Setzer arrived the next day, late in the afternoon. The sound of propellers drew me out of the store. I watched several of the men waving and shouting at him, trying to steer him into a decent landing spot. He still clipped a few shingles off the roof of my porch, but that could be repaired. I was there to greet him as he came down the ramp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his erstwhile aides gathering around to gawk at the ship. I hugged him quickly, and he held on.
"She reached this decision to leave in a hurry. Is anything wrong?" he asked quietly.
"Uh..." I thanked the heavens for the hug, since he couldn't see the confusion on my face. "I, um, she'd tell you if—" he pulled back then to look at me, but kept his hands on my shoulders as if I might run away.
"Bless you and your lack of a poker face, Terra. I know she won't tell me anything."
"I didn't tell you anything either," I said. "Whatever you're thinking, you didn't get it from me."
He searched my face again. "What about you? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine!" I insisted, my voice climbing dangerously close to a yelp. "Oh, hi, Martin!" I added enthusiastically. I had to introduce them, and then Martin said "She's a beauty," and Setzer's head came up, and they immediately became absorbed in talk about the airship. I half-listened, because sooner or later the conversation was bound to turn to acquiring a few for Mobliz and I'd need to do my part then, but first they had to discuss items of engineering, the load it could carry, fuel, time to construct one. More questions about labor. I caught the drift of what Martin intended then. Why buy the ship when you can build one? I beamed at him over Setzer's shoulder, saw his acknowledgment with a flicker of his eyes, and when I heard "one-of-a-kind" in a slightly defensive tone from Setzer I jumped in.
"I know you've sold a few to merchants in Figaro," I said, and he turned to me with an exasperated look.
"I sold ready-made ships, not plans," he said.
"They couldn't work backwards from a completed ship?" My command of economics mostly worked at a limited, practical, and very local level, but I knew Setzer well enough to guess that his proprietarial attitude about the airships had little to do with money. I'd seen him in the guts of the ship when it was out of commission and Cid was feeling helpful.
"That is not the point," he began heatedly, then cut himself off. "We can discuss this by letter."
"I'd rather negotiate with you in person," I replied, thinking how long it could take to get anything done through mail. "You could come back after you get Celes home," I added, since she wouldn't want to be kept here, and I should probably discuss the whole business with Martin, among others.
"And speaking of Celes, there she is now," he announced, and made his escape. Martin and I grinned triumphantly at each other.
"Council meeting tonight?" he asked.
"Of course. Spread the word for me, will you? I'm not likely to get out too far south today."
"You can count on me," he said, and then someone touched my shoulder.
I turned. Celes. "Hi!" I said, brightly. Her mouth tightened, slightly, and I felt the smile freeze on my face. "Celes," I began, and she shook her head.
"Terra, I'll write to you. Let's leave it at that, all right?"
I nodded, mutely, and she moved past me; because I was watching her face, I saw as she brightened into a smile to greet Setzer.
The departure took longer than that, of course; Setzer's crew had to retrieve all of her luggage, and she had to say goodbye to everyone she'd gotten to know while she was here - a surprising number, really. Celes wasn't friendly in the same sense that, for example, Sabin was, and I didn't think she'd been deliberately getting to know people for political reasons, but she'd ended up acquainted with most of our businessmen, all of the council, and several other prominent citizens. And all of my kids; Isabella and the two oldest boys led the way. She hadn't dealt much with the younger ones, though they showed up for the departure as well, just because something was happening. I didn't want to leave, but several people realized, while they were near the store, that they needed to buy things, and I had to keep running back inside to take care of that.
It must have been while I was inside that I missed seeing Locke show up, because when I came out on the porch, I saw him talking to Celes. He seemed to be trying to coax a smile out of her, and when he succeeded, he hugged her quickly; she stood awkward in his arms, but smiled at him again, maybe a bit ruefully, and hoisted her satchel over her shoulder as she turned toward the ship.
She wasn't much for dramatic departures, as I recalled - which would seem to suggest she needed a mode of transport other than Setzer - but she did look over the railing of the ship once the propellers started turning, and waved goodbye until it was well off the ground. We all stood outside, watching the ship until it was tiny against the clouds and the dust had settled, and then I watched as everyone started going back to their normal business. I just stood on the store's porch, leaning against the doorjamb, until someone called my name.
Locke. "Hey," I said, smiling faintly.
"Feels so strange, doesn't it?" he said. "I'm not used to the airship taking off without me."
"I hadn't even thought of it like that. I guess you're right... I was just thinking it felt strange because here we all are. The airship had nothing to do with anyone in this town other than the three of us, but everyone pretty much dropped what they were doing because it was here." I searched for the words for what I meant. "It all feels so distant from my real life."
"But, see, you've got a real life."
"And you don't?"
"It feels that way sometimes," he said, as he came up the porch steps. "Like I'm just playing treasure hunter, and any second now someone's going to realize they've been giving me money for something I'd have done for free, and they'll stop."
"Wouldn't 'someone' be Edgar?" I asked, amused. "Locke, you're getting paid to do something you love. That's still a real life."
"But it doesn't feel much different from what we were doing before. If it weren't for the fact the world's better now, I'd almost feel like the fight was still going on."
I held the door open for him as I went back inside the store. "Many, many fewer monsters, no giant citadel of evil in the sky, no—"
"I did say the world's better now," he pointed out.
"I know. I guess I see what you mean... feels like you're still adventuring?"
"Exactly." He flopped down in one of the prize seats in the store, an actual chair with a back on it, near the potbellied stove. We didn't use it during the summer, except as a footrest, which was what he was doing now.
"Sometimes I kind of miss it," I said, straightening the racks of sundries at the counter. "Not that I'm unhappy, just that... I mean, I was happy then, too. Life seemed so much simpler somehow." Because it was, at least for me. I knew how I felt, knew what we needed to do, knew where I stood in the world.
"You still could. Do some adventuring, I mean." He kicked the chair back, balancing it on two legs.
"Just drop everything, abandon my kids, set off into the wilderness with my sword and the pack on my back?"
"You make it sound like it's a bad idea," he said, grinning.
"You know I couldn't do that."
"Not like that. You could join me at the dig for a little while, though. Everyone needs a vacation sometimes, and you've got people here who could take up the slack while you're gone."
"Maybe... I guess so." I looked up from all the packets of sewing supplies. "What brought this up? Are you planning to leave soon?"
"Yeah," he said, looking down at his feet. "I have to get back. I probably shouldn't have stayed as long as I did, but I couldn't just leave you like... Are you going to be okay?"
"I'll be fine, Locke." I smiled reassuringly, and I guess this time it worked, since he smiled back. "It'll be a little lonely with both of you gone, but I'm doing okay."
"Good," he said, and set the chair down. "I should have asked you first, but I wasn't sure I'd get the chance before they left. I'd hate to drag Setzer back out here and then tell him to come back later."
"What? Oh, you mean—"
"While he was picking up Celes, I asked him to swing back by and get me."
"Oh." He'd be leaving soon, then. But— "Locke, you are an angel from on high," I said, grinning. "I'd wanted to get him back here some way or other. We need to buy airship plans from him and I know I won't be able to talk him into it by letter."
"I... uh, good?" I beamed at him. "You're welcome," he added, uncertainly.
"Now I better get busy. It's, what, three days to Narshe by airship? Four? We have about a week to work out how we're doing this. We have a council meeting tonight anyway but I'd better have something solid planned just to speed things up."
He endured my brainstorming for most of an hour, until I closed the store and bustled off to the Eisert's for some advice. If I'd ever known much about the usual running of a government, how contracts and business worked, it was all lost to me now. Fortunately not everyone was so lucky. I got government contracts half explained to me, passed news of the meeting further, and was back home in time to start dinner. I watched through the window as he roughhoused with Byram and Theo in the afternoon light, watched Isabella and her young man watching from the gate. I smiled to myself, reached down almost without thinking to scoop up Rosie as she made for the stove, bounced her on my hip as I stirred the batter for biscuits with one hand. In spite of all the problems I'd made for myself, in spite of my guilt and confusion, I was happy.
The meeting that night mostly let people know we were looking for investors; the government definitely didn't have enough money to start construction on an airship. Someone pointed out that it could be borrowed, but we still didn't have a full, permanent constitution - Figaro had recognized this as a provisional government, nothing more - and that wasn't scheduled to be done until the coming winter. Edgar had warned me the parliament might withhold an aid package until we'd completed the constitution.
It made sense. Everyone needed to rebuild. Doma and the southern cities all had more to rebuild from; we were just a glorified farming village at this point. What amazed me was that everyone seemed to agree we needed to work on being something more than that. Staying independent had hardly been a plan, when I latched onto the idea; I'd just wanted to raise my kids myself, keep the way of life we were used to, or something like it. I suppose other people must have had similar reasons. Maybe that was why the discussion at the meeting kept turning from joint-stock companies to the subject of the constitution. It occurred to me that one of us ought to look into parliamentary procedure, too, just to add some order to these meetings.
I was at the meeting late, and even as we left I could hear people calling out ideas over the shuffle of departure, the calls of chocobos and the distance as some of them took off. Martin walked me across the square in near silence, both of us listening to distant snatches of conversation about direct democracy and caucuses. "Maybe we ought to have that constitutional convention sooner than we'd planned," he said.
"Mm. Too many of the likely delegates would be farmers, though," I said. "Winter's the only time."
"Those that have families could afford to be away some," he said. "I think it could be done."
"That still lets you out, though. Trying to avoid it?" I teased, but he looked serious when I met his eyes.
"Terra, there's something I'd been meaning to— to ask you, I guess."
"Ask me?" My heart was beating wildly and I was about ready to flee. I didn't want to deal with this.
"It's... have you considered marrying?"
I blinked. He asked it like it was an opinion poll. Like the way I'd asked Celes if she'd ever loved, when I met her in Narshe. "Marrying?"
He looked at his feet, rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Marrying me." He looked up. "I'm sorry, Terra. I'm not a romantic. It came down to the very obvious— it's easier to run a farm or a household with two, and then you and I seemed to make good friends, and you're a lovely woman with a good head on your shoulders - it's not hard to be practical when the choice looks like that."
I thought about marrying him then, in a hypothetical sense. I thought of the wedding night, tried to imagine the two of us going to bed. It didn't work. Then I thought of Kefka and forced my mind back to the present, tried to make out his expression in the moonlight. "Martin, you're not in love with me, are you?"
He laughed a little. "I don't think so. Not like that. I'd be a good husband, though. I think."
"I think you'd be a wonderful husband," I said.
"But you're not in love with me," he said.
"I'm sorry," I said, automatically.
He smiled, maybe a bit tightly. "Nothing either of us could do about it."
"I'm sorry," I said again, "I just — I don't think I could get married to be practical."
"I guess it works out fairly well, then, if neither of us is in love. Don't be sorry, Terra. I was the one that brought it up."
"I know," I said, unhappily. "I didn't want things to be... weird."
"They don't have to be. I'll be fine."
"I tried not to encourage you— I wish you'd said. I was afraid you were in love with me."
"I think if you'd... if you ever had encouraged me, I might feel differently, but as it is..." He shrugged. "I just wanted to get it out in the open, I guess. See what you said."
"You'd be a great husband," I said. "If I—" If I weren't in love with somebody else. But I was, and I knew it. "It'd be a shame to muck up council politics with arguments over darning socks, though."
"You have a point there," he said. "Listen, I shouldn't keep you."
"I'll see you later, then," I said, stepping onto the porch, and he waved and walked off, though I stayed in the shadows by the door, watching him go for a little while. I wasn't looking forward to the next few times I'd see him. But at least the air had been cleared. It was something.