Wine, Women, and Song

by Themis56

Originally started out as backstory, this is an entire chronicle of Setzer Gabbiani's life. Now completed, despite an ending that circles the drain. R for language, violence, sexual situations.

15. Setzer Gabianni Flies Again

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SETZER GABBIANI FLIES AGAIN

Note: God, I hate this chapter. But now it seems I've gone full speed ahead into the games events (a mistake), I can't stop now. I don't know how to make it better. Maybe someday, someday I'll find a way to revise it. But for now, sit and suffer like a good reader.

Daryl's tomb had a new location near the coast southwest of Kohlingen, not a long walk from the town. Grass had usurped the marble gravestone, giving it the appearance of an ancient burial mound rather than the elegant sepulcher it once was. No drastic alterations had been made to it besides--Kefka seemed more interested in destroying that which belonged to the living who stubbornly clung to any joy in the world than trifle with the dead.

Setzer parted the twisting parasite vines and grass at the tomb's front, searching in secret corners with his fingers until he found the large silver marker. GO AWAY's tarnished letters winked up at him; his fingers used the epitaph to serve as a starting point to feel for the hidden lever that would open the door.

"This woman, Daryl, she was your friend?" Celes inquired. She and the Figaro twins waited as their guide combed through the grass for whatever he was searching for.

"Yeah, she was a piece of work. Nothing ever scared her. And, if I'm not mistaken--" The fingers on his right hand bumped against something cool and hard; they encircled around it, found a good hold, and flicked it down. A grinding ensued, and the clicking of locks came from the inside. "There!" He leaned forth and pressed his lips on the sleek plate

"I had never expected to come back here for this purpose, but I was a little crazy when this thing was being designed. My manservant, Benedick, gods rest him, said that if I ever wanted to see her, just I alone, then he'd find a way for me to get past the locks." He smiled, kissed the epitaph again, and looked sharply at his comrades. "I don't know the extent of damage caused on...that day, so there could be monsters, anything down here. Tread carefully."

Upon their entrance and subsequent exploration of the tomb, it was found that the elaborate grids of rooms and corridors had come out relatively unscathed. However, in the Statue's chaotic frenzy, terrible powers had rended the very working of the world haywire: people had found themselves transported from one place to another, islands had risen out of the sea depths, savage monsters had been released from long imprisonments. The tomb had not escaped this mode of damage. Monsters slithered about, having long ago wrecked the ornaments and furnishings and ruined the stone's pure colors. The party ran into the beasts quite often, quickly dispatching them.

Setzer could not remember the tomb's exact layout, so he led his group through countless musty rooms, doubling back many times, fighting the denizens ceaselessly. Eventually they hacked their way into a large room that had deep scarlet and purple drapes hanging from the ceiling; the air was not as choked with moss and dust as the other rooms. A small flight of steps pointed the path towards a marble coffin decked in roses and velvet spreads. Setzer's heart, already unsettled and nervous, beat painfully.

"Is that it?" Celes's whisper echoed loud through the burial chamber. Setzer nodded.

"Yes. Come on, let's go. There's an entrance to the holding bay behind one of the back drapes. Can't remember which one exactly, but that shouldn't take too long to figure out. When we find it, I'm going to switch on a lever near the coffin. It'll open it for us."

This prognosis was proved to be true; after a few trials and errors, Edgar gave a triumphant shout. Setzer hastened over and ascertained the find; as he looked back, holding the velvet in one hand, he heard a rumbling in the distance. A blue light flickered around the coffin, and a creature of shadow hovered over the marble lid. It reached down its hands, slid the cover away, and dipped its head, skeleton's mouth slavering.

Setzer cried out in a frenzied, almost religious rage: "Leave her be, you damned beast!"

Blazing eyes sunk within deep sockets leapt from the coffin and fell upon the four fleshy things; it gave a shriek and whistled up a ragged cart drawn by two bloodless, spectral animals. It snatched a massive mace from the cart, brandishing it high.

"The Dullahan," Celes cried, grasping her Runic Blade. "Oh, Setzer, why couldn't you have left it alone?"

"I'll have the demon gnaw my own bones first before I'll stand to see it get hers," Setzer spoke low, and he unsheathed his knife. "Besides, that thing's supposed to attack with magic mostly--a sitting duck for you, my dear."

The Dullahan whipped its team and rumbled towards them, and Setzer had time for no more words. Their adversary's first offensive was indeed a magic-oriented one: it summoned up an arc of blue flames, circular and shining as pearls, and cast the spell down, only to have the orbs sucked up into the effulgent nullification runes inscribed on Celes's blade. The demon bellowed in fury. Sabin leapt gracefully over the team and landed a mighty blow on the bony jaw; Edgar fired a volley into its chest, which only seemed to anger it further. The Dullahan lashed its mace out, aimed for Sabin's head but caught him in the chest and, sent him hurtling backwards. Setzer ran to give the younger Figaro aid, and as he did so he stabbed the Dullahan under the ribs while passing. It whipped around to retaliate. Edgar seized this as an opportunity to reload his crossbow and fire another round.

Monsters and demons are incredibly stupid as a rule, and the Dullahan was no exception; it was accustomed to preying on dumb beats or scavenging on dead things in the places it haunted, not to attacking a group of four veteran fighters, one an Imperial General. It started to drive its cart after Edgar, its body bent forth like a jouster, and tried to run him under the spiked wheels. Celes darted out and cast a spell, hitting its chest and sending a few rib bones flying. This action goaded the demon into chasing after her instead. Setzer and the revived Sabin caught onto the strategy. When Celes looked to be slowing down, they broke out, thrashed the Dullahan in a flurry of strokes, then ran, chased in circles around the room.

Occasionally someone would get whipped by the mace or raked by the Dullahan's bony claw; a good bit of healing magic cleared that up. But somewhere within its empty skull the demon realized that it could do the same thing, so it too began to heal itself between attacks. Celes's Runic Blade could not handle absorbing so many spells, and she actually started to absorb her own comrade's magic, much to their displeasure. Setzer threw himself, sweating, disheveled, and frustrated into the fray; he inflicted damage, but he usually got a blow in return and the Dullahan only cured itself.

"Oh, to hell with this!" Sabin snarled, heavy chest panting, the metal claws clasped around his white knuckles dripping. He threw down the gear and cracked his hands together. "Brother, Celes, get him over my way! I'm gonna crack me some bones!"

Celes and Edgar led their pursuer around in circles for a while to get the team a bit winded; they started to swing the circle out in larger and larger loops until finally the demon passed right by Sabin, who had hidden in the shadows. The beefy Figaro leapt out from his niche towards the skull's head. He thrust out his elbow and caught the demon right at its mandible. The head popped off its trunk like a grape, hit the floor at Celes's feet. She made a sound in her throat and stomped on the bones. Setzer joined her; they began to dance on the skull together, crunching it between their feet. It was quite fun, in a sort of sick way.

"That was some nice smashing, Sabin," Edgar complimented, aglow in his fraternal pride, and Sabin chuckled softly, waving off the praise. They went over to Setzer and helped him to replace the coffin lid. Setzer kept his eyes on the ceiling--he didn't want to look inside.

After hitting the switch on the marble coffin's pillar, Setzer lifted the velvet drape and stepped onto a winding flight of stone stairs. At the end of the flight a door surrounded by torches beckoned.

"This," he murmured to his companions, "brings back a lot of memories." He obliged tacit questions by retelling an abridged account of how he had met Daryl, what she had been like, her aerial adventures, and her end. He did it all without tears; yet at the touch of the stone, the closing distance to the Falcon's hold, a pang of longing swelled in his heart. He missed her still.

"Man, you're almost as screwed up as Locke is," Edgar said at the end of the story, not without sympathy.

Not dignifying that with a response, Setzer swung the hold's door. Inside, oiled sides gleaming, lay the beautiful expanse of the Falcon. How lovely it was!

"So that's the Falcon," Celes said softly.

"What a beauty!" Edgar cried. He stroked the wooden planks in an engineer's admiration.

"Please refrain from hitting on my airship," Setzer clipped, "it's beneath a man of your station." Sabin laughed at this; Edgar's ears turned red. The gambler smiled but grew somber quickly. "I put in storage--I couldn't bear to look at her. But now she might just save us."

"Hush, all of you!" Celes hissed without any warning; she drew her blade, eyes darting about, ears pricked, her whole body trembling in concentration. "I heard something in one of the corners. It may be nothing, but I don't want to take that chance."

"I don't think there're any monsters down here. None of them would be so clever as to find the secret passage," Setzer whispered. Then he shouted: "Hellooo! Who's there? Show yourself!"

An ungainly shadow appeared along the far wall; it moved jerkily and looked hunched. "My good Master?"

"Benedick! It's you, isn't it? What in blazes are you doing down here, crazy coot?" Setzer shouted in jubilation; he rushed forth and enfolded Benedick in an embrace. The old man's form felt thin underneath his moldy, ragged clothes.

"Oh, Master, ye would not believe the tribulations I have undergone! I had restored my health by rest in Narshe and was gadding about the town, awaiting thy return as per thy orders, when there was a great flash of devilish necromancy; I did faint in the blast, Master, and when I regained my senses, I found myself to be in this wretched place! I could no for the life of me find an exit, and beasts were all around, I've been staying with the ship, not daring to come out, feasting on the sickly animals or their remains like a common scavenging crow--"

Benedick rambled on and on in this manner for a long time, shaking so violently that Setzer kept his arms wrapped around the old Doman's body tight.

"But what a fortunate, blissful sight ye are to my poor eyes, Master!" Benedick concluded. "Do ye seek to leave this place?"

"Yes. We're going to take the Falcon out, and we're taking you with us. Once we're clear, I'll drop you off at the nearest town."

"Never! I shan't leave ye, not for the wide world! Last time I was left alone, I found myself in unspoken terrors. I'll do better to throw my lot with ye."

He did not wish to tax the old man in argument. "Well. I guess I'll have to let you stay, won't I? But you'll not be a slug, my dear Benedick. It'll be laid to you to watch out over the storage hold, retrieve swords and arms, and help us don our armor."

"I should fain do that."

"Splendid! Now let's get you some new clothes--Edgar's got a spare, I think--and feed you."

Benedick received the clothes, food cooked over a magic-cast fire, and there was enough water in the canteens to allow the old man to give himself a sponge bath, he needed one. While that went on, the four comrades held an impromptu meeting where they reached the unanimous verdict that they were all too fatigued to fly the airship out at the moment. A good sleep was required.

Setzer unrolled his pallet on the Falcon's deck, laying his cheek against the warm, tremulous wood; the others had elected to take slumber in the lower decks. Such an arrangement suited the newly-winged captain just fine. He wanted to be left alone. Here lay the ground that she had walked so often on (the deck was recycled from the battered original); why, every warp, faintest tracing of a footstep, the smell of the wood was imprinted with her essence. And in the tomb's darkness, it was very easy to pretend that he was floating under the night sky in an unchanged world, her cheek, her breath warm on his scars...

"I am sorry," he whispered. He stroked his hand along the ground. "I am sorry." To take the Falcon away from here seemed the ultimate blow to her honor and memory; but he had to do it. He could only pray that whatever spirit, essence, or any other metaphysical aspect of herself understood and forgave his transgression. In the darkness, he conjured up images of the good times; so wrapped up was he that it hardly occurred to him that he loved her passionately still. Other were alive, he loved them dearly, but it was no crime to be alone in the place he and Daryl shared and think of her.

Footsteps vibrated beneath his cheek. Setzer leaned up on one arm in time to observe Celes come out onto the deck carrying her bedding.

"Hello," she said. "Do you mind if I slept out here?"

"Not at all. Knock yourself out."

"I don't like having you do this," Celes said as she unfurled her bedroll. "Does it bring back many memories?"

"Yes. But they don't hurt. I'll be fine."

"Thank you for doing so much for us."

"You're quite welcome," he responded very gallantly; he turned on his side and faced her, a quizzical frown on his brow. "I don't see much sense in it, though. If Kefka is as powerful and mad as you say, then what, pray you tell me, keeps him from blasting us all to pieces the moment I get her out of here? I can't stand a second wreck, Celes."

"Kefka has grown terribly powerful." Celes granted that point. "But his insanity's grown too; or, say, his confidence has grown in his insanity. He knows of our plans, no doubt, but he won't do much to get in our way directly. He won't blast us."

"He's toying with us."

"True, and he'll bitterly regret it later, let me tell you. I think he actually wants us to come to him. He wants his mettle to be tested."

"And once we're gone, he can just destroy all he likes. We're the only shred of restraint ol' Keffy has."

Celes's face masked itself into a single mask of determination, and she said, "I don't plan on being gone."

Silence reigned for a pace; Setzer could not see his companion, but he palpably sensed her tight body shifting towards him. A clearing of the throat preceded her next few tentative words.

"What was she like? I don't mean to intrude of anything--"

"No, no, I don't mind. She was a piece of work, Daryl was. Kind, pretty, witty--you know, basically flawless."

"Do you think about her often? Does she take up all your thoughts?"

"I do think about her, but not all the time. How on earth do you think I've gotten to admire you so dreadfully if I spent every waking hour mooning on over her? And, by the same token, why do you think I've been spending my time lavishing gifts and company on the most exquisite--though not as lovely as you--Maria?"

"In love with three women," Celes said rather bluntly.

"Why not? It's possible. It's different all around. I think I'm making a mistake in telling you of my most cleverly secreted feelings, but it's not like the others. You intrigue me and bring out all my reverence, dear Chere, but I know better than to throw my attentions, which you so coldly scorn, on you. It's bad for both of us." He regarded her slyly. "Now I've totally ruined my estimation in your eyes, you must tell me something. Why do you grill me so much on these matters?"

She did not answer; Setzer realized a bit of coaxing would be needed to drag anything out of her. "By the blue bandanna tied on your sword's hilt, I'd say you're curious."

"Ah, I hate you!" Celes hissed vehemently, and he could feel her eyes glittering into him. The freak of passion ended as soon as it begun, and she rolled on her side, very calm. "It's my own fault, I guess."

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said contritely.

"I've known something like pleasure before," she murmured, voice muffled in her blankets. "When I had completed a good day's training, when I was with Granddad, and when I'm in your and the other's company, I feel--pleasant. But if Locke's around me, it's different. When I first felt it, I thought I was going to die. Now he's gone off looking--"

"Jealous?"

"No! I won't stoop to that. But I've seen her. She is very beautiful."

"Pretty, yes. Indeed, what is the sublimity of you and your wonderfully fragile soul next to our dark-haired poppet and her dead eyes? I'll tell you straight, if Locke misses his opportunity, then he's even more of an idiot that I gave him credit for. I swear, here's the wheel, and here's Locke: 'Duu-uuh, what d'Ah do with this?' " Setzer goggled his eyes, drawled his words, and thrashed his hands in the air; Celes choked, but she quickly grew stern.

"I really wish you wouldn't tease Locke like that, Setzer."

He was indignant: "Please. Edgar teases Locke; Sabin teases him, Relm teases him. Cole was made for teasing. What else is he good for?"

"I know it's all in good fun, but you seem to take a little more relish in it."

"I kid him because I love him," Setzer responded stoutly.

"So you say," she grumbled. "Seriously, Locke's been good to me. I would have died on more than one occasion if it wasn't for him. I keep this bandanna...well, I won't bring that up. It's embarrassing."

The gambler jerked up against his arm, looking hard in her direction; there was an undercurrent of sheer urgency and frantic, childish fear that alarmed him. "What did you do?"

"I tried to kill myself," she said mildly, as if she were ashamed of herself. "I was all alone on an island, Granddad was dead, everything dead...it was a moment of weakness. I leapt from the cliffs on the edge of the island."

"Ah, Celes."

They did not speak to each other for a good while; Setzer was too distressed at this revelation to speak, and Celes was too mortified. The indomitable General Chere, attempting suicide! The poor child, what terrors and torments had she known?

At length Celes broached the subject: "I'm alive, though. I survived. I found this bandanna, and it made me feel hope. So you see, Setzer, why I don't like it when you rib him so mercilessly? Promise me you'll let him be."

He readily assented to that proviso--anything to make her feel more at ease; then he spoke gently. "I shall be honest with you. No man ever forgets his first love. However, it is possible to accept the hard facts and find true happiness again in another. Why do you think there're second wives and husbands in the world? For fun? I'd start courting you in earnest, my dear, if I weren't already madly in love with someone else."

The very air around her seemed to be tinged red. "Flatterer," came the cold, affected response. He couldn't resist the urge to go on; it was lovely to get a new reaction out of her after so long.

"Well, it's true. Can't I show my terrible respect for you, Ms. Chere, when I think you're the prettiest living thing on this planet, (which you are)?"

"I thought you were in love with someone else."

"That I am. But I've got enough appreciation for aesthetics to go around. I mean it: I'm quite fond of you."

"I would feel the same if you didn't annoy me so much. I don't see why you don't admire and comfort someone else. Terra--she has her own problems, and she's as pretty as I am. Her soul's more wounded than mine."

"Terra's a dear, wonderful girl; and she also has Locke, Edgar, and just about everyone else to sympathize with. You've been quite neglected. You need someone to squeeze a blush of you occasionally. It's a great ego booster."

"I don't want it."

"You need it."

"How generous. Now you'll rub my face in all that I've said to you, I suppose."

"Never!"

"Well, that's decent of you. Don't forget your promise, please--"

"I won't. I swear to you again that never, under any circumstances, will I publicly make fun of Locke's attire, semantic conventions, or any other flaw in that touchy little soul of his, bless him!" he cried, placing his hand over his heart.

"You'll break it. Still, it's a nice thought."

Then she blurted out, "Do you think I'll see him if I die before we find him?"

"What!"

"I mean that, if something happens and I don't get to see him--will I be able to when I've passed?"

Such a strange question! He thought of evading it,, but he was compelled to speak the truth: "I honestly don't know."

"I should've expected that. But Setzer, to think that I wouldn't see him or Granddad or anyone else again!"

"Don't think on it. Just don't die, Celes, and you'll see him."

"You know," she said unexpectedly, "I'm glad I talked to you."

"Even if we didn't resolve anything," he agreed. "We're not cut out for great philosophy, dear Celes. We're too shallow. But we're not any less worthy for that."

"Indeed not." She flipped onto her stomach, gave a mighty yawn, and stretched out like a long white cat. Setzer buried his head into his bedding, too.

"Now you must promise me something," he called out.

"Mmm?"

"Promise me that someday you'll perform your Maria shtick for me, for old time's sake."

"Don't I have any shred of good reputation left?" she demanded.

"None whatsoever. Why, when you got out in front of that audience dressed in that lovely dress, cute little faux pearl earrings, all covered in the most ad-orable ribbons, your own magnificence snatched it all away."

"I'm smothering in the praise. Good night."

"Good night, Celes. Don't worry. We'll find your man, leather pants and all."

"Go to sleep, Setzer."

"One last thing. If I can't make fun of Locke, I feel it's my duty to set him straight. He needs a new wardrobe. Leather and bandannas are passé, the mark of a lice-ridden ruffian..."

"GOOD NIGHT."

He pressed his face into his pillow, shaking in a wave of snickers; after his mirth had subsided, he flailed his arm about, reaching from his bedding, and clasped her cool hand in his. She gave a return squeeze.

Soon her breathing grew even, slow, silent. The gambler lay alone, eyes open, pondering many things, most of them concerning Daryl. She sweetly tormented his dreams, and he could not sleep for reverie. This was the final night that he'd pine for her voice, caresses, eyes, mirth, for the moment the Falcon soared into the air there was no turning back. He might never see her again after he was dead--he didn't know. It seemed damnably cruel, yet he could not think of anything logical to believe otherwise. The best he could do was pray that she would not hate him forever for this, not realizing in self-pity and doubt that she would gladly done the same thing in his position.

*************

With the Falcon launched, the main matter of importance for the Returners (though the Empire had long crumpled, the tattered survivors of the resistance preserved their title) was to locate their other remaining comrades and recruit them for the assault on Kefka's stronghold near Albrook, which could only be penetrated by an aerial attack. Spirits among the four were high, but Celes had told Edgar and Setzer of an encounter with Terra in Mobliz and her reluctance, no, inability to press on fighting, and they did have their doubts on whether similar scenarios would greet them or not.

Fears proved ungrounded. The first Returner found was Cyan, hermited up in the crags of Mt. Zozo; Gau was on the Veldt and immediately gave Setzer merry hell; the mysterious, angst-ridden ninja Shadow they rescued in a cave on the Veldt, then from the Coliseum; Relm was in Jidoor, Mog in Narshe (now overrun by fearful wolves and mastodons). Strago had been a more difficult case; the crazy old man had actually been so mindless in his despair at the loss of his granddaughter that he willingly joined up in a bizarre cult dedicated to Kefka. All this cult ever did was moon and swoon over how great their killer was, a real bunch of loonies, so maybe perhaps Strago found his own niche after all. But Relm came to the loft tower of the fanatics, saw her grandfather, and began to swear a blue streak at him. Strago snapped back to his right mind in an instant. Also, during the quests, two new additions came to the Returners ranks, Umaro, a sasquatch friend of Mog's--the puffy little thing made the oddest acquaintances--and, even more strange, an unsexed figure named Gogo who, or rather, which, had lived in the belly of a Zone Eater for a number of years. It shrouded itself in swirling robes, red and yellow mostly, and countless veils draped its head; a strip tease in winter was nothing to it. For his part, Setzer was wary of Umaro because the big lug had a tendency to smash things, and stayed away from Gogo because it was simply too strange--whenever someone tried to converse with it, it only repeated back what had been said.

Terra was suffering from wounds and maternal bonds. Kefka had demolished the provincial town Mobliz in a great beam of fire, the Light of Judgment. Only orphaned children, who had been protected by their parents, survived the devastation, and Terra had acted as their guardian and mother for a year. She had refused to accompany Sabin and Celes before, but on a subsequent visit, a great demon named Phunbaba harried Mobliz. The Returners fought their best, but unfortunately the demon felled two into unconsciousness with his poisonous breath. Terra, frightened out of her wits for her wards and not a little put off, changed into her fiery Esper shell and, as more rustic witnesses put it, "whupped its scaly green hide." Confidence in her powers restored, she boarded the Falcon triumphantly; Edgar and Setzer had the same idea of giving her a kiss on each cheek upon her advent.

Locke turned out the hardest case to recruit. The story of the Phoenix Cave is a well-known one: the Returners split themselves up into two groups, searched long through the caves, fighting epic battles that every good scholar has studied extensively, and finally caught their thief. Locke declared, sad-faced, that he would only accompany the Returners as far as Kohlingen. Setzer thought him a perfect fool.

Little consequence came out of this stout declaration. Locke, following a harrowing emotional episode in Kohlingen that only Celes witnessed and the others were too mindful of Locke's feelings to inquire about, boarded the airship. He was smothered in embraces.

"So, was it worth it?" Setzer asked when the two found themselves alone on the deck.

"She died," he murmured, wiping his cheeks.

"I suspected as much. The dead're best left lying. I could have told you that."

"But I'm glad I did it."

Setzer smiled gently and put his hand on Locke's shoulder, shaking it firmly. "I'm glad you're here. I hate to admit it, but I missed teasing you."

"Missed being teased," Locke conceded, smiling back.

"Now you're here, you realize, you're staying with us. There's no escape."

"Understood."

"Good, good. I think you'd better hustle off to the lower decks, Locke--Celes and Terra are alone down there with Edgar, and I fear for their virtue."

Once the Returners were bandaged together, the main object was to build experience and strength, buy supplies, and search for helpful treasures and Magicite to prepare for the attack on Kefka. There were several adventures meanwhile, but Setzer had little or nothing to do in those matters. He hardly left the airship. He was paranoid of another crash and swore that he would not let the Falcon go down without him on board; he also used the time to recover from last year's weakness and ailments, sitting in his room, resting.

Setzer would not visit his parents or friends in Jidoor. "Why would I torment them? Only one swift visit, and I'll be off again; I may not come back. It'd break their hearts to see me after so long only to have to rip myself from them. My parents are getting old and have seen more troubles than they deserve--it would kill them. No, I won't see them," it was his wont to say. He knew that they would not want him to leave home again, they would cry and clasp his knees and wail; he didn't trust his strained will to tear himself away, yet he couldn't well stay in Jidoor, not in this wretched world. Better to keep his distance. However, it ineluctably came to pass that he saw Mandy, Benny, and Maria at the Opera House. Luckily, this encounter happened at the same time as the infamous "Dirt Dragon" incident--Setzer's two boyhood friends had their hands full. They did exchange a wave, and Setzer blew a kiss to Maria after the dragon's defeat, but no more.

Unable to resist the nostalgic cravings in his heart that the Opera House crisis instilled, our gambler did venture into Jidoor once. He managed to restrict his wanderings to only shops and the Auction House. In the latter, Setzer slipped in unnoticed. How many times had Mandy ruined an auction here? Too many to tell. Perhaps he would shout out a bid in memory of youth--

"And here we have it, folks, the last item up for bids today," the auctioneer's voice blared, "a full one twelve-hundredth of an airship! Bring it up, ladies!"

Two buxom girls in red negligees rolled out a prow ornamented by a gold-leafed bird flock, diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades emblazoned on their breasts. Setzer's throat dried, his eyes bulged: HIS SHIP!

Yes, it was the Blackjack's prow, no two ways on that. Setzer took a moment to clear his stupefaction, and once the yammering voices became coherent they were talking of selling the dear thing. His dear Blackjack, chopped up and hawked like beef on the market by two girls in nighties! It was not to be borne.

Bidding had already commenced; he had not a gold piece in his pocket, which panicked him initially, but he quelled his horror underneath businessman's coolness. He reckoned that the fools here would hideously underprice it. In that case, the matter to be done was to sprint to the Falcon, raid the storehouse (amply filled), grab a few treasures, and press so many precious items on the winner that there would be no refusal.

Setzer moved towards the door, and as he did so, he distinctly heard a child's strident voice screech in a whisper: "Daddy, Daaaaddy, I want that! Buy it! It's so cool!"

The father, a man near his thirties that Setzer recognized as the most insufferable buffoon that had ever defiled a Jidoorian garden party with his presence even from their school days, leaned over. "No, you don't want it! You'd only break it."

Big eyes quivering, the boy would not be deterred. "I want to build my own airship, Papa!"

"You've had enough for today."

"Noo-o-o, I don't! All I got was two smelly chocobos, three stupid imp robots that keep on running into the wall, and six floaty medallions! I want that! Now! Now, now, now, now, now, now!"

If Setzer had ever considered infanticide in his entire life, never had he come so close to fleshing it out. His head throbbed. His darling, his own, given to this child-beast?

"One million GP!" the father cried, raising his hand. The audience jumped in their chairs to a man and gaped at the latest bidder.

"Soooold!" The gavel pounded the podium, and that was that.

"Yaaay! Thank you, Daddy, thank you!" yipped the boy, skipping so adorably it made one ill to see it.

"Oh, ho, ho," said the indulgent father, "how could I refuse those cute little eyes? Only the best treats for you, my boy! But--do Daddy a favor, and don't tell Mama!"

Setzer went out the door, alone because everyone was too impressed to move; on the threshold, making sure nobody was around and the door locked, he clutched at his head and groaned a high-pitched sound, stamping his feet.

In the midst of his frustrated rage, an idea wended its way into his head, taking devilish form. He wiped his eyes, the barest hint of a smirk creasing his mouth. He knew that the father would not give up the airship for any amount of money. There was more, ridiculously more than one million gold pieces in jewels and other lovely things on the Falcon, but he had seen the blind servitude tempered with annoyance in the man's eyes, the spark in the boy's. They would not give back the prize for one hundred times its worth.

"He'll pay for it. Oh, he'll never get one moment's peace after I've done with him!" Setzer grumbled. He stepped off the Auction House grounds, journeyed to the nearest store to buy some writing supplies. He sat in a cafe to jot the following memorandum to the good father's wife:

Dear Madame:

Your husband has just spent one million gold pieces on a silly little trinket for your son; this doesn't include other items bought, such as an army of imp robots ready to tear your lovely home to pieces and a passel of some of the sorriest-looking chocobos in the province. I suggest you put wire around the garden and paper your house.

By the way, concerning your husband, should you wish to talk the situation over: he's gone to the Peacock Plume to get stinking drunk, and you'll find him in the sack with one of the barmaids.

Most sincere regards for your happiness

Vardaman

Mandy, Setzer thought, would not take it too hard to find that he had released such scandalous information; he'd probably be very proud of it and claim the letter to be his creation alone. In such times, the dear fellow needed a good lie. Setzer enclosed the letter in an envelope. He traveled to a fine northern-district residence and knocked on the door, covering his face by turning up his collar prior to being answered by a servant. He handed the letter, saying that it was very urgent and needed to be given to the mistress of the house at once. He stood on the porch, listened for the shriek, heard it, nodded in vindication, and moved away in time to see a tall, strong woman burst from the house. Knowing that he had begun one of the greatest, most vicious marital spats in human history that reached its height when the husband was stuffed into a butter churn, Setzer took his leave, never to return while Kefka yet lived.

*************

Over a short period, when the Returners had bought the best equipment, found helpful items in their countless excursions into the wilderness, and resolved personal weights or at least gained the strength to bear the blows, our heroes unanimously came to the same decision: their skills were at their greatest, delay was futile. The hour to gather under Kefka's battlements drew nigh. They held conferences in the Falcon, fretted, shouted, argued, planned, planned again. Urgency made their minds work swiftly; a viable plan of attack was established, accepted, but none of them were happy. They tried to be cheerful (except Shadow, who was never cheerful), but not many pulled the act off. Indescribable pressure crushed them, a terrible fearful agony of failure that scratched their eyes even as they slept. And if that wasn't enough, Terra was much feared for. Kefka had utilized the Statues' awesome power to gain his godhead--the stone Goddesses had to be destroyed. Yet in their destruction, the Espers would inevitably disappear from the world, taking their magic forces with them; Celes, infused artificially, would survive such a calamity, but Terra had Esper blood in her, magic constituted her very being. What the absence of magic would do to her, no-one knew, but they had the premonition it wasn't for any good. Yet no other way was open to them; Terra understood that. She did not object to the plan, for if to guard everything precious to her necessitated her death, she was fully prepared to make that sacrifice, terrifying as it was.

Setzer looked at his comrades and did not fathom how they could succeed in such a current state when high spirits, courage, morale, were the things to win the day. Depression and fear had to go! He quickly conjured up his own plan, enlisting Edgar and Sabin's assistance, and the three proceeded to swoop upon the finest groceries available, scrub the Falcon till it shone, set up fine oak tables in long rows in the hold, and decorate the walls with rich, colorful tapestries. A lavish banquet was announced on the evening before the date set for the attack, and everyone was invited to partake in the pleasure, Shadow and Benedick included.

The women dressed up in gorgeous dresses tailored by the best designers in Jidoor, ribbons shimmering in their hair, falling gently to their bare shoulders, and the men were no less formally attired; Sabin and Cyan even stuffed Gau into a Gabbiani-selected suit and combed his wild hair, not really making it any straighter but at least shinier.

Sitting at the tables, the Returners filled the room with pleasant chatter, jokes, and soft laughter. Mention of the morrow was strictly forbidden, and nobody wanted to think about it anyway, so no dullness or prophets of doom marred the last sip of life. Setzer leaned back in his chair and regarded his handiwork. Sumptuous delicacies spread out on the wood, the light glittered in eyes and hair; Locke leaned to whisper into Celes's ear, Terra blushed at some comment of Edgar's, Relm was poking her paintbrush in Gau's starched side at the same time as Cyan was trying to teach the boy proper etiquette, Umaro bellowed happily at a little jig Mog performed, Sabin was seeing how many sweetcakes he could stuff in his cheeks at once, and Strago and Benedick swapped reminisces. Shadow and Gogo stayed unspeaking, not touching any food, save for when the former fed his monster-canine underneath the table. Setzer smiled at all this; he raised his glass to one of the innumerable toasts proposed that night. Fear escaped him: he had grown fond of, no, loved them all--he even loved the dumb Shadow and Gogo that night. He and the Returners had fought and planned together too often not to have any bond form. And with his dear servant along as well, what need he fear? If he was destined to die the next day, he couldn't have desired a more wonderful friends to accompany him into the world beyond. He felt warm, cocooned in the strange power they shared.

They ate well and toasted well, a little too well: the formal spirit degenerated into license. Locke gave both Celes and Terra a kiss on the cheek, Setzer one-upped him by kissing Relm as well as the other women, and Edgar, not to be outdone in his field of expertise, kissed just about all present except for Gogo, who had no visible skin, Shadow, who would have killed the king if he had tried anything, and Umaro, as kissing out of his species was a little much even for Edgar. Laughter and room grew loud and warm. Relm ran into Setzer's bedroom and emerged sporting a pair of undergarments on her head; "Look at me! I'm Locke!" she cried. (It should be noted here that yes, Locke did wear scarves on his head, but only when it was cold or he wanted to conceal something. Though a famous picture of Locke wearing suspiciously skivvyish moon-and-star scarves, painted by Relm that night, has come down to us, Locke always made it a point to wear a bandanna in public. It did nothing to dispel his reputation, unfortunately, as a man with a briefs fetish.) The evening reached its culmination when Edgar, more than slightly tipsy, gazing at his reflection in a mirror, began to sing.

"Maaaad about the boy," Edgar crooned, stroking his chin, eyes flirtatious, "da DE da da DUM de, maaaad about the boy--"

This was too much for Setzer; he had to go up on deck. He needed to clear his head, and there was a nagging twinge below his right ribcage. Some night air seemed delicious.

He balanced his crystal wine glass in his hand as he leaned against the airship's railing, the stars swirling around in the thick murkiness. The celestial bodies had never shone so brightly, he thought; perhaps they would never shine for him again.

Cool winds caressed his face. Images, smells, sensations long past swept by in the breeze. Setzer remained reposed in his original position after everyone else had retired to bed.

Finally he shifted his body and gave a tremendous stretch. Then he took one last glance at the sky, parted his lips, and tipped his wine over into the night air as a libation for his parents, his friends, Maria, Daryl herself, and to Luck. He threw the glass overboard and went to his room; his body was tired, and the day waited for none.

*************

Kefka's tower seemed one complete edifice from a distance, like it did to the people of Albrook, but, upon coming closer the Returners saw that it was not made of solidly composed walls. The tower stood on jagged, gargantuan bricks of metal, wood, every building material known to man; Vector's ruins were seen--that's what had become of it--the splinters of poor shacks, and magic was the mortar. The pieces flashed in the sun, swaying crazily in strong wind bellows, but were in no danger of scattering. Three peaks jutted out high into the air. It was these on peaks that the Returners, split into groups accordingly, would first land, forging their way to the belly in diverging paths, ultimately meeting up in the end. Or least the strategy went.

"Well, here we are," Celes addressed everyone, hand on her hilt and an expression of wan confidence on her face. "This is the last time I'll ask. Is there anyone here who feels that we are not fully prepared for what's to come up ahead? Besides you, Edgar. Put your hand down and stop smiling like that."

"We've got the best equipment and best skills; you've never led such an army," Setzer, posted at the wheel, informed her. "The worst we can do now get killed."

"Screw your courage and you'll not get killed," she returned. "Since nobody has any objections, fly her down, Setzer."

Celes and Locke were to head one group, Cyan and Sabin the other; the third lot fell to Edgar and Setzer's guidance. Benedick was to stay on board lest an emergency arise and the groups needed to be carried to safety. The first two companies slid to the tower by use of a loading hook. Setzer gave the wheel over to Benedick at this point in the operation, winked at his fellow party members Edgar, Mog, and Terra; he grabbed the rope. As they descended on the hook, Setzer heard in the midst of the howling winds and brazen creaking Benedick's voice.

"Come back safely, Master!"

He lifted his head in response, but the wind carried his words of assurance away into the desolate limbo where all unspoken words go. He felt the swaying firmness of the tower beneath his feet, releasing the hook.

Their progress was slow initially. The ground pitched and groaned like a ship gone mad, tossing its hapless intruders about like chaff, blowing their hair into their eyes, stinging them blind, deafening their ears with its rusty keening, a vacuum of sheer chaos that sucked all sense into its maw. But they had known an airship piloted by people ranging from ten to seventy-one, and they somehow got firmness in their legs. Mog fluttered, a fuzzy white beacon in the darkness; Setzer and Edgar each placed himself next to Terra, sandwiching her--the excruciating unbalance of the mystical auras in this place pierced her brain, and she appeared hardly able to think straight.

"It'll be better once we get inside the tower itself, out of this wind," Setzer spoke kindly to her. Edgar corroborated the sentiment and linked her arm in his for better support.

They struggled past the walls rising about, flinching away from the ragged serrations as best they could, but they received countless rakes on their shoulders and upper arms; in such moments the forms of hair, teeth, and a hand or two reaching out the glass and metal could be discerned. Kefka had not discriminated whether any people, dead or alive, had remained in the usurped towns he constructed his abode with. Arms protruded in one certain narrow path, beseechingly catching their clothes as the group passed by like poor beggars crying for alms.

At last, at long last an iron door loomed in their vision. Setzer quickened his pace alongside everyone else to enter in a place that was one soothing consistency, no nasty surprises. Edgar closed the doors. They halted to catch their haggard breaths.

"How are we holding up?" Edgar inquired to them collectively. He cast a concerned glance at Terra. "Is it still bothering you?"

"Not as badly here. This place is full of the voices of unheard souls--but I can hear them. It makes Vector seem like a pleasant memory." She caught Edgar's mouth opening. "No, I'll not go back. Of all the times for you to be chivalrous, Edgar!"

Groping past the doors, halls, walls, descending deeper, they came across whipped monstrosities of beasts, dark fanatic wizards, and fearsome scaled dragons; puzzles tripped them up. The three groups had to work in unison when such problems came up. In order to proceed at one point two five-ton weights had to be pushed onto levers before the third group could join them. Godhead had obviously not dulled Kefka's sense of humor.

Just as it seemed they had reached their destination, another pitfall halted the Returners' sally: the three Goddess Statues blocked their paths, and the Goddess whose powers were that of trickery and temptation awaited Setzer and his fellows.

The Goddess took the form of a lovely, scantily-clad young lady, a gleaming gold apple held aloft in her tender hand. Edgar's tongue nearly hit the ground.

"Stop ogling, you idiot, she wants to kill you," Setzer had to remind the amorous king many times, usually having to shout over the clamor of battle. Edgar did fight the Statue, even though he was charmed many times and needed Terra to slap him out of his servitude.

Their opponent was reputedly formidable, but Setzer did not think the Goddess was so: she succumbed quickly to Terra's lightening spells and Edgar's chainsaw when he mustered up the courage to hit her. The powers of a supreme temptress are wasted on a member of the same sex, a man who has given his love to many people and has very little left over, and a Moogle. The flailing limbs of the Goddess stiffened at her horrible shriek, a stone carapace crusting over body, and then she crumbled into dust that was carried off in the winds.

Terra inhaled deeply and held perfectly motionless, not even her eyes shimmering. Setzer gaped at her in horrified anticipation, straining for the deadly outcome of the Statue's destruction, but no fire consumed her, she didn't wilt to the floor, no cry of pain, no nothing. Her lip trembled as she let out her breath.

"Oh, thank heaven," Edgar said weakly. "Perhaps you aren't in danger--"

"I'm afraid it's not like that," she answered timidly. "It's too strange that I didn't feel a thing; I should have felt something. Why..." She clamped her hand to her mouth. "I think Kefka's drained the Statues of their powers."

"Damn it!" Setzer snarled. "You'd think once we'd gotten rid of that bitch things'd be a tad easier."

"Well, all we can do is forge on ahead," she said. "We have to be close."

Edgar slipped an arm around her thin shoulders. "Are you sure you're up to it, my dear?"

Terra nodded mutely in response and swung open the doors that Statue had blocked: inside lay an empty room, only one large switch in the center. They entered warily.

"Should we step on it?" Setzer proposed; he looked around, blasé.

"I don't know," Terra muttered, frowning at the switch.

"Here." Edgar picked up Mog and placed the puffball right on the device in one fast movement, jerking away let any ugly explosion or trap catch the Moogle. For the second time, nothing happened.

"Jump up and down. See if it'll work then," Edgar prompted. Mog didn't take kindly to the suggestion; he began to quiver, fur puffing up dangerously.

"NO! Sure, let's go and fry the Moogle! He's expendable! You step on it for a change!" Mog zoomed up on his wings and gave Edgar a hard shove in the small of his back, sending the king stumbling onto the switch with no response of any kind to greet him.

"I may be way out in left field," Figaro mused, "but I do believe this is the way to Kefka. I bet there're two other switches, and two other people need to stand on them to get us wherever we're going."

"What'll we do?" Terra spoke. Edgar shrugged.

"Wait for as long as it takes, I imagine. The others aren't dumb; they'll figure it out soon."

Setzer fell into a sitting position, back supported against the wall, and Mog snuggled himself in Terra's lap. Edgar stood on the switch, arms akimbo.

They waited an eternity until Edgar finally pounded on the wall, shouting, rescinding his former confidence. "What's the holdup! Is it really THAT hard? You're morons! Morons, all of you!"

As the outburst subsided in ricochets, a large tendril of light came down and unfurled over the room's inhabitants. Edgar's pronouncement of "Finally!" and his movement into the aura gave the others courage to do the same. Setzer felt himself being lifted up, none to gently, and whisked away. Brightness consumed vision and their legs worked as if they were walking on solid ground. A speck manifested in the blinding light. They headed toward it.

Suddenly the corporal world materialized, and Setzer found himself and his group on a great plateau ringed by jagged peaks; the two other companies were here, too. In tacit understanding the Returners moved forth, spreading their ranks out on a smooth ledge up ahead. They could go no further--the largest peak of all impeded further excursion. Terra moved forth to the head.

"Welcome, friends!" a disembodied voice whooped, and a shadowy apparition of Kefka coalesced before the Returners, a pyramid of blue energy crackling around his garish-robed body. His face was the same, marked with intricate red designs, but the in the centers of his black pupils whirled flames. "I knew you'd make it here sooner or later. Oh, I tried to treat you gently, kill you as quickly and decently as I could, but you people just had to be Johnny and Jane Livealots!"

Terra stepped forward, and she actually answered him back--why, Setzer realized, she, whom Kefka had wronged the most of the Returners, was no longer afraid of him!

"You knew we could overcome everything you threw our way," she said coldly. "Do you really think your little binge of destruction can last for long?"

"Oh, yes, forever and ever and ever!" he boomed at them. "I have tapped into the ultimate source of power! Observe and tremble!" He made a slashing motion with one billowing arm. Some unseen power levitated Locke and Cyan and tossed them around like eggs under a beater, smashing into each other for a good five minutes before Kefka allowed them to drift, stunned, into the back ranks.

"People will rebuild the things you take from them," Terra said calmly.

Kefka scowled, shrugged his shoulders. "Why, I'll destroy those things, too. You people are so stupid. Why build when what's made's only going to be destroyed? I never understood why you cling to life--it'll kill you all in the end. From the moment you started sucking the air you've been dying, and you resist me? All things are destroyed, destruction is the aim of all nature and mine, too, even before my own fleshly body was created. I did not see it at first, but now everything unfolds before me! When the first forest was cut down, I was there! When the first man cheated and broke his promise, I was there! I was there when Celes burned her first town, I was there when the first Slave Crown was manufactured! I was everywhere, I am, and I always shall be! What are your petty lives, really?"

Terra cast a float spell and drew to one side; to his big words she gave this pinprick: "It's not the net worth of a human's life that matters. We live from day to day. The tears, concerns, pursuit of love--it's enough to experience those joys that come in each day."

"Foolish!" Kefka roared, thrashing her about in a blast of tremendous energy; Setzer cried out involuntarily, but she did not fall, only lay suspended in the air on her side. "Where is this 'joy' you speak of? You do not understand my power! I have built my abode on the infinite masses of broken dreams, my walls are constructed from your broken cities, the wind is the screams of all I have killed, my whim is death! I crush the world underneath my feet, and you speak of joy!"

The mad voice grew faster and faster, bouncing off the walls over and over, the words blurring into shrieking gibberish that pierced Setzer's ear drums like gadflies; he clapped his hands over his ears, but the voice didn't stop.

"Yes, there is joy!" Terra's voice sounded very small in the cacophony, yet it was heard. Kefka stopped his rambling. "I know what love is."

"And I have learned to celebrate the life and the living," Locke, standing beside Celes, shouted. Other such assertions, now famous, came forth, and Setzer felt obliged to throw in his own pronouncement of his dear Daryl's airship and her everlasting love. At his words, Kefka eyed the gambler with a look that said, Yes, I remember her. I killed her, and I'll be only too glad to kill you, too.

"This is sickening," he shouted, crossing his arms in the familiar gesture of petulance. "You people sound like chapters from a damn self-help booklet! Prepare yourselves, because for my next miracle, I'm going to make you all disappear!" In an ecstatic frenzy he raised his hands, they begged him to halt, the tower shook, a streak of fire slicing the air to the earth, drawing a perfect cut of destruction in its path. Kefka was so angered that he didn't hit a single town, only scorched wilderness.

He didn't stop there. The spiked peaks started to groan and thrust upwards; one came right under Kefka's boots and held him aloft as he screeched on and on about destruction and the supremacy of non-existence. The Returners answered calmly that they would not allow him to harm another living thing. Kefka unleashed the Light of Judgment crazily again and kept on shouting as he glided down back to his original position, in front of the smooth ledge.

"Oh, shut up," Celes snapped, interrupting the mad, shrieking bellows of what seemed like a thousand voices from Kefka's chest. "Stop your threatening. All along you've been spattering me and my comrades with your damned hatred." Her sword trembled in her grasp. "Well, you murderer, you torturer, now you're ready to blow, let's see what you can really do!"

They charged.

*************

Of course the Returners won the day--was there any doubt? In the great battle, which no decently educated child does not know, though Kefka split himself into a trinity of monstrous avatars, then regrouped into one terrible angel of death after those forms failed, the Returners struck him down. With his last dying breath Kefka muttered a magical curse word, the mystical equivalent of 'fuck' times a thousand (which cannot be reproduced here because epileptic fits would result), and the victors were rendered immobile. They regained their senses back on their ledge, but with Kefka defeated, the tides of magic dried up entirely. The pieces of Magicite began to crumble into nothing. Worse than that, the force holding it together gone, the tower began to break apart. Terra, morphed into her Esper form, in great pain and weakening by the minute, called to her comrades. She led them to safety, destroying or repulsing the ruins hurtling on their heads; Setzer had confidence enough in her power to try to make light of the situation by flipping a coin to determine which corridors to go down; it annoyed everyone, to say the least. And despite their competent guide, two Returners were lost along the way, Gogo and Shadow. The ninja voluntarily stayed in the tower. They called out to him, cursed him to hurry on, but he only sent on the dog to follow them. Gogo was accidentally left behind, but more doubt lies in his disappearance. As Edgar, an optimist at heart, said later: "Gogo's a like the air, swooping off at any moment, coming back the next. Things like it are hard to kill--if it hasn't been seen, then it doesn't want to be seen." The fates of Gogo and Shadow are great mysteries, and Setzer never found out what happened to them.

Losses aside, the Returners plunged on, and, at Setzer's shouting, Benedick let down the hook, pulling the groups on board. Setzer ran to the wheel and gunned it. Terra flew next to the stern and he followed her trajectory, dodging the boulders. As long as he kept his eyes riveted on her, he knew they would not be harmed.

The further they cleared the crashing tower, the weaker Terra's flames shone, and she staggered in the air--the Magicites were dissolving like flies. A warm glow pulsed in Setzer's pocket. He remember the Stray Magicite, which he had taken along for good luck, and snatched its spider-webbed body when he was confident enough to steer using only one hand. He glanced wildly and mournfully at it.

"Throw me," the lucky stone hummed, "throw me far into the air."

"Why?" he whispered.

"I want to see the land one last time. Throw me."

He kissed the Magicite, murmured, "Safe journey," to it, and cast it out in a long arc, wherein it shattered at the end of its journey. The other Magicites followed. Soon none of them were left. Yet Terra continued to fly. Celes called out the her, but the half-Esper was too weak to respond. She fell.

Setzer wheeled the Falcon into an almost vertical dive. He did not think of failure. There was no failure, not when they had come so far! The dive was not long, only a few seconds, but for one moment Terra's body disappeared into the clouds, and it was scary as hell. Setzer eyed her form, swooped under it, and then jerked the airship into normal position. Everyone flattened against the deck.

When he had come back into consciousness, Setzer heard Celes's voice calling out to someone. He staggered onto his knees to see the pale young lady dragging an equally pale, limp green-haired body away from a precarious nest at the prow. Green eyes opened and focused. Terra shakily rose to her feet, greeted by cries of joy. Smiling, she turned to the captain and thanked him most gratefully and humbly.

"Didn't I say it before?" Setzer replied, jovial. "This's the world's fastest airship!"

The men and women on board were happy, relieved, faint, satisfied, but not euphoric; too much had changed, too much had been lost for them to break into riotous celebration. Yet the air smelled not so stagnant, the sun wasn't as blotted nor the sky as garish. Setzer slowed the Falcon down so that they could see the pale yellow grass gradually lead into small patches of faint green that encroached at the edges, the flocks of birds that played around the airship, cawing merrily, the general awakening of the world from a prolonged, dusty sleep. Rain clouds had formed over the region of Kohlingen, drizzling rain to the parched land. Such changes were occurring at all the world's major cities as Setzer flew over them to show his companions, and it was good.

"Do you know what?" Edgar finally spoke, elation on every crease of his face. "Methinks this calls for a grand celebration, a tremendous, gargantuan celebration! What we've done--I can't even begin to fathom it! But we have to do something for it. I propose we all return to Figaro castle, and there I shall give the orders for a days-long feast--" The indisposed Returners clustered around the king, hearkening to his suggestions and adding some of their own. Setzer did not comment and continued to focus on steering.

"What do you think, Setzer?" Edgar asked, realizing their pilot had been overlooked.

"I'll take you to Figaro, and you can do whatever you wish."

"You mean you won't come?"

He laughed. "Oh, no, I wouldn't miss it for the world. But the fact of the matter is, Majesty, I have other engagements elsewhere. My parents and childhood friends await me in Jidoor. I haven't seen them in a very long time, whereas I've been with you people every single day for months. What's a few days? But keep the celebrations long and I'll come back for the end, I promise you, and I'll take people back to wherever they want to go. You guys go right ahead and plan. As for me, I'm going to kick this baby into high gear! You'll get a better view."

Everyone retreated below decks, not wanting to go through another jolt in the open, and Setzer was left along on the deck. He gave a jubilant whoop, his heart soared, he directed the Falcon upwards. Then he rocketed past the clouds and birds and all mortal limits to touch the sun itself.