Chapter 2: Luck's Favor
"I don't think the random approach works." It was the third time Kiros had made that little observation.
"Luck always works if you trust it." That was a reflex response, carrying the barest shadow of its normal good cheer. But it was still fun to produce that disgruntled scowl on Kiros' face, the kind Laguna only earned when he'd said something really ridiculous.
"That is the silliest thing even you've--"
"Hey, friend!" Laguna summoned a grin, looped his arm around the shoulders of a startled-looking passerby. "Have you seen this little girl?" The photograph clutched in one hand was wrinkled around the edges, a faded likeness and several months out of date. It was the best they had.
While the stranger frowned down at the picture, Laguna took a moment to soak in the view around them. Deling City, crown of Galbadia, all towering dark buildings and flashing marquees at this time of night, opulent hotels in glittering neon and carved granite paired with the tumble of street garbage overflowing the gutters, the slow shuffle of the throng on the street who had nowhere to go. He hadn't set foot here in well over a year. The memories behind that--emotions tangled behind guilt and regret and that vague bittersweet happiness--proved more than enough to distract them from the low tenor of the stranger's voice. Startled, he focused back on the man's face, on the sudden grin glowing across Kiros'. "Sorry…what?"
Kiros clucked, exasperated. The stranger just shrugged. "I said, little girl just like that, stopped at my shop to stare at the sweets maybe two, three days ago."
"You're sure it was her?" Laguna fought against the happy grin spreading across his lips. Logically, there had to be a number of dark-haired little girls in the city. But, as Kiros often observed, Laguna didn't have an intimate acquaintance with logic.
He squinted, tilting his head a little as he studied the picture. "Yeah. I think so. Looks the same. Hope you find her."
"Only you," Kiros breathed as the stranger patted Laguna's shoulder consolingly before he moved on.
"What did I tell you?" Laguna crowed. "Now all we have to do is ask down at the train station and we're practically home!"
"Uh…"
"I mean, trains only go to so many places, and people there would've seen Ellone."
"Well…"
"And the people at the next train station would have seen her, and at the next…"
"Okay." Nodding along with that logic, Kiros had obviously decided to pick his battles. "We'll try it your way." He darted a quick glance over his shoulder, and Laguna also realized what was missing. Silence aside, Ward wasn't easily overlooked.
"I thought he was asking people about Ellone." Laguna frowned, swinging a searching gaze at the crowd around them. A sober press of people, the occasional flash of blue military uniform around which parted the otherwise dark-clad crowd. Neon splashed color across the picture, hinted at the wildness behind the stoic face Galbadians showed to the world. This area of town abounded with clubs and bars--activity, fun, and danger lurked in healthy doses behind misleading drab facades.
"How can a mute man ask people anything? I thought he went to reserve the hotel room."
"We're leaving tonight, right?" An expansive wave of his arm encompassed the glittery and dark panorama of the city at night. "I mean, when the train station tells us where we need to go. Why'd you reserve a hotel room?"
"It's just--" Kiros sighed. "No, no. I'll go get him. Stay here." His hand clenched like a vise into Laguna's forearm. "I mean that. Don't do anything." Brown eyes locked on green, practically begging.
"Yeah, yeah." Laguna waved him off. When Kiros retreated, the other man remained for the moment too distracted to do much. Too much of it was familiar, a flood of memory and half-buried sensation, years of nights on the town while in the army, the excitement of twenty-four hours of leave, the overstimulation of the big city.
His feet carried him without conscious direction, taking him the routes of years before. The glitter and neon-lit night only intensified as he reached the wealthy quarter of the city, the rows of posh hotels and shops where few soldiers ventured…except ones infatuated with the lounge singers who worked there.
The Galbadia Hotel outshone even its most flashy companions, all lighted marquee and carved marble front. Laguna drifted around the outskirts of the building for a long time, watching the crowd enter and exit. He let his gaze travel over the old sites, battling the urge to enter.
Julia wasn't there…and even if she was, the sight of him would only complicate what they'd both made of their lives. It was just the tickle of nostalgia at the back of his head, a longing that cut through the rushed, panicky chase. In these weak moments, he ached for the days where his only concern had been fretting over the lounge singer's true feelings. And I got even that wrong, didn't I? Laguna chuckled over the memory, something good-natured. It was not in him to be bitter.
A year ago, he would have heeded that pleasant tingle through him, sought an hour or two in the lounge because it felt like a good idea now. Now, it couldn't erase the memory of Ellone's face, of Raine. Sighing, Laguna turned…and bumped into something big.
Someone. Definitely a someone. There was the blue of a Galbadian military uniform--yards of it, wrapped around tree-thick arms and legs, stretched to breaking across the breadth of chest. Laguna blinked up into the face, the squashed nose, eyes bleary and shot through with spidery red.
"Hi," Laguna offered.
"Watch it!" The other man shoved, one arm flung out as though to swat a fly. Laguna sidestepped the clumsy, drunken gesture easily enough, then stumbled over his own feet, one ankle bending under the other, knocking him backwards onto rain-slick pavement. The movement attracted brief attention--darted glances, the half-seen flash of a disparaging smile, a quick look of concern to the reeling big soldier. Without pausing, the crowd parted around them, a rough circle in deference to the man's obvious size.
Laguna laughed a little to himself, climbing to his feet easily enough. "Sorry 'bout that. Hey," he perked up, "I don't suppose you've seen a little girl, maybe five years old, about so high--" his hand indicated waist-height, "brown hair, blue--" The next shove cut him back, knocking the breath out of him as his back connected with the ridges of the hotel wall carvings. "Um, all right, then."
"You got 'n my way. Tried to trip me. Little squirt." Another, harder shove, banging shoulder blades against the edge of the wall. Alcohol lay heavy on the stranger's breath, the cloying scent of something stronger than the wine served in the hotel.
"Y'know, I don't think of myself as little or a sq--" Laguna paused to duck a punch. The soldier howled, jerking back knuckled bruised by the impact with stone. His face contorted, flushing purple under the rosy blush of drunken haze. "You goddamn--"
"Ouch." Laguna winced in sympathy. "That must've hurt. On your day of leave, too." He judged the response in the darkening of the man's scowl, the way the big fist doubled for a second time. "Bet they turned you away from the hotel, huh?"
The soldier cocked his head, distracted by the chatter. "What?"
"Yeah, they'll do that." Laguna's voice became low, confiding. "Got turned away once or twice, myself, before I made officer. They just don't work with the grunts, you know? They expect you to be in a suit and tie before they stop makin' faces at you."
"Hey, yeah." The drunk man relaxed, grimacing along with Laguna's expression. "Bastards. I killed for them in Timber!"
"Rough…I did a tour there myself. And you just want to get a drink without a hassle. But I'll bet you've never been to Kassanir's--just down the street, and they sell for a better price than the hotel lounge." He dug into his pocket for the handheld notepad and pen that always lay within reach. "If you mention my name--it's Laguna, by the way, what's yours?--you get your first drink half-off. Old friendship with the bartender before I, uh, decided I liked the hotel better. Draw you a map?"
"It's Tirney. Yeah, thanks, buddy. You ex-soldiers are all right." And Tirney leaned heavily against Laguna while he drew--less a display of camaraderie than a simple lack of balance.
"Don't," Ward lay a hand on Kiros' arm as the dark man ran towards the confrontation, reaching behind him for a katal. "Under control." The motions still moved stiffly with him, thick fingers struggling to remember and master the tiny intricacies of syllables.
"So I see." Kiros relaxed, grinned, a sudden flash of bright teeth in brown face. "How in the hell does he do that?"
"One of mysteries. About. Very few." Ward scowled, the gesture oddly out of place on his big but mild face as he struggled with the words.
"One of Laguna's few mysteries. I get you." Kiros frowned as, with a final slap on the back, Laguna sent Tirney on his way. "Cheery, isn't he?"
"Home. Once was."
"Nostalgia, yes. But he's been tight like a bowstring since we left Winhill. He's almost like his old self."
Ward smiled serenely, finally remembering the right signs. "He has faith and he has luck. It's all he needs."
"You think it'll last once we leave Deling City and he's not wrapped up in good times anymore?"
Ward shrugged, but his expression turned sad.
"Hey! Kiros! Ward! Tirney said his friend Wret might have seen Ellone at the train station at dock number five! We're back in business!" Laguna pumped a cheery fist into the air, beckoning them onward as he started off at a trot.
"Luck in abundance," Kiros breathed. "For his sake, it had better hold out."