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shinonFandom: Final Fantasy VI
Characters: Sabin, Edgar, Celes
Word count: ~5100
Warnings: Alcohol use, referenced minor character death, a whole lot of unfunny jokes
Notes: Mid-canon; set right after the party breaks back into Figaro Castle in the World of Ruin. This is MOSTLY the Figaro Bros Power Hour, but Celes does have things to do.
“Ideally we’d draw a vacuum here” - Edgar pointed to a box fed by several tubes, which looked, to Sabin, like all the other boxes and tubes - “and suck any obstructions out of the fuel lines. On the other hand, depending on how much crud is in there…”
“Weren’t the engineers supposed to give you a report?”
“The engineers are on leave. They’ve been underground for over a year. I told them to go outside.”
“Kinda dangerous out there.”
“Kinda claustrophobic in here. They’ve got the surviving chocobos. Once they’ve seen for themselves, either they’ll come back or they won’t. I can’t fairly demand much more of them.” He squinted at something in the depths of the machinery, and then absently held a hand out toward Sabin. “Hex key? Top drawer, on your left.” Sabin hesitated. “Shaped like an L.” Sabin handed it over. “Thanks.” Edgar leaned over the railing into the currently silent engine of Figaro Castle and twisted something. “Someone,” he muttered, “at some point, should standardize all the bolts on this behemoth. But I wouldn’t bet on many machine shops being open now. If Locke’s still alive I should ask him to treasure-hunt me some hardware.”
“Celes says he is.”
“I’m sure she has reasons to say so.” Which sounded too flippant, but Locke was Edgar’s friend first, so maybe Sabin should butt out. Edgar withdrew his arm from the engine, wiped his hand off on a rag, and let the wrench clatter back into the toolbox.
“It’s weird how quiet it is,” Sabin said at last. “With everything turned off.”
“There are some problems you can only diagnose when it’s running, but I don’t recommend trying to fix it that way.” Suddenly Edgar grinned. “One time in the early days, I did some poking around while it was in motion, like an idiot, and it grabbed my hair. The emergency shutoff worked, but I still lost a chunk of my scalp. It took years to look normal again.”
“Now I’m sad I wasn’t there to make fun of you.” After making sure he was okay, of course. It must have been frightening.
“Oh, it was quite comical. A lot of extra work went into styling this mane to hide the hole.”
“You didn’t think to just…” Sabin mimed passing hair clippers over his head. “Buzz it off?”
“What? Never.”
“But then it’d all grow back in at the same time -”
Edgar bridled. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s fine that you grew up to be a sasquatch, but one of us has to stay recognizable.”
“Is that why your disguise was so bad, Gerad?”
“It served its purpose, thank you very much.” He resumed his study of the engine. “And - not to get too grim - everyone who could’ve seen through it was presumed dead. Flathead screwdriver?”
“Huh?” said Sabin, who was still stuck on the previous sentence. Then he caught up. “Oh. Yeah, here.” Edgar took the proffered tool and levered open some kind of control console. “That kinda sounds like an insult you would yell at a bully. Like, ‘take that, you flathead screwdriver!’”
Edgar chuckled. “Take that, you box-ended wrench!”
“Take that, you, uh… clock… clockwork… I’ll clean your clock!”
“We’ll work on that one.”
“Hey, I told you I stopped a train, right? With hydraulics and stuff.”
“Was this before or after you punched the cow catcher?”
“Oh, I guess I did tell you. Point is, at least I’m a better shop assistant than Cyan.”
“With no disrespect to Cyan,” said Edgar, exhausted by the mere thought, “so is a halibut.”
Cyan must still be alive, too, right? Somewhere out there he must be waiting, looking for a chance to strike back at Kefka. And surely Gau had found his way back to the Veldt, and…
Sabin had a thought, and struck a combative pose, and said “Take that, you cow catcher!” and Edgar burst out laughing. And then remained propped against the console and wheezing for longer than the joke deserved. “Was it that funny?” said Sabin.
“I’m hardly alone in this,” Edgar said finally, straightening, “but it’s been a rough year. I’m glad we’re back. Both of us.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Earlier that day they had brought the castle to the surface, shut everything down, and then made the rounds, ensuring that all the thieves were gone, asking after any casualties. Some had been injured in the break-in. One servant had fallen and broken his arm when the castle first shuddered to a halt, over a year ago, and it hadn’t healed right, and moreover with the tight rationing it had healed slowly. Celes had offered to re-set and heal the affected limb, and Edgar had stood up looking grave and businesslike and asked for details about the ration. Then he and the Chancellor and a couple of clerks had vanished into the storeroom, and Sabin had roamed through the castle again, more leisurely this time, on his own.
Everyone was excited to see him. Everyone wanted to welcome him back and ask him about his life and when he’d gotten so strong - even though he’d already been back here, a couple of times, before the Day of Judgment, and the only thing new was he’d spent another year wandering around looking for his friends. It was like they’d all forgotten about that. Like they were rolling it all up into one big myth, about the prince who vanished for eleven years and came back only when they’d all given up the outside world for dead.
He liked seeing the castle residents again. But he wasn’t sure he liked that part.
A couple hours later Edgar came and found him on top of the eastern tower. “Things are better than they could be,” he said. “And I’m also told that an enterprising young lady has something to show us.”
“Do I even wanna know?”
“Don’t give me that look. Of course you do.”
“I’m just saying, you could’ve worded that better.”
The enterprising young lady was a stablehand, and looked nervous at getting a visit from both royals. She must have been hired after Sabin’s time.
“Pardon the intrusion,” said Edgar, “but would you mind explaining what’s in that barrel?”
“Right,” she said, “well,” and then belatedly remembered to curtsey, and even more belatedly remembered she was wearing overalls, and ended up making a confused bow. “For the first couple weeks after we submerged, we were still able to get riders to the surface sometimes to get supplies. But the fruit was… weird. And it got weirder. And it rotted so fast. But we didn’t want it to go to waste, because who knew how long we’d be underground, or how long it’d be safe to keep going out. And we are, or we were, all stocked up to withstand a siege, but it never hurts to stretch the supplies out…”
“Right, I understand.”
She nodded, relaxing a little. “And not knowing when you’d be back, or how much it’d all be worth if we should get a chance to trade in the future - because with the world ending and all, it must be even more rare - well, with all that, we didn’t want to get into the good stuff.”
“The good what?” said Sabin.
Edgar pivoted to Sabin and gestured grandly at the girl and her barrel. “Sabin, our friend here has been making bucket wine.”
She said, “But of course I’ll stop now that you’re back -”
“You’re not in trouble,” said Edgar. “I’m impressed. Do I see some cups on that shelf over there?”
Her eyes were wide. “Uh, Your Majesty, I feel like, if you drink this, I will be in trouble.”
“I’m in,” said Sabin.
The girl looked back and forth between them. Edgar smiled implacably, and by now Sabin, too, was too curious to back out. “All right,” she said, “but I tried to tell you.” She fetched down two chipped stone cups, filled the first one, and handed it to Edgar.
“To invention,” he said, and drank. The girl filled the other cup, and Sabin took it. And then looked over at his brother, whose eyes were beginning to water. “That -” Edgar shuddered. “Okay, you were right, that was vile.”
She looked rueful. “It gets people smashed so they don’t think about what they’re missing. But that’s all it’s designed for.”
Edgar started coughing. Sabin pounded him on the back, until he staggered under the blow. “A little respect, please,” he said, holding up an admonishing hand. “I am your king.” He steadied himself and adjusted the fall of his cape. “Miss, you should be proud of your ingenuity and resourcefulness. You’re destined for better things than wrangling chocobos all day.”
“Unless that’s what you want to do,” said Sabin.
Edgar shot him a considering look, then nodded. “Unless that’s what you want to do. If it isn’t, feel free to talk to the matron on the western wing about a change of scenery.” A deep breath. “That said. Please tell everyone to go ahead and raid the cellar next time. I promise I’ll understand.”
“Next time what? Next time some clown from the Empire breaks the world in half?”
“Uh… hm. Good point. Let’s hope that’s not a trend.”
At this point Sabin realized he’d forgotten to try the drink, so he knocked it back. Edgar and the stablehand turned to stare at him expectantly.
He shrugged. “Not bad.”
“Yes it is,” said the girl, in a horrified whisper. “I made it. I’m no braggart. It’s extremely bad.”
But there was more to do, after that. There was always more to do. Everyone had some pressing issue to tell Edgar about, and the Chancellor could only keep them at bay for so long. Edgar gave Celes a tired, apologetic smile and said, “Don’t wait up for me. We can regroup in Kohlingen.”
Celes said, “It’s fine. I’ll wait.”
Sabin looked at her sidelong. He was getting a little stir-crazy, and he wondered if she was too. But either way she didn’t want to go off alone again, and he understood. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “what about a hunting party? If the food stores are so low. Celes and I have been out there. We can help people figure out what’s safe to eat.”
“Good idea,” Edgar said, and immediately got dragged off somewhere else.
“How about it?” Sabin asked Celes.
“I… wouldn’t count on my foraging abilities.”
“Okay, then I’ll do the hunting and you can scare off anything that wants to hunt us. C’mon, I bet we can recruit some of the guards.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get some fresh air.”
“What passes for fresh.”
Right. She said she’d been asleep for most of the year, recovering from her injuries after the wreck of the Blackjack. She wasn’t used to the new face of the world yet. Sometimes on the chocobo ride up the Serpent Trench she’d gone quiet and stared off into the landscape like it was hurting her. Once Sabin had asked what she was thinking about and she’d said, “I should have stabbed Kefka a lot sooner.”
She was doing better now, most of the time. She was one of those people who liked having goals. At any sign that people were still out there fighting for life, she would wake back up and fight beside them. Sabin listened when she wanted to talk, and didn’t bug her when she didn’t, and that was how friendship worked.
So out they went into the dunes. As a kid Sabin had known how to navigate the desert - although not as much on the Kohlingen side of the mountains, and now the whole world was a different shape, and he hadn’t been a kid in a long time now. “Sorry,” he said, scratching his head under the loose wrap that kept sun and sand from his face, “I’m not gonna be as big a help as I thought.” But with one or two exceptions, the guards were disoriented too, so he didn’t feel so bad.
“I do have one idea,” said Celes, and pulled out a flat case. She’d managed to grab all the magicite when the airship went down. Sabin was glad other people thought of these things. She selected a crystal from the case and began to make the gestures they’d all had to learn, speaking the incantation.
She had a nice voice, even if she didn’t like to be told so, and even if opera was super confusing.
He didn’t figure out what she was going for until she spoke the last two syllables: “Bismarck.” The temperature dropped, and Sabin smelled salt on the air, and an immense shadow passed overhead. Distant burst of whalesong. Sabin turned side-on to the coming wave so that it wouldn’t wash him away.
But the wave didn’t come. It got hot again under the sun, and the smell of the ocean faded away.
Celes said, “That’s what I thought. The air is too dry -”
Sabin pointed to a nearby dune. “Look.” The sand was turning dark and clumpy. The Esper hadn’t been able to bring his usual floods, but he’d drawn up what groundwater he could find.
“Oh.” Celes put the magicite away. “I thought it’d be more dramatic than that.”
“No, the drama is tomorrow. That whole hill’s gonna turn green.” Celes looked at him curiously. “It’s true. There are seeds everywhere in the desert, and roots and stuff. When they get wet, they bloom like crazy for a day, day and a half maybe, and then they dry up and blow away.” He laughed. “Actually, when I went to South Figaro I got confused that the growing season was so long. Flowers everywhere all the time! It’s crazy.”
The guards were already making a beeline for the dune in question, and he nodded after them. “If there was a spring there, maybe there’s stuff to find already. Let’s go check it out. You can watch my back. That summoning thing was pretty smart, y’know.”
“Thanks,” she said after a pause, and followed him down the slope.
One of the guards was setting up snares for any desert animals who might come check out the buffet tomorrow. Sabin saw a few dried-up stalks poking through the sand, and hadn’t Matron made tea with the roots of that plant? So he hunkered down and started digging.
After a while he said, “Can I ask you something?”
Celes, watching the horizon, just nodded.
“When we met Setzer. How did you know about the coin?”
That startled her back into herself. She looked at him. After a moment she said, “Edgar told me.”
“Well, yeah. But why’d he tell you?”
“Who knows why that man does anything?”
When Sabin had first realized the trick, for a heartbeat he hadn’t known whether to give Edgar a hug or suplex him through the nearest of the airship’s many gaming tables. Then he’d thought, Well, they both start the same way, I can decide when I get there, and then he’d had no room in his head for any thought but, I love my idiot brother. Stupid noble selfless jerk.
Back in the present, still digging for edible roots, he told Celes, “You’re a good friend.”
“Huh?”
“I bet you caught him doing something shady and made him spill all his secrets. It’s nice of you not to rat him out, even if it’s me.” He pulled up a handful of tiny, misshapen rhizomes and put them into a sack. “Did he tell you the history?”
“I thought we just established that I’m not a snitch.”
“Is that a ‘yes?’”
She rolled her eyes. “Anything I could say would sound like ‘yes.’ Despite an awful first impression, your brother is my friend. You’re my friend, too, but it’s separate. You don’t get to know everything that goes on in people’s lives.”
He guessed she had a point, but...
He got up and moved to another spot, where another withered stalk stabbed up into the sky. “So what was your first impression of me?” he asked.
“You were…” She frowned in thought. “‘The big one.’”
“Well, you’re not wrong.”
“When I joined up with your little group in Narshe, here’s what immediately happened.” She ticked points off on her fingers. “Locke warned me not to sleep with Edgar. Edgar warned me not to sleep with Locke. Terra also started prying into my love life, for some reason. And Cyan tried to fight me on the spot.” She gave him a half-smile. “I thought, ‘what kind of idiocy have I gotten myself into?’ The only people who weren’t actively annoying me were you and Gau.”
“Big, and not annoying.” He nodded. “I’ll take it!”
“Big, not annoying, not obviously feral.”
“Hey, Gau’s a great kid.”
“I know. And he’s had a hard life. But you have to admit he takes some getting used to.”
Sabin shrugged. “No, not really. He likes animals, and he wants people to listen to him. That’s pretty normal.”
She raised her eyebrows and took a breath. “Well, okay. I was going to say he and I have that in common, but you’ve just totally derailed my argument, so -”
“You’re not hard to get used to, either. You have a lot of stuff going on, but you’re tough, and you try to do the right thing. People can see that about you.”
For a while Celes said nothing, and then, “I swear, you could make friends with a rock.”
“If it’s a nice rock, then why not?”
He and Celes and the guards filed back into the castle as night fell - it had always gotten cold at night, but had the wind gotten sharper since the end of the world, or had he been gone too long to remember it? - and helped put up the supplies they’d gathered. Then they were supposed to explain where they’d found everything to a clerk, who jabbed pins into a map and mumbled about asking the king to authorize a surveying party. Celes was more help with that part. Sabin asked, “Hey, where is Edgar, anyway?”
“He went to the engine room a little after you left. Don’t think he’s been back upstairs since.”
Sabin thought, After doing thief stuff all night and king stuff all day, he’s still working?
But no, that wasn’t quite it. Maybe it was more like this: some people climbed mountains to meditate, and some people went into the basement and thought about hose clamps for four hours.
When he thought about it that way, he had stopped halfway down the stairs, thinking maybe he shouldn’t interrupt after all. But then Edgar had just sort of roped him into the repairs, pointing out possible issues and making Sabin grab stuff for him, and here they were.
“You’re good at this,” Sabin said, at length.
Edgar was smugly returning all the tools to their proper places. Sabin hadn’t even known there was a smug way to do that. “Yes, I am.”
“No, I mean - all of it. Keeping stuff running.” Edgar raised an eyebrow and nodded toward the engine, which was definitely not running. “Like… the kingdom.”
“Oh, that. You just have to know how to delegate.” Maybe that was true. Sabin didn’t know anything about being king - and that was how he’d wanted it. “People did fine without me for a year. More than that, if you start the clock when I ran off with the Returners - the machine runs itself. All I do is preventative maintenance.”
“Well, all I do is karate,” said Sabin. “That doesn’t mean anyone could do it.”
“Point taken.”
“And you’ve already seen all the cool stuff I can do. But I never really understood what you do until now.”
“And now you know how boring it is.” Edgar spread his hands, smiling ironically. “Aren’t you glad you picked the route of punching people?”
“No. Wait, I mean - yeah, I’m glad I’m good at punching. I’m just trying to say… I’m impressed.”
Edgar’s smile faded. “Thank you,” he said, very seriously. “That means a lot coming from a badass like you.” Maybe that part wasn’t serious; Sabin couldn’t always tell. Then he said, “Sabin, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Sabin swallowed. It had always been hard to get anything past Edgar. Was that a twin thing, or an Edgar thing? “It’s been fun hanging out today, right? Even though the world ended and you have things to do.”
“Just like old times,” said Edgar.
“That’s the thing. It’s like old times, but it’s not old times. All these other times happened in between, and we both grew up. And that’s - it’s a little bit weird, don’t you think?”
He had always meant to come back someday. Even when he’d been angriest, at the Empire, at the royal court, he’d planned to come back, once he was strong enough to make a difference, and stand at his brother’s side. He’d thought, Edgar will be king and I’ll go back and protect him. He hadn’t counted on anything changing while he was away. He hadn’t thought of the things he’d miss out on. Edgar had already been king for years. And working with the Returners for years. And who knew what else?
“Hey.” Edgar pointed a finger at him. “You have biceps the size of a human head. Don’t act like you’re the one who was surprised.”
Sabin snorted. “You’re just mad you can’t arm wrestle me anymore. Get over it.”
“That’s not true. Principally, I’m mad you got tall.”
“Vargas broke my collarbone once,” said Sabin, “and one time I got caught in a rockslide. You didn’t know that. And you got hurt messing with the engine once -”
“- more than once,” Edgar said, laughing.
“And I didn’t know about that. Even though everything worked out okay, isn’t that kind of lonely to think about?”
“Don’t worry. If anything really bad had happened to me, there’d be no escaping the news.”
“But -”
“But was I worried about you? Of course.”
Sabin nodded, and squeezed his eyes shut, and swallowed again. “You made the right call, back then. The coin. I’m happy I got to see the world and train with Duncan. I’m happy I had my freedom, and I wouldn’t want to give that up. We’ve had our own lives, and I’m sure that’s for the best. I wouldn’t wanna change it. But - it still kinda sucks that I wasn’t here. I kinda wish I could’ve done both?”
“Man,” said Edgar, after a silence. “If only you had some kind of… twin, or something, who could be places you aren’t and do things you can’t. Imagine.”
“Yeah, how great would that be?”
“Fantastic.”
“He’d probably be really cool and smart.” Sabin smiled and blinked away tears. “And I’d be proud to have a brother like that, and Dad would be proud of both of us.”
“Sabin -” Edgar said, and then, “you dork -” and then, at a loss, expressed his feelings by putting his brother in a headlock.
Sabin submitted, laughing. “Didn’t I break your nose the last time you tried this?” They’d been fourteen or so. Sabin had been smaller then, and had to rely more on the element of surprise. “I should warn you, my skull’s only gotten harder since then!”
“Yeah, but then you cried all afternoon and I turned out more handsome than ever. Do your worst.”
“Are you admitting your face needs more improvement?”
“We still look alike, don’t we?”
Celes appeared at the top of the stairs. “Edgar - wait, what’s going on?”
“Royal business,” said Edgar, briefly looking up from giving Sabin noogies. “Be with you in just a minute.” To Sabin he said, “Take that, you reciprocating piston!” and let him go with a shove.
Sabin stumbled, caught himself, and then looked back. “I don’t know what that is.”
Edgar pretended surprise. “You don’t? What happened to Mr. ‘I Stopped a Train?’”
“By punching it, though.”
“Well,” said Edgar, starting up the stairs, “all you need to know is that I’m really cool and smart.”
They ate dinner in Edgar’s chambers.
“What, no official feast for the returning king?” said Celes.
“I couldn’t do that to the staff,” said Edgar. “There’s no point straining resources just to play pretend that everything is normal. They have enough to deal with.”
Sabin poked him in the ribs. “And you’re too squeamish to eat whatever they have left.”
Edgar said, loftily, “I applaud my people’s creativity.” But he was eating leftover bread that he’d packed from Nikeah.
Sabin coughed the word “wuss” into his fist.
“Say that again, I dare you.”
“What? I coughed.”
Edgar scowled at him, but then turned to Celes, switching on his most polite and agreeable smile. “On the other hand, you’re right, Celes. There’s no reason we have to be so minimalist. An occasion like this calls for - in the words of our resident Master Vintner - ‘the good stuff.’”
Sabin said, “We don’t have a… Oh! You mean chocobo girl?”
“Yes, I -” Edgar broke off, frowning again. “We probably should’ve gotten her name, shouldn’t we?”
“Wait, you mean you didn’t?” Sabin laughed. “Edgar! Are you losing your touch?”
“Shh! Not where people can hear you!” He jerked his head toward Celes, who really didn’t look like she cared. “Anyway, I’ll make do. She’s, uh, let’s see, ‘a valued employee of the Crown.’”
“What’d you call her before? ‘An enterprising young lady?’”
“‘A Knight of the Yellow Plume.’ We’re knighting people now, by the way. For not poisoning me.”
“Seriously, though, it wasn’t that bad.”
A long pause. Edgar gave him one of those thoughtful looks. “I’m glad we’re brothers. Otherwise I might have to be afraid of you.”
“All right,” Celes said, “what am I missing here?”
“Nothing,” said Edgar.
Sabin said, “There was -”
“Nothing,” said Edgar. “Dear brother, would you please go ask whoever’s currently in the kitchen to send up a bottle of the 936 Jidoor red. No - two. And tell them they can open two more for general consumption.”
Celes met Sabin’s eye and nodded, silently saying I’ll ask you later. So Sabin shrugged, and went. On his way downstairs he heard Celes ask, “That’s a rare vintage, isn’t it?”
“Only five bottles left.”
“And you’re opening four.”
“Well, it is the end of the world.”
“If it’s the end of the world, then commit to it and open all five.”
“Ha! And lose my backup plan? Not likely.”
When Sabin came back with the wine (why make a servant carry it, since he was coming here anyway?), Celes had the magicite out on the table. Edgar looked up from poking through them and said, excited, “Did you realize she saved all of them? Our Celes is a gem.” Celes looked pleased, but also confused that she was pleased. Edgar squinted through one of the stones. “I was just thinking, if I could generate negative pressure -”
Sabin set the bottles down on the table between them. “Hey. Stop working.”
Edgar made a sarcastic little bow. “Your Highness.”
Sabin bowed back. “Your Majesty.”
Edgar nodded to Celes. “General.”
“What?”
“It didn’t seem right to leave you out. Now, shall we?” He deftly uncorked one of the bottles and poured three glasses. The wine glittered a deep purple-red in the finest crystal that could survive the castle’s maximum speed. “So what are we toasting?”
Celes said, “You’re asking me?”
“If you hadn’t happened along, I would have been fatally strangled by some kind of tentacled beast in the depths of my engine, and I’m given to understand a building would have fallen on my brother. We’re at your disposal, without reservation.”
Somehow Sabin had never given that much thought. He’d never doubted they’d all find each other again. And since coming back into the castle, his ten years of training loomed so large in memory that he hadn’t considered the year since the Floating Continent. What if those few months with the Returners had been it? What if those two or three visits to the castle had been the last, what if something had gone wrong and after the Blackjack went down he’d just - never seen this place again? Never seen his brother again?
He shouldn’t be put out with the castle residents for glossing over the details of his absence. Hadn’t he been doing the same?
Edgar read the look on his face and gave him a nudge with one elbow. It didn’t happen, that meant. We’re fine.
He was right. He usually was. Sabin nodded. We’re fine.
Celes was either politely ignoring this silent exchange, or had been thinking so hard about the toast that she’d missed it. Finally she raised her glass and said, “The future.”
“The future.” Clink, clink, clink.
Soon after, Edgar and Celes fell to planning out that future - where would they search for the others? What odds Setzer could get them airborne again, if they found him? (“I’m assuming you’ll still know how to push him around,” Edgar said, and if it had been anyone else making it, Celes’s answering expression could have been called a smirk.) What kind of weaponry would they need? Something something infrastructure? Sabin wasn’t really listening by that point. They would sort it all out, and he’d happily come along for the ride. It was bound to be exciting.
It was just being in the castle that made him feel weird, he decided. That was the reason he kept thinking about old days that could never come again, and what if this, and what if that. You could try to live in the moment, but sometimes - some places - the moments stacked up on each other. You’d turn a corner and trip over an evening from fifteen years ago, or an old dream, or a song that people told you your mother used to sing (and you didn’t know enough about Mom to know if that was true, but you always hoped it was).
The trick was not getting stuck in it. The trick was learning to take it all with you. But first, he thought, you really had to look at it.
So here was one last night for looking backward, and then it was time to see what came next. Tomorrow was the future, after all. Tomorrow it was time, with his brother, with all his friends, to start saving the world.
Characters: Sabin, Edgar, Celes
Word count: ~5100
Warnings: Alcohol use, referenced minor character death, a whole lot of unfunny jokes
Notes: Mid-canon; set right after the party breaks back into Figaro Castle in the World of Ruin. This is MOSTLY the Figaro Bros Power Hour, but Celes does have things to do.
“Ideally we’d draw a vacuum here” - Edgar pointed to a box fed by several tubes, which looked, to Sabin, like all the other boxes and tubes - “and suck any obstructions out of the fuel lines. On the other hand, depending on how much crud is in there…”
“Weren’t the engineers supposed to give you a report?”
“The engineers are on leave. They’ve been underground for over a year. I told them to go outside.”
“Kinda dangerous out there.”
“Kinda claustrophobic in here. They’ve got the surviving chocobos. Once they’ve seen for themselves, either they’ll come back or they won’t. I can’t fairly demand much more of them.” He squinted at something in the depths of the machinery, and then absently held a hand out toward Sabin. “Hex key? Top drawer, on your left.” Sabin hesitated. “Shaped like an L.” Sabin handed it over. “Thanks.” Edgar leaned over the railing into the currently silent engine of Figaro Castle and twisted something. “Someone,” he muttered, “at some point, should standardize all the bolts on this behemoth. But I wouldn’t bet on many machine shops being open now. If Locke’s still alive I should ask him to treasure-hunt me some hardware.”
“Celes says he is.”
“I’m sure she has reasons to say so.” Which sounded too flippant, but Locke was Edgar’s friend first, so maybe Sabin should butt out. Edgar withdrew his arm from the engine, wiped his hand off on a rag, and let the wrench clatter back into the toolbox.
“It’s weird how quiet it is,” Sabin said at last. “With everything turned off.”
“There are some problems you can only diagnose when it’s running, but I don’t recommend trying to fix it that way.” Suddenly Edgar grinned. “One time in the early days, I did some poking around while it was in motion, like an idiot, and it grabbed my hair. The emergency shutoff worked, but I still lost a chunk of my scalp. It took years to look normal again.”
“Now I’m sad I wasn’t there to make fun of you.” After making sure he was okay, of course. It must have been frightening.
“Oh, it was quite comical. A lot of extra work went into styling this mane to hide the hole.”
“You didn’t think to just…” Sabin mimed passing hair clippers over his head. “Buzz it off?”
“What? Never.”
“But then it’d all grow back in at the same time -”
Edgar bridled. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s fine that you grew up to be a sasquatch, but one of us has to stay recognizable.”
“Is that why your disguise was so bad, Gerad?”
“It served its purpose, thank you very much.” He resumed his study of the engine. “And - not to get too grim - everyone who could’ve seen through it was presumed dead. Flathead screwdriver?”
“Huh?” said Sabin, who was still stuck on the previous sentence. Then he caught up. “Oh. Yeah, here.” Edgar took the proffered tool and levered open some kind of control console. “That kinda sounds like an insult you would yell at a bully. Like, ‘take that, you flathead screwdriver!’”
Edgar chuckled. “Take that, you box-ended wrench!”
“Take that, you, uh… clock… clockwork… I’ll clean your clock!”
“We’ll work on that one.”
“Hey, I told you I stopped a train, right? With hydraulics and stuff.”
“Was this before or after you punched the cow catcher?”
“Oh, I guess I did tell you. Point is, at least I’m a better shop assistant than Cyan.”
“With no disrespect to Cyan,” said Edgar, exhausted by the mere thought, “so is a halibut.”
Cyan must still be alive, too, right? Somewhere out there he must be waiting, looking for a chance to strike back at Kefka. And surely Gau had found his way back to the Veldt, and…
Sabin had a thought, and struck a combative pose, and said “Take that, you cow catcher!” and Edgar burst out laughing. And then remained propped against the console and wheezing for longer than the joke deserved. “Was it that funny?” said Sabin.
“I’m hardly alone in this,” Edgar said finally, straightening, “but it’s been a rough year. I’m glad we’re back. Both of us.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Earlier that day they had brought the castle to the surface, shut everything down, and then made the rounds, ensuring that all the thieves were gone, asking after any casualties. Some had been injured in the break-in. One servant had fallen and broken his arm when the castle first shuddered to a halt, over a year ago, and it hadn’t healed right, and moreover with the tight rationing it had healed slowly. Celes had offered to re-set and heal the affected limb, and Edgar had stood up looking grave and businesslike and asked for details about the ration. Then he and the Chancellor and a couple of clerks had vanished into the storeroom, and Sabin had roamed through the castle again, more leisurely this time, on his own.
Everyone was excited to see him. Everyone wanted to welcome him back and ask him about his life and when he’d gotten so strong - even though he’d already been back here, a couple of times, before the Day of Judgment, and the only thing new was he’d spent another year wandering around looking for his friends. It was like they’d all forgotten about that. Like they were rolling it all up into one big myth, about the prince who vanished for eleven years and came back only when they’d all given up the outside world for dead.
He liked seeing the castle residents again. But he wasn’t sure he liked that part.
A couple hours later Edgar came and found him on top of the eastern tower. “Things are better than they could be,” he said. “And I’m also told that an enterprising young lady has something to show us.”
“Do I even wanna know?”
“Don’t give me that look. Of course you do.”
“I’m just saying, you could’ve worded that better.”
The enterprising young lady was a stablehand, and looked nervous at getting a visit from both royals. She must have been hired after Sabin’s time.
“Pardon the intrusion,” said Edgar, “but would you mind explaining what’s in that barrel?”
“Right,” she said, “well,” and then belatedly remembered to curtsey, and even more belatedly remembered she was wearing overalls, and ended up making a confused bow. “For the first couple weeks after we submerged, we were still able to get riders to the surface sometimes to get supplies. But the fruit was… weird. And it got weirder. And it rotted so fast. But we didn’t want it to go to waste, because who knew how long we’d be underground, or how long it’d be safe to keep going out. And we are, or we were, all stocked up to withstand a siege, but it never hurts to stretch the supplies out…”
“Right, I understand.”
She nodded, relaxing a little. “And not knowing when you’d be back, or how much it’d all be worth if we should get a chance to trade in the future - because with the world ending and all, it must be even more rare - well, with all that, we didn’t want to get into the good stuff.”
“The good what?” said Sabin.
Edgar pivoted to Sabin and gestured grandly at the girl and her barrel. “Sabin, our friend here has been making bucket wine.”
She said, “But of course I’ll stop now that you’re back -”
“You’re not in trouble,” said Edgar. “I’m impressed. Do I see some cups on that shelf over there?”
Her eyes were wide. “Uh, Your Majesty, I feel like, if you drink this, I will be in trouble.”
“I’m in,” said Sabin.
The girl looked back and forth between them. Edgar smiled implacably, and by now Sabin, too, was too curious to back out. “All right,” she said, “but I tried to tell you.” She fetched down two chipped stone cups, filled the first one, and handed it to Edgar.
“To invention,” he said, and drank. The girl filled the other cup, and Sabin took it. And then looked over at his brother, whose eyes were beginning to water. “That -” Edgar shuddered. “Okay, you were right, that was vile.”
She looked rueful. “It gets people smashed so they don’t think about what they’re missing. But that’s all it’s designed for.”
Edgar started coughing. Sabin pounded him on the back, until he staggered under the blow. “A little respect, please,” he said, holding up an admonishing hand. “I am your king.” He steadied himself and adjusted the fall of his cape. “Miss, you should be proud of your ingenuity and resourcefulness. You’re destined for better things than wrangling chocobos all day.”
“Unless that’s what you want to do,” said Sabin.
Edgar shot him a considering look, then nodded. “Unless that’s what you want to do. If it isn’t, feel free to talk to the matron on the western wing about a change of scenery.” A deep breath. “That said. Please tell everyone to go ahead and raid the cellar next time. I promise I’ll understand.”
“Next time what? Next time some clown from the Empire breaks the world in half?”
“Uh… hm. Good point. Let’s hope that’s not a trend.”
At this point Sabin realized he’d forgotten to try the drink, so he knocked it back. Edgar and the stablehand turned to stare at him expectantly.
He shrugged. “Not bad.”
“Yes it is,” said the girl, in a horrified whisper. “I made it. I’m no braggart. It’s extremely bad.”
But there was more to do, after that. There was always more to do. Everyone had some pressing issue to tell Edgar about, and the Chancellor could only keep them at bay for so long. Edgar gave Celes a tired, apologetic smile and said, “Don’t wait up for me. We can regroup in Kohlingen.”
Celes said, “It’s fine. I’ll wait.”
Sabin looked at her sidelong. He was getting a little stir-crazy, and he wondered if she was too. But either way she didn’t want to go off alone again, and he understood. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “what about a hunting party? If the food stores are so low. Celes and I have been out there. We can help people figure out what’s safe to eat.”
“Good idea,” Edgar said, and immediately got dragged off somewhere else.
“How about it?” Sabin asked Celes.
“I… wouldn’t count on my foraging abilities.”
“Okay, then I’ll do the hunting and you can scare off anything that wants to hunt us. C’mon, I bet we can recruit some of the guards.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get some fresh air.”
“What passes for fresh.”
Right. She said she’d been asleep for most of the year, recovering from her injuries after the wreck of the Blackjack. She wasn’t used to the new face of the world yet. Sometimes on the chocobo ride up the Serpent Trench she’d gone quiet and stared off into the landscape like it was hurting her. Once Sabin had asked what she was thinking about and she’d said, “I should have stabbed Kefka a lot sooner.”
She was doing better now, most of the time. She was one of those people who liked having goals. At any sign that people were still out there fighting for life, she would wake back up and fight beside them. Sabin listened when she wanted to talk, and didn’t bug her when she didn’t, and that was how friendship worked.
So out they went into the dunes. As a kid Sabin had known how to navigate the desert - although not as much on the Kohlingen side of the mountains, and now the whole world was a different shape, and he hadn’t been a kid in a long time now. “Sorry,” he said, scratching his head under the loose wrap that kept sun and sand from his face, “I’m not gonna be as big a help as I thought.” But with one or two exceptions, the guards were disoriented too, so he didn’t feel so bad.
“I do have one idea,” said Celes, and pulled out a flat case. She’d managed to grab all the magicite when the airship went down. Sabin was glad other people thought of these things. She selected a crystal from the case and began to make the gestures they’d all had to learn, speaking the incantation.
She had a nice voice, even if she didn’t like to be told so, and even if opera was super confusing.
He didn’t figure out what she was going for until she spoke the last two syllables: “Bismarck.” The temperature dropped, and Sabin smelled salt on the air, and an immense shadow passed overhead. Distant burst of whalesong. Sabin turned side-on to the coming wave so that it wouldn’t wash him away.
But the wave didn’t come. It got hot again under the sun, and the smell of the ocean faded away.
Celes said, “That’s what I thought. The air is too dry -”
Sabin pointed to a nearby dune. “Look.” The sand was turning dark and clumpy. The Esper hadn’t been able to bring his usual floods, but he’d drawn up what groundwater he could find.
“Oh.” Celes put the magicite away. “I thought it’d be more dramatic than that.”
“No, the drama is tomorrow. That whole hill’s gonna turn green.” Celes looked at him curiously. “It’s true. There are seeds everywhere in the desert, and roots and stuff. When they get wet, they bloom like crazy for a day, day and a half maybe, and then they dry up and blow away.” He laughed. “Actually, when I went to South Figaro I got confused that the growing season was so long. Flowers everywhere all the time! It’s crazy.”
The guards were already making a beeline for the dune in question, and he nodded after them. “If there was a spring there, maybe there’s stuff to find already. Let’s go check it out. You can watch my back. That summoning thing was pretty smart, y’know.”
“Thanks,” she said after a pause, and followed him down the slope.
One of the guards was setting up snares for any desert animals who might come check out the buffet tomorrow. Sabin saw a few dried-up stalks poking through the sand, and hadn’t Matron made tea with the roots of that plant? So he hunkered down and started digging.
After a while he said, “Can I ask you something?”
Celes, watching the horizon, just nodded.
“When we met Setzer. How did you know about the coin?”
That startled her back into herself. She looked at him. After a moment she said, “Edgar told me.”
“Well, yeah. But why’d he tell you?”
“Who knows why that man does anything?”
When Sabin had first realized the trick, for a heartbeat he hadn’t known whether to give Edgar a hug or suplex him through the nearest of the airship’s many gaming tables. Then he’d thought, Well, they both start the same way, I can decide when I get there, and then he’d had no room in his head for any thought but, I love my idiot brother. Stupid noble selfless jerk.
Back in the present, still digging for edible roots, he told Celes, “You’re a good friend.”
“Huh?”
“I bet you caught him doing something shady and made him spill all his secrets. It’s nice of you not to rat him out, even if it’s me.” He pulled up a handful of tiny, misshapen rhizomes and put them into a sack. “Did he tell you the history?”
“I thought we just established that I’m not a snitch.”
“Is that a ‘yes?’”
She rolled her eyes. “Anything I could say would sound like ‘yes.’ Despite an awful first impression, your brother is my friend. You’re my friend, too, but it’s separate. You don’t get to know everything that goes on in people’s lives.”
He guessed she had a point, but...
He got up and moved to another spot, where another withered stalk stabbed up into the sky. “So what was your first impression of me?” he asked.
“You were…” She frowned in thought. “‘The big one.’”
“Well, you’re not wrong.”
“When I joined up with your little group in Narshe, here’s what immediately happened.” She ticked points off on her fingers. “Locke warned me not to sleep with Edgar. Edgar warned me not to sleep with Locke. Terra also started prying into my love life, for some reason. And Cyan tried to fight me on the spot.” She gave him a half-smile. “I thought, ‘what kind of idiocy have I gotten myself into?’ The only people who weren’t actively annoying me were you and Gau.”
“Big, and not annoying.” He nodded. “I’ll take it!”
“Big, not annoying, not obviously feral.”
“Hey, Gau’s a great kid.”
“I know. And he’s had a hard life. But you have to admit he takes some getting used to.”
Sabin shrugged. “No, not really. He likes animals, and he wants people to listen to him. That’s pretty normal.”
She raised her eyebrows and took a breath. “Well, okay. I was going to say he and I have that in common, but you’ve just totally derailed my argument, so -”
“You’re not hard to get used to, either. You have a lot of stuff going on, but you’re tough, and you try to do the right thing. People can see that about you.”
For a while Celes said nothing, and then, “I swear, you could make friends with a rock.”
“If it’s a nice rock, then why not?”
He and Celes and the guards filed back into the castle as night fell - it had always gotten cold at night, but had the wind gotten sharper since the end of the world, or had he been gone too long to remember it? - and helped put up the supplies they’d gathered. Then they were supposed to explain where they’d found everything to a clerk, who jabbed pins into a map and mumbled about asking the king to authorize a surveying party. Celes was more help with that part. Sabin asked, “Hey, where is Edgar, anyway?”
“He went to the engine room a little after you left. Don’t think he’s been back upstairs since.”
Sabin thought, After doing thief stuff all night and king stuff all day, he’s still working?
But no, that wasn’t quite it. Maybe it was more like this: some people climbed mountains to meditate, and some people went into the basement and thought about hose clamps for four hours.
When he thought about it that way, he had stopped halfway down the stairs, thinking maybe he shouldn’t interrupt after all. But then Edgar had just sort of roped him into the repairs, pointing out possible issues and making Sabin grab stuff for him, and here they were.
“You’re good at this,” Sabin said, at length.
Edgar was smugly returning all the tools to their proper places. Sabin hadn’t even known there was a smug way to do that. “Yes, I am.”
“No, I mean - all of it. Keeping stuff running.” Edgar raised an eyebrow and nodded toward the engine, which was definitely not running. “Like… the kingdom.”
“Oh, that. You just have to know how to delegate.” Maybe that was true. Sabin didn’t know anything about being king - and that was how he’d wanted it. “People did fine without me for a year. More than that, if you start the clock when I ran off with the Returners - the machine runs itself. All I do is preventative maintenance.”
“Well, all I do is karate,” said Sabin. “That doesn’t mean anyone could do it.”
“Point taken.”
“And you’ve already seen all the cool stuff I can do. But I never really understood what you do until now.”
“And now you know how boring it is.” Edgar spread his hands, smiling ironically. “Aren’t you glad you picked the route of punching people?”
“No. Wait, I mean - yeah, I’m glad I’m good at punching. I’m just trying to say… I’m impressed.”
Edgar’s smile faded. “Thank you,” he said, very seriously. “That means a lot coming from a badass like you.” Maybe that part wasn’t serious; Sabin couldn’t always tell. Then he said, “Sabin, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Sabin swallowed. It had always been hard to get anything past Edgar. Was that a twin thing, or an Edgar thing? “It’s been fun hanging out today, right? Even though the world ended and you have things to do.”
“Just like old times,” said Edgar.
“That’s the thing. It’s like old times, but it’s not old times. All these other times happened in between, and we both grew up. And that’s - it’s a little bit weird, don’t you think?”
He had always meant to come back someday. Even when he’d been angriest, at the Empire, at the royal court, he’d planned to come back, once he was strong enough to make a difference, and stand at his brother’s side. He’d thought, Edgar will be king and I’ll go back and protect him. He hadn’t counted on anything changing while he was away. He hadn’t thought of the things he’d miss out on. Edgar had already been king for years. And working with the Returners for years. And who knew what else?
“Hey.” Edgar pointed a finger at him. “You have biceps the size of a human head. Don’t act like you’re the one who was surprised.”
Sabin snorted. “You’re just mad you can’t arm wrestle me anymore. Get over it.”
“That’s not true. Principally, I’m mad you got tall.”
“Vargas broke my collarbone once,” said Sabin, “and one time I got caught in a rockslide. You didn’t know that. And you got hurt messing with the engine once -”
“- more than once,” Edgar said, laughing.
“And I didn’t know about that. Even though everything worked out okay, isn’t that kind of lonely to think about?”
“Don’t worry. If anything really bad had happened to me, there’d be no escaping the news.”
“But -”
“But was I worried about you? Of course.”
Sabin nodded, and squeezed his eyes shut, and swallowed again. “You made the right call, back then. The coin. I’m happy I got to see the world and train with Duncan. I’m happy I had my freedom, and I wouldn’t want to give that up. We’ve had our own lives, and I’m sure that’s for the best. I wouldn’t wanna change it. But - it still kinda sucks that I wasn’t here. I kinda wish I could’ve done both?”
“Man,” said Edgar, after a silence. “If only you had some kind of… twin, or something, who could be places you aren’t and do things you can’t. Imagine.”
“Yeah, how great would that be?”
“Fantastic.”
“He’d probably be really cool and smart.” Sabin smiled and blinked away tears. “And I’d be proud to have a brother like that, and Dad would be proud of both of us.”
“Sabin -” Edgar said, and then, “you dork -” and then, at a loss, expressed his feelings by putting his brother in a headlock.
Sabin submitted, laughing. “Didn’t I break your nose the last time you tried this?” They’d been fourteen or so. Sabin had been smaller then, and had to rely more on the element of surprise. “I should warn you, my skull’s only gotten harder since then!”
“Yeah, but then you cried all afternoon and I turned out more handsome than ever. Do your worst.”
“Are you admitting your face needs more improvement?”
“We still look alike, don’t we?”
Celes appeared at the top of the stairs. “Edgar - wait, what’s going on?”
“Royal business,” said Edgar, briefly looking up from giving Sabin noogies. “Be with you in just a minute.” To Sabin he said, “Take that, you reciprocating piston!” and let him go with a shove.
Sabin stumbled, caught himself, and then looked back. “I don’t know what that is.”
Edgar pretended surprise. “You don’t? What happened to Mr. ‘I Stopped a Train?’”
“By punching it, though.”
“Well,” said Edgar, starting up the stairs, “all you need to know is that I’m really cool and smart.”
They ate dinner in Edgar’s chambers.
“What, no official feast for the returning king?” said Celes.
“I couldn’t do that to the staff,” said Edgar. “There’s no point straining resources just to play pretend that everything is normal. They have enough to deal with.”
Sabin poked him in the ribs. “And you’re too squeamish to eat whatever they have left.”
Edgar said, loftily, “I applaud my people’s creativity.” But he was eating leftover bread that he’d packed from Nikeah.
Sabin coughed the word “wuss” into his fist.
“Say that again, I dare you.”
“What? I coughed.”
Edgar scowled at him, but then turned to Celes, switching on his most polite and agreeable smile. “On the other hand, you’re right, Celes. There’s no reason we have to be so minimalist. An occasion like this calls for - in the words of our resident Master Vintner - ‘the good stuff.’”
Sabin said, “We don’t have a… Oh! You mean chocobo girl?”
“Yes, I -” Edgar broke off, frowning again. “We probably should’ve gotten her name, shouldn’t we?”
“Wait, you mean you didn’t?” Sabin laughed. “Edgar! Are you losing your touch?”
“Shh! Not where people can hear you!” He jerked his head toward Celes, who really didn’t look like she cared. “Anyway, I’ll make do. She’s, uh, let’s see, ‘a valued employee of the Crown.’”
“What’d you call her before? ‘An enterprising young lady?’”
“‘A Knight of the Yellow Plume.’ We’re knighting people now, by the way. For not poisoning me.”
“Seriously, though, it wasn’t that bad.”
A long pause. Edgar gave him one of those thoughtful looks. “I’m glad we’re brothers. Otherwise I might have to be afraid of you.”
“All right,” Celes said, “what am I missing here?”
“Nothing,” said Edgar.
Sabin said, “There was -”
“Nothing,” said Edgar. “Dear brother, would you please go ask whoever’s currently in the kitchen to send up a bottle of the 936 Jidoor red. No - two. And tell them they can open two more for general consumption.”
Celes met Sabin’s eye and nodded, silently saying I’ll ask you later. So Sabin shrugged, and went. On his way downstairs he heard Celes ask, “That’s a rare vintage, isn’t it?”
“Only five bottles left.”
“And you’re opening four.”
“Well, it is the end of the world.”
“If it’s the end of the world, then commit to it and open all five.”
“Ha! And lose my backup plan? Not likely.”
When Sabin came back with the wine (why make a servant carry it, since he was coming here anyway?), Celes had the magicite out on the table. Edgar looked up from poking through them and said, excited, “Did you realize she saved all of them? Our Celes is a gem.” Celes looked pleased, but also confused that she was pleased. Edgar squinted through one of the stones. “I was just thinking, if I could generate negative pressure -”
Sabin set the bottles down on the table between them. “Hey. Stop working.”
Edgar made a sarcastic little bow. “Your Highness.”
Sabin bowed back. “Your Majesty.”
Edgar nodded to Celes. “General.”
“What?”
“It didn’t seem right to leave you out. Now, shall we?” He deftly uncorked one of the bottles and poured three glasses. The wine glittered a deep purple-red in the finest crystal that could survive the castle’s maximum speed. “So what are we toasting?”
Celes said, “You’re asking me?”
“If you hadn’t happened along, I would have been fatally strangled by some kind of tentacled beast in the depths of my engine, and I’m given to understand a building would have fallen on my brother. We’re at your disposal, without reservation.”
Somehow Sabin had never given that much thought. He’d never doubted they’d all find each other again. And since coming back into the castle, his ten years of training loomed so large in memory that he hadn’t considered the year since the Floating Continent. What if those few months with the Returners had been it? What if those two or three visits to the castle had been the last, what if something had gone wrong and after the Blackjack went down he’d just - never seen this place again? Never seen his brother again?
He shouldn’t be put out with the castle residents for glossing over the details of his absence. Hadn’t he been doing the same?
Edgar read the look on his face and gave him a nudge with one elbow. It didn’t happen, that meant. We’re fine.
He was right. He usually was. Sabin nodded. We’re fine.
Celes was either politely ignoring this silent exchange, or had been thinking so hard about the toast that she’d missed it. Finally she raised her glass and said, “The future.”
“The future.” Clink, clink, clink.
Soon after, Edgar and Celes fell to planning out that future - where would they search for the others? What odds Setzer could get them airborne again, if they found him? (“I’m assuming you’ll still know how to push him around,” Edgar said, and if it had been anyone else making it, Celes’s answering expression could have been called a smirk.) What kind of weaponry would they need? Something something infrastructure? Sabin wasn’t really listening by that point. They would sort it all out, and he’d happily come along for the ride. It was bound to be exciting.
It was just being in the castle that made him feel weird, he decided. That was the reason he kept thinking about old days that could never come again, and what if this, and what if that. You could try to live in the moment, but sometimes - some places - the moments stacked up on each other. You’d turn a corner and trip over an evening from fifteen years ago, or an old dream, or a song that people told you your mother used to sing (and you didn’t know enough about Mom to know if that was true, but you always hoped it was).
The trick was not getting stuck in it. The trick was learning to take it all with you. But first, he thought, you really had to look at it.
So here was one last night for looking backward, and then it was time to see what came next. Tomorrow was the future, after all. Tomorrow it was time, with his brother, with all his friends, to start saving the world.
