Springtime has the perfect weather to play outside if you catch the clouds in their good moods. Following this concept, little Rebecca Colested of Balamb city convinced her mother to let her play along the pathway that afternoon. The sun was out, the wind was lenient, but there was thunder in the distance. The seven year old figured she still had another hour or so before the storm hit her area, so she kept bouncing her little red ball by the path, staring off at the thunder clouds in the distance.
Only a few yards down the road, a truck driver momentarily took his eyes off the road to down and grab his cell phone which had inconveniently dropped to the floor of the car. Well, the road was straight ahead and all he had to do was lean down and snatch it up. It wouldn't take much longer than a second or two. But that second or two was all it could take.
The little girl stared up at the sky--why did it seem like the thunder was getting louder so quickly? Suddenly, she found herself snatched from her feet, dropping the red ball behind her, and came crashing down onto the ground in the embrace of stranger. She was frightened! What had happened just now?! She looked back at her ball blankly, but in a second's time it was smashed flat by a the truck's massive six wheels and counting.
Rebecca was too shocked to speak. Her brain couldn't process it--the crushed rubber of the red ball trampled by the wheels--that could have been her if this stranger hadn't saved her life. Speaking of whom--it was a lady, tall and slender, lightly injured from the crash to the ground, but still smiling warmly, or in relief for the girl's sake. The stranger was kind enough to stand up, despite a nasty little scrape on her elbow, and help Rebecca to her feet. Rebecca barely knew what to say.
"Holy cow," was all she could muster at the moment. She looked up to the stranger like she'd seen a ghost. "Thank you. Um... dear Hyne. I owe you my life!" Rebecca could only think to throw her arms around the stranger, and this made the stranger chuckle for Rebecca was only tall enough to reach her waistline.
"No problem," the lady said. "Just be careful next time, okay?" Rebecca nodded with eyes widened by fear and ran off. The girl smiled, chuckling at how adorable the shocked little girl was, then headed off her own ways to Balamb Garden, examining the scrape she'd acquired on her arm.
As she reached the front gate, a blond-hair-blue-eyed Zell Dincht caught her by the waist and kissed her cheek as hello. "Hey, Lina... What happened there?" Zell asked, beckoning towards the wound she was tending to.
"Oh, don't worry about it," Lina looked up at her beau and smiled with her coffee brown eyes. They walked past security to the main hallway. SeeDs and juniors alike had the hallway more widely populated than usual. It seemed for every one student raving about some room party the night before, there were two discussing how idiotic the initiators of said festivity was for getting busted soon after it'd begun.
They headed to their right into the Garden library and browsed around the back shelves.
"What's that one?" Zell asked, pointing to an old book he'd seen in Lina's room the other day. "Weren't you reading that a few days ago?" Lina pulled it out of its place and tried to remember when this was.
"Oh yeah, just studying for some kind of evaluation I think," she said, the put it back in its place. Zell nodded and wrung his arms around her waist as she chuckled at him with a timid blush on her cheeks and reached for a different book.
"Hey, I've read that one--Deuterium Chronicles," he said. "Pretty good, kind of blunt sometimes though." Lina turned around and kissed him. "Well, what do you know? Blunt can be good." Lina laughed and kissed him again. "Maybe I should read more often." The two of them scaled the same row three or four times, pointing out new books and finding lame excuses to exchange kisses. Eventually, Zell picked a book and they headed towards the front counter to check it out.
"So, Lina, don't forget about the ball tonight," Zell reminded her for the hundredth time that day. Zell found his way to her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Lina chuckled and nodded.
"How could I possibly forget, Zell?" Lina asked him, letting him reel her into his embrace again. "This is only the--what--millionth time you've reminded me today."
"Hah, I know, but you know I'm just excited," Zell said as the librarian at the front counter scanned his book in. "I think that guy's staring at us funny," Zell joked and Lina smiled. Well, that conceited jerk always had something against Zell, but that was blatantly besides the point. Zell took the book and the two of them headed out for the Dormitory. "I'll come and call you out around eight, okay? Until then, my belle."
Lina blushed, but they separated to their rooms to prepare for the ball.