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It had been the kind of cold, grey, almost-drowning rainy day that made Quistis desperately wish her newfound powers did something more useful. There was not much difference between being soaked to the core as a human versus a dragon, and she had the feeling that tromping through a soaking forest as a dragon would be infinitely more annoying for the lack of space. This was an old forest, pitch-black under the canopy even though it blocked about half the rain and all of the biting wind that had driven her and Seifer inside. Under normal conditions, their wet-weather gear would have held against the elements, but it had been raining for nearly a solid week and everything waterproof was now waterlogged. This included changes of clothing, fire starting materials, and most of their food.
“We’re going to die in this forest,” Seifer grumbled, which made Quistis sigh heavily. Earlier in the day when she’d had more energy, she would have snapped at him for being so pointlessly grumpy but now arguing didn’t seem worth the effort. “And you said it was a shortcut.”
“It is a shortcut. We’ll be back on the main road in one day instead of three.”
“So one more day of swimming in our clothes, then? Great.”
“We could have flown, you know.”
“And I told you, you’re not experienced enough to fly in storms yet. We would have died.”
Quistis gritted her teeth. Just because Seifer had been a dragon for the past hundred years didn’t mean he knew everything about being a dragon, especially when out of the two of them, she was the one who could still transform into one and be able to fly! And yes, sometimes she still had trouble with unexpectedly turbulent winds or sudden drops in temperature and air pressure, but that didn’t mean one storm would have done anything other than make her wet. Maybe she’d turn out to fly in storms much better than Seifer ever had. She’d taken to flying and flaming in only one day, and it had taken him years to master both! So really, how dare he pretend he knew much of anything—
She jumped when Seifer grasped her arm, silently but hard enough to startle her from her thoughts. Automatically Quistis drew her whip and looked around in the deep darkness of the ancient forest, but saw nothing like a threat.
“There’s a house,” said Seifer, pointing off to their left. “Let’s see if anyone’s in it.”
Quistis huffed in aggravation, hooking her whip back onto her belt. “Couldn’t you just tell me next time instead of grabbing me?”
“I did,” he snapped back. “You didn’t listen.”
“Not hearing you isn’t the same as not listening.”
“That’s rich.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I said that to you a week ago and you bit my head off anyway.”
It took far too long for Quistis to remember the moment in question. “That was different. You shouldn’t have run that far away.”
“Just like you should be paying attention in a creepy forest when we’re both low on energy?”
Quistis glared up at Seifer, who was glaring back just as hard. “I’m tired, Seifer. That’s why I didn’t hear you.”
“And I was in the middle of a battle, which was why I didn’t hear you.Yet you still—“
“Alright, fine! I was wrong! Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Yes,” he said, which made Quistis grind her teeth. “Was that so hard?”
And then before she could say anything else, he set off for the house. It was just barely visible as a couple of glowing lights in the distance, vaguely illuminating the shape of windows and eaves of a deeply overhanging roof. Quistis very much considered letting Seifer go stomping off by himself, but two things stopped her. One, there was a house with a roof, which meant a possibility of getting dry. Two, if the house turned out to belong to a witch, then Seifer would definitely be in over his head and need to be rescued.
“Again,”she thought uncharitably, and was too tired to chide herself for the mean thought. Thoughtful people who paid attention to their surroundings didn’t get enchanted, after all. More times than she’d wanted to count, she’d had to tell him to step back or watch out or let her handle something sensitive, because Seifer had all the tact of a drunken boar with a spear in its side and just as much potential for violence. She couldn’t help but wonder how he’d ever attained knighthood in the first place, especially when he was in a right bad temper like now.
At least Seifer had enough presence of mind to wait for her under the house’s eaves, though he scowled at her the whole way it took her to come through the twisted roots of the ancient forest floor. The little house had a pathway leading up to it, flat stones that were set on spikes so they ‘floated’ above the uneven ground to make a more walkable and mud-free path. As Quistis neared the house, she also noticed that it seemed to have been built underneath the tree, much like the dragon/Behemoth caves in Qu Village had been, and that sent a pang of nostalgia through her heart. Back then, she and Seifer had just been starting to get close, and while she had been frustrated and angry with being forced into a dragon shape, at least Seifer had been supportive and nice and easy to get along with. It seemed like such a long time ago now.
“You are tired,” he said, which made Quistis glare at him. He gestured at the door. “Ready to look in?”
“We might not even be allowed inside, you know,” she said, and rapped on the door. “Hello?”
There was a click on the other side. And then silently, with not even a squeak of hinges, the door swung open.
“Creepy,” said Seifer, but Quistis was at once overwhelmed with warmth, light, and the mouthwatering scent of fresh-baked bread. Inside the house was as charming as could be imagined, if a little strange in its decoration; the windows were set with clear panes of thin-cut crystal of all colors instead of oiled paper, and instead of rushes on the floor, tightly fitted wooden planks gleamed in the house’s lamplight. The back of the house was set against the back and bottom of the massive tree towering over it, giving it a strange and wild appearance. A tile stove gave off heat that filled the entire room with dry warmth. A table in the center of the house bore three bowls, three spoons, and a very big loaf of the fresh bread Quistis had smelled early. The high ceiling was completely hidden from sight with preserved meats and bundles of herbs in various stages of drying, mingling with the smell of the bread to hit Quistis with a sense of ‘home’ she hadn’t felt in a long time. She leaned in to look inside.
“Hey, what the hell—“ Seifer grabbed her immediately and hauled her back out into the wet and cold. “Quistis!”
“What?” She snapped at him, feeling fire flickering in her eyes.
“You’re not even a little suspicious?” He demanded angrily, gesturing inside the house.
“You’re the one who wanted to come here!”
“Yeah, to look it over and make sure it was safe! Not go running in like an idiot!”
Quistis opened her mouth to say something just as mean but then an unexpected voice stopped her cold. “Please don’t let the warmth out.”
Immediately she and Seifer looked into the house. Out of what Quistis had assumed to be a bramble of untidy branches at the far side of the house came a woman of indeterminate age, slim and wearing a white dress and a red shawl edged with strange designs. The spotlessness of her white dress in such a wooded environment made Quistis just a little suspicious.
“If you’re going to come in, come in,” she said, going to the stove and stirring a pot of something bubbling on top of it. “And if you’re not, then please shut the door and keep your arguing to a minimum. But it’s so much more pleasant to eat good food and be warm, isn’t it?”
“Did you know we were coming?” Quistis asked, eyeing the three place settings on the table.
“Yes.”
“How?” Seifer asked, his voice harsh and hostile.
The woman turned around and smiled in a mysterious, not entirely comforting way. “I read it in the cards.”
“You’re a witch,” said Quistis, not entirely surprised. Few people liked to live so deep into the woods, but if your provender could be magically assured, there was no reason to stay around suspicious and potentially dangerous neighbors. That was the reason that Quistis’s parents lived as far away from their home village as they did, though plenty of people made the trek to and from their house to avail themselves of her mother’s remedies.
“A card witch,” said the woman, continuing to stir. “Some call me the Queen.”
“That’s not pompous,” Seifer muttered under his breath.
“If it pleases you, may we take shelter with you for the night and partake of your evening meal?” Quistis asked formally, remembering the rules that her mother had drilled into her as a child. They were also the same guidelines Sir Loire had also stressed in her training. Witches were an ill-defined group of any kind of woman with magical power, with the important distinction of sorceresses coming from the amount of power they had available and how their powers manifested. Sorceresses could influence the world around them, but witches could typically only influence things they physically touched… Which meant that staying in a witch’s house and eating a witch’s food had to be done very, very carefully.
“You may shelter in my house and partake of your food as long as you make a trade to me.” The Queen turned around at the stove and said, “Your price are the Tasks Three from you each, and that I read your cards.”
“What are the Tasks Three?” Seifer asked, frowning.
“Cleaning her house, her stable, and chopping wood,” said Quistis, making the Queen nod. “It’s the traditional way to pay for shelter and food from witches.”
“Then why are you asking permission to read our cards?” Seifer asked, impressively but properly suspicious. “Why are you acting like that’s something we have to give up?”
“Because even the most novice of card witches can tell your past, your present, and your future in any number of aspects,” said the Queen, smiling. “And I am far from a novice. Most people find the prospect uncomfortable.”
“Fine. I’m in.”
“What?” Quistis stared at Seifer, stunned.
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said, gesturing at himself. “Do you?”
“That’s not the point…” Then Quistis looked inside the house, the warm and well-lit house that smelled like food and happiness, and sighed heavily. Offer of shelter from a witch implicitly included safety, both from without and within. Plus, she had grown up with a witch and knew better than most what kinds of tricks could be played on wary or dangerous visitors. Seifer didn’t, and once he’d made up his mind about something, he didn’t change it. “Alright, fine. We accept your offer and pay your price.”
“Good! Then please take off your wet things by the bench over there and put on the robes instead.” The Queen carried the pot over to the table and set it on a trivet of tile before ladling great spoonfuls of it into the waiting bowls. “Since you’ll be the ones cleaning the floor later, you might not want to drip water all over it.”
That was fair enough. Quistis and Seifer came inside, both of them sighing as the warmth enveloped them like a downy blanket. Once within, their reticence melted even further and they both shed their sodden garments with relief, fumbling with fingers half-frozen from rain and cold. Their adamantine hauberks—Quistis’s sunset rose, Seifer’s midnight blue—were shucked off and shaken dry, followed by their rain-soaked underclothes. Neither she nor Seifer cared much for the strictest interpretations of modesty; they were comrades in the field first and foremost, and Quistis had been training with Sir Loire for years before that, so she was not poleaxed by the sight of male skin. As for Seifer, he kept his gaze in the corner while he changed. There was a tin tub that looked to have been set out for the purpose of holding wet things, so Seifer and Quistis deposited their clothes and shoes in there and then put on the offered thick, dry robes before looking back at the Queen, who was now cutting up bread.
“It’s so rare for me to have visitors,” she said happily when they came over and sat down. “My father and husband passed on some time ago and my son grew up and went into the world. When I was younger I traveled extensively, but there’s no place like home. Do eat as much as you like. I have many stores.”
“Thank you very much,” said Quistis, picking up her spoon and taking a deep, appreciative sniff of the soup. It was savory oxtail with wild rice and radishes, cooked so long and so perfectly that the meat fell off the bone. Meanwhile Seifer took a slice of bread and buttered it thickly; one of the things he'd never been able to eat as much of as he’d wanted as a dragon had been bread or cake, with the result that he now automatically went for them whenever they were offered.
The Queen smiled fondly at both of them, but went to eating her own food soon enough. She seemed perfectly content not to talk aside from making sure their bowls were filled, which took some effort on her part: after days of walking in the rain and cold and sleeping in shelters of various wetnesses, Quistis and Seifer were both starving. The bread and the entire pot of soup disappeared rapidly, but then the Queen pulled several baked potatoes out of her tiled stove, all covered with thick slabs of cheese and roasted garlic so soft that it smeared aromatically onto the potatoes. It was exactly like something Quistis’s mother would have made, which made Quistis relax down to her core.
“You live here alone for long?” Seifer asked, glancing at the Queen.
“A while.” She looked around with a sigh and said, “My husband and I built this place together and I can’t bear to leave. If my son doesn’t take it when I pass on, I’ll let it go back to the woods.”
“It’s a beautiful house,” Quistis said sincerely. “I’d find it hard to leave in any case.”
“It even has three floors,” said the Queen proudly. “And there are rooms enough for everyone too.”
“Maybe you should open an inn or something,” said Seifer, picking up another potato from the main plate. “Get some more visitors through.”
“Maybe,” said the Queen, not particularly interested. She laced her hands together and rested her chin atop her fingers, saying, “Now, who wants to have their cards read first?”
Quistis choked a little, a semi-irrational fear coming over her. Seifer took advantage of her silence to say, “Me.”
“Alright then,” said the Queen, pushing the plate of potatoes off to the side. From the deep pockets inside her sleeves, she pulled out a deep purple cloth edged in the same designs around her shawl and spread it straight on the table with a snap, making Quistis jump from the noise and the sudden sharp, smoky smell of mugwort in the air. From the other sleeve, the Queen produced a deck of cards backed in golden designs, a much fancier deck that than the birch-tree papers one of Quistis’s sisters used. When the Queen shuffled her cards, it wasn’t in the bent-back flip that Quistis was familiar with but rather a brisk side shuffle that made the cards half-fly through the air. Seifer watched intently, not knowing enough to be apprehensive, and even exclaiming softly in surprise when the Queen laid her cards out on the purple cloth in a perfectly spaced, gleaming golden fan. Quistis kept eating her potato, summoning all the memories of all the times she’d ever seen her sister read the cards.
“Nine cards, if you please,” said the Queen to Seifer. As Quistis tried to remember what kind of nine-card spreads there were, Seifer pulled nine cards out of the spread with the speed of the careless and ignorant. “Ah, no peeking.”
“Now what?” Seifer folded his arms as the Queen swept up the unused cards and set them off to the side in a neat stack. She deftly laid the selected cards out in a pattern that looked somewhat like a gallows, which immediately made Quistis stiffen up as soon as her mind made the connection between that and something that so, so many people had come to see her sister for. In a very small village, the most popular reason to get one’s cards read had to be wealth or…
“That’s very…” Quistis squeaked out, immediately making Seifer and the Queen look at her. “I mean… We’re not in love, Queen. We’re just traveling together.”
“But you have a relationship, don’t you?” The Queen asked as Seifer’s jaw dropped, stunned. “And that’s what this spread is all about.”
“Hold on, I’m not—” said Seifer but the Queen was already flipping over the cards, making Quistis wince as she recognized a few. But she realized that the Queen’s deck was also much bigger than her sister’s had been, with cards she had never seen before far outnumbering the familiar. Seifer turned red, though whether that was because of the naked people on the Lovers card or the grinning skeleton on the one reading Death was anyone’s guess. The Queen studied the cards for a seeming eternity…
And then without warning, swept the cards up and shuffled them back into the deck.
“Your turn,” she said to Quistis, making Seifer sputter.
“You didn’t tell me a damn thing!”
“I wasn’t going to,” said the Queen, amused. “The price was reading your cards for my amusement, not your enlightenment.”
“That’s not fair!”
“It’s what we agreed to,” said the Queen serenely, spreading her cards out in front of Quistis once more. “Nine, please.”
Quistis hesitated. The Card Queen seemed to have some agenda in mind and while it didn’t seem to be malicious, Quistis didn’t like the idea of a stranger knowing secrets about her, secrets that Quistis herself might not know. But she’d agreed to the terms and it wasn’t like theQueen knowing something necessarily conferred power.So settling into her chair, Quistis slowly moved her hand over the cards. There was a nearly imperceptible feeling of ‘sticking’ that might have been explained away as anything; a prickle of warmth, a sudden awareness of a pin poking her back, but Quistis took them all as signs and drew nine cards. The Queen cocked her head but then nodded, making a noise of understanding.
“Who taught you the cards?”
“One of my older sisters,” Quistis said, making Seifer throw up his hands a little at her. “But I can’t read them or set them right.”
The Queen chuckled, which made Quistis slightly uncomfortable. She took the cards, put them in the same configuration as she’d done with Seifer’s, and studied them for a number of moments.
Thankfully, there were a few more familiar cards in Quistis’s spread. The Wheel of Fortune, though upside-down and foreboding; the Lake, right-side up; the Cat; the Dog; and to Quistis’s surprise, the Dragon. Seifer looked vaguely affronted as he looked over at her spread.
“How come that didn’t pop up in mine?” He asked, miffed.
“You must not be cursed with greed and disaster,” said Quistis, making Seifer snort and the Queen laugh gently.
“You aren’t cursed either,” said the Queen, gesturing over the card. “But you should be concerned.”
“Why? I don’t care about riches or material wealth.”
“But you do want something with a hunger that might destroy you,” said the Queen, making Quistis stare. “Oh, you don’t know what it is yet, do you? Poor girl. You should figure it out soon if you want to be happy.”
Seifer was looking at her strangely, like he didn’t recognize who she was. Quistis had to look away, wishing she could do this reading alone.
“She’s learning stuff about herself,” he said to the Queen, making Quistis sigh a little in relief when he took his gaze off her. “I want to know about my cards too.”
“Oh, I suppose that’s fair.” She studied him for a second and said, “Your fear of loss will make you lose everything in the end unless you embrace the losing.”
“What?!”
She turned back to Quistis and studied her cards. Then she swept them all up and shuffled them again, a strange smile on her lips. Quistis and Seifer exchanged uneasy glances.
“Your beds are upstairs on the second floor, there’s a hot spring for a bath below, and I expect one of you to clean the dishes and pots tonight,” she said with a pleasant smile. “Sleep well and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Wait,” said Seifer, making the Queen look at him with a knowing smirk. “If I wanted to know something, what would it cost me?”
“It depends. What do you want to know?”
Seifer glanced over at Quistis. “I’d…”
“I think I’ll look at that hot spring,” said Quistis, immediately getting up from the table. “And I’ll clean up before bed.”
“N-no, I’ll do that,” said Seifer, rubbing the back of his neck. “You should… Sleep.”
“…Alright,” said Quistis, not meeting his gaze either. Wistfully she wondered if staying out in the rain might have been better, because at least then they knew what to expect from each other. Now…
The hot spring was located past a concealed set of winding stairs that were set with the same kind of flat stone that made up the path outside, and Quistis felt the humidity and heat as soon as she rounded the last curve. Here at last was the clearest evidence of the Queen’s magical power, because the ‘hot spring’ was set against a flat and flawless floor of grey stone, was perfectly round with a flat bottom, and had a ridge that was made for sitting all the way around it. In contrast to the savory herbal smells above, the air here smelled bright and floral; it came from several soaps stacked neatly on a washcloth and an upturned bucket by a noticeably sloped section of the bathing room, one where a draft of bracingly cold air came up from a crack in the floor that must have led directly to the outdoors. An interesting way to keep one’s bathing room clean, for sure. So while Quistis looked longingly at the hot spring and its gently steaming water, she nevertheless followed etiquette and thoroughly washed before she got into the tub, using the bucket for rinsing or sitting as her needs dictated.
Afterwards, sitting in the hot water relaxed Quistis enough that the thoughts she’d been fearing finally came in, wearing the faces of the cards she’d had recognized from her spread. She vaguely thought she knew what the cards meant individually, but together could only come up with something like ‘solitude’ and ‘sadness’. The Cat had appeared in every reading Quistis had undertaken with her sister, so much so that Quistis had once accused her of putting it there on purpose. After all, the Cat’s meaning wasn’t exactly complimentary; ‘cruel’ was actually the first word to describe it, which little Quistis had strenuously objected to.
“It means you like things a certain way, little sis, and you aren’t happy until they’re exactly the way you want. That’s where the cruelty can come from.”
That made Quistis scowl stubbornly. What exactly was wrong with liking things to work and be right? But she was just old enough to know that insisting everything go her way wasn’t always the best, case in point trying to become a human again by locking herself into a very narrow definition of what a human was. So maybe that was why the Dog had appeared. If the Cat was too proud for its own good, the Dog was too helpful but more pertinently to her thought process, the Dog was also very adaptive. People who kept getting Dog cards could either survive in any situation or convince themselves that they deserved to stay in the absolute worst ones, which made Quistis grumble again.
“You want something with a hunger that might destroy you.”
But what could that be? Quistis couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted that bad, not since she got her shield. Now that she was a knight, she was looking forward to a life of virtuous errantry without anything like the oppressive need to be better dominating her waking days. She had made it. She had what she wanted.
But then Quistis recalled the Lake. Still and calm on the surface, teeming with life below. The Lake could be life-giving or could drown the unwary for the same reason; it gave without stinting and consideration. Some versions of it were called the Flood. The Wheel of Fortune was similar in its potential for disaster, though that had to do with luck and change more than anything else. And of course, the Dragon, whose aspects included greed and protectiveness, misery and pride.
“You should figure it out soon if you want to be happy.”
She wasn’t unhappy! Not… Exactly. Oh sure, she’d been snappish and irritable since the weather had turned foul on them, but only because Seifer was difficult too. Quistis’s scowl deepened. While he’d turned back into a human, he’d still behaved exactly like a dragon: stubborn, convinced of his invincibility, and willing to solve every problem with violence. Lately she’d been fighting with him so much, and the worst part of it was how Seifer would distance himself from her afterward, making Quistis both seethe at his immaturity and also fret that he would call their strange relationship off. She wasn’t sure when she had come to rely on his support, but the idea of being without it now made her stomach clench and her heart chill in her chest.
“When we work well together, it’s like we can read each other’s minds. And knowing he’ll be there to guard my back and support me is worth more than I can say. I wish it was like that all the time, but when he gets so poisonously stubborn I just can’t stand it! It makes me sick! It…
“Oh god. It does make me sick. Why does Seifer having his own opinion make me ill?"
The implication that she needed Seifer to be brainless and adoring made Quistis even more nauseous. That was what Ultimecia had wanted out of him. That was what had nearly killed him. What had nearly made Quistis lose him forever.
“It’s not bad if he has his own mind, not at all! If he wasn’t who he was, warts and all, I wouldn’t want to be around him… I want him to be himself, but I don’t want us to… To differ? To disagree? No, what is it?”
Her back was to the stairs, so when Seifer came into the bathing room, Quistis didn’t immediately fling her hands over her chest or utter a maidenly scream. She just looked over her shoulder and said, “If you wait a moment, I’ll get out.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, waving his hand like he could literally brush her words away. “It’s big enough for both of us.”
Quistis thinned her lips. From anyone else, she would have suspected ulterior motives. But in so many ways, Seifer was still a dragon and dragons were naked all the time. He surely didn’t see anything strange in shedding his clothes around her and sharing a hot spring.
But it was one thing to be sensible about unavoidable undressing and incidental exposures of flesh. It was completely another to sit naked in a hot spring with Seifer, who was damned handsome and when he wasn’t driving her crazy, made her feel… Less than sensible. Oh, she wasn’t going to fawn over him or throw herself into his arms, but Quistis certainly enjoyed looking at him more than was proper and knew he liked to look at her too. And she wasn’t prepared for anything that might result from that, both emotionally and practically.
“Though with the way we’ve both been behaving with each other, there’s zero chance of anything like that happening!”
It would be better for everyone if she just left now. Seifer didn’t have the sense to understand the complications, it seemed.
“I’m nearly done. Give me a moment to get out.”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“What I mean is, don’t look at me.”
Seifer was puzzling over the bathing stool and soap, but stopped his inspection to give her a flat look. Quistis braced for a hard word, but none came. Instead his annoyance tempered into something more thoughtful.
“What?” She finally asked.
“You know you’re still my hoard, right?” It could have sounded very rude and possessive, but Seifer seemed to be unsure for some reason. Quistis looked at him strangely.
“I thought that was something you decided.”
He made an irritated noise. “It’s not like that. Yes, I chose you. But I chose you because you’re exceptional and amazing, and I haven’t told you that lately. I don’t say it a lot. And I should, because you’re not like gems and gold, with lots of stupid people fighting over you for their own reasons. You’re better. You fight for yourself. And even if you don’t want me anymore, I’ll still value you.”
A soft but tangible rush went through Quistis’s chest, startling an involuntary noise out of her. It had been baffling and borderline embarrassing to hear these things when Seifer had been a dragon, but spoken by a handsome man who was looking directly into her eyes, such flattering words felt very different. She resisted the urge to cover her face or look elsewhere as her cheeks started heating up and the chill in her heart became a twist.
“'Even if you don’t want me anymore…' Has he really thought that? I would never..."
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry, I’ve been so snappy with you. I haven’t been a good hoard lately.”
“You being the best hoard doesn’t have anything to do with your snappiness or lack of it,” said Seifer, frowning. “You being you is enough."
She squirmed. “But I should be nicer to you.”
“Why? I’m not gonna object, but why?”
“Because…” Quistis had to look away. Wringing her hands underwater gave her something to be distracted by as she fumbled through her next words. ”Because you’re wonderful too. You have so much strength to live through what happened to you, and figuring out completely different bodies not once, but twice… And the march of so many years hasn’t trampled you either. I don’t know what I would do if I were in your place, but you just keep going on and making things work. Meeting you and being with you has been one of the best things in my whole life and I’m happy you’re here. I really am.”
Seifer was quiet. He was quiet for long enough that Quistis finally had to steel herself to look at him, only to see him quickly look away. His face was rather red.
“So… If I don’t have to be nice to be a good hoard, what should I do? How did you know I was your hoard to begin with?”
He rubbed the back of his heck, looking away from her even more. But he spoke anyway, his voice low and just as awkward as she felt. “I just… Did. When I looked at you, I could just see how wonderful you were. And I… I wanted you. Not in a lecherous way, just… Listen.
"A hoard is a dragon’s most prized possession. It’s what we always want and always want more of, no matter how much of it we have. It’s what makes us complete even though it’s outside our bodies. Otherwise, dragons might as well be mountains for all our size and strength. Hoards make us want to live.
“And I don’t want anything out of you except for you to be who you are. And… Let me be there.”
Quistis couldn’t think of a thing to say. It was hard to think of anything at all, what with the way her heart was pounding in her chest, practically bursting with understanding and a sudden significance she could only recognize in academic terms. Maybe if her heart had been bigger—dragon-sized—she wouldn’t have struggled to name it.
“You should figure it out soon.”
“I see,” she said finally. “Thank you for explaining all of that.”
Seifer nodded curtly. “Should’ve told you earlier,” he said gruffly. “So you wouldn’t feel bad about not being nice to me all the time. It’s fine. I’m tough, I can take it. And you wouldn’t be who I wanted if you treated me like a newborn lamb, anyway.”
Quistis nearly started to tell him there was a difference between coddling and basic civility, but at the last second she realized he was feeling vulnerable too. So she let him have his distraction. “You bleated pretty loudly once you started getting soaked.”
“Oh, like you were an ancient Stoic?” He returned at once, humor suffusing his voice. “And it wasn’t the wet I objected to, it was the cold. Speaking of…”
“Yes?”
“Can you look away so I can wash up?”
Quistis chuckled, relieved even as a part of her tsked at not being able to ogle. “Of course. Give me a moment to get out and get dressed and you’ll be able to float in the hot spring without touching the sides.”
“Sold.”
The next day was still gloomy and rainy, but the difference of a good meal, a good rest, and dried-out equipment made all the difference when Quistis and Seifer woke up the next morning. The Queen awoke to find them industriously going about the Tasks Three and after declaring the house clean, the stables adequately mucked out (she had a green-feathered chocobo and never a sweeter beast had Quistis ever encountered), and the wood pile sufficiently high (Seifer had chopped and stacked until it was as tall as he was), the Queen gave them food for the road and then, surprisingly, tight hugs.
“Safe journeys,” she said, straightening Seifer’s coat and patting down Quistis’s hair in a motherly way. Quistis found herself wishing the Queen's far-off son would visit soon. “And take care of each other.”
“Thank you for everything,” said Quistis sincerely, Seifer nodding along; the slightly wistful look in his eyes was the one he got whenever he was thinking of Edea. “And we will.”
Even after fulfilling their tasks for the Queen, they were still hale enough to set a brisk pace through the dark forest and when a grayish glimmer of light signaled the end of the trees, they even walked a little faster.
“Oh thank goodness the wind stopped,” said Quistis as they came to the edge of the forest. By this time the rain had slowed to a light patter, more like a heavy mist than a proper storm, and when they looked out from the trees, a wide, low valley rolled away from them before vanishing into soupy mist. Yet when Quistis breathed, the familiar scent of this particular wet hillside made her smile. The steep slope of the moss-covered hill, studded with rocks and vanishing into the mist, could have been just outside her own village.
“Yep,” said Seifer, looking up at the sky. He inhaled deeply and said, “The rain’ll stop soon too.”
“You can tell that by smell?”
“After a hundred years? Yeah.” Seifer looked at Quistis then and said, somewhat hesitantly, “Do you know where we’re going from here?”
Quistis looked down at the valley for a long moment, studying in particular the wending track of a gleaming river she could barely see. “Yes,” she said finally. “It’s almost a straight line from here, across the valley and into the forest on the other side. It’ll be another day of walking if the valley’s not too muddy…”
Which it was almost guaranteed to be. Despite the heavy mist settling over most of the bottom of the valley, Quistis was fairly certain that the river was either swollen to bursting or had transformed the valley into a temporary lake, as it often did at this time of year. She took off her pack and set it on the ground before walking a little distance away.
“I’m going to fly us across,” said Quistis, stretching her arms above her head. “What’s the point of a shortcut if we lose all that time slogging through mud again?”
Seifer looked up at the sky again, his eyes narrowed. “You planning to clear the clouds?”
“Maybe. But it’s not gusting or thundering and I haven’t seen any lightning either,” said Quistis. “I think we can get away flying underneath them.”
Seifer’s mouth twisted, but he nodded. “You’re not wrong,” he said, and when Quistis gave him a bit of an arch look, he said, “I still think you need more practice before you fly in the rain, but if you’re sure…”
“I am.”
“Then I trust you.” Now his mouth twisted again, but this time in rue amusement. “What do I know about you being a dragon, after all?”
Not for the first time, Quistis felt guilty. Of the two of them, she knew who would appreciate the ability to transform much more. But Seifer caught the look in her eyes and shook his head, now looking annoyed.
“You don’t have to listen when I shake my cane at you,” he said in the same tone, though she got the impression his ire wasn’t pointed at her. “Your dragon shape is different than mine was. There are some things that only you will be able to figure out and do. And the best judge of that will be you, not me, which means you need the practice.”
“I do appreciate your advice, though. And I want to be careful, especially since I’m carrying you and if something goes wrong…”
“You’re a lot more cautious than I am. The chances of something bad happening are way lower.” He rearranged his pack so it was more on his left; when Quistis transformed, she carried Seifer and he carried both their packs on his back. Walking over to Quistis’s bag, he slung it on and said, “And if something does happen, we’ll figure it out. We’ve survived worse.”
“We have,” she agreed, relieved. Satisfaction grew into her chest as she swelled into dragon shape, and it might have been her imagination but it felt like her awareness expanded in more ways than just physical. When Seifer stepped into the cup she made of her forepaws, Quistis took a moment to seriously look at him and nearly stopped breathing at what she now allowed herself to see.
“Dragon in a human skin, fellow knight and partner. There is no one in the world like you. Your hair is the color of pure gold and your eyes like emeralds, and you are far more valuable than both. You wield your sword in a way the world has not seen in a hundred years and will never see again, because there will never be another you. And you are all mine.”
Quistis had to resist a sudden urge to nuzzle Seifer like a stuffed doll. She was sure he’d be bewildered if she said she wanted to curl around him, hold him to her chest, and snarl at anyone or anything who ever thought of taking him away from her. That she felt so damn good that they were talking like equals and trusting each other again. That they were one.
Then again, Seifer understood what hoard-longing was like. She didn’t need to use so many words with him.
“But I won’t tell him just yet. I want to see if I feel this way when I’m human too. He deserves to be loved that much.”
Quistis unfurled her wings, invigorated despite the sudden pattering of rain against the stretched membranes. A sudden burst of excited energy made her tail lash the wet ground so hard that waves rose from the sodden grass. The slope of the valley was steep enough and deep enough for Quistis to spring out and then sail almost even with the forest edge, skimming over the mist-filled valley like a gull over the sea. Seifer’s presence seemed to glow through her chest scales like a little piece of sunlight, warming and calming her just as the actual sun would have and clearing the invisible clouds Quistis hadn’t known were shading her heart.
“'Hoards make us want to live.’ How true indeed."