Filling In The Blanks
Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX or any of its characters.
Chapter 114: Wood Violets
The break of the morning brought the first relief from the sun they had had since arriving in Madain Sari.
The sky was overcast, clouds rolling lazily along each other in frumpy patterns, no blue in sight. Eiko didn't think it would rain but some of the newer recruits couldn't count enough lucky stars as they rubbed Sally's homemade ointment across their sunburnt skin, that they were finally getting a break from the vicious light.
Unfortunately, the heat was still looming in full-force, feeling heavier and thicker. Zidane found himself panting as he stood near the entrance to Madain Sari with a pack settled on his back. He, of course, would never admit that he was already feeling exhausted – the lack of sleep from excitement nothing to mention either.
But nothing could swipe the gigantic grin off of his face.
Dagger stood near him, trying hard not to fidget, as they waited for Freya to show up. Originally, a woman from Ipsen's was going to lead, but with it being Zidane's first time out since the ambush in Alexandria, both she and Freya agreed to trade days – it would be better to have someone there who was familiar with Zidane, be it his personality, style or injuries.
The raven had yet to decide if she was regretting her decision and hoping that Freya had gone to negotiate some backup in forcing Zidane to stay behind, but she fought that urge by biting her tongue and wringing her hands together. She refused to dampen his mood – she refused to go back on her side of the deal when she was relatively confident he would keep his.
It was just this one run and then he couldn't ask to do anything harder.
She could let him have this one.
Freya appeared sometime between all of Dagger's heavy musings, and she hardly realized when Zidane was saying goodbye until he pecked her on the cheek.
"We'll be back before lunch. Maybe I'll smuggle some of those weird, red, little berries you like and we can eat together. But only if you save me some of Eiko's horrible gumbo. That stuff is delicious."
Barret, a young thief from Lindblum who had once been training to be a knight before Kuja expelled the program, made a face next to him. "You think that's good? Have you never eaten well-cooked anything before?"
Zidane shrugged, "I can fully agree with you that it's disgusting, but there's something about that bitter-sweet flavor that keeps me coming back for more!"
Barret snorted, running a hand through his spikey locks, "Whatever Tribal, let's just get going. I'm done listening to you fantasize about gumbo."
Dagger squeezed his hand, "Be safe, okay?"
He almost rolled his eyes, "Dagger, it's a tree. Unless it comes alive to kill me, I think I'll be fine."
She squinted her eyes up at him, not appreciating the joke.
He pecked her cheek one more time, "I'll be fine, promise."
A small smile came to her lips as Freya ushered her small group around the bend in the entrance and they disappeared from sight.
She sat and watched the entrance for a few minutes after, a part of her hoping that he would meander back in, telling her that he thought it was a terrible idea that he went as well.
But then again, this was Zidane they were dealing with. And at that thought, she walked away, knowing that she would be disappointed by the lack of his reappearance if she stuck around.
The feeling of the rush of wind on his face was something he forgot how to describe.
His hair flew back behind him and the usually noiseless wind flooded his ears. His eyes would have been watering if the humidity wasn't already so thick, and soon enough he felt the familiar prickling heat that came just before breaking out into a sweat.
His lungs expanded fully, he thought, for the first time since he, Cinna and Ruby had made their grand escape from Treno, racing away from the guards as quickly as their legs could carry them. It was incredible. Nothing could ruin that moment for him.
A laugh bubbled out of his throat, uncontrollable and giddy and mildly insane-sounding. Barret shot him a sideways glance that he all but ignored – the runner's high he was feeling overwhelmed him.
Freya kept throwing glances of her own over her shoulder at him, whether to partake in his infectious laughter or to make sure he was still standing he would never know, but the binary didn't bother him either way.
The world seemed to melt away around him. It was simply him and the blurred scenery, though he didn't care to focus on it enough to know what exactly it was. The pounding of his feet, galloping across the ground reflected his racing heart and though his body shuttered in protest every few minutes, he felt more alive than he had in nearly three months.
He felt like he was waking up after a long, slow dream. His breathing hitched and his fingers flickered, itching to find a dagger – to fight – to defend. He fell in sync with all of those around him, feeling like a unit and part of a team. He hadn't been on a run in a long time. It was usually simple recon or maybe even a round or two of patrols in the forest, but even then, when he flounced into Cid's office demanding to be part of the expedition of recruitment, he was still recovering from his catastrophic injuries offered up in Terra.
Zidane didn't remember the last time he was able to let loose with zero restrictions – zero reason to worry that his body couldn't keep up. Though, he refused to acknowledge the bit of information that told him that today was no different. It had just been so long, even a slow jog would have felt like flying.
"Zidane!"
Freya's voice finally cut through his wall of euphoric isolation and he came to a satisfyingly sliding halt, feet skidding along the dirt path. His eyes focused back on the greenery around him, and only then did he realized she was yelling to him because they were probably here.
A little part of his chest sunk. He didn't realize how close the Iifa Tree really was.
"We're already here?"
Barret gave a hearty laugh and slapped him on the shoulder, "You wondered why nobody ever talked about their runs to the Iifa Tree!"
A groan escaped him. "I made a deal with Dagger that I wouldn't ask for anything more strenuous than this!"
"You got ripped off, my friend!"
Grumbling, he took a basket from Freya and stared around at the various plant life. It wasn't as colorful as he thought it was going to be either.
"What am I looking for?"
Freya made an almost passive shrug of her shoulders, "The only thing we do not gather are the dark blue berries. They have been rumored around our camp to be poisonous and nobody would like to take the risk and try them."
He nodded before pursing his lips. "Not even Quina?"
"Quale suggested he not. They are more familiar with the herbs of the Mist Continent."
"Eiko told us that not many people have ever been to the Iifa Tree and what grows there is native to the tree and won't grow in any other conditions."
"Fascinating," he said rather dully, and decided to go on a search for the red berries he promised Dagger.
Most of what he saw while he poked around in the leaves were oversized ferns. Their long leaves protruded over everything else, and he found that without the wind that came with running, the heat prodded at him far too often for it to be comfortable. His mood slowly dwindled, though he refused to acknowledge that this might have been a waste of a trip. He couldn't complain – he was out – he got to move and contribute, right?
But then he spotted something amongst the plants that had him stopped in his tracks. Using the tips of his fingers, almost like the whole plant would shatter if he moved it too roughly, he pushed some larger, rounded leaves to the side to reveal a bushel of small, purple flowers.
Not just any purple flowers though…
Wood Violets.
He stared for a long while, debating if this was the universe poking rudely at his conscious or sending a worldly sign. But he felt like he couldn't move.
And before he realized it, he was making a choking noise and discovered with the utmost surprise that tears were springing to his eyes and his throat swelled with a wave of mourning.
"Wood violets," Freya told him, coming up from behind. "They are beautiful, but serve no purpose that Quina or I could think of. Besides that, there are not many growing here."
"I know," he whispered.
She shifted and he knew that she saw whatever it was she suspected on his face, but instead of pushing, she moved away from him. "The berries you seek are ten degrees to your right, probably just a few yards forward."
"Thanks," he managed, before squatting down in the grass.
He had never actually seen a wood violet in person before. Their teardrop shaped petals shimmered up at him, all a very literal, solid violet color. They seemed almost dead already, so unlively despite such a bold color. They were sad flowers, lined by leaves that nearly overwhelmed the blossom itself.
With a fistful of courage, he grabbed the bushel and pulled, hearing the small snap of their stems breaking as he picked them. He brought them close to his face and smelled the deep scent and realized with a little bit of relief that the inside was a darker purple, giving a little bit of depth to this overwhelmingly plain flower.
"How ironic," he mumbled, though that feeling had washed over him several minutes ago.
He tried to bring all of his brothers to the forefront of his mind and found out before long with a wave of guilt that he could only remember Cinna and Ruby truly clear. The haze surrounding the attack left his memories slightly muddled when they included people he had not seen since healing.
As gingerly as he could, he placed the violets into the basket with plans to send some off into the water. It would be no Lindblum Canal, but Zidane thought that perhaps the ocean was a more fitting place to free his friends who had died in battle.
How many he sent off though, he was unsure. Perhaps he would mourn those he could not strictly account for. But his chest constricted tightly when he realized just how many of his brethren that might consist of now.
Wood violets.
Who would have thought that they grew in the thicket of the Iifa Tree?
The universe was sending these, specially tailored for him. He couldn't decide if it was a mean trick or a blessed gift, but he took them anyways, not realizing until later that though he laid them in the basket, he never lifted his hand away from them, as though he were still clinging to the hierarchy that came along with each Tantalus group having their own mourning flower.
"Damn wood violets…"
And just like that, he found himself staring at the underside of a completely new type of leaf, gaping at the red berries he promised the raven back home, having already drifted away from the mourning flower, trying to shut his mind away from what was in his basket already.
He didn't want to face that ocean with the bouquet, but at the same time, perhaps it would be more refreshing to release them, just as their training told them it always would, than he originally thought.
A sort of bitter-sweet smile came to his face then. Maybe that didn't sound quite so bad. Maybe he could do that.
Maybe he could put Blank's memory to rest, at least until he was sure the redhead would come home again. Maybe Marcus and Baku and Benero and Zenero all deserved to be put at peace in the memory of others, just in case.
"Yo, Tribal! Are you done? We're ready to go!"
He turned, eyebrows raised in alarm. "Already?"
Barret held up his basket, "Not all of us stand around thinking about what we pick! Freya said the only thing not to grab was dark blue berries – there are plenty of other things!"
Zidane huffed, embarrassment flushing his skin as he raked the plants around him clean of red berries, purple berries, a couple of silver herbs and green leaves with a red underbelly and tossed them into his bare basket.
"Alright, I'm coming!"
At least he had the run to look forward to again, right?
As they started to move again, Freya hung back, making sure he was ready to run again. The look on his face said otherwise, his eyes still lingering on what his basket contained before he rolled the linen cover over it so nothing would fall out.
"Are you alright?" she asked almost mutely.
"Everything's good," he insisted, staring up at her with a grin that never reached his eyes as both of them took off together again.
The wind picked up and brushed back his hair and Zidane took another expansive breath, relaxing his muscles and his mind despite the haggard heat and aching limbs.
He realized then without really telling himself to think that way, that somehow his mind had already decided on something. He was here; he was breathing; he was alive and fighting and recovering. And he would be damned if he did not survive to make sure Kuja went down – whether he was the one to do it or he died aiding someone's plan…
Just so that son of a bitch went down, and could never make anyone else feel the way he felt about these mourning flowers ever again.
"I swear, it's a good kind of sore," Zidane insisted, smiling up at Dagger. She blocked out the sun from hitting him, her hair hanging in front of her face as her wide, worried eyes stared down at him.
He sat with his legs stretched in front of him, leaning forward in a pike pose to stretch his tight muscles. His broken leg was screaming, scorching hot with the burning of his muscles, but it was almost a pleasant feeling. The rest of his body's ache – like his shoulders and thighs and cramped-sides dulled in comparison, and he welcomed the feeling like he had actually moved.
"You are never going to be able to walk again if you push yourself so much, Zidane!" she chastised.
"Aw, c'mon, don't say that," he chuckled, offering her another handful of berries.
She sighed and sat down next to him, saying nothing as she scooped the berries into her own bare hands. Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment that it only took a few berries to distract her. Zidane never knew she had such a sweet tooth. He had eaten only five of them before deciding they were too rich in sugar.
His basket still sat loyally next to him and every once in a while he would dip his hand to the bottom, feeling the soft petals of the wood violets, waiting to be washed away in the ocean. Dagger watched him do this several times as they sat on the sidelines of a low key training session, but had yet to comment.
Steiner was leading the group, Ruby was instructing some younger students on how to effectively dodge just about anything – spears, incoming chocobo cavalry, swords, spells and anything else she could think that she'd ever had to dodge. Cinna stood delightedly in the middle of all of the trainees. He stood almost a foot taller than the tallest, relearning things he never thought much about when Baku first taught them in the first place. Even Steiner was bobbing a little on his feet, having rid himself of his heavy armor for the humid day, and trying to learn a little something never bothered to be taught in a knight's training. Maybe if he ever got back to being a captain, he would be sure to include such an interesting lesson!
Freya was there also, with Amarant and Eiko, soaking the herbs they'd found at the Iifa Tree earlier that morning and listening to the purple haired girl babbled on about the three distinct personalities of a moogle.
The bermecian stood and stretched her long limbs, stepping over their buckets filled with boiled ocean water and picking up a basket of drying herbs. "You might want to reign in your love of those berries, Dagger, or there will not be any left when you are really craving them."
Her cheeks grew redder and Eiko and Zidane had to stifle a laugh. She stared down at her hand, two berries remaining. "I'm just eating Zidane's portion, is all."
"Zidane doesn't like them?" Eiko gasped, "How can you not?!"
He made a face, "too sweet."
"You're a freak, Zidane, you hear me? A true freak!"
Amarant snickered at that one.
Freya began wondering away, carrying three baskets of herbs. Dagger popped the last two berries into her mouth and stood, rubbing her hands together like she was cleaning them. "Let me help you, Freya."
"Thank you. I was bringing them to the stone table in the dining area, I was hoping the heat would dry them faster."
"You're probably right, too."
"Let me help!" Eiko chirped and flounced over, skipping after them as they left the clearing. Both Amarant and Zidane rolled their eyes.
Just as the three exited the clearing, two moogles fluttered over the canyon walls. Zidane furrowed his brow – the moogles usually always used the paths unless it was of importance. He was up in a second, and Steiner had halted the training.
"Chimomo, Mocha! What is it? What's the hurry?!" Steiner's voice was strained, like he was truly unready for whatever they were about to say.
"People! We've never seen them before! They're coming, they see the entrance clearly and they're coming in, kupo!"
"What?!" Steiner growled.
"What do we do?" Cinna asked him, picking his heavy mace up from the ground."
"There isn't enough time to rally everyone –" Amarant began, but was cut off by a shrill shriek.
Everyone turned to Ruby, who already had tears running down her cheeks and one hand pressed firmly over her mouth. Wisps of hair that had fallen from her messy bun were caught on the mild breeze and she would have looked frozen if not for the mild ruffle in her skirts.
They followed her line of sight to the opening of the clearing.
There standing in front of them, bathed in grime but still recognizable were Marcus and Baku.
And behind them:
Blank.
"Looks like all you assholes are seeing a ghost!" Baku laughed, his familiar, gruff voice overwhelming them. "You shits didn't write us off that easy, did you?!"
Before anyone could say another word, Ruby was running. Marcus and Baku knowingly stepped out of the way so she could collide with a dusty, beat-up looking Blank. And she did – flinging them both into the wall they were nearest to so she could press her face into his shoulder, curling down protectively to his shorter form.
"Blank, ya idiot. Ya stupid, cocky bastard!" she wailed at him.
He seemed dazed, sort of confused and out of it, but his arms wrapped around her and something seemed to click and then he constricted her with every ounce of strength he had in him.
Cinna was next, spiraling into Marcus as an uproar happened from the trainees. People had come in from different clearings to see what Ruby's scream was for and minutes later, Eiko, Dagger and Freya re-entered the room and paraded towards them as well.
Steiner stood back, eyebrows raised though he would never admit he was surprised. Surprised because he was standing next to Zidane – the genome had yet to move.
"Why aren't you over there?" Steiner asked earnestly. This was one of the first times he had directly spoken to Zidane since the incident a few weeks ago.
He let out a low sigh. "I can wait."
"What do you mean?"
He gestured lightly with his hand, "She needs this." Steiner's dark eyes went to Ruby and how, despite everyone else trying to parade around Blank, she had yet to let go. "She needs it more than I do."
And still Steiner would never admit it, but he found the lasting shreds of anger he had towards the genome's immature attitude melting away, fading on the wind and replaced by a tiny ounce of respect. Zidane had listened well to the words advised to him, despite how harshly it had been done.
And Steiner had to say, he was quite proud of the kid.
"Ruby," Blank repeated, "Ruby you gotta let go," he kept saying, though his grip on her never lessened either. "Rubes…"
"Ya made it."
"You made it."
She pulled back from him then, watery eyes lit on fire with emotion, "We both did, Sugar."
"Don't call me that."
The world came back to life around them, and Cinna crashed into Blank next while others continued to get close, pressing against the group and trying to get a hand on Blank to greet him in any way that they could.
"You are such a screwball!" Cinna told him with gusto. When he finally pulled back, Blank came to the alarming realization that Cinna was crying, tears and snot all running down his face from the reunion with his family.
No matter the jokes he wanted to crack with his brother, or the familiar normalcy he wanted to slip back into immediately, he had to say it – he had to take one moment to talk about what had happened. He slapped a hand onto Cinna's shoulder, looking fierce. His headband was gone, face smeared with dirt and dust, hair a dark auburn instead of the bright red it usually was and armor nearly shredded. He was missing his supply pouch and the leather sheath for his dagger was shot, but his green eyes popped amidst the red dust that clouded him. They were clear and framed by the whites of his eyes, so contrasted in depth to the stony, haunting dreams Cinna and Ruby had both suffered since the incident.
It had been nearly three months since they'd been reunited.
"Thank you," he said earnestly. "For protecting Ruby. For staying alive. Thank you."
Tears misted his own vision before Cinna crushed into him again, hugging the two of them closely, like it was the last time he might do it in his life.
They glanced over just in time to see Freya envelope a griping Baku into a hug and for Mikoto to reach Marcus. She kissed him fervently, like she hadn't before, and it left him breathless when she pulled away a few short moments later.
Blank felt a tug at his arm and he turned, almost astonished to see Dagger's face. She was more reserved, didn't want to tackle him in a hug like everyone else, and while a smile blossomed over her lips, her eyes were watery.
"Dagger," he smiled at her, pulling her close and hugging her. He and Dagger had been close since Zidane went missing the first time. It was she who had introduced him to the Elite team the very first time. It was she he had to thank for helping him reach his goals. She was always there to calm him down – to support him in the background. "Why are you crying?" he asked her, a laugh nearly interlaced in his tone. He understood Ruby – Cinna too – but Dagger –
He froze. "Zidane."
For a moment, he locked eyes with her and something silent passed between the two teens in that second. A lot of the emotions Dagger had been feeling in the last three months surfaced in her expression, and he stepped back from her, ready to break away from them at any given moment.
"He's –"
Ruby clutched his arm, hard, and panic rose in his chest.
Dagger let her face show whatever raw feelings she had at that very moment, but only briefly. After another second, she composed her expression and shook her head, the smile growing wider. She turned to the side and pointed a slender, bare finger in the direction of the leading figures of those who didn't want to get tangled up in the reunion.
Steiner was there – hardly recognizable without his armor.
And Zidane stood there next to him. Without seeing him move, he looked like he hadn't been injured at all, really, except for a long, angry scar on his right arm.
He was grinning at the redhead.
For a moment, they stood and stared at each other, and then Zidane raised a lazy hand and gave a big wave. Blank watched for any sign of crippling injury, but only noticed the slight hinge in his shoulder as he moved his arm back and forth repeatedly, and that didn't seem so bad.
Blank let a relieved smile overtake his features as his shoulders sagged. He shook his head.
So everything hadn't been for nothing then.
And Zidane was okay.
"You asshole!" they found Baku suddenly yelling, "Hiding up there all dramatic! Come down here and meet your brothers like you were raised, bastard!"
Zidane let out a laugh then – a hearty noise that sounded foreign to Blank's ears, and he darted the rest of the way over. Time seemed to slow for a moment, and with a bittersweet rip at his insides, he saw that with the liveliness of his best friend, there also came the lilt in his run, the decrease of speed, and the tiniest hint, only there if you scrutinized it, of uncertainty as he ran to meet them.
But those feelings snapped away from Blank as soon as Zidane reached them, and he would try to grasp them again later, to fully realize them and search for what bothered him about his brother's battle-worn movement, but the thoughts would slip through his thoughts, falling further as he sifted like they were fine grains of sand.
Whatever it was that he was feeling, it would have to wait. He would just have to see for himself if Zidane was up to the rest of his fate in this war.
"What took you guys so damn long to come home?!" Cinna demanded after the rough housing of Zidane's appearance had died down.
Marcus shook his head, trying to act nonchalant though his grip was still tight around Mikoto's shoulders. "We had one hell of a time navigating Treno…"
"What do you mean?" Dagger tilted her head and furrowed her brow.
Baku shook his head, suddenly more solemn than the situation had, up until then, called for. "Things have gotten bad down there. Kuja is not happy."
"Not happy… how, exactly?" Zidane asked, that same uncertain questioning in his tone.
"The guards have increased – badly increased. We couldn't even get in to Dali to stay with the mayor when we were on our way to the Evil Forest and the only reason we got past the gates at Treno was because someone had started a scuffle and called away the guard's attention from our papers. Things are bad – any kind of resistance we had seen anywhere… it's all been smothered out."
Zidane remembered the way that those jesters had welcomed them into the city, speaking in riddles and helping them along in their recruitment simply by playing tricks on Kuja's guards. And all of that was gone?
"A lot of people have died since we left the Mist Continent," Marcus said, his voice sounding surprisingly small. "Anyone who didn't come with us will no longer be of assistance to the resistance."
There was a small silence that overtook the crowd that had appeared. Everyone's thoughts were on the people that had been left behind, promising to come at a later date, uncertainty lacing their words.
"Good thing we went when we did," Zidane finally said. He surprised himself that he had even spoken at all, for he did not know if his words reached his own heart. "We've got a lot of help. We could have never relied on who would come later."
Baku let on a smile. It wasn't his goofy, ridiculous grin or an angry smirk, it was genuine. "Some good will still come from all of this sacrifice."
And then Zidane remembered the wood violets still sitting in the basket where he'd left them, and the overwhelming urge to hang onto his brothers overtook him. He clasped Blank on the shoulder with his left hand, giving a powerful squeeze, and slung his arm around Cinna to his right. "There's a lot that you guys need to do –"
"Starting with a shower –"
"Shut up, Cinna."
"- but… there's something really important I think we should do when you're finished." He stepped back then, "Come find me when you are."
"That wasn't cryptic or anything," Cinna tried again with a joke, but it faltered as Zidane stepped back.
"Let us give them some time! This is the first they have been inside Madain Sari," Freya began shooing people from the scene. It was a great accomplishment having them home, but most of them understood how vital it was to return to a sense of normalcy as soon as possible.
The first thing on their mind though, was what Zidane had in store for them later.
He had said to meet down by the water.
This was different than the docks. He expertly scaled the wall on the other side of the canyon, following a more difficult path than the one that was becoming worn, leading down to the cavern. It stretched further into the water, but he found that it would suffice when his feet landed on the soft sand after the rough hill of rock.
The sun splashed over the water, glinting up at him and blinking slowly as the water brushed against the soft grains of sand. It lit the sky in a fiery gold as its rays slowly sank below the horizon. The day was cloudless at its end, much to the delight of those who continued to suffer through the sunburn.
He stood alone for a little while, replaying the busy day in his mind. His muscles ached, but there was a certain sing to them that he appreciated – the stitch of a sore muscle after a good workout. The run this morning was something he would beg to do again and again, even if it was just to collect berries from the Iifa Tree. Dagger had pestered him the rest of the afternoon, wondering out loud about the secret meeting, but she stayed away, respecting his wishes to only have his brothers by his side. As she continued to prod him with questions, Blank and Ruby hovered, never too far away, wondering silently what he would say to them later.
The breeze felt nice this low to the water, but it was quieter than the caverns – it seemed with the sand blockading the rock, there wasn't as much for the water to splash up against. And so, the lull of water coaxing away the shore sounded distant.
Blank was the first to meet him, silently arriving in the sand without a word. The intensity of the situation doubled as soon as the younger boy came up and while Zidane wanted to explain, he couldn't find a way to do it. So he turned with a calamity in his eyes and offered out the basket.
The redhead realized what they were immediately. A pain settled over him as he gingerly took two flowers from the basket, staring at them like they might burn him. Without offering an explanation, he took a third wood violet.
They were really rather measly flowers – they didn't have a long, beautiful stem like the camellias that burned in their memories and the leaves nearly swallowed the beauty of the blossom. But they were simple and stable and it seemed far more fitting than something so elegant anyways.
Marcus and Cinna were next to show up, their conversation having died on the rocks above. They didn't have to ask either, having already seen Blank holding the flowers. The sound of sniffling joined them on the beach, and the low mutter of Cinna's apology followed. As though they were following suit, they also took three blossoms.
Ruby appeared next, looking worn. Zidane got the impression that, perhaps on a run to the Iifa Tree of her own, she had spotted the same wood violets, but did not have the courage to take them. Her lips pressed into a hard line and she wore her hair down, the wind blowing it continually into her face. She took three flowers silently, staring at them with a breathless sigh.
Minutes went by and they began shifted uncomfortably, starting to feel the sting of the flowers and the need to let them go into the water. Baku still hadn't arrived, but still no one bothered to speak.
One by one they turned, daring a peek up into the rocks to see the man standing there frozen, having traveled two thirds of the way down. Marcus moved to speak, but watched the way Baku's eyes followed his flowers.
Their leader shook his head, "No way. I'm not doing that. You assbags can't make me," but he choked on his last words.
They waited patiently for a couple of minutes until Baku grudgingly trudged the rest of the way down. Ruby offered up her three flowers and he took them. Despite his rough attitude, he took them gently, like they were fragile and might deteriorate from his touch. She took three more and they stepped up to the water all together.
"Can I ask something before we do this?" Cinna whispered.
"What is it?" Ruby asked.
"Why did we all grab three?"
There was a long moment, and Zidane thought they would all say it was because they'd seen him and Blank with three to begin with.
"One for the mourning of our parents. We never really got to say goodbye to that part of our family."
There was silence.
They glanced down at their flowers, nearly in unison, and wondered what else they were mourning – what else they were letting go of – with a tradition no one else would understand.
"Our dreams," Ruby said, finally continuing what Blank had started. She let on a small smile, "Mourning what we can't do no more because of this gosh darn war."
"Others we've lost. Our family extends so far beyond Tantalus now," Cinna said.
"Old friends. Ones that we haven't been able to have a minute to even fucking think about until now," Baku added.
"Those who are still with us. Those who might not be with us for much longer," Marcus bit out.
Zidane shook his head, unbelieving that for a bunch of kids who hardly ever agreed on anything, theywere so in sync. They sounded like a scene from a play.
"Ourselves. Our innocence that's gone. Parts of our lives we don't get to do-over. Parts we never got to live."
The others nodded in vague agreement.
"Benero and Zenero," Baku said slowly, gripping the flowers a little harder.
"One for the twins and the other for their amazing, god damn trumpet talents," Cinna added on, to which the others finally laughed.
Baku did the honors, just as any captain surviving his crew would, and tossed his flowers into the water. They watched for a moment as the first soft waves swallowed them and water washed over the ombre petals.
And then in unison, Tantalus threw their wood violets into the ocean, freeing the spirits of the deceased with a proper, traditional form of mourning and a certain sense of burial. They were set into the freedom of the ocean – no longer confined to the canal by the jobs they did in Lindblum, but making a different in the war – in Gaia itself.
The crew stood until the tide crept up and their ankles were in the water, watching the tiny specks of purple against the deep navy of the ocean, sprinkled with gold in the sunlight. The bulbs of the flowers caught under the sunlight, and when the rays moved again, they had disappeared, released instead of lost, in to the abyss of the ocean.
And despite the heaviness of the situation, the six-man crew stood in the connectedness they hadn't felt in months. They were united, they were there.
They were alive.
A/N: Guys I am such an asshole. I literally have not even touched my laptop in weeks, and I am so sorry! No excuses, you guys don't want to hear it! But that's why I'm up at 3:40am when I work tomorrow morning proofreading for you! Thank you for your patience!
Okay, that ending was sad, but I thought the way that the random idea about the flower burials in the canals turned out pretty cool, and it is nice to give a little bit of closure to a few of our favorites that we've lost
I hope you all enjoyed the reunion! I'm glad that this part of it is over, but now, drats! I just updated tonight with Ch 113, which means you guys are going to have to start waiting for me to write the chapters out: which means it might be longer updates. Don't let me forget! Bother me to write! I need your help now guys!
I love you all I'm so sentimental after that last part! I hope you loved it as much as I did!
-zesty-
