Chapter One: The Flourishing City

For Stenden, there was only Jidoor.

If it had its blemishes, he wouldn't have known – his only real taste of natural beauty was South Figaro, marred by war and overpraised by memory. But the grass grew green in Jidoor, the flowers full and bright, the pines stately. Even the sky seemed clearer. That grasp at a memory he'd never fully had was reason enough for him never to leave.

The trouble was that nobody else was particularly willing either.

Lara entered his one-room section, the harried lines on her ruddy face even more evident than usual.

"That bastard, Hanzer, raised my rent," she muttered, barely looking at him. "Probably wants more ugly artwork from the auctions. Bottom line, you'd better be able to pay another eighty gil per week."

The damp resignation that washed over Stenden surprised him. He'd always been pale, in skin and hair, but he was looking increasingly insubstantial by the day. "Not if I want to eat."

"Oh, hell," said Lara distractedly. "You've just been evicted, now if I can just find a subletter with gil for a change…"

It felt inevitable, somehow, he mulled as he bundled his extra clothing into his worn canvas pack. Ever since Vector, everything seemed so damn inevitable. He searched through the jury-rigged shambles of a room, in the chipping, varnished cabinets, in the little ornate chest, beside the iron stove. Blanket. Overcoat. Repulsive-looking dried fruit from Nikeah. Cheap civilian buckler. The flute he used to earn his bread at the Black Leaf. Shortsword, to belt around his waist. And…

He dug vigorously through the straw in his mattress to retrieve his old brownsuit. Stenden could never reason why he wouldn't give the thing up – even without Fanatics to worry about, he didn't think an average man would care to distinguish between the Empire and its top general. But he knew beyond reason that the old world could not be let go.

Oh, that's it, Stenden, stick it at the top of your pack for easy picking. He shoveled out his other things, spread the blanket out to cushion the touch, laid his uniform within, and strategically filled in his other items, one by one.

He paused when he reached the darkwood flute, though. Perhaps he would return to the Black Leaf for today, and give Jidoor a proper send-off.

-

Promotional duty in Jidoor was one of the best perks of the opera life, but the imminent departure of the Impresario's troupe was what gave Danfry his genuine smile as he handed out flyers for Impresario's last performance at the Grand Opera.

It was a deliberately nonsensical and futile piece designed to cater to the Jidooran rich. Danfry had made meticulous notes to him on the many inconsistencies: the heroine, suave and witty for the first few scenes, turning into a raging maniac midway through the fifth scene apropos of nothing – the way the pickpocket popped up in nearly every scene, regardless of whether he could get there on time, where he was supposed to be going or even whether the scenes were supposed to be simultaneous – but according to Impresario, it was all some sort of artistic choice. The futility, Danfry recognized at once. He'd been fighting futility since the Empire took South Figaro, and there were better ways to fight it here in the opera house than quibbling with an inflated playwright. At least the music was still very much in Impresario's sweeping style.

A bored woman in the green turban of the vagrancy police eyed him to make sure he wouldn't start calling like a common Zozo hawker. Danfry lifted his head to the blue-tinged sky and took no note of her.

"Where's Maria going after this, then?" asked a teenage boy, gazing at his flyer.

"The Maranda Theatre," said Danfry with deep satisfaction. "Not nearly as equipped as the Grand Opera, of course, and only just repaired into working –"

The boy tried and failed to keep his look of boredom. "You mean they found Maranda?"

"Yes, a month ago," said Danfry, fighting down his irritation that he didn't already know. "It's a clear eastern corridor from the Grand Opera. If you ever go to see a show there, though, keep well clear of the desert."

"No worries, I'll see her at your joint, too," called the boy over his shoulder.

Maria's move would surely be bad for business, Danfry knew, but as long as they could still afford to live there, that was a plus, in a way. The opera, and the special guests that showed up now and again, would garner less attention. Maria leaving was a plus no matter what – she had become ridiculously high-maintenance after the death of the company's two best tenors. Whether she had carried a torch for either, and whether she cared at all or was simply distraught at having been shown up by a novice, was a highly contested subject among opera veterans out of her earshot, and because she suspected so, Maria had become dangerously nosy. Banon hadn't persuaded Impresario to take his troupe away a moment too soon.

A well-to-do greying man with watery blue eyes took his last flyer and handed it to his small son, who barely glanced over the page and said, "Father, this looks awful. I don't want to see this trash."

The father made some fawning, mollifying gesture to his whining son. Danfry turned away from them, hoping very much they wouldn't attend, to enjoy the rest of his day in the flourishing city.

-

No more of the artificial dissonance so popular with the auction-house types, who always wanted what they did not have, even if it was ruin and decay. Stenden's pieces today would be as vibrant as the rose garden by the window. Once the cacophonous drummer was done, he began with an obscure bawdy concerning the notoriously seedy Red Banner Inn of Vector, but without his voice, no one need know that. The rollicking tune, which somehow transmitted the humor of the lyrics, was all they needed to hear.

Sure enough, after the song was done, many of the Black Leaf guests whispered to each other with patronizing amusement evident in their faces. The less-fashionable might have applauded more vigorously than usual, but he wasn't really sure. That peaky-looking man in the worn leather overcoat, though, gazed avidly at him, with an analytical air Stenden didn't much like, but with true fascination, too.

He performed three more pieces he'd managed to dredge his memory for – the last one being the Ballad of Madrigan Mezzo, a barely-concealed satire of the big wig in South Figaro, which the terminally incorrigible South Figaroans had been perfectly willing to sing within his earshot, but he supposed the tune was the important thing.

The yield of gil, as Stenden had suspected, was somewhat less than usual, but more of the lower level left tips, and the stranger left him forty gil. Frankly, it astonished Stenden that he could afford it, especially after ordering a pear from Owzer's orchards.

Satisfied that he had made an impression, he grabbed his heavy canvas bag from the floor and started towards the innkeeper, but he felt a tap on the shoulder and turned vaguely to see the stranger.

"If I could talk with you for a moment?"

"I'll need to resign first," said Stenden stiffly.

"I'll wait."

The innkeeper, walking past, said, "Good of you to quit before the regulars have your head. This is a high-culture tavern, and they'd never let you forget that."

"That's not why I quit. Next time you see Hanzer, tell him that his art collection is too large already, and that his rent collection will dwindle shortly."

"You seem to appreciate Owzer's gallery well enough."

"You know what I mean," said Stenden quickly. The last thing he needed was for someone to probe his newfound interest in Owzer's gallery. "Anyway, I resign."

The innkeeper walked off with ill-disguised irritation.

"I thought that bag was a bit overstuffed for everyday use," said the stranger. "Where were you planning to go?"

"Er… Maranda, I suppose." It was preferable to Zozo – everything short of the damn tower was preferable to Zozo – but the traitor Celes's overzealous tactics had made sure he would never be truly welcome there. Stenden couldn't afford a ship.

"As musically skilled as you are, you can do better. We'll need a flutist at the Grand Opera after Argument with the Tide has finished its run, and we'll give you lodging as long as you work there. Woodwinds garner about six-fifty a week, I think. I'm promoting Argument now, but promotional duty rotates. You'll see Jidoor again. Actually, the opera house isn't so bad-looking either, though it somewhat lacks for vegetation."

"Ah," said Stenden, appealed by the job but somehow uneasy. "You wouldn't have a name, would you?"

"Ah, sorry. My name's Danfry; I'm the chief script editor. To get the interview, ask for Artram." He lowered his voice. "And as the chief script editor, I can tell you, in strict confidence, mind, that Argument with the Tide is Impresario's worst yet, but, well, you probably know the man's ego."

There were too many egos about Jidoor to keep track of, but pulling at a vague memory, he asked, "Including the one where a monster killed the male leads on stage and the female lead was kidnapped?"

"The worst planned opera," said Danfry. "Actually, The Dream Oath is the best of the lot, I think, but they haven't performed it since."

"The lead was Maria, wasn't it? How did she escape?"

"It… I don't really want to discuss it," said Danfry, looking more wary than embarrassed.

"Well, I'll find out soon enough, I suppose. Your offer sounds good to me."

Danfry was delighted. "Then once the day is out, we'll go to the chocobo stables. The less time spent in the wilderness, the better. In the meantime, though, I'll enjoy the view."