NaNo2014 day 26

[shamera]

There were no results from the Guardian Corps’ hunt for the kidnappers, although nearly a week after the kidnapping yielded a different set of results.

“You going to stand there gawking all day?” Fang teased as she leaned against the threshold of the door. Hope opened the door the rest of the way quickly after that, even as Serah popped her head from the kitchen to call out a quick greeting.

“I didn’t know you were coming over today.” Hope told her. “Is Sazh here, too?”

“Nah.” Fang breezed by him, stopping only momentarily to ruffle his hair before settling down on the worn couch, saluting Serah in greeting. “Lunchtime, is it?”

“Just about.” Serah confirmed. “I can add you in if I give Hope just a normal person’s share for once.”

“Hey.” Hope protested, frowning. He crossed his arms. “I don’t eat that much.”

“You didn’t.” Serah agreed cheerfully. “You ate too little before! But maybe it’s a growth spurt. You’re supposed to eat enough for three people at your age, Hope. Don’t be embarrassed by it.”

“I’m not above taking food from children.” Fang agreed. “Lunch sounds great.”

“And I’m not a child.”

“Who’s not?” Noel asked, having just walked into the conversation from the shower, his hair still wet and dripping down on the towel atop his shirt. A raised an arm in greeting for Fang, and made his way to the kitchen. “Is that lunch?”

“The child who insists he’s not a child.” Fang answered him, grinning. “And apparently that’s my lunch now. Serah offered, I’m gladly accepting.”

“Not all of it.” Serah amended for Noel. She gave Fang a mock glare, waving a spatula. “We’ve got growing boys here. Can’t leave them emptied stomached.”

“Tough for them.” Fang quipped back. “They’ll just have to learn to provide their own food, then. What is the saying here… something about the guest always being right? Well, in this case, I’m the guest. Or whoever’s in the right.”

“I can help with that.” Noel offered, pulling out another pan from the lower cupboards, entirely unaffected by the idea of having his lunch stolen or being called a ‘growing boy’. “Do we have extra eggs?”

“I pulled the carton from the fridge, it should be on the table.” Serah said.

“I should just head home.” Hope declared aloud to himself. “It’d probably be quieter there.”

“Aww, and the pipsqueak speaks.” Fang teased, throwing an arm across the back of the couch and grinning at him. “Or is the little mouse trying to make his escape?”

“Oh, he’s just not used to people around who’s actually talking about things other than him.” Serah teased. She pulled out a plate and cleared the contents of her pan onto the plate, not bothering to look behind her as she called out, “Did you know he’s been talking with some of the smartest minds on Cocoon? We’ve had — chemists, engineers, mechanics, and even one historian who has come all the way down here to talk to him in the last four days.”

“There was an artist, too.” Noel added, snagging one of the tomatoes.

“Yes, there was that artist as well— Noel, what are you even making?”

“Err… egg sandwiches?”

“I’m already making lunch for everyone!”

“You don’t say,” Fang drawled out, quirking a grin at Hope, who had given up entirely and just plopped himself at the small dining table, figuring that he might as well position himself to get food first before it was stolen from under his nose. “That popular, eh?”

“I’m just trying to keep busy.” Hope answered with a shrug, turning pleading eyes to Noel for one of the sandwiches as well. The older teen grinned at him, dancing around Serah as she protested about the space being her kitchen and how he was undermining her skill at gauging just how much food was needed. “There’s a lot to do.”

“I’ll say.” Fang agreed, and then pushed herself from the couch. “C’mon. Let’s take this lunch to-go, then. I’ve a quick project to show you all after a bite to eat. Good timing, too. I’m starved.”

“Want a sandwich too, Fang?” Noel asked, getting to the loaf of bread. Serah made a loud protesting noise behind him.

“Sure thing.” Fang agreed. “Let’s see what you’re made of in the cooking department.”

It was another five minutes before they all agreed that they would finish Serah’s meal first and take Noel’s sandwiches to go with them, and the four of them settled down at the tiny dining table, dragging chairs out of bedrooms in order to fit. Despite Fang’s initial claims at taking Hope’s food, she instead spared some for him off of her plate, laughing at his expression.

“That’s a promise you need to keep to the rest of us about growing up.” Fang told him. “Can’t prove Serah wrong now, can we? We wouldn’t want you to stay this short forever… well, Vanille might. You’d have to eat in order to dash her dreams about you being the shortest of the group for now. Better get all that in you, too, or else Dajh might overtake you soon.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Serah agreed with a smile. “You haven’t seen Dajh in a few weeks, have you, Hope? He’s gotten really tall! He almost reaches my shoulders now.”

“Now, let’s not get too hasty about that.” Fang told her. “That’s mostly his hair that’s adding to his height.”

“He might have gotten even taller since I left.” Serah continued. “I can’t believe how fast he’s growing up.”

“You’ve been gone four days.” Noel told her. “How could he have grown enough in four days for you to notice?”

“He could have!” Serah protested.

The conversation continued, light-hearted, through lunch and even after Fang hustled the rest of them out of the tiny apartment, shaking her head when Hope asked if he should head up to his own place and get anything he might need.

“No need.” Fang said. “We shouldn’t take long.”

“But where are we going?” Hope asked.

Fang only grinned at him and didn’t answer, instead bringing a finger up to her lips to indicate her own silence on the matter. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“No if and buts about it.” The woman claimed, dropping a hand to press heavily atop his head. “It’s a surprise. You’ll like it, I promise.”

They headed outside of the settlement, until the streets were nothing but dirt roads trampled smooth next to bushes and trees. It took several minutes to navigate through the small forested area until they were at a rock ledge, and finally at a place that looked vaguely familiar.

“Here we are,” Fang stated, bringing a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun even as she whistled appreciatively. “We’ll have to make a path here. That took longer than I thought it would.”

“What is it?” Serah asked from behind them. “Why are we here?”

Hope looked up from where he had taken a short breather, and his eyes widened in recognition. “Is that—?”

There was a slightly glow to the stone before them, distinctive next to the dull rocks. But that wasn’t the only thing different about it, as the stone was smoothed and carved into the image of a woman on one side, levitating slightly as it bobbed in the air, emitting a feeling of power that Hope could feel tingling against his skin.

“That’s right.” Fang agreed, nodding somberly this time. “That’s how I got here so quickly. There’s quite a few set up around these parts. Figured I’d make use of my time and find where they were. Worst comes to worst, move them before other people start getting ideas about these things.”

Noel stepped up carefully from where he had been walking with Serah, coming up closer to examine the statue. “It feels… off. Powerful. But sad, somehow.”

“They’re Cie’th Stones.” Hope explained quietly, fingers tangling in the strap of his shoulder bag. “This is what happens to Cie’th who survive for too long. Their regrets just… eat them up and then them into this.”

Superficially, it looked a more pleasant outcome than turning Cie’th, especially since the stone was smooth and beautiful rather than shambling and violent, but there was something about the sadness it emitted that felt so much worse than the rage and grief that Cie’th normally generated.

It could have been us, Hope remembered. Snow had said something to that likeness, arguing for why they should try their best to help the Cie’th Stones on their journey. If they failed their Focus, became Cie’th, and then survived being monsters for long enough… they could have turned into something like this, made up entirely of sorrows and regrets when even the rage faded thanks to the years.

“Yeah.” He breathed out, and then cleared the thickness from this throat. He had done something similar the first time around, but it wasn’t something he thought about again after that. He had completely forgotten to cover it in this timeline. The first time, there had been very little he could do other than write a decree into the Academy rules that the Cie’th Stones be left alone, or gathered if the land around them was needed. They were not to be harmed or broken in any way. “I— that’s a good idea.”

“But not only that,” And here Fang’s enthusiasm returned. “They still respond to us, see? Guess we’re still two peas of a pod and all that. Sure, some of them had Focuses that could only be completed by l’Cie, but some of them had some relatively normal things as well. Kill a few monsters? I figured I’d do that, now that I have time on my hands.”

She stepped right up to the stone, and reached her hand out to press against the cold stone, smile turning wistful. “Might as well put a few of them to rest. Turned out to be a good thing, too! They’re still used as teleport stones, see? Means it won’t take so long to get from New Bodhum to here anymore.”

“Wait,” Hope protested, startling. “You mean they work?”

“Sure thing.” Fang agreed, and turned back to face them. “I’d say they recognize us, too. But there’s a few things I want to test. See if we can get others to use this. And I’ve got three perfectly fine test subjects right here, don’t I? Hope was a Pulse l’Cie who also completed the Focus for plenty of Cie’th Stones. Serah was a Pulse l’Cie, even if she never encountered them before. And then we’ve got Noel here, who’s your every day magic user.”

The three gave each other uneasy looks, but Hope stepped up the Cie’th Stone as well. “Okay. I mean, if this works, it’ll take us all to New Bodhum, right? And we’d be able to get back here before nightfall, too.”

“Sure thing.” Fang told him. “Solved your transportation problem for you.”

—

Vanille greeted them on the other side, dressed warmly in the snow that persisted in New Bodhum. Dajh was building a snowman just a few feet away from her, and Sazh was huddled up next to a small campfire, pushing his hands as close to the fire as possible without burning himself.

The sensation of teleportation was as strange as ever, like all his molecules had been lifted up and taken away one at a time, or a weightlessness that made him feel like nothing and far too heavy all at once. Hope breathed out a breath of relief as he opened his eyes to see the mountains near New Bodhum, and hear Serah’s gasp behind him. Noel’s landing was much quieter, but even he seemed to draw an audible breath.

“And my theory works.” Fang boasted in front of them. “See, Vanille? No limbs missing. Said I’d get them here in one piece, didn’t I?”

“You did!” Vanille agreed enthusiastically, already wrapping her arms around Hope’s shoulders and leaning to greet Serah at the same time. “It works!”

“You mean you didn’t know if it would?” Noel’s tone was aghast.

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist.” Fang brushed the words aside. “I just wanted to make sure. Me and Vanille have done it plenty of times, but we also took down some of those monsters together, so she’d be in the same boat as me. We needed to get some different people to test it, you know? Sazh did a trip as well, but he also came and helped out from time to time. And, well, we’re not going to send Dajh through.”

“That’s right,” Sazh murmured from where he was sitting by the fire. “He’s not going to be one of your tests.”

“Not until I turn thirteen!” Dajh shouted from where he was still working on pushing the snow into a ball on the side, waving enthusiastically at them. “That’s what daddy said!”

“That’s what he pushed me to say,” Sazh admitted glumly. “If I had my way, he’d never be a part of this.”

“Can’t help that he’s already involved.” Fang told him. “Besides, we don’t want him to feel too left out now.”

“This is amazing.” Serah’s toned was awed, although her arms were wrapped around herself at the sudden temperature change. The settlement had been much warmer, and they were all were all dressed for that temperature rather than the ankle deep snow that now surrounded them. She was staring at the Cie’th stone on this side in awe, her breath crystallizing around her. “Does this work for everyone?”

“Not that we know of.” Vanille told her. She smiled. “A few people offered to help us test it, but mostly they just didn’t want to come close to the stone. Said it made them feel strange, and not in a good way. And even when they were close enough, they got no reaction. Didn’t know what to do.”

Hope felt the nagging suspicion in his gut intensify. “So it only responds to magic-users?”

“Magic users and former l’Cie.” Fang corrected him. She had her hands on her hips, looking rather smug. “Which we happen to fall into.”

“Maybe.” Hope admitted, biting down on his bottom lip in thought. He stared up at the stone, and then shook his head. It wasn’t a theory ready to be shared yet, but he felt that it wasn’t something he should keep to himself, either. He had been practicing in the past four days, even though he had yet to meet any success so far.

“You look like you’ve got a thought there.” Sazh told him. The man patted the space next to him on the log. “Why don’t you warm yourself to get your brain going? I should have brought food as well…”

“Uhh.” Noel finally spoke up, tugging at the bag he was carrying. “I brought sandwiches? We’d have to share them now, though…”

“Yay, sandwiches!” Dajh called out, abandoning his snowman to stumble over to where they were.”

“See?” Fang grinned at Serah. “Good thing the kid came prepared, isn’t it?”

—

“I have a theory,” Hope explained as they all sat in a circle around the fire, sharing the egg sandwiches that Serah was patiently cutting into half so that everyone could have one, and then giving Dajh an extra half. “I don’t think we lost our magic just because we lost our l’Cie brands.”

Sazh didn’t look convinced. “Can’t say I follow, there.”

“Well,” Hope tried to elaborate, picking slightly at his half of a sandwich. “I know it sounds strange. I mean, none of us have been able to cast after the Fall, right? Except for Serah, at least. So we all assume that some people can do magic and some can’t, and that when we lost our brands, we were just some of the people who couldn’t. If we could, wouldn’t we have been able to to cast already? We should know how to, since we’ve had the practice.”

He paused, thinking upon his words. “But what if… what if the practice we received while we were l’Cie is the reason we’re having so much trouble with magic? Because we trained it to work in the way l’Cie magic works, so now when we think magic, we automatically reach for it the way a l’Cie would… except we’re not l’Cie anymore. And when we can’t reach it, we just think it’s not there.”

He turned his attention to Serah. “How do you cast magic, Serah?”

The pink-haired woman floundered for a moment as all eyes turned to her. “Huh? Well, um. I guess I just do. I feel it, and I cast.”

“That sounds a lot like how we used to do it.” Vanille said, looking speculative. “We always just knew what to do.”

“But what if it’s different?” Hope insisted. “Breathing is something we just do. And since we grew up speaking, talking is another thing that we just do. It’s hard to describe both actions to someone who can’t breathe and speak, but they both use air. We use our lungs, and we push out air with both actions. But one action is just a breath, while the other is creating words. If we learned magic like learning to breathe, then we’d never think of speaking as a way of casting, even it it’s just as instinctive.”

Because why else would children be exhibiting signs of magic? It could be argued that it was because children were more susceptible to magic… had been argued, in fact, but Hope was starting to suspect another cause.

“People who use manadrives don’t develop magic, either.” Hope realized. “Is it because they also expect magic to feel a certain way?”

Now Sazh was starting to look speculative as well. “Might be. I’ve worked one of those things before. Always felt a little weird. Different than l’Cie magic, that’s for sure.”

“Then it might be a third method.” Hope theorized. He nodded. “It’s not really magic, but manadrives are made to imitate how magic works. In a way, it has be to instinctual to the person using it as well, so there could just be a way of drawing magic that people don’t know about.”

“Oh, Hope.” Vanille curled her legs up in front of the fire, sandwich forgotten on her lap as she looked at him with wide green eyes, gaze worried. “What if that’s not true, though? I couldn’t feel it in the future, either. Neither could Sazh, or Fang. It could just be that some people are good at magic and some aren’t.”

“I don’t believe that.” Hope insisted, curling his hands around his uneaten sandwich. “I don’t.”

“And he really shouldn’t.” Noel agreed with him, drawing the group’s attention. “‘Cause he might be right, you know. If you learn to do something a certain way, it’s hard to unlearn that. Grip a sword the wrong way from the beginning, and you’d have to train extra hard to remember to grip your sword another way, a way that’s actually correct. But you can still do it. It takes more effort, but it’s nowhere near impossible.”

“Noel…” Serah sounded uncertain.

“Besides,” Noel continued, nodding in Hope’s direction. “He says it can be done, then it can be done. Right? Hope’s done plenty of impossible things before. If he says it works, it’s probably because he managed to pull it off.”

At that, all eyes turned to him, and Hope flushed, feeling his ears warm at the expectant gazes. “I, um…”

“Something you forgot to tell us, kid?” Fang asked, quirking an eyebrow. “This one here seems awful sure you’re right about this.”

“Hope?” Vanille asked quietly.

Hope looked at them, and then nodded to himself. “I think… I think I managed to cast. Last week, during that night. I don’t know how it happened, and I haven’t been able to do it again, so it may have been — it could have been the circumstance or something else, but I’m fairly certain that we retained the ability.”

“You casted magic?” Sazh asked, but then smothered his surprised. “That’s not hard to believe. You could be one of the people who can.”

“But I’m not.” Hope was certain of that. If he had been one of the few capable of magic, or at least capable like the children who could so easily set fire to tents, then he would have manifested the ability in the past timeline. Hope tried desperately through the years to regain his magic at times, and it never worked. But then again, he had been perfectly safe in the previous timeline, and eventually convinced himself to stop trying because it obviously wasn’t going to work. He wondered if that was what killed the last spark — his acceptance of failure. “At least, I wasn’t before. Maybe something changed. But if it changed for me, it might have changed for all of you, too.”

He wished that Lightning was here so that he could confirm the idea with her. Whatever she experienced in the future, she hadn’t shared with him, but maybe she retained her magic as well. Maybe she hadn’t.

“Well.” Fang straightened up, stretching her arms. She had long since finished her food, and she rested a hand gently on top of Vanille’s head. “Can’t hurt to give it a try. If he’s right, we get our magic back. If he’s not, we stay just as we are right now.”

Vanille smiled slowly up at her. “I guess you’re right.”

“So now what?” Sazh asked. “If we can’t figure out how to access our magic ourselves, then how are we supposed to figure out if this wild theory is true or not?”

“Now…” Hope paused. He hadn’t figured to bring it up today, and thus hadn’t completely constructed his plan yet. But if this wasn’t the best time to talk it over with the others, he didn’t know what was. “I guess I wanted to ask Serah and Noel for help on that.”

“Us?” Serah squeaked out, bringing a hand up to her mouth.

“Sure.” Noel supplied, and then nudged Serah with his elbow. “You’re a teacher, Serah. Now you’ve just got a whole new group of people to teach.”

“That’s a great idea!” Vanille clapped her hands together, smiling widely. “I’ve seen Serah in action before— she’s a great teacher!”

The others murmured their approvals, including Dajh who raised both arms and cheered for her with his mouth full of egg sandwich. The pink-haired woman didn’t look very confident about it, but smile nevertheless. “...I suppose so. But we’re going to do this, then we’ll have to set down some rules. And I get to decide what goes on. That means nothing dangerous without my supervision, and I get to decide what ‘dangerous’ means.”

Sazh mocked shuddered, wrapping his arms around himself as he leaned in closer to Vanille and stage whispered, “We’ll now we’re all doomed.”

Vanille laughed loudly at that, and even Dajh piped up with, “Miss Farron can be really strict, you know! She’s going to be harder than all your other teachers combined!”

“Oh, I believe it.” Fang teased the young boy even as Sazh tried to explain to his son that it was true mostly because the rest of them had no other teachers.

“Alright, then.” Serah clasped her hands together in front of herself, looking determined. “Give me a week and I’ll come up with some lessons plans. Let’s see if we can tackle the whole magic issue yet.”

There were murmurs of approval before the group split up again, this time using the Cie’th Stones to get to their different homes.