First off, fair criticisms, folks. Spoke to Queen in PM when she first flamed, but here's my defence, two years late.

I wanted to beat up Rinoa because she annoyed me, being rescued so often (Deling City, side of Balamb Garden, inside Galbadia garden, her coma, from space, from Esthar's confinement thingummy, and especially from Seifer/Adel at the start of disc four. That boss fight was something I found impossible! I wrote the first two chapters two years ago. I've mellowed towards Rinoa since.

I am not suggesting domestic violence is funny, but, are you suggesting that if Selphie beat up Rinoa or vice versa it would somehow be better? Or if Squall beat up headmaster Cid? Or Rinoa beat up Squall? Actually, the main reason this was a humour fic was the 'what would headmaster Cid do?' bit.

They ARE out of character. That's the point. How many random pairings have you seen on this site that make absolutely no sense? I admit the spyholes thing went a bit far, but I needed to make Squall angry enough to attack, and that's not an easy thing to do. I had to give him a lot of reasons-Griever wouldn't do it alone.

Rinoa probably wouldn't have given away the ring, but see above.

Seifer is President of Galbadia. The idea is that they were grateful he shielded them from the worst influences of the sorceresses-staffing Lunatic Pandora with monsters, not galbadian soldiers, to spare the army further losses. If you talk to soldiers in Galbadia before you go in to LP, they seem to respect him.

Rinoa is not related to Ultimacia. She was pretending to be possessed so that Squall would be more cautious and give her time to get out of the Garden.

Anyway, I've decided to continue this fic, but it's slightly more plot driven than before. Haven't beaten Ulti, so there may be contradictions.

Exile

After fending off Irvine as diplomatically as possible –after deliberation, Rinoa selected a steel pellet between the eyes as the most suitable deterrent- and healing her broken jaw, she was about to re-enter garden when a ruby dragon swooped down and flew off with her in its claws. It eventually dropped her from a thousand feet up, but a Float was enough to see her safely down, landing somewhere in the Balamb forests.

In flight, she'd had time to consider her options. Squall was really upset about that ring. She wouldn't be let back into the Garden unless she got it back. So she'd have to track it down. She went to Balamb, but the man she'd sold it to was gone. But, the black chainmail, black sword, black mace, black robe, black boots, and red glowing eyes meant that he stood out slightly from the crowd. She'd thought the outfit cute, but he'd refused to give her a set for anything less than the ring she was wearing. Shame Squall was so attached to it. But she could give the man the uniform back, surely. The station master said he'd gone to Winhill. So she set out.

Winhill town

The gang leader looked up and the three caged six year olds, who hadn't stopped crying since they'd been captured. But, since Ifrit had taken out three of his men, he wasn't feeling too charitable.

"Can't we shut them up?"

"Nope."

"Throw them into the abyss!"

"Uh...this is Winhill. We don't have an abyss."

"Well what do we have?"

"About a million miles of flower field and a mildly hazardous Chocobo crossing."

"...This is why I hate these villages..."

A pause. "So what do we do now?"

"Well, those children were sent by a Garden, and somebody who follows Headmaster Cid's policies. It's gotta be Balamb."

Their conversation was disrupted by a commotion from the town entrance. A masked raider was running in, screaming.

"I have the ring! Soon, Griever, the most powerful GF, will be ours to control!"

Balamb Garden

By this time, Squall had called a meeting to discuss the Winhill situation. Irvine sent his apologies, claiming a headache. Squall opened the meeting.

"So...our initial expedition failed. What now?"

Quistis sighed. "Well, we could launch an attack likely to actually succeed..."

Squall shook his head. "No. I can't betray headmaster Cid's teachings. That would be sacrilege."

"Well..." Xu reasoned, "If we send some experienced Seeds against vastly superior numbers, technically that's unlikely to succeed, right?"

"Hmm..."

"Hmm..."

"Okay, that's settled. Selphie, you'll lead."

"Ok." This was Selphie. "Where's Rinoa, by the way?"

"She took a-"

"NO!"

"-train to Winhill."

"TRAINS, TRAINS, TRAINS, TRALAALAA..."

"Oh, God." Quistis snapped her fingers. "Come back, Selphie, come on, come back...It's no use, she's gone."

"So, any other volunteers?"

"Too much paperwork." Quistis.

"Winhill's boring." Zell.

"I guess it's me, then." Squall.