It was mid-afternoon by the time they were airborne across the ocean between Jidoor and Mobliz. Terra sighed and stretched her arms, leaning back against Leo once their flight path was stable. "Mmm, I still love this. Just being out here with you and Orcus with nothing but the waves and the wind... I've been anxious about how the children have been doing without me, but this helps me to feel more relaxed."
He wrapped one arm around her while keeping a hold of Orcus's flank with the other hand. Inhaling deeply, he concurred, "You are right, this is quite tranquil. But if the love you've shown them is anything like the love you've shown me, then I am certain that they have the emotional fortitude to withstand a short absence. You said that you vanquished the monster that had been threatening them, correct?"
She nodded. "Yeah, the one major one. There are still a lot of other smaller monsters that still roam the outskirts of the village, though. If any of them got bored or upset and ran outside..."
"You have earned their respect, I'm certain. They'll behave themselves out of their desire to keep you happy," he said, squeezing her. "At least... if children are anything like soldiers, I suppose. I only have experience with rearing the latter."
Terra giggled. "Well, from the sounds of Wes's letters, I think you did a pretty good job of taking care of them."
Leo relaxed his grip on her and gazed off towards the horizon. "Corporal Wes Janson... Nineteen years old, originally hailed from the Marandan armed forces, however they were absorbed into the Imperial army when Maranda was annexed. After some time I was able to win over most of the Marandan soldiers and they became loyal to the Empire, but he was a steadfast holdout. His thoughts were only towards his love back home and how he could get back to her. And if that's where his love ultimately lay I still wanted to support it to the best of my ability, and provided him a means of maintaining contact with her. Even so, I never got the feeling that he cared much for me, so the contents of his letter... were quite unexpected."
"Oh, no, he adored you," Terra said in surprise. "But he did seem to treat you... sort of like you were separate from the Empire. That you were an exception. Just like you once told me not to use Kefka as the standard to judge everyone else in the Empire."
"And perhaps it took me truly becoming 'separate' from the Empire to understand that..." he admitted. "To me, Emperor Gestahl was the Empire. I loved all the people in it and desired to serve them and their interests, and I believed that following the Emperor's will was the means to do so. Yes, even then I understood that there were some people in the Empire who performed evil deeds, but I believed them to be acting out of selfishness and wholly against what our Empire and Emperor stood for. But... when I lost my memory, and could view people's opinion of my country objectively as an outsider..." He closed his eyes and let out a ragged sigh. "What monsters we had become..."
Terra reached up to hold her hand against his cheek. "Leo, you absolutely are not a monster, and never were. You loved your people and put them first. I love the children and put them first. Wes loved Lola and put her first. And in all those cases someone else got hurt because their needs weren't the ones being prioritized... but I don't think... I don't think that means your feelings were wrong."
He kept his eyes closed and leaned his cheek into her hand. "Perhaps... It is just so disheartening that my desire to serve and protect my people nevertheless led to such misery. And I don't mean the fall of the world, which I recognize was solely Kefka's doing, but the ongoing war before that. The conquests of Tzen, Albrook, Maranda, South Figaro, Doma... I still directly played a role in all of that. Willingly."
Terra absently rubbed her thumb under his jaw in thought. He'd said that in the case of South Figaro, at least, he'd made a deal with the upper-class citizens to occupy the town ahead of a planned armed invasion to minimize loss of life. But that couldn't have been the case for everywhere. She'd heard from Cyan that Doma had been under siege for three years, with Leo at the command. She wanted to know what his rationale had been to go along with the Empire's bid for world conquest since that seemed beyond protecting his people, but... she was also afraid of uncovering something that would potentially shatter her view of him. She would almost rather not know and be content to assume he had some noble reason for doing it in order to keep their relationship happy and stable.
But... that right there may have been exactly what happened to him: He loved his country and was simply afraid of questioning too deeply about what it was doing out of fear of the whole thing just coming crashing down around him. But it was that lack of having its actions challenged that allowed the Empire's power to grow out of control. In her case, she loved the children but she still had to know when to tell them "No". And she loved Leo, but she couldn't support that love with willful ignorance.
The children were a priority right now, though. If... there ended up being something, however unlikely, that would put a strain on her relationship with Leo, she didn't want it interfering with the aid to Mobliz. Not to mention that it had still only been less than a day since he'd gotten his memories back so to him the events of the Floating Continent and the fall of the world still stung fresh. She could hardly expect him to be fully okay with everything now after only one short talk. It would take him considerable time and care to even begin to come to terms with everything. Looking up at him, she decided, "I... do want to hear about what you were thinking back then and what drove you to decide the way you did... but I want to get the children settled first. I want to make sure I can give your worries the proper thought and attention, and I think that's going to take longer than the rest of this flight." She indicated ahead of them to a shadow of land on the horizon.
"Mm..." he concurred, nodding into her hand. "I do need to confront my past deeds... however not at the cost of rendering myself emotionally unavailable to those children at this time. You are correct that it can wait." He felt a slight pang in his throat at the realization that he might have already assumed too much, and looked down to confirm, "You... will permit me to assist you with them, will you not?"
"Of course you can, I would love for any help you could give," she replied in surprise. Why would he think he wasn't automatically welcome? With him even slipping back into his formal speech pattern, she could tell that he was getting anxious again. Honestly, playing with the children would probably do wonders to loosen him up, and would be a fantastic activity for them as well.
As they approached land, Terra could actually see Mobliz in the distance and felt the yearning in her chest increase. There was no activity outside, which was normal, but it still caused her to worry. Thankfully the forest south of Mobliz was only a short walk away and once they landed it wouldn't be too much farther on foot.
Landing, of course, was the biggest hurdle, as Orcus was already rather ungraceful at it, and with a train of crates floating behind them it made it all the more awkward. Orcus stuck out his feet to grab the top of the tallest tree, but the brittle wood snapped off and he ended up flapping inelegantly into the canopy, his feathers covered in twigs and pine needles. Leo grabbed Terra around the waist and held onto a branch with the other hand, pulling her off the chocobo's back and remaining in the treetops.
Orcus shook himself off and cocked his head at Leo, who said, "I'm sorry, this isn't a criticism of your landing skills. It's just that we have much more cargo than normal and I don't think it's going to make it down through these trees no matter how delicate you are. Go on ahead, we'll meet you down there."
Orcus made a moody grunt and proceeded to hop down through the branches while Leo continued to hold Terra in the crook of one arm while holding onto the tree with the other. He shook his head with a sigh and a slight smile and requested to Terra, "May you provide us a smoother means of descent?"
"Of course," she said, wrapping one arm around the back of his shoulders and placing the other hand on his chest. With a soft chant she whispered, "Float", and the two of them and their train of supplies lifted off the branch and hovered to the side of the trees where they could descend unobstructed. With her Float spell supporting them, Leo secured her against him with both arms and hugged her against his chest. Terra rested her cheek against his shoulder and fingered the flap on his collar, looking up at him both with affection and a bit of worry.
Leo met her gaze and felt a flutter in his chest and throat. When she looked at him like that, his emotions were a clash between feeling secured and cared-for, and feeling like he was just one misstep away from breaking her heart. They genuinely loved each other, of that he could be certain, but they had still only known each other for a relatively short time and there was so much that she didn't know about him... Things that he had only just recently remembered about himself and could only now properly contextualize, and they even gave him pause as to whether he was worth that love.
When they lightly touched down on the ground, Leo let Terra down and silently lingered his hands on her shoulders for a moment. All he could do was be honest with her the next time they had the opportunity to talk and let her make that decision for herself. A part of him selfishly wanted her to just forgive him and stay with him no matter what, because if he lost her, he didn't know if he could keep the trauma that was still roiling in the back of his mind in check by himself. But that kind of dishonesty with their feelings would eventually tear their relationship apart, anyway.
His overly-anxious thoughts were interrupted by Orcus strutting to the edge of the forest and giving a squawk that almost sounded like clearing his throat. Leo tensed with a start, then chuckled and shook his head. "I haven't forgotten about you, my friend. Thank you for your assistance in getting us this far." He pulled the tin of raisins from his pocket and noted that there were only a few left. He hadn't found any more in the shop in Jidoor so this really was the last of them.
Pursing his lips, Leo walked to where Orcus was standing and held out the remainder of the raisins. "And by 'getting us this far', I mean 'thank you for everything'. Tomorrow we will likely be departing from here by airship, meaning we will be unable to bring you along. Not that I expect you would care for an airship." He ruffled the feather's on Orcus's neck. "In the meantime, I would like you to stand guard in this forest and do what you do best: scare away monsters. One we return, I hope that I will eventually be able to bring you even more luxurious treats than these."
Orcus cocked his head, then nonchalantly pecked the remaining raisins out of Leo's hand. Leo sighed and shook his head with a smile, saying, "I really don't think you understood much of any of that, but I would be remiss if I never even attempted to tell you."
Terra walked up next to him and wrapped her arms around his arm. "Don't worry, Orcus, we'll only be gone for a few days, and then I promise I'll bring him back to you. Take care until then."
Orcus bobbed his head like he actually did understand that, then leaned forward to nibble at Terra's hair. She giggled, then playfully pushed his face away. "And thank you for looking after the children while we're gone. It means a lot to me."
Leo reached out to scratch Orcus's cheek. "Yes, thank you. Stay safe, my friend." Orcus made another little head-bob, then turned and wandered back into the forest.
Terra reached over to squeeze Leo's hand. "I know we're technically not, but it almost felt like we were saying 'goodbye' to him. I want to believe for certain that we'll beat Kefka and restore the world and come back here in a few days, but..."
Leo nodded. "Waiting for certainty means waiting forever. There is a fine line in military tactics between rushing in unprepared and waiting too long for the ideal opportunity, and even acting at that line does not guarantee a victory. You can do your best and still lose. What matters, I think, is how you handle that failure."
Terra tugged on his hand. "Well, right now there's no time for waiting or worrying about failing. Come on, we've got some children to take care of."
Leo flushed a little and followed her lead. "Yes... you're absolutely right."
They made their way around the forest, which opened up to the sinkhole with the village of Mobliz beyond. Terra felt her chest clench in remembrance. This was the same view she had when she first found the town a year ago, freshly razed, and she hadn't left since. The buildings were still in shambles and the surrounding vegetation was even more decayed than it had been that day. Even after a year... the appearance of the town had only gotten worse.
Leo also surveyed the surroundings with a harsh swallow. This was where Terra and those children had been living for the past year? What horrific conditions... Though at the same time he felt like making any comment on them would seem like a criticism of her ability to support the town. Nevertheless he admired her resilience to be able to continue to sustain life in such a place.
As they crossed the small strip of land around the sinkhole, two dogs appeared and began barking menacingly. However, they quickly recognized Terra and assumed a more friendly stance, trotting up to her with tails wagging. Terra crouched down and happily pet them while they licked her, saying, "Hey there, you two, I'm glad to see you're all right! Yes, I'm home now. How is everyone else doing?"
"Oh, you have dogs!" Leo said excitedly. "I'm glad to know that you had that kind of security and companionship while you were here."
The dogs looked up at him and made an uncertain whine, but Terra rubbed their heads and said, "Don't worry, he's a friend. He's here to help." They hesitantly approached him and Leo held out his hand for them to sniff. After checking his scent, the dogs began wagging their tails again and excitedly circled his legs to sniff him more and check out the crates he was carrying.
"Looks like they like you," said Terra with a smile.
"Y... yeah..." Leo replied, watching the dogs continue to sniff down the line of crates trailing behind him. Being accepted by Mobliz's guard dogs had... touched him a lot more than he expected. Ever since he had gotten his memories back and re-contextualized them based on the comments of the people he had overheard during his time as an invisible non-entity, he'd realized that... he'd been an invader. A conqueror. An unwelcome intruder in other people's lands. And now that he saw himself that way, he couldn't un-see it, and couldn't fathom how he had never seen himself that way before now. But that meant that now he couldn't help but second-guess himself as to whether he was imposing himself or actually welcome.
The two of them pulled the train of crates into town and arranged them in a stack formation next to one of the houses before Terra dispelled the Float on them, allowing them to come to rest on the ground. With an accomplished sigh, Terra looked to the door and fidgeted, commenting, "All right... time to see how everyone has been holding up these past few weeks." She looked up to Leo with an anxious half-grin. "I'm nervous. What if something happened? What if there's some problem that will prevent me from being able to leave again tomorrow? What if-"
Leo gently pressed a finger against her lips, silencing her and causing her to blush. Why was the futility of anxiety so easy to see when it was someone else's and so hard to shake when it was his own? "If something has happened, let's save our energy for dealing with it instead of wasting it on worrying about it, all right?"
She nodded, then took his hand and lightly kissed the back of the knuckles in appreciation. "You're right... if something did happen, it's better to get down there and deal with it right away than stand out here and worry about it."
She led him into the house and hurried to the stairs to the basement, sparing a worried glance at the wood-fired stove at the top of the stairs which had gone out. She descended quickly to the underground area while Leo lingered a moment on the main floor, taking in the interior. Terra had... invited him into her home so readily. No matter how he'd recently come to see himself, he wasn't an invader today, but a guest, and he had to honor her hospitality.
Leo followed her down the stairs a moment later where Terra stood fidgeting at the door, leaning her ear towards it to see if she could hear anything, then letting out a resolute breath and just gripping the handle to open it.
When she pushed open the door, she made a small gasp of relief at seeing a few of the children milling about near the ledge. They were initially startled at the sound of someone entering, but when they saw Terra, many of them immediately burst into tears and rushed at her. "Mama! Mama's back!" they shouted, clinging to her legs.
From behind her, Leo felt his throat catch and his face warm. Mama? She had never mentioned the detail that the children had accepted her as their new mother. Perhaps it had just been modesty, but nevertheless it was a detail that was so immensely endearing.
Terra knelt down and hugged the children tightly, telling them, "Yes, I'm home now, and I'm so glad to see you're all right." She looked up and around the room, taking stock of everything and asking, "Is everyone safe? Has anything happened while I was gone?"
"Duane got hurt!" blurted one of the young girls.
"Yeah, he said there was no food left and he was gonna go hunting but he got hurt," chimed in one of the boys.
Another little girl tugged on Terra's clothing and complained, "Mama, I'm hungry."
"My tummy hurts!"
"Read me a story! Katarin's been too busy with Duane!"
Terra stood up and held her hands out, trying to calm them with, "All right, all right, please be patient. I can help you with all of those things in a moment, but you need to be good and let me help Duane first, all right? Can you tell me where he is?"
"He's in the other house where the soldier was!"
"Yeah, Katarin's with him, too."
Terra nodded. "All right, thank you, I'll go see him." Turning to Leo, she held his hand and implored him, "Please, can you look after the children for a moment while I check on Duane and Katarin?"
Leo stared at her in a daze, his cheeks flush. Despite her earlier nerves, she'd immediately stepped up and taken charge, prioritizing tasks in order of urgency. It was a level of leadership he was unused to seeing from her, and he... was quite smitten with it. Nodding, he breathlessly replied, "Y... yes, of course, I would be happy to help."
She smiled in relief, then unconsciously leaned up to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Her thoughts caught up to her a second later and they both held each other's rather flustered gaze for a moment before she bashfully turned her head away and gave him a grateful pat on the arm as she walked past him back to the stairway.
Leo watched her depart, but his thoughts were interrupted by one of the children noting, "Oooh, Mama kissed him."
"Are you Mama's boyfriend?"
Leo stiffened for a moment, then relaxed and shook his head with a slight chuckle. He crouched down to their level and replied, "I don't want to make any assumptions about that without your Mama's input, so I'll leave it up to her what she wants to call me." He poked a finger towards the child closest to him and continued, "But what's more important right now is what I should call all of you. I'd like to know your names and a little bit about you, if that's all right." He turned his hand and pointed back at himself. "My name is Leo, I'm 31 years old, and I love helping people and listening to music." Turning his finger back to point at the little girl in front of him, he queried, "And you are...?"
She gripped the bottom of her skirt and swayed back and forth bashfully. "Ummm... My name is Lili, I'm six years old, and I liiiike... flowers."
Leo nodded with a smile. "Nice to meet you, Lili. Your Mama and I are going to work hard to make those flowers bloom again, and then I hope you can have a whole field of them here." And with that information, Lili sounded like a good candidate for that flower-patterned skirt that Terra bought.
Her eyes lit up, which left Leo feeling gratified at bringing a smile to a child's face. Moving on, he questioned the little boy next to her, "And you?"
He puffed out his cheeks and asserted, "I'm Felix and I'm four years old..."
"No, you turned five," Lili corrected in a hushed whisper.
"I'm five years old," he continued, holding up four fingers, "And I like rocks."
"He likes throwing rocks," Lili added. "He gets in trouble for that."
"No I dooon't!" Felix retorted, sounding offended.
Leo held up his hand in a peaceful gesture. "It's not nice to make fun of things that make people happy." He turned to Felix and added, "But it's also not nice to do things that hurt or bother people. What is it about rocks that makes you happy? Maybe there's something you can do with them that won't cause other people as much trouble."
"I like it when I can make them go really far," Felix replied.
Leo nodded knowingly. "Ahh, I see." It sounded like Felix was going to get a lot of use out of that ball. He didn't want to let them in on the surprise of all the presents he and Terra had brought along with them until she got back, since he wanted her to be there to help deliver the news.
He questioned through the remaining six children: Isabel, age eight, who liked building things; Charley, age six, who liked dogs; Jeanne, age nine, who liked to read; Ivan, age seven, who liked dried meat; Frances, age six, who liked running around; and Dennis, age eight, who liked chocobos.
One introductions were complete, Leo stood up and looked over the children with a smile. "I'm so proud of you all for doing your best this past year. And I'm proud of your Mama for taking such good care of you."
"Is Mama gonna stay for good now?" Isabel wondered.
Leo squared his jaw and looked at her a little guiltily. "Well... there is still one more thing that we need to do, and after that I hope that she can come back and stay with you for good. But you have to remember that your Mama is a hero, and heroes sometimes have to go away and do things in order to keep you safe."
"I know, she beat Humbaba!" shouted Ivan, raising his fist. "And then she said she had to go fight the monster that took our parents away."
In the past, even though he wholly disapproved of Kefka's actions, Leo would still never go so far as to call him a "monster". He was still just as human as anyone and thus Leo had naively assumed that he, too, was open to empathy and reason if approached with the same level of respect and care. But Kefka would only ever take advantage of that goodwill while offering none of his own in return. And thus it was only recently that Leo had been forced to admit to himself... that some people were simply a lost cause.
He rested a hand on Ivan's shoulder and nodded. "That's right, and we're going to leave to do that tomorrow, but we wanted to make sure that your Mama got the chance to see you again one more time before we did. So I hope you can be supportive of her and make sure she can go do what she needs to do, and welcome her back when she comes home."
"We wiiillll," they chorused.
He folded his hands behind his back and looked at them with a nod. "I like your resolve, however I think I would like to see it in action." He tilted his head behind him to the door and said, "When she comes back through that door, I want you all to show her that support that will give her the strength to fight for you, understood?"
"Okay!" they all shouted excitedly.
Notes:
- And here we have the other reason I felt the amnesia subplot was necessary: to give Leo a fresh perspective on all the shady crap he was involved with in the Empire. Leo's a sweetheart and all, but he still voluntarily led the invasion of two sovereign nations in-game (South Figaro and Doma) and one would assume he had involvement in the subjugation of quite a few others. And if I want him and Terra to have a truly healthy relationship, I can't just give him a free pass on that and sweep it under the rug. He needs the opportunity to really introspect and explain himself for that, which we'll get to in a while.
- So, this time around it was basically necessary to come up with names for all the Mobliz children. I still wanted some sort of theme but couldn't find anything linking "Duane" and "Katarin". However, after checking the Japanese script, Duane's Japanese spelling of ディーン would actually probably be "Dean", and Katarin's カタリーナ would be more like "Katrina" or "Catalina". And fortuitously, "Dean", "Katrina", "Catalina" AND my previous ass-pulled name "Felix" are ALL Atlantic hurricane names retired between 2000 and 2010. And I guess it's only appropriate that everyone in Mobliz is named after a destructive force of nature. (note that this can't possibly be the actual justification for Duane and Katarin's names in-game since the game was originally released in 1994, I just found my own correlation)
- Title "Ritornello" means "little return" and is a passage of music that reappears multiple times in a piece, often as a bridge between two sections.