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"Oh yeah, I see it! Wow, it looks fast! Okay, I'll go set up my new studio!"
"Relm-" Terra started, but the little girl was already off and running. "...we were going to stay here for a few days..." she said to the cloud of dust Relm had left behind.
"I do hope she's learned to clean up after herself. I don't think I could stand another menagerie on the walls." Setzer flicked a lock of hair behind his ears, looking irritated. "We never did get the smell of turpentine out of the hallway."
Locke snickered. "How about the teeth out of the seat of your pants? That wyvern was pretty close behind you..."
"That," Sezer said loftily, "was nothing. A trifle. A single dart and it was all over." Locke's muttered "not what you said at the time" went unheard as Setzer continued. "But strange smells - how is anyone supposed to set themselves at the mercy of the next roll of the dice when there's whiffs of chest rubs in the air?"
The argument, which could have gone on for a long time, was interrupted by Celes' return to the group. "The auction house is closed for the day," she reported. "But they'll be starting again tomorrow, and the list of items includes a crystal that might be magicite. Though the description was rather vague, it might just be an art piece."
"We'll make sure tomorrow," Terra said firmly. Lakshimi was still clutched firmly in her hands, glowing softly. She had been the one to sense it in Owsler's mansion, when the rest were just trying to figure out where Relm had gotten to. Terra had made it her personal mission to track down and reclaim as much magicite as possible, and no one of their little group objected. Locke was openly sympathetic, Setzer seemingly uncaring, and if a shadow crossed Celes' face whenever magicite came up, she never said anything out loud. But Terra noticed the latest shadow, and knotted her fingers together in front of her. "And...and besides, I want to try for that 1/1200 airship again," she added.
"For the kids, right?" Locke said over Setzer's complaints about the uselessness of airship models when the real thing was available. "Well, if we get outbid again, there are other ways..."
"Absolutely not!" Terra and Celes chorused, looked at each other in surprise, and laughed together. The tension over the magicite disappeared in an instant.
"But it is getting late," Celes said, back to her old, composed self again. "Was there anything else you wanted to do in town?"
"We've done most of the regular shopping we needed..." Locke said. Sabin and Edgar had hauled the pile of Ethers and Tents they had bought back to the Falcon while the others had investigated Owsler's mansion. The equipment they had bought: white dresses, magical rings, a new sword; those were all being carried.
Terra looked around, her movements quick and her gaze as focused as it was in battle. But the look on her face was curiosity, and when she spoke she said, "I still don't understand how Jidoor is so...intact. They have shops, restaurants, operas - it's like they weren't affected at all."
"Money talks, even after the end of the world," Setzer said with an ironic smile. "There's no crisis that can make a man forget gil."
"Jidoor was always playing Gestahl - lavish gifts, free trips to the opera, parades...back in the War of the Magi they'd have called it "tribute". Now I suppose they're playing Kefka...though I can't imagine how," Celes said. A different shadow passed over her when the Empire came up, and at times like these Terra thought she might really be carved out of ice.
"Can't imagine he'd be satisfied with a night at the opera." Locke twisted his head to look down the road to the Opera House, its now dingy carved nymphs and garlands barely visible in the distance. He left 'unless it burned down at the end' unsaid, instead turning to Terra with: "Would you be?"
She started with surprise. "Be what?"
He laughed a bit awkwardly. "Satisfied with a night at the opera. You weren't there when we went...I didn't want you to miss out."
"Oh - I've never been to an opera - it might be fun," Terra allowed. "Gau and Sabin tried to tell me about it, but I don't think I understood it very well."
"That's all right, no one does," Celes said, warming again. "I'd like to see a performance myself - being onstage is no way to appreciate opera."
"Onstage?"
"Ah, a chance to see the real Maria after she was stolen from me by a band of adventurous thieves! I accept your gift of apology, Locke. I assume it comes with buying refreshments? Wonderful. Let us be off." Setzer swept past them all in a blur of silver hair and battered black coat, leaving everyone else scrambling in his wake.
"Now listen here, you..." Locke started, getting ready to run after him when Terra interrupted.
"You stole Maria?" she asked, utterly bewildered.
"No! Well, yes, but not really - look, come with us and I'll tell you all about it." Locke threw his arm around Terra's shoulders and steered them both to the opera house with Celes on the other side, providing corrections and additions to his attempt to tell the story of how they'd met Setzer.
Inside it was more obvious that Jidoor's vaunted opera house had seen better days. There were dust bunnies breeding in the corners, the gilt was starting to flake (and in a few places seemed to have been scraped off entirely), the electric lights flickered like candles, and there were several distinct gaps in the orchestra marking where unlucky players had sat in better days.
None of that bothered Terra, who had never seen Jidoor at its height and to whom even the remains were like a glimpse into the world as it was before. She stared open-mouthed at the ceilings painted with heroes and espers, rubbed her hands over the worn velvet seating with childlike pleasure, and spent fifteen happy minutes picking what flavor of syrup she wanted over her somewhat melted crushed ice. Now she was gazing rapt at the fantastic great chandelier that had miraculously survived the devastation - though Locke noticed some gaps in the crystal chains and wondered if they were a decision by a heartbroken Impresario to save what he could or the result of some enterprising young stagehands with more Zozoian temperament.
"I'm sure they used to be able to freeze the ice here," Setzer complained, drawing his slightly tarnished filigreed spoon through what was more watery syrup than fruit ice.
Celes leaned over and tapped the glass cup, after which Setzer was forced to leave his spoon stuck upright in solid ice. He pouted at her, an expression Celes just smiled at.
Terra sucked the syrup off her spoon happily, still staring at the great chandelier. "How can they polish it?" she wondered out loud. "They wouldn't have anyone that could cast Float."
"Plenty of wires and harnesses, I expect," Locke said with his legs kicked out. He'd already finished his fruit ice and was admiring the wounded chandelier as well. "They've got a lot of catwalks up there, just have to hang someone and go."
Terra shivered. "Sounds dangerous. We should offer to cast some spells on them before we go."
Locke was struck by the image of dozens of stagehands floating around and bumping into each other while trying to obey an increasingly frustrated Impresario and only just stifled a fit of the giggles.
"Sssh!" Celes hissed, "it's starting."
Locke hadn't really followed the opera's plot the last time he'd seen it, too busy worrying about Celes waiting backstage and Terra shivering in Zozo. Something about a guy and a girl and a war...? He had been impressed by the pack of chocobos onstage, but it looked like the army of the west - or more likely, the army of chorus girls and stagehands - had fallen to eating their mounts. Or at least, he hoped that was why there weren't as many this time around.
Celes had managed to follow everything, and she was happy to catch Terra and Locke up in whispers between the songs. With the hints, Locke found he was able to relax and enjoy all the singing, which didn't seem to have changed since the end of the world. In fact, it was even more enjoyable thanks to Terra watching the whole thing with her eyes wide and mouth open. She was so utterly enchanted Locke couldn't resist falling for it himself. Celes, too, was acting more like a young woman enjoying her evening than an icy, hardened general. It was nice to see.
Setzer was occupied with being aloof, but he enjoyed that sort of thing so Locke let him be.
Maria took the stage with the famous aria, and it sure was something, hearing the difference between a general and a trained opera singer. Locke hadn't known the human voice had such a range.
"Don't worry, you've much prettier than she is," Locke whispered to Celes, who blushed and elbowed him. Terra shushed them both without once taking her attention off the stage.
The wedding waltz was just starting and Locke was looking forward to finding out how the whole thing was supposed to end when there was a loud, bone-chilling, and by now familiar roar from the depths of the earth. The four were on their feet before the vibrations had died away, and got a fantastic view of a massive, earth-colored dragon rising from the torn center of the stage and throwing the wedding into chaos.
"I'm not sure the Impresario is gonna let us back after this one," Locke said as they scrambled over the balcony.
"He's going to have to, isn't he? We're saving his show again," Celes said as she finished the Float spell that would let them run over the crowds of rapidly panicking opera patrons. "It's not like he can charge admission to see a dragon."
"You can say that, but..." The dragon rose up before them, screaming with the wrath of the dying earth. Its claws gouged rifts in the floorboards. Its tail shook the entire building. It smelled like damp caves and coal mines, a combination that made Locke shudder with memories. It roared again at the tiny humans that climbed onto the stage in front of it.
"There's a dragon right in the middle of the stage!" The Impresario wailed from the wings. "Oh, how can we put on a show like this?!"
"We'll handle it!" Terra called back, pulling out the Illumina and facing the dragon in one flowing motion. "Get the actors to safety! Don't worry, we'll protect you!"
She's really grown up, Locke thought with an odd twist in his heart. Hard to believe she was the same woman he'd found in the Narshe caves a little over a year ago. But there was no more time for sentiment as his fingers found Golem in his pocket and called upon the earth for protection. They had a dragon to fight.
"See, I told you he'd be mad." Locke brushed his hair out of his face and sneezed with all the dust the motion dislodged.
It wasn't that the Impresario hadn't been...well, impressed and grateful they'd killed the dragon. It was that the damage to the opera house during the fight was also impressive, and a combination of guilt and pity had made them collectively decide to put a large amount of gil into the brand-new Restore the Opera House fund...leaving very little left over for the auction. The dreams of the 1/1200 airship had promptly flown away, leaving Terra out of sorts.
Only Setzer was still managing an attitude of breezy nonchalance, and even that showed some cracks at the edges. "It's not as if we called the dragon," he said. "We were just conveniently on hand to kill it. Things could have gotten quite dicey if we hadn't been around."
"Did that line work on Maria?" Celes asked with an arched eyebrow.
Setzer coughed and rubbed at his reddened cheek where the opera singer had replied to his request for an autograph. Maria hadn't been too happy about her stage getting destroyed either. "I don't know what I ever saw in that girl."
"Uh-huh," Locke said. "What were you planning on doing with her, anyway?"
"It was more about the daring of the act than the results, really."
Celes chuckled. "We'll have to come up with a better story for the biographers." They walked on, tossing ideas for how the Returners could have recruited Setzer without mentioning...well, a lot of what had happened then. Though they seemed to have very different ideas of what "a better story" would involve.
Locke let them get ahead, watching the edges of their figures soften and blur in the gathering twilight. He turned to Terra, who was still walking beside him with her head down. "Hey, cheer up," he said. "Shadow and Sabin have both wanted to go back to the Coliseum for a while now, we can make some bets and pick the money right back up. It's no big deal."
"Huh?" Terra looked up at him, startled, then laughed. "Oh, no, don't worry about it. If that child wants the model, that's fine. We need warm clothes and good food more anyway, and we got those already. That's the important part." She kept her head high after that, but Locke felt there was still a shadow somewhere - in her eyes, in the tight line of her lips. He scratched his head and tried to figure out the least-annoying way to find out what was wrong.
"Listen, we'll still have money for the magicite-" and "Is that...the proper form of love?" both came out at the same time.
They broke off, stared at each other, then tried again.
"I'm not worried about the magicite-"
"What 'proper form of love'?"
Locke laughed a little awkwardly. "Uh, you first."
Terra hesitated, her hands worrying the edges of her filmy cape. "In the play...Maria only wanted to be with Draco. I know it's not like that, but..." She looked down, and now she seemed more like that lonely girl in the Narshe cave than the brave woman battling the dragon she had been just a short time ago. "I love the children. I feel it, so strongly it hurts. I want to take care of them. I want to protect them. I want them to be happy. But...Maria and Draco...Katherin and Duane...they have an entirely different kind of love for each other, don't they."
"Well...yeah." Locke's hand unconsciously rose to his bandanna, the one Rachel had given him, but dropped before he touched it. Rachel was gone now. "But you know...calling it 'proper' feels like it's overstating things."
He struggled to find the words for what he meant, failed, and just went for it. "I mean, like...Edgar loves his brother and his country more than any girl, right? And Relm loves her grandpa, and that's...normal." Locke couldn't bring himself to call Relm - or Edgar, really - "proper" under any circumstances. "I guess what I'm trying to get at is, there's not one proper way to love other people."
Terra watched him like a wild animal at the edge of a forest. Her eyes were completely dark in the deepening gloom, and she made no sound.
Locke kept talking, unable to figure out how to reach her but unable to stop. "I think...loving someone isn't something that can neatly categorized, or be divided into proper and not...and it can change, too, without you even noticing...but as long as you feel it, then it's all right." Rachel, Rachel the familiar wound pulsed at the edge of his mind, but not as painfully. Phoenix had burned that away, so all that was left was clean white ash. "I...love the Returners. I care about all of you. I don't think that's worse than...any other kind of love." Rachel had said "Give your love to the person inside your heart", but Locke didn't have the courage for that yet. Until then...until then, he'd fight alongside the Returners. That was all.
Terra's face softened, and her eyes caught the light of the stars. "Thank you, Locke. I think...I think I understand what you mean." A smile flickered over her face like a spark, seen and gone in a flash. "I knew that, just...I forgot for a bit. But I feel better now."
"It's nothing, really...I promised to take care of you, after all!" He turned away, embarrassed. "Now, the others - yipe!" Setzer loomed up at him out of the darkness, close enough that Locke's nose brushed his overly-fancy coat.
"And what were you two doing here in the dark?" Setzer asked with an arched eyebrow. "I warn you, I'm not much of a chaperone."
"Who asked?" Locke muttered. Louder, he said: "Look, it's nothing like that, so let's just get going, all right? Terra- oh." Terra had already run ahead to Celes, where the two had their heads together and were talking quietly. Any hesitation had been wiped from Terra's face, leaving her calm and composed - but as someone who had pulled that trick himself more than once, Locke knew it wasn't so easy.
There was a rustling in the darkness. Locke blinked, tired with the fight and the conversation, when a pack of harpies swept down on them from the sky. Not for the first time, Locke wondered if these stupid monsters just couldn't smell all the blood on them. Terra was already murmuring the words of a spell that would blow them all away. Locke didn't bother to fumble for his knife, Terra and Celes were more than enough to handle them. He shook his head, saying "Really, why couldn't they just build the Opera House in the city?"
Setzer snorted. "I told you to hire some chocobos."
"That stablemaster's a swindler - yipe!" Locke jumped back from the massive flames Terra had summoned, beating at his clothes. Well, at least she's feeling better, he thought. Maybe he wasn't the right person to talk about love, but Locke would be happy to stand by Terra until she figured it out. That's what friends were for. And if that sometimes came with awkward conversations, conflagrations and the smell of roasted feathers...well, he'd dealt with worse.