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Adelle holds Penelo’s hand as the old woman slowly drifts away, out of this world and into an unknown Adelle will never get to see.
She’s not immortal; she’ll die eventually, and she will be greeted by so many friends on the other side. But for now, she has had to let go of too many cold hands, seen too many strained smiles, watched too many flamboyant manes of hair turn gray and thin, rosy cheeks become grayer, paler, until they were cold and made of wax.
Death, Adelle thinks, sounds like a good idea. Too bad she can't die just yet.
For years, Adelle thought she didn't have Lennart's "condition". Or more: she had hoped. But it became all too clear that everyone around her was getting slower while the passing of time did nothing to Adelle The Cat.
And now, Penelo.
This isn’t the first friend Adelle loses, but it’s the one that’ll stick. Penelo has always been there for her, and she has lived a long, healthy life. Adelle hasn’t even lived a quarter of hers, and it’s painful to think she’ll have to do it all over again. What if she doesn’t? She knows how she’ll be if she doesn’t. She knows how she’ll be if she goes rogue again, turns on all her friends, and pretends she can be alone. She will punch more mirrors than this world can hold.
Dropping Penelo’s hand, Adelle remains seated for a while. It’s always cold when someone dies, but always calm, always serene. Voices get lower, tears are silent, and the smallest noises of life coming from outside are both a stab and an ointment.
As she sits by her last friend’s bedside, Adelle wonders how Lusso died. A simple hume, he was. He must be long gone by now. Only Penelo could pull off living to a piping one-hundred-and-twenty years old like it’s nothing. Maybe it was all the dancing, or maybe it was because she knew how it felt to be alone, and she didn’t want Adelle to be. Penelo had always been too nice for her own good.
Adelle hopes Penelo will enjoy yelling at Vaan again. These two had a friendship one can only dream of.
Adelle stands up. It’s time for another kind of dance now: mortuary, lawyers, clearing the house. It’s not a ballet Adelle enjoys, but she’s become good at it. Experience helps. The genius she is sure picked up those skills quickly. Penelo wrote everything down- Adelle won’t have to choose anything, but she still needs to arrange for the corpse to be sent back to Penelo and Vaan’s birthplace.
They didn’t have many friends anymore. Lennart had advised Adelle to continuously get new friends, to never stick to one life and hope to hop onto the next with ease, but Adelle is stubborn. She never listened to him. She held onto Penelo like she was her last thread of hope, her lifeline. Oh, and she had been.
Nothing remains from the times they saved Ivalice. The last fragment of that life just took her final breath.
Adelle takes a deep breath. And then she gets to work.
*
Maybe Adelle should have listened to Lennart. Since Penelo left, Adelle has hunted only to afford lodgings and to stay alive. She doesn’t even want to go shopping- there’s no use in going alone. For a second she lamented it, thinking maybe she should have never joined that clan, never followed Cid and Lusso, and then maybe she would have dealt with that loss differently. More easily. But it’s no use dwelling on the past. She has made her choice, and she has chosen to suffer a hundred losses if it meant she could get twice as many laughs.
Adelle can hardly remember the last time she laughed.
She walks streets that haven’t changed and naturally ends up north of Camoa. She can’t help but smell the tomatoes again. The alraun is still so vivid in her mind, and the way she scammed the hell out of the nicest people in Ivalice doesn’t crush her under shame. She’s nostalgic. She longs to talk to them again. Cid and Luso. Arguably the most important people in her life. Her very, very long life is just starting. If she rationalizes it, Adelle understands they might have been the most important people yet.
She doesn’t know if she can build something back up from the ashes. The smoke still lingers in the air, burning her throat, making it hard to breathe. It was a nice, long run and Adelle never could have anticipated it.
She walks the streets of Camoa and wonders what she’ll do now. She’s free. She’s ready for adventure. But she doesn’t want it. Entering a tavern, she thinks she’ll only grab a bite, but as usual, the gossip gets to her.
She follows the noise and stands in front of the guy. He looks like he’s not from this world, and maybe that’s because he isn’t. He started a fight, the adventurer said. He was found almost dead in a ditch, another added. What’s with his clothes? everyone agreed. Those clothes… well they don’t look very Ivalice-like. But above all, there’s something in that guy’s stupid look that is so reminiscent of Luso that Adelle feels herself smirk. The guy lifts his eyes and glares at her, which, Adelle guesses, is a pitiful attempt at intimidation.
He knows nothing.
He’s perfect.
“Hi”, Adelle says.
“Go away.”
“I won’t,” Adelle says, hands on her hips and smiling devilishly. “You want to join my clan.”
“No,” he says very clearly. “I don’t.”
“No,” Adelle says. “You do.”
He considers, maybe more before he can feel Adelle won’t give up so easily, or maybe because he has no one in this world and he clearly needs help.
“How many members?”
“Just two. You and I.”
He looks like he can’t believe it.
“Do you know someone named Lusso?”
He shakes his head, nursing his drink— water, the most the barman will ever give for free. Well, that’s better the guy doesn’t know Lusso. He reminds Adelle enough of him. Maybe that new guy isn’t half as stupid. She hopes he’s half as kind.
“My clan will be the best in Ivalice,” Adelle says as if her clan hadn’t already been exactly that. “You’ll see. And you’ll be a part of it.”
“I haven’t said yes,” the guy grumbled.
“But you will!”
The guy takes a deep breath that ends with a sigh, but all of this seems inevitable. Ask the person with gifts.
Adelle sits down and when he doesn’t get away, she thinks the deal is in the bag. A clan. Not Gully— Adelle will find a better name and it won’t be hard (Cid was always so tacky!). But a clan… Adelle can’t help but giggle and the guy looks at her like she’s crazy. Maybe she is. She’s a genius, a Heritor, a chosen one. But a clan leader? She’d never have fathomed this was where life would be taking her. Responsibilities? She’s always fled them.
And yet, a clan… it seems appealing: a new adventure to jump right in. And when Adelle finally checks out, she’ll tell her long-gone comrades how much of a better clan leader than Cid she was.
She’ll brag to them and those friends from several lifetimes ago will hate it.
The thought brings a smile to her face, and if she feels like crying, she takes it as a good sign. She’ll miss them for the rest of her life, yes. But she’ll hold onto their memories for now. Long enough to rise and live a second life, fuller than the first.
“Barman! Two fresh Starfruit Surprise, if you'd be so kind.”
“Whose tab?” the Barman fires back tiredly, because of course he knows her and he knows she hardly ever pays for her drinks. But… today is different. Adelle smiles at her new recruit, the only member in her clan for now.
“Mine.”