a/n: YOWZERS that html sure did break. thank you to reviewers who alerted me.
Isa has been arguing with Lea about this for over an hour, and if Lea didn't know him better, he'd think Isa was just stalling for time until Lea gave up and forgot about it. But Lea does know him better. Thinking that he would only argue his point for so long just to stall is a serious underestimation of Isa's refusal to back down until Lea admits he's right.
"I'm telling you, that's vandalism," Isa says, his arms crossed. He has said this about six times.
"It's the outer walls," Lea says for the hundredth time, rolling his eyes. "It's not like we're breaking into the castle."
"You're probably going to suggest that one next," Isa says with a raised eyebrow.
This is going to call for different tactics. Lea sighs mournfully. "Don't you want to be remembered forever?" He puts a hand on his chest dramatically; Isa rolls his eyes but doesn't respond. "To be immortalized in archaeological history? One day this city will be all covered in dirt, and they'll dig the walls out, and there we'll be. Carved in there forever."
"This city is built on a mountain," Isa snorts, but Lea sees it - a buried sparkle. "And besides. Writing your names on something is a little… couple-y."
"We're a couple - of best friends," Lea points out, and Isa covers his face with his hand.
Lea finds Sora with the Hollow Bastion Restoration Crew, nailing wooden scaffolds for a project to rebuild a southeastern section of the outer walls. Large chunks of rubble lies in piles all around them, small mountains of cracked stone and mortar. "We're going off-world in ten minutes," Lea says to him, acutely aware of Leon's eyes on his back.
Sora nods, standing up, dusting himself off. "Gotcha," he says, and makes his goodbyes to the rest of the crew. Lea eyes the wreckage. One large section has some odd marks near the edge where it was sheared away from the rest of the wall. They look like small, partial letters, carved with a stolen chisel and the application of a Fire spell to soften the stone. At this angle, it's hard to tell what they were meant to spell.
"What's up?" Sora's voice comes from near Lea's elbow, and he realizes he's been spacing out. Lea shakes himself.
"It's nothing, it's just…" He shuts his eyes. "When I was a kid, I thought these walls would never fall."