Chapter 4: Dreamscapes
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Seb's eyelids, leaden with exhaustion, finally gave out and softly
spread to cover drying pupils.  Seb sighed with relief.  A good night's
sleep would be really quite nice right about now...

Silken strands of quicksilver and shadow weaved through Seb's resting,
near-sleeping body, twining through his pores, resting his mind.
Slowly, gently smoothing back tensed muscles and rampant thoughts and
filling his mind's eye with naught but silence and night...

"Get out..." Seb's lips mumbled without sound as he passed into dreams
and memories.

*************************************

"GET OUT OF HERE, BOY!  NOW!"

Seb blinked his tears away, cradling his injured hand in the crook of
his other arm.  The sickening dampness spreading across his tunic
twisted his stomach, and he barely choked back a rush of bile.

Seb's father lifted his sword, slowly; with precision, he raised it to
his son's trembling adam's apple, letting the tip lightli scratch the
soft, thin skin.  Seb shivered more from fear than anything else.

"Why are you doing this?  I had to get rid of it!  You know I did!
Trying to defeat Kefka is suicide!" Seb yelled, barely choking back
sobs.

"That armor was all I had, Sebastian!  All I had left of your mother!
I was going to avenge her, make things right for me, for all us.  And
you ruined that," his father roared back, seething with rage.

Seb's eyes narrowed, still glistening with salt and water and misery,
and hardened.  The sheen of innocence, of fear, of powerlessness, melted
away; all that remained were two marble orbs, full of conviction.  "You
would have died fighting Kefka.  You know that.  I would not then, and I
will not now let you commit suicide, no matter how much you want it.
Mother is dead," Seb said, and watched his father stiffen at the last
statement.  He reached up with his uninjured hand, and pushed the sword
blade aside, not feeling the tip carry a thin strip of flesh.  Not
seeing the trail of airborne blood.  Seb advanced now, walking slowly
towards his father, fire slowly burning behind his eyes, in his soul.
"I won't have your death on my head."

Seb's father suddenly slackened, then turned away, dropping his sword
to the ground, resting his hands on a table.  The wood almost buckled
under the pressure of his sweat-covered fingertips.  "Get out," he said
quietly.

Seb stepped forward, confused.

"I said get out.  Now.  I don't want to see you ever again.  Take the
sack of gold on the table and get out of my sight."

Seb's finger's brushed lightly against the yielding softness of the
sack, ably concealing the cold metal coins inside...

*****************************************

Seb woke up with a start.  He was bolt upright before he understood
where he was.  He was alone.  In a rented room.  Home seemed very far,
very harsh from where he now sat, fairly dripping with cold sweat and
memory.  In the warming emptiness of the room, Seb couldn't resist
smiling sheepishly to no one at all.  How silly he'd been.  After all,
dreams, much less memories, couldn't hurt anyone.

Could they?