Chapter Four
Once they got near the center of town, Terra began to remember why she didn't really like going into the centers of towns. The streets were crowded with carriages, riders, and always pedestrians, hordes of them, and the edges of the roads with stalls and pushcarts and people sitting on blankets full of their wares, or shopkeepers trying to entice customers into their stores.
"At least the economy's thriving here," Sabin said.
"Because of this infernal gift-giving custom," Cyan grumbled, but Sabin ignored him and Terra didn't think he'd been speaking to her.
"Nothing wrong with giving gifts," Locke said. "Or getting them."
"Shiny," Gau agreed. Cyan gave him a look and the boy straightened his hunched shoulders. "Shiny," he repeated, as if to make clear that he wasn't abandoning his stance on gifts.
"Necklace for the pretty lady?" someone said. Terra bumped into Locke, who'd slowed.
"He means you, Terra."
"Me?" Normally, people just stared at her hair. She reached self-consciously up for her hood to check if any had come loose. "I don't need a necklace."
"Sorry, but the pretty lady has spoken," Locke said, and took her gloved hand as they began moving again.
"I was the pretty lady?"
"Locke's just messing with you, Terra," Sabin said. "The guy meant Cyan."
"Foolishness," the knight retorted, then stumbled as someone bumped into him. "Do these knaves relish this crushing mob? What good does this press do any man except the pickpocket and ruffian? Honest men cannot breathe in such crowds!"
"Okay, we turn here!" Sabin announced, abruptly and loudly, and they picked their way around a stopped cart with what appeared to be a damaged axle, winding up on a narrow, nearly-empty side street. A group of three girls walked down the other side of the street, the opposite direction, and a small family walked ahead of them some way, only to disappear around a corner. "There, see? Better."
"Somewhat," the knight admitted, grudgingly.
"Very better!" Gau elaborated, much more enthusiastically.
"I think if we cut through this way we can get to that cobbler Terra used before."
"Any would do..." Terra said.
"Except that you've dealt with this one before, so you know he'll have what you need in stock, or he'll make it quick if he doesn't," Sabin pointed out.
"Oh. Right."
Around another corner, they came out on a less-packed commercial street. A few carriages were visible, and a respectable number of pedestrians, but Cyan's grumbling didn't resume. Light spilled out of the store windows onto the snowy streets, less trampled here. Pine and holly boughs decorated most of the doors and windows.
"I think it was near a bakery?" Terra said. As they made their way down the street, a door opened in front of them, and a boy of nine or ten walked out backwards, gesturing broadly as he told some story his mother, holding the door open with his back as she walked out past him. A younger boy squeezed around her legs, ignoring her chiding tone, and ran ahead, towards the group, until he hit an icy patch. He teetered, arms pinwheeling, but Cyan caught his shoulder to steady him.
"There, lad, easy," he said, smiling. "Stick to the snowy parts when you can."
"Yessir," the boy answered, sounding abashed as his mother came towards them, calling her apologies and thanks. She was wearing black, and so were her sons. Cyan, to all appearances, was kindly, polite, telling her there was no need to apologize, she had a fine pair of sons, and wishing her happy holidays. He watched silently as they walked away, the older boy poking the other one in the shoulder, the mother obviously trying not to laugh. As the family turned the corner the group had just rounded, Cyan drew himself up and declared "I believe I shall take a walk alone."
"What, right now?" Sabin asked.
"Precisely." He turned with the precision of a military drill and strode across the street.
"Um, do you know how to find the inn?" Locke called after his departing back, but there was no sign he'd heard.
"I... hope so?" Terra said doubtfully. "Wasn't he here before, once?"
"Yeah, he was, but I don't know about finding the place again..." Sabin said. "Ah, hell. I guess he wants to be alone."
Interceptor was enjoying the snow, surprising both the humans; he pranced through it happily, ate a mouthful of snow, ran his nose through a drift, and then turned back towards them to play, forelegs lowered and haunches in the air, his stub of a tail wagging. Relm charged at him, laughing, and the girl and the dog chased each other in circles around and in front of Shadow. Once he might have smiled at the sight. He'd never had the heart to train Interceptor to be the attack dog he claimed to have; he just relied on the dog's protectiveness and intimidating looks for the rest. Lucky thing the field was empty.
Eventually Relm tired, and she stood still, waiting, while Shadow and Interceptor caught up to her. "So is that warm?" she asked. Shadow didn't answer, just kept walking past her. After a few steps he heard her hurrying to catch up, struggling through the snow.
"Walk in my footprints," he suggested.
"Nah, I want to see if I can see your face," she said, peering up at him from his side.
"Very little chance of that." They were nearly to the fence enclosing the field where they'd landed.
"Seriously, I've been all over the world, and I've seen maybe three people that dress that way, counting you, and one of them admitted he was dressing that way because of you. So what gives?" She clambered over the split-rail fence, and he jumped it easily.
"The truth?"
"Um, duh."
"It's supposedly the dress of a lost Doman warrior clan. I'm not fully trained in their arts, but that's why it's called a lost clan. Other than my imitators, the style only lives on in Doman plays and illustrations for dime novels."
"What's a dime novel?"
"A cheap adventure novel." They wouldn't have had them in Thamasa, he realized. Apparently she hadn't been all over the bookstores of the world.
"So what's a dime?"
"A Figaro coin, ten or fifteen to an Imperial gil. Made of copper, I believe."
"Are you from Figaro?"
"No."
"Doma?"
"Why?"
"You are!" she crowed. That look of triumph was just like her mother's. But the ninja garb gave it away, he thought.
"Not exactly. I was born there, but my parents came from Nikeah. To Domans, outsiders are foreigners even if they were born in the castle town and grew up speaking the language."
She was silent for a moment, perhaps digesting that, kicking up puffs of snow as she shuffled along. "So why the Doman warrior thing?"
"I'm anonymous, but I stand out in another way. I'm remembered, sometimes feared. And I liked the way it looked."
She grinned up at him. Freckles across the bridge of her nose, a slight gap between her front teeth. "I knew you were a human down in there."
"Mm. Not really."
"So is it warm?"
"Could be worse. A coat would spoil the look."
"I dunno, those long overcoats like Setzer wears, you could maybe pull off one of those. Or long underwear! Do you wear that?"
"If I told you that I'd have to kill you."
She threw her head back and laughed. "Okay, keep it to yourself. You guys'll need me against Kefka, plus I bet Gramps would be really pissed off if I was dead."
"Most likely."
"So why do you want to be anonymous?"
"I kill people for a living. Why do you think?"
"Well, you used to. You don't anymore."
"They're still dead. People tend to remember. And so do magistrates."
"Yeah, but the person they'd be after is... Shadow, right? So you could change your name and wear normal clothes and no one would know who you were."
"...mm." It was never really that simple.
"So why do you think Gramps ditched me?"
"Maybe he needed some peace and quiet."
"Ohhh, you are so clever! I'll have to paint a portrait to see if I can make it as clever as you! On paper and everything!" When he didn't respond, she changed her theme to Strago's faithlessness, Edgar's hand in it, Celes's fidgeting, "aren't soldiers supposed to be all disciplined?" and then "I bet you'd sit still."
"No."
"Aww! Maybe Edgar would. Painting him would be fun!" And she was off again. Interceptor pressed up against his leg and he scratched the dog behind the ears. He was unusually aware of the ring around the chain on his neck, hidden in the black layers he wore – shrouded, Locke had called him. The thief wasn't wrong.
He let the chatter wash over him – the voice was so much like hers, but distinct – until they got well into town. "Okay, we want to get to Crown and Harriot," Relm said.
"We do?"
"I do and you're my bodyguard. Though I guess you're off the hook now, I can take care of myself here."
"Can you?"
"I did before! I lived on the docks for months right after the world broke."
He was suddenly horribly aware of how small she was, how young. "Alone?"
"Nahhh, I had the entire Figaro army with me." She shoved her hands in her pockets, and Interceptor nosed at one of them until she pulled her hand out to pet him. "I was okay. Between setting a pimp's shoes on fire and stabbing this one guy and all my artwork, I had it so everyone was afraid to come near me, let alone make me do anything. I could make chalk drawings on stone jump people, it was really cool. And I could make enough money to eat with safe art, sometimes. And there was always stuff to scrounge. Plus it was summer, so not having a roof wasn't that big a deal."
"Ah." What she was describing was really fairly pleasant compared to the lives of some street children. Nothing that should trouble him, and it was all past now anyway. If she was concealing anything from him, it was no matter – it would be too late for anything but revenge anyway.
"Then Owzer's boyfriend, what's his name – that guy that runs the opera house? I'm not sure I ever heard his name. He was checking on some of Owzer's properties around here, to find out if they even still existed, and he saw me drawing and started trying to give me money. Once I figured out he wasn't some creepy pedophile I figured, hell, why not? So I made him take me back to Thamasa first."
"Why not stay there?"
"We had a deal. And I wanted to see Jidoor!" She started walking, and he kept his pace slow to match hers. "I spent my whole life thinking other places were just myths – and they kind of were. I guess you never saw the globe in Grandpa's room, or the atlases, but our maps were so out of date. They didn't have anything east of Figaro, they didn't even try to guess, just kind of petered out."
"The War of the Magi must have been a catclysm like this, reshaping the land."
"Yeah, and none of our tribe bothered to check the changes before they took off for the ends of the earth. So stupid."
He knew the answers, but he'd ask all the same. "Do you ever get travelers? Your speech isn't really different from ours. Languages normally change."
"Oh, yeah, we get travelers all the time, they just never stay very long. Can't afford to. There's a trade zone down at the tip where your group landed the first time – or there was, I guess – so people were coming and going from there, too. And people leave and come back, Goddess knows what they tell other people about where they're from. My father was one of them, Grandpa says." And here he'd thought he was steering away from awkward subjects. "I don't even remember what he looks like, but that's what the old man says."
"I see," he said, neutral. Regret was one of those emotions he'd killed.