A/N: Well, hello there.
It's been a long time, hasn't it? I've missed you all - the few of you who still have my story in your favorites bar. I'll be honest, I doubt anyone is going to read this.
When you realize how precious and fragile a thing life is - when you've borne firsthand witness to how quickly and senselessly it leaves a person - you realize how poorly prioritized your own life has been.
Causes is as much a part of who I am, of my self-identification, as much as anything else I love. I do not leave things I love unfinished or unattended.
This chapter has not been beta'd, and I apologize for any rough spots. At this point, I feel that getting it out to whatever reader (yes, singular) I still have is more important than perfect polish. I will beta it when I have the chance.
Chicago, Illinois
2100 hours
September 21, 2006 – one year ago
Tracy sighed. The harsh glare from a trio of bulbs screwed into the ceiling fan overpowered the light of a full moon creeping through the window. She took a sip of milk and adjusted the fit of her oversized gray t-shirt. "Felix, are you sure you don't want something to eat?"
He pulled a cigarette from the pack on the cluttered counter and set it between his teeth. "I'm fine," he said, rifling through a drawer for a lighter. For cheap-ass pieces of plastic, the damn things were nearly impossible to find. His search turned up a translucent blue savior.
"When will you be back?"
"Day after tomorrow."
His wife sat silent for a moment. "We're moving out, Felix."
"Good to know."
"Can you even pretend to care about your family anymore?" She snapped, jumping to her feet. "Ever since you got back, this house has gone straight to Hell! I'm sick of the smoke, sick of the constant drinking, and sick of the man who replaced my husband!"
He plucked the cigarette from his mouth. "You can shut the fuck up right now. I put my ass on the line for ten years to afford this apartment, and all you can do is bitch at me. Well, fuck you! I'm-"
"Mom? Dad?"
Felix felt his heart sink. He turned to see his five-year-old son standing in the doorway to his room, stuffed rhino trailing from one hand. "Yes, Alec?"
"Are you okay?"
He nodded.
Alec rubbed one eye. "Are you guys fighting again?"
Tracy sat down. "No, sweetie. Daddy and I just had a little argument, that's all."
"It woke me up."
"I'm sorry, sport." Felix returned the cigarette to his mouth. "I have to go to work early today, but I'll be back before you go to bed."
"That's what you said last time," the boy said, disappearing into his room.
Felix watched his son return to bed, then looked at his wife.
Her eyes filled with tears. "What happened to you, Felix? Who killed my husband?"
He turned away and headed for the door, grabbing his set of keys from the popsicle-stick rack where they hung. As Felix shut and deadbolted the door, an overwhelming sense of regret filled him. Memories of a happy, working-class family flashed through his mind as he started up the Bronco and pulled out of the parking lot of the apartment complex. That family, along with another, died in the August heat of Iraq. "I did," he whispered.
What could he do? He took a long pull on his cigarette. With no income and the eyes of Uncle Sam burning through the back of his skull, Felix DiMarco was a desperate man. He glanced at the business card on his center console. Blacktip Security Solutions, based in Gallup, New Mexico. Protecting the people of today on the battlefield of tomorrow. Felix pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed from memory.
After a few rings, a voice from the past came through. "Hey, Felix."
"Kirk. You headed to the airport?"
"Yeah. I got the card and letter a few days ago. You?"
"Same." He thought for a moment. "Think it's legit?"
"Maybe." Felix's voice lowered. "Kirk, no one's supposed to know about-"
"I know, I know. Whoever wrote it knew too much about us. Maybe they just send these to everyone who gets discharged."
"Maybe." He paused. "Tracy's leaving me," Felix managed, a knot forming in his throat.
"I'm getting evicted. Guess this is our only shot."
Felix grimaced. "Yeah."
He stepped onto the hard-packed clay of the Mi'hen Highroad and breathed deeply. The smell of the sea was gone. Felix could smell grass, bird shit, and fresh earth. "You know," he said, turning to the bird-riding woman next to him, "this would be a lot prettier if that giant yellow fucker wasn't here. The entire road has smelled like shit."
She stiffened. "Don't be so prissy."
"Which is especially horrifying since it falls somewhere between human shit and cow shit, and bird shit should not do that. It should also not be the size of a melon."
"Are you some kind of shit expert?" She asked, raising a copper eyebrow.
"Just a man who's been around more feces than he cares to remember."
"Well, you're a Crusader," Bird Bitch quipped, "so Yevon knows you roll in it enough."
"Christ, you need a good dicking."
"Ah, Felix, I see you've met our guide." Wedge appeared at Felix's side, leather bag of water in hand. "Cora, Felix. Felix, Cora."
"Charmed."
"I'm not," she said. "He's an ass."
"How big of an ass?"
The overweight man laughed. "Oprah would be jealous, Vince. The worst of the bunch. It's like he gave himself a vinegar enema before coming in for the interview. He's callous, hostile, and abrasive. Even went for the fat joke. I acted upset, and it didn't phase the man one touch. There isn't a trace of Army discipline left in him. You sure he had stripes?"
Vince nodded, and lit a new cigarette to replace the stub smoldering in a half-full ashtray. "Positive. A bastard like that won't be missed, and his record is spotless, minus those three Hajis. Go let him know."
There was something besides hard liquor that Felix used to keep his mind under control. He discovered it during his first deployment with Blacktip Security Solutions, in a shitty little pile of dirt in Africa, after using clouds of flechettes to disembowl a pair of AK-toting skinnies. Felix lowered the Mossberg and plucked two fresh shells from loops on his vest. He slid the plastic and brass cylinders into the bottom of the gun slowly, watching the flies migrate from a nearby donkey carcass to the lacerated coils of fresh organs. The sand shifted under his booted feet as he turned away and racked the shotgun again, readying another barrage of razorblades.
He'd fired without thinking, a subconscious reaction to a threat. More than that, Felix felt something bizarre. Watching his shotgun twist the men around awakened something inside him – an overwhelming numbness that extinguished everything else. A smile crossed his lips.
"Felix! Stop trying to get in the guide's panties and take a shift on watch."
Felix bowed, doffing his beret. "It's been fantastic undressing you with my mind, but I have to go stare at dirt for a while."
"I'm sure that will tickle your Crusader winky more than my tits."
"So you've thought about tickling my dick with your tits?"
"Get lost before I use my boot instead."
He smirked. "Kinky, but not my thing."
"Felix!"
"Coming, mom!" Felix walked over to Wedge's wagon, resetting his beret and turning his back to Bird Bitch. It had been too long since his last smoke, and even longer since his last drink; though he had no expectations of finding a 7-11 on the Highroad, Felix allowed himself a moment to fantasize about a traveling merchant with wagons full of whiskey and smokes.
"Weather nice in La-La Land?"
Felix sighed as he climbed up the side of the cart. "Yeah, actually. Nicotine fog and whiskey rain. Big titties everywhere." He took a seat on the padded seat next to Wedge, overlooking the chocobo team dragging the wooden construction along the Highroad.
Wedge shook his head. "Felix, you are one deranged son of a bitch, you know that?"
"Been hearing it every day for years." He gestured at the orange binoculars around Wedge's neck. "Mind?"
"'Course not – no other way you'd see much up here. Though there ain't much to see." He handed the rectangular, plastic device over. "Unless you count the ruins."
Glancing around, Felix took second note of the decrepit, rainbow structures dotting the shoulders of the well-worn dirt path. Their looping, sloped architecture seemed like it'd fit in well with Luca. Or Besaid. Fuck, everything in Spira was curvy and Technicolor. Like a Dr. Seuss cartoon. "Where was the city?"
Wedge shrugged. "Nobody really knows. It was destroyed by Sin, thousands of years ago."
"Thousands of years? These things still have paint on 'em!"
"That's not paint – the stone is actually colored."
He whistled. "Pretty fancy shit."
"Yeah, cities must have been something to see back then. Machina everywhere, buildings touching the sky…like a dream, you know?" Wedge sighed. "What I wouldn't give to bring that glory back to Spira."
"Why wasn't it rebuilt?" Felix asked, peering through the computerized binoculars at the mountains in the distance. The rocks formed a thick, dark band between the bright, almost harsh sky and the grass-framed dirt road. It was beautiful, in the fucked-up kind of way everything else in Spira was beautiful.
"Some do. Most Spirans are still too brainfucked by Yevon to want to rebuild." He paused, as though revealing an innermost secret. "The Council is split down the middle – the younger Maesters want to rebuild the great cities, and the older ones want to maintain the status quo. Something's gonna have to change one way or the other, if Spira's gonna progress." Wedge pointed at one of the half-buried, artificial spires. "All this heritage, lost because the sheeple won't let go of the propaganda. I guess I can understand, though; the Church ran everything until two years ago. Kinda hard to get people to just up and change their whole mindset and values around. But at the same time, we can't keep living in little huts on islands and pretending like cities are shameful. Luca and Bevelle shouldn't be the only bastions of real civilization."
"Deep shit, Wedge. You should write a fucking book."
"I'm more than just a pretty face. Keep watch while I try and get us something to drink," Wedge added, hopping off the carriage.
"With pleasure." He set the binoculars to one side and leaned against the side of the carriage seat, letting his back rest. He wasn't about to sleep, but he also wasn't about to spend an hour staring at rocks and grass while everything with a dick tried to get Cora to let them ram it in her.
The guide was pretty, he couldn't deny that – good rack, nice lips, probably a good ass, if it wasn't flattened from riding on Big Bird all day – but Christ, she was a bitch. Felix wasn't sure how she'd be in the sack. Probably a freak. He'd hit it like a train, he decided, pulling his feet onto the bench and stretching out. He picked up the binoculars, took another look at nothing, and rested them on his lap as he assumed a pseudo-upright position. Was it just because he hadn't had any action for God knows how long? Probably. Felix thought for sure he'd be fucking Yuna's brains out by now, but-
Yuna.
He sighed – a kind of half-growl that resonated in his throat. Sex lay at the opposite end from 'small talk about the weather' on the Relationship Progression Chart, and judging by the High Summoner's most recent treatment of him, it was going to be a good year or so before his progress even registered. Felix still didn't know what he did wrong, which was a definite change from the usual. And since he couldn't exactly find Yuna and have dirty, nasty make-up sex, he had no idea what to do. Make-up sex wouldn't be bad, though. Neither would fucking Cora.
"Anything interesting, Felix?" Jazo asked, riding up alongside the carriage.
"Nothing at all, unless you count our guide."
"Real fiery, huh?"
"One way to put it."
The younger man grinned. "I'd say hot, actually."
"Got a thing for redheads, Jazz?"
"Yeah, actually." He laughed. "My first crush was a red-headed girl back when I was about ten. Guess that memory stuck with me ever since."
Felix sat up and scratched his elbow. "Maybe if you're nice, she'll let you-"
"I'll let what?" Cora demanded, appearing on the other side of the carriage.
"Let me finish a sentence, first of all."
"Why would I do that, if it's going to be something pointless?"
"Could you please fuck off and fuck your bird? Preferably in that order."
"You are the most hypersensitive human being I have ever met. Did your parents not love you?"
Felix gritted his teeth. "Did your daddy touch you when you were little to make you such a bitch?"
Cora's eyes widened. "Mother of Yevon, sorry!"
"Fuck off."
"I came up to say that there's some chow-"
"Is the definition of 'fuck off' different in this shithole, or is the bird shit fucking with your head?" He snapped.
Her eyes lingered on his a moment before she wheeled her chocobo around and disappeared into the caravan.
Jazo cleared his throat.
"Jazz, go make sure everyone's still awake," Felix said, staring at the mountains. He didn't bother seeing if the boy'd left – he knew Jazo would get the hint. He rubbed his temples. The headache from nicotine withdrawals was back with a vengeance, and Cora's dig at his family didn't help his temper. Felix was two steps past the breaking point, and he wanted to scream. He hated Spira, hated the Al-Bhed, hated the Crusaders, hated Yuna. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be back on his bunk in Brazil, reading cheap porn and drinking ersatz coffee.
He missed it. Missed the familiar faces, the recognizable objects, the animals conforming to laws of a Nature he understood. Missed feeling like he knew what was happening. Missed his world. Felix had fucked it up royally, but now, travelling northward on a wagon pulled by giant birds to kill more people with swirly-ass eyes, he would give anything to go back and face it all, even alone. He was tired of feeling like a stranger. His mind wandered to strange things – the tightness of new shoes, the awkwardness of hearing your neighbors fucking, the way his son smelled.
It was all gone now – probably millions of miles away from this insane world where birds are horses and eyes are fractals, where magic is normal and neutral colors are unheard of. Spira was overwhelmingly odd.
And yet, it was beginning to feel like home. He was forgetting his old life, and becoming— what, exactly? A professional soldier. No, not becoming – staying. War was the only familiar thing to him in Spira, and he clung to it like a newborn clings to its mother's breast.
He wondered, briefly, as he pondered the ruins sliding by on his right, what it was like to suckle milk instead of blood.
Cid held his head in his hands and groaned – a low, guttural sound that his palms almost silenced. Thick, diagonal plates across the windows allowed razor-thin beams of light to slash across his sweat- and dirt-streaked forearms, as well as his barren desk. The steel-topped furniture projected a two-dimensional wall of text in midair. He raised his face enough to peer at the scrolling lines before groaning again. Cid reached for a triangular bottle on the ground beside his chair, which groaned as well. He unscrewed the glass topper and took a deep pull of the bottle's colorless contents.
"Pops, Brother and his friends made it back." Rikku's slender form appeared in the doorway, clad in stained tan coveralls. Her braids peeked out from under the rag which bound them to her head, and her armored right arm clanked against the metal portal. "He said the rebels aren't making much ground without that airship cover of theirs."
He groaned again. "I fuckin' knew we never should have put so much stock in them airships. Nobody bought the damn things."
"Pops, the army-"
"Yeah, we built a few for the army, now look – some asshole stole one, and the other two managed to blast the shit out of each other the first day of the war!" He slammed the bottle on the desk. "We lost everything when that fuckin' Council refused to buy, and then some cunt on the Rebuild Team starts agitatin' about injustice and democracy and shit, and whaddaya know? Civil fucking war." Cid waved his hands in the air, his bald head a bright red. "And how about those fuckin' Spirans, huh? Big help! Can't even get a sphere through to 'em! And that fuckin' hippie, Rin – guy's sellin' weapons and potions to anyone with a pulse! Shit, Rikku, this family owns the factories, and I can't track half of what he's sellin'!"
Rikku sighed, and walked into her father's office. "Pops, you shouldn't be drinking again. You know what it does to you."
"I know, kiddo. I know."
She placed her hand lightly about the neck of the bottle, and Cid's hand slipped away from the triangular body. "Don't worry about Rin. He's loyal to the Highwinds, but he has to support those travel agencies of his."
"The hell happened to those? When was the last time we heard from 'em?"
"Too long. Dad, I think something's wrong, and I think Yunie's in trouble." She frowned. "I just have a feeling, ya know?"
He looked at her. "A head feelin', or a heart feelin'?"
"Heart."
Cid sighed, his gaze moving to the slatted window. "Somethin's wrong everywhere, kiddo. The air ain't been right in a long time."
A gaunt, muscular man leapt through the doorway, sand flying from his coveralls and boots as he landed in front of the desk. "Father!"
Cid whirled. "The fuck-"
"Crash," he breathed. "Crashed airship."
"Airship?" Rikku demanded. "Ours?"
Brother shook his head, his breath coming in rapid gasps. "One. Harpoon."
"Well, I'll be damned," Cid whispered. "It's the Cryng. Thought she got bombed out."
Rikku jumped down through the hatch, half-buried in the sand. "Inside's clean, pops. Looks like they left him here and never came back. Sandstorms." She pulled her goggles over her eyes and drew the pistol at her hip, armored right hand closing around its grip in a perfect match. A trickle of sand fell from overhead. "I'm gonna check it out."
Cid landed with a thump behind her. "Not alone, you're not." He racked his three-barreled shotgun and lowered his own goggles. "I got your back, kiddo."
"Why, Yuna?"
She stared at the wooden wall of her cell, unblinking.
Aenna scooted his chair closer to the thick wooden beams separating him from the young woman on the other side, and knocked on one with his knuckles. "Yuna, why? Why, after all-"
"I have no reason to gossip with someone's lapdog, Aenna."
He recoiled, then leaned closer. "Yuna," he whispered, "please just listen to me. I think Nade is going to betray us."
Yuna turned, smirking. "Us? Us? Where was this 'us' before I was thrown in here?"
Aenna sighed, clenching the edge of the beam until his fingers blanched. "We just want democracy. We just want our voices heard."
"We?"
"Yuna, without Yevon, how legitimate is a theological monarchy? Sin is gone, and with it the entire Yevonite power structure. 'High Summoner' is an artifact, Yuna – why don't you accept that?"
"I gave the people hope, Aenna. When the Council did nothing, when the world resigned themselves to death, I gave them hope."
"You gave them an incomplete freedom," he argued. "Why don't you just demolish all the remnants of the old tyranny? Become the head Maestress of the new Spira, oversee an era of liberty and equality!" Aenna glanced over his shoulder, and lowered his voice even further. "Yuna, you don't understand what you're risking! This is the only chance you'll have. Abdicate, Yuna. Step down and let the reforms go through."
"I will never betray Spira. Never."
His voice became plaintive. "Yuna, the Council will kill you."
"Nade is a coward. He wouldn't dare-"
"Nade is already taking lives!" Aenna hissed. "Yuna, you have no idea what is going on around you right now. You must step down."
She gritted her teeth. "The man I loved-" Yuna stopped herself, visibly mortified. "Love, died for this Spira. I will not turn my back on it."
"And if you don't step down, you will die for it as well! Yuna, Nade is going to betray me. Betray all of us. I don't know how much blood has already been spilled by this man, but if you don't abdicate, you will die, and then Nade will rule Spira."
Yuna stared him dead in the face.
"I don't trust him, Yuna. I never have. I trust Nayla even less. The only person who's been there for me is you. You sent aid to Kilika. That alone means more than whatever blood gave birth to you." Aenna rose from his chair, only to kneel in front of the bars. "I do not want any more blood on my hands. For the love of life, please, give Spira freedom and stop Nade."
"What doesn't Spira have?" She asked, her lips quivering. "Have I been cruel? Have I forced young people into a life destined to end before it ever blossoms?" Her voice rose. "Have I been a coward, Aenna? Did I sit in Bevelle with my tail between my legs, letting an endless cycle of death consume my people?" Yuna leapt from her seat, screaming through the wooden bars at the kneeling Maester. "Have I been a liar? Have I decided what satisfies me, and what I should hide? I have done all I can to honor the people who died so that I could live! Right now, men are dying again, in a war that you refused to stop – where is the freedom in that?"
"It was Nade!" Aenna thrust his hand through the grate and grasped at Yuna's sleeve. She took a half-circle step away from him, leaving his slender fingers to close on air. "Nade's mercenaries are going to wipe out the entire government! I told you, he's betraying all of us. Together, we can stop him."
"So now you have another bogeyman, and another lap to sit in."
"Yuna, please." He shook his head. "I don't know what Nayla lied about, but too much of it made too much sense. Something is going on, and it has nothing to do with freedom. Please, Yuna." Aenna's eyes watered. "My family died in Kilika. I have nothing left. Please, Yuna. Please help me stop him."
She returned to her seat with dignity, head high. "If you're not lying, abdicating would change nothing. I will not die a coward, and I will not bend before anyone again."
"It changes everything. If you abdicate willingly before a vote of no confidence gets approved, then the Council has no reason to kill you. The Council can then bring about democracy peacefully. If Nade attempts to interfere with the process, an alliance of your supporters and those loyal to the Council would rally Spira against Nade."
"But the vote-"
"The vote was never ratified, remember? Nayla did not vote, and motions of no confidence must be unanimous. Nade is taking you to Bevelle, where he wants to convene the Council once more in order to seize power. If you abdicate before the meeting, there can be no vote. With no vote, the Council has no reason to convene. If the Council does not gather in the same place, there's no way Nade can start a coup."
Yuna thought for a moment. "Aenna, I can't abdicate. You have to understand that – my father's memory, and the pilgrimage, and…too many sacrifices were made for me. I will not turn my back on them."
Aenna bit his lip. "If that's the case, then the only choice I have is to kill Nade."
"Here?"
He let out a soft laugh. "They'd dump my corpse overboard in a moment. No, I have to do it when the Council meets – only two guards are allowed in during meetings. If you can create some kind of distraction to pull them out, I can kill Nade and explain the situation without danger."
"Why did you vote against me, Aenna? Why, if you're my friend, did you betray me? And why this change?"
He hung his head. "I believed Nade. I believed he was our leader, here to guide us into freedom. When I realized he had betrayed me and destroyed my home, I decided the Outline must be completed in another way. We cannot trust either Nayla or Nade. Work with me, and not only will Spira be free, but we will both live."
"But Nade must die."
Aenna nodded. "Nade must die."
Felix stared at dirt, finding nothing particularly fascinating or enjoyable about it other than the fact that it was not a chocobo ass. After hours on the road, though, that was all Felix could smell. He groaned. His ass felt like it wanted to fall off. We got a world full of magic, and nobody can fuckin' invent a decent cushion? Anyone got a spell for that? He chuckled. In a chicken-propelled cart, on a road that looked like something out of the Smurfs, he was thinking about ass cushions. Ass cushions and cigarettes.
He rubbed his eyes, still slumped over the rail at the front of the cart. The dirt looked sharper. Blinking, Felix scratched his throat. A shave wouldn't kill him. He looked around. The Highroad looked a bit different, now – much less grass, much more rust-colored rock. Pink, blue, and orange rays stretched feebly over the tops of high cliffs. Felix stretched his arms over his head, grunting.
"Have a nice nap?" Cora asked, her chocobo trotting beside the the cart.
Felix narrowed his eyes.
"Yevon, I came to say sorry. Didn't realize you were going to take things that personally." She reached into a leather saddlebag and withdrew something so familiar, Felix could have sworn it came out of the same vortex bullshit he did. "Bought this off some travelling merchant a few miles back. Thought you'd like it."
He accepted the bottle of amber liquid with a shiteating grin. "You little bitch – is this what I think it is?"
"Odd way to say thanks," she said. "It's Ronso whiskey. Might be a little stout for—holy shit!"
Felix wiped his mouth after upending the bottle. He held it in front of his face, surveying the remaining contents. "The stuff back home doesn't have shit on this." He turned back to Cora. "Thanks," he said. "I'm pretty on-edge lately."
"I can see that. Wish I had bought another bottle."
"Nah, it's fine. Now that I know it exists here, the world is a better place."
"You're easily placated."
"Only when I'm deprived," he quipped.
"That so?" Cora responded with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, you did buy me a drink first."
She laughed. "Unfortunately for you, I haven't had enough yet. And since I don't drink on duty, you're remaining deprived."
"That so?" Felix was actually disappointed – not that he really expected the expedition guide to drop her panties and jump on his lap, but Jesus Tittyfucking Christ did he need to get laid. She was attractive, he did have a weakness for redheads, and Yuna's cockteases were absolutely intolerable, especially given that her 'fire the guy who saved her life after sucking his tongue' routine meant that he hadn't even gotten teased in forever. Shit, Tracyhadn't fucked him since he got back from Iraq, and that waitress didn't count, since her boyfriend charged into the trailer when Felix was right fucking there. He allowed himself a moment to fantasize about tossing Cora into the windowless cart and taking out months of sexual frustration on her slender body. He decided that it would be a good idea. "I don't believe you."
Cora winked. "About the drinking, or about your depravation?"
"At the moment, the drinking." He offered her the bottle. "I promise not to tell."
She accepted it without visible reluctance, and pounded back a good two shots before handing it back. "I needed that. Gotta confess – I took a shot before I gave you the bottle."
"No shit?" He laughed.
"Only what's all over the road."
"Speaking of, where the fuck are we?"
"This? This is Mushroom Rock, where the Al-Bhed managed to cock up a major battle against Sin two years ago. There's a statue of Lord Mi'ihen a little ways up ahead; we'll probably be stopping there."
"Religious thing?"
She shook her head. "Ritual. All the warriors on this road pay their respects at the statue in exchange for safe passage through their next battle. Ever since Sir Auron did it, it's become a tradition."
"Sir Auron?"
"You've heard of him?"
"Not once," he lied. "Maybe in passing."
"What rock did you crawl from under?" She asked, incredulous. "Sir Auron was the greatest guardian who ever lived, and an incredible fighter. Saw him in action against a huge-ass fiend once. It was like he wasn't even human – like watching a machina."
"What'd he look like?"
"I didn't think you rolled that way, Felix."
"I'm not kidding – what did Auron look like?"
She frowned. "I can't really remember. He was a blur when I saw him. Huge, ornate sword. Big collar. Red jacket."
It has to be him. Felix had no idea whence this certainty came, but its intensity and urgency forced him to believe it. That red bastard was there in Brazil. This Auron was the key to it all. Felix needed to find him. "Sharp dresser."
"Says the guy covered in markings. You Al-Bhed or something?" She asked, a little guardedly.
"Not in the least. Check my eyes."
"I have," Cora said. "No swirls. But the tattoos and machina are arguing otherwise."
"I use what I'm used to using," he mused. "Spent more time with one of these in my hands than I did in school."
"Career soldier, huh?
Felix shook his head. "Career fighter. Haven't been a soldier for a while."
"You're a soldier now," Cora pointed out.
"That's true." He thought for a moment. In all technicality, he'd stopped being a contractor the moment Yuna fired him. Hell, he'd forgotten when his next paycheck was supposed to show up. Did he get a paycheck anymore? Everything he'd been doing, he did as a Besaid Crusader. Felix wasn't entirely sure how to process that realization; it felt as though a diminutive bureaucrat in his mind saw one too many fucked-up forms and decided to suck-start the pistol he kept in his desk. "I suppose I am," he said.
"When weren't you?"
"When I got here, I was working as a private military contractor."
"A what now?"
Felix took a sip of his whiskey. "I helped people fight wars. Small countries, or big ones that didn't want to give themselves away, or corporations that wanted to enforce their land rights, or some other such setup."
"So a mercenary?"
"No," he snapped. "Mercenaries are whores with guns. I still had a conscience – I never took any job I had an issue with. None of that civvy blasting business." Not anymore.
"Honestly, Felix, that sounds like the same thing."
"You have to live the life to get the difference," he lied. In his mind, Felix laughed like a man peering through a noose. There wasn't a fucking difference. Not in the least. He remembered how tightly he clung to those semantics at dinner with Tracy's old man, right before he left for Blacktip. The old bastard – a Vietnam vet, Marine – thought being a merc was akin to raping puppies with a borrowed dick in the street. Felix vehemently defended a nonsensical point, until finally storming out of the house on his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her family. In a world of shit disintegrating around him, Felix found an ember of dignity and latched himself to it with all the desperation of a castaway struggling to build a fire. People on the outside couldn't possibly comprehend how precious such semantics became.
"I suppose," she said. After a moment, she chuckled. "This is awfully heavy for someone who just met you."
He shrugged. "I guess it's just nice to talk. Haven't gotten much down time."
"I know the feeling. Ever since that bomb went off in Luca, I've been working twelve-hour shifts or more, guiding people up the Highroad. Everyone's trying to get out. Bevelle is the current vogue destination. Sometimes I feel like talking to chocobos."
"Glad to see you two are getting along," Wedge announced, appearing on Felix's other side. "And you, dear Sergeant, need to share."
"Only when there's another bottle around."
Wedge grinned, producing a matching container from his own saddlebag. "Cora's not the only one who bought from O'aka. Pretty sure we cleaned that bastard out of every alcoholic beverage known to man, and several known only to Al-Bhed."
"Any smokes?" He asked.
"Just a pack." Wedge tossed a small wooden box into Felix's lap. "Jazo nicked a pair, though."
"Told that kid to stay away from the things," Felix mumbled, unlatching the lid and hastily sliding out a thin, white cylinder. "Anyone have a light?"
"Here," Cora said. "Little trinket an Al-Bhed family gave me."
Felix extended his hand and accepted the odd-looking device. It looked like a spring coiled around a pink rock. He pressed the top of the spring, and the rock emitted a thin jet of flame. "The fuck is this?" He asked, satisfied that his cigarette was lit. "Magic?"
"Fire gem," she replied, stuffing the lighter back in her bag. "The spring chips off a bit of it, which makes that facet catch fire until it oxidizes enough to be neutral. Handy."
"Hell yeah," Felix grunted, inhaling as deep as he could. He missed nicotine. A lot.
"Think I can bum one?"
He raised an eyebrow. "You smoke?"
"No, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be this bored all night."
Felix pulled out another cigarette and handed it to Cora. "Happy to cure your boredom."
"Think I can get a light? I'd like to save as much of that gem as I can."
Smirking, Felix leaned towards the guide, pressing the smoldering end of his cigarette to hers.
"Holy shit," Cid breathed. He pulled his goggles from his face and let them dangle about his neck, leaving a patch of bare flesh amidst a visage caked with dust. He blinked. "There's gotta be fifty thousand Gil in there."
Rikku nodded, pushing a few of the coins about with her gloved hand, pistol pointed towards the 'ceiling' of the upended room. "I think this is just part of the stash Brother mentioned. This one fell out of a false bulkhead that a rat chewed loose."
Cid rose to his feet. "Son of a bitch. They've been bought out!"
"Who has, pop?"
He closed the metal cylinder and tucked it under his arm with a grunt. "The army, kiddo. That's how this whole shitstorm started." A pause. "The Rebuilders. Those two assholes that started those rallies – I bet my balls they're on somebody's payroll now, and the rest of the money is going towards all those fuckin' guns."
"That'd take more Gil than anyone in Spira has!"
"Any one, yeah." He nodded. "But not any group." Cid began making his way back through Cryng's sandy hulk. "When we get back, we gotta lock Home down. Seal all the gates, bring in all the oasis scouts. Something big's in the wind."
Rikku nodded, following along close behind. "I'll call Yunie. Maybe she knows what happened."
"Something tells me your cousin's just as confused."
"Yunie always has a plan," she insisted, climbing through the metal skeleton.
The dim glow – if it could be called that – of a pair of cigarette butts was all that illuminated the front of the caravan, in the absence of any visible stars. The chocobos plodded along through the darkness. The air smelled like bird shit, dirt, and burning tobacco. "So," Felix asked, scratching a persistent itch at the edge of his beret's leather sweatband, "how'd you get roped into this whole clusterfuck?"
"What's a girl like me doing in a place like this?"
"Somethin' like that."
"Parents were chocobo ranchers over in the Calm Lands – I grew up moving from place to place all the time. Dirty, dangerous work," Cora added, a cloud of smoke wafting up from her mouth. "Nothing like an easy meal to attract some very nasty fiends. One big son of a bitch got my older brother near Besaid. I never had much interest in ranching, but riding, I loved. Do a few balloon races from time to time, too. Anyway, riding turned to teaching, turned to being a trail guide. Some Lucan officer grabbed me today and ordered me to take you all up the road, so that's where I'm at." She tapped a bit of ash onto the dirt. "He still hasn't told me just where we're going, only that it's not here."
"Brass're all the same," he mused. "Here, home, everywhere. Probably won't tell you until the day after we get there."
"You don't know either?"
Felix shook his head. "Wedge mentioned something about the Thunder Plains, I think."
"Pretty far from here." Cora tugged back on the chocobos' reins, bringing the cart to a halt. "The shrine is just inside this cave – you Crusaders go on in. I'll make sure the birds are fed."
"You heard the lady," Wedge said, appearing once more. "We'll go in first, then the Lucans. Besaid is further from the statue."
"Tradition, huh?" Felix asked, alighting from the cart. He stumbled upon landing, feeling light-headed. "Whoa."
"You good?"
"Yup. Just a head rush."
Jazo and Biggs made their way out of the darkness of the caravan, each man with his weapon across his back and carrying a glass bottle. Biggs, in fact, carried two. "Are we heading in to pay our respects?" He asked.
"Affirmative," Wedge replied, leaning back and grunting. "You brought mine?"
Biggs nodded, and handed Wedge one of the bottles. "Sake."
"So, are we taking shots off this guy's statue or something?"
"Don't be disrespectful," Cora interjected. "You're supposed to pour out some of your drink onto the ground as an offering in exchange for success in the next battle, remember? The ritual Sir Auron started?"
"You didn't tell me anything about wasting booze. I would remember that."
Jazo shook his bottle, indicating its relative lack of fluid. "Relax, Felix. It's just a shot."
"Jazz, you smell like ass. And you owe me two cigarettes. And now, I'm losing a shot of my whiskey." Felix looked at the almost empty bottle in his hand. "As though our guide here didn't drink enough of it."
"You offered."
"And you smoke all the time," Jazo shot back. "I just needed something to settle my nerves."
"I smoke all the time because I have to smoke all the time because that's what smoking does, and that is why you owe me," Felix said. "And yes, I did split this bottle with you."
"Kids," Wedge sighed, "cut your shit. Felix, you're pouring a shot out and that's an order. Jazo, you're too damn young to start abusing yourself like our Sergeant here. Cora, as you were."
With a mock salute, the redheaded guide clambered off the wagon and walked off towards the rest of the caravan.
"Distracted, Sergeant?"
"By what?" Felix asked, turning around. "Smoking? Yes, yes I am."
Biggs grinned. "I think Wedge means that you should focus less on the guide's ass, and more on the fact that the rest of us are ready to move on."
He shrugged. "Hey, in my defense, it's a nice ass."
"Would you say Yuna's is better?" Wedge asked. "I would."
Felix rolled his eyes, stepping past his Lieutenant. "Fuck you."
Biggs fell into step beside him, laughing. "Forgetting Chocobo Chick so quickly?"
"I thought she seemed nice," Jazo offered, lagging behind the three men.
"I take back what I said, kid. You're alright. As for you two, kindly get fucked in the eye socket."
"You know, your threats become more disturbing the more I get to know you." Wedge pointed towards an opening in the rock wall. "The statue's down this way, up a glyph. Kinda out of the way. Makes me wish Mi'ihen had convenience in mind."
"Up a what, now?" He asked around his cigarette. Stumbling along the rough stone path, Felix found himself wishing that somebody in Spira would invent a flashlight already. Or, as it would likely be called, a portable sphere light bullshit generator that ran on the daydreams of children. Or the milk from giant mage tits.
"Right in there." Biggs indicated an oddly symmetrical and luminous shape on the floor of another chamber a few meters ahead. "Just step on that."
"Not until somebody assures me that the magical bullshit that fucking abounds in Spira is not involved here."
"Felix, don't be a bitch."
He sighed, resigning himself to the fact that nothing was ever going to make much sense again. "So what, I step on this thing and I teleport?"
Wedge laughed. "Nope!"
Jazo stepped forward. "I'll go first, if you want."
"Thanks, but I'll go ahead and keep my manhood intact." Felix took a nervous drag on his cigarette, studying the so-called glyph. It looked dormant enough – a meter-wide engraved square, with a dark, glassy stone in the center. The whole engraved design was complicated as fuck, which made sense on the floor of a cave in the middle of nowhere by making no sense at all. It makes perfect Spiran sense. He nudged the edge of it with his toe, then eased onto the raised design one foot at a time.
The instant Felix's back foot touched the glyph, the entire section of earth around him lifted straight out of the ground and into the air. He scrambled off the now-glowing platform and onto the ledge in front of him, cigarette falling onto the dusty, eroded rock.
Wedge and Biggs burst into laughter.
Felix did not find his situation at all amusing. In fact, he had very nearly pissed himself. "What the fuck?" He bellowed, watching the glyph dim and sink back into the ground.
"Oh, come on, you're not afraid of heights, are you?"
"Only when I get launched up there by nothing. You know, it wouldn't destroy this place for something to make a bit of sense. Gears, cables, that kind of shit? Maybe a fucking lever? Or stairs? But no," he continued, retrieving his cigarette from the ground, "some asshole has to go and make all this shit magic because fuck you, that's why."
"Relax," Wedge said, rising up on the glyph and taking a nonchalant step onto the ledge. "It's faster than climbing."
"They don't exactly have this shit where I'm from."
Jazo was the next to ride the Bullshit Buoy. "I'd rather climb."
"You two just need to let your balls drop."
"Eat a chode," he replied, rising to his feet. The magic elevator led up to this, a small rock chamber dominated by a large statue of a man impaling a beast with an improbably shaped sword. In the darkness, Felix couldn't discern much more than that – although he had the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized by some unseen pair of eyes. In front of the sculpture, a sword jutted out from the ground hilt-first. On a whim, Felix reached out and tugged on it. The rough, rusty weapon refused to move.
"Don't vandalize the statue, Felix."
"Just wanted to see if it'd come out. Make me King of England or something."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
He sighed. "Nevermind. Where do I waste my whiskey?"
Biggs unscrewed the top of his bottle. "Right in front of Lord Mi'ihen here." The sake splashed onto the rock. "Wedge, you next."
More alcohol splashed against the ground. "Jazo, your turn to pay respects."
Jazo poured out what sounded like a double measure. "One for Gatta."
Silence.
Felix added a shot of his own to the puddle on the ground. "Drink up, Mi'ihen. Hope you like your whiskey straight." He peered into the darkness over his shoulder. He swore there was someone else in the caverns. "Wedge, you hear something?"
"Only your whining."
"I thought I did," Jazo said. "Sounded like someone's sneaking around outside."
"I didn't hear anything." Biggs started walking towards the glyph-a-vator. "Must've been the wind."
"There isn't any wind," the younger man muttered.
"What was that?"
"I said there isn't any wind."
"Well, what, then?" Biggs snapped. "Some kind of secret assassin waiting for us?"
"I never said that!"
"Christ, Biggs, ease up."
"I'm just tired of this little punk acting like he's something hot."
"Biggs, for Yevon's sake, what's your problem?"
"Pouring out a shot for Gatta – what kind of bullshit is that? You just met him!"
Wedge stepped between the two. "Biggs, you need to calm down. We know you were close."
"You don't know shit."
"Biggs, I didn't mean to-"
"I watched him die, and you're acting like you can honor him with that little drama? Fuck off, Jazo."
"Biggs, shut the fuck up before I shut you the fuck up." Felix stood next to his Lieutenant and crossed his arms. "Go cool down."
He turned and rode the glyph back down. "Fuck all of you."
Wedge waited a moment, then leaned closer to Felix. "What the fuck was that about?"
"I think something happened in Luca. He hasn't been the same since then."
"Hmm. I'll get a little sake in him tonight, try and get him to spill it and loosen up before he loses it. See you back at the wagons," he added, disappearing below the crest of the ridge. Wedge's footfalls crunched on the pieces of loose gravel, echoing off the canyon walls.
"Felix?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"I'm sorry."
He turned. "Don't sweat it, Jazz. Biggs' got some issues to work through right now. Ain't your fault. Here," he said, handing over the whiskey bottle. "Take a drink. Settle the nerves down."
"Thanks, but I don't really drink."
"Just take the shot, kid."
Jazo reached out and accepted the bottle. Felix glanced over his shoulder at the statue again. For the briefest of instants, he swore he saw a shadow leaning on the rusty sword, staring right-
"It tastes like paint thinner," Jazo sputtered, wiping his mouth. "How the hell can you drink that?"
"It'll put hair on your chest," Felix muttered, thoroughly unsettled. His hand drifted to his right hip and its alarming lack of pistol. Jazz looked at him quizzically. "This place gives me the creeps, kid."
"Really?"
"No, I just like sounding like a pussy." He turned to face the statue's stony gaze. "Let's get back to the wagons before I try and get my liquor back."