You don't want to see this, if you did you'd surely disbelieve it.

[gotitmemorised]

The days that followed Axel, Saix and Aerith's return to Rabanastre had been sombre ones.

The news of what had befallen Midgar had spread throughout the world via news channels, both visual and radio, and by here-say and would-be accounts, like wildfire.

The death toll was being counted in untold thousands and, according to most broadcasts, there were no survivors. It was being readily compared to the tragedy of Nabudis that had taken place nearly a decade ago. Aerial photographs and video showed what Midgar looked like in the wake of the disaster in comparison to the earlier pictures of it finally nearing completion.

The damage to the city was extensive. The iconic Plate had collapsed almost completely and fires raged across great portions of what was left. An entire district was still alight, even days after. The telltale pale green glow of burst Mako pipes was visible in some areas and Mist obscured some of the visuals to such an extent that entire sectors were hard to make out. Teams were struggling to get inside the city in order to fully assess the damage. Bancour's division of the Gotei 13, Squad Seven, had been drafted in as an emergency measure and the surrounding areas were on high alert regarding its potential to turn onto a Necrohol. Reports assured viewers and listeners that such a thing had not yet occurred, and may not, but tensions ran high.

Travellers were being advised to steer clear of the entire Centra area as a precaution.

Officials had not yet managed to ascertain the cause or motive behind the attack, if it even was one. Theories regarding the method used for the wiping out of an entire capital city varied almost widely as the reasons. Some theorised that it was accidental -- a chain reaction of Reactor malfunctions. Others were convinced that it was down to eco-terrorism from anti-Mako power groups. That it could possibly be an enemy nation that was responsible was not an uncommon suggestion, either. This last one had thrown the entire political state of Ivalice into turmoil.

As a result, political debates made up a heavy portion of the current programming.

The ambience of even Rabanastre, Dalmasca's usually bright and bustling capital, had been considerably more subdued than it was prior to their departure. Numbers were down in the East End and in the Muthru Bazaar. People were still shopping, but the carefree spark had been, if only temporarily, doused by numb shock.

Comments

[gotitmemorised]

Axel made his way back from the markets with paper bags stuffed full of shopping in his arms. A grocery run, the type of chore he usually considered a necessary evil, was about as close to normality as he was able to get under the circumstances. As such, he'd jumped at the chance to do it, funereal atmosphere be damned.

His apartment, something he managed to afford thanks to him being in the lucrative business of monster-slaying, was spacious enough, but with both Aerith and Saix staying with him for the time being, it was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic. That, and a curious invasion of plant pots had started appearing all over the place. They had sprang up on nearly every flat surface and some uneven ones. Shoots had started sprouting in them, too. He had no idea that they could grow that fast. Then again, they kind of had to. Timcanpy, his Golem, had taken to eating them almost as quickly as they grew.

That alone had caused something of a problem between Aerith and Timcanpy, but the situation hadn't quite escalated to all-out war just yet.

The only refuge from their standoffs, the smell of soil and the odd sensation that the wild was slowly taking over his space was the Sandsea. It was the tavern where the Order made their base and where Saix tended to lurk. Axel knew that he was desperate to go back to Lindblum to check on Vexen, or perhaps beg his forgiveness for accompanying him on his fool's errand, but all transcontinental flights had been grounded as a precaution and Saix, unable to go home, had taken to spending his nights sleeping on his floor and his days in the pub listening to the radio.

The depressing news broadcasts were a constant drone in the Sandsea thanks to the usual music being cut off. They were miserable, a constant dirge of repeated information, slow refreshers as to the situation in Midgar and the political state of the world, with the odd interview from somebody high up in some government or other thrown in to liven things up. Only yesterday a plea for calm from Reeve Tuesti, a Shinra official, had gone out from Junon, the temporary seat of Bancouri governmental power since the disaster. Occasionally, however, an update concerning the state of the temporary Aerodrome closures came up and it was those, he assumed, that Saix was tuning into.

Axel just needed a break from it all. Even one that lasted only as long as it took to pick up groceries.

Axel wasn't present on Spira for the destruction of Nabudis. He barely knew anything about it besides the fact that anywhere with the word 'Necrohol' in its title was not somewhere that travel companies offered package holidays or romantic getaways to. He hadn't had a great deal of time to research every wartime atrocity of the modern age, nor did he have any inclination to do so now. He had only really heard of what happened almost ten years ago in detail since returning to Rabanastre and listening to the news reports. They were kind of hard to avoid. Talk of Midgar, and of its similarity to Nabudis, was on the lips of almost every person he passed that wasn't maintaining a kind of distressed or depressed silence.

He tried to maintain a feeling of indifference at what had happened to Midgar, even though he had been there, but the memories of his own hometown seeped through. Lines blurred.

Aerith's new presence in his apartment didn't help, steady invasion from the soon-to-be-flowers aside. Midgar had been her home. She'd lost everything. Almost everyone she knew, every thing she owned. She could never go home. Axel knew that feeling. Even so, being able to sympathise with her didn't make him feel any better about it. If only they'd had more warning ...

He shook his head to dislodge that thought. There was nothing they could have done. What had happened there, whatever had happened, for whatever reason, had been planned in meticulous detail. Even Xigbar's source of information hadn't been forthcoming with the ins and outs of it, just that it was going to happen.

Axel sighed.

He glanced up at the blue sky that was visible between the tall buildings and squinted against the harsh desert sunlight. Dalmasca's dry season was relentlessly oppressive and that was compounded by the miasma of negative feeling that swirled in every corner of Rabanastre and swept down every street. He turned the corner and made his way home, intending to stow the groceries and then head to the Sandsea to get a nice, cold drink.

Assuming that Aerith and Timcanpy hadn't kicked off World War II in his living room, at least.

[hearstheplanet]

"Bad Timcanpy!" Aerith brandished a rolled up magazine at the little golem.

Rabanastre had been strange for Aerith. It sprawled, and the buildings were so tall, but more than anything, there was the sky above. Aerith still wasn't used to it. She'd grown used to the smell of pollution, and having to work hard to feel the life in the dirt around her, and never seeing the sky. Rabanastre felt overwhelming in comparison. It didn't seem to matter that it was in the middle of the desert, the place felt alive in a way that Midgar never really had, and it was almost scary.

But Rabanastre and Midgar had a few things in common, too. Lately, there was the oppressive atmosphere. The word on the streets, and in the pubs, and in every shop, was 'Midgar'.

Aerith, and Axel, and Saix.... They'd all been there, but they still didn't really know what had happened. The plate had collapsed, but there had been that feeling, that... what was the word Axel used? Icky. That icky feeling, like something horrible had swept through the earth and over it, and sucked the life away.

It was being compared to Nabudis. It felt a little like Nabudis, although Aerith hadn't witnessed that one; only felt it hit the lifestream, and the shockwaves that ran through the planet. And yet it didn't, at the same time. A whole city had been wiped out and yet....

It only felt as though a few hundred had died.

Aerith tried not to think about it. She wasn't sure what it meant.

Instead she focussed her attention on growing flowers, because one of the other things Rabanastre had in common with Midgar was the lack of flowers. There were some plants, here and there, but not many that were just flowers. Aerith wanted to change that, at least a little.

It might help cheer the city up a little, too. It would certainly cheer her up, and help take her mind off things, and Saix and Vexen looked like they could do with a distraction too. But it would help if Timcanpy would stop trying to eat the flowers before they were even properly grown.

"Bad!" She repeated, as if scolding a dog that had cocked its leg against the sofa again.

[goldengolem]

Timcanpy fluttered away when Aerith brandished the newspaper.

He settled a little further away from her, on the back of one of the sofas, his mouth still full of the plant he had just assaulted. He chewed deliberately slowly, as if savouring it, and seemed to fix her in his field of vision, assuming he had one.

He remembered Aerith from before. He liked Aerith. Even so, she would insist on leaving food all over his house.

[gotitmemorised]

Axel groped in his pocket for his house key, bracing his shopping against the doorframe while he searched for it. It looked awkward, but it was a well-rehearsed routine.

The early signs were promising; he couldn't hear anything smashing. That didn't mean that it hadn't all gone down while he was at the market, however. For all he knew, he was walking in to the sight of a just-finished and yet epic battle. He didn't want to consider how much a remembrance plaque for all his stuff might cost.

He found his key and slid it into the door. Once the latch clicked open, he adjusted the hold he had on his groceries and carefully pushed the door open with the toe of his boot, half-worried about what he'd find.

[hearstheplanet]

Aerith pursed her lips, glaring at Timcanpy, resting her hands against her hips as she leaned forward slightly. "You're a very bad Tim," she scolded, "those are not for eating."

It was worse because Tim seemed to be taunting her over it, and she gave a slight huff before whipping forward a quick blat with the newspaper.

[goldengolem]

Timcanpy cringed away from the newspaper as it came at him, making a feeble attempt to scramble away before it came down on him.

He wasn't quick enough.

Instead of flying away victoriously, he crumpled under the force of the smack from the paper, spitting out bits of chewed shoot in the process.

[gotitmemorised]

Axel pushed the door open in time to see Aerith whack Timpanpy. He stood in the open doorway, shopping in his arms, looking extremely unimpressed.

"I can't leave you two kids alone for five minutes, can I?" He said, looking from Aerith to the wibbling gold ball and back again. "I go out, in the desert sun, to go shopping so that we can eat tonight and what do I return to? Fighting."

Of course, it made a change from Timcanpy biting Saix. Saix had this way with animals that never ceased to impress Axel. They hated him and he hated them with equal fervour. For some reason, Timcanpy seemed to think he was an animal under those circumstances. He wasn't sure that even Saix's blue-haired rival from the trip back had drawn as much blood over the course of that battle as Tim tended to when they had a spat.

At least Aerith and Timcanpy got along when he wasn't eating her plants.

"Aerith, stop picking on Tim; it's his house too." He sighed wearily. "Tim, stop eating the weeds. They're not going away."

Ever, by the look of it. There seemed to be more showing up every time he looked away.

[hearstheplanet]

Aerith frowned slightly as she was told off by Axel, but then she folded her arms and pursed her lips at him, too. "They're not weeds, they're flowers," she pointed out. "I'm going to sell them," she eyed Tim, and added, "or I will if they get chance to grow before someone eats them."

She put the newspaper down then and went to relieve Axel of some of his burden. It was a little crowded in Axel's apartment at the moment, but both she and Saix were doing what they could to help. She didn't want to mooch of Axel indefinitely, but it had been a sudden uprooting; she had to start small.

[gotitmemorised]

"Well, whichever." He said, making an attempt to look stern. It was difficult to be annoyed when she was growing them to do something with them, as opposed to just letting them sprout all over the place for the sake of it. That wasn't impossible of course. In Axel's experience, flowers did a lot of sitting around pointlessly and looking a bit pretty.

He handed her one of his bags and scratched his head with his now free hand before he pointed at Tim.

"No more eating the would-be-flowers." He said. "Buuut... we're going to the Sandsea in a little while, so you can look forward to spending some quality time with your best friend, got it memorised?"

He wasn't particularly looking forward to going to the pub, but it would get both him and Aerith out of the apartment without subjecting them, well, her, to the unforgiving glare of the sun.

[goldengolem]

Timcanpy went for the sympathy vote during Axel's admonishment of his behaviour.

He cringed in on himself and looked, for all he had no real face, visibly upset.

This, of course, vanished the moment Axel referenced Saix.

[innatelunacy]

Saix occupied a table in the Sandsea, and had the dubious honour of having it to himself. Other members of the Order had passed through over the course of the day, although only the two that worked there, and Xigbar, had stayed for any length of time.

Xigbar was still there. He'd grouched, briefly, about work being slow on all fronts. Saix had to agree; mark hunts were thin on the ground unless they were local, and the local hunts were taken up quickly. Whatever it was Xigbar did for an income seemed to be suffering, too.

The nature of what had happened at Midgar was still unknown. The radio still spouted theories, talking heads and pundits, and quotes from government agencies all voicing the same basic message, which as far as Saix could determine consisted of 'we don't know what the hell happened'.

Saix had been there. He didn't know what the hell had happened, but he'd done an extremely good job of not thinking about. He was doing a less successful job of not thinking about how thoroughly livid Vexen must be with him. He'd dreaded facing Vexen again since he'd set foot in Midgar, and this stay of execution was, if anything, making it all worse.

He was halfway through his current drink, and Xigbar had bought it for him; he'd actually paid, too, which made Saix wonder what Xigbar was buttering him up for. Or perhaps it was Demyx whose good side Xigbar wanted to stay on for the time being; it was hard to tell. Saix had little interest in Xigbar's company. The main reason he came to the Sandsea was because it was air conditioned, and away from Axel's apartment. Though, small as it may be, Axel's was an improvement on Xigbar's, where he'd stayed the last time he and Vexen had fallen out like this.

[gotitmemorised]

Axel hadn't hung around the apartment for too long after he and Aerith had finished putting the shopping away. There wasn't much to do there. Axel didn't own a television - they were rather out of his price range and, even if that wasn't the case, the signal for decent reception was extremely variable and depended entirely on Mist direction and concentration in any area at any given time - and he hadn't bothered switching on the wireless. He could deal with it at the Sandsea, or in the shops he went to, or even broadcast over the speakers around the market, but not at home.

Not unless Saix wanted to listen in to it, and he wasn't there.

It didn't help that any extended period of conversational lull threatened to edge into 'So, how are you finding Rabanastre?' territory. That wasn't a subject that Axel was entirely certain he wanted to broach just yet. He just wasn't sure that he wanted to see Aerith put on a brave face about her home being utterly destroyed. It was easy to try and pretend that her stay in Rabanastre was a holiday, a little getaway from the under-Plate, but it wasn't. It was permanent. She could never go home.

So the Sandsea it was. The walk was hot, as usual. He was used to the relentless sunlight beating down on the unshaded streets through regular exposure over the last few months, but Aerith wasn't. Sure, Midgar was hot, but it was a different kind of heat. The dry desert heat was as different to Midgar's humid, muggy and stuffy no-airflow heat as city summers were from coastal ones. It was a good thing that the Sandsea was air conditioned.

Axel pushed the door open for Aerith and stood back so that she could go in ahead of him.

"After you," he said with a smile.

He could already hear the oh-so-familiar drone of a crisis update filtering out through the open door.

[goldengolem]

Timpcanpy rode on Axel's shoulder for the duration of the trip, gripping his clothing with his tiny fingers as the two of them walked. Sometimes he flew, but it was all too easy for him to be pinged out of the air by an inattentive shopper, a laden tradesman or somebody in a hurry.

That, and it gave his wings ample rest. He would need them to be fresh and free of tiredness if he was going to reliably avoid the retaliatory swats of his old adversary.

He fluttered up and off Axel while he held the door open for Aerith and settled on her head as she walked through.

[hearstheplanet]

Aerith smiled and thanked Axel as she headed into the Sandsea. Rabanastre's weather was going to take a while for her to get used to. The sun, and being surrounded by open blue skies was going to take a while to get used to. It was still a little scary, sometimes, but she dealt with it, and didn't complain.

She paused when she felt Tim settle on her hair, looking upwards in his general direction as she asked, "Oh, does this mean we're friends again?" She had blatted Tim with a rolled up newspaper, after all.

She smiled as she entered the pub proper, relieved to feel the distinct change in the air from desert heat to cool indoors. Saix wasn't hard to spot, once she was inside and out of the sun's glare. She waved at him, cheerily, as she made her way over.

[innatelunacy]

Saix looked up as Aerith and Axel entered, acknowledging their presence with a silent nod of his head. He didn't wave back; he wasn't the type, but there was a visible effort not to appear as if he was ignoring them.

At least he didn't look like he'd been hitting the drink, jokes aside.

A faint scowl flickered across his face, however, as he spotted the wings of Timcanpy above Aerith's hair, and he eyed the spot where the little golden troublemaker sat as if he was waiting for the inevitable.

[goldengolem]

Timcanpy stayed where he was for the time being. In fact, he pointedly ignored Saix even to the point of turning his back on him. He settled into Aerith's hair as though sleepy and folded his wings with an all-too-innocent air of indifference.

[gotitmemorised]

Axel elected to be a gentleman and, as such, he headed to the bar to get the three of them a drink. He was parched, he had no doubt that Aerith was too, and Saix looked like he needed cheering up. If his face got any longer, they'd be able to fit him with a bridle.

Axel saw that it was Demyx, and not Crystal, that was on bar duty today. Good. That meant that he was definitely going to be the prime target for Aerith's plan of roping him into flower-selling. He wouldn't mention it to him. That was Aerith's job. Instead, he intended to make small talk while Aerith got settled with Saix.

He, at least, knew what the other two would have by that point.

"Hey," he said with a nod to Demyx, and one to Xigbar, the local bar prop and de-facto leader of the Order. "The usual for me and Saix, Aerith'll have a Landisian rum and coke if you've got it. If not ... go with that new Balfonheim one."

[princeofawesome]

Demyx waved as a few of his favourite regulars walked in, and grinned when Axel approached the bar. At last, something to distract him from the news station that the owner insisted on having on the radio.

"...we can assure the people of Bancour, and of Valendia at large, that the rumours concerning PSICOM's involvement at Midgar, and by extension that of the Archadian Empire, have absolutely no basis in fact..."

Yeah, he was pretty glad that they'd finally turned up. Radio aside, Saix had been looking undeniably surly since he'd come in, and something about Saix being grumpy always set Demyx's teeth on edge. Maybe it was the berserker thing. He had never associated Saix in a bad mood with anything good, anyway.

Still, at least he hadn't been out annihilating the local wildlife and bringing in bits of mutilated monster before heading to the market. That was always a good thing. He hated having to be the one who mopped bits of grotty creature drippings off the floor.

"What's up, Axel?" He said, looking rather bright as he talked over the news report. "Two pints of the usual and ... we're all out of Landisian - you know what deliveries are like right now - so I'll go with the Balfonheim Gold Label."

He turned to fill the order and left Axel to chat with Xigbar while he waited for him. The behind-bar radio crackled as he crossed the floor in front of it, giving the woman who was speaking a temporarily gritty quality to her decidedly icy voice.

[innatelunacy]

Saix was unconvinced by Timcanpy's acting ability, but he turned his attention away from Axel's partner in crime to nod faintly at Aerith as she took a seat across the table from him.

"Did you have to bring that thing with you?" He asked, slightly gruffly. He was coping amazingly well with sleeping on some cushions on the floor, and bore it with good grace since no one had made any dog related comments about his sleeping arrangements as yet, but he did get slightly tetchy at being woken up by Timcanpy. Tim could bite through steel; Saix's ears hadn't put up anywhere near as much resistance.

[hearstheplanet]

Aerith smiled at Saix, as sweetly as she could physically manage. "He comes on his own," she told him, being firmly of the opinion that Timcanpy was cute, no matter how much trouble he was, and enjoyed being. "I think he likes you."

[notjustanyolddude]

Xigbar sucked on his bottle of beer, watching Demyx out of one hawkish eye before he turned the full force of his affable gittishness on Axel.

"Gotta be getting cramped at your place," he commented, conversationally, leaning against the bar with one elbow. "Especially sharing it with a chick, and a berserker; I don't envy you if their cycles synch up." He cracked a crooked grin at the thought. They all knew what Saix could be like when he was pent up for any length of time anyway, and with the current Vexen situation....

Well, it was no wonder Saix was looking like someone had told him no bicciebones, ever.

Axel, however, seemed to be in his element, so to speak. Surrounded by his little friends, able to do his own thing with them. Yeah, there was a part of the kid that was enjoying it.

[goldengolem]

Aerith was right; Timcanpy did like Saix.

He thought he tasted just fine, really.

Timcanpy casually hopped down from Aerith's head and sat on the table in front of Saix. He was out of smacking range and was, for the time being, totally innocent.

Even so, there was something contemptuous in the 'look' he was giving him ...

[gotitmemorised]

Axel nodded at the pre-approved amendment to his drink order and turned to Xigbar when he addressed him, widening his eyes at his comment about cycles. Well, that was a rather scary concept. He could take Saix being grouchy, and Aerith being ... tetchy, but if they got like that together? He'd rather sleep on Xigbar's floor.

"Tell me about it," he said, half amused, half terrified. "Slow day?"

The Sandsea itself didn't seem as busy as it had the potential to be. Axel had seen days when the whole place was heaving and it was, quite literally, standing room only. In fairness, those did tend to be Blitzball days, but it was still a far cry from how it was today.

[princeofawesome]

Demyx got Axel's drink order, half listening to Xigbar and half to the radio. He had no interest in politics, but it did pay to keep an ear to the ground about certain things and, well, it wasn't uncommon for barstaff to be treated like information sources.

Demyx had no issue taking a slightly better tip in exchange for imparting some interesting info on hunts and unusual or suspicious people he'd seen milling about. What people wanted to know at the moment, particularly travellers and roving hunters, was whether anything big and juicy had been seen in the Centra region, and whether there were any rewards going if there had. The Mark boards were blank, but that didn't mean that undeclared, or totally open Hunts weren't available to those who knew where to look.

As it was, nothing was being said. Instead, interviews with important people continued on and off, each with assurances of some kind or another.

"...furthermore, we are fully supportive of the decision to send groups of Seated members of Divisions Five and Twelve in to aid in the effort to keep the Midgar area safe from a potentially dangerous influx of ..."

Meh. Perhaps things would pick up soon.

[innatelunacy]

Saix regarded Timcanpy with a sour look. He was waiting for Axel's pet to do something, which Timcanpy clearly seemed to have planned. Saix picked his glass up and took a long drink, keeping a narrowed eye on Tim as he did so.

He put his glass down again, and told Aerith, simply, "If that's how you interpret liking someone, I don't wish to be your enemy."