CoN 25th Anniversary: 1997-2022
FFVI Fic - A Burning and Shining Light

Posted: 13th September 2009 19:39

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Onion Knight
Posts: 48

Joined: 1/11/2008

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Winner of the 2008 Fanfiction contest. 
Hey everyone!

I've always been curious - what happened to the Returners? Specifically, what happened to them after the end of the world? Did they find their families and friends? Did they find Banon and regroup? Did they just try to survive as best as they could? And how did ordinary folks respond to them after the Apocalypse?

This story is different than my usual style for several reasons. First, I've never written a fanfic with an original character as the main protagonist. I'm usually a little wary of OCs, but I decided to go against my grain and do it anyway. But don't worry - he bumps into a lot of familiar faces and winds up in some familiar places as well... And second, I've never submitted a story in serial form. I'm going to update every Sunday, or try my best to.

Looks like there'll be right about 15 or 16 chapters of varying lengths.

So, without further ado, here we go! Happy reading! flag-blue.gif

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Chapter One: "Cold Comfort for Change"

The light appeared slowly over the horizon and silhouetted the lone sloop coming into port. On a hill not far from the house where he stayed with an elderly widow, Returner corporal Marius Foix de Carmain dipped his pen in a precariously-perched bottle of ink and continued to sketch the sloop. As he drew the jib, he wished for the thousandth time that he could afford pastels or colored chalk – anything to give the sketch a little color besides his familiar old olive colored ink. At least at this hour, he could explain away the sangria colored water as a product of the sunrise. To draw a ship at any other time of the day would be to remind himself that the world was dying.
Thinking about the current state of the world killed his desire to finish detailing the sketch. Even half-done, it was a decent likeness of the ship – maybe Audrey would want it. She had been in awe of the city map he made for her once he could hold a pen again. That same map now hung proudly in the mostly bare parlor, alongside a rather sparse illustration he’d done of the city and a more detailed drawing of some sweet peas and zinneas Audrey grew in a window-box. Marius waited for the ink to dry and then carefully packed everything up. He slung his bag across his chest as he rose, and then headed into the heart of South Figaro.
Audrey Harcourt was a widow, although she maintained that her husband would return someday. Marius opened the door loudly and stomped his feet several more times than he really required. The lady of the house was a tiny thing, but Marius had no illusions that she could seriously injure him should he surprise her. He’d heard in town that she had won her deceased husband’s heart nearly forty years ago by challenging him to a fight and winning. Audrey turned around to face him and smiled broadly as she wiped her floured hands on her apron.
“Marius!” she exclaimed, a little loudly since she was hard of hearing. “I was wondering where you ran off to.”
“Practicing,” he told her as he kissed the top of her grey head. “What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing dear, nothing,” she told him, still a little too loudly. “Do you want breakfast?”
“I’m fine. I’m probably going to run late to work as it is,” he said as he pulled the sketch out of his pocket. “Do you want this?”
“What is it?”
“I just drew it. A ship came into the harbor this morning.”
He presented the sketch to her and she looked at it with approval. “One of our merchant marine ships, by the look of it,” she told him. “Probably the Dash.”
“How do you know these things, Audrey?”
“I’m old, dear, not foolish.” She set the sketch on an end table and steered Marius toward the table. “I know that you’re not hungry,” she told him, “but I can’t send you out without you having something to eat. What would your mother think of me?”
“She’d be surprised that you accomplished something that she hadn’t yet,” Marius told the elderly woman with a smile as she set a cup of tea in front of him. “Here, let me get the biscuits.”
He brought the plate of biscuits to the table and placed one on Audrey’s napkin before taking one for himself.
“How’s your job, dear?” Audrey asked him as she sliced off a pat of butter.
“I haven’t been chased by an angry mob in three days,” Marius said, only somewhat kidding. “At least whenever I wear my coat to work and keep my mouth shut, they don’t blame me for the king’s death.”
“Fools, the lot of them,” Audrey said. “Just because you have an accent-”
“A Tzen accent,” Marius muttered.
“- doesn’t mean that you’re not one of us here. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed that you were a Harcourt.” Audrey smiled wistfully and sighed. “You and my son have the same grey eyes.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“No, dear. Not since my husband vanished.” She added milk to her tea and chuckled. “Left me all alone, they did. Not a thought for an old lady like me. If it weren’t for my pension and laundry service, you’d be our only breadwinner.”
“Don’t depend too much on me,” Marius said as he rose and dusted off biscuit crumbs. “Secretaries don’t make much money as it is, and a foreign cartographer working as a secretary?” He whistled in amazement as he shrugged on his old Returner jacket. “But I shouldn’t complain. I was lucky to get this job.”
“Complain all you like in private, dear,” Audrey told him. “I’ll always listen to you.”
Marius smiled and gave Audrey a goodbye kiss on the cheek before he left. The two of them had fused like family when she took him in after the Battle of Narshe. Marius had no doubts that if it wasn’t for Audrey, he would have died from the wounds he received from both the battle and the long trip from Narshe to South Figaro.
He took a deep breath and stepped out into the street. South Figaro was almost twice the size of his hometown and he still felt lost in the streets even though he had called the Harcourt residence home for nearly four months now. Thanks to Audrey, he had recovered some use of his arm and had begun to deal with his wartime trauma; his accent, however, was just as thick as the day he had left Tzen to join the Returners. The kinder folk of South Figaro saw him as a strange sort of novelty, one of “those people” who had seen the light and joined the right side. The not-so-kind folk blamed him and his old homeland for the current state of the world.
A man bumped into him and gave him a frosty gaze as he passed. Marius shook his head and said nothing. Someday, he often told Audrey, they’d come around and realize that he wasn’t going to turn them all over to Kefka. Marius lived in fear of what would happen if Kefka’s Light of Judgment actually hit the town again. He had no doubt that this time he’d be strung-up in the town square and his only defense, like last time, would be a sixty-five year old martial artist and a few townspeople with cooler heads. The whole place was a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
“Hey, Marius! Over here! Want a paper?”
Marius turned to see from where the voice had come and waved. A boy of no more than eight stood next to a general store and held up a newspaper.
“Morning, Albert. How much?”
“Quarter gil.”
“Your bosses should be ashamed of themselves,” Marius said as he gave the boy a whole gil and motioned for him to keep the change. “Can you do me a favor and deliver it to Mrs. Harcourt?”
“Sure. What’s the hurry?”
“Late for work.”
“I’m usually late for work too, but they never fire me ‘cause I’m the only person who’ll do the job!”
As he gave Albert a wave goodbye, Marius smiled dryly and continued to his job. “Me too, Albert,” he said as he crossed the street. “Me too.”

After another day of tallying the accounts of the town’s main pub, Marius headed back to the Harcourt household. There had been two fights today, at least five drunks had proposed marriage to the dancing girls, the old phonograph had finally given out, and the Roger the bartender had snuck Marius a free pint when the owner wasn’t looking.
Just another day at the Post and Paddock.
Up ahead, the town’s postmaster was knocking on Audrey’s door. He looked sheepish as he handed over a many-times creased letter. Audrey turned it over in her hands and squinted at the writing on the front.
“My word, Dieter,” Marius could hear her say as he approached, “this is a mightily old letter!”
“I know,” the postmaster said, fidgeting with his letter bag. “We just found it today underneath a desk. By the looks of it, it slipped out of someone’s bag and just stayed there.”
“Are you sure?” Audrey asked, giving the man a scrutinizing eye. “Because you know I’m quite fond of my lodger and I’d hate to think that anyone would hold a silly grudge against him.”
“I’m positive that’s not the case,” he said, hastily trying to dispel any notions of unfairness. “Mrs. Harcourt, you know that I was a Returner too. If anything, we Returners have to stick together in these dark days.”
“I’m well aware,” Audrey said, now placated that the man had no axe to grind against Marius. “I’ll see that he receives it when he gets home from work.”
“I’d be grateful,” Dieter said, backing away and clearly anxious to retreat from Audrey’s presence.
Marius smiled as he reached the foot of the house’s steps as Dieter descended. Acutely aware that the eyes of Audrey Harcourt were upon him, Dieter gave a sickly smile and nodded.
“Good evening, Marius. I just left a letter for you with Mrs. Harcourt.”
“Thank you. How are things in the mail office?”
“Hectic. Our mail is still being steamed over from Nikeah, which creates a backlog.”
“Any word from the Southern Continent?”
“Unfortunately, no. I still can’t send those letters to Tzen for you. We haven’t retrained the pigeons or charted out steam routes. It’s inconvenient, to put it lightly.”
“Please let me known when we have service to Tzen.”
“I shall, assuming Tzen’s still there. If you’ll excuse me, it looks like I’ll be working late tonight. Good evening.”
The postmaster tipped his hat to Marius and then raised it to Audrey. Marius gave a chagrinned nod in reply and bounded up Audrey’s steps.
“What was all that about? Just a letter?” he asked her as they entered the house.
“Apparently,” Audrey told him as he took his bag off and set it off to the side. “It’s for you, dear.” She checked the markings on the letter and handed it to him. “You don’t know someone in Nikeah, do you?”
“Actually, I do,” Marius said as his heart began to beat faster. He thumbed open the unfamiliar seal to see a very familiar script. “And I think this is from her.”
He sat down at the table as Audrey fixed a hot toddy for herself. Marius scanned down the letter, saw that it was from his friend, and then began to reread it more thoroughly.
“Good news, I hope?” Audrey said as she looked at him over her cup.
“I’m not too sure. It’s dated from before the Apocalypse, so I have no idea if it’s still current.”
“It’s possible.”
“My gods.” Marius lowered the letter and gaped at Audrey. “Lucy wants me to join her in Nikeah.”
“Who’s this Lucy, dear?”
“Lucine Halis. An old friend of mine. We joined the Returners together a few years ago. She’d returned to Nikeah when I left for Narshe.” Marius began looking over the letter again. “She must have heard that I’d been injured in the battle and brought here to the town.”
“Do you think she’s still in Nikeah?”
“I’m not sure. So much has changed since the Apocalypse.”
As he read the postscript, tears unexpectedly welled in his eyes. “When we parted ways, I promised that I’d find her as soon as the fighting was over. She got anxious.”
Marius and Audrey were silent for a long time. Marius looked back over the letter, wishing that it was only a week old instead of nearly half a year old. Audrey quietly drank her toddy and got up to place the cup in the wash-bucket.
“I hate to lose my roomer and my friend,” the old lady said suddenly, “but it sounds as though this young woman wants to see you quite badly.”
“Audrey -” Marius began, but was silenced by a wave of her hand.
“No, no,” she told him. “You’ve heard me complain long enough that my dear Duncan and my poor boy left me in the lurch. I haven’t heard from them in easily a year. I won’t let the same thing happen to this young lady friend of yours. If you want to go find her, I think you should go.”
“Will you be all right by yourself?” Marius asked after he willed his mind to form words again.
“Oh, quite, quite,” Audrey said, sitting back down across from Marius. “I’ll miss you terribly, of course, and you’ll always be welcome here. But right now it sounds as though you have more important things to do than babysit an old woman and tally up profits for a pub.” The lady dabbed at her eyes with a pocket handkerchief. “But do stay for breakfast tomorrow morning. I’ve already bought the sausages and I’d hate to see them go to waste.”
Before Marius knew it, he embraced Audrey in the same way he had embraced his mother when he told her that he was joining the Returners. “I can never repay you, Audrey,” he told her as he stared at the letter over her shoulder. “Not even if I worked for you every day for the rest of my life.”
“What nonsense,” Audrey said with a smile as she dabbed her eyes again. “The best way to repay me, if you’re so inclined, would be to find this girl. And let me know that you’re all right, if you can, so that I won’t worry so much over you.”

The next morning, Marius walked with Audrey down to the South Figaro docks to find the ship headed for Nikeah. His ego was still somewhat bruised from a short and unpleasant visit with the owner of the Post and Paddock, but Roger the bartender had wished him well and one of the regulars had actually tossed a tipsy salute as Marius left.
“I’ve packed you a dinner and a supper,” Audrey told him as they passed a stevedore with a barrel hoisted over his shoulder, “and your clothes are all cleaned and mended. Did you get all of your money?”
“Of course,” Marius lied, knowing that Audrey would find nearly a thousand gil and a note of thanks from him the next time that she opened the bread basket. “And if I did leave anything behind, consider it yours.”
She gave him the same scrutinizing look that she had given the postmaster yesterday evening, and Marius merely smiled.
They continued down the docks and reached a sturdy looking steamship. On her bow was perched a middle-aged man with a beard and a nattily cocked hat.
“Nikeah!” he hollered. “Last call for mail, parcels, and passengers to Nikeah!”
“I’m going to Nikeah,” Marius said, barely audible above the din of the docks.
“That’ll be three hundred gil, sonny,” the man said, and Marius reached into his money pouch for the fare. He handed the coins to the man, almost dropped fifty gil into the water, and received his ticket from the man.
“We’re leaving in five minutes, sonny,” the man told him. “You might want to find your cabin before we go.”
“Thanks,” Marius said, and turned to Audrey. “And thank you. You’ve been like my mother since I’ve been here.”
“You’ve been like my son,” she said as she pulled him into a hug. “And I’m going to miss you.”
“I promise I’ll write!” Marius called as he boarded the ship. He waved to her from the gangplank and then disappeared below decks to find his cabin.
His cabin turned out to be a room with four bunks, each with a privacy curtain, and a small sink and mirror in the corner. It was somewhat dingy and smelled faintly of mildew, but it would do for a week-long trip. Marius unloaded his bag onto the only untaken bunk and headed out to the deck.
Audrey and a small crowd had gathered to see the ship off. The passengers on the steamer had also gathered to wave goodbye to the crowd and to South Figaro. Despite Marius’s happiness at going to see Lucy again, perpetual motion swirled around him and made him feel rather insignificant and oddly lonely in the midst of the crowd.
The ship’s horn tootled twice and several children travelling on the ship clapped their hands in excitement. “We’re going to see Daddy!” they sang. “We’re going to see Daddy!”
Several dockworkers untied impossibly huge mooring ropes and gestured that all was well to the pilot. The ship began to move.
Audrey waved, handkerchief in hand, tears running down her face. Next to her, a rotund couple waved goodbye to their son, who leaned over the railing and waved goodbye back.
Marius waved his final goodbye to Audrey and also to South Figaro. He felt an unusual sense of nostalgia for the city that had never really accepted him as one of its own. He’d been nursed back to life in this port town and, in its own way, it almost felt like leaving home again.


This post has been edited by MeaPortia on 24th October 2009 04:43

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I figured I had paid my debt to society by paying my overdue fines at the McLennan County Library.

"Oh crap!"
- Bartz

"Huh? Why's everyone singing?"
- Sabin
Post #181373
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Posted: 17th September 2009 20:22

*
Onion Knight
Posts: 48

Joined: 1/11/2008

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Winner of the 2008 Fanfiction contest. 
Hey everyone! I used the Japanese name for a certain character here rather than the American name. I just like it better.

If I could, I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my old friend Nick. Nikeah in the WoR was his favorite place (probably because of the Crimson Thieves!) and I've never met a more Edgar-ish person. Be careful on your first deployment, Niles! happy.gif

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Chapter 2 - "Thick As Thieves"

The steamer from South Figaro arrived in Nikeah during an evening storm. Dark clouds and fog covered the bay and most of the city itself. Marius was undaunted by the weather and disembarked with the feeling that he was going to see Lucy within the hour.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said as he caught up to a man looking around the dock’s market. “I’m looking for a local. A beautiful young woman about my age.”
“Son,” said the man with a waggish grin, “who isn’t?”
“I’m sorry,” Marius told him uncomfortably. “There must be some misunderstanding. Her name’s Lucy Halis. Have you seen her?”
“No. Now get lost.”
Marius readjusted his bag and refused to be discouraged. He walked up to a woman with a small child.
“Pardon me, madam,” he said as he tipped his hat, “but I’m looking for a woman. May I trouble you for a moment?”
“Try the pub, jerk,” she told him and shooed the child ahead of her.
Marius wondered what made the citizens of Nikeah so hostile. Was it his accent? His Returner jacket? The simple fact that he wasn’t one of them? He was still brooding over the perceived snubs when he entered the local pub. He took off his bag and set it down next to his barstool. He slid in and ordered a pint.
“Can you help me?” he asked the bartender. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Guy or girl?” the bartender asked, setting the pint of bitter down in front of Marius. “This one’s on the house.”
“Thanks. A girl,” Marius said as he took a drink. It was stronger than the stuff in South Figaro and he winced, much to the bartender’s amusement.
“Let me guess,” the bartender said, leaning against the bar and giving Marius an amiable smile. “You were down in the docks.”
“Yes.”
“You told folks that you were looking for a girl.”
“Yes!”
“Folks are acting kind of rude.”
“How did you know?”
The bartender laughed and began wiping down the bar. “What’s your name, pal?”
“Marius.”
“Marius. Nice to meet you. I’m Berk.”
They shook left hands and then Berk’s grin widened. “Ever been to Nikeah before?”
“No, never.”
“Ah. Just as I thought. See, Marius, you’ve been asking them where you can find a little company for the night.”
Berk laughed raucously as Marius turned bright pink. The people in the bar turned to look at them and Marius wished that he could melt through the floor.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Berk told him. “No skin off of your nose. They probably don’t even remember you.”
“Then how do I ask them for help?” Marius asked as he drained the glass. “I’m not looking for any trim. I’m just trying to find my friend, Lucy Halis. I don’t know if her family still lives in town or not.”
Berk scratched his chin and looked deep in thought. “The Halis family. Hmm.” He set another glass on the bar in front of Marius and palmed the gil coin that Marius produced. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll try to remember someone by that name.”
“Take your time.”
Marius drank his beer and wondered how to find Lucy in such a large town. It was at least the size of South Figaro, with the added difficulty of being completely foreign to Marius. Before parting with Lucy, the cartographer thought absently, she had teased him that they were splitting the two city-states in the world. She got the Port State of Nikeah and he got the Free State of Narshe.
Thinking about Narshe brought back bad memories of having his arm laid open by an Imperial sergeant’s specially-serrated sword. Marius had dropped the sword he’d been wielding and held his arm, carved down to the bone, waiting for the sergeant to finish him off. The killing blow never came; another Returner stabbed the Imperial from behind and pulled Marius further into the city. The wound had become infected while Marius and three others were on the road to South Figaro. Just thinking about it made his arm hurt more than it usually did.
A woman sat down next to him and crossed her legs. “Hey there, handsome.”
Marius looked up and over at her. “Me?”
“Yeah, you,” the woman said, giving his good arm a playful shove. “What’s got you so down in the mouth?”
“Nothing,” he said as she lit up a long cigarette. “I’m just thinking.”
“Oooh, a thinker,” she said as she blew a smoke ring his direction. “You wanna know what I think?”
“Sure,” Marius said with a shrug. “What’s on your mind?”
She leaned in close and whispered in his ear. With a smile, she pulled back and raised her eyebrows. “Well?” she asked him, looking for a reaction. “What do you say to that, Mr. Thinker?”
Marius wore a rattled look and returned to his beer. “I’m flattered, but no thank you,” he told her. “Good luck with someone else.”
“Your loss,” she sing-songed and left.
Berk looked up from polishing a glass. “You don’t get out much, do you?”
“Before I joined the Returners, I’d never left…home.”
“You can say it. You’re from the Southern Continent. Your voice gave it away. Which state?”
“Tzen.”
“Lovely place, I’m told.”
“Used to be,” Marius said as he threw back the rest of his beer. “Maranda was prettier, but we had better weather.”
“Been back since the Apocalypse?”
“No. I don’t know how I’ll be received.”
“I highly doubt anyone down there is still a fan of the Empire, Marius. I’d bet that you’re pretty safe.”
Marius shook his head. “No, I know that. It’s just that my brother Ander was an Imperial soldier. How do I face him now?”
“War often divides men from their brothers,” Berk said as he took Marius’s empty glass and set it in the washtub. “I’m sorry to hear about that. Drafted or volunteered?”
“Drafted.”
“Damn.”
“I’d left for the Returners with Lucy not too long before that. They were conscripting the oldest present son from each family, and he’s older than our brother Joris by a few years, so…”
Marius trailed off and stared at the bar as Berk left to serve another customer.
A few minutes later, Berk returned with an apologetic expression on his face. “I hate to disappoint you,” he said, “but I really can’t recall your friend or anyone named ‘Halis.’ I wish I could help you out.”
“I’ll keep looking.” Marius stood and picked up his bag. “Who else might know?”
“Try the guy who runs the item shop,” Berk suggested. “He’s a real busybody in a town full of busybodies.” The bartender grinned suddenly. “But be careful. He’ll take all of your money if you let him.”
“Thanks,” Marius said, and shook the bartender’s hand again. Berk gave him a polite nod and watched as he left.
The prostitute who had propositioned Marius replaced him at the bar and lit up another long cigarette. She took a long drag and then chuckled.
“You can be such a jackass, Berk.”
“I know, sweetheart,” the bartender said as he dried a glass. “Give him a few minutes. He won’t get too far.”

Marius didn’t remember falling asleep, but he did remember dreaming of falling. After he fell, he dreamt briefly of the Battle of Narshe, except that this time no one came to rescue him. The sergeant slashed him in the arm just as he expected, Marius fell just as he expected, but now the sergeant had Ander’s face. He wanted to beg Ander for forgiveness and ask him to spare his life, but he couldn’t form the words.
Ander suddenly stopped and peered down at him. “Hey,” his brother said in a voice that wasn’t his own, “hey, are you alive?” He prodded him with his foot before rifling through his clothes for his valuables.
Yes, Marius thought, thank you, brother. Take my money back to Mother and Father. Let them give me a decent funeral. Let them bury me near Grandpa. Don’t forget my pocketwatch, it was Father’s – he should give it to Joris.
Unexpectedly, Ander kicked him in the shoulder, and Marius became acutely aware of the fact that he was alive. Other voices faraway began to shout, Marius struggled to his knees, and Ander ran away after giving several hard kicks to Marius’s stomach.
Someone jerked Marius upright and the fog in his mind began to clear out. He found himself staring at an ugly man with sandy-colored hair and an eyepatch.
“Hey, boss,” the ugly man said, “he’s waking up now.”
Another man stepped forward and Marius began to realize that he was either saved by these men or was in deeper trouble than when he was unconscious.
The other man was just as grubby as the man supporting Marius, but he was substantially more handsome. His long grey-blonde hair was tied back and he sported a shiner ringing one azure eye.
“Hello there,” he said in an impossibly thick Zozitan accent and gave Marius a polite nod. “Seems as though you found yourself in a spot of trouble tonight.”
“Yeah,” Marius said hoarsely, “I think I did.”
“You should be more careful,” the long-haired man told him. “Mister…?”
“Marius,” the cartographer said, and put out his hand to shake. “Marius Foix de Carmain.”
The long-haired man nodded to the ugly man, and the ugly man stepped away from Marius. The long-haired man politely took Marius’s hand and shook it.
“Very pleased to meet you. I’m Geoff.”
“I…I think I need a bed.”
“There happens to be an inn up the street. But you don’t have any money on you. You were robbed earlier.”
Marius blinked away the blear in his eyes and began to feel the beating he’d received while knocked out. “By who?”
“The same man who gave me this a few days ago,” Geoff said, and pointed at his black eye. “A rather unsavory character by the name of Tuncer.”
“Did he get away with my things?”
“He got off clean with your bag, unfortunately, as well as your money. He tried to take your coat and pocketwatch, too.”
Marius knew that he was wearing his coat; he felt desperately for his watch and didn’t feel it in his waistcoat’s pocket. He looked up pleadingly at Geoff to see the watch and chain in the other man’s hand. “My watch,” Marius said, and was surprised to find tears welling in his eyes. “My father gave me that.”
“Indeed,” Geoff said. “I saw that in the engraving. All in all, a rather lovely piece.”
The man – a thief himself, the cartographer realized miserably – admired the watch for a moment. To Marius’s eternal surprise, Geoff handed the watch over.
“I-” Marius began, stunned, but Geoff cut him off with a gesture.
“Keep that watch safe,” the thief boss told him. “And quit accepting free drinks from bartenders you don’t know. Good way to end up beaten and bloody in an alleyway, as you can see.”
Next to Marius, Geoff’s accomplice grew antsy. “We ain’t gonna keep it?” he asked in a somewhat whining tone. “Could get a thousand gil for that down at the docks.”
“And what? Get caught when you start spending money like there’s no tomorrow? I don’t know what you like to do with your free time, but I don’t care to spend the night in the city jail.”
The other thief made an angry sound and Geoff raised his eyebrows. “If you don’t like my decisions,” Geoff said, his manner suddenly regal, “you can leave. The others won’t mind taking up your share of the cut.”
“How do we know that he won’t turn us in?” the thief asked, gesturing at Marius. “He’s seen us.”
“First of all, we haven’t done anything wrong. We’re just being good citizens, helping our fellow man and all that. Secondly, no one turns on someone who’s just saved his life. You should know that out of all people. And third, he was one of the good guys. Show some respect.”
“When we’re at the gallows,” the ugly thief said, “I’m going to throw this right back in your face.”
“That day,” Geoff said, looking rather pleased with himself, “will never come and you know it.”
The ugly thief scowled at Marius and tossed his head toward another grouping of men across the street. “I’ll be with the others,” he said in a voice that indicated he’d lost an argument with Geoff before. “And you,” he said, pointing again at Marius, “you’re damn lucky Geoff found you before I did.”
Geoff grinned as the man stalked off, then hid his amusement behind a gloved hand. “Don’t mind him,” he told Marius. “My boys are just wound a little tightly, that’s all.”
“Why did you help me?” Marius asked as he reattached his pocketwatch. He was lightheaded and shaking, and his peripheral vision was beginning to fade in and out.
“Believe it or not,” Geoff said as he slipped Marius a hundred gil coin, “I used to be a Returner sympathizer back when all that mattered. Did you fight any?”
“Battle of Narshe,” Marius said, thinking about the dream he had not five minutes ago.
“Heard it was bad,” Geoff said evenly.
“Pretty bloody.”
“Glad I was never there,” Geoff told him, looking down.
They stood there for a moment in the alleyway, Marius unsure of whether Geoff would walk away whistling or whether he would suddenly shove a shiv in his bruised gut.
“Take care of yourself,” Geoff said as he apparently came out of a reverie. “It’s a rough world these days. There won’t always be someone there to pick you up out of the gutter.”
With a flourish of his cape, and without another word, Geoff turned and joined his gang across the street before they moved onward.
Marius stood there, holding the hundred gil piece Geoff had given him, and reached down to make sure that his watch was really still there.
It was, and Marius began hobbling up the street.

The innkeeper’s wife, a pleasant lady who reminded Marius of Audrey, patched up his clothes as the doctor patched up his wounds.
“I think you’ll live, my boy,” the doctor said as he readjusted his spectacles and clamped down on his pipe. “But you’ll probably hurt like hell for the time being.”
“Can you help me with something?”
“Certainly,” the doctor said as he puffed on the pipe and sat back.
“I’m looking for my friend, Lucy Halis. She’s from this town and was a merchant before the Apocalypse. I need to find her.”
The doctor looked deep in thought for a moment. “I seem to recall that name,” he said slowly. “A young lady with green eyes, yes? Light brown hair?”
“That’s her!” Marius exclaimed as he tried to sit up. He winced and leaned back against the bed’s headboard, holding his bruised stomach. “That’s her,” he repeated. “That’s Lucy. Where is she?”
The innkeeper’s wife looked up from patching Marius’s waistcoat. “I haven’t seen her around town since before the Apocalypse, myself.”
The doctor nodded in agreement. “If she left then, it was to sail east toward Doma and the Veldt. The Apocalypse did happen right after traveling season began.”
“Places east of Doma don’t get many travelers during the summer,” the innkeeper’s wife explained to Marius, “and a good merchant can make a pretty penny working shipping agreements with the shops out that way. Mobliz is usually the end of the route. You could try there.”
Marius sighed, resigned. “All right then. How far away is Mobliz?”
“No idea since the continental shift,” the doctor told him. “And I’d like for you to stay here a few more days. Just to make sure that you’re all right. You’re not in any condition to travel, at any rate.”
“I don’t have much money –” Marius began, but the doctor waved him off.
“No need to worry about payment, son,” the man said. “You just concentrate on getting some rest.”
The doctor retrieved his hat and left with a promise to return the following morning. Marius turned to the innkeeper’s wife.
“Are you sure it was Lucy?” he asked. “I’d like to find her quickly.”
“Of course you will, dear,” the woman told him. “And I remember her from when her father would have me make an outfit or two for her. I could never remember her name, but I remember her face.” The lady set Marius’s waistcoat aside and sighed heavily. “Nikeah was smaller then, and people didn’t get ambushed in the streets.”
“I can’t thank you enough for taking me in.”
“It’s nothing, young man. We here can’t let the thugs take over our city.”
Marius smiled and remembered a favorite phrase of Banon’s. “If people don’t band together, we’ll all fall prey to the worst of humanity.”
“Indeed,” the lady said, and stood up. “I think I’ll let you get some rest, just as the doctor said. I’ll bring some food up in a few hours.”
She shut the door behind her before Marius could tell her that wouldn’t be necessary. As the Returner lay in bed, he stared at the light of the lone candlestick in the room. It reminded him too much of how he used to lay in his bed in Audrey’s house and read well into the night.
Grimacing as he turned, he blew out the candle and shut his eyes against the dark of the room.


This post has been edited by MeaPortia on 24th October 2009 04:45

--------------------
I figured I had paid my debt to society by paying my overdue fines at the McLennan County Library.

"Oh crap!"
- Bartz

"Huh? Why's everyone singing?"
- Sabin
Post #181430
Top
Posted: 25th September 2009 02:42

*
Onion Knight
Posts: 48

Joined: 1/11/2008

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Winner of the 2008 Fanfiction contest. 
Hi again, everyone! Today's ran a little late because I'm getting over the flu.

Also, apologies in advance for the Old Man's language. It's not anything you wouldn't see in the GBA translation or in later games, but I feel that it still merits a warning.

____________________________________________________________

Chapter 3 - "Lost Souls"

After thanking the innkeeper’s family and the doctor in Nikeah for their generosity and for looking after him for three days, Marius gingerly headed east out of town. The three days in bed had been excruciatingly long, and it was only when his bruises started to turn green and yellow that the doctor declared him fit for travel.
“ ‘You’re mightly banged up for such a young man,’ ” the doctor had observed as he packed up his bag. “ ‘Quite a scar you have on your arm.’ ”
Marius looked at his arm and pulled his shirt on one sleeve at a time, hiding the wound. “ ‘It still hurts,’ ” he admitted.
“ ‘It didn’t heal right. And the stitching looked jagged. Where did you have it treated?’ ”
“ ‘Field hospital,’ ” Marius said as he buttoned his shirt.
The doctor nodded solemnly and let the younger man finish dressing. Later, when he was talking to the innkeeper’s daughter, Marius learned that the doctor had once been an Imperial surgeon.
The innkeeper and the doctor had been kind to a fault, refusing any payment that Marius offered. The Returner, not one to knowingly mooch off of someone, had left the hundred gil Geoff gave him with a note asking that it be split between the innkeeper and the doctor. That was the last of his money, and he had no provisions to last him until he arrived in Mobliz, but Marius’s father had always told him that he should cover his debts.
Marius knew that he could probably make it if Mobliz wasn’t too far. Probably.

There were no roads left intact and there wasn’t enough foot traffic between cities to trample out a path. Even the old carriage ruts were indistinguishable from the cracks where the earth had split open. Marius followed an old dirt road for hours until it abruptly ran out, leaving nothing but rocky ground and a few determined weeds on the surface.
With Nikeah’s warmth and sounds long faded behind him, Marius buttoned his jacket against the evening’s chill and pulled his cap down over his ears. Before the war, he had occasionally gone camping with his brothers in the foothills of Mount Tzen; it was on those trips that he had learned he didn’t quite have the constitution for roughing it.
“Brrrr,” he muttered, shivering and sticking his good hand into his jacket pocket. “Colder than I thought.”
It wasn’t long after leaving the old road that Marius saw a weather-worn boundary sign. It was little more than a post with a notice board attached to it. ‘Entering the Free State of Narshe,’ the barely legible sign proclaimed in the fading light.
“Not anymore,” Marius said. “In more than one way.”
In the back of the sign, someone had stuck a dagger into the wooden post. Marius wiggled the weapon free and inspected it. Nothing appeared to be wrong with it, and the mythril still appeared to be good, so he decided to keep it. The more he travelled, the more he realized that a weapon of some kind would be necessary. He carefully slid it into his boot and wondered if he could still fight with a weapon.
Unless he could force himself to, he’d be easy pickings for any thieves. Again.
In a sudden fit of pique, Marius kicked the sign over. For a reason he couldn’t determine, rage boiled over at the unobtrusive inanimate sign. He hated the fighting in Narshe that never left his mind, he hated the fact that he’d lost most of the use of his right arm, he hated the fact that he’d missed Lucy in Nikeah by half a year, he hated the fact that he and Ander had been forced to choose different sides, he hated Kefka for ruining the world. And for some petty reason, he hated the unfriendly and impersonal message on the sign itself.
“Whaddya do that for?” a voice behind him asked.
Marius started and turned around. A road-weary looking older man scowled at him and adjusted his bindle stick.
“It never hurt you,” he continued. “Practically an antique these days.”
“Sorry,” Marius said, now feeling like a fool for letting his anger get the best of him. “I guess I’m just frustrated.”
“Join the crowd,” the man said. “Where in th’ hell are you heading?”
“Mobliz.”
The other man snorted loudly. “Sure you are. I hope you can swim.”
Marius pondered this non sequitur for a moment, but kept his mouth shut. The man reeked of applejack and sloe gin.
“I’m heading toward the tower’s treasure,” the older man said, filling in the brief silence.
“What treasure? What tower?”
“ ‘What treasure?’ he asks. You stupid or naïve, son?”
Marius decided that he definitely didn’t like this crude stranger. “Neither,” he said defensively. “I’ve been in South Figaro for the better part of a year. You know – on a big desert island.”
“Is that so? You don’t sound Figaronian, but just in case you are, I’ll talk in little words.” The man grinned at Marius, flashing corn-kernel teeth. “Big treasure ‘round here. On top of big tower. Worth lotsa gil. You get that?”
“Yes,” Marius said, setting his jaw. “Perfectly.”
“Good. Now don’t you think about tryin’ to take it from me, neither. I’ve already laid claim to it.”
“I don’t want your treasure.”
“ ‘Bout time something went my way,” the man muttered.
“Where is this tower? I don’t see it anywhere.”
“Further down the land. You’ll know it when you see it. Now come on – the tower’s on the way to Mobliz and it won’t hassle you any to travel with me for a bit.”
The old man picked up his pace and kept heading south-east, following the lay of the land. Inwardly, Marius groaned – he didn’t want this travelling companion, but he also knew that there was a part of him that wouldn’t let him rest if the old man came to any harm on the road.
“Wait for me, then,” Marius said, resigned.
They walked on in silence for another hour until they crested a tall hill. It was easily the tallest natural vantage point for miles and allowed them to see the end of the sunset.
“Is that the tower to which you referred?” Marius asked. The man looked at him blankly, and Marius grinned wickedly. “There,” he repeated and pointed at the tall tower about three miles in the distance, ringed with masonry and slightly shorter than the hill. “That big tower? Treasure on top?”
The man scowled at Marius again and snorted. “Looks like your eyes are workin’ right,” he said. “Up there. About the height we’re standing at. That’s where the treasure is.”
“Can you climb up all those steps?” Marius asked, looking at the man’s spindly legs.
“You offerin’ to carry me up?”
“Not a chance. I’m going onward to Mobliz.”
“Son,” the man said as he began heading down toward the tower, “Mobliz, or what’s left of it, is a good two days from here.”
“You’ve been there?”
“No. But I’ve heard stories. It’s abandoned.”
“I’m still going,” Marius said doggedly. “I’m looking for someone and I’m hoping she might have left me a note or a sign.”
The old man began to laugh raucously. “Sonny,” he said over his shoulder, “why don’t you try a little experiment for yourself. Piss in one pot and put all the hope in the world in another, then tell me which one fills up first.”

It was fully dark when Marius and the Old Man reached the tower. Neither had volunteered their names and frankly Marius didn’t care one way or another. Marius called him Old Man and the Old Man called him Sonny.
In a sense, it was mutually beneficial. The Old Man grated on his nerves, and Marius couldn’t stand his unbridled negativity. Marius was far too prissy for the Old Man, and in the Old Man’s opinion, needed a swift kick in the ass.
When they arrived at the base of the tower, the Old Man suddenly picked up his pace and cackled mischievously. “Gods, I hate these Kefka cultists. Watch this, Sonny,” he said to Marius and shoved his bindle stick into the Returner’s hand. Marius watched in utter amazement as the Old Man joined a procession of hooded figures that made a loop in front of the tower.
“Oh, great god Kefka,” the Old Man said loudly, “please send me a beautiful woman. In fact, I’ve been such a good boy that I’d really like two.”
Marius looked on with his jaw hanging slack and finally forced his legs to work. Had the Old Man gone insane or was Marius having a nightmare sent by some uncouth part of his mind?
“I’d also like a million gil and a cute lil’ chocobo to carry me all around the world so I can –”
Marius jerked the Old Man out of the line and tried to figure out both what was going on and why he had saved the man from certain death. “What are you doing? You can’t mock Kefka!”
“Why not?”
“Because! He has the Light of Judgment!”
“He wouldn’t burn up his cult’s tower,” the Old Man said, a defensive look crossing his face.
“And why wouldn’t he? He’s insane!”
“He can’t hear me.”
“It doesn’t matter! They can hear you!”
Marius pointed at the robed figures, still marching silently in a rectangle behind them. They gave no notice to the two men arguing less than ten feet away from them.
“Sonny,” the Old Man said, becoming just as rude as he had been while travelling, “they don’t give a rat’s ass about anything other than Kefka. There ain’t a thing on this godsforsaken world that’ll snap them back to their senses.”
The Old Man turned and grinned wickedly at the solemn procession. “Hey,” he yelled over at them, “whenever you get tired of your little parade, you and your Kefka can come over here and kiss my pockmarked ass!”
“Goodbye, Old Man,” Marius muttered as the Old Man slapped his rump several times. The Returner headed toward a camp at the base of the tower, unamused by the Old Man’s antics.
The man next to the campfire sat poking the kindling with a stick, watching in tired apathy as the Old Man continued to rant at the procession. Marius sat down, set the Old Man’s bindle next to him, and tried to warm up.
“That your father?” the man at the fire asked as he jerked his head toward the Old Man.
“Thank gods, no,” Marius said. He couldn’t picture the solemn and scholarly Ferrin Foix de Carmain even thinking the words that the Old Man was now shouting. “I met him on the road.”
“From Nikeah, then.”
“Yes. I’m heading to Mobliz.”
The man by the fire grimaced, the fire reflecting off of his violently red hair. “Not much left there.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Good luck to you then,” the other man said. “Name’s Evren.”
“Marius.”
“Hungry?”
“A little,” Marius admitted. “I left Nikeah early today and didn’t take any supplies.”
“You’re going pretty slowly to make it here after a full day,” Evren said as he tossed some hardtack over the fire toward Marius. “I guess that guy slowed you down?”
“Not really,” the Returner said. “I’m slowing me down. I was attacked in Nikeah and I’m still sore.”
“Sorry to hear about that. Nikeah’s gotten a lot rougher since the Cataclysm.”
Marius tried to bite off some of the hardtack. “I don’t guess you’ve seen a woman around here.”
“Nope,” Evren said as he too tried to eat a hard cracker. “No girls. Just me and the Fanatics there.”
“Is that what they’re calling themselves?”
“Nah. That’s what everyone else’s calling ‘em – they don’t speak. They just march around there most of the time, silently praying to Kefka. He’s hit parts of their tower here with the Light of Judgment a few times. I’m sure they think it’s a mark of divine favor.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Beats me. I guess they lost too much too soon and just snapped.”
“So what are you doing here?”
Evren leaned back and picked up a stringed musical instrument that Marius didn’t recognize. He began to play a slow melody and stared up at the tower. “Treasure,” he said finally. “After the treasure.”
“I see. I heard about it on the road.”
“From that old man?”
The two men turned to look at the Old Man. He was now trying to step on the hem of the cultists’ robes as they passed him.
“Yeah,” Marius said as he turned back to the fire. “He thinks he can get it.”
“Insane,” Evren said as he continued to strum the instrument. “See, this tower’s not like any others. Some of Kefka’s most powerful supporters are in there and willing to die for him. If that wasn’t enough, it’s got some kind of magic ward in it. Makes it so that the only thing you can do is fight with magic spells, like you were some kinda Magi.” Evren looked over at Marius curiously. “Can you use magic?”
“No. I can’t.”
“Neither can I. My boy could, back in Vector, but only low-level curing stuff.”
“You’re from Vector?”
“Nah. I’m actually from Nikeah. My wife moved our family to Vector right before the war ended. Wanted our son to be near her folks. Said that the road wasn’t the place to raise a boy.”
“Where are they now?”
“I dunno. I’m the only one left.”
Evren looked away and continued to play the unfamiliar melody. “Guess they’re dead,” he said after a while. “I mean, Vector’s gone. Right?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’ll be…” He stopped strumming and turned his face to look at the stars. “Gods. It’s been about a year since I saw them last.”
Marius stared into the fire as Evren began to play the same sad tune. “You never forget what they look like though,” he told Evren. “I can still remember how my mother always looked like she was going to sneeze when she smiled. And my little brother Joris always bit his lip when he was fibbing.” Marius smiled then, surprising Evren. “And the first thing I ever noticed about Lucy was the fire in her spirit. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more determined person.”
“Where is your family?” Evren asked. “Alive?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Marius told him. “We were from Tzen, but I left home nearly three years ago. I haven’t heard from them since shortly before the Apocalypse. That’s why I’m going to Mobliz – to find Lucy and go to Tzen.”
“Who is this Lucy?”
“A friend of mine.”
“And you think she went to Mobliz?”
“Before the Apocalypse, she was a merchant based out of Nikeah. I found out back in town that she headed this way about six months ago.”
“Hmm.” Evren said as he began to play something a little faster in tempo. “What was her name again?”
“Lucy. Lucine Halis.”
“Halis.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard of an Altan Halis. Does that help?”
“That’s her father. Is he alive?”
Evren shrugged. “It was before the Apocalypse.”
“I see.”
“Sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“That’s all right.” Marius finished the hardtack and began warming his hands near the fire. “I’m sure I’ll find something in Mobliz.”
Evren nodded and began to say something, but was cut off by a peal of laughter from the Old Man.
He had the hem of one of the Fanatics’ robes caught underfoot. The Old Man laughed raucously as the Fanatic struggled to move forward against the robe, fighting the cloth and ruining the perfect rectangle in which the cultists had been marching.
The gap between the trapped Fanatic and the one before him became wider and wider. Marius watched in horror as the Old Man began smacking the trapped Fanatic in the back of the head.
“Oh, hell,” Evren muttered as he set aside his instrument. “Hey! That’s enough!”
The Old Man paid no heed either Evren or Marius. The sound of ripping cloth filled the air and mingled with the Old Man’s laughter as the trapped Fanatic’s robe tore in half. The now-free cultist suddenly flew forward and landed on his face, skidding a few inches and kicking up a small cloud of dirt.
Evren and Marius ran over, Evren to the Old Man and Marius to the Fanatic. Evren gave the Old Man a shove away from the Fanatics and to the ground.
“What did you do that for? Make you feel like a tough guy?” Evren growled as he pushed up his sleeves. “Because if you’re looking for a fight, I’ll give you a fair fight!”
The Old Man said nothing in response but spat over at the Fanatics. “You should be helping me beat some sense into them!” he said, his eyes murderous. “All they do is walk around, thinking about Kefka. Y’know him – the guy who destroyed the world!”
“The world isn’t destroyed,” Evren said, his voice back to an even level. “Not yet. But if everyone starts thinking the way you do, it may as well be destroyed.”
“You stupid bastards,” the Old Man said as he staggered to his feet and backed away from Evren and Marius. “You can go to hell for all I care.”
“You first,” Evren said and turned to Marius and the Fanatic.
“I’ll show you” the Old Man yelled, his voice receding toward the tower’s entrance. “I’ll get the treasure in this tower and then you’ll be sorry. I’ll show you!”
Evren’s expression turned even harder than before. “That idiot,” he muttered as he knelt with Marius next to the abused Fanatic. “That stubborn moron.”
“You know the Old Man?”
“No. But I’ve known too many people like him.” He looked over at the Fanatic, who was kneeling on the ground where he had fallen. “How’s he?”
“Don’t know yet,” Marius said, placing a hand on the Fanatic’s shoulder. “Hey. Hey mister, are you all right? Can you answer me? Sir?”
The Fanatic, a spindly man of at least seventy years, slowly looked up at Marius. The man’s expression was terrible to behold; not one of anger or pain, but one of incredible torment. Marius had the feeling that the man’s anguish didn’t stem from the fall or the punches he’d received, but instead came from some unbearable loss stemming from the Apocalypse.
His eyes told the two men all they needed to know.
I have lost.
Marius and Evren helped the man up and watched soundlessly as he rejoined the cultists sans robe. He returned to his third-from-the-front spot and quickly fell into step with the other Fanatics.
Marius watched the old man and felt a lump rise in his throat. How many other people in the world were like this poor old gentleman, their senses gone from all the horrible things in the world? Were his parents and brothers the same way? Was Lucy?
“I’m leaving,” Marius told Evren. “Good luck on trying to get the treasure.”
“Good luck to you too,” Evren said as an unidentifiable emotion crossed his face. “But before you go, take the old man’s bindle – I have a feeling that he won’t need it anymore. And you can have a few of my supplies if you want them. You’ll need all the help you can get if you’re going Mobliz way.”
Marius went through the Old Man’s bindle and cherry-picked all the good items. Even taking most of the abandoned goods left Marius with precious few supplies.
Evren watched and suddenly handed his still-stocked bag to Marius. “Here,” he said. “Take it. It’s good sturdy leather and everything inside’s in good condition. I’m leaving here when you do, and to hell with the treasure.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere far from here, I know that much. I can make it to Nikeah by sunrise and figure it out then. All I need to take with me is my mandolin here.”
Evren and Marius watched the elderly Fanatic follow the others in their eternal rectangle for a few moments and then shook hands with each other silently. Marius watched Evren head toward Nikeah until the man blended in with the darkness.
Marius oriented himself toward the south and started walking.

This post has been edited by MeaPortia on 24th October 2009 04:49

--------------------
I figured I had paid my debt to society by paying my overdue fines at the McLennan County Library.

"Oh crap!"
- Bartz

"Huh? Why's everyone singing?"
- Sabin
Post #181595
Top
Posted: 1st October 2009 13:26

*
Onion Knight
Posts: 48

Joined: 1/11/2008

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Winner of the 2008 Fanfiction contest. 
Hi again, everyone! Here's the next chapter! Within the next few days I'll be starting a comedy-ish story called Designated Heroes Rule!, but this one will still update every Sunday.

____________________________________________________________
Chapter 4 - "Unsinkable"

Marius sat down on the hill he had crested a half-hour ago and propped his face up in the crook of his elbow. Wearily, he stared out again at the unwelcome view the hill offered.
He had finally arrived in Mobliz, but it was not the Mobliz he had imagined. The majority of the town was underwater; two or three buildings still stood, but they looked ramshackle and unsafe. The water lapping up at what remained of the land was a dirty maroon and stank of dead fish.
Huge and jagged trenches cut scars across the land and buildings, and from his perch on the hill Marius could say with almost certainty that they had been caused by the Light of Judgment. One building in particular, broken in half and mostly sunken into the sea, proudly proclaimed that it was a general store. An inn nearby, half submerged and sitting at a dangerous angle, advertised clean beds and warm food.
Now he knew why the Old Man and Evren had reacted the way that they did when he told them of his plans to visit Mobliz. This place was completely incapable of sustaining any life these days aside from a few dogs, mold, and the creatures that roamed the surrounding wastes.
Barely any plants around aside from the scum floating on the water, no people around for at least a hundred miles, and no edible game or farming land for at least twice that far.
Gods, he was an idiot.
It was obvious that he wouldn’t find Lucy here. He probably wouldn’t even find a hint that she was ever here. He wouldn’t find any clue as to where she had gone, either. The world and the merchant routes had shifted so much since the Apocalypse, and Lucy could quite literally be anywhere right now.
Maybe even dead.
Marius felt unmanly tears run down his face, quickly turning from hot to cold courtesy of the wind. He wiped off as many as he could with the sleeve of his jacket, unable to blot the ones hiding out in the beard he’d grown while travelling.
The Returner stood and walked to the shoreline. He let the filthy water lap against his boots for a few moments. Suddenly, he picked up a nearby rock and hurled it into the dying sea with all the might in his weak left arm; it made an unsatisfying sploosh as it fell impotently into the ocean a handful of feet away. Marius flailed for a moment, lost his balance, and fell onto his knees into the water. The rock’s ripples met his own and rebounded back out to sea.
“Damn it!” Marius screamed, the words coming out in a raw and primal voice that wasn’t his own. “Damn it all to hell!” he screamed again and started pounding at the water, the sand, the pebbles, the scum, anything that was nearby.
His display of ineffectual anger at everything evaporated as quickly as the ripples had in the ocean. As quickly as his anger had when he was leaving Nikeah.
An image of the Old Man flashed in his mind, and Marius realized that he would eventually become the Old Man unless he gained some measure of self-control over the emotions that roiled within him. The thought of turning into someone like the Old Man frightened him, and suddenly the petty desire to wreak vengeance on the entire world ebbed away.
Marius forced himself to breathe more steadily and refrain from losing his normal level-headedness again. He could hear his father admonishing him to always be a perfect gentleman and, in some odd way, this comforted him.
“All right,” Marius said, thinking out loud as the sea water dripped off of his nose. “Mobliz is obviously not going to help me out any. There was a land bridge heading south a few days ago, and it looked like there might have been a path on it. I’ll camp here tonight and set back out in the morning. I’ll keep going until I find someone, by gods, and until I find answers.”

Marius debated whether he wanted to pitch his tent or take his gear inside into a ruined relic shop. After testing the shop’s floorboards, he opted for the building. At least in a structure he would be out of the elements and away from any of the creatures that ran amok outside.
He let his clothes air-dry on the floor. They stank of sea water, but they were dry by the time he decided to have supper. He ate the very last of the hardtack and dreaded the gnawing sensation that would visit his stomach tomorrow morning. The hardtack gave him a dry mouth, but he had nothing with which to gather and boil the bay water. After digging around in his bag, Marius found the bottle of sloe gin he had taken from the Old Man’s bindle. He took a swig and made a face.
“Blech,” he muttered. “Terrible stuff.”
He took another drink.
The world slowly started looking better and better the more he drank. He lay back on his pallet and closed his eyes. He imagined that the seas grew cleaner, the air grew warmer, and the land turned green again. In his mind’s eye, he could imagine his family’s home back in Tzen.
The stone and brick work, the marble mantle, the fence Mother had wanted and the forget-me-nots she grew all came back to him. The pheasant’s eye that grew wild behind their home and the morning glory that grew along their chimney all appeared just as lovely and colorful as when he had last seen them. The dark wood furniture and the green silk curtains, the elaborate wainscoting, the big bay window where his pet dog frequently napped – nothing had changed.
Father would be carving the supper roast, Mother would be admonishing Joris to wash up before sitting down, Ander would probably be reading some penny dreadful, and Marius himself would be finishing a commissioned map. Friends and distant relatives would frequently come over for brunch or supper, always welcome.
From somewhere in the back of his mind, Marius heard voices. A woman, a man, and lots of children. The first thought that went through his mind was that his aunt and uncle had brought their seven children to supper this time. Trying to collect his gin-addled thoughts, Marius opened his bleary eyes and looked up into the upside-down face of a blonde woman.
“Aunt Anaïs?”
“Eeek!”
Marius struggled to make himself sit up and to make his legs work, but he felt as though he was stuck in quicksand. The room spun around him, making him queasy. Something cold and sharp touched his neck – someone had placed a short sword to his throat.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” a male voice hissed into his ear. “How did you find this place?”
“I needed a place to stay,” Marius said, trying to explain everything to the man with the sword. “I’m looking for someone.”
From the corner, a woman spoke up. “What did he say? I couldn’t hear.”
“Too slurred to make it out,” the man with the sword said. “I guess he’s drunk.”
“Should we take him back?” the female voice asked.
The man took the sword away from Marius’s neck. The arm onto which the unfortunate Returner had rolled in his sleep, his bad arm, made a nasty crackling noise as he took weight off of it.
“I’m very hungry,” he tried to say, only to have it come out slurred.
“Keep the kids back,” the male voice said, commanding. “I’ll get Terra.”
“You know she’ll say yes,” the female voice responded.
A door opened and shut to Marius’s right – the entrance, he realized after a few moments. He lolled on the thin blanket he used as a pallet, the blonde woman standing over him yet again. Marius tried to smile at her – she was quite pretty – but found that her face went in and out of focus as he drifted off to sleep.

Marius woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar bed with the most hellacious headache he’d had in some time. The lamplight was too bright, the bedsheets were too scratchy, the sound of his own breathing was too loud, and he felt as though he would throw up hardtack and gin at any second.
He did. Someone had thoughtfully placed a clean pot next to the bed. His hangover and retching was so bad that he didn’t notice someone slipping inside the room. He looked up, still green around the gills, at the face of the beautiful girl about Joris’s age.
“Hello,” he said weakly, and threw up again.
The girl was next to him in a second. “Here,” she said, holding out a glass of clear water, “drink this. It’ll get the taste out of your mouth.”
He did, and even though the water was lukewarm, it was delicious. After he drained the glass and handed it back to the girl with the ash blonde hair, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and lay back against the one thin pillow.
“Thanks,” he told her, still feeling terrible.
“No problem,” she said as she set the glass on a nearby table. “What on earth are you doing out this way? We don’t exactly get a lot of visitors.”
“I’m looking for someone,” Marius said, covering his eyes with his arm. “But I guess she isn’t here.”
“You’re our third visitor since the end of the world,” the girl continued. “We’re kind of isolated.”
“You’re two days away from the Cult of Kefka tower,” he said, not uncovering his eyes. “And about three or so days from Nikeah.”
“What’s the ‘Cult of Kefka?’ ” the girl asked, the confusion plain in her voice. “Kefka as in, the Emperor’s former court mage?”
“The same. He thinks he’s a god, and there’s a group that’s given their hearts and souls to him. That’s the Cult. They build a tower dedicated to him.”
“I see,” the girl said, her voice clear that she didn’t.
A squeak sounded from across the room, and heavy footfalls announced the presence of a man. The footfalls ended next to the bed, and Marius moved his arm away from his eyes.
A teenage boy with a brown peach-fuzz moustache looked suspiciously at Marius. He cocked his head in a way that belied his curiosity and crossed his arms across his chest.
“Katarin,” the boy said, turning to the girl, “Terra needs your help in the other room for just a moment. I’ll stay here.”
“All right,” the girl called Katarin said. She gave the boy a kiss on the cheek before flashing a polite smile to Marius. As she shut the door behind her, the boy nodded an unwelcoming greeting.
“I’m Duane Dowling.”
“Marius Foix de Carmain. Where are we?”
“Mobliz. You don’t remember coming here? Or were you left here?”
“I came here to find someone. A girl.”
Duane leaned against the wall and began cleaning his fingernails with a dagger he produced seemingly from thin air. “So you’re a bounty man, then,” Duane said suspiciously as Marius realized that the dagger was his own.
“Ah…no. I’m not looking for any bounty.”
“I don’t believe you. Who sent you?” Duane punctuated his words with a stab in Marius’s direction. “But I really want to know how you tracked her here.”
Marius decided to humor the boy with the knife. “Nikeah. I came from South Figaro and on my own. But please, I don’t think you’re-”
“South Figaro, huh?” Duane asked and slitted his eyes. “The last traveler here told us that it had been destroyed by the Light of Judgment.”
“We rebuilt it. Now please, I’ve come a long way and-”
“She’s not leaving. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“I didn’t come for your girlfriend, I came here for Lucy!”
“ ‘Lucy?’ ” Duane stopped playing with the dagger. “Huh. That’s not what I thought you’d say.”
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Marius said, still eyeing the dagger. “I came here looking for my friend. I swear I’m not a bounty hunter.”
“Hmm.” Duane stuck the dagger into his boot and crossed his arms again. “Then you’re not here for Terra?”
“I don’t know anyone named Terra,” Marius told him, even though for some reason the name sounded familiar. “Just like I said. I’m here looking for my friend Lucy. She’s a merchant based out of Nikeah. I heard back in town that she came this way half a year before the Apocalypse.”
Duane made a face as he thought. “That would be the right time. But Nikeah’s a pretty far piece away from here. How’d you get here on foot?”
“You’re on the same continent now.”
“Really? The continents have shifted that much?” He looked down and then nodded. “Terra did say that everything changed on that day.”
“Who’s this Terra? Can I speak with her?”
Duane looked skeptical and began to say something but stopped when the door opened. A slim girl wearing a poppy red dress and brown military boots slipped in, and in the light her hair looked almost green.
“Guess so,” Duane said, standing up. “Sorry for the confusion,” he said halfheartedly over his shoulder as he left Marius alone with the girl in the red dress.

The girl gave Marius a shy smile and stopped at the foot of the bed. “I heard we had a visitor,” she told him, her voice high-pitched and girlish despite her thick Vector inflections. “Why did you come all the way out here?”
“I’m looking for my friend.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Her name’s Lucy.”
The girl in the red dress looked down in thought and finally shook her head. “I don’t think we’ve had anyone by that name come through. You might want to ask Duane, though – he knows more about this town than I do.”
“I don’t think he’ll be any help,” Marius said, placing as much skepticism into his voice as he could. “He thought I was a bounty hunter.”
“This Lucy,” the strange girl said as she stood and began to examine his jacket across the small room. “Are you… in love with her?”
Marius couldn’t believe for a few minutes that this girl had just asked him such a forward question. He opened and shut his mouth several times, flabbergasted.
“What kind of question is that?”
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t know if…um…”
“I…” Marius looked all around the room at anyplace besides the girl’s face. “I…don’t know. I’d really like to see her again, and I hope that she’s all right, but…”
He finally met her eyes and gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”
“You mean to tell me,” said a voice from the doorway, “that you’re looking all over for someone and you don’t know if you love them? That’s silly!”
The door opened and the Katarin girl with the ash blonde hair walked in. She carried an earthenware bowl and pitcher set that emitted sloshing sounds as she walked. “If you don’t love her, why are you wasting your time looking for her?”
“She’s…very special to me,” Marius finished, taking as much of a defiant posture as he could while hungover. “And after I find her, I’ll ask her to stay with me in Tzen.” The expression on his face dared Katarin or the odd girl to make any further comment.
“I guess that’s good enough,” Katarin said as she gave a grin to the odd girl. “See, Terra, that’s what I was talking about. Just like Duane. Can’t just spit it out. Has to be contrary and say everything in a roundabout way.”
All at once, the pieces began to fall into place in Marius’s mind. The name ‘Terra.’ The odd girl in the room with him. Her voice. Her unusual hair. The way she just seemed otherworldly.
“You’re the Terra?” he asked disbelievingly in a hoarse voice as he stared at the green-haired girl. “Word passed down through the ranks that the Empire enslaved and did horrible things to you. Was that true?”
The girl stared at her boots and twisted a small piece of cloth about the size of a handkerchief in her hands. “Yes, but I can’t really remember my time with the Empire. I joined the Returners when I was rescued.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up any bad memories. I just… I fought in the war and saw to what lengths it can drive people and armies. You name it, I’ve probably encountered it. Yet I still can’t imagine people doing to another human what the Empire did to you.”
Katarin set the pitcher down on a washstand. “How…how is the world today? Are people any better? I know it’s dying here, but…is there any hope elsewhere?”
Marius sat up a little straighter in bed and made an ‘I-don’t-know’ face. “It depends, I suppose. I was robbed in Nikeah, but a thief king named Geoff saved my life. I rested at the Fanatics’ tower and watched one man attack a cultist while another tried to stop him. Here, it looks like you have your hands full but you’ve taken me in. You can find good and evil wherever you go.”
Katarin looked off into space with a sad look on her face. “So even though everything has changed, nothing has changed.”
“I suppose you could say that.”
Terra touched Marius’s arm gently. “Speaking of the outside world, have you heard anything about Banon?”
“I’m afraid not. I’d like to know what happened to him myself.”
“Arvis Acklin, from Narshe?”
“I haven’t seen him since the big battle there.”
“Locke Cole? Celes Chere? King Edgar?”
Marius looked up. “Haven’t heard anything about General Chere or anyone named ‘Cole,’ but I have heard about the king. When I left South Figaro, the rumor was that both he and his brother were killed during the Apocalypse. And frankly, even if any royals or Returner leaders have survived the Apocalypse, they might not have survived the diseases or the mobs running rampant in some of the cities.”
Terra didn’t say anything and Marius tried to amend his answer. “But gossip can be wrong, and just because you haven’t heard anything doesn’t mean that they aren’t still alive. Your friends might still be around – they might even be looking for you right now. Don’t lose hope.”
“A last ray of hope,” Terra said as she tucked the cloth she’d been fidgeting with back into her pocket. She got up from the stool without saying anything else and left the room.

Duane Dowling solemnly handed Marius back his dagger and gave him another polite nod. “Good luck to you.”
“Thanks. You too.”
“Where did you say that land bridge was?”
“About two or three days southwest of here. Just follow the land.” Marius nodded back in the direction of Mobliz. “Your food supplies are going to run short in a few months. I don’t know where it leads, but if you want, I’ll send a pigeon from the next town.”
“That won’t be necessary. We don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”
“Right,” Marius said, realizing that with three people under the age of 20 serving as the only caretakers of at least 30 children, staying hidden was a good way of staying alive.
Katarin handed a bundle tied in a blue and white cloth to Marius. “It’s not much,” she said as the Returner placed it in the bag he’d inherited from Evren, “but it’s bread for two days and a canteen of water.”
“I appreciate it,” Marius said sincerely as Duane put his arm around Katarin’s shoulders. “I wish I could do something for you. I’m sorry that the only news I have for Terra is bad news.”
“At least she knows a little more than she did before,” Katarin said, sounding unsure of her own words. “I guess there’s some comfort in that.”
“Maybe,” Marius said, thinking of Lucy.
He gave a polite wave to Terra as she emerged from a house, children peering around her. As she lifted a hand in valediction, Marius turned and headed back down the continent.


This post has been edited by MeaPortia on 24th October 2009 04:48

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I figured I had paid my debt to society by paying my overdue fines at the McLennan County Library.

"Oh crap!"
- Bartz

"Huh? Why's everyone singing?"
- Sabin
Post #181699
Top
Posted: 10th October 2009 09:51

*
Onion Knight
Posts: 48

Joined: 1/11/2008

Awards:
Member of more than five years. Winner of the 2008 Fanfiction contest. 
Hey, everyone! Sorry this is so late. And also, this chappie is super long.

____________________________________________________________
Chapter 5 - "The Prodigal Son"

In the former capital city of Tzen, Juvan Rutali drew clean water from a well and wiped the sweat off of his face with his sleeve. He was on cooking detail tonight and he always seemed to run out of water right when he needed it the most.
He tramped back down to the house, taking care not to step on any of the dying pheasant’s eye growing near the well, and opened the door. It squeaked on its hinges but was otherwise lovingly maintained. Juvan took a great deal of pride in keeping the old place in such good condition, especially when he didn’t have many tools left after the Apocalypse.
“Sofia,” he shouted into the kitchen, “is the stew still cooking?”
“Still bubbling. I can hear it.”
“Do me a favor and tell everyone supper will be in an hour.”
“All right,” the girl said as she rose from her perch on the linen buffet and put aside her sewing. “Usual places?”
“Probably,” Juvan told her with a grunt as he set the water pail down. “You don’t have to run all over town, shortstack, there’s only four of them out there.”
Sofia stuck her tongue out at him before leaving. Juvan’s cousin had just turned fourteen a few days earlier and bratty things like that were still cute in her mind.
Juvan stirred the stew one more time, added a little more coriander, and looked longingly at the water pail he’d brought in. Working over the fire was hot work, and he was starting to sweat again. Maybe just a sip –
“Aieeee!” came a scream and the sound of a door slamming. Sofia ran into the kitchen and hid behind Juvan.
“What is it, Sofia?” Juvan asked, dropping the drinking cup back down into the pail. “What’s wrong?”
“Scary looking guy! He’s coming this way!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was looking for Lorita in the garden and a big scary guy started coming toward the house!”
Juvan immediately tensed up for a fight. “Hide in your room and don’t make a sound. I’ll come for you when it’s safe.”
The squeaky door opened and Juvan gave his cousin a push. “Go!”
As Sofia ran off, Juvan positioned himself near a big butchering knife and backed himself up against the wall. He’d survived Imperial occupation, he’d survive an attack by some no-account drifter.
“Juvan?” a drawling female voice called.
“Lorita! In the kitchen, quick!”
Juvan’s wife Lorita, their baby nestled within a carrier slung across Lorita’s chest, widened her eyes in horror as saw the knife.
“I heard Sofia scream! What’s going on?”
“She saw some drifter heading this way. I sent her to hide in her room. You go hide in ours.”
“I…will you be all right?”
“Yes! Now just go!”
Lorita and the baby retreated, leaving half of the household outdoors with the stranger. Juvan’s senses went into a heightened state and he went over his plan of attack.
Then the sound of laughter filled the air.
Juvan raised an eyebrow in confusion and repositioned himself against the sink. The oldest resident of the house, an arthritic mechanic by the name of Roderic, was laughing and talking to his wife and another man.
“Roderic?” Juvan yelled. “Anna? Mash? Is that you?”
“It’s me and Anna,” Roderic yelled back as the squeaking door shut behind him. “And an old friend of yours!”
“ ‘Old friend?’ ”
“It’s all right, come on out here and say hello!”
Juvan cautiously sidestepped out of the kitchen and peered into the parlor. Roderic motioned happily for Juvan to enter.
“Juvan! You remember Marius, don’t you?” the mechanic asked. “He’s come home!”
Between Roderic and Anna on a settee was a dirty and bedraggled looking bum. He smelled horrible and had a dazed expression, as though he wasn’t sure he was experiencing reality.
“Marius died in the war,” Juvan said slowly, certain that Roderic had lost his mind. “Remember? Ferrin and Cassia got that letter saying that he’d been killed at Narshe.”
“No dear,” Anna said from the other side of the stranger. “This is Marius. He’s alive!”
“I don’t believe it,” Juvan said flatly.
The bum raised his head and finally gave Juvan a weary smile. “Juvan!” he said, his voice sounding very much like Marius’s but with a worn-down quality. “What are you doing here? You’re a sight for sore eyes. You’ll have to forgive me for my terrible manners, but I’m exhausted and starving.”
Juvan raised an eyebrow. “I still don’t believe you.”
“All right. Still need proof of everything. Just before I left home, you’d started your apprenticeship with a local cabinetmaker. You built the linen sideboard in the kitchen for my mother on a commission.”
“Anyone –” Juvan began, but was cut off.
“I had scarlatina when we were ten, and you snuck into my room one night so we could play ‘army’ with our tin soldiers.”
“My gods,” Juvan said in amazement, “it is you.”
Juvan rushed over to where his old friend sat and picked him up in a big bear hug. “We’d heard you were dead!” he exclaimed as he bodily lifted Marius up and off of the settee.
“I’m alive,” Marius choked out, “unless you squeeze me to death.”
“Sorry,” Juvan said as he loosened his embrace and set his friend back on the ground. “I’m just so excited to see that one friend’s still alive!”
“What do you mean? What happened to everyone?”
Juvan averted his eyes and stood with his arms crossed. “Well, you were the first to leave. You just missed the forced Imperial recruitment.”
“So I heard. Mother wrote me to tell me that Ander had been conscripted.”
“Yeah. They grabbed Ander, me, Luken Fiorello, and Piers Leclerc.” Juvan finally looked Marius in the eyes. “To make a long story short, I owe your brother my life and your parents my survival.”
“All of us do,” Anna Casals added as she stood and put an arm around Marius’s shoulder. “And we’re so glad you’re home.”
Marius looked around, waiting for his family to hear his voice and come see him. “So where is everyone?”
“Well,” Juvan said, averting his eyes again, “my wife Lorita is in our bedroom with our baby-”
“You got married?” Marius interrupted incredulously.
“Yeah,” Juvan said, still not meeting his friend’s eyes. “My cousin Sofia is in her room too. We thought you were a robber and I sent the girls to hide.”
“Where are my parents? Are my brothers making themselves useful?”
No one spoke, and Marius felt his stomach freefall. He sat back down on the settee and felt his hands go cold and clammy.
“Are they here?” he asked, unable to ask what he really meant. “I-I mean, they’re still here, right?”
“They’re still alive, son,” Roderic said as he slid next to Marius. “But they left town suddenly one night. And your brothers went with them.”
“When did they leave? Where did they go?”
“About three months ago. We don’t know where they went, but your mother wrote a letter for you in case you did come home. I’ll go get it.”
Roderic left in the direction of the old study and Marius felt bitter disappointment threaten to overtake him. Juvan saw this and sat next to his old friend, placing an arm around Marius’s emaciated shoulders.
“They’re alive,” Juvan told him. “More than I can say about my parents.”
“Your parents are dead?”
“Camp fever outbreak nearly five months ago.”
“I’m sorry, Juvan.”
“It was quick.”
Anna sat on Marius’s other side. “Don’t worry, dear. I’m sure they’re fine. I think your friend was planning on following them.”
“What do you mean? Which friend of mine?”
“That lovely young lady who sounded like she was from Nikeah.”
“Lucy?”
“I believe that was her name.”
Marius tried to wrap his mind around what Anna was saying. “She was here?”
“Oh yes. She stayed in your old room for a few months, even.”
“And she went with my parents?”
“Well, she left before they did. But she said that she felt obligated to help take care of them since she had dragged you off to join the Returners in the first place.”
“So you mean,” Marius said, still unable to believe this sudden change of luck, “that if I find Lucy I’ll find my parents and vice versa?”
“I don’t know,” Anna said as she clasped her hands in front of her. “I don’t know what their plans were. They didn’t say anything to us until they were leaving.”
“Still, it’s a lead. Best thing I’ve heard since I left South Figaro,” Marius said with audible relief in his voice.
Juvan openly gawked. “What were you doing in South Figaro? Were you stationed that far north?”
“It’s a long and complicated story how I wound up there.”
“You can tell us at supper,” Anna said firmly as Roderic returned with an envelope. “You’ll probably want to clean up first, so I’ll draw some water for you.”
“And here’s your mother’s letter,” Roderic added as he handed the envelope to Marius. “We haven’t read it. I hope it answers some of your questions.”
Marius stood, looked at the still-solid wax seal on the letter, then looked up into the others’ eyes. Juvan, Anna, and Roderic looked so happy to have him back in Tzen that he couldn’t help but laugh and cry for the elation he felt.

The smell of the cooking supper drifted up to the bathroom where Marius had washed off the grime of travelling. Things like clean water, lye soap, a razor, and the shampoo made from equal parts rum and rosewater were almost forgotten luxuries to him. As he shaved his beard off, his stomach grumbled and he realized that he hadn’t had an actual nutritious meal since his last night in Nikeah.
He hadn’t had a good shave or a bath since Nikeah either. No wonder his best friend didn’t recognize him at first. By his reckoning, he’d spent nearly two weeks travelling from Mobliz to Tzen. The trip had been nigh-unbearable.
He finished off a cracker and relaxed in the ankle-deep tepid water, close to dozing off. A knock at the door woke him and he leaned around the wainscoted shower enclosure.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be out in a few minutes!”
“No, no,” came a sing-song female voice. “Take your time. I’ve set some fresh clothes out for you here. Your things are in the spare bedroom.”
“Thanks,” Marius said, feeling oddly out of place being treated as a guest in his own home.
He stepped out of the cast-iron tub and grabbed a threadbare towel out from a cabinet. He opened the door and quickly grabbed the clothes the woman had set out for him. They were most likely some of Juvan’s extras, and were at least two sizes too large for the now-gaunt Marius. Days and days of walking in the sun, not eating or drinking anything but grass and boiled ocean water, and fighting off dysentery had taken a toll on his body.
He checked his now-smooth face to ensure that he hadn’t missed any of his beard and toweled off his wet hair. He pulled it back into a damp ponytail and, after he cleaned his teeth and gargled with cologne, walked out into the hallway.
Nothing about the living quarters had changed. Juvan and the others had kept it just as Marius remembered. He headed for the guest bedroom further down the hall; Anna had offered to move someone named ‘Sofia’ out of his old bedroom, but Marius insisted that such measures weren’t necessary.
He opened the door to the guest room and saw that, like the rest of the house, nothing had changed. Someone had filled a decorative vase on his mother’s heirloom vanity with brightly colored forget-me-nots that contrasted with the dark yellows and tea greens. On the bed his beaten haversack lay next to some more spare clothes, the pen and ink bottle Joris had given him the birthday before Marius left home, and his mother’s letter.
Marius sat down on the bed and cracked the letter’s wax seal with his thumb. He pulled a short note out of the envelope and immediately recognized his mother’s florid handwriting. He read the note twice and tears ran down his face.
“Marius?”
The Returner looked up and wiped his face self-consciously. Anna Casals, the woman who had once been his governess, stood in the doorway with a grandmotherly smile.
“Am I interrupting you? I can come back in a few minutes.”
“No, no. It’s just…the letter. Mother was so sad when she wrote it. Look right here. She said, ‘To my eldest son, wherever you may be.’ And then she signed it, ‘If we cannot meet again in this world, may we meet quickly in the next. Love always, your mother.’ ”
“They missed you terribly. Writing to someone you love and not knowing whether they’ll get the letter has to be the hardest thing in the world.”
“I can imagine,” Marius told Anna as he folded his mother’s letter up and placed it in his bag. “Speaking of letters, is the post working yet?”
“Not yet. We’ve heard that it might be a few more months.”
“Any idea how I can send a letter to South Figaro?”
“I don’t think you can, dear. The pigeons still aren’t trained to recognize the new city locations, and the steamship captains only know local waters.”
“Glad to know that nothing has changed since I left Audrey’s,” Marius said glumly. “Once you set out on your own, you’re really on your own.”
“People are rediscovering the world,” Anna said, a chiding quality edging her voice. “These things take time.”
Marius smiled, kissed Anna’s hands, and stood up. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’m just impatient.”
“Who isn’t these days?” Anna asked as she took Marius’s good arm and led him down to the dining room.
The table was filled to capacity with the new residents of the house. Each place setting had a bowl of stew and a chunk of bread. The conversations around the table died down as Marius and Anna approached.
“You know me and Roderic,” Anna said as she took a seat next to her husband. “And Juvan, of course.”
“This is my wife, Lorita,” Juvan said as he placed an arm around a girl with brassy red ringlets. “She keeps me in line.”
“You must be the famous Marius,” Lorita said in the syrupy accent typical of Albrook and winked knowingly. She was the woman who had set clothes aside for him, Marius realized.
“And this,” Juvan said with more than a hint of pride in his voice as he stroked the cheek of an infant in Lorita’s arms, “is our baby. Say hello to your uncle Marius, son.”
“What’s his name?” Marius asked.
“Ander Piers,” Juvan said without looking up.
As Marius took his seat, a teenage girl next to him stuck her hand out to shake. “I’m Sofia,” she said, her twin pigtails swaying with each movement. “Normally my cousin Juvan would be nice and introduce me, but he loses track of everything when the baby’s around. Anna says I’ll understand one of these days.”
“Everything good comes in time,” Marius said with a grin. “My mother used to say that.”
“She was the lady who moved out, right? The one whose picture’s still up in the parlor?”
“Yes.”
“She was always nice to me. She said she wished she could have had girls instead of boys because girls don’t go off to war. Is that true? I never really believed that. Didn’t the Empire have General Chere and a witch?”
Anna shot a look at Sofia. “Sofie, that’s enough questions for now. Let’s let the poor boy eat in peace.”
“Sorry, Marius,” Sofia said, clearly unfazed as she stirred her stew. “Juvan says I talk too much. Do you think I talk too much? I don’t mean to, it’s just that no one else ever has anything to say and I hate it when it gets quiet. It reminds me too much of when the Light –”
“Sofie, please start eating your supper,” Juvan said with a put-upon tone that Marius recognized from his childhood.
“Sorry,” Sofia said quietly, and made a face at Juvan. Her cousin, despite the fact that he was easily ten years older than her, returned it. The mock battle went on for several more minutes until Lorita had finally had enough and forced the cousins to declare a truce, lest their faces stick.
“Can the adults have a civilized conversation now?” Anna asked, in a plaintive tone that indicated such mealtime activities were the norm rather than the exception.
“So Marius, let’s hear about your time with the Returners,” Roderic said. He had been a soldier back when Tzen was still a monarchy, and thoroughly supported any group that fought the Empire.
“My first post was in Albrook,” Marius said a few moments later as Juvan passed him the bread. “I was a corporal in the garrison down there. I specialized in propaganda. I was reassigned to our headquarters when we were ferreted out.”
“Oh my,” Lorita said as she set aside her bread. “I remember when that happened. Rumor had it that half of the Returners in town had been killed.”
“They exaggerated a bit. It was really somewhere between a quarter and a third. Still horrible losses, but not the rout Imperial reports made it out to be.”
“Goodness,” said Anna. “But how did you wind up in South Figaro?”
“By way of Narshe.”
All eyes turned to Marius. “After the battle, I was moved to South Figaro,” he continued. “With the other wounded.”
“You were wounded?” Sofia asked, her eyes wide. “How bad?”
Marius rolled up his right sleeve until it was to his shoulder. The scar and its uneven stitching, the tight pink skin, and the visible indentation when seen from the side; his mangled bicep spoke for itself as to the carnage of the battle. Silently, Marius rolled his sleeve back down.
“I can use my arm now,” he said, breaking the silence. “It took some time, but I can hold pens. Even draw, if I prop it on something. Can’t raise or turn it, though, so I suppose my days as a revolutionary are over.”
“Still not as good as new, is it?” Juvan asked.
“Nothing’s ever as good as new once it’s been broken,” Marius answered. “People, places, or things.”
There was silence at the table, and then Roderic spoke up. “Give yourself some time,” he advised. “We didn’t rebuild the city in a day’s time, and you can’t expect to carry on like nothing has happened. You adapt. You mend yourself. You have to, son, or you’ll lose your mind.”
Lorita gave Marius a bright smile, trying to direct the conversation back to a lighter topic. “Speaking of which, have you been in town yet? Repairs are going along quite nicely.”
“Not yet,” Marius said, trying to play along with them that he wasn’t in a pensive mood. “I’m surprised that the Light of Judgment didn’t hit the house.”
“Came too close.” Juvan took a drink of water and shook his head. “We’re just lucky, that’s all.”
“We’ve been taking in anyone who needs help,” Anna told Marius as she handed a water pitcher to her husband. “Since that’s what your family did for us and Juvan’s family here.”
“Speaking of people we’ve taken in,” Lorita said as she handed the baby to Juvan, “where did Mash run off to?”
“He went into town,” Sofia supplied as she poked at a carrot in her bowl. “Said he’d be back for supper.”
“I hope nothing’s happened to him,” Roderic said as he passed the water pitcher to Marius. “He’s a big, strong lad. Been a boon to have around.”
“We all try to pull our weight around here,” Juvan explained as he rocked the baby. “Sofia and Anna buy what we can’t grow and run the household. Lorita tends to the orchard and the garden. Roderic’s in charge of repairs. Mash and I make sure that none of us come to any harm. We all take turns cooking, with mixed results.”
“Seems as though the division of labor has worked well for you.”
“Can’t complain.”
Sofia turned to Marius and began twisting one pigtail around her finger. “Are you home for good, Marius?”
“No, I can’t stay. I have to keep going.”
“Where, son?” Roderic asked as Sofia’s face fell.
“Onward to find Lucy and my family. Mother’s letter said that they were going to Kohlingen, so that’s where I’m going.”
“Kohlingen, huh?” Juvan said, breaking the silence. “Good a place as any, I suppose.”
“I wonder why they went there?” Marius mused out loud, using his bread to sop up the last of the stew. “Mother’s people are in Jidoor. Father’s family ties here go back at least five generations. Maybe they have friends there. Maybe Lucy has connections there.”
“C’mon Marius,” Juvan teased, trying to lighten the sudden downturn in mood. “You used to do this for a living. Back before the Apocalypse, what was arguably the farthest major city from Tzen?”
Marius laughed and then nodded. “Well, they did want a new start,” he said as he began gathering up the dishes. “While I’m up, can I get anything for anyone?”
“No, no,” Roderic said, rising as well. “But Anna bribed the baker to sell her his last chiffon cake, and I might need some help serving it. These old gnarled joints don’t work as well as they should.”
“Certainly,” Marius said, and the two of them disappeared into the kitchen.
Sofia looked from Anna to Juvan to Lorita. “But,” she began hesitantly, “isn’t Kohlingen really far away? And near the Coliseum? You know, where people try to kill each other for money?”
“Don’t tell Marius,” Anna finally said. “No use in worrying him needlessly.”
“But – ”
“Not a peep, missy.”

Later that night, Marius and Juvan sat out on the wraparound porch enjoying the night air and a glass of sherry. Juvan puffed his pipe and Marius chewed a cinnamon stick, things almost feeling like old times again.
“We want you to stay with us,” Juvan said as he blew a smoke ring.
“I can’t do that.”
“I know. But we all wish you could.”
“Gotta find my family, Juvan.”
“I know,” Juvan repeated with a sigh. “But it’s not every day that your best friend comes back from the dead.”
“No one left to pal around with?” Marius asked, half kidding.
Next to him, Juvan shook his head. “Nope. No one left out of the old gang but me.”
“They were all killed in the war?”
“The lucky ones.”
“What do you mean?”
Juvan said nothing as he blew another smoke ring by the gaslamp’s light. He set his pipe aside as the smoke ring drifted away and held up one hand. “Well, the five of us grew up together.”
“Right.”
“You, me, Ander, Luken Fiorello, and Piers Leclerc,” Juvan said, ticking each name off on his hand.
“I’d never forget my friends,” Marius said with conviction and more than a little impatience. “Just give me the story, from the top.”
Juvan heaved a huge sigh, as if continuing would be hard on him. “You asked for it. Well, one night, not too long after you left, all of the guys our age were rounded up and impressed into the Imperial Army. Luken was separated from us and shipped off to General Cristophe’s battalion. Ander, Piers, and I drew straws to see who would go back home and who would stay for the time being. I drew the right straw and they helped me desert a few days later. I hid out in Mount Tzen for eight months.”
“I can see something like that from Luken, maybe, but Piers and Ander? They actually stuck their necks out for someone?”
“Oh yes. Your brother’s a better man than you realize, and Piers was a brave man if he found a cause worth fighting for. That’s why we named our son after them. They saved my life by helping me run. When I came back from the mountain, I moved back in with my parents and married Lorita. Not too long after that, we heard that Luken was killed in a tiny little town called Thamasa.”
“Luken’s dead?”
“Kefka.”
The one name said it all. It conjured up images of a pale blond man wearing thick stage makeup and a harlequin’s outfit, laughing maniacally. The name hung like heavy lead over the two men for a moment and then Juvan cleared his throat.
“Luken was just the first. A few months afterward, we got word that you had died at Narshe. The Apocalypse happens. Then camp fever goes around the city on account of the bad water. Ever since Mom and Dad died in that outbreak, the town’s been without a doctor or a nurse. We all just fix ourselves up as best as we can.”
“I’m sorry, Juvan. I wish I could have been here to help.”
“Nah. I mean, I grew up with doctors and I couldn’t do anything that would help anyone. It would have just taken you too, and then we would have lost you twice.” Juvan took another puff on his pipe and set it back down. “After we got the epidemic under control, the Light of Judgment grazed the town. You probably saw the scars on the land.”
“Yes.”
“It destroyed the port and some of the docks, market row, and a few of the houses around here. Luken’s family, all seven of them, were killed. The Leclercs were killed trying to save them. Everyone died, it seemed. Fires went on for three days.”
“My gods,” Marius whispered.
“Gets even worse,” Juvan said, his voice getting hard. “Ander and Piers came home not too long after that.”
“I know how Ander is, but how’s Piers?”
“Refused to eat or drink after he found out about his parents. He didn’t even make it one week. Ander said that they were stationed together at Doma and their unit was ordered to eradicate the poison.”
“And the poisoned bodies of the Domans too,” Marius muttered, recalling rumors he’d heard in South Figaro. “Poor Piers.”
“Mm-hmm,” Juvan told him. Suddenly, his friend leaned forward and squinted against the last dying rays of the sun. “There’s Mash. He finally made it back. I was starting to worry.”
Juvan stood and stepped off of the porch, raising a hand in welcome. “What took you so long?” he asked around his pipe.
The man he called Mash approached and Marius squinted to get a good look at him. He looked familiar, but Marius couldn’t place how he knew the newcomer.
“Good to see you too,” Mash answered, oblivious to Marius’s thoughts. “Bad news for Anna. There isn’t any salt in town. I looked all day, but it looks like I’ll have to head to Albrook.”
“How far away is Albrook now?” Marius asked, turning to Juvan. “Is it still the entire length of the continent away?”
“Nope,” Mash said, answering for Juvan. “At most, maybe two days walk.”
The newcomer gave a friendly nod to Juvan and then shook hands with Marius. “Name’s Mash.”
“Marius.”
“The corporal here’s the son of the original owners of the house,” Juvan said to Mash, cutting in and slapping his best friend on the shoulder. “We grew up together.”
Mash nodded sagely. “Now that you mention it, shoulda seen that. You look like your brother, kind of.” He looked away for a moment, lost as if in a fleeting thought, and then nodded toward the house. “You did leave some supper for me, right?”
“Of course. If you hurry, there might be some almond chiffon cake left,” Juvan said, smiling as Mash hustled past them and into the kitchen.
“I think I might want to speak with your friend for a bit,” Marius said as they began gathering their sherry and headed inside.
In the entryway, Juvan stopped and turned to his old friend. He had a strange look on his face, as though he was weighing his words carefully.
“Marius, it’s not any of my business, but you’re my friend and I have to tell you something. The war’s changed a lot of things and a lot of people. If you ever need to start fresh, you come home.”
“What do you – ”
“Promise me that you’ll come back here if you don’t find anyone.”
“What are you talking about? Are you not telling me something?”
“Promise me!”
“All right! I promise. But Juvan, why are you acting like this?”
“I can’t stand to lose another one of you. Luken and Piers are dead, Ander’s gone, and you’re leaving too. I don’t want to be the only survivor again, Marius. I don’t want to be the only man left standing when everything’s said and done.”
Juvan turned abruptly and climbed the stairs to go up to his room, leaving Marius confused in the entryway.

“Oh sure,” Mash said as he cut a slice of cake, “I can go with you to Albrook. I heard that there’s ships sailing out of there to Maranda. That should set you on your way to Kohlingen.”
“Thank you. I haven’t had the best luck in traveling lately.”
“I can imagine. It’s pretty bad out there.”
“Yeah,” Marius said, “it really is.”
Mash stared at him with unsettlingly familiar azure eyes. “How long have you travelled?”
“About a month. I started in South Figaro, sailed to Nikeah, then headed to Mobliz. When I saw how badly it was destroyed, I headed down a land bridge and came here.”
“So you came from Figaro, huh?” Mash asked, a strange smile of bemusement playing across his freckled face. “How is the place?”
“South Figaro is fine. We rebuilt it after it was hit by the Light of Judgment. The castle proper’s still lost. Most likely the king is dead.”
“So I’d heard,” Mash said, biting his lip. “But I wouldn’t count my brother out so soon.”
“Your brother?” Marius asked in complete surprise. “You’re related to the king?”
“I’m a monk from Figaro,” Mash said, grinning and putting up his hands. “If all life is related and precious, of course the king is my brother!”
Marius sighed. “Oh, I see. You got my hopes up for a moment – I’d thought that you were Prince Sabin.”
Now completely dejected about the state of events, Marius stood up from his pressback chair and gave a polite nod to Mash. “I think that I shall retire for the evening. I shall see you tomorrow morning for the trip.”
“Let me know when you’re ready to go,” Mash said as he gave a friendly wave goodnight to Marius.
As Marius entered his guest room, he collapsed onto the bed with a groan of fatigue and frustration. As much as he wanted to stay here and just bask in the familiarity of home, he had to keep moving ahead. He had to find his family. He had to find Lucy.
An old tintype on the nightstand next to him caught his eye. He picked it up and stared at it, recognizing the faces of the five immaculately dressed young men. Marius himself stood somberly behind Ander, hand on his shoulder. Juvan and Luken flanked Marius, making him seem smaller than he really was back then, and Piers stared at the photographer over the lenses of his spectacles. Everyone except for the grinning Juvan and Luken bore grave expressions.
“Those days are never coming back,” Marius said as he set the tintype on top of his haversack. “And I’m never coming back to Tzen.”


This post has been edited by MeaPortia on 24th October 2009 04:51

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I figured I had paid my debt to society by paying my overdue fines at the McLennan County Library.

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