Uncertain Memory: With You
Part Two - Night of Quisty’s SeeD Ball (Still Oct 1997)
Author's Notes: I’m basing the years on the fact that FF8 came out in 1999 in the US. PLEASE please please email me if you have questions, I have a timeline I wrote up.
DISCLAIMER: Okay I want to say this now and get it over with. I got the story structure for this story from a book called Magic’s Pawn by Mercedes Lackey. She is my goddess author and I love her to death. While I was reading it one night, I got the idea for a prequel to the game and decided to write it because I wanted to give props to my fav author. There were 4 specific scenes that I needed from the book to make this story work.
The scenes are:
1. Savil teaching Tylendel about shielding and their conversation before he leaves.
2. Vanyel overhearing about Tylendel (if you read it you know what I’m talking about).
3. Vanyel seeing Tylendel read a book through the window.
4. Tylendel comforting Vanyel after his nightmare.
I’m really REALLY nervous about posting this because I don’t want flames about me ‘stealing’ Misty’s work. It’s hers, not mine! NEVER MINE! I just own the books and read them over and over cause I love them so much. I’m only doing this because they gave me an idea. All of the aforementioned scenes are hers that I have changed to fit the FF8 world, the rest is my own crappy writing ^_^ I hope you enjoy it all the same because it’s a fic, and I don’t get paid for this anyway. ^_~
Uncertain Memory: With You
Part Two - Night of Quisty’s SeeD Ball (Still Oct 1997)
“To Quisty.” Seifer held up his glass and the others at their table joined him and drink.
“Thanks guys,” The blonde SeeD smiled. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“CARE.” Fuujin sipped on her champagne.
“Yeah, we care about ya Quisty, ya know?” Raijin nodded.
“Hey Quistis!” Zell called as he walked up to the table, Squall trailed him looking as if his blank personality didn’t belong in this place of jubilance.
“Zell!” She stood and he gave a thumbs up on her new uniform before she hugged the both of them. “Are you guys excited? You both have one year of study left.”
The tattooed blonde nodded enthusiastically as Squall just shrugged.
“So what did you guys get Quisty?” Seifer asked, leaning back comfortably in his seat. Quistis sat back down next to him. The last two seats open were between Raijin and Seifer. Zell took the one next to the poet while Squall was stuck with his rival. Quistis gave him a quick sympathetic smile when he hesitated.
“Here ya go!” Zell tossed the SeeD a little box, which she caught deftly.
“Proposing?” Seifer asked with a smirk.
“Or proposition,” Quistis replied as his arm snaked around her back. Her male mirror image grinned as the two newcomers watched the interaction with curiosity. They’d probably never seen Seifer act so joking openly. She ignored their looks and opened the box to see a small silver ring with an opal set into it. A hand went to her mouth as she held the box, staring at the trinket. “Its so pretty.”
Seifer leaned over to take a look and a dazed look took over his face. “Shiny…” he pretended to be hypnotized and go unconscious, his head landing with a thump on the table.
“Good boy.” Quistis patted the blonde’s head and everyone laughed, even Squall, much to her pleasure. “Shiny doesn’t cut it.” She slipped the ring on her finger and admired it. “Did you make it?”
Zell nodded as Squall handed her his present. She accepted the long box with a nod, wondering what in the world he’d thought of. Her heart stopped and she stared when the box was opened. A silver chain lay inside with a pendant on it. The pendant was a beautifully sculpted and rendered Garden symbol. She held it up for everyone at the table to see. They all oo’d and ah’d before Seifer insisted she put it on. He helped her while she held her hair up. She couldn’t help but notice Squall’s nervousness. His foot was tapping, causing his leg to bounce, which distracted her.
“Did you make this?” She asked the brunette.
He nodded silently. The look in his gray eyes was so innocent and honest. Quistis smiled at his sweetness.
“I think that deserves a dance.” She stood and held her hand out to Squall.
“Oh, no, that’s alright.” He held his hands up. “I’m a horrible dancer.”
“To a slow song?” she asked as the music’s beat slowed.
“Dance or I strangle you,” Seifer mumbled into his glass and took a sip. Quistis prayed that his quip didn’t scare the brunette.
On the contrary, Squall blinked at him and gave a short chuckle as Seifer smirked back. Their eyes interacted for a moment as she watched. They seemed to read each other before Squall broke the eye contact. “Alright.” The brunette stood and took her hand. “Just this one though.”
“Just this one.” Quistis nodded and let him lead her to the dance floor. Nervousness dripped from him as they started to dance, but as the song played on Squall moved much smoother. She could feel him relax, which relieved her. She didn’t like uncomfortable situations.
When the song ended, Squall quickly escorted her back to the table—like a true SeeD. The sweet gesture surprised her and she thanked him with a hug. Quistis was pleased this time when he hugged her back. Squall sat back down in his seat next to Seifer, but Quistis stopped behind the blonde boy as someone called to her.
“Quis!” Xu trotted up to the table with a wry grin. “What are you doing hanging out with these loser underclassmen?”
Seifer moved to retort something, but Quistis put her arms around his neck and rested her chin on his shoulder. “I think you know why.” She winked at her fellow SeeD. Xu laughed along with everyone at Quistis’s comment. The black haired girl then struck up a conversation with Zell, oddly enough. Squall turned to look at the two blondes and cocked his head with a curious frown.
“Like what you see Leonhart?” Seifer asked with a wicked grin.
Squall just blinked for a moment and then gave a small smirk. “Half of it,” he replied playfully.
Grins crossed the blondes’ faces and Quistis scoffed. “You know you want to do a three-way.”
“With a girl? Ew! Cooties!” Seifer waved his arms around dramatically causing the other two to laugh. Quistis kissed his cheek and sat back down in her seat.
“Are you two together?” Squall asked. Thus struck the most often asked question in the garden!
“We look it, don’t we?” Quistis asked. “We’ve been asked that question so many times. He’s more like a brother to me though.” She smiled at the taller boy. His eyes flicked to her, dancing with mischief. She could tell he was torn between whom he wanted to flirt with. “We’re more like brother and sister,” she told the brunette.
“I like someone with a little more… fight in them.” Seifer winked at the brunette, whose cheeks turned a bit pink.
“I’m… gonna go get something to drink.” He excused himself and made his way to the refreshment table.
“You scared him away!” Quistis slapped Seifer’s back as Raijin and Fuujin laughed.
“Not my fault he’s so wrapped up in himself that he doesn’t see what’s good for him,” Seifer grumbled into his glass. “At least he still has a sense of humor.”
“You’re so…”
“Handsome?”
“Arrogant bastard.”
“I try.”
“Far too hard in my opinion.”
“You have no idea.”
Quistis frowned at her counterpart. His eyes looked sad… distracted. “Seifer?”
“Yes?”
“Why haven’t we been friends with Squall since we left the orphanage?”
He frowned at her. “Are you starting to forget already?” He smiled when she rolled her eyes. “We came here first Quisty. When he got here a year later, kids made fun of him cause he was short. He closed everyone off.” Seifer sighed. “Even us.”
“He really did take to junctioning quickly. I remember that.”
“Yeah, I was in that class with him.” Seifer sipped on his wine. “Maybe he was already trying to forget.”
Quistis nodded and thought on that.
As Squall made his way across the room, he entered and exited a great many conversations, hearing gossip about people that he never wanted to hear again. How could someone do that to a duck? People should keep shit like that to themselves. A disgusted shudder ran through his body as he reached the refreshment table. He never wanted to remember that again!
He took a sip of the punch he’d poured himself and turned to watch the people waltz on the dance floor. These social functions were always so boring, unless you had people to talk to while you were there. He had come to congratulate Quistis, but now that it was done, he didn’t know what to do. Never one for conversation—or teasing from Seifer— he had to get away from the table. He loved Quistis and respected Seifer, and they always made him feel like he was home, but something about the guy made him nervous. He didn’t know what it was.
“—Seifer,” said a little red head to his right with a sigh of frustration.
“What about Seifer?” Squall asked, his interest caught, before his brain could stop him.
“Oh, Alexis’s in love with Seifer’s big green eyes,” a black haired female cadet told him and giggled.
“Try tight ass!” Alexis giggled with her friend. “You want him too Kyra!”
“We haven’t a chance in hell,” Kyra muttered and sipped her punch. “He doesn’t like girls. He likes boys. Lucky boys.” She winked.
“For Seifer I’d turn into a boy.” Alexis sighed and turned to her friend. “Are you sure? Seems like with Quistis he’s batting for both sides.”
“They’ve never dated though. And even…”
The conversation faded as Squall lost himself in his mind. Didn’t like girls? He frowned. Seifer never seemed gay; then again he’d never actually met anyone who could define the assumed characteristics of a gay person. They were just a person with different preferences. But at first glance, Seifer was the model guy. He was physically fit, attractive, and Squall had to agree—the guy had a nice ass.
A couple of boys had entered the girls’ conversation and from the words they said, he could tell that the preferences they’d spoke of were something less than respectable. But they were only rumors, right?
Though, Seifer did pay attention to his appearance a lot like Squall did. Wait, he wasn’t gay… was he? Squall bit his lip in confusion at all the feelings that fluttered through his chest. He abruptly remembered times at the orphanage when his sis would dress him up as a girl so he could play dress up with her. Suddenly reasons behind Squall’s own actions began to float up.
Squall gulped down the last of his punch and tossed the plastic cup in the garbage before discreetly slipping out of the party. He leaned against the wall in the hallway wondering what to do. He couldn’t go back in and talk to them, yet he didn’t want to leave them all in there wondering where he’d gone. No, it was better if he left. Everyone thought of him as Seifer’s nickname anyway, the Frigid Ice Prince. The action suited the personality Seifer had stamped him with.
He wandered away from the ballroom and to the dorms, leaving the warm and happy party for his cold and lonely room. There was no one waiting for him there, to taunt him. There was never anyone there, and there never would be.