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year 5, quarter 3
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[attr=class,bulk] They were led into the place. The beautiful, flower-laden place of pure nature. They were seated at an outdoor table in the gardens, and Celes could only stutter a thank you as she sat, feeling strangely embarrassed by it all. It was all so…intimate. Not objectively, she had to admit, but certainly by her standards. The garden was beautiful smelling of earth and honeysuckle and all manner of other tropical plants she wasn’t familiar with. They sat beneath a deep blue sky which carried sunlight and a pleasant breeze in equal turn.
If left alone here, she felt she might melt beneath it all. She would lose her composure, and what then? Why, she’d be nothing more than a simple girl struck silly by the sight of a few flowers.
She couldn’t let that happen. Not in front of Caius. But oh, it was just so hard!
Celes tried her best to nod along as Caius spoke. She poured herself some water from the pitcher set at the middle of the table and sipped it slowly.
”Me? I’ve been…”
She wracked her mind for a proper answer. She was distracted, she knew that, which made it all the harder to think of a diplomatic way to describe all of the disasters she’d cleaned up in her time.
”Oh, why bother with the formalities? It’s been awful.”
That was the kindest worst for it. Awful.
”I’d hardly left the city before I encountered one of the worst men I’ve ever met in my life! Alexander Sorel. If there’s ever been a more dense, conceited, envious excuse for a man then I certainly haven’t seen it. More than that, he hates you, he hates us, and I’m fairly certain he’d resort to murder if it meant hurting our business!”
Now that she was talking, she couldn’t stop. A fire had been smoldering within her heart for months now, and finally it was given the space it needed to burst.
”When I finally reached Provo, I walked in at Yuna’s clinic and the place was in chaos. She was tending to a dying man while about four patients were waiting for who knows how long and the man’s soon to be widow was sobbing to herself. I tried to help – of course I did! – but there was no saving him and Yuna had to tend to the others while stained in his blood. So of course I had to stay! Healing is not my specialty, but I can cast an esuna or a few curas here and there, and that kept me busy from dawn to dusk some days. Eventually, I stole enough time to myself to write up some flyers to get Yuna help and then went out advertising for the job on the city streets.
“And guess who came? Alexander. Sorel. He was the first one there, almost like he’d been expecting this, and he apparently had nothing better to do than harass me for the rest of the morning! He stood there trying to convince everyone that Yuna’s charity clinic was some kind of front! I’m amazed that I was able to get the interest of even one healer by the end of the day! I suppose he made himself such a nuisance that no one could take his lies seriously.
“I came back, but you’d just left and why didn’t you warn me about Yuffie? She was posing as our leader! And you know what she’s like! I can hardly imagine what any of our clients went through before I got there and straightened her out. I fielded a new otherworlder from somewhere I’d never heard of before. Valisthea? Have you heard of it? Well not a week passed before I get an urgent message from the castle that some sort of villain has broken in, murdered the guards, and was headed towards their crystal chamber. I was alone and had to handle it all myself!
“So I run there about half awake, and as it happens, it’s another man from this world. Valisthea. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he could burst into flames at will and he nearly broke my arm trying to kill me! Eventually, I convinced him that he was absolutely insane and he stepped down only for the king himself to appear as though he’d been eavesdropping the entire time! He offered me a job. Can you believe that? He tried to have me join his military command! Ha!”
Celes tilted back her head as she laughed, her voice dripping with contempt. ”I’d make an excellent advisor, he said. Why not make me a general while he’s at it? As if I’d ever trust another government again! Emperor, king, it doesn’t matter! They all want power, and that’s something they’d do best without!”
Her voice had risen without her notice. She saw a few glances her way. It wasn’t like her, she knew, but she couldn’t help it and it wasn’t as though she was directly threatening their king. Only mocking him. Enthusiastically.
”So that Valisthean man, the one who can burst into flames? He had a wolf and I had to wrangle that one too. I got them both out of jail, and now they’re the responsibility of the Dragonblades! I don’t even remember who suggested it. I might have once it became clear that the idiot was more confused than hostile. So I’ve been running the Dragonblades alone while fighting to keep Yuffie in line and responsible for the house arrest of a suspected terrorist.”
Celes smiled bitterly and sipped her water. ”So that’s been my life. What about yours?”
[attr=class,bulk] ”Something easier?” Celes looked up at the journalist, all prim and poised with her fashionable scarf and her vest perfectly buttoned, and she gave a short, humorless laugh. It was more of a scoff than anything, or it would have been if she could have mustered the energy. Instead, she just sounded tired. She was tired.
Nothing in her life had been easy. Absolutely nothing.
The reporter, Miss Violet Vayne, sounded sympathetic to her story. She supposed it wasn’t hard when looking at it from the outside. To those on the inside, to the people of Maranda and the people of a world her empire had conquered, she was an accessory to murder, and she hadn’t been able to see it until the moment her own life had been forfeit. They’d raised her as a monster, and after that…
After that…
Celes shook her head. ”Nothing’s easier. That’s the point. My world was conquered and then destroyed. The earth turned to dust. The water was polluted. The people lived in fear of a mad god that I helped ascend. I tried to stop it. I tried to stop him, but for what? I only know how to fight. There was too much left to rebuild.
”That’s why…I want to protect this place. I’ve seen the worst come already. When I woke up here, I thought I must have gone insane! There were trees. Real trees! With birds. And leaves. And life.” Her voice broke and her grip tightened on the fabric of her pants.
”Caius is the same. His world, Eos, it was plunged into eternal night. For ten years, there as no sunlight and these monsters he calls demons reigned. There was starvation, hunger, and fear. I remember those days. My own apocalypse was a tad more fiery, but the idea was the same. We were both soldiers without a nation because there weren’t any left to defend. Now we’re here. All we want is a second chance to do things right. We’d die to save the life of even one person let alone the world.”
It was too honest. She knew that, but she’d started with her own story, and her own story tended to get her all riled up. What would a reporter make of this? Would there be more sympathy? More notes? Or would she look up and see pity in the woman’s eyes? They must have been about the same age. Celes doubted the reporter was any older than she’d been when she’d turned her back on the Empire and witnessed the end of it all. How innocent, this girl was at the same age.
Celes vowed to protect that innocence.
”That’s why we formed the Dragonblades, in truth. We want to protect what we can, and we want to give anyone else like us guidance and purpose. It isn’t about the money. We only make enough to keep operating, really, but that’s all that matters. So long as one person can still raise a sword, there’s hope. Hope is all that stands between us and all who would see it destroyed.”
[attr=class,bulk] Celes sat. The reporter sat. They sat across from each other. For an interview. An interview for her.
Celes Chere. Co-founder of the Dragonblades. It wasn’t a smear campaign, the reporter made certain to assure her, just a human interest story. Celes was somehow less assured by that reassurance, and she could feel her heartbeat rise into her ears. Nothing to worry about? Celes was, quite frankly, worried enough as it was.
And her worries were quite founded. As the reporter asked her first question, Celes could only open her mouth and then close it again. Ah yes. Her homeworld. The one Celes had taken part in ruining. What did she do there? Why, war crimes of course! Conquering, mostly. Leading imperial armies. The usual.
Damn it all, what had she gotten herself into?
”Well, ah…” Celes stuttered and then stopped. She dug her finger into the fabric of her pants. Would it look more suspicious if she refused to comment? And what if this was a hit piece? The reputation of the Dragonblades was at stake, and it all relied on her ability to communicate. It all relied on her past.
”It was…” she started again and then stopped, biting her tongue. ”I don’t like to talk about it,” she admitted as though that wasn’t obvious enough already. ”My homeworld, it um…doesn’t have a name like I know some do. I’ve heard Eos, Gaia, Spira, Valisthea…Mine was just…the world. What other world was there? Apparently a lot, but we didn’t know that.”
She was stalling, but maybe the reporter would get something out of that. It was a start, at least.
”The world I come from was…engulfed in war. There was the Geystahlian Empire and then there was, well, everyone else. The kingdoms of Figaro and Doma. Then city states like Narshe and Jidoor. I…was born into the Empire.”
’Keep going.’ Celes closed her eyes and took a deep breath. What use was her so-called redemption if she couldn’t even say her own crimes outloud? It was useless, that’s what.
”I think I was a war orphan. There were so many back then. I…remember the needles. The vats of…magic? It must have been magic. I remember how they glowed. It was a metal room lit up so bright that it hurt to look. Then there were the doctors. Scientists? The procedure started and it…hurt. I think I lost consciousness.”
She thought she might lose consciousness again with how her head was spinning. Her voice cracked as she tried to speak. She cleared her throat and continued.
”A-anyway. In the end, it worked. I could use magic and I hadn’t lost my mind like the last man they’d tried it on. Magic is rare where I come from. Really, only the espers can use it. They’re…creatures from another realm. That’s how the Empire gave it to me, I think. They took one of those creatures and kept it in a vat and extracted the magic from it. I was one of only three people in the world who had magic. There was me, the madman, and another girl. She was half-esper. So that made me…special. And dangerous.”
Here it was. Enough playing the victim. Her mouth was almost too dry to speak as she said, ”I was raised as their soldier. I…became the youngest general in the Empire’s history. I stood at the Emperor’s side during speeches. And I…led our invasion on the free city of Maranda. I was seventeen.”
She looked away, down at the unlit hearth with all of its broken logs and unswept ashes. ”I’m sorry,” she said, almost too quiet to hear. ”I think I need a moment.”
A moment to breathe. A glass of water, maybe. She wished she could sink into the floor and never arise again. After all that she had seen, after all that she had done, she deserved nothing less.
[attr=class,bulk] Caius came downstairs looking awkward, but like, well, himself. He must have thought the same thing about her because he looked at her and said simply, ”Your garb, it’s nice.”
Celes had to stifle laughter at that. Her…garb? It was one of those things that only Caius would say. A Caius-ism. A Dragelion gaff. And he said it with the confidence of a man who thought it wasn’t unusual at all.
That was Caius, alright. Though she supposed growing up in a broken world would do that to someone. She’d at least had the luck to grow up before the ruin. Some might say a little too quickly for her own good.
”It’s…more or less what I’ve always worn,” she said behind the shadow of a smile. It wouldn’t do to laugh at him for it. After all these years, she found it endearing.
Caius stepped outside and held the door open for her. What a gentleman. She stepped out without comment and quietly lamented the rising humidity. Sometimes it felt like breathing in mouthfuls of water with how heavy the air got. Most of the time, it simply did unspeakable things to her hair. She’d be glad to see it go, honestly, with the approach of the milder seasons at their doorstep.
Caius told her that he’d found a few places he could take her which was fine. He was still talking too formally for his own good. It felt very much like Caius was hiding something or at the very least that he was hardly keeping himself standing. Celes didn’t comment. She just gave a simple, ”Alright then,” and allowed him to lead the way. His business was his business, and if he wanted to do this now of all times then so be it.
This simple place that Caius brought her was, in a word, beautiful. Celes felt her cheeks turn hot and red as it became clear that this was their destination. It was a simple building, yes, but that was hardly the appeal. The outside was covered in tastefully placed ivy, flowering in all manner of violets and blues. Garden beds lined the outer walls, and Celes resisted the urge to run a hand along their flowers, naming each of them in turn. There were no roses, but that was to be expected in a climate such as this. She didn’t mind.
It did make her suspicious of Caius’ intentions, however. It was clear that he’d picked this place entirely because of her, and because of a side of her that so very few men knew. She didn’t want to speculate on an ulterior motive, but she simply couldn’t help herself. She wasn’t used to nice people doing nice things. Not for her, anyway.
”W-well…” Celes stuttered for words as Caius said it would be ’on him.’ And that he’d taken someone else here. And that it was a thanks for stepping up while he was gone. ”I made you step up first, didn’t I? I left. Then you left. So I’d call it even.”
It wasn’t even. Not unless his time without her involved a national crisis, the aftermath being handled by the Dragonblades personally. But either one of them could have been called to answer that. It was all a matter of timing.
”I’ll pay my own way, thank you,” she said, trying not to sound as stilted and cautious as she felt. ”But it is lovely here, isn’t it? I wonder how I never noticed it before…”
[attr=class,bulk] ”Alex?” That was the first time that Celes felt the need to interject. The rest was fine. Simple back and forth of old friends, awkward and tired as they were. Then a request to Tomoe which honestly wasn’t warranted. She was a godsend, really. But that last part…
”So you've met the infamous Alexander Sorel.” Celes’ lip turned into a sour grimace. ”I’m surprised he didn’t attack you. Or maybe he did. He has so much bluster and bravado that he’d likely drown under his own hubris.”
Caius, as though expecting Celes’ reaction, glanced at her, promising to tell her more later. ”You’d better,” she said dryly. If there was trouble brewing from Alexander Sorel of all people then she’d rather know before it boiled over into some disaster or another.
With that, they parted ways.
It took an hour for Celes to make herself presentable. It wasn’t like she was trying to get gussied up or anything either. Not only did she simply not care about trifles like that, but she’d hardly want to give the wrong idea. No, it just took that long to find the will to leave the bath. And then to untangle her hair. And then to dry it. She hadn’t been wearing her usual earrings for a while now, and when she tried to put them in, she found to her displeasure that the piercing had started to close. She poked them through anyway, wincing at the blood, but it wasn’t anything that a wet washcloth and a little curative magic couldn’t solve.
She brushed her teeth. She moisturized her face. She pulled back her hair so that half was tied and the other half fell freely. She dressed herself, picking out a slightly more elaborate outfit than usual – her favorite with the lacing down the side of her pants and the puffy shoulders and the scarves tied around her waist.
By the end of it, she almost felt human again.
She started back down the stairs, her heels clicking with each step until she was back in the lobby, and this time she looked at it with a fresh pair of eyes. In her exhaustion, she’d failed to manage the upkeep of the Wyvern’s Rest the way that she usually did. They’d need a new couch soon – preferably one that wasn’t sagging from the consistent weight of a wolf half the size of a bear. The upholstery on the armchairs could use a clean too from all the dog hair on it. The hearth was sooty and there were stains on the floor where she’d told Yuffie to clean some spill potions and the girl had only half-complied at best. Her eyes caught a few nuts and bolts and screws lost to the room’s corners and under furniture that must have fallen out of Mid’s toolkit.
All in all, the place was a mess. A problem for tomorrow’s Celes. Now that she had help again.
Only now, feeling human again and with her mind more her own than it had been in months, did she feel any sort of curiosity towards Caius’ misadventures. And really, what had he been up to with Sorel? Oh well. She’d learn soon enough, she supposed.
[attr=class,bulk] ”Hm?” Celes paused, a quill already in her hand. Had this girl… laughed at her? Surely not. But she was certainly smiling as Celes glanced up from her work at the desk to hear the girl’s formal introduction.
”The…Torensten Times?” Celes repeated, the cogs in her mind still rusty with sleep. Then it clicked. ”Oh.” That was all she could say. ’Oh. This was a reporter. With the local newspaper. Which meant she wanted a story.
Celes felt her professional smile slip as her mouth twisted into a look of absolute horror. A reporter wanted a story. And here Celes was, the only available one to give it. Oh no. Oh no no no no no.
Celes was no stranger to stories being written about her. She’d been the ice queen soldier of the Geystahlian Empire, the first successful magitek knight and the youngest general in its history. Some of the stories she’d read. Others she’d tossed aside because she had better things to do than worry about some local gossip. But never, not in all of her life, had the reporters come directly to her for a statement. She’d had people for that. The army had people for that.
Now she was alone. The co-founder of the Dragonblades with the other founder inconveniently away. And here was a reporter for the Torensten Times looking for a story.
The reporter, Violet Vayne, extended a hand and Celes simply stared at it for a moment before she remembered proper etiquette and took it in her own, giving it a hard, assertive shake.
Violet’s hands were soft against Celes’ well-worn callouses. While Celes kept her nails short and practical, Violet’s were long, painted, and carefully filed.
How was she supposed to talk to someone like this?
The reporter gave her speech. Or was it more of an advertisement? Celes watched her the entire time she spoke, uncertain whether she still wore a look of terror or if it had morphed into her usual cool gaze. She’d been told that her resting face was rather intimidating.
What did it matter? As long as she was listening properly?
”We’re not busy today,” Celes started slowly, realizing all the while that she was digging her own grave. ”The Dragonblades don’t need more publicity, but if you think it would help other Off-Worlders…”
Oh no. There was only one answer she could give, wasn’t there? This girl with her precisely buttoned vest and immaculate blonde hair and soft hands had somehow managed to trap her with her own good will. Damn it all.
”I don’t usually give interviews,” Celes said, perhaps a little sterner than was necessary. ”But…I might as well make an exception.” Celes bit her lip, feeling suddenly small and uncertain as she waved a hand towards the sitting area of the lobby near the unlit hearth. The couch was, unfortunately, broken by that oversized mutt of a dog that Clive kept around and Celes hadn’t gotten around to replacing it and so it drooped sadly, nearly touching the floor.
Celes really, truly hoped that the reporter would take one of the other armchairs instead.
”You can take a seat if that’s easier. I don’t know how long this usually takes…” Celes followed her own advice, taking one of the two armchairs that didn’t have wolf drool stained into the cushions. She sat perched on the edge of her seat as though ready to spring into combat at any moment. It was a subconscious effect of her nerves.
Usually when she was this tense, she was about to be eaten by a monster or stabbed by some enemy combatant. Celes made a conscious effort to unclench her fists as she looked at the reporter expectantly. ”Well? What do you want to know?”
Caius broke her with that one word. It wasn’t even a word really, but a fragment of one. A silly little name and she felt her composure slip, her determinedly downcast eyes glancing up uncertainly as though she was nothing more than a half-brained fool. Caius, on the other hand, looked confident as anything, head raised, back straight, almost suave in his absolutely uncharacteristic suit. He was smiling at her. Well, at least someone was comfortable in all of this.
He told her he was glad to be back which was…good. She’d have felt slightly offended otherwise. Then he asked to “borrow” her for some food and a few drinks.
Was he asking her on a date? Now of all times? She wasn’t sure. She could never be sure with Caius.
”I…Well…” she stuttered, not quite sure how to answer. Thankfully, he took care of that too.
”A shower?” she could help but burst into a laugh, running a hand through her unruly hair as she did so. ”I would kill for a hot bath right about now.” She couldn’t help it. Now she was smiling. It wasn’t her usual guarded smile either, but something more…manic. Like a woman on the brink.
”You have no idea what I’ve been through while you’ve been gone,” she said though he could rightfully say the same to her, she supposed. ”Do you have any idea how many emergencies this city has in a month? And this time, there wasn’t anyone back home keeping the recruits in line and the paperwork filed.”
Home? Did she just call the Rest her home? She supposed she had. Honestly, she might as well have taken up permanent residence there, and maybe she would have if it wouldn’t have meant breaking the lease on her ill-used apartment.
”Fine,” she said, straightening herself back up again. ”We’ll break for a bath and a change of clothes and then reconvene here in an hour. After that…” she hesitated. After that, what exactly? ”Well, I suppose drinks aren’t the worst way to swap war stories.”
There. If she only thought about their little date like that then she could stomach it, she thought. And if Caius really wanted a trip to one of the local pubs then who was she to deny him? It might even do her some good.
[attr=class,bulk] Celes was in one of their side rooms, a plain, bare-bones kind of room with just a bed and a half-open window when she was startled awake by the sound of a bell.
Celes sat straight up, breathing heavily, heart pounding as she tried to take in her surroundings, one hand at her chest and the other grasping uselessly at her hip for a sword. Once again, she found herself in the deep humidity of a tropical climate. Once again, she heard the twittering of colorful birds out the window. Once again, she wasn’t in a ruined world of cracked earth and poisoned water, but instead, in a vibrant one that she had sworn years ago to protect with her life.
Celes held her breath, counted to ten, and then let it out slowly, pressing her forehead into her palm. She must have fallen asleep again. She had a habit of doing that lately whenever she wandered off to a quiet room to rest her eyes for a while. She was still fully dressed in her civilian clothes, boots on, legs halfway off the bed to keep the sheets clean. Her yellow jacket was slightly askew and her undershirt had slipped slightly, almost to the point of indecency. Not that there was any reason to be decent here. She was alone in the loneliest of spare bedrooms, one converted from what she thought had once been a maintenance closet.
There’d been a bell. Right. Which meant that someone ought to handle that. Celes groaned, cursed under her breath, and forced herself back on her feet, straightening her clothes as she did so.
The Wyvern’s Rest was closed today. Or at least, they were closed to mercenary business. The trainees had the day off. So did Tomoe, the receptionist. That left only the permanent residents to wander the halls. Who was that now? Mid? Terra? Clive? None of them could handle a bell ring at the front desk because a bell ring at the front desk could only mean one of two things. Either a potential client or a potential recruit. That was Celes’ business and so she did her best to run her hands through her bed-raggled hair, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and started out towards the front lobby.
She had to admit, the Wyvern’s Rest felt strangely empty without the sound of swords clashing in the courtyard. There weren’t many sounds at all, really, which wouldn’t have bothered her except that she’d grown used to them. It made her feel like she was the only one left in the entire world which happened to be her least favorite feeling despite her rather standoffish demeanor. She blamed the trauma. She was almost certainly correct.
When she came to the lobby, that feeling of loneliness dissipated to be replaced by a mask of professionalism when she saw the overdressed young woman waiting there for her. A client. She had to be. And so Celes nodded to her politely and started towards the desk, ready to take out a pen and paper to write down whatever the girl wanted and start haggling on a price.
”Welcome,” she said though in truth she wished that she hadn’t been woken from her midday nap and that this girl had stayed very well away. ”I’m Celes Chere of the Dragonblades. Is there anything I can help you with?”
[attr=class,bulk] Full disclosure? Celes Chere, ex-general and child soldier, rebel of the Returners, and co-leader of the Dragonblades felt as though she’d never been quite so tired in her entire life.
That was a lie, of course. She’d been exhausted beyond measure enough times that she could scarcely count, but this...
This was something else entirely.
Over the course of the last half year, she’d single-handedly managed the staffing of Yuna’s clinic while filling in as a woefully inadequate healing assistant for the hordes of wounded that flocked there. She’d made a mad dash across international borders to meet with an old friend and, once there, was met with perhaps the most conceited, least mature teenager she’d ever met and had vowed to instill some discipline in the irritating young ninja before the girl single-handedly ground their reputation into the dirt. Then there were the new arrivals from Valisthea…
And the siege on the castle.
And subduing the magical wolf.
And then arranging multiple releases from prison.
And managing their house arrest.
And on top of that, she’d received a letter informing her of a captured look alike that was, once again, across international lines which meant a quick trip by chocobo, a fierce battle, and then a return home.
Upon that return, she found that the couch had finally given out under the wolf’s immense weight, Yuffie’s room was filled with precious goods she could only imagine were stolen, Mid had some kind of ominous looking device sat gathering dust on her workbench, and Nerissa, who she’d placed in charge, had gone flitting off to inspect some matter of interest or another.
In short, her life was chaos. Sheer, unending chaos. One thing after another after another after yet another and she was quite close to her breaking point. She actually had broken publicly in the middle of that godforsaken prison when Mid and that eternal troublemaker Clive had both been yelling at her and she’d hardly slept and the tears had come of their own accord.
Embarrassing, that. And shameful quite frankly. She couldn’t quite look either of them in the eye which was a problem when she’d been tasked to keep them out of trouble.
Celes hardly left for her apartment anymore. The Wyvern’s Rest was her home, and she claimed one of the last empty rooms for herself to simply close her eyes for a few minutes which turned into hours as she threw an arm over her eyes and fell asleep, still clothed, boots on and all. She started abruptly at a knock on the door, sitting straight up, eyes wild and wide. It took her a moment to realize where she was, that the knock had been just that – a knock and not some harbinger of death – and for Celes to make an effort to control her rapid breaths.
Why couldn’t she just be left well alone?
”Yes?” she called back, trying to erase the grogginess from her voice.
The door opened slowly, revealing Tomoe which was, Celes had to admit, one of the better options when it came to someone wanting her attention. If Tomoe noticed her unkempt state, she didn’t make any comments. Perhaps that was because Celes was nearly always unkempt these days. Or maybe Tomoe was simply too polite.
”I hope I didn’t bother you,” Tomoe said simply, and Celes shook her head.
”I know you wouldn’t unless it was important.” Celes paused and then looked up to meet Tomoe’s eye, mentally steeling herself for whatever disaster came next. ”So? What is it?”
”Well, I thought you should know that Mr. Caius is looking for you,” she said, and Celes’ heart jumped in her chest at the idea. ”He’s downstairs. Whenever you’re ready…”
Caius. He was…back? Celes didn’t know what to say to that so she only nodded and told Tomoe that yes, she’d be down soon, and then Tomoe left again and Celes was left with her racing thoughts.
Caius! On the one hand, she felt a flood of relief. Finally someone to help her. Finally they could work together again like they always had and maybe put all this mess in order. Then came a flood of anger. Who the hell was he to leave for nearly several months for Sonora of all places and not so much as tell her why? And what had he possibly been thinking, taking in someone like Yuffie of all people, a girl who wanted so badly to be an adult that she resisted every opportunity to become one. Celes hadn’t even received a written warning for that one.
Then came the nerves. Oh yes, the nerves. She’d grown accustomed to that specific brand of Caius Nerves in the past, but whatever immunity she’d built was gone now, and her caution was back in full force, nearing on dread.
What would he be like after all this time? Had he changed? Did she want him to have changed? In some ways, certainly, but in others…
Celes shook her head, thrust herself to her aching feet, and ran her fingers through her tangled hair in a futile attempt to tame it. Would he notice the dark circles that were now a permanent feature beneath her eyes? Or the mess her hair became when she didn’t have the time to wash and brush it properly? Or the wrist brace she still wore after clashing with that stupid, hulking, behemoth of a man at the castle’s core crystal?
Oh, he would. He most definitely would. Caius wasn’t the most observant of the bunch, but even he’d notice all of that. Which just fueled her dread even further.
’How have you been?’ she liked to imagine he’d ask.
’Oh, I’m fine. Just fine.’
Which was, in fact, a blatant lie. And considering how little she liked to consider her feelings (or, goddess’ be damned, her weakness) her next hour of conversation sounded quite like the kind of cruel farce Kefka might dream up for her if she still believed that all of this was in her head.
Stupid. It was stupid to indulge in her own anxiety before she’d even spoken to Caius. But stupid or not, she just couldn’t help herself. And so she made her way downstairs a tad slower than she normally would, dreading every step.
When she finally reached the landing, she took a long, steadying breath and continued onto the lobby, shoulders back, head high like the general she’d once been.
The sight of him nearly shattered all of that in one fell swoop.
He was dressed in a suit. A suit? It didn’t fit him. Not like his usual scaled coat-jacket did. He looked tired. She supposed it was a long journey from Sonora to Torensten.
”Caius,” she said simply.
’Please don’t notice anything about me. If you could be as oblivious as I’ve always pretended you are, that would be marvelous.’
”I’m…glad you’re back.” Now, was that really the way to welcome a friend? Celes shook her head, looking down so that she didn’t have to look at him.”I mean…Welcome back. You’ve been gone a while.”
[attr=class,bulk] Torensten had fallen into its usual late afternoon haze of heat and humidity when Celes finally finished her training with the mercenaries out back, did her usual daily check on Clive and Mid (eternal headaches as they were), double-checked on Yuffie to find her mysteriously and suspiciously missing (the sense of foreboding was nearly overwhelming), and then finally came to the couch in the lobby, intent to give her feet a rest, to find a gigantic, wolf-like dog already snoozing upon it. She watched in dismay as its mammoth weight caused the couch to sink, a long string of drool hanging from its parted lips and staining the cushions.
Celes hardly had time to process her rising temper before Tomoe, the receptionist, called out to her.
”Miss Celes? There’s a letter for you.”
”Oh. Good.”
It wasn’t good. All Celes wanted to do was rest, but as the co-leader of the Dragonblades and the only one currently available, reading letters was part of the job. She slid the envelope open with a swipe of her thumbnail and scanned it quickly.
And just like that, Celes Chere was presented with a mystery.
She left the most responsible person she could think of, Nerissa, in charge as she saddled up a chocobo the following morning. Her destination? Provo.
It seemed that there was news of her doppelganger. Again. And this time, the woman in question was in dire straits.
The kind that called for the head of the Dragonblades herself to investigate. If this was what she thought…If her suspicions were correct…
Well, then that would be a problem for everyone, wouldn’t it?
Celes couldn’t in good faith call Provo pleasant this time of year. Born and raised in the iron and steel city of Vector, she wasn’t quite used to the rural atmosphere nor the oppressive heat, but she could say that it was a far cry better than the climate in Torensten. She could breathe at least without feeling like she was filling her lungs with sea water. Provo’s lesser humidity also did wonders for her hair which tended to frizz and tangle in Torensten’s almost swampy air.
It took her three days by chocobo to reach the kingdom of Provo, and then she skirted around the city altogether, heading instead for the location listed in her helpfully unhelpful excuse for a letter.
It was from a friend of Yuna’s, a potential Dragonblade if the swordsman ever got around to it. It started asking about Celes’ whereabouts and if she was still in Torensten like he’d heard. Because the other rumor this swordsman-in-training had heard was that she’d been taken captive by an unknown camp of bandits, last known coordinates included in the post script.
Given that the word “bandit” was a bit of an alarm bell at the Dragonblades HQ and that this was the second mention of a mysterious woman who looked quite like her but clearly wasn’t, Celes thought it was only fitting that she see to the situation herself.
Chances were, some intrepid outlaws had spotted her mysterious lookalike, Maria, by mistake and unknowingly taken a helpless opera singer captive in her stead. What they planned to do with her, Celes couldn’t say. If she had to guess, the Original Sin had placed quite the price on her head.
It didn’t take her long to find the encampment. Not with the letter’s directions, at least. Celes noted the marks in a makeshift path clearly made by chocobo cart and dismounted, resolving to go the rest of the way on foot. She wasn’t entirely certain how she would proceed. Stealth would be best, but she was hardly a ninja like Shadow nor a thief like Locke (not that she would ever call him such to his face). She was a soldier. And soldiers tended towards a loud and bombastic entrance.
If this was the Original Sin itself then she’d have to be careful. If it was an ordinary encampment of bandits then she’d likely scare them off after the dozenth man fell. If it was nothing more than a peaceful nomadic caravan…
She needed more information.
So she spent a little longer in the sweltering Provo heat, kneeling behind every bush she could find, inadvertently dragging her cape through burr-laden foliage that sometimes got tangled in her hair. She approached quietly (or as quietly as she could in her heeled boots), cursing the heat all the time as sweat stuck her bangs to her forehead and dripped in unpleasant streams down her neck. She cursed that she had to do this. That she couldn’t just charge in, sword drawn, magic at the ready in case she attacked an innocent band of traders or put the mysterious, look-alike hostage in danger.
For a moment, she wondered why she hadn’t brought Yuffie, a ninja, to do this kind of work for her. And then she remembered exactly why and her current circumstances felt just a little bit better for it.
Finally, she caught sight of them and miraculously they hadn’t caught sight of her. They were rather lacking in discipline that way, Celes thought as she eyed them from the edge of their clearing, noting their swords and battle axes and the sparkling hauls of jewelry and precious metals that they’d doubtlessly plundered from a trader somewhere. These were bandits, alright, and not particularly careful ones either. But she still couldn’t risk a head-on attack. Not until she located the hostage.
Thankfully, finding her wasn’t as difficult as she might have thought. She only had to follow the one man who, suspiciously, was completely unarmed except for a pail of water and an overlarge spoon. She watched him from the foliage, moving as quietly as she could through the underbrush and marveling at her target’s lack of caution. How else could she, a master of the sword and not exactly of stealth, manage to go unseen for so long? She even winced as twig after twig snapped beneath her boots, but thankfully, it must have blended into the overall forested ambiance because no one even looked up in search of her.
Hot, tired, sunburnt, and riddled with burrs that bunched against her cape and hair, Celes wasn’t exactly in the best of moods by the time she laid eyes on the poor, kidnapped woman who had been taken hostage in her stead. Celes didn’t know what these bandits were thinking, keeping the woman out in the open like this. It was a complete oversight in security, honestly, but maybe that wasn’t the point at all. As Celes watched the bandit pour a spoonful of water into the unlucky girl’s mouth, she couldn’t help but notice the welts where the girl’s hands had been tied behind her back with a thick knot of rope. The hostage was bound to a pole where there was no shade to protect her from the sun, and if Celes felt hot and sweaty beneath it then this girl must surely have been scorching under its rays.
Something much hotter welled within her as she watched this open display of cruelty. Were the bandits always so sadistic with their human cargo? Or was this a special punishment meant specifically for Celes instead? Either way, the sight of it filled her with fury that sparked the glacial magic within her until she could hardly contain it.
And so Celes waited for the water-bearer to walk a safe distance from his hostage before she stood from the foliage, clasped her hands together in a prayer, and began to recite her incantations. A chilled wind stirred at her feet as she gathered her magic, and then granted it a sharp release.
”Blizzaga!”
Icicles sprouted from the hostage-taker’s feet, engulfing him in glacial ice. There was a sharp crack and it shattered, piercing him through like spears of glass. Celes didn’t wait to watch the man’s brutal demise before she pulled her sword from its sheath and dashed from her hiding place straight towards the woman at the center of the clearing. There were other bandits about, she knew. Some even saw her, pointing and shouting while others would be lured by the sound of her magic. She ignored them all in favor of the hostage so that she had control of the situation.
Even if it meant placing herself in the middle of an ambush, she wouldn’t let this girl come to harm.
Celes had to admit that her so-called lookalike did, well, look quite a bit like her. She had pale blonde hair of approximately Celes’ length. They had the same general physique. She looked like they might be the same height, and apparently the girl even had a propensity for the color yellow.
Not that Celes was currently wearing her usual yellow jacket and pants. No, she’d donned her green leotard for this along with her pauldrons, cape, bracers, and grieves. She’d come ready for battle, not for a social hour, but still. The resemblance was a tad uncanny.
”I’ve come to help,” she told the girl hurriedly as she reached for the hostage’s bound hands. ”Hold still! I’ll cut you free.”
A sword wasn’t the best tool for precision cuts around the hands so she started, instead, by sawing her blade against the single length of rope which bound her to the pole. Her hands were still tied, but at least the girl could move. Celes didn’t have time for much more, anyway, as the bandits gathered, surrounding them both. Celes raised her sword towards the more intimidating half of them, keeping her back to the pole as though that were some kind of cover.
”Looking for me?” she called to them snidely. ”I am Celes Chere of the Dragonblades, and if you had any sense at all, you’d flee while you still can!”
