Email: [email protected]
Title: Secret Talent
Rating: Pretty much G, maybe PG for a bit of descriptiveness.
Parings: None ctualy, its all mentioned in passing.
Authors notes: This is a plot bunny. An idea I've been batting around
on and off. I dont know if I'll ever continue it or not or even where
it will go. If anyone has feeback on it (And spelling corrections
^^;;;;) feel free to post something.
---
Zell was sitting outside Ma's house one bright and sunny afternoon,
munching on a sandwich she'd made for him, back to the warm wall as
he enjoyed shore leve from the Garden after another great adventure.
He was all smiles and energy, day in and day out, training, holding
up his beleifs and the future of the garden with the rest of his
friends.
Ofcours, it wasnt so easy. It was taxing, on the mind, body and soul.
Zell himself had taken the part of the jester, almost. Trying to keep
a smie on evryone's faces, even siding with Selphie and helping out
with the festivities when he could. They had so little to be happy
about these days, trying to rebuid their world after the Sorceress
war.
After all, it wasnt all peace and glory immeditly. There were still
territorial squabbles to clear up, rebellions of people seeing
goverment at its weakest for years, and new lives to start from the
old ones. They were still cleaning up the aftermath of all the terror
and the pain people had been put through. The SeeD's were still
at 'on call' status, expected to drop everything personal and come at
the word of the Garden.
And they were still just kids, really. Zell and most his friends were
barely seventeen when reality came crashing down and dark ages
threatened their world for good. He was ninteen now, and every day of
it was still fresh in his mind. The sensation of her presance, the
battles they had to fight against their own comrades, the pain they'd
put their oved ones through. Not even the Guardan Forces could devour
enough memory to make any of the 'heros' truely happy again.
But everyone had their outlets. Talents and skils that they'd enjoyed
even before the war and realythrew their every spare moment into now.
Selphie and Irvine were a close couple, taking care of eachother,
giving eachother someone to lean on. Rinoa had gone back home to free
her little rebel group and town from governmental terror. Squal was
acting as current headmaster of Balamb Garden since Cid and Edea had
retred from the business. Quistis was stil acting as a SeeD in the
garden, and a substitute teacher, though her full status wasnt put
back into place.
And Zell spent a lot of time up in his room or out seeing the country
side on his hovorboard, sometimes being gone for days, even a week at
a time when vacation alowed for it. The monsters were weakening and
the most dangerous ones were confined to islands no one lived on, or
were just vanishing from around popuated areas. Evryone wanted peace
again, to worry about their own problems, and not the planets.
When the mailman came by, Zell gave him a big, flat envelope, with
the request not to have it bent before it was delivered. The man just
smiled and nodded. He'd gotten a lot of strange envelopes from Zell
like these. Always addressed to someone in Fisherman's Horizon. Who
knows where it went from there.
Zell finished his sandwich when the mailman had walked out of sight
and went inside to talk to Ma and have a nap.
***
A few more magazines had started to get printed after the war. Almost
every city had one now, and some of them ended up being carried
across whatever continent they were produced on. Travelers frequently
traed magzines with eachother, so some of them almost got
international services. Some of the hottest new magazines were the
new Styles of clothes all the big stars of theater wore and how to
get them, or a kids magazine that encouraged people to have families
and not worry about imminent doom anymore, even one on gardening and
how to grow in the various soils around the world.
There were only two that interested Squall however. He had the newest
copies on his desk almost the same day they were printed. Every
morning, he found himself in the office, siping softy at a cup of
black coffee and either looking at the new 'Locks & Stocks' (L&S)
bondage wear magazine, or 'Smoking Barrels, Singing Blades' (SBSB)
weapon magazine. Just a little personal time before every work day.
Lately though, SBSB had been getting more and more of his attention.
The eidtors of the magazine had decided to change from the
traditional covors of the hottest weapons and catalogging everything
that was currently avalible, to just listing the best and worst of
combat gear and actual opinions of the users. Articles and in depth
information on not only how to use the weapons, but who was using
them and for what purpose. To top it off, they had been hiring
photographers who took action shots and artists with talent, rather
than taking pictures of store models posing with guns. It was a whoe
new reveatio of how things were done in the business, and Squall
appreciated the change.
Today, he was Ninteen, three weeks away from turning twenty. Hoping
no one woud remember and throw him another one of selphe's goofy all
garden surprise parties which she'd done last year (much to his
embarrassment). Xu had already placed the morning's cup of coffe in
his hand and he'd pced into his office. Sitting in a comfortable
chair and looking down at his magazines and workload, he stopped,
frozen, staring at todays issue of SBSB.
'What makes Us better than Ultimacea?' in bold letters under the name
of the mag, and a sub-caption, 'When violence goes too far, Page 13'.
There were uother ltte burbs about violence related topics, a recall
on a weapon brand and some quirky interviewr know for a good laugh
splashed around the edges, but it was the hevily lifeike yet
nightmareish image on the covor that had made him stop everything and
just go blank.
Two Galbadian soldiers, one holding the other in his arms. The larger
man holding his smaller comrade had a whole blown through his chest,
destroying evrything of where his heart and a good portion of his
chest should've been and the landscape behind him visibe through this
hole. His helmetted head was craned upwards twords the sky, jaw
locked open in the frozen time of a scream, a prayer, a mourning. His
uniform shredded and blood seeping down his arms and kneeling legs.
The younger soldier in his arms lookng ever so peacful, the helmet
fallen to the ground beside his comrade as his head had lolled back
to face the veiwer. Blood trickled from his nose and lips despite his
dreamlike expression, and blood coated the young man's chest, stil
fresh and falling. Shot to death at an age before he'd realy had time
to live.
Around the two of them were bodies, only partialy drawn and scetchy
so thatthe attention was immediatly on those in the foreground But as
time passed and gears turned in Squall's head, he recognized colors,
shapes and patterns. Galbadia Garden, Balamb Garden and Trabia Garden
SeeDs and students, dead at each others hands amongst the Galbadian
soldiers.
And the signature in the corner merely read 'Lightning' and nothing
more.