A grown woman, with dark brown eyes and hair smiles and laughs at her customers. Her hair is worn in a braid with a pink ribbon, in honour of a woman she can barely remember. She wears cream, an angelic figure in a grubby bar that's seen better days.
Someone asks if it's true she was raised in AVALANCHE. She smiles and rolls her eyes. "I grew up in a bar."
No one notices she doesn't say no.
A man, with brown flyaway hair to his chin hands a man a package. He wears casual clothes, suited for life on a motorcycle. The vest under his jacket and his leather gloves are black, in honour of the foster-father he barely knew.
"That'll be four hundred Gil." He says, handing over a Lockheart Delivery clipboard. The man nods and signs, before handing over the cash.
He mentions a rumour he'd heard the other day, about a SOLDIER brat becoming a delivery boy. He'd only mentioned it because he knew that this particular delivery boy had mentioned suffering from geostigma as a child.
"My parents went down with Sector Seven sir. As far as I know, neither were SOLDIERS." He replies, calmly. "Geostigma was funny that way, you never knew why you had it."
The man nods and laughs, agreeing. He doesn't ask further questions.
A well-dressed man with silvery hair comes to the little bar in Edge. He exchanges pleasantries with the woman, and the delivery man who's filling in as bartender for the night. A sort of hush lies on the usually rowdy clientele. They know who the man is, but they can't fathom why the President of WRO would be in their bar.
Slowly, their nerve breaks and they leave the bar. The angel sighs and scolds the President for scaring away her customers.
He apologises, amused. The delivery man comes over and sits two stools down from the President. They wait for the President to state his case. He asks them for their help, but they simply smile sadly and shake their heads.
"The world needs heroes." The president states, finally.
The children (for that is what they'll always be to him, children) stiffen.
Finally, the delivery boy stands. "There's no heroes here sir. Just me an' my wife."
"We run a bar and a shipping company." The angel states. "We're not heroes."
The President leaves, and calls his transport. While he's waiting, he glances over his shoulder at the bar.
"The Seventh Corel." He reads, a sad smile playing on his lips. Two homes, two mass graves that these strange grown-up children will honour, even when all others have forgotten.
Inside the bar, Marlene reaches out for Denzel's hand, a habit from childhood neither wish to outgrow.
"We're not heroes." She repeats, attempting to convince them both.
Denzel smiles at her sadly. "Just survivors who know how to fight." He finishes, completing their mantra.
The only people who think children are carefree are the ones who've forgotten their own childhood.
-Orson Scott Card
