Semblance
By tami
The young woman with the hair of burnished gold framing her face, swarthy from wind and sun, stood behind the counter, wiping a glass with a cloth. The cerulean blue of her irises were the exact color of the ocean as it was known to Guldove, a deep and rich azure with few spikes of other coloring touching upon the most impressive and dominant blue. It went well with the tawny mane that was held back by two thick oak green bands into a pair of ponytails.
She looked up when she felt the breeze brushing against her heart-shaped face, signaling the door sweeping open and someone's entrance; most likely a customer. Strange. Ever since that Terra Tower had become an ever-present entity looming sullenly over the horizon, people had suddenly decided that they weren't being pious enough. They spent all their time at the chapel praying, fearful of not being able to redeem their sins in time for the upcoming apocalypse. And god forbid that they would step in and indulge in spirits, one of the most appalling sins of all, they suddenly remembered. She had been somewhat disgruntled; she was religious too, but nothing could make her stop drinking, not even the threat of an eternity of hellfire, damn it! (Well, maybe. But that was when she would be an old geezer with a failing liver and no desire to drink anything stronger than milk anyways.)
The one intruding on Ohrla's quiet time swaggered up to the counter and sat down on one of the barstools, so that he faced her. Ohrla noted that he had big eyes, a misted opal gray infused with a slight silvery sheen. They reminded her of a cat's; cunning and rather smug with a self-centered air, but capable of being very affectionate when rubbed the right way. His long bangs would have probably covered them up, only a strip of white cloth held them in check, spanning his forehead.
He was tanned like her, only the golden tone wasn't as deep as hers. So he was probably from mainland. Gods, the people there could be so sickly pale that they gave the islanders the impression that they were as afraid of sunlight as the morbid wraiths. Ohrla had seen for herself when Serge had dragged her to some big ship. A lady had been there, very petite in appearance and clutching a staff so ornate that it was more like a scepter in her dainty hands. They had told her she was a noble lady, but for a fleeting moment Ohrla thought that the team had recruited a zombie (a pretty one). How could anyone who wasn't dying or died have such pallor?
"Hi, Ohrla. Remember me?" The stranger said, smiling as if the question were a challenge.
Ohrla's mind drew a blank. She knew this guy? She wasn't sure. If she had met this young man before, it should have been difficult to forget him; how many people had scars decorating their faces as if they were freckles?
"Of course."She answered, vigorously rubbing the mug, stalling for time. "How nice to see you again."
She thumped the glass down on the wooden counter. Distracted, the young man instinctively turned his head to see where the sound had come from. His right check became visible to the barkeeper. She saw the thin, neat cross marring his face and something clicked within her mind.
"Glenn!"
He redirected his attention to her and nodded. (Not in a pleased way, Ohrla observed.)
"How have you been doing?" he asked, a little absentmindedly.
"Fine." Ohrla mumbled, not wanting to disclose too much information to him. She had identified him, but she still couldn't remember a single thing besides his name. For all she could recall at this moment, he could have been one of the past dates that she had thrashed and dumped into the ocean like so much refuse when their advances became a bit too vulgar.
"Oh, really? Everyone else here is gone. A fisherman by the docks said that they were with the village elder, repenting for their sins. He seemed kind of annoyed. Strange how the end of the world can make some people paranoid and others skeptics, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"The others think it's funny. They feel really depressed about it and all, but.when they see civilians panicking, there's a certain satisfaction in not being left in the dark."
She nodded politely, forcefully, as she scanned the contents of her brain, trying to figure out who "the others" would be. She caught the expectant expression on the person sitting from across of her, his feline eyes challenging her to make a reply.
"The others." she murmured just before things got awkward.
"Yes. What about them?" He prompted her, a slight quiver of a mocking smile upsetting the set expression of his sun darkened face.
Orhla wasn't about to let him get away with that.
"What are they up to now?"
"As far as I know, they're scouring the ocean for a flying machine"
Orhla wondered if it was appropriate to give off a very false laugh. Maybe then this guy would get the hint. (Company not welcome). Then again, she wasn't quite sure if he wasn't playing exactly that game. Why else was he being so sarcastic?
Apparently his turn at their mental chess game wasn't over yet.
"And life continues for most of them. Like you. Like me. Useless members."
"Uh."
"Well, for the situation at hand, anyway."
"Er."
He gave her a very condescending grin.
"What's the matter? Can't think of anything to say?" he asked her, his feigned sincere tone teasing her openly. Orhla could almost see the word "Checkmate," scrawled over his impudent half-grown features.
"Glenn, not much goes around here." She started hotly, feeling her face grow red. Then her face contorted in a wide-eyed flash of sudden enlightenment. The others. The world being in mortal peril. It all came together.
"Oh, it's you!" she burst out involuntarily, a mixture of irked dislike and sudden recognition flooding into her expressive eyes.
"Yeah." He drew out the single syllable so it sounded the same way as if he were uttering a derogatory remark, such as "duh." Locking death glares with his female counterpart who looked as if she were about to explode at the way he had implied that she had a sub average intelligence, he followed up with a complimentary dose of annoyance: "Me."
"Well, what the hell do you want?" she snarled. Now that she knew that she wasn't obligated to be cordial on the risk of offending a stranger, she felt that rudeness was an inadequate sort of revenge for the mind games.
He shrugged, unknowingly provoking Ohrla to further irritation at the vague gesture.
"There's nothing to do. Serge's down in the ocean, like I said."
"Why pick on me?" she growled
"Doc said that you were a good conversationalist."
"Yeah, I can believe that. You sailed from another continent just to talk to me."
"That's right." He snapped back mildly.
Disgruntled, Orhla turned her back to him and placed the glass that she had been wiping and had set down back on the shelf. She reached for another one, and started to clean that one, deliberately keeping her silence as if she could meditate with a young man in possession of a bad sense of humor in the same room.
Several minutes passed. Orhla continued to tousle her glassware with a towel, and one could say that she almost forgot about Glenn's presence, staring at his image in the reflective surface of the polished wood. It really was a nice day; the sun streamed in through the cut out holes in the walls, it's yellow white illumination setting the room and the objects in it into a pale rendition of ghostly transparency. The muted highlights brightening sections of the furniture and limbs, alighting the glass mugs hung upon a series of hooks attached to the wall like lanterns, rendered the bar into a golden chamber, pastel and a perfect environment for reminiscing.
Orhla had her own thoughts, as did Glenn, but neither was really too peeved about their rocky reintroduction and their minds were elsewhere. The soothing rhythmic rush of the ocean outside and an occasional keening cry of a seabird was an effective stimulant for idle, wistful thoughts, and opportune minutes meant for nostalgia should not be squandered with being cross with someone else.
"I'm not going away, Orhla."
A sigh, soft and absentminded, but not angry.
"No, I suppose not."
A comfortable pause took place while each of them lapsed into a state of relaxation. Glenn leaned forward and rested his chin on folded arms upon the plank of light-gilded oak, and Ohrla rested her body weight against the same ledge, her fingers adeptly swiping the glass of another tankard over and over again.
"Well. What?" Orhla asked, keeping her eyes on the smudge she intended to get rid of.
She sensed Glenn hesitating. Used to reluctant troubled residents stumbling into her bar for a drink and some advice, she patiently waited for him to speak, knowing that eventually the words would come.
"Tell me about your sister." He said, finally.
She twisted her head around to look at him, puzzled. The expression on his face was somber at best, so she merely shrugged and went back to her cleaning.
"Tia? How do you know about her?"
"The more sentimental members of the party."
"She was-is-my twin. I'm older than her by 3 minutes. I was the tomboy, but neither one of was too ladylike. I was Daddy's little hellion; she was Momma's helper. But really, they didn't play favorites. We just spilt up the household duties that way. She was lost for a while, but I managed to find her again, even if I couldn't keep it that way." It was the easiest way to put it.
Glenn didn't want easy.
"I didn't want to know about that."
Ohrla wondered at his unhappy tone of voice.
"What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about when you were kids. What did you do?"
Ohrla rolled her eyes.
"We were kids. What were we supposed to do? We went swimming, played with the other kids, and tormented our parents and the other adults."
"Together?"
Ohrla snickered.
"I am so sick of people who think that twins are supposed to be joined at the hip." She glanced over to Glenn, thinking he would blush and apologize. It was customary, after all. He wasn't even smiling. There was actually a bit of a forlorn frown on his face. She sighed again, going back to the rubbing of her cup.
"Yes. Together." She conceded, thinking he really was the most depressing person she had ever met.
"Why?"
She snorted, albeit in a feminine sort of way.
"Cuz', no matter who else was with us when we were apart, there was no way to be 'together' for either one of us unless it was Tia and Orhla." She said quietly, a trace of slight surprise at her own answer flickering over her face. Not that Glenn could see.
"Why were you two so close?"
"And why are you so nosy?" she threw back, suddenly sullen. She hunched over her work, cobalt eyes glittering.
"Sorry." Glenn murmured, although you could tell he wasn't really sorry at all. Then he added. "How, then?"
"How?" Ohrla responded incredulously. " How what?"
"How were you two close? What did you two do when you were young that forced you to go back to being 'together' after so long?"
She tilted her head back to stare up at the ceiling.
"You already know the entire story, don't you? Her death and all." She droned, unintentionally. "One of the others must have told you."
"Yeah. The part about love beyond the grave too."
Orhla quickly snapped back to her normal, cheerful self, stoic smile and all.
"Then what else matters? We're still 'together', then. I'm happy, to a certain point." Glenn didn't doubt the truth in the statement for a second.
"I know." There was a disturbed note in his reply. Ohrla looked up.
"I just want to know how you can possibly find someone, loose her, and be happier than-" Glenn's breath caught.
Orhla finally turned around, putting away her cloth and the glass. Glenn eyes were downcast, but his overall stance was apathetic.
"Are you unhappy, Glenn? Is that it?"
"No. I don't think I feel like anything."
"No one feels nothing."
"I know." He lifted his eyes, and Orhla really could see there was a pretense of void in that field of blank, unperturbed gray. "That's just it."
"What's wrong?"
Glenn shook his head and laughed, a very childish sound.
"Nothing's wrong! My brother's dead . . . well, not . . . Yeah, he's dead."
There was nothing to be said to something as dismal as that. Ohrla felt her heart squeeze painfully in her chest in sympathy for the young man, and yet at the same time, at the back of her head she knew that something wasn't quite right.
"I'm sorry." She offered tentatively.
Glenn blinked, genuinely confused.
"You mean no one's ever told you?" he inquired, raising an arched, dark eyebrow at her. "My brother's been dead for over four years now."
"Oh." She mumbled, weakly. "Then why mention-I mean why did you-?"
"Two worlds. Two of us." Glenn sighed, ignoring her stammers. "Well, not exactly, I guess."
Ohrla was mystified.
"What are you talking about?" she demanded.
Glenn drummed his fingers on the counter top. "You know that a lot of the party members have duplicates in the second world, right?" he instructed her as if she were a five year old. "Well, there used to be a Glenn in the other world, but he died. But as for you, there never was an Ohrla. She never existed. I think Tia's presence was enough."
"Your point being?"
"Maybe you had to be taken apart because the other world needed someone like you-or-her- too."
"So the other world would have collapsed in on itself if a person a lot like me didn't get transported there? Huh. I guess I must be just that original." She said wryly.
"I suppose." Glenn said darkly.
"I see. What does this have to do with your mood?"
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."
"Then what's up?"
"They found my brother in the other world. I mean, his counterpart."
Orhla's back went stiff as Glenn watched her, but a moment later, the tension seemed to staunch out of her. Then she grinned at him. "You must be thrilled." It came out as sarcastic as she surveyed his glum face.
"Whatever. He was on a little island. I'm not even going to go into all that crazy crap about cursed swords and the fight."
"Whaaa-?"
"Forget it."
"I don't understand. Shouldn't you be happy?"
"Yes."
"But you're not."
"You're right. I'm not."
Ohrla's boots tapped a clicking beat on the floor as she went around the counter to sit on the bar stool next to Glenn's.
"I think" she began, going into her "island psychiatrist" mode, "That you are resentful of this new- what's your brother's name?"
"Dario."
"Huh. Dario and Glenn. Sounds nice together. Anyway, you just don't like him because you would rather have the original."
Glenn wrinkled his nose in thought.
"No. That can't be it."
"Why not?"
"I've talked to him before. For all I care he might as well be the original. He's exactly alike. He even knows things that happened to us before the other Glenn died at age 16 and this world's Dario died at 24."
"Then I don't have the slightest idea."
"I do. I think that I'd rather have my brother dead."
Ohrla smiled. "That's a terrible thing to say."
Glenn looked away, casually. "That all depends on how you look at it."
"Very well. How do you look at it?"
"I don't know. It's not like you and Tia, okay? Me and Dario never were close. The age difference and our personalities were just too great. It was easy to accept him as dead."
"So, you hated his guts?"
"What? No! I loved him as much as anyone should love their much, much older brother."
"Which isn't very much, is it?
"Apparently."
"I'm still not sure of what's going on in your mind."
"My brain's just being picky, I suppose.if it hadn't been right now, in the middle of fighting to save the world, I guess I would have welcomed Dario back. But there never was and never will be any way to get him back without doing it at the same time as fighting to save the world."
"I suppose you just have too much to think about to cope with this effectively right now?"
"I-. . .I'm just not sure. I haven't done much good with my life, ok? Neither has anyone else that wanted Dario back. Riddel sits in the manor, playing princess while the world rots outside. Karsh killed him in the first place and bullies other people because of his guilt."
"You call them your friends when you say such things about them?" Orhla commented cryptically as she casually put up her head on a propped elbow and her other arm folded across her chest.
"We're all human. I don't like them any less for it." He explained, clearly put off by her criticism. He drummed a series of faint raps against the wood with a roll of idle fingers. "Dario's death brought out the worst in us." he continued after a moment's deliberation. "He just somehow always kept us working. For the right things, I mean."
"What happened to conscience?"
Glenn gave her an unabashed grin. "Don't think we ever had one. Dario just strung us along."
"I see."
"Anyways, I suppose this is Fate's reward for us. We're finally getting off our ass's to do something for mankind."
"If you say so. But I found Tia myself after years of searching, not because random celestial calculations decided to throw me a bone after I did it a few favors."
"Hell, I never said- forget it." Glenn ended, sounding a bit uncomfortable. It was understandable. He barely had any idea about what his opinions about his brother's recovery were, let alone how to express them.
Orhla smirked at him. "Good idea for you to stop there. If you think I'm going to let some sorry-ass cynic take the magic out of my reunion with my sister, you're sadly mistaken."
"To each his own." Glenn told her, tracing the banded patterns in the pine panel with his gloved finger.
Orhla appraised his absent expression, with the attitude of a bartender rather than a therapist.
"Need a drink?"
The simple offer quickly registered as a question in Glenn's mouth.
"By the way, how can you be a bartender when you're only 20?"
"You just don't know when to shut up, do you?" Orhla retorted, deciding to interpret that as "yes."
"I suppose . . . but you should know that I'm 20, myself." He informed her, slightly puzzled.
"Like anyone cares about that kind of thing." She sauntered to the other side again and selected two mugs suspended at a slant on hooks screwed into the wall. Turning to the taps, she carefully held up the rim of one titled glass to the nozzle, minimizing the foam topping the liquid sloshing into the cup. When it was about three-quarters full, she placed that one down next to Glenn's hand, repeating her actions for her own beer. Only with hers she drizzled in the booze to the very rim.
Taking care not to spill, she lightly nudged it to where she had been sitting beside him before pivoting on her heel and rejoining him at the bar. As she slid into her padded seat, Glenn took a small gulp of the liquor, like a child would when his father let him experiment. She wrinkled her nose at his prim sipping as she threw her head back and took a deep swig, like a real drinker. Glenn caught her look of disgust before she could replace it with something friendlier.
"What's with you?"
Orhla ran the back of her hand across her upper lip, catching the white residue before answering.
"You don't drink right. You act as if it's champagne at some upscale party."
Glenn gave her a reproving glare." How often do you think I do this, anyways?" he snapped at her.
"Please. Don't tell me you don't drink."
"Not often. I don't really like alcohol. Nothing against your profession, but it's really just a waste of time."
Orhla merely laughed at him, as if she was accustomed to such talk against her livelihood.
"Only when you do it alone." She replied, twisting her mouth wryly, making him smile.
She took leave of their discussion as she downed the rest of her mug's amber contents, swallowing noisily with the air of an entertainer performing one of her most dangerous crowd-pleasers. Glenn watched her, eyes half-closed in bemused exasperation and ingesting his drink little by little at his own pace, knowing full well she was probably mocking him.
When she was down she plucked her glass down onto the counter, its heavy, solid base banging hollowly against the plank.
"Ah! That's better!" she exclaimed, twisting on the cushion of her chair to face Glenn.
He was being distant again, his head lowered so he could observe the nature of a floor. He gripped the handle of his mug loosely, the surface beading cool moisture against the leather of his thumb.
"Orhla." He said suddenly. "Have you ever heard of the expression 'dumb blonde'?"
Startled by his abrupt insensitivity, Orhla's body tensed. "Yeesss?" she hissed at him with an unmistakable ring of hostility in her voice. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, reduced to azure slits that held Glenn under her vision in the same way a snake when suspecting a mongoose of attack.
Glenn must have noticed her chilly tone and/or realized the next thing he uttered could very well decide whether or not he lived to see the conclusion of the Dragon God confrontation, because he crossly, if not a bit hastily, added:
"Don't get all pissy for no reason. My hair's blonde too, you know."
Orhla gave the matte hairstyle a dubious examination. The color was light, certainly, but it didn't have nearly as yellow dominance in it as hers, or say, Kid's. Actually, she wasn't quite sure what color it was; it could very well be anything, if it was coated with the grime and filth that most people picked up while slogging through all sorts of terrain to accompany Serge.
"Really?"
"Yes. Well, it's usually a lot lighter." Glenn conceded. "It got darker as I grew up. The sun bleaches it pretty easily too. I've just been spending a lot of my time indoors lately."
" Ok, I can believe that." No need to ask whether or not he had been journeying through mud pits lately. "Why bring. . . that. . . up? Especially if you're blond yourself? Were you teased as a kid?"
"Nah. Guys aren't made fun of for that kind of thing. Girls are. I'm sure you know that form personal experience."
Orhla nodded, although contritely. Why deny it? It was true enough. "So. . .?" she prompted him.
"Have you noticed that mostly everyone on the team who's blond makes the worst choices about the most important things in life?"
Orlha thought about it while Glenn categorized the coincidence aloud for her.
"The way I see it, family, career, and love are what matter the most, right? Marcy-she's rejected her father and her brother; Kid, she's obvious . . . she's a thief and an orphan, even though that's not really her fault; Norris's stranded in Termina after alienating his comrades, I don't even want to know how Pierre ended up the way he is now, and Leah . . . just . . . confuses me. But she's 6 and she seems to have misplaced her parents. "
"And then there's us."
"And then there's us." Glenn agreed.
Orhla turned over the notion in her head while inspecting imaginary dirt lodged in her fingernails. "Ever think it's bad luck and that quite a few members of the party have a bad past?" she asked him, speaking more to the back of her hands than to him.
He did reply right away. Instead he hesitated, furrowing his brow while he measured the possible responses and which one would be the most correct. "Yeah, probably. . ." He said slowly. "It was just something I noticed of when I was bored."
"You shouldn't be allowed to think too much." Orhla said unconcernedly.
"Right."
Glenn consumed the last of his drink in silence.
"It wasn't so bad having Dario around. He was really nice to me." he said softly.
"Good to know. Lots of pairs of siblings don't get along."
"It'll be different, though . . . I'm kinda used to living alone by now."
"What, don't want to give up on practicing your disgusting habits when no one's around?" Orhla teased him.
Glenn ignored her baiting and she collected both of their glasses, leaning over the counter and setting them on a tray underneath the bar so she would know they now needed washing. Then she eased her butt back into the seat and let the pause extend itself to an awkward silence.
"Things should probably run a lot smoother with Dario around again." Glenn mumbled at last.
"Mm-hm." Orhla murmured.
"But that doesn't mean that he never died."
"Of course." she reassured him.
"I don't ever want to forget that Dario died." He repeated.
"He did, so you won't." she soothed him.
There was another leave from talking for a minute or so.
"This Dario's already rebuilding his Viper manor, did you know that?" Glenn said.
"Miki might have mentioned it to me."
"I'm . . . giving his Einlanzer back to him."
"Because you know he can do more good with it than you can?"
"Hardly. Because I have two."
"Selfish . . . Better keep it until Serge's has this thing wrapped up."
"Right."
"You know, you don't have to live with him. You're not a kid anymore."
"I know, but . . ."
"Yes?"
"Dario's never lived by himself."
"Why does that matter?"
"I . . . don't know. It's just the thought of it that bothers me."
"Hm. Well, you should be close to him for a while then."
"Make sure everything's ok? Get him updated on what's been going on for the past 4 years?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what?"
"Learn a little more about him, so you can think of him of a person a lot like Dario, but not really the person who died."
"He's four years older than the Dario who died."
"And had four years to change. Like you. You know, he might be having the exact problem with you.
"You mean feeling weird about a brother that's supposed to dead?"
"Yes."
" . . . Thanks, Ohrla."
-fin-
/I've never wrote this much dialogue before . . . Anyways, has anyone every noticed that Glenn and Orhla have a lot of similarities?/
By tami
The young woman with the hair of burnished gold framing her face, swarthy from wind and sun, stood behind the counter, wiping a glass with a cloth. The cerulean blue of her irises were the exact color of the ocean as it was known to Guldove, a deep and rich azure with few spikes of other coloring touching upon the most impressive and dominant blue. It went well with the tawny mane that was held back by two thick oak green bands into a pair of ponytails.
She looked up when she felt the breeze brushing against her heart-shaped face, signaling the door sweeping open and someone's entrance; most likely a customer. Strange. Ever since that Terra Tower had become an ever-present entity looming sullenly over the horizon, people had suddenly decided that they weren't being pious enough. They spent all their time at the chapel praying, fearful of not being able to redeem their sins in time for the upcoming apocalypse. And god forbid that they would step in and indulge in spirits, one of the most appalling sins of all, they suddenly remembered. She had been somewhat disgruntled; she was religious too, but nothing could make her stop drinking, not even the threat of an eternity of hellfire, damn it! (Well, maybe. But that was when she would be an old geezer with a failing liver and no desire to drink anything stronger than milk anyways.)
The one intruding on Ohrla's quiet time swaggered up to the counter and sat down on one of the barstools, so that he faced her. Ohrla noted that he had big eyes, a misted opal gray infused with a slight silvery sheen. They reminded her of a cat's; cunning and rather smug with a self-centered air, but capable of being very affectionate when rubbed the right way. His long bangs would have probably covered them up, only a strip of white cloth held them in check, spanning his forehead.
He was tanned like her, only the golden tone wasn't as deep as hers. So he was probably from mainland. Gods, the people there could be so sickly pale that they gave the islanders the impression that they were as afraid of sunlight as the morbid wraiths. Ohrla had seen for herself when Serge had dragged her to some big ship. A lady had been there, very petite in appearance and clutching a staff so ornate that it was more like a scepter in her dainty hands. They had told her she was a noble lady, but for a fleeting moment Ohrla thought that the team had recruited a zombie (a pretty one). How could anyone who wasn't dying or died have such pallor?
"Hi, Ohrla. Remember me?" The stranger said, smiling as if the question were a challenge.
Ohrla's mind drew a blank. She knew this guy? She wasn't sure. If she had met this young man before, it should have been difficult to forget him; how many people had scars decorating their faces as if they were freckles?
"Of course."She answered, vigorously rubbing the mug, stalling for time. "How nice to see you again."
She thumped the glass down on the wooden counter. Distracted, the young man instinctively turned his head to see where the sound had come from. His right check became visible to the barkeeper. She saw the thin, neat cross marring his face and something clicked within her mind.
"Glenn!"
He redirected his attention to her and nodded. (Not in a pleased way, Ohrla observed.)
"How have you been doing?" he asked, a little absentmindedly.
"Fine." Ohrla mumbled, not wanting to disclose too much information to him. She had identified him, but she still couldn't remember a single thing besides his name. For all she could recall at this moment, he could have been one of the past dates that she had thrashed and dumped into the ocean like so much refuse when their advances became a bit too vulgar.
"Oh, really? Everyone else here is gone. A fisherman by the docks said that they were with the village elder, repenting for their sins. He seemed kind of annoyed. Strange how the end of the world can make some people paranoid and others skeptics, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"The others think it's funny. They feel really depressed about it and all, but.when they see civilians panicking, there's a certain satisfaction in not being left in the dark."
She nodded politely, forcefully, as she scanned the contents of her brain, trying to figure out who "the others" would be. She caught the expectant expression on the person sitting from across of her, his feline eyes challenging her to make a reply.
"The others." she murmured just before things got awkward.
"Yes. What about them?" He prompted her, a slight quiver of a mocking smile upsetting the set expression of his sun darkened face.
Orhla wasn't about to let him get away with that.
"What are they up to now?"
"As far as I know, they're scouring the ocean for a flying machine"
Orhla wondered if it was appropriate to give off a very false laugh. Maybe then this guy would get the hint. (Company not welcome). Then again, she wasn't quite sure if he wasn't playing exactly that game. Why else was he being so sarcastic?
Apparently his turn at their mental chess game wasn't over yet.
"And life continues for most of them. Like you. Like me. Useless members."
"Uh."
"Well, for the situation at hand, anyway."
"Er."
He gave her a very condescending grin.
"What's the matter? Can't think of anything to say?" he asked her, his feigned sincere tone teasing her openly. Orhla could almost see the word "Checkmate," scrawled over his impudent half-grown features.
"Glenn, not much goes around here." She started hotly, feeling her face grow red. Then her face contorted in a wide-eyed flash of sudden enlightenment. The others. The world being in mortal peril. It all came together.
"Oh, it's you!" she burst out involuntarily, a mixture of irked dislike and sudden recognition flooding into her expressive eyes.
"Yeah." He drew out the single syllable so it sounded the same way as if he were uttering a derogatory remark, such as "duh." Locking death glares with his female counterpart who looked as if she were about to explode at the way he had implied that she had a sub average intelligence, he followed up with a complimentary dose of annoyance: "Me."
"Well, what the hell do you want?" she snarled. Now that she knew that she wasn't obligated to be cordial on the risk of offending a stranger, she felt that rudeness was an inadequate sort of revenge for the mind games.
He shrugged, unknowingly provoking Ohrla to further irritation at the vague gesture.
"There's nothing to do. Serge's down in the ocean, like I said."
"Why pick on me?" she growled
"Doc said that you were a good conversationalist."
"Yeah, I can believe that. You sailed from another continent just to talk to me."
"That's right." He snapped back mildly.
Disgruntled, Orhla turned her back to him and placed the glass that she had been wiping and had set down back on the shelf. She reached for another one, and started to clean that one, deliberately keeping her silence as if she could meditate with a young man in possession of a bad sense of humor in the same room.
Several minutes passed. Orhla continued to tousle her glassware with a towel, and one could say that she almost forgot about Glenn's presence, staring at his image in the reflective surface of the polished wood. It really was a nice day; the sun streamed in through the cut out holes in the walls, it's yellow white illumination setting the room and the objects in it into a pale rendition of ghostly transparency. The muted highlights brightening sections of the furniture and limbs, alighting the glass mugs hung upon a series of hooks attached to the wall like lanterns, rendered the bar into a golden chamber, pastel and a perfect environment for reminiscing.
Orhla had her own thoughts, as did Glenn, but neither was really too peeved about their rocky reintroduction and their minds were elsewhere. The soothing rhythmic rush of the ocean outside and an occasional keening cry of a seabird was an effective stimulant for idle, wistful thoughts, and opportune minutes meant for nostalgia should not be squandered with being cross with someone else.
"I'm not going away, Orhla."
A sigh, soft and absentminded, but not angry.
"No, I suppose not."
A comfortable pause took place while each of them lapsed into a state of relaxation. Glenn leaned forward and rested his chin on folded arms upon the plank of light-gilded oak, and Ohrla rested her body weight against the same ledge, her fingers adeptly swiping the glass of another tankard over and over again.
"Well. What?" Orhla asked, keeping her eyes on the smudge she intended to get rid of.
She sensed Glenn hesitating. Used to reluctant troubled residents stumbling into her bar for a drink and some advice, she patiently waited for him to speak, knowing that eventually the words would come.
"Tell me about your sister." He said, finally.
She twisted her head around to look at him, puzzled. The expression on his face was somber at best, so she merely shrugged and went back to her cleaning.
"Tia? How do you know about her?"
"The more sentimental members of the party."
"She was-is-my twin. I'm older than her by 3 minutes. I was the tomboy, but neither one of was too ladylike. I was Daddy's little hellion; she was Momma's helper. But really, they didn't play favorites. We just spilt up the household duties that way. She was lost for a while, but I managed to find her again, even if I couldn't keep it that way." It was the easiest way to put it.
Glenn didn't want easy.
"I didn't want to know about that."
Ohrla wondered at his unhappy tone of voice.
"What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about when you were kids. What did you do?"
Ohrla rolled her eyes.
"We were kids. What were we supposed to do? We went swimming, played with the other kids, and tormented our parents and the other adults."
"Together?"
Ohrla snickered.
"I am so sick of people who think that twins are supposed to be joined at the hip." She glanced over to Glenn, thinking he would blush and apologize. It was customary, after all. He wasn't even smiling. There was actually a bit of a forlorn frown on his face. She sighed again, going back to the rubbing of her cup.
"Yes. Together." She conceded, thinking he really was the most depressing person she had ever met.
"Why?"
She snorted, albeit in a feminine sort of way.
"Cuz', no matter who else was with us when we were apart, there was no way to be 'together' for either one of us unless it was Tia and Orhla." She said quietly, a trace of slight surprise at her own answer flickering over her face. Not that Glenn could see.
"Why were you two so close?"
"And why are you so nosy?" she threw back, suddenly sullen. She hunched over her work, cobalt eyes glittering.
"Sorry." Glenn murmured, although you could tell he wasn't really sorry at all. Then he added. "How, then?"
"How?" Ohrla responded incredulously. " How what?"
"How were you two close? What did you two do when you were young that forced you to go back to being 'together' after so long?"
She tilted her head back to stare up at the ceiling.
"You already know the entire story, don't you? Her death and all." She droned, unintentionally. "One of the others must have told you."
"Yeah. The part about love beyond the grave too."
Orhla quickly snapped back to her normal, cheerful self, stoic smile and all.
"Then what else matters? We're still 'together', then. I'm happy, to a certain point." Glenn didn't doubt the truth in the statement for a second.
"I know." There was a disturbed note in his reply. Ohrla looked up.
"I just want to know how you can possibly find someone, loose her, and be happier than-" Glenn's breath caught.
Orhla finally turned around, putting away her cloth and the glass. Glenn eyes were downcast, but his overall stance was apathetic.
"Are you unhappy, Glenn? Is that it?"
"No. I don't think I feel like anything."
"No one feels nothing."
"I know." He lifted his eyes, and Orhla really could see there was a pretense of void in that field of blank, unperturbed gray. "That's just it."
"What's wrong?"
Glenn shook his head and laughed, a very childish sound.
"Nothing's wrong! My brother's dead . . . well, not . . . Yeah, he's dead."
There was nothing to be said to something as dismal as that. Ohrla felt her heart squeeze painfully in her chest in sympathy for the young man, and yet at the same time, at the back of her head she knew that something wasn't quite right.
"I'm sorry." She offered tentatively.
Glenn blinked, genuinely confused.
"You mean no one's ever told you?" he inquired, raising an arched, dark eyebrow at her. "My brother's been dead for over four years now."
"Oh." She mumbled, weakly. "Then why mention-I mean why did you-?"
"Two worlds. Two of us." Glenn sighed, ignoring her stammers. "Well, not exactly, I guess."
Ohrla was mystified.
"What are you talking about?" she demanded.
Glenn drummed his fingers on the counter top. "You know that a lot of the party members have duplicates in the second world, right?" he instructed her as if she were a five year old. "Well, there used to be a Glenn in the other world, but he died. But as for you, there never was an Ohrla. She never existed. I think Tia's presence was enough."
"Your point being?"
"Maybe you had to be taken apart because the other world needed someone like you-or-her- too."
"So the other world would have collapsed in on itself if a person a lot like me didn't get transported there? Huh. I guess I must be just that original." She said wryly.
"I suppose." Glenn said darkly.
"I see. What does this have to do with your mood?"
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."
"Then what's up?"
"They found my brother in the other world. I mean, his counterpart."
Orhla's back went stiff as Glenn watched her, but a moment later, the tension seemed to staunch out of her. Then she grinned at him. "You must be thrilled." It came out as sarcastic as she surveyed his glum face.
"Whatever. He was on a little island. I'm not even going to go into all that crazy crap about cursed swords and the fight."
"Whaaa-?"
"Forget it."
"I don't understand. Shouldn't you be happy?"
"Yes."
"But you're not."
"You're right. I'm not."
Ohrla's boots tapped a clicking beat on the floor as she went around the counter to sit on the bar stool next to Glenn's.
"I think" she began, going into her "island psychiatrist" mode, "That you are resentful of this new- what's your brother's name?"
"Dario."
"Huh. Dario and Glenn. Sounds nice together. Anyway, you just don't like him because you would rather have the original."
Glenn wrinkled his nose in thought.
"No. That can't be it."
"Why not?"
"I've talked to him before. For all I care he might as well be the original. He's exactly alike. He even knows things that happened to us before the other Glenn died at age 16 and this world's Dario died at 24."
"Then I don't have the slightest idea."
"I do. I think that I'd rather have my brother dead."
Ohrla smiled. "That's a terrible thing to say."
Glenn looked away, casually. "That all depends on how you look at it."
"Very well. How do you look at it?"
"I don't know. It's not like you and Tia, okay? Me and Dario never were close. The age difference and our personalities were just too great. It was easy to accept him as dead."
"So, you hated his guts?"
"What? No! I loved him as much as anyone should love their much, much older brother."
"Which isn't very much, is it?
"Apparently."
"I'm still not sure of what's going on in your mind."
"My brain's just being picky, I suppose.if it hadn't been right now, in the middle of fighting to save the world, I guess I would have welcomed Dario back. But there never was and never will be any way to get him back without doing it at the same time as fighting to save the world."
"I suppose you just have too much to think about to cope with this effectively right now?"
"I-. . .I'm just not sure. I haven't done much good with my life, ok? Neither has anyone else that wanted Dario back. Riddel sits in the manor, playing princess while the world rots outside. Karsh killed him in the first place and bullies other people because of his guilt."
"You call them your friends when you say such things about them?" Orhla commented cryptically as she casually put up her head on a propped elbow and her other arm folded across her chest.
"We're all human. I don't like them any less for it." He explained, clearly put off by her criticism. He drummed a series of faint raps against the wood with a roll of idle fingers. "Dario's death brought out the worst in us." he continued after a moment's deliberation. "He just somehow always kept us working. For the right things, I mean."
"What happened to conscience?"
Glenn gave her an unabashed grin. "Don't think we ever had one. Dario just strung us along."
"I see."
"Anyways, I suppose this is Fate's reward for us. We're finally getting off our ass's to do something for mankind."
"If you say so. But I found Tia myself after years of searching, not because random celestial calculations decided to throw me a bone after I did it a few favors."
"Hell, I never said- forget it." Glenn ended, sounding a bit uncomfortable. It was understandable. He barely had any idea about what his opinions about his brother's recovery were, let alone how to express them.
Orhla smirked at him. "Good idea for you to stop there. If you think I'm going to let some sorry-ass cynic take the magic out of my reunion with my sister, you're sadly mistaken."
"To each his own." Glenn told her, tracing the banded patterns in the pine panel with his gloved finger.
Orhla appraised his absent expression, with the attitude of a bartender rather than a therapist.
"Need a drink?"
The simple offer quickly registered as a question in Glenn's mouth.
"By the way, how can you be a bartender when you're only 20?"
"You just don't know when to shut up, do you?" Orhla retorted, deciding to interpret that as "yes."
"I suppose . . . but you should know that I'm 20, myself." He informed her, slightly puzzled.
"Like anyone cares about that kind of thing." She sauntered to the other side again and selected two mugs suspended at a slant on hooks screwed into the wall. Turning to the taps, she carefully held up the rim of one titled glass to the nozzle, minimizing the foam topping the liquid sloshing into the cup. When it was about three-quarters full, she placed that one down next to Glenn's hand, repeating her actions for her own beer. Only with hers she drizzled in the booze to the very rim.
Taking care not to spill, she lightly nudged it to where she had been sitting beside him before pivoting on her heel and rejoining him at the bar. As she slid into her padded seat, Glenn took a small gulp of the liquor, like a child would when his father let him experiment. She wrinkled her nose at his prim sipping as she threw her head back and took a deep swig, like a real drinker. Glenn caught her look of disgust before she could replace it with something friendlier.
"What's with you?"
Orhla ran the back of her hand across her upper lip, catching the white residue before answering.
"You don't drink right. You act as if it's champagne at some upscale party."
Glenn gave her a reproving glare." How often do you think I do this, anyways?" he snapped at her.
"Please. Don't tell me you don't drink."
"Not often. I don't really like alcohol. Nothing against your profession, but it's really just a waste of time."
Orhla merely laughed at him, as if she was accustomed to such talk against her livelihood.
"Only when you do it alone." She replied, twisting her mouth wryly, making him smile.
She took leave of their discussion as she downed the rest of her mug's amber contents, swallowing noisily with the air of an entertainer performing one of her most dangerous crowd-pleasers. Glenn watched her, eyes half-closed in bemused exasperation and ingesting his drink little by little at his own pace, knowing full well she was probably mocking him.
When she was down she plucked her glass down onto the counter, its heavy, solid base banging hollowly against the plank.
"Ah! That's better!" she exclaimed, twisting on the cushion of her chair to face Glenn.
He was being distant again, his head lowered so he could observe the nature of a floor. He gripped the handle of his mug loosely, the surface beading cool moisture against the leather of his thumb.
"Orhla." He said suddenly. "Have you ever heard of the expression 'dumb blonde'?"
Startled by his abrupt insensitivity, Orhla's body tensed. "Yeesss?" she hissed at him with an unmistakable ring of hostility in her voice. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, reduced to azure slits that held Glenn under her vision in the same way a snake when suspecting a mongoose of attack.
Glenn must have noticed her chilly tone and/or realized the next thing he uttered could very well decide whether or not he lived to see the conclusion of the Dragon God confrontation, because he crossly, if not a bit hastily, added:
"Don't get all pissy for no reason. My hair's blonde too, you know."
Orhla gave the matte hairstyle a dubious examination. The color was light, certainly, but it didn't have nearly as yellow dominance in it as hers, or say, Kid's. Actually, she wasn't quite sure what color it was; it could very well be anything, if it was coated with the grime and filth that most people picked up while slogging through all sorts of terrain to accompany Serge.
"Really?"
"Yes. Well, it's usually a lot lighter." Glenn conceded. "It got darker as I grew up. The sun bleaches it pretty easily too. I've just been spending a lot of my time indoors lately."
" Ok, I can believe that." No need to ask whether or not he had been journeying through mud pits lately. "Why bring. . . that. . . up? Especially if you're blond yourself? Were you teased as a kid?"
"Nah. Guys aren't made fun of for that kind of thing. Girls are. I'm sure you know that form personal experience."
Orhla nodded, although contritely. Why deny it? It was true enough. "So. . .?" she prompted him.
"Have you noticed that mostly everyone on the team who's blond makes the worst choices about the most important things in life?"
Orlha thought about it while Glenn categorized the coincidence aloud for her.
"The way I see it, family, career, and love are what matter the most, right? Marcy-she's rejected her father and her brother; Kid, she's obvious . . . she's a thief and an orphan, even though that's not really her fault; Norris's stranded in Termina after alienating his comrades, I don't even want to know how Pierre ended up the way he is now, and Leah . . . just . . . confuses me. But she's 6 and she seems to have misplaced her parents. "
"And then there's us."
"And then there's us." Glenn agreed.
Orhla turned over the notion in her head while inspecting imaginary dirt lodged in her fingernails. "Ever think it's bad luck and that quite a few members of the party have a bad past?" she asked him, speaking more to the back of her hands than to him.
He did reply right away. Instead he hesitated, furrowing his brow while he measured the possible responses and which one would be the most correct. "Yeah, probably. . ." He said slowly. "It was just something I noticed of when I was bored."
"You shouldn't be allowed to think too much." Orhla said unconcernedly.
"Right."
Glenn consumed the last of his drink in silence.
"It wasn't so bad having Dario around. He was really nice to me." he said softly.
"Good to know. Lots of pairs of siblings don't get along."
"It'll be different, though . . . I'm kinda used to living alone by now."
"What, don't want to give up on practicing your disgusting habits when no one's around?" Orhla teased him.
Glenn ignored her baiting and she collected both of their glasses, leaning over the counter and setting them on a tray underneath the bar so she would know they now needed washing. Then she eased her butt back into the seat and let the pause extend itself to an awkward silence.
"Things should probably run a lot smoother with Dario around again." Glenn mumbled at last.
"Mm-hm." Orhla murmured.
"But that doesn't mean that he never died."
"Of course." she reassured him.
"I don't ever want to forget that Dario died." He repeated.
"He did, so you won't." she soothed him.
There was another leave from talking for a minute or so.
"This Dario's already rebuilding his Viper manor, did you know that?" Glenn said.
"Miki might have mentioned it to me."
"I'm . . . giving his Einlanzer back to him."
"Because you know he can do more good with it than you can?"
"Hardly. Because I have two."
"Selfish . . . Better keep it until Serge's has this thing wrapped up."
"Right."
"You know, you don't have to live with him. You're not a kid anymore."
"I know, but . . ."
"Yes?"
"Dario's never lived by himself."
"Why does that matter?"
"I . . . don't know. It's just the thought of it that bothers me."
"Hm. Well, you should be close to him for a while then."
"Make sure everything's ok? Get him updated on what's been going on for the past 4 years?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what?"
"Learn a little more about him, so you can think of him of a person a lot like Dario, but not really the person who died."
"He's four years older than the Dario who died."
"And had four years to change. Like you. You know, he might be having the exact problem with you.
"You mean feeling weird about a brother that's supposed to dead?"
"Yes."
" . . . Thanks, Ohrla."
-fin-
/I've never wrote this much dialogue before . . . Anyways, has anyone every noticed that Glenn and Orhla have a lot of similarities?/