Author's Notes:
This piece is rather introspective. It's told entirely in first person, from the alternating perspectives of Seifer (he said) and Quistis (she said). It starts off with Seifer in the Disciplinary Room near the start of the game, but is actually set post-game. He explains it concisely enough himself, but if it's really confusing leave me a review about it and I'll clear things up next chapter.
Squaresoft is not mine.
As I was writing this I randomly threw in quotes from various literary sources as they came to me and seemed appropriate. I own none of them. I don't want to spoil anyone patting themselves on the back for catching one of them, so I'll wait until this is finished to post the full list of what I quoted and where. Think of it as an odd sort of scavenger hunt, if you want. In the meanwhile, I own none of the quotes from other works used within.
Of course, you don't need to be confused to leave me a review. If you enjoy this, please leave one! (blatant hinting ^_- )
---------------
~Hourglass~
---------------
9:54 AM
(He said)
Anymore, staring at the clock gives me the strangest feeling. I try to look at it impersonally, the hand marching around the edge in a steady rhythm familiar since childhood, when Matron first taught us to tell time. But the second hand is moving forward and I'm stranded here, sliding backwards through a pile of events I can't hope to change but perhaps, this time around, to control.
I've got an appointment at oh-ten-hundred hours.
But in the meanwhile I've only these four walls to distract me, and they're nothing new. Not that anything is. I've done this before, I know the script, no fear- for the sake of destiny I'll follow along, play my cues, whatever it takes to bring me face-to-face again with Ultimecia. Then things will be different. But until then nothing's changed but my thoughts.
What was I thinking then? It feels like years ago and technically it was. A year from the time I first broke out of the disciplinary room until Ultimecia's final defeat, when the memory blocks broke; then another year relatively, flying back in time on the wings of the last remnants of Time Compression in the hopes of making things right.
I remember what I was thinking, now. The part of me that's left over speaks up. How we merged I still don't know; but Ultimecia has something to do with it, I'm certain. She wouldn't compress time merely to watch it be rend asunder by paradox.
The emotions are there again. I reach out instinctively to touch them as I would a foreign object before reality catches up and I let my leather-gloved hand drop. Heat rushes through me as I feel the adrenaline again, blood pounding, thought floating hotly to the surface like burning bubbles on a roiling sea of fire.
|They can't handle it alone!|
|What was Cid thinking, sending three new SeeDs on a mission like *this*?|
|I'm not around to fight with them! We're a team, can't he see it, how could he break us up?|
|They don't know what's really going on... I have to tell them, have to help them...|
What a fool I was. They didn't need my help; I needed theirs. I just made it worse.
Made. Key word. Past tense.
9:56 AM
(She said)
Oh, Hyne. He did it again. Why couldn't he pass? I tried everything, anything I knew. I worked with him one-on-one, I worked with him in class. I met his barbs, encouraged them, slapped them down. Called on him constantly, then let him relax and ignore me. Trying to find what worked. In the end I even played to his pride, petitioning Cid to make him squad leader. So that he didn't have to take orders. So that he didn't have to bend.
But thought I tried everything new I still got a rerun. Once again I didn't see his name heading the pass list. I looked so eagerly but all I saw was (Dincht, Zell) followed by (Leonhart, Squall) (Mark, Nida) and (Tilmitt, Selphie). And he's almost out of time, he's already 18. His birthday isn't till December, he's got one more chance to prove himself on the fall field test. But after that- the end. And I was, in some ways, his last chance. He'd already gone through every other Instructor in Garden. They couldn't handle him, transferred him out or just let him fail, dumping him on someone else. {Too bad; he's your problem now.} And now that they've taken away my license, I wonder, what will he do? What chance has he left, really?
An old dream.
[He and Squall, together. Friends, and smiling, at *her*, in brand-new SeeD uniforms, telling her that it was thanks to her they'd made it. "You're the best Instructor in Garden, Quistis." Oh, how she'd longed to hear those words...]
But only one student made SeeD. And all he said to me was "Go talk to a wall", after he'd done smiling at someone else. I don't even know who she is...
While the other student was destroying Garden property, so now, then next morning, when all I want nothing more than to curl up in bed and cry to my stuffed animal and nurse the hangover I've gotten from trying to make it all go away, I'm summoned to come pick up my errant student. Not mine anymore, but no one knows that yet, Cid told me privately yesterday when I reported in after the field test. Next week, when the summer class schedule is posted, my name simply won't be on the list. And everyone will know.
What will Garden say? What will *they* say?
And I must smile at the guard and nod when he greets me as "Instructor", watch Seifer smirk at me and drawl, "Come to pick up your favorite student, Trepe?"
And I can't stop thinking how I'm terribly afraid he won't make it in the end. That he'll wash out, for all his brilliance, for all that he and Squall between them could take on everybody in Garden and come out victorious...
And that scares me, too. They won't admit it but they're practically twins, underneath the personalities that seem so different. Am I the only one who sees that they're two halves of the most perfect fighting team ever to exist? Together they are invincible, but they can't get along without each other no matter what they think. If Seifer falls it's only a matter of time until Squall does too. Not right away, he may even think he's better off, but in the end he won't be able to become anything more.
There's the door.
9:58 AM
(He said)
The fear is coming in again. It's like the tide, inexorable yet merciful. I'm not used to it. I was always in control. And Ultimecia suppressed emotions of that sort. But now I'm humbled and it nibbles away at me.
If this works...
Then I will never need to be humble again. I can be proud, again, but not the way I was. This pride is not based on bluster or brag or brashness. It's based on the fact that I came back. I destroyed much of the world, two Gardens, and nearly all of Time. I was broken, beaten, despised, better off dead. Yet I came back anyway. Through it all, I still somehow believed myself worthy of a second chance. If it works, no one will ever know. But it will be enough.
If this doesn't work...
That is why I am afraid.
I'm molding clay and playing with fire and dancing with death and I'm doing it all at once.
However badly the world was left when I awoke from my 'romantic' dream, I could by attempting this make it so much worse. Trabia and Galbadia Gardens could be rebuilt; Balamb Garden, the true nerve center of SeeD, remains, with a group of heroes walking its halls. The world reveres them, will listen to their 'suggestions'. Especially with Esthar coming out of its isolationist shell, sharing its technology. Especially with Squall's father as its president. I knew from the moment I saw him who he was. He couldn't have been anyone else. And I can trust Squall to be fair; that was never in doubt. The new world he builds would probably be better than the old.
And by trying to change things I mess with a destiny set in stone for thousands of years, since the first Sorceress War. We are the prophesied, Liberi Fatali, and it was foretold that one of us would be the traitor. By changing destiny I invalidate that fate, and without that guarantee Ultimecia's reign of terror might be so much worse. It might even be unstoppable. The thought chills me. I was her weak link.
But I can't just let it rest the way it is. Too many dead, if not by my hand then by my order. And every one of them trusted me. Galbadian troops who believed in my prowess as a general to bring them safely home to wives and sweethearts. Simple, common folk who believed in simple, common decency. SeeDs and cadets who once would have greeted me as a brother for the uniform I now wear again. The familiar colors, the familiar lapels. The name ALMASY ironed on, the rank bars on my collar, classman level 5. Pre-graduate courses.
And I wish, for a moment, that I could have gone back farther, to this last SeeD exam, and not run off this time. Stayed with Squall and Zell and Selphie, fought with them, though it wouldn't make a difference in the results; showed them a harsh truth I learned only too late, that we're a team, all of us, and despite animosities and seeming incompatibility we're nothing without each other, something's missing if one's not there. Even surrounded by people when under Ultimecia I was alone, without them. The Orphanage Gang. It wasn't just coincidence that we were all six of us there together. Liberi Fatali.
Did Rinoa try to fill my spot? I know the others tried to let her but she can't be me, she can only be herself. She can do what I can't, make Squall a human being again, infuse optimism in a group of youths too lost and disillusioned to believe in the greater good of mankind ourselves. But she can't do what I can, make the Gang whole again. She's not an original but we need her just the same, she was part of us as well. In some ways her very difference knits us together. Only when we're all together can we truly be happy.
I brush my fingers over the insignia to remind myself of exactly what it is that I lost a year and an eternity ago, what I in my foolishness gave up for empty promises... I never realized until it was too late that she was within my reach all along. Pining over Squall, always he came first... I didn't realize that Rinoa was waiting in the wings to steal his heart. I didn't realize that long-buried memories would surface. Squall started out as a substitute but she forgot who she wanted him to be and I never knew. And now, from where she stands neither of us are reachable. The others can make it but for all her strength there's one thing no one can protect themselves from. I failed her before, but now is my chance, now is forever, now is eternity, now is slipping by so quickly. At thirteen hundred hours, in Timber, I will square off against Ultimecia and try to alter a destiny more cruel than any of us realized at the time. But first, I have a meeting with Quistis. At oh-ten-hundred.
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A/N: If you read to the end, why not leave a review? ^^ please?
This piece is rather introspective. It's told entirely in first person, from the alternating perspectives of Seifer (he said) and Quistis (she said). It starts off with Seifer in the Disciplinary Room near the start of the game, but is actually set post-game. He explains it concisely enough himself, but if it's really confusing leave me a review about it and I'll clear things up next chapter.
Squaresoft is not mine.
As I was writing this I randomly threw in quotes from various literary sources as they came to me and seemed appropriate. I own none of them. I don't want to spoil anyone patting themselves on the back for catching one of them, so I'll wait until this is finished to post the full list of what I quoted and where. Think of it as an odd sort of scavenger hunt, if you want. In the meanwhile, I own none of the quotes from other works used within.
Of course, you don't need to be confused to leave me a review. If you enjoy this, please leave one! (blatant hinting ^_- )
---------------
~Hourglass~
---------------
9:54 AM
(He said)
Anymore, staring at the clock gives me the strangest feeling. I try to look at it impersonally, the hand marching around the edge in a steady rhythm familiar since childhood, when Matron first taught us to tell time. But the second hand is moving forward and I'm stranded here, sliding backwards through a pile of events I can't hope to change but perhaps, this time around, to control.
I've got an appointment at oh-ten-hundred hours.
But in the meanwhile I've only these four walls to distract me, and they're nothing new. Not that anything is. I've done this before, I know the script, no fear- for the sake of destiny I'll follow along, play my cues, whatever it takes to bring me face-to-face again with Ultimecia. Then things will be different. But until then nothing's changed but my thoughts.
What was I thinking then? It feels like years ago and technically it was. A year from the time I first broke out of the disciplinary room until Ultimecia's final defeat, when the memory blocks broke; then another year relatively, flying back in time on the wings of the last remnants of Time Compression in the hopes of making things right.
I remember what I was thinking, now. The part of me that's left over speaks up. How we merged I still don't know; but Ultimecia has something to do with it, I'm certain. She wouldn't compress time merely to watch it be rend asunder by paradox.
The emotions are there again. I reach out instinctively to touch them as I would a foreign object before reality catches up and I let my leather-gloved hand drop. Heat rushes through me as I feel the adrenaline again, blood pounding, thought floating hotly to the surface like burning bubbles on a roiling sea of fire.
|They can't handle it alone!|
|What was Cid thinking, sending three new SeeDs on a mission like *this*?|
|I'm not around to fight with them! We're a team, can't he see it, how could he break us up?|
|They don't know what's really going on... I have to tell them, have to help them...|
What a fool I was. They didn't need my help; I needed theirs. I just made it worse.
Made. Key word. Past tense.
9:56 AM
(She said)
Oh, Hyne. He did it again. Why couldn't he pass? I tried everything, anything I knew. I worked with him one-on-one, I worked with him in class. I met his barbs, encouraged them, slapped them down. Called on him constantly, then let him relax and ignore me. Trying to find what worked. In the end I even played to his pride, petitioning Cid to make him squad leader. So that he didn't have to take orders. So that he didn't have to bend.
But thought I tried everything new I still got a rerun. Once again I didn't see his name heading the pass list. I looked so eagerly but all I saw was (Dincht, Zell) followed by (Leonhart, Squall) (Mark, Nida) and (Tilmitt, Selphie). And he's almost out of time, he's already 18. His birthday isn't till December, he's got one more chance to prove himself on the fall field test. But after that- the end. And I was, in some ways, his last chance. He'd already gone through every other Instructor in Garden. They couldn't handle him, transferred him out or just let him fail, dumping him on someone else. {Too bad; he's your problem now.} And now that they've taken away my license, I wonder, what will he do? What chance has he left, really?
An old dream.
[He and Squall, together. Friends, and smiling, at *her*, in brand-new SeeD uniforms, telling her that it was thanks to her they'd made it. "You're the best Instructor in Garden, Quistis." Oh, how she'd longed to hear those words...]
But only one student made SeeD. And all he said to me was "Go talk to a wall", after he'd done smiling at someone else. I don't even know who she is...
While the other student was destroying Garden property, so now, then next morning, when all I want nothing more than to curl up in bed and cry to my stuffed animal and nurse the hangover I've gotten from trying to make it all go away, I'm summoned to come pick up my errant student. Not mine anymore, but no one knows that yet, Cid told me privately yesterday when I reported in after the field test. Next week, when the summer class schedule is posted, my name simply won't be on the list. And everyone will know.
What will Garden say? What will *they* say?
And I must smile at the guard and nod when he greets me as "Instructor", watch Seifer smirk at me and drawl, "Come to pick up your favorite student, Trepe?"
And I can't stop thinking how I'm terribly afraid he won't make it in the end. That he'll wash out, for all his brilliance, for all that he and Squall between them could take on everybody in Garden and come out victorious...
And that scares me, too. They won't admit it but they're practically twins, underneath the personalities that seem so different. Am I the only one who sees that they're two halves of the most perfect fighting team ever to exist? Together they are invincible, but they can't get along without each other no matter what they think. If Seifer falls it's only a matter of time until Squall does too. Not right away, he may even think he's better off, but in the end he won't be able to become anything more.
There's the door.
9:58 AM
(He said)
The fear is coming in again. It's like the tide, inexorable yet merciful. I'm not used to it. I was always in control. And Ultimecia suppressed emotions of that sort. But now I'm humbled and it nibbles away at me.
If this works...
Then I will never need to be humble again. I can be proud, again, but not the way I was. This pride is not based on bluster or brag or brashness. It's based on the fact that I came back. I destroyed much of the world, two Gardens, and nearly all of Time. I was broken, beaten, despised, better off dead. Yet I came back anyway. Through it all, I still somehow believed myself worthy of a second chance. If it works, no one will ever know. But it will be enough.
If this doesn't work...
That is why I am afraid.
I'm molding clay and playing with fire and dancing with death and I'm doing it all at once.
However badly the world was left when I awoke from my 'romantic' dream, I could by attempting this make it so much worse. Trabia and Galbadia Gardens could be rebuilt; Balamb Garden, the true nerve center of SeeD, remains, with a group of heroes walking its halls. The world reveres them, will listen to their 'suggestions'. Especially with Esthar coming out of its isolationist shell, sharing its technology. Especially with Squall's father as its president. I knew from the moment I saw him who he was. He couldn't have been anyone else. And I can trust Squall to be fair; that was never in doubt. The new world he builds would probably be better than the old.
And by trying to change things I mess with a destiny set in stone for thousands of years, since the first Sorceress War. We are the prophesied, Liberi Fatali, and it was foretold that one of us would be the traitor. By changing destiny I invalidate that fate, and without that guarantee Ultimecia's reign of terror might be so much worse. It might even be unstoppable. The thought chills me. I was her weak link.
But I can't just let it rest the way it is. Too many dead, if not by my hand then by my order. And every one of them trusted me. Galbadian troops who believed in my prowess as a general to bring them safely home to wives and sweethearts. Simple, common folk who believed in simple, common decency. SeeDs and cadets who once would have greeted me as a brother for the uniform I now wear again. The familiar colors, the familiar lapels. The name ALMASY ironed on, the rank bars on my collar, classman level 5. Pre-graduate courses.
And I wish, for a moment, that I could have gone back farther, to this last SeeD exam, and not run off this time. Stayed with Squall and Zell and Selphie, fought with them, though it wouldn't make a difference in the results; showed them a harsh truth I learned only too late, that we're a team, all of us, and despite animosities and seeming incompatibility we're nothing without each other, something's missing if one's not there. Even surrounded by people when under Ultimecia I was alone, without them. The Orphanage Gang. It wasn't just coincidence that we were all six of us there together. Liberi Fatali.
Did Rinoa try to fill my spot? I know the others tried to let her but she can't be me, she can only be herself. She can do what I can't, make Squall a human being again, infuse optimism in a group of youths too lost and disillusioned to believe in the greater good of mankind ourselves. But she can't do what I can, make the Gang whole again. She's not an original but we need her just the same, she was part of us as well. In some ways her very difference knits us together. Only when we're all together can we truly be happy.
I brush my fingers over the insignia to remind myself of exactly what it is that I lost a year and an eternity ago, what I in my foolishness gave up for empty promises... I never realized until it was too late that she was within my reach all along. Pining over Squall, always he came first... I didn't realize that Rinoa was waiting in the wings to steal his heart. I didn't realize that long-buried memories would surface. Squall started out as a substitute but she forgot who she wanted him to be and I never knew. And now, from where she stands neither of us are reachable. The others can make it but for all her strength there's one thing no one can protect themselves from. I failed her before, but now is my chance, now is forever, now is eternity, now is slipping by so quickly. At thirteen hundred hours, in Timber, I will square off against Ultimecia and try to alter a destiny more cruel than any of us realized at the time. But first, I have a meeting with Quistis. At oh-ten-hundred.
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A/N: If you read to the end, why not leave a review? ^^ please?