The woman Natalie, formerly known as Marin, looked down at the spray of flowers. They grew out of a hole in the floorboards in a familiar church, in a familiar slum, in a familiar city.
'How long as is been since I stood here?' She asked herself. 'Two years? Already? Where did the time go?'
She stretched and yawned, she was very tired. Riding a stolen motorcycle all day, and part of the night, for a month. To trouble, then back to Midgar. Or at least until the bike had broken down. Then over a broken wall, into the Slums underneath the city of Midgar. Doing all of that while trying not to be seen by a soul.
Midgar was built on a plate over three hundred meters above the ground. Where the 'haves' lived, in the sunlight and on top of the biggest city in the world. And below it the 'have-nots' lived on the ground floor, in or above the dirt.
This woman was separated from that dirt, by thin sheet of old wooden floor. The flowers grew right out of that ground here. Actual green growing things, in a city that was built over, and with, it's own garbage. The refuse down here was the primary building material in the Slums. Except in this building, built Natalie didn't know when, with normal materials and not refuse. Such as stone blocks and glass windows.
She stood in an abandoned church. The building had a regular visitor, to tend those flowers. But the church had not been used as a church in a long time.
Yawning again, she looked up at the rafters. The creature that had roosted up there was gone, dead, returned to the Lifestream. Where all living things returned upon death, even their bodies. She had seen it disappear before her eyes. It would not roost on those rafters again.
'What will it feel like? When that happens to me. Will it hurt? Will Jamie be waiting for me there?' She had been asking herself that for years. 'Wait for me Jamie.'
'Jamie, Danny, Shawn.' She thought. Her friends, they were gone. Along with the friends she had made in the time since. She had lost so much to get to today. Some of it was yanked from her fingers in the last month. Leaving her hollowed out and alone.
She scratched her belly, where her newest scar sat, a thin line as long as her thumb. She hadn't found it's twin on her back. Where she had been stabbed, it hadn't gone all the way through. It hadn't scrambled her insides, and her Materia had acted in time to keep her alive until she could stop the bleeding with more of the Materia's magic.
"He left you to die, Marin." Jamie's voice echoed to her, the hallucination made it seem like she heard it with her ears. Instead she looked up at the church's rose window. Not looking to the source of the voice that actually came from her head.
Jamie's voice continued. "Sephiroth never loved you."
She ignored the words. Looking up at the rose window, which was a beautiful stained glass canvas of reds and yellows, blues and violets. There were no broken windows in this part of the building, they were all intact, it was a wonder that not even one piece was missing or broken.
She had forgotten what it was called. The large front area with all the pews. Only a few of the wooden pews were left, the altar was absent. And everything she thought a church should have had been carted away, everything that could be taken apart or carried away.
The whole Sector of that slum, partly filled with the refuse of the collapsed upper-plate in the sector next door, smelled of dust kicked up by the wind. Dust and rusting metal.
But inside, in this building, it smelled of dust and flowers.
She squatted down next to the flowers, getting closer until all she could smell where the yellow and white lilies.
"Natalie, you came back." A new voice floated from the door behind Natalie. A real voice, of a living woman.
Natalie turned to Aerith. Two years had changed them both, Natalie couldn't pick out the differences in the other woman.
Most of Natalie's differences had been in the last month. She had buried or left behind so many people in that time. She blinked back the tears as Aerith closed the distance from the front door to the flowers.
Natalie turned back to the flowers, sitting down. Bringing her knees under her chin, she wrapped her arms around her knees. "I wasn't enough. I couldn't-" she couldn't say anymore.
Aerith came to sit near Natalie, a question was on her face, but she didn't speak it.
They silently sat by the flowers for a while when Natalie spoke again. "Here." she pulled out a long white wingtip feather. "Oh." The spine had broken, the feather was bent and the barbs had separated. She could fell more tears coming.
"It's all right." Aerith told her.
"They're gone." Natalie, Lee to her friends, wiped her face. Her words rushing out. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to worry Elmyra. I'm just showing up out of the blue and-"
"Shh, shhh. It's all right." Aerith scooched closer to Natalie.
"They were like my brothers. And I wasn't...then I couldn't find-" she cut herself off. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright, you're enough."
"I just. He wouldn't listen. And..." Natalie trailed off again. She had so much she still had to process, but she had avoided speaking a loud so many details for so many years. She couldn't break that habit, of keeping so much to herself for so long.
Genesis had listened to only one person, and it wasn't her, which had nearly lead to destroying the world. And now he was dead. With so many other people gone as well. Natalie had never seen the mess coming.
Aerith rubbed Natalie's shoulder.
Natalie broke down in tears again, "I-don't want to-lose anyone else." she choked on her tears. "But-I don't want-" she cleared her throat and started coughing. 'I don't want to ask for more in case I get it and it's taken away from me.' She thought.
Aerith soothed Natalie for a little longer, until Natalie could compose herself enough to speak without cutting too close to things that would make her fall apart again.
'Jamie, Danny, Shawn. Zack, Cloud, Genesis, Angeal. Sephiroth.' Surprisingly, Sephiroth hurt the most. She had failed to save him, and nearly died trying. She scratched the part of her stomach that had the tiny line of a scar. It had been five years or so since she had gotten it. Since Sephiroth had stabber her there.
Natalie reminded herself of the dead SOLDIERs, her compatriots. 'Jom, Gina, Gunther, I had met Kate only once.' The list went on. On the SOLDIERs she didn't know were alive or dead now. 'Jazz, Lina.'
"It's not even the people I lost. It's what we can't have now." She and Angeal had gotten off on the wrong foot from the start. Natalie would never know why now "One brother was only close to make someone jealous." 'Genesis.' "He had so much spite he just wouldn't let go, I couldn't" She wiped a tear. "Then someone else got an idea in his head and it was the beginning of the end."
Aerith didn't say anything as Natalie gave the vague telling of the story of her dead found family. The one she had just finished burying weeks ago.
"The other brother, he never liked me, in the end, we had the most in common." Angeal. "In another world, we could have been friends." Natalie touched Aerith's hand on her shoulder. "But we don't live in that world. And now they're all gone."
Aerith spoke when it looked like Natalie was not going to continue "They may be gone, but you're not alone." Aerith reminded Natalie.
"Yeah."
"Did you make friends in that other Sector?"
"Yeah. I just needed some time before I got back." Natalie looked down at the flower bed in the church. "Time with the flowers."
"Do you want me to go? To leave you alone with them?" Aerith start shifting like she was going to stand.
"Yes, but no. Not yet." Natalie wiped her face again. She put her knees down and crossed her legs. "Can you work around me? I'd like to play music, for the flowers."
"Sure."
Natalie pulled out her harmonica. She played 'Empty', something she remembered writing herself. All her songs were sad, or could be. When she played them feeling like this. They gave her something to cling to, as much as they pushed away her anxious ruminations. With music, Natalie would be deep in her feelings, but she wouldn't be lost in thought.
Natalie started the song that reminded her of Aerith, but stopped a few notes in.
Aerith hummed along to Natalie's music as she tended to the yellow flowers.
'Jamie.' Natalie hoped that she waited for her. She want Jamie to wait though. To ghost the edge of the Lifestream and not join it. To have her wait for Natalie seemed more cruel for Jamie and selfish of Natalie.
'And yet, I moved on, Jamie. I let myself love someone else. And now he's gone too.' Sephiroth.
She put her harmonica away and brought her hands up in a familiar prayer. 'Wait for me Jamie. Just a little longer, wait for me.'
Natalie dried the last of her tears, she replaced her goggles and pulled up her hood.
"I want to hate him, them both." Natalie said. 'Genesis, Sephiroth.'
"Who?"
Natalie shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I just, there were so many good days." She remembered hands casting magic to make her sleep, and steel piercing her skin. "But the bad days were really bad."
"Well, if you don't want to hate them, then don't."
Natalie shrugged, "it's easier to say than do. I'm sorry, I don't want to dump all my baggage on you." Natalie got up and dusted her legs off. "Not when I haven't seen you in so long."
"Natalie, are you going?"
"Yeah. And you can call me Lee if you like. All my friends in Sector 7 do"
"All right Lee." Aerith brushed her skirt off, "Let me come with you. I know a shortcut."
Natalie shook her head, "I'd rather be alone for a bit."
"Where are you headed?"
"Back to Sector 7." Natalie's jaw creaked as she suppressed a yawn.
"Let me take you, I know a shortcut!"
"I remember the way, I can find it on my own."
"You're soaking wet," Aerith sounded concerned, "did you walk through the rain?"
"I'll dry off walking, eventually." Natalie tried to justify.
"Well, did you want to get something to eat first?"
"I'm not hungry." Natalie's stomach growled to counter her.
"That sounds like hunger silly," Aerith took Natalie's arm. "Let's go get lunch."
Natalie managed to get one more sniff of the flowers before Aerith pulled Natalie out of the church.
"I'm sorry that happened to your family, Natalie." Elmyra said over the meal that Aerith had dragged Natalie into.
"Hmm." Was all Natalie said while she chewed slowly.
"How's my mom's cooking?" Aerith remained bright and chipper.
"I'm sure it's great." Natalie could taste it some. But the month she had just had dulled her sense of taste.
They ate in silence for a little. Natalie was reluctant to talk about anything. But they knew why Natalie was upset now, why the food would taste bad given what had happened. Natalie was grieving.
She had traveled too long and too hard to find that time for herself on the road. Stopping for lunch in Midgar. It gave her that time to feel.
Elmyra spoke first "So, I haven't see you around here in a while."
"Yeah." Natalie said.
"Did you find a place in town?"
"Yeah. Er, the next town over I mean. Sorry."
"Oh no, don't worry," Elmyra sounded warm and inviting the whole meal, "you've done nothing wrong."
"Hmm. I'm just tired, I've been traveling a lot the last while. Thanks for lunch. I-" Natalie yawned. "I should really be going, tell my friends I made it back." she yawned again.
"You look exhausted," Aerith told her.
"I really should go." Natalie had eaten every bite and she was still hungry. Her SOLDIER body needed the food. And she had been eating subsistence rations on the road in order to travel light.
"Please," Aerith asked her. "Get some rest, then go."
Natalie looked chagrined at Elmyra. She wanted her permission without having to ask for it.
"Well of course Natalie can stay. Go make up the guest bed."
"OK!" Aerith bounded up the stairs.
Natalie spoke quietly after Aerith was gone, "I'm sorry Elmyra. I didn't bring trouble. I just-" she yawned.
"Stop." Elmyra was concerned and used a reassuring tone. "Just for today? OK? You need the rest."
Natalie nodded. "Thank you."
After a day and a night of rest, Natalie had managed to say good bye to Aerith and went solo for the trip back to Sector Seven.
'I just went there to dump my grief on her, I'm a terrible friend.' Natalie thought as she managed to slip through Sector Six ruins without incident.
That night she was leaning over the bar. Another drink in her hand. Tifa Sat next to her, nursing her own drink.
"Lee, Did you get there in time?" Tifa asked Natalie.
"No."
"You look exhausted, did you get enough sleep?"
"Eventually. I just." Natalie tapped out a couple notes of 'Empty' on the bar. She was feeling very hollowed out at the moment. "I had to bury my brothers, of my found family." 'Angeal. Genesis.' Before she got separated from Zack, he had told her. Sephiroth had died years ago. She had dreaded that he hadn't, not seeing the gray-haired SOLDIER die herself. But now that she new? It was gone, her past was all gone now.
Seventh Heaven was closed for the night. Natalie had tried sleeping off her forced march in Aerith's guest bedroom. Barret had taken one look at her and told her to go back to bed. They could talk after Natalie had gotten the rest she needed.
"How's your family?"
"That was all of my family. Everyone I had left. I just... I have no one left to give the news to." She knocked back the rest of her drink.
"You must have been close."
"We were, for a while. I lost touch since the cease fire, since the Wutai war ended. But when I heard they were in trouble, I went."
"Yeah, you left pretty quickly those weeks ago. Are you going to be OK?"
"Pass me that bottle, please."
Tifa looked like she didn't want to.
"Pour me another." Natalie offered a compromise. "and when you say stop. I'll stop."
Tifa passed the bottle over and Natalie poured another drink.
"I've lost family to." Tifa admitted.
"Yeah?"
"My father."
Natalie remembered the flames, the screams, and a piece of steel. She didn't know that Tifa's father had died in that mess. "Don't feel like you have to share if you don't want to." 'What am I doing? I should tell her I was there.' Natalie had gone by another name and persona in that village. Shawn. Tifa had never seen 'Shawn's' face. She thought Tifa had never seen Shawn, or Natalie, even more years ago when they had passed through Tifa's town on a botched road trip. That was years before the fires that had taken Nibelheim.
"Hmm." Tifa poured herself another drink. "It's good to talk it out, sometimes."
"I'm terrible at the talking part, not so much the feeling part. I'm going to miss them."
"Yeah."
Natalie and Tifa mourned their families in the silence for a little while.
"Are you going to be OK, Lee?"
"I'll be better tomorrow. I just need some sleep. I just need more time."
"What about your? Do you have friends you could reach?"
"My parents died in a reactor meltdown a long time ago." Natalie fell back on that story by instinct. She didn't remember her first parents anymore. She didn't talk about her adoptive parents. "There was one other brother."
"That's a start." Tifa watched Natalie's reaction. "Isn't it?"
"He's long gone. He died years ago." Sephiroth had left nothing behind, and the man he was had died creating those flames. It was awkward, to call him 'like-a-brother'. But Natalie was tangled up inside, getting her metaphors straight was a job for another day. "I don't have anyone else. There are more important things going on, anyway."
"More important that your family?" Tifa asked.
"I'm just glad that I made it back here. It feels selfish to deal with personal stuff. When there are bigger things going on that are hurting every family." Natalie poured herself another drink.
Tifa rubbed Natalie's back lightly. "Family's important. Your family is important." Tifa put the bottle away, "I think you've had enough."
"Sure."
'Zack's gone. Cloud's gone with him. All I have left are the people here and in Sector Five. But no one really knows me.' While Natalie was only an assumed name. 'Wait for me Jamie.'
Natalie lay draped over the bar. Marlene was long put to bed.
"Will you be OK?" Tifa asked, "I'm going to finish closing the bar."
"Yeah."
Tifa worked around Natalie for closing duties.
Natalie gathered herself and headed for the door. The liquor was bleeding away. With her days of rough traveling and loss piled on top, she only stumbled a bit for the door.
"Here, let me help you Lee." Tifa braced Natalie the rest of the ways down the stairs. Natalie moved to stand herself in the dirt in front of Seventh Heaven. "I can go the rest of the way on my own." Her head filled with pain. Grasping it, she felt her knees try to give way. Tifa was there instantly.
"Lee?"
The pain was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Opening her eyes she saw a single black feather on the ground in front of both of them. 'Genesis?' Natalie looked up and around on the buildings around them, looking for fliers in the night.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." Tifa was looking around too.
"I thought I heard something." Natalie went to pick up the feather, it was gone. She felt a shiver, feeling cold. She wanted to run. She wanted to curl into her bed on Icicle Inn. Where her adopted parents had wrapped her in blankets to keep her warm. She felt safe there.
"Lee?"
"I'll be OK." Natalie's apartment wasn't far. She halfway between the bar and Tifa's apartment.
Tifa didn't leave Natalie's side. Helping Natalie get up all the stairs and into bed in her tiny room.
Interlude:
The one they had come to call 'Ardyn' stood on the front stoop of the house Shawn rented with his friends.
"Shall I repeat myself?" Ardyn drawled in the manner Shawn recognized from the video game that visage was from. "May I come in?"
Shawn continued to gape before he repeated himself, "Why should I let you in?"
Ardyn took his hat off and dusted it again, "Well, we could continue to speak over the threshold. But it might make things simpler if we were all in the same room."
"Shawn?" Jamie called from closer than the kitchen now, "who's at the door?"
Danny got there first. He had been on the couch in the living room when 'Ardyn' had arrived. "Shawn?" Danny came to stand right behind Shawn, pointing at the man in the heavy coat, trilby had and reddish-purple-ish hair. "You."
"Me" Ardyn said. "Looks like we're only missing one more." He gave Shawn a lopsided grin.
Shawn grunted, "Both of you, this way."
Shawn, Danny and Jamie were sitting around the dinner table while Ardyn stood. He had refused a chair.
Jamie tried to ask a question, as they all started at once. "Where's Marin?"
"Who is this guy?" Danny said right on top of her.
"What do you want?" Shawn asked.
Ardyn put out a placating hand to the group. "Now now, not all at once. I thought you would be more polite than this."
"Where's Marin?" Jamie asked again.
Shawn paused a breath before asking his own question right after, "And what do you know about us moving between here and there?"
Danny only stared a the strange man.
Shawn hadn't played Final Fantasy Fifteen in a few years, but the person that had appeared before them acted as Shawn remembered. Jaunty and swinging in his body language. The man in the game could change appearances, and was not to be trusted.
He remembered Marin telling him that this Ardyn could change his appearance as well. Such as Marin's father once.
"And again." Ardyn said again, "now really. You don't give me any time to answer and you've gone right on top of each other."
Danny slammed his palm on the table, causing the other two humans there to jump. Taking charge of the situation, he said, "We can get to those answers later. But why are you here? 'Ardyn' Shawn called you. Why are you here Ardyn? And why now?"
Ardyn chuckled, "there, that wasn't so hard. And besides, that's a much better question."
"What have you done with Mari-"
"Not now Jamie." Danny hissed. "Answer my question first."
Ardyn swayed again, like he was playing at being drunk. After playing Final Fantasy Seven Remake to death, Shawn was tempted to have another crack at Fifteen. In case it would help dealing with this figure. In the meantime, Shawn listened as Ardyn continued addressed Danny.
"I'm here because I need your help with a little problem."
Jamie folded her arms across her chest, looking away. "Unless it helps Marin. I'm not interested in helping you."
Shawn grimaced, Danny had taken charge again. 'How does he do that?' Shawn thought.
"What sort of problem?" Danny demanded.
"I have found myself unable to locate our friend."
Jamie perked up, "What do you mean 'Our' friend?"
Ardyn 'Tsk-tsked' At Jamie. "You're as bad as they are, or is it she today? Always asking the obvious."
"As bad as who?" Jamie asked again.
Ardyn only shook his head. "This is so much easier when there is only one of you talking at once."
Danny put a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "Let me handle this, OK?"
Jamie nodded at Danny and shot a dark look at Ardyn.
Ardyn appeared unruffled by the glare.
From what Shawn could see, Ardyn didn't acknowledge the glare.
' "She", today?' Shawn thought. 'Jamie mentioned something, I guess Marin had never had a chance to express herself when we were together last. In that other place.' Shawn and Marin had met on Gaia, after he and his sister had been flung there themselves. Right before they had run into Danny and Marin together. Shawn had never met Jamie's girlfriend before any of this weird stuff had happened.
Danny picked up the conversation from there, "You said you lost Marin. Why? How?"
Ardyn put out his hands and shrugged. "I told her to keep the token. Looks like she didn't. That's it."
"Token?" Jamie spoke to no one in particular.
Danny pulled his out of his pocket. Placing the doubled-sided gold coin on the dinner table.
"Like this one. How could she lose that?"
"Hmmm." Ardyn considered, looking at the coin like it was some foreign object. "No, She had already lost one of those. I gave her another, and now our Marin doesn't have that either."
"So she's lost them before. Just give her another." Danny said. "Better yet, bring her back here."
"It's not that easy," Ardyn sighed, "She's been there too long for me to just pluck her out of the crowd." He paced a bit in front of the table, "I have to admit. I have my limits."
"If you can't help her. What do you think we can do?" Jamie asked. "We don't even know how moving between here and there even works."
"It's complicated." Ardyn told her.
"Try us." Shawn said. Now he had his arms folded across his chest.
Ardyn exhaled heavily. "No really. It's quite complicated and you can't do it yourselves. At least not yet. Do you each still have your tokens?"
"Don't answer that." Danny warned.
Jamie closed her mouth.
"We can't 'move between worlds' ourselves. But you still need our help." Danny asked Ardyn. "Why?"
"How do I explain this?" Ardyn looked around the room, before catching the gaze of each of them.
"You're not Ardyn." Shawn stated.
"Hmm, and your point?"
"You just look like Ardyn. To us. First, to Marin. Then she told us about you. And I see Ardyn."
"Hmm, yes?"
"When we're in Gaia, the world of Final Fantasy Seven. Are we really seeing that? Was that world even real?"
Ardyn swept his hand about the dining room, "Is any of this even real. To you. IS that real?" He pointed at nothing. Or maybe he was pointing at a random section of wall.
"That's a wall." Shawn told Ardyn.
"Oh, that's what that is." Ardyn reached out and touched the corner wall that separated the dining-living room from the kitchen.
Jamie looked at Ardyn in disbelief, "this is wasting our time. It's a wall."
"Ardyn isn't human. He doesn't follow our rules." Shawn leaned forward. "What do we even look like to you?"
"Hmm, a good question. But I'm afraid you don't have the words for what I see."
"Hmph." Shawn said.
"Isn't human?" Jamie asked Shawn. "What do you mean?"
"Marin mentioned this, taking the shape of her dad, or something. Remember?" Shawn asked Jamie.
Jamie shook her head, "I've been too busy juggling school and quarantine to remember something Marin mentioned to us nearly two years ago." She sagged in her chair.
Shawn put out a reassuring hand on his sister's shoulder. "We'll get her back."
Danny picked the interrogation back up again, "So you can change shape and don't see things the way we do. That doesn't tell us why you need us."
"Hmm, ah, about that. You see this world the same way she does. For now." Ardyn rolled over their reactions with more words. "Which means that you can go back and see what I cannot. Including Marin."
"For now." Danny said.
"Why do you want to find Marin so badly?" Shawn demanded, "It sounds like you want us to help you more than get our friend back."
Jamie looked between the men around her, looking confused.
"Why?" Danny said. "Why should we help you?"
"Aw, don't you want to find your friend? She's all lost and alone. No friends of her own." He leaned down to look into Jamie's face. "Don't you want Marin back?"
Jamie glared at Ardyn. "What do you want with Marin?"
Ardyn stood up straight and paced the room a little again, "Why, Marin is all alone in the big-bad world. No one to help her. I just want what you want. To get her out of there before she get stuck."
"Trapped?" Danny asked. "What do you mean?"
Ardyn started gesticulating with one hand, still pacing. "This whole mess started when she started changing. Reaching for things she didn't understand. Her friends, to not be alone. But you're all so fragile. So when you nearly died. I whisked you away before the 'rules' asserted themselves. Escaping death as it were. Those things did not really kill you, and she got what she wanted."
"And what was that?" Shawn asked.
"She didn't want any of you to die." Ardyn told the man.
"I'm confused." Jamie said.
Shawn tapped his foot, he hadn't managed to follow along "We did die there."
"I can assure you, that none of you died there. I made sure of that much."
Shawn responded. "So you can move us from place to place."
"Hmm, there are limits."
"Yeah. I'm sure. Rules you won't explain." Shawn was annoyed.
"Quite."
"What are you thinking Shawn?" Danny asked from across the table.
"This is all jut a game to Ardyn," Shawn told him. "We're just pawns. And we might really die if we go back. Right?" He looked up at Ardyn.
"Aww, you aren't as dumb as you look." Ardyn gave Shawn the back handed compliment.
Shawn didn't rise to the bait, during and since his transition, people had said far worse things.
"You said Marin started changing?" Danny asked. "Will you explain that?"
"No, I won't."
"What do you want with Marin?" Danny demanded.
"Hmph." Ardyn made a noise. "What does any parent want with their child? For them to grow up big and strong."
"The fuck do you mean?" Shawn said.
"Parent?" Danny said. He had a disgusted look on his face.
"You don't have any words to describe it exactly." Ardyn touched his finger to his chin. "Let me see. Marin, as you know her. Is having a bit of a time right now. I thought it would be less disruptive for this world if she was somewhere else when it happened."
Shawn leaned forward. "And what is it?"
"Become." Ardyn said.
Three people stared at Ardyn, each with their own look. Of confusion, disgust, anger, or a mix of all three.
"I said you wouldn't understand. Really, now. I'm finally direct and nobody get it. And Marin wondered why I answered her questions so she could figure things out on her own."
"Become what?" Jamie asked him.
Ardyn shrugged. "Well, like me. That is if she doesn't become something better. Or get stuck."
Jamie shivered, "I don't know what I'd do if there were two of you."
Ardyn chuckled, "You don't understand."
Danny leaned forward, "Then make us understand."
Ardyn shook his head, "I think it's already pretty clear that you won't. So moving on-"
"I have a question." Shawn said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Shawn held up to the scrutiny. "You mentioned she could get trapped? And that Marin could get stuck? Explain that."
"Finally, a good question from you."
"Then answer it." Danny demanded.
"Well, now. Let's see." Ardyn paced a few steps again. "Every place has it's own rules. Even as exceptions can be made."
Danny repeated himself. "Answer. The. Question."
"Hmph." Ardyn swung his hands around in that sway that fit the character he held the form of. "Well. As we get older , our needs and wants change. They evolve. But usually people who choose what they want over what they need will suffer. Well, that's not true. Life is suffering. But generally, what we need is better than what we want."
"Give us a straight answer!" Danny yelled.
"Really now, no need to shout. I'm getting to that." He came around and pulled up one of the chairs. Swinging it around Ardyn sat in it backwards, facing the group. "I believe that Marin has confused what she needs with what she wants. And is caught up in all the rules and regulations of that place. Honestly, it's very unhealthy. If it goes on too much longer, who knows what will happen next?"
"You don't know?" Shawn and Danny asked at the same time.
They gave each other a glance, looking back to Ardyn for the answer.
Ardyn help out his hands in exasperation, "I don't know all or see all. I told you already. Marin doesn't have her token anymore. And the longer she's there the more shell become one of them and less like you. I can't find her myself anymore." Shaking his head he finished, "Repeating myself, really. You do have the memory of gnats."
"What do you know?" Danny asked.
Ardyn rolled his eyes, "I thought you knew better questions than that to ask."
"What do you know about Marin?" Shawn ask the figure that had Ardyn's shape.
"She is lost and confused. Alone. She needs guidance. She needs you." Ardyn said.
"You mean your guidance." Jamie accused him.
"Yes, that too. But you can help her. Which would help everyone."
"How?" Shawn asked.
"I don't see everything. But I," He paused, "call it a 'gut feeling'."
"Do you even have a gut?" Danny asked.
Ardyn tsked again. "Will you let me finish?"
Danny implored Ardyn to continue with a hand gesture.
"I have this feeling, that if Marin becomes too stuck, too wrapped up in the rules. She might find a way to connect the worlds in ways you won't like."
"Connect? How?" Jamie asked.
"Make them more real." Shawn said. "Make that world a real threat to this one."
Ardyn snapped his finger and pointed at Shawn. "As people are won't to say here. Bingo."
Danny looked at Shawn. "The fuck are you talking about? But that world's already real."
Shawn looked back at Danny. "Yeah, to us. While we were there. And Marin's still there. But that world could become real to this one!"
Jamie sat up straighter, "What is with you guys?"
Danny looked behind Jamie at Shawn, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Dunno."
"What's going on?" Jamie asked everyone.
Shawn and Danny spoke up at the same time.
"Sephiroth." Said Danny.
"Jenova." Said Shawn.
"What?" Danny said
"Oh," Shawn said. "I thought you had played the same video game I had."
"Hey!" Danny said.
"That's the guy from that game, isn't it?" Jamie asked. "What does he have to do with all of this?"
Ardyn had not said anything, only watching the exchange. He tapped his fingers on the back of his chair.
Danny pointed at Shawn, "If you think you know so much. You tell her."
Jamie looked to her brother. "Tell me what Shawn?"
Shawn sighed. "If I'm right. And if Ardyn is telling the truth. If that world is becoming more real." He glanced at Ardyn. "And Ardyn has not been fucking with us this whole time. Then the bad guy of that other world is trying to get out, and infect other planets. Sephiroth, Jenova. Really the distinction between those two doesn't really matter."
"But what does that have to do with us?" Jamie asked.
"I'm not really interested in any of that garbage coming here." Shawn sighed, "really Jamie. It would be easier to explain if you just played Remake like us."
Jamie rolled her eyes, "Ugh, not video games again. I am sick of those."
"Just because you nearly died in one." Danny said.
"We all did!" Jamie spat back.
Ardyn tapped the back of his chair. "Are you finished?"
Everyone shot turned their heads back to Ardyn.
Ardyn continued, "Well. Now that that's settled."
"No it's not!" Jamie got up. "All of you are caught up in video games. We just need to get Marin back. Or have you all forgotten?"
"I haven't." Danny said.
"This is more than just a rescue mission. "Shawn said. "It's more-"
"Complicated than that." Jamie finished for him. "Yeah, I get it."
Danny reached out for Jamie. "Just sit back down, we can work this out."
"Hmph." Jamie grunted and sat back in her chair.
"So," Ardyn leaned forward with eagerness. "We're in agreement? You'll help me?"
Jamie sagged in her chair, "What other choice do we have?"
Danny put a hand on Jamie's shoulder.
"When do we leave?" Shawn asked.
Ardyn shrugged, "Time doesn't really mean much to me. We could leave now, or tomorrow. Next year."
"Return us to when we left. Right before..." Danny asked.
"Ah, uh." Ardyn started, "I don't think that's a-"
"Good idea." Shawn finished for him.
"Ah, no. That's not what I meant. Like I said, Marin has been there all alone. And time-"
"Doesn't mean to you what it means to us." Danny finished for him. "Or Marin."
Ardyn tapped his nose with a finger. Agreeing with Danny.
"What do you mean?" Jamie asked.
"I don't know everything," Ardyn began. "But it seems that a little bit of time has passed since you left. Marin has been a busy little bee."
"Well, yeah. It's been what? Seventeen months? Nearly eighteen." Jamie said.
"Ah, hmmm. No."
"What kind of time difference are we talking about?" Danny asked.
"Hmm, not sure." He cast his eyes about, as if he was looking around the room for something. "How many days are in your year?"
Jamie gave Ardyn another askance look.
"Three hundred and sixty five." Shawn said. "Give or take four hours."
"Ah, well then. By my calculations it's been approximately nine years."
All three of them yelled at once. "Nine YEARS?"
Ardyn shrugged. "Like I said, a busy little bee."
Jamie hugged herself. "She's been alone for nine years..."
Shawn started counting on his fingers.
"What is it?" Danny looked at what Shawn was doing.
"Uh, depending on when things actually happen. We could already be up to the Remake time line."
"Oh my god!" Jamie said. "Will you give those games a rest?"
"This is important Jamie." Shawn's voice got louder. "That game Danny and I have been playing for the last ten days. I told you it matters!"
"Eleven." Danny corrected. "I've been keeping track."
"Thank you." Shawn looked up. "Ugh. It's been eleven already?"
"Quarantine time." Danny told him. "But what do all those years mean?"
Shawn shrugged, "The world is a big place. What as the town called that you and Marin was in again?"
"Sanford."
Shawn shook his head. "Another place that wasn't on any of the original maps."
"Original what?" Jamie asked.
"The original game. There were a bunch of things that we saw there that wasn't in the original."
"But what does it all mean?" Danny asked.
Shawn looked back at Danny. "Depends on how much trouble Marin did or did not get into in the time we've been gone. Probably nothing."
"And if it's not?" Jamie said. "We have to go back there and help her!"
Shawn looked at Ardyn. "So you're saying that you can take us there now? After nine years? And if you take us next week or next year, it will still be nine years?"
"Hmm, quite."
"What is it Shawn?" Danny asked.
"We have time." Shawn said.
"Time for what?" Jamie asked Shawn.
"To come up with a plan and go in there fore warned and fore armed." Shawn said.
All three of them looked at Ardyn.
Ardyn tilted his head. "Does that mean you will help me?"
Danny answered first. "Yes, but not yet."
"Not yet? "Jamie declared. "We have to get back there now. Marin's all alone over there."
"Jamie, were you listening? For her, it'll be nine years since she last saw any of us.
"Hmm." Jamie settled herself back down. "I feel like we're wasting time."
"We don't even know what we'd be landing in." Danny looked at Ardyn. "Where would we even end up if we left with you?"
Ardyn leaned back in the chair, gripping the back. "You three apparently know more about this place than I do. I can take you to the lost token, thought I believe that's not a good idea. A long drop ending with a sudden stop and all. But really, it's up to you."
Danny looked at the other two people sitting at the table. "We need time to think. Make a plan. We have that time, right?"
Ardyn looked pleased, "that's what I said."
"Are you going to wait here where my roommate will see you or?" Shawn trailed off.
"Oh, don't worry. I will find you when you're ready. Just be sure to keep your tokens."
"What do I do with?-" Jamie started.
But Ardyn had already disappeared.
"-the token Marin had left behind." Jamie finished.
"He's already gone," Danny said.
"I see that." Jamie told him.
Shawn leaned back in his chair.
"What are you thinking Shawn?" Danny asked him.
"Forewarned is fore-armed." Shawn repeated.
Jamie asked "What do you mean Shawn?"
"It means we do and learn everything we can to prepare." Shawn told his sister. "Like cramming that video game into your head." He watched the look on Jamie's face. "Oh don't look at me like that. What else is there to do but train with weapons again? We don't exactly have any Materia here to practice with. There's no magic in this world."
"Hmm." Jamie said. "I had to give up on Tae-Kwon-Do for school. And with quarantine, all the fighting schools will be closed anyway."
"I can't get a gun in this country." Danny said.
Shawn and Jamie looked at him with sympathy.
Danny shook his head. "It's not just a race thing, how black I am, guns are hard to get for anyone here. Especially this province. I haven't been able to practice with a gun since we left that place."
Jamie shook her head. "He may as well take all of us now. What else is there to do?"
"We do what we can." Shawn said. "Like come up with a plan."
Danny nodded and leaned forward.
Shawn was going to have this out with the other two if this took the rest of the day and all of the night, if he had to. He was convinced there were several more things they could do, before going back. For one thing, they needed to agree on where on the map the would start looking for Marin.