Title: Rest in Peace
Author: Macalaure
Summary: Locke and company go to visit the grave of an old friend.
Chapters: 4
Rating: T
Dedicated: Daedalus and Beserked2
MOBLIZ SAT SERENELY at the tip of the snake-like peninsula which wormed its way through the churning lavender ocean. Perhaps it was due to its location that it had become a site for such dramatic pilgrimage. Its position at the end of the long and winding road had a sense of finality about it, and to the survivors of the Purge—struggling blindly through the recovering world—this was a place where they were prepared to settle down.
Whatever the reason, at the dawn of the new age marked by the fall of Kefka, hundreds of immigrants flocked to the settlement until it could scarcely be called a town any longer; it had grown spectacularly in both population and spirit.
Despite the boom and absent the sounds of construction, the town felt eerily quiet to those who lived there. The governor of Mobliz, a woman who was hardly an official but unchallenged in her work, had given the citizens the day off to take respite from the blazing sun. Some took advantage of this by relaxing in the shade with a cold drink while others brought their children to play by the river.
Outside a dilapidated and unpretentious home, the governor herself was bent over a dark patch of soil, her knees blackened with silt, emerald hair drawn back, and her hands clasping a trowel and a pile of seeds. Small holes had been carved in the soil every few feet, and the woman sat back on her heels to admire her work. She sighed quietly before she heard the patter of small feet approach from the house.
"Mama, what are you doing?" she heard behind her. The voice was loud and pure, childish clarity was still evident in every word.
Brushing a strand of hair from her face as she twisted, she spotted the child cautiously standing at the edge of the garden. A tired smile graced her face before she said, "I'm gardening, Isabella, dear. Come help me."
The child eagerly approached, and the woman winced inwardly as she trampled the carefully arranged holes in the ground. Years of grueling parental training, however, kept the smile plastered on her face. Isabella stuck out a hand, and her eyes lit up as seeds were poured into her hand. She looked eagerly at her mother for further instructions and was not disappointed.
"There you go, dear. Now can you put one of those in each of the little holes you've so graciously crushed?"
The embarrassment was quickly lost in the curiosity of her new task. With childlike care, Isabella deposited a single seed in each of the tiny holes in the ground. The woman allowed a sigh to pass her lips as she rose to her feet and followed in the child's footsteps. As Isabella approached the end of the row and turned to continue, she started at the realization that all her work had been obscured. Tears welled up in her eyes as she began to pout: "Mama, why did you fill in all the holes?"
The woman rolled her eyes heavenward. Perhaps as the town's governance relied increasingly on politics rather than leadership she would hand on the role to someone else.
She knelt down anew, knees thoroughly damp from the saturated ground, and put a tentative hand on her daughter's shoulder. Her shaking stopped and the child looked up at her mother with wide eyes. "This is a garden, dear," she told the girl, gesturing, "and flowers are going to grow here someday."
Her daughter looked at her in puzzlement. "But why do you have to cover them all up? How will they grow into flowers?"
The woman paused, not eager to rush into her explanation. "Sometimes you need to cover things up in order for them to bloom in the most beautiful way they can."
Isabella knit her brows together for a moment before her mind jumped to other things. "Oh, Mama, Katarin says the postman is here, so if you have any letters he's going to send off a bird."
Her mother nodded and pulled the stationary from the folds of her dress. "Here," she said, handing them to the girl. "Would you bring this to him and tell him to send them right away?"
The child nodded happily and skipped away, tossing the extra seeds into the wind. They floated down slowly, and one came to a rest in the woman's outstretched hand. She sighed once more, assuring herself that she would definitely hand over her position of governor when the time came; taking care of children was enough of an occupation on its own.
:i:
The night was still young when the man stumbled back into the inn, already half drunk. He signaled the innkeeper and fell into a long oaken chair near the back of the room. Head in his hands, he winced at the light from the gas lamp above his head, and once he heard the thud of glass on the wooden table before him and squinted through heavy brows.
Stuck under the bottle was a sheet of paper, weathered around the edges. Careful not to knock the drink over, the man reached out and tugged gently on the page. It leapt free, and, satisfied that his drink was stable, he turned his eye to the paper as it unfolded before him. His face seemed to lengthen and tauten as he pored over the paper, eyes darting ever faster as they took in the carefully printed words. Then, he stood from the table, mind as clear as water, and climbed the stairs to his room.
It was small, about what one could expect from a backwater inn like this, but it was clean and had running water and a bed, better than he could say of some places he had stayed. All of his belongings were already packed, such was the perpetually transient life of a treasure hunter. He heaved the bag over a shoulder and stopped at the door. Bending down slowly, he tossed the worn pages into the crackling flames of the hearth and watched the orange tongues consume them before he left. He didn't turn back again.
:i:
Locke was blessed with favorable winds and sunny skies upon his arrival at Mobliz. The trek across the continent had been long and tedious, since the terrain had become largely uniform after The Fall. The treasure hunter handed over his chocobo to the local stable hand and ambled through the rows of buildings, marveling at how far the construction had progressed. He wandered aimlessly about until he asked a local where the new tavern had been erected.
It was a large building near the center of town, and only recently completed. There were still areas that had been cobbled together in haste or not constructed at all, but on the whole it was a stout structure which served its purpose adequately.
Locke threw open the doors with his usual sense of bravado and about to ask for a room when he spotted a familiar face sitting alone at a table. His heart leapt in his chest and a grin broke out over his face, stretching from ear to ear. Employing his long-honed and closely guarded techniques, he slipped soundlessly across the room until he was right behind her, but whether she had heard him—he was, admittedly, out of practice—or simply by coincidence, she turned around and Locke found himself face-to-face with Celes Chere.
"Locke!" she squealed, putting a hand over her mouth out of embarrassment. The treasure hunter laughed and flung his arms around her when she rose to her feet. She returned his embrace, and, after a few moments, they untwined themselves and sat on opposite sides of the table.
Locke studied the woman opposite him. She wore a plain white dress similar to the ones she had ages ago, and her hair was down, flowing like water over her pale features. The resemblance to the picture in his mind was uncanny. During his travels in solitude he had frequently stared into dirty, cracked mirrors and been startled at the strange, unshaven man who looked back at him, but Celes was as impeccably clean and elegant as always.
And yet, something nagged at the back of his mind. Something that was not quite right about her appearance. He pushed the thought aside abruptly, and allowed his infamous smile to grace his face once more. "Celes, it's fantastic to see you again. Where have you been?"
"Oh, here and there," she said, grinning at him. "I'm sure your stories are much more interesting than mine."
Locke reclined against the wooden seat and motioned for the innkeeper to bring him a drink. "Pretty much the same old, same old," he confessed, accepting the heavy mug and placing it down on the oaken table.
"So your usual stealing and thievery?" she asked him playfully.
She could swear he had rehearsed the sigh which broke out from him. "That's treasure hunter to you," he announced with mock indignation. Celes winked in reply.
He shook his head forlornly, but was unable to prevent the grin from spreading back over his face. "So how long have you been here?" Locke asked.
She shrugged, looking up at the clock on the distant wall. The iron pendulum swung back and forth with mechanical consistency, meticulously ticking off the seconds. "For a bit. Terra left a few hours ago but she said she'd be back soon—ah, speak of the devil."
The door swung open and a familiar figure stood silhouetted in the afternoon light. A number of people greeted her as she walked into the tavern, but Terra had eyes for only one person in the room. She recognized him quickly and ran to embrace him, throwing her arms around him and saying: "Locke, I've been waiting for you. I've missed you so much!"
Over her shoulder, Locke saw Celes roll her eyes. Extricating himself from her, he took a step back to examine his companion. She also had changed very little, except for the fact that she had traded the omnipresent sword at her hip for a hammer. Eyeing this, Locke told her, "This place looks amazing; it sure cleans up well."
She grinned, her expression resembling that of a chef looking over her prized dish. "Doesn't it? After some of the survivors started trickling in here, I felt like we had to fix things up a bit, and I guess we all got carried away. Now the town's twice as big as it was before The Fall."
Excited to show off the progress, Terra beckoned them outside and began escorting them around, showing them the various buildings, many of which Locke had already seen when he arrived. She was particularly eager to show them her house, which had a noticeable gap missing in one of the walls-it was a personal touch, she told them.
As they walked by, several small figures were milling around outside. Terra introduced Isabella and Christofer, two small children who were extremely disappointed at the realization that the famous Locke Cole was not staying for dinner. They entertained Locke with more stories about his adventures than he could have recounted himself, and he was sure that some of them had been completely fabricated. He glared accusingly at Terra who offered him nothing but a tiny shrug and a grin.
After a particularly absurd tale about Locke single-handedly defeating an Imperial army, Locke announced he had endured enough, and told the party he was returning to the tavern. Bidding goodbye to the children and telling Terra he would meet her back at the stables in the morning, he stepped out of the house and into the mild night air. Just as the door swung shut, Celes slipped out and fell into step beside him.
"So how was it, seeing everyone again?" she asked, stepping out in front to face him. His gaze graced her fluid form, her face and bare arms were pale in the moonlight. He marveled again at how little she had changed since he had last seen her, and yet something still tugged at the back of his mind like a splinter in the stem of his brain. He felt his mind lurch, as though it was on the verge of something and he could feel the answer on the tip of his tongue. But the moment passed and the epiphany was gone. He sighed and pushed the thought to the back of his mind once more.
"It's been refreshing," he admitted, his ever active mind returning to nights spent in solitude and darkness, or drowned in golden liquor so that what little he did recall was obscured by a yellow haze. "It's certainly something I needed to do." He smiled at her and put an arm around her shoulder.
Celes turned her head to face him, a wicked grin in her eyes, standing on her toes so she could look down on him and magnify the joke. "You know, I think you have to be taller than me for that to work."
Locke scowled at her, and gave her a shove before he took off running down the narrow street. Celes followed suit, and their laughter reverberated off the walls of crowded buildings and into the star-lit sky. They ran together into the young night, wreathed in tendrils of pure white mist, and their twisting shadows became one, spinning and dancing in the pale moonlight.
So here's this, I've been working on it for quite a while. I Finally got it all beta read and approved for publishing. Looking like it's going to be four chapters, but its open to possible change should I, or someone else feel the need.
As a side note, I'm also open to suggestions for a better title and/or chapter names that ideally would go with the title, although they could relate to another theme.