Disclaimer: AT AN ARM'S LENGTH © 2002-2008 A.L. Roberts. FINAL FANTASY VIII © Squaresoft. They own these characters, I'm just borrowing them for a little bit. Buy their games, and give them your money!

It was midnight. The repetitive rocking and noise of the train had lulled his partner to sleep, but Irvine Kinneas was wide awake. It wasn’t often that he saw Quistis with her guard down, and he didn’t plan on squandering the chance to look at her. Really look at her.

She was attractive – one of the prettiest girls in all of Garden. Besides my Selphie, of course, he thought. I wonder if anyone has ever told Quistis she is pretty. This thought was quickly followed by a soft chuckle as an interesting idea crossed his mind. If anyone ever did, she probably wouldn’t believe them.

She just looked so peaceful. She so rarely looked this way, and he wished she would let Selphie and him help her out once and a while. But she’ll never ask.

She shifted around in the upright seat across from him, breaking his reverie. The moonbeams that seeped through the compartment’s mini-blinds played upon her hair, and a chill ran up and down his spine.

This feeling of foreboding had only happened two other times in the cowboy’s life: once during the most recent Sorceress War, and once during their recently completed mission in Timber.

*****

He and Quistis had been dispatched to serve as escorts – read: bodyguards – for the newly-independent country’s first president. They gathered evidence and waited for the prospective assassins to make their move. The criminals did, two nights back, but their attempt was thwarted. Quistis had blocked the sniper’s attack with a blue magic shield, and Irvine had taken out the shooter. Then they saw the crime’s mastermind make a run for the door.

“Have the President’s security detail surround him,” Quistis barked to Irvine, before she darted off, her Save the Queen in hand and ready to strike.

By the time he caught up to her, she had cornered her prey, her whip’s barbed wire tail snapping dangerously close to the cowering fugitive’s face. The 300-pounder lunged at her suddenly, but instantaneously, he was hog-tied at her feet.

Nothing unusual for Quistis. She’s always been efficient, he grinned to himself as he walked toward her.

It was then the captive made one last try at freedom. Before Irvine had a chance to warn her about the knife now heading her way, her hair flashed from its usual blond to a multi-colored brunette and back again.

It was over. The bad guy’s knife was across the room, and his broken arm was twisted behind his back. And Quistis didn’t have a scratch on her.

The sharp-shooter blinked repeatedly, trying to make sense of what he had seen.

“Q -Quistis?” he croaked.

“Yeah. . .”

“How’d you do that?”

Her blue eyes met his questioningly, “That move? Have you been falling asleep in Instructor Rogers’ self-defense class?”

He just stared incredulously.

*****

She doesn’t even know that anything unusual happened, Irvine thought as he finally closed his eyes. If this had been the first time, I’d just think it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but now. . . I’m not so sure.

Author's Notes:
Have any of you seen either Neon Genesis Evangelion or Serial Experiments: lain? I've always found their ideas of “different selves,” i.e. how you see yourself vs. how other people see you, to be very interesting. I also think it is very apropos to show how the characters see one another, especially in the case of our heroine, Quistis.

OK, I'll fess up: In addition to an extreme soft spot for blond, gunblade-wielding antiheroes, I also have a weakness for a certain gunslinger. (It's fun writing from his perspective.) Besides, our hero and heroine are going to need some allies, since both of them have it in their nature to be rather difficult.