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It was a hot and muggy summer night in Insomnia. The rain from earlier had turned the air steamy and hot. In the Galahdian quarters, the buzzing of fans ran nonstop. Several people were leaning out of open windows in as little as they could manage without breaking public decency rules. The sound of conversation mixed with the buzzing of the fans and bugs to make an auditory mixture that wouldn’t have been out of place during a summer night elsewhere – as long as one ignored the background thrum from the highway in the distance and the occasional siren.
In a ramshackle bar nestled amongst the other eateries and shops on the ground floor of one of the apartment blocks, Libertus was scowling as he waved a makeshift fan made from old newspaper in front of his face. The air barely budged no matter how vigorously he waved and the scowl on his face only deepened. “It should be criminal to be out in this weather,” he said with no small amount of annoyance. “I can’t believe the captain had us out and running when it’s hotter than Ifrit’s ballsack outside.”
Next to Libertus, Crowe yanked a chunk of meat off the meat skewer with her teeth before pointing the stick at his face. “Hey, it’s survival training in case we ever have a mission in some Astrals forsaken swamp or something─”
“─and what Astrals forsaken swamp do you think we’d be sent to Crowe? All I’m saying is that we’re more likely to cook to death in our own sweat than-“
“─and I don’t want to hear you bitching about having to train in this heat, Lib, when the captain could oh so nicely decide to make the lot of us cook in our formal uniforms in the heat and sun to serve as an honor guard for the royals. It could be a lot worse, you know.” She tore off another chunk of meat and gave Libertus a steely eyed stare while chewing.
Across from them, their friend Nyx watched the pair talk, an amused twinkle in his eye and an impish grin playing about his lips. Calmly, he took a sip of the usual shitty tasting beer he always got. A brief flicker of light caught his attention and he looked towards it. On the corner of the street, a street lamp flickered twice before shining as brightly as it usually did. He sat the cup down gently.
“You know─” His friends’ attention turned towards him. “─doesn’t this remind you of Galahd a bit?”
Silence befell the trio, before Crowe broke it with a confused, “What do you mean ‘remind you of Galahd?’ ”
Libertus took Crowe’s question as a sign to chime in. “Are you talking about the part with the shitty beer or the lack of air con, because I don’t really see it Nyx?”
A smile played about Nyx’s lips as he glanced down to the cup of beer between his fingers. “The warm, muggy summer nights. Watching fireflies in the evening and listening to the cicadas in the trees?”
Crowe turned to Libertus, her brows knitted in confusion, while the other man just snorted. “I don’t remember there being this many cars, street lamps, and fans in Galahd either. Where in Galahd were you living, Nyx? I’m pretty sure we grew up together and there was a clear lack of any of those things growing up. Also, when was the last time you saw fireflies in Insomnia? I think the city wiped the little buggers all out.”
Nyx shrugged, the look of bemusement never once leaving his face. “That’s true but you know what isn’t different about summer nights in Insomnia and summer nights in Galahd?”
“What, Nyx?”
The mischievous grin on Nyx’s face grew. “The part where it’s hotter and muggier than the underside of Ifrit’s ballsack.” He laughed when Crowe slapped him, and Lib threw his makeshift fan at his head a moment later. “Hey! I have a point and you shouldn’t be attacking me for it!”
“Yeah, but you could have phrased it a lot better than you did, Nyx. If you don’t watch your mouth, they’re going to take away your hero status in a blink of an eye.”
Nyx pressed a hand to his chest in mock shock. “For foul language? If I recall, it was you that gave me that nickname, silly Crowe.” He downed the rest of the beer before standing up, slinging the jacket that had been hanging on the back of his chair over his shoulder, and scrounging his pockets for a few gil to cover the drinks and food. “But in all seriousness, if you’re dying from the heat, why don’t you two come over to my place? I finally got that old air con unit working.”
“And you couldn’t have said that earlier?!”
Nyx just laughed as they he headed towards the back of the bar, waving towards the bartender and gesturing towards the money on the table, before heading up the stairs tucked between the kitchen and the men’s room. Behind him, Lib and Crowe followed closely, grousing about the heat and work as they went.
…
It was just as hot inside the apartment as it was out of it.
Nyx couldn’t help but shake his head as he saw his friends slumped over the air conditioning unit. Lib grumbled about how it wasn’t cooling fast enough, and Crowe just grunted in response. Trust the pair to act like they were going to die from the heat any moment now.
“You two want anything to drink before you turn into a pair of flans?” He could feel Crowe glaring at his head from halfway across the room. “I’ve got warm beer and tap water.”
“Ugh, the last thing I want is warm beer Nyx, just get me some water.” He gave her a cheeky salute before grabbing a cup from the cabinet above the sink. “Actually, on second thought, how clean are your cups Nyx? It looks like you’ve barely unpacked here.” She gestured towards the cardboard boxes that dotted the room.
“It’s not that bad, Crowe.” Nyx quickly rinsed the cup in the sink before filling it with water. “Besides, all the important stuff has been unpacked, so I wouldn’t say that I’ve barely settled─”
“─there’s four boxes stacked in the corner, Nyx, and two more by your bed─”
“─but if you’re curious what’s in them,” he continued on as if he was never interrupted, “I can’t stop either of you from opening them and seeing what’s in it.”
He handed the cup of water to Crowe who eyed the boxes in the corner like a lazy cat watching a mouse. Besides her, Lib made a sound of annoyance. “You got Crowe a cup of water, but couldn’t get your oldest friend a cup of water?”
“I don’t remember you asking for water Lib when I asked if you two wanted something to dri─”
“─and while you two keep arguing over whether or not Lib should get off his butt to get himself some water, I’ll go and take Nyx up on his offer to unpack a little.” Crowe took a big gulp from the cup she was handed before hopping off the windowsill she was perched on to head towards the boxes in the corner of the room. “Really, with the way that you’re leaving these things stacked up around here, you’d think that you’re using it as cheap furniture.”
“Well, it sure beats having to dig around for a spare chair if someone else comes over, you know,” Nyx quipped back. His fingers twitched as if trying to grasp a beer bottle. Astrals, he could use another drink right now.
Lib snorted as he gestured towards the boxes. “You want to use those things as makeshift chairs? Whoever’s sitting on them would fall right through them─”
“─speak for yourself Lib, maybe your fat ass would fall through them, but I think these things are solid enough to hold up my weight at least,” Crowe said as she placed one of the boxes, the topmost one from what Nyx could tell, onto the ground with a heavy thud and a dramatic groan. “What did you pack in here Nyx? Exercise equipment? You know there’s weights at HQ that you could use right?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s for home use when I don’t want to work out at HQ.” Nyx quickly took up her former spot on the windowsill and gave Lib a cheeky wink. Lib only gave him a look of disgust as he shuffled off the air conditioning unit he had been slumped over.
Crowe rolled her eyes, clearly not believing him. “Oh, yes, because you come here to work out and not to get some shut eye for the two whole hours of rest that we get between nonstop missions.” She kneeled next to the box and cut a slit in the packing tape with a key. “Because that’s what we signed up for when we signed up for the glaives, nonstop missions to only Astrals knows where.” She tore open the top with some force and looked inside.
Nyx groaned, sometimes his friend’s sass was just too much for him. “Oh, come on, Crowe, I do more than just sleep here. Sometimes I cook, and I take a shower here too. I just don’t sleep here─”
The first thing Crowe saw inside the box was an old misshapen doll. The buttons that made up on the doll’s eyes were haphazardly sewn on. Crowe picked up the doll, stained and with stuffing seeping out of the loose stitches on its edges, and looked at it askance. It was cute in the same way that children’s scribbles were cute, but she found it hard to believe that Nyx would have such a domestic hobby. She held it up wordlessly and waited for her friend to react to it.
“─and if you haven’t seen the tv to your left, I watch tv too sometimes although there’s hardly anything good on by time Captain Drautos deems it the right time to send us home. Mostly, I just watch the news but it can get depressing with all the talk they have of Nif attacks, and border closings, and possible rationing out in Duscae or wherever, and─ He stopped when he saw the badly made doll that Crowe was holding up. “─huh, was that what was in the box?”
Crowe looked down at the box she had opened and nudged through envelopes emblazoned with fashions from well over a decade ago and what looked like half-finished clothing at the very bottom. “Yes, along with a bunch of other sewing projects it seems like. I didn’t know that you were into making this sort of stuff, Nyx.”
Lib walked over to her, grabbing the doll when she waved it too close to his face and frowned as he ran rough fingers over the thread and worn cloth. “Hey, wasn’t this the doll that your little sister made, Nyx?” He turned to give Nyx a confused look. “I think I remember seeing it when I went over to your place.”
Nyx pressed his lips into a thin line as he downed the rest of whatever was in his mug and walked over to where his friends were. He sat down crossed-legged in front of them and cradled the empty mug in his hands. “Yeah, our aunt was teaching us how to sew and Selena got it in her mind that what she really wanted to make with her newfound skills was that doll.” He gestured toward it with his mug absentmindedly. “We weren’t exactly well off, and it didn’t help that dad kinda ran off on us when Selena was barely out of her toddler years. I guess she always wanted a doll or something to play with, but we couldn’t exactly buy one for her, you know.” He raised his mug to his lip as if to take a sip out of it, then grimaced when he realized it was empty. Crowe just managed to hide a laugh behind her hand at the reaction and Nyx kept his face straight as if nothing had happened. Lib, that bastard, also seemed amused by his actions. “I guess none of us should have been surprised that that was what she decided on making, kept it pretty hush-hush too right up until the day it was done. Heaven knows how much she loved that ugly old thing, even though she got way better at sewing the older she got.”
Crowe leaned over Lib’s shoulders to get a better look at the worn-down doll. Her eyes swept over uneven stitches and the button eyes that were all put falling out of the rough, but soft, fabric. She played with the fraying yarn that was the doll’s hair and the dulled colors of the doll’s dress. “I mean even if it’s a bit ugly, it’s cute in its own way.” Gently, she plucked it out of Lib’s grasp and put it in her own lap, moving it to and fro as if to mimic dancing. “I’m guessing you didn’t have a lot of toys growing up if she kept the doll around for this long. How old was your sister when she made this thing anyway?”
“I dunno, ten or something?” Nyx’s eyes never left the doll as he raised his arm as if to take another sip out of the mug but stopped part way. “Old enough for mom to deem her ready to learn how to sew, but not exactly old enough to make anything super complicated. I think that’s why everyone was so surprised that she managed to make her own doll, y’know? Not something that anyone would have expected from anyone her age.” He dragged his eyes away from the doll, reminiscing about a younger Selena who carried around her self-made toy everywhere and then the small collection of homemade plushies that steadily grew as the years went on. He shook his head to clear his head of the thoughts. Most of the toys they had were lost during the hasty evacuation. He couldn’t help but remember that a certain stuff coeurl that he had loved fiercely was amongst those things left behind. “Lib, I knew you wanted some water. Crowe, you want me to refill your glass?”
Nyx looked down at the porcelain mug in his hands. He had bought cutlery and kitchenware when he arrived in Insomnia, but some things, like the mug he was holding, had been brought over from home. (Funny that after all this time, this place never really felt like home to him.)
“Nah, Lib can have whatever’s left of mine.” She ignored the uttered ‘gross’ as she shoved her cup into Lib’s hands and dug through whatever else was left in the box. Contrary to what she had thought upon opening the box, there were a variety of types of clothing in various stages of completion. At the very bottom was a neatly folded pile of skirts and shirts and at the very top was what looked to be the start of a hat or a mitten. She plucked a knitted hat from the pile and put it on top of Lib’s head. “There, very fetching, don’t you think?”
When Nyx looked towards them, he burst out in laughter at the sight of Lib in a multicolored knit hat, complete with silly pom-pom on top, and a wide scowl across his face. “That was in there? Let’s see what else needs unpacking too.”
He set the empty mug aside and walked over to where his friends sat. There would always be some pain associated with the things he had brought with him from Galahd, but at the very least he could make happy memories with them with his friends.