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year 5, quarter 3
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[attr=class,bulk] Meliadoul agreed to their walk, and Celes started slightly ahead of her, going down the lovely flower-lined paths that she’d already grown accustomed to during her brief time in Provo. Part of her wondered why she’d invited this woman, a complete stranger, to come along with her. It seemed a strange thing to do, really, and not particularly in character for her. The other part of her longed for conversation. It was very much like her, after all, to be completely surrounded by people and yet still find herself somehow lonely.
It was a little sad when she thought of it that way. She refused to feel sorry for herself.
”Hm. Well, my life isn’t exactly light either, but I think I know a few.” Celes didn’t exactly know what stories were appropriate to tell a stranger and which weren’t. She’d never learned such things in the military, unfortunately, but she thought she understood where Meliadoul was coming from. If her life was anything like Celes’ then there weren’t many personal tales that could be told around a campfire for a laugh.
’Well, it all started when I was orphaned in the war, you see. Then I was given magic as a kind of human test subject. You know, the usual childhood.’
Thankfully, her life hadn’t all been military conquest, rebellion, and tragedy. Well, it had, but she’d had a few friends to accompany her along the way. And their stories together were…
They were something.
”After I left the military, I was scouted by the rebellion. To keep things brief, I won’t go into it, but let’s say I didn’t really have anywhere else to go at the time. The rebels weren’t exactly what I’d thought they would be. There was a lecherous king who happened to be an inventor, his martial artist brother who’d lived in the mountains fighting bears for the last ten years, a knight who spoke with the strangest dialect, and a feral wild boy that they picked up in the plains. There was also a thief who insisted he be called a treasure hunter. He’s the one who convinced me to go along with all of this. He’d saved my life so I agreed.”
Celes already felt a little lighter just talking about them. They were a strange bunch, that was for sure, but she really did miss them terribly.
”We decided to go back into the heart of the empire, but we needed an airship to do it. Unfortunately, the only civilian-owned airship on the entire continent belonged to a half-insane man with a gambling addiction. We needed an audience with him, but had no idea how to get one. That was, until we learned that he’d been stalking an opera diva who was performing that night. Apparently, I looked just like this woman. And they all had a truly awful idea.”
She laughed to herself. The memory wasn’t exactly a pleasant one, but with enough time, she could see the humor in it.
”They had me dress up as the opera star and perform that night. It was absolutely terrible. I have no idea how I wasn’t booed off stage. But it worked. Halfway through the performance, the airship pilot kidnapped me. I convinced him to join our cause with a coin toss. Heads, he’d help us. Tails, I’d marry him. It was a double-headed coin.”
Celes shook her head. Despite everything, she missed Setzer too. He was crazy. He was depressed. He had an unhealthy attitude towards women. But she missed him anyway.
”And that was how we secured our airship. With an opera and a coin toss.” She smiled at Meliadoul. ”That’s probably the most ridiculous story I have.”
[attr=class,bulk] Celes liked to think that she had a decent poker face. It was good enough that she’d won a few rounds of the game against Setzer, at least, and that had to count for something. She liked to think that she was, if not an expert at keeping her reactions in check, at least something of an adept. But there were some things so truly unexpected that no reasonable person could be expected to stay professional. Alex’s reaction to her name was one of them.
”Wh-what?” Celes blinked at him, mouth opened slightly in a mix of confusion and revulsion. ’I am the luckiest guy right now.’ What was that supposed to mean?
”I’m not…I mean…” Celes stuttered, not sure what to say or do. She felt her cheeks heat with a blush. ”Are you sure you know who I am?”
Surely, if he did then he wouldn’t consider himself lucky right now. Surely, he’d have heard her reputation for destroying every man she came across and ripping Caius’ heart out or whatever they liked to titter at the marketplace? Or was that why he admired her? Was it because he hated Caius? Or maybe he was into that kind of thing…?
Celes suppressed a shudder. She did not want to think about that.
Then he continued. Celes felt her mouth fall open in surprise.
”You think…?” she started, and then she burst out laughing. It was all so…ridiculous though perhaps the strangest part was that he wasn’t far off base. In fact, he might have just hit a bullseye.
”Why yes, I do run the day-to-day. I also train the recruits, accept missions, and do most of the administrative work, but that was by choice. I grew up in the military. I used to be a general where I’m from. The fit was natural.” She pushed back a lock of her hair, shifting her weight onto her hip. ”I have no idea how Caius would handle it all because he’s never tried. We decided early on who was a better fit for what. I’m sure he’ll be fine.
”It’s not as though I don’t know my way around a sword. We’ve done several of our more dangerous jobs together. He made a better fit to be the face of the organization. That’s all.”
Still, it was nice to get such a recognition, and from someone who hated the Dragonblades at that. He might have just been hoping that Caius would fail without her, but still…
She couldn’t honestly say that a small, terrible part of her didn’t hope for the same.
This break would be good for her. Maybe it would help to get rid of thoughts like that.
”So you have experience tracking monsters?” she asked once their conversation had moved on. ”Alright. I’ll come with you. Why not?” It might be interesting if nothing else, and currently the job at hand looked a tad too crowded for her tastes. The quicker she could leave this overpacked bar the better.
”I, ah, don’t know what you mean by my height, but I should be fine. I have a chocobo outside. Unless you had something else in mind?”
Celes watched as he went on like an actor on stage, performing his lines with too much passion for it to be real. Celes didn’t have much experience with plays. Really, she only had the opera, but that was still what immediately came to mind. He was an actor, and she was his captive audience, following along as he paced the hall until he came to a stop and his fist against a wall, holding back tears.
Celes watched him. She would definitely need Caius for this.
”I don’t care how you look,” she said. ”It’s because you keep talking in riddles.” Kefka hadn’t spoken in riddles. He’d spoken in jokes that only he understood that were painted in blood and cured in fire. Astos didn’t give her that vibe, but there was still something off here. Something she didn’t trust.
’Or you’re being paranoid towards a poor traumatized man with a skin condition,’ she reminded herself. She sighed.
”Sorry, it’s just…been a long day.” She rubbed her eyes and then looked back at him. ”I think you should talk to Caius. He has connections. If you really want to see the palace crystals, he’ll be the one who can get you in.”
Assuming Caius trusted him more than Celes did. She really hoped he didn’t.
”I’ll take you to the Wyvern’s Rest. That’s the Dragonblades’ headquarters. I don’t know if Caius is in now or not, but you can wait there until he is. We have spare beds and tea and…snacks.”
What was she talking about?
”It’s a better place to wait around than here anyway. With your…condition someone might try to start trouble if you keep wandering around asking about the king and the crystals.” Someone with less patience than her. Someone with perhaps a little more sense.
[attr=class,bulk] So far, this day had been in a word baffling. She’d expected trouble, certainly. She’d expected for the so called haunted house to be, well, haunted. But there was still so much that didn’t connect. Why had the boy dressed like some kind of undead monster and startled them? Why had he seemed to think them crazy? Why had he insisted that the house wasn’t haunted when the furniture was moving on its own accord?
’At least it hasn’t attacked us,’ she thought right before it did, indeed, attack them.
Celes felt the hum of magic and raised her arms instinctively, crossing her bracers in front of herself as a guard as a warm breeze struck her and burst into flames. She winced at the heat. It was painful, but not unmanageably so. Their attacker (whether it be a ghost or the candles themselves) had chosen to disperse the spell’s power across multiple targets. She’d weathered worse.
Mu gave the order to focus on the candles, and Celes nodded in agreement. While the ninja swept forward with some kind of magical dance, Celes brought her hands together and muttered a spell of her own. She didn’t waste much magic on them. They were candles after all, and she had a feeling that her specific brand of magic would be something of a weakness for them.
”Blizzara!”
The air chilled, cracked, and then burst with piercing spears of ice centered on the candles above them. As the ice shattered, the candles extinguished and dropped, clattering to the dusty floor. Celes shook her head, pushing back her hair.
”It looks like something doesn’t want us here.” She looked at the table blocking the hallway. ”And it doesn’t want us going any further. Which means we must be onto something.”
She approached the table and grabbed it by the top corner. ”I don’t suppose I could just…?” She tugged on it, but it wouldn’t budge. It was like something had sealed it to the doorframe, or perhaps like some invisible force was beside her, pushing it into place. She sighed. ”Of course not.”
She stepped back and looked at Mu. ”I don’t suppose you have something that could make a path? It’s too thick to cut with my sword.” Obviously. The table was made of wood. But she was interested to see if the ninja had something in mind.
[attr=class,bulk] The man’s wounds were closed. Whatever internal wounds he’d sustained had likely stitched themselves back together by now as well. Still, the man wasn’t conscious and Celes thought that must have been its own kind of blessing. His eyes were closed. His forehead was slicked with cold sweat. His breaths were shallow, but not quite the death rattle that meant it was all hopeless. Still, without donor blood, his chances were slim and there wasn’t much that either of them could do about it. She longed for plasma, for saline, for some kind of substitute but they had none and there wasn’t much else that they could do for him.
Yuna must have known that as well because she took the chance to rummage through her cabinets for an ether. She downed it between words, still speaking to her as casually as though she had a dying man on her table every other day. She likely did.
”Torensten is as lively as ever,” Celes said, leaning back against the wall. Her head was beginning to swim from her overuse of magic. Curaga was an intensive spell, one that she couldn’t cast forever. She wondered how many ethers Yuna must have in stock to have kept this up as long as she had. ”They’re still rebuilding from the floods. The docks took the worst hit, but you know Torensten. They always have an emergency construction team on standby.”
That didn’t really answer her question though, did it? Yuna had asked why she needed a change. Celes let out a breath.
”It’s not that I hate the city, it’s more that I hated…” Well, hate was the wrong word, wasn’t it? It was the wrong word, but maybe it wasn’t quite as wrong as she’d thought. ”I hated how Caius treated me.”
She winced at her own honesty. Yuna was close to Caius, wasn’t she? Celes was close to Caius. She didn’t hate Caius – not at all – but it was hard to remember that sometimes when she was trapped in their headquarters handling every little detail of the administration while he was off having adventurers and making a name for himself and having statues erected in his honor. Caius was appreciative, of course, and grateful and respectful and he would be the first one to correct any misconceptions about her to the public, but still…
It was enough to make her hate every last bit of it.
”I’ve never liked staying in one place anyway,” she went on. ”It was nice having somewhere to build a life, I suppose, but it never felt quite right. I’m sure it will all run fine without me for a while. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.”
Celes looked back to the dying man with his sweat-slicked skin, sticky with his own blood. He wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting any better either. ”I think we’ve done all we can,” she said. ”Was that his wife in the other room? Maybe we should clean him up and let her see him?”
If this went wrong, if he took a turn for the worse, she would likely want to be at his side.
”Then I can move on to help the people in the lobby while you watch over him. Though I have no idea what to do for the frog.”
[attr=class,bulk] It was nice, Celes decided, talking to a woman who seemed to be on the same page as her for once. It was nice making little jokes about life in the army and how strange it was to be out of it. It was nice hearing of her father, and meeting someone who knew her way around a battlefield.
Celes hardly knew this woman, but it was nice to meet a kindred spirit all the same.
The soldier, Meliadoul, could even tell someone’s stance by looking at them, and Celes smiled sheepishly. ”Is it that obvious?” she asked. She certainly didn’t feel battle ready. She felt silly in her light jacket and yellow pants knitted together at the seams. She liked the look of them. She liked the look of her earrings as well and her half pulled back hair and the decorative scarves she kept tied around her waist. She liked the look of it, but that look was one of a civilian, and she was, as Meliadoul aptly noted, unarmed.
But she was ready, wasn’t she? ’Ever ready for even the slightest of maneuvers against her.’ Celes might have been dressed like a civilian, but some things could never leave her. No matter where she went, no matter what she wore, she would always be a soldier.
”I’ve been here for…gods, I suppose it’s been over three years now. I still don’t feel like I’ve really adjusted.” She shook her head and looked down the path that Meliadoul’s admirer had disappeared down. It seemed to lead back to town, back to the markets and the hustle or people and gil. Celes was struck by a sudden sense of loneliness at the thought of it all. She didn’t belong here. Not really. She missed…
Well, she didn’t miss anything about where she’d come from, really, but the people…
She missed the people.
”I have plenty of stories if you want to hear them though of course I’ll need to hear a few of yours as well. I’ve heard of so many different worlds since I came here. Some of them, I’m half convinced are just tall tales.” She laughed a little and turned back towards the pond. There was a lovely path around it, winding this way and that through the flowers and the half-cover of the autumn trees.
”Why don’t we walk? I came out here to get some air. The city can be a bit stifling, honestly.”
[attr=class,bulk] So he didn’t mean Caius? Celes struggled to understand what it was that he was trying to say. Who was the homewrecker? And who stole his dog? The man was a rambling well of contradictions, all mixed together with an aftertaste of alcohol. Celes sighed as he rambled on. He didn’t seem to like Caius at any rate, and he seemed to have daydreams of barging into the Dragonblades headquarters and “taking them all on,” as he said.
Celes was starting to wonder if she should monitor him as a potential threat.
Whatever she thought of him, she held her tongue and let him speak. He was extremely concerned for the safety of the griffons, it seemed. Strangely concerned, but she supposed they were rather majestic animals. If he had a soft spot for them, she really couldn’t blame him.
But her priority was and always had been the safety of people. If they were a threat to travelers then she’d do whatever she thought was necessary to protect them, no matter the cost.
Alex charged through his plan which wasn’t really much of a plan at all. He thought the griffons must be threatened by something else and that they simply had to find whatever that was. He spoke as though finding the source of stress behind griffon attacks would somehow be possible and skipped over any ideas on how to do so. Still, he seemed to come to some kind of conclusion of his own, clapping his hands and moving on rather quickly to what he seemed to think was an agreement.
”We?” she asked, eyebrow raised. She certainly hadn’t agreed to work with him, no matter how much of a “master monster hunter” he claimed himself to be. Still, he seemed like the kind of person that she shouldn’t let out of her sight. Not until she knew what he was capable of, at least, and so she sighed, shaking her head. ”Fine. I’ll go into the mountains with you. It’s not like I’m in any hurry right now.”
Which was unusual for her, really. She always had something to do – some kind of work to be done – but she’d left that behind for the time being. This was proving to be quite the start to her so called vacation.
He introduced himself with the kind of ego that entirely failed to impress her. She watched him coolly, arms crossed, as she answered his question.
”Celes Chere, cofounder of the Dragonblades.” No frills. No flashing hands. She had nothing to prove to him. ”If we’ll be working together then I suppose you should know that I specialize in magic. Do you prefer a forward position or support? I can do either.”
No matter what she thought of the man (and she did not think kindly), this was officially a business matter, and they had work to do. ”Do you have any leads on our target?”
[attr=class,bulk] Despite the inherent awkwardness of the situation, the other woman didn’t seem to mind the stranger’s advances. In fact, she smiled. Was this how women usually acted when approached like this? If it had been Celes in her shoes, she probably would have called the man out for following her, refused the flower, and sent him on his way. The thought made Celes even more uncomfortable than she already was, which was quite the feat in itself.
The two promised to meet at the park later, and after a few bashful nods, the man left. Celes shifted her weight, not really sure what to do or say. Had mercenary work made her too suspicious? Or had that come from working with rebels?
Once the man was out of sight, the green-clad woman let out a sigh. She turned and bowed her head to Celes. ”Apologies if I caught your attention, miss. Once a soldier, always a soldier.”
Celes couldn’t help a laugh. It was a short, awkward laugh, but it was something.
”I know that feeling,” she said. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Somewhere across the pond, a bird was calling. She wondered what it was doing, what it looked like. ”I used to be a general. Some habits are hard to break.”
The woman certainly looked the part of the soldier with her heavy golden armor and sheathed broadsword at her side. What kind of idiot man would think to startle such a woman? He was lucky to have escaped with his life.
”I’m Celes, by the way. Sorry to have bothered you. He really was suspicious.” She shook her head. ”Well, I hope he’s learned his lesson about sneaking up on women in the park.”
[attr=class,bulk] The man before her was…well, strange felt like an understatement. The slight sense of unease she’d felt at the sight of him had ratcheted up to full on suspicion as his eyes bore into her, alight with interest as soon as he heard that she was from another world. Of course, he went on to explain that he was the same, but there was something about it that just felt…
Wrong.
”Needless to say, I find myself cast in the same role of outsider if you get my meaning.”
”I don’t see how I couldn’t.” Celes tried to keep up her smile. She really did, but she was tired of these useless riddles. How many people had she told of their strange situation? How many people had been lost and worried and been in need of an explanation? How many times had she had this exact conversation, and yet, this man was different somehow. It struck her then that his interest in her origins didn’t match his confusion.
He hadn’t asked her any questions about it at all.
Instead, he went on to ponder over Caius and the Kraken. He had a lot to say about it, really, and then he finally told her what he wanted with the king. He seemed to be in much higher spirits now, chatting her up whether she wanted it or not. She half listened to him. The other half of her was too busy trying to piece together what it all meant beneath the surface.
He felt dangerous. He felt wrong in a way that Celes couldn’t put her finger on. Was she just being distrustful? Was she too traumatized to tell reality from her own paranoia anymore?
She didn’t know. She’d have to warn Caius about this.
”He definitely won’t be happy about the statue,” she said once she had the chance to speak. ”As for fiends…Well, there was the Lich before this. It took out an entire city before it was stopped. Caius was there too if you wanted to hear more.” She paused. When she said it like that, it was really no wonder why he was the one getting the statue.
Not that she would ever want one for herself of course.
”Then there was Chaos. It flattened about a third of Torensten before it was stopped. I helped with disaster relief.” And that was not a memory she liked revisiting. The flames, the ash, cries of despair. It all felt far too much like home.
”I don’t know anything about the crystals in the city though I can tell you they’re not the ones that matter. Wherever there’s a crystal, that’s where the fiends appear. They’ve corrupted a few of them now. We’ve had to purify them before their influence could spread.” Some part of her felt like she shouldn’t be telling the suspicious stranger about such artifacts of power. A greater part told her that he should not under any circumstances be brought to see the king. But this much was fairly common knowledge. He’d hear about the crystals eventually if he kept asking about it all.
She didn’t miss that the stranger had called her stupid and incurious either. ’I guess others can accept the mysteries of such things without immediately looking for answers.’ She felt her gaze turn scathing. Did he really think that she wouldn’t notice if he used big enough words? Or did he just not care that he’d insulted her?
”Of your friends, what’s his name?”
”Caius,” Celes answered curtly. Whatever patience she’d once had was waning. ”I wouldn’t mind introducing you. But why do you care so much about crystals and fiends? Or heroes for that matter?” She watched him carefully, gauging his reaction. ”It’s a little strange, isn’t it?”
[attr=class,bulk] Provo. It wasn’t Celes’ favorite city, but she didn’t mind it terribly. It was a nice change of pace, she thought, as she walked along the cobblestone streets that lined the city’s canals. The water was shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight, and she saw a few ducks idly bobbing along under the next bridge. The air was alive with the ambient sounds of people talking, birds singing, and boats sluicing along from one port to the next. It wasn’t quiet here by any means, but it was certainly less crowded than Torensten. It was less humid too. She couldn’t say that she missed the stifling, tropical heat.
She’d come here for a break. A change of pace, she’d thought, though she still didn’t know what good it would do her. This was certainly a change, but for what? Would it really do her any good? She’d been kept so busy helping Yuna with her patients that she hadn’t really had a chance to find herself, and then there was the incident at Provo’s Harvest Festival…
The less said about that the better.
She passed one of the many streetside marketplaces, and heard raised voices among the crowd. Something in her twitched to turn, to move, to march right in there and make sure there wasn’t any trouble. That’s what she would have done in Torensten, but she had special jurisdiction there that she didn’t have here. There, she was a peacekeeper, a member of the Dragonblades, someone with an unofficial approval from the head of state. Here, she was no one but herself, dressed down to her civilian’s clothes without any armor or weapons or anything but the magic she carried inherently.
What were the odds that she’d need any of that in a place like this?
Her path took her across the bridge and down two streets to a park near Provo’s central plaza. It was a lovely place, really. The trees swayed in the crisp autumn breeze, their leaves dry and colorful as they crackled together. The grass was slightly overgrown with late season clovers and wildflowers. There was a pond nearby where a flock of ducks was bobbing and muttering themselves. It was the kind of place that couldn’t have existed back in her world, the kind that still felt wrong and uneasy no matter how hard she tried to quell the feeling. It spelled danger somewhere in the back of her mind. Somewhere like this was just asking to burn.
Celes took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside. She’d never get any better if she didn’t. Those thoughts were irrational, she knew. So for now, she’d just…put on a smile and walk through the park. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
She was just admiring a collection of lovely pumpkin sculptures and telling herself that this was fine, completely safe and definitely fine when she heard a woman’s voice not far away. She couldn’t make out all the words, but she could hear the tone, cold and threatening, and was there something about violence?
Celes turned and started walking, faster now. She cursed herself for not bringing her sword.
She saw two figures down the path – one a woman dressed in a green cloak with golden armor and the other a man armed with daggers and carrying an overstuffed pack on his back. The woman hadn’t turned to him, but instead stood confidently with her hand on her sword.
Celes stepped forward, hoping that her presence at least might be enough to stop any budding conflict. ”Is there a problem?” she asked, shooting a sharp look towards the man. Most petty thieves would back down if they realized that they weren’t as alone as they’d once thought. Or if they thought they might be outnumbered.
But the man for his part looked more surprised than anything. His color faded as he looked between them then swallowed heavily. ”N-No! No problem here! I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just…” He took a deep breath, straightened himself, and stepped forward.
”I wanted you to have this!”
He thrust out a single yellow and red flower, sweating profusely. Celes felt her mouth fall open.
Oh.
”I saw you in the marketplace,” the man went on. ”And I…I know I’m just an adventurer! Nothing special! But…But you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen! I was wondering if you’d want to…to…”
Celes felt her heart sink. She wondered if she should slip away now while she had the chance. She wanted to jump in the pond never to resurface again.
The man balled his fists, stood up straight, and finally spat out, ”Do you want to get dinner with me?”
As it happened, this day had been too good to be true. This just wasn’t exactly the disaster that Celes had been expecting. If given the choice, she might have picked the fire and brimstone.
