This story belongs to me and my creative mind. However, most of the characters, names, and places all belong to their respective companies, so don't yell at me for copyright infringements! Remember, Italics represent a person's thoughts or the telling of past events.

Enjoy...

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:Faraway Dreams:

Chapter Sixteen:


"Are you feeling any better today?" Gordan asked.

"A little...I'm still sore..." Illis answered, glancing down at her bandaged torso. "I suppose that's to be expected from Fira..."

"I am sorry that I was not able to save you from harm..." He apologized.

"Come on, you couldn't have done anything to stop him, so stop beating yourself over it." She insisted, sitting up on her bed. "Besides, this is hardly anything to worry about."

"Still, I cannot help but feel guilty..." He moaned.

"Ah, I swear you noble types can't get over anything without having to kill yourself with guilt. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not upset and that you did as much as you could?

"But...!"

"If you try and apologize for this even one more time, I'm gonna get Gerick's hammer and bash every word I say into your thick skull!" Illis threatened with a joking smirk.

"Alright, alright!" Gordan said, standing down. "I will keep it to myself."

"Good." Illis smiled. "Any word on what the trial outcome was?"

"Mackenzie received a notice from the court yesterday, but you were sleeping when he came, so I decided to tell you at a later date."

"Well, now's as good a time as ever."

"Okay. From what Mackenzie was told, the trial was short, but very stressful as Elric was present under the supervision of several guards while also being bound and gagged to prevent him from using spells. Several witnesses were brought to testify in front of the judge, and Cecil and his guards were present to confirm his abilities, since a demonstration was out of the question. After much deliberation, the judge came to the obvious conclusion to Elric's guilt in cases from thievery, assaulting a guard of the country, and severe public destruction. Although, there was some conflict as to what punishment was suitable to him."

"What? How could the judge have any second thoughts to his punishment?"

"Yes, this did lead many people to wonder about his judgement, but apparently his questioning was of a malicious purpose instead of an unsure one. After hearing the evidence, he deemed that 'a quick, clean death is too good for the likes of this devil', and he offered the court members a different solution. Instead of execution or torture, he offered to use a portion of his own gil to pay for an airship to deposit him into the deepest and most extreme heights of the Aerbs Mountain range, where he could slowly die from exposure to the elements."

Illis remained silent over the words, her expression mixed between disgust and concern.

"Illis?" Gordan questioned.

"I'm alright. It's...I didn't think the court would do something that extreme..."

"You do not approve?"

"Oh no, I think he deserves every bit of it for what he did! I just didn't think that the judge would think of something that...creative."

"Creative if you have a sick sense of humor, perhaps."

"That would fit the bill, then." Illis grinned. "I'm just glad that the bastard's finally getting justice, and neither you nor I will have to worry about him any longer."

"Indeed. We have beaten our enemy and finally earned our respite."


* * *


Gerick sat down heavily onto a chair, taking a swig of his coffee as he thought on the aftermath of the entire event concerning the Fire Bandit. He glanced over at Macky, the younger man resting easily in another chair and giving the ceiling a looking over.

"So what's yer thoughts on it?" Gerick asked.

"Well, it's unexpected to have someone given a sentence that severe, but I think he deserves it and an ass kicking for good measure!" Macky laughed.

"I'll agree with ya on that one." The bearded elder chuckled. "How was the trial? Quick, I bet."

"Yeah, since there wasn't anyone to try and contest the charges, it was rather one sided."

"Heh, well things'll be gettin' back to normal now. I can finally get out of this damn Hall 'n go back to huntin' down monsters!"

"Yeah, the First Division Captain has been doing nothing but complaining that her men are wasting their time patrolling the city walls and roads. Personally I think that she's just too damn arrogant to admit that we do a better job than her men."

"Well, we'll be ready 'ta go and prove that we can do better than any of those pansies!"

"Something I'm more than sure you're eager to show." Macky smirked.

"So what're you gonna do now?"

"The same thing I always do, stay up all night because the damn security council can't schedule their meetings on time. Did you forget that my life revolves around their constant inefficiency?"

"Ah yeah...that's true."

Macky gave a dry laugh. "God's you need to get out, your brain sounds as fried as my body was."

"But you haven't lost that damn tongue of yours from it!"

The two shared a brief laugh at one another, both finally able to relax after the weeks of stress before.


* * *


Fedrich rested on the bench with his hands supporting his chin, eyes neutrally staring out over the airspace of the Lindblum walls. The events of the past day weighed heavily on his conscious, although he thought that the defeat and sentencing of Elric would have lifted the stress from his mind. Everyone else was greatly relieved to hear his fate, yet Fedrich couldn't move on.

"Hey." A voice spoke from his side.

Fedrich's head snapped to see the voice, but he relaxed when the familiar form of Ruthy came into his vision. She smirked at his surprise, then took a seat next to him on the bench.

"Hello to you, too." He greeted. "You feeling any better?"

"I'm doing a lot better, really," She nodded. "now that I know Elric isn't able to do anything to us anymore. I got to bed early and slept a lot last night for a change."

"That's good to hear."

"What about you? How have you been doing?"

"I'm doing alright, but I just can't seem to shake this stress off of me." He admitted.

"Why not? You should be the most relieved of us all."

"I don't know. Elric's been sent away to the highest and most dangerous peaks of the Aerbs, but I can't help but think he could come back." Fedrich laughed lightly. "I guess I'm just being paranoid, no one could survive those mountains for more than a day without the proper equipment. He's as good as gone."

"I agree." Ruthy nodded. "You shouldn't worry, things are going back to normal for us. We can go back to the fields and hunt the monsters, relax and spend time just talking, go back to those simpler days."

"If you could call that simple." Fedrich joked. "Hunting those monsters is just as hard as hunting down an entire group of Elrics."

"I'd rather go after monsters any day." She replied with a smirk. "At least they stay out your house.

"Agreed."

The two remained silent for a long minute, both looking out into the crowded space within the walls of Lindblum. Fedrich glanced over towards Ruthy to see her looking back towards him, their eyes meeting for a moment. The two shared a brief smile before resuming their observation of the city, the silence enough to convey their unspoken words.


-End of Part One-


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The Author Speaks!

Greetings and salutations, fellow readers! Once again I've inserted this strange and sometimes unnecessary little blip of information to make you all aware of the mundane and rather pointless struggles that I have in writing this story and it's effects regarding the end result I work towards, giving you an entertaining section of time that comes from scanning over this work I dare to call the culmination of my writing efforts. In other words, here's some info.

As you can see if you look up, this is the end of the first part of my story. I'll be taking some additional time before posting another chapter so I can make some minor fixes to the previous chapters, such as getting rid of any misspelled words. In the meantime, entertain yourselves by checking up on my website for some new stuff in the Information Database. Check my ff.net bio page for the link.

See ya later, kiddies.