Chapter 4 – Seifer: Part I - Rinoa's Prize
I.
~ You loved him ~
Rinoa Heartilly closed the door behind her and sat down on the only chair in her dorm-room. She ran her hand through her raven locks as she reflected on the events of the day. The SeeD test had been exhausting, and being a squad leader wasn't somehow as glamorous as the stories made it out to be. Even now, she wondered why Cid had chosen her for this job, her, a Garden student of only one year. Many were the times she questioned Cid's bizarre motives, the man who had insisted that she'd join Garden a year ago. Back then, she had nowhere to go, Garden had seemed like her best option.
Before Garden, she had led an uninteresting but pleasant life in Timber, working at the Timber Juvenile Home centre where she grew up at, after her real parents had died in an explosion in Deling City when she was five.
Then another explosion led her to Balamb Garden. A year ago, her home in Timber had been bombed. It was the only house on her street targeted by the Galbadians, in reprisal for allegedly conspiring against the Galbadian government. Rinoa had never been one to get involved in matters of politics, she left that to Timber's many resistance organizations.
But Hyne forbid that Galbadians concern themselves with such petty things as evidence and justice.
For a few weeks she was homeless, roaming Timber at night when the world was asleep.
A year later…look at her now. She was finally a SeeD with her own private room, a luxury by the standards of Garden, where everyone was cluttered up together in small dorms. It was great.
Great not to hear the careless, deliberate whispers at night in the dorm room. Hyne help her if she so much as goodmorning'ed a fellow cadet. It always went one of two ways. If it wasn't the frost, that hard undeniable contempt that showed itself with every turned-away face or in the vacuum of every unanswered request, it was the questions. A thousand ruthless questions tearing at her past.
Wonder what you had to do to get in? Why are you always in his office?
He sure likes 'em young
But you like them evil, don't you?
Cid always told her to ignore everyone, that after all she'd been through, she ought to have learned how to rise above the pettiness.
So rise above she did. For the whole year she was in Garden, she never once spoke to another soul outside of training missions. And for every one of those days, she wondered why she was here.
"Seifer, what honour is there in killing?"
A year ago she had entered Garden only by chance, wanting to find a boy named Seifer. To tell him that she wanted their summer to continue, that she was prepared to share his dream, because her own had been crushed in the palm of an explosion.
"And where do you think your fancy little dreams will take you? Nowhere, you'll end up staying in this godforsaken town forever, wishing you had followed me to Garden."
In the end she had followed him, but she never found him in Garden. It was the Headmaster who informed her of his death.
"I'm sorry Rinoa," Cid had said. "I know you traveled far."
The news had devastated her. She had cried out his name as she fell to the floor, the finality of his words sinking into her like an irresistible virus. Dozens of SeeDs and cadets watched her on the floor, as their Headmaster tried to console her. Watched this stranger cry.
For Seifer.
When Cid took her in and told her she had a place to stay, Rinoa felt a little comforted. On her first day she had asked her classmates about Seifer, hoping to add a little substance to her brief memories of him. This was his home, the place that made him who he was. That's when the frost started. The first few times people ignored her, it had been bewildering. No one answered her. Conversations were abruptly aborted whenever she entered the room.
When she went back to Cid, he told her that the boy she adored, had died a traitor's death.
"Best not to bring it up to your fellow classmates Rinoa," he simply said. "Move on."
She tried not to. Tried to go on with the training, with all this living business. Until one day in her second month she couldn't take it anymore and tried to ask a unusually cheerful, popular boy called Zell about Seifer. He had been nice to her in training, had even showed her the codes to different areas and didn't seem to join in with the whispered taunts.
"Hey Zell," she stopped him before leaving class, "would you mind telling me about Seifer? No one seems to want to talk."
His grin had frozen and for a moment she thought he would actually answer her, but then that sweet boy who had shown her where to get the best hot dogs, the boy who was her only ally in the entire academy, looked at her like she was a monster.
"You just can't give it up, can you?" he said and marched out of the room, angrily shaking his head.
Zell didn't speak to her for the rest of the year.
The class room had been empty and Rinoa was so lost in Zell's words, that she hadn't heard one of her Instructors walk in.
"They all saw it, you know," a young woman said. It was Quistis Trepe, the only teacher who had never bothered to speak to her.
"Saw what?"
"Saw you crying. Whispering his name," she said. Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "Saw you grieving him like he hadn't just killed a fellow cadet. Like he hadn't tried to kill me. And there you were, kneeling on the floor, mourning in front of the same people who are not yet done mourning themselves."
"I didn't know," Rinoa said, understanding finally. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone here. But I can't just forget. . . I. . ."
"You loved him," Quistis finished for her.
Rinoa sighed, considering denial, but then she nodded.
Her Instructor stared at her a moment. There were too many things in that woman's gaze for Rinoa to guess at, but enough of it looked so haunted, it could only be sorrow.
Then she shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all.
"You're a silly girl," said Instructor Trepe sadly and walked away.
That was the last time Rinoa mentioned Seifer again. She kept quiet, allowed the whispers to wash over her and didn't react whenever another cadet suggested she had probably been fucking Sorceress Adel and Edea before they turned evil too.
Rinoa had told the headmaster that Seifer was alive when she last saw him, though a little wounded. Cid told her that he often embarked on minor training missions to the Timber region. Some months after he left her in Timber, Seifer must have undertaken that fatal SeeD exam and died in the attempt to sabotage his qualifying mission.
All that was after Seifer. After the summer that changed her life.
Before Seifer, however . . . man, was life ever boring.
II.
~ Just tell me how I can pay you back ~
One blissful summer ago, she had met a boy that would change her life. She had been sixteen, and one day as Rinoa carelessly wandered about Timber's main square, something stopped her in her tracks. In the distance she saw a group of group people standing in the dark. There were lights and armoured vehicles and screams in the night.
As she approached them she saw that a small group of people moving in front of the mayor's house, carrying out all valuables. Another group was looting the nearby Pub for alcohol. The mayor's wife and their young son were the only ones present.
"Please leave us," the woman pleaded with a soldier.
"Get your punk ass up," Rinoa heard someone yell. "Let's see how much of a hero you are now." It was a Galbadian soldier beating someone who was lying on the floor. Ever since the Galbadian pigs hauled their battle circus into Timber, it had been non-stop fun and torture in their once sleepy town.
"Finish him off," another soldier said, "that'll teach 'em SeeDs to mess with Galbadia."
She quickly deduced that the man was a prisoner who was being escorted to Timber's prison. While passing the square, the prisoner witnessed a raid on the Mayor's home. Somehow the young man had managed to fend off his own captors to fight off the soldiers beating the old Mayor. It appeared thought that his valiant effort was in vain, as the young man had clearly been overpowered and the Mayor was now lying dead at their feet.
The soldier obeyed the command all too gratefully and grabbed the man by his collar and positioned him against the wall. He was weak; his feet struggled to hold his weight upright. Somewhere under the bruises and grime and blood, Rinoa noticed his eyes. Despite his humiliation and knowledge of certain death, his green eyes merely expressed…..annoyance.
She realized he was only a boy, about her own age, about to die for defending a family he didn't even know. He was going to die for doing what was right.
And that's when she asked herself that question.
What have I done lately?
She scratched her dog's neck. "We have to do something Angelo," she whispered to her companion.
He barked in approval.
Rinoa never understood what came over her then, but something made her walk up to the soldier who had his machine gun ready to blow the boy to pieces.
"Hey you," she said, trying to keep her voice clear and assertive. She kept her hands behind her back, so they wouldn't see them shake. "I challenge you to a duel."
The young soldier looked away from his trapped prey and sized her up suspiciously. He was of average height, but muscular and clearly unused to challenges.
"What the fuck?"
"I think this little girl wants to play duel with you Wedge," teased another soldier.
"Beat it, aint got the time for this," he growled at her. But Rinoa wasn't all too impressed.
"Oh my, you're not afraid of losing to a common civilian, are you? A girl even?" she taunted him. His friends laughed as they waited for his reaction.
Wedge took the bait and turned away from the boy pinned to the wall. "What's in it for me?"
Rinoa smiled sweetly. "You can do whatever you want with me."
The other soldiers laughed even harder.
"And if you win?" he asked, skeptical but with mounting interest.
Rinoa smiled and looked around at the half loaded valuable artefacts. "I want to take all that I can carry."
The soldier grinned.
"Bring it on. Just don't think I'll give you a break just because you're a kid."
Rinoa replied with a thrust of her Valkeyrie in his stomach. Immediately he clutched his midsection and growled in anger. Realizing that this would become more than a game, the soldier returned her attack with a shower of raging bullets, which grazed her shoulder blade. Gasping in pain she raised her Valkeyrie to block another attack.
"Angelo," she yelled. Upon hearing his name being summoned her large faithful fur ball of a dog came running towards the soldier and delighted himself in taking a bite out of the soldier's crotch. She completed the attack with another shot from her projectile. The soldier finally collapsed onto the ground, severely bleeding; the worst cause of pain being located somewhere between his legs.
"Okay missy, take whatever you can carry here. It's all yours," the leader said, wiping tears of laughter from his cheeks.
Rinoa nodded at them and walked past the laughing soldiers, past the precious valuable artefacts and the booze, and stood finally still in front of the blonde boy. He was still leaning against the wall for support. Even though he was on the verge of losing consciousness, she knew he hadn't missed a second of what happened.
Without another word she pulled the wounded boy up and pulled his arm over her shoulder. He winced in pain as she accidentally touched his wounds. Her legs shook under his weight but somehow she managed to hold her balance. She thought she'd heard him mumble something about being capable of walking.
"Hey that's a prisoner of war," the fallen soldier protested.
"Forget it Wedge, all that she can carry, that was the bargain," said the commander and to Rinoa: "We got plenty of PoWs. Have yourself this one."
The hilarity among the soldiers was now complete. They were now throwing one mocking insult after another at Wedge, clutching their stomachs with laughter and vowed to carry the story to every last soldier in the Galbadian army.
Wedge stood up to go after Rinoa and make her pay for this insult, but his friends held him back, forcing him to bear the brunt of his agreement. Growling he released himself from the grasp of his friends, almost collapsing under the burden of humiliation.
"You fucking bitch," he shouted, "I'll be back for you, you bitch. One day your ass will be mine."
Rinoa never suspected that in a month's time, he would get what he wished for.
That night she had brought her prize to Timber's only medical clinic near the station. The doctor gave him a few potions which lessened the pain.
"You didn't have to do that," he groaned, the harshness of his tone sounding impotent at the sight of his injuries. "I would have gotten myself out eventually."
Rinoa smiled. "Eventually."
"Thank you anyway," he said, a bit awkwardly. But he clearly hated to be the object of charity, so he added somewhat reluctantly:
"Just tell me how I can pay you back."
Rinoa smiled, knowing from that moment on, she would have a friend in him.
"I'll let you know someday," she said before he passed out.
He was out cold for three days straight.
"Look Angelo," she said, hugging her dog as she sat beside this sleeping stranger. "That's what a hero looks like."
One night she must have dozed off, because she awoke to shouts of protest. On the hospital bed was Angelo, passionately licking the face of a puzzled but awake young man.
"Hey Princess," he said, struggling under the weight of this mammoth of a dog, "is that why you saved me? So your dog can lick me to death?"
Rinoa laughed, feeling immensely relieved. "Down boy," she said and was promptly ignored.
"So why did you save my ass?" he asked more seriously, still struggling to fend off the dog.
"Why did you try to save the Mayor's family?"
"I had nothing better to do."
"Neither did I," she replied.
Seifer smiled. "A motivated girl like you ...definitely a keeper."
During the next few weeks he spent recovering at the clinic, she and Angelo had visited him every day. He told her that his name was Seifer Almasy . Being chained to his hospital bed, there was not much for him to do but tell her of the thrilling life he led as a cadet at Balamb Garden. He dazzled her with stories of GFs, mercenaries, combat and top-secret missions he had undertaken at great peril and of course, with resounding success.
She also discovered that they were both orphans.
At first she was reluctant to say anything about her life. Compared to his rousing tales, the fluff of her existence barely amounted to a single anecdote. But Seifer being who he was, insisted on finding out more. He questioned her on the minutiae of her most ordinary accomplishments. Laughed at all her jokes. Flirted outrageously with her. He even bluntly criticised her posture that night he saw her fight. He told her not to leave so much time before relaunching an attack and gave her tips on how to improve her cardio.
"You might not be so lucky, the next time you try to save my life," he admonished her.
How delicious those two words were. Next time.
How many nights had she spent thinking of everything that could possibly happen the next time she saw him. He would hold her hand longer, wink at her again. He would take her dancing at The Pub and tell her that new dress she had already secretly bought soon after he woke up, matched her skin beautifully.
He made her feel silly and grown up and ready for anything.
Those few hours she spent at his bedside, every day, were the happiest of her life. He seemed to enjoy her company, and as for Angelo, well he seemed to moderate his distaste for the overaffectionate dog whenever she was around.
He made her talk about her dreams. About growing up in the Timber Juvenile Home centre and about living the little life.
"Sometimes," she said, one day when she felt free and bold, "I want to fly away. Just sprout some wings and fly right over the border of this town."
"Where would you go?"
"I don't know."
"You gotta pick a place," he insisted, "Someone I knew once told me that you need to know where you're going. Have a destiny."
"What's yours?"
"Ah," he said uncomfortably, "mine's complicated. There's an enemy I need to defeat, vengeance to be had etc."
She had pressed him, but he changed the subject. And he never spoke about what brought him into the hands of his Galbadian captors in the first place. It was clear that something haunted him. Every day he asked Rinoa for a newspaper and wouldn't even begin speaking to her until he had read every last page.
And every day he seemed disappointed.
When to her own disappointment, he was discharged by the hospital, Seifer insisted on returning promptly to Balamb. There was an air of urgency to his eagerness to get back to Garden.
"I have stuck around here for too long," he had said. "I've left something undone. And I still need to take care of someone."
He never wanted to explain who it was that needed to be taken care of.
This was a long time coming. Of course it had to end. Rinoa had been practicing several wildly different goodbyes and she wasn't sure what to say when they finally arrived at Timber train station.
It's been fun. I love you. See you around. Please don't go. Goodbye.
"Come with me," he said suddenly, cutting her off before she could settle on one. "Come with me to Garden."
Rinoa hesitated, shocked. This was in excess of any fantasy she'd had about their goodbyes.
"I don't think-"
"Come on," Seifer insisted. "Living here in Timber is charming and all, but you could do better Heartilly."
"Better?"
"Well yeah, this town is for people who refuse to see what life's about. Timber isn't for the likes of you. Didn't you say that you wanted to leave and fly away? Do something exciting with your life?"
Her heart flew, for a moment mounting a loud yes-sign to everything he said. Hyne yes.
But she shook her head. "That was just silly escapism."
"It could be more than a dream. Don't you want to wake up every day and know that this day will be unlike any other before? Don't you want to fight for justice and honour?"
She thought of his gruelling training. Of the wounds on his face and the things that could led a young boy to these great troubles. Troubles so far beyond anything she learned to deal with.
"Seifer, what honour is there in killing?"
"Right," he said, angry suddenly. "It's easy to sit in a one horse town like this and condemn anyone who's made any kind of choice. Killing? Only ignorant civilians go around talking of killing. To keep going, a soldier makes a choice and he has to keep making it every day. Mine's to stand with the innocent and fight evil."
Rinoa scoffed. Then stopped, because in his eyes appeared a crushing sort of distance. She felt like she lost him then and if she couldn't keep him, this was not how she wanted to lose the best thing that had ever happened to her.
"Yes, good and evil," he said. "I'm not afraid to say it, because I'm not afraid to make a choice. Good, evil, right, wrong, crime, justice. But you'll tell me there's no such thing, right?"
"There's no such thing," she repeated quietly. Suddenly she was aware of how much less she was and how much more he seemed in turn.
"Ain't that convenient," he sneered, "saves you from having to pick a side. You think you're happy here? You stay here because you're afraid, afraid of doing something that, Hyne forbid, you might actually want. You're afraid of a world that will make your life in Timber hopelessly dull and meaningless in comparison. And you'll want to kill yourself for the time you wasted here. Isn't that right Heartilly?"
"Right, my life here might not have been ideal Seifer," Rinoa said as her anger rose with his, hurt by his words. "It might seem dull to likes of you. But what do you know of it anyway? You're a sixteen year-old who kills for a living. Don't tell me of sadness, yes I might be miserable here sometimes, but at least I'm not the one causing the misery."
Seifer looked at her, he closed his eyes, took a breath and when he opened them again he had dislodged the knife of her comments and he had made another choice.
"Right my darling country Princess," he said, his voice calmer, colder. He leaned in close, "Where do you think your fancy little dreams will take you? Nowhere, you'll end up staying in this godforsaken town forever, wishing you had followed me to Garden. Stay here Heartilly, see if I care."
He paused to take a long hard look at a girl he had only known for a few weeks. "I guess this town finally got the best of you huh."
Suddenly he kissed her, fast and urgently, like time had already run out. His hands cupped the back of her neck, pulling her up into him. Up higher than she was. She could feel the anger that made him want to crush her lips; crush the weakness out of her. And a part of her wanted him to succeed. At long last he let her go.
As the announcement for the train to Balamb rang through the speakers, Seifer swung his pack over his shoulder and walked towards the train. Just before he got on, he turned to her:
"Goodbye Princess," he said, "you're not half the woman I thought you were."
That was the last time she ever saw him.
With Seifer gone, Rinoa's life began the crumble from underneath her feet, one tiny bit at a time, until the day when she paid the final price for saving Seifer. The soldier called Wedge must have convinced the army that she was a notorious terrorist and subsequently the good government of Galbadia bombed the hell out her tiny house.
But on that fateful day, Rinoa had been out training with her Cardinal in the fields near Timber. She was practicing some moves Seifer had suggested to her, when the Galbadians pulverized the little apartment she lived in.
Angelo. Her only family in the world, the dog that was an extension of herself, was still in the house. She had left him to face the wrath of Galbadia all alone. Everything from now on would be tainted. Losses didn't come bigger than this, than Angelo. There was nothing for her in this world. Nothing to do but pack up and leave it all behind.
Before she did, Rinoa had looked upon the remains of her old home and for a moment fancied that underneath all the ashes, somewhere buried deep, would be the first shoots of a new beginning.
She attached her Cardinal to her hip and thought about her old home. She thought about Seifer and the what ifs. She thought of him, pinned against the wall and what it had taken for her to save him.
There was a million things she would regret, but claiming him as her prize wasn't one of them.
III.
~ Best take the nights you can get ~
A sudden knock on her door brutally interrupted her reverie. Rinoa stood and opened the door to find a short, bouncy delight of a girl grinning at her.
Her name was Selphie Tilmett. The girl was friendly, forward in ways that startled her sometimes. But she was also new and unburdened by Garden's many tragedies. She had learned about Seifer and the horrible mission and knew exactly who Rinoa was. She had listened to the gossip, interpreted the taunts and after taking in the many layers of resentment towards Rinoa Heartilly, Selphie on the first day of their SeeD exam, had knocked on Rinoa's dorm room presenting her with a plate of steaming fresh pancakes.
She had nudged Zell, their other squad member, into talking to Rinoa again. The boy seemed conflicted but clearly longed to get past their last conversation. So they had spoken like real people and Rinoa now rusty with human interaction, was surprised to find herself with two people she could finally trust in a battle.
No wonder their exam had gone so well.
But tonight, Selphie's smile froze when she took in Rinoa's clothes.
"Hey, why aren't you dressed yet," she said, scandalised by the lack of effort. "The party's already started."
"I'm not going," Rinoa said, but smiled to lessen the bluntness of her comment. "I am tired, besides I don't feel comfortable in large crowds."
"How can you say that, it's like the party of the year!"
She sighed. "It's only a party."
Selphie gave her a look of disbelief.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Huh?"
Selphie pushed Rinoa out of the way and marched into her room.
"Only a party?" she said, dramatically. She grabbed the SeeD uniform hanging from the wardrobe door and placed it gently on the bed. "It's the beginning of the rest of your life as a SeeD! You can't live a life you don't remember starting, you silly girl. C'mon it's time to dance!"
"It's hard to dance when every potential dance partner dreams of punching you in the face."
"Oh I'm sure there's someone who doesn't want to punch you," she reassured her. "Someone new or from out of town. Or you can always dance with Zell?"
Rinoa laughed. "Yes, there's always that. But then there's the legions of girls who'll poison my wine if I even think of touching him."
"Yeah his fangirls are craaaazy," agreed Selphie.
Selphie turned to Rinoa and the cheeriness made way for a darker, more knowing expression.
"You don't know how many celebrations you've got left," Selphie shrugged, "or if after tonight, there's anything to celebrate at all. Best take the nights you can get huh."
Rinoa smiled, though she didn't agree. In the past year she had gradually realized that her aspirations weren't the same as her class-mates. Most of the students had literary starved themselves out in anticipation of that ever glorious title of SeeD. While she had spent hours wondering why it was that she didn't feel the same.
Sometimes she wondered whether it had been right to stay after she learned of Seifer's death.
But Cid had been so understanding, so full of concern for her, while Rinoa took in the horror of his news. With effort the girl had thanked the kind man for his time and turned to leave on a journey with no destination. Alone and ruined in almost every way.
But the Headmaster had held her back and to her surprise, insisted that she join Garden. He promised her a new home, promised her a million things she couldn't remember, but she didn't care whether those things were cheap and thin compared to what Seifer might have offered her. There really was nothing to lose, so why not take up the money and the title?
In a way she found solace in living the life Seifer might have lived.
"C'mon Rinoa, please," Selphie said with a girlish pout, the momentary gloom quickly shed by her fixed eternal optimism. Rinoa smiled. When was the last time someone other than Cid had asked for her company? And the girl was right.
Best take the ones you can get.
"Alright," she agreed, "just give me a second."
Selphie jumped up. "Yay. You get dressed, I'm going back to the dance floor and hunt down some stranger willing to dance with you."
Rinoa frowned. "Great."
She closed the door behind her and removed her sweater. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a plastic bag. It was a bag she had forgotten about since the day she enrolled in Garden.
A memory of an age past.
She picked up the bag and pulled out a dress, her hands touched the ivory coloured chiffon fabric and the cool soft satin underneath it. It was the dress she had bought the day after meeting Seifer. Back then she had not wanted to admit it to herself, but should Seifer want to take her out one day after he had recovered, well . . .
It was best to be prepared, was all.
The dress had been at the tailor's for adjustments when her house got destroyed. Rinoa had never been one to attach much sentimental value to material things, but this dress was the only thing that, together with her weapon, truly belonged to Rinoa Heartilly and not to Garden. She had hoped that when she came to Garden to find Seifer, he would have given her an occasion to wear this dress after all.
You think you're happy here?
It killed her, to know that she could never wear this dress.
She fondly stroked the silky material. It was beautiful, too beautiful to be wasted on moths. Rinoa laid out the dress next to her SeeD uniform on the bed. Two colours, two divergent identities.
It's going to be the beginning of the rest of your life as a SeeD
Rest. Of. Your. Life
She held the dress up to herself in the mirror. She closed her and swayed to the echoes of some faraway waltz.
Maybe she could be herself for just one night?
IV.
~ Grave of the fallen one ~
Former instructor Quistis Trepe had been walking the empty hallways most of the night, as she watched the rippling shadows on the walls caused by the delicate union of water and light. She had derived a certain guilty pleasure from her idle stroll, circling around the halls, listening to the fountain drips and the music in the distance. At some point, weary of the halls and the sounds of distant laughter, she decided that she was tired of seeing the same things in the same order. Ignoring the tempting music flowing out of the quad, she made for the exit.
She ached to have her hair loose on her shoulder, she desired the relief of the strain of her bun. But she was still outside the safe confines of her room. People expected elegance from her, an aloof beauty, a frigid bitch. She couldn't walk around like a nymphet, with her golden hair flowing in the wind, why, it would be no less out of character than giggling was.
She couldn't remember how it had started. She hadn't always been this joyless, had she? Didn't she have friends once upon a time? Admirers , people who liked her because she was well…likable.
Maybe it was when Seifer died and she herself nearly died. After what happened to Rajin and Fujin. Maybe it was the day she lost faith in everyone, when she learned you couldn't trust anyone.
On her way out she saw a young man. He was tall, handsome and out of uniform. Quistis suddenly had the feeling he had been staring at her before she noticed him. His presence out here intruded on her solitude. Still, better a stranger than another SeeD.
"A guest?" she asked. "Hm, admittance hours are over really."
"I was held up," he said.
She nodded. "The SeeD celebration ball is to your left, at the Quad, you won't fail to hear the noise of our buoyant little community."
The man narrowed his eyes at this.
"Enjoy yourself tonight," she said, ignoring him and waved him away to continue on her walk.
A few beats later she turned around and there he was, still watching her. Quistis frowned. The crystal blues of his eyes bothered her. They made her feel like an object of curiosity, like he was the examiner, she the puzzle. Good luck with that, she thought and left the man alone with his riddles.
As she stepped outside, the night enveloped her in its chilly reassuring sort of way. There were stars overhead, specks of chopped beauty sprinkled over the face of heaven. But they didn't interest her, stars never did, she didn't care for things that were out of her reach.
The guard was slumped in his chair.
"Good evening Werner," she said.
The man woke up with a guilty start. "Hey instructor."
"Dozing off on duty again?'
"Dear me, I have," Werner said, with a dazed look in his eyes. "But I assure you Instructor, not a mouse will've gotten a quickie on me, as true as the sun shines, believe you me."
"That's great Werner," she responded absently, curiosity compelling her to turn around again.
This time the young man was gone. For a moment Quistis felt like there had been a mistake, that she ought to abandon her idle stroll and talk to him some more. She sighed. Quistis had never been the impulsive type.
She continued her walk around Garden, enjoying the beauty of this place once cleansed of light and people. It was a beautiful evening and in her solitude, trees came to her like shadows in a dream. Suddenly shapes in the darkness caught her attention. As she stepped closer she realized they were the tombs and graves stones of fallen SeeDs and cadets. The tombs were for instructors, valiant combatants and others who had some distinction of some sort. Everyone else got an identical headstone with the SeeD emblem, even those whose bodies were never recovered; their graves were dug and filled with the same earth. Garden deemed that all its members deserved a place to rest after so much toil.
That's when she remembered.
There would be one who did not have a headstone.
She crossed the dark paths in this vast graveyard, feeling her way around with blind certainty. After walking for several minutes, she saw a small untended stone the size of a bird, hidden under the hulking shadow of a tree. It was quite a distance from the tombs and headstones, outside the perfectly designed symmetric pattern of graves. She wouldn't have been able to find it, if she hadn't known it was there.
Quistis bent down to clear the dust and weeds away, to reveal a small brass plaque.
SEIFER ALMASY
No Garden emblem, no date, no commemorating words. Just the grave of the fallen one.
One who should not even have had a plaque to honor his life. She didn't know why she was here. He hadn't meant much to her, in fact, he had tried to murder her and his fellow classmates during her qualifying SeeD exam.
As she hugged herself against the cutting cold, she remembered how she led the SeeD exam two years ago. They had been sitting in a train when it happened, trying to enter Timber and kill a high-ranking official, by the orders of a Timberian resistance group.
But the mission would remain forever unaccomplished because of Seifer's treason.
Yes, he had always been a bit hardheaded in class, and yes, he did spend more time in disciplinary rooms than classrooms. But Quistis liked to think that he had been deluded, that he hadn't foreseen what his 'benefactors' had intended for him to do. She didn't know how his corruption had come about. Had they offered him money? A position of authority?
Some nights, when she felt uncertain of her place in the world, she thought back to this day. To his face on the other side of the train window. That smile. His last words to her.
Goodbye Quistis
She shivered, and willed herself to forget those words for the hundredth time.
But what could someone possibly offer a sixteen year old that would drive him to betrayal?
Whatever it was, she hoped it was worth leaving them all for.
That it was worth dying for.