Ice patches formed in places where the rain pooled. Sleet pelted Xu's bare arms. Her hands and feet were frozen solid inside her canvas shoes, and her teeth chattered as she followed their willing hostage into the mountains. Selphie limped along behind Xu, her progress hindered by her wound.

The potion helped only so much, but Selphie refused to use the others in her stash, in case they needed them for more grievous injury later. Xu couldn't fault her for planning ahead, even if it meant she suffered. Selphie might be part industrious squirrel, part certified nutcase, but she had guts aplenty.

"We should find shelter soon," Nida said. "I don't think this storm is going to let up for a while."

He shot a glance over his shoulder to Selphie and frowned at her heavy limp. Worry creased his brow.

If Xu was in his place, she would keep her eyes peeled for an opportunity to escape. This guy was either too nice for his own good, or a blithering idiot. Maybe both.

He wasn't wrong about the weather, nor was he wrong to be concerned for Selphie. For all her determination to keep going, she wouldn't last much longer. The wound in her leg slowed her down, but the one in her shoulder continued to bleed heavily.

Rain mixed with sleet, turned back to rain, then to snow, and sleet again, and still they walked. For hours, it seemed, they walked through mud puddles glazed with ice and up steep and slippery hills full of hidden dangers like exposed tree roots and divots and rocks.

The temperature continued to drop, the wind picked up. Nida was right. They were going to freeze to death if they didn't find shelter soon.

At least they would not die prisoners. Better to die free in the middle of the woods than die of neglect, abuse, and starvation behind a fence.

"Damn cold out here," Nida said. He stopped walking and peeled off his sodden uniform jacket. "Sorry I didn't think of being a gentleman earlier, but you had a gun on me, you know? I only have this one, but maybe you can take turns? Might warm you up a little."

"Give it to Selphie," Xu said, teeth chattering. "I'm fine."

"It's freezing out here," he said. "We'll die of hypothermia if we don't find somewhere to warm up."

"Yeah, I already figured that out, genius," Xu said. "Give her the jacket and let's keep moving."

"No need to be rude," Nida said. "I could have sounded the alarm back there and I didn't."

Xu helped the shaking Selphie into the wet jacket and sighed. It was a nice gesture, but a lot of good it would do.

"Why didn't you?" she asked. "You're one of them."

"I'm not one of them," he said. "It was either join them or wind up locked in a pen like you guys were. I picked the side that got regular meals. Otherwise, there's not much difference between the two."

Xu sneered. "Doubt that."

"You don't have to believe me."

"Good, because I don't," Xu said. "Let's keep moving."

Xu wondered which side of dawn they were on as they continued down the trail through the never-ending forest. It seemed they'd walked for hours and hadn't made much progress, but how could she tell when it all looked the same?

"Hyne, please tell me we're not walking in circles," she said to herself.

They walked, ascending the mountain trail at a snail's pace. The weather deteriorated, the wind grew stronger and the sleet fell sideways. Xu's hair froze at the ends and Selphie stumbled and fell twice. Nida rushed to her side before Xu could and helped her up. The third time she fell, he offered himself as a crutch and lifted her over the more worrisome obstacles, but Selphie was running on fumes.

So was Xu. Only sheer stubbornness kept her from sitting down next to a boulder and waiting for the cold to take her.

"Hey, looks like there's a cabin up ahead," Nida said. He let Selphie go and took two steps forward to squint at the structure. "Let's go check it out."

Selphie followed, but stumbled over a branch. She fell face-first onto the muddy path with a soft cry of pain. Xu helped her up and her hand came away bloody.

"Just a little further, Selphie," Xu said. "Hang in there, okay?"

She looked bad, even in the dark. Blood, mixed with rain and streaked down her bare leg. Her shift was soaked with it, all the way to the hem. Whether or not Selphie liked it, she needed another potion.

"Not feeling so hot," Selphie said.

"Can't imagine why," Xu said. "We're almost there. I hope."

Selphie slung her arm around Xu's shoulders and the pair hobbled after Nida. The shape in the distance disappeared as a mix of snow and sleet fell heavy and hard, but they pressed on until Nida let out a hiss of excitement.

"It's a house!" he said. "Doesn't look like anybody's used it in a while, either."

Xu helped Selphie up the steps to a covered porch. Selphie leaned into her and shivered, her teeth knocking together in a loud, manic clatter against Xu's shoulder.

Nida tried the door.

Locked. Of course it was.

Xu seated Selphie on a dry-rotted rocking chair and went to the window. She pried off the screen with numb hands and tossed it aside. She curled her fingers around the lip of the window pane and tugged it upward. To her surprise, it gave a quarter inch, and then stopped.

"Give me a hand," she said to Nida. "The latch isn't secured, but I think it's stuck."

Together they jiggled and jostled and pulled until the window opened just enough to allow Xu to slip through.

Inside, the barest suggestion of furniture covered in drop cloths confirmed a lack of residents. The smell of dust hinted it had been a long time since anyone visited. Someone's summer house or hunting cabin. A place no one would visit in this weather.

She unlocked the door and ushered Selphie inside. Nida followed and switched on his flashlight, swept it around the room, and whistled.

"Better than I hoped," he said. "Looks cozy. There's even a fireplace!"

"Close the window," Xu ordered and uncovered the nearest recliner. She pushed Selphie into it and examined her wounds. "You need that other potion, Selphie."

"But-"

"There's no point in hanging onto it if you're dead," Xu said.

"It's not that bad."

"It is," Xu said. "There's a good chance it'll get infected after running around in the woods all night. Besides, you've lost a lot of blood and you're still bleeding. What good are you if you can't run if they come for us?"

Selphie sighed, reached into the bodice of her dress to retrieve the potion she stashed in her bra. Xu took it from her, uncapped it and poured a measure into each wound. To her surprise, bubbles formed around the ragged tears in her skin and something small and round pushed outward from the hole in her shoulder. It hit the wood floor with a metallic clink and Xu picked it up.

The bullet.

She gave a soft laugh and held it up for Selphie to see.

"Want a souvenir?"

"Heck yeah!" Selphie said and held out her hand to receive it. "I mean, getting shot sucked but it's not every day a girl gets shot for escaping from a Galbadian death camp."

Xu sat back on her heels and patted Selphie's knee.

"It'll be one hell of a story ten years from now," Xu said. "If we live that long."

Selphie's wound was on the mend, but she was still pale and weak. Xu ordered her to stay put while she investigated the cabin. There had to be blankets somewhere. Maybe food.

She pressed the gun into Selphie's hands, stood up, and rubbed her goose bump-covered arms and looked around. The temperature inside wasn't much warmer than outside, but they were out of the wind and the rain-snow-sleet mix. She weighed the practicality of starting a fire in the fireplace versus the possibility someone tracked them.

A fire sounded heavenly, but safety took priority. Not smart to telegraph their location.

"Nida, why don't you see if there's food in the kitchen," she said. "I'm going to go find blankets and warm clothes or something."

"Sure," Nida said.

"And turn off that flashlight unless you really need it."

In the first of two bedrooms, Xu found a thick down comforter and a crocheted blanket underneath the dust cloth draped over the bed. In the closet, she found another made of fleece and a pile of sweat shirts and sweaters encased in plastic. Glad for the owner's foresight, she dragged her finds into the living room and instructed Selphie to strip, then she searched the bathroom for towels.

Selphie left the wet clothes in a pile on the floor and Xu frowned at her tiny, skinny body. She could count every one of Sephie's ribs. Xu supposed she looked much the same, except her own body was covered in greenish-yellow bruises.

Xu stripped off her wet clothes and selected a sweat shirt from the pile, a pair of men's flannel pajama pants, and wrapped herself in an over-sized cardigan that fell all the way to her knees. She stuffed her feet into thick woolen socks and wrapped her wet hair in a plush towel.

Already warmer, she uncovered the couch and sat down with her feet tucked beneath her. Selphie yawned and did the same. Xu wrapped them both in the down comforter and they huddled together for warmth.

"So what now?" Selphie asked.

"I don't know," Xu said. "Maybe I'll go home to Centra. I don't know if there's anything left to go home to, but it's better than staying here."

"They'll invade Centra eventually," Selphie said with a yawn. "I heard one of the soldiers talking about how all the rebels are fleeing south and that Galbadia's headed down there to wipe them out."

"Centra's big and empty," Xu said. "A lot of places to hide. Besides, there isn't much where I'm from. Just a small town. Not a lot of people."

"Where's that?"

"Cape of Good Hope," Xu said. "Maybe you know it?"

Selphie's face screwed up and she cocked her head to the side.

"Sounds familiar. Was there a lighthouse?"

"Yeah," Xu said. "And a beach."

Selphie's eyelids fluttered and her expression said she almost remembered. Almost.

Feisty little Selphie. Always in trouble. Mud in her hair, sand in her shoes, her elbows and knees scraped, standing toe to toe with Almasy, ready to play as hard as the boys.

Xu dropped an arm around Selphie's shoulders and willed her to remember her big sister, the one she alternately loved and loathed depending on the day and how much mischief she'd gotten into.

"Maybe I read about it in a book," Selphie said. She yawned again and dropped her head to Xu's shoulder. "I bet it's nice."

She thought about the constant noise and bickering, the broken water heater, the leaky roof, the endless burden placed on her shoulders, baloney sandwiches and bowls of plain rice.

Hyne, how she missed the simplicity of it. It had been awful, but it was paradise compared to everything they'd just been through. Xu might have killed someone for just a bite of baloney on stale bread.

"It was a hellhole, but it was home," Xu said.

A rush of air rattled the vent on the floor and the cold room smelled of burning dust. She sat up and looked around, then focused on the shape of Nida standing in the doorway of what she guessed was a kitchen.

"The power's on," he said. "Heater works."

He held up a pair of cans.

"Found food too," he said cheerfully. "You want beans or canned peaches? There's also soup. I can heat some up."

Xu didn't care. The soup sounded warm and delicious, but she was hungry enough to eat her own hand.

"Selphie?" she asked.

"Peaches," Selphie said. "But I don't mind sharing."

That was good enough for Xu. She accepted the can of beans and a spoon. Nida sat in the recliner across from them and watched Selphie shovel peach slices into her mouth.

"What?" Xu demanded.

"What do we do now?" Nida asked. "I... I can't go home."

"We?" Xu asked between bites of beans. "We aren't doing anything."

"But..."

"He helped us, Xu," Selphie chimed in. "He could have just turned us in or something."

"Yeah," Nida agreed. "I could have shot you."

"Just because you helped us get out of there doesn't mean we owe you," Xu said. "You're still the enemy and I don't trust you, so consider yourself lucky I didn't kill you the second we were clear."

"But you didn't, and now I'm a fugitive," Nida said.

"By your own choice, pal," Xu said. "I don't take responsibility for your decision to play along."

Nida pushed to his feet, his head hanging, and returned to the kitchen. Pots and pans clanked lightly together, a can opener motor whirred, and Xu stabbed at her beans like they'd offended her. Selphie just stared with sad puppy eyes.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"He helped us. Got us to safety."

"Could still be a trap," Xu said. "Anyway, I spent most of my life being responsible for other people, and I'm not about to start collecting strays again. He's a big boy. He can fend for himself."

Selphie pouted and passed off the nearly empty can of peaches in exchange for the beans.

"There's safety in numbers, you know," Selphie muttered.

"We don't need him."

"I wouldn't have made it up the mountain without him."

"You would have if you'd taken the second potion."

"No, I wouldn't have," Selphie said in a small voice. "I kept falling because I was too cold to move right, not because I got shot. A potion wouldn't have helped that."

Maybe not, but it was stupid to rely on a stranger for help. Especially not one that was a very recent defect from the G-Army and might very well turn them in to save his own skin.

Whatever Nida was making in the kitchen smelled divine. The soup, Xu guessed, and she regretted her choice to take the beans. Warm soup would chase the chill from her bones faster than the dry clothes and blankets.

"Think he's got a family somewhere?" Selphie wondered. "Somebody who's worried about him?"

"Don't do that," Xu said.

"What?"

"Make him human," Xu said. "Sympathize with him."

"He's a person," Selphie said. "Kinda obvious that he didn't have much of a choice, you know?"

"He picked the wrong one," Xu said. The peaches tasted strange after the beans. The texture was slimy. Xu ate anyway. "Besides, I think we should ki-"

Nida bustled into the room, a mug in each hand.

"Soup?" he asked.

Selphie looked at Xu as if this proved her point. As if a man bearing soup proved he was no monster, just a nice guy with no ulterior motives who would not murder them in their sleep.

Xu accepted his offer and wrapped both hands around the warmth of the mug. It was chicken soup, judging by the smell. Xu tasted it. Definitely chicken soup, but thick with vegetables and egg noodles. Substantial soup.

Selphie watched her over the rim of her own mug as warmth began to bleed back into Xu's bones. Nida's smile was full of hope tinged with worry.

"Eat as much as you want," Nida said. "I found eight cans of that stuff in the pantry, so I can make more if you're still hungry."

Selphie's eyebrows raised as she sipped the broth, but her eyes stayed on Xu. As if an offering of unlimited soup would change her mind.

But, it was hard to imagine Nida's earnestness was just a put-on. She didn't trust him, but boy was he making it hard not to like him.

"I've got crackers, too," he said and tossed a long, sealed package into Selphie's lap. "Soup needs crackers, right?"

"You were saying?" Selphie asked Xu.

"Fine, but one false move, and I'm putting a bullet in his head."

Squall followed his siblings down a long, sterile corridor, trailing some distance behind Raijin, hyper-aware of the group of bullies behind him, the clinical lighting, and the military types behind glass windows watching them pass.

His whole life was back in Centra, not that it amounted to much but a rotting house set upon a crumbling cliff, but everything here was so very different from the things he knew. Life back home had sucked, but there was comfort in the routine, of knowing that twice a week, Seifer would bring trimmings home from the butcher shop, and that the roof would leak when it rained, and that Zell and Fujin could be counted on to fix the mechanical things that broke.

Here, everything was unknown. On one hand, that was exciting. On the other, he was possibly about to give up his life to fight for something that didn't even belong to him. Why should he care what happened to Esthar, or Balamb, or Dollet when most days, his worries revolved around whether or not they had the basic tools to survive the rest of the week?

The others had seen promise in joining up. Regular meals, pipes that didn't break in the middle of the night, electricity that didn't go out because they couldn't afford to pay the bill. They saw a chance to fight for the good guys and learn a trade that might be useful after the war.

Squall didn't fault them for their hope, but he was a realist. People died in war. They were gunned down or blown up or executed. Recruits like them were little more than cannon fodder.

But, as Seifer pointed out, eventually, Galbadia would arrive on their doorstep, and they would have no choice but to join them or die. If Squall had his way, he'd disappear into the badlands and live off the resources of the wilds while the world burned a hundreds of miles away.

If not for the promise he'd made Seifer, he might have chosen that fate over this. But he had a family to look after, for better or worse.

"Recruits!" A voice called over the chatter. "Look sharp!"

The line of teenagers came to a stop, single file before a set of double doors. Squall peered around Raijin to the Estharian soldiers standing at attention at the head of the group.

"This is the dormitory," one of them said. "This will be your home for the next eight weeks. You are expected to keep your area neat and orderly at all times. There is no food allowed in the dormitory.."

Squall tuned out the lecture about the rules of the dorm. They couldn't be all that different from Xu's rules growing up. She'd run the place in Edea's absence like a drill sergeant. Beds made first thing in the morning, the sheets tucked so tight, she could bounce a Gil coin off them. Floors cleaned daily, not that it made a difference, shelves and furniture dusted every other day, belongings folded or hung neatly in the closet. Zero clutter allowed.

"Your beds are assigned," the soldier said. "Find the footlocker with your name on it. This is your bed for the duration of your training. There will be no trading beds, under any circumstances."

Squall suppressed a yawn. What did it matter what bed someone got? A bed was a bed.

"In your footlocker, you will find your uniform. You have ten minutes to get dressed. Anyone out of uniform will face the consequences," the soldier said. "Now move your asses, recruits!"

The line double-timed it through the doors and into a long room with metal framed beds lining opposite walls. At the end of each was the aforementioned footlocker. Names were affixed to every lid. Squall browsed them until he found his own name, between Trepe, Q. and Kramer, Z.

He opened the footlocker marked, Leonhart, S. and pawed through the things inside. A uniform. Socks and underwear, still in plastic, a pair of boots, and a package of brand new t-shirts.

Squall couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten anything that wasn't second-hand besides the basics. Everything he owned besides socks and underwear, which he wore until they fell apart, were hand-me-downs or bought at a thrift store.

Carefully, he unwrapped the package and unfolded the t-shirts.

Three feet away, Zell rubbed his own brand new t-shirts against his cheek.

"It even smells new," Zell said. "This is the softest thing I've ever had on my face."

Squall snorted back a laugh as he imagined Seifer's potential smart-ass response to that. A shame he wasn't here. Squall understood, but he already sort of missed Seifer's leadership. For all his faults, he'd been their backbone after Xu left.

He rubbed the healing wound between his eyes and sighed. He couldn't rely on anyone but himself now.

"Six minutes, recruits!"

Squall bundled his uniform and boots against his chest and headed for the men's room, where several other recruits in various states of undress hurried to get ready. He joined them, hastily shedding his old, threadbare clothing a piece at a time.

The uniform fit perfectly. Better than anything he'd worn his entire life. Like it had been made specifically for him. The boots were actually his size.

When he stepped out of the men's room, Squall Leonhart felt like a different person.

"Hey man, look at you, ya know?" Raijin said and slapped him on the back. "You clean up pretty nice, yo."

The uniform somehow made Raijin look even bigger than he was, like a wall of muscle, but he was all smiles and full of pride over his new threads.

"Yeah, you too," Squall said.

"Recruits! Line up!"

Squall fell in with the rest and followed the pair of soldiers out of the dorm, down another clinical hallway to a cafeteria not unlike the one he watched other people eat in five days a week at school while he nibbled on stale crackers or went without.

His stomach rumbled at the scent of hot food. Meatloaf or something with gravy. Maybe chicken fried steak. Fresh bread.

It didn't really matter what it was. Squall wasn't picky. He lined up at the counter as one by one, those ahead of him accepted a tray and took a seat. When it was his turn, he grabbed his tray and followed the others to a table near a raised platform on the opposite side of the room.

Zell was already shoveling bits of brownish meat drowning in gravy into his mouth while Fujin examined a fluffy roll. He sat between them and tucked into his own meal, quietly ingesting the unfamiliar flavors and textures of the food. He had no idea what it was he was eating, but it didn't matter. It was food.

Not one of them spoke as they ate, the lone silent group in the room. Laughter and conversation bubbled up all around them, but they were all too focused on the rare privilege of a full, balanced meal to waste time on talk.

He was nearly finished eating when a man in casual dress entered the room – a forty-something man in wrinkled khakis and sandals who limped his way up onto the platform. Squall paid him little mind and returned his attention to his task of mopping up the last of the gravy with his dinner roll.

"Evening, everybody!" the man said. "Sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I, uh, wanted to introduce myself."

The chatter around them died off and Squall fixed his gaze on the guy. The man had to be important if there was a need for introduction, but he didn't look much like a soldier. Twenty years ago, maybe he had been, but now, he just looked like an average middle-aged guy with salt and pepper at the temples of his long, dark hair.

"I'm Laguna Loire," he said affably. "President of Esthar."

Squall sat up straighter.

What had Ellone said before they left? Find a man named Laguna. He'd known Squall's mother. He'd been important to her, and to Ellone. His father.

He tuned out whatever Laguna was saying and went back to his childhood, to the stories Ellone used to tell him about a man named Onkalagoona, a name that had made a much younger Squall laugh. He'd always believed Ellone's stories were things she'd come up with on the fly to entertain him, not truth. It never once occurred to him that Onkalagoona was a real person.

Certainly not an important political figure. Definitely not a President. Absolutely not his living, biological father.

How in Hyne's name did Ellone know the President of the Silent Country? How had his mother known him? Was Squall Estarian and not Galbadian as he'd always believed?

He searched the man's face for similarities to his own, but found little in common. Loire's hair was darker. His eyes were green. His mouth and nose were a different shape and his face was long instead of round like Squall's.

It seemed so impossible, to be staring at a man who, according to Ellone, was his birth father. A man who was alive, when Squall had spent his whole life believing him dead. A man in charge of an entire country who presumably lived in the lap of luxury while Squall struggled just to tend to his own basic needs. If it was true, why had Squall and Ellone been raised in an orphanage and not with their family?

Was this for real, or was Ellone mistaken? She'd been young when they were placed in Edea's care. Maybe she'd mis-remembered. Maybe she was wrong.

Polite clapping erupted all around them as Laguna Loire stepped off stage and sat down at a nearby table to speak with the recruits. Squall snapped out of his reverie to glance around at the faces of his siblings. Zell looked perplexed, Quistis suitably impressed, Raijin star-struck, and Fujin, well, who knew what Fujin was thinking?

"Yo, I think that's the guy who was in The Sorceress' Knight!" Raijin hissed. "He played the Knight, ya know?"

"No way," Zell said. "Actors don't become Presidents, man."

"Seifer made us watch that movie like a hundred thousand times," Raijin insisted. "Like, I know every word by heart. I'm sure that's the guy."

"He's coming this way," Quistis said. "Why don't you ask him?"

The President waved as he approached, then claimed the only empty chair at the table like he was one of them. This irked Squall for some reason, but he kept his silence and observed his laid back body language.

"Heya guys," Laguna said. "I'm Laguna. Just wanted to say hi to our newest recruits and say thanks for joining up. Means a lot to Esthar, and to me that you're here."

He'd said that already. Squall detected a hint of nerves behind the relaxed posture, and in his hopeful smile.

"Are you... are you the guy who was in The Sorceress' Knight?" Raijin squeaked, an octave higher than his usual speaking voice.

Laguna's smile fell a little, but he nodded.

"That was me," he said. "I'm surprised kids your age know it. It bombed pretty bad. Voted one of the worst movies ever made back in my day."

"It was our brother's favorite growing up," Quistis said. A pretty blush stained her cheeks. "We used to watch it on the projector when we were little."

"Yeah, we played some dumb game based on it when we were kids," Zell said. "He was always the Knight."

"I was the dragon, yo," Raijin chimed in and roared dramatically.

Laguna laughed, then shuddered.

"That was a real dragon, kids," he said. "Damn near took my head off before I figured out it wasn't a couple of guys in a suit."

"Dude, I told you it was real!" Zell shouted and pointed at Fujin. "See?"

"LIES," she said. "COSTUME."

"Believe me, that dragon was as real as a bite bug at a tea party," Laguna said. "They used the footage from the real battle because the budget was so tight, they couldn't afford to do a second take."

Squall was thrown by the moronic turn of phrase. What, exactly, did that mean? A bite bug at a tea party?

"Your brother? Is he here?" Laguna asked. "I'd love to meet the one guy in the world who actually liked it. Not something I hear everyday!"

"He didn't join," Squall said flatly. "He stayed home to look after my sister, Ellone."

Laguna turned his gaze on Squall. For a split second, his eyes widened at the name patch affixed to Squall's uniform jacket, then they flicked back up to Squall's face.

A little of the warmth in Laguna's eyes died, but Squall didn't flinch or look away. Laguna blinked rapidly and his throat bobbed. Squall would swear the man's eyes misted over.

Then, Laguna Loire growled under his breath, hunched forward and pressed his face into the table as he drew his knee toward his chest.

"Leg cramp!" he hissed. "Ow, ow, ow... goddammit."

"Are you okay?" Quistis worried. "Is there anything we can do?"

"No, no, it'll pass," Laguna said through gritted teeth. "Old injury. Gets me at the worst times."

The others exchanged glances, but Squall kept his eyes on the President, who looked and acted nothing like any president Squall had ever heard of before.

"I, uh," Laguna sputtered, his gaze on the table and his face pale. "I should go. People to meet, puppies to kiss. It was great meeting all of you and thanks a busload for joining the cause."

Squall watched him go, and he didn't miss the way Laguna shot a glance over his shoulder at Squall as he limped his way to the next table.

His father.

The President of Esthar.

And a complete train wreck.

Irvine removed his hat and followed Zone into a train car near the perimeter of the camp. Ahead of him, Rinoa trailed her fingerips over multi-colored rivets in the metal, graffitied walls. Most of the graffiti depicted anti-Deling images and messages, but a few inspirational quotes hung on the fringes, along with a fair amount of childish ribbing.

It smelled of unwashed feet and sweat. Irvine wrinkled his nose and stayed a half-step behind Rinoa. Through half open doors, Irvine glimpsed tiny rooms outfitted with bunk beds on each wall, meant for rest on long trips. Some were empty, but others were occupied with people either sleeping or playing cards or engaged in hushed conversation.

Clever, to use the abandoned sleeper car as a dorm. That was preferable to the alternative outside, where entire families did their best to make homes behind bed sheets.

"Home sweet hellhole," Zone said as he pushed a sliding door into a recess in the wall. "We didn't get a chance to clean it out, but feel free to keep whatever you like. Anything you don't want, take down to the room at the end of the hall. That's where we keep stuff for community use."

Rinoa entered the cabin before Irvine and turned in a slow circle to examine their new home. It was hard to read the expression on her face, but Irvine sensed her horror at how these people were forced to live.

"Get settled in," Zone said. "Dinner's in an hour. Meet me by the command tent and I'll introduce you guys around."

"Thanks," Rinoa said.

Zone looked Irvine over and hitched his thumb at the aforementioned room down the hall.

"This ain't no soiree," he said. "Help yourself to some threads. Sure something in there will fit you."

Zone flinched at Irvine's narrowed eyes and clutched his midsection.

"I didn't mean it like that," Zone said. "Just, you know, those are nice pants... and..."

"Don't sweat it, friend," Irvine said. "You ain't wrong."

Visibly relieved, Zone straightened and edged out of the room.

"Come find me when you're ready."

"Will do."

Rinoa climbed up into the top bunk and sat on the mattress, hunched forward because the ceiling was too low for her to sit normally, and toyed with the laces of her boots. Neither said anything for a minute and the silence weighed heavily on Irvine's shoulders.

"Why did my father ask you to take me back to Deling City?" Rinoa asked eventually.

"You weren't supposed to know about that."

"Not my fault I heard something I wasn't supposed to hear," Rinoa said. "Why did you agree to it?"

Irvine shuffled his feet and tossed his hat on the bottom bunk.

"When a General of the G-Army asks you for a favor, on the record or otherwise, you do it," Irvine said.

"What did you get out of it?" Rinoa asked.

"The pleasure of your company," he said with a flippant smile.

"Be serious. What did he offer you in return for your services?"

"Nothing," Irvine lied. "I did it out of the goodness of my heart."

"Nobody does anything out of the goodness of their heart anymore," Rinoa said.

"You say that, but you chose to come here to help people," Irvine countered. "Out of the goodness of your heart."

Rinoa turned her face to the wall and brushed dirty strands of hair off her forehead.

"Or maybe you're here to piss your father off," Irvine said. "Maybe you wanna put yourself in harm's way so he has to come rescue you because you need him to prove he cares."

"That's not it," Rinoa said. "Not even close. Tell me what he offered you."

Irvine sat on the lower bunk, just so he wouldn't have to see the anger in her face when he told the truth.

"A promotion," Irvine said. "Better pay. A dorm I didn't have to share with someone else."

"Sorry I ruined that for you," Rinoa said tartly. "Clearly you took it."

"I'd be stupid not to, Rin," he said. "It wasn't what I would have asked for, though. I don't give a damn about that stuff."

"Yeah?" Rinoa fired back. "What would it have been? His approval to date me?"

Irvine snorted and kicked off his dirty boots. What he wouldn't give for a nap.

"Full of yourself, aren't you?" Irvine said. "I'm not interested in dating someone who isn't interested in me, so best you get that idea out of your head."

"He loves you, so I'm sure with your big promotion, he wouldn't be opposed to it," Rinoa said. "He's all about rank and status. No lowly recruits for his little girl, right? Like I can't decide on my own-"

"Stop right there."

Irvine pushed to his feet and stood up to face her. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes flashed, infuriated by the very thought that Irvine and her father might be conspiring to trap her in a relationship.

Rinoa was attractive, and Irvine sincerely enjoyed her company, in spite of her sociopolitical-feminist rants and overly idealistic view of how the world should work. If she showed the slightest bit of romantic interest, Irvine wouldn't turn her away. But he wouldn't do it because her father seemed to think they would be a good match, once he proved himself worthy, but because she wanted him, because maybe, there was something worth exploring beyond friendship.

She'd made it clear that she was only interested in his friendship, if their relationship could be called that, and in Irvine's book, that was the end of it. No sense in pining away or hoping she'd see him as something more. There were plenty of girls in the world.

"Well?" she demanded.

"What I want, he can't help me with," Irvine said. "I can't even ask, because it involves my family."

Rinoa's anger melted away and was replaced by wounded sympathy.

"I'm sure he can do something," Rinoa said. "If he really wanted to."

"He can't," Irvine said. He turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing himself to keep it together. "They were executed. A year ago. Don't even know where they were buried, or if they were buried."

Irvine sighed and wiped his hand over his eyes. He'd already cried all he was going to cry over them, first when they were taken away, and again when he'd gotten word of their deaths. Crying over it now would change nothing.

"I took his offer because I was in no position to say no," Irvine said. "And that's the truth."

Rinoa sighed and sniffled, then came the thud of her boots against the floor and a light touch against his back.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know. You never brought it up."

"Forgive me for not disclosing the dirty details of my insurgent family's demise to the daughter of a Galbadian General," Irvine said. "Wasn't sure if I could trust you."

"You don't trust me?"

"You're reckless," Irvine said. "Brave, but reckless."

Irvine picked up his hat and worried the brim. Trust was hard, and Rinoa, as much as he believed she meant no harm, was not an exception.

"And?"

"I still think you've got a hell of a lot to learn about the real world," Irvine said and gestured at the window, where they had a view of the camp, "but I'd say... this is a lot better than bein' somebody's puppet."

Rinoa crashed into him, her arms encircling his waist in a tight cinch that squeezed the breath out of him.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," she said.

"Better this than prison," he said, "which is where I'll wind up if your father's people catch up to us."

Rinoa let him go and stepped back.

"He won't send anyone," Rinoa said. "It would would look pretty bad if people found out his daughter ran away to join the resistance."

"He could always say you were kidnapped."

"That would look just as bad," she said. "What kind of General lets his daughter get kidnapped?"

"He could say it was me."

"He won't," she said. "He would rather pretend I was safe and sound in a secret location than admit he made an error in judgment about his most celebrated sniper."

If she was right, he had nothing to fear from Caraway for now. If she wasn't, there would be hell to pay.

"You should go find some clothes," Rinoa said. "I'm going to freshen up."

Irvine watched her go, placed his hat back on his head, and ambled down the hall to the store room.

This was not the road he would have chosen for himself, but it was the one he was on at present. As before, good or bad, he'd follow it, wherever it lead.

"What the fuck just happened?" Seifer demanded. He flicked on the light and looked around the room, at the charred walls and the strange runes burned into the peeling wallpaper and turned to a wide-eyed Ellone. "What the fuck, Elle?"

"I... I don't know," she said. Her jaw trembled and her eyes were wild. "I don't know."

"Where the hell did they go?" he demanded.

Tongues of flame licked up from the carpet at the foot of the bed and Seifer extinguished them with a bath towel left among the dirty laundry on the floor. He choked on the smell of melting plastic and charred wood, a terrible tremor in his limbs.

"Are you trying to burn the fucking house down, Elle?"

How did two people just vanish like that? Sure, he'd heard stories of the things Sorceresses could do. They walked through walls and could make things appear better or more appealing than they really were. They could vanish into thin air and reappear somewhere else, could cause storms and manipulate minds and bend and warp reality. They started wars and conquered nations, enslaved the people with promises and false ideals and visions of a world that didn't exist.

He knew the stories. He just never believed they were true.

Ellone laid her hands against his upper arms. A cool sensation radiated out across his skin. His racing heart slowed. Forced calm clashed with panic and he wrenched away from her, not ready to fall into placid obedience on her orders.

"Quit it!" he said.

"You don't know?" she asked. "Where the fire came from?"

"That's why I'm asking you, Elle," he said. "I don't have a fucking clue!"

"It was you," she said. "You did that. To protect me."

Seifer refused to believe that. True, every now and then he could start a fire in the wood stove without a match, or light a candle just by touching the wick, but never anything on such a large scale. It wasn't something he consciously did, nor did he do it often.

"The hell I did."

Ellone just looked at him.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said. "Where did they go?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No."

"Can you... Can we do that?"

"I don't know how," Ellone said. "She never taught me."

Seifer paced the room, though the space didn't allow him to go far before he had to turn around. He stared at the charred walls, the unmade bed, the scent of what he could only name madness in the air, and saw his future. Tethered to her the way he was, Seifer understood his fate lay in the insanity scrawled on the walls. Destined to become that bloated, naked, enslaved waste of a human being, bowing before his Sorceress on his knees.

He cursed at his pale reflection in the window, his face framed by fire-eaten muslin and back-lit by the glow that emanated from Ellone's skin. Dove's wings extended from her back, the feathers pure white edged in gray and soft as clouds.

When he turned around to face her, there were no wings, no pale glow, just Ellone and her big, scared brown eyes.

Traces of sulfur still lingered in the air. Unable to stand it any longer, Seifer took Ellone by the hand and led her from the room and out into the night.

Outside he breathed in lungful after lungful of clean ocean air to purge the reek of smoke and brimstone from his sinuses. He sat down on the steps above the beach and dropped his head into his hands. He sat there so long, he didn't even notice the fog roll in from the sea until mist dampened his skin and hair and clothes.

"That's why I wanted to release you," Ellone said after a time. "I don't want you to become what Cid is. Or was. Or... what he's about to be."

Seifer cut his eyes at her. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest with you," Ellone said. "Nothing good, though."

What they witnessed definitely wasn't good.

"And what happens to you if you cut me loose, Elle? Do you wind up a raving lunatic like Edea?"

"...maybe."

"Maybe?"

Ellone cleared her throat and wrapped her arms around her middle.

"Maybe I end up that way, no matter what," she said. "You ever hear of a Sorceress who got a happy ending? Outside of fiction?"

Seifer shook his head.

"If it comes down to it, you have my permission to kill me if I wind up losing my mind," Ellone said. "I'd rather die than be what Adel was."

"You don't know -"

"I knew Adel," Ellone interrupted. "She was a monster. She wasn't born that way, but the magic made her that way, Seifer. It ate away at her humanity and her ability to love or understand anything but power. I knew her, so don't tell me I don't know what it does."

Seifer conceded her point. It was easy to forget Ellone's past. Easy to forget she'd survived a childhood worse than his.

"If it comes to that," Ellone said. "If you see me going sideways, I need you to take care of it."

"You're asking me to kill you."

"Yes," Ellone said. "If it needs to be done, then do it."

Seifer snorted and laid his face in his hands. She was asking for the impossible. He could no more end her life than he could force himself to jump off the cliff.

"Why not do it now?" Seifer snapped. "Spare us both the trouble?"

"Seifer –"

"They're going to hunt you, Elle," he said, "and probably kill me so what the hell are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know!" she shouted. "I don't have any more answers than you do."

Seifer caught a whiff of smoke on the breeze and pushed to his feet. Maybe he only thought he'd put the fire in the bedroom out and now the house was actually on fire.

He left Ellone on the steps and returned to the house, where the scent of sulfur lingered along with the odor of burned carpet, but there was no tell-tale smoke in the room or in the hall. Back in the bedroom, the smell was stronger, but the towel he'd left on the floor was not smoldering.

Relieved, he turned from the door, only to glimpse a bright, flickering red-orange outside the bedroom window.

He stepped around the bed and pushed the curtains aside.

Out in the field, a long line of fire blazed in the tall, dry grass. Plumes of smoke rose toward the sky, and he glimpsed shadows and shapes of people beyond the orange glow of the flames.

A pair of them separated from the group and approached the house.

Soldiers.

"Oh, shit," he said. "Elle?"

He turned away from the window at the sound of her footsteps. Her expression was grim and resigned rather than afraid, but her eyes burned a cold blue. The electric thrill of adrenaline charged through Seifer's veins as he considered what to do.

Stay and fight, or run?

"Elle, they're already here," he said.

"I know," she said. "I know."

"Then do something about it!" he said. "Don't just stand there like you're waiting for them to come get you!"

Something was happening outside. Voices grew closer, instructions shouted, a loud bang against the front door.

"Elle! Goddammit!"

A noxious smoke filled the hall and curled around the edges of the bedroom door. Seifer's eyes filled with involuntary tears and his throat tightened against the fumes. It was going to suffocate them.

Propelled by her indecisiveness, Seifer seized her arm and dragged her from the room, back into the kitchen and out the back door into the clear night air. They stood no chance of making it back to Edea's ship, but better to try and be shot down than wait around.

Three soldiers rounded the side of the house just as Seifer began his descent to the beach. A shot rang out and he ducked, dragging Ellone down with him, his body curled protectively around hers.

Then, the world compressed around him, crushing his bones and squeezing the breath from his lungs. A ripping sound filled his ears and a vicious wind rushed over his skin.

It seemed to go on forever, stretching his body, dislocating joints, tearing his flesh from his bones, but when it stopped his feet were on solid ground, the balmy evening air smelled fresh and clean and vaguely of hay. He patted his chest and stomach to ensure he hadn't been eviscerated or blown to pieces and found everything where it should be. He could breathe again. There was no pain.

But as he looked around, he discovered he had no idea where they were. White houses with tall, peaked roofs lined the cobblestone street where they stood, each with window boxes full of flowers and ivy. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, too cute and peaceful to be real.

Ellone let go of his hand and turned in a slow circle in the middle of the street, her lips parted and her eyes wide with not fear, but wonder.

"Elle, where the hell are we?" Seifer rasped.

"I'm not positive," she said slowly, "but I think... we're in Winhill."