[Hotel] Raining Again
Mar. 11th, 2009 04:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crankyoldmanCharacters/Pairings: Laguna, Caraway, Julia, and the crushes therein.
Fandom: FF8
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Perspectives on war and women only change depending on where you're standing.
Notes: As much as I love Laguna, I think Caraway's a terribly under-utilized character, and I figured it would be fun to write something from both their POVs. Skips around in time, but is totally chronological. And I think I'll sleep now. XD
Song: Preview only!
Previous Parts: In the list here.
Never know but nothing less
Couldn't see that I have guessed
Couldn't see, couldn't stay away
It was pouring, but since Fury Caraway had become a general, he never seemed to have to get wet anymore. When he'd signed up, like any young man that had any sense of decency, he remembered sitting out in storms for nearly twelve hours, just to watch a communications tower. But all that time was for nothing now. The airwaves weren't under any of their controls and only contained sickening laughter anyway.
The days of dodging small time rebels were over. He didn't know whether he was glad for that or not.
"We should be there soon, General. The Palace is in sight."
Timber. Of all the places, Timber gave them the most problems. Leave it to pacifists to compound a real war by continuing to fight. How could people complain of trees when the magic and metal of Esthar was breathing down their necks?
"Yes, thank you for that, Corporal."
It wasn't like he hungered for power--promotion came to him because he stood his ground. Death listened when he told her to back down, because he wasn't ready yet. Respect was earned, not taken, even from idealistic concepts.
If only he could ever get that across, when stories of heroes and delusions of knights clouded reason. Reckless heroics.
I never even stopped to dream and
That I'd see anything and
The world is coming out so cold
He wasn't old yet, really, but the Private that held the umbrella for him was the youngest he'd seen. Caraway would have thought he was just small if not for the babyface, and it chilled him more than the rain did.
Let it be a quick war, he thought. Invasions of ill-prepared small nations were one thing; an all out war with a formidable enemy was another.
"The President is anxious to see you."
It was time to put his calm face on, and to stop thinking about young men and women in remote outposts with little contact.
His own privilege meant he had long since stopped being awed by the size and richness of the Presidential Palace. It wasn't the most beautiful place in Deling City anyway, despite its size and various spoils cast around in an attempt at rich decorating. He'd only ever seemed to find beauty in the hotel, after all the talks ended and he was alone with drink he allowed himself. Elegance would never really die.
Vinzer Deling was starting to pick up a bit of a nouveau riche attitude these days.
"Great work with Timber, Caraway! It's dealt quite the blow to Esthar."
Not yet. Not when there were people more concerned about trees and such idiocies.
"You always open with flattery, don't you? What's gone wrong."
Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
Deling City always knew when he was called to do something difficult. Caraway was a general because of respect and tenacity, but sometimes even the hairs on his arms stood. He would have to redirect so many troupes, with this new intel, swap out more young men and women from their various lonely outposts, and hope not too many were lost in the process.
The clouds over Deling City sent staccato rain onto the roof of his car, as if to pound the worries out of his head.
"Could you go to the hotel instead? I'm not quite ready to go home yet."
"I heard Miss Heartilly's playing tonight."
Julia Heartilly always played on nights like these.
"I know."
---
Nothing here but nothing less
Cold heart is stuck in this
Couldn't say the kindest words we knew
Laguna Loire was starting to think his mother had been right about the whole soldier thing. So far it had been a lot of sitting around watching metal stuff and getting drenched and then getting yelled at. And he'd used to like water, but now he was getting kind of sick of it. Sure, it let him travel, but the new Galbadian territories... well. Spectacular, they were not.
"If you hadn't lost that key..."
"We'll find it! You and Ward and eat my chocolate ration if we don't find it tonight."
"Deal."
At least he wasn't alone. This whole gig would have really sucked without his new gang for life. Kiros was really smart, and Ward was really big, and since he was really brave, it worked out in a nice balanced way. Well, Laguna liked to think of himself as brave. They were fighting a war, it was a good trait to have, right?
He was probably going to get the talk from the base commander again about not wearing his helmet, but it smelled funny. And it wasn't like it was going to keep him any drier, what with a monsoon happening.
"I think I saw something shiny over here."
"You sure it wasn't in your head?"
"Ha ha, very funny!"
Someday, if he was going to be searching for missing car keys, it was going to be for a great reason. And he'd write about scuttling around in the mud like an unpleasant dream.
Everything I tried to say but
no one listens anyway
I had to give up everything I knew
Of course he came back to camp in triumph. Sort of.
"I can't believe it was in your pocket."
"Well I never thought to check there!"
"I say we get your chocolate ration anyway."
Maybe even in war time, there were places that were less muddled, places where the sun always shone and there were no rations, but carts filled with fruits. It made him a dreamer, to try and think of the cold water dripping off his face as the gentle pat of sunlight instead. It didn't make him miss home, really. Laguna was a man of the world now, not some shut-in playing with radio signals in the basement.
Not like radio signals worked very well now anyway.
Kiros had been charged with returning the key to the camp commander's vehicle, on the insistence of Ward, so he'd wandered. A punch to the shoulder brought him back to the grey.
"What you thinking about now?"
Laguna smiled. "The kinds of places we'll go once we're out of here. Bright sunny places, where people are friendly and we don't have to hoard rations."
They all jumped a little when the camp commander peaked out of his tent and then walked towards them. Laguna in particular avoided any contact with the car.
The man was positively beaming. "Loire, you're not my problem anymore."
"Sir?"
"Platoon's being relocated to Deling City. First thing in the morning."
Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
He might have been going home, but he was moving, and he could almost feels the tides of conflict move with him. Laguna wanted to hit the acclerator as hard as he could and let the cold and damp rush past him, but Kiros has insisted on driving that leg. They were in a convey, after all.
"Just wait 'til you see the lights! Deling City is alive at night. That's why they call it the City of Sparks."
"I've never heard that."
"Me either."
"Well, they call it... they call it something like that!"
"Don't you mean lights?"
He crossed his arms and sat lower in his seat. Alright, he wasn't the best soldier or rememberer of famous quotes and sayings. It wasn't like he wanted to become a general or anything crazy like that. 'Laguna Loire, the Butcher of Winhill' or something just didn't sound right. This wasn't where the heroics were, despite the stories of battles and knights. He figured that in all reality those types were less violent things. Like maybe librarians.
At least when he came back to Deling City, he had a snappy uniform, despite the annoying helmet.
---
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
A week of talks and one particularly long strategy session later and Caraway found himself again at the hotel bar, doing his best impression of a booth cushion. As a public figure he could never really blend in, considering the large amounts of sucking up from the bartender tonight, he was among fans.
It was Julia's off night. Even without her presence, the place still contained some of her grace, and it was enough. Had to be enough. Caraway couldn't just walk the streets like he had as a teenager, worrying the old nanny about his whereabouts, not since he'd been tempered into the very sword hilt of Galbadia.
There hadn't been an attempt on his life since the beginning of the Timber occupation, even. Conflict was avoiding him like the weather. And he still had the same umbrella-carrier.
"Sir, you're tracking mud in here, this is not some saloon!"
"Oh sorry! I should go back to the front and wipe off on the rug, huh?"
Caraway turned his head a little, to see the disturbance into his chance to unwind. One of his bodyguards put a fingertip touch to his sidearm, but he waved it off. Those uniforms were Galbadian Infantry, and the owners of them were in perhaps the most oddly mixed platoon he'd ever seen.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave and come back with proper attire."
The offending one had carelessly loose hair and rambled on some more before the dark lithe one pulled on his elbow. The massive one gave the manager an intimidating look before following the other two, lumbering out of sight.
Recruitment certainly wasn't what it used to be. He frowned at the thought.
Nothing here but nothing less
Everything we both regret
Couldn't say the kindest words we knew
Cause it was winter time and
We wanted some more time and
We watched the girls try something new
They became regulars, of course. A small petty part of him thought about the type of power he had, especially when it came to location orders, but it wouldn't have been very principled of him. Eventually the snippets of banter blended in with the architecture, and he paid hardly any mind to them. It wasn't every night, and there was always near silence on the nights when Julia played.
She had that effect on people.
The Heartillys and Caraways were similar families, too; old money, old ideas, rigid traditions. In the times she played, he liked to think they were both getting their rebellions out, and it connected them in between the lines of their friendly conversations. Her parents couldn't have approved of their only daughter wearing slinky dresses and playing in a bar--even if it was a swanky one.
"Good evening, Fury. You've had more time this week?"
"Sometimes I make time. You look lovely."
The conversations of class were a dance that was sometimes rigid, but if she felt stiff, she never let it show. Sometimes his collar felt too tight and he was too proud to loosen it, even in his time off. Vinzer Deling could have ordered him to untuck his shirt and he would have tried to argue against it, citing the fact that he would fall apart, maybe.
"Thank you."
When her eyes flicked beyond him, only for instants, so small that someone else wouldn't notice, he kept the conversation where it was supposed to be. No romantic notions like 'let's just go outside now, even if we'll get soaked to the bone and dance' would make it past the back of his mind, even if the laughter in that one corner caused the side of her mouth to quirk up a little.
It was those days that he wondered if kind words and diplomacy really meant a damn.
We didn't even stop to see that
That It was breaking me and
the world is coming out so cold
What you want you couldn't get, you
Couldn't wait for something less, you
had to give up everything you knew
He had been in the war room for nearly three days straight the night that she invited someone to her room. He'd been there earlier in the evening, for a little while, before he'd been called back on word that a spy had been caught near the missiles. Caraway had been present during the man's interrogation, silent behind pane glass while two lieutenants worked the names of others in the conspiracy out of his flesh.
And he thought, that this was what he was protecting, standing there as a traitor screamed out any name he could think of. The right for her to laugh with someone else. Nobility was worth twice its weight in heroics. Or so he told himself.
He didn't know then, of course, whose order he signed that morning. Just another platoon to a sensitive area. There were red spots in his eyes, like a man's secrets spilled on pavement or the velvet of her favorite dress.
Caraway decided that this would be the last war, then. Even if it meant putting a soldier in every home, to keep people from fighting. Even if it meant sending Esthar to that cursed moon.
There was still enough grace to go around to be worth protecting.
---
Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
Maybe it was destiny or something big like that which had called him away just when Laguna had an excuse to never leave home. But then, she wouldn't have liked that. Julia had dreams, she understood that the world was telling him to go go go. But man oh man, his luck was sure funny.
"I'm sure she'll wait on you."
But waiting was all Laguna had been doing in this war; waiting to do something and be something more than a watcher and an errand boy with a gun. Even if he wasn't a writer yet, he knew that he really had it in him. And she'd known because writers knew each other like other people couldn't. Right?
"I guess it's ok if she doesn't, adventure aggravates!"
"Awaits."
"You know what I mean!"
He smiled as he waved goodbye to Deling City, because that was what the hero did as he was going off to war; for real this time. Important missions, intrigue--he was already caught up in the story, even if it didn't happen yet.
What could go wrong?
Sadness like water raining down
Raining down, raining down, raining down
No amount of optimism or wishing could have prepared him for the sheer amount of trouble that came his way. To think that his luck had run out only just a little time after leaving Deling City! Kiros and Ward were down, and he was backed up to a cliff.
He wasn't going down like some playing piece on Vinzer Deling and General Caraway and Sorceress Adel's giant playing board. Maybe he hadn't seen the world, but he could certainly see to it that his friends would.
Laguna Loire; the quickest failure in history.
What was he thinking? What failure? He hadn't left home for fame or fortune. He'd only wanted to write to... people were connections. Like that old radio he had when he was weird and kind of ugly and had no friends. He'd talked to Julia Heartilly without passing out, and had just about the best backup a guy could ask for.
He tossed them first, ignoring that shaky feeling in his knee.
"Her name was Julia, and she was nice to me," he whispered, just to make it stick.
And then he jumped.
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
"I still don't get why you fished him out. That uniform's Galbadian."
"Well they're our allies."
"By force."
"Would you quiet, I'm trying to work. He might be useful."
The voices seemed to replay themselves, and sometimes he thought they were Kiros and Ward, not the old woman and the younger one that were really speaking most of the time.
Laguna had been unconscious during the time that General Caraway got up the courage to propose to Julia. He was walking again by the time it was made official, out in the country where the air was clear and the first round of Estharian raids had calmed.
He thought that maybe he missed the war, and when he slept there was the tapping of rain that never came in Winhill. At least not as often. The mad rush of destiny slowed down to his limp, and there certainly were no stars in his practical caretaker's eyes.
He was fully awake when the tiny little bar's radio caught the barest whiff of a song, in between the static, and maybe there was something wibbly inside him.
"I know that song."
Fandom: FF8
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Perspectives on war and women only change depending on where you're standing.
Notes: As much as I love Laguna, I think Caraway's a terribly under-utilized character, and I figured it would be fun to write something from both their POVs. Skips around in time, but is totally chronological. And I think I'll sleep now. XD
Song: Preview only!
Previous Parts: In the list here.
Never know but nothing less
Couldn't see that I have guessed
Couldn't see, couldn't stay away
It was pouring, but since Fury Caraway had become a general, he never seemed to have to get wet anymore. When he'd signed up, like any young man that had any sense of decency, he remembered sitting out in storms for nearly twelve hours, just to watch a communications tower. But all that time was for nothing now. The airwaves weren't under any of their controls and only contained sickening laughter anyway.
The days of dodging small time rebels were over. He didn't know whether he was glad for that or not.
"We should be there soon, General. The Palace is in sight."
Timber. Of all the places, Timber gave them the most problems. Leave it to pacifists to compound a real war by continuing to fight. How could people complain of trees when the magic and metal of Esthar was breathing down their necks?
"Yes, thank you for that, Corporal."
It wasn't like he hungered for power--promotion came to him because he stood his ground. Death listened when he told her to back down, because he wasn't ready yet. Respect was earned, not taken, even from idealistic concepts.
If only he could ever get that across, when stories of heroes and delusions of knights clouded reason. Reckless heroics.
I never even stopped to dream and
That I'd see anything and
The world is coming out so cold
He wasn't old yet, really, but the Private that held the umbrella for him was the youngest he'd seen. Caraway would have thought he was just small if not for the babyface, and it chilled him more than the rain did.
Let it be a quick war, he thought. Invasions of ill-prepared small nations were one thing; an all out war with a formidable enemy was another.
"The President is anxious to see you."
It was time to put his calm face on, and to stop thinking about young men and women in remote outposts with little contact.
His own privilege meant he had long since stopped being awed by the size and richness of the Presidential Palace. It wasn't the most beautiful place in Deling City anyway, despite its size and various spoils cast around in an attempt at rich decorating. He'd only ever seemed to find beauty in the hotel, after all the talks ended and he was alone with drink he allowed himself. Elegance would never really die.
Vinzer Deling was starting to pick up a bit of a nouveau riche attitude these days.
"Great work with Timber, Caraway! It's dealt quite the blow to Esthar."
Not yet. Not when there were people more concerned about trees and such idiocies.
"You always open with flattery, don't you? What's gone wrong."
Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
Deling City always knew when he was called to do something difficult. Caraway was a general because of respect and tenacity, but sometimes even the hairs on his arms stood. He would have to redirect so many troupes, with this new intel, swap out more young men and women from their various lonely outposts, and hope not too many were lost in the process.
The clouds over Deling City sent staccato rain onto the roof of his car, as if to pound the worries out of his head.
"Could you go to the hotel instead? I'm not quite ready to go home yet."
"I heard Miss Heartilly's playing tonight."
Julia Heartilly always played on nights like these.
"I know."
---
Nothing here but nothing less
Cold heart is stuck in this
Couldn't say the kindest words we knew
Laguna Loire was starting to think his mother had been right about the whole soldier thing. So far it had been a lot of sitting around watching metal stuff and getting drenched and then getting yelled at. And he'd used to like water, but now he was getting kind of sick of it. Sure, it let him travel, but the new Galbadian territories... well. Spectacular, they were not.
"If you hadn't lost that key..."
"We'll find it! You and Ward and eat my chocolate ration if we don't find it tonight."
"Deal."
At least he wasn't alone. This whole gig would have really sucked without his new gang for life. Kiros was really smart, and Ward was really big, and since he was really brave, it worked out in a nice balanced way. Well, Laguna liked to think of himself as brave. They were fighting a war, it was a good trait to have, right?
He was probably going to get the talk from the base commander again about not wearing his helmet, but it smelled funny. And it wasn't like it was going to keep him any drier, what with a monsoon happening.
"I think I saw something shiny over here."
"You sure it wasn't in your head?"
"Ha ha, very funny!"
Someday, if he was going to be searching for missing car keys, it was going to be for a great reason. And he'd write about scuttling around in the mud like an unpleasant dream.
Everything I tried to say but
no one listens anyway
I had to give up everything I knew
Of course he came back to camp in triumph. Sort of.
"I can't believe it was in your pocket."
"Well I never thought to check there!"
"I say we get your chocolate ration anyway."
Maybe even in war time, there were places that were less muddled, places where the sun always shone and there were no rations, but carts filled with fruits. It made him a dreamer, to try and think of the cold water dripping off his face as the gentle pat of sunlight instead. It didn't make him miss home, really. Laguna was a man of the world now, not some shut-in playing with radio signals in the basement.
Not like radio signals worked very well now anyway.
Kiros had been charged with returning the key to the camp commander's vehicle, on the insistence of Ward, so he'd wandered. A punch to the shoulder brought him back to the grey.
"What you thinking about now?"
Laguna smiled. "The kinds of places we'll go once we're out of here. Bright sunny places, where people are friendly and we don't have to hoard rations."
They all jumped a little when the camp commander peaked out of his tent and then walked towards them. Laguna in particular avoided any contact with the car.
The man was positively beaming. "Loire, you're not my problem anymore."
"Sir?"
"Platoon's being relocated to Deling City. First thing in the morning."
Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
He might have been going home, but he was moving, and he could almost feels the tides of conflict move with him. Laguna wanted to hit the acclerator as hard as he could and let the cold and damp rush past him, but Kiros has insisted on driving that leg. They were in a convey, after all.
"Just wait 'til you see the lights! Deling City is alive at night. That's why they call it the City of Sparks."
"I've never heard that."
"Me either."
"Well, they call it... they call it something like that!"
"Don't you mean lights?"
He crossed his arms and sat lower in his seat. Alright, he wasn't the best soldier or rememberer of famous quotes and sayings. It wasn't like he wanted to become a general or anything crazy like that. 'Laguna Loire, the Butcher of Winhill' or something just didn't sound right. This wasn't where the heroics were, despite the stories of battles and knights. He figured that in all reality those types were less violent things. Like maybe librarians.
At least when he came back to Deling City, he had a snappy uniform, despite the annoying helmet.
---
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
A week of talks and one particularly long strategy session later and Caraway found himself again at the hotel bar, doing his best impression of a booth cushion. As a public figure he could never really blend in, considering the large amounts of sucking up from the bartender tonight, he was among fans.
It was Julia's off night. Even without her presence, the place still contained some of her grace, and it was enough. Had to be enough. Caraway couldn't just walk the streets like he had as a teenager, worrying the old nanny about his whereabouts, not since he'd been tempered into the very sword hilt of Galbadia.
There hadn't been an attempt on his life since the beginning of the Timber occupation, even. Conflict was avoiding him like the weather. And he still had the same umbrella-carrier.
"Sir, you're tracking mud in here, this is not some saloon!"
"Oh sorry! I should go back to the front and wipe off on the rug, huh?"
Caraway turned his head a little, to see the disturbance into his chance to unwind. One of his bodyguards put a fingertip touch to his sidearm, but he waved it off. Those uniforms were Galbadian Infantry, and the owners of them were in perhaps the most oddly mixed platoon he'd ever seen.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave and come back with proper attire."
The offending one had carelessly loose hair and rambled on some more before the dark lithe one pulled on his elbow. The massive one gave the manager an intimidating look before following the other two, lumbering out of sight.
Recruitment certainly wasn't what it used to be. He frowned at the thought.
Nothing here but nothing less
Everything we both regret
Couldn't say the kindest words we knew
Cause it was winter time and
We wanted some more time and
We watched the girls try something new
They became regulars, of course. A small petty part of him thought about the type of power he had, especially when it came to location orders, but it wouldn't have been very principled of him. Eventually the snippets of banter blended in with the architecture, and he paid hardly any mind to them. It wasn't every night, and there was always near silence on the nights when Julia played.
She had that effect on people.
The Heartillys and Caraways were similar families, too; old money, old ideas, rigid traditions. In the times she played, he liked to think they were both getting their rebellions out, and it connected them in between the lines of their friendly conversations. Her parents couldn't have approved of their only daughter wearing slinky dresses and playing in a bar--even if it was a swanky one.
"Good evening, Fury. You've had more time this week?"
"Sometimes I make time. You look lovely."
The conversations of class were a dance that was sometimes rigid, but if she felt stiff, she never let it show. Sometimes his collar felt too tight and he was too proud to loosen it, even in his time off. Vinzer Deling could have ordered him to untuck his shirt and he would have tried to argue against it, citing the fact that he would fall apart, maybe.
"Thank you."
When her eyes flicked beyond him, only for instants, so small that someone else wouldn't notice, he kept the conversation where it was supposed to be. No romantic notions like 'let's just go outside now, even if we'll get soaked to the bone and dance' would make it past the back of his mind, even if the laughter in that one corner caused the side of her mouth to quirk up a little.
It was those days that he wondered if kind words and diplomacy really meant a damn.
We didn't even stop to see that
That It was breaking me and
the world is coming out so cold
What you want you couldn't get, you
Couldn't wait for something less, you
had to give up everything you knew
He had been in the war room for nearly three days straight the night that she invited someone to her room. He'd been there earlier in the evening, for a little while, before he'd been called back on word that a spy had been caught near the missiles. Caraway had been present during the man's interrogation, silent behind pane glass while two lieutenants worked the names of others in the conspiracy out of his flesh.
And he thought, that this was what he was protecting, standing there as a traitor screamed out any name he could think of. The right for her to laugh with someone else. Nobility was worth twice its weight in heroics. Or so he told himself.
He didn't know then, of course, whose order he signed that morning. Just another platoon to a sensitive area. There were red spots in his eyes, like a man's secrets spilled on pavement or the velvet of her favorite dress.
Caraway decided that this would be the last war, then. Even if it meant putting a soldier in every home, to keep people from fighting. Even if it meant sending Esthar to that cursed moon.
There was still enough grace to go around to be worth protecting.
---
Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
Maybe it was destiny or something big like that which had called him away just when Laguna had an excuse to never leave home. But then, she wouldn't have liked that. Julia had dreams, she understood that the world was telling him to go go go. But man oh man, his luck was sure funny.
"I'm sure she'll wait on you."
But waiting was all Laguna had been doing in this war; waiting to do something and be something more than a watcher and an errand boy with a gun. Even if he wasn't a writer yet, he knew that he really had it in him. And she'd known because writers knew each other like other people couldn't. Right?
"I guess it's ok if she doesn't, adventure aggravates!"
"Awaits."
"You know what I mean!"
He smiled as he waved goodbye to Deling City, because that was what the hero did as he was going off to war; for real this time. Important missions, intrigue--he was already caught up in the story, even if it didn't happen yet.
What could go wrong?
Sadness like water raining down
Raining down, raining down, raining down
No amount of optimism or wishing could have prepared him for the sheer amount of trouble that came his way. To think that his luck had run out only just a little time after leaving Deling City! Kiros and Ward were down, and he was backed up to a cliff.
He wasn't going down like some playing piece on Vinzer Deling and General Caraway and Sorceress Adel's giant playing board. Maybe he hadn't seen the world, but he could certainly see to it that his friends would.
Laguna Loire; the quickest failure in history.
What was he thinking? What failure? He hadn't left home for fame or fortune. He'd only wanted to write to... people were connections. Like that old radio he had when he was weird and kind of ugly and had no friends. He'd talked to Julia Heartilly without passing out, and had just about the best backup a guy could ask for.
He tossed them first, ignoring that shaky feeling in his knee.
"Her name was Julia, and she was nice to me," he whispered, just to make it stick.
And then he jumped.
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
"I still don't get why you fished him out. That uniform's Galbadian."
"Well they're our allies."
"By force."
"Would you quiet, I'm trying to work. He might be useful."
The voices seemed to replay themselves, and sometimes he thought they were Kiros and Ward, not the old woman and the younger one that were really speaking most of the time.
Laguna had been unconscious during the time that General Caraway got up the courage to propose to Julia. He was walking again by the time it was made official, out in the country where the air was clear and the first round of Estharian raids had calmed.
He thought that maybe he missed the war, and when he slept there was the tapping of rain that never came in Winhill. At least not as often. The mad rush of destiny slowed down to his limp, and there certainly were no stars in his practical caretaker's eyes.
He was fully awake when the tiny little bar's radio caught the barest whiff of a song, in between the static, and maybe there was something wibbly inside him.
"I know that song."