scowled.
"—You've sustained another scar, Seifer," the voice said with irritation, coupled with—what was it? Pity? Compassion? Pah! He didn't need her fucking compassion! But the overwhelming confusion of feelings he'd been nursing for more than the better half of his life—were coming to the fore again. Like always. He had once dreamed of ripping her prim instructor's uniform off and having her then and there in her classroom.
"—Fortunately, this one doesn't require disciplinary measures." Her voice cut into his reminisces of a schoolboy fantasy. He glanced up to see her stern face, mouth set in a grim scowl. It seemed like she was annoyed, though he knew her well enough to figure she wasn't as annoyed as she appeared.
"Spare me the lecture," he bit out, gritting his teeth as he felt his forehead twinge. Rubbing his scar, Seifer sighed in annoyance when he felt the familiar netting of bandaging webbing across his forehead. "Quistis, aren't you meant to be in a meeting, anyway?" he frowned as much as pain would allow him to. "What happened?"
Quistis sighed, sinking down into the chair beside his bed. "There was an attack near the Palace. Fortunately, the damage is being repaired as we speak—some new terrorist threat," she sighed, looking suddenly very young. It was a look Seifer remembered from when they'd been orphans together. She'd been so terrified when they'd brought her in, looking for all the world like a lost soul. Her hand reached out to touch Seifer's forehead. "There's no news on who did it—we're still piecing it together. Tacito Nazario stormed out of the meeting in a huff—he's the Trabian Consul-General—and Mr Leonhart, Mr Loire and the rest of the members of the diplomatic council dispersed shortly afterwards. Then the blast—I want to know what you were doing at the time," she said softly, as he reached his hand up to squeeze hers.
What he'd been doing was having a smoke when he heard the gunshot. That was all he remembered. He didn't remember flying arse over tit after the explosion Quistis had described, nor the frantic attempts made by those who had magic junctioned. When all was said and done, Full Life magic was the equivalent of being slapped a dozen times in the face with a wet and still wriggling herring.
Looking at Quistis, Seifer let out a tired smile. "I was having a smoke, then there was a gunshot. Last thing I remember doing is reaching for Hyperion, hallucinating that I saw Fujin and Raijin, and then blacking out as something hit the back of my skull," he said, grimacing at how pathetic he sounded, even to himself.
Quistis frowned. She fiddled with her hair, a nervous habit that she'd picked up long ago during her days as a SeeD. Somehow, all of that seemed so far away now—so foreign to her that she'd forgotten the last time she held Save the Queen in her hands. It looked to her that she may have to take up her whip once more, should the group behind the attack strike again.
«--»•«--»
The swarthy man in the control panel just north of Esthar smiled grimly to himself. Esthar was in for a lot more surprises.
The fun had just begun…
