Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Long Way Home ❯ The Odd Couple ( Chapter 13 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Neon Ronin 
A stopover at Guadosalam shows an insight or two into the attraction between Nooj and LeBlanc...
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 07.05.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 216 | Status: Completed
A stopover at Guadosalam shows an insight or two into the attraction between Nooj and LeBlanc...
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 07.05.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 216 | Status: Completed
[A/N: I own not the characters nor the setting. All I own is the computer used to type these chapters. Enjoy. Also, if anyone noticed the little ‘easter egg’ that links chapters 7 and 9 you win a stuffed moogle!!! ^_^ ]
The Long Way Home
LeBlanc
It never fails, I suppose. Just when everything settles down and I can finally spend some time alone with my darling Noojie, along comes something else that cuts into our time… and I’m not surprised I haven’t COMPLETELY lost it by now. First we’re separated by all his icky Youth League business, which was frankly bad enough without those sycophant bitches Lucil and Elma hanging on his every word, then just when I’ve found something which I’m sure will make him happy, he goes and disappears on me again!!! Then that dreadfully disgusting Vegnagun incident, I still can’t believe I actually teamed up with my own rivals during that, and then we get back home to find the Guado have moved back in and want their manor house back!!! Well, maybe not the house per se, that rather charming one named Trommell didn’t seem to care about the chateau… something about too many bad memories, which is just nonsense… but it still makes it rather awkward to have to deal with dozens of gangly neighbors with simply awful hairdos.
That was all little more than a few weeks ago, and me and the boys had just begun to settle into our routine, when all of a sudden, who should pop her smiling pony-tailed head around the corner but little miss ‘I’ll Save Spira’ herself, Yuna. In the company of her ever-present Dullwings, of course. Said she wanted to drop in briefly, see how things were after all that had happened. As if the Mighty LeBlanc needed checking up on!!! So instead of a nice romantic evening with my man, I wound up playing hostess to my former rivals in Sphere Hunting. Terribly inconvenient, but I put on my best side and made them feel as welcome as I could. Couldn’t afford to have Noojie-Woojie see me push these people out as I normally would do to uninvited guests.
Still… in all honesty, I suppose Yuna isn’t really that bad. In fact, I owe her a great deal myself, but she’ll never hear that from me.
I’ve lived most of my life taking chances, using what I have to its greatest advantage. I’ll admit it, I’m a player; I see an opening and I take advantage of it. Call it natural instinct, call it skill honed by countless years of practice. But it wasn’t until the Eternal Calm before I really began to make some serious gil; with that icky Church of Yevon out of the picture as well as those old coot Maesters, there was a prime opening for someone with my kind of savvy. Not to mention recruiting power; it didn’t take much looking to find people in need of a goal in life. Ormi and Logos were the first, and before anyone knew it the LeBlanc Syndicate was well-established. Some of our initial power plays came easily; with the Guado leaving their home in shame over what that disgusting Seymour had done, it was a snap to breeze right in and claim the chateau as our own. Plus, I’d done a little… ‘negotiating’… with that half-Guado before his sudden departure, much in the way I negotiated with other businessmen in Bevelle or Luca.
What can I say? I know what men want, and I’ve often used it to get what I want… at least, until I met Nooj. Now there… there was a real man. Full of mystery, courage, very dashing in those specs of his, and to top it all… I couldn’t play him for gil the way I had others. Oh, I could have, don’t get me mistaken… I just didn’t want to. All I wanted was to find out more about him, and I didn’t care a whit when he gave me a haunted look and said he was only half a man, that I deserved better. Sweet holy Yevon, he was so obsessed with those artificial limbs of his, even when I told him they didn’t make a difference.
Fact is, the feel of that steel arm against my skin… it just gives me shivers thinking about it…
That’s actually the other thing I owe Yuna for; not only did her Calm enable me to make it into the high life, she managed to help bring my Noojie back to me during that whole fiasco with that horrible Unsent. I still can’t believe he was planning to blow himself up to stop that nasty Vegnagun; as wonderful as he is, he does get terribly depressing at times. All his talk of ‘dying a little inside’ when Sin’s minions gnawed his limbs off, or how he caused endless pain while possessed by this Shuyin or whatever his name was, it really feels like he’s trying to take the blame for everyone’s suffering. No matter, I won’t stand by and let him downplay himself like that.
With the recent peace that’s been settling over Spira lately, he’s actually begun to cheer up a lot more, which makes me delighted beyond words. Of course, when Yuna and her cohorts dropped in, I had to ensure he didn’t cheer up TOO much; with all the skin that girl shows off, it might set my darling’s eyes a-wandering, and I simply will NOT have that.
Then again, I guess I really didn’t need to worry after the initial re-introductions, because apparently the High Summoner now has a boyfriend. Seems to have cropped up out of the blue, actually, and there’s something about him that’s eerily familiar. From what I gathered he’s a Blitzball player, garnered a championship win for those laggard Besaid Aurochs over two years past. No concern of mine, I don’t follow Blitzball in the least, but apparently he was also one of Yuna’s guardians. Saved her life several times, according to them, and then just up and vanished. Rather odd, if you ask me, but they didn’t go into much detail. Just said ‘it’s a long story’ and left it there. And honestly, the way those two were holding hands during our conversations and glancing at each other… it just about made me sick. How can a person just fall head over heels for someone like that, completely oblivious to those around them?
Apparently the Al Bhed twerp Rikku was getting a kick out of their lovey-dovey attitude; she had a weird smirk on her face that I have yet to figure out. As if I care, anyway. Thankfully, the visit didn’t last very long; I get the feeling they didn’t have very good memories of Guadosalam.
Hardly surprising, really, just look at the riff-raff that live in this place.
Erm, with the exception of myself and Noojie, of course, you nitwits!!!
--------------------
Nooj
I still have to smile when I think of how LeBlanc acted during Yuna’s visit. So prim and proper, but I could tell she was gritting her teeth at times. I know her; she just hates to be upstaged, and that plays itself out anytime she and the High Summoner are in the same place.
Sometimes I think she wanted to be in Yuna’s place as the savior of the people; she whispered something to that effect a few nights ago before falling asleep. Something about the concert in Luca, some plan to ‘unmask’ at the finale of the show and reap her new-found glory from the concert-goers. I couldn’t help but smile; even with all the bravado and her natural combat ability, she still feels the need to seek out attention. And I won’t deny, she’s had moments of arrogance that can be grating, often prompting Gippal or Baralai to ask what it is that draws us together.
The fact is, she breathes life back into me… and there were times I was too stupid to realize it.
Before I met her, I was almost at rock bottom. I had no family, no real friends except acquaintances in the Crusaders, and my refusal to accept the writs of Yevon often ostracized me from others. Fact is, I’d never accepted the role of Summoners sacrificing their lives to defeat Sin temporarily, but hardly anyone else save the Al Bhed saw me eye to eye. Nobody really paid attention to me, period; I was just another wayward orphan who never knew his real parents. So I began to make my own name, taking risks on Crusader missions just so I might be acknowledged… and then it cost me my left arm and leg. Effectively making me useless as a warrior, unless I broke with society even further and turned to machina to make up for it. And turn to it I did. I didn’t care anymore what others thought, I just needed some purpose. I had that as a warrior, and I didn’t want to let loss of limb stop that.
But at the same time, I died a little inside when they grafted those steel prostheses to my body. Others began to turn away from me. Even some of the Al Bhed looked at me differently.
Gradually I became numb to their scorn, numb to everything around me except the chill from the bolts and wires fused to my skin. I began to blame the fiends for everything, and vowed that one day I’d take down an enormous Sinspawn single-handed, and if I had to die doing it then so be it. I didn’t care anymore. I grew even more reckless, and that’s what earned me the name of Nooj the Deathseeker.
Then I met her… just before the selection exercise for the Crimson Squad. My team- the only ones who still stood by me even after all I had been through- was on R&R in Luca at the time. I’d attracted plenty of stares from others, and a few choice words from Yevonite fanatics, so I was all alone in the café. And this young blonde came over to me, asked if the seat next to me was taken. I’ll admit, my first impression was that she was trouble. Haughty smirk, alluring pose, a tight dress with choice pieces of fabric missing… everything to be on guard against.
But she did something that few people had ever done before. She didn’t look at my metal limbs, my overgrown shock of hair. She looked me in the eyes.
We talked for quite a while afterward, and we got along rather well.
I didn’t see her again until after the chaos in the Den of Woe… my memories of that day are hazy at best, but most involve massive feelings of despair and utter loneliness, coupled with growing sensations of ice in my artificial arm. It felt like… like something was feeding off the emptiness inside my own heart, adding darkness and sorrow of its own. Images would flash through my mind, images of machina, soldiers, and death. I don’t even properly remember what happened on the Highroad after we agreed to go our separate ways. I remember the coldness washing over me, my limbs acting of their own accord. Shots fired, my brain screaming stop this madness now!!! Pounding footsteps, the prone bodies of the only real friends I’d had in the Crusaders, and a sudden pounding in my head that just about made me black out. That was the real lowest point for me; the Squad was gone, my friends had most likely been killed by my hand, and I didn’t even know if I’d ever see the blonde girl again.
As it turns out, I did see her again- obviously.
For a long time after that, the cold mist receded to the back of my mind. I learned to laugh again, even if only a little. I learned about the defeat of Sin, and that the Summoner had not died to bring him down. And for a while, not much mattered except finding out more about this energetic beauty named LeBlanc. True enough, she was trouble at times, but there was a vulnerability to her that she didn’t let others see- at least, most of the time. Gradually, I began to feel very close to her… and it was about that time the cold mist began to take hold of me again. I found myself drawn into long states of depression, a desire for purpose in my life. LeBlanc suggested the newly formed Youth League as an outlet for my energy, which I begrudgingly agreed to. With my experience, I rose rapidly in the ranks until the League’s founder disappeared and New Yevon became more prominent. Then I heard how my old comrades had found themselves in positions of power like mine, and the cold mist began to take hold even further.
My artificial limbs ached. I was beginning to lose sight of my goals in life. Then I started having nightmares… nightmares about a gargantuan machina…
The rest is more or less history.
I still curse myself for letting that Unsent dwell within me for so long, perverting my own feelings and using them in his own stupid power play, but that doesn’t excuse me for the way I tried to take him and Vegnagun down. At the time, I just wanted a way to absolve myself for using those who I cared about and who cared about me. I needed to make a statement again, to go out in a blaze of glory and restitution. I suppose a small part of my mind was still so jaded that I didn’t think I was worthy of forgiveness. I knew that the machina would react to my presence and my mindset, so I decided that oblivion for both myself and it would be the best way to take it down. I didn’t want to hurt anymore, and as such I blinded myself to one simple fact.
I had people who cared about me. People that didn’t want me to die. That was something I had never had as a child, and hadn’t expected even when it was right in front of my face.
They proved me wrong when we took out Vegnagun and that bastard Shuyin together. They gave us- me and LeBlanc- a second chance.
I wasn’t really that shocked when they turned up to visit us here; I’d had a chat with Baralai several days before and he’d cued me in on their plans. I’m glad he did, too, because otherwise I might’ve overreacted when Yuna introduced me to her Guardian. Baralai was right, that young man resembled Shuyin so closely that they might’ve been brothers in another time or place. But physical resemblance is all there was; this young man seemed very upbeat and friendly, whereas the memories I have from those days of possession were of nothing but anguish. We talked for quite some time about the changes in Spira, what had happened when he served on Yuna’s Pilgrimage, even compared notes on certain things. He certainly agrees with me on one thing… Yevon was wrong about the Final Summoning. I did ask him what his opinion on New Yevon was, and all he mentioned was, “at this point, it’s too soon to tell. But Baralai seems like a nice guy, so hopefully they’ll get it right this time.”
It really was good to see all of them, even if I didn’t say it outright. Paine seems to be doing well, even smiling a little- something she never used to do as our Recorder. Yuna’s cousin Rikku is still as bubbly as ever; maybe even more so since we last met, but then again I don’t know her that well. As for Yuna, for some reason she just couldn’t stop smiling. Even when her boyfriend slipped up and made a joke in bad taste, she just rolled her eyes, clued him in and laughed.
Perhaps it has something to do with that separation they had had; she didn’t say much about it but I get the impression that after Sin’s defeat, the two of them were apart for a long time. Sounds like it was hard on both of them, but it’s their business, not mine.
I hope the rest of their excursion goes well; as for me, I’ll need to leave in a few days myself. The Youth League has some unfinished business at Mushroom Rock before we break camp and relocate to Bevelle. Now that faction squabbles are calming down, closer proximity will help in forging a new government to keep Spira stable. LeBlanc, of course, is throwing a fit about it, since we’ll be apart a short while… I’ve told her several times she’s more than welcome to come along, but it feels like she’s playing hard-to-convince.
She’s quite a handful, I don’t deny that. But even so, she makes me feel needed… and that’s really all that matters.
The Long Way Home
LeBlanc
It never fails, I suppose. Just when everything settles down and I can finally spend some time alone with my darling Noojie, along comes something else that cuts into our time… and I’m not surprised I haven’t COMPLETELY lost it by now. First we’re separated by all his icky Youth League business, which was frankly bad enough without those sycophant bitches Lucil and Elma hanging on his every word, then just when I’ve found something which I’m sure will make him happy, he goes and disappears on me again!!! Then that dreadfully disgusting Vegnagun incident, I still can’t believe I actually teamed up with my own rivals during that, and then we get back home to find the Guado have moved back in and want their manor house back!!! Well, maybe not the house per se, that rather charming one named Trommell didn’t seem to care about the chateau… something about too many bad memories, which is just nonsense… but it still makes it rather awkward to have to deal with dozens of gangly neighbors with simply awful hairdos.
That was all little more than a few weeks ago, and me and the boys had just begun to settle into our routine, when all of a sudden, who should pop her smiling pony-tailed head around the corner but little miss ‘I’ll Save Spira’ herself, Yuna. In the company of her ever-present Dullwings, of course. Said she wanted to drop in briefly, see how things were after all that had happened. As if the Mighty LeBlanc needed checking up on!!! So instead of a nice romantic evening with my man, I wound up playing hostess to my former rivals in Sphere Hunting. Terribly inconvenient, but I put on my best side and made them feel as welcome as I could. Couldn’t afford to have Noojie-Woojie see me push these people out as I normally would do to uninvited guests.
Still… in all honesty, I suppose Yuna isn’t really that bad. In fact, I owe her a great deal myself, but she’ll never hear that from me.
I’ve lived most of my life taking chances, using what I have to its greatest advantage. I’ll admit it, I’m a player; I see an opening and I take advantage of it. Call it natural instinct, call it skill honed by countless years of practice. But it wasn’t until the Eternal Calm before I really began to make some serious gil; with that icky Church of Yevon out of the picture as well as those old coot Maesters, there was a prime opening for someone with my kind of savvy. Not to mention recruiting power; it didn’t take much looking to find people in need of a goal in life. Ormi and Logos were the first, and before anyone knew it the LeBlanc Syndicate was well-established. Some of our initial power plays came easily; with the Guado leaving their home in shame over what that disgusting Seymour had done, it was a snap to breeze right in and claim the chateau as our own. Plus, I’d done a little… ‘negotiating’… with that half-Guado before his sudden departure, much in the way I negotiated with other businessmen in Bevelle or Luca.
What can I say? I know what men want, and I’ve often used it to get what I want… at least, until I met Nooj. Now there… there was a real man. Full of mystery, courage, very dashing in those specs of his, and to top it all… I couldn’t play him for gil the way I had others. Oh, I could have, don’t get me mistaken… I just didn’t want to. All I wanted was to find out more about him, and I didn’t care a whit when he gave me a haunted look and said he was only half a man, that I deserved better. Sweet holy Yevon, he was so obsessed with those artificial limbs of his, even when I told him they didn’t make a difference.
Fact is, the feel of that steel arm against my skin… it just gives me shivers thinking about it…
That’s actually the other thing I owe Yuna for; not only did her Calm enable me to make it into the high life, she managed to help bring my Noojie back to me during that whole fiasco with that horrible Unsent. I still can’t believe he was planning to blow himself up to stop that nasty Vegnagun; as wonderful as he is, he does get terribly depressing at times. All his talk of ‘dying a little inside’ when Sin’s minions gnawed his limbs off, or how he caused endless pain while possessed by this Shuyin or whatever his name was, it really feels like he’s trying to take the blame for everyone’s suffering. No matter, I won’t stand by and let him downplay himself like that.
With the recent peace that’s been settling over Spira lately, he’s actually begun to cheer up a lot more, which makes me delighted beyond words. Of course, when Yuna and her cohorts dropped in, I had to ensure he didn’t cheer up TOO much; with all the skin that girl shows off, it might set my darling’s eyes a-wandering, and I simply will NOT have that.
Then again, I guess I really didn’t need to worry after the initial re-introductions, because apparently the High Summoner now has a boyfriend. Seems to have cropped up out of the blue, actually, and there’s something about him that’s eerily familiar. From what I gathered he’s a Blitzball player, garnered a championship win for those laggard Besaid Aurochs over two years past. No concern of mine, I don’t follow Blitzball in the least, but apparently he was also one of Yuna’s guardians. Saved her life several times, according to them, and then just up and vanished. Rather odd, if you ask me, but they didn’t go into much detail. Just said ‘it’s a long story’ and left it there. And honestly, the way those two were holding hands during our conversations and glancing at each other… it just about made me sick. How can a person just fall head over heels for someone like that, completely oblivious to those around them?
Apparently the Al Bhed twerp Rikku was getting a kick out of their lovey-dovey attitude; she had a weird smirk on her face that I have yet to figure out. As if I care, anyway. Thankfully, the visit didn’t last very long; I get the feeling they didn’t have very good memories of Guadosalam.
Hardly surprising, really, just look at the riff-raff that live in this place.
Erm, with the exception of myself and Noojie, of course, you nitwits!!!
--------------------
Nooj
I still have to smile when I think of how LeBlanc acted during Yuna’s visit. So prim and proper, but I could tell she was gritting her teeth at times. I know her; she just hates to be upstaged, and that plays itself out anytime she and the High Summoner are in the same place.
Sometimes I think she wanted to be in Yuna’s place as the savior of the people; she whispered something to that effect a few nights ago before falling asleep. Something about the concert in Luca, some plan to ‘unmask’ at the finale of the show and reap her new-found glory from the concert-goers. I couldn’t help but smile; even with all the bravado and her natural combat ability, she still feels the need to seek out attention. And I won’t deny, she’s had moments of arrogance that can be grating, often prompting Gippal or Baralai to ask what it is that draws us together.
The fact is, she breathes life back into me… and there were times I was too stupid to realize it.
Before I met her, I was almost at rock bottom. I had no family, no real friends except acquaintances in the Crusaders, and my refusal to accept the writs of Yevon often ostracized me from others. Fact is, I’d never accepted the role of Summoners sacrificing their lives to defeat Sin temporarily, but hardly anyone else save the Al Bhed saw me eye to eye. Nobody really paid attention to me, period; I was just another wayward orphan who never knew his real parents. So I began to make my own name, taking risks on Crusader missions just so I might be acknowledged… and then it cost me my left arm and leg. Effectively making me useless as a warrior, unless I broke with society even further and turned to machina to make up for it. And turn to it I did. I didn’t care anymore what others thought, I just needed some purpose. I had that as a warrior, and I didn’t want to let loss of limb stop that.
But at the same time, I died a little inside when they grafted those steel prostheses to my body. Others began to turn away from me. Even some of the Al Bhed looked at me differently.
Gradually I became numb to their scorn, numb to everything around me except the chill from the bolts and wires fused to my skin. I began to blame the fiends for everything, and vowed that one day I’d take down an enormous Sinspawn single-handed, and if I had to die doing it then so be it. I didn’t care anymore. I grew even more reckless, and that’s what earned me the name of Nooj the Deathseeker.
Then I met her… just before the selection exercise for the Crimson Squad. My team- the only ones who still stood by me even after all I had been through- was on R&R in Luca at the time. I’d attracted plenty of stares from others, and a few choice words from Yevonite fanatics, so I was all alone in the café. And this young blonde came over to me, asked if the seat next to me was taken. I’ll admit, my first impression was that she was trouble. Haughty smirk, alluring pose, a tight dress with choice pieces of fabric missing… everything to be on guard against.
But she did something that few people had ever done before. She didn’t look at my metal limbs, my overgrown shock of hair. She looked me in the eyes.
We talked for quite a while afterward, and we got along rather well.
I didn’t see her again until after the chaos in the Den of Woe… my memories of that day are hazy at best, but most involve massive feelings of despair and utter loneliness, coupled with growing sensations of ice in my artificial arm. It felt like… like something was feeding off the emptiness inside my own heart, adding darkness and sorrow of its own. Images would flash through my mind, images of machina, soldiers, and death. I don’t even properly remember what happened on the Highroad after we agreed to go our separate ways. I remember the coldness washing over me, my limbs acting of their own accord. Shots fired, my brain screaming stop this madness now!!! Pounding footsteps, the prone bodies of the only real friends I’d had in the Crusaders, and a sudden pounding in my head that just about made me black out. That was the real lowest point for me; the Squad was gone, my friends had most likely been killed by my hand, and I didn’t even know if I’d ever see the blonde girl again.
As it turns out, I did see her again- obviously.
For a long time after that, the cold mist receded to the back of my mind. I learned to laugh again, even if only a little. I learned about the defeat of Sin, and that the Summoner had not died to bring him down. And for a while, not much mattered except finding out more about this energetic beauty named LeBlanc. True enough, she was trouble at times, but there was a vulnerability to her that she didn’t let others see- at least, most of the time. Gradually, I began to feel very close to her… and it was about that time the cold mist began to take hold of me again. I found myself drawn into long states of depression, a desire for purpose in my life. LeBlanc suggested the newly formed Youth League as an outlet for my energy, which I begrudgingly agreed to. With my experience, I rose rapidly in the ranks until the League’s founder disappeared and New Yevon became more prominent. Then I heard how my old comrades had found themselves in positions of power like mine, and the cold mist began to take hold even further.
My artificial limbs ached. I was beginning to lose sight of my goals in life. Then I started having nightmares… nightmares about a gargantuan machina…
The rest is more or less history.
I still curse myself for letting that Unsent dwell within me for so long, perverting my own feelings and using them in his own stupid power play, but that doesn’t excuse me for the way I tried to take him and Vegnagun down. At the time, I just wanted a way to absolve myself for using those who I cared about and who cared about me. I needed to make a statement again, to go out in a blaze of glory and restitution. I suppose a small part of my mind was still so jaded that I didn’t think I was worthy of forgiveness. I knew that the machina would react to my presence and my mindset, so I decided that oblivion for both myself and it would be the best way to take it down. I didn’t want to hurt anymore, and as such I blinded myself to one simple fact.
I had people who cared about me. People that didn’t want me to die. That was something I had never had as a child, and hadn’t expected even when it was right in front of my face.
They proved me wrong when we took out Vegnagun and that bastard Shuyin together. They gave us- me and LeBlanc- a second chance.
I wasn’t really that shocked when they turned up to visit us here; I’d had a chat with Baralai several days before and he’d cued me in on their plans. I’m glad he did, too, because otherwise I might’ve overreacted when Yuna introduced me to her Guardian. Baralai was right, that young man resembled Shuyin so closely that they might’ve been brothers in another time or place. But physical resemblance is all there was; this young man seemed very upbeat and friendly, whereas the memories I have from those days of possession were of nothing but anguish. We talked for quite some time about the changes in Spira, what had happened when he served on Yuna’s Pilgrimage, even compared notes on certain things. He certainly agrees with me on one thing… Yevon was wrong about the Final Summoning. I did ask him what his opinion on New Yevon was, and all he mentioned was, “at this point, it’s too soon to tell. But Baralai seems like a nice guy, so hopefully they’ll get it right this time.”
It really was good to see all of them, even if I didn’t say it outright. Paine seems to be doing well, even smiling a little- something she never used to do as our Recorder. Yuna’s cousin Rikku is still as bubbly as ever; maybe even more so since we last met, but then again I don’t know her that well. As for Yuna, for some reason she just couldn’t stop smiling. Even when her boyfriend slipped up and made a joke in bad taste, she just rolled her eyes, clued him in and laughed.
Perhaps it has something to do with that separation they had had; she didn’t say much about it but I get the impression that after Sin’s defeat, the two of them were apart for a long time. Sounds like it was hard on both of them, but it’s their business, not mine.
I hope the rest of their excursion goes well; as for me, I’ll need to leave in a few days myself. The Youth League has some unfinished business at Mushroom Rock before we break camp and relocate to Bevelle. Now that faction squabbles are calming down, closer proximity will help in forging a new government to keep Spira stable. LeBlanc, of course, is throwing a fit about it, since we’ll be apart a short while… I’ve told her several times she’s more than welcome to come along, but it feels like she’s playing hard-to-convince.
She’s quite a handful, I don’t deny that. But even so, she makes me feel needed… and that’s really all that matters.