Some legends are told...

[raindownhell]

Aerith had been right; it wasn't a quick journey back.

Lea's route, achieved by pressing further into what Fang came to know as the Bancouri border-desert and then backtracking along the river was, indeed, longwinded. It was also safer, that much was clear. Ignoring the infrequent swells and waterholes along the route, the number of monsters was greatly diminished from what they could see roaming in the distance. Smaller plate wyrms, wyverns and helms could very occasionally be seen beyond a haze of wind-thrown sand, all species better left alone.

Desert monsters were typically large reptiles, creatures that didn't crave water like mammals did, or smaller pack hunters who got most of their water from their kills and seldom visited the riverside except to hunt at waterholes. The waterholes, while more dangerous than the fast-moving river, were still something of a boon, for they often saw small herds of prey animals, or larger lone monsters, which were of as much interest to them in terms of food as they were the other creatures that hunted there.

Mercifully, the waterside hunters weren't too dangerous. Weird gators with false, hinged faces had come as a surprise to Fang, but the one foolish enough to pick a fight with her was easily dispatched with a spearpoint to the soft, unarmoured flesh beneath. Gigantoads, though slow, were better skirted around. Unlike the gator, they were not edible. Their poisonous skin saw to that.

The long journey didn't bother her, at least. She'd been on the road for longer getting from where she had started to the Chocobo Eater and travelling with a supply of fresh, flowing water was much more preferable to stopping and filling up heavy waterskins every few miles. It helped that the river allowed them to wash the sand, if not the chocobo, away from them more regularly.

The company wasn't bad, either. She wasn't sure they were hardened Hunters like she was, she couldn't shake that feeling, but if they had only recently picked it up as a job, they were learning remarkably quickly. Where she was from, Hunting was a lifestyle, not a job, something you took to from a very young age to build up your strength and stamina. It wasn't the case here. It was lucrative, apparently, but still something you could just elect to take on or give up as you pleased. She felt fortunate to have joined up with a trio with formidable fighting and healing skills, nonetheless.

Abilities aside, it helped that they also weren't bad people. Lea was more social than Saix, and Aerith was more levelheaded and friendly than both of them, for all Saix attempted to look like a voice of reason for the group. All three had one thing in common. They were odd. The boys were very powerful fighters, but the way they handled themselves, and their weapons, and their elements, just didn't feel normal, not when they seemed almost naive about certain aspects of Chakra manipulation while using it in odd ways otherwise. Something told her that they just weren't normal for the world. Being displaced by centuries didn't make her feel any differently about it. Aerith was just different. Absurdly good at healing, that was for certain, and very in tune with the natural world.

She had a feeling that they probably felt the same about her. Even though they were definitely strange, they knew more about the world than she did. The collapsed city had been her tell, she was sure of it.

As she thought about it, she hardly noticed the warmth gradually leaving the air. Night was falling. Travelling at night would probably have been easier on them all, especially the chocobos, but sleeping in the heat of the day wasn't a viable option. It was time to find somewhere to set up camp.

Comments

[innatelunacy]

Saix murmured in response to Lea's contribution to the conversation. He hesitated for a moment, deciding whether to explain about Radiant Garden, and what had happened to it, but that was a conversation Saix didn't feel like getting into right now. Maybe some other time he'd be able to talk about their past with someone other than Lea, but here and now it felt a little raw to be exposing to a stranger, as companionable as she was.

"We arrived on this world a couple of years ago," he said, instead. "It was a while before we found each other again, and in the meantime we had to learn about this world, quickly." This part of the explanation came more easily, at least, and Saix seemed more relaxed as he elaborated. "Everything here is different for us; chakra, reiatsu, the wildlife, the class system for fighting, we've had to learn all of it from the beginning, and quickly. There are those who would hunt us if they knew of our existence, and those who do know of us and seek to profit from it."

Lea had told of his own encounters with the latter when they'd first been reunited, bitter and angry as the explanation had been at the time.

[gotitmemorised]

"We try to blend in," Lea said, giving a bit of a shrug. "But it's not easy. There's a lot of seemingly insignificant stuff that we're unaware of that people can pick up on if we're not careful."

Idioms, common sayings, well-known bits of history, even any knowledge of the pop culture of the past thirty years that had seeped into the consciousness of the natives, much of it was lost on them. Organization XIII had been different. They hadn't tried to mingle with the people of the worlds they'd visited. Here, they had to survive in amongst the natives, and even not knowing some famous single that came out ten years ago and took the world by storm set them apart from everyone else.

"And that's not taking into account that we fight differently to everyone else," he said.

Being here was like learning another language. Even if you learned all the formal stuff, there was so much slang and casual nonsense that you'd struggle to blend in even if you attained technical fluency. The unspoken was easier, but not perfect. It almost the same, but not quite. A jerk of the head could as easily be an invitation to settle your differences outside as a request to repeat something you had said. It was getting easier, but it was by no means perfect.

[raindownhell]

"I think I'll get a fair bit of that myself when I get to the city," Fang said, running her fingers through her hair to push it out of her eyes.

So the boys were from another world entirely. That was not a new concept to her, but the terms were different. She decided to mention that later, when it made sense in the context of her homeland. Aerith... wasn't included among the "ryoka", then.

"So what about you?" She asked, turning her attention to the party's mild-mannered healer. "You seem more normal than those two, but there's still something odd about you."

Something odd, yes, but in a familiar, normal way. A way she could recognise, if not quite put her finger on.

[hearstheplanet]

Aerith looked at Fang with a bright smile, "Oh, I'm native all right," she said, cheerily. "I'm also the last of my kind," she said, more softly, her bright smile fading to become a sadder one. "I'm the last of the Cetra. The Ancients, people call them. My birth mother died when I was young, and she was the last pure Cetra, and I'm the last one left with the abilities of the Cetra."

And when she was gone, there'd be no one left.

She looked up at the night sky, with the moon and the glittering stars spattered across the darkness and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I can hear the voice of the planet," she said. "I can feel it calling me, like the sky is trying to suck me in, and I can hear the others in the lifestream, the ones that haven't completely merged with it yet." She frowned, biting her lip as she looked down. "Not everyone that dies joins the lifestream; some become Hollows, or Unsent, but I can hear the ones that do."

She looked back at Fang. "I'm a bit more sensitive than most, and you feel a little different. So," she said, brightly, "now it's your turn."

[raindownhell]

Aaah, close to the Lifestream ... that would explain it. She had never heard of the Cetra, or the Ancients, but she was familiar enough with a group, or race, of people who were closer to the Lifestream and the Goddess than most. The Planet wasn't really mentioned by them, probably owing to the position of their continent, but the Lifestream was a common factor.

"All right," Fang said. "Since all three of you would be hunted if people knew what you were, I guess I've got nothing to lose."

Ryoka, strangers to the world and often considered cursed by the superstitious, and the last of a near-dead race of people who, if she was right about those she'd known, were equally revered and feared for their abilities... it didn't seem too much of a stretch to throw her lot in with them.

"I'm a l'Cie," she said. "From Gran Pulse."

[gotitmemorised]

Lea watched Fang as she spoke. She was a survivor, clearly used to judging whether her actions would have dangerous reactions, and what those might bring. He saw her weigh up her options, putting their secrets up against her own before she answered.

She seemed used to being secretive, or at least she had good reason to fear what her admission might bring.

He listened to her, over the background crackle of the fire, and blinked when she confessed what she was.

It meant nothing to him.

He didn't know what a "l'Cie" was, or what Gran Pulse was, either. If she wasn't a Ryoka, Gran Pulse was clearly part of Spira, but that didn't make him any the wiser or shed any light on why she had been cagey about it. If she was part of the world, why did she know so little? He sat, silent and confused, waiting for what would come next.