Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Feathers in the Meadow ❯ His Eyes ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: I'm a little nerve-wracked for this one, so I hope you enjoy it.

 

Dedication: To the three most influential people in my life - Scott, Tori, and Eli. If it weren't for you three, I don't know how my life would have gone.

 

 

 

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His Eyes

 

Theme #15: Perfect Blue

 

Summary: The eyes are the window to the soul...

 

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Cold. Calm. Stoic.

 

For so long, his eyes had held onto the one thing he knew he could always depend on - his pain. Without it, he would be swallowed by his own depression. He had trained himself to keep his hopes low, so the disappointments wouldn't hurt as much. It hadn't been his intention for his eyes to become so distant-looking; yet, without his noticing, they had.

 

Squall had found nothing to make his gaze any less calculatingly intense. Whatever the other students or members of Garden thought of him had never really been a concern of his. As long as his true feelings were never reflected there, Squall could have cared less.

 

Unnerving. Penetrating. Depthless.

 

His gazes were always enigmatic - always hiding his bleeding soul with irises of icy periwinkle. His silent pleading was his own. It was his cross to bear. Squall would not allow another soul into his mind.

 

The memories, while faint, were what fueled his pain - his pride and courage.

 

Pride and courage...

 

Squall had never really thought of himself having these qualities - as these were the traits of a hero, and that he never believed he was; rather, it was a disregard of fear. Death, the ultimate fear of many, would have been embraced by him. To Squall, it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. As long as he saw it as a step in the life process, detached from any sentiment, there would only be relief.

 

Mysterious. Wondrous. Whimsical.

 

Squall had never been entranced as a much as he was the night he met her. His life had been regimented, structured, his spirit sullen and untrusting; she turned it into a free, passionate life in a soul now surer and amiable. And it all started with gazing at the same shooting star that split the pitch heavens with minute teardrops of light; and then their eyes met - his cool and hers warm.

 

Alluring. Curious. Rare.

 

Squall had never seen anyone with eyes like hers before and he found he couldn't look away. Actually, the desire to break their locked gaze never passed through his mind as the other dancers whirled around them.

 

He tried to look impassive when she asked him to dance, yet there was something there, something more that willing let himself be dragged onto the dance floor. It hadn't been until he looked into her soft brown eyes, holding her slender hand in his, that he allowed himself the small indulgence of sharing a waltz with her.

 

Then, when they froze as the celebratory fireworks trilled high into the dark sky and burst, Squall felt something he had never experienced before - a sense of absolute contentment.

 

But when their eyes met again, and she excused herself from him with a light smile, he felt an empty kind of longing in his heart.

 

It had confused him for a while after; and since that night, he had sensed the coldness in his eyes wane considerably. All he could do was ponder on her kindly eyes, and actually believe that the eyes were the windows to the soul - as time pressed onward, and they grew closer with their gazes meeting often, Squall knew it to be true.

 

It wasn't until years later, after all the heroic trials, the acts of compassion; the renewed value of life being more than just what other would say after he died, and the realized romantic destiny as a sorceress' knight that he finally asked Rinoa why that night at the SeeD Officers Ball she had chose him - why had he been her partner of choice?

 

She laughed, that tinkling melodious laugh he'd grown to hold so dear as she smiled warmly at him. “Because, Squall, your eyes have always been the perfect shade of blue.”