MC Falling

Disclaimer: Squaresoft owns FFVIII lock stock and both smoking gunblades. I am just borrowing the characters for the purpose of entertainment (and free advertising for SQUARE) and do solemnly promise to put them back where I found them without harming them or turning any sort of profit. (So please don't sue me.) Here endeth this public service announcement.

His heart was in his mouth as he looked after her, still not quite able to believe it. All those years...was that what had stood at his back, fought by his side, come at his call?

Was that what he had never seen as he strutted in the spotlight of his arrogance, never looking behind, so sure of what was there that he failed to see the true dimensions of what held itself so willingly under his hand...?

A week. A week since the end that wasn't the end of the world. The battle of a lifetime, his battle, had come and gone. And it had passed him by. Years worth of struggle, of limits surmounted, of rivals sought and friendships spurned - and the all and only of it had come to nothing.

It would have surprised not a few to know that a life spent with such seeming profligacy had been all the while so certain of its aim. Not truly reckless, but to a purpose. That he might be ready, might be worthy, when his moment came. As he had known it must come.

One chance, that was all he needed. Not a prayer, that. Not from Seifer. Not a request - a demand. He was owed, and from world or fate or deity, he would have his due.

Alive. Defeated. The single combination he had never imagined, never considered possible. The proof that he had done far worse than simply miss his chance. He had been tested...and he had been found wanting. Seifer had faced his trial by combat - and he had failed.

He had squandered his chance without ever recognising it for what it was: not the battle he had lost, but the choice he should have made. And had not. He had stood at the left hand of darkness and fought for the lie. Worse than defeat was the knowledge that it was never a battle he should have won.

His to choose, it had been. He had given his fealty freely - and he had given it catastrophically awry. What came after, he did not care to remember...and could not escape having to know.

He had been enthralled. Quite literally. He had thought himself the Sorceress' Knight - he had been only her creature. Willing accomplice to his own downfall. Oh, she had worked him like a master indeed; lured him in with subtle deceit and subtler truth, drawn him down to dishonour, disgrace and final defeat. But sorcerous glamour could only shade the case so far.

Failure was not a vice which Seifer had ever cultivated, nor one to which he was willing to turn a blind eye. With enviable success he had worked his whole life through to ensure that it never so much as touched him. Even his adversaries would surely acknowledge - if through gritted teeth - that this was only truth. Not a man to suffer fools gladly...when he suffered them at all.

Fool. Dupe. He had made himself that and worse: scapegoat and stalking horse for a sorceress who had used him less kindly than the least of her servants. And he had let her do it. That was the true betrayal. Hell, he had practically asked to be exploited. All that need, all that angry certainty and blind pride laid at her feet...it made him want to cringe, remembering. Cringe - or hit something. How could he have been so damn stupid!?

Seifer had never been the most tolerant of men. To be fair, he did hold himself to the same standards he applied to everyone else, but still, not a man known to refrain from adding insult to injury. Failings had always made for fair game.

Now though...for the first time in his life he was on the other end of that blade. Small wonder that he should find himself more lost than he had ever been, with no faintest idea of how to cut himself loose from the barbed knowledge that was all of certainty he had left to hold to.

Not, of course, that Seifer was currently giving head-room to any such uncomfortable ruminations. It was pure happenstance that he had become such disagreeable company that even his closest associates preferred to leave him to his own devices; nothing at all to do with sorceresses and stupidity. Really.

The question of what any of them were to do now was something that the posse had not discussed. No coincidence there. Consequence. Seifer had been avoiding the subject with great skill and determination. And without admitting that he was doing any such thing.

In fact, the whole issue had been circumvented so assiduously and with such precision that the shape of it hung exact and accusing over them all. Every day it was harder not to notice the shadow it cast across their future...and every day they stubbornly refused to confront it.

It was rather like having a blues-singing, eight-foot gorilla in the bathroom; everyone knew it was there, but it was much easier to pretend that it wasn't. At least for a little while.

Raijin was simply happy with the opportunity to laze around and do what he liked without anyone but his friends to please; he might be pretty ah, straightforward, but he knew better than to spoil a good thing when he had one. Fujin...well Fujin was only straightforward along certain vectors of attack. At the moment it was anyone's guess what she was actually thinking, but whatever her reasons, she had shown no signs of trying to break the status quo.

Which just left Seifer, with nothing to do except not think. Not-think about the past, and not-think about the future. The empty future. His empty future.

His had always been a forward focussed mind. The next challenge. The next goal. The next fight. That had always been what was important. Not for him, the lingering over things past and might-have-been. Not for him, the 'what-ifs', and 'maybes' that tripped and tangled those of lesser destiny. Not for him...

Sorceress' Knight. His dream. He had made it part of himself, knowing the double edge of the promise it offered. Glory. And death. He grudged neither. A death that meant something. A life that meant something. The one was the perfect shadow of the other. So he believed, and was lifted beyond himself by the blazing clarity of that vision, filled with its glorious purity of purpose, touched by the possibility of greatness... All fallen now. Quenched. Lost.

Raijin was down at the dock again, fishing. Seifer scowled. All the big man seemed to have to do was put a hook in the water and fish would fight each other for the shiny metal - he was actually gaining a reputation with the locals as an expert angler. Raijin and expert, the two words shouldn't fit together in the same sentence. Ya know. Seifer scowled harder. Especially when he himself hadn't managed to catch a single one, no matter what hook or bait or lure he tried. It had been extremely tempting to just try and shoot the things. All that stopped him was the niggling feeling that he would look really stupid using a gunblade to kill fish.

He had scanned the dock several times before he realised what he was looking for; what wasn't there. Fujin. Eyes that wouldn't have paused on that slight, straight, familiar figure were unexpectedly caught by the empty space where she should have been...and wasn't.

Not that he particularly wanted her of course, but she ought to be there. In fact, she had no business not being there, and certainly shouldn't be disrupting the natural order of things by persistently failing to appear now that he had registered his disapproval of the situation.

For some reason, now that he'd noticed her absence he didn't seem to be able to get it out of his head. The small oddity was far more unsettling than it should have been, washing back in strange interference patterns from the corners of his mind. Disturbed, other things were floating just beneath the surface, still hidden, but risen and waiting - things that nagged at him with the half-formed knowledge of something forgotten, something lost, something left undone...

Seifer ignored them, just as he had done the several other uncomfortable thoughts that had ambushed him recently. He refused to acknowledge them in the same way that he had learned to deny the effect of wounds and pain. And because he was Seifer and he could focus his mind as fiercely and narrowly as a laser sight, he almost managed it. Almost.

He looked around again, scowling with reflexive irritation at nothing in particular and unaware or uncaring that one gloved hand was rubbing repetitively at the hilt of his gunblade. Emotional subtlety was not Seifer's strong point. No one would have needed to approach closely enough to read his expression to know that being near him right now was not a good idea. His whole body language was shouting an urgent desire to provoke bloody mayhem. Anything would do. Any excuse that might get this gnawing reasonless frustration out of his system. Failing that-

But - if she wasn't with him, and she wasn't with Raijin, where else could she be? He was vaguely startled to realise that he didn't know. They weren't in Garden, or on assignment. Or under the sorceress' aegis.

And that was why he found himself climbing the bluffs above the town, slipping and sweating and swearing. The track, as it might charitably have been called - something which Seifer was not inclined to do - had evidently come into existence as the result of the wanderings of a blind and inebriated mountain goat. No. Two goats.

Good question, the back of his head muttered. He ignored it. Looking for Fuu. That's what. And why the hell is she up here anyway? Assuming that guy wasn't lying-

"If that snotty bastard's sent me up here for a laugh, I'll see how funny he thinks it is when I string him up the flagpole with a coat-hanger in his-" Seifer stopped abruptly as the path made one last wonky corkscrew turn and surrendered, leaving him suddenly and unexpectedly in the sky.

Her silhouette stood dark and still against the emptiness at the cliff edge, staring out over the sea to where the pewter clouds were rising and thickening as they rode the wind in. Of course she knew he was there. She always knew. Head raised and eye intent, she turned towards him, the familiar movement invested with unexpected significance by the unconscious echo of ten thousand other movements, ten thousand other moments.

Seifer shook his head. "Nah, there's no reason for us to go yet, I-" his explanation cut off short with the sudden realisation that he didn't know how he wanted to finish that sentence. Seifer's reaction to the sensation of uncertainty was almost instinctive - attack. Take back the position of power.

"Damnit Fuu, what the hell do you think you're doing up here? That looks like a real jammer of a storm coming in!" His stance had shifted from relaxed to confrontational in an instant; feet braced wide beneath him, trained shoulders flexing and straightening as his chin came up and his eyes flashed warning.

Fujin knew his reactions better than he did. Far too well to be intimidated now. She watched him speculatively. It wasn't the first time he had asked that question; she had heard him on the path. Wind-carried words, never expecting a response. But this time, this time he had asked her. This time...If he really wanted to know, she just might tell him.

"Come on! We'd better get back down before it hits." Seifer was already turning to go, the impatient order assuming her compliance.

She backed him up, always. Put her strength at his command, her resolve behind his choices. Offered him freely the authority he craved, the trust he didn't realise he needed, the care that he would not see. Set her life to his service and counted the gift well given. She asked nothing in return.

But here and now he had followed her into her place, her space, her time, as he had never before done. Here and now he did not have the right to command her. She had already loosened the ties that held her to the heavy earth, let go the bindings she had willingly taken on herself. She was free. She could do anything.

If he had only needed her, if she had been asked for or wanted, then she would have gladly stepped back into his shadow, refastened her jesses to his glove, hooded herself at his command. But he had come to her without a purpose, commanded her without cause, questioned her without wanting an answer - and she did not choose to let him hold her now.

The slanting sun caught on his hair, touched the pale coat in softer gold. A rather eerie effect, considering the rapidly darkening sky. Behind him the sun was still shining, bright and cheerful against a field of white-streamered blue, but over the sea the storm clouds were gathering, great grey pinions reaching towards them on wings of wind. There was lightning dancing in the distance now.

"...No?" Seifer's brows came together, the scar kinking sharply between them. A definite warning sign. He wasn't angry. Not quite. Not yet. This was Fujin after all. However, he did not approve of confusion, most particularly not his own - and Seifer's disapproval was nothing to provoke lightly.

If anyone knew that, Fujin surely did. But she still didn't pick up her cue, didn't fall dutifully in behind him as she should have done. Something was definitely out of kilter here. And though he might not know what it was, he did know who to blame.

"Fuu?" Laconic demand, with a more ominous undertone than he would usually have directed her way. He required an explanation of his second in command, and he was going to get it. Determined, he looked back at her, looked properly - and saw her, saw her as she truly was and not merely as the familiar shape his expectations had drawn for her.

Wind-shadow and storm light flickered over her, shaping and breaking on her dark shirt and slacks, gleaming hard on silver hair and soft on pale skin and stark on the dramatic line of the eye-patch cutting across her face.

It came to him suddenly, unexpectedly, that she was beautiful, and he wondered dizzily how he could have never seen it before. The back of his head was whispering answers, and this time, for this moment, he was too stunned to ignore them. He had accepted her without noticing, taken her for part of him, part of his dream - and never questioned. Never questioned anything. Never looked anywhere but at his dream, his fantasy, his future. And she had always been there behind him. Always matching her step to his.

Tension sang in the silence, and Seifer was very aware of his disadvantage. Fujin had always been easy in the quiet spaces between words, but patience was not a virtue he had ever troubled to acquire; it was always his part to speak out, to step forward, to lead.

Thunder rolled over them, vast and slow. The heavy wave of sound smashed against the horizon, filling the sky - but it couldn't break the expectant hush strung between the two who faced each other on that high and treeless place of shattered rock and lonely, wind-whipped sky. The rumbling echoes faded and died, lost in the escalating crash of the surf far below...and still neither of them moved.

Seifer almost jumped as Fujin finally responded, her chin raising in sudden decision as a graceful gesture of arm and hand indicated their surroundings, sea and sky and swelling storm. Her head tipped slightly as she regarded him with what might have been an amused expression.

Seifer blinked. Of words that I would not have associated with Fujin, 'fun' is right up there at the top- but then before just now how likely was it that 'beautiful' would have been on that list too?

The first drops of rain fell. Heavy and wet and smelling of salt and ozone. In moments Fujin's hair was plastered to her skull and Seifer's billowing trench-coat turned rapidly skewbald as it flapped and snappishly tried to fold itself out of the downpour.

"Uh, Fuu, you're getting soaked-" Mentally Seifer rolled his eyes at himself. What is wrong with me? I don't think I could have come up with anything more lame if I had tried.

"Come on, the rain'll have hit the dock by now. Raijin'll be wondering where we are." That came out slightly better, but he still seemed to have misplaced the part of his brain that looked after the assurance which usually kept his voice on track. And he couldn't find the annoyance that he ought to be feeling at standing in the driving rain and facing the prospect of a long wet walk back to town.

Oh yes. There was the annoyance. Just annoyance. Never mind that it tasted of hurt and anger and betrayal. "You told Raijin?!" And not me. No, he hadn't thought that. No. If he had thought that then he might have to wonder if he was jealous. And he wasn't. Couldn't be. He was just irritated that she hadn't told the posse leader where she might be reached in an emergency. That was all. Never mind how easily he'd managed to track her down when he wanted to.

"When? You were gone before he got up!" If he stopped to think about it Seifer would realise that this was a stupid argument. Which was why he didn't. Anger was a much more familiar, comfortable emotion than...than whatever else he was avoiding thinking about.

Fujin merely raised an eyebrow, a gesture more striking on her than on anyone else, mirrored as it was by the thin black strap of the patch riding up her forehead in emphasis. "LONG AGO."

An actual answer. Of a kind. Not a defiant silence, not an apologetic droop of the head, not one of Fujin's so eloquent shrugs - nothing that he could have predicted. He was in uncharted waters now, and all of a sudden he knew it. He had no idea where this conversation was heading, no slightest inkling of what she might say next, and no comprehension of quite how everything could have so completely escaped his control. Somehow she had changed the rules, turned the tables on him so that nothing was unfolding as it should. A situation with which Seifer was not happy.

Outriders of the storm swirled curiously around her, lifting the rain-curled tendrils of hair gone to the colour of slate, learning the shape of that proud and slender body- and Seifer lost his train of thought completely. All oblivious to his sudden stillness, Fujin tilted her head upward slightly in unconscious welcome as the rain trailed silvery fingers across her cool jaw and down that long pale throat and under the neck of her dark shirt...Seifer felt himself swallow and reflexively moistened suddenly dry lips.

With effort he tore his eyes away and back to her face. It didn't help much. She's magnificent... Stop it! he tried to reprimand himself for his slipping attention. But she is, his mind muttered back at him. Oh great. Arguments with myself. Now I sound like Squall. That's just perfect.

Images flashed under his mind, leaping like the lightnings to their own compelling logic; Fujin. Fujin cool and collected and ironic, Fujin muddy and bloody and defiant. Fujin dressed up for an official function, completely and unreasonably at home in the straightjacket that was otherwise known as a Cadet's dress uniform, Fujin dressed down for a mission, frighteningly capable in full kit, every inch the professional that she was trained to be...

Familiar images, they should have helped to restore normality. They didn't. Memory's eyes lingered disconcertingly where he had never paused to look before - half a lifetime's worth of stored remembrances all come suddenly together in one moment, a hundred Fujins standing tall and true behind one slim silhouette.

Why now!? Confusion, frustration, plain disbelief - Seifer was not reacting well to the disarray in his head. Hell, we've been hanging around together for years - it's hardly like I've never seen her in a funny mood before, for Hyne's sake! So she wants to go stand in the rain - big deal. That's no reason to start thinking, uh, thinking- Damn.

He didn't have an answer. He just hoped that she hadn't been able to read the direction his thoughts were tending. Really hoped. The thought of her knowing was not just embarrassing - an emotion he had refused to acknowledge since he was six - but unexpectedly threatening. For some reason.

Seifer had never thought of her like that. Never. Not since he had first met her, when anyone other than SeeD candidates would have still been considered children. He had always known he was destined to be a leader, had determined that he would pick his own team, the best and strongest fighters in Garden. And he had chosen her, utterly sure in his decision, ignoring the slanted looks and puzzlement of students and instructors alike.

Blind, all of them. Seifer had recognised her straight off, had looked through the slight, skinny frame of that fragile seeming girl and seen the unswerveable determination that lay beneath, the total commitment that was mate and match to his own. Everything else was irrelevant. This was someone who was going to face her fate head on - and win. So he had chosen, and Fujin had fallen silently in behind him. She had been there ever since.

Everything else might change, but not that. Not she. Always there, always true...always Fujin. His touchstone. He knew the feel of her at his back, trusted her to hold up her end of a fight beside him, her end of a mission apart from him. Her loyalty was unquestioned, her skill beyond doubt. And never in all the time he'd known her had she given off any impression other than ruthless efficiency, competence and danger.

That was her presence, her projected self. As his was the belligerent assertiveness that kept him safely in control, the supreme self-confidence that came across as arrogance, the insouciant attitude that convinced others that their reactions were irrelevant to him.

Truth and deception and reason so tightly woven that even from the inside he could no longer tell how much of the mask was real. A mask worn so long that he rarely remembered he was wearing it at all.

Perhaps if his efforts had been a little less successful he might have thought to wonder what masks others might choose to wear, and why. He might have considered just what such shields as hers were meant to defend against, what secret self she might be trying to protect... He might have - but he didn't. Couldn't.

Of all the other cadets only Squall had understood what was necessary, and not even he had found the breadth of vision to look beyond the narrow personal goal of simply being the best fighter he was physically capable of becoming. Just a weapon; deadly, flawless, but ultimately soulless. Empty. Seifer had known, had always known that there was more than that. There was more. And he would have it. Hero. Legend. Sorceress' Knight.

Without a past, only the future matters. He knew it with all the passion and fury and defiant fire that was in him, knew it as only an abandoned child could. Spent himself willingly in that cause and never needed to count the cost.

Rinoa, Quistis, Selphie, the other women in SeeD; all of them were women first and fighters second. Fujin had made a different choice - but Fujin lived in the same world as he did, and by the same rules. She had her priorities straight.

Priorities - like making damn sure she didn't notice how uncomfortable she was making him. Or heaven forbid, why. Normally he would just turn on the focus of that discomfort and pick a nice, satisfying fight with it... but this was Fujin. She deserved better from him. However little cause she might have to expect it.

Besides, he allowed magnanimously, his distractibility was not entirely her fault. All she'd done was stand there...in the rain...and- Stop. Just, stop. Right there.

A deep breath helped him call on the discipline he needed to get past that particular trap. At least she didn't seem to be aware of his awkwardness - she'd turned her back on him and was staring out to sea again. His immediate relief rapidly metamorphosed into offended pride: she was ignoring him, her attention completely elsewhere...as it had been since he first intruded on her.

The observation snapped into place with an almost audible click. It was Fujin's attitude which had been throwing him off balance all along. Reliable Fujin. Predictable Fujin - whose reactions he had consistently failed to predict. Manfully, Seifer struggled to get his brain into gear.

From only too frustrating experience, he knew that Fujin didn't believe in explanations: she told people exactly what she wanted them to know, no more and no less. He'd always found it a particularly annoying habit, but at least he knew where he stood. She wasn't a tease, didn't deliberately tempt further curiosity. And she was never careless - not when she had to make every word count. So why the cryptic comments? Surely she must know that they invited interrogation?

For the first time he could remember, Fujin was trying to provoke questions. And he had no idea why. If she wanted to tell him something, why not just tell him? That was what she'd always done before, no matter how strange the non sequitur it made.

For once, his interest outweighed his irritation. What was she doing? What did she want? Earlier, he'd been too quickly sidetracked into easy anger and- well, he hadn't been paying proper attention. Belatedly he ran his mind back over their preceding exchanges. 'FUN', she had said.

FUN...That was the clue. That was the difference. The realisation startled him - had he ever actually seen her when she didn't consider herself on duty? When she was simply enjoying herself?

Oh, he knew she shared with him the thrill of combat, and she 'played' with Raijin as well as she could - it was hardly her fault that the best she could do generally resulted in some harmless form of physical assault. Or mostly harmless at any rate. Raijin seemed to understand, accepting her with his own childlike mixture of optimism and trust. And yet Seifer couldn't really see her describing either activity as fun.

Seifer's eyes narrowed. "This is what you do to relax?" He wasn't quite as unperceptive as he sometimes appeared, but he hadn't considered yet just why he was so intently focussed on understanding what was going on inside this familiar stranger.

Always volatile, Seifer's current emotional state was hardly reasonable; irritated confusion and plain anger at a situation that had spun out of his control were spiked by the whole mess of unrecognised thoughts and feelings that he was refusing to deal with. It also didn't help that by now the rain had managed to find its way under his coat and the wind was gleefully taking advantage of the opportunity to whistle glacial cold up his sleeves and slap his wet and freezing shirt icily against bare skin.

Seifer's tenuous hold on his temper finally snapped. "Why? Why all ...THIS?" Wide gestures picked up where words failed him, furious punctuation to an argument he didn't care to examine too closely. Even without the edge of a gunblade to back them, the sheer violence behind the movements would have been enough to intimidate most people.

At last, the right question. She paid no heed to the anger. It had always been Seifer's default emotion; she knew that it wasn't really directed at her. Yet.

Besides, if Seifer's anger could have scared her away...well there wasn't any if about it. It couldn't. And he always looked so very alive when he was angry... There was so much fire in him.

The thought amused her. Sometimes the Fates spin a human life with common thread, sometimes with the untarnishing gold of a hero, but Seifer...Seifer's thread must be a strand of pure and undying flame, searing the lives that crossed him and scorching the very warp of the Fates' loom. Impossible to spend any time with Seifer and not feel the touch of that fire. Impossible that she should ever fear it.

Her head cocked slightly to one side in a birdlike motion. Quick then still. In her case though, the intensity of the half-masked gaze was more akin to a falcon than any more common winged thing.

"EXCITING!" Fujin leaned slightly forward in unconscious emphasis, her eye wide and bright, her lips left parted with unexpressed emotion.

Seifer had to pull his eyes away again to stop them from following that enticing shape. The comforting heat of his anger dissipated like smoke as he desperately tried to fend off the far more disturbing things that were trying to seep into his consciousness.

This is ridiculous, Seifer berated himself. I can't possibly be this easily distracted. I have better control than this... I will have better control-

"HIGH, STORM, WIND: EXCITING!" Fujin's stark voice cut into his attention, sharp and bright and compelling as a spinning blade.

She certainly looked as if she was enjoying herself. In a fierce sort of way. She wasn't just ignoring the wind and the rain and the cold - she seemed to be appreciating their buffeting. Seifer wasn't. Seifer was wet and freezing and trying not to think too hard about the wisdom of carrying several feet of sharp steel up to the highest place for miles around and then standing there as the lightning cracking across the sea got noticeably closer. He had enough bad memories of such places already. And damnit but the scar always ached in bad weather.

Seifer had had enough. That's it. I give up. I'm sick of faffing around up here. If this is her idea of fun, then she's welcome to it. Hell, it's not my problem if she doesn't have the sense to come in out of the rain.

"Okay then. Fine. Have it your way." An irritable shrug signalled the end of his patience, and he shook his head sharply, dismissing her. "I don't know what game you think you're playing at - but I'm not interested." He'd wasted enough time already. Fujin could be as disappointed as she liked, he didn't care - not that he was going to think about Fujin at all. Not even a little bit.

"Anyway, I'm going back. It'll be a hell of a long trip if that bloody path washes away." He turned from her as he was speaking, heavy coat flapping wetly around his legs. Fujin's next words stopped him dead in his tracks.

"NO. NOT LONG...SHORT." Fujin was watching him with a peculiarly intent expression - and she was much, much, closer to the cliff edge than he had thought.

Seifer's thoughts stuttered. He knew he was staring but his mind was desperately trying to make her words mean something else. Anything else. He couldn't. He knew her too well. Heard her too well.

"You're going to jump?!" The words escaped him before conscious thought caught up and tried to censor the naked horror in his voice. He was standing in front of her now, gloved hands tight on chill white wrists as the pale coat belled about them both. He had absolutely no memory of covering the ground that had separated them.

"FUJIN! No! You'll kill yourself!" Total shock ripped the response out of him, words that he would never remember speaking. Emotion that he could not regret.

It startled her, that the fear was so audible in his voice, fear as sure and sharp as steel tearing raggedly through its habitual sheath of anger. Fear for her. Fear that she might die. More dreadful fear that she might want to. Beautiful concern - but unneeded.

She smiled at the thought. Her own smile. The one that no one ever saw. Not Selphie's impish simper or Irvine's smug cat-grin. Not Seifer's arrogant smirk or Squall's hesitant joy. Certainly no expression that had ever graced Rinoa's sweet and sunny flower-face. No. This was her own smile, small and wild and fierce and free, her eye wide and bright and fearless. Fey.

Evidently it was still just as disquieting as it had been when she was a child. More than one too-friendly adult, more than one too-confident would-be bully had retreated from that unshielded piece of self. She could see it register on the face above her, so well loved, so uncharacteristically unguarded. Yes. Look at me. Look at me.

She shook her head, never dropping her gaze, never lowering its intensity. Making no allowances. "NO. NOT DIE." Evidently Seifer was still recovering from the effect of that smile delivered at close range - he didn't even try to interrupt or talk over her. He actually seemed to be listening. Good. Now to see if she could make him understand.

"FALL: DIE," her voice was steady and calm and she never shifted her gaze from the shocked green eyes clinging to her like a lifeline.

"JUMP...FLY!" A gift given, words spoken with an intensity of focus that rivalled the forgotten lightnings. Thrown to him with the same power and accuracy as she might have cast her shuriken.

And Seifer caught them. There was a truth there which ran deeper than mere words could reach. He felt it pierce him. Deeper than any sword wound. Deeper even than the hooks of the Sorceress' mind-net. Almost as deep as Fujin's eye.

Fujin rescued it before it could be destroyed. Stepped back out of his hold with a shoulder slip and a twist of rain-slick wrists as the moment fell free. She understood. Some things could not be forced against their own time and will. Of course she knew. Woman and weapon both. It was only when Boreas left her hand and flew alone that it could come into its full power, but only when it returned that her skill could give it the purpose it needed. As she flew for Seifer.

She knew it, though he didn't. And how should he know? Hyperion's hilt stayed always beneath his hand and Seifer himself was blade to his own dream, needing no other hand to rest in for even a moment. How could he see then that he was her dream?

Pretty metaphors. Perhaps all they really meant was that Seifer had only ever known how to hold fast, while she had been forced to learn when to let go.

Enough. This was not why she had come up here, to be entangled anew. Not to be held back, not to be bound - to be free. Time to let it go, let it all go. Give it to the wind.

"Fuu?" He was still watching her warily as she smiled that fey smile and slipped a few more steps away from him. What he wanted more than anything was to shout and grab her and make her understand that she mustn't do this, that he couldn't let her do this, because- but he couldn't. Not now.

Perhaps he might have pleaded, but he was still Seifer. He would not beg. And he knew better than to give a command that would not be obeyed.

He was of course quite right. It was not safe. But nor at this moment was she, not with a wind like this calling to her. No. It was not at all safe. And she did not care.

The storm was directly overhead now. She could feel the rising charge in her body, the adrenaline buzz of anticipation, the warming thrill of excitement.

She knew the ground. Knew the height of the cliffs. Knew how far out from their base the jagged rocks extended. She had tested the currents. Knew that the tide was coming in. Knew the safest beach to make for. Not so far - but far enough. Whitecaps gleamed below on the grey sea.

Seifer was still feeling somewhat...stunned. Staring after her. Staring down after her. A long, long way down. Strengthening rain blurred the air to near impenetrability, but he'd seen her leap and seen her hit and - after a heart-swallowing pause - seen her surface. That was all. Scan though he might, the thrashing sea defeated him. One small water-darkened head was impossible to track amid those frighteningly white-maned waves.

Unfamiliar emotion bit at him. The sea was so big, and he'd lost her so quickly, just one tiny mote among all that terrible wild water. The one tiny mote that mattered, that was Fujin, that was-

Out of sight, but not out of mind. Not now, and perhaps never again. Having once seen, he could not forget. Could not stop seeing.

He no longer noticed the icy wet wind, the rain that hit exposed skin like a barrage of tiny needles, the water that trickled chill under his collar and down his spine. Didn't register the static draw in the air that was making the fine gold hair on neck and forearms stand away from his body.

The last lightning flash had been overhead. Directly overhead. The ground itself had seemed to shudder beneath him as the flare of sound and fury slashed home. Cloud borne, it had ripped across the storm-stained sky with awful power. Actinic glare had seared through his flinching eyelids as the terrible light drowned every weaker colour and made of Fujin a silhouette in shimmering silverpoint.

Perhaps it was his light-blinded eyes that had made her seem to glow for a moment longer than everything else. Perhaps. Whatever the reason, he had seen her only too clearly.

The brief image was still running behind his eyes. The quick, sure movement that had uncovered her whole face to the storm. Rain-kissed skin and lightning chased hair and the low brief sound of laughter - Laughter? From Fuu?! - light-footed speed skimming her across the ground as she reached for the empty sky with a lover's delight...

That was Fujin. As much as anything she had ever shown him. That was Fujin. And he had not known. Had not seen. Had missed that unassailable truth. Somehow.

Why? Dangerous, dangerous question. And one that had gone begging for a very long time. Asking it would require asking other questions. Of himself, and the reasons that drove him. Of the dream that had taken him so far, and the consequences of what he had done in that cause. Consequences...

To go on was to step out into the very uncertainty he feared, a leap of faith from which there would be no easy return. Why should he set himself at hazard without even the surety that the prize would be worth the price?

He need not do it. Need not ask. He could stay where he was. Stay with what he knew and understood. Keep his feet on the ground he had chosen long ago. There had always been pride in that. But now he had found a truth that made his sure sight a lie, that shook the foundations of what he had thought he knew.

His mind's eye saw her again, saw her looking up at him; all new, rare and strange and lovely, painted in the subtle colours of rain and wind, her eye blazing into his like ruddy lightning. Wild and fey and free.

So much, so much that he hadn't seen. What else had he lost from his life by not looking? By seeing only what he knew was there, feeling only what he knew he felt, thinking only within the patterns he had bound himself to?

He had lost Fujin, the Fujin who had stood separate before him, fierce and fearless as he had forgotten she could be. But he had also lost that other Fujin, the woman he had never known; beauty as oblique and uncompromising as a damascene blade, clean perception as certain as his own had ever been...and an exultant joy at which he had never guessed.

SeeD, soldier, second. He knew her reactions as well as his own. Yet she was more than that, more than merely the sum of her skills. She had thoughts and hopes and dreams of her own - and he knew none of them.

I had fun discovering a Fujin and Seifer of my own; if I've written this well enough, you should be able to see them too. What did you think? Did I over-introspect or mis-characterise or under-integrate ...or does it work fine as it is? I've been working on it for too long to be able to tell anymore. *shrug*

Feedback is a wonderfully versatile thing: a few quick words can cast a happy glow that lasts for years, revitalise a flagging imagination or help a writer to improve their skill. You have the power - if you choose to accept it...^_^

Um, does anyone still want to talk to me, or have you all run away now? Sorry, I was just bored with the standard 'Please feedback' comment. Hello?